today

Southern California's Menifee Union school district has banned the Merriam Webster's 10th edition Dictionary from use in fourth and fifth grade classes.

IMO: "Only in America", eh ? Many years ago, I first went to USA and was warned - by a European - to expect this sort of thing. But I have felt that, for some time, it is getting worse. I will not say that the USA is now trying to emulate Chinese type censorship, as this sort of thing is typically American from start to finish.

Van Thanh Rudd's recent protest  concerning Australia was given much publicity yesterday in the Indian press.

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's nephew, who is part Vietnamese, was fined for offensive behaviour after dressing in a Ku Klux Klan costume to protest against racism at a demonstration outside the Australia Open tennis championship.

IMO: Van Thanh Rudd has probably suffered less than most from racism than many others. In Australia, scholars, academics and the 'young British Artist' types of Private Eye - a category into which he'd probably fall, actually seem to have suffered relatively little from racism at any time in the recent past in Australia. The people who did suffer most, in my opinion, were ordinary middle and low income Australian persons of obvious mixed blood, who often suffered more from their own full blood white Australian relatives than anyone else. Indian students are often poor and since they may well also be intellectual snobs, they could catch a little of the brunt of the wrath created by their supposed alllies. I don't know if the KKK uniform stunt helps anyone - and of course many Vietnamese were on Australia's side during the Vietnam war, which Australia probably could have won anyway if it had had to go it alone - obviously using plenty of nukes - but the Rupert Murdoch types doubtless made more money by kowtowing to China. Australia has always been mildly smug and irritating, but that is not one sided. The smugness and irritatingness have been mutual to many of all sides and Australia can be made to look more of a problem country than it is. The cult of wearing a black singlet whilst you wash your own Ferrari, whilst never fully implemented, has never appealed to me personally. Besides, I certainly cannot afford a new Ferrari, and have always left black singlets to the dunny man, whom Ferrari owners probably never meet. But such people as Van Thanh Rudd may well be a problem, rather than a potential asset, to India. Be all that as it may, India needs fissile materials - especially for peaceful purposes - to allow its nationals to survive in a dignified way.

Mr Rudd said the Australian Government had participated in racism. "In this country, you could not get away with locking up more than 1000 innocent whites, but that is exactly what is happening to Tamil and Afghani refugees. It's racism pure and simple." He said Australia was funding the Sri Lankan regime from which Tamil refugees were fleeing.

IMO: That is probably how it is, and I tend to blame the Australian government rather more than the Australian people. Now the problem, to a certain extent, is with the Delhi government as well, who obviously are funding Sri Lanka also, because they need to try to avoid too much Chinese involvement in Sri Lanka, and because of almost the certainly unjustified desire for Delhi vengeance against the Tamil people. The Gandhis, from Varun to Sonia, also seem too smug. This cannot help Indian politics. The Indian Express concluded that "In the opinion of the LSE and SOAS faculty and officials the report quoted, this meant Varun Gandhi's degree, for example was not from their institutions". India Today reported that Varun had studied abroad, failing to complete a law degree at the University of Durham, where he lived off an allowance of £1,500 a month.

Perhaps da Vinci was an early Holly Woodlawn, or maybe Oscar Wilde would be closer.
This could actually matter, as the former type, particularly, could well relate to abnormalities in the right angular gyrus, for example. Da Vinci seems to have been very smart, little doubt there, and the more we can find out about smart people,mystics, and other out of the ordinary characters, expecially historical ones, probably the better.

Physorg has a report here to indicate that further tests may become available on the matter, the idea being that the Mona Lisa was perhaps a self-portrait.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday reopened the debate on de-criminalising electoral politics by exhorting parties “to evolve a consensus” on barring those with criminal records from contesting polls.

IMO: I'm fairly sure that this view should be supported in some way and I am relieved to hear it. But so often when such people have been refused the right to stand, or for other reasons unable to do so, they simply appoint a spouse or other relative. Some say that was the case recently in Virar. And occasionally, a very worthy person is thus debarred from office, e.g. Mahatma Gandhi could have been. Phoolan Devi would be considered by some to be another. So whilst in principle we can applaud her view and I for one am relieved to hear it, what should be done in practice would take a lot of discussion, probably worth the effort for those not otherwise too busy and/or directly involved. And we also have cases like that of Tony Blair, who was considered honest, and for that matter a Protestant as well, before he was elected in the UK.

