BBC: Is the US Declaration of Independence illegal?

So long as enough people accept a lie.. your case is made.

Besides, possession is 9/10th of the law.

N

Is America built on a lie?

www.bbc.co.uk

Is the US Declaration of Independence illegal?

By Matt Danzico and Kate Dailey BBC News Magazine

In Philadelphia, American and British lawyers have debated the legality of America's founding documents.

On Tuesday night, while Republican candidates in Nevada were debating such American issues as nuclear waste disposal and the immigration status of Mitt Romney's gardener, American and British lawyers in Philadelphia were taking on a far more fundamental topic.

Namely, just what did Thomas Jefferson think he was doing?

Some background: during the hot and sweltering summer of 1776, members of the second Continental Congress travelled to Philadelphia to discuss their frustration with royal rule.

By 4 July, America's founding fathers approved a simple document penned by Jefferson that enumerated their grievances and announced themselves a sovereign nation.

Called the Declaration of Independence, it was a blow for freedom, a call to war, and the founding of a new empire.

It was also totally illegitimate and illegal.

At least, that was what lawyers from the UK argued during a debate at Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Hall.

American experiment

The event, presented by the Temple American Inn of Court in conjunction with Gray's Inn, London, pitted British barristers against American lawyers to determine whether or not the American colonists had legal grounds to declare secession.

For American lawyers, the answer is simple: "The English had used their own Declaration of Rights to depose James II and these acts were deemed completely lawful and justified," they say in their summary.

To the British, however, secession isn't the legal or proper tool by which to settle internal disputes. "What if Texas decided today it wanted to secede from the Union? Lincoln made the case against secession and he was right," they argue in their brief.

A vote at the end of the debate reaffirmed the legality of Jefferson and company's insurrection, and the American experiment survived to see another day.

It was an unsurprising result, considering the venue - just a few blocks away from where the Declaration was drafted. But did they get it right? Below are some more of the arguments from both sides.

...........................

WSJ OpEd: How the death tax hurts the poor

Spoken like a true Armchair Economist:

"The death tax sends a powerful message to rich people: "You can't leave everything to your heirs, so spend now, before it's too late. Burn more fuel. Demand more timber for your mansions, more steel for your private planes, and more fiberglass for your yachts.''

Then all those resources—the fuel and timber, the steel and fiberglass—become unavailable to bu...ild factories, so the rest of us get worse jobs at lower wages. Those resources are unavailable to build farm equipment, so we all pay higher food prices. They're unavailable to build roads and schools and hospitals."

Just put punitive taxes on private planes, yachts, residential space above 1,000 sq. ft. per family member, and subsidize employment (removing payroll taxes). And even give the children of the rich a job on the farms or building roads, schools and hospitals instead of going to Ivy League schools, then into investment banking, and making a bonfire of poor people's savings.

The Wall Street Journal - the daily diary of the American nightmare.

See More

Steven E. Landsburg: How the Death Tax Hurts the Poor

online.wsj.com

In The Wall Street Journal, economist Steven E. Landsburg says the death tax encourages the rich to pick extra fruit, leaving the trees a little barer for the rest of us.

WaPo on Condi Rice's memoirs

And that's entertainment!

US government runs like people just have an acting role. Condi Rice no more had 'high honor' than just a chance to play along with the clowns.

‘No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington’ by Condoleezza Rice

www.washingtonpost.com

In “No Higher Honor,” former national security adviser and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice recalls her time in the administration of George W. Bush.

ProPublica: Cheat Sheet - What's happened to the big players in the financial crisis

Guess who is facing the police.

Hint: Not just the big players. The picture is of horse-mounted police against the Wall Street Occupiers.

Goldman Sachs doing just swell, thank you.

Cheat Sheet: What’s Happened to the Big Players in the Financial Crisis - ProPublica

www.propublica.org

With the financial crisis back in the center of the national conversation, here’s a quick refresher on the roles of some of the main players, as well as what consequences they’ve faced.

Tom Toles' cartoons about international news

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tom-toles-goes-global/2011/10/18/gIQAsaLpxL_gallery.html

A collection of cartoons about international news.

Allan Meltzer in WSJ: Four Reasons Keynesians Keep Getting It Wrong

What drivel.

