Some ramblings...

Is there a correlation..

2011-12-06T21:30:00.014-06:00

Today, after work I went to one of my usual food joints to pick up my meal. (Location and names withheld for obvious reasons). Employee behind the counter was giving me hard time for not going there frequently. After the regular banter, he mentioned the he lost his regular job and that fast food job is his only job now. I felt sorry, just before I paid I asked him whether he have a family. "Three beautiful kids and wife, and fortunately she's working". I left the place on a good note.

So it came to one of the topics which we heatedly discuss at work, among close friends. The topic is, If you're poor, is it a wise move to have more kids? Or in other words, why poor people end up with more kids while rich have far too less. I understand that reproductive rights are fundamental and you can't control or mandate couples (married or unmarried) to have kids based on how much money you've at that point of time. (This doesn't apply in China though)

Look around, look beyond our usual suburban life. You can see that most of the people who depend on welfare or food stamps have more than 2 or 3 kids. The poverty in these inner city/urban areas is gut wrenching It's like watching a horror movie in a loop. You can see this at your neighboring Wal-Mart location also. It's tough to say what caused that poverty and which preceded what? The childbirths or the downfall into poverty.

In India it's even worse. There's so much societal pressure to bear more children when you're in right age. No matter how flimsy you income source is and how costly it became to raise a child and educate him or her. "Leave it to the Almighty, he'll take care of all of them."

Meanwhile you see that Upper middle class and rich couples who keep delaying the children. Reasons could be many...careers, timing, uncertainties. So even if they're well educated, nice job to rely on, they consider so many variables before they take that step.

The question I've is, why is this fear not part of reproduction cycles of very poor people. Is it the lack of education, contraceptives, foresight or the overabundance of passion killing the caution. How exactly do you plan to provide for your kids and send'em to school. And is there a correlation between poverty and number of children.

New york Times published a though provoking article Richer People Want Fewer Children in July. The background for that is another freakonomics article The Rich vs Poor Debate: Are Kids Normal or Inferior Goods? I usually take any freakonomics article with pinch of salt.
But data wouldn't lie.

You can see the fertility difference between women in India and USA. The country with highest per capita fertility is Niger. And you see how less the per capita income is. Kids aren't the reason for poverty but people in poverty give birth to more babies.

This is an universal problem not just here in US. But I see this very closely here.

Two weeks back, 60 minutes broadcasted a report about new generation of kids growing up in cars. We just have a new level of poverty below homeless shelters. Two things caught my attention. As the above data proves, the poorer you get, the more kids you've. Family in this video is, single mom with 4 kids.

And then the second family in this video, you can see two kids living in a truck with their dad and their....dog! It's been two days since I watched this, I still can't comprehend why that family still have a dog.

My heart goes out to those kids who're homeless. Particularly that young girl and her brother cleaning up themselves in different gas station bathrooms every day disturbed me a lot. But I can't say the same about the parents. I understand, a single event can change a life and you might end up on a street. But why the pet? Can't you make a discretionary choice of getting rid of pet when you turn homeless.

I don't have a proper closure or conclusion for this post.
My thoughts are unclear and I'm on a thin line between absolute sorrow and anger.

Peace

(Disclaimer: I'm a single male with no kids and I don't intend to have kids in future also. So this post itself might lack that objectivity which you're looking for)

Here's the 60 minutes program link, Hard Times Generation: Families living in cars

My Christmas Wish

2011-11-27T16:03:00.019-06:00

TIME magazine is famous for dumbing down the news coverage and there's no bigger contrarian indicator than their cover page.

Every new Warner Brothers movie gets a cover story, every apple device launch gets one, and if there's dearth of publicist driven stories...there's holy Mary, Jesus to fall back on.

Fine, every magazine does the same thing, wait....there's Housing bubble, what housing bubble?
There's no year-end media circus event which is more idiotic and unimportant than the TIME person of the year. (Excluding TIME 100, that's beyond my intellectual ability). Every President elect will be chosen as TIME person of the year, that's a default. Enemies of US, no matter how much they changed the course of our lives, wouldn't be the person of the year. Osama bin Laden wasn't the person of that year, Rudy Giuliani was. (Of course Stalin and Hitler were exceptions, not quite sure where we stand on Putin though). See the previous person gallery here

As God is my witness (intended to dramatize), here's the list of probable people I wrote for this year, before checking TIME website.

Arab Uprisings
Occupy Wall St
Anonymous
Navy seals
Barack Obama
Grover Norquist
Steve Jobs
Kim Kardashian
Rupert Murdoch

I checked TIME website and they didn't disappoint. Below are the few people who're nominated for this year, and I'm delighted to see Kim on the list

Usually TIME probables can be broadly categorized into these
Obvious picks
Barack Obama
Anonymous
Navy Seal Team 6
1%, 99%
Steve Jobs

Lame picks
Gabriel Gifford s (I don't mean to diminish the Congress Woman's shooting, but she's only a victim of a deranged person's shooting)
Kate Middleton (A British woman married to a British prince, 2nd in line to throne)
Dominique Strauss-Kahn (accused of raping a hotel maid, but prosecution dropped the charges)
Charlie Sheen

"Who the F is this again" picks
Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey's PM)
Lionel Messi (Argentina's soccer player)
Ai Weiwei

"Intended to rage readers" picks
Reed Hastings (Netflix CEO, who have a knack for splitting companies and sending emails to all the subscribers after having too many drinks)
Casey Anthony
Michele Bachmann
Rupert Murdoch
Kim Kardashian

The last section is the reason why I love TIME. Just for the web hits, robo voting...they'll let people vote for their choice, even though Time's contributors pick the person. the panel for this year is very diversified(for the lack of better word)..Brian Williams, Mario Batali, Anita Hill, Jesse Eisenberg, Grover Norquist and Seth Meyers.

I'm appalled that heavy weights like Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Sarah Palin aren't on list, I'm gonna weep to sleep tonight. Meh, my intellectual inspiration Rep. Michele Bachmann is here..I'll take it.

Folks I'll cut to the chase, I want Kim Kardashian to be the new Person of the year. Please TIME, please! She's the epitome of the moral bankruptcy of the American culture, that is putting very mildly. She got everything you're looking for. No real talent in whatsoever form, sex tape, reality show, perfume, overpriced clothing, paid appearances, discontinued charge card, dimwitted athlete husband. Wait there're spin off reality shows for her sisters and other family members also.

She divorced her second husband with in the span of 72 days and that tipped off the Public. They actually believed that the fairy tale wedding was real and they'll live together ever after. Now they all feet cheated, they're angered and outraged that she took' em all for a ride.

Please TIME, keep it real, and make this woman the Person of the year.
(Don't mind the 19220 haters who voted against her, haters gonna hate)

Peace.

P.S. For what it's worth, time predicted the next president right. It's a kinda bold move for 2006, as Spitzer/Obama was perceived as hot ticket at that time and then Eliot Spitzer got caught in a sex scandal.

Update 12/03/2011
There's one more media event, which is more trivial and idiotic than this. It's the year-end sex surveys in Indian news magazines. For some reason, they do it every year and each year it's shocking. India Today just released theirs and Outlook might send one our way pretty soon.
Here's BBC's Indian Correspondent's column about this topic.

images via TIME

Steven P. Jobs, 1955-2011

2011-10-05T21:03:00.005-05:00

I wonder whether this world would ever idolize any other CEO like we idolized you Steve.
RIP Steve, we will miss you.

image via apple

Front Row tickets

2011-07-31T15:46:00.005-05:00

George Carlin said this in 2004.

"When you are born in this world, you are given a ticket to the Freak Show, and when you are born in America, you have a front row seat"

If you're an average educated & informed voter (or an aspiring immigrant like me) who's angered by these Tea Party shenanigans in this Debt Ceiling drama, don't get outraged. Consider this as a front row ticket to freak show in the name of American Political Bankruptcy.

Poor and middle class people who voted for these tea party hacks, where would you go crying once Ayn Rand's fan boy Ryan starts cutting your Social security, medicare and medicaid benefits? Enjoy the fruits of your labor. Oh btw, keep watching the fox news.

Middle class who voted otherwise, you aren't alone. You've the company of rich people. I know! The average 2 and 20 hedge fund guy, investment bankers, Wall St CEOs are all tired and vexed with these retards in the House.

For a change, I don't have any endless tirade about this. But I've two opinion pieces. One from the Free Markets savior WSJ and another from a successful financial advisor. Both are capitalists, not your average tax and spend liberals whom the wall st dreads most.

Here's WSJ opinion piece
The GOP's Reality Test
These below line sums up the Wall Street's frustration.
....The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.

This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell into GOP Senate nominees

And here's a financial Advisor Joshua M. Brown's outrage in his blog The Reformed Broker
Traitors.
And the only thing worse than an economic dilettante voting idiotically in Congress is when someone who's actually worked on The Street acts like they don't know any better. For shame to the hedge fund managers and finance guys who are providing intellectual cover for the bastards who dare push this nation closer to the cliff's edge!

To Stanley Druckenmiller and the rest of the Oldtimers' Game brain trust, let me say this: Your ideas about missing a Treasury coupon "just to see what would happen" are so dangerous that I fear someone's been tampering with your meds. How is it possible that otherwise intelligent people could reasonably believe that the world's reserve debt instrument should be used for a political gambit? Mr. Druckenmiller (and friends), we agree on the need to get our house cleaned up, just not on your plan of swinging a wrecking ball at it to get the maids' attention. Congrats on your retirement, please don't feel the need to ever offer public comment again.

Sit back, relax and enjoy the freak show (or apocalypse).

Sources:
WSJ
The Reformed Broker

Good looks are a curse

2011-07-24T20:44:00.009-05:00

Yes, Good looks are a curse. As per this NY Times profile of Olivia Wilde. Oh wait, there's another NYT profile of yet another good looking woman Brit Marling who has to work extra hard to make her mark in Hollywood. Listen kids, don't aspire a career in Hollywood, if you're even remotely good looking. Or prepare to work very hard to go past an ordinary person.

Here's li'l bit of my personal experience. All doors open for good looking people, either men or women. Period. I work in IT, not a glamorous field by any measure. And I've seen many people, whose good looks and charm gave'em li'l push on their way up on corporate ladder. Trust me, there's no such thing called glass ceiling for these people.

Back to the NYT articles, these are the article Headlines.
Look Past the Beauty, if You Can.
How to Succeed in Hollywood Despite Being Really Beautiful.

There was a time, I was naive and I've this impression that all I read in Newspaper or magazines is objective reporting. Slowly I woke up to fact that there's a profession by name Publicist. Whose job is make sure that his/her client gets enough visibility in all the media. Client could be anybody or anything. A new website, app, artist, athlete, tech entrepreneur, VC et al. So the publicists hired by the agencies of Ms.Wilde and Ms.Marling are behind these articles. This doesn't feel good to me but I don't have any problem with this. No harm whatsoever.

But these attention seeking faux headlines makes me cringe. We're talking about Hollywood, where good looks are a pre-requisite. And when was the last time good looks became liability to any actress. This whole argument sounds preposterous to me. Olivia Wilde's profile itself quotes that her parents are influential journalists with beltway contacts and that's how she got a job in a casting agency. So the family background and good looks which gave her a break early in her career are suddenly a liability?

I like Olivia Wilde, saw her on Bill Maher once and found her very informed about social issues. Haven't seen any movie or TV series starring her. I've no idea who the other lady is. I don't have any beef with magazines profiling these artists, whenever their new movie/memoir/music album comes out. My only problem is with these catchy Headlines, these show business reporters come up with. If this article is all about beauty being a bane, then they should've skipped the photoshopped pic. Nope, that wasn't the case.

Being beautiful is not a liability. It never was and never would be. Media should stop using this overplayed meme. Just imagine how many people would recognize Olivia or the other woman, if they haven't inherited that good gene pool. This is show business, not Financial Engineering or Nuclear Science.

Peace.

Oh, the fourth estate

2011-07-13T20:47:00.012-05:00

Few random observations on print and electronic media.

--Right now I'm watching a BMW's paid commercial err...special documentary about BMW on CNBC. I've seen similar programs about Ford, P&G and others. Are these the new Special advertising sections of TV? For these programs who pays who? I mean, would BMW pay for these programs as this is cheap advertising? or would CNBC offers this free slot of time to gain more commercials later.

--Sheryl Sandberg's PR offensive is firing on all cylinders. In the last 2 months I read a cover story of her in BusinessWeek, lengthy profile in Newyorker and heard about her on a morning talk show. Oh well, BusinessInsider also threw her in name for next Treasury Secretary position. What's she up to? Is facebook pumping her image or is this her own PR to show how important she's for facebook. Just another day in the movers and shakers of Social Network and Media Management world, I guess. Surprisingly her equivalent on Google Marissa Mayer is staying away from media.
--In good ol' days, there used to be a Missing white woman syndrome. Now there's Casey Anthony! I don't even know, where to start. Every morning I'll have 5 mins of TV time while tying my shoe laces and I couldn't escape her face at all for the last 3 or 4 weeks. When you come back home, you'll have Nancy Grace and even more crazier women (who makes Nancy Grace look like Katie Couric) calling Casey Anthony names. An apocalyptic music score and mind numbing graphics accompanies. I don't want to diminish the death of that child, but this is a tailor made ratings program for TV channels. An young, attractive white woman weeping on camera, no sane TV guy would loose that ratings chance. CNN Headline News, I get it. It's US Weekly of News channels serving the LCD of audience. But I'm appalled (not shocked) by the fact that abc news paid for her defense to get exclusive rights of her home videos.

How low could the media go.
Oh surprisingly we've an answer. From across the pond. Murdoch's Tabloids have been paying Police and private investigators to hack phone voice-mails of dead people for scoops, get access to tax records through illegal means. Not even the Queen, Royal family, former PM are immune from these criminals. They tried to hack 9/11 victims phones and London Bomb victims phones. They even published about Gordon Brown's son's illness in a tabloid. Here's the kicker, they even hacked phones of the investigators investigating these crimes.

But it all ended on a high note in the last one week. 168 years old tabloid got shut down, David Cameron's ex communications director got arrested, Sith lord dropped the bid for BSkyB. Not a bad week. Honestly, all this news from UK sounded like music to me. I feel the pain of all the common people who got hacked or exposed.

I didn't write anything about Fox News, as it's motives are very obvious. For the uninitiated Fox, Fox News, 20th Century Fox are all controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family as majority share holders.

Peace.

State of uncertainity.. I mean unemployment.

2011-06-27T21:20:00.008-05:00

I've been living here in USA for the last 9 years and I consider myself pretty assimilated. One of the things which I found very pleasant and surprising is the way college grads ease into the job and life. Almost every college grad used to land in job right after college. Parents will start feeling like empty nesters and suddenly have an extra room or two to use.

But college grads these days are really struggling. they consider themselves very lucky if they've jobs. Read this blog post by yves smith in naked capitalism about fresh college grad working as a doorman. The earlier doorman was also a college grad. That kinda struck me and reminded me of India in 70s and 80s.

India used to have socialist leanings in those days, hence there're not many private enterprises creating jobs. Very few private jobs and rest of them are government jobs. And there's affirmative action in the name of 'reservations'. So an average college grad with liberal arts diploma can't really land in a job. That's why all the movie heroes used to play the roles of unemployed angry young man who couldn't land into a job cause of corrupt officers and system.

As Bob Dylan sang, the times they are a-changing. India changed so much and it's a market bases economy now. Private enterprises are booming and GDP is growing at the rate of 7%. I don't hear about chronic unemployment which was staple of our society until mid 1990s. Even though unemployment rate is at 10%, it's better than 70s and 80s. At the same time, we here in USA are afraid of our jobs every day and unemployment is 9.1% and GDP growth rate slowed down to 3.1%.

As you might see it, there's not many jobs around in this country. And boomers are postponing their retirements, which means new grads can't get into market yet. Not to state the obvious, there're not many manufacturing jobs left behind in this country. As you can see from this picture, financial sector profits reached 41% of US Business Profits by 2009. They might've came down little bit by this year. Point I want to make is, we're not creating anything. Wall street is manipulating and minting money rather than managing and lending it. We don't have any good consumer devices from USA except the apple products. But they're all made in China and we made Foxconn a million employee company and lot richer. Facebook, twitter and other social networking innovations, yeah they're based in USA but they don't employ many people here. Facebook have development centers in India, Ireland and they use they to route profits to tax havens. All these IPOs and social networking only helps the rich and chosen few.

Lemme break down a myth perpetuated by Republicans. "Regulation is killing the jobs. Obama administration is a job killer". Well do you really think, corporations wouldn't hire, if there's enough demand. Post recession, many managers realized that they can milk the employees, as they've no place to go. Companies are sitting on record amount of Cash here and overseas. They're not hiring as they can't be sure of the demand cause of the doldrums in housing and job market.

Republicans portray themselves as strong at military and job creation. Obama proved the contrary on first point and I'll do the second one. (pun intended) Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, two presidential candidates are eager to tell how Obama failed to create jobs and how they're adept at it. Mitt Romney is partner of Bain Capital, a private equity group. Private equity group, by definition will buy a distressed company, lay off employees, optimize operations and issue an IPO and run with the profits. That's how Mitt Romney made part of his fortune. And Jon Huntsman and his family owns a billion dollar company Huntsman Corp. Out of 12,000 worldwide employees only 2,174 are inside USA. Effectively these two candidates who call themselves as job creators are job killers.

Meanwhile Obama got criticized for bailing out Detroit Auto Industry, which saved 1 million jobs. Just imagine how the situation could've be, if not for that. Every generation in this country reinvented itself. Steel industry, automotive jobs helped a generation survive and then call centre and IT jobs came along. They're all outsourced to India. These days except Healthcare and retail sector jobs, anything can be outsourced. Manufacturing sector isn't doing bad but the rate of job growth has to go up really fast to take more people off the unemployment.

Our chief competitor China is investing and prospering in all sectors. Education, Infrastructure, new jobs and investments in overseas. Remember, USA used to be that country. Not anymore. We've an effective conservative rhetoric in DC, which paints President as spendthrift even if he wants to invest in Infrastructure and education.

While the rest of world is busy in investing in kids and future, our Legislatures are busy passing bills to protect fetuses.

Peace.

Graph from Atlantic

Two Speeches

2011-06-18T12:23:00.006-05:00

I can't recall who spoke for my Commencement at University of South Carolina in Dec'03. I googled, couldn't find who it is or any quotes. We're all eager to take pictures I guess. After an year in Toastmasters, I developed interest in speaking. And thanks to YouTube, we can watch any commencement speech on Demand now.

It looks like speeches by Comedian / TV show hosts stood out this year
Here're Conan O'Brien & Stephen Colbert speeches.
Conan delivered his speech to Dartmouth Grads and Stephen to Northwestern University.

In Chronological order of the date of commencement address.

Both of them started funny and ended on a very high and teary note. It should be very hard on new grads and parents, to be reminded again by commencement speaker, how bad the job market is.

Congratulations to all the new grads, if any stumble on to this blog.
Things are gonna get better..

Can we hold financial analysts responsible for their calls?

2011-06-12T15:02:00.009-05:00

If you're a regular viewer of 60 Minutes, last December you might've seen Meredith Whitney predicting 50 to 100 significant municipal bond defaults in 2011. She made the headlines with just that call.

Please endure Chris Christie for 30 secs or you can scroll

For the starters, she's one of the very few analysts who predicted the '07 financial meltdown in one form or other. Back then her prediction was, Citigroup would lower its dividend and that it was time to sell bank stocks. It could be cause of her financial acumen or sheer luck. That's her ticket to fame, till date that's the only good substantial call she ever made. She resigned from Oppenheimer on February 19, 2009 and started her own adivsory group.

