As you all know, Osama bin Laden’s family has disowned Osama. To emphasise the fact, now they call themselves Osama bin Laden.
If you haven’t figured it out, here is a clue.
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Please stop using “would” when you mean “will”. For example, you shouldn’t say. “I would be coming for dinner” when you mean “I will be coming for dinner”
Thank you.

Yes I know that everyone is asking who comes after Vajpayee, but I don’t think that is in any doubt. It will be Advani. Yes I know that BJP has a strong second line of leadership and there is no reason in theory why it shouldn’t be someone from there and yada yada yada, but that is because your theory isn’t looking at the mechanics of the succession. Briefly, there are two possibilities.
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Well Ravages, I did have the idea of a Recursive Googlebomb once, i.e everyone link Recursive Googlebomb and the first result for “Recursive Googlebomb” will be a link to a search for a recursive googlebomb on google. The phrase will therefore define itself. Unfortunately, I am dead sure Google won’t index search results.

Exit polls are supposed to be much more accurate than Opinion polls. Then how is it that the various exit polls are predicting such differing results in yesterday’s elections? Aajtak is giving 93/140 to the NDA while NDTV-Indian Express guys are giving 75/140. What is happening?

I think what is happening is that they are getting the vote percentages reasonably correct, but
a) they use different models to translate percentages into seats and/or
b) an error in vote percentage gets magnified when it gets translated into seats and/or
c) because of the nature of the elections, it is possible that those errors don’t get cancelled out in other states.

For example Aaj Tak found a 3% swing in favour of the BJP in Gujarat. NDTV found a 1% swing away from the BJP. Assuming that they are calculating the swing from the same base, a 4% difference is not a big deal statistically, but it gets translated to 23 vs. 18 seats for the BJP a difference of 27% (or 21% if you take 23 as the base) That’s what I meant by b). Now the problem is that 4% means a lot in Gujarat, but it means nothing in Orissa, because there the margin of victory for the BJP/BJD alliance was huge. So the problem is the error you made in Gujarat doesn’t get cancelled out in Orissa. If you have been unfortunate enough to make a mistake in 2-3 sensitive states, you are gone.

Sorry, but I just had an attack of geekiness.

I wants my Gmail too!

Just to come to another cartel member’s rescue on the question of gun control, here is another question.

We don’t have to go all the way upto Switzerland to see the effects of lax gun control. There is a community in India that has special rights to carry guns (I think it was the British who made relaxed gun control laws especially for them).

1. They are an extremely martial race.
   
2. When a son is born in their community, they celebrate by firing guns. When a daughter is born, they ring a bell
   
3. They are known for their beautiful and athletic women.
   
4. They have the highest crime rate in India.
   
5. Pt no 4 is false. Chances are, you wouldn’t even have heard of them in relation to crime.
   

What am I talking about?

The post below is a reference to “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”.

Question: What is the saying referring to?

Just to prove that we libertarians don’t always agree with each other, I wish to disagree with Madman’s comments on Jivha’s post.

He is right as to the logical fallacies of course. If you are trying to prove the proposition “The BJP committed a grave crime by killing hundreds of Muslims in the Gujarat riots”, then it is true that nothing – nothing at all – do you hear me? nothing can justify it. The only way in which Godhra can justify the pogrom that followed is if you can somehow prove that a) all the muslims who were killed, (individually, not as a group) were responsible for the train burning, and b) the criminal justice system had broken down so completely that killing people in acts of vigilantism becomes justified. The first condition is obviously not true, and the second is certainly not an argument when you are running the government. The BJP hasn’t been put to power to carry out pogroms on behalf of Hindus. It had the responsibility of prosecuting criminals, but instead it choose to kill people at random.

So anyone who wishes to defend the BJP has a lot to answer for.
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This is what “Equal Respect for all Religions” means.

Sometime back, Jivha had asked which among the two competing versions of secularism we should choose.

In practice, respecting all religions equally means pandering to the most lunatic demand of the most extreme fringe of all religions. Who would have known that comparing a woman’s beauty to the “light of God” would be offensive? Such depictions are common among Hindus (and, though I don’t know about the precise technical error here, I think even Muslim poets have committed this offense in their shers) But someone will find it offensive and hence that someone’s views should be respected. Who would have thought that painting Hindu Gods and Goddesses in the nude would be offensive? I wouldn’t. Kalidasa has taken far greater liberties with Parvati with his words than Hussain has taken with Saraswati with his brushstrokes, if I remember correctly. But someone will get offended that a Muslim has dared to take liberties with their Gods, and that someone’s views should be respected.

What we have in place is not a “Nehruvian” version of secularism. I don’t know whether in fact Nehru supported the “Irreligious State” version of secularism. If he did, he certainly did not put it into practice. What he did put in place was a complicated structure which was supposed to ensure that the state would give offense to none, and stop anyone giving offense to any religion. In practice, this meant that the Muslim leaders, with a vote-bank behind them, could indulge in rabble rousing by taking offense at the minutest things. Now the BJP thinks that correcting this error involves, not implementing real secularism, but ensuring that Hindus get to take their share of the offense too.

Some stuff from Sandeep on this [1, 2]

I think that it is time to stop gloating about our rise in forex reserves. It is a lot like a company rejoicing over its cash in hand rather than sales. Having a big bank balance is good, but beyond a point it is better to either reinvest it or to return it to your shareholders. Similarly, I think that now we are reaching the point where our forex reserves are an unproductive assets. It is now starting to hurt our software and BPO companies and exporters in general. The obvious solution is to allow free import of consumer goods, bringing down inflation even further.

So I thought, “Maybe I should restart my blog.”

Then I thought, “But I want a beautiful new design first!”

And then I thought, “If I wait till I complete the redesign I’ll never start the blog.”

And then I thought, “If I start the blog, I’ll be so busy writing content that I will never get around to completing the design”

And then I thought, “hmmm…”

And then I thought, “Maybe I should choose such a horrible template that my readers will beg me to come up with a better one.”

And then I thought, “Look at it this way, lots of readers == lots of beta testers for my new design, whenever it comes up…”

And so I agreed with myself.

And then it came about that I chose a MovableType template that I disliked the least and replaced my stylesheet.

It was thus that I created this blog.