Tuesday, April 12, 2011

fukushima as dangerous as chernobyl: official admission

apr 12th, 2011 CE


 rajeev srinivasan 
fukushima at same highest danger level as chernobyl, officially.
8 minutes ago Favorite Reply Delete
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japan and nuclear power

apr 12th, 2011 CE


 rajeev srinivasan 
economist debate: will the world be better off without nuclear power?&fsrc=nwl | answer: yes
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 rajeev srinivasan 
japan shall rise again; but nuclear power? i doubt it.
2 minutes ago 
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economist calls a fundie a... fundie. jeez! don't they know these are 'freedom fighters'?

apr 11th, 2011 CE


and what's more, they refer to kashmiris killing their own and blaming the indian army. truly amazing -- has this passed their censor?

i guess this is the fallout from a change in guard: the economist's pak-apologist former guy in delhi has gone back to londonistan. 
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Monday, April 11, 2011

"HYSTERIA WILL NOT END CORRUPTION" - TAVLEEN SINGH

apr 11th, 2011 CE

rather sensible column by tavleen singh.


http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/774100/

Hysteria will not end corruption

As I have watched mass hysteria build up over Anna Hazare’s fast, there have been moments when I felt that his supporters had forgotten that India is a democratic country. I have long believed that the most apolitical Indians are those who belong to the English speaking, tweeting, texting middle classes but I had no idea just how apolitical they were till last week. Without reading the Jan Lokpal bill that Anna Hazare is trying to ram down our throats, actors, writers, social activists, television anchors and sundry other supposedly educated Indians leapt on to Anna’s bandwagon.


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Man vs. Machine: Will E-Technology Render Associates Obsolete?

apr 11th, 2011 CE

for some odd reason, these folks have included me in their mailing list.

well, if watson and so forth can render lawyers obsolete, more power to them! i think they will reduce the number of lawyers and doctors needed to just collect information; demand will remain for those who need to do things like surgery. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: A Social Networks for Lawyers <mail@litigationprofessionals.org>
Date: Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 9:50 PM
Subject: Man vs. Machine: Will E-Technology Render Associates Obsolete?
To: 

A message to all members of A Social Networks for Lawyers

In a highly-anticipated showdown, the IBM-created computer "Watson" prevailed against two human champions on the television game show "Jeopardy!".  In a world where machines have already replaced humans in manufacturing and human labor tasks, this sneak peak into a future where humans might also be replaced by machines in intellectual pursuits, was somewhat daunting.

 

     However, in the world of legal technology, that future might already be here. New technology in searchable electronic formats has already eliminated innumerable hours spent by associates and paralegals pouring over hundreds of thousands of documents.  Is this only the beginning . . . and is it desirable?  In the battle of Man v. Machine, will e-discovery software "free lawyers to be lawyers" or will they simply "reduce the number of jobs for associates"?


In a column by the staff of The Legal Intelligencer published on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.com site, it was reported that "the growing use of software programs that can sift through mountains of electronically stored information turned over as a part of pretrial litigation...could put out of work a veritable army of young associates." The column referred to an article published in the New York Times that said, in part:

 

After all, software doesn't bill at rates in excess of $100 per hour, and, moreover, as one lawyer told the Times, computers don't get bored or get headaches -- two very common occurrences when poring over thousands of e-mails, most of which will prove irrelevant to the crux of the case.

 

The column went on to note that "Paul Krugman, the newspaper's economic columnist, cited the story in arguing that even high-status professions like the law can be vulnerable to redundancy as a result of technology."

 

     The new technology of producing documents in searchable electronic formats has already eliminated innumerable attorney hours.  Where once every document produced had to be read and considered for its possible value to the case, now the use of keyword searches and other new technology allows the machine, not the human, to identify documents that need further review. But currently, every document identified by the program still has to be vetted by a human for its possible relevance to the case. For law firms and their clients, the dollars saved by having software programs review electronic documents can be much better allocated to the actual preparation of the case; or, as the column noted, "If anything, e-discovery software is as likely to free lawyers to be lawyers as it is to reduce the number of jobs for associates. In any event, many of those jobs have already been outsourced or given largely to support staff."

 

    So, for the moment, humans appear to still have functional value over their machine counterparts. And don't forget, Watson may have won the Man vs. Machine tournament, but he incorrectly answered Final Jeopardy while both the humans got it right, proving we're not obsolete...quite yet.

