A couple of years ago I stopped by Dubai on the way to India. Because many Malayalis work there, Kerala is better connected to the Middle East by air than to the rest of India. I wanted to avoid the maddening crowds at Mumbai airport and also look up my brother who worked in Dubai at that time.
It is the most bizarre place in the world I have ever been. (more…)
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In President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, there is a Nobel Prize winner, a former mayor, and a veteran CIA agent. Surrounding him in the White House West Wing are a former four-star general, one of the nation’s most eminent economists, and a handful of this generation’s most talented political operatives.
There are no former CEOs in the Obama Cabinet. And among the people who make up his daily inner circle, there is only a dollop or two of top-level private sector experience.
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That was a masterful performance. It has been eight years since we had a President who could utter a coherent sentence. Too long. When is the last time we had a President who could go from describing the desperate situation of the economy, comparing it to Japan’s crisis of the last decade, and then without losing a beat, comment on nuclear weapons in the Middle East and switch to Alex Rodriguez? Eight years.
He even called on that guy Major Garrulous from FOX. Of course Major G. tried to make a big thing of some dumb remark of VP Biden and Obama had to laugh it off. The President did not fall into the trap set by Helen Thomas when asked if he knew of any country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons. He smoothly said that he is trying to enter into a nuclear weapons reductions agreement with Russia so we will have the standing to tell other countries not to pursue them. When is the last time we had a President who gave a shit about our standing in the world? Eight years.
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As soon as I saw a picture of Rod Blagojevitch (back during the Dem Primaries) I knew he was up to no good. This judgement, now vindicated, did not come from deep knowledge of IL state politics. I just knew that someone with such a lush growth of hair on his head had to be a bounder. This would be true even if the hair were fake. Donald Trump. Gary Hart (in the eighties, not now). Bill Clinton. Elvis. All talented people, all got in trouble. What do they have in common? Hair where it is supposed to grow, not on their ear or back.
IL has a second chance now with Patrick Quinn. He is different from Blagojevitch in every possible way.
“He’s the anti-Blagojevich, for sure,” said State Representative Jack D. Franks
You have got to love the guy: NYTimes
Mr. Quinn, 60, can be so unassuming that he watched the inauguration of President Obama in Washington crunched down on his knees so that people behind him could get a better view. When prone to boasting, which is not very often, it can be about miserly stuff, like staying in budget hotels and eating discount meals.
More to the point I am making,
And with a hairline more John Lithgow than Elvis, he does not even look the Blagojevich part.
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For someone living within American culture, India’s response to the Mumbai attacks looks either suicidally passive or diabolically clever. Despite daily statements that make vague threats (”all options are still open”) the most direct action India has taken so far is to cancel a cricket match with Pakistan. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister even sent the President of Pakistan a New Year’s greeting card.
The card carries the picture of a white dove with flowers in its beak
Zardari must have said ” Dammit! Why didn’t I think of that card thing?”.
What is going on here? Why coddle people who are still denying that one of the most vicious attacks on innocent civilians was launched from Pakistan?
(more…)
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I come home from a business trip to see a large envelope from the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Inside is a handsome card embossed with a Golden Seal.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee requests the honor of your presence to attend and participate in the Inauguration of
My heart beats faster. Finally, all those blogs I wrote on Daily Kos are paying off. Impassioned arguments with Hillary Clinton supporters back in the Spring of 2008. Alegre, eat your heart out in your little corner. We are the ones going to the Inauguration.
Barack H. Obama as President of the United States of America
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Hoax phone calls used to be funny. As a teenager, Steve Wozniak, the inventor of the Apple computer, figured out the Bell System technical protocols- he and Steve Jobs had found the manual at the SLAC Library. Woz used this knowledge to call the Pope, pretending to be Henry Kissinger. His fake German accent was good enough to get the Holy Father out of bed. But before he took the phone, an aide figured out that it was some California teenager pulling a prank. (more…)
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The Lahore Country Club in Muridke
The US National Intelligence Director has taken the unusual step of placing blame in public: AP
The same group that carried out last week’s attack is believed to be behind the 2006 Mumbai train bombings that killed more than 200, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell said Tuesday during a speech at Harvard University.
McConnell did not identify the group by name. However, the Indian government has attributed the 2006 attack to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani terrorist group based in Kashmir, and the Students Islamic Movement of India.
Hard to know how to evaluate this information. The Bush Administration just isn’t that credible after the epic failure of intelligence on WMD in Iraq. They could be right this time: the boy who cried wolf was right one time too. Whether or not the LeT are behind this particular attack, it has already been designated a terrorist organization based on its previous record.
At first one may think that the LeT is a secretive organization, operating out of some cave in the mountains. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Although it is banned, the LeT actually operates freely in Pakistan: it just changed its name. It runs schools, hospitals and provides social services. Its headquarters is in Muridke: a suburb of Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city.They even have a website in English. and in Urdu ( the national language of Pakistan.) (more…)
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Anger in India is currently focused on its own Government. The mindless bloodbath that followed some previous attacks has not happened. What we see instead is a quieter rage, one that can be channeled to something constructive. For, rage has its uses too.
Every one, the US Sec State included, seems to be counseling the Indian Government against an overreaction. Certainly, no one wants a war between two Nuclear-Armed adversaries.
But what of the dangers of under-reaction? What will be the consequence to India and to the world if they are allowed to get away with it?
There seems to be consensus that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is behind this attack: (more…)
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President-elect Barack Obama is about to announce his foreign policy team.No matter who is on it, Obama promises that the policy will be set by him. Nowhere is his intellect more needed than on policy towards Pakistan.
On 1 Aug 2007 Obama said:
The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He said he would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid to Pakistan conditional on the following actions by the Pakistani government:
- substantial progress in closing down terrorist training camps
- evict foreign fighters
- prevent the Taleban from using Pakistan as staging area for attacks in Afghanistan
I have not heard a clearer analysis yet. There is more: (more…)
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At this early stage, public information has to be gleaned from the Indian media: most sources here are quoting Indian reporters. Indian TV is aggressive in its reporting. But it can also be even more sensationalist and exploitive than the American media. Imagine CNN on acid and you get their partner IBN. The FOX sister channel in India is SKY-TV; the reporters are much like Geraldo Rivera only without the restraint and sophistication.
The print media in India is better, as here. The Times of India, for example, is a usually reliable source. They report that at least one terrorist has been captured alive. He is
21 year old Azam Amir Kasav, who hails from tehsil Gipalpura in Pakistan’s Faridkot.
That is in Punjab, the largest of the four provinces of Pakistan. (more…)
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