A tale of three presidents

The USA has a president who plays basketball

Russia has a president (now PM) who goes fishing and knows Judo

India has a president that can "fly" jets and board aircraft carriers.

Of course, our president is known for symbolic gestures. This is a symbolic gesture to show women can fly combat aircraft. Sure, a 75 year old woman sat in the back-seat of a subsonic flight for half an hour. This directly implies women are capable of overcoming high G forces and taking on hostiles in the event of a landing in enemy territory.

And who can forget her most symbolic gesture, the loud "Fuck you, India".

Well, we have to thank Sonia madam for establishing new standards in the process of evaluation of a candidate to the post. Pranab Mukherjee was not nominated as he was "too important". Probably a better part of the president's day includes watering the plants of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Corolla and the art of car maintenance

I like the statement "Don't blame the car for the fault of the driver."

This always sets me thinking, and a lot of questions spring up in my mind. Lets consider a stock car, a Toyota Corolla for the sake of illustration. Here's a few thoughts pertaining to the statement.

Is it still the driver's fault if Toyota installed a faulty gearbox? If a disproportionate amount of accidents involve people driving the Toyota Corolla, is it still the fault of the drivers? I'm guessing that's because when people drink, their cars automatically turn into Corollas. That'd probably explain why cars parked outside bars are almost exclusively Corollas, I guess.

And then there are car recalls. When the manufacturer notices something dangerously wrong in the car, usually due to user feedback, he sends out a recall notice. The driver then turns in the car for a replacement or for repairs. This is for his safety, and for the safety of others.

However, things get messy if the car driver firmly believes that his car is perfect for the only reason that the manual says so. How can one convince someone whose manual states that the car is perfect and should NOT be changed under any circumstances? What if the manual explicitly states in its first page that the car should not be changed even in the event of Toyota declaring a car recall? What if the manual denies the utility of car services? Doesn't it become downright dangerous to let the car stay on the road? Well, that would shift the blame back to the driver, I guess...

What if the standards and laws change? In some places, vehicles older than a set age or failing to meet certain emission norms are forced off the roads. If however, the man believes all this is a conspiracy to wreck his car, how would one reason with him? What if our driver wants only Corollas on the road, and is willing to go to any lengths to achieve it? What if he goes on a suicide mission to push non-Corollas off the road? Well, if you beg for a silver lining, he may become a liberal. He may decide to tolerate "people who bought the Toyota", but the rest should go.

What if he publicly declares his intention to kill anyone who dares commenting on the state of his car (Dirty, got a flat, loose fanbelt, broken windshield, etc)? 'The manual said it is perfect right? So what do these guys know?"

The fault for all this would probably squarely rest on the manual and the bigot who wrote it after having a little too much to drink.

Mulayam, humanity's last hope in the war against machines

It happens only in India. We have people asking for votes promising that they will take us back to the stone age. 

From the manifesto of the Samajwadi Party: "The use of computers in offices is creating unemployment problems. Our party feels that if work can be done by a person using hands there is no need to deploy machines."

While perfectly logical, this gives rise to a few questions.

Can we get rid of animals too? Oxen are driving the men out of business in the field of cart-pulling. Why have one oxen pulling 400 kilo-loads when the same work can be done by four men and for a much longer time? Can we get rid of the cows providing milk for the Indian populace? Looking at the rate with which we are multiplying, there would definitely be enough lactating mothers to fill those posts. Surely, it would be environmentally friendly too, as we won't have the cow farts which spew tons of methane into the air everyday.

Can we get rid of those vibrators too? I'm guessing the same work can be done by a person using hands, and there is no need to deploy machines for the same. Destroy all sex toys, and provide human substitutes. I'm sure not many would have problems with that.

What about calculators? After all, they are just computers stripped down to the most basic function. Would we see a situation where you have to run to the nearby cycle shop to get the bhaiyyas there to compute the cube root of 60? Because, it can be done by hand and does not need too much brains if you know how to calculate cube roots. Even a bhaiyya could do it. But he would probably need a pen and paper for that, and the logical next step after fighting against computers would be to fight the industrial revolution, mass production and any sort of "western" influence on our farmers. For their benefit. He has already opened that front in his war for ignorance. Take that, agricultural revolution! Take that, civilization!

