Blog of Parag

Easy way out

Former Enron CEO, a friend of President Bush, and one of the biggest crooks, Kennyboy Lay was let off easily as he died at age 64. He was found guilty of fraud but wasn't sentenced yet. I wanted him to go to prison and get raped every day. But, he got an easy way out. There is no justice in this world.

Best moment as a President

When asked by a German newspaper reporter about the best moment of presidency, George W Bush replied:

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake,"

This is definitely true considering his abysmal record as a president. But, as pointed out by many, unless he caught a Nile Perch in his lake in Texas (which is very unlikely), the weight of the fish is greatly exaggerated. World record for catching different varieties of Perch is between 4 and 5 pounds.

Friendly fire

This just brought a smile to my face this Sunday afternoon...

Cheney accidentally shoots fellow hunter

Shooting at a lawyer by mistake. Whoa! wonder what kind of lawsuits are going to be filed against the Veep. Cheney has enough money to payoff in a settlement.

Just imagine if the parties in this incident were reversed. Secret service would have turned Esq. Whittington into a sieve.

Gestational license

Sometimes, you look at how people treat their children and think that there should be a licensing procedure for allowing people to have children. Sometimes, I question my own abilities to be a parent. But, jokes aside, this may be the first attempt to control reproduction by a US state. Check out this new proposed legislation in Indiana to control 'assisted reproduction'.

According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother through assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a "petition for parentage" in their local county probate court.

Only women who are married will be considered for the "gestational certificate" that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the "gestational certificate" will only be given to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.

As it the draft of the new law reads now, an intended parent "who knowingly or willingly participates in an artificial reproduction procedure" without court approval, "commits unauthorized reproduction, a Class B misdemeanor." The criminal charges will be the same for physicians who commit "unauthorized practice of artificial reproduction."

It is ridiculous to have marriage as one of the requirements for getting the 'gestational certificate'. Senator Patricia Miller, who is the sponsor of this bill is basically saying that marriage should be a prerequisite for motherhood. I think this is just a veiled attempt to prevent gay couples from using these methods to achieve parenthood.

via Booman Tribune

No experience? No problem...

High Court Nominee Has Never Been a Judge

This seems to be in the same spirit as nominating the head of FEMA with no experience in Emergency management.

Hi! My name is Mike

Hi! My name is Mike Brown and I am a scapegoat.

Embattled FEMA Director Mike Brown Resigns - Yahoo! News

Faces of the fallen

Last year in May, Ted Koppel of Nightline on ABC read out names of 721 US soldiers that died in Iraq. During the following 14 months, about 1100 more names were added to that list. Washington Post website lists all the 1816 US soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq with photos and a short description. The number 1816 doesn't mean much unless you look through pages after pages of photographs of real people.

washingtonpost.com: Faces of the Fallen

Supreme court nominee

Doesn't matter what John Roberts' views are, as retiring judge Sandra Day O'Connor said, he lacks one major qualification: "He is not a woman".

I completely agree with her. There should be more women on the Supreme Court and not less.

25 years behind bars

Bernie Ebbers sentenced for 25 years imprisonment for his involvement in $11Billion accounting scandal at WorldCom. Yaay!

Ebbers "was clearly a leader of criminal activity in this case," the judge said.

The arrogance

Sometimes, the justice system in U.S. just doesn't seem to work. While crooks like Dennis Kozlowski and Bernie Ebbers were convicted of their crimes, Richard Scrushy and Michael Jackson were found not guilty. Someone had pointed out to me that 'not guilty' and innocent are not synonymous. 'Not guilty' is a legal term saying that the charges couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no doubt in my mind and in the minds of millions of Americans that MJ molested those boys and Scrushy was involved in the $2.7BB fraud at Healthsouth. It is just that the legal system failed to prove their guilt. After all the courtroom dramas, MJ at least decided to stop the sleepovers with boys, but look at the arrogance of Scrushy. He wants his job back.

Pfuh

Pistons grind out Game Six victory to level series - Yahoo! News
Did anyone really not know that this was going to happen? NBA has become so predictable that I have lost all interest in it. Don't know why they play 7 games when everyone knows that the series always gets leveled at 3-3. Why not play only the last game i.e. only one game, and be done with it?

Efficient use of fossil fuels

Last Thursday, I turned on the TV to watch CSI but was disppointed that Survivor was being shown as its timeslot was taken by President Bush talking to the Nation. The damned thing messed up my Thursday night TV watching schedule. Here is the transcript of President Bush's Press Conference. Don't want to say anything about the changes he proposed for Social Security. He spent first couple of minutes talking about oil and gas prices.

Fourth, we must help growing energy consumers overseas, like China and India, apply new technologies to use energy more efficiently and reduce global demand of fossil fuels.

Here in US, big SUVs and bigger Hummers will continue to be made and will be allowed to drink gasoline by gallons, but, developing countries like India and China must be made to use fossil fuels more efficiently.

Interesting, eh?!

Terry Schiavo pictures

There have been hundreds of hits on my blog through Google and Yahoo searches for "Terry Schiavo Pictures". Till now, so many people who come to my website, got disappointed when they didn't see any pictures of Terry. Here are a couple of photos for them....

Here are a couple of links where you can find all the information about Terry Schiavo case...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/11/05/schiavo.case/
http://www.terrisfight.org/center.html

p.s. PseudoFreud, I know you wanted to see this post.

Banned IMAX movies

If you live south of the Mason-Dixon line, you may not be able to watch IMAX movies like Volacoes of the deep sea, Cosmic Voyage and Galapagos in the IMAX theater at a 'science center' near you. Several IMAX theaters in the south decided not to screen Volcanoes as it mentions evolution and proposes that life on earth may have started in the ocean around the volcanic vents. These theaters are predictably in Texas, Georgia and Carolinas. The operators didn't want to screen the movie because most of their audience believes in creationism and would get offended by the mention of evolution.

Same reasoning applies to other two movies: 'Cosmic voyage', which talks about big bang as the beginning of the universe and 'Galapagos', which of course is about Darwin and evolution.

I just can't believe that there are so many people who reject evolution in the face of ample evidence that supports it. On the other hand, there is no real evidence for creationism except that it is written in the bible. Interesting, eh?!

Thanks, Amit for the link to CNN story

Terry Schiavo story

Yahoo! News - House Panel Seeks to Keep Schiavo Alive

This is getting into the realm of ridiculous. This is not about saving a life. This is a custody battle. In absence of a will, who gets to decide the life/death course of this woman?

Does her husband has the right to choose? I think yes. I am sure he loved and still loves his wife dearly and doesn't want to let her live in this vegetative state when there is no chance of recovery. I don't think Terry enjoys being in this state either.

Does her parents have the right to intervene? Absolutely not. The State courts should sort this out and they already have. US senate and house and federal courts should keep out of this. But, they want to make this a 'pro-life' issue. Isn't it ironic that on one hand they don't care about throwing away hundreds and thousands of absolutely precious lives in a war but, here they are so concerned about the life of a person who is already dead by most measures.

Ebbers Convicted of Fraud

Yahoo! News - Ex-WorldCom Chief Ebbers Convicted of Fraud

A federal jury in Manhattan deliberated eight days before returning guilty verdicts on all counts — one count of conspiracy, one count of securities fraud and seven counts of false regulatory filings. The crimes carry up to 85 years in prison.

Hallelujah!!!

She got what she wanted...

Yahoo! News - Kobe Bryant, Accuser Settle Colorado Lawsuit

Looks like this woman got what she wanted all along. An unspecified amount of money for settling the case out of court. If she really wanted to punish Kobe for what she claims he did, she would have testified in the court and not decided to drop the charges instead.

Hope that Kobe learns a lesson and becomes a model husband.

Disclaimer: I am neither insensitive to real rape victims nor do I believe that getting raped is somehow the rape victims' fault.

To Walmart or not to Walmart???

I am sure many of you have faced this dilemma as I do all the time. Should I shop for the best available price or support a local business by paying a little more? I think about it every time I shop for something and find myself feeling guilty for making a choice for personal gain and buying the cheaper alternative.

