Quiz : What is this song about?

First of all, I love Dhingana, for their flash-based audio, and embeddable player :).

So, here is your task: Listen to the "maa da laadla" song in the list below:


and tell me in the comments, what do you think this song is about? How exactly did the "maa da laadla" [mother's boy] get crooked? This peppy song is definitely worth a second listen, trust me :). Also, the other songs are also pretty cool.

For those who give up, I recommend looking at the comments of the post, or watching the video [ref:satarkB]. Also, I never thought I'd say this about her, but Pinky Chops looks HOT in the swimsuit in that video :) [and so does John A, to be perfectly honest :)].

Hint: I got a T-shirt abt it, one of my most fav. ones :)

On Women's "health" and some melodious music

There is a lot to talk about, as there is a lot wrong with the world [and my motherland] today, ranging from non-adequately overseen, underpaid, and under-pressure cops 'catching' 'terrorists' of all backgrounds, people from state A trying to push out workers from state B, who then for some reason are going back to their own state and destroying the public property there! And of course, the whole hindus-kill-christians-because-they-cause-conversions issue. Sure seems like the elections are approaching in the one-billion+ human-filled smorgasbord we call India/Bharat/Hindustan.

But I will talk about all that some other day [perhaps when the sh*t really hits the fan -- the ceiling in the room of Indian craziness it as high as its population density]. I will use the limited time I have today to give you a video about the election that is only 7[6?] days away, and some music to soothe you while you grapple with the death and insanity going on right now.

First, Jon Stewart of the "Daily" Show talks about McCain's use of "air quotes":


I LOVE Sam Bee!!
[aside: How many of you know what I am referring to you when I say "laser"? :)]

And moving on, here is my pick of playlist today from dhingana.


Here's to peace.

Everywhere, the Lights!

back in the late 80s and early 90s, every year, this morning, a family would soak a bunch of diyas in a bucket of water, and go to buy sweets [sugar candy shaped like gods and godesses] and rice crispies [moori] from an old lady sitting next to a watch shop. And of course, firecrackers, lots of them [including some country-made sutli-bombs]!

The afternoon was spent in making the wicks for the diyas out of cotton, a delicate process -- too thin and it won't burn. Too fluffy and it would burn too fast.

As the sun started to set, father and sons would get atop the roof and start a pipelined process of setting the diyas, filling them with oil, and lighting them, while the mother conjured magic in the kitchen in the form of a ton of delicious foods.

And as the darkness set, this darkest of nights was transformed into a beautiful, lighted festival, which the whole family enjoyed together!

Oh, how I wish to relive those days.

Mom, Dad, Bhai -- Happy Diwali! [and to all you folks missing their loved ones today]

and to my readers, I give the following:


best wishes from me, wearing a Kurta in my office in Paris, while bhai is on a trek near Atlanta, and Mom and Dad are in Patna :-|.

P.S. NPR on Diwali in India, and in USA.

More on Desi Libertarianism

Abi has linked to my post on the Jago party, and has given his comments on it. Judging by the "hoax" tag he gave the article, I think he doesn't think too greatly of them. Go there and read the comments too -- he gets some pretty smart readers [not to say that you aren't :)].

Also, thanks to all those who posted on my last post on this.

Some answers from my side to the points you raised:
Regarding _association_ : I would _not_ want to be associated with people who are not well-thought out. And _joining_ a party does not mean I get to drive their agenda, which takes a lot more time than I currently have [I have other places whose agenda I can help guide :)]

Regarding Death Sentence for Crimes: My stance on the death sentence has been mellowed of late, esp given the large number of death-row prisoners who have been found not guilty by DNA evidence recently in the USA. So, until we get a foolproof way of determining if someone indeed did a heinous crime [time machine anyone?] I'd let the judges decide which cases are the "rarest of the rare" where it is needed. The stance of the party on that topic is definitely näive in my opinion.

Regarding multi-party: In my opinion, a multi-party system is the ONLY one where each voter has the possibility of finding _exactly_ what he stands for. A 2-party system simply cannot handle this, since people are not one-dimensional. E.g., in America, who do I vote for if I hate abortion but support gay marriage? In a multi-party system, there are no limitations for a party to be created to support exactly that mix of stances. Of course, we are assuming that the people running these parties actually _believe_ in what they stand for, as opposed to changing stances according to the wind -- but that can happen in any-party system.

