Category: Random Draws

Every once in a while I get frustrated trying to figure out whether someone said “t” or “d” or “p” while spelling out a word. So as a public service, I urge people to learn the phonetic alphabet. It makes life easier — and on top of that it is very very cool to spell words quickly. My name for instance is spelled as “alpha tango alpha november uniform.” Continue reading “Use the Phonetic Alphabet”

Sorry people I have not been in touch. A bit of traveling and a lot of reading is taking up time. I will be back soon, just in case you were wondering. Until then, remember that tomorrow, May 20th, is the big day for supporting the right to free expression — which as Bill Maher puts it, is non-negotiable. The video embedded below the fold reminds us that some cultures are not only different but are better than one that makes death threats to cartoonists. Continue reading “Some things are Non-negotiable”

My colleague Rajesh Jain in the second part of a series “It’s Up to Us Now” notes, that “even after 63 years, India is in many senses worse off than it was in 1947. We have to understand the whys and hows of India’s failure to develop. That’s the unavoidable first step to putting India on a path to recovery. We cannot fix problems that we don’t understand the causes of, or worse yet, if we don’t even admit that we have problems.”
Continue reading “Giving the Planned Perpetual Poverty of Socialism a Quick Burial”

Faisal Shahzad’s bomb bombed. I have a few questions for you, dear reader.

Continue reading “A few questions for you dear Readers”

Two facts are undisputed: first, the US is the richest, most powerful nation on earth; second, that it has been an occasional victim of Islamic terrorism. I believe that there is another fact that is not widely appreciated but which explains to a large degree the where, how and whys of Islamic terrorism. That fact is that the US funds global Islamic terrorism. That not only explains why there’s so much of it around these days, but also gives us hope that there is a way out of this insanity. That hope arises from the conjecture that the US can stop global Islamic terrorism if it wants. Continue reading “The US funds Global Islamic Terrorism”

I have not had an opportunity to read A New History of India by Francois Gautier (Har-Anand Publications, 2008) but I intend to since I got this brief review of the book in an email from a colleague. I post it below the fold with permission. Continue reading “Francois Gautier’s “A New History of India””

Actually, have your best running shoes on when you start telling people what they don’t want to hear. What they generally don’t want to hear is anything that shows them up to be boobs. They don’t want to hear that they are being screwed over by the government. Add to that the fact that they are also very proud of being a “democracy.” Which makes it especially painful for them because if you tell them that their government is raping them, they don’t want to know it because it would mean that they are complicit in their own rape. How does the government manage it, you may ask. One word: media. Continue reading “Tell the Truth and Run like Hell”

Most emphatically yes, if it is within your power to do so. A child accidentally falls into a river and you jump in without a second’s thought – assuming that you can swim – and save the child. But what if there are people who are thoughtlessly or even deliberately pushing children into the river. Should you continue to be fully engaged in saving the drowning children or must you at least tackle the problem where it originates, and go tie up the adults who are dropping children into the river? Continue reading “Is it our Moral Responsibility to Save Drowning Children?”

The Buddha’s birthday is coming up soon. It is on the day of the full moon in May. This time around it is on 27th May. So let’s just all draw a Buddha. Since my drawing skills are somewhat primitive, I will go hi-tech. I post this picture — one that I had taken years ago in California. Now if someone would please start a Facebook page for “Everybody Draw a Buddha Day” — just to keep abreast of the competition here.