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RSS FeedMay 15th, 2012
Should we spend $1.5 Billion on 2012 General Elections?
As per Granderson on CNN, the general election 2012 is going to cost upwards of $1.5 Billion. Is that going to help us get a little bit less broke?
Why not force the candidates to just post their opinions online? They can debate on TV – that doesn’t cost them anything.
PS: Web hosting is not free either, but Google (through Blogger), Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and other companies provide enough free channels that and recoup through advertising.)
January 22nd, 2012
Politics and Algorithms rarely mix, but when they do, they involve food stamps and bin packing
January 18th, 2012
If you don’t want to stop online piracy, at least stop misleading names!
As the Wikipedia begins its 24 hours blackout, internet users are being urged to oppose the SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) and PIPA (“PROTECT IP Act”). Why should the users oppose acts with such noble-sounding names? We all want to stop online piracy. We also want to protect the IP, I presume.
A few years ago we had a slightly related problem – how could a true American oppose the Patriot act.
The problem is that these bills use a name that may or may not be consistent with the content. We need to urge the congress to use a simple number, such as “Bill 239203923″, to describe each Bill. Many states already force that. The name itself creates a bias. If we want the people to be more knowledgeable of what they are voting on, then let us start with a neutral sounding number. At least some one has to ask the question – “What does Bill 239203923 stand for?”
November 2nd, 2010
Very Apposite Word of the Day: Psephology
Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for Nov 2, 2010 is especially appropriate: Psephology, which is the scientific study of elections. (Today is the field day for all US political pundits and general public with particular interest in psephology.) “Psephology” is from the Greek word psephos for pebbles – the connection being that pebbles were used by the ancient Greeks in voting.
Kudos to the M-W guys for enlightening us every day.
October 4th, 2010
Tiririca in Sau Paulo – “It can’t get any worse” :-)
Amazing story: “No joke! Illiterate clown triumphs in election“. An entirely honest approach and (hopefully) no over-promising attitude – what is not to love about it. 
Tiririca’s humorous slogan: “It can’t get any worse”
Tiririca’s promise: To do nothing more in Congress than report back to them on how politicians spend their time. “What does a congressman do? The truth is I don’t know, but vote for me and I’ll tell you.”
Clowns as politicians – who would have thought?
September 17th, 2010
Meera Shankar Dinner
Excellent dinner at the residence of Her Excellency Meera Shankar, Ambassador of India on September 14th. As always she spoke very eloquently. I have had the pleasure of hearing her in the past and I have always been struck by how approachable and personable she is. She spoke for about 10 minutes, and in those ten minutes itself, she was able to articulate the various aspects of the US-India relationship, including economic, trade, education and military relationships.
Answering to questions, she did clarify the Indian government’s position on a variety of issues such as collaboration with foreign universities and the issue of increasing foreign direct investment in certain sectors.
The question in mind of many peoples’ minds (including mine) is how can the world participate and benefit from the 8% annual growth that the Indian economy is showing. Clearly with the bank interest rates in US currently at near zero percent, the contrast is hard to ignore.
August 9th, 2010
Perhaps Senator Schumer can use a chop shop?
July 19th, 2010
A simple view on terrorism
Any perspective on terrorism gets clouded by myriad discussions, arguments, points and counter points on the root cause, the related conflicts, and the issue of “collateral damage” (from all sides).
My take on this is much simpler: Moshe Holtzberg lost his parents due to terrorism. And there isn’t much more to say. God bless this child, in whom we see the optimism of life after the death and carnage that was Mumbai 11/27.
November 10th, 2009
Capitalism is what you define it to be
“Kill the bill, kill the bill” the crowds on the capital hill chanted. Any day of the week, any week of the year, you can ask any hard working American – do you want a bigger government? The unanimous answer will be no. None of us want a bigger government just for the sake of a bigger government. But ask the people – do you want to let the wheeling dealing scheming conmen entice hard working
Americans (or the local Canadians!) into buying financial instruments (or houses!) that they cannot afford (or if they can, definitely wont be in exactly 1095 days from closing)? Or that, do you want the current economic crisis to take away the prospect of education (or healthcare) from a child whose parents may have lost a job? Aah, it is then that the answer changes to something like, “um, no, govt should probably do something about it”.
You are damn right Joe – government should do something about it.
Thus, the question that should be asked is not about government spending or tax cuts or fiscal deficit, rather the debate has to be on pros and cons of a specific proposal. Anytime a politician offers you a new tax – we should be sure to ask “what is it going to get us in return?”. Ditto for tax cut – “Thanks a lot pres, but can you tell what does that mean in terms of facilities that are going to go away?”.
Years ago when I moved to the US (and years later I heard the French president reiterate that we are all Americans now), I was most surprised to see the size of the American government. A bulky school system – thousands of schools and hundreds of universities. A shiny USPS. Ultra defense spending. Astronomical space agency. All that was (and continues to be) public agencies, right here in the bastion of Capitalism. Then it dawned on me that capitalism is what you define it to be. Facilities that the people are comfortable with (schools, universities, mail trucks) are not the facilities anyone is going to give up that easily (or should). True, the US act of 1970 made the USPS into a s
emi independent agency that is now revenue neutral, but still it didn’t consider it right to privatize or close it. Why? Because there are somethings you may not want to trust a private company to do (such as creating mailers for visually impaired people).
It even makes sense not to try to classify a nation as capitalist or socialist at all. At what point do cross over from UK to Sweden? Really, there is no solid line (just miles and miles of the Norwegian sea, but I digress). Rather, it makes sense to only define a capitalism index for each country. That will need to be defined carefully however, and I am not going to hazard a definition this very moment. I know I have breached this topic earlier, but perhaps this time I will get more ideas and start working on an actual economics concept. (Really, that will be some day – my computer science doctorate adviser will be well vindicated – “I always knew that Amrinder guy was only trouble”.)