But this muni default call didn't go unnoticed and critics pounced on it, from day one.
“You could see 50 sizeable defaults. Fifty to 100 sizeable defaults. More. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of defaults.”
But as we're approaching mid of they year, she's getting very defensive on the call. Last Wednesday she's on CNBC squawk box.

Needless to say she's very tense and strangely she got pointed Questions from Becky and our new Free markets champion Joe Kernen. Here's few of her statements and my observations.

Muni defaults isn't part of large issue.
But her whole 60 minutes appearance was about her defaults call.

Tried to change definition of default as reduced services.
Her call specifically mentioned hundreds of billions Dollars of deficits.

Talks about state difficulties while the topic is muni-bonds.
State bonds are different from muni-bonds

She never mentioned 12 months
In 60 minutes video, she said 12 months

And here's response from Cumberland Advisors, her main detractors on this issue. Unlike Meredith, this firm isn't one trick pony and have gravitas.

I was thinking that she or her clients might be shorting municipal bonds. But she said on air that she doesn't have a position in bonds neither does her clients. Makes me think why would she make that kind of controversial call.

This looks like an exact opposite to Credit Ratings agencies role in sub-prime crisis, but equally harmful. Investors are already shorting the muni-bonds, and she added to it. I can't predict the result though. Looking at rise of income tax returns at state level, I assume/hope that states are in better shape then we all' re afraid of.

Financial industry and press aren't hiding their displeasure and I hope she wouldn't get a free pass. Not quite sure whether regulation covers this area or not.

Peace

P.S. Nice shout out from Meredith to Short Hills, my favorite mall in NJ.

06/14/11
This just in, WSJ itself is publishing contrary evidence to Meredith's predictions.

My last Toastmasters Speech

2011-06-09T22:37:00.023-05:00

This is my last (10th) speech which I gave at my Toastmaster's club. Objective of this speech is to 'inspire audience'. That's why the preachy tone and departure from my usual partisan and profane style. Minimally edited for blog.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Madam Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters and guests.

USA is a place where smart people can easily prosper and we exceed every other country in R&D activity and patent filings. Number of Nobel Laureates from USA proves that. There’re total 326 Laureates from USA. The closest country behind us is UK with 116. The Total count of next five countries (UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Russia) is 330.

But there's also an ugly side. The poor, down trodden, uninformed strata of our society. Today I want to talk about two socio-economic issues which touch all of us.

The creamy layer, smart people, they've been innovating, making difference in this country and all over the world. But we also have the poor, uninformed society. Kids from these neighborhoods are struggling in basic reading comprehension, math etc. Reasons are many.

If you'd observed, respect for intellectuals has been dwindling. More alarming is contempt for educated and deriding' em as elitists.

I can’t recall where I heard this or read this.

Of two top tier NCAA basketball teams, people hate Duke cause it's private university with smarty pants graduation rate 91%. But people idolize U Conn where graduation rate is so low, 31% as they're keeping it real. Daughter of a famous politician, the only reason she's on TV now is cause of her teenage pregnancy. Many youngsters now think that their ticket to fame is athletics, reality shows.

Reality shows...that’s the first issue which I want to talk.

I don't know how many realty shows or on air now, but few names are really baffling.

Teen mom, season 2
Extreme Couponing
I didn't knew I was pregnant
Tool academy
Jersey shore (this is like avatar of realty shows)

I don't know how many reality shows are there with the royalty, Kardashian sisters.

All they do on these shows is have sex out of wedlock, objectify women, quarrel with house mates. If this ends at reality TV, I'm fine. But reality stars started venturing into businesses to rob people of their money. Reality shows are just making money off the audience's ignorance.

Exhibit A
Kardashians pre-paid credit card ?
Why would anybody apply for this card, laden with hidden fees?

250 applied for this pre-paid credit card. It took a warning letter from CT attorney general to take that card off the market.

No body talks about these, and I want you to caution your neighbors, nieces, nephews, cousins who ever is vulnerable to these kind of things.

You might say, oh well all these people are poorly educated and they're susceptible for that kind of predatory lending.

Did I just say education, oh well reality shows got you covered on that also.

Donald trump University, Glenn Beck University..

Carmen Mendez, 59, is a public school teacher in Brooklyn. She spent 35,000 to get real estate diploma from Trump University. Donald, he declared bankruptcy thrice, while running casinos. Who'll become bankrupt while running a casino? And she paid 35K to get a diploma from his school, hard to sympathize with her. And she’s a school teacher. She’s an easy target for our jokes. But she’s un-informed, and she got fooled by Trump name on big towers in Manhattan.

This brings to my second issue today, for profit colleges!

USA and most of Western civilization followed this noble motive. Education should never be profit based. But things are changing and recession which started in ‘07 benefited' em immensely. You’ve all these suddenly unemployed people trying to comeback into job market.

You've public schools like "Univ of South Carolina" my alma-matter. Or a non-profit private universities like Harvard or Stanford. Now we've Private educational Institutions with profit motive, like

University of Phoenix
DeVry University
Art institute

Are they helping? Answer is harsh, no they’re not.
Let’s look at six year graduation rate of top 3 colleges in enrollment.

University of Phoenix 9%
DeVry Institute 31%
Art institute 41%

These colleges follow a specific pattern, they prey on minorities and low income groups. It’s just another form of sub prime lending, just the bait changed. Then it was a home, now it’s a college degree. People who join these colleges are getting loaded with student loan debts up to 60,000. Who’s lending this money, Federal government in the form of federal loans, Pell grants etc. So it’s you paying for this.

People who’re fortunate enough to graduate, these diplomas aren’t helping’em any way in this job market. All they’re getting is student loan debt.

Student loan debt is different from regular debt. Student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, so it can follow a student for a lifetime. Defaulters can have their wages garnished, their income tax refunds intercepted, and their Social Security payments withheld.*

I'm not saying "don't spend on college" Pay for it, but don't get into 30K debt for a diploma in Asian studies.

So Federal govt wanted to put a leash on these colleges, but due to lobbying and pressure from few law-makers administration watered down the regulation and gave' em 4 more years...so how many people has to get bankrupt. There's a bright side, Apollo group stock went 10% up.

Point I want to make is, Ignorance is not bliss.
Please inform your loved ones and neighbors about the disadvantages of these schools. You’ve to protect your own interests and your family’s interests. And educate or inform people whom you care about.

Government might not help you. Problem with free markets is, there’s always a sleazy guy trying to exploit ignorant and poor people. Regulators are always in catch-up mode.

People like Railroad baron Vanderbilt in 19^th century, Industrialist Henry ford in 20^th Century and Bill gates, Steve jobs in our age, they all became rich and made people around them rich by working hard, adding value to life and by contributing to society. It's not just the industrialists, even your Hollywood icons...they all worked hard to be there.

Please convey it to the youngsters who just graduated or about to graduate.

There's no shortcut to success, you've to earn it. And Ignorance isn’t bliss.

Thank you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources
*Education Trust's Study on For-Profit education industry
Frontline story about for-profit education industry

Who's fighting for kids?

2011-02-20T09:48:00.011-06:00

The school superintendent in this rural Texas town Hutto is working to trademark the school mascot Hutto Hippo. He is also planning to put advertisements on school buses and to let retailers have space on the school Web site. All these to raise some extra cash for the school district.

Texas State legislature is trying to slash $4.8B in state aid over the next two years. School administrators predict that as many as 100,000 school employees would’ve to be laid off to absorb the cuts. This is all irrespective of the fact that, Texas High school graduation rate ranks 43rd out of 50 states. Graduation rate is 61.3%, compared to national rate 69.3%

What happened, how did Texas end up in this kind of deficit? The Legislature put a cap on property taxes for schools and promised to make up the difference with a new business tax. But that tax has never produced enough revenue to make the districts’ budgets whole. Last year Fed stimulus money, 3.3B was used to plug the hole. Now that also dried up.

Texas isn’t alone in this, almost all the school districts (except very few) in the country are experiencing these deficits. I can see why state legislatures are going for these cuts. Unlike Fed government, states can’t have deficits on their budgets. They’ve to balance their budgets. I wouldn’t blame Texas or any other state particularly for doing this.

But lack of discretion in these cuts is what bothering me. Not all spending is equal. Schools should take precedent over discretionary spending. Kids education is the most important investment for any Nation’s future. If we don’t educate the kids well, how are we going to compete in this knowledge based economy. A note to NJ and WI Governors. Stop demonizing your teachers.

We already’ve China in our rear view mirror. Shanghai teens had beaten US teens in Program for International Student Assessment Test, known as PISA. This is their debut year in the testing. In one 2006 international assessment, the U.S. ranked 35th out of 57 in mathematics and 29th out of 57 in science.

Born and raised in India, for my parents nothing’s more important than our education. Like all my friends, myself and my sister were also sent to a private school as public education isn’t good. Unfortunately in USA, private schools are out of reach even for upper middle class.

As I see it, states doesn’t have much money left. But Federal govt has some leeway, if our legislature and executive are serious about it. Stop the tax breaks and payouts for these corporate welfare queens. Big oil, Ethanol growers, Defense industry, Agri Business, Banks, list goes on.

Let me finish with a news byte about Egypt. Egypt received approx 1.3B USD military funding every year since 1975. Israel receives 2.1B annually! Make no mistake, all that foreign aid money comes back to defense companies in USA. You can see, how this works. Defense companies approaches Lobbyists, who'll then lobby for foreign aid for warring nations. These companies deliberately spread out operation to many number of states. Whenever Budget committees try to cut down aid or reduce spending on defense, corporates play job card and the dance continues.

We keep hearing this line from people in the office and people running for the office. “America the Exceptional”. America is exceptional, because of the investments it put in education. And if it has to remain exceptional, we need to put attention back on primary education.

There’re almost 13,000 lobbyists in DC, serving the needs of corporates, labor unions, non profit groups et al. But no body is lobbying or fighting for our kids. It's on you to fight for your kids. Being single and no kids, I can't suggest effective ways to get attention of legislature and governors. Try Social networking or go old school. Write to your Congressman or Senator about this.

Peace.

Grifter from Alaska

2011-01-10T22:48:00.006-06:00

Not quite sure why media has always to be so politically correct, just like our President is.

AZ shooting left 6 people dead and put a congresswoman in hospital. The suspect as I see is a mentally unstable person. As per news, he's not influenced by Sarah Palin.

But this grifter from Alaska has been getting a free pass from media for all
these days for all the stupid and hate mongering things she says on facebook and twitter. (On a side note, I can't wait for the actual writer(s) to come out. But that's for another day.) This picture which was on Sarah PAC website since elections was taken down just hours after the shooting. This event should be day of reckoning for her, but no body is pointing fingers to her yet.

When was the last time, this snowbilly showed up for any interview at any news outlet other than faux news. She developed an equally idiotic audience base who worship her. With these worshipers and libraries to buy, she's churning out best sellers like anything.

Why wouldn't media held her accountable for things she say. In Defense of Dr. Laura who said N word on radio repeatedly, Sarah tweeted "Dr.Laura:don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence"isn't American,not fair")" It's not the point of some nutjob following her advice blindly. It's about making people responsible for the things to say. All the vitriol in the name of first amendment

Now the most disturbing thing, media is discussing Sarah Palin as a serious Presidential contender. I'll be glad to see her elected as Republic nominee but it shows how low the American Public has gone. See this NYT article. They discussed this situation like an election time strategy rather than a tragedy. And how she should handle this situation?

If I may Sarah, the best thing for you to do is STFU and start learning about issues which real Americans are facing. Unemployment, Home foreclosures, declining wages and schools getting closed. No body is loosing sleep over abortion, gays getting married, gun rights and fight over Christmas except you and few other wackos at faux news.

Two things made me rant about this today. One is Glenn Beck writing to Sarah Palin, cause he's worried of her safety.

"Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer. I know you're feeling the same heat -- if not much more -- on this.

I want you to know you have my support. But please look into protection for your family. An attempt on you could bring the republic down.

Please, call Gavin de Becker in Los Angeles. He is the guy that protects me. They are, bar none, the best. There are nut jobs on all sides."

No body abuses first amendment right more than Glenn Beck. I didn't expect any sane thing from him. But still, instead of mourning for people who got killed, Glenn is advising this grifter about her safety. An attempt on you could bring the republic down, really?? This sounded more of an unspoken forbidden love which is common among closeted gay conservatives or the family values rich republicans who cheat on their wives.

The other thing is Jon Stewart being all neutral, preachy and asking people to slow down in his opening sequence on Today' Daily show. I know it's too early, but he could've utilized this opportunity to name some names. Another lost opportunity.

Peace

Bittersweet Experience

2010-12-29T20:26:00.006-06:00

The passage of 'James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010', the so-called 9/11 First Responders Bill has been a bittersweet experience for me.

It's a pretty much exposed how Republicans will block anything which wouldn't cater to their base, top 2% of income earners. 9/11 has been a catch phrase for the republicans for last 10 years and they dragged country into an unnecessary war using that. But they don't want to help 9/11 first responders when they became sick 'cause of the work they did at Ground Zero.

Republican's excuse for blocking this bill is that they didn't want to vote for any bill until and unless Bush Tax cuts are extended for all including the top 2% income earners. And they don't want to close a tax loophole that "allows companies to incorporate in tax havens and avoid paying taxes on business they conduct in the U.S."

As always, Democrats failed to capitalize on this Republicans blockade. Whoever is running or devising the ad campaign for Democrats should be fired. The thing about Republicans is the conviction with which they do their thing. Even if it means pissing on the middle class or the public servants who served the nation.

Jon Stewart came to the rescue and brought this issue back to the Nation's attention. Except for few, no major media talked about this. Jon ranted about the injustice and invited 4 first responders to his show. After this outrage and media shitstorm, republicans broke ranks and voted along with Democrats to pass the bill. Jon Stewart was compared to Murrow and Cronkite by New York Times. Big praises, but well deserved by Jon and his team.

The bitter part is how they fund this bill. As I said above, Republicans refused to vote to close the tax loophole. Here comes the rescue!! Create another type of fee on companies that rely on H-1B and L-1 visas. I searched so much to find the literature of his bill, but i didn't find anything. I want to see how this new fee would be. H1 visa holders has been taking a beating for a while. Back in summer, Obama administration proposed to pay for Border Security force with a $2000 filing fee increase on H1B visas. Interesting part of this is NY Senior Senator Chuck Schumer is behind both of these bills. I used to think Chuck Grassley of Iowa is the most hostile person to H1-B visa, but publicity maniac Schumer doesn't want to be left behind.

How exactly 9/11 responders and H1B visas are related? House and Senate keep sucking money out of this visa holders whenever they need some funds for bill which doesn't have budget provisions. I understand that democrats tried, but in the end they always give in.

When would this stop? Only if Non immigrant tech workers have some voice like Hispanic communities...

Peace

Comedy Central video

Manufacturing Jobs, a novice idea.

2010-12-11T15:30:00.014-06:00

Today our unemployment rate is 9.5. But as per National Bureau of Economic Research, recession ended in June'09 itself. Nation isn't feeling that yet, at least I'm not feeling that confident.

During depression era, FDR tried to lift country out of depression with New deal, TVA, PWA et al. Those employed many young men and it took the country out of depression. World War 2 also helped. There're so many orders for planes, tankers etc. There're new factories and construction jobs every where and created a new middle class.

In this recession also, Obama tried the same trick with Recovery act (the infamous stimulus). It didn't help much, there're opposition from conservatives for any new spending. I saw only few signs on free ways, indicating that recovery act funded that construction.

It's a proven thing that manufacturing jobs are the jobs which will lift any country from recession. One thing which I find amusing and saddening is that everything around is made in China. Is there a way, we can bring back at least few of those jobs. Electronic devices manufacturing comes to mind as I spend most of my time with them or thinking about them

Let's look at Foxconn, which many of you might not heard of. It's a huge Contract Manunfacturer in Asia with global workforce of 920K+ (mostly in China, Taiwan) and revenue of 60B USD for the financial year of 2010.

If government can construct and operate a contract manufacturing complex like that here in USA, we can create thousands of new jobs. All the consumer devices giants can pitch in and make it a Universal Manufacturing complex. HP, Apple, Dell, Motorola, Seagate, Cisco, Juniper, BestBuy should all join. No need to worry about confidentiality of designs et al. Foxconn serves so many western giants with very good track record of secrecy.

Of course all the devices prices will jump in. Govt can jump in and create a no tax zone, give exemption from regulation. (Health Insurance exemption, if you will!) The USP of Foxconn is it's cheap manufacturing costs. That's because, it's just a sweat shop where there's practically no regulation about employee conditions. If manufactured in USA, a basic iPad can cost 700 to 900 USD, which costs 500 now. But if private enterprise and govt can bite the bullet for some time and sell that product for less price for some time, this venture can be made profitable. With rhetoric so high in country now, it shouldn't be that tough to convince consumers to buy a slightly expensive product with a sticker 'Proudly made in USA'. Phobia that China is going to cross USA as super power will also help.

Now if we've to bring back outsourced software jobs from India and other countries, we need more college educated people which wouldn't happen overnight. These assembly line manufacturing jobs wouldn't require rocket scientists or college grads. We still need people with knowledge in engineering, logistics, operations and govt policy and people who can act as liaison between government and private sector.

Make no mistake, Foxconn didn't become this huge overnight. It was started in 1974. But private enterprise have money and potential to sponsor this kind of complex. Look at Manhattan Project, US developed Atom Bomb in 6 years. All we need is will and help from government. This will also reduce our trade deficit, which is at alarming high.

I'm also afraid that these min. wage salaries will become baseline for the next generations. But it's good to have people employed rather than spending tax payer's money for unemployment wages. Govt. can also include a clause on how wages should rise along with profitability. If this project get's profitable govt can slowly roll of the Tax benefits. Treasury proved that ,even TARP bailouts are profitable.

If this hypothetical scenario is ever implemented, USA will face strong opposition from China on global arena. But USA should act tough and twist few arms. Diplomacy shouldn't cost a nation's economy. If 10% of workforce remains unemployed, it's a lie to say it's out of recession.

Peace.

(I understand that this post might've sounded very presumptive, but couldn't resist posting it)

Update: 12/21/10
This is from the latest issue of BusinessWeek
http://bit.ly/dNiun0
In 2010 US 937K (non-farm) jobs .
Foxconn itself added 300K+ jobs.

Right here we can see, how many jobs foxconn is creating which can be created here in US with some effort.

ఈనాడు పాఠకులకు తెలుగు నిఘంటువు

2010-12-06T22:42:00.004-06:00

తెలుగు బాషని నిలబెట్టాలని, కొన్ని పదాలు మరుగున పడకుండా చూడాలని ఈనాడు దినపత్రిక కంకణం కట్టుకుంది. మంచి ఆలోచనే కాని వాడుక లో లేని పదాలని వాడి, క్రొత్త పదాలని సృష్టించి అందరిని ఇబ్బంది పెడుతుంది.

మచ్చుకి కొన్ని ..

ఈనాడు	వాడుక
హజం	పొగరు
వణిక్	వాణిజ్యం
అంతర్జాలం	ఇంటర్నెట్
సామాజిక నెట్వర్కింగ్	సోషల్ నెట్వర్కింగ్
గుత్తేదార్లు	కాంట్రాక్టర్స్
సంయుక్త సంచాలకుడు	జాయింట్ సెక్రటరీ
వూబకాయం	ఓబెసిటీ
ప్రాంగణ నియామకాలు	క్యాంపస్ ప్లేస్మెంట్స్
దృశ్య మాధ్యమ	visual media
నిర్లవణీకరణము	desalination
సమావేశ మందిరము	conference room
ఖనిజ జలం	mineral water

నా స్నేహితులలో కొంత మందికి తెలుగు చదవటమే రాదు. మరి చదవగలిగిన వాళ్ళకి బాష మీద మక్కువ పెంచాలన్నదే ఈనాడు ధ్యేయమా లేక బాష ని అభివృద్ది చేయాలనే భాద్యతను తన భుజస్కంధాల పైన తనే వేసుకున్నదా?

