yazadjal.com

The Socialist-Mercantilist myopia that seems to drip from almost every sentence of Mr. Bidwai’s piece Don’t Privatise Oil Companies at Rediff.com needs to be addressed not only because of the ill conceived reasoning but also because it perpetuates the very myths which got us into the Public Sector mess in the first place. This being […]

Is there a contradiction between the right to life and the death penalty? Can a society have both?
I think the two are not incompatible. There are certain criminal acts whose punishment should be a revokation of the rights of the criminal. That’s the reason why we jail thieves and kidnappers. If you violate someone else’s […]

I see Profool Bidwai’s latest column is up at Rediff. He tossing pot-shots at the oil disinvestment program. There’s lots to fisk. And I’m waiting for the evening to do so. One line is iresistable:
it’s time to jettison dogma-as-policy

Well Mr. Bidwai, “dogma-as-policy” is what your dear communist friends are known for. Collective farming […]

An interesting idea proposed by François Gautier. Despite Gautier’s obvious biases, a museum to depict the horrors of genocide will be a great help, in making history more “real” and perhaps also in a healing process.
I would like to add many holocaust-like events to the museum’s display–cases that Gautier conviniently ignores. The Gujarat riots, Bombay […]

Arnold Kling’s excellent Open Letter to Paul Krugman brings out the use of ad hominem instead of analysis in debates. He calls ad hominem Type M, and analysis Type C.
Type C arguments are about the consequences of policies. Type M arguments are about the alleged motives of individuals who advocate policies.
Kling points out […]

The TOI’s lead edit today has an interesting take on Indianness. While critiquing the hype over Bobby Jindal, it makes the point that foreigners who made India their home are somehow considered less Indian than those who were born here, but now live / work / stand for elections abroad.
This fascination with a drama unfolding […]

Jeffrey C. Cleveland at the Mises blog questions the concept of a Nobel prize in Economics. (For the nitpickers, it’s the “The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”)
When this year’s physics winners are recognized for studying the strange behaviour of really cold particles, people may question whether superconductivity is […]

Mid-day has an interesting section called Mumbai Dope with trivia about the city.

Mumbai’s suburban rail systems carry a total of 2.2 billion passengers every year. Incidentally, the world’s population is 6 billion. [Yazad: 2.2 billion passenger-journeys is what they mean]
As of June 2003, there are an incredible 982 villages in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
The name […]

Decided to take one more step into tech savvydom. I know it’s rather banal, but I got myself onto the RSS feed bandwagon right now via a utility called AmphetaDesk. I’ve been looking, but can’t seem to find the links for feeds from mainstream media — TOI / BBC / CNN / Economist. Maybe I’m […]

When you mingle in a community which comprises largely (>80%) of IT professionals, Microsoft is going to feature in some conversation, somewhere. And generally the commentators are on a crusade against poor Bill Gates. Whilst I don’t hold a candle for him, I do think people go overboard. Last Saturday at dinner after a game […]

Work and life have conspired to keep me from the blog. The mind is fertile with ideas but the connection is out of reach. Should make contact soon. Till then . . .