Abhi Yerra

Reading the New York Times article on Pakistan’s absence in curbing Taliban insurgency I am still wondering why the US is even supporting Pakistan at this point. The government is weak, the army and the intelligence are clearly calling the shots, and people seem fine with the coming of the militants. It is clear that our trust that Pakistan will do the right thing is highly questionable especially with the leniency with which it has allowed the Taliban and other terrorists groups such as the one linked with the Mumbai attacks to continue.

The government is extremely weak in Pakistan. When, following the Mumbai attacks, the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, offered the ISI’s support in helping India the army shot it down. When, according  to the article, the government wanted to send army troops to fight the militants, yet again, the army rejected it since it did not want to move troops away from the border from India.

This basically says that the ISS and the army are still in the modality that India is the enemy to fight especially to get Kashmir. My question is what are they going to do if they get Kashmir? They haven’t shown any competence in self management what good will adding more territory do? At this point I think Kashmir should gain independence from both India and Pakistan, both are bad stewards of the land and the people have suffered immensly under both.

Kashmir and India should be the least of Pakistan’s worry, but the mentality has been set. The army which gets a $1 billion from the United States doesn’t spend it on fighting terrorism, but fighting India. If this is the case then the US should not give this money to Pakistan which is just provoking another war in the region. If money is to be given thre should be strict guidelines in how it should be used.

At this point I don’t think that Pakistan can even be trusted. They had 8 years to show us that they will fight a battle against terrorism, but in those years their own region has fallen under the terrorists’ mousetrap.

America should not be paying to bailout the American Auto Industry. With the level of fuel guzzling cars that they have been making in recent years, lack of focus on fuel efficiency, as well as mismanagement they brought the current turmoil on themselves a long time ago. Though other car makers like Toyota and Honda are hurting also their diversity has been a good offset in the current economic crisis. The Detroit automakers focusing solely on SUVs and trucks shot themselves in the foot unable to move away from that market as oil prices quickly rose. It is only appropriate then that they should hit troubled times.

Plus saving the auto makers will set a dangerous precidence to other industries that America is willing to bail them out if they are in trouble. Taxpayers are not responsible for bailouts of profit making industries even one as large as the Detroit automakers. Though I do agree that the $700 billion set out to help banks was in general a good idea since it gave the markets some much needed liquidity.

Technology is going to play a more prominent role in democracy. We saw this in the way Obama conducted his campaign. He used technology and a grass-roots movement to go from a first term senator no one knew about to becoming the 44th President of the United States. A lot of this can be attributed to how he used technology.

His army of donors were largely just for thousands of individuals chipping in $10 or $15 dollars on his website. This base of donors was made possible by his use of the internet to collect these funds and the ease at which an individual could contribute. He used MySpace and Facebook effectively to get out his message and solicit more donations. I would always have a message waiting from him whenever I went to facebook and his use of emails to send out how he was doing was a steady stream.

The main facet of Facebook and MySpace is that they lets us feel as if we are in the know. It makes us feel like we are part of the lives of our friends, like we know what they are going through. Obama used this effectively on his campaign. His campaign was that of keeping us in the loop as if we are Obama’s friends. This level of personalization let us feel more connected to Obama as we got constant feedback from his campaign trail. By giving us this information we were always in the know as to what his campaign was going through.

However, Obama wants to use this technology based campaign further in his presidency. He launched a website where details on his appointees as well as a blog detailing his choices are going to be made. Further he is going to use his list of existing supporters to get their support for issues during his presidency so expect a message from President Obama sometime in the future if you were a donor.

Therefore, not only is Obama a 21st century president, he is using using 21st century technology and new media to his benefit and hopefully ours too. The connection we have with out government is going to get a lot stronger.

Now that we know the route of the Olympic Torch in San Francisco on April 9th, let’s plan out the battle plans for the protests. Well the objective is to get good pictures on the day so I think the best places for pictures of protests will be wherever there will be a large gathering of people.

The event will start at 1 p.m. and it will take the torch about an hour and a half to traverse the approximately 6-mile route, according to Giselle Barry, the spokeswoman for Newsom.

Mayor Gavin Newsom said an area in front of the Ferry Building – the route’s end point – will be designated for protesters. No groups will need a permit to protest, he said, adding that more protesters are expected along the route than in the designated areas.

Officials said protesters will also be allowed in Union Square, Portsmouth Square, Civic Center and Washington Square, although those areas are generally far from the torch’s announced route.

So what are you waiting for? Plan out your protest gear and oh yeah get ready for the torch!

Update 4/8/2008, 4:13 AM: It has started. Apparently, they may change the route of the torch in response to the Paris and London events which haven’t been going so well. Especially in Paris where the torch was put out several times by protesters.

Update 4/8/2008, 8:49PM: There are more updates with Protestors building steam in S.F, the Torch arrived in S.F. It apparently was treated like a visit from a head of state.

Bush getting booed at the Washington Nationals. It seems he couldn’t get rid of the ball fast enough as a large portion of the crowd was booing him. I wonder what would happen if this happened in China.

The speech was one of the best orations that I have ever listened to. It gets to the root of a lot of issues facing the US regardless of race.

What I find funny is that it is such a pseudo-event. The American flags in the background, him giving his speech next to where the Constitution was ratified. It is just funny to see all the little things that make up this speech that are not the speech itself.

While reading India Must Quickly Finalize Nuclear Deal by the New York Times I was wondering why there is such a strong push by the Bush administration for it. I realize that it is an effort to counter China. India’s energy infrastructure is quite bad, blackouts happen so often that it is a part of life to assume that the power would go out (not to mention at the worst time possible, i.e. during the dead heat of midday).

If India were to build these nuclear plants then it would make it easier for them in the long run to grow. It is already the case that China is trying to get all the access to oil that it can, especially in Africa. If India can do this deal it would probably be quite a boon for them in terms of curtailing their hunger for energy and counterbalancing China’s growth. Also, it would probably be a cleaner way to grow than oil.