Quite obviously, I've been mulling over topics that most people have been mulling over the last few days - under water basket weaving. 

The phrase, my post-election recapitulation of the Guy Fawkesian ballad, is rich with irony.

Most associate Guy Fawkes with the Vaudevillian "V" from the graphic-novel-turned-major-motion-picture V for Vendetta, the character who sought to end a British autocracy by symbolically blowing up Parliament as in inspiration for a national rebellion. And yet the original Fawkes was a pro-Catholic anti-Protestant Theocrat, who sought to blow up the aristocratic British parliament and return England to religiously-upheld rule. The stark contrast with a pop culture character has a stunning resemblance to the anachronistic Conservative movement that sought to set back 21st century America into Guy Fawkes' 16th century.

I had always associated America with not just religious tolerance, but as a secular state that embraced all religions (and yes, there is a difference between the two). And yet, the Bush administration, wearing its faith on its sleeve, has largely sought to annihilate this notion, and has given credibility to the Pat Robertsons of the world, folks who feel the United States is a Christian nation, and to be anything else is anti-American. This doesn't do justice to the diversity in the United States, but I'm not sure anyone took notice until Colin Powell's articulate endorsement of Barack Obama on the Meet the Press a few weeks ago. Worse still had been the divisive politics played by John McCain and Sarah Palin, neither of whom I am sure are racist, but who incited and nurtured those feelings in the basest of their base.

Fast forward a few weeks, and you have the stunningly cathartic moment that brought you last night's election result. That America, after eight years of fear-mongering and divisive politics, could embrace a mixed race candidate with little legislative experience but a thoughtful and well-articulated plan will go a long way to slamming the door on the racial and religious fracturing that had become the standard Republican playbook in recent elections.

This election not only represents a new sense of inclusion for all, but my sincerest hope is it will return the celebration of intellectualism, of ideas, and of a meritocracy that had once been the hallmark of the American state.

Ultimately, one hopes it will bring a return of power and stability to the middle-class. It is useful to note the middle-class is a singularity in the history of our species. For much of human history, there has been a ruling class, and a working class. In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt put forth the policy changes that resulted in the middle class, a notion that has been embraced around the world. These policies have been under attack that past 25-30 years with the advent of trickle-down economics. Yesterday's election was a referendum on the failure of those policies. Ironically, the largely middle- and working-class attendees booing at McCain and Palin rallies, when the two mentioned "redistribution of the wealth", are the people who stand to benefit the most from that redistribution (which is the essential concept of taxation).

The task before Obama, and really all of us, remains large and imposing, but we took the first step last night, and for that reason, let us always remember this 4th of November.

While my views on the nuke deal have been voiced before, this piece of excrement
just bolsters my already dim view of the Left in India. Now they are ready to side with the fascist right wingers. Wonders never cease!

What's next?
The Left officially recognizing religion? I wouldn't be surprised if they did that.

...and raise you Hanuman?

OK, it didn't go down in exactly that fashion, but Obama carrying around a small good luck charm in Hanuman's image has India going ga-ga. I'm sure he didn't realize the significance of it, and of course at some point someone in McCain's camp will try to label him as a pagan idol-worshiper. And then will that insult result in Indian-Americans fleeing to the Democrats in droves? What's that? Their only religion is money? Oh...

So what does this mean for Obama? Is he steadily taking up his position as the anti-Bush? Clearly, he is becoming increasingly popular around the world, and this can only mean an improvement of America's international image down the road.

By the way, for all that Bush-McCain talk about not negotiating with your enemies, in the end they found diplomacy an apt solution to at least one of their problems.

So the primary season is finally over, with Senator Clinton having conceded in impressive fashion yesterday afternoon. In the wake of her concession, I find one item noteworthy, one that will certainly continue to be a thorn in Senator Obama's side as the build up to the general election proceeds. Senator Clinton implied, and her supporters will continue to maintain, that she lost in part because of sexism. There is probably a measure of truth to this among some of the electorate; however, I don't believe it is significant enough to have cost her the nomination. Let's go through a couple of points.

1) Sexism and bias toward Obama in the media - I don't think the media bias had anything to do with sexism. First of all, at the beginning of the primary campaigns, every single media member was ready to hand Clinton the nomination. Google it, YouTube it, whatever you like - MSNBC's Joe Scarborough even suggested Obama should throw in the towel before the campaigns started. If the subsequent coverage started favoring Obama, I think this is mainly due to the fact that media folks don't like the Clintons - the lies, the cloak and dagger secrecy, and the shady dealings of both President and Senator Clinton turned the media away from them years ago, and has little to do with sexism.

2) OK, so what about the electorate? - Here, I'm sure some sexism played a part, but I don't think it was enough to cost her the election. She was the front-runner, and by all accounts won the majority of votes in states where Obama had little recognition among a less-educated electorate. She lost because she ran a poor campaign, plain and simple, and did not anticipate that a candidate with a clear and concise message and a positive, powerful tone would capture the attention of a Bush-fatigued electorate. She acted like a front runner who expected to win just by showing up. In sports terms, she was the Patriots, showing up at the Super Bowl and expecting to win; Obama was the Giants, well-coached and well-prepared to stand up to the huge favorite. If she had been as magnanimous, as powerful, and as positive throughout the campaign as she was during her exit speech on Saturday, the results may have been different.

