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.

Little Maestro

Hand of God

5 years to the day...57 today

Wondering how it would have been to have you with us
Wondering how you would have grown older
Wondering how our lives would have changed if you were there
Wondering how happy we would have all been together

Thinking of you

Obama - The Confused Schoolboy

Obama looks like a badly distracted schoolboy. There are so many things on his "To Do" list and he increasingly looks lost all the time like a school kid who has taken on one too many classes.From healthcare to the public option, from unemployment to the economy, from immigration to the twin wars, from Iran to North Korea, from education to regulatory reforms, from domestic security to global warming and the list goes on and on. One would think that Obama has no time to even sleep tackling all these issues, but you guessed wrong. He even took a day off to go and campaign for Chicago for the Olympics (well, we know how it went by now).

Frankly, Obama is starting to bring back memories of Bush for me. The former president was so distracted that he took off on vacation whenever he had to deal with something (Bush spent 1020 days - 35% of his presidency on vacation). With Obama it’s starting to look the same now. We don’t see him in public often anymore and no one knows what he is up to. It’s going to be a year and the president has literally done nothing except talk or he really has to rethink his communication strategy to the American people.

As a presidential candidate, Obama spoke a good game on resolving the war situation and often referred to Afghanistan as “the forgotten war.” He wasn’t just talking about strategy, though he made it clear in no uncertain terms that he believed the Bush administration had badly mishandled both Iraq and Afghanistan. But now, almost after a year and the war situation is just getting worse. Public anxiety over the war is increasing by the day as the casualty count rises. And what is more dangerous is that the White House’s deliberation in not knowing what to do is playing out against a backdrop of scary pictures of life on the ground there. Looks like things have gotten worse. Where is the change?

Iran and North Korea are freely testing missiles and showcasing their nuclear technology. Heck, Iran even has a second secret nuclear facility and is dangerously coming close to declaring itself as a nuclear power. While Obama has been saying he is open to talking to Iran, they are busy testing missiles and upgrading their military. Looks like things have gotten worse. Where is the change?

Healthcare is becoming another disaster. People are confused, Lobbyists are winning and the democrats seem to be a losing the battle against republicans. Even with a democratic supermajority, it looks doubtful if any meangful and real healthcare "reform" will be passed at all....umm..Where is the change?

Immigration Reform - president said that he expects that after completing work on health care, energy and financial regulation, to draft immigration bills this year. He said plans to get the the measures passed in 2010. While nothing is being done, illegal immigration is on the rise and as strange as it may sound, it is getting more difficult to come here legally.

Educational Reform - A new education reform was announced about 6 months back. Now with all the stimulus money being spent, here we are with nothing to show. He has taken a politically promising stance, by promising to work with teachers, promoting pre-kindergarten education, grants etc.. he has spoken a great game and has clearly avoided any concrete proposals – not exactly a promising sign that real change is coming anywhere soon.

Climate change - during his UN speech Obama said his administration is "determined" to do more to address the nation's climate change obligations. But left out of the speech was the political reality the president faces in trying to keep that promise. While the House passed a sweeping climate change bill this year, it has stalled in the Senate as health care reform dominates the domestic agenda. Powerless to do anything right now, rest assured, no change is coming on this front

I am not even going to mention the ACORN mess and bad publicity Obama has been linked to. The recent videos showing some of ACORNS's workers advising people how to set up a prostitution business is def beating up his image. One up...the voter registration fraud they were accused of last year. Though Obama has no direct involvement, the fact that they are one of his biggest supporters certainly won’t go down well with the people.

What is surprising me is he is putting off making real decisions that may actually have positive impacts. There are so many czars in his administration that no one knows what the other is doing and the public is frankly clueless. He may have a talent for giving soul stirring speeches whenever his ratings fall, but he seems to be all over the place from government meddling in the housing market to the auto industry to the financial markets to the banks to the never ending Fed printing presses, to the educational reform attempts to the bailouts.

Obama needs to GET OUT of the business of business. The government needs to be the referee, not another player... and its time to actually make some changes, especially with the elections coming around next year. If Democrats lose control, forget it, the only change that is going to happen in Washington is Obama going from a president to a lame duck president.

Yoga, Indian v/s Irish Style

and here is the Irish style........... with no props!!!

Election Time…oops, Its Entertainment Time

I confess. The more I have been reading about the elections and the news, the more entertained I am. The media is equally to blame too I guess as they have been really sensationalizing the non-stop political drama like crazy. I am actually amazed to see how low Indian politics can actually go.

India is probably at the most crucial juncture with so much uncertainty all over the country which is in the midst of a recessionary cycle affecting the jobs and lives of millions. Just at a time when we really need a strong and honest government, it looks like we are getting ready to vote in the weakest leaders who will provide the worst governance ever after Independence.

Some of the more amusing things that have happened:

• Shoe throwing has suddenly become a sport (ask P.Chidamabaram, Jindal and Advani) - India's politicians are now so fearful of shoes being hurled at them that they have asked for more security and are erecting metal nets at rallies.
• Candidates declaring their wealth. Some of the candidates has really flabbergasted me (BSP candidate has just declared assets of 600 crores)
• Every party leader has to say something on the national news everyday
• Varun Gandhi saga – where do I even begin
• SP wanting to ban English and computers
• Karat who talks against corruption is joining hands with Mayawati and Jayalalitha who are the epitome of corruption in this country
• Budiya-Gudiya exchange between Modi and Priyanka
• Barrage of filmstars suddenly standing for elections – Does anyone really want Sanjay Dutt or Govinda to be a leader of the country?
• PM –Advani exchange – will you guys stop it already
• TDP’s free cash and TV schemes

We have only two parties at present in India with an all-India presence - the BJP and the Congress. Suddenly it looks like a 3-way race with a third front emerging. But we already know that the third front has no policy, except to oppose the Congress, BJP and America. History has already taught us a disastrous lesson when he third front came to power at the center the last time. Remember that It was during the third front experiment that we had 4 PMs in 4 years!! To make matters worse (or entertaining.. I don’t know the difference anymore), all of a sudden, there is talk of a fourth front comprising SP, LJP and RJD.
I am not against regional parties. I feel they have a role in our democracy - a regional role. At present, it looks like every regional party wants to be a national party and every regional leader suddenly has become a horse trader. Armed with just 5-6 seats, they are becoming or trying to be the king-makers. Even for getting admission into an ordinary MBA institute, we have debates and group discussions, but sadly when it comes to our leaders, there seems to be absolutely no criteria at all. Anyone and everyone can be a leader in India (criminals are welcome as well)
The only way Indian can build on the momentum it has seen in the last 4-5 years is if and only if a single party is elected with majority at the center. Exactly what will happen when India’s 714 million eligible voters head to the polls in the world’s biggest exercise in democracy is difficult to forecast, this year even more than in the past as it looks like the next government will pretty much be stitched together only after the results are announced. But it is sadder to see every other self proclaimed leader making a mockery of the entire country.

Only in India…Democrazy is FAR the people (before polls), BUY the people (during polls) and OFF the people (after polls).