Three take on START. Interesting that the future of the world is being decided with so little fanfare in India and the rest of the world.
The road to 67 – Are Republicans posturing or serious about the nuclear deal with Russia?
Making sense of the START debate
New START Is Worthy, but Let’s Not Violate the Constitution to Save It
Interesting approach to reforming healthcare in the US. It is my opinion that healthcare should be at best an individual issue (with direct subsidies to the poor) and at worst a state rights issue. It is good to see two Senators – Wyden and Brown- Democrat and Republican respectively, are pushing the states’ rights approach.
Wyden and Brown become Senate’s odd couple in The Washington Post
In short, the legislation would allow states to opt out of the federal health law in 2014 instead of 2017, provided they meet minimum coverage benchmarks. The argument, Wyden said, is that the bill would give both conservatives and liberals a chance to prove their theories on how best to run health care. Conservative-leaning states antagonistic to the bill’s individual mandate provisions can try more market-based models. And the more liberal states that considered the overhaul insufficiently bold can give the public option a shot.
Unless of course the US Supreme Court or the lower courts rules the entire law unconstitutional. I think the court in Virginia has already said so about some parts of the law – the part where govt forces every individual to buy private insurance.
Republicans have been fighting it. But they may be overplaying their hand. If I were Obama’s adviser I would just ask him to extend Medicaid to all who wants insurance. This would be perfectly constitutional. But this would be the worst nightmare for anyone wanting a smaller govt, especially in Washington.
India should pay a bit more (understatement) to our states’ right. We are only seeing the beginnings of various command and control mandates from Delhi. These mandates, fueled by ivory tower activists, pushing one rights based something after another, are busy shoving one law after another down the throat of states. There are no provisions for states to experiment and customise solutions to fit their needs. It is all one size fits all. Recipe for disaster.
Education, food, agriculture, etc. are state issues and should be left to the state to decide how to deal with them. Infact some of these are individual rights issues. State should experiment, especially with empowering of individual with direct subsidies to the deserving. Central govt should have no say in these matters.
As a follow up for my earlier post on Socialist Sweden …
Imagine a world where anyone can buy onions from anywhere. Imagine importing it yourself from Pakistan without Mr Sharad Pawar’s permission. Imagine if you can.
These lines were edited out of John Lennon’s song Imagine. In a rush of positive emotions after Lennon read Bastiat, he wrote them. But unfortunately, those days Lennon was not a big fan of capitalism, free trade, and all so he removed them. Later editions of Imagine have specific references to onions, tomatoes and other food items and the effectiveness of free trade. Lennon realised that these were more important than peace itself. Actually he realised that free trade, and free trade in these items, across the border usually brings about peace.
He also realised that instead of dharnas and handcuffing yourself to some political establishment’s gate in protest for peace, or listening to Ms Arundati Roy go on and on about peace and how only her exclusive piece on peace in Outlook can bring about peace …. Lennon realised that peace would come when “goods move across borders, and then armies won’t”. (To paraphrase Bastiat).
Don’t believe me? Read Lennon a Marxist or capitalist?
One of the modern day freedom fighters – Ashok Desai. He was part of the team that started the liberalisation of the Indian economy. Many, if not most, Facebook users were probably born after 1991, hence difficult to imagine what pre-lib India was like. Even the rest of us will have difficulty imagining what India would be like if it weren’t for the liberalisation process and people like Ashok Desai.
Thank you Ashok Desai.
Check out his blog
http://ashokvdesai.blogspot.com/
I stumbled upon Gapminder. I used one set of data to compare life expectancy versus Income per person (over time) for India and Hong Kong. Check it out and draw your own conclusions.
India versus Hong Kong
You can try various combination of countries and other parameters.
Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.
Very moving stuff.
