So yeah, when I saw those T-shirts, I knew they were Aggies and they were Republicans. As Obama was giving his acceptence speech we started hearing comments that went something like this:

He made it because the pussy liberals wanted to vote for a Muslim…

Looks like gold teeth and fried chicken will now be tax exempt…

We now have an Arab for a president. Looks like the terrorists won…

And I am not making any of this up! The Aggies are notorious for their racist views, hate, and bias anyway. Patrix’s post on Egg tossing at Obama (an incident which made it to the national news) should give you an idea of how antiquated (almost pre-integration) the Aggies’ ideology is. In fact, my earlier post about Aggie racism suggests an institutional investment in fostering such an environment.

In other news: Here’s what a (University of) Texas football player Buck Brunette had to say about Obama’s election “All the hunters gather up, we have a [nigger] in the White House.” That’s what he said on his Facebook page and was promptly kicked off the team.Similar Posts:

• Aggie Racism marches on

• Aggie Racism marches on

I started from Denton early in the afternoon towards College Station. After a long dry spell, it has been raining since noon. I knew that the roads would be wet and my Mustang would have less traction than usual. So I started cautiously. By about 3PM I was past the city of Dallas on I-35E South and was about to merge into I-35 South. Thanks to construction around there, there were 2-feet concrete separators along the sides of the highway.

As I was approaching the merge point I saw a state trooper with his lights on. I figured someone has just gotten a ticket for speeding, but didn’t think much of it. I was driving at 60 miles/hr, at the speed limit. This was t-6 seconds before the accident. As soon as I merge into I-35 I see a car about a 100 ft in front of me going at about 20 miles/hr with no flashers. It was about a third of a second before I realized that the car was going too slow for a freeway (the suggested minimum is about 40 miles/hr. Anything less than that it is advised to have your flashers on to warn the traffic behind you). So I begin to slow down immediately. I stamp on my breaks and downshift from 5th gear to 3rd gear and am slowing down quite quickly.

It is now t-4 seconds to impact and I realize that I am going to have to slam on the breaks real hard to avoid rear ending the car in front of me and I not sure if I should do it. Its been raining, the roads are slippery, and I could lose control of the car breaking that hard. So I look in my rear view mirror to see if the left lane is open. All I see is the state trooper driving by at about 50-60 miles/hr, and I gauge that he should pass me in about a second or so. Meanwhile I am still closing in on the car in front of me. I best I have managed so far is 30 miles/hr, and I am still gaining on the car in front.

It is now t-3 seconds to impact and the state trooper has just passed me. So I shift to the left lane and breathe a sigh of relief. But I quickly realize that there is traffic about 200 ft behind me closing on me fast. I have to accelerate and quickly. But I am doing 25 miles/hr and am on 3rd gear, so there is no way I can accelerate fast enough in 3rd. So I downshift to second gear for higher torque and acceleration. Its a 3.8L 225 HP V-6 engine, it can pack a punch in lower gears.

It is now t-2 seconds to impact and I have just downshifted to second gear. As expected the car slows down with a jerk, but what I do not realize that when the car slows down like that (due to resistance from the lower gear in the transmission), the wheels move slower but the body of the car is still plowing forward. This means my heavy engine is pressing harder in the front and my front wheels are hugging the road whereas my rear wheels have lightened up significantly. If I wait for a second, the load will stabilize. But I completely miss that and I am in a hurry to accelerate to avoid the traffic behind me. That is when I make a critical error.

It is still t-2 seconds and as soon as I downshift to second gear I hit the throttle (gas pedal, or accelerator pedal). The front wheels are still hugging the ground the rear wheels are still light. Thanks to the rain after a long hot dry spell, all the oil in the road have floated to the top and the traction is low. So as soon as my engine responds with a roar the rear wheel starts spinning but can’t grip the road. I realize that immediately because my dashboard shows that my engine rpm has rocketed up to 4000 while my speed is still at 25 mile/hr. I knew I was in trouble. In the next fraction of a second the rear wheel will grip the road and the wet road is going to make things very very difficult for me.

It is t-1.5 seconds and the rear wheels hit the ground and my Mustang’s rear started skidding to the right. I tried compensating for it by turning right (in the direction of the skidding). My front wheels did not respond immediately, and when they did, I had turned for too long and the rear started skidding to the left, and I tried compensating for it, again, by turning left (in the direction of the skidding). The same thing happened again, I had over-steered, and my car started fish-tailing back and forth.

It is t-1 seconds to impact. At this point I knew it was useless. The wet road provided absolutely no resistance and the fish-tailing was getting wilder and wilder until my car turned 90 degrees to the roads and crashed into the concrete separator at over 35 miles/hr. There was thud, the airbags deployed, and all that  was left of my car was this!

Mustang - Front View - Totaled much?