One reason why anti-Keynesians also keep getting it wrong -- their theories have no proofs, nobody has ever tried them or will try them, and they can keep on pouting nonsense over and over again.

What has been going on - including at the Fed - is hardly textbook "Keynesianism" but bookish people wouldn't understand or accept that. Yes, policies so far haven't quite worked and yes, "reducing ...uncertainty and restoring investor and consumer confidence" would be a good idea. Here's hoping that Allan Meltzer goes to grave fantasizing how his four ideas would've saved the world, without having to be held accountable for death and destruction. ("Cut spending, cut taxes"?? Yeah. If spending on the rich is curbed. We don't have a crisis of investor confidence; they are all bringing their money to US Treasury. What we have, hopefully, is cautiousness, and what we don't have, unfortunately, is a market for products that would employ Americans at a living wage. And no, war is not a long term career option for people or the country.)

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204777904576651532721267002.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

Allan H. Meltzer: Four Reasons Keynesians Keep Getting It Wrong

online.wsj.com
...

First, big increases in spending and government deficits raise the prospect of future tax increases. .Concern over future tax rates is one of the main reasons for heightened uncertainty and reduced confidence.

Second, most of the government spending programs redistribute income from workers to the unemployed. This, Keynesians argue, increases the welfare of many hurt by the recession. What their models ignore, however, is the reduced productivity that follows a shift of resources toward redistribution and away from productive investment. ...

lose

Third, Keynesian models totally ignore the negative effects of the stream of costly new regulations that pour out of the Obama bureaucracy.

Fourth, U.S. fiscal and monetary policies are mainly directed at getting a near-term result. The estimated cost of new jobs in President Obama's latest jobs bill is at least $200,000 per job, based on administration estimates of the number of jobs and their cost. .

..When will the Fed tell us how and when it is going to sell more than $1 trillion of mortgage-related securities? Will Fannie Mae, for example, have to buy them to hold down mortgage interest rates?

..Clearly, a more effective economic policy would aim at restoring the long-term growth rate by reducing uncertainty and restoring investor and consumer confidence. Here are four proposals to help get us there:

First, Congress and the administration should agree on a 10-year program of government spending cuts to reduce the deficit. . (Note to Republican presidential candidates: Permanent tax reduction can only be achieved by reducing government spending.)

Second, reduce corporate tax rates and expense capital investment by closing loopholes.

Third, announce a five-year moratorium on new regulations.

Fourth, adopt an enforceable 0%-2% inflation target to allay fears of future high inflation.

.

FP: Libya's sexual revolution

"Years ago, political scientists, including Diane Singerman, began using the term "waithood" to describe the crippled outlook for the young generations of the Arab world. Unable to find jobs, or jobs that paid a living wage, millions of young Arabs were fated to live unhappily at home, unable to afford marriage. And in conservative Islamic societies, marriage for many is the only launch there is into independence, dignity, and a life of one's own."

How about criminalizing bride price?

And get some beer and wine to go?

Libya’s Sexual Revolution - By Ellen Knickmeyer

www.foreignpolicy.com

JANZOUR, Libya – When it comes to love, Muammar al-Qaddafi's Libya was unlucky for unmarried 33-year-old truck driver Ahmed Nori Faqiar. His looks would have benefited if his parents could ever have sprung for a dentist. Lack of means forced him to live unhappily at his childhood home well into adul...

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a87005e6-0090-11e1-ba33-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1c63JENKW

The silence of the elites

Lambs.

The silence of the elites - The Washington Post

www.washingtonpost.com

Wall Street and Washington inaction increase the chances of an economic depression.

NY Daily News: Student loan debt reaches $100b

Troubled assets bought at inflated prices. How many ex-students are under water?

Some price corrections necessary. Tenured faculty could be given involuntary retirement.

Student loan debt reached $100 billion mark for first time in history; Tips to effectively pay

www.nydailynews.com

There are several good - and frightening - reasons why President Obama Tuesday announced a new student-debt relief plan that includes capping loan payments at 10% of income. Two weeks ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported the latest stats on student loan debt: The amount of loans taken ...

NYT: Rajat Gupta's fall from grace

“.. having a great reputation doesn’t give you a free pass to violate the law. Nobody is above the law, no matter how good their reputation is.”

Except when no laws apply. E.g., professors and politicians. Mere free speech.

