VINDICA

I watched them as I tried in vain to keep at bay the army of flies that were attacking my freshly cooked and newly dead goat.  The boys were wearing the bright Red and Blue  Shukas .  For hundreds of years, those colors have  terrorized lions  and inspired awed tales of young boys  hunting lions with spears .  There are now too many boys and too few lions. This is where the boys were instead.  The muggy heat was enervating.  The streets were filled with men and women in Shukas.  It was market day and the men had brought their cattle over for sale.  In a crumbling shed off the main highway stood a gleaming pool table.  A large host of Masai teens stood all around it, all in their Shukas.  Sipping beer, betting and talking animatedly.  Pool sticks, not hunting spears seemed weapons of choice.  There was not a girl among them. The goat was a bit too fresh.  Besides, I was sure the flies had alread...

New study suggests math skills are not correlated with genetic variations between male and females. It seems to be more correlated with the gender roles in society.

Recent opinion about Anna Hazare's movement has been getting some curious reaction from the chattering classes in India (which are predominantly "liberal"). The linked article written by Arundhati Roy is a very typical example. Anna Hazare movement is dangerous because: 1. It subverts due process (which in this case is democracy). 2. It uses Hindu religious iconography (like Bharat Mata) and is hence communal. 3. It is a middle class movement with no participation from "real india". This reminds me of the liberals in India who opposed Gandhi for pretty much the same reasons. Gandhi's method was considered to be unacceptably communal by none other than Jinnah, although his demands (like that of Anna) were never communal. The British establishment refused to negotiate with the Churchill's "half naked fakir" because he was subverting due process and bypassing elected "Indian" assemblies that the British had setup to administe...

Did Cisco collude with the government officials to get a man who was litigating against them arrested on spurious charges? Ars Technica makes a convincing case. I wonder why this story has not gotten more play.

It was clear even after the first bailout that Greece would never be able to pay back all its debt. Now there is talk of a haircut, with either the European taxpayer or the bond holders eating some of the losses incurred from a Greek default. Finland and German taxpayers are (understandably) reluctant to have their government effectively pay off Greek debt using their earnings. Finns want collateral (you know, the Parthenon) before giving any more money to the Greeks. However, there are a couple of points that these countries would do well to consider: 1. The more productive countries that adopted Euro (read Germany) made a killing exporting their products to less productive countries that adopted Euro. Greek debt financed by German Banks was used to buy German Engineering to build Greek Infrastructure (and pay lavish government salaries). 2. After WW-II, the Marshall Plan supported Germany financially in spite of all the ills that the Nazi state had caused the world. The Greeks (...

Hollywood makes a movie based on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and our author sees it as a sign of civilizational collapse. Civilization is always a fragile accommodation at best, precariously poised between barbarism on one side and decadence on the other, and as a civilization dissolves it begins to oscillate between them, ever more spasmodically, until the final collapse comes. Call it morbid curiosity on my part, but I often wonder where the debris of our civilization will ultimately be heaped; and, if this film portends what I fear, now I may know the answer. Rand was definitely on the side of barbarism. I really had to read the whole article twice to take in everything the author was saying. Like this one: I suspect that charity really is the only way to avoid wasting one’s life in a desert of sterile egoism. She regarded Christian morality as a poison that had polluted the will of Western man with its ethos of parasitism and orgiastic self-oblation. The condensed form of his le...

From the preface of Elements of Statistical Learning : In God We Trust. Everyone else bring data! It is attributed to Deming with the note that ironically, there is no "data" to support the fact that Deming said this.

The Gap between rich and poor has been named the 8th wonder of the world

It is now 250 years since the Battle of Panipat when the Afghan's under Abdali defeated the Marathas. Both were so weakened by the battle that they were soon supplanted by the Sikhs and British respectively in the areas that they sought to sway. Recent attempts have been made by Hindu activists to claim that the defeat was in fact a "strategic retreat". Abdali entered the battle with several disadvantages. 1. His armaments were inferior, as the Marathas were equipped with the best of the era French cannons, while Abdali's army featured camel mounted light cannons. 2. Maratha power was on the ascendency and their sway over the areas in contention were actually better than Abdali's. Abdali showed great military leadership in neutralizing both these disadvantages. He used his camel mounted artillary as a mobile firepower unit that overwhelmed and captured the Maratha cannons (it was after this that the battle turned). More importantly, he called on the loyalty of f...

An illuminating article by Christopher Hitchens about how both the abdicating King Edward and the new King George were and remained Nazi sympathizers well after the Czech sellout. Hitchens cannot resist needling Churchill too. But Churchill's seems to have been found guilty mostly by association with King Edward, not because of any explicit Nazi sympathies. Here is however a funny line about how Churchill once called himself the lone warrior against the twin evils of Hitler and Gandhi! Hitchens is obviously disgusted with the British Monarchy and end the article by with memorable flourish. Almost the entire moral capital of this rather odd little German dynasty is invested in the post-fabricated myth of its participation in "Britain's finest hour." In fact, had it been up to them, the finest hour would never have taken place. So this is not a detail but a major desecration of the historical record—now apparently gliding unopposed toward a baptism by Oscar.