Mustang - Side View - Airbags deployed

• None Found

Kumble bowling with a fractured jaw in the fourth test match at Antigua in 2002. Pic Source: The Hindu

• Is IPL killing the cohesion in the Indian cricket team?
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• Is IPL killing the cohesion in the Indian cricket team?
• Gandhi’s Legacy
• Dr. Bindra I presume?
• Is it unpatriotic to feel ashamed?
• Sex education is here… without the ’sex’ part

The pope said that evolution is ok by him. So I guess that means that the Catholics can down become evolutionary biologists/anthropologists and such. I wonder what happened in 150 years that changed Vatican’s mind? Given that Catholics assume that Pope has God’s mandate over Christiandom, Pope must have been talking to god on a fairly regular basis. My best guess is that the Pope got a call from God and it went something like this:

“Hey Benedict! Wassaap? Its your old man here. Howz my favorite catholic doin’?…”

“Oh yeah, by the way, Darwin and I had a long chat some time back. He’s a really nice fella. He’s got an awesome beard too. Nothing like mine, but hey, gotta give props where its due right? Anywayz, so Darwin and I were chillin’ out smoking some reefer and stuff… hey, now don’t be judging, I created it remember? So yeah, I realized Darwin’s a cool dude after all. We play checkers all the time now. He’s awesome, he always let me win! So I’ve decided to let him into heaven….”

“What’s that? Oh, the evolution thing? Yeah… well… tell ya what, we are still vetting Einstein to be let into heaven. All the Democratic angels want him in, but the Republican angels are giving him a tough time, with he being a Jew and not believing in my Son and all, but we’ll get there….”

“Why Einstein? Dude! I am sick and tired of there harps all over the place, I need something different, and Einstein’s awesome on the violin. Anywayz, coming back, here’s what you can do, you can tell everyone that evolution is now cool with Me, and that the whole creating the universe in 7 days.. well Einstein here tells me that if I said that I was going at the speed of light when I created the universe, then somehow my watch slows down, and so my 7 days is really billions of years on earth. And that fits nicely with evolution and everything….”

“What?! Me come down and say that myself? The last time I tried doing something like that they nailed my Son to a tree! No way pal! Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!…”

“Look, I know its not going to be easy convincing everyone, but hey, its not the first time! Remember Galileo? Yeah, we managed to get people to be cool with him after 300 years, and this is just half that time. It’ll work out Benedict… tell ya what, you do this for me and I’ll throw in a couple of extra virgins when you get here. How about that?…”

“Sweet! Gotta go pal. The whole global warming crap that people are into is keepin’ me busy.. I got a few more hurricanes to create in the Atlantic, and yeah, I was tardy on the whole ice-sheet melting thing. Apparently it wasn’t as drastic as last year. Gotta make up for that! Jeez, I need a vacation! Anywayz, gotta go, ciao.”

Image source: http://www.markvernon.com/friendshiponline/images/Jesus&Darwin.jpgSimilar Posts:

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The answer is actually “No”! The US has a noteworthy history of socialistic policies:

1. Agricultural subsidy: Since 1933, the US government has been subsidizing its agriculture. Even though it marginalizes small farmers and mostly serves the agri-business gaints [source], has adverse impact on developing nations economy [source], and many economists see it as a waste of resources [source]. The subsidy still remains, and is still antithetical to free-market capitalism.
2. Social security: Social security was introduced in the US in the 1930s to help recover from the great depression (yet another spectacular collapse of free-market economy). On a side note, it is interesting to see how every time free-market economy falters, the government steps in with a socialist solution and yet feels insulted when called out on it. Its a program that is still in practice, and is arguably one of the largest socialist program in existence in the world. Despite several criticisms of the program, the White House is steadfast in its commitment to this socialistic program, and will not have anyone saying anything otherwise.
3. S&L Crisis: The Savings and Loans Crisis of the 80s and 90s demonstrated the socialist tendencies of the US yet again. The of the chief causes for this crisis, among others, was the rampant deregulation of the economy (allowing greater influence of free-market forces). When the fit hit the shan, guess what the US government did? Yup, it bailed the parties out, much like Freddie mac and Fanny May. In fact of the total loss of about $160 Billion, the US government, and hence the tax payers, paid for over $124 Billion! They just couldn’t let the market heal itself, a socialist relief simply had to be provided. On a side note, its ironic that the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) of 1989 which was enacted in response to the S&L crisis put Freddie Mac and Fanny May in charge of supporting mortgages for low- and moderate-income families. Guess who needs saving in the new free-market precipitated crisis now? That’s right! Freddie Mac and Fanny May!
4. Public Education: Yet another (expensive) example of socialism in the US is that public education system. This includes federal (soft) loans, education grants, the public school system, etc. With the US spending over $11,000 per student per year, the public school system in the US is one of the most expensive in the world, and with a 100% of it being provided for free to the students out of the tax payers pocket, this is yet another example of America’s socialist policies.
5. Unemployment benefits: Uncle Sam pays any unemployed citizen a fixed amount as.. well… a hand out, a give-away. Its called unemployment benefit. There are similar welfare programs for other disadvantaged demographic in the society to equalize the opportunities available to them. Now if that isn’t socialist, I don’t know what is.
6. The Arts: The US government support for the arts through the National Endowment for Arts is yet another use of the tax payers money to fund a ‘greater social good’. And not everyone is happy about it. be anything other than a socialist program. Why? Because if free-market were to drive arts, then you’d have private buyers/parties funding the arts, and not the government, as simple as that.

