Aaaaargh!
The government is on the job again. It is making it tougher for the alumni to fund the IITs

Okay people, I hadn’t wanted to?do this, but I had to do this for Yazad.

So a few days back we traced the historical roots of the epidemic right? Now that disease has returned, it proves that history repeats itself as a SARS.

It is now turning out that the original carrier of the deadly epidemic was – the Civet Cat.

A top Hong Kong scientist said on Friday it was likely the deadly SARS virus that has killed almost 700 people worldwide jumped to humans from civet cats, which are considered a delicacy by many people in southern China.

The finding will help prevent a repeat of such an epidemic in the future through the use of more hygienic and regulated methods of farming and slaughter, said Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, head of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Hong Kong.

(Wired News: SARS Origin: Maybe Civet Cats)

To coin a term – Civet Cats are SARSinogens.

And is there anything the Chinese won’t eat?

I am sorry for the paucity of posts. I do have things to say – other than lame jokes about SARS and criticisms of Praful Bidwai that is, but I am engaged in too many activities right now. 😉

It now turns out that Reliance didn’t actually develop the SARS virus. As is traditional in India, they merely rediscovered the knowledge that was already there in the Atharva Veda. In the course of the rediscovery, they also found that the SARS was a waterborne disease, the spread of which in fact caused the destruction of the Indus valley civilisation. Aryans (and the Dravidians who remained) developed immunity to the virus, which carries on to this day. It is not yet known whether the disease was intentionally spread by the invading Aryans. If they did, it would be the first recorded instance of bio-warfare.

The virus was waterborne remember? The Aryan Invaders called the river which carried the disease SARSwati.

Warning: If you feel the urge to bang your head in frustration after this, you are adviced to look out for a pillow or a cushion. The Examined Life cannot be held responsible for any direct or consequential damages to your cognitive capacity if you disregard this advice.

See what I meant about failure proofing?
Praful Bidwai writes about a tale of two visits, one of them a “success” and the other one a “failure”. The “failure” was Richard Armitage’s visit to India and Pakistan. The “success” was – I am not making this up – the visit by Pakistani MPs to India. Why is one a success and the other a failure? Because Bidwai says so.

Also because the MPs’ visit was organised by “Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy&#3?; which is a “culmination of a number of citizens’ initiatives launched more than a decade ago amidst soured state-to-state relations following the outbreak of the azaadi movement in the Kashmir Valley”
So ten years of efforts have culminated in a visit by MPs. But it is not yet a failure.

But “Begging America to pressure Pakistan was the only “strategy” India used in the 15 years leading to Pokharan-II and Chagai” . This strategy is a failure by definition, though the article itself mentions some (very very short term) successes.

Bidwai also propounds the usual bromide.

Indians and Pakistanis get on extraordinarily well with one another at an individual level. Despite their different political evolution, the two societies share much in their culture, languages, music, literature, and in day-to-day interaction, gestures, even people’s body language. This realisation, especially through personal experience, dramatically breaks down barriers which are essential to maintaining a permanent state of hostility. It can increase the trust and good faith necessary for fruitful negotiations between governments

In the first place, there is no way to disprove the above statement. He doesn’t actually back his statement by any any statistical evidence, but even if it turns out that Indians and Pakistanis, on an average, actually viscerally hate each other, he can always claim that it is because they’ve been taught to do so by their governments (and by fabricated evidence of terrorists killing Indians, perhaps)
In the second place, even if it is true that Pakistanis have nothing but love and affection towards Indians, what are the policy implications of this fact? Are we supposed to sit and wait for a pro-India revolution to topple the Pakistani dictatorship before there is peace in Kashmir? Or are we supposed to foment such a revolution? To ask the question is to actually set criteria for success, and of course, risk failure.

It turns out that “people-to-people” exchanges still require government action to succeed. Specifically, Indian government action. Or in Bidwai’s own words:

Therefore, both India and Pakistan will do well to announce unilateral concessions, CBMs and steps to promote goodwill

Notice the smart choice of words? If both do it together, it won’t be “unilateral”. What he actually means is that India should do it unilaterally, but dressing the statement as an advice to both countries, is a tactic worthy of a weasel.

Also notice the smart choice of scare quotes. There are scare quotes around “cross-border” but none around “azaadi”.

I am not arguing that Armitage’s visit was a success of any sort, just that my theory of pacifism being failure-proof has been vindicated

Having created the virus, now the Reliance guys plan to shamelessly make a profit from the whole thing by peddling a snake-oil remedy. They’re going to call it SARSon ka tel.

Don’t you dare hack into my site and delete all my stuff. Because of your evil action I might go off my rocker and someone, somewhere, might lose his life

Read this and cringe. The author is a Professor at IIM Bangalore.