Visit A Social Networks for Lawyers at: http://litigationprofessionals.org/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

 

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krishen kak: the company that hazare keeps; hazar(e)d warning?

apr 10th, 2011

in dubious company indeed. 

anything agnivesh the charlatan touches is mud (btw, what happened to his pal valson thampu, he of the 'miraculous' phd from allahabad agri univ, which arrived just in time for him to keep his principalship at st stephen's and his reservation of most of the seats for xtists?)

agnive-sharlatan i used to think was a useful idiot. not really, he is a jaichand/mir jafar.

excerpt:

“India Against Corruption” (IAC) is Anna Hazare’s address for his letter dt. 6/4/11 to the Prime Minister, and is therefore presumably the prime mover of this fast-unto-death. IAC describes itself as “an expression of collective anger of people of India against corruption”.  Those who started it include, besides Hazare himself, spiritual leaders Swami Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravishankar, religious leader Archbishop Vincent Concessao, a politician in the guise of a religious leader Swami Agnivesh, and three notables usually described as civil society activists: Kiran Bedi, Mallika Sarabhai, Arvind Kejriwal. In addition, “notable participants” include another now-notorious civil society activist, Medha Patkar.

 

Agnivesh has his own websites, his own political party, and is a “self-titled Arya Samaj scholar”. He has under his saffron robe the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award, the Right Livelihood Award, and the Rev. M.A. Thomas National Rights Award. He describes himself as “the most distinguished leader of the Arya Samaj” though this has been questioned, as has his fascination for Mother Teresa, his infatuation for Mother Sonia (“only light of hope of spirituality at end of dark tunnel”), and his unabashed admiration for Islam and Pakistan. 

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radha rajan: Anna Hazare’s Campaign: truly Gandhian, truly evil – I

apr 10th, 2011 CE

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: HARAN BR


http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=1722

 

Anna Hazare's Campaign: truly Gandhian, truly evil – I


Radha Rajan

11 Apr 2011

 

The End Result


The truth is simple and direct. Anna Hazare has replaced Baba Ramdev as the central figure in the nation's war against corruption in exactly the same way that Gandhi replaced Tilak and Aurobindo within the Indian National Congress; and for the exact same reasons: no people's movement in Hindu bhumi will be allowed to be led by a conscious Hindu, no campaign in this country will be allowed to wear a Hindu face; the critical difference being, as events proved, Ramdev is no Aurobindo.

 

Aurobindo, having studied and judged Gandhi for what he was, was not impressed by Gandhi's premature, motivated and imposed mahatma-hood, was not intimidated by his undeserved stature and refused to meet Gandhi anytime in both their lifetimes. Not so Baba Ramdev, and as we read from newspaper reports, not the RSS either. Living up to the writer's firm and disheartening belief that Hindu organizations and Hindu religious and political leaders doing politics, armed with nothing more than their colossal egos, 


-        have no political sense

-        can be intimidated into compliance

-        can be coerced into proving their imposed inclusive credentials by being seen in the company of non-Hindus and anti-Hindus in their work

-        can be pressured into sailing with the wind even if the wind is leading them astray 

 

Baba Ramdev belittled his saffron robes and the RSS demonstrated appalling poor judgment by visiting the hero of the Cheltenham tragedy at Jantar Mantar to extend their support – support which he did not need, did not acknowledge, did not respect.

 

Baba Ramdev and the RSS, who stood in Hazare's shadow and sang the chorus to his NGO-authored song, urgently need lessons in political history – the Hindu view of the freedom struggle and its end result to be exact. 

 

Sonia Gandhi and her minions in English television news channels were taken aback when Baba Ramdev galvanized the nation against endemic corruption afflicting every arm of the state and every aspect of public life. Reeling under the still unfolding saga of meta-corruption, the Congress party denounced Baba Ramdev's foray into politics and advised him to confine himself to giving tummy-tucking lessons in Yoga.

 

Baba Ramdev's campaign against corruption, which was seen as attacking the Congress and its imported President, had an explosive beginning on February 27 at Ramlila grounds in Delhi with a blood-curdling mammoth gathering of around two lakh people; but all major English newspapers and English TV news channels, in stark contrast to their contrived hysteria over Anna Hazare's campaign, either blacked out entirely or made only passing reference to the start of what would soon become Baba Ramdev's cataclysmic campaign against corruption in public life. 

 

Baba Ramdev followed Delhi with Goa, Chennai, and Bangalore, and at every stop the movement against corruption gathered unstoppable momentum. Sonia Gandhi and her handlers in the Generic Church had to move fast to stop the Ramdev juggernaut and contain the damage. 

 

The writer had observed on an earlier occasion that the Church has the unmatched capacity to turn all events, including adversities, adroitly in its favour. In less than two months the Church changed the face of the people's movement against corruption. The saffron-clad Hindu religious face of the movement was replaced by the Gandhi cap; and Baba Ramdev's movement, which was aimed directly at Sonia Gandhi, was now turned into a movement directed by Sonia's minions in the NGO industry!

 

The Church and the world feel safe again as idiot Hindus – film stars, students, upwardly mobile professionals, lawyers, judges and politicians – indulged their craving for catharsis to cleanse their corrupt, guilt-ridden souls and gathered penitently around Anna Hazare's toothless belligerence under the Gandhi cap.

 

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