It's a clown show, I tell ya..

Never ever expected to be blogging about the political situation of our Nation but it's too crazy out there, which makes it really hard to hold back. What’s up with these hypocritical Republican souls? More than that, I just could not understand the South Carolinians. They cheer ecstatically for all the wrong reasons. I just caught glimpses of the debate on the radio and some clips online but it was totally insane.

To start off with the biggest clown of the remaining pack, Mr. Gingrich.. He goes on a rampage against John King, the CNN host & ABC News for exposing his dirty laundry. The worst part is when the crowd gave him a standing ovation. It’s “moral” for Gingrich to do what he did but it is immoral to confront him and there is a whole movement backing that? Seriously, what kind of world do we live in.. Additionally, the radio talk show hosts go on to support Newt bashing ABC News. The focal point was ABC for being “un-ethical” in airing his Ex-wife’s interview two days before a primary. Why does it matter when it is aired? Most interesting part was how the whole focus shifted to the timing of the revelation than the actual truth, this is classic right-wing politics man – a total diversion from the actual facts and then blame the other side for every damn thing, own up something people.

Further, there is absolutely no FACT check on any of Newt’s claims or anyone on the debate stage, they pretty much pull things off their rear-end and the crowd went gung-ho about it. It reminds me of the ‘Aliens’ from the Toy story movie, looks like they were all hypnotized by the Tea party freaks before they were let inside the debate hall.

Another Loser of the pack, Mr. Perry - The same guy who said, ‘Those who are not trusted by their spouses are likely to betray their business partners and more so the country’. Hence Newt is not fit to run for President. 3 weeks from that statement, It is the exact same guy who comes out and publicly endorses Newt. How else could one define hypocrisy? His only agenda was to derail Mitt Romney. I feel for Mitt as he is fighting with his own party for years now and he is still struggling to gain their support.

Nevertheless, the whole focus of the campaign is not about ‘Vote for me’, am here’s why am capable but about ‘Don’t vote for that black man in the White house’. They just cannot digest that and were unable to, since Mr. Obama took office.

On the flip side, Andrew Sullivan’s Newsweek article clearly outlines the progress made by the current administration. And Remember, Andy is a conservative and it is very interesting to see one sensible one from the right.

There is an underlying question that hit me leading up to the debate. I was switching radio stations and I ended up on a conservative radio program with Mark Levin’s show, he is preaching his audience how great of a guy Newt is as he now reached God with all his Sins. Since then, he has come clean and all together a different individual. He’s the most ethical, most mature and most Christian of all.. hence should be voted for office.

Anyway, at a deeper level here are a couple of things I’m trying to analyze.. a) It’s rather sad to see how 'race' and 'religion' are playing such a dominant role in the most advanced Nation on the planet, and b) If you are a sinner, just go to a Confession box and all your sins are wiped out and you come out clean? Is this a one- time process or you can do this repetitively? On the same note, what does Hinduism preach? Yea, It teaches Tolerance and forgiveness but what is considered a 'sin' and Is there a redemption? Any thoughts….

What's happening to America?

First off, I never cared much for politics in this country as I did not have voting rights and secondly, politicians are damn politicians. They promise during campaigns and never follow through on their word, they get sucked into the same hole like others – Self glory and… politics, what else?

Also, I did not expect myself writing an article (or) being a vocal critique on the American political situation but could not help after briefly following the Republican debate (purely for an entertainment value). What a bunch of characters, really..

Having seen many dirty political situations in Asia & India, I thought at least American leaders (or) the American people looked for a leader who is highly intellectual, respected academician with in-depth knowledge on all areas with strong service-oriented background. You look at the current GOP field, it is a set of morons (for lack of a better word). Let me start off with the biggest one of all -

Rick Perry - What a character? He reminds me of Mr. W in many ways, has absolutely no clue about what is going on and is goofy looking, funny sounding self-proclaimed front runner. He needs to first understand what the Federal departments are for, before he can start eliminating them. Everyone has their bad moments but I think this guy topped it all in his debate few weeks ago with a brain freeze. He has provided enough material for a struggling comedian for an entire year. He  has been off the radar since that episode. He better get back to Texas and focus on what he is good at, a professional by-stander ‘Governor’ born in an oil-rich state.