Our brave Yadav warrior Mulayam opens a new front in the war against the machines. Next up, we could have his close friend's close friend Amitabh Bachchan starring as Mulayam Singh in a desi version of the Matrix. Or Terminator.

"A harvesting season brings employment for the labour class for at least six months but these harvesters (agricultural machines) will snatch their earnings.

The salaries provided by private firms should be in sync with the minimum wages that have been set by the government.

Previous governments have promoted forward trading, share trading and mall culture. Any government formed with our support will either reduce or stop it completely."

How dare the farmers in Punjab use tractors and machines to grow and harvest wheat, when they can grow much less by paying OBC, SC and ST bhaiyyas from India's most populous and backward states up north to perform the role of the oxen mentioned before and the harvesters? We seem to be having too much food already. Mulayam sincerely believes we need to produce less and less food for ourselves.

Regarding the valid point about limiting salaries to the minimum wage, I believe he thinks is correct. After all, why would India need to pay the best of industry more than two dollars a day? After all, when there are no malls, and nobody has any money, we would probably not need more than two dollars a day. We would also probably not need jobs, because when our Yadav warrior comes to power, there will be plenty of fields waiting to be tilled by B.Techs, MBAs and PhDs.

But wait. Our Mulayam has one more ace up his sleeve. He also has a solution to solve the problem of islamic terror faced by India. Terror occurs because of unequal development, so we should dissolve borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

I'm off to the Taliban office in M.G.Road. Anybody else convinced yet? 

Why Congress is the opposite of Progress

Some people fervently believe the Congress party (and especially the Gandhi family) has sacrificed for terrorism? M.K.Gandhi wanted the Congress to be disbanded after independence. The Congress party has systematically polluted the minds of the populace by naming every street, lake, airport, park, government initiative and institution after the Nehru family. The honorable Gandhi name has been usurped by Priyadarshini Nehru's bloodline for political ends. The Congress has made Gandhi-worship a religion of its own, rather than making the national flag first priority. Any election victory by the Congress is supposedly because of the family, while any defeat is because the congress workers could not convert the groundswell of support into votes. The first family has been kept squeaky clean by the sycophants in every rung of the Congress party.

The Congress plays the caste/religion divide up much more than the BJP has done. Arjun Singh belongs to the Indian National Congress. YSR, who brought about a reservation system for the muslims, is a member of the Indian National Congress. The Congress indulges in shameless fear-mongering among the minority community and gets fatwas to its benefit. Is that not communalism? Manmohan has demanded that Muslims be allowed "first use of resources" in a resource-starved country. If that is not blatant unconstitutional communalism, then what is?

The Congress has systematically destroyed institutes, put India on permanent life-support, and bred sycophancy at all levels. The "foreign-returned" members of the "Gandhi" family, namely Rajiv Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, have not passed out with degrees. They are hardly the kind of educated decision-makers who deserve to be deciding important policy matters. They are not worthy to comment on the IITs and IIMs, much less destroy it. The mockery the Congress has made of the offices of the President and the CEC has not gone unnoticed. Pratibha Patil's only qualification is how faithful she has been to the "family", which is not the way to go while selecting capable leaders. She was holidaying in Bali when the Mumbai attacks happened last year. That is shameful to say the least. And let us not even talk about Shivraj Patil and his dress sense during the time of crisis. The Golden quadrilateral initiative taken by the NDA was the best example of how the government could facilitate growth and development of the nation by enabling farmers and industrialists to progress. The Congress approach of reservations in the guise of affirmative action is definitely not conducive to a dream of India becoming a developed nation, even by 2500 AD.

The Congress has rushed through an opaque nuclear deal with a US administration that was in its last days. There was absolutely no debate carried out on the issue. Admittedly the BJP and the Left were not acting maturely in this aspect, but the Congress has been instrumental in ending our nuclear freedom and handing over the reins to the americans.

