This is the US Secretary of State Clinton, speaking in Pakistan after the Peshawar bombing:
I want you to know that this fight is not Pakistan's alone. This is our struggle as well...
Duh, of course it is. Daddy doesn't brag to Mommy about the rascal child being a shared struggle, does he? For those who came in late, the US and Pakistan encouraged and funded the Taliban for a long, long time.
Before we reclaim global leadership, we must first stop eating six sausages and a pound of eggs covered in syrup for breakfast, and we must stop leaving the house in sweatpants.
A few weeks ago, Barrack Obama took the stage with heads of two other nuclear weapon-owning states to jointly put the screws on Iran for aspiring to have something they already do. One of Obama's hawks squawked: "Nothing is off the table...".
This is how peace-loving nations operate. Like three bullies on a playground pinning down a skinny upstart who wants to use their favorite swing...with their elbows pinned on the upstart's chest, they flaunt their honorable intentions: "We would like to peacefully persuade you to leave this area, but no option is off the table."
In February, Obama ramped up the number of soldiers in Afghanistan fighting a senseless, aimless, war in Afghanistan by 21,000. This year saw the worst civilian deaths in this war so far, most of it under the Beloved Leader's watch. As we speak, he is considering sending more soldiers there.
The Nobel Peace prize is inappropriate first, premature later.
Don't worry, I am not embracing Keynes (yet); this is one of the section names in How Did Economists Get It So Wrong, a recent longish Paul Krugman article. I have no regard for Krugman and his brand of economics, but credit should go where it is due. While the article predictably has a Keynesian moral, it is also a good piece of writing done mostly on the even keel. Some of it surely resonated strongly with my own beliefs. For instance:
Indeed, home buyers generally do carefully compare prices — that is, they compare the price of their potential purchase with the prices of other houses. But this says nothing about whether the overall price of houses is justified.
I faithfully subscribe to a couple of local hip-hop radio stations both of which, till about a month ago, heavily ghisoed Black Eyed Peas' Boom Boom Pow. After staying on top for an appreciably long time, the song has now gradually climbed out of the favor.
But political events have transpired in the meantime and on the rare occasions that the song plays now, I can't help think of Sarah Palin. Maybe its this part of the song...
I like that boom boom pow Them chickens jackin' my style They try copy my swagger I'm on that next shit now
I'm so 3008 You so 2000 and late I got that boom, boom, boom That future boom, boom, boom Let me get it now
Boom boom boom
"I'm on that next shit now"...you see what I am saying? Political analogies apart, the song is a remarkable and unusual fusion of techno, hip-hop, and dance. Check it out:
*** Since Black Eyes Peas and Sarah Palin have been spoken of in one breath, it deserves to be told that will.i.am, the frontman for the band is an ardent Democratic party / Obama supporter. He produced the song Yes We Can, and performed at the 2008 Democractic National Convention. Just letting you know. Here is the song:
As for any other interventionist government program, I have been against Cash for Clunkers, the United States' attempt to kick life into the auto industry. The program invites people to turn in their old cars for newer, more fuel-efficient ones.
However, this skepticism has had little resonance anywhere in the mainstream media. It is quite astounding how little public debate has accompanied the program. Mainly because, besides some token Republican opposition to extension of the program in the Senate, it has been a venture that has support from both parties. Apparently, the only public policy issues worth discussing are the ones with a partisan divide in opinion. When politicians agree, pundits have nothing to say.
Which is why I had to look hard to find an article critical of the program. Here is an excerpt from one:
The first problem is that under the terms of the program, any used car that is traded in must be scrapped, and key parts like the engine and drive train destroyed. Thus the program pays people to junk cars that still have economic value.
How can it make any sense for policy to encourage the destruction of working cars? Proponents of the program offer two rationales: that the higher fuel efficiency of new cars will reduce the use of fossil fuel, and that the increased demand for new cars will rescue the failing auto industry. Neither of these defenses passes muster.
Certainly not the best written commentaries but will have to do for now. Cash for Clunkers is one of those programs on which real debate (read, finger pointing) will occur retrospectively when the extent of the inaneness is finally realized (think of how and when political debate on the Iraq war finally erupted) so one will have to wait.
Another high-profile case of assisted suicide: a British couple, Edward and Joan Downes (the former a distinguished British composer) committed suicide with the assistance of Dignitas, a Swiss organization that assists voluntary exits from life.
Farewell.
Even as I write this, modern societies and governments around the world continue to withhold from its citizens the most fundamental of rights - the right to die at will.
Our collective tendency to desist others of our breed from dying by choice seems to be residue of a primitive pack mentality - members leaving the pack reduce its collective strength. To keep others alive, by force if necessary, is a sentiment that is similar to, and as perverse as, that of the East German regime that shot people who attempted to cross over to the other side.
You did not choose to be born; you cannot choose to die.