Regarding Cautious Aggression: Well put Anshul. my sentiments exactly.

Regarding "pure" libertarianism: Reminds me of the post on no libertarians in a financial crisis. In my opinion, libertarianism _is_ a "pure" philosophie, in that it is based on a very strong belief on let-me-alone. Anyone claiming to be a "soft" libertarian is not one, IMO.

Regarding reducing birth rate by providing education and career opportunities to women: Interesting idea, and I hope it is true, but in the absence of a citation, I call BS.

So, what did I decide regarding Jago party? I won't join it officially right now, but will keep a close eye on the developments. Lets see what happens in the near future.

And the Gaffy goes to ...

'tis the final stretch in the US presidential elections, and tensions are high. Prime time for slips-of-tongue, boo-boos, or as the official term goes -- Gaffes!

Watch the following video.. right till the end :)... amazing stuff!



On slightly more formal side, Brian Williams got to interview McCain and Palin



and



I wish Mr. Williams had some more cross questioning ["so, anyone who thinks he is better than others is an Elite? How abt McCain, who thinks he is better than anyone to be president now?"] and tried a bit harder to keep them on point ["please Ms. Palin, give me one 'precondition' you would place before a dictator before talking to them"].

Brian Williams' opinion of the interview here and here.

Also, it is just me, of does hearing Palin speak with her superlative use of conjunctions [and also but] make you also want you gouge your eyes out?

Finally, guess who else thinks that unregulated free markets were a bad idea.

Crossing Borders: Horizontal, Vertical, and Cricketical

Three pieces of news hit me today, each of them making me more proud than the other. it is nice to see India crossing three different boundaries:

1. Cricketical: We defeated the leading test-playing nation in the world by a huge margin of runs! Take that, aussies!

2. Vertical: Chandrayaan 1 [NOT Chandraaaayan, as the crazy news people have been saying] ( chandra=moon, yaan=craft) lifted off to the moon! Hurrah for the team behing it! [brochure, photo gallery, space.com report]

3. Horizontal: Perhaps the biggest news for me was trade routes have opened across the LoC between the India and Pakistan controlled regions of Kashmir. Two reasons - firstly, trade is always good for the people of the reason, who are by now tired with all the death and destruction; and second, this will hopefully make people think about making the LoC the international border and end this thing once and for all! After all, why pay customs duty across a line if it isn't an international border ;-)?

To Jago or not to Jago?

A few weeks ago I was told my a friend of mine about the TATA Tea Jaago Campaign, which is a pretty interesting ad campaign. And if a tea-company manages to sell some tea while getting a ton of Indians registered to vote, I have no issues with it :).

While googling for Jago, I ended up on the website of Jago Party, a new indian political party whose mission is "to make India a very safe, strong and rich country, [...] using and strengthening democratic institutions. "

Some interesting salient features they mention are

1. Reservation for none, job for everyone through free English education -- Reservation is against the principle of equality and it is a punishment to the merit. Hence Jago Party will abolish all reservations.

2. Hang terrorists, murderers, rapists & corrupts; Judgments in 3 months – In order to reduce crime, mandatory death sentence would be given to terrorists, murderers, rapists and corrupts. Police will be given adequate powers, equipments and staff to meet their challenges. [they did say they would have oversight - AP]

3. All voters will get Rs 600 p.m. in lieu of subsidies, which will be cancelled.

4. 24 hrs electricity & comfortable train journey through privatization; less government activities & more private enterprises, including roads, water, schools, universities, hospitals, ports etc, and most of the Public Sector Undertakings would also be privatized.

5. No Income Tax up to Rs 4 lakh; Reduction in the number and rates of taxes.

All the above are interesting points, but the scary part for me was the "super free private market" part. So, I sent them an email, and Mr. Awadhesh Kumar Singh was kind to respond, and indeed hold a conversation over email on my queries.

I had specifically asked him about his views on the "free market" and what he thought caused the current meltdown in the US economy, and here is what he had to say:

The cause of the present crash in US economy is bad lending practices out of greed to earn risky profit by some of the biggest financial institutions.
Obviously, when we support free market economy, we do not rule out the possibility of some private companies making bad policy decisions. But free market economy has inherent institutional mechanism to punish such companies.