It is a little comforting to see that the same question hounds people like Robert Reich, who was the Secretary of Labor in Clinton administration. He, being an economist, is someone who has some idea about how to deal with this issue. Click on the link below to check out his Op-Ed article from the New York Times. It is quite interesting.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Don't Blame Wal-Mart

Don't Blame Wal-Mart
By ROBERT B. REICH

Published: February 28, 2005

Berkeley, Calif. — BOWING to intense pressure from neighborhood and labor groups, a real estate developer has just given up plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a mall in Queens, thereby blocking Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City. In the eyes of Wal-Mart's detractors, the Arkansas-based chain embodies the worst kind of economic exploitation: it pays its 1.2 million American workers an average of only $9.68 an hour, doesn't provide most of them with health insurance, keeps out unions, has a checkered history on labor law and turns main streets into ghost towns by sucking business away from small retailers.

But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it's not as if Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world's largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there.

Instead, Wal-Mart has lured customers with low prices. "We expect our suppliers to drive the costs out of the supply chain," a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said. "It's good for us and good for them."

Wal-Mart may have perfected this technique, but you can find it almost everywhere these days. Corporations are in fierce competition to get and keep customers, so they pass the bulk of their cost cuts through to consumers as lower prices. Products are manufactured in China at a fraction of the cost of making them here, and American consumers get great deals. Back-office work, along with computer programming and data crunching, is "offshored" to India, so our dollars go even further.

Meanwhile, many of us pressure companies to give us even better bargains. I look on the Internet to find the lowest price I can and buy airline tickets, books, merchandise from just about anywhere with a click of a mouse. Don't you?

The fact is, today's economy offers us a Faustian bargain: it can give consumers deals largely because it hammers workers and communities.

We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.

But you and I aren't just consumers. We're also workers and citizens. How do we strike the right balance? To claim that people shouldn't have access to Wal-Mart or to cut-rate airfares or services from India or to Internet shopping, because these somehow reduce their quality of life, is paternalistic tripe. No one is a better judge of what people want than they themselves.

The problem is, the choices we make in the market don't fully reflect our values as workers or as citizens. I didn't want our community bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., to close (as it did last fall) yet I still bought lots of books from Amazon.com. In addition, we may not see the larger bargain when our own job or community isn't directly at stake. I don't like what's happening to airline workers, but I still try for the cheapest fare I can get.

The only way for the workers or citizens in us to trump the consumers in us is through laws and regulations that make our purchases a social choice as well as a personal one. A requirement that companies with more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance, for example, might increase slightly the price of their goods and services. My inner consumer won't like that very much, but the worker in me thinks it a fair price to pay. Same with an increase in the minimum wage or a change in labor laws making it easier for employees to organize and negotiate better terms.

I wouldn't go so far as to re-regulate the airline industry or hobble free trade with China and India - that would cost me as a consumer far too much - but I'd like the government to offer wage insurance to ease the pain of sudden losses of pay. And I'd support labor standards that make trade agreements a bit more fair.

These provisions might end up costing me some money, but the citizen in me thinks they are worth the price. You might think differently, but as a nation we aren't even having this sort of discussion. Instead, our debates about economic change take place between two warring camps: those who want the best consumer deals, and those who want to preserve jobs and communities much as they are. Instead of finding ways to soften the blows, compensate the losers or slow the pace of change - so the consumers in us can enjoy lower prices and better products without wreaking too much damage on us in our role as workers and citizens - we go to battle.

I don't know if Wal-Mart will ever make it into New York City. I do know that New Yorkers, like most other Americans, want the great deals that can be had in a rapidly globalizing high-tech economy. Yet the prices on sales tags don't reflect the full prices we have to pay as workers and citizens. A sensible public debate would focus on how to make that total price as low as possible.

Robert B. Reich, the author of "Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America," was secretary of labor from 1993 to 1997.

Corrupt politicians

It was interesting to read Paul Krugman's op-ed, Wag-the-Dog Protection, in the New York Times. Here are a couple of quotes from there. Wonder why we point fingers towards India while talking about corrupt politicians. In US, there are plenty of them who have no regard for their country.

Just days after 9/11, many analysts identified sites that store toxic chemicals as a major terror risk, and called for new safety rules. But as The New York Times reported last fall, "after the oil and chemical industries met with Karl Rove ... the White House quietly blocked those efforts."

Nearly three and a half years after 9/11, those chemical plants are still unprotected.
.....
An audit of the Homeland Security Department's (greatly inadequate) program to protect ports found that much of the money went to unlikely locations, including six sites in landlocked Arkansas, where the department's recently resigned chief of border and transportation security is reported to be considering a run for governor.

Legislating fashion

Don't these legislators have anything better to do? I hope they amend the law to make it applicable only to men.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Virginians who wear their pants so low their underwear shows may want to think about investing in a stronger belt.

The state's House of Delegates passed a bill Tuesday authorizing a $50 fine for anyone who displays his or her underpants in a "lewd or indecent manner." Delegate Lionell Spruill, a Democrat who opposed the bill, pleaded with his colleagues to remember their own youthful fashion follies.

During an extended monologue Monday, he talked about how they dressed or wore their hair in their teens. On Tuesday, he said the measure is an unconstitutional attack on young blacks that would force parents to take off work to accompany their children to court just for making a fashion statement.

"This is a foolish bill, Mr. Speaker, because it will hurt so many," Spruill said before the measure was approved by a vote of 60-34. It now goes to the state Senate.

The bill's sponsor, Delegate Algie Howell, has said constituents were offended by the exposed underwear. He did not speak on the floor Tuesday.

Brilliant minds at work...

White House Cuts Hubble Servicing Mission from 2006 Budget Request

Bush Wants $80B More for Iraq, Afghan Wars

Cut $1 billion for something useful and spend $80 billion on something unnecessary.

Yup! Yessiree! That is the way to do it.

via canyoncat

It's high time...

Yahoo! News - Powell and Three Others Leaving Cabinet

Colin Powell should have resigned a long long time ago. Now, after this loss of a sane voice from the cabinet, get ready for the 'Dick and Donny Show'. Scary, eh?! It would have been even scarier if Ashcroft hadn't resigned.

Unbelievable...

Judge in Peterson Case Meets With Lawyers

The Scott Peterson case is such a freaking waste of time and money. I can't believe I am writing about about it. I think they should just execute everyone involved with this case. Start with Scott and all the lawyers (of course!!) and don't even spare members of the jury and the judge.

Michael Moore on election results

Check out Michael Moore's website for his thoughts on the results of the elections.

11/5/04

Dear Friends,

Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in
the words of Monty Python, 'always look on the bright side of life!' There
IS some good news from Tuesday's election.

Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:

1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.

2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since
Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults
(Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always
wrong and you should never listen to them.

4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of Americans still think the
country is headed in the wrong direction (56%), think the war wasn't worth fighting (51%), and don't approve of the job George W. Bush is doing (52%). (Note to foreigners: Don't try to figure this one out. It's an American thing, like Pop Tarts.)

5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the
Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the
Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do
their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one.

6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of
our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West
Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water,
all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in
lava. And no more show tunes!

7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any
old nut -- a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut.
May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan.

8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will
no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If
you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly
golden and you will be well cared for in your old age.

9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married
in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't
have to buy now.

10. Five more African Americans were elected as members of Congress,
including the return of Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It's always good to
have more blacks in there fighting for us and doing the job our candidates
can't.

11. The CEO of Coors was defeated for Senate in Colorado. Drink up!

12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away.

13. At the state legislative level, Democrats picked up a net of at least 3
chambers in Tuesday's elections. Of the 98 partisan-controlled state
legislative chambers (house/assembly and senate), Democrats went into the
2004 elections in control of 44 chambers, Republicans controlled 53
chambers, and 1 chamber was tied. After Tuesday, Democrats now control 47
chambers, Republicans control 49 chambers, 1 chamber is tied and 1 chamber
(Montana House) is still undecided.