A Stunning Fall From Grace for a Star Executive

dealbook.nytimes.com

The criminal charges against Rajat K. Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs director, represent a sharp reversal for a man whose personal story reads like a caricature of a Horatio Alger tale

NYT: Madoffs tried to commit suicide

Might have seen it preferable to die at home than in jail. Some people don't get such a choice.

"More important to both of them than the media firestorm they faced, she said, was that she had become instantly estranged from her two sons, Mark and Andrew, who had turned in their father to law enforcement officials and precipitated his arrest on Dec. 11, 2008. He pleaded guilty three months later and is serving a 150-year sentence at a federal prison in Butner, N.C. "

Just imagine the choice the boys had to make. No child should have to go through that agony. The only question is, were the boys raised by Bernie to know right from wrong, or did they learn it own their own?

One of the sons successfully (!) committed suicide. Bernie's burden.

Madoffs Tried to Commit Suicide, Wife Says

www.nytimes.com

Ruth Madoff said in an interview that she and Bernard Madoff attempted suicide two weeks after the Ponzi scheme was exposed in 2008.

MSNBC: A Hillary Clinton retrospective

Hair, hair.

A Hillary Clinton Retrospective

powerwall.msnbc.msn.com

In honor of Hillary Clinton's 64th birthday, we look back on the life of our secretary of state. Yearbook photo, 1964 Hillary Rodham, standing, poses with classmates at Park Ridge, Ill., East High ..

WSJ blog: Fukushima fallout could have been much worse

“There was a period when quite a high concentration went over Tokyo, but it didn’t rain,” Norwegian scientist Andreas Stohl told Nature News. “It could have been much worse.”

Thank heavens for small mercies.

Fukushima Fallout Could Have Been Much Worse, Study Says

blogs.wsj.com

If heavy rain had fallen in Tokyo on March 14 or March 15, the capital could have experienced the same severe spikes in radiation that areas northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered, says the author of a new study.

to build a better light bulb

Why are we still stuck on a light-bulb, and connected to the grid? We can have light in our door and window frames, light in the walls and from the floors, light in the chairs and desks and yes, lamps and chandeliers if/when we want them. Some can be battery-run, the batteries in turn charged by the grid or solar. About a half of world's lighting can be taken off the peak hours and all nukes can be shut down (if there were a world market in electricity).

Companies strive to build a better (more expensive) light bulb

www.washingtonpost.com

Legislation that will require more energy-efficient light bulbs is prompting the world’s major lighting companies to create more expensive versions.

Bamboo bicycles in Zambia

"Sustainable" transport to some maniacs.

Bamboo bicycle business shoots up in a struggling African country

www.csmonitor.com

Based in Zambia, Zambikes employs and empowers Africans to manufacture bicycles locally, including some made from bamboo.

NYB review: Why They Get Pakistan Wrong

"Pakistan’s resilience is bound up with its resistance to reform, yet reform will be essential for facing the great challenges ahead, including the potentially devastating impacts of climate change on a dry and overpopulated land that is dependent on a single river and its tributaries. Pakistanis, and above all members of Pakistan’s military, would do well finally to reject their country’s disastrous embrace of militants. Pakistan must urgently mend its relationships in its own neighborhood and refocus on taking care of itself. Time is not on its side."

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http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/sep/29/why-they-get-pakistan-wrong/

Why They Get Pakistan Wrong

September 29, 2011

Mohsin Hamid

The Scorpion’s Tail: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan—and How It Threatens America
by Zahid Hussain
Free Press, 244 pp., $25.00

Pakistan: A Hard Country
by Anatol Lieven
PublicAffairs, 558 pp., $35.00

Another excerpt:

Of the $20.7 billion in US funding allocated to Pakistan from 2002 to 2010, $14.2 billion was for the Pakistani military. On paper, economic assistance came to $6.5 billion, less than a third of the total. In reality the civilian share was even smaller, probably less than a quarter, for the $6.5 billion figure reflects “commitments” (amounts budgeted by the US), not “disbursements” (amounts actually given to Pakistan). The United States Government Accountability Office reports that only 12 percent of the $1.5 billion in economic assistance to Pakistan authorized for 2010 was actually disbursed that year. Independent calculations by the Center for Global Development suggest that $2.2 billion of civilian aid budgeted for Pakistan is currently undisbursed, meaning that total economic assistance actually received from the US over the past nine years is in the vicinity of $4.3 billion, or $480 million per year. (By comparison, Pakistanis abroad remit $11 billion to their families in Pakistan annually, over twenty times the flow of US economic aid.)

