Sure, I am worried she and her mad husband are corrupt and in the pockets of big bidness, I am even more convinced Barack will be smacked around and stomped on by big bidness, McCain is deeply burrowed in the groin pocket of big bidness and McCain wants a one trillion tax cut which is coming from heaven knows where.
Plus Obama still hasnt told us what his defense strategy is, apart from supposedly taking care of Afghanistan.
what does it mean exactly.
BTW, I see several Euro navies are all involved in keeping their people rescued out of Somali waters, so one way or another, America is not doing it, other people are also developing their skills.
So much, so much.
I just dont see how shredding the safety net and widening the gap between rich and poor is helping the country.
I am still seeing the stirring of ugly talk on entitlement culture and Arnie Schwarznegger is still craftily planning to get people to fall off the Medi Cal rolls.
It looks like a tough decade people
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
thrilled about nuptials of john king and dana bash
congratulations and all good wishes
2 very delightful people.
God bless
2 very delightful people.
God bless
Sunday, April 20, 2008
and BTW, not that I am big fan of Big Press or butt kisser Press, and there are a lot of them
but the Indian Premier League for cricket got on such an adversarial and combative posture with the press, the press revolted.
They did not like being pushed around or ordered around one bit.
The league was dreaming sugar plum dreams of raking in billions and tried to nudge out other coverage and too late they realized if they have a black out on coverage, nobody will watch or take interest in their silly matches.
We still dont know if they will be popular or a flop.
I just think they would be a lot more popular if they coupled their billionaire force and filmy antics with public interest projects. People might care.
We'll see.
I hope the press smacks them around instead of being adulative, you should have seen the breathless Times of India and Mumbai Mirror coverage. It was hilarious.
Can you say enabler in Hindi, I think chamcha covers it. But I would like to think of a more apropos word.
Bye bye
They did not like being pushed around or ordered around one bit.
The league was dreaming sugar plum dreams of raking in billions and tried to nudge out other coverage and too late they realized if they have a black out on coverage, nobody will watch or take interest in their silly matches.
We still dont know if they will be popular or a flop.
I just think they would be a lot more popular if they coupled their billionaire force and filmy antics with public interest projects. People might care.
We'll see.
I hope the press smacks them around instead of being adulative, you should have seen the breathless Times of India and Mumbai Mirror coverage. It was hilarious.
Can you say enabler in Hindi, I think chamcha covers it. But I would like to think of a more apropos word.
Bye bye
And more on inequities, you should see the excess of the IPL, the new face of Indian Cricket
there is all these millionaires, who BTW, I do not begrudge.
The point is they have most of them shown energy, enterprise, some of them have risen from humble beginnings, others built upon what they got. Very few of them, that I can think of, almost none, are robber barons like the Russian billionaires who looted and bilked their country.
And they have now made a grand new plan for making cricket a billionaire league, which is all good. They have international players and many regional teams sponsored by millionaires.
Which is all great.
But where is the understanding that they still have to raise all boats.
do you know what the latest excess was, apparently at the recent match, which may have been their first, they had a gold and diamond helmet as trophy for man of the match.
That is simply horrendous and out there.
No schools or scholarships for deserving or even un deserving children, no roads, no wells for needy villages, no damn thing of that sort.
Like we are gonna be impressed with this gold helmet crap, it just looks silly and excessive.
BTW, Shahrukh Khan's antics are so cynical, this guy knows a little mugging for the camera brings in the big bucks. Times of India, butt kisser of big bidness loved it, DNA was incoherent but tried to use a little irony and cynicism.
I would really be impressed if every day I picked up the paper and saw which rural villages had their infra structure improved by Vijay Mallya, the Tatas, the Dhoots, the Ambanis et al. And speaking of the Ambanis not by first getting the money from Big India Government.
I dont see how pouring money into Formula One beats elevating villages. If you have the money, please flaunt it, we like flaunt, we just want to see villages and slums thrive.
That will thrill us a lot more than silly gold helmets, which just look like a ludicrous travesty.