Herman – He certainly would have topped the list but for Mr. Perry. This guy and his baseless ‘9-9-9’ plan (sounds like nahi-nahi-nahi in Hindi) every time he says it just proves to disclose the fact that he has no freaking clue of the tax system. I agree there needs a reform but this is pure political, gimmicky and a misleading campaign. His Foreign policy experience is pathetic and was obvious with his response to a Libya question during an interview. I didn’t know how to react  when he talked about US dollar during a CNBC Debate about the crisis in Italy. His response – Just like an hour has 60 minutes, a Dollar should be a Dollar.. Seriously? All this is beyond the allegations he is battling. Just as they say, right - where there is smoke, there is fire. He has hired a high-profile defamation lawyer, to downplay and threaten any further allegations. It will be interesting to see how he can wither through the latest one.

Mr. Romney - Stands a good chance, since others are making fool of themselves but he has other challenges and unique religious beliefs that will come in his way. Moreover, his poll numbers have been the same place where he started, which is not a good sign. Mr.Gingrich is certainly inching up in polls but he has his baggage that might come bite him. Others are just a little more than mannequins on the stage, no one cares for them and I feel bad for Jon Huntsman as he is the only capable, intellectual out of all. However, he is unable to make any headway in the polls.

Well, ultimately my point is that the GOP race is getting more and more entertaining. I can’t wait to see who will come out a winner out of this bunch, just to be chewed out by our current President in the final debates. It is probably evident where my support lies and I’m just impressed with the way Mr. Obama has led the country, so far. Apart from inheriting a mess, a Global Financial crisis, mounting debt and the middle eastern uprising which were all historic, we as a country are still leading and have not imploded. Had it been for any other Republican, we would be fighting another meaningless war with another Mid-Eastern country (Iran, may be)

Good Luck Mr. President and I hope you can pull it off again!

To put it in perspective

Beyond all the political rhetoric and flamboyant display of private parts by our politicians through social media, there are real burning issues we are currently facing as a Nation and as a World. As much as it is hard to understand the macro-economics at the global scale and its impact to the day-to-day life, it is equally hard to comprehend the numbers that get thrown around in any of these political discussions. I wanted to understand the fundamentals before trying to grasp the big picture. Here is some information I have grouped together and if you are like me, it might help a little bit.

Everyone understands a million, right? If not, a million is one followed by 6 zeros (It is 10 lakhs, in Indian terms). What about a billion? A billion is 1 followed by 9 zeros. If you thought billion was a lot, think of a Trillion. It is 1 followed by 12 zeros.

These days, If you notice, this is the term our politicians (both left and right sides of the political spectrum use, quite loosely). After I started trying to understand how big a trillion really is, I doubt if any of these dudes who throw this term around really understand what it means. Your intellect can only grasp so much and it shuts off after that.

Let me take a different approach in trying to explain this (NPR covered this story last year and it was quite interesting)

If you stack up enough $100 bills to make $100,000 – the stack would be 4 inches tall.

If you stack up enough $100 bills to make One Million Dollars – $1,000,000 – the stack would be 40" tall (just over 3 feet).

If you stack up enough $100 bills to make One Trillion Dollars – $1,000,000,000,000 – the stack would be 679 miles high.

By road, this is the distance from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City (or) New York City to Cincinnati (if you are on the East Coast). I'm unable to connect with this after it passed the mile mark. Also, if you got this far into my post, I see the bulb lighten up in your head. 

These are the numbers our politicians use on a daily basis. So, do you think they really understand it? Feel free to share your thoughts.


Stay tuned - Schools of Philosophy in Hinduism. (This is just an internal mechanism so I could stay on top of my posts, I have been slacking quite a bit)

Imported from Detroit

It was Super Bowl XLV and I watched it @ home. Which team was I voting for? Well, I certainly was voting for Packers as they were the underdogs and they have come a long way this season. Rodgers guided the Packers to three consecutive road victories in the playoffs before Sunday's win over Steelers, he did a splendid job with three TD passes and 304 yards, pulling his team to win the Vince Lombardi trophy and he truly deserves the Super bowl MVP.