There is a new website called "Arrest Blair" which is supposed to be set up by the well known George Monbiot. I do not know for sure, there are so many strange and misleading websites set up these days that all clearly cannot be fully investigated. We all probably know of joint misinformation schemes set up by most political parties both in the US and the UK, and the ridiculous 'teabaggers' site. Anyway, details here.

IMO: But, unfortunately, a lot more MPs than just Tony Blair should be arrested and jailed for their war crimes, and has it not always been thus ? The strategy of singling out Blair as a chief perpetrator is unclear. Before anyone should support such a site, they should know who they are supporting very clearly and then if they still take it seriously, put effort behind it. Simply a signature, like simply a vote, is apt to mean little. Voting or not voting may be worthwhile for everyone, but a private cause may need heavy support to succeed. For example, when Guido Fawkes supports a site like that, it should mean little, if Paddick supported it, a lot. That is irrespective of one's views of those individuals.

Two particular cases, for example, would be that of the Australian politician Rudd, or the US politician George Bush. Conceivably a good case could be made for arresting either for war crimes or other crimes such as environmental crimes, but whether to seek success or simply to improve a personal public image, one might well doubt the positive value of either move.

An OAP writes: "Boy, if this doesn't hit the nail on the head, I don't know what does!
Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require a hip replacement.
The FIRST patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.
The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks for an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another week and finally has his surgery scheduled for 6 months from then.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?
The FIRST is a Golden Retriever.
The SECOND is a Senior Citizen.

Next time, please take me to a vet!"

IMO: Of course, this happens because prudent Americans want to save tax dollars. This level of selfishness is so common everywhere that any other explanation is unlikely.

Many people recall the video on which Barack Obama allegedly continually says "Thank you, Satan" backwards. I did not check but it was either bighting humor or possibly real soundbites - frightening if the latter.
Now there is a "proof" (further details here) by one Frank Schaeffer, who appears to be a Democrat and the son of a leading founder of the religious right. In an article entitled "Our very own pact with Satan", there is the following alleged proof that now the whole USA, not just the President, has haplessly entered a pact with Satan. To a Christian it is almost believable. I'm just going out to worship Lord Ganpathy. At least Ganpathy and his worshippers make sense.
"What else besides a punishment for a satanic pact could explain the following?...
    * Sarah Palin, who got a heartbeat from the presidency and who believes that health care reform means there will be death panels and that she needed to have witches cast out in a Pentecostal ceremony before she’d run for governor
    * A whole subculture of American rooting for the “End Times” and Armageddon
    * Pat Robertson who explained 9/11 and now the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti, as results of God’s wrath and/or satanic dealings
    * Dick Cheney who betrays his country (and common decency) by saying our country is less safe because we have a Democrat for president
    * Rick Warren who coddled the “Christian” leaders in Uganda who want to kill gays (until Warren got called out and backtracked)
    * The “Family” and other Washington “Christian” groups working overtime to turn America into a theocracy
    * The evangelical hate machine working to deny gays their right to marry
    * The Roman Catholic hate machine aiding and abetting the evangelicals
    * Tea Party goofs who hate our government and think that “Hitler” is president
    * Private armies of murdering “Contractors” who are above the law
    * “Christians” attending the funerals of service men and women and screaming God hates fags and America
    * A bunch of Congressmen more loyal to their theology than to the Constitution of the United States
    * A military besieged by evangelical zealots trying to use the military chaplains and academies as an evangelistic spring board by “witnessing” to hapless soldiers
    * Tax free churches deforming American politics
    * Franklin Graham who is now taking the heretofore nonpartisan Billy Graham organization to the extreme hate-filled right, even getting old and out of it Billy to sign a letter endorsing Palin…"
IMO: I perhaps must stress that I do not agree with all the views, pro or con, expressed above, but it seems to explain what many Americans feel is the state of the nation.

A new paper in Nature suggests that a significant proportion of background ozone in the lower levels of the atmosphere may be a result of long range transport from East Asia, especially China. Ozone is not only a greenhouse gas, but it damages the lungs and vegetation and crops. Ozone is the primary constituent of photochemical oxidant pollution, otherwise known as "smog."
(Obviously, a higher level ozone component of the atmosphere is as important as it has ever been)

IMO: The paper also says "We suggest that the observed increase in springtime background ozone mixing ratio may hinder the USA’s compliance with its ozone air quality standard." In other words, any excuse to allow the US and Europe to carry on global warming and blame the less well-off. Admittedly China should also curb emissions, but why place part of the brunt on harmless other countires in the east as well, with very low emissions. Here, we see Western fascism and racism at its usual high level. Whilst scientific fact should most certainly not be suppressed, the sentence beginning  "we suggest ..." for example, suggests to me that major scientific outlets should ensure that the wording of their papers is less likely to cause offense.