14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than
the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out --
and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work
that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th
grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the
next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the
ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his
point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.

15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very
dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two
scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the
Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear
that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that
history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for
too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and
arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such
major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from
office.

16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting
age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it
means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards
to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of
those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go
home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three
yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are
coming!!!

17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the
candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total
number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore.
Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for
a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time
since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has
always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is
that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact,
that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones
who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November
2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of
surprise in 2008.

Feeling better? I hope so. As my friend Mort wrote me yesterday, "My
Romanian grandfather used to say to me, 'Remember, Morton, this is such a
wonderful country -- it doesn't even need a president!'"
But it needs us. Rest up, I'll write you again tomorrow.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

Bush re-election

Today, a day after re-election of George W Bush was officially announced, two op-ed articles appeared in the . One by Maureen Dowd, who is at her vitriolic best, criticising Americans for electing Bush even after he did such a bad job in the first four years. The other one is by Thomas Friedman who talks about how this election redefines what America is. Both the articles are good reads.

Here are some of the newly elected members of the US Senate (Taken from Dowd's column):

Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools.

Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."

John Thune, who toppled Tom Daschle, is an anti-abortion Christian conservative - or "servant leader," as he was hailed in a campaign ad - who supports constitutional amendments banning flag burning and gay marriage.

My favorite quote from the Friedman article:

This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.

Four more years

It looks like USA is going to get four more years of W. Presidential comedy continues.

I didn't care much for Kerry so, him losing doesn't feel too bad. If it was Howard Dean, it would have saddened me. Maybe, democrats made a mistake in choosing their candidate.

Bush in the White house and republican held congress and senate is good for the pharma industry and hence for me personally. Probably will get some more tax cuts. That is good. On the other hand, I could be put in jail for no reason by John Ashcroft.

Over the next four years, Bush will have to face the consequences of all the mess he has created in Iraq. So, it is good in that sense. Situation in Iraq is going to get much more complicated in the coming years.

Other election issues:
- 11 states (including Michigan) approved a gay marriage ban. This is so retarded.
- Californians voted to pay ($3billion) for stem cell research. Excellent!!!

Kerry win predicted...

Following two indicators predict a win for Kerry...

• Green Bay Packers beat Washington Redskins on Sunday. A loss for Redskins on Sunday before the election has always followed by the incumbent President losing the election. Thanks Brett Favre, Ahman Green and Co.


• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 10035; way below 10281 where it was 2 months ago. If Dow closes lower than where it was two months ago, that has always (92% of times) translated into a loss for the incumbent and a higher Dow always resulted in the incumbent getting reelected.

But, I am not sure if we'll know who won the election for at least another week.

Flu vaccine shortage

ABC News: Some Prison Inmates Will Get Flu Shots

Why??? There are so many senior citizens around the country that are scrambling to get flu shots and the vaccine is being wasted on prison inmates. A 79 year old woman died of heat-stroke in California after standing in line for flu vaccine for 4 hours. Is this messed up or what?!?!?

How often do you kill animals?

Cheney calls camouflaged Kerry's goose hunting 'October disguise'

This election is just getting ridiculuos. Both the sides are jumping on any and every issue they can find to blast the other side. Kerry was quick to blame the current administration for the flu vaccine shortage when they couldn't have done anything about it. Here is a jab by Dick Cheney at Kerry's goose hunting trip.

Kerry has a camouflage jacket but bought a new one for the outing because he was on the campaign trail. Cheney seized on the fact that the jacket was new.

"Which did make me wonder how regularly he does go goose hunting," the vice president said.

What is he trying to say here? Just because Cheney regularly pumps bullets into hapless innocent animals for fun, he is a better man? Maybe he needs to keep handling his guns regularly as a surrogate for his body part that doesn't get enough blood from his failing heart.

Vote and be damned

Maureen Dowd writes in her New York Times op-ed about the anit-Kerry gospel spread by the conservative Catholic bishops around the country. They are following in the footsteps of Dick Cheney and Dennis Hastert to threaten American catholics of eternal damnation if they voted for John Kerry. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver goes as far as saying that catholics who vote for John Kerry will have to confess this sin before they can receive communion. Is this an effort to scare the catholic Kerry supporters away from the voting booths? And I thought only Imams issue fatwas.

I always enjoy Maureen Dowd's column very much. Like her writing style. But, I was surprised to see how mellow she was on Bill Maher show a few weeks ago. Maybe, she forgot to drink her coffee that day. :)

Click on the link below to read Maureen's column.

Vote and Be Damned

October 17, 2004
By MAUREEN DOWD

First Dick Cheney said that supporting John Kerry could
lead to another terrorist attack.

Then Dennis Hastert said Al Qaeda would be more successful
under a Kerry presidency than under President Bush.

Now the Catholic bishops have upped the ante, indicating
that voting for a candidate with Mr. Kerry's policies could
lead to eternal damnation.

Conservative bishops and conservative Republicans are
working hard to spread the gospel that anyone who supports
the Catholic candidate and onetime Boston altar boy who
carries a rosary and a Bible with him on the trail is
aligned with the forces of evil.

In an interview with The Times's David Kirkpatrick,
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver said a knowing vote for
a candidate like Mr. Kerry who supports abortion rights or
embryonic stem cell research would be a sin that would have
to be confessed before receiving communion. "If you vote
this way, are you cooperating in evil?" the archbishop
asked. "Now, if you know you are cooperating in evil,
should you go to confession? The answer is yes."

As Mr. Kirkpatrick and Laurie Goodstein wrote, Catholics
make up about a quarter of the electorate, many
concentrated in swing states. These bishops and like-minded
Catholic groups are organizing voter registration and
blanketing churches with voter guides that often ignore
traditional Catholic concerns about the death penalty and
war - the pope opposed the invasion of Iraq - while calling
abortion, gay marriage and the stem cell debate
"nonnegotiable."

"Never before have so many bishops so explicitly warned
Catholics so close to an election that to vote a certain
way was to commit a sin," the Times article said.

Once upon a time, with Al Smith and John Kennedy, the
church was proud to see Catholics run for president. The
church was as unobtrusive in 1960, trying to help J.F.K.,
as it is obtrusive now, trying to hurt J.F.K. II.

The conservative bishops, salivating to overturn Roe v.
Wade, prefer an evangelical antiabortion president to one
of their own who said in Wednesday's debate: "What is an
article of faith for me is not something that I can
legislate on somebody who doesn't share that article of
faith. I believe that choice ... is between a woman, God
and her doctor."

Like Mr. Bush, these patriarchal bishops want to turn back
the clock to the 50's. They don't want separation of church
and state - except in Iraq.

Some of the bishops - the shepherds of a church whose
hierarchy bungled the molestation and rape of so many young
boys by tolerating it, covering it up, enabling it,
excusing it and paying hush money - are still debating
whether John Kerry should be allowed to receive communion.

These bishops are embryo-centric; they are not as
concerned with the 1,080 kids killed in a war that the Bush
administration launched with lies, or about the lives that
could be lost thanks to the president's letting the assault
weapons ban lapse, or about all the lives that could be
saved and improved with stem cell research.

Mr. Bush derives his immutability from his faith. "I
believe that God wants everybody to be free," he said in
the last debate, adding that this was "part of my foreign
policy."

In today's Times Magazine, Ron Suskind writes that Mr. Bush
has created a "faith-based presidency" that has riven the
Republican Party.

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan
and a Treasury official for the first President Bush, told
Mr. Suskind that some people now look at Mr. Bush and see
"this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of
weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to
do." He continued: "This is why George W. Bush is so
clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist
enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be
persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark
vision. He understands them, because he's just like them."

The president's certitude - the idea that he can see into
people's souls and that God tells him what is right, then
W. tells us if he feels like it - is disturbing. It equates
disagreeing with him to disagreeing with Him.

The conservative bishops' certitude - the idea that you
can't be a good Catholic if you diverge from certain
church-decreed mandates or if you want to keep your
religion and politics separate - is also disturbing.