When the dissent globaliser rants, she faces a slight disadvantage – she convinces no one who isn’t already a convert to her cause. But articles like the one above give the superficial impression of actually making sense, because the author has put in a lot of tables and diagrams, and argues using what looks like logic.

He starts off by citing the famous New Jersey law which forbi?s (public?) companies from outsourcing their call center operations outside US. He ends by accusing the US of wanting to balkanize India. In between he performs a large number of logical somersaults.
Such resistence to opening up markets is not new. There was similar whining when factories shifted out of the US. There is similar whining about global financial integration. But he obfuscates the issue by saying that “Product Market globalisation is fine” and “Financial Integration is fine”, implying that there is something unique about what is happening in New Jersey. Of course, he never actually takes a stand on whether globalisation as such is good for India or not. He only sneers at “US hypocrisy”*.

So now the trend of outsourcing is picking up. Why? Because the demographics of the US and Europe are changing. Population growth has slowed, so now they have a shortage of young people who are willing to work, and this trend is likely to continue. Valid point. So why is there a resistance?

Remember that the unemployment rates for the below-25 age group are 30% for Italy, 21% for France, 9% for USA and 12% for UK during 2000. Hence this would make nation states in the west unhappy with the global corporations.

He doen’t notice the contradiction at all! If there is a shortage of young people, why is there such high unemployment? There might be some explanations (hint: normal business cycles, bad government policies, etc.) which explain the contradiction, but not noticing it is inexcusable.

Then comes this:

USA has been traditionally unwilling to be dependant on any others, be it for oil or wheat or cotton or milk or silver. They would not like to be significantly and critically dependent on other countries even at a cheap price. Plus the ageing Europe, are unattractive partners to them particularly after the fall of Russia.

This gives raise to the following possibilities. One possibility is to create huge “Offshore” labour centres like financial centres. But these may not be within the “control” of the USA as a nation state. One possibility is to encourage a large inflow of such skilled professionals into USA from India, but the events following 9/11 are proving that it is not going to be a solution adopted by USA.

As of now, USA is not very good in differentiating between unwanted Jihadis and desirable coding coolies. In other words, USA is trying to adopt “restrictive” migratory policies particularly from brown and black countries. Maybe the “melting pot” really melted along with the World Trade Centre!

Another way for the USA to deal with this issue is to create smaller “nation states” with which it will be easier to deal with. Look at the fate of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. India is a “good candidate” to be split up. That would also be in the interest of large corporations since smaller length of arms to twist and lesser palms to grease.

So the omnipotent US broke up the USSR and Yugoslavia, and is trying to break up India so that it can gain access to cheap labour it does not want. It is willing to gain control of and administer entire countries because it is finding it difficult to properly screen immigrants at its borders.
Wow.

*This is a common tactic. Accuse the US of “hypocrisy” and you don’t need to take a stand. So if the US accuses you of violating human rights, turn around and point out that the US isn’t perfect. That way you don’t have to answer the question of whether you are torturing and killing your own people.

Then there is this weird article in the Frontline. . It is a fertile ground for hunters of logical fallacies.

He wants IIT JEE (which currently tests Physics, Chemistry, Maths) to include a test of an Indian language. Why? Because educated Indians, presumably epitomised by IITians, show an appalling ignorance of Humanities. They are not aware of authentic Indian history. This ignorance shows up as religious fundamentalism, especially among educated Indians abroad, many of whom are IITians.
So why test for an Indian language rather than test for knowledge of history? Read the article and see if you can make sense of it. I couldn’t.

I know that everyone has been waiting with bated breath to know what my views on the proposed anti-cowslaughter law are.
I am against it.

Swaminathan Aiyar does a fairly decent job of debunking the conspiracy theory that the Iraq war took place because Iraq had shifted to Euro as its preferred currency of trade. Why “fairly decent”? Because after giving very good arguments, he says this:

No other OPEC country prices oil in euros, because of the currency risk. But for arguments sake, suppose they do. Will the US suffer? Not really. More countries will want to hold reserves in euros to reduce their currency risk, and rising demand could push up the euro against the dollar. That will make Europe more attractive for foreign investors. But European exporters will complain that a strong euro has made them uncompetitive, hitting production and employment. American exporters meanwhile will be delighted that a weaker dollar has made them more competitive.

Right, but The Conspiracy Theory says that Americans want the dollar to be strong because it enables them to import stuff cheaply. Aiyar’s argument doesn’t address that.

Needless to say, I don’t actually believe in the theory. The only conspiracy theory I believe in is the one that I have exposed