Here is something I am trying. I turn on the Spanish subtitle while listening to the talk. This way I get to learn Spanish while listening. It is not easy since the subtitle changes fast. But I think this could be a good way to learn since you start getting the jist in Spanish, while you understand the talk in English. Try it in the language you want to learn. Creative education I suppose.
Sometimes you miss the genius sitting next to you. Check out my colleague Daniel’s paintings. Amazing work.
By the way he is the guy who created Chennai City Connect website. While you are at it, check out his other creation, Namma Pallikarnai.
Recently I made a discovery. I discovered the daze of the middle aged. Talk to a middle aged person, my aged you can say. Many a times you will notice that the person’s eyes get that distant look. They are looking through you at something distant. In a younger person you may suspect drug use. In a middle aged I suspect it a combination, a cocktail of drugs that cause this glazed look. Drugs like boredom, seen-it-done-it syndrome, one has heard this a million times before syndrome, and so on. Also I suspect the person ability to be alert and engage in a conversation decays as one grows older.
Your reaction time is slower. I realised that my ability to smack a mosquito is weaker. I see the mosquito and by the time my hands get their instruction to react from my aging brain, it is too late.
A good conversationalist picks up various clues and subtle changes in expressions, consciously or otherwise. As such there are bad conersationalists who by nature are unable to pick up these “micro-expressions”. (I have been watching Lie To Me). I guess as you age you ability to do so decays and add boredom and such to the mix and the result is aged Bambi caught in the headlight look.
Then there are some who are only interested in getting their stories into the discussion. When another person tell a joke a good conversationalist takes time to enjoy it. Even if the joke is mediocre. One may even add a few question as follow up. This has to come natural otherwise you would look like an ambitious youth who has just read “how to get ahead in your career by being a good listener” or some such magazine nonsense. A good conv puts the warm spotlight on the person speaking and gives his his due credit. Makes her feel appreciated.
But a bad conv is looking for a gap in the conversation so he can say something like “something like that happened to me”. And then continue with his tale. I compare such people with the vehicle that is trying to merge into an expressway. You are breaking and speeding repeatedly, jerking all in the attempt to jut in. You ruin the rhythm of the conversation, slow and disturb the smooth traffic flow and even cause accidents.
Watch the eyes of such a person. It is funny. They are not listening. Their eyes dart sideways, and upways, and downways, looking for that gap in the conversation. They just want to get their word in.
Of course such behaviour is not the affliction of the middle aged or the aged. One notices in the youth and the young. I guess it is they way ones brain is wired.
One of my favorite books every is “First break all rules”. Terrible title. But great reading. It is about “talents” and how to manage people based on it. The follow up book on strengths is good too. Talks about how our brains are wired and how that determines what are strengths are.
Here is a thought experiment or you could try this if you don’t mind offending others. Imagine a crowded restaurant or office. Drop a plate or spoon on the floor. Watch how people react. Everyone reacts differently. Very differently. These reactions are natural and cannot be taught. These are your first instincts.
Some jump up to take charge. Some calmly continue eating. Some panic. Some want to find out if everyone is ok. And so on. Very different reactions. You react depending on how your brain has developed over the years.
In the same vein, one wonders if conversation can ever be taught. Or how to be a good conversationalist. I doubt it. One can surely improve by learning some techniques and practicing. I have seen books and articles on active listening and so on. But never been convinced that they can make much of a difference. Sometime nothing is more hilarious than watching someone who is bad at it, and has read one of these self-help book and is trying hard to practice what he read. I used to have some friends in the US who would read such books under the hope that it would help them climb the corporate cliff. These are some of the guys who learned Japanese since Japan was supposed to eclipse the US. I guess now they are learning Chinese.
We may be seeing the birth of a new form of warfare using computer viruses and worms. Check out more about Stuxnet
The sophistication of the worm is pretty amazing. With all our devices increasingly interconnected we wont even know how our device got infected. Look at the increase in the complexity of the tasks a worm like Stuxnet is doing.
Interestingly it is pretty big in size for a worm/virus.