David Chaytor, the MP for Bury North, drew up a tenancy agreement with his daughter but disguised their relationship by giving her middle name as her surname. That is deception.
IMO: In India, this would probably be called "benami" or something like it. It then would be criminal but more importantly, the money would have to be returned to the Government. In the UK this probably will not happen, as it could create a precedent for nearly every UK MP of every persuasion to go to jail and equally important, to pay back the money they have stolen from the taxpayers.  Democracy ? Not the word I would use about the UK, when the elderly in the UK die because they cannot pay for their fuel and their power is turned off.

Massachusetts is a rock solid Democrat constituency and a Democrat Senator had occupied this seat for decades. With the Massachusetts seat lost in January, then God only knows how many other marginal constituencies could be lost in the mid-term elections next November. How could there be such a major shift in public sentiment in such a short time? How could euphoria for Obama’s election swing into dissatisfaction in such a short time?

Massachusetts voters must have judged Obama by the fact that his determination to re-engineer the health system to extend coverage to some 40 million who are living without any insurance or state support would have meant a tax increase without any benefits to Massachusetts’ residents who already have the sort of health system that Obama wishes to roll out across the nation.

The voters of Massachusetts had nothing to gain and something to lose from Obama’s success in rolling out such system throughout the nation. It was easy and populist for the Republican candidate to gain support by promising to block the health bill in the senate to defend the narrow interests of his state constituents, even if, in the process, he would be denying the whole country a health system worthy of the most advanced economy in the world.

IMO: Massachusetts is allegedly one of the most vital and intellectual states in the Union. These happenings simply show the problems that the US facade of real democracy is facing. The US system needs a lot of improvement before it can be really termed a democracy. USA is unfortunately becoming closer and closer to being a fascist dictatorship, a likelihood which had been close in the days of Joe McCarthy and is not far away now. As I feared, it really looks as if Obama is turning out to be 'just another Dinkins' (BoingBoing and many others have indicated many further problems) but any imaginable alternative to Obama would have been far far worse.

Uranium may be tempering India's response to the attacks on its citizens in Australia, some in the Congress believe.

Australia has 40 per cent of the world's known uranium reserves and is its top exporter. The uranium is exported as yellow compound (ammonium diuranate), and used to make nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons countries have signed agreements with Australia to buy uranium while India has signed civil nuclear pacts with seven countries - the US, France, Russia, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Argentina and Mongolia so far.

India wants civil nuclear cooperation with Australia under which Canberra may supply uranium for joint venture power plants to New Delhi. Australia doesn't supply uranium to countries that haven't signed the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and there are fears it may not sell to India as New Delhi hasn't signed the NPT.

"The response to the attacks exposed India's inherent weakness to talk tough with nations like Pakistan and China, not to mention Australia," a senior Congress leader said.

IMO: Several facts come to mind. Most Australians are decent enough people but naturally enough, want to retain Australia more or less as it is, or at least as a nice enough place anyway. They would also like to see a nicer, better and more prosperous world. This occasionally makes them go to quite quixotic extremes but these are not normally of a racially intolerant nature. It seems that many Indian NRIs are happier with the Australian Government than with the Indian Government for a variety of practical and solid reasons, but naturally enough, India hears more about those who aren't happy with Australia. But then there are Australian politicians, and in any country, politicians often are not typical people. The Australian Prime Minister is Kevin Michel Rudd, who is not at all like the Australian author Steele Rudd (AKA Arthur Hoey Davis) in my opinion, though the name may well have won him a few votes. Steele Rudd hadn’t intended his characters to be regarded as comic figures, especially in the beginning; he had merely set out to describe the experiences of typical country farmers. And Steele Rudd meant to rub it in to townspeople how hard life on the land was. And things really were tough in Australia in the early 20th century, a country manoo in Maharashtra nowadays not doing very well at all, if magically turned into a 1920s Australian farmhand would probably not have noticed any improvement But the present Australian Prime Minister Kevin Michael Rudd is a very different character. Kevin Michael Rudd studied at the Australian National University  in Canberra  where he resided at Burgmann College and graduated with First Class Honours in Arts (Asian Studies). He majored in Chinese language and Chinese history, became proficient in Mandarin and acquired a Chinese alias, Lu Kewen. Then he somehow got voted in as Australian Prime Minister. Possibly  a very unwise choice for Australia, although there are certainly far worse choices on offer. For example, over Iraq Rudd said "There is no debate or dispute as to whether Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. He does". A man in Rudd's position should have known better, and possibly did. That could make Kevin Michael Rudd a war criminal. But such people often behave like small puppy dogs, willing to follow any likely master who perhaps can provide some garbage to eat. So India's mature and distinguished leaders have real problems and its hoped that the many lesser babus do not make a difficult situation worse. India certainly needs many new nuclear reactors and a lot of nuclear fuel and suffers every day from the lack of these. Here in Vasai, electric power blackouts occur several hours a day, the local trains are a nightmare, and more nuclear power would certainly improve the lives of the average Indian greatly. I suffer from Australia's intransigence as do all Indians, and I feel the pain of all. This certainly does not mean India should change its policies.