మరి ఇన్ని తెలుగు పదాలని వాడుతున్నవాళ్ళు దవాఖానా అనే పదాన్ని వాడారు! దవాఖానా అంటే ఆస్పత్రి. మరి దానికి ఉర్దూ బాష నుంచి వచ్చిన పదాన్నిఎందుకు వాడారో?

ఇంకొన్ని పదాలు గ్యాపకం లేవు. క్రొత్తవి ఏమైనా తారసపడినా, పాతవి గ్యాపకం వచ్చినా ఇక్కడ చేరుస్తాను. పాఠకులు, ఇక్కడ తప్పులు ఏమైన ఉంటే మన్నించి తమ సలహాలను కామెంట్స్ లొ తెలువలసినదిగా మనవి.

స్ఫూర్తి: http://apmediakaburlu.blogspot.com/2010/11/blog-post_3601.html
addendum : 05/15/2011 - ఖనిజ జలంని సూచించిన అశోక్ కి ధన్యవాదములుupdate

The girl who identified Qasab

2010-11-28T10:14:00.014-06:00

It's been 2 years since Mumbai got attacked by Pak sponsored Islamic Terrorists. Justice isn't served yet. Qasab is still alive, living off Indian Tax Payer's money .

Just like any other Indian, I'm also frustrated and angry. Many articles has been written, but this is the story of the brave young girl Devika Rotawan who testified against Qasab. I didn't know this aspect of the trial until now.

In India where rape victims and Bollywood artists are afraid of testifying, this girl deserves all the respect and fame. I'm glad to see that she got some support from local politicians but more can be done.

Let's pray for all the fallen Heroes.
Jai Hind

P.S. To keep things in perspective, I was highly critical of this author once in my earlier posts. I started reading his column and developed respect for his choice of subjects and the style of presentation.

Few things I worry about..

2010-11-14T23:48:00.006-06:00

People who know me personally can definitely tell that I'm saddened by midterm poll results cause of my liberal leanings. The verdict isn't a surprise and in a way it didn't hurt as much as I expected. Politics aside, looking at the demographic and landscape there're few things which are really detrimental for America's progress and prosperity in the next decade.

Contempt of educated people
One trend among voting demographic which I think disturbing is the contempt of educated people. They call them and deride them as elitists. As per this demographic, a common man with common sense will be a better legislator than a college educated person. I've a message for people with no High school diploma or GEDs. If you had completed your education, then you 'd have better judgment of people. You might also have learnt about evolution, climate change and also realized that medicare is a govt run organization. Yes, your legislator might be a corrupt man, but sending a person who dropped out of college or high school wouldn't do any better. Sarah Palin serves a good example for this.

Lack of Science and Math Education
When I first came to this country, one of the things which astonished me is the choice of majors available for college students which do not exist in India. Apart from Science, Engineering, Medicine, Business and Law there're so many liberal arts majors like advanced communications, linguistics, anthropology, sports medicine, event management et al. In a good economy, all these graduates landed in a job. But now there're no jobs. Don't get me wrong, schools need teachers with liberal art degrees to teach languages, history et al. But in this economy who exactly needs a fresh Graduate with 'Advanced Communications' major.

Mean while India and other countries are producing engineering graduates like an assembly line All of them might not make quality tech employees, but US is loosing a competitive edge which made it a superior power.

There's a facebook group by name '87x/59(1+x)=(18*7x)*(67-x)...fuck this, I'm going to be a stripper'. This shows how many kids are afraid of math and hate it. The way these kids are taught at school should change. Math and science can be made interesting and these two are vital for nations' supremacy in the knowledge based economy.

Xenophobia
SB 1070 bill of Arizona was partially blocked by federal judge luckily. If not it would've became mandatory for AZ police stop any person for a 'reasonable doubt' and ask for proof of residence. With that Jan Brewer got elected as governor in this election. I wonder how many of AZ citizens saw her only debate on TV. And how many people might realize that this SB 1070 draft was first written at a prison industry conference.

Yes illegal immigration is a problem, no body denied it. Republicans enjoyed the cheap labor for two decades and now they're crying foul. US is a land of immigrants and they contributed to country's prosperity as much a citizens. Remember how many European scientists immigrated to USA and put the Science and Technology on fast track. Problem with this anti immigrant rhetoric is that legal and aspiring immigrants like me are suffering with excess scrutiny and constant visa hassles. I'm not gonna quote any numbers but it's fact that legal immigrants contribute to the economy like any other citizen.

As I mentioned above, not enough US students are graduating with Science and Tech majors. If country drive away smart immigrants, it's a loss for country and gain for India and China. But myopic senators like Grassley are on a mission to pass bills to drive away non-immigrant tech workers from the country.

Welfare
Last week I read this new article about black women with 72% unwed rate. It seems that black women couldn't find a ideal black man to marry and settle down.

To quote a line from the article 'The drug epidemic sent disproportionate numbers of black men to prison, and crushed the job opportunities for those who served their time. Women don't want to marry men who can't provide for their families, and welfare laws created a financial incentive for poor mothers to stay single.'

This welfare should stop. I don't want to pick any race but this is a menace. Again from the article 'Children of unmarried mothers of any race are more likely to perform poorly in school, go to prison, use drugs, be poor as adults, and have their own children out of wedlock.' As you can see, this is a vicious cycle and it should be stopped. If not, this changes the social fabric of the whole next generation.

Women's perception should be changed about two things.
-->It's OK to live on welfare.
-->It's necessary to have kids to even if you don't have means to support them.

Homophobia
By any measure, US respects it's fallen soldiers than any other in the world irrespective of their religion and color. The other day I saw a news report about a hate group 'Westboro Baptist Church' who protest at soldiers funerals. They say, God is killing U.S. troops because our country tolerates homosexuals. This just blew my mind. I'm not sure, how exactly these groups come to these conclusions and where they get funding. Their home page is 'godhatesfags.com'

There's another story of this creepy Asst Attorney General of Michigan who just got fired. Andrew Shirvell stalked and bullied Chris Armstrong, student body president of Univ of Michigan. Andrew started a blog by chrisarmstrong-watch.com. To his defense, this tool says that he's just exercising his first amendment rights. Attorney General Cox didn't fire him for a while as he's a afraid of alienating his conservative base and donors. Just think about it for a second, a state's asst Attorney General bullying a college kid just cause he happened to be gay. As I see it, I think it's just matter of time when Shirvell comes out of his closet.

People like Sarah Palin
Apart from posting (who's the actual writer) fear mongering and mind numbing notes on her facebook page Sarah Palin is also good at throwing red meat to her base. Last week I saw Sarah addressing a christian school on TV. It's pretty much usual fare with her power dressing (read seductive), DWTS with Bristol Palin, inauguration (not necessarily her) yawn... Then she started talking about a state legislation which bans sweets at school and how that law is a totalitarian. As per Sarah, parents should decide what kids should eat and not the government.

I'm no fan of government, but in this case government knows better than many oblivious parents. I've seen parents smoking inside their car with kids and I can assume that what happens at their homes. Obese parents who weigh 450 lbs and get drunk in the morning don't know better than government.

Sarah if you'd known better, your under age daughter wouldn't have got knocked up. It could be a reason that you might've taught her 'abstinence only education' rather than safe sex. And we would've been saved from this on and off wedding drama from Alaskan soap opera.

Women like michele bachmann, christine o'donnell and sharron angle (who didn't get elected fortunately) are other examples of leaders on wrong path with huge following. Their base thinks that these women represent them, the common people of America.

With all these tea party candidates in Senate and house, it's interesting and frightening to see what kind of bills they'll legislate.

Peace

అతి సర్వత్ర వర్జయేత్

2010-08-06T22:58:00.011-05:00

ఆంధ్రులు ఆరంభ శూరులు అంటారు. అలాగే ప్రస్తుతం మన రాష్ట్రంలో ఉన్న వేలం వెర్రి ధోరణిని ఎలా వర్ణించాలో తెలియట్లేదు. గత ఐదారు ఏళ్ళల్లో నల్ల ధనం కొకల్లలుగా పెరిగింది, దానికి కారణలు ఏవైనా కావచ్చు. ఆ నల్ల ధనాన్ని పెట్టుబడి పెట్టే మార్గాలు చాలా తక్కువ ఉన్నట్టు ఉన్నాయి.

పూర్వపు రోజుల్లో పెద్దలు సంపాదించిన ఆస్తులు కరగదియ్యటానికి భూస్వాములు మద్రాసు వెళ్లి సినిమాలు నిర్మించే వాళ్ళు. రోజులు మారాయి, 20 ఏళ్ళ క్రితం ఊహించలేనన్ని వ్యాపారాలు, పరిశ్రమలు ఇప్పుడు ఉన్నాయి. కాని ధనికులు, నల్ల ధనం మెండుగా ఉన్నవాళ్లు కేవలం ఇంజినీరింగ్ కళాశాలలు, న్యూస్ చానల్స్ , రియల్ ఎస్టేట్ వ్యాపారాలు మీదే మక్కువ చూపిస్తున్నారు!

నేడు రాష్ట్రం లో 656 ఇంజినీరింగ్ కళాశాలలు ఉన్నాయి, కొత్తగా అనుమతి ఇచ్చిన వాటితో కలిపి 700 కి చేరుకోనుంది. మొత్తం సీట్ల సంఖ్య రెండున్నర లక్షలు. వీటిలో ఎంత మంది నిజమైన ఇంజినీర్లుగా తయారు అవుతారు అనేది ఆలోచించాలి. అసలు ఇన్ని కళాశాలలు లో అధ్యాపకులు ఎక్కడ నుంచి వస్తున్నారు, వాళ్ళ కున్న అర్హతలు ఏంటి అనేది AICTE వాళ్ళకి పడుతున్నట్టుగా లేదు. సెక్యూరిటీ డిపాజిట్ తీస్కుని అనుమతులిచేస్తున్నారు. ఇక్కడ విశేషం ఏంటంటే కొత్త కళాశాలలు వద్దని రాష్ట్ర ప్రభుత్వం వారిస్తుంది. కాని AICTE ఇస్తూపోతుంది.

దేశం మొత్తం లో 3200 కళాశాలలు ఉండగా 700 మన రాష్ట్రం లోనే ఉన్నాయి. ఈ కళాశాలలు అన్ని దివాలా తీయకుండా ఉండాలంటే ఈ సీట్లు అన్ని నిండాలి. అందుకే ఎంసెట్ పరీక్షలో సున్నా మార్కులు వచ్చిన వాళ్ళకి కూడా సీట్లు ఉన్నాయి. (ఈ సున్నా మార్కులకి సీట్ కధ విని మన గవర్నర్ నరసింహన్ గారు నిశ్రేష్టులు అయ్యారు). అంత దిగాజారినా అన్ని సీట్లు నిండట్లేదు.

ఈ కళాశాలలు నుంచి పట్టభద్రులు అవుతున్న వాళ్ళల్లో ఎంత మంది ఉద్యోగానికి పనికొస్తారు అన్నది ప్రస్నార్ధకమే. అందుకే విప్రో, ఇన్ఫోసిస్ లాంటి సంస్థలు కొత్త ఉద్యోగులని ట్రైనింగ్ కి పంపిస్తుంది. కొంత మంది పట్టభధ్రులకి అసలు ఉధ్యొగార్హతలు లేవని ఈ కంపెనీలు తేల్చి చెప్తున్నాయి. వీటి వలన ఇంజినీరింగ్ పట్టా విలువ తగ్గిపోతుంది. స్తాపించిన ప్రతి కళాశాలలో రిజర్వేషన్లు అమలు చేయాలి. ప్రతి రిజర్వేషన్ విద్యార్ధి ఫీజు ప్రభుత్వమే చెల్లించాలి. కాని వీళ్ళల్లో ఎంత మంది నాలుగేళ్ళల్లో పట్టభద్రులు అవుతున్నారు అనే ప్రశ్నకు జవాబు లేదు. ఈ విద్యార్థులు ఎన్నాళ్ళు చదివితే కళాశాలలకు అంత లాభం. కొన్ని కళాశాలలు ఈ ఫీజులు, nri కోటా సీట్లు వేలం తొనే నేట్తుకొస్తున్నాయి.

నేడు ఆంధ్ర దేశం లో 13 న్యూస్ చానల్స్ ఉన్నాయి. 50 కోట్లు ఉంటే ఎవరైనా కొత్త ఛానల్ ప్రారంభించవచ్చు. కాని వాటిలో ప్రసారం చేస్తున్నవి అయితే వార్తలు కావు. పుకార్లు, పక్షపాత కబుర్లు, చర్చల పేరుతో ఏ మాత్రం అర్హత లేని వాళ్ళ మధ్య అరుపులు కేకలు. వీటి వలన ప్రజలకి వార్తల మీద ఉన్న నమ్మకం పోతుంది/పోయింది. tv9 బెదిరింపులు, అక్రమాలు అందరికి తెల్సినవే. ysr మరణం వెనుక అంబానీల హస్తం ఉందని రెండు చానల్స్ ప్రసారం చేసిన పుకార్లు విని ఆయన 'అభిమానులు' రేలైన్సు షాపులని, పనిలో పనిగా పోలీసు వాహనాలని ద్వంసం చేసారు. ఇక స్వామిజీల లీలలు అనే పేరుతో ఆ స్వామిజీల శృంగార కార్యకలాపాలను విచ్చల విడిగా ప్రసారం చేస్తూనే ఉంటారు.

ఇక వీటన్నిటికన్నా ముందు మొగ్గ తొడిగిన వ్యాపారం రియల్ ఎస్టేట్. 2005 -07 కాలం లో భాగ్యనగరం లో ప్రతి ముగ్గురు యువకుల్లో ఒకళ్ళు రియల్ ఎస్టేట్ కొనడం అమ్మడం లోనే ఉన్నారు అనేది అతిశయోక్తి కాకపోవచ్చు. చాల మంది యువకులు, వ్యాపారులు వాళ్ళ ఉద్యోగాలు, వ్యాపారాలు మానేసి రియల్ ఎస్టేట్ దళారులుగా మారారు. స్థలాల ధరలు 3 ,4 వారాల్లో రెండింతలు అయ్యేవి. కోటానుకోట్లు పెట్టుబడులు ప్రవాస భారతీయుల నుంచి వచ్చాయి. బహుళ జాతి సంస్థలు వచ్చాయి. వారి వెంటే ఆక్రమణదారులు, రాజకీయనేతలు వచ్చారు. 2007 లో మాంద్యం మొదలు ధరల పెరుగుదల నిలిచిపోయింది. అప్పటి నుంచి క్రయ విక్రయాలు ఆగిపోయాయి. వేల కోట్లు రూపాయులు ఇలా ఈ స్థలాలు, భవనాల రూపంలో ఆగిపోయాయి. చిన్న చిన్న వ్యాపారులు ఎప్పుడో దివాలా తీసారు. ఒకరికి లాభం వచ్చిందని వంద మంది ఈ వ్యాపారం లోకి వచ్చి చేతులు కాల్చుకున్నారు.

గుడ్డిలో మెల్ల లాగ పైన చెప్పిన మూడు అంశాల్లో సంతోషించదగ్గ విశేషం ఏమిటంటే, ఈ మూడు రంగాలు చాల మంది నిరుద్యోగులకి జీవనోపాధిని కల్పిస్తున్నాయి. కాని ఈ మూడు రంగాల్లో ఎన్ని సంస్థలు లాభసాటిగా ఉంటాయి, అసలు ఎన్ని నిలదొక్కుకుంటాయి అన్నది కాలమే చెప్తుంది.

మన రాష్ట్ర ప్రజలు ఈ వేలం వెర్రి ధోరణిని ఎంత త్వరగా వీడితే అంత మంచిది.

Art Laffer strikes back

2010-06-10T21:19:00.014-05:00

Folks, the snake oil salesman is back. Art Laffer wrote this brilliant op-ed (not!) in WSJ on 06/06 how the economy is gonna collapse if Bush Tax cuts expire this year. Yes, it's bunch of misrepresented facts and twisted logic. Bloggers and other columnists blasted him aptly. I'm not surprised that WSJ published this op-ed. Lately that paper looks like propaganda page for right wingers and tea party. Links at the end of blog.

I've one question about this 'Tax cuts for the wealthy' theory. Conservatives argue that less tax on the corporate profits and rich stimulates economy and create more jobs. Actually it's a good theory. But only on paper. Post great depression and Milton Friedman era, this might've made sense as the jobs are created in Manufacturing sector. Corporate profits might've created more jobs.

Now, how many Manufacturing jobs exist in USA? Everything was moved to china and third world countries by 80s. Automotive jobs moved to Canada and Mexico. 80s and 90s experienced boom of tech jobs and call center jobs. But by the start of new millennium all the possible tech jobs're moved to India and other countries.

Where exactly are these new jobs are created, and it's pretty much a fact that Bush tax cuts only helped rich people. Bush inherited a 236Bil surplus budget from Clinton, implemented tax cuts and he blessed the country with 400Bil deficit. He also threw in a depression as a good measure. And two wars, oh I digressed!

Most of the income tax paid in USA is paid on Capital gains. It's not on income. So an average guy on street making 100G per annum will pay somewhere between 25 to 35% tax based on his location, martial status, kids and other factors. But if a millionaire makes that 100G in capital market, he'll only pay 15%(long term). You see the disparity. Now Obama wants to increase it to 20%, conservatives are crying foul.

Corporate profits, it's a different game altogether. Creative accounting will be in full throttle here and there're off shore tax havens. Exxon Mobil didn't pay a single penny as income tax as they paid taxes in different countries. See this Frontline Story to learn more about tax havens.

Before I finish my rant, I want to say few things about Laffer's greatest contribution to the world, 'Laffer curve'

Quoting wikipedia, 'the Laffer curve is a theoretical representation of the relationship between government revenue raised by taxation and all possible rates of taxation'. So it shows that, if tax rate is 0, tax revenue will be zero and if tax rate is 100% the tax revenue will be zero. What it wouldn't tell you is what's that sweet spot what's the win-win tax rate for tax payer and government.

But I couldn't comprehend, what's that Laffer discovered which I didn't know already. Any tax payer with an Economics 101 class can guess that. Sometimes a liberal arts degree and right connections makes a mediocre person a great economist.

Peace

Media Matters fact check on Laffer 's commentary

Barry Ritholtz, dissection of Laffer's op-ed

Asha Banglore's commentary

My previous blog about Art Laffer

Image from wikipedia commons

The new face of BP

2010-06-05T16:18:00.009-05:00

The situation in Gulf is getting worse day by day. It might take few years to clean the whole mess. But it might take at least a decade for the local economy to recover from this. It's like another Katrina sans Bush.

Public is outraged at BP, and many of them are venting out in different creative ways. Folks at logomyway.com started a contest, asked people on interwebs to create a new BP logo. As expected they didn't disappoint. Here're the contributions. Of all the submissions this one caught my attention. I'm gonna vote for this

For the starters, this is a mashup of an iconic picture from Vietnam war. Read about it here.

I see that BP engineers are trying hard to fix this. All the outraged people have to understand that high level C suite people makes decision that screw up safety and preparedness. But now the technical and engineering staff are under spotlight fixing this. Media and boneheaded pundits jump in and picture them as borderline incompetent.

But with the kind of remarks BP CEO is making, this criticism and public outrage is not unwarranted. He should really STFU and let his staff do the thing. It really makes me angry whenever BP executives say 'legitimate claims'.