Manmohan has been one of the most ineffectual prime ministers in our history. His absence for three months in such a crucial juncture (economic slowdown, terror) has not even been noticed, showing everybody how irrelevant he actually is in the scheme of things. He has kept the seat warm for Rahul Gandhi to ascend sometime when he decides he is ready. His rule has seen the escalation of terrorist attacks in a large part caused due to wilful negligence for the sake of votes of the extremists within the minority community. The Congress harping on ONE Kandahar incident does not cut much ice with the educated people of India, who have seen blasts caused in every major city of the country under Congress rule. The Congress's refusal to recognize the threat posed by the political philosophy of totalitarian Islam that is ravaging the whole world today has been the prime reason for the increasing audacity of the terrorists from across the border. If intelligence was acted upon, we would never have seen the likes of what happened on 26/11 in Mumbai AND what happened in every major city in the past four-five years. But the Congress was focussed on "Hindu terrorism", through selective media leaks and highly suspect investigations. This blind-eye policy toward the actual terrorists is criminal, anti-national and unforgivable. The fear-mongering of the Congress about "Hindu terrorism" and "Talibanisation" displays both an astounding ignorance of the actual meanings of the terms "Terror" and "Taliban" and a cynical attempt to manipulate the voters of the minority community who should be offended by the perception the Congress has of the minorities as gullible, retarded and anti-national.

The Congress has manipulated every available loophole, taken the electorate for retarded gullible fools (to be fair, most of the electorate DOES consist of the aforementioned demographic) and set India on a backward path for its own ends. It is okay for India to be backward. What is not acceptable is to be moving in a backward direction, which the Congress is hell-bent on doing for the sake of perpetuating its votebank.

Hope springs eternal. I can always hope that the voter realizes the harm the Congress has caused to India in the past, is currently causing and will continue to cause in the foreseeable future. But I know better. I know evolution does not move fast enough to ensure the voter grows intelligent from one poll to the next. India desires better, but it does not deserve better. We are deluded in the belief that we will one day become one of the greatest nations in the world. But the only greatness we are ever going to achieve in the current scenario is in terms of population size.

Screw you guys, I'm going home.

Mohan lal as Flash Gordon

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mohan-lals-latest-bhagavan-shot-in-12-hrs/80175-8.html

A movie shot in 12 hours. Looks like the superstar doesn't give a shit anymore. He probably knows by now that his fans will watch the movie and whistle till their lungs fly out of their mouths and onto the screen.

Shoddy journalism - Verbatim copy

Appalling journalism. Absolute blasphemy! As I watch the news from home, I am dumbfounded to see Barkha Dutt of NDTV break every rule of ethical journalism in reporting the Mumbai mayhem. Take a couple of instances for example:

• In one instance she asks a husband about his wife being stuck, or held as a hostage. The poor guy adds in the end about where she was last hiding. Aired! My dear friends with AK-47s, our national news is helping you. Go get those still in. And be sure to thank NDTV for not censoring this bit of information.
• In another instance, a General sort of suggests that there were no hostages in Oberoi Trident. (Clever.) Then, our heroine of revelations calls the head of Oberoi, and the idiot confirms a possibility of 100 or more people still in the building. Hello! Guys with guns, you’ve got more goats to slay. But before you do, you’ve got to love NDTV and more precisely Ms. Dutt. She’s your official intelligence from Ground zero.

You do not need to be a journalist to understand the basic premise of ethics, which starts with protecting victims first; and that is done by avoiding key information from being aired publicly—such as but not limited to revealing the number of possible people still in, the hideouts of hostages and people stuck in buildings.