MUMBAI: India's markets regulator has barred Societe Generale from conducting new transactions in offshore derivatives instruments until such time as it complies with the country's reporting requirements. In a notification late on Friday, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said SocGen which operates in India as a foreign institutional investor, had wrongly reported certain transactions.

The transactions related to the issue of overseas derivative instruments between January 2006 and January 2008 with Reliance Communications as the underlying security, to a company called Hythe Securities. Of the 48 transactions that SocGen had with Hythe, it had admitted to misreporting 14 transactions, said the SEBI order, which can be viewed on SEBI's website.

SocGen officials in Hong Kong and Australia could not be immediately reached for comment. Under Indian regulations foreign entities in India, acting on behalf of clients overseas, have to fully disclose information regarding the issue of off-shore derivatives instruments and provide details of the ultimate beneficiary client. SocGen has been given 30 days to reply to the order, which comes into effect immediately.

In December, SEBI had issued similar prohibitory orders against Barclays Bank Plc for reporting violations, regarding issue of ODIs with Reliance Communications as the underlying security.

IMO: Sounds reasonable to me. Barring seems to be for allegedly violating "know your client" rules that compel companies to provide complete information on overseas customers. Ultimately expulsion is certainly possible.

Three engineers were sitting around the office one day and the topic turned to intelligent design.
“Well,” said the mechanical engineer, if you think about how the human body is designed, it must be the case that God is a mechanical engineer. Just look at the ball and socket joint of the hip, for example. A brilliant piece of work.”
“Yeah?” The electrical engineer sneered just a bit. “Well, I dunno. You’d put a ball and socket in any number of places, but where would you want a joint like the knee? No, I think any serious examination of the design reveals that God is an electrical engineer. Consider all the nerve endings, the fine work at the tips of fingers, and, well, all sorts of other places.”
“Oh, no, guys.” The civil engineer wasn’t taking any of this guff from mech-E or EE. “No, you have to admit that God is a civil engineer. Who else would run the waste line out through the recreational area?”

IMO: Or, you could argue that God is a politician - lots of unkept promises, then chaos and we all get sent to hell.

"Workers in a wide variety of jobs are paid based on performance, which is commonly seen as enhancing effort and productivity relative to non-contingent pay schemes. However, psychological research suggests that excessive rewards can in some cases result in a decline in performance. To test whether very high monetary rewards can decrease performance, we conducted a set of experiments in the US and India in which subjects worked on different tasks and received performance-contingent payments that varied in amount from small to very large relative to their typical levels of pay. With some important exceptions, very high reward levels had a detrimental effect on performance".  Abstract of "Large Stakes and Big Mistakes" Ariely, D., Gneezy U., Loewenstein , Mazar M., 'Review of Economic Studies', 76 (2), 2009, 451-469.

IMO: Much of this work was carried out in India, which is a marvellous place for this kind of work. I know because I do a lot of work over there on my own experiments. But control experiments were also done in USA.  "Very high reward levels had a detrimental effect on performance" so cut the wages of top bankers, MPs, local authority chiefs and similar worthless UK riff-raff as soon as possible. These people are already floating in money and it is diabolical to pay them so much. On top of that they swindle the public's money even further and do little valuable work at all. Shame !!!