Kids, if you're reading this..I'm sorry to break it to you. I'm afraid that Spongebob might not make it.

pic courtesy sir mitchell

Jokes aside, my condolences to the families of 11 BP employees who lost their lives in this explosion.
Peace.

మనసు కవి ఆత్రేయ

2010-05-17T21:15:00.011-05:00

I really want to take a break from my endless rants about society and injustice and share my thoughts about my other favorite pastime - listening to music.

In Telugu music, Aathreya is my fav lyricist. I might not've listened to all his lyrics but I remember many lyrics which makes us think or leave us in awe with his words. He was aptly titled as మనసు కవి (Manasu Kavi)

Whenever I read or see anything about Aathreya, the first thing I remember is Prem Nagar movie. All the songs from that movie are really awesome in all the possible genres. Romance, pathos, promiscuity, metaphor, alcoholism. You name it, he got it. My personal favorites are మనసు గతి ఇంతే, ఎవరి కోసం, ఎవరో రావాలి..

Few of my other favorites are from maro charitra, aakali rajyam et al

My new fav songs are from Abhinandana. I listened to them since my, childhood but never paid attention to the charanams. (As a kid, I was only interested in action movies. I didn't have enough maturity to understand these lines either). Lately abhinandhana songs started popping up on my random playlist more often. So I paid more attention to charanams and I'm really amazed.

Here're few lines from 'ఎదుటా నీవే' lyric which really mesmerized me
స్వప్నాలన్నీ క్షణికాలేగా
సత్యాలన్నీ నరకాలేగా..

స్వప్నం సత్యం అయితే వింత
సత్యం స్వప్నం అయ్యేదుందా..

For one thing, every bit of those lines are true. And the other thing is his amazing play on words. Of course, I'm short of words in Telugu and English to describe this.

Abhinandana's music is one of the greatest albums in Telugu. It wouldn't have attained that kinda immortality without the contribution of Ilayaraja and SPB. Either Ilayaraja's melodious music or SPB's soulful rendering of the songs , we can't praise them enough.

All the three deserve claim for this gem of Telugu music.

Peace.

I started practicing Telugu writing through Lekhini.org and gmail. One of these days, I want to write a whole blog in telugu, but I'm not skilled enough yet. And I'm highly doubtful of my ability to use Telugu words aptly.

Attractive Blonde Lady

2010-05-15T15:40:00.013-05:00

Here's an SNL opening sketch spoofing faux news Greta Van Susteren. I don't know the exact airing date, but I guess it's from the last few months.

The video is spot on about Don't ask, don't tell. As ironical as it can be, I found this video on the webpage of the news pundit S.E.Cupp, who might be the subject of 'Attractive Blond Lady' character. I try to restrain from taking shots at the easy targets, but I couldn't resist.

In retrospect I blogged too much about Sarah Palin, but retrospect always makes me feel dumb.

This Woman S.E.Cupp is a atheist conservative. Yes, you read that right. Atheist Conservative, isn't that an oxymoron. But hey, she has to sell some books to middle America and get some bookings on Cable news shows .

This is about her atheism beliefs on Wikipedia "I like to think I adhere to the same Judeo-Christian values that most of religious America does. It's an understanding of and a respect for these values that keeps me moral." And then she wrote a book by name Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity. And also she stated that she does not believe in God today, but is open to possible conversion in the future.

If you fail to read between the lines, it's a marketing ploy and carefully built image. Gullible people will be interested to read an atheist point of view. Oh, and she also has a masters degree in Religion. Really?! I thought I read enough already, but she's an atheist Conservative with master's degree in Religion. My head will blow away if she starts telling how Darwin was wrong?

I respect both Christianity and Atheism. But what I fail to comprehend is an atheist writing about supposedly liberal media's attack on Christianity. Isn't that self contradictory. Most probably her next book would be How an atheist found her God. (Quoting Bill Maher)

Here's another video of this woman on Hannity show. She's outraged that Letterman made fun of Sarah Palin. S.E.Cupp mentioned that Obama and his campaign is behind this. Letterman made jokes almost 8 months after Obama won the election. Why would she even pull Obama into this. Oh yeah, she has to feign anger (In her own words)

The point I want to raise is how annoying these cable news shows became. 90% of these news pundits have neither credibility nor knowledge. And no body in the media calls out these people except people like Jon Stewart. And it's a whole new game if you're young female with good looks. Look at her website. (I've to say good Search Engine Optimization though) She got everything for an aspiring news pundit. A new book with good head shot, Check! Fake reading glasses, check! Lots of pictures in revealing outfits. check! Oh yes, lots and lots of videos from Faux News.

This post is very similar to my last post. It almost feels like redundant. But the mediocrity of the television news and the end less self promotion of these narcissist TV people made me do this.

Peace.

P.S. I wish she comes on Jon Stewart show to promote her book. Few times, he'll be merciless to these kool-aid people. But it'll be a delight.

Supply Side Economist or a Snakeoil Salesman

2010-05-06T21:24:00.008-05:00

Here's a video from CNN dated Aug 04, 2009. It's an old video, but it's never too old for a good laugh.

Here's a Supply side economist Arthur Laffer, talking about how bad Medicare and Medicaid will be if they're run by Government. Say what? For starters Medicare and Medicaid are govt run programs. They're started like that and they remain the same.

We see all these fake pundits on TV every day, particularly on CNN, Faux news and MSNBC. No body questions their credibility or what makes them knowledgeable on any topic. No example stands out like Sarah Palin.

And of course the same thing goes with TV news anchors. This woman here in this video didn't even correct him that medicare is indeed a govt run program. I wouldn't be surprised if she's also ignorant of that fact. And faux news, you'll be confused whether you're a watching a news channel or a bimbo parade.

I want to take this opportunity to write about Supply Side Economics. I didn't study economics in college, so I'm no authority on economics to write opinions. But still I'm gonna voice my opinions about it. Supply side economics states that lower taxes for rich and capital gain tax cuts spurs economic growth. That's an over-simplified statement, but again there's not much actual economics in that. Whenever some one says Supply Side Economics, I'll break into laughter. I want to show them Larry Kudlow on CNBC and ask them why he's such an epic fail. Trickle down economics is one of the greatest lies ever told to America. Still there're so many people out there drinking that kool aid.

W implemented few of these supply side economics theories. Tax cuts for rich and lower taxes on capital gain taxes. Federal Deficit increased and (not surprising for a 'Fiscally conservative') Federal spending also increased. Rich became richer and wealth didn't really trickle down. Even now, once in a while I see few conservative boneheads on TV telling how tax cuts and limited government are the silver bullets for every issue.

And you know, Obama is the cause for all the bad things...

Peace

See the actual media matters article here

Catholic Church Sex Abuse; why is church getting away with it ..?

2010-04-23T23:17:00.010-05:00

Is it just me or did the whole society lost all its sanity and stopped worrying about catholic church sex abuse victims.

Imagine a registered sex offender moving into your community. And think about it from a parent's perspective. Yeah, we'll be worried. There are many laws restricting the housing opportunities for these sex offenders. It's understandable that there're laws restricting their location, movement et al.

What's really bothering me or making me angry is, why's not society treating these child molesting priests with the same law. Why didn't District Attorneys arrest these priests yet? Why's is Catholic church is getting away with this? Is it cause of the religion? We don't even let an average sex offender move into your community, how can you let these priests get away who had molested many kids for many years at multiple churches.

Could you imagine any other Business establishment get away with this kind of child abuse and sexual abuse? No. Any person who had attended HR training about Sexual Harassment would know how law can be used against them even if they're not guilty. But why can't the same law be used on these child molesting priests and church Cardinals who had failed to report them to police?

Here's a hypothetical scenario. Few kids're abused at a Day care center and once the news goes out, Police and Human Services will crack down on the facility and close it down. I don't anticipate that kids will be sent back to that school unless it's run by different people. But after all these years of child abuse, these churches are in operation and no arrests were made. (as much as I recall from reading)

I understand that all these victims who came out for justice in the last decade were kids when sex abuse happened. These abuse complaints go back to 1950s also. what I failed to understand is, why're these not reported to police at that time? Why're chruch bishops and cardinals looking for Vatican approval or action to move forward on these issues. You don't need to hear from God or superior voice to tell you that any sexual act committed on a child is a grave sin and heinous crime. And when the job you took is to pass the God's message to the people, aren't you committing crimes by not stopping these crimes?

Putting the Law Enforcement part aside, catholic church didn't take any action to prevent these repeat offender priest from interacting with kids. If a priest was get caught abusing kids he was sent to some therapy program and wasn't posted near to kids. But that's just for time being. Umpteen times these priest were sent to another archdiocese where they started interacting with kids again.

Now to the role of Vatican. Forget about punishing these Priests or reporting them to local authorities. Vatican even refused to defrock few accused priests. Vatican mostly remained silent about all the allegations that present Pope didn't act on complaints from churches in USA. Pope isn't responding to the issue. I'd short stop of advising Vatican on this. But if the whole catholic faith in the world looks for his word on religion, he better stand up to it and clean up this mess.

If you're not feeling angry and disturbed yet, read about this priest from Wisconsin who got away. He sexually abused deaf kids for almost 25 years. And he died as a priest. How heinous human being are you, if you had abused innocent deaf children for 25 years. And I wonder how did his superiors sleep every night with knowledge of him being around children.

Being a theist, this is a very uncomfortable position to be in. All these priests and fake Sadhus in India are escaping. This ain't good for Society or religion.

Here's wikipedia article.

Peace.

P.S
It's a strange society, we live in today. Circa Feb'09 whole USA got outraged and angered that Chris Brown assaulted and wounded his girl friend Rihanna. Facebook and social media decided. "Chris Brown is a douchebag". But every day hundreds of domestic violence incidents happen all around us. Hundreds of ordinary females get assaulted by abusive partners. No body gives shit about them. Most likely, society wouldn't really care about this scandal until a child celebrity come out as a victim or something similar happens. I hope I'm wrong.

Warning went unheeded

2010-04-04T16:42:00.016-05:00

The more we look back into our lack of oversight and regulation, it becomes more clear how many warnings we missed and how much our leaders, economists pushed us into this turmoil. After all, hindsight is 20 20.

I watched this Frontline Documentary, and it clearly showed us a whistleblower who wanted to regulate derivatives trading. Like many whistleblowers, she was crushed. She got pummeled in senate hearings. Since she couldn't pass the reform she resigned from her office. Exactly after 10 years, wall street crashed burning away the savings and retirement money of millions of Americans.

for those who couldn't watch the whole 55 mins, here's the overview.

Brooksley Born was the chairwoman of CFTC in Clinton administration. In 1998 she looked at the lack of regulation on OTC derivative trading and tried to put a leash on it. She was pushed back by the trio of Alan Greenspan, Robin Rubin and Larry Summers. After senate and congress committee hearings Free market proponents prevailed. Brooksley left her job.

Soon, a big Hedgefund LTCM went under and Fed orchestrated a bailout with the help of big banks. This is the exact scenario which Broosley warned the congress about. Policy makers missed this big warning. And we all know the rest of the story.

But if we had acted on this warning we could've avoided (wishful thinking) this implosion. But trio didn't want our free markets hindered by regulation just for the sake of regulation.

Actually, except the tail end of last decade, Laissez-faire worked flawlessly. Atleast seemingly. Greenspan's low interest rates, Housing bubble kept everybody happy. Larry kudlow said that there's no such thing called hosuing bubble. (He's an Epic failure, I wonder why he's still employed) And then the Bear Sterns bankruptcy, Lehman's brothers bankruptcy. Financial system fell into fear and Panic. I wonder, what's the Free Market's proponent's response for this.

Being a fan boy of Frontline, I can go on and on about their Journalistic virtues and how they're the torch bearers' of the Fair journalism. But I've to appreciate their story telling style one more time. I liked the way they end their story.

Robin Ruben went to lead Citibank and it got 100Billion Tax payer money as a bailout. Alan Greenspan is every where from Senate hearings and Think tank meetings defending his tenure as Fed chairman. Some how people are not buying it.

What bothers me is the same people who caused this meltdown are in Obama administration. Larry summers is chief advisor for Obama and Tim Geithner is the Treasury secretary. These two are the proteges of Robin Ruben and now these are the people who're gonna protect us from another meltdown. Hmm, I guess this isn't the Change we're expecting.

Alan Greenspan got too much credit for the last two decades. He's called as wizard, maestro, rockstar for the booming 90s and 2000s. Bush even presented him with Presidential Medal of honor. But now truth is slowly emerging and his legacy is at risk now. He agreed that he's partly to blame for this meltdown but also blamed greed of bankers for this. But hey, Regulation is used to control greed and prevent people from doing stupid things.

I have some beef with Ayn Rand philosophy which I'm dying to write for the last few months. I didn't read any of her books yet but I got the gist of her work. She's a libertarian and wouldn't want a bit of regulation on Market. For all those ardent worshipers of Ayn Rand, this is my question. Last two decades of US Market is what Ayn Rand asked for, and we ended up in this Abyss. How exactly are they gonna defend her objectivism.

Ayn Rand's work gained popularity and creed cause of the times she lived. Fear of communism made Libertarianism glamorous. But all good things will come to an end, same with the Ayn Rand's Libertarianism influence. No follower of'er is more powerful/influential than Alan Greenspan. And he couldn't prove that her principles actually work.

Anything is moderation is good, either free market or Regulation.

Now, how can we prevent another turmoil? Even today Wall st is minting billions with derivatives trading. And here's the kicker. This time they're using TARP funds for that. That's tax payers money. Some thing is seriously wrong.

Chris Dodd, since you decided not to run for another term of senate, please pay back to American public at least once. Try to pass a real financial regulation reform. Not a toothless one which is before Congress now.

And yes, please bring back Glass-Steagall act.

Peace.

P.S. As economists and historians are questioning Greenspan's Legacy now, could they also question Milton Friedman's theories. It wouldn't hurt.

New Yorker magazine vindicated my blog post

2010-03-16T22:10:00.003-05:00

Well not exactly my blog, but the subject of my blog post.

In Nov 2007, I published a blog post about Hedge fund managers paying only 15% tax.

Today I read this article in New Yorker magazine about the same subject, how Hedge Fund managers are using a loophole to pay only 15% tax. I feel good now, seeing that a influential magazine choose to publish an article about the same topic. The irony here is, most of the subscribers of New yorker magazine are very upscale people and many of them use this loophole.

I don't have any more to add here, I pretty much vented it all in my last blog post. And things didn't change much even after wall st. meltdown.

I'll let you read it for yourself.

Peace

Creative genius of M.F.Husaain and honor of Hinduism

2010-03-15T19:28:00.004-05:00

While browsing aimlessly at work, I stumbled upon this gem of journalism

This BBC journalist got concerned India is loosing a creative genius like M.F.Hussain, 'cause of Hindu fundamentalists. Let's get the facts straight. M.F.Hussain drew nude portraits of Hindu Goddesses and Bharat mata and he's unapologetic about it. He got death threats and he fled abroad. Now he took citizenship of Qatar so that Indian courts can't arraign him. So along with the some secular people of India, this journalist is also saddened and outraged.

Let's give benefit of doubt to Hussain's art and assume that he draws all the feminine form without clothes. Wrong, he only drew Hindu Goddesses and Bharat Mata in nude form. He drew his mother's pictures with clothes only. Now, that's hypocrite.

Ok just for a second, let's buy this bull crap 'Freedom of expression' argument. He drew another painting by name 'Rape of India' in response to Mumbai terrorist attacks. He's a repeat offender. Along with Freedom of Expression, there's a personal responsibility also.

Let's recall how many death threats did the Danish cartoonist receive for depicting mohammed prophet as terrorist. Remember Taslima Nasreen fleeing to Sweden. and who'd forget Salman Rushdie. But I don't recall many Indian journalists outraged about freedom of expression with all those previous instances. All they saw was minorities defending their religion and honor.

The point I'm trying to make here is every body loves their religion and defends it. I don't condone Danish cartoons. I can't speak about Rushdie's and Taslima's works as I didn't read'em. It's natural that people get outraged and issue Fatwas and all that clerical shit. But, I've to say that Islam fundamentalists go overboard on this. I don't see a problem with Hussain taking Qatar citizenship either.

But I've problem with political correctness of media in India and elsewhere. Even if the author doesn't believe in religion, this article is biased. Please stop publishing this kinda BS just to prove your journalistic mettle. And the politicians of India, how much more dignity we've to loose so that you gain muslim vote. Chidambaram offered security for M.F.Hussain also. Please end this religion vote politics. For once, stand up for your country and religion's honor.

As if my words are heard here.

So to answer this journalist's Question, does India deserve M.F.Hussain. Straight answer is NO. Honest answer is fuck M.F.Hussain's art. We'll never understand it and India isn't gaining anything cause of him. I'd rather keep my religion's and country's honor rather than secular label.

Jai Hind

P.S. My friend Karun pointed me to a telugu article published by Telugu movie actor Gollapudi Maruthi Rao about this. If you can read Telugu, please take a moment to read that. Unlike me, he wouldn't curse and his write up is more balanced.

Broadcast censorship?!

2010-01-11T02:13:00.000-06:00

The past few weeks in AP have been disgusting. It almost makes us wonder why we needed independence from the British in the first place. We imitate the west in almost everything we do, except we cannot think like them or do things like them. With all the stuff going on in India and especially in AP and with a gazillion news channels, news is no longer news. Media, unfortunately is the culprit here.

While Telangana issue is one thing, they way various channels have been covering issues is disappointing. Whether it is N.D.Tiwari's sex scandal (ABN) or the reliance issue (TV5,NTV,Sakshi) or the recent PRP candidates sex scandal (ABN) in vizag, media should be restraint in the way they show the news. While I do not beleive we should censor honest news, with the way things are being broadcast in India, I think we should re-think the whole policy of censorship. One think that is missing from this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_India) is "broadcast censorship".

Ideally, we would not need censorship, but when TV channels lack ethics and don't know the limits, we probably do! If journalism and media or the whole TV model is based on TRP ratings and profit, then its hard to really depend on the 24/7 news channels for news. Its also a pity that people can hardly think independently anymore. We blindly depend on TV and politicians and act out of ego and emotion rather than think over any issues.

2009 : A retrospective

2009-12-31T11:21:00.000-06:00

I posted a similar blog at the beginning of this year, hoping that 2009 gives us happiness. Well it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be.

I experienced a big jolt in my career. I kinda learned for the first time, how uncertain are our lives. Many of my friends can understand those cryptic lines.

Let's look at at the major events, either good or bad

Obama
Well the honeymoon is over, and Obama ain't a messiah. He can only achieve few things with these kind of republicans in the senate, and centrists like joe lieberman. But you've to give credit for moving this health bill past the senate. And he's just starting on climate control, immigration reform etc. I'm cautiously curious how much he's gonna achieve. And finally let's not forget Afghanistan. It's Obama's war now. I didn't read much about the troop spike in Afghan, but honestly I'm not sure what's the goal and exit strategy.

Rise of Retards
Move on Rush, Glenn Beck in the house. glenn beck, michele bachmann et al are the new superstars of fringe conservatives profiting from dumb people watching faux news. I myself realized for the first time, how people can be manipulated with distorted facts, out of contexts statements. Glenn Beck show is a quite a theater with his blackboard.

Health Care Reform
I didn't read the bill well enough to point the defects, but as per Paul Krugman et al it's a good progress. This is what I realized from the news. It's illegal not to have health insurance (??), government subsidizes the insurance for poor people and here's the best part. Insurance companies can't decline coverage insurance for people using the pre-existing condition as an excuse. That's a big progress.

Here's what missing. Single payer health care. It could've been lot better, if public option is part of the bill. Few democrats took their party for a ride cause of republican filibuster.