Pakistan is a large country, with a population of 180 million and a GDP of $175 billion. Average annual US economic assistance comes to less than 0.3 percent of Pakistan’s current GDP, or $2.67 per Pakistani citizen. Here in Lahore, that’s the price of a six-inch personal-size pizza with no extra toppings from Pizza Hut.

The alliance between the US and Pakistan is thus predominantly between the US and the Pakistani military. To enter the US as a Pakistani civilian “ally” now (a Herculean task, given ever-tighter visa restrictions) is to be subjected to hours of inane secondary screening upon arrival. (“Have you ever had combat training, sir?”) For a decade, meanwhile, successive civilian Pakistani finance ministers have gone to Washington reciting a mantra of “trade not aid.” They have been rebuffed, despite a WikiLeaked 2010 cable from the US embassy in Islamabad strongly supporting a free trade agreement with Pakistan and citing research showing that such an arrangement would likely create 1.4 million new jobs in Pakistan, increase Pakistani GDP growth by 1.5 percent per year, double inflows of foreign direct investment to Pakistan, and (because Pakistani exports would come largely from textile industries that US-based manufacturers are already exiting) have “no discernible impact” on future US employment.

Perhaps the vast majority of Pakistanis with an unfavorable view of the United States simply believe their annual free pizza is not worth the price of a conflict that claims the lives of thousands of their fellow citizens each year.

..

"As long as the Obama administration insists on the power to kill the people it was elected to represent—and to do so in secret, on the basis of secret legal memos—can we really claim that we live in a democracy? "

On the other hand, is a nation-state the sole basis of just jurisdiction? And, what does "citizenship" mean in a globalized world?

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http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/oct/09/killing-citizens-secret/

Killing Citizens in Secret

David Cole

"It’s quickly apparent that not only has Clinton given thought to his activist ex-presidential predecessors but that he has established a kind of personal comradeship with them across the generations. Jimmy Carter? “Magnificent … Thirty years since he left the White House; must be 87 now … he just goes chugging along ... Saw him just before he went down to Haiti to build houses.” Some presidents ...walk alone; Clinton was made to bond, even with the dead. William Howard Taft? “Went to the Supreme Court … suited him better than the presidency I think …” Herbert Hoover? “Left office around the same age as me … ” It’s as though he had got them all together for chinwags over coffee and doughnuts."

Coffee and doughnuts??? Is that what you do, Bill, when your wife and daughter aren't looking?!! You had a quadruple bypass. Now just smoke and inhale!

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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/e0c1418c-f526-11e0-9023-00144feab49a.html#axzz1b6HNdJrB

October 14, 2011 10:00 pm

Bill Clinton talks to Simon Schama

By Simon Schama

I hope the kids had an elephant father.

Tiger moms are sure to be catty.

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http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/finish-that-homework-tiger-mother/

Finish That Homework!

August 18, 2011

Diane Johnson

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
by Amy Chua
Penguin, 237 pp., $25.95
..

"If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A."

The hyperbole disguises and to an extent mitigates the underlying seriousness of her real subject, the Decline of the West. Maybe it is this subtext that has caused people to react to Chua’s confession with unusual vehemence; she says she has received hundreds of e-mails and even death threats; people left parties when she came in. Reading a number of reviews together, one is left with the impression not so much of ire or indignation on behalf of Chua’s accomplished but overworked children, but of chagrin, the reflex of a sneaking sense that we haven’t spent enough time with our kids or helped them on to the distinctions that might have been inherent in their natures.

Among the numerous reviews, comments vary from vitriol to grudging admiration to defiance. Some readers feel that Chua should be prosecuted for child abuse, others that she is too self-involved. Everyone will notice that most of Chua’s anecdotes, so ostensibly loaded with self-reproach, also happen to showcase her familiarity with music, sports, Europe, and other languages—a picture of an accomplished, impressive if irritating person whose skills embrace, finally, loving care of husband, children, and dogs. “In truth, Ms. Chua’s memoir is about one little narcissist’s book-length search for happiness…. It will gratify the same people who made a hit out of the granola-hearted ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’” snaps Janet Maslin in The New York Times.