When a company is small, its mistakes are also small and it can be ignored. But in the present scenario, very, very huge companies are becoming bankrupt having trillions of dollars worth assets. Obviously, no democratic government can allow such companies to collapse, because it can have disastrous effects on the entire economy. Hence, the US federal govt is justified in saving these companies and ushering in sound management practices. Once they stabilize, they would be handed over again to the private companies. This is a kind of security and safety net being provided by the govts across the world to safeguard the interest of consumers like insurance policy holders, borrowers etc just like old age pension or medicare. Hence, it is fully justified.

To prevent such crisis in future, govt is also justified in putting in place proper regulatory mechanism for financial institutions to safeguard the interest of consumers. Our support of free market economy also is subject to such regulatory mechanisms.

Their FAQ is pretty detailed, and they are also doing some other interesting stuff - see their RTI page for example. Also, I appreciate their stance on personal freedom.


Recently, I got an email from them asking to join them as a member and pay a small membership fee. I would surely like to help out people who want to help out the country with new ideas [given how fed up I am with the powers-that-be], but with previous attempts at this by people who didn't know what they were getting into(post1, post2), I am not so sure yet, and need your PoVs.

The money is the not the big part, but association surely is. So, what do you say? Maybe I should just do this for now?

P.S. Do you think they are the desi libertarian party? Given they are OK with govt. regulations, it sure seems they aren't.

The Funny Side of Politics

Starting off, thanks to L, here are some videos of McCain and Obama cracking jokes :)

McCain:


Obama:


And moving on, of course, debate analysis by JS:


and the press's love for Joe the plumber:


and my fav part -- the "undecided" voters!


and here is the Coal-bear's debate coverage:


And finally, The Coal-bear is a national treasure now!!!! congrats!

And the winner of the 3rd Debate is ...

... Bob Schieffer !

Yes, given that I stayed up from 3am to 4:30am today watching the debate, and given that it was inforamative _only_ due to the moderator, Bob Schieffer, who started the debate with these amazing lines:

"I will encourage them to ask follow-up questions to each other. If they do not, I will."

and then followed it with

"By now we have heard aaallll the talking points, so lets try to tell the people tonight some things that they haven't heard."

And with those statements, he managed to do what no other moderator did in the past three debates -- actually get the candidates to talk to "each other" and directly address the points.

Of course, it was not 100% straight talk, but waaaay more informative and "debative" and the other debates.

So for this great performance Mr. Schieffer, I think you clearly deserve the gold medal.

As far as the candidates are concerned, I think noone clearly won this, but I certainly got to know more about the candidates' differences in views through the debate, and thus feel that the debate served it purpose :).

Full video at NBC and at YouTube [thx L], Full audio at NPR.

NPR's fact checking, and info about who Joe the Plumber is. Also super detailed fact check.

If you want a good audio analysis, this NPR post might be for you.

And, as a bonus, I give you this interview of Bob Schieffer:



And if you still haven't seen the documentary I talked about yesterday, go watch it!

All X's are Y [and therefore a burden on society]

Let me begin by saying that
- all Biharis are corrupt
- all Indians are backward arranged-marrying idol-worshippers
- all Americans are burger eating fat people
- all Black people are stupid
- all Muslims are violent people, perhaps terrorists
- all Italians are mafia members
- all girls are stupid in math
- all white people lack family values
and
- all bloggers are shallow

Of course, I could go on and on about these "truths" and I am sure that all of you have heard/read/felt one of the above one time or the other.

As far as I know, these are called stereotypes. They cannot be proven from first principles, but if you assume that they are true, you can find examples to support your claim [Lalu is corrupt, my neighborhood Bihari IAS officer is corrupt, ergo, all Biharis are corrupt], and all counter-examples can be seen as mere "exceptions".

But you see, we can all talk and preach about these, but do we _really understand_ what being discriminated against feels like? Do we understand how _utterly arbitrary_ the criterion is which is used to determine if people of a certain race/religion/region/sex are inferior or superior?

I thought I did. And then I saw this:

From the article [ref: this post from a new blogger, who happens to be a great friend]

On any normal weekday morning, Jane Elliott looked forward to getting to her classroom at the Riceville, Iowa, Community Elementary School and to the teaching job she loved.

...

But that Friday in April, 1968, was not a normal morning. The day before, Martin Luther King had been murdered in Memphis. For Jane, that had suddenly made a lot of things different. She had made a decision about what she would do in her class, a decision that now made her reluctant to leave the house for school.

...