Climate Change
As always, few people wouldn't change. Even today half of the America denies climate change. That email scandal didn't help either. It bothers me so much that educated people gets carried away by the ultra right wing propaganda. And then few democrat senators already developed cold feet about cap and trade bill 'cause of the next year's mid term elections. Copenhagen Climate conference didn't make any substantial progress.

Bailouts and aftermath
So much has been written about the public bailouts. Putting the morals aside, returns from bailouts of the banks ain't so bad. Having said that, public can kiss good bye to the money lent to AIG, GMAC, GM. Freddie mac and Fannie Mae are effectively govt companies now.

Populist Outrage
It all started with outrage over bonuses on wall st amid the massive bailouts. And then glenn beck, michelle bachmann used it to stop the health insurance reform. Oh, remember the town halls and tea party protests from summer with angry elder people from middle america. Faux news tooks their propaganda by showing us clips from previous protest. Jon Stewart owned them. Bravo.

Telangana
At the tail end of year, this Telangana movement gained steam. Being from Andhra, I oppose this separate state. Having said that I don't know much about their struggles since 50s, so I'll restrain from making conclusions. But I'm sure about one thing. Students and employees who're doing all these protests are suffering from myopia. They're only looking for government jobs and politicians are looking for power. But if they loose Hyderabad they'll loose all the revenue which they enjoyed until now. Even if they retain Hyderabad, all the investments from the real estate will be gone and the revenue which comes along with that. movie industry might migrate back to chennai and IT companies might looks for safe locales in chennai, pune and banglore.
Every body knows about the education in Telengana, and the lands aren't suitable for proper agriculture.

I myself suffered from these protests as I'm in India. So many public and private properties are damaged cause of these. APSRTC is the prime victim and easy target for these goons in the disguise of students. These anti social elements should be reined.

and finally some good news
My sister got married to Deep Krishna in Nov and that itself makes 2009 a good year despite other setbacks. Congratulations!!

Few of my friends are expecting children now, congratulations and say hello to sleepless nights :-)

On a whole, 2009 has been an interesting year for me. Met many new people and old friends! Hope 2010 brings happiness and good health to all of us.
(I'm also secretly wishing for comprehensive immigration reform to be friendly for H1Bs!)

Happy New year.

Peace.

Poverty and Prosperity

2009-12-17T09:01:00.008-06:00

With ample time in hand, I spent two days in state capital Hyderabad. This
is the place of contention between Telengana and other parts of State. Truth be told, office spaces and townships here are on par with any city in Western world. Road which leads to Durgamma cheruvu is a clear indicator of land boom. But along with this nouveau riche we'll also witness grinding poverty. The proximity of that kind of poverty is really troubling.

India is a land of diversity. That's true in cultural aspects and also in wealth
distribution. I guess India is one of the countries where so much of wealth is in the hands of very few people. That's true for any country (80:20 theory). But after spending time in the hustle and dust of Indian roads, the disparity is more drastic here in India. The poverty we witness from our train journeys are emotionally exhausting.

The following two things crossed my mind in the last few weeks.

One of the widely quoted lines from the Hindu Dharma is Manava Seve Madhava Seva. Indian people are also very religious. We all go to Temple, pray to God(s) and plead them to fix our problems. After that we'll generously put money in the temple Hundi. The moment we step out of temple, our generosity ends. Half of us wouldn't give a single rupee to the panhandlers. Many of those beggars are really old people with physical ailments. There's no obligation to give money to them, but these are the needy people. Almost all the religions teach the same principle. Feed the needy.

Indian weddings are really long with so many rites and pujas. So much money goes into it. Dinner or Lunch for the guests is one of the significant features of any wedding. These days astronomical amounts of money is spent on food in Weddings. But that's restricted to our guests only. We tip the servers and cooks so less and scold them for asking tips. I am guilty of few things mentioned above.

Above two things which I mentioned are related to the upper middle class families. There's another class in India who gained immense wealth in just 5 years through corruption, and contacts in Government. One prime example is Gali Janardhana Reddy. This person donated a diamond Crown to Tirupathi Venkateswara Swami. That crown costs 42 Cr Rupees. (9 million USD). (Don't get me wrong here, I'm also a devotee of Venkatewara swami, but he's already rich. He's not in dire need of new 9 mil USD Crown.) So all the wealth gained through Nepotism turns into God's jewelery. Ironically he also talked about Madhava Seva and Manava Seva. I wish at least these people help the extreme poor and needy instead of contributing to God's jewels. This might at least provide them some redemption. (as if they care)

My thoughts aren't very clear on this. The poverty here troubles me a lot. Govt. spends so much money on welfare programs, but most of it is sucked out by politicians, govt employees et al. Poverty, lack of education and street crimes go hand in hand. If progress can be made in one aspect, we can see improvement in other things. Not sure when that day will dawn on us.

Well I'm one of those numerous bloggers complaining about India. But I'm willing to do more than just writing about. I'm looking for those organizations and if any one can point me to a a right organization I'll contribute my time and money to them.

Peace.

Update 03/15/10
Actually, there's a change in my position about the beggars/homeless people outside temples. I started recognizing faces of few of these people who're there while I was in college. They've been doing this for more than 10 years and don't allow any new person to beg outside those temples.

I just want to use this as an example to portray poverty. I don't mean to imply that person denying money to beggar is a bad person. There're many ways to help the needy and contribute to society. I stand corrected now.

Few things remain unchanged..

2009-12-11T13:04:00.009-06:00

I'm taking a bit too long vacation after 7 and half years. Enjoying an unwanted vacation. So looking at life in modern India from close quarters.

Many things changed! Cell phones, proliferation of internet into small towns, umpteen news channels, mineral water in every household, American brands and restaurants etc. Finally cars are affordable to middle class (or is that the increased purchasing power), fancy European cars every where..

Few things became worse. Roads, traffic, pollution, ground water levels, corruption, bribery. Actually corruption and Bribery are socially accepted. I mean to say, it's not bothering people any more. The red tape in India adds fuel to this.

Even though you live in Guntur city, you've to go to a neighboring village to get a marriage certificate. You'd only know about once you go to a registrar office in your vicinity. And if you don't hire an agent, forget about getting the certificate in time. It's getting hard for me to defend the anti bribery stance.

And few things remain the same. To name one, stupidity of people. Before you call me elitist, condescending or some thing else here's an example. AP state is experiencing a major public agitation now. Telangana people asking for separate state and others opposing it. Yesterday I got stuck up in traffic cause of a students doing a rastha roko and today restricted to my home 'cause of voluntary strike.

Now going back to my earlier point of stupidity, the first target for all these people are APSRTC buses. Passionate people (read that as affirmative action students who stay in universities too long for
stipends) put these buses on fire and break their windows to demonstrate the anger.

RTC buses are public properties and are purchased using the tax money paid by the same person destroying it. (along with bus fare, of course). In addition to the lost revenue, RTC has to spend millions of rupess fix these buses . I don't know when did this started, but I can recall this from the days I started reading newspaper.

How to fix this? This might be a radical approach, but this destroying of property needs to be stopped. How about killing the goons who destroys public property intentionally. This need not be done for too long. Just the implementation of this policy once or twice will send a chill down the spine of these students and goons. In my view, public infrastructure costing millions of rupees is worth more than lives of few antisocial elements.

Ahh feels good writing this.. but I neither have a degree in govt. policy nor a policy making job. Will write more about life in India. (my fav subject, Indian weddings ..not)

Peace.

lieMAX or IMAX?

2009-05-14T23:06:00.003-05:00

I've been to "Star Trek - The IMAX experience" last weekend. It's one of the movies I've been waiting for this year and I thought the IMAX experience would be a better choice. It partly was. However, I was expecting a HUGE screen and this one was just like any other screen only slightly wider, not really an IMAX screen if you ask me. I've watched a couple of IMAX movies at museums and I always felt it was the HUGE screen that really made the difference. I would probably never spend those extra $5 again for the IMAX experience at AMC or REGAL cinemas, but I found an interesting link that can be used for reference if at all you would like to watch commercial cinema in IMAX.

lieMAX or IMAX on Google

Tea Parties : Grassroots or Astroturf?

2009-04-19T18:52:00.006-05:00

With broken laptop(that's a second dell) and layoffs at work, I'm not getting much impulse/opportunities to blog. But these tea parties are forcing me to rant.

I didn't clearly understand what're these people angry about. Govt spending, Taxes, bailouts...? If the bailouts are what you're complaining, it's Bush who approved no questions asked $700 bill to Henry Paulson. And if you're complaining about Obama's bailouts, please let him know what's the better way to do it.

If your beef is Government spending, how else you'd pump money into crippling economy where credit is virtually frozen. And America suddenly got a strange disease by name Thriftiness. Now pls don't give me that less govt spending, less taxes and less govt are good for country. We're enjoying the fruits of Bush taxes now. In Bush's 8 years Rich became filthy rich and middle class slipped into poverty.

Conservatives are still singing the old song of tax cuts for corporations. How the F in this world would that benefit us. Don't we have tax cuts for all Big corporations, including oil corporations. And how exactly did that benefit us. Yeah I hear your thing, Trickle Down Economics!! That less taxes means corporations hire more people. Oh really? All these corporations took record profits, laid off people at slightest whims of market and outsourced major chunks of their businesses. Forget about employing more people. It's about retaining jobs now, and for the less fortunate it's about unemployment benefits.

Your conservative hero Reagan raised taxes, not once but twice. And no one talks about it. And please stop quoting his tired Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem line. With the deregulation spree, we're in this shithole now. And guess what, his so called legacy is being Questioned now

And Question to these so called angry protesters. How many of you make more than $250K per annum. If you're below that, you wouldn't see a single penny increase in tax. For those who make more than $250K, isn't that time that you pay taxes like rest of us.

It appears to me that these conservatives are just angry cause they're out of power. Didn't you enjoy power and ruin it for 8 years. And first 4 years, you didn't even win that.

Now the new poster boy of these retards, Gov. of Texas Rick Perry. He's threatening to cede from the union. Please do, and don't let the 21st century hit you on the way out. (Quoting Bill Maher's line)

Meh, we'll be fine without those good ol' Texas 'tards. And they'll be fine with oil. Oh wait, didn't the mighty US invade Iraq for oil......

And for the faux news contributors and few retards claiming this as grassroots campaign, this ain't grassroots. This is a astroturf campaign

Peace

Bindu Madhavi's Tenglish!

2009-03-03T19:06:00.004-06:00

Before this girl starred in Avakaya Biryani, chaala hype chesaru. Most of the hype was because she is a telugu girl. Telugu ammayilu cine industry lo peddaga success avvaledu, but Bindu Madhavi is the next big thing ani. In my opinion, there is no point in casting a telugu girl when you have someone else dubbing. Same thing happened in Avakaya biryani, someone else dubbed for Bindu. Now this girl is hosting a show on Sakshi (India's first HD channel) and look at her fluency in telugu...

Paul Krugman on Economy

2009-03-01T14:18:00.004-06:00

Nobel Laurette Paul Krugman on Economy @ World Affairs Council : Oregon on 01/29/09
Bit longer, but worth watching. The Q&As in particular are very interesting.
(Paul Krugman's intro starts at 09.45 minute, and Paul speech around 12.15 minute)

enjoy..

Rick Santelli, new Swift boat Veteran

2009-03-01T10:30:00.004-06:00

This tool Rick Santelli, is exposed by playboy.
Here's the article from Big Picture blog.

Actual playboy article (SFW)

I used to watch this guy on '06. I always thought there's something phony about this guy.

Here's video of Matt lauer grilling this tool, about White house threatening his family.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Who owns which paper

2009-02-10T13:54:00.005-06:00

Found this article in one of the blogs. God bless India!
Ownership of different Media Agencies.

NDTV: A very popular TV news media is funded by Gospels of
Charity in Spain Supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan . Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the Communist party of India . His wife and Brinda Karat are sisters.

India Today: which used to be the only national weekly
which supported BJP is now bought by NDTV!! Since then the tone has changed drastically and turned into Hindu bashing.

CNN-IBN: This is 100 percent funded by Southern Baptist Church
with its branches in all over the world with HQ in US.. The Church
annually allocates $800 million for promotion of its channel. Its Indian head is Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.

Times group list: Times Of India, Mid-Day, Nav-Bharth Times, Femina, Filmfare, Vijaya Karnataka, Times now (24- hour news channel) and many more. Times Group is owned by Bennett & Coleman. ‘World Christian Council does 80 percent of the Funding, and an Englishman and an Italian equally share balance 20 percent. The Italian Robertio Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.

Star TV: It is run by an Australian, who is supported by St.Peters Pontifical Church Melbourne.

Hindustan Times: Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in Collaboration with Times Group. The Hindu: English daily, started over 125 years has been
recently taken over by Joshua Society, Berne , Switzerland .. N. Ram’s wife is a Swiss national.

Indian Express: Divided into two groups. The Indian Express and the New Indian Express (southern edition) ACTS Christian Ministries have major stake in the Indian Express and latter is still with the Indian counterpart.

The Statesman: It is controlled by Communist Party of India. Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle: Is owned by a Saudi Arabian Company with its chief Editor M.J. Akbar. Gujarat riots which took place in 2002 where Hindus were burnt alive, Raj deep Sardesai and Bharkha Dutt working for NDTV at that time got around 5 Million Dollars from Saudi Arabia to cover only Muslim victims, which they did very faithfully.. . Not a single Hindu family was interviewed or shown on TV whose near and dear ones had been burnt alive, it is reported.

Tarun Tejpal of tehelka gets blank cheques from Arab countries to target BJP and Hindus only, it is said. The ownership explains the control of media in India by foreigners. The result is obvious.

courtesy: sunitablogs.com

Wall St / Greed

2009-02-03T21:50:00.008-06:00

Now the whole country is piling on this Bonus thing.

But few people are arguing how much is 18 billion when compared to 1800 billion losses. It might not count, but what counts is it's Tax payer's money. Government isn't rescuing home owners who're behind their home payments. If wall street is giving out Bonuses and going on leisure trips with tax payer's money, they better be prepared to face the shit.

I saw this douchebag John Thain on cnbc defending bonuses given to his staff in the month of Dec. His argument is that if we don't pay well to the smart people, they'll go to another company.

And this is the same douchebag who spent $1.2 million on his office renovation and $1400 for a trash can.

Two questions for this SoB.
1)Who're these smart people, are these the people who ruined Meryl Lynch and all other investment firms
2)Where do they go? Who's hiring?

Jonathan Alter is the first one in the media to ask a simple Question, who's hiring. Here's his Newsweek article.

Wall St probably hired a PR firm. News papers are publishing articles how bonuses are part of their compensation packages, and about their long working hours. Karma, isn't that a beautiful thing.

NY Times published this article today. But I'm not sold by their sorrow stories yet. Read the public outrage here

Here's a reader's comment which represents the nation's anger very well.

Let's see... Taxpayers, some of whom work 2 jobs for a tiny fraction of what these Wall Street "geniuses" make, bailout the banks for the tune of $700 billion.

These money worshipping "people" then give themselves $20 billion in bonuses for bankrupting the nation because they want to keep "good talent"?

Sen. Clair McCaskill is right, let's cap their pay and take back our stolen money. The last thing a single mother of 3 working at IHOP should have to do is supplement a scumbag investment banker's Rolex or Porsche.

— Andrew, NY, NY

BIG Numbers

2009-01-19T21:56:00.005-06:00

Here're two news items, both involving very BIG numbers

Zimbabwe rolls out Z$100tr note

How to Understand a Trillion-Dollar Deficit

Both articles are about numbers which go beyond our intuition.

100000000000000 Zimbabwe Dollars bill and it only fetches 30 USD. 231m% hyperflation.

And then, our Deficit. USD 1200000000000!!

Talking about inflation, Fed gave out 350 Billion USD to banks and is about to give 350 more to banks. Obama is talking about 1 Trillion Dollars stimulus plan. I'm not sure, how we can avoid inflation in USA in the next few years.

Peace

Future of abstinence-only funding is in limbo

2009-01-18T22:03:00.003-06:00

Read this news article, an hour ago.

Now, that's good news. This is one of the ridiculous things the kids have to go through in High schools apart from the Denial of Evolution theory.

I understand that People have different views on Sex before Marriage. Even I've the same upbringing. But what bothers me is the undermining of Sex Education and Prevention Techniques. If children weren't thought these in High school, when would they learn the safe sex.

Denial of Science is one of the biggest Damages Bush did to this country. There's so much propaganda in the last 8 years denying Global Warming and Evolution theory. Now I just can't wait for these Stupid 'Intelligent Design' theories removed from Textbooks.

Peace.

Jan 20th, 2009 : End of an error

2009-01-17T20:22:00.004-06:00

8 years of Bush in 8 minutes by Keith Olbermann

Enough said!
Title Courtesy : A user's comment on Digg.com

Peace.

The price of Oil

2009-01-12T21:33:00.004-06:00

Last summer was a nightmare for American commuters. Avg. price of gas went upto $4.5 per gallon. And by September the bubble started bursting.

Speculators created a media spin convincing us that Demand in China and India caused the price hikes, but not them. And then Media also bought that stupid argument. Media started quoting this Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Rao as Oracle of Oil.

Post Wall Street collapse, no money available for leverage and speculation. Here we're with $1.6 per gallon price.

There's a report on 60 minutes last night. Here it is.

It's a must watch. And here's the text

Let me reiterate one more time. I'm not a commie and I also believe in free market capitalism. But what happened in the last 8 years ain't free market capitalism. It's an incest relationship of wall street, law makers, regulators and media. Yes, media ain't saint.

Here's a sample report by a senior journalist Jon Birger, who was in bed with speculators industry. And here're some calls made by this this Genius.

I'm glad that all it all ended and hope the new govt ends this Wild Wild west attitude in the market.

Peace.

2008 : A retrospective

2009-01-11T18:15:00.010-06:00

It's 2009 already, can't believe 2008 passed by already

2008 wasn't joyful to any one. Housing bust, Layoffs, Retirement portfolios, IRAs shrank to 50% or less, Wall street meltdown, Oil prices, commodity prices, Paulson's bazooka(wtf happened to that ?!), Series of Bomb blast in India, Madoff..

Looks like Recession is here to stay.
Even though I'm one of those million people who took a beating in the market, I want to write about few good things..

>CEO pay
So long suckers, gone are days of the exorbitant compensation packages, golden parachutes and Private Jets. With so much backlash from Public and Lawmakers, I hope this House/Senate approves a bill to limit these packages in the future also.

> More regulation on Wall street
Hedge funds, Commodity traders, Derivatives, Exotic financial instruments which no one understood. Huh. Now the dream run is over. Here's to the more regulation on wall street. Before cheering for that, I've to question the ethics/smartness of these senators leading the committees on Finance, Ways and means, Tax....

Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank, Charles Schumer. How good are these guys. All the mess happened while these guys are approving laws. Isn't time to bid adieu to these men?

>Commodity Traders
Remember last summer. We're taken for a ride by Hedge Funds, Commodity traders... Now with the burst of Hedge funds and frozen Credit, we're blessed with $1.6 gas prices.

>Oil Prices
Crude oil was 'flirting' with $150 per barrel price back in summer. Now it's $40. Though it's one of the fall outs of Weakening economy, it's bad news for this OPEC cartel. Couldn't be any more happier. And those high oil prices ain't so bad. It ended America's mad fascination for SUVs and Trucks.

Arjun murti, please take a hike!!

>Incompetent CEO's
Dick Fuld(Lehman), Angelo Mozilo(Countrywide), Robert Willumstad(AIG), Kerry Killinger(WaMu), Ken Thompson (Wachovia) and then few dickheads at Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae. Good bye assholes, corporate America wouldn't miss ya. I'm just waiting for Bob Nardelli and Rick Wagoner to turn in their papers. Sooner it is, better for Detroit.

