how our arab 'friends' treat indians

aug 6th 2007

very badly, indeed. and dubai is among the better ones. it's these
poor people killing themselves in the desert who are sustaining
kerala's money-order economy, not that 'kerala model' snake-oil that
amartya sen has been peddling.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/world/middleeast/06dubai.html?th&emc=th

also interesting to note that the 'south asian' 24-year-old pakistani
guy claims he gets $112 a month in paki-land as a pipe-fitter. what,
7000 paki rupees for a pipe-fitter? the indian guy who says he was
making $37.5 a month seems to be understating it: who gets paid 1500
indian rupees a month? maidservants make more than that at each of the
3-4 houses they go to.

the numbers look bogus: people must be making more, else even
unskilled labor wouldn't voluntarily go live in those horrible desert
lands. of course, skilled labor such as doctors and engineers make
good money in these places, tax-free.

but the suffering sounds quite true.

is local food necessarily the least carbon-intensive?

aug 6th, 2007

one would think so, normally. here's a dissenting opinion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinion/06mcwilliams.html?th&emc=th

consume, consume, consume, mister indian consumer

aug 6th, 2007

mckinsey on the subject.

http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/india_consumer_market/index.asp

the end of fish

aug 6th, 2007

i have mentioned before about fish species crashing dramatically. we
have had a history of intense over-fishing: i remember the sad stories
of the anchovy off chile; of the sardines off the monterey coast of
california (see steinbeck's 'cannery row' and the fabulous non-fiction
'log from the sea of cortez'); the atlantic cod off boston in the
fecund george's bank; and now the tuna. the same is afflicting catches
off the kerala coast: previously disdained species are the only ones
now available as the commercially desired ones have been decimated.

this is enough to make one a dedicated environmentalist.

http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/greenview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9610798&fsrc=nwl

washpost: Pakistan: the most dangerous country on Earth

aug 6th, 2007

pretty much mirrors what i said about musharraf's theater of the absurd. hoagland calls it tap-dancing.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brahma

Musharraf's Obsolete Way

By Jim Hoagland Washington Post

Sunday, August 5, 2007; Page B07

Watching Pervez Musharraf perform brings to mind Fred Astaire. The Pakistani president tap-dances so nimbly across the world stage with such flair that you forget he is practicing a dying art.

Musharraf's art is running a soft military dictatorship -- albeit with civilian trappings -- in a socially fractured Islamic nation that is a nuclear power and a key front in the U.S. war on global terrorism. He has been dancing as fast and as skillfully as he can as he balances atop the most dangerous country on Earth.

But Musharraf's long run as President Bush's personal favorite among Third World leaders is in such serious trouble that some administration officials have quietly conducted a review of the general's ability to survive. Their conclusion -- that he can continue to hang on -- may well ignore changing Pakistani and international realities.

... deleted

India and the Jihadist Pit

Good article from Stratfor, with interesting predictions. They forecast that Indian jihadists are increasingly shifting into transnationalist jihad, as Pakistani control over them breaks down.

Party Over for Indian Outsourcing?

What the hell is "conceptual brahmanism"?

From the Businessweek article:

But while India lacks a formal innovation culture, one would never know from the assumed superiority over foreign rivals. Indian firms are simply unable, culturally, to absorb a Western company. Industry analysts say Indian companies such as Infosys are hierarchical, and have an elitist view of their business and suffer from "conceptual Brahmanism," referring to the group at the upper echelon of the Indian caste system.

Somebody teach this phrase to Lou Dobbs, I'm sure he'll have a field day with it.