A Favorite video from YouTube Play: “Lucky by All India Radio”

Go check out the videos shortlisted for playing at YouTube Play celebration event at the Guggenheim Museum. What’s that?
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The Perverse “Right to Information”

In a comment to a recent post, “The Games Built on a Cesspool,” the commenter Eroteme says, “We help elect a govt., sit on our hinnies and then find faults with whatever they do. Much like the opposition. Why don’t we demand accounts for all the projects embarked on, all the promises made, all the measures planned to address situations?” and asks, “How many RTIs were filed in the past 7 years demanding to know how well this CWG thing was progressing and where each and every rupee of ours was going?” The question is interesting in what it reveals.
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Innumerates of the Times of India

Those who refuse to do arithmetic are doomed to speak nonsense. That one is a favorite quote from a computer science guru John McCarthy. To it I would add that those who are incapable of reasoning are doomed to being innumerate. The ability to reason is a prerequisite for knowing how to do arithmetic. Let me give you a shining example of innumeracy arising from an inability to reason.
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The Games Built on a Cesspool

No one can escape the huge amount of press on the ongoing disaster called the “Commonwealth Games” in New Delhi. There is little doubt about the train-wreck — it’s inevitable as the locomotive has long left the track and is speeding towards a chasm dragging a long train behind it. The only point of conjecture is how damaging will be the eventual crash. The action is happening so fast that estimates of damage vary widely. But it will all be over soon enough and it will be a very long time before India recovers from the ignominy and shame.
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The World University Rankings 2010

I just can’t bring myself to trust the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. It is clearly wrong. Any ranking which puts UC Berkeley below that junior university is obviously suspect, in my considered o-pee-nee-awhn.
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A Couple of Funny Videos

For the last few days I have been busy writing. Which is the reason why I have not been writing for the blog. Actually, whenever I have any serious writing to do, I find that I have a whole lot of important pieces on the web that urgently need reading. Or videos that need watching. They’re so important that I think you should also read them or watch them, as the case may be.
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The US Constitution: Made in Arabia

I bet you did not know that the US Constitution is “sharia compliant.” No, seriously it is. Ok, I am not an expert on the US constitution, and quite frankly I don’t know the first thing about sharia except that I believe that it is about Islamic law and that all Islamic countries have to conform to sharia. So that’s why it came as a bit of shock to learn that the US constitution was sharia compliant. Here’s how.
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