>Iraq
I hate giving credit to Dubya's regime in any form. But there's some peace in Iraq. Though I don't approve the way it's accomplished, I'm happy for Iraqi citizens and armed forces based in Iraq

>Both House and Senate in control of Dems
That's right fellas. Since '92 , this is the first time we've both Senate and house dominated by Dems. Hope they'll be strong and bring some order in this country. If possible, please undo all the acts passed by Republican thugs. Abstinence Only education, ban on Stem cell research, Bush Tax cuts, Environment Protection...

>Obama in 1600 Penn Ave
After 8 years of Public housing, Bush is about to move out of White House. And a democrat in White House. This superseded all the sorrows and setbacks. Honestly, I'm not yet sold with Barrack's Hope and audacity. But hey, anybody can do better than dubya and evil Cheney. Good Riddance fellas..

>Sarah Palin stays in Alaska.
That's right, this 'hockey mom' wouldn't be moving to DC any time soon. Hopefully she never moves into Mainland. Though I don't have high regard for American Voters, they exceeded my expectations in this election. Just the thought of her as VP gives a chill in my spine.

Finally, I've two good news to share on personal front.

Karun, my friend and owner of this blog got married and my sister got engaged in Dec '08. Congratulations!!
In a way, I can't complain much about '08.

Hopefully '09 brings Peace and happiness to all of us. (and death to Islamic Terrorists)

Happy Sankranthi !!
Peace.

Mumbai and aftermath

2008-11-29T16:44:00.010-06:00

195 and counting..
That's the number of people killed in this mumbai massacre. This exposes the pity state of intelligence and security in India. Having said that, it's tough for any country to protect it's citizens if you've enemies with in. Fuck I ain't being politically correct. Muslims in this country should change.

Here're few pictures of the victims in Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus and Taj Mahal hotel.
Boston Globe
Daily Mail

I'm not gonna rant about Pakistani influence or the muslim traitors in India. I vented my anger enough in the last 2 years. I want to write about two articles/views.

I read an interesting article in TIME magazine on Wed night.
to paraphrase few lines

Still, many South Asian Muslims insist Islam is the one and only force that can bring the subcontinent together and return it to preeminence as a single whole. "We [Muslims] were the legal rulers of India, and in 1857 the British took that away from us," says Tarik Jan, a gentle-mannered scholar at Islamabad's Institute of Policy Studies. "In 1947 they should have given that back to the Muslims." Jan is no militant, but he pines for the golden era of the Mughal period in the 1700s, and has a fervent desire to see India, Pakistan and Bangladesh reunited under Islamic rule.

"People are hungry for justice," says Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist and author of the new book Descent Into Chaos.

Keep jacking off to your Islamic Society, suckers. There's no way you'll win this war. And just to make it clear to these retarded muslim suicide bombers; you wouldn't be greeted by Virgins in heaven. You'll be sucking a dick in hell for the eternity.

Muslims in India got all they needed. Reservations in colleges and Jobs. Could the readers believe that they have their own Islamic courts and they can give divorce by uttering Talak 3 times. And here it is. Government gives aid/subdisdy to people who goes on Mecca pilgrimage. Every year terrorists kills numerous Hindus who goes to Vaishno Devi temple in Kashmir. No one really bothers these people. I'm not sure what they achieve in these bomb blasts and killings.

And to the pseudo-intelligent reporters of TIME, India is a country of Hindus. It's called Hindustan. Mughals ruled India for only few hundred years. It's not that they own this land. Like any other kingdom, they met their end. British gave India to people to right people i.e. Hindus. But to wrong leaders Gandhi and Nehru. If Sardar Vallabhai Patel had became First Prime Minister of India, things would've been lot better. I'll save that discussion for later.

And then there're these Human Right Activists and intelligent liberal writers in India. To name one, Arundhati Roy. I've few words for her. STFU, bitch. This woman is all over Indian Media condeming an encounter of Muslim terrorist, calling it a Human rights violation. Back in '98 when India tested a nuclear bomb, she's all over media decrying that.

Arundhati, what if your loved one is in Taj Mahal or CST? Just coz you won a booker prize doesn't mean that you've to bitch about everything in India. Save your pearls of Wisdom for fiction writing. Leave the Law and Order for the Police and Government

And the media in India. For the love of the God, please don't cover up the Muslim/Pakistan hand in this massacre for your political correctness. Longer the people suffer, harsher the backlash. Remember Gujarat circa 02.

All the innocent people who died in Mumbai, may their soul Rest in Peace. And I salute to all the brave Police men and commandos who fought for the country. I hope the Govt. takes care of your families of the slain Police.

And to all the traitors in India, just wait for next Gujarat.
Jai Hind.

Happy Diwali

2008-10-27T13:07:00.005-05:00

One of my favorite Indian festivals. Wish you all a very Happy Diwali

W

2008-10-19T19:40:00.007-05:00

Watched W movie this evening. It's a good movie. But didn't see anything new about W, except that he and his staff has to pray after every meeting.

Being a avid watcher of PBS frontline, I watched/read all about Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz & Rove. For me it's like watching a movie based on a novel which I read.

But, I've to say that Oliver Stone is back in form. I made a choice not to watch his last two movies Alexander and World Trade Center. I immensely liked his two president biographies, JFK(yeah, I was 22 then) and Nixon. He didn't take any liberties in script this time. Everything is factual and well documented. Stone potrayed issues between HW and W in very effective way. It's pretty much clear for all of us that W always looks up for God and Reagan for direction, rather than his old man. There's a clear angst in him to prove that he is better than his dad.

Colin Powell's role is well written. And movie clearly shows how Powell tried to stop W from going into war and how he failed. Casting is very good, specially Thandie Newton as Condi and Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney. Josh Brolin is amazing as W.

In a way this movie is like a Deja Vu. Back in '04 I was cheering for Fahrenheit 9/11. Movie made good money but failed to change the verdict. That movie addressed my angst against war in a a better way. W is the 4th movie this weekend in Box office collections. I hope, at least this movie will change few voter's minds.

As Oliver Stone said, Bush made an enormous impact on USA and whole world in the last eight years. We all know that it's not a good thing, but we've to live with it. (We can blame it on Karl Rove, Katherine, Harris, Ralph Nader ...). All the visitors of this blog knows me as a Bush basher. But last two years, my hatred and despise of Bush simmered down and increased on these 4 evil people. Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfield and Rove.

Even though we can't blame Bush solely for the Iraq war, History wouldn't treat him right. All I can wish is that 4 evil people will be served justice.

Peace

Here's the Roger Ebert's review
Watch PBS coverage on Bush's war, on Frontline

when i say ‘obama’ you say ‘ayers’...

2008-10-19T09:54:00.005-05:00

SNL was awesome last night

Amy Poehler rapped for our fav bimbo....err Sarah Palin.
For those who missed it last night...

and here's the lyric

my name is sarah palin you all know me
vice president nominee of the gop
gonna need your vote in the next election
can i get a ‘what what’ from the senior section
mccain got experience, mccain got style
but don’t let him freak you out when he tries to smile
cause that smile be creepy
but when i be vp
all the leaders in the world gonna finally meet me

how’s it go eskimo
eskimos
tell me what you know eskimo
eskimos
how you feel eskimo
ice cold
tell me tell me what you feel eskimo
super cold

i’m jeremiah wright cause tonight i’m the preacha
i got a bookish look and you’re all hot for teacha
todd lookin fine on his snow machine
so hot boy gonna need a go between
in wasilla we just chill baby chilla
but when i see oil lets drill baby drill

my country tis a thee
from my porch i can see
russia and such

all the mavericks in the house put your hands up
all the mavericks in the house put your hands up
all the plumbers in the house pull your pants up
all the plumbers in the house pull your pants up

when i say ‘obama’ you say ‘ayers’
obama. ayers. obama. ayers.
i built me a bridge - it ain’t goin’ nowhere.
[ohhh]

mccain, palin, gonna put the nail in the coffin
of the media elite
she likes red meat
shoot a mull humpin moose, eight days of the week

[three gunshots]
now ya dead, now ya dead,
cause i’m an animal, and i’m bigger than you
holdin a shotgun walk in the pub
everybody party, we’re goin on a hunt
la la la la la la la la
[six gunshots]

yo palin, i’m out!

sarah palin

2008-10-12T15:09:00.004-05:00

I was thinking about right words to describe sarah palin. Yeah, she's a bimbo.... But that ain't enough.

Last Friday, Dana Gould coined this word on 'Real Time with Bill Maher'.

Evangelical Dominatrix !!
This would sum up her whole appearance, folksiness, stupid ignorance, darn rights, you betchas...

Here's the clip.

and the money line from Bill Maher "She is with out the gene, which tells you that you should be embarrassed"

Peace

What a moron !

2008-10-04T19:01:00.007-05:00

Please watch this

Rape or incest victims, she wants to counsel them. No, abortion ain't right for them.

She's OK with morning after pill, oh wait she is not endorsing that contraceptive!

Just think about this Moron being the next VP. As if Dick Cheney isn't evil enough.

Gosh, what's she talking about!!

Chintakayala Ravi - Movie review

2008-10-02T02:46:00.005-05:00

Just watched chintakayala ravi. In simple words, this is a typical venky film. It's a routine film with good comedy. The audio wasn't an instant success, but the songs looked a lot better on screen.

Most of the film is shot in the US, almost the entire first half and half of the second half. The first half of the film is pretty good with nice comedy. The only real emotional/sentimental scenes are in the last 15 minutes of the first half. All the three songs are pretty good. They are not different from the usual venky style songs.

The second half of the movie moves at a fast pace initially and all the remaining 3 songs are over within the first 45 minutes. The last 30 minutes moves to India and is pretty predictable, but not as heavy as you would imagine. Overall, the second half is good too.

I somehow don't digg venky's get up so much. But on the whole, its a tailor made film for Venky and he is as usual at ease. Anushka and Mamata Mohandas are good. Jr.NTR's guest appearance is okay. He looked very good, and its nice to see venky and Jr.NTR on the screen together. Overall, chintakayala ravi is not a great movie, but it's a timepass movie, definitely worth a watch.

Tina Fey - Sarah Palin, CNN compares

2008-09-29T12:08:00.001-05:00

CNN compares Tina Fey parody to real Palin interview

Lipstick on a Pig

2008-09-28T10:55:00.008-05:00

Looks like party is over for Sarah Palin.

She got Cliff notes training in foreign affairs for two days. Then she showed up for interview with Katie Couric.

And here's a good Q by Katie and Sarah's response to that..

COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Here's the youtube video

Can anybody pls translate Sarah's response into comprehensible English.
WTF is she talking about. In a way, Tina Fey job is very easy on SNL. Just talk like palin, you look like a dumbwit with out a clue.

We had enough of dumb people in White House. Please America, vote for Obama. He might not be flawless, but Obama-Biden is better than this McCain and Palin ticket.

Courtesty: Good Commentatory by Fareed Zakaria on Sarah Palin.

Peace.

Wall St, FUBAR ! 2

2008-09-21T16:38:00.011-05:00

Now that the dust is settling (hopefully) and capitol hill is busy in finalizing the mother of all bailouts, I'll try to explore the causes for the crisis.

As I see it, these're the causes.

Insanely low interest rates from 2004 to 2006
Sub prime Lending
Predatory Lending
Derivatives
Lack of Regulation

and the Housing bubble burst.

Low Interest Rates
Post 9/11 Fed decreased the rate consistently. And from Jun '03 to Jun'04 the rate is 1%. Alan Greenspan advocated that rate cut would help the Housing. But too much cash flow to bankers made'em look out for more people to lend their easy money.

Sub prime Lending
Sub prime is jargon for people with bad or avg credit history. Usually this group wouldn't be eligible for housing loans. But as there is too much money to lend, realtors and mortgage bankers lend the money to this group.

A couple making 75G per year bought a 450G home without a down payment in SoCal. No income verification! How is this possible? Here comes the different types of Mortgage Products. ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) is one of them. With this kinda mortgage, lenders can pick their payments for the first 3 years. Obviously people paid interest only for the first 3 years. And then the Bankers used all the Predatory Lending practices.

Predatory Lending
So Bankers convinced this public that they can refi or sell their house after 3 years if they can't afford the payment. But apparently they're not informed that they can't refi the home before 3 years. So after 3 years the teaser rates ended and the real payments kicked in. As many people didn't pay any Principal in the first 3 years, you can imagine how much the monthly payments would go up. Now this public couldn't get their homes refinanced coz of the credit crunch, new lending standards and the phenomenal loss of house values. Even though the borrowers are really foolish, Mortgage lenders had intentionally hidden these details in their paper work.

Derivatives
As there is risk in all the sub prime loans, these loans we're sliced and repackaged as Derivatives ans sold all over the world. this reduces the risk to lending firm. The problem here is that no one really knows, which toxic loan effects a derivative. When Fed was trying to convince Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley AIG, they couldn't figure out how many toxic derivatives are in AIG books and how they would be affected.
And they backed out. Warren Buffer once called'em Weapons of Mass Destruction. Here's a pic which shows how loans are packaged into Derivatives. (Courtesy wikipedia)

These Derivatives are the main reason for Bankruptcy of walls st firms. As the housing foreclosures are increasing, these derivatives are losing their value. Panic on the wall st brought down the share value. It's just another illustration of Domino effect.

Lack of Regulation
Every year Wall st contributes millions of dollars to the both parties. In return they get no regulation or regulation of no use. This is the Free Market capitalism at it's best. When the street is making profit, they lobbied for lower taxes on Capital gains and got the 15% tax rate and tax cuts. Now they got the bail outs. AIG is just an insurance company. But it got involved into Derivatives trading and insurance. Reason, no regulation.

Dick Fuld, CEO of Lehman Bros got 180 Mil in compensation last year. CEOs of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae got the golden parachutes on their compensation package already. Thank God, Fed fired'em already and the chances that they'll get any severance package are very low. I saw Henry Paulson's and Bloomberg's take on CEO pay on Meet the Press this morning. watch it here

Like all good things, Housing Bubble came to an end in 2007. Home Prices're in Free fall mode. Bankruptcy of sub prime mortgage companies signaled the incoming financial storm. Apparently we saw that very late.

Some one on wikipedia, put all this mess into a good pic.

Peace.

Wall St, FUBAR !

2008-09-20T17:58:00.008-05:00

What a week!

Where to start! Sunday night Lehman brothers filed chapter 11. Feds didn't bail out this time (?!). AIG bailed out by Feds. Meryl Lynch is part of BofA now. And then Dow Jones lost so many points and again rallied at the same pace. Everything which Americans thought risk-free is at risk now.

Banks, Money Market funds. (could you imagine that few money market share values went below $1.) I can't believe my bank Wachovia anymore.

Bail outs Season
Bail outs. USA is now the most socialist economy in the world.
Let's see the numbers
Bear Sterns $29B
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae $200B
AIG $89B

and as I write this Bush and his team are pitching $700B bailout plan to the congress.
The total tab $1.018 Trillion. Yes, that's 12 zeroes fellas.

and 700B is a very rosy estimate. God knows how much more money Fed is gonna put in. And Detroit auto companies are in line for their Bail out.

My first Question. Where's all this money coming from? Our economy is in deficit of $407 Billion. And the National Debt $10.6 trillion. See this video Money as Debt. As we see, USA economy isn't fundamentally strong.

Henry Paulson, the treasury secretary is leading the effort and he is pulling all the stops to face this crisis. He's doing a good job. In a way I can't oppose these bail outs, coz otherwise the whole economy might tumble down.

But again rich corporations were not held accountable for this mess. Imagine you or me, abusing our credit cards on big screen TVs, shopping, bad mortgages and file for bankruptcy. Would the Feds come for your resuce? F NO!!. But corporations did that and yes Fed rescued'em.

Interesting point here. SEC banned shorting of Financial stocks for 3 weeks. For the beginners, shorting is a kinda trading in which you profit if the stock price goes down. But wall st made billions in the last decade in shorting with their hedge funds. Isn't it ironical that the same companies destroyed so many companies with their shorting techniques.

It's not 'Surge' which is working in Iraq. It's the money US govt is giving to Shiite militants to stop attacks. And Dems VP candidate Joe Biden is putting a bill in Congress asking for 1 Billion aid to Georgia. Are they outta their F'in mind. How in this world are we gonna send aid when our economy itself is in direness.

US Govt doesn't have money to upgrade infrastructure, schools, health care in USA. Could you believe that FAA is still using 50 year old Radar based navigation for civilian flights in USA. FAA can't afford 150 Billions budget to upgrade it to GPS system. And we had already spent $580 Billions in Iraq war.

Now imagine John McCain being elected in November. McCain has been big backer of Deregulation bills until last tuesday. Suddenly, he's asking for more regulation of Wall st now. So if McCain goes to White house, he's gonna ask Social Security privatization. And medicaid, your retirement everything is at risk. As I see it, we're not even at the end of crisis. This is just the beginning !

And I've to use a line from Bill Maher
"Please don't call this crisis as Market correction, it's a catastrofuck."

to be contd...

Political Pundits and their BS

2008-09-14T21:22:00.003-05:00

Sarah Palin huh...

The gun trotting, bible thumping, Pro-life extreme Right wing Hockey mom (what is hockey mom anyway...)

She sounds like second coming of W. And the abc interview shows her understanding of today's issues..which is zero. Now the conservative Political Consultants wants to Project her as able leader who might not be sharp but ABLE. Just like they projected W in 2000 and '04.

So I was watching Real time with Bill Maher on youtube. Bill asked John Fund (conservative reporter of WSJ) whether Sarah Palin would know anything about Sarabanes Oxley. His answer, "are we here for a trivia contest ?".

John, listen up dude. Since when, SOX became trivia in corporate America ? Corporations are spending Billions of dollars for the compliance of these regulations. (This SOX in reality is just a pay check for auditing firms). And is it too much to ask for a VP candidate's view on SOX.

There's no end in sight for this Right wing Spin.

Peace.

What is India waiting for ?

2008-09-14T20:43:00.003-05:00

Another bomb blast in India. This time it's in Capital city. Same Modus operandi. Send a mail to news outlet and trigger the blasts.

I feel so sad and shameful on how these muslims/terrorists are killing innocent people. What can be done to prevent this and what's government doing about these.

Police didn't make any significant progress in last year's Hyderabad Blasts. Jaipur, Ahmadabad, Banglore, Delhi...Terrorists are changing locations and here we're living with fear everyday and just waiting for blasts to happen in some other city.

Is there any intelligence team in India which is actually doing it's job. Or Terrorists too smart. Government, is that in a position to guarantee the safety of civilians lives. I didn't read any outrage about this blasts this time. Civilains and govt, are they considering this as part of their life.

And for the love the God, would at least one politician come forward and ask all these muslims to go F themselves. Life in India is all about fucking political Correctness. In the movies, if the Villain happens to be muslim, then honest cop also needs to be a Muslim.

This whole post is just an anger outburst. My anger is deep rooted and started right from college days when I heard that muslims in Hyderabad celebrate Pakistan's victory against India in cricket. I'm just looking for a civilian movement to start. Or a vigilante.

God Bless India,
Jai Hind

Ashta chemma - Movie review

2008-09-05T02:07:00.006-05:00

Just got back from Ashta chemma. The promos looked very promising and though the movie might not be a great hit, it sure is a very good entertainer. Simple story, simple narration and a short(by indian standards) movie. The run time is close to 130 mins. All the artists/actors gave good performances. No big twists, the music is good, the songs could have been better. Both the heroes did good. Its hard to believe its their debut movie. Nani(Rambabu) and Srinivas(Anand) both were good, but Nani imitated Rajiv kanakala in many scenes, especially in his intro and the following scenes his dialogue delivery, modulation and action resembles Rajeev Kanakala. Swathi is cute. Bhargavi is okay (adequate hehe)

Overall, Ashta chemma is a time pass flick. A simple story with some good laughs.