America is awash in selective piety, situational moralists
and cherry-picking absolutists.

Last Presidential Debate

Wednesday night is the last Presidential debate. Get some facts before you hear them twisted out of shape by the timber company man. Paul Krugman wrote this article in the New York Times that points out what W would say about the following points and real facts about them...

• Jobs
• Unemployment
• The deficit
• The tax cuts
• The Kerry tax plan
• Fiscal responsibility
• Spending
• Healthcare

Read the whole article by clicking on the following link.

Checking the Facts, in Advance

October 12, 2004
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It's not hard to predict what President Bush, who sounds
increasingly desperate, will say tomorrow. Here are eight
lies or distortions you'll hear, and the truth about each:

Jobs

Mr. Bush will talk about the 1.7 million jobs
created since the summer of 2003, and will say that the
economy is "strong and getting stronger." That's like
boasting about getting a D on your final exam, when you
flunked the midterm and needed at least a C to pass the
course.

Mr. Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to
preside over a decline in payroll employment. That's worse
than it sounds because the economy needs around 1.6 million
new jobs each year just to keep up with population growth.
The past year's job gains, while better news than earlier
job losses, barely met this requirement, and they did
little to close the huge gap between the number of jobs the
country needs and the number actually available.

Unemployment

Mr. Bush will boast about the decline in
the unemployment rate from its June 2003 peak. But the
employed fraction of the population didn't rise at all;
unemployment declined only because some of those without
jobs stopped actively looking for work, and therefore
dropped out of the unemployment statistics. The labor force
participation rate - the fraction of the population either
working or actively looking for work - has fallen sharply
under Mr. Bush; if it had stayed at its January 2001 level,
the official unemployment rate would be 7.4 percent.

The deficit

Mr. Bush will claim that the recession and
9/11 caused record budget deficits. Congressional Budget
Office estimates show that tax cuts caused about two-thirds
of the 2004 deficit.

The tax cuts

Mr. Bush will claim that Senator John Kerry opposed "middle
class" tax cuts. But budget office numbers show that most
of Mr. Bush's tax cuts went to the best-off 10 percent of
families, and more than a third went to the top 1 percent,
whose average income is more than $1 million.

The Kerry tax plan

Mr. Bush will claim, once again,
that Mr. Kerry plans to raise taxes on many small
businesses. In fact, only a tiny percentage would be
affected. Moreover, as Mr. Kerry correctly pointed out last
week, the administration's definition of a small-business
owner is so broad that in 2001 it included Mr. Bush, who
does indeed have a stake in a timber company - a business
he's so little involved with that he apparently forgot
about it.

Fiscal responsibility

Mr. Bush will claim that Mr. Kerry proposes $2 trillion in
new spending. That's a partisan number and is much higher
than independent estimates. Meanwhile, as The Washington
Post pointed out after the Republican convention, the
administration's own numbers show that the cost of the
agenda Mr. Bush laid out "is likely to be well in excess of
$3 trillion" and "far eclipses that of the Kerry plan."

Spending

On Friday, Mr. Bush claimed that he had
increased nondefense discretionary spending by only 1
percent per year. The actual number is 8 percent, even
after adjusting for inflation. Mr. Bush seems to have
confused his budget promises - which he keeps on breaking -
with reality.

Health care

Mr. Bush will claim that Mr. Kerry wants to take medical
decisions away from individuals. The Kerry plan would
expand Medicaid (which works like Medicare), ensuring that
children, in particular, have health insurance. It would
protect everyone against catastrophic medical expenses, a
particular help to the chronically ill. It would do nothing
to restrict patients' choices.

By singling out Mr. Bush's lies and misrepresentations, am
I saying that Mr. Kerry isn't equally at fault? Yes.

Mr. Kerry sometimes uses verbal shorthand that offers
nitpickers things to complain about. He talks of 1.6
million lost jobs; that's the private-sector loss, partly
offset by increased government employment. But the job
record is indeed awful. He talks of the $200 billion cost
of the Iraq war; actual spending is only $120 billion so
far. But nobody doubts that the war will cost at least
another $80 billion. The point is that Mr. Kerry can, at
most, be accused of using loose language; the thrust of his
statements is correct.

Mr. Bush's statements, on the other hand, are fundamentally
dishonest. He is insisting that black is white, and that
failure is success. Journalists who play it safe by
spending equal time exposing his lies and parsing Mr.
Kerry's choice of words are betraying their readers.

Vote for Bush: He deserves it!!!

Jonathan Chait of LATimes makes an argument for re-election of Geroge W. Bush. It makes perfect sense just like the Pottery Barn policy of "You break it... you own it".

He's So Bad, He Might Be Perfect
Under an odd logic, Bush deserves another term. Shouldn't he suffer for his blunders?

An editor at the paper suggested that I use this week's column to try to make the most honest and persuasive case I could for President Bush's reelection. At first I was skeptical. To say that I consider Bush a "bad" president would be a severe understatement. I think he's bad in a way that redefines my understanding of the word "bad." I used to think U.S. history had many bad presidents. Now, my "bad" category consists entirely of George W. Bush, with every previous president redefined as "good." There's also the fact that, on a personal level, I despise him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. What I'm saying is, advocating Bush is kind of tricky.

Read the whole article by clicking on the following link...

He's So Bad, He Might Be Perfect

Under an odd logic, Bush deserves another term. Shouldn't he suffer for his blunders?

Jonathan Chait

October 8, 2004

An editor at the paper suggested that I use this week's column to try to make the most honest and persuasive case I could for President Bush's reelection. At first I was skeptical. To say that I consider Bush a "bad" president would be a severe understatement. I think he's bad in a way that redefines my understanding of the word "bad." I used to think U.S. history had many bad presidents. Now, my "bad" category consists entirely of George W. Bush, with every previous president redefined as "good." There's also the fact that, on a personal level, I despise him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. What I'm saying is, advocating Bush is kind of tricky.

But then I thought, what the heck. Why not try it for the sake of intellectual experimentation? After all, lawyers often defend some pretty repugnant clients, right? In keeping with that, I won't attempt to deny that my client has done some awful things. What I'll argue instead is that his very awfulness is the reason he deserves reelection.

Begin with the premise that a second-term Bush administration is unlikely to make things a whole lot worse. First of all, domestically, GOP moderates and deficit hawks have finally begun to wake up and realize that they have to rein in Bush's reckless fiscal policies. At the same time, if John F. Kerry is elected and tries to raise taxes or rein in spending, he'll probably suffer substantial political damage, as Bill Clinton did in 1994. But, unlike Clinton, he'll not enjoy Democratic majorities in both Houses, which means he stands a good chance of failing. That would be the worst of all worlds: Democrats would suffer the political costs of demanding sacrifice from the public, without the corresponding benefit of making the country better.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has estimated that there's a 75% chance of a major financial crisis within the next five years if we don't reduce our budget deficit. That may be too high, but assume he's right. Whoever holds office would quickly become extremely unpopular, whether he had tried to deal with the deficit or not. If the choice is Bush doing nothing versus Kerry doing nothing, why not let Bush take the blame for his own mess? Why have a Democrat bail him out?

The foreign policy calculus is pretty similar. We don't have enough troops to fight the war we're in, let alone start another one. So there's no reason to fear Bush botching yet another war. And, as much as I desperately want to be wrong about this, the odds of Iraq evolving into a stable democracy look pretty grim right now. If such a scenario ever had any chance of succeeding, it would have required lots more ground troops to keep the peace and allow reconstruction. Now it's probably too late to do anything but salvage something short of total anarchy. If Kerry is president, conservatives will blame him for the failure in Iraq — if only we still had a leader of Bush's unwavering resolve, they'll claim, we would have won the war. If Bush is president, he'll be held accountable for his own bungling of the invasion.

