2012

Welcome to 2012, hope it is better than 2011.

But....nothing has actually changed except for the marker on a timeline.

UPA and Corruption

The current Indian government seems to be in for a spell of bad publicity, thanks to their more than pathetic performance on anything related to governance.
However, the government seems to have scaled new heights in corruption. Seems like Indian people are destined to suffer criminal politicians as predicted by Winston Churchill.

The problem (actually one of the problem) with democracy is that it REQUIRES a citizenry aware of their political rights and duties. This condition is hardly fulfilled in India where a lot of people have to struggle to survive and have no time to bother about politics, infiltration, large scale loot by CONgress and similar kleptomaniacs.

The result is a polity where Kakistocracy is norm, rather than an odious aberration.

Bankocracy

Bankocracy :
A relatively new form of crony capitalism, though with roots in past. Closely related with the banks' power to create money out thin air.
A state/country can be said to be Bankocratic if the major decisions are made by government in order to favour the Bankocrats. This is a way of keeping the profits earned by bankocrats to themselves and spreading their losses to whole country/state (to a larger group if possible).

A bankocracy effectively uses the money creation power of banks to inflate money supply, create asset bubbles, profit from them, and holding economy ransom when those bubbles are about to naturally pop. A set of useful idiots (economists, politicians, journalists) is all that is needed to socialize any impending losses.

Optimism

The role of optimism is twofold. It is normally treated as a positive trait in the character of a person.
However, if we look a bit deeper into its effect, a different picture emerges.

Optimism, I contend is the biggest single reason why many new businesses fail. Because, optimism lures the entrepreneurs into believing that they would be successful. Ask, an 'investor' in the now busted property markets in USA and Ireland, why they went for jumbo mortgages. The response, if they respond honestly is, they were confident of finding a bigger fool.

Well, just as pessimism can be bad for life, it turns out optimism too is out there to get the unwary.

Taliban training monkeys for jihad?

This seems a bit far fetched. But then 9/11 WAS far-fetched to imaging until it actually happened. I would not put it beyond the capability of Talibs to convert Afghanistan into Planet of the Apes.

"... the Taliban forces have tried any possible means and figured out a method to train monkeys as 'replacement killers' against American troops," Stars and Stripes quoted the Chinese daily as saying. The militants were arming the primates with AK-47 rifles, machine guns and trench mortars in the Waziristan tribal region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, it claimed. The monkey soldiers are being turned into snipers at a secret Taliban training base and are in turn being rewarded with 'bananas and peanuts'. 

India Needs ‘Contingency Plan’ to Contain Inflation

It is natural to have inflation when money can be created out of thin air !

“Inflation is an urgent issue and we don’t have a package as yet which can give us confidence,” Jalan, 69, who headed the Reserve Bank of India from 1997 to 2003, said in an interview in New Delhi yesterday. “We heard inflation will come down by March, then April. It was supposed to come down by now.”

Consumer prices in India are rising at least twice as fast compared with inflation rates in Brazil, Russia and China, the other three nations that make up the BRIC economies.

NASA - a case of political priorities

Byron York of the Washington Examinerinterview on Al-Jazeera in which the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Charles F. Bolden, Jr., explained how Obama charged him to pursue three decidedly non-scientific objectives: uncovered an interview on Al-Jazeera in which the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Charles F. Bolden, Jr., explained how Obama charged him to pursue three decidedly non-scientific objectives:

One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.

NASA, he went on, is pursuing "a new beginning of the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world."

Britain bans Islamic preacher Zakir Naik

Too little and too late. After sheltering dreg and discarded and discardable crap from all countries of the world, LONDONISTAN,  is now trying to undo the damage it has done to UK, where several areas are a small rumour away from religious riots (could not happen to a more deserving country).

 

Britain bans Islamic preacher Zakir Naik

 Britain has banned controversial Indian Islamic televangelist Zakir Naik, who once claimed that "every Muslim should be a terrorist," from entering the country, citing his "unacceptable behaviour".

The charade of reform

Wall Street reform debate goes on and on

Had the US Congress and Senate (largely) not been bought by Wall Street, the country would be out of woods. But, then, how would democracy be funded.