Then, suddenly, on the night of the day that Martin Luther King was murdered, all of these memories and experiences had coalesced into an idea of how she might give her third-graders a sense of what prejudice and discrimination really meant.

Jane took a deep breath and plunged in. "I don't think we really know what it would be like to be a black child, do you?" she asked her class. "I mean it would be hard to know, really, unless we actually experienced discrimination ourselves, wouldn't it?" Without real interest, the class agreed. "Well, would you like to find out?"

The children's puzzlement was plain on their faces until she spelled out what she meant. "Suppose we divided the class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed people," she said. "Suppose that for the rest of today the blue-eyed people became the inferior group. Then, on Monday, we could reverse it so that the brown-eyed children were inferior. Wouldn't that give us a better understanding of what discrimination means?"

Now there was enthusiasm in their response. To some, it may have meant escape from the ordinary routine of a school day. To others, it undoubtedly sounded like a game. "Would you like to try that?" Jane asked. There was an immediate chorus of assent.

I don't think words can do justice to the experience of watching the documentary.

If you have any respect of my opinions that I share on this blog, if you believe that any part of what I say is "interesting", I urge you to watch the whole documentary. If you don't have too much time, just watch the first chapter -- its only 10 minutes.

Being from an upper-middle-class family of the upper caste of the religious majority of a country whose national language is the same as my mother tongue, I had longed to be able to feel what the 'other side' feels, and this piece surely does the trick.

***

And if you are living under the delusion that stereotypes are a thing of the past in the USA or elsewhere, maybe this will remind you of where we are today.



See, Obama is a family man citizen, ergo, not an Arab.

Seriously, go watch the documentary. At least a part, to get yourself hooked :).

Extra: Wikipedia page on the doc.

Hey America, Welcome to Socialism

We live in a weird world, where the "communist" country pushes shady practices in its industries, and the "free market" country BUYS UP PART OF 9 TOP BANKS. [ref: huffpost]

Yes, you heard it right -- the president who wants to make America like France is not Obama, it is our dear old "W".

From the article:

In pressing the bank executives to accept partial government ownership, Paulson's message was clear: Though officially the program was voluntary, the banks had little choice in the matter. In exchange for giving the Treasury minority stakes, the nine firms would jointly receive an investment worth $125 billion. The government would make another $125 billion available for the next 30 days to thousands of other banks and thrifts across the country.

Federal officials set conditions, telling the banks they could not raise their dividends without government permission and could not offer their executives new retirement packages, though the old packages would remain intact.

Paulson told them the moves would shore up confidence in their own institutions, spark lending throughout the system and send a message to smaller institutions that there is no stigma in accepting federal funding. Though some were reluctant, all of the executives complied.

And of course, some unpatriotic americans are appreciating this socialistic move and actually feeling good, thus improving the DOW index. How shameful!

The DSwithJS report is below:


and some advice by Wyatt:


And here is the coal bear, promoting a salt-based economy :)


But seriously, all those of you who believe that giving rich people tax breaks will lead to wealth "trickling down" and regulations are a bad thing -- you either START PROTESTING AGAINST THE SOCIALIST GOVT IN USA, or SHUT THE F**K UP FROM NOW ON!!

Seriously, I respect the GOP guys who chose to follow their ideals of free market and want to complete the experiment that started 8 years ago -- I might not agree with them but they atleast have the cajones to face the consequences. Those who wanted "free market without regulations" and now want "economic help from the govt" can get lost!

***

On a different note, this bittersweet segment from NPR reminded me of one more thing that is common between people of India and Pakistan -- arranged marriages.

***

And on a more certain note, my India trip is confirmed! Landing in Delhi on Dec 13, leaving on Jan 10 [or so my tickets say :)]. Details to follow. Would love to meet you this time.

F**K Me, I have a PhD!

A female friend of mine [who shall remain unnamed and uninitialed ;)] send me this article from New Scientist yesterday about the correlation between intelligence and sperm quality [emph mine]:

according to new research ... apparently a man's sperm quality turns out to be a decent indicator of his brain power.

Men who scored high on a battery of intelligence tests boasted high counts of healthy sperm, while low scorers tended to have fewer and more sickly little guys.

This suggests that intelligence might tip off a man's overall health to women looking for a mate with healthy genes, explained University of New Mexico evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller at a recent Harvard University talk.