Indian Hockey at Olympics

2008-08-21T17:31:00.007-05:00

I was reading about Indian hockey the other day. I knew we were a good team once upon a time. I was really amazed at our olympics record. It is unfortunate that we did not qualify for Beijing. Here is a list of past olympic results -

1928 Gold Amsterdam
1932 Gold Los Angeles
1936 Gold Berlin
1940 Games not held
1944 Games not held
1948 Gold London
1952 Gold Helsinki
1956 Gold Melbourne
1960 Silver Rome
1964 Gold Tokyo
1968 Bronze Mexico City
1972 Bronze Munich
1976 Seventh Montreal
1980 Gold Moscow
1984 Fifth Los Angeles
1988 Sixth Seoul
1992 Seventh Barcelona
1996 Eighth Atlanta
2000 Seventh Sydney
2004 Seventh Athens
2008 Failed to qualify Beijing

courtesy:
yahoo! sports
worldhockey.org/olympics

India at olympics

2008-08-18T13:02:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Abhinav Bindra, India finally gets an olympic gold medal. It is a great achievement by Bindra. While the celebrations are understandable all over India, one gold medal does not justify the 1 billion population. While we blame cricket for everything since it overshadows all the other games and sports, the main culprit is the politics involved at every level. The olympics offer a perfect stage for all sports. A victory here can capture the public’s attention and bring more young talent and more funds into the sport. It brings identity to the sport. I hope we have more leagues and competitions in all sports just like we have IPL/ICL for cricket. But with the media and the networks in india crazy with cricket, it might take a long time before the public can get to watch the other sports.

In another news, India is thrashed by Sri Lanka in the ongoing one day series.

Hyderabad : Does it belong to India

2008-07-27T21:19:00.009-05:00

Past few days, I'm really bothered by bomb blasts. I really feel powerless and defeated. Called up my friend in India to talk about these.

Then he mentioned about this incident in Hydereabad city.
http://www.eenadu.net/archives/archive-27-7-2008/panelhtml.asp?qrystr=htm/panel3.htm
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200807261965.htm

My friend/owner of this blog's intention is to keep this blog as PG-13. But It's really tough for me to hold my words today.

So now we've a muslim mothertrucker MLA who opened fire, since corporation officials tried to demolish a encroachment. And his entourage started beating corporation workers. People, ambulances got stuck up in traffic for 6 hours. Other legislators, CM has to mediate to reduce the tensions. And yes, case has been filed on the officer who orderd the demolotion of these buildings

This all happened on the day after 45 people're killed in Ahmedabad, beacuse of bomb blasts perpetrated by muslim SOBs. I've to ask, where is India heading. Every day I read how many high end retailers are opening shops in India and how many luxurys cars are being bought. And now this is the reality, on how much we progressed.

And, what would it take to ban this MIM party, put these muslim legislators behind bars, kill all the SIMI members. My choice of words today is very bad, coz of the anger I've today. Why these muslims are getting free ride every day, every year and every century. And why Hindus has to remain like this. I'm not a War supporter, but Justice has to be served. Sometimes, Modi might be right. Let the people take law into their hands!

And I wonder what's the CBI, RAW, IB's take on old city in hyderabad. What's their plan to clean up this mess. This is like a pakistan inside India.

Rang de Basanti really caught younger generation's imagination and did some good. And now I pray for a film maker with balls to show the reality.

And my request to all my friends, readers. Please stop patronizing Paki/bangladesh/muslim restaurants. You're contributing money to these bomb blasts.

Jai Hind.

Hare Ram - an exhibitor's view

2008-07-21T12:48:00.014-05:00

There were two things on my mind that almost prevented me from watching Hare Ram. The first one is Kalyan Ram himself. Unlike many of his generation heroes, I always thought KR lacked the ease in front of camera. His boy next door look is his asset as well as a drawback. The second one is Harshavardhan, the guy that directed Vijayendravarma, who changed his name from Swarna Subbaro. But it is in fact, these two guys that make Hare Ram worth watching.

It is hard to go into the details of the movie without spoiling your experience. Unfortunately, many of the reviews have already done that. About the movie, all I can say is look out for Kalyan Ram, both as an actor and a producer. The movie might have many interesting twists and turns, but the biggest of them all is KR's performance. The scenes with Sudha and Chalapathi Rao at the start of the movie show the ease in his performance. His body language and dialogue delivery have improved a lot. It is always risky to play a double role. Since he is also the producer he must have known this and we can see the difference in both the roles. He put his heart and soul in this movie to come up with an extraordinary performance. This definitely is a turning point film for Kalyan Ram.

The next biggest asset for the movie is the director, Harshavardhan. I still cannot believe it is the same guy that directed Vijayendravarma. The direction is completely different. He seems to have worked hard on each and every scene. The picturization of some of the scenes is awesome. His screenplay is very good especially the flashback episode. The camera angles and close up shots used in some scenes are awesome. He maintained good tempo throughout the film and just when we things are a little slow there is a twist. He handled the climax very well. The last 20 minutes especially is very impressive.

Mickey J Meyer's music is big plus. My personal favorites are Pyar karma seeko na, Laalijo Laalijo and Sariga Padani. On the screen Jairam Jairam song is awesome. Look out for Priyamani in that song ;). The background music is good. Mickey J Meyer's music is different from all the others. His style resembles AR.Rehman, though the orchestration is different and with Hare Ram, he seems like he is here to stay. Mickey J Meyer and Harshavardan, both complemented each other well. Great music and lovely visuals. I cannot stress enough about the rap song Jairam Jairam.

As for the others, Priyamani was a good choice for the role. She was perfect. Just imagine what would have happened to Asadhyudu if she was the heroine in that movie. Some of the episodes involving Brahmanandam and Raghu babu are good and Ali's rain episode clicked well too. Kota as always gives a very good performance. It is sad that he is often ignored.

Overall, this is a very good film to watch and hats off to Kalyan Ram for daring to be different. He did say during the audio function that he will let the audience and fans speak after they watch the movie, and I am pretty sure the talk is unanimous. This movie should also be a good film to watch for all the wannabe directors and producers. But if there are any wannabe producers reading this and looking for a director, feel free to email me (just kidding…but seriously?!).

US airstrike kills 47 civilians in Afghanistan

2008-07-11T14:35:00.004-05:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7501538.stm

Imagine if this happened in the US. A missile from Afghan or any other country accidentally landed in a mall or any other public place and killed 47 people. What would be the public reaction? How would the US react? This is not the first time this has happened and the way things are it will not be the last time either. I can’t wait for Bush to complete his term. The US does not participate in the International Criminal Court, but I wish Bush and Cheney are tried for war crimes. From torture to killing civilian casualties, they have done everything they shouldn’t have. I can’t wait for Bush to finish his term, but I am not sure if the next President will do any better.

SOS

2008-07-10T21:33:00.003-05:00

Got an e-mail from northwest airlines, asking me to visit this website stop oil speculation now. So now airlines also joined the bandwagon. Even they need some one to blame for their poor customer service, airline delays (lemme say it again, new york area airports sucks...aah I feel better)

But seriously this website is a coalition of all the airlines, freight operators etc. and they raise some important points "....As speculators continue to dominate the market, the volume of oil traded “on paper” has been as high as 22 times greater than the volume of oil consumed...". This isn't a good sign

And they've suggestions also. The point I want to make here is I'm not a airlines fans, but I've to take their side in this issue. An there're some rules in this commodity trading lobbied by Enron. Duh.

People who follow this blog(if there're any out there..) might be pretty bored with oil speculation topic. Few guys in Connecticut, New York and London are taking us for a ride. that particular thought is killing me.

Anyways if you're convinced, please write to your local senators.
Thanks
Peace.

Stupidest biased article ever read

2008-07-02T19:12:00.004-05:00

Read this article this morning. I've to disagree with the writer

Ok I'm not a wall street guy, I'm just an average Indian IT guy with too much negative energy. But this guy is really insulting the readers intelligence.

Let's look at his argument. Since the speculators are not taking the physical delivery of the oil, they're not responsible for the exponential growth in oil prices. But if too much money is chasing too few oil contracts, wouldnt' that raise the price

Say a Goldman sachs guy bought an august's oil futures contract for X dollars for the hedge fund in june. He'll sell the contract to a refienry in the month of June for ...say X+Y dollars. So isn't he making a profit of Y dollars and wouldn't that make a difference in the oil price. Now Y dollars is in billions.

Pardon my french here, but how the F in this world speculators arent' causing the increase. Isn't this taught in Economics 101, too much demand and less supply will increase the price.

Now again a stupid theory that india and china are the reason for oil prices. if demand is increasing at 10% why the prices are increasing at 50% rate.

I've to agree that it's free market economy and every one is in here for profit. Commodities trading has been around for ages, but in the last few years only hedge funds started dumping billions. It wouldn't really matter matter if people are hedging gold and silver. But now the commodities traders are after food supplies and oil futures.

Read the readers comments here
Peace.

offshore oil exploration, speculation, oil prices...

2008-06-18T21:45:00.005-05:00

so now all right wing conservative wants the congress to lift the ban on oil exploration at offshore and antarctica. enlighten me here, I'd be very glad if I'm wrong.

even if they start drilling in offshore and Alaska (screw the environment and make the oil companies even more rich) wouldn't this oil enter the commodities market and get traded by speculators.

if that's true, how the F in this world this additional supply would reduce the price. these food and oil prices are fueled by excessive money channeled into commodities market by speculators. not by "increasing demand in india and china" as media is projecting main stream media is really a bitch. c'mon people, how would demand increase so much in 4 months.

if dubya and all other world leaders are sincere they can stop all this excessive money coming into commodities market. it's not easy as I said or i'm not a financial analyst. but if middle class people in usa are struggling to make the ends meet, what's gonna happen in so called third world countries.

on the side note Bush Sr signed for the ban on offshore exploration and dubya is so keen on lifting that ban. dubya and evil cheney at the end of their second term, aren't leaving any stone unturned in helping oil companies or screwing the environment.

all I can do is countdown the days until the inauguration of next president
peace.

bollocks to comcast

2008-05-26T00:56:00.004-05:00

What's the use of a blog, if I don't air my personal grievances...eh here's mine

So two weeks ago, we don't have internet for the whole week, cause of the 'comcastic' (my ass) customer service. I spent 3 hours on customer service calls. If i had one more hour of their BS customer service pitch, I could've been ready to drive their vans across those town and fix those shitty modems.

Anyways talking about those vans, heres some news which will make you sick. Two comcast technicians're doing some good ol' fashioned drag racing in Huntsville, Al and hit a girl. I was thinking that Comcast is all about their BS customer service, no it's not.

I couldn't wait for Huntsville to sue comcast

Peace

Darfur Genocide

2008-04-27T21:44:00.005-05:00

Folks,
I watched a very grim and depressing program on PBS Frontline about Darfur crisis. Please spare 1 hour to watch this program. I can't really write how shocked I'm, about the executions and way they doing'em.

Darfur crisis is an amalgamation of Genocide and Ethnic cleansing. Sudan denies that it's supporing the militia killing and raping the civilians but it's role is clearly documented. The reasons and causes for this genocide are very complex. Read'em here

After watching this program I'm starting to question Kofi Annan's integrity in his role as UN General. UN as by itself is very weak organization with ridiculous Veto Rule. But china kept vetoing all the resolutions about Sudan or Darfur until 2007.

China has so many Economic interests in Sudan, and it is their biggest offshore oil drilling base. Naturally its stopping all the economic sanctions on Sudan with its Veto right. Same with Russia which has almost the same bad record of human rights violation in Chechnya.

I can't really express my frustration on how china gets way with it's Human rights violation. It killed it's own civilians in Tiananmen Square. Then the attacks on Tibet monks. I'm very glad at all the bad publicity china is getting now for it's olympic torch. US has so much economic dependence on China for its economy. In other word China frickin owns US economy. So US don't want to anger China govt.

The last ray if hope in this crisis is the civilian activity and awareness. God bless all the people who're working on the case. Spielberg brought so much attention to this cause by quitting his adviser job for Beijing Olympics.

One thing I want to complain is US media. Darfur was never given importance in the Cable news or Network news. It's all about Paris Hilton and britney's Drama. God dammit America. There's so much crap in this world which is more important than American Idol. Last year an MSNBC anchor refused to cover Paris Hilton's news and tried burning that news report on the air. Around the same time AP deliberately stopped covering Paris Hilton news. Not sure why they ended it. Unfortunately not even a single day would pass without lindsay, paris or britney's news. And did you ever watch those retarded 10.30 news on FOX channel. As per them, American Idol is the most import thing on this world right now. Global Warming, Darfur crisis, Food prices, gas prices can wait.

I can just pray that this Darfur crisis ends soon and much love for the folks working for this cause.

Peace.

Please find more info about Darfur here.

wikipedia
sudanreeves
frontline
ushmm

Hold on people : another mortgage crisis

2008-04-21T21:31:00.005-05:00

Folks, it ain't over till it's over.
Read this interesting piece from slate.com

So what if all these upper middle class and upper class people just walk away from their homes.. even though they can afford the payment.

I've mixed feelings for people who lost their homes cause of the sub-prime crisis. Many of them bought homes which they can't afford with ARM loans and few other lost coz of predatory lending. If just the sub-prime crisis caused this much damage imagine what's the pain with the next wave of crisis.

And I can't really blame all these SoCal residents (Few Southern California pricks loved this word, trust me) walk away from their overpriced 5 BR homes. Coz the money they're paying to lender is more than the worth of the home. Moral aspect aside, I might be tempted to do this.

Recently heard on a businessweek podcast that few lenders in cleaveland and the Rustbelt are actually abondaning foreclosed homes. It's a write off for them. But this causes a domino effect. Obviously this will become a hangout for drug peddlers, petty thieves and solicitations. Property values goes down in that community and again people become skeptic about Negative amortization.

Not sure when're we gonna come out of this recession. The problem here is, no one is willing to catch a falling knife.

Peace.

Other people's money, baby!!

2008-04-08T21:29:00.009-05:00

Just read this

While VA employees are busy spending YOUR money in Sharper Image (I always ask my friend; who'll buy this overpriced stuff at this store) and departmental stores Veterans returning from Iraq are struggling for proper health care in Walter reed. Imagine how a veteran feels when he wasn't getting proper treatment after getting injured in a Iraqi civil war

This is all peanuts when compared to what Bush did to this country. Now avg debt for each American is $16,500. I mean to say, total national debt divided by population.

Share the pain, people.
Peace out.

5 years in iraq

2008-03-23T17:58:00.005-05:00

It's been 5 years since USA invaded Iraq. More than 4000 US soldiers died. 1,197,469 iraqis died. This is not something which is on neocons mind when they're pitching this war on to us.

What did we achieve from this war? not every one lost something. haliburton, blackwater made hell a lot of money. All the dick cheney's buddies might've got few oil contracts. for every one else this is a $12 trillion expenditure with no real reason/result.

I've so many things on my mind. Space isn't a constraint on this blog but John Cusack spoke his mind beautifully. Many thanks to youtube.

All the civilians and soldiers who died in this war, RIP.
Hope this war ends one day and I pray that people would remember how they got into this war, before voting this year.

Peace.

Pakistan proposes lifting ban on Indian films

2008-01-29T20:51:00.001-06:00

Just read this news.
Yeah I know, it's good for Indian economy, good for building up friendship between India and Pakistan, yada yada yada..

But I wonder how a Hindi movie will shape up with this new revenue avenue. Imagine a movie opening in Pakistan on the same Friday it's hitting screens in India and elsewhere. Already Yash Raj movies and Karan Johar movies are made for NRIs (read south Asian diaspora aka muslims).

Seriously, Hindi Film heroes might be named as Salim/ali/hussein..instead of eternal prem/rahul/rohit... Throw in a Hindu villain and ahhh..a Hindu heroine name wouldn't hurt either.

Before the readers come into a conclusion that I'm a racist, please recall this movie. main hoon na Here is the plot in nutshell. A army major rescues another major's daughter from a hindu extremist ...WTF. Director Farah Khan intelligently establishes the Hindu Extremist Raghavan's charecter with this scene. Raghavan (played by sunil shetty) kills a innocent Pakistani kid in Point Blank range just for crossing the border. And the intelligence continues in character names also. Sharukh and Zayed characters are named as Ram and Lakshman.

If my memory is not wrong, Kamal Hasan rejected this hindu extremist's role coz of the characterization. Any sensible actor would do the same thing. Now I'm not the only one complaining. Please follow this link.

....there are increasingly large numbers who charge there is undercurrent of pro-Islamist and subtle anti-Hindu messaging in Khan's brand of cinema planted within the rest of the entertainment. An industry observer points out that while Shahrukh Khan has never made a film targetting Islamic terrorists, the villain in Khan's previous high profile production, Main Hoon Na also was instead a 'Hindu terrorist' of none other than the Indian army itself.

Hope the Hindi movies remain close to Indian/Hindu tastes and sentiments.

Jai Hind.

Mega fanatics!

2008-01-29T00:32:00.000-06:00

2007 was one of the worst years in Chiru's career. Not only did he not have a successful movie, but personally he suffered the loss of his father and also his younger daughter. Anyone that believes in Karma relate his youger daughter's episode to that of Uday Kiran's. An upcoming hero and a hard core fan of chiru almost became his idol's son-in-law and a mega-alludu; Uday Kiran's career would have been very different had things gone his way. Chiru's political aspirations made Uday an instant star, an inter-caste marriage would have fetched chiru good support, however it is believed that due to the force from his community, chiru had to call off the wedding. Unfortunately, Uday was made a scapegoat. Coming back to Karma, chiru got back his dues in the form of Srija. It's hard to blame chiru in this episode, there probably is nothing he could have done, but, nobody knows what exactly happened behind those closed doors when Srija was locked up.

During that whole episode, there was nothing chiru could have done better. He handled himself well and fast forwarding to the current episode, between Chiru and Rajasekhar, there is nothing he could have done here either. Like Srija said, it is not just about Chiru. It's his fans that she was afraid of. Chiru's fans are probably the worst anyone can have. Some of them love chiru so much that they hate everything about others. They view all others as chiru's enemies. I could hardly find fault with Rajasekhar's statement. When asked if he would join Chiru's party, RS said he would not and when asked for the reason he said, Chiru does not have political experience. An ordinary person would see that as a true statement. However, chiru's so called fans who cannot think straight are hurt by that statement and decide to prove a point and attack Rajasekhar and his family. They also shoot this entire episode and send it to TV9 so they can get their point across? What exactly is their point??? Anyone who speak against chiru, even if it is the truth will not be spared and will be attacked?! Is that what they were trying to say?

I am pretty sure, Mohan Babu is next on their list. If there is a list that mega fans maintain it would definitely be incomplete without his name. It's time for chiru to make up his mind. He exactly might not be responsible directly to any of this, but the way he treats his fans and the way he interacts with his various fans associations, he is sending them wrong messages. He is probably misled by his brothers and brother-in-law. He is getting carried away and is blinded by the people behind him. Unfortunately, he will never be able to realize this. But if he really wants to help people and enter into politics he should look beyond his fans and family. He should start ignoring those fans who expect to be noticed by doing stupid things like this. Democracy and dictatorship cannot coexist. Unfortunately, for Chiru, he has to choose his path before he enters politics. If he truly believes in democracy, he should stop encouraging his stupid fans. Chiru's brother Nagababu issued a statement saying these fans that attacked Rajasekhar and his family are not registered Chiru fans. I wonder what he exactly meant. Something definitely is fishy the way things are. I cannot mention this enough, but Chiru should wake up!!!

