VINDICA

New Yorker's rivetting story of the Iraqi elections told from the endearingly personal viewpoint of the election's various players.

Andrew Sullivan worries that technology has given us the power to totally customize the world around us. Bye bye Serendipity.

Another day, and another book by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, the author dwells deeply into our subconsious decision making power. That intuition that makes us look at somebody and instantly decide that he or she is a "good guy". As with the Tipping Point, I got the feeling while reading this book that the author is trying to present an idea that we all intuitively accept as something revolutionary. I did not find the ideas in this book revolutionary. The basic message of the book is that our mind is capable of extra-ordinary insights based on very little information. At first glance, an art expert can tell that a painting is fake, although he cannot say why he thinks that. Sometimes, deliberate scientific analysis have been proved wrong where an expert's gut feeling turned out to be right. We all know this. We also know that these insights are often wildly wrong. Once the basic premise is presented, the author goes into the details of how we can nurture our i...

Woody Allen took a speed reading course and subsequently finished reading "War and Peace" in 1 hour. "It is about Russia", he said, when asked to describe the book later. I find myself in a similar situation. I took a speed reading course and read "The Tipping Point" really fast (I finished the book in about 3 hours, when normally it would have taken my twice that). I am doubly skeptical about my comprehension because I had heard and expected so much of this book, and was disappointed. The author, Malcolm Gladwell theorizes that many phenominan in our society, from the abatement of a crime wave in New York, to the sudden fashionableness of hush puppies, are caused by a phenominan similar to that of an epidemic. He devids the important players in the spread of this 'contagion' into three catagories. The connectors are the people who are networked with a large section of the society. They are the ones with the connections to spread a contagion...

Tavleen Singh hits the Kashmir nail on the head with this piece. She says that in India, no one living south of Delhi cares two hoots about Kashmir, while in Pakistan, it is a national obsession. This assymetry leads to the differences between India and Pakistan towards solving the problem. I however, do not agree with Singh's analysis that "we cannot end extreme poverty or provide our people with 21st-century living standards as long as the wound of Kashmir continues to fester." I believe that the bus is leaving and that we are on it. Whether or not Pakistan wants to get on board is their decision.

Hernando de Soto, whom we first met in PBS' pathbreaking documentary Commanding Heights has presented the world with some very interesting theories on who certain communities remain poor. He is the darling of both the left and the right. But he is no darling of Slate magazine! The magazine carries this story about the failure of de Soto's theories on the ground.

Time does this story about Bush's proposed Social Security Reforms. It concludes that the plan is a political hard sell, and very hard to achieve. Well, thats what they said about the election too. In anycase, from a non-partisan standpoint, I love the plan. I would rather take the money and invest it myself than have the government do it for me.

Once in a while, I come across a piece such as this, which is so radically different from what I am used to, and yet somehow manages to convice me of its essential correctness. This piece bye Theodore Darymple is one such piece. He writes from 14 years of social work among the poorer sections of the British society. His essential thesis is the following: - For evil to flourish, there has to be Economic and Societal conditions that allow it (people will do whatever they can get away with). - Liberals on the left have created the societal conditions by their stress on "non-judgementalism". - Conservatives have pushed the idea that personal choices of individuals will lead to eutopia, thereby letting people do things like having kids and not taking responsibiltiy for them.

Two articles today, one by Monbiot which is a ringing endorsement of the Swedish model, the other by Daniel Brook, which is a more balanced view, . The basic idea of both the pieces is that there are infact two kinds of capitalism. The free wheeling "Washington Consensus" and the "Swedish Model". Monbiot considers the later to be the correct way, but adds that the IMF and world bank impose the former on the nations of the world. Daniel, on the other hand, does not indulge in such conspiracy theories. He notes that growth oriented policies necessarily tend towards the Washington Consensus. Sweden has accepted these policies (reducing taxes on money that is to be invested), while it maintains large public spending and egalitarian ideal (by taxing individual income and consumption). Daniel says that choosing between the two models is a matter of choosing the problems that the government should address.

On the 26th December 2004, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia sent a devastating Tsunami racing across the Indian ocean. Over a 100,000 people have been killed across asia. TIME magazine and BBC News have put up photo essays documenting the devastation. Over the last few days, I have been working with Vibha , an established organization with deep roots in India, helping them in their efforts to raise funds for disaster relief. Please visit the Vibha's Emergency Relief website for more information, and please, please donate generously. We need you. Thanks.

A review of Arthur Schopenhauer's path breaking and precient book about winning debates. The rules for winning are as light-hearted as they are profound. Here are a few: Truth does not matter. "We must regard objective truth as an accidental circumstance". The point is to win the debate, not to illuminate the truth. "persuade the audience, not the opponent" "bewilder your opponent" The reviewer holds that the author implies that the audience for serious debate is likely to shrink. He sees evidence for this in the rise of the TV, and in the rise of American Presidents who do not much care about the truth (""There you go again," said Ronald Reagan, annihilating with a grin the very concept of rational debate, and the right loved him for it.") The reviewer concludes with a comic bang when he says: "...not even the melancholic German (Schopenhauer) predicted that the world's most powerful democracy would on...

Economist laments the decline of meritocracy in America.

The anonymous writer of posts his last piece. The column will return in January under new authorship . Buttonwood finishes with the same style that we have come to enjoy, relentlessly pessimistic about the future - in this case, the immediate future.

New York Times reports that Google has entered into agreements with Oxford, Harvard and other leading libraries to make their libraries available online. MIT already makes available several of its courses online through its OpenCourseWare initiative. Once Google's initiative comes to fruiction, we shall have for the first time a society in which the doors for knowledge are open (if only a little bit) for everyone who wants to take a dip.

There is a class of people, who are not atheistic or agnostic, and yet have a delightful disregard for the totalitarian veneration that religion demands. It is from the ranks of this crowd that I have heard about the “sexy Swami” (Krishna) and “hippy God” (Shiva). Belief can have the strangest roots, and my religion serves up a unique God for each of our numerous peculiarities. To each, her own belief and who are thy to ask why or how come? However, the problem with being among such irreverence for such a long time is that you start to forget the precepts that govern safe conversation among strangers. Sandy had invited over a group of people for a party at my place. Although most were friends of hers, they were mostly just acquaintances of mine. It was a smart company and the conversation was consistently enjoyable, especially when experienced through that unpleasantness filter called beer. Over the course of the evening, the conversation meandered through some hazy pathway...

MS Subbulakshmi passes away .

M B Naqvi makes a realistic assessment of Pakistan's policy options with regards to Kashmir. The conclusion? Make LOC the permanent but porous border and move on towards improving the quality of life of the people.

UN has proposed expanding the security council. At this point, it is anybody's guess as to how India's membership will shape up. It seems unlikely that the current permanent members would let in additional nations into what has become a comfy cabal. What is more likely is a two tier structure that throws a bone to emerging nations.

ABC decides against airing Saving Private Ryan after "American Family Association, which mobilized the mob against "Ryan," was in full blaster-fax and e-mail rage. Its scrupulous investigation had found that the movie's soldiers not only invoked the Bono word 21 times but also, perhaps even more indecently, re-enacted "graphic violence" in the battle scenes."

The New Republic looks at possible Democratic party candidates for the presidential election of 2008 .