So it comes down to this: Republicans do not want any tax increases for the rich. Obama does not want tax increases for the middle class. The epiphany they seem to have reached during their negotiations is that their respective stances still leave out the poor. The Obama compromise will raise taxes on the poor and provide tax relief for the so called middle class and rich. Now the only thing that needs to be done is to make sure there is a sizable and growing population of poor to support the rich and the middle classes in the style they are accustomed to. Luckily for this country, both of the political parties are very good at making this a reality.

Hilarious exploits of desperate TV reporters who were trying to make it seem like Floods were going to submerge Delhi any minute. When it did not happen, some of them dejectedly told the camera "There is no hope of floods!"

Parents who have read snow white to their kids 5 million times would love this article. It is about how the original versions of tales like Snow White and Cinderella are actually "R" rated. - Cinderella's sisters cut off parts of their feet to try and get into the tiny glass shoes. - Snow White's evil stepmother is made to attend her wedding, where she is forced to wear shoes made of hot iron and dance to her death! I should remember to gently break the news to you know who once she grows up!

After years of entering whatever happened to be the bargain basement "mass" movie of the year, India has finally entered a really good movie Peepli Live for the Oscars. I watched this movie a couple of weeks ago and was blown away. It is a tragi-comic movie that has a huge impact. Very realistic, fabulous and believable performance by all actors involved. The farce is taken a bit far sometimes (there is a scene where the news reporter is reporting on the character of the protagonist based on what we can see of his poop), but the movie is so good at so many levels that it can carry off even this scene. If you have not watched it, it is highly recommended.

The disaster that is India's preparation for the Commonwealth games keeps escalating in embarassment. After creditably hosting the Asian Games in New Delhi in 1982 under the inspired leadership of a rising Rajiv Gandhi, India might have expected to stage a memorable show with the CWG nearly three decades later. But the script has gone tragi-comically sour. At something like Rs. 30,000 crore of the taxpayers' money, the Games are the most expensive sports event hosted by India. It is certainly an extortionate price to pay in exchange for shame and disgrace. It is not so surprising that the Government is worse at doing things today than it was 30 years ago. India's best governments were its first ones. Things have been on an accelerating downward path since. The saving grace is the goverment doing less and less. But what about areas where the government cannot be replaced? What about the Millitary, the Police, the Regulatory agencies and the Judiciary? Can a country pos...

Mani Shankar Aiyer is unhappy. He thinks India should not be spending so much money on the Commonwealth games when it has so many poor people to take care of. Suresh Kalmadi, the Chairman of the games, considers this unpatriotic (I am sure he was referring to the opposition to the games, not concern for the poor). Instead of being unhappy, Aiyer should focus on the positives. It has been revealed that the games committee bought toilet paper for $80 a roll. The athletes can at least expect a great arse wiping. If you think that $80 is too much for a roll of toilet paper, then you should know that this is just a trick. They are trying to find the supplier who will actually cut corners and supply crappy (no pun intended) paper to make more money on a $80 roll. This supplier will be honored on national TV as the future of Indian business.

My company had a bumper quarter and is giving away an iPad to all employees. I finally understand how this whole stimulus business works. The stimulus money basically makes its way into iPads given away to people who dont want them and who can afford them anyways. This in turn creates jobs (in China) reduces cost to the consumer. The next stimulus package can then buy even more iPads for even less money. We just have to keep iterating on this until we can get infinite iPads for no money, at which point, we are done, since all those iPads can be used as bricks for propping up the housing sector which caused the recession in the first place.

Lately, I have become a fan of P. J. O'Rourke, whose politics I would probably find objectionable, but whose columns I find hilarious and illuminating. I had linked earlier to his article about how newspapers can resurrect sales by writing orbituaries of living people who are as good as dead (like Harry Reid in his column!). He now has a new column about Afghanistan and how he became an expert on the country in 72 hours flat. It contains some great gems like this one: The more voluble mullah explained, “Since the time of Adam until now there are four books from God.” (Muslims, like Jews, divide the Pentateuch from the rest of the Old Testament.) “This is our constitution.” It’s a little long, I suppose—even longer than the proposed EU constitution. But there are worse documents by which to live and govern—the proposed EU constitution for example.

A review of a new book on the two sides of the Churchill. The dark side being the Imperialist Churchill with visceral hatred of colored people in general and Indians in particular "they are a beastly people with a beastly religion". And the bright side being the Leader Churchill who saw the Nazi threat way ahead of his contemporaries. The review also touches on the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, where Churchill refused to do anything claiming that it was the fault of the Indians for "breeding like rabbits". Modern studies by respected economists, including Amartya Sen have shown how the famine was largely the result of British Incompetence. Due in large part to the famine, it can be easily said that Churchill killed far more Indians than he did Nazis. A bust of Churchill was installed in the Oval office by Bush. I am glad Obama chose to return it to England. The British can rightfully cherish Churchill's memory for the good things he did for their country, ...