rantlust

Posted by riyer on December 18th 2008 in Journalism, Random, Trivia
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This reminded me of stories that my wife frequently recounts from a mischievous publisher she worked for (he is now deceased). This publisher was known to introduce ridiculous sentences and observations in stories that were in draft form. It was my wife’s job as an editor to delete them from the final copy. For e.g. if a sentence read “Ms Jane, VP of Marketing” - he would edit the draft to read “Ms Jane, VP Of Marketing AND A SLUT”. They were lucky they never went to print with something so ridiculous

A complete list is here

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Posted by riyer on December 17th 2008 in Animals, Health & Fitness, Random
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This blog by Paul Zak (I read his blog regularly) asserts that the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography showed that people with dogs are judged to be more trustworthy. Paul offers that Dogs are completely dependent as pets and someone who keeps a dog is dependable hence trustworthy. He goes on to explain that oxytocin response leads to reciprocal rewards. Here is the complete posting

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Posted by riyer on December 16th 2008 in Environment, Fashion, Travel
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I guess if they can build an indoor ski slope in Dubai, building a refrigerated beach was inevitable. The Palazzo Versace fashion house is building a hotel to compete with a Armani branded hotel and they needed a differentiator. Dubai already boasts of the worlds first 7 star hotel (whatever that means). Full story here.
Full pictures here

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Posted by riyer on December 15th 2008 in Food & Wine, Movies, Politics, Technology, USA, War, World
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For every one of you who hated the show of security that is the TSA line in airports - I am sure you thought of doing this a few times.

Is that secure enough for you Mr. President?

To his credit, the President joked that he saw the man’s sole.

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Posted by riyer on December 10th 2008 in Auto, Humor, Rants, USA
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Posted by riyer on December 08th 2008 in Government, Journalism, Politics, Rants, USA
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ProPublica, the not for profit investigative journalism organization, has an interesting presentation of the Bush administration by the numbers
Big ups to the Bush administration for Aids relief. If this President has any positive things said about him after his departure, it will probably be his emergency plan for aids relief.
Unfortunately the rest of the rest of the numbers are dismal

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Posted by riyer on December 08th 2008 in Developing Nations, Disasters, Government, India, USA
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The Bush administration is about to acknowledge that the $10bln it has spent in aid to Pakistan since 9/11 has been “wasted”. This aid was specifically meant to help the US fight terrorism on the Afghanistan border. The report will further state that Pakistan has used all of that money to “build up its army against India” instead of fighting the Taliban and the terrorists on the Afghan border. Of all the mismanaged projects that is the hallmark of the Bush presidency, this has perhaps the gravest impact in terms of global security. Ridiculous as this may sound, it can be argued that the Bush administration has indirectly (if inadvertently) funded the Mumbai attacks.

After all, a part of the Pakistan Military strategy to build its war machine against India is to fund organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) - that is critical for Pakistan to keep the insurgency in Pakistan occupied Kashmir - PoK, going. President Asif Ali Zardari’s recent editorial not withstanding, it is well documented that the LeT is actively supported by the Pakistan military and most notably the ISI. It is well known that the LeT actively recruits in the PoK. The chief of the LeT, Hafiz Saeed, in a speech in Karachi, said “There can’t be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them — cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy.” So - funding for the Pakistani military has indirectly supported the LeT operations which has funded the Mumbai attacks.

Most responsible parents will tell you that they supervise what their kids spend their $20 allowance on. How come the Bush administration doesn’t bother to watch over $10bln in aid money. Let us hope the Obama administration does a better job managing our tax dollars and global security.

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Posted by riyer on December 05th 2008 in Agriculture, Animals, Business, Developing Nations, Earth, Economics, Environment, Finance, Food & Wine, Government, Politics, USA
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My cow chewing, seal clubbing friends are going to club me for this and it is very likely that my dear wife may throw me out of the house for this one, but here are some things to note from this very fascinating piece titled “Are Cows Worse than Cars”

So the provocative title of this post is worth considering i.e.
If Al is downing as much meat as he appears to be, does that make him any more of an environmentalist than Sarah Palin - with her renowned Moose Chilli and her assertion that global warming is not man-made.

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