That leaves the usual trump card — social policy. Plenty of my fellow liberals freak out at the thought of Bush appointing two or more Supreme Court justices. But maybe he deserves that too. Hear me out. Right now, Republicans get the best of both worlds. They get tens of millions of social conservatives marching to the polls to vote for them every two years but, because key points of the social-conservative agenda never gets enacted, they suffer hardly any political consequences for their positions.

Now, suppose Bush does appoint a couple justices. Maybe they will overturn Roe vs. Wade. If Roe falls, presumably states would decide how to deal with the abortion issue, and a reinvigorated pro-choice, center-left majority would be able to protect abortion rights in most places. In fact, the fear of a backlash would probably cause Bush's justices to chicken out and uphold Roe anyway. Then how would Republicans persuade social conservatives to keep supporting them?

Bush's presidency is a great mass of contradictions. There's an enormous gap between his purported values — fiscal discipline, toughness against terrorists, a commitment to social conservatism — and his true record. Sure, it would be emotionally satisfying to see Bush rejected by the voters once again. But maybe, for this president, defeat is too kind a fate.

Do you know where that pill came from? Part 2

There were some intersting points raised in comments to my earlier post. Rather than burying my response in a comment, I thought I should make another post about it.

Mahesh pointed out: how come I see no ads from big pharmas like Pfizer and Merck?
Although counterfeit drugs cut into the revenues of Pharmaceutical companies, they cannot control these fakes. The responsibility of keeping fake drugs away from patients falls of FDA's and other govt. agencies' shoulders. Pharma companies are working with Law enforcement (FBI etc) to deal with this issue, but, there is nothing to achieve from advertising about this to the public.

In response to Sujit's comment:
When you are talking about importing drugs from overseas (Canada or elsewhere), you are talking about mail-order and online pharmacies. There is a very small number of people (living in the border states) who can actually travel to Canada to buy their medications. Others will have to depend on mail-order and online pharmacies. They have to deal with the risk of getting counterfeits. If drug re-importation in US becomes legal and local govts. start buying medicines from Canada, I am sure the Pharma companies are not going to just let that happen freely. They are not doing anything about it as long as a small number of people are doing it for their own drug needs. They can control the amount that is shipped to Canada or any other place in the world. If Canadian pharmacies keep selling them to US customers, depriving the Canadian population from it, I am sure they will have to face the music from Canadian govt. and public. So, the re-importation by local govt.s is not going to be simple and smooth. They can think/plan about it all they want.

Deven mentioned counterfeits coming from China and India:
I don't have figures about this from India, but, 2% of China's GDP results from counterfeit goods (US$ 120billion per year) which includes CDs, DVDs, software etc along with prescription drugs. Even if drugs account for only 10% of it, i.e. US$ 12billion per year. It is a huge problem.

By some estimates, more than 50% of Viagra on the market is fake. There is no doubt that it is because of its novelty use. But, even if 2% of other life-saving drugs are fake, that means a lot of lives.

Do you know where that pill came from?

In a Presidential election year, the candidates start talking about their favorite whipping-boy topics such as social security and healthcare. This year re-importation of prescription drugs is a hot topic. Everyone and their uncle is talking about the difference between prescription drug prices in US and Canada and also, rest of the world. The pharmaceutical industry and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made an argument that they can't vouce for the safety of drugs imported from outside of US. Initially, I thought it was just a smokescreen.

Then, I read about tests done by FDA to buy prescription drugs from online pharmacies. They tried many online pharmacies from Canada to buy these drugs. In one case, the package was shipped from Dallas with a fake return address in Miami. The credit card transaction was carried out by a company from St. Kitts in the Carribean. The server on which the 'Canadian' pharmacy resided on was in China. Many of the purchases were more or less similar to this case. In many cases, the pills when tested turned out to be counterfeits. They didn't contain what they were supposed to. If one buys Viagra and it turns out to be a counterfeit, it doesn't matter that much. He just wouldn't get it up. But, for people who depend on these drugs to control conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure or a mental disorder, taking a counterfeit could mean the difference between life and death. Wonder how many more people will be exposed to counterfeit drugs if it becomes legal to buy drugs internationally.

Here is an example photo that shows how good these counterfeiters are.

Can you tell the difference between the authentic and fake pill by looking at it? Chemical testing is needed to find out which is which. Keeping this in mind, be careful when you buy prescription drugs from a place other than your neighbourhood pharmacy.

By the way, the pills on the right side are authentic Lipitor.

I feel safe already

A federal judge ordred Martha Stewart to report to prison in three weeks to start serving her 5 month sentence. I don't know about you but I feel safe that they finally caught her. This is a clear warning to Osama bin Laden. His days as a free man are numbered. He is next in line. Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skiling will probably be pardoned by an executive order in the second term as long as they keep donating enough money to the W reelection fund.

Mudslinging gets into higher gear

Bush Says Kerry Has Many, Many Positions on Iraq

At least Kerry isn't holding onto one 'wrong' position and killing thousands of troops/people while defending it.

At least he doesn't have his VP candidate threatening the country that if the other side gets elected, there will be more 9/11 type attacks.

Bush or Kerry?

World 'wants Kerry as president'

Global research company GlobeScan Inc and the University of Maryland found clear leads for Mr Kerry among those polled in 30 of the countries.

Only Filipino, Polish and Nigerian respondents clearly backed Mr Bush.
...
Kerry would win handily if the people of the world were to elect the US president.
- Steven Kull of Maryland University.

But, that doesn't matter a damn bit. Only Americans get to vote in the Presidential election.
According to this article in latest issue of Time magazine...
Bush's Bounce: Poll shows Kerry flagging

For the first time since the presidential contest became a two-man race this spring, it seems to have a clear leader: President Bush. The latest TIME poll shows Bush leading his rival, John Kerry, 52% to 41%. Kerry's decline has coincided with the airing of television ads attacking his Vietnam War record and antiwar activism. Anxious Democrats say Kerry was not quick or aggressive enough in countering the largely unsubstantiated attacks on his record by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but Kerry's drop in the polls also suggests continued confusion over his explanations of where he stands on Iraq.

If Kerry wants to get back in this race, he should talk in a way that is not meant for a Harvard graduate, but for a person working or shopping at Walmart. That is the biggest demographic and he should target it. He should stop making statements like this...

Kerry ... announced, "I will not have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and who misled the nation into Iraq."

People fall asleep by the time he finishes his sentences. He should talk like Bush. No more than 5 words in a sentence.

1000 dead: what's next?

More than a thousand American troops died in Iraq over the last one and half year. More than 85% of those died after major combat was over and President Bush declared victory from the aircraft carrier last May.

This second chart also provides an estimate of Iraqi fatalities, which is huge and we hardly ever hear about it in the American media.

Dumb and dumber

I thought I was watching some new show on Fox which could be called 'Dumb and dumber', but, I was wrong. It was the Bush daughters talking at the Republic National Convention.

Republican conventioner

With supporters like this, there is no doubt that Bush and Cheney are going to win again this year...

George W. Bush supporter Joe Piazza, who said he will attend this week's Republican National Convention, shows off his pro-Bush costume as he walks through a hallway in the Landmark 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City on August 29, 2004.

Media Fund ads

All the anti-Bush ads produced by the Media Fund can be found here.

VP against gay-marriage ban

Vice President Dick Cheney remarked on Tuesday on a campaign townhall forum in Davenport, Iowa that he is against a constitutional ban on Gay marriage. This issue should be addressed by States as all the other civil matters. One of his daughters is gay and hence gay rights is a very familiar issue to him. He went on to say that "freedom means freedom for everyone" to enter "into any kind of relationship they want to."

Everyone was surprised to see him not following the party line that is supported by the President. But, he had expressed the same opinion 4 years ago during a debate with Joe Lieberman and hasn't changed his position.

Way to go, Mr. Cheney!

Unhappy in America

This article appeared in Little India earlier this month. I was going to just ignore it because it is full of whiners that are wallowing in self-pity. Shanti wrote a nice post about it. For the last week or so, I keep seeing posts by bloggers feeling sorry for the people described in the article. That made me write this post to support the opposing opinion.