Bye bye
The point is they have most of them shown energy, enterprise, some of them have risen from humble beginnings, others built upon what they got. Very few of them, that I can think of, almost none, are robber barons like the Russian billionaires who looted and bilked their country.
And they have now made a grand new plan for making cricket a billionaire league, which is all good. They have international players and many regional teams sponsored by millionaires.
Which is all great.
But where is the understanding that they still have to raise all boats.
do you know what the latest excess was, apparently at the recent match, which may have been their first, they had a gold and diamond helmet as trophy for man of the match.
That is simply horrendous and out there.
No schools or scholarships for deserving or even un deserving children, no roads, no wells for needy villages, no damn thing of that sort.
Like we are gonna be impressed with this gold helmet crap, it just looks silly and excessive.
BTW, Shahrukh Khan's antics are so cynical, this guy knows a little mugging for the camera brings in the big bucks. Times of India, butt kisser of big bidness loved it, DNA was incoherent but tried to use a little irony and cynicism.
I would really be impressed if every day I picked up the paper and saw which rural villages had their infra structure improved by Vijay Mallya, the Tatas, the Dhoots, the Ambanis et al. And speaking of the Ambanis not by first getting the money from Big India Government.
I dont see how pouring money into Formula One beats elevating villages. If you have the money, please flaunt it, we like flaunt, we just want to see villages and slums thrive.
That will thrill us a lot more than silly gold helmets, which just look like a ludicrous travesty.
Bye bye
And speaking of cynical medical ploys, about 6 months ago, the NYT wrote a series or maybe 2 articles on cynical Insurance ploys
where affable and trust worthy looking people call on phone or in person to elderly people, implying or outright pretending they are ***From Medicare*** which is just crap, they are from Insurance companies that the Bush administration has given carte blanche to bilk and loot Medicare.
So they get a payment of upfront several thousand dollars to so called enroll people who are Medicare eligible in their creepy and ugly plans, which require all manner of co pays and horrendous crap.
Then the elderly person who doesnt know all this either signs on, or fails to refuse adamantly enough, and gets signed on in some way, anyway.
Then they know nothing about this horrendous change till they have a medical procedure or actually fall ill, then they find out, either they cant see their regular doctor, or have to travel 10s to 100s of miles to get to a plan doctor, or they have horrendous co pays or they are just plain not covered for the condition.
By the time it is too late and many are too sick to do anything about it and they are not allowed to go back to regular Medicare till the end of one year and by then, the company has bilked the USA by getting its own money upfront, but not paying out for the sick person.
Talk about total bamboozle, this is what they mean by making Medicare more efficient, it is more efficient at transferring wealth from US public to private bamboozlers, whereas the elderly get the short shrift.
That's how it looks.
Again, I feel pretty sure Katie Couric will be giving lap dances and cheek nuzzles to the Bush people and insurers, Gibson will be stuffy but ineffective, and Staphylococcus will be an A Grade suck up and enabler.
That looney comedienne chick Staphylococcus is married to is just as bad BTW and she is totally adulative of him and his upholding of Big Bidness and Republican administrations, no sense that the country is all about keeping people happy, safe and emotionally, financially and physically secure, none at all.
That stupid Alexandria who prolly lost her neurons while turning skinny has no idea that it is media's job to ensure Big Bidness plays by rules and Big Government serves the interests and well being of every person, not just persons like her suck up, enabling ass of a husband.
That's all.
Another damn pity.
So they get a payment of upfront several thousand dollars to so called enroll people who are Medicare eligible in their creepy and ugly plans, which require all manner of co pays and horrendous crap.
Then the elderly person who doesnt know all this either signs on, or fails to refuse adamantly enough, and gets signed on in some way, anyway.
Then they know nothing about this horrendous change till they have a medical procedure or actually fall ill, then they find out, either they cant see their regular doctor, or have to travel 10s to 100s of miles to get to a plan doctor, or they have horrendous co pays or they are just plain not covered for the condition.