There probably are many more such examples, but I cant think of any more off the top of my head. But I guess six are sufficient to make my point. Despite all the rhetoric of the glories of capitalism, free-market, and the spiteful opposition to socialism, there are many US policies that are strictly socialist, and yeah, Freddie Mac and Fanny may bailout is not in the least bit unprecedented (remember the S&L crisis bailouts), or a marked jump towards socialism. Its simply business as usual in the US of A. So the next time someone says US was always capitalistic and socialism is an evil that needs to be uprooted, you’ll know better than to waste your time arguing with them.

Image Source: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/wbeal/images/socialism.gifSimilar Posts:

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Last week, the US government took control over Freddie Mac and Fanny May, the financial gaints of the US martage industry (and the crisis). Now this puts the US government in control of nearly half of the $12tn mortgage debt in the US (The two companies have lent or underwritten about $5.3 trillion mortgage debt in the United States). There have been several justifications for why such a bail out was necessary, and how it will keep the US economy from collapse, blah, blah, blah…This is not what this post is about. This post is about personal and ideological consequences of this action.

Just to put things in perspective, the $5.3tn bailout has effectively doubled the US national debt over a weekend! Worse, the actual cost of the bailout is yet to be ascertained, simply because nobody knows how much of the $5.3tn debt will be defaulted and/or foreclosed, and not to mention that ensuing expense for when the companies dispose off the foreclosed property. If the actions of the Republican VP pick — Sarah Palin — with respect to selling off state property is any indication of government attitude towards it, then looks like the US government will be losing a lot of money in the near future.

Now the question is, where is all this money going to come from? Answer: the tax payers. So suddenly some third party’s unwise decision to give a sub-prime loan to thousands of unqualified individuals, a decision that I had no control over, is now going to cost ME money?!?! And again, I have no control over that decision! Am I the only one who thinks its a wee bit backwards?

Personal gripe aside, this decision does have other implications which may seem too ‘theoretical’, but should be of significant concern. The decision has implications on social and personal responsibility, ideological fidelity, and designed failure of free market economics.

• Social and personal responsibility:The bailout decision is essentially sending the following message: “If you screw up, no worries, we will try to fix it at no cost to you!”. So essentially we are divorcing people from the responsibility of their actions. The bigger the screw up, the better are chances of the the government fixing it for you. So if you are going to screw up, make sure your screw up big, really big. Once people start hurting from it, then you will be taken care of. In the end, there is nothing to dissuade you from doing it all over again. This is effectively rewarding bad behavior! And this will come back to bite you in the back eventually.
• Ideological Fidelity: The environment for such reckless lending as set up by the continual deregulation of the economy since the 1980s. Such deregulation was in the ’spirit’ of capitalism and free market economics. If the over arching idea is that a free market will correct itself, then why is the government messing with it by bailing Freddie and Fanny out? If such an intervention is necessary, then what does that say of the capitalistic and/or free market ideology? So is free-market capitalism a flawed concept, which when allowed to run its course will only serve to destabilize the economy? If that’s the case, then would the US come out and say it? Of course not! Its the free market and the pursuit of the ‘American dream’ that makes US so special, so different, so un-Russian, so un-commie. Yet, when it comes down to it, this bailout is largest nationalization in the history of mankind! Now people want to have the cake and eat it too. They want a deregulated economy because free market is where progress is at, and every time it fails (which it inevitably does), either no one wants to suffer through the market’s natural correction process (which is painful at the least), or the system itself is too flawed to correct itself and hence requires an socialistic style intervention. Despite that its still free market. What kind of the ticking time bomb is this? Eventually, US’s debt with catch up with the economy, and then what? There wont be any more money for bailouts. So are we looking at a spectacular collapse in the future? Mostly because all the stake holders are opportunistic hypocritical prostitutes of their ideology?
• Failure of the free market: Is this bailout a slam-dunk argument against free market economy? That’s a tough question to answer. It is quite possible that a free-market system is sufficiently robust and self-stabilizing to a point where it can recover from any jolt it might receive. However, the stakeholders in the economy are not willing to labor through the painful transitional period when the economy is healing itself. In fact, such acute volatility may be a part of growth, maturation, and robustness of the economy (much like a human body learning from experience, diseases, and vaccinations). Such intervention, however, has effectively thwarted the healing that the economy must naturally go through in order to be more robust in the future. So effectively, this bailout is building a near-fatal design flaw into the free market operations to where such bailouts are going to be an infinitely often deal, or there will be more economic crashes and collapses to look forward to in the future.