Critics predict that her children will be estranged, traumatized, spend years with shrinks, have health problems, and so on, but of course no one can possibly know the actual dynamics of any given family; generations of Americans have had ambitious parents, and often, like Obama, profited from the attention. Yet other critics think she doesn’t go far enough. David Brooks, tongue only partly in cheek, says:

I believe she’s coddling her children. She’s protecting them from the most intellectually demanding activities because she doesn’t understand what’s cognitively difficult and what isn’t.

Practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is nowhere near as cognitively demanding as a sleepover with 14-year-old girls. Managing status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social norms, navigating the distinction between self and group—these and other social tests impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense tutoring session or a class at Yale.

Asian-Americans seem especially infuriated. Betty Ming Liu blogged on January 8 about “lunatic, prestige-whoring Chinese parents” with “values that have nearly ruined so many of us…. Haven’t we had enough of over-pressured, guilt-ridden Asian immigrant and Asian-American college students committing suicide and acting out???” Wesley Yang, writing in New York magazine, sums up his “feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work….” He reminds readers that no matter how accomplished an Asian-American is, there’s still a bamboo ceiling after graduation...

There are simple differences in family rhetorical conventions. I remember years ago reading Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior and being shocked that her grand-uncle called girl children “maggots,” something she doesn’t remember with special pain today. According to Chua, all Chinese parents make use of shame, call their kids “fatty” and “garbage,” and much worse, and the kids understand it as being within the boundaries of the family’s chosen level of diction: it’s just the way mom talks. When such talk seems excessive to her fellow guests at a dinner party, Chua says, “It’s a Chinese immigrant thing.” Someone points out that she isn’t a Chinese immigrant. “Good point,” she concedes. “No wonder it didn’t work.”

....

“Chinese” in Chua’s lexicon basically signifies any motivated and disciplined subgroup competing with the tired, ineffectual mainstream. At other periods in American history we could have substituted the name of some other ethnic minority. Some of the anxious comment on her book may be connected to our apprehensions about China. If Chua had written The Battle Hymn of a Nigerian Mother would our reaction be the same?

In raising them, Chua directly challenges the prevailing Western orthodoxies, in place since Dr. Spock, or even since Freud, that hold that repression breeds psychological problems, and that freedom and creativity are intertwined—but do we really believe those orthodoxies anyhow?

Katchi abadis. Just read Mike Davis' Planet of Slums. Shape and smell of things to come - blood.

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http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2011/10/karachi-irregular-neighborhoods-anything-but/287/

In Karachi, Irregular Neighborhoods Are Anything But

• Steve Inskeep
• 7:35 AM ET
• Comments

A pool hall is constructed on a Karachi roadway median. Courtesy Steve Inskeep

Close

Karachi, Pakistan is an example of the global cities that have grown since World War II like exploding stars. From Sao Paolo to Istanbul to Shanghai, cities have taken in millions of migrants. The cities' power, their diversity, and their disorder are constant themes underlying today's news; it is here that the global economy is being reshaped, and that economic inequality goes spectacularly on display. All this is especially true in Karachi, a megacity of at least 13 million and a microcosm of Pakistan, a nation beset by wars and crises with global implications. In his new book “Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi,” Steve Inskeep of NPR’s Morning Edition explores a single violent day in the city—and also the way the city evolved. In Karachi, as in many developing cities, millions of people now live in unauthorized neighborhoods. Residents or developers seize vacant land, parks, railway rights of way, streets, and other property to build homes. Karachi’s first large informal neighborhoods were tent cities, home to Muslim refugees, fleeing the carnage during the partition of India in 1947; and as Inskeep writes, the settlements have only grown:

Excerpt:

Irregular neighborhoods of the sort that grew in Karachi, Pakistan from 1947 onward were commonly called katchi abadis, which translated simply as “temporary settlements.” That proved to be a euphemism. There was nothing temporary about them. Rather than try to move people to new locations, the government settled for a more modest solution. Residents campaigned to have their existing settlements brought within the law. From time to time the Pakistani government approved sweeping legalizations of katchi abadis, like the one that proclaimed an amnesty for unauthorized neighborhoods whose residents could prove their homes existed as of March 23, 1985. Yet it took many years to register the neighborhoods, and new settlements constantly appeared. They became such a permanent problem that the provincial government of Sindh included a Minister of Katchi Abadis.

