Being a sequel to The Dead Sea

Mr. Stone and Mrs. Stone lived happily, more or less, ever after. As soon as his loneliness was taken care of, and his love-boil a souvenir, Stone’s mind encountered the problem of changing the world. How can we change the world? How, how, how? He constantly thought about that. A popular science book, a history book, and a cigarette later he came up with an answer.
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Now that the trial of Scott Peterson has taken a break (For those who are interested, he was found guilty. They will hold separate hearings to decide whether to execute him or jail him for life.) I thought I could watch the news here without being utterly amazed. Apparently not. This is an actual polll question that was asked on Lou Dobbs tonight, a program on CNN.

Do you believe raising the minimum wage would attract more U.S. citizens to industries now dominated by illegal aliens?

As of now, the “yes” vote is running at 79%.

Sruthijith has a post asking why Indians are so instinctively socialist. He blames it on the fact that our universities and our academic institutions are seeped in leftist ideology.

I do not agree with him on that. Soviet propaganda wasn’t notably successful in the Soviet Union. When Russians saw that their lives were a sorry mess and completely at variance with what their books told them, the books, the ideology in them and the leaders who deceived them with this ideology became objects of ridicule. What is surprising at first glance is that such a thing did not happen in India. For this, as usual, I blame Nehru.
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What is the reason for morality? For ethical values?
This is a very important question that has faced poor Homo Sapiens since eons.

Now, granted our primeval hunter-gatherer was not civilized enough to be sipping tea while reading Shakespeare with a monocle; but he still faced the need to come up with some reason for his discomfort in doing various unethical things like say killing his tribe.
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A new guestblogger, Rohit Gupta, will be blogging here through November and December.

Rohit Gupta studies big systems, big games and faint signals
for the betterment of society. He blogs at Worldchanging, Desi Media Bitch, CloakRoom and Indian Dope Trick.

I hope you will look forward to his posts with as much interests as I am doing.

Differences between the sexes always makes for a good
discussion. For it has the twin desiderata of
a. People thinking they know something about it.
b. People thinking they don’t know something about it.
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Well people, the start of my grand guestblogging experiment was delayed by unexpected events, to wit, the geographical dislocation of my person across the hemisphere. As it happens, a few people did indeed express interest, and I have sent out invitations to them; and as you already know, I’ve announced that the person known only as
Seven times Six will start blogging here soon, unless that person has changed his (or her) mind, for I have not heard from her(or him) for quite some time. (No conclusions as to the gender of the person should be drawn from the fact that the person in question is either a) taking too much time to get ready or b) changing minds)

In any case, if anyone else is interested and is willing to adhere to the conditions set forth here is welcome to contact me.

Please welcome Seven Times Six (sometimes confused with Six times Seven) as a guestblogger here. He (or she) will be blogging here through November and December.
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The Americans, having disappointed me by deciding on their president too quickly for my taste, have gone back to following the fascinating story of the tattoo on the person of the new juror in the Laci Peterson murder case.
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Can you please make a mess of your Presidential elections this time too? I understand that it will be painful for you if your country gets embroiled in a legal dispute over the presidency, but don’t you think you should think of me too? I am coming over to your country on the day you will vote and do you think it would be fair on your part to cheat me of the entertainment I am hoping for?

Nehru built a strong base for India by investing in heavy industry and infrastructure so that our industrial development could take off right?

You know what happens to people who develop a strong base right? They find it difficult to get off their base. That’s what seems to have happened.

Putting Nehru, Tata to shame

Lakshmi Mittal did not become No.1 by taking advantage of all that India had to offer, such as cheap iron ore, subsidised finance and protection against imports.

On the contrary, he succeeded because Nehruvian socialism forced him to go abroad, where he had to compete with the best in the world. His family started with a mini-mill in Indonesia producing 65,000 tonnes of wire rods. Next came a management contract, with the option to buy a bankrupt government steel plant in Trinidad. The Mittals turned it round instantly.

How? For starters, by replacing European managers with Indians. This saved $2 million in wages, and brought in superior skills too.

For various reasons (including, but not limited to “I feel I need a break”), posting is likely to be quite light in November. I also want to experiment with guest posting to see how it affects my readers(hip). If you think that you can fill the void I shall be leaving in my readers’ hearts with your posts, contact me.

I am looking for 4-5 people, with similar but definitely not the same views as mine. I’ll prefer it if you will blog on a different set of topics from what I normally blog on, though I understand that there will be inevitably be overlap between your set and mine.

In one respect I will want similarity. I am looking for people who will write coherently argued and opinionated posts that spark off a discussion, the way I (like to think that) I do. A sense of humour is a desirable extra, though I will certainly want a different sense of humour from mine.

Why would you want to write here? I have no definitive answer to that, but one reason could be that you want to experiment with blogging before starting one for yourself, or perhaps you want to popularise your blog (assuming of course, that my blog is more popular than yours) or perhaps you want to take a break from your own blog because you’ve got bored with the look of it. Whatever the reason, if you think you want to write here, tell me.

I reserve the right to pick whom I want for reasons I won’t tell you. So if I don’t know you, give me a brief introduction.

All this will be just for the month of November.