So either way you look at it, the bailout is at best a short term relief which addresses the symptoms but exacerbates that root cause making the economy even more vulnerable that before to such volatility.

Image source: allposters.comSimilar Posts:

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Abhinav Bindra has been conferred with an honorary doctorate from SRM University in Chennai. Honest! I am not making this up! Ask Times of India and NDTV!

What amazed me was that very few were outraged by it, well except for Mekhala. She makes a good point in her blog post when she asks, “…[sic] but doesn’t a doctorate demand academic scholarship?” That’s a very good question. But, before I move forward I must add the disclaimer that I am awfully proud of Abhinav Bindra, and I am not undervaluing what he has achieved. It is a great accomplishment for both the nation, and him personally. However, I do believe that giving away doctorates to people who have not demonstrated academic excellence, and who have not made original contributions to their field only serves to devalue the degree. But what is the value of a PhD degree anyway? One way to ascertain that is to see what it takes to get a PhD (full merit, non-reservation style).

Most universities follows a format similar to what I am about to describe. They may skip some steps, or combine them with others, but by-and-large, this is the procedure. First, there is the whole selection process which serves to filter out the people who just aren’t the doctorate type. Second, depending on which university you go to, there are courses you have to take and maintain a GPR of at least 3.0. Third, you have to take what are called ‘qualifiers’ in which you take tests in your area of specialization for 9 hours (that’s right, 9 hours) within a day and a half. Forth, you have your preliminaries in which each member of your doctoral advisory committee (your Guides/Advisors) will each give you either an open problem (i.e. a problem whioch hasn’t been solved yet), or ask you to appraise current research in your area. After you have answered these questions to they satisfaction you go ahead with your proposal. Fifth, is your disseration proposal. In your proposal you clearly outline what you intend to achieve for your PhD and argue why the problem you have chosen to tackle is unsolved, novel, interesting, and how it will benefit your community, and above all argue that the problem is difficult enough to merit a PhD. And then begins the actual research which often yields peer-reviewed publications in internationally renouned venues like conferences and journals. This is how you demonstrate that your research is novel, interesting, and tackles unsolved problems. And finally, you write your dissertation, and then defend that dissertation to your adviosry committee’s satisfaction, following which you are deemed worthy of a PhD.

Now, one might argue that the rigor, training, and dedication that fetch Bindra an olympic gold is comparable to the rigors of a PhD program. However, there is a universally singular critical element to a PhD effort which Bindra does not meet: original contribution to the field. If Abhinav Bindra had come up with a novel technique for shooting, or had contributed something new to shooting that was the first of its kind — it could be anything from new benchmarking tools to better cross-wires — then I would be more sympathetic to him being conferred a doctorate (I guess that makes a good case for Ajantha Mendis for his carrom ball). However, Abhinav hasn’t done anything of that nature.

Here’s an analogy that might make things clearer: You cannot get a PhD for being the best Java programmer in the world, but you can make a case for something who invents a new programming language that sets a new standard. The same is true here with Bindra. He may be the best shooter in the world, but that does not qualify him for a PhD.

I have no objections to giving him a Khel Ratna, but a PhD? No! There is certain snactity associated with PhD. It says that this person has proved him/herself by going through the process and contributing something new and worth to the community; this person is capable of independent research, and is primed to serve the community by expanding our collective knowledge. By giving away PhDs to people who do not meet such criterion, you have effectively devalued the PhDs of all the people who do.

I guess when I graduate with my PhD, I’d have to insist that I not be called ‘Doctor’, as Robert Heinlein put it best in Stranger in a Strange Land:

I don’t like to be called ‘Doctor’… When they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk-dancing and advanced fly fishing, I became too stinkin’ proud to use the title. I won’t touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees.

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My office mate does have the right to complain, and most likely the issue will be taken up with our adviser, the American, and of course she’ll side with my office mate (Since they are both members of NATO, and war on terror on what not). Since Pakistan got the F-16s from the US, my office mate will get better equipment for research. Now its my turn to go crying to someone else. And who would that be? The Russian in my committee of course! Russia and India go way back! He’ll back me up by giving me some of this equipment for my research.

This is almost too perfect I think we are going to have loads of fun this year. Oh, and there’s research too… eh… kinda. Similar Posts:

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