According to the important US blog BoingBoing "Peter Mandelson has tabled his "Digital Economy Bill," a terrible piece of legislation that requires ISPs to police their customers on behalf of the music industry when the latter claims that its copyrights have been violated (no evidence necessary). The UK music industry blames piracy for £200 million in annual losses, and this is Mandelson's excuse for abridging human rights and fundamental justice in his witch-hunt for pirates.
But the government's own research shows that Mandelson's plans will cost the UK ISP industry £500 million to implement, and when these costs are added to each customer's bill (as they surely will be), the rise will be enough to knock an estimated 40,000 British families off the Internet
What's more, the government's own Digital Inclusion research has shown that poor households with Internet access enjoy a substantially higher quality of life than their offline neighbours, thanks to a variety of factors, from low-cost online shopping, to savings through online utility billing, to better research tools for school-kids, job-seekers and people with health problems.
Half a billion pounds down the drain, 40,000 of Britain's most vulnerable families knocked offline, and for all that, there's no reason to believe that Mandelson's plan will do anything to out piracy."

IMO: Sounds like this could be right. BoingBoing are often right. Looks like Mandelson is as good at dealing with the internet as Gordon Brown is at regulating banker's salaries. That is, quite worthless. Now Mandelson certainly appears to belong to a sexual minority group of a kind notoriously good at manipulating the media to its cliquish advantage but not necessarily in possession of far reaching and constructive views in other ways. It is easy to say that perhaps both he and Gordon Brown were bad choices. But on those terms we are left saying that most MPs of all parties in Westminster were bad choices. Probably this is true,and it could be said they should mostly be voted out of office for good at almost any cost.  In practice our reasonable best hope may be for a considerable reform to the voting system, and I would have hoped that at least some elected MPs have the self-respect to work on that.

"The latest revelations that donations from Zac Goldsmith to the Tory Party may have been covered up are in the papers, So what are Tories bloggers saying about it ?
As of 10:16 am  Iain Dale says nothing.
Guido Fawkes, who claims to be independent but leans heavily in his postings towards attacking almost anyone except the Tories, says nothing.
Conservative Home says nothing.
Tory Radio says nothing
And of all the other Tory bloggers, I could not find one mention.
In stark contrast, after revelations about Gordon Brown, this issue was being discussed on Labour Websites and blogs like Labour List.
Posted by NB at 10:27"

IMO: My opinion of ALL Westminster MPs could hardly be construed as favorable, but even worse than the above facts is the ridiculous Mail on Sunday articles about Brown, and what is more Fawkes says the Mail on Sunday articles show "Brown's bonkers", which the artcles most certainly do not show.

Susan Greenfield has lost her job at the "Royal Institution". The London Times has the headline "Royal Institution ‘risks future by making Baroness Greenfield redundant’".

IMO: This could be true if the Royal Institution loses Greenfield's proposed lawsuit against it, from my reading of 'Winfield on Torts' and the financial status and financial history of the Institution. Whether her proposed lawsuit is reasonable, and its motives, are another question.

It's many years since I have heard the famous old Christmas Carol, "Boston Charlie" and when I recently ran across that grand old hymn again I decided to post it on the internet.

"Boston Charlie":

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker 'n' too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, 'lope with you!

Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!

Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an' polly voo!
Chilly Filly's name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!

Against the backdrop of four Generals facing allegations of involvement in the Darjeeling land scam, defence minister AK Antony January 9th held a meeting with Army chief general Deepak Kapoor.

Army chief General Deepak Kapoor has been cornered over the land scam rocking the army, with pressure mounting on him to sack military secretary Lt General Avadesh Prakash. The military secretary is one of the senior-most lieutenant generals and among the eight principal staff officers who report directly to Kapoor.

IMO: Also, I was informed that holidaymakers are greatly inconvenienced by the current calls for bandhs in Darjeeling, and that right now is not a good time to visit the area. Soon yet another beauty spot may be ruined by often self-centred politics.

Further, Siliguri in West Bengal is the only supply source of necessary commodities for Sikkim, Desperately, Siliguri connects to Sikkim through Darjeeling in middle on the highway. The state of Sikkim has already envisaged the calamity arising from blockage of highway and many time the state Government requested Supreme Court for keeping the Highway undisrupted but still nothing has been done by the centre to avoid highway disruptions. State Government in another request had pledged Apex Court to certain alternative route to connect to Siliguri bypassing Darjeeling, the response from centre is still strangled bottlenecked. It is not just Sikkim alone, international highways connecting India to Nepal, Bhutan and some parts of North East Indian state too have to suffer during such hectic bandhs.

IMO: Some interested parties clearly want to create yet another new state - Ghorkaland this time. The Ghorkhaland dispute is 100 years old however, and doubtless many factors have changed in that time.