When I sat with the man who was serving as minister in 2010, a gregarious People’s Party politico named Rafique Engineer, he handed me results of the most recent survey available. His paper showed 539 irregular neighborhoods in Karachi that were home to about 2.5 million people. And as Rafique knew, his numbers were almost two decades out of date. Some of those settlements had since been brought within the law, but more were appearing constantly. It was commonly estimated that something around half of Karachi’s people lived in unauthorized homes.

Mega mansions, mega degrees. Bloated real estate prices and commissions, bloated tuitions and grants, celebrity professoriat, preaching speculations the rest of the world has no need for. Something's gotta give. The American dream of home and college can be cut to size if the Joneses who got rich on tax cuts have to sweat a bit more.

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ae7dfc4-ef78-11e0-941e-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1b5aGMWL6

October 16, 2011 4:05 pm

US student debt impact likened to subprime crisis

‎"Income inequality – a core theme of the Occupy Wall Street movement – is higher in New York than any other major US city, with the top 1 per cent earning 44 per cent of total income in 2007, compared with 23.5 per cent nationally."

And wealth distribution is even more skewed.

Third World megacities are even worse. Simmering rebellions?

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e80d6b60-f6a1-11e0-9381-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1b5Zrh7k7

Last updated: October 17, 2011 8:00 pm

US budget dilemma as taxes on rich expire

A marriage made in hell more difficult to break than one made in heaven.

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http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0e0c6b2e-f8d0-11e0-8e7e-00144feab49a.html#axzz1b0wLdQD6
October 17, 2011 4:55 pm

West must keep Pakistan ties, says Nato chief

Now fathers can be mothers too.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/

The End of Men

Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural consequences

By Hanna Rosin

Relief!!

Those who only see men as deadbeats v. playboys deserve them.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/

All the Single Ladies

www.theatlantic.com

"Recent years have seen an explosion of male joblessness and a steep decline in men’s life prospects that have disrupted the “romantic market” in ways that narrow a marriage-minded woman’s options: increasingly, her choice is between deadbeats (whose numbers are rising) and playboys (whose power is growing). But this strange state of affairs also presents an opportunity: as the economy evolves, it’s time to embrace new ideas about romance and family—and to acknowledge the end of “traditional” marriage as society’s highest ideal. "

The Atlantic: How nice girls got so casual about oral sex

This was five years ago.

Are You There God? It's Me, Monica

www.theatlantic.com

How nice girls got so casual about oral sex

History of Coca Cola ads

175 years. The real thing. Coke adds life. Love at first sip. Always cool (who cares about global warming?)

See http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/cocaine.asp.

History of Coca-Cola in Ads

www.beautifullife.info

The Coca-Cola Company has always believed in advertising, and that belief has taken it to the top of the mountain. Fantastic, colourful,

An atom of a peace bomb

An atom of a peace bomb. A tiny first step for the Indians and Pakistanis, if there is a deal next month. A giant step for many others who desire peaceful coexistence between families.

Pakistan and India in historic tradepush - FT.com

www.ft.com

India and Pakistan are preparing for the biggest liberalisation in bilateral trade since partition more than six decades ago, reviving commercial ties that have been strangled ever since the end of British rule in 1947. Senior officials on both

The Atlantic: The End of Men

Now fathers can be mothers too.

The End of Men

www.theatlantic.com

Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But w...

The Atlantic: All the Single Ladies

"..men have been rapidly declining—in income, in educational attainment, and in future employment prospects—relative to women."

Relief!!

All the Single Ladies

www.theatlantic.com

Recent years have seen an explosion of male joblessness and a steep decline in men’s life prospects that have disrupted the “romantic market” in ways that narrow a marriage-minded woman’s options: increasingly, her choice is between deadbeats (whose numbers are rising) and playboys (whose power is g.

The Atlantic: Irregular neighborhoods in Karachi

Katchi abadis. Just read Mike Davis' Planet of Slums. Shape and smell of things to come - blood.