IMHO, these whiners will not be happy anywhere in the world. Whining about everything around them and how life is difficult, defines their personality. This life that they complain about is not forced upon them by someone. They have chosen it themselves for jobs, money or whatever. If they don't like it, they should do something to change it rather than just complain about it.

Here are whinings of Aparna, the first example in this article...

Most wounding to her was the loss of her independence: Her H4 visa robbed her of her identity - she was not allowed to work, and did not have a bank balance or credit card - and to even take a trip back home, she was dependent on her husband.

Irrespective of your gender, aren't you supposed to lose independence when you get married? Why is she complaining about being dependent on her husband? Her status as a 'dependent' was defined when she applied for the H4 visa. If she is so proud of being independent, didn't she have a say when her husband decided to come to US? What stopped her from protesting? I can bet that she was busy complaining about India and couldn't wait to get out of country at that time.

She had been driving for years in India, but here she failed the crucial road test because she was used to driving on the left.

Who is responsible for that? If you aren't ready for such a minor change in life, you should never leave the security of your parent's house, forget about going to another country.

She recalls the utter hopelessness she felt then: "When I come out of the car, I sit and cry and cry. I don't believe this. I've been driving for years and now they tell me I can't drive? I'm crying like a baby. I don't want to live in this country. I mean, every day you're struggling."

What? She gave up after one driving test. Couldn't she go back for another test? Why did she want to leave everything and go back to India after failing the test? This kind of defeatist attitude will not take you anywhere. But, her going back may be better in the long run. I don't want to see accidents caused by some cars going in wrong direction on roads because of morons like this.

If you read the article, you'll find that all the other examples are of similar whiners. I hope their spouces, family members or friends will slap them and make them do something to better their lives rather than whining.

Make a choice: Bible or America...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the same-sex marriage ban passed by Missouri voters. One of the readers of NY Times, wrote the following email to the editor. Don't know if it got published, but it makes a very valid point.

From: Chris Protopapas [mailto:seescape@stealth.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 3:23 PM
To: NY TIMES
Subject: Missourians Back Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

To the Editor:

Your article "Missourians Back Ban on Same-Sex Marriage", Aug 4th, quotes a
voter in Missouri as saying: "Biblically, homosexuality isn't in the plan."
Well, if we get right down to it, biblically, America isn't in the plan
either. There is no room in the Bible for a Democracy, for equality of race
or of gender, and for freedom of worship. America as a political entity was
founded on different principles than the ones found in the Bible, and that
has been our strength and our greatest glory.

Chris Protopapas
172 East 7th street
New York, NY

Thanks for the forward, Mayuresh!

Longer summer, shorter school year

Given that people are concerned about outsourcing of jobs and universities not producing enough graduates of Science and Technology (due to reduced enrollment), one would imagine that parents would support any school initiave that benefits their children academically. But, in North Carolina, a bill was passed recently to limit schools from starting early in August.

Schools wanted to prepare kids better for standardised tests and benefit their academic performance by giving teachers more time with an earlier start of the school year. This bill takes away the freedom from individual school districts of starting schools earlier than august 25th. The major proponant of this law is the tourist industry that employs thousands of school-age children and teachers for summer jobs. They lose this workforce when schools start early in August, which is a big revenue making period for summer vacation industry. Supporting them is a ridiculous parent's group called 'Save our Summers'. Rather than trying to improve the dismal state of education in schools across US, this promotes the dumbing of america even further. I didn't expect to see this from a progressive state like North Carolina that values education. Some of the best Universities (UNC and Duke) and a large technology industry corridor (Research Triangle Park) reside in this state.

North Carolina Association of Educators are lobbying for reversing this bill, and I sincerely hope that they will succeed.

Same-Sex marriage ban in Missouri

The New York Times > National > Missourians Back Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

One state down, many more to go this year.

Louisiana plans a vote on a marriage amendment on Sept. 18. In November, people in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah are expected to consider similar measures. Ballot initiatives are awaiting approval in Michigan, North Dakota and Ohio. Four states - Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska and Nevada - already passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage before the Massachusetts ruling.

The funniest part about the Missouri vote was that the ballot was written in legalese and some people couldn't figure out how to vote.

A few people said they felt rattled by the wording of the amendment: "Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended so that to be valid and recognized in this state, a marriage shall exist only between a man and a woman?" Some paused and worried aloud as they left the polling place whether their "yes" or "no" vote had accurately reflected their intent.

Blabberings of Mrs. Kerry

Mrs. Heinz-Kerry's tough talk with the reporters got a lot of negative coverage earlier this week. The latest issue of Time magazine has an interview with the wives of democratic presidential ticket. The following exchange is taken from that interview. I don't know if this conversation was edited to fit the word-limit.

TIME: In that first photo op you all had together, I was struck by that picture of Mrs. Kerry reaching for Jack Edwards' thumb to dislodge it from his mouth. Was that just the old reflexes of a mother kicking in?

Heinz Kerry: No, no, no. I had one thumb-sucker and two non-thumb-suckers, and I stupidly and naively forgot I was in front of a lot of cameras. And what I was trying to do was make sure he wasn't in the picture with a thumb in his mouth.

Two lines in the response given by Mrs. Heinz-Kerry seem completely contradictory to each other. She forgot that there were cameras and she did what she did to prevent the child from being photographed with a thumb in his mouth???

Hope she keeps quiet and don't blabber around too much to hurt her husband's chances in the election. That would be really sad.

MSFT jumbo Dividend announcement

The New York Times > Technology > Microsoft to Bestow $75 Billion Windfall on Its Shareholders

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, announced today that it will bestow on its shareholders a windfall totaling $75 billion.
...
As part of that package, the company will issue a onetime cash dividend of $3 a share at a cost of $32 billion. ... which will be distributed in December.
...
the company's decision to double its quarterly dividend from 4 cents a share to 8 cents a share.

I am glad to be a MSFT shareholder. Will have some of that $32 billion coming my way in December.

One other nice thing about this whole deal is:

Mr. Gates has already pledged that he will give all of the one-time stock dividend to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The contribution will increase the size of the foundation's assets by 11 percent to $30 billion, making it roughly three times as large as the next largest foundation in the United States.

The Gates Foundation has been doing a phenomenal job of supporting vaccination and other healthcare issues for people in developing countries. Kudos!

This in no way changes my opinion about Microsoft products. There is a difference between liking the stock of a company and the company itself for its products and practices.

Update: As Warren Buffett says, one should differentiate between the company and the stock. They are connected but different entities. Just because one likes a company, it doesn't mean it is a good stock to invest in and vice versa.

I don't like Microsoft as a consumer because I think their products are crappy. It is fine with me that others like them. Microsoft has a hold over a huge market as most everybody uses these products. That makes the company profitable, hence, a good investment and makes the shareholder part of me like it.

Whoa!

Read in Paul Krugman's NYTimes article titled "Machine at Work" on July 13, 2004.

Mr. DeLay (House majority leader) in the debate over gun control after the Columbine shootings, insisted that juvenile violence is the result of day care, birth control and the teaching of evolution.

I can understand some relation to day care. Birth control??? Maybe. A very very long shot. But, why "Teaching of evolution"??? I can't see any relation.

How teaching children that the universe was created by a God who also sent locusts and pleagues on Egyptians and destroyed people living Sodom and Gomorrah among other violent acts, is going to make them understand the value of human life????

Could someone please help Mr. DeLay take his head out of his a**???

Shrek 2 is for perverts.

A conservative Christian group, "Traditional Values Coalition" is asking their Christian brethren to boycott "Shrek 2" because it promotes transgender agenda.

The [Traditional Values Coalition‘s] advisory says, "Parents who are thinking about taking their children to see 'Shrek 2,' may wish to consider the following: The movie features a male-to-female transgender (in transition) as an evil bartender. The character has five o'clock shadow, wears a dress and has female breasts. It is clear that he is a she-male. His voice is that of talk show host Larry King."

