Now we know why we are in trouble

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KPS Gill on the Cartoon Controversy

KPS Gill argues that the Muslim community must rise up in rage against those who are calling for violence as a form of protest against the cartoons. He also mentions that the radicalization of political discourse and demonization of non-Muslims in islamic countries creates an atmosphere for terrorism, even though it is obvious that terrorists are a miniscule proportion of the Muslim population. There is an American Indian saying: 'it takes an entire village to raise a single child'. Similarly, it takes a very large community, often entire nations, to raise a single suicide bomber. Instances of enlighted opinion among the Muslim community have been documented elsewhere. However, they have been drowned by the violence of some of the protests.
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BCCI, ICC and the Cricket Crisis

The story is about the politics of cricket, and India's attempts to muscle into the high table of the game's backroom. One startling insight however, was not about cricket at all: With Non-Alignment, South-South cooperation and third world-ism, India finds itself burdened by the legacies of history. It realises its natural seat at the high table is not compatible with endless engagement with lesser powers. As in diplomacy, so in cricket: the BCCI wants to play Australia and England more often than it does Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It sees this as a mutually-enriching, profitable enterprise, the old "Asian alliances" be damned. This, in short, is the dilemma of India's Foreign affairs ministry.
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Animal Rights

A very good article espousing animal rights. Not being a animal rights believer myself, it takes a lot for me to agree with such opinions. However, this article comes close, grabbing my attention with the very first powerful paragraph. In 55 BC, the Roman leader Pompey staged a combat between humans and elephants. Surrounded in the arena, the animals perceived that they had no hope of escape. According to Pliny, they then "entreated the crowd, trying to win its compassion with indescribable gestures, bewailing their plight with a sort of lamentation." The audience, moved to pity and anger by their plight, rose to curse Pompey — feeling, wrote Cicero, that the elephants had a relation of commonality (societas) with the human race. Interestingly, it also contains many ideas that can be applied just as well outside the context of the argument on animal rights. Sympathy, however, is malleable. It can all too easily be corrupted by our interest in protecting the comforts of a wa...
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