For more info and videos:

http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/telugu/gallery/events/14328.html

NJ abolishes Capital Punishment

2007-12-16T08:45:00.000-06:00

I just want to say, I'm proud to be a resident of New Jersey. Last week NJ Assembly and senate passed a law banning capital Punishment. I hope other states follow this soon.

There are so many things I hate about NJ. Too many people, no apartments to rent, lack of parking spots, bad drivers, bad Indian movie theatres...list goes on. But at least there is one thing to cherish about.

But on a serious note, two Indian students were killed in LSU. Chandrasekhar and Kiran kumar, RIP. This again raises the question of relevance/necessity of death penalty. How to punish the murderers. But let's talk about the motives. What I think is the robbery attempt gone bad. Reasons are poverty, easy availability of guns, bad neighborhoods, lack of education and good parenthood.

And apart from the LSU incident, 3 shootings happened in the last 2 weeks. one in Nebraska, two in Colarado. Different places, different people! But the underlying issue is easy availability of Guns. And I didn't hear any complaint from Dems or GOP candidates. Reason, Primaries. No one wants to be in bad books of the gun slinging Middle America. Shame on all the candidates. Yeah I know, NRA is fuckin' powerful. Thank God, we've Bloomberg!

As always I digressed. But just wanted to express my anguish about guns.

Happy Holidays,
Peace out.

Capital Punishment : Relevance

2007-11-29T22:02:00.000-06:00

Read this last week, Injection of Reflection

Here's the first paragraph.

Texas has long been the Hang 'Em High state. In 2000, it executed convicted prisoners at the rate of almost one a week. Gov. George W. Bush seemed to take pride in turning down appeals for clemency. The "Decider" was known for spending as little as 15 minutes reviewing a death case. In a Talk magazine piece, Tucker Carlson reported that Bush mocked the plea of one double murderer on death row, pursing his lips in mock desperation and whispering, "Please, don't kill me." (Bush later said Carlson had "misread, mischaracterized me.")

No matter how much I try not to do Bush bashing in this blog, I can't help it.

In the yesterday's youtube - GOP debate, one viewer asked Huckabee "Capital Punishment : what would jesus do". Huckabee gave his best tap dance performance "Abortion is different from Death Penalty" .When the Host Anderson Cooper insisted for the answer, Huckabee said this "Jesus would be too smart to run for public office". For the record, Huckabee is a Baptist minister and cruising ahead in the popularity with his church credentials

But how come these hard core Christian preachers root for the death Penalty. I mean Christianity is about Compassion, isn't it?. And no offense, but all the jury members are not so intelligent or far from partiality. If they're so perfect OJ and Michael Jackson should be behind the bars now.

Heard one news item recently "man spends 20 years in jail for committing rape, proven not guilty after DNA test". But what if we kill the innocent Guy.

that's what happened in Texas. from the article
..At 9 a.m. on Sept. 25, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear the Baze case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection. Michael Richard, convicted of rape and murder in 1986, was scheduled for execution that night. His lawyers rushed to file a new motion based on the high court's ruling, but their computer crashed and they missed the 5 p.m. filing deadline. A judge refused to keep open the state court. Richard was executed at 8:22 p.m.

So this person might be innocent. who knows?

For the record I don't completely rule out the death Penalty. Back in early 90s in India (near Chilakaluripet, AP)two men burned a Bus for the robbery purpose and killed 18 people. Court gave the Death Penalty after so much legal battle. But President of India K.R.Narayanan granted them clemency. Reason, these guys belong to SC/ST. Caste is so BIG in India that, it would rescue people from gallows also. I thought these two men deserve death penalty

My point/Question. Is it still relevant today? And why these Texans were so cruel?

Peace

Democrats and hedge fund managers : an unholy alliance

2007-11-11T21:26:00.000-06:00

Being a left wing liberal, I used to think that democratic party fights for low and middle class interests. Not any more I guess.

Read an article in Washington Post last week, here is the link.

Hedge fund mangers are the new friends for democratic party people. I thought, GOP fights for the interests of rich people and their tax cuts. Since when, democrats started doing this?

For the starters Hedge funds are similar to mutual funds, but intended for High Net Worth individuals and institutional Trusts. Typical hedge funds require a minimum investment of 1 mil and keep the money for a minimum of 1 year. And the mangers would take 20% of your profits.

Sounds fair, but here’s is catch. These hedge fund managers who make approx 1 billion per year, pay 15% tax. 15% wtf !, I pay 30%. The loophole is, the profits made by the Hedge fund is categorized as Capital Gain taxes(usually 15%). But actually this should be categorized as pay for their work (taxed at 30 -35%). So Steven A. Cohen “Hedge Fund King” who made 900 mil last year paid 15% tax . Don’t get me wrong, I admire this guy. Just trying to show the disparity.

Warren buffet is the only billionaire who acknowledges this problem. The third richest man in US of A pays 15% tax and his secretary who makes 60 Grand per annum, pays 30% tax.

Coming back to article, we all know that We can’t take the lobbyists out of DC. No matter what kind of rules you pass they’ll comeback in a different way. We can’t eliminate this fund raising from the politics. But Hedge fund industry is the Democratic darling. Senator Charles Schummer (D-NY) now oppose legislation that would raise taxes on Hedge funds. What??

Just a little math from the article

“By taxing investment management services as ordinary income, not capital gains, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the Treasury could bring in an additional $26 billion over the next decade.

The second measure in the House bill would shut down fund managers' abilities to shift compensation to offshore tax havens and defer tax payments on that money for years. Closing that loophole would reap the Treasury nearly $23 billion through 2017”

And the offshore tax heavens, that’s a whole different story. You just can’t imagine the kind of tax shelters these investment companies offer to their clients. As always, excellent report by PBS. Watch it at your leisure.

Day by day, it’s becoming hard to defend liberals track record in the congress and senate. They recently passed a resolution declaring “Ottoman empire committed genocide in Armenia 1000 years ago” So apparently Armenian lobby is very powerful. What’re these guys smoking. Of all the issues, Ottoman empire atrocities are important now?

Among all the Presidential candidates out there Ron Paul is appealing right now. I don’t agree with all the things he say, but this guy is sincere and know what he is talking about. Hard to believe that this libertarian is from GOP. I’ll write about his campaign in my next post.

Peace.

GOP and the Conservative Values

2007-11-05T21:44:00.000-06:00

GOP always protrays itelf as a party with Conservative and family values. Their position on most of the issues also proves that. Pro-Life, anti Gay rights, "Intelligent Design", Opposition to contraceptives...

But lately, the party is losing it's image. Let's see the events.

Evangelical preacher Ted Haggard. Ok, this guy might not be a GOP senator or something but this guy was an adviser to White House on gay issues. Last November, a male prostitute alleged that Ted haggard paid him for sex and used Meth. Then the denials quickly followed and then the resignations. We've to see the guy in the movies Jesus Camp, in which he preaches, "we don't have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity. It’s written in the Bible."

Then this guy went through a therapy and he's supposedly complete heterosexual Sexual now :-). We've preachers in church, who can just change the sexual orientation with some bible classes.

Then there's Mark Foley, this Guy is hitting on pages in Capitol Hill. They're all underage males. This guy is confronted by an abc contributor in Washington, and he resigned immediately and went into Rehab. I'm not sure why he's not punished until now. Damn the rehabs.
The problem/irony is, he is one of the opponents of child Pornography and crusader against child abuse and exploitation.

Now Larry Craig. We all know, this old man is caught in Minneapolis airport soliciting sex from a undercover officer. Then a Idaho paper outed this news. This guy went to court to withdraw his guilty petition. Sounds like fun.

No matter how much I hate these right wing nuts, I pity this guy. Poor guy! Didn't get any support from his party people. Mitt Romney literally threw this guy in front of a bus. C'mon man, this guy worked for you party campaign.

Here's the hypocrisy. This Larry Craig boycotted one of Bill Clinton's speech on Capitol Hill, because he "disgraced White House by committing Sex in the Oval office". And there are rumors in the DC area about his homosexuality, even before this Men's room incident. Craig is one of the vocal opponents to Gay rights.

Nice video from Jon Stewart's show, enjoy

David Vitter, Republican Senator from Lousiana. His phone number found in D.C. Madam's client list. Hustler Magazine identified this Phone number. It's funny that even Hustler is into political reporting coz of these "family guys"

Point I want to make here is why the mid America and the Bible Belt still considers the GOP as the savior of the Christianity. Is this cause of Karl Rove marketing skills or the Democrat's failure in wooing the church going public !

Religion blurs the vision so much that, we've people in USA who believe that Gay people getting married is the biggest problem in country right now. It's bigger than Iraq war, Katrina failure, poor infrastructure Children without health care..

Hope it changes in 2008

Peace.

happy days works

2007-10-10T21:58:00.000-05:00

I happened to watch the most hyped movie in the recent past last weekend. The first thing that surprised, shocked and irritated me was the ticket prices. The movie released at many other centers in the US a week before and the web world has been flooded with positive reviews ever since and that in turn let this exhibitor raise the ticket prices to $12 for everyone over 5 yrs old. Let me get back to the movie and save this rant on the ticket prices for another post.

There has been a lot of hype on Happy Days in the web world, most of it, I think, is because Sekhar Kammula knows how to use the major telugu portals to his advantage. He is a graduate student and like many of us knows the lifestyle of an NRI. The good thing though is, he backed up the hype with a feel good movie. Movies with a college background/theme should be dealt with delicately. The first turn off in these movies is the way the classroom episodes involving teachers and students is dealt with. Often our makers try to generate comedy using some vulgarity. 99% of the times the students make fun of the teachers to generate laughs. The other scenes where formula movie makers try to win the youth and mass audience is by choosing violent episodes between the college students in a very unnatural way. There is a thin line between the good and the bad in these movies and this is where Sekhar Kammula emerges as a winner.

Nostalgia is a funny word. It is a bittersweet memory of the past, but most of us tend to remember the good and ignore the bad. When I was in Intermediate, I always felt my school days were awesome. I felt I should have done somethings differently in intermediate while I was doing my engineering. After a semester in Masters, I always thought of the good times that I had while doing my B.Tech. Most of the times, I forgot those "night-outs" before exams and other tough times and I always remember and thought about those days when we won a cricket game or when we had fun at freshers party or when we went out on a fun trip or about those days when we friends just sat and talked crap all night. This is exactly what made Happy days a winner.

SK has chosen to ignore the real life politics of caste, religion and other minor preferences which all slowly become the cause of violence in college and also the cause of love and hate moving forward in life and that is what takes Happy Days away from the real world and makes it a feel-good film. The performances are wonderful, except for the tenglish accent of chandu. The scenes between Tyson and Shravanti are awesome and deserve a special mention. Both appu and rajesh are at ease and natural. On the whole each and every character has been cast perfectly by SK and the characterization is perfect. Mickey J Meyer's music is the soul of the film. He is the next A.R Rehman. The songs are brilliant and the background score fantastic.

Who gave Shoaib the right..?

2007-09-27T15:37:00.000-05:00

What exactly was Shoaib Malik thinking when he apologized to the muslims of all the countries after losing to India in the final of ICC world Twenty20?? His exact words when Ravi Shastri asked him in the presentation ceremony regarding the match were "First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world." What exactly does religion have to do with cricket..for that matter any sport? Religion is one reason why India and Pakistan have split into two different countries and on a great occasion, after a great match it is totally unnecessary to bring in religion. How in the world did Shoaib think, he (or his team) was playing for all the muslims in the world?!

"It is a world where Muslims, Hindus and a Sikh currently play for England, where Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and a Hindu play for Sri Lanka, where Hashim Amla turns out for South Africa, where a Patel plays for New Zealand, where Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Hindus play (and have always played) for India. Why would Shoaib think, then, that the Muslims of the world were collectively rooting for the Pakistan team or that they felt let down by its defeat? Did he stop to think of how Danish Kaneria, his Hindu team-mate, might feel hearing his Test skipper all but declare that the Pakistan team is a Muslim team that plays for the Muslims of the world? It is one thing to be publicly religious—Shahid Afridi thanked Allah and Matt Hayden and Shaun Pollock are proud, believing Christians—quite another to declare that your country's cricket eleven bats for international Islam.." writes Mukul Kesavan in his blog and I agree 100%

scenes from a final

T20 champions..now what?

2007-09-24T20:01:00.000-05:00

After a long wait, India has finally won a major tournament, the World Twenty20 Championship. The ICC refuses to call it the Twenty20 World cup, but for us indian cricket fans, it is a world cup. The indian team has played some beautiful cricket. The young players responded well and everyone contributed to the success and all the matches were of the highest quality. Beating England, South Africa and Australia is not an ordinary acheivement. Both the matches against Pakistan were thrilling and the final especially would make a good Bollywood climax. While enjoying the success, especially since we won against Pakistan, it is also important that the indian team and the fans are not get carried away too much. We won both the matches against Pakistan not just because our players played some great cricket, but also because we had some luck. What should have been comfortable wins for India were almost thrown away with some bad overs, but that is Twenty20!

A win in this tournament is a big achievement for Mahendra Singh Dhoni, since it was his first series as a captain. He has also been made the captain of the Indian ODI team which is a big step forward for him in his short career. His captaincy has been great in the T20's, but things tend to change after you taste failure. For now, he has had good success rate and people across the webworld and the media have been projecting him as the best person for that job. Many think MSD would end up as the best india skipper, but isn't it too early. Indian cricket fans and the media are so immature that they take the success and failure very seriously. Often it is more important to them than their personal lives. Eight months ago, after losing to Bangladesh in the world cup game, MSD's house was under attack from fans who were furious at his and the team's performance and now he is lauded as a cool captain. The memory of indian cricket fan is so short lived, that things can change dramatically.

Before hyping MSD and the young players and the success in this T20 world championship, the young players should be given enough time to settle and perform well. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly, the three pillars of Indian cricket for over a decade, are being written off all of a sudden. They have been consistently performing for over a decade and a couple of failures here and there, people want them to retire, the same thing will happen to the current bunch of players. The media has taken them to such a height that one poor performance will be a free fall down to the earth. Give them time, let them work hard and earn their place in the team and let the transition of power from the seniors to the juniors be smooth!!

Plight of Hindus in India

2007-09-23T08:11:00.000-05:00

Alright, I just want to see the politicians reaction if a Central Government Body gives a report like Allah/Jesus never existed.

Mark my words, heavens will fall down, every thing in India would come to a screeching halt. Now was there a same reaction? Hell no! Why, who gives a shit when you're a Hindu. Oh wait, if you belong to SC, ST yeah politicians care about you. but if you belong to Upper Middle Class OC, no way. Coz no one cares for your vote.

I heard reaction Strong reaction from BJP only. OK it's obvious. But I'm not sure about the reaction from other political parties. TDP, Communists, SJP..list goes on.

And just for the record, I want to see that Central Govt Official who also added this line "We don't have any proof that Rama ever existed". and hit the SOB in the nuts.

Whatever happened to Religious Tolerance in India. I'm not sure, whether we've Uniform civil Code. (Correct me if I'm wrong but Muslims still go by their Muslim Courts and they can be married to multiple ppl at the same time.) Read in BBC last week that an "young IAS officer", made a rule that employees shouldn't put kumkum(red dot) on their forehead. and actually a officer was suspended. Just imagine the same rule, for burkhas. Yeah I know, not in this life time..

And then we've Karunanidhi, CM of TN who asks questions like "Did Rama go to any Engg College, to build that long bridge". See we've these people who worship Ravana and hate Rama.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._V._Ramasami_Naicker#Dravidar_Kazhagam_and_propaganda

"....including theatrical productions of a "reinterpreted" Ramayana-a version transposing hero and villain, in which the Sri Lankan demon king Ravana becomes a heroic "Dravidian of 'excellent character,' " and the Aryan prince Rama a conniving, "despicable character" .

Would India ever be a secure/nice place for Hindus again. I doubt it, with a Italian Christian ruling the country and government declaring that Rama is a Hoax.

Since the independence or even before that, our aim is to please Muslims. We just have 13% muslims in this country. Of course they're citizens and they'll get their rights. But what about Hindus? Gandhi started fasting in his last days, coz Indian government withhold the transfer of Rs 55 Crores to Pakistan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathuram_Godse#Motive

We need more leaders like Bhagat Singh, Subhash chandra Bose, Chandra Sekhar Azad who fought for country and not for fame/legacy. Truth be told, if these insults keep occurring to Hindus, incidents like Gujarat Riots would happen often.

Readers might ask me, what're you doing to prevent these things or Defend Hindus. Answer is nothing, but give me suggestions. I'm willing to Donate Money or spend some time at Organizations if they're in North East corridor.

Jai Hind.

P.S. But here's a request to all my friends in USA, Please stop eating at Pak restaurants. wherever you're. I was forced to do that once, I'm repenting.

What's gonna happen in Iraq

2007-09-17T21:23:00.000-05:00

Now that the General Petraeus, gave his testimony before the senate committees, what's next? Is there an end to this thoughtless war?

The Petraeus report says that surge worked and it's working. I'm not sure how it's working. Ok the Bagdhad area got safer now with the additional soldiers. But now we've shites killing shites, sunnis killing sunnis and again clashes between ethnic groups. How long an army would stop ethnic groups from killing each other.

Anyway, why're we calling this the Patraeus report?? Isn't it the white house that actually wrote this report, and the General just reading that. The sad part is that General Patraeus is doing the same thing that Collin Powell did. Powell gave that infamous presentation to the UN even though he didn't believe that.

I'm waiting to see what would be the dubya's reaction to banning of blackwater security in Iraq. For the neo cons out there who still support the dubya, shut the fuck up!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_USA#Personnel
Even Alan Greenspan said that the Iraq war is about oil. This is the Guy, who fiercely supported Bush's Tax cuts in his testimony to Senate in 2001.

Enough said and written about the war costs and causalities. I mean there are hundreds of bloggers posting about this topic right now. Having said that do I've a solution for Iraq? No. So why am I bitching about it so much, cause whatever this BS spread out by the neocons(we're fighting enemy at their land, otherwise we've to fight them here), it makes me fucking sick.

And it's the tax payer's money they're spending in Iraq. I mean that's making W's friends richer.
God knows how much blood money halliburton, blackwater made in this war. And don't forget about 3,700 American soldiers and 1000s of Iraqi civilians, who lost their lives. I wish one day all the neocons would know the pain of losing a loved one in a war.

Peace.

iPhone credit!

2007-09-17T18:33:00.000-05:00

The iPhone is a revolutionary product. Agreed! But, Steve Jobs just made me and all the other buyers(or early adopters) look stupid by announcing a price cut. When was the last time you heard about the price of apple products going doing two monts or even six months after the release? Never. That probably was part of the reason why many apple fan boys were furious. I was furious too, but well that’s how electronics are and before I could feel bad Mr.Jobs announced a $100 credit. This probably was the first time someone has done something like this, announce a price cut and give credit to all those who bought the product before the credit. I cannot think of any other software company doing this(Apple though into hardware still looks at itself as a software company), at the same time, I do not think any other software company will announce a price cut on its much hyped product within the first 2-3 months.

Steve Jobs managed to retain all the fanboys and Apple enthusiasts, but still a credit in the iTunes store would have been wonderful. Since it is good only at the apple store(online too) and must be redeemed by the end of November, it probably is time to look at Apple TV or may be Leopard upgrade for existing Mac users.

Once again...

2007-09-17T11:34:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog! After creating and deleting accounts a zillion times, I once again am back at blogger, a recycle bin to my thoughts on movies, technology and more.