By the time it is too late and many are too sick to do anything about it and they are not allowed to go back to regular Medicare till the end of one year and by then, the company has bilked the USA by getting its own money upfront, but not paying out for the sick person.
Talk about total bamboozle, this is what they mean by making Medicare more efficient, it is more efficient at transferring wealth from US public to private bamboozlers, whereas the elderly get the short shrift.
That's how it looks.
Again, I feel pretty sure Katie Couric will be giving lap dances and cheek nuzzles to the Bush people and insurers, Gibson will be stuffy but ineffective, and Staphylococcus will be an A Grade suck up and enabler.
That looney comedienne chick Staphylococcus is married to is just as bad BTW and she is totally adulative of him and his upholding of Big Bidness and Republican administrations, no sense that the country is all about keeping people happy, safe and emotionally, financially and physically secure, none at all.
That stupid Alexandria who prolly lost her neurons while turning skinny has no idea that it is media's job to ensure Big Bidness plays by rules and Big Government serves the interests and well being of every person, not just persons like her suck up, enabling ass of a husband.
That's all.
Another damn pity.
talking about inequities, I see another cutesy guy, the Terminator in California, has terminated Medi cal in a sense
the dingbat now has a requirement that enrollees fill forms 4 times a year.
Everybody knows imposing more paper work and frequent checks is only to encourage more people to fall off and during the time it takes them to re enroll they just sicken and die.
This is a mean and cynical way to cut costs. The Sacramento Bee and whoever do gooder says it will cost the same is wrong, it will save money by kicking off people who are too tired, too poor or too sick to keep re enrolling 4 times a year.
You think about it, even in a good state of health and functionality, if something required 4 times a year re enrollment, chances are you will fall off. If you are sick, poor or exhausted and over worked, you will fall off.
Arnie was a fraud from Day one with his bonhomie and ha, ha, ha, crap. But serves the people of California right, they elected him, which goes for the Unions too. There was very poor support for Bustamente and later for Phil Angelidis, who both had excellent leftie creds.
Except for a small deep blue area of San Francisco and maybe a couple other places, the State went red.
No doubt if people like Couric, or Gibson or Staphylococcus grilled the Terminator, he would find some choice fuzzy phrases to make his policy look good. Surprising we dont hear any bawling from Uncle Ted, Caroline and her skinniness liposuction herself, Maria Shriver.
It is a total travesty.
Meanwhile, I see Florida Senate has unanimously approved their Governor's health care plan which will extend basic coverage for about $2000 a year. It is still too high for the folks who work in school custodian, check out counters, gas stations etc.
But it is a good start. I think and hope. We'll see.
BTW, I am pretty sure if Couric grilled the Terminator the floor crew would have to wrench her from off his lap and keep her from nibbling his ear and licking his cheek. Gibson would try in his stuffy way to keep the conversation on track, where as the Staphylococcus would aid and enable him to phrase it in an All America glorious way as if enrolling 4 times a year was the best thing sinced sliced bread.
Really, the cynicism and uselessness of some people.
BTW, I found both news items on a new site I found for medical news and prolly now I have found them, somebody will get to them and force them to change their lefty ways and we will get All Glorious All American News from Now on.
Medical News today also had a slightly ironic bent until about 6 weeks ago, then suddenly their coverage changed and voila, there is no irony whatsoever, there is less critical evaluation of medical claims and there is more stuffy reporting of various UK county and USA state and federal medical related news.
What a damn pity.
Everybody knows imposing more paper work and frequent checks is only to encourage more people to fall off and during the time it takes them to re enroll they just sicken and die.
This is a mean and cynical way to cut costs. The Sacramento Bee and whoever do gooder says it will cost the same is wrong, it will save money by kicking off people who are too tired, too poor or too sick to keep re enrolling 4 times a year.
You think about it, even in a good state of health and functionality, if something required 4 times a year re enrollment, chances are you will fall off. If you are sick, poor or exhausted and over worked, you will fall off.