"It's not necessarily that the same genes are influencing sperm quality and intelligence," he said. Rather, the two traits could be linked through a tangled web of biological and environmental interactions that has evolved to help women pick a mate.

Miller and his colleagues uncovered the apparent sperm-intelligence connection after reanalysing data gathered in 1985 to assess the after-effects of the Vietnam War, particularly exposures to Agent Orange. Of the 4,402 veterans who participated in three days of physical and mental testing, 425 provided sperm samples.

After accounting for factors that could skew the results, such as age, drug use, and abstinence before providing a sample, Miller's team looked for a statistical link between men's sperm counts and motility and their scores on several tests of verbal and arithmetic intelligence.

Though the connections between brains and sperm were "not awesome, they're there and highly significant," Miller said. All things held equal, good sperm and good brains go together.

More interesting papers on this topic can be found on his official webpage. I think his lap-dancers-get-more-tips-when-ovulating paper got the IgNoble prize this year also.

My take on this? I agree that there might be no direct link between intelligence [lets call it I ] and sperm quality [ S ]. The way I see it, men can be divided in 4 types:

1. High I and High S


2. High I and Low S


3. Low I and High S


4. Low I and Low S

Of course, in a "natural" world, Individuals with low S will be weeded out by their competitors, therefore leaving individuals of types 1 and 3 in the population with high probability.

In a society of a species which is rapidly developing by replacing natural defenses [fur] with "intelligently made ones" [fur coats], it would have been obviously favorable for females to choose type 1 males over type 3. Heck, type 1 males may have even fooled type 3 males and slept with their wives!

Assuming all the above is true, it is easy to see how the two qualities become indirectly correlated.

And assuming that getting a PhD is correlated with "intelligence" ... well ... you get the title of this post :).

The Big Battle Between Good and Evil

It was so simple in the good old days, things were so black and white [figuratively, as well as cinematically]. The good prince from northern India fought with the evil power-corrupted king of Sri Lanka, and on this day by the lunar calendar, many eons ago, the force of good won over the force of evil.

Yes, Shubh Dussehra/Vijayadashmi to you too!

But nowadays, the battles are more colored. More gray than black and white. Take this one for example [full video, full flash and MP3 audio, and great analysis here]. As always, JS covers it best.



And comments on the body language and the general environment of the debate by the moderator are here.

Of course, the game is far from over, with both candidates taking donations from financial companies, and unwilling to tell the people that the borrowers _are also_ to blame for this, not just the lenders. Hence the grayness.

***

In other world-is-going-to-hell news, according to the Red List released recently, "at least 25% of the world's mammal species are at risk of extinction, according to the first assessment of their status for a decade".

The BBC has covered it here, New Scientist has maps for this, and pictures of some of the at-risk animals is at this NatGeo page [ref: J]. Yes, the Indian Tarantula is also at risk due to "over-harvesting for the pet trade" according to the BBC.

Add to it the wars in the world, the increasing violence in India, and this segment from the Rama wikipedia article comes to mind.

"The Ramayana speaks of how the Goddess Earth, Bhumidevi, came to the Lord Creator, Brahma begging to be rescued from evil kings who were plundering her resources and destroying life through bloody wars and evil conduct."

I surely think the time has come. The Earth surely is begging for help. Is anyone listening?

Talking about the [other] Debate

Hi there.
Having a good time, maybe want me to talk about how I felt watching the debate this early morning from 3:30am?

Well, I don't f'king feel like talking about it!

Much like JS, who had this amazing coverage of the VP debate -- so I had to post it!



See the entire episode for more amazing clips, including the view from Wasilla, AK.

Also, S sent me this amazing article from Rolling Stone Magazine about what the Palin choice means for America.

The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America
...
But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

This article says so many things that I have been wanting to say, but could't articulate well.

And more on that, from D, is this post on the new "terrorist" charge against Obama.

P.S. Debate analysis tomorrow. Promise.

update: The videos below _had_ to be added, they were so on point:

Six degrees of desperation:


Who _is_ the _swing vote_:


And more on negative advertizing:

I am a BeeriCorn!

What is a Beericorn?

What happens when the guys at Tremendosaur outsource one of their comedy scripts to India?

and How am I involved in this?

Well, see for yourself :) [link to their page]

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Thanks to Jacob and Justin for involving Adarsh, Pathik and me in this project of theirs :).

