Category: People

Hitchens on the Catholic Church

This is an excerpt from a debate on the proposition “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”. The debate sponsor is The Intelligence2 Debate. (For the full version, go to Youtube.) Below the fold is the excerpt which is a must watch.
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Manmohan Singh is Incorrigibly Obtuse and Morally Deficient

The contrast between Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh is stark and blindingly obvious.

Celebrating Alan Turing

“When the history books of the future are written, Alan Turing will go down in the company of Newton and Darwin and Einstein. His visions changed how humanity conceives of computation, information and pattern — and 100 years after his birthday, and 58 years after his tragic death, Turing’s legacy is alive and growing.” That’s from the Wired.com article celebrating Turing’s 100th birth anniversary who was born 23rd June, 1912.
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“Religion is not for the weak” – Swami Vivekananda

An article on Swami Vivekananda in the Wall Street Journal of 30th March titled, “What Did J.D. Salinger, Leo Tolstoy, and Sarah Bernhardt Have in Common?” makes for delightful reading. What they had in common was their devotion to Swami Vivekananda, the man who introduced Vedanta and yoga to America. I did not know that. But anyway, it’s the sort of positive article about a Hindu monk that would give conniptions to the leftist “secular intellectuals” in India. But the Wall Street Journal does not suffer from the knee-jerk negative reflex of the main stream English language media in India; the latter would recoil with horror at the mere thought of publishing a laudatory piece about a proud Hindu. Wouldn’t that be tantamount to endorsing — horror of horrors — Hindutva?
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Sam Harris: Islam and the Future of Liberalism

The word “liberalism” denotes two almost opposite set of ideas. To distinguish between the two, it has become necessary to qualify the term. “Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets.” In contrast to that, “social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding civil rights. Under social liberalism, the good of the community is viewed as harmonious with the freedom of the individual.” It is social liberalism that Sam refers to in a piece on his blog. Excerpts below the fold, for the record.
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Antonia Maino aka Sonia Gandhi is #4 “Richest Politicians”

Business Insider has a short feature, “Meet The 23 Richest Politicians In The World“, and Dr Manmohan Singh’s boss, Ms Antonia Maino aka Sonia Gandhi is listed as the 4th richest with wealth estimated between US$2-19 billion. This must have given Kapil Sibal and Digvijaya Singh the conniptions, and I am sure that it lends more weight to Dr Subramanian Swamy’s charges against AM aka SG. I am of course thrilled and here’s why.
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Sam Harris on “The Ten Commandments”

“If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: “Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.” Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible.” — Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

Subramanian Swamy — excerpts from a March 5th interview

I admire Dr Subramanian Swamy immensely. He is among a handful of people who have the guts, the intelligence, the commitment, the dedication and the stamina to fix what’s broken in India. I agree with him on all the substantive issues and where I do disagree, I am sure that there’s room for reasonable people to disagree on. I came across an interview of his on Hans India. Below some excerpts from it, for the record. (Image stolen from Hans India.)
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Shri Narendra Modi and India will Prevail

Any dispassionate observer of India would agree that India is underdeveloped in practically every sense of the term. What’s worse is that India has always had the potential to do much better. India’s failure to develop is a disappointing tale of how disastrous lack of able leadership can be. India does not lack any of the factors – material, social, cultural – necessary for development, and yet it consistently failed to reach an easily attainable goal. For decades on end, India has been on the verge of changing course but slides back into the status quo. One is forced to the inescapable conclusion that the political will to develop is missing.
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