Imagine you’re one of those sorry souls holed-up in one of those bathrooms, or kitchens. A journalist pulls your kin outside and asks about your last contact on national television, and other prying details. In a bout of emotion, if they happen to reveal more details, you are sure going to hell. Remember these are hotels, where in all likelihood, every room has a television. All a terrorist needs to do is listen to Ms. Barkha Dutt’s latest achievement of extracting information from your relative, based on your last phone-call or SMS. And you’re shafted—courtesy NDTV.¹

If the terrorists don’t manage to shove you in to your private hell, the journalists on national television will certainly help you get there. One of the criticisms about Barkha Dutt on Wikipedia reads thus:

During the Kargil conflict, Indian Army sources repeatedly complained to her channel that she was giving away locations in her broadcasts, thus causing Indian casualties.

Looks like the idiot journalist has not learnt anything since then. I join a number of bloggers pleading her to shut the f⋅⋅⋅ up.

Update: In fact, I am willing to believe that Hemant Karkare died because these channels showed him prepare (wear helmet, wear bullet-proof vest.) in excruciating detail live on television. And they in turn targeted him where he was unprotected. The brave officer succumbed to bullets in the neck.

Update 2 [28.Nov.2300hrs]: Better sense appears to have prevailed in the latter half of today—either willfully, or by Government coercion², and Live broadcasts are now being limited to non-action zones. Telecast of action troops and strategy is now not being aired live. Thank goodness for that.

Update 3 [30.Nov.1900hrs]: DNA India reports about a UK couple ask media to report carefully:

The terrorists were watching CNN and they came down from where they were in a lift after hearing about us on TV.

— Lynne Shaw in an interview.

1. Oh, they have a lame excuse pronouncing that the television connections in the hotel has been cut, and therefore it is okay to broadcast. Like hell!
2. I’m thinking coercion, since Government has just denied renewing CNN’s rights to air video today; must’ve have surely worked as a rude warning to the Indian domestic channels.”

... and you thought you were the master of your destiny?

"In a way, in our contemporary world view, it's easy to think that science has come to take the place of God. But some philosophical problems remain as troubling as ever. Take the problem of free will. This problem has been around for a long time, since before Aristotle in 350 B.C. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, these guys all worried about how we can be free if God already knows in advance everything you're gonna do. Nowadays we know that the world operates according to some fundamental physical laws, and these laws govern the behavior of every object in the world. Now, these laws, because they're so trustworthy, they enable incredible technological achievements. But look at yourself. We're just physical systems too, right? We're just complex arrangements of carbon molecules. We're mostly water, and our behavior isn't gonna be an exception to these basic physical laws. So it starts to look like whether its God setting things up in advance and knowing everything you're gonna do or whether it's these basic physical laws governing everything, there's not a lot of room left for freedom.

So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question, ignore the mystery of free will. Say "Oh, well, it's just an historical anecdote. It's sophomoric. It's a question with no answer. Just forget about it." But the question keeps staring you right in the face. You think about individuality for example, who you are. Who you are is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make. Or take responsibility. You can only be held responsible, you can only be found guilty, or you can only be admired or respected for things you did of your own free will. So the question keeps coming back, and we don't really have a solution to it. It starts to look like all our decisions are really just a charade.

Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain. Your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system. It passes along down into your muscle fibers. They twitch. You might, say, reach out your arm. It looks like it's a free action on your part, but every one of those - every part of that process is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws, and so on.

So now it just looks like the big bang set up the initial conditions, and the whole rest of human history, and even before, is really just the playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws. We think we're special. We think we have some kind of special dignity, but that now comes under threat. I mean, that's really challenged by this picture.

So you might be saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics? I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that. It's really a probabilistic theory. There's room. It's loose. It's not deterministic." And that's going to enable us to understand free will. But if you look at the details, it's not really going to help because what happens is you have some very small quantum particles, and their behavior is apparently a bit random. They swerve. Their behavior is absurd in the sense that its unpredictable and we can't understand it based on anything that came before. It just does something out of the blue, according to a probabilistic framework. But is that going to help with freedom? I mean, should our freedom be just a matter of probabilities, just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving.

So we can't just ignore the problem. We have to find room in our contemporary world view for persons with all that that entails; not just bodies, but persons. And that means trying to solve the problem of freedom, finding room for choice and responsibility, and trying to understand individuality."