However, I'm sure her supporters will continue to play the sexism card. I'd love to hear all of your comments with regards to this.

As an addendum, here's a link to Maureen Dowd's June 8th column.

...But McCain wins the election?

Last night, the Democratic nomination race held pretty much to serve, with Clinton cleaning up in Kentucky and Obama completing his Pacific Northwest sweep. Obama has also won the majority of votes, meaning he could potentially hit the magic number of pledged delegates in the next few weeks (particularly after May 31, when Michigan and Florida are decided). However, the only candidate who can be thrilled with this outcome is John McCain.

To whit: It's clear both Democratic candidates have well-established support bases. The problem? Over the past few weeks, Obama has essentially conceded the "working-class" white voter bloc, particularly in West Virginia and Kentucky, and Clinton has basically locked up the mid-Atlantic white vote. The risk? If and when Obama locks up the nomination, he has no readily apparent strategy, other than the full-fledged support of Senator Clinton, to lock up these votes.

The latter part is no lock, either. Whatever the final decision regarding Michigan and Florida, Senator Clinton (or, more likely, folks from her camp) will contend that she won the popular vote (as it stands currently in those two states, she would), and her nomination was stolen from her by the pledged delegate system, in the same way Al Gore was cost the presidency in 2000. If her key support demographic feels their nominee was somehow gypped by the system, they could decide to stay home in November and not vote at all, or worse, throw their support behind McCain, whose party suddenly looks well-run in light of the fiasco that has become the Democratic nomination. Only the Dems could screw up an election in which they had the two most popular candidates with record-setting turn-outs and the other party had the ancient, once-unpopular guy and was responsible for a recession, a well-bungled war, and a disgruntled electorate fighting off Bush-fatigue.

So I love making sports analogies. To me, the '08 Dems are like the '03-'04 Los Angeles Lakers. Remember them? That Lakers team had arguably the two best players in the NBA (Shaq, Kobe), where the Dems have perhaps the two best candidates (Clinton, Obama). The Lakers also had two past-their-prime stars (Gary Payton, Karl Malone) looking to hitch their wagon to Shaq and Kobe for one last shot at glory, much like the Dems (John Edwards, Bill Clinton). Both had two wise elderly statesman-like leaders staunchly refusing to support either star (Phil Jackson, Al Gore).

So where am I going with this? The '04 Lakers greatly underachieved: their in-house squabbles cost them the chemistry needed to win the NBA championship, allowing a less-talented but more unified Detroit team to capture the glory. After the season, the team was broken up, with the aged, established star jettisoned in favor of the young, rising star. While the decision was the correct one, the team slipped into mediocrity and malaise and, though they eventually rebuilt around the young star and paired him with the right supporting cast, they did not rise again for another four years.

And will that scary parallel come to fruition this November?

Many political pundits, as well as folks such as myself, are ready to hand this Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. Clearly in the last week he has weathered Hillary Clinton's latest storm and has built momentum for himself in spite of losing West Virginia by a substantial margin. And yet, in spite of steadily increasing pressure to drop out, Senator Clinton will remain in the race, where she seemingly has two horses remaining. She will win Kentucky substantially, and much is being made of Puerto Rico, which is a "winner-take-all" state where she has a clear advantage, not to mention 60+ delegates up for the taking. Netting a 30% victory in Kentucky and 61 Puerto Rican delegates would no doubt add substantial momentum to her campaign.

However, it appears this is not in fact true. According to this Washington Post article, Puerto Rico is not only not winner-take-all, it is in fact a caucus state, which has been favorable to Obama this election season. It appears Puerto Rico has only appeared to be "winner-take-all" in the past two seasons when no other viable candidate was listed on the ballot. Its doubtful much of an issue will be made of this, anyway, mainly because the media has decided that Obama has won, at least for now.

oh boy

Absolutely.

We ought to be proud that we voted in a woman, a foreign woman , one belonging to a minority
religion all the while displacing a right-wing govt.

While I hate political dynasties as much as anyone else, I would have voted for Sonia.
OK so she was involved in Bofors with her buddy Ottavio .
So what? Which politician aint corrupt? Atleast she is consistent and doesn't flip-flop.
And she is a liberal.

To give up the chance to get into the history books for ruling over a billion people - I can't think of many people who will do that.

A good friend suggested that instead of sending emails with links and commenting on them, I should instead start blogging for the benefit of mankind and all.

If nothing else, this would presumably save the otherwise innocent bandwidth.

Anyway as a first topic, I decided to take up something slightly controversial - India, with its nukes and the precarious situation it is in with its neighbors. As a catalyst, here is a recent editorial in IHT which largely echoes my thoughts.

The basic problem is India has China on one side, Pakistan on the other. Both have nukes.
The question is - should India have gone nuke in the first place knowing that someday it'll be surrounded by nuke-toting countries?

While the pseudo-official line is that India went nuke because of China, surely someone should have thought of the ramifications - it ain't pretty surrounded by nucular countries.

Is this a case of a country applying a greedy heuristic at the given time (going nuclear in the 70s), only to be left in a local minima decades later (now).

Perhaps a dynamic programming approach might have been more fruitful..