In Karachi, Irregular Neighborhoods Are Anything But - Housing - The Atlantic Cities

www.theatlanticcities.com

An estimated half of the population of Pakistan's largest city lives in unauthorized homes

WaPo: Pakistan leans toward talks with Taliban, not battle

Demonizing supposed fundamentalists doesn't go anywhere. Because fighting "them" ends up in fighting "within". Just like global warming! :-)

Pakistan leans toward talks with Taliban, not battle

www.washingtonpost.com

As American discontent rises, Pakistan shows less willingness to fight.

West must keep Pakistan ties, says Nato chief

A marriage made in hell more difficult to break than one made in heaven.

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West must keep Pakistan ties, says Nato chief - FT.com

www.ft.com

The west must continue to co-operate closely with Pakistan despite US claims that Pakistan’s intelligence agency is assisting Islamist insurgents fighting allied troops in Afghanistan, Nato’s secretary-general has said. Anders Fogh Ramussen declined

WaPo: How the economy looked at the end of 2008

A remarkable read from 8 Oct 11 WaPo, describing Christina Romer's briefing to Barack Obama mid-December 2008.

"The Bureau of Economic Analysis, the agency charged with measuring the size and growth of the U.S. economy, initially projected that the economy shrank at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the last quarter of 2008. Months later, the bureau almost doubled that estimate, saying the number was 6.2 percent. Then it was revised to 6.3 percent. But it wasn’t until this year that the actual number was revealed: 8.9 percent. That makes it one of the worst quarters in American history. Bernstein and Romer knew in 2008 that the economy had sustained a tough blow; t hey didn’t know that it had been run over by a truck."

"In our crisis, the “debt” in question is housing debt. Home prices have fallen almost 33 percent since the beginning of the crisis. All together, the nation’s housing stock is worth $8 trillion less than it was in 2006. And we’re not done. Morgan Stanley estimates there are more than 2.2 million homes sitting vacant, and 7.5 million more facing foreclosure. It is housing debt that has weakened the banks, and mortgage debt that is keeping consumers from spending."

Could this time have been different?

www.washingtonpost.com

A deep look at the economic policies we did and didn’t choose.

This blog's title comes from an old Indian movie song - "Yeh duinya gol hai, uper-se khol hai, andar-ko dekho pyaare, bilkul polam-pol hai" (Mohd. Rafi, Chaudhvi ka Chand, on screen by the comedian Johnny Walker). Means "This earth is round, it's open from the top and, if you look, loved ones, sheer hollow from inside."

The words "polam-pol" has two meanings just as "hollow" in English.

I happen to think that is a good image of much everything in the world - there are theories without basis; if you look inside anything or anybody, be prepared to find nothing. (Looking inside is a mutual activity and generates new things to see, which is another matter. But the same principle applies to impersonal theories as well; only when you see the hollowness can you begin to imagine how to fill them, and in so doing change the theories. Just as people.)

But the more immediate impetus to think of gol dooniya comes from my fascination with both dooniya and gol (also refers to zero). I was surprised to see that the ancient sages of India not only gave us the zero but also an image of the round earth. Wikipedia says, "One of the earliest descriptions of standard time in India appeared in the 4th century CE astronomical treatise Surya Siddhanta. Postulating a spherical earth, the book defined the prime meridian, or zero longitude, as passing through Avanti, the ancient name for the historic city of Ujjain, and Rohitaka, the ancient name for Rohtak, a city near the historic battle-field of Kurukshetra."

So, zero begins, zero ends, and anything in between and inside has to be zero; what else?

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One friend's observation - "We don't have service culture in Gujarat because we did not have a feudal culture." That was in response to my comment, "Us Gujaratis think of starting a trade and being our own boss rather than serve anybody else. Might serve a king or even a rich man because of a sense of obligation to the king or because the rich man is also a good man, but otherwise the attitude is one of slacking, resisting orders, asserting independence. Traders are different; they respect the customer, at least so long he has the money. But doing a job properly - in a bank, a hotel, government - is foreign to us; we might do it, but can't be counted on it."

Then I wondered how much of a Gujarati I AM!!

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I still haven't been at rest much. I would like to go some quieter place where I don't have to talk to anybody (with the exception of someone bringing me food and water).

If there is a nice prison for some victimless offense, I could honor my childhood fantasy of being like an Indian freedom fighter and staying in jail.

I should start a reality show for revolutionary wannabes, and create nice hotel prisons. People will pay to watch, so it's only a matter of getting a loan. "Alternative living" home mortgage is a whole new line of business.

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