Arnie was a fraud from Day one with his bonhomie and ha, ha, ha, crap. But serves the people of California right, they elected him, which goes for the Unions too. There was very poor support for Bustamente and later for Phil Angelidis, who both had excellent leftie creds.
Except for a small deep blue area of San Francisco and maybe a couple other places, the State went red.
No doubt if people like Couric, or Gibson or Staphylococcus grilled the Terminator, he would find some choice fuzzy phrases to make his policy look good. Surprising we dont hear any bawling from Uncle Ted, Caroline and her skinniness liposuction herself, Maria Shriver.
It is a total travesty.
Meanwhile, I see Florida Senate has unanimously approved their Governor's health care plan which will extend basic coverage for about $2000 a year. It is still too high for the folks who work in school custodian, check out counters, gas stations etc.
But it is a good start. I think and hope. We'll see.
BTW, I am pretty sure if Couric grilled the Terminator the floor crew would have to wrench her from off his lap and keep her from nibbling his ear and licking his cheek. Gibson would try in his stuffy way to keep the conversation on track, where as the Staphylococcus would aid and enable him to phrase it in an All America glorious way as if enrolling 4 times a year was the best thing sinced sliced bread.
Really, the cynicism and uselessness of some people.
BTW, I found both news items on a new site I found for medical news and prolly now I have found them, somebody will get to them and force them to change their lefty ways and we will get All Glorious All American News from Now on.
Medical News today also had a slightly ironic bent until about 6 weeks ago, then suddenly their coverage changed and voila, there is no irony whatsoever, there is less critical evaluation of medical claims and there is more stuffy reporting of various UK county and USA state and federal medical related news.
What a damn pity.
So the Bitter controversy continues, with Obama on the backfoot, burbling and carrying on
you should see the apologetics from folks on his side and the earnest fixes they are proposing. The point is that his dismissive characterization has hit a nerve with folks.
Also the furor over the so called ABC debate, with Staphylococcus and Gibson. Staphylococcus is a known trouble monger, but Gibson after a period as an aging whitish majority male, kind of stuck in the mud groove person seems to have found a new persona.
I dont mind the time they spend on finding out whether Barack is dismissive of a major constituency, can you imagine if Gloria Macapagal had said something nasty about her constituents, or Manmohan Singh in India dismissed the concerns of Indian farmers.
In fact, I find Kamal Nath the Indian guy who goes to Davos and bawls against foreign farm subsidies more than a little annoying. Becoz the point is not abolishing farm subsidies, it is making farmers more secure. I have been bawling about this for a decade now, and luckily the American people approve of farm subsidies despite the hysterical media attempts to portray farmers as freeloaders. And now with the global food crisis, the importance of having a farm cader that is secure is more than ever emphasized.
Plus there is the inadequate farm support in the India budget, where loan forgiveness is not enough, even assuming it trickles down to the poor farmers. The one billion dollar subsidy they announced last year barely made an impact, I guess it all disappeared into corrupt official pockets. Plus, where are the subsidies and seed and transportation support, that is the big question. It is a horrible thing that the country of Jai Kisan, Jai Jawan not only ignores its jawans, but then makes a mockery of farmer support and this Kamal Nath dude, who BTW, the young media folks think is a big Hero at Davos, and you never hear of him in the Western Press when Davos is going on, is still bawling about abolishing farm subsidies, as if the problem is over supply of food, rather than under supply.
But the point is can you imagine if Manmohan Singh or somebody else made nasty remarks about how farmers are bitter. By the way, we can say that about Raj Thackeray stirring up bitterness against non Maharashtrians. There is a way to raise all boats, and the way is to work for the protection of migrant workers, once we guarantee their wages, security and health and get them IDs, automatically, there will be less incentive to use them as a source of semi legal or cheap labor and Maharashtrians will get their due share.
Same goes for the hysteria against migrant workers in the USA and elsewhere, the point is not to scare them silly, but for labor unions to insist on protections and minimum standards