Category: Random Draws

As I have held before, there should be a special hell for those who forward inane stupid emails with the breathless admonition to “forward it to all your friends.” The terrorist bombing of Mumbai locals has inspired one such idiotic email which is making the rounds.

It is addressed to the terrorists with the endearment “Dear.” It basically says (I will spare you the details, in case you haven’t already seen it) that we don’t care to be bothered by the bombs and we don’t really care about the hundreds killed; we are Mumbaikars and we just get up, and go about our business earning our next buck. Continue reading “The Right Response”

The terrorists have struck once again. This time it appears to be a series of bombs on the Western line of Mumbai locals. So far reports indicate about half a dozen bombs during rush hour.

Assumption: lots of people killed. Islamic terrorism in action.
Prediction: More ineffectual inane statements from the politicians. Especially the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the supreme leader of India Ms Sonia Gandhi. More security will be assigned to them and other politicians. Dr Singh may increase the number of bus and train services between Pakistan and India. The border between Pakistan and India will be made less secure so that Islamic terrorism can have less resistance.

I think that it is time my suggestion that leaders be held accountable for acts of terrorism be taken seriously. Unless the leaders feel the pain of terrorism, they will not have the slightest interest in preventing terrorism. See “Terrorism–A Way Out” on this blog.

Post-script: If the media calls this one “7/11”, I swear I will puke. The rate at which Islamic terrorism is going, it makes no sense since surely the entire calendar will be filled in the next couple of years: 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, … , 12/30, 12/31. To my mind, only 9/11 has some legitimacy when it comes to naming Islamic terrorism with a date. The rest are too late.

PS: 9:44 PM

Prime Minister Singh makes his inane statement: “The series of blasts in Jammu and Kashmir and in Mumbai are shocking and cowardly attempts to spread a feeling of fear and terror among our citizens.”

Yes, indeed so. The politicians, are on the other hand, totally unconcerned because they will never have to take public transportation and will not have to die in terrorist blasts.

Ms Sonia Gandhi, Dr Singh’s boss, expressed shock. Why? Even an ordinary citizen like me has figured out by now that Islamic terrorism is the order of the day and unless one has been hiding under the rock for the last few decades, it should be expected and not shocking. Or is the supreme leader so out of touch with the daily occurrences around the world that it is shocking to note terrorism?

The rains in Mumbai are intermittent and there is a good chance that I will be on board a flight to Delhi today for a couple of days. The Ministry of Rural Development is having a consultative meeting in Delhi on PURA (President Mr Kalam’s model) and the Secretary requested that I give my inputs on the implementation of the model.

The PURA model, in my professional opinion, is unworkable. Basic economic reasoning reveals why. However, usually in the Indian context, a contest between basic economic reason and political authority is usually decided by the majority of policy makers in favor of the authority. In time, the authority gets elevated to demigod status, statues are erected, streets and educational institutions are named after them, and school histry books tell children about their greatness. Back in reality-land, the results of the clash of reason and authority is decided in favor of basic economic principles and the implemented model fails spectacularly. But by then, the anonymous bureaucrats and policy makers are gone and cannot be held accountable; the politicians who pushed the scheme are demigods and are beyond scrutiny and reproach.

We slide a little bit closer to our destiny.

OK, I will report what happens in Delhi in a couple of days.

Rain keeps falling down. Which is why, yesterday I had to spend over two hours at the Dadar railway station in Mumbai waiting for my train to Nasik. The tracks between VT station and Dadar were flooded and trains were running as much as 9 hours late. There was no place to sit in the crowded station. Finally I gave up and headed to crash for the night at a friend’s place. Today I wake up to see a rained out city. Here is a picture from around Haji Ali taken from the window of the 13th floor apartment.

The picture contrast has been enhanced and so it is difficult to make out the rain. Here is another picture which has not been fiddled with.

By way of contrast, here is a picture from a clear day–when you can see forever quite a distance.

On a brighter note, a piece of good news. The technical problem with my blog has been fixed. We are back to our regularly scheduled postings. 🙂

Sramana Mitra has been pondering Concept Arbitrage: Summary Trends. She requests reactions.

Junk mail is a part of (modern) life as much as death and taxes. I imagine there is a special circle in world.wide.hell where those who forward idiotic emails end up in. Here is one that infected my mailbox, screaming capital letters, misspelling, and all. Continue reading “Clueless Mail Forwards”

A friend at Harvard MIT conveys this deep lesson. Go learn.

The BBC reports that Indian Catholics want the movie, The Da Vinci Code, banned.

“Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) activists will go on a fast unto death if the government fails to take action against anti-Christian movies,” CSF general secretary Joseph Dias told the BBC.

Mr Dias is quoted as saying, ” . . . Tempers are already running quite high and there’s no way of saying what could happen if the movie is released.”

I guess the Catholics would go on a rampage and burn down theatres. Eric Hoffer had noted that “when the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.” Continue reading “Fragments — 13”