Disclaimer: There seems to be a confusion. Please note that the scripting, production, direction, editing, all was done by Tremendosaur. Adarsh, Pathik and I just acted [badly] :).

Don't VOTE!

Yeah, don't vote. coz you just don't care, do you?



ref: this google blog post

The video reminded me of Amitabh's scolding video for polio :).

On a related note, it is nice that our desi boys at TATA Tea are having a campaign of their own. Lemme check if I can vote from France too :).

When will the killings stop?

I sometimes try to think like an extremist -- while still trying to be logical -- just to see what might go on in their mind.

Let us assume some people came into _my_ land, and took over. They tried to spread their ideology, and I think it was forcible.

So one fine day, I decide to take action, and drive them away, and take back what is mine.

So, I decide that they must die.

In my wierd stretched logic, I also decide that "collateral damage" is OK. So I won't just kill the armed enemies, I will also kill the "support-system" including women, children, and old people.

But why the $@#% do I have to gang-rape someone before killing her?!!!


Even when I try to think like an extremist, this part does not make any sense to me. Can someone help to explain it to me here?

Pay Hike Proposed in Indian Academia

As I saw in this ToI article [and was also informed of the official report in the researchers returning to India yahoogroup], the UGC has recommended a huge pay hike in the salaries of Indian academics.

While these are still "recommendations", this at least shows that they are taking notice of the problem of the severe lack of faculty in India.

I would write more on this, but gotta prepare for la nuit blanche :). So I point you all to this excellent analysis by Abi, which ends with asking the question:

if you wouldn't consider an IIT faculty position for Rs. 30,000, would the new salary make you change your mind?

Would it?

VP Debate, its Analysis, and some Songs

update: Better factcheck with audio here.

Given that the VP debate was from 3am local time, and since I had to come to work today, I figured the best thing would be to listen to NPR's analysis in the morning.

And that is what I did, when I kinda woke up today at 5am, I started the analysis at this NPR post, and got what I wanted :). For NPR's factchecking of this debate, check this post out. Of course, if you want to see the whole thing, you can do it at NBC.

Or, you can read the wonderful analysis posted by Ms. Jamba Jagannathan at her blog post with the wonderfully pun-tastic title of Palintology And The Well Above Average Joe.

From the post:
Amy Poehler, at the end of the SNL skit on the Palin-Couric interview, asked "Forgive me, Mrs. Palin, but it appears that when cornered, you become increasingly adorable. Is that fair to say?

Oh doggone it, you betcha.

Tonight's VP debate proved just that, and Sarah didn't even need to be really cornered. Right down from talking about soccer moms and even winking in a "hey you" kind of way at the camera, Barbie all but asked Gwen Ifill and Joe Biden to join her at the Hometown Buffet for some moose steaks.

...

Still, her performance in this debate may have been the best thing to happen to a faltering campaign impeded further by McCain's annoying political dances around the $700 billion bailout.

Biden, on the other hand, did so well, he overshadowed Obama's performance during last week's debate.

And finally, some songs which I am swaying to this morning, as I sit with my headphones on, working at my desk at INRIA, waiting for the evening rendezvous with the K&K gang!

More on Palin, Rape, Incest, Abortion, and WTF?

First, if you have not, have a look at my previous post on this.

Then, have a look at the following videos: JS summarizes it like noone can.



and then, what happens if an unqualified woman takes charge?



and finally, if you want to see Jon angry, see this interview.

Bonus: One of the few profitable enterprise in America now - soups!

If you can, please watch the VP debate tonight [I am sure cnn.com and nbc.com will carry it], and let me know how it was.

Got raped by a relative? [Grin and] _Bear_ It

... or so says Sarah Palin [thanks to ToI for the link ]



WTF?

Kudos to Katie Courric for making SP state her stance clearly on this.

update: Here is the link to an article by a rape victim on this. [ref: S]

BTW, to prepare you for VP debates tonight, here it is - Cheney vs Edwards:

Missing Sewai, and Understanding the Bailout Vote

First of all, a tip of my hat to the good memories of Eids past, when mom and dad would take me to our neighbor's place, and I would have lovely sewai made by aunty :).

I miss those days, I miss the sewai, and I miss the innocence of the days when Eid for me was no different from Onam or Pongal, something _other people_ celebrated, and I got good food and a school holiday for.

Moving on to the current economic crisis, lets see JS's take on it, which I guess summarized it well.



I see his anger, and second it! wtf?!