More than the game, I was pretty excited to watch the commercials. Due to the very large viewership and the pretty hefty price tag, push for creativity is quite obvious. Like every year, there were a few good ones and there were a lot of hyped up, high productions which didn't really appease me. I performed an exercise of noting down the most interesting commercials that really caught my attention and rated them based on categories. Here are my choices with comments, I also missed watching a few.

My top rating goes to the Volkswagen commercial where the kid in the star wars 'Darth Vader' costume tries to show the force on different things till his dad comes home in a VW Passat. Even though the kid had a mask on his face, his mannerisms were very cute. Coupled with his dad's expression from the kitchen with the remote key, sealed the deal. The kid's face was later unveiled on the 'Today' show with Matt Lauer.

Imported from Detroit - It was good to see the rapper from the 8 Mile - Eminem for this Chrystler 200 commercial. The narrative behind the commercial was very intriguing, it is a true representation of the Motor city and it was perfectly portrayed by Eminem's attitude in the clip. It was also quite refreshing to see one of the American auto makers trying to make a comeback with a luxury line-up. The best part, the tag line - 'Imported from Detroit' was a killer. Of course, I have a soft corner for the city as I lived there for a while. 

Doritos - This is certainly in the funny category, it was absolutely hilarious. Bringing grandpa back to life was a perfect twist to the ending. I would certainly give this the highest rating in the funny category.

Epic ride - Kia Optima: This was undoubtedly a very expensive commercial with a lot of graphics, helicopter and a yacht. There was a certain element of anxiety till the end of the commercial but I would only give it a 3 star.

Budweiser - What's up with them this year? Typically, the Bud light commercials are the best but they either missed the mark this year or I didn't get it. The Budweiser commercial has been airing for a month now with 'To be continued' and the complete one was revealed during the Super bowl. It was certainly not what I expected after all the speculation.

Motorola Xoom - 2: I liked the device more than the commercial, they did a good job building up the surprise element but didn't deliver towards the end on product marketing. It was alright.

There are a few more that were average; I was not too crazy about the career builder ad this year. Usually, they have some nice ones. Coca cola spent way too much money on one of their commercials but the 'Border Patrol' was nice but predictable.

Pepsi max ads I thought were a little cheesy, Mercedes and the P Diddy ad was alright & was good representation of P Diddy.

One thing I realized while rating these commercials that it was dominated by Auto ads, has it always been this way or Is this a comeback of the Auto industry?

S.O.L

Disclaimer - The content for this post may overlap with a very interesting article I read on Bloomberg's business. The reason this topic excited me was  due to a slight relevance to one of my previous posts about Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull Volcanic eruption. Technically, it does not have any direct connection but the incident has a common thread.

Apparently, there is a new kind of technology called the microchip-embedded credit card. Essentially, this technology replaces the traditional magnetic strip cards used in the US. Interestingly, US is one of the few countries that has not adopted to this technology or the EMV Standard. Let me shed some light on what is technology is all about and what the heck is the relevance to the Volcano.

When the Volcano erupted in Europe, there were several thousand travellers stranded in Europe, lot of them from the US. (just for the record - the relevance with the previous Volcano post ends here), allow me to continue with the rest. When these deserted travelers were trying to get out taking trains, Europeans were able to use the Kiosks while Americans had to stand in line for hours (six + to be precise) to get their tickets, the reason? - Lack of Microchip cards accepted by the Kiosks.

These micro-chip cards are less prone to fraud as opposed to the magnetic stripe regular cards that hold unencrypted data. This data remains static from one transaction to the next, which is an opening for a theft. An EMV card exchanges data with the card reader, producing a digital signature unique to each transaction. "Every one has its own unique key. Without it you can't run the cryptographic algorithms that align with your particular account."

How does lack of this technology matter to the U.S? - Almost 10 million U.S. cardholders experienced credit-card acceptance problems abroad in 2008, costing banks $447 million in lost revenue, according to a study released last year by Boston-based research firm Aite Group.

Why is US slow to transform to such a secure technology, especially when there is a loss in revenue? Is it truly expense to convert the traditional cards to the chip-based cards, Are they in the process of unveiling a better technology (Or) they don't want to eliminate fraud , so they can continue to charge their exorbitant interest rates?

At least, It would be nice for International travelers to have this option from their Credit card issuers, rather than - 'Sorry, but you're Out of Luck.' "