I had meant to link to Sandeep’s review of a book claiming that Nehru was a communist at heart. But I had to hold off because I wanted to write in some amount of detail about this. I am rather surprised that the entry did not get any comments.
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How porcupines make love is of course a matter of scientific interest to me, but as an engineer-by-training, I am more interested in the problem of
how strapless gowns hold up.

Effective as the strapless evening gown is in attracting attention, it presents tremendous engineering problems to the structural engineer. He is faced with the problem of designing a dress which appears as if it will fall at any moment and yet actually stays up with some small factor of safety. Some of the problems faced by the engineer readily appear from the following structural analysis of strapless evening gowns.

Sorry for the delay in putting up the poll. The delay was caused because Shanti Aunty insisted on getting experts from Florida to vet the design of the voting system, in order to ensure that the high standards we have come to expect from the Bharateeya Blog Mela are maintained. Questions about why some of the contestants are linked and others are not and why some of the links are not working, should not be directed at Shanti, as she is already suffering from a nervous breakdown from the strain of finding a poll that would take so many options.

Those rare souls who wish to read the entries before voting are requested to head over here to do so. Others may proceed

I will find some way of fitting the poll into my side bar. Till then, however, if you wish to bus your supporters to vote, you can direct them to this post or send them directly to the URL http://www.madhoo.com/polls/september_poll.php

If you face any problems in voting, it means that the system has determined that you are thinking of committing fraud. Clear your mind of dirty thoughts and try again.

(Update: Voting will go on till Sunday, the tenth day of October A. D. 2004 1800 hours Indian Standard Time)

Yes, unfortunately, as the title of this article says:
The Left wins the first round

But I don’t agree with this:

So, it had no business to spring a surprise on the Left with policies that would upset it. The Budget proposals on raising the limit of foreign direct investment in civil aviation, telecom and insurance sectors were sure to have invited the Left’s ire.
Why the senior Congress leaders did not anticipate such problems and seek the Left’s views before announcing the new policy is a puzzle.

What exactly would the government have achieved by discussing with a bunch of retards whose vocabulary extends to just one word: No?
The only reason the left did not join the government was so that they could say no to everything without being responsible for anything.

As I have explained before, the only way to deal with these idiots is by tiring them out through diversionary tactics. If the Congress is really smart, they will make an “announcement” that the US ambassador will be invited to sit in on cabinet meetings, “just as an observer”.

Update 2: Readers sent in by Shanti Aunty and JK are requested to note that the mela has not been “outsourced to the shores of Bangalore”. For one thing, Bangalore does not have a shoreline. For another, it is more accurate to say that it has been insourced to Bombay.

Update: Some nominations I had missed out have been added below and marked with (Update:)

Demarketing is a little known concept in marketing which aims at dissuading people from buying something, either because it is harmful (such as cigarettes) or simply because the demand is more than one can handle.

Blogging satisfies both criteria. It is of course well documented that blogging is addictive and as such harmful to both bloggers and readers.
Now poor Shanti aunty has simply collapsed under the weight of all the entries you people have submitted. I think it is time for some demarketing with this Blog Mela.

How will you persuade people not to blog? How will you demotivate people from submitting entries to the Mela? Ideas for ads invited in the comments. The more humiliating and snarky the ads, the better.

Now I move on to the unpleasant task of introducing the contestants for the ten dollar prize that Shanti has gracefully and enthusiastically provided. In order to avoid accusations of bias, I have decided to order the entries strictly by date. I would have ordered alphabetically, but I thought it would be unfair to those who will always be stuck in the middle (like me) and lose out on both the primacy effect and the recency effect.
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If I have understood this correctly, earth has been nicely climate controlled for our benefit. First, the plants evolved which would convert carbon dioxide to oxygen. This made it possible for beings which only consume oxygen without producing any to evolve. Yes I know that things are more complicated than this, i.e. plants first evolved under water, etc.
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Economist.com | Exoplanets

By examining the spectrum of an exoplanet, it should be possible to work out if it has an atmosphere and, if so, what that atmosphere consists of. This bears on the question of whether a planet is inhabited (see article). The presence of oxygen, for example, would be a dead (or, rather, live) giveaway. Oxygen is so reactive that its appearance in an atmosphere suggests it is recently made. And any natural chemical process that makes abundant oxygen would almost certainly have to be alive– at least, human chemists know of no exceptions to that rule. (Emphasis mine)

Interesting. Why would that be? I thought that what happens at the time of photosynthesis is just another chemical reaction. So why would scientists be so confident that the chemical reaction can not take place without life?
Simple explanations appreciated please 🙂

 

Since we have been having a discussion on laws once again, I thought it was time to post a rerun of what I will modestly describe as one of my classics. The Death of a Law was posted when I was blogging on Anarcaplib.

Incidentally, this also explains why I am such a hardcore libertarian.
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Yes, I know that alumni from my alma mater are borderline cases, but this is really weird.

Many people who support anti-discrimination laws do so not because they can work, but because it will make a “strong statement” that “discrimination will not be tolerated”.

Here are some of the cases which will go to court. Good luck to you trying to get a “strong statement” out of them.
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(Warning: You should have a taste for really old Hindi film songs to appreciate this)

Andrei Agassi had lost in the US open. Chandni, a big fan of his was very very disappointed. She was lying on her bed and staring sullenly at a poster of Agassi that was on the wall. Her dad walked into the room and started singing…
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