Blagojevich - Governor Goofball

Okay, here's what caught my eye during season 3 of Celebrity Apprentice - Guv Blago. He just completely cracked me up! If Blago hoped to reform his criminal image by appearing on Celebrity Apprentice, it did not exactly work out that way. Reality TV is all about entertainment and Rod Blagojevich may just be the biggest buffoon in reality TV history. He just walked around as clueless as clueless can be with his goofy grin on. Ignorance must truly be bliss because this guy seemingly has no skills whatsoever and is caught up in a huge political scandal, yet walks around like he just ate up a huge bowl of sunshine. What surprised me is how Trump constantly promoted him and kept complementing him at every opportunity he got about how tough the Gov is. I wonder what the voters of Illinois — especially the ones that voted for him — think when they see how incompetent he is.

But I absolutely do not hate on Blago. Because all I want on a Sunday night from TV is to be entertained and as far as that goes, oh boy, he was the most entertaining person I have seen in years. And after watching the last few episodes without Blago, I am definitely not getting much laughs anymore on Sunday night. And in the defense of Blago as a goofball and reality TV superstar, I would like to present the following exhibits into evidence:

Exhibit A: I was honestly shocked at his Computer Skills. I don't know what was more awesome, the fact that he did not know how to turn on a computer, did not know how to put a DVD into a computer, knew nothing about email or the fact that it took him 30 minutes to type a few lines in word.

Exhibit B: What stunned me even more was he did not even know how to use a cell phone with speaker turned on. I almost fell off my chair laughing when his team mates were speaking on one end and the Guv was staring at the phone like it was a brick. I mean is he for real? To top it all, he openly asked what is a text message and admitted he did not know how to text and then fell asleep. Certainly a golden moment in reality TV history.

Exhibit C: The ability to turn any conversation into how he Was a fantastic governor. This guy never lets up! And why should he when he yields such unintentionally humorous results? In a matter of seconds — seconds! — He always goes from discussing the task to a list of all his amazing accomplishments as the Gov: Healthcare for children! Preschool for all! No raising taxes! Health care for seniors! The guy is a walking campaign ad. And yet I simply cannot get enough of him.

Exhibit D: My favorite quote "We're prematurely ejaculating. We need more foreplay". My second favorite quote was when it was revealed he would be getting on a plane “I don’t need a passport do I.” (Did he think he was getting a vacation in the Maldives? and then he got on the plane and went to sleep :) and finally on cooking for the celebrity-run diner challenge: "I didn't cook at all when I was governor. I was cooking up results for people."

Exhibit E: Every time Trump asks him who should be fired in his opinion, I am constantly amazed at how he keeps talking for 10 minutes and keeps beating around the bush and never actually answered the question. Guess this is the number one pre-requisite for politicians and he just proved it over and over again.

Exhibit F: The constant hand shaking. Looks like life for him is clearly one long campaign trail. Doesn’t matter if people recoil in horror or start yelling at him about how he should go to prison — he still wants to work the crowd. And I loved the way he viewed New York as one big vote base. It takes him approximately three hours to walk a single block as he goes and aggressively searches out everyone to say hi and kept swearing at his innocence. In television history, I have never seen anyone work a room, street, alley, elevator or storefront like our Blago did.

What else can I say.. When he was on the show, the celebrity apprentice was certainly entertainment at its best. I cannot get over the moments when he just walked around the street of New York and chatted up random people saying "Thank you, I appreciate it. I did nothing wrong" !!!!

Maoism to Terrorism

Who is a bigger threat to India, the homegrown Maoists or terrorist groups across the border that want to destroy India?? What’s the difference really. It looks like both have the same goal - To destroy peace and create terror within India.

India’s Maoist insurgency has taken on a new face altogether and the evidence is mounting. In one of their boldest attacks yet, at least 350 Maoist guerrillas attacked a convoy and killed 76 armed policemen. This is clearly the worst loss in the four-decade-long conflict. After some digging I found that their roots go back to a 1967 peasant uprising in the West Bengali village of Naxalbari—hence their name, Naxalites—the Maoists have pretty much become a full fledged terrorist organization posing a bigger threat than any other Pak based terror group. They have an estimated 14,000 full-time fighters more than any other terrorist outfit and loosely control pretty much the entire jungle areas of central and eastern India where the state is hardly present. Last year 998 people were killed in Maoist-related conflict. This year could be even bloodier and is sure to surpass that number easily.

India's Maoist rebels also easily top the list of the worst human rights offenders among the myriad of insurgent groups in the country and the Asian Centre for Human Rights, which brought out the report "Torture in India, 2010", also noted the total number of reported torture cases had risen between the years 2000 and 2008 in the country where Maoists torture and kill anyone and everyone they even remotely suspect of providing information on them to the authorities. The govt deployment of an additional 15,000 centrally trained troops to the worst-affected states, taking the total to around 75,000 still seems too late for a vast area home to 450m people, this is still a tiny force. Moreover, properly trained state-level officers, who know the local language and conditions, have a much better counterinsurgency record. The clearest example is in Andhra Pradesh where, through better policing and generous development schemes, the insurgency has recently been greatly weakened.

What is more insulting is that the attack on the police personnel was an emphatic response from the rebels to the central government’s latest offer of peace talks. The Home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, nowadays seems to be relaxing at home, while the Maoists loot and extort freely, seems to be in denial (or just weak) in his response and is giving speeches that they are all Indian citizens and force wont be used against them. Well, Mr. Home Minister and the entire Congress govt, while you say all Naxals are Indian Citizens and no army action will be taken to shut them down, with what face is the Indian government talking to Pakistan and asking them to take action against terror groups within POK. Are they are not Pakistani citizens by the same line of reasoning? The whole world is watching and the best India can do is adopt a double standard. How can we expect Pak to take us seriously when our home minister and Air Force chief give public statements that Army won’t use force or undertake Ariel attacks because these terrorists are Indian citizens.

Complacency is partly to blame as until recently few state-level politicians seemed to take the groups threat seriously. Politically, it is a chaos as well. Maoists have their own party (since merging their two main factions in 2004—to form the Communist Party of India -Maoist, under Ganapathi and alarmingly are seen as a party at a national level and they even back many politicians. Even Shibu Soren, chief minister of Maoist-racked Jharkhand, won an election last year with the guerrillas’ support and is predictably reluctant to fight them. This needs to stop and they need to be recognized as a terrorist outfit and any politicians in cahoots with them should be made an example of nationally. It is a shame that we always react to such groups only in the face of some disaster like when LTTE took out our PM or when IA plans was hijacked by LeT Terrorists.

A lot of national tragedies linked to terrorism have hit India in the recent years and the Govt is starting to look very weak when it comes to National security. Wake up Congress and bring out the guns, no need to negotiate with these terrorists and stop pleading with them to put down their arms. Maoist violence and jihadi terrorism are two sides of the same coin and Nationalities should never matter when it comes to dealing with them. If we don’t defend our own country, how can we expect other nations to help us defend ourselves.