The bartender is only the beginning. The warning continues: "During a dance scene at the end of the movie, this transgendered man expresses sexual desire for Prince Charming, jumps on him, and both tumble to the floor." ... And then, the warning says, "In another scene in the movie, Shrek and Donkey need to be rescued from a dungeon where they are chained against the wall."

The warning continues: "The rescue is conducted by Pinocchio who is asked to lie so his nose will grow long enough for one of the smaller cartoon characters to use it as a bridge to reach Shrek and Donkey. Donkey encourages him to lie about something and suggests he lie about wearing women's underwear. When he denies wearing women's underwear, his nose begins to grow."

I called Frank York, the editorial director for the Traditional Values Coalition, and asked him: "Are you serious?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I am." He said, "What they showed in the film was supposed to be humorous, but if you look at the transgender agenda ... there are more serious things going on here." ... Anyway, he talked about the whole transsexual agenda and how it wants to take over the world and stuff like that. He clearly spends a lot of time thinking about transsexuals, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Yay!

Yahoo! News - Enron Ex-Chairman Lay Indicted for Fraud

Sweet!!! It was so satisfying to see this SOB in handcuffs. If found guilty (I hope the prosecutors don't mess up), he will go to prison for 30 years or more.

It's not what but how you eat it

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: You Are How You Eat

An Italian's take on the latest silly diet craze of America: Low carb diets (Atkins, South Beach, etc.)

The big problem behind the increasing the waistline of America is that there is no effort in tackling the real reason. In stead of focusing on what you eat more attention should be paid to how you eat it.

You Are How You Eat

July 6, 2004
By GIULIANO HAZAN

VERONA, Italy - I have just greeted a new batch of students here in Verona, the gateway to the Valpolicella wine region on the picturesque foothills of the Dolomites. Their mandate is a delectable one: to master the craft and artistry of Italian cooking. What greater pleasure than to
whip up - and eat - risotto with truffles, pasta with
porcini, homemade tortelloni filled with Swiss chard and ricotta. As their teacher and culinary guide, I have had the good fortune of growing up with parents who nurtured my passion for cooking and eating well. Some of my fondest memories are of times spent in the kitchen with my mother.
I would stand with her at the stove and carefully stir the risotto - something my 5-year-old daughter now does at my side. In Italy, cooking and eating are not chores, they are one of life's gifts that nourish the soul as well as the body.

Sadly, according to fans of the low-carb mania that is sweeping the United States, the Italian gastronomic landscape is the equivalent of a minefield. Our diet of pasta, rice and an abundance of fruits and vegetables is loaded with evil carbs.

So why is it that Italians are shrugging off America's latest dietary obsession? For one thing, the mere idea of giving up pasta would be
cause for severe depression in an Italian. I experience withdrawal if I go more than four or five days without it.

And why is it that the number of Americans who are overweight or obese continues to increase at an alarming rate while here the percentage of overweight or obese people is half of what it is in the United States? After all, those trim and fit Italian men with flat bellies and women with hourglass figures are all sitting in restaurants
eating pasta, polenta and crusty bread.

Ultimately, it's not the carbohydrates - or the next
unsuspecting food group that will come under attack - that will make us overweight. It's our relationship with food and our lifestyle. In other words, how we eat is just as important - if not more so - than what we eat.

Maybe that's the ultimate cooking lesson. In general, Italians take their time when they eat. Many businesses in Italy still close in the middle of the day for three hours to allow for a leisurely lunch. Family mealtimes are sacred. Cooking for one's family becomes an act of love. Family meals allow for conversation and strengthen the family bond. The antithesis of the Italian eating style is
fast food and "eating on the run," where little attention is given to what is being consumed and the quicker one is done, the better. There is a physiological benefit of eating more slowly, too: your body senses that food has reached the stomach and shuts off the feeling of hunger
before you overeat.

Italians also tend to lead less sedentary lives. Walking is a necessity not just in cities but also in smaller towns where cars are usually banned from the center of stown. Many people live in walkups, and elevators are usually found only in high-rises.

Above all, portion sizes in Italy are undoubtedly smaller than they are in America. According to a poll sponsored by the Union of Italian Pasta Producers, over half of Italians interviewed eat pasta every day. But pasta is generally only one of several courses in a typical Italian meal. So
although per capita pasta consumption in Italy is four times as much as in the United States, Italians actually eat less pasta at a single sitting than do Americans, who tend to eat it only once or twice a week. The trend in the United States seems inevitably headed toward larger and larger portions. To suggest that more and bigger is not
better seems almost un-American.

When I was growing up in Italy and then in New York, I remember having a one-liter bottle of Coke in the refrigerator. It took my parents and me almost a week to drink it. Now, a 32-ounce Coke is a single serving.

And when my grandmother came to visit from Italy, many years ago, we went out to eat at a restaurant in New York. She was served first and was baffled by the amount of food on the large plate placed in front of her. Then she had a
realization: "Oh," she said, "am I supposed to serve everyone?"

Let's not forget that bad habits begin in childhood.
Children's menus in American restaurants seem to be made up of fried foods, hamburgers, chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese (which my 5-year-old insists is not pasta). Restaurants will say that it is because that's what youngsters like. The truth is that it is what parents are teaching their children to eat. Once at a Japanese restaurant a family sitting at the table next to ours
looked in amazement as our daughter was thoroughly enjoying her eel sushi. They said they never would have even considered offering it to their child instead of ordering off the children's menu.

In Italy there are no children's menus, but half portions are always happily provided. You may be surprised that some restaurants in the States are willing to oblige as well.

Americans' quest for the ultimate miracle diet has
engendered a dizzying array of often contradicting
messages. Whether it's salt, fat and now carbohydrates, it seems as if no food group will be left unscathed. We might be closer to finding warning labels on our food telling us that "eating may be hazardous to your health" than we
think. That would be a very sad state of affairs indeed, as nothing could be further from the truth.

Eating sensibly is really the best diet, and the better we can teach our children to appreciate good food and the pleasure we can take from eating leisurely together as a family, the less likely we will be to feel the need to try the latest diet fad. Savoring a good meal simply makes us
feel good. Food should not be feared. It should be a source of pleasure and well-being. So saute a little sliced garlic in extra virgin olive oil until it sizzles, add ripe fresh peeled tomatoes, cook 15-20 minutes, stir in some fresh basil and toss with some spaghettini. Then sit down with your family and enjoy one of life's simple pleasures
together.

Giuliano Hazan is a cooking instructor and the author, most recently, of "Every Night Italian."

Isn't it ironic?

The conservative talkshow host Rush Limbaugh, who gets so riled up on morality and preaches the nation on family values can't keep his own family together, for the THIRD time.

Make parents more responsible

Yahoo! News - Court Bars Internet Pornography Law Enforcement

Thankfully, the US Supreme Court struck down another Draconian legislation, putting the responsibility of what children see in the hands of their parents. The state has no business in telling people what is safe for their children to view.

Hopefully, the Supreme Court will review and strike down the 'Defense of Decency' act that imposes fines and penalties on broadcasters for broadcasting what the FCC thinks is indecent.

Lawyerspeak

Ashcroft Refuses to Release '02 Memo (washingtonpost.com)

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told Congress yesterday that he would not release a 2002 policy memo on the degree of pain and suffering legally permitted during enemy interrogations, but said he knows of no presidential order that would allow al Qaeda suspects to be tortured by U.S. personnel.

Heard some excerpts of the Ashcroft Senate Judiciary Committee appearance on NPR this morning. One of the Democratic senators asked Mr. Ashcroft if these memos in question were classified. His response was:

Some of the memos may be classified in some way under some circumstances

Wow! I need to learn to speak like that. But, wait! I am not a lawyer. If I give such an answer as a scientist, I would be fired in a split second.

Bastards of Enron

Enron Traders' Calls Gloated About Cheating

Enron traders discussed manipulating the California power market in telephone calls in which they gloated about ripping off "those poor grandmothers" in the energy crisis in 2000-2001...

On the calls, traders discussed transmission congestion, stopping generators and overall market manipulation. They also kidded about political contributions, particularly to President Bush's campaign.

There is talk of Enron emerging from bankruptcy later this year. So they can start this looting and plundering all over again. I hope the cases against Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay will move forward and they are put behind bars to be raped for a long long time.

Congratulations, Massachusettes!

Congratulations to the first legally married gay couple in Massachusettes. They were married in Cambridge this morning.

Yahoo! News - Gays Start Final Steps Toward Legal Marriage in Mass.

Bravo! Hopefully, other states of the union will follow Massachusettes' footsteps and move towards a less discriminatory society.

War in Iraq and Afghanistan is going well.

A couple of recent news articles...

U.S. Marines Cede Control of Falluja to Iraqi Troops

former general (in Iraq's Republican Guard), Jasim Muhammad Saleh, drove into town (to take control of Fallujah) wearing his old olive-green (Iraqi) uniform, with hundreds of residents cheering him along the streets in a hero's welcome.

A Truce on Terror: Rooting Out Al-Qaeda

The Pakistani army agreed to halt its operation against Mohammed's militants, repay Wazir tribesmen for war damages and set free most of the 160 suspected al-Qaeda supporters who were captured. The tribesmen were also allowed to keep their weapons. In exchange, Mohammed and his clan promised to refrain from attacks on Pakistani forces and the U.S. troops in nearby Afghanistan.

A Pakistani general helicoptered into a village in the Pakistani mountains of Waziristan last weekend to meet with a stubborn enemy. Lieut. General Safdar Hussain came to sign a truce with Nek Mohammed, a tribal leader whose pro-al-Qaeda fighters had eluded capture for more than six weeks and had killed about 80 of the general's men. The Pakistani army agreed to halt its operation against Mohammed's militants, repay Wazir tribesmen for war damages and set free most of the 160 suspected al-Qaeda supporters who were captured. The tribesmen were also allowed to keep their weapons. In exchange, Mohammed and his clan promised to refrain from attacks on Pakistani forces and the U.S. troops in nearby Afghanistan. Gleeful rebel tribesmen accepted the easy terms—and then treated Hussain to a meal of rice and slaughtered sheep.

The truce, however, could be a severe setback for the Bush Administration, which has been leaning on Pakistan to carry out a clean sweep of al-Qaeda and the Taliban from the tribal territory. Mohammed is a former Taliban commander who still swears loyalty to fugitive leader Mullah Omar and was earlier accused by the Pakistani government of giving shelter to al-Qaeda fighters, possibly including Osama bin Laden. In this area Pakistani troops last month mistakenly thought they had cornered bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. A Pakistani army spokesman said operations were halted because it had succeeded in "smashing" terrorist bases. But no senior al-Qaeda or Taliban member was caught. A Pakistani official who brokered the truce says the deal included a guarantee from tribal leaders that "non-Pakistanis"—Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks—would no longer cross from Waziristan to ambush U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But local officials in Waziristan say that promise is not enforceable. What's more, the truce raises doubts about the resolve of the Pakistanis to root out al-Qaeda fugitives from the tribal areas. Said a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul: "At the end of the day, we expect Pakistani action there."

From the May. 03, 2004 issue of TIME magazine

What went wrong in Iraq?

A quick and short analysis by Paul Krugman of The New York Times.

the administration handed out contracts without
competitive bidding or even minimal oversight. It also
systematically blocked proposals to have Congressional
auditors oversee spending, or to impose severe penalties
for fraud.

I thought that this was a major problem with so-called corrupt countries like India, Japan and Italy. Apparantly, US is heading the same way.

Here is the full text of the interesting article...

What Went Wrong?

April 23, 2004
By PAUL KRUGMAN

On April 11 of last year, just after U.S. forces took
Baghdad, I warned that the Bush administration had a
"pattern of conquest followed by malign neglect," and that
the same was likely to happen in Iraq. I'm sorry to say
those worries proved justified.

It's now widely accepted that the administration "failed
dismally to prepare for the security and nation-building
missions in Iraq," to quote Anthony Cordesman of the Center
for Strategic and International Studies - not heretofore
known as a Bush basher. Just as experts on peacekeeping
predicted before the war, the invading force was grossly
inadequate to maintain postwar security. And this problem
was compounded by a chain of blunders: doing nothing to
stop the postwar looting, disbanding the Iraqi Army,
canceling local elections, appointing an interim council
dominated by exiles with no political base and excluding
important domestic groups.

The lesson of the last few weeks is that the occupation has
never recovered from those early errors. The insurgency,
which began during those early months of chaos, has spread.
Iraqi security forces have walked off their jobs, or turned
against us. Attacks on convoys have multiplied, major roads
have been closed, and reconstruction has slowed where it
hasn't stopped. Deteriorating security prevents progress,
lack of progress feeds popular disillusionment, and
disillusionment feeds the insurgency.

Why was it predictable that Iraq would go wrong? The
squandered victory in Afghanistan was an obvious precedent.
But the character flaws in the Bush administration that led
to the present crisis were fully visible in the months that
followed 9/11.

It quickly became apparent that President Bush, while
willing to spend vast sums on the military, wasn't willing
to spend enough on security. And 9/11 didn't shake the
administration's fanatical commitment to privatization and
outsourcing, in which free-market ideology is inextricably
mixed with eagerness to protect and reward corporate
friends.

Sure enough, the administration was unprepared for
predictable security problems in Iraq, but moved quickly -
in violation of international law - to impose its economic
vision. Last month Jay Garner, the first U.S. administrator
of Iraq, told the BBC that he was sacked in part because he
wanted to hold quick elections. His superiors wanted to
privatize Iraqi industries first - as part of a plan that,
according to Mr. Garner, was drawn up in late 2001.

Meanwhile, the administration handed out contracts without
competitive bidding or even minimal oversight. It also
systematically blocked proposals to have Congressional
auditors oversee spending, or to impose severe penalties
for fraud.

Cronyism and corruption are major factors in Iraq's
downward spiral. This week the public radio program
"Marketplace" is running a series titled "The Spoils of
War," which documents a level of corruption in Iraq worse
than even harsh critics had suspected. The waste of money,
though it may run into the billions, is arguably the least
of it - though military expenses are now $4.7 billion a
month. The administration, true to form, is trying to hide
the need for more money until after the election; Mr.
Cordesman predicts that Iraq will need "in excess of $50-70
billion a year for probably two fiscal years."

More important, the "Marketplace" report confirms what is
being widely reported: that the common view in Iraq is that
members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council are using
their positions to enrich themselves, and that U.S.
companies are doing the same. President Bush's idealistic
language may be persuasive to Americans, but many Iraqis
see U.S. forces as there to back a corrupt regime, not
democracy.

Now what? There's a growing sense of foreboding, even
panic, about Iraq among national security experts. "This is
an extremely uncertain struggle," says Mr. Cordesman, who,
to his credit, also says the unsayable: we may not be able
to "stay the course." But yesterday Condoleezza Rice gave
Republican lawmakers what Senator Rick Santorum called "a
very upbeat report."

That's very bad news. The mess in Iraq was created by
officials who believed what they wanted to believe, and
ignored awkward facts. It seems they have learned
nothing.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

Huh!? What religion is this?

Received a notice to renew my Driver's License a couple of days ago. A note was attached to the forms that said:

The federal Welfare Reform Act mandates that all states obtain Social Security Numbers (SSNs) of drivers to assist in the enforcement of child support laws.

Effective May 1, 2004, you will be required to provide your SSN, or proof that you are exempt under law from obtaining an SSN or from disclosing your number for religious convictions.

What religion prohibits its followers from disclosing their SSN? I would like to join them. Maybe, I won't have to pay taxes, either?!?

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base

U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo bay, Cuba occupies about 45 sq.miles or 28000 acres. U.S. government leased it from Cuba in 1903 for $2000 per year. The lease was updated in a 1934 treaty. The rent was increased to $4085 per year and hasn't changed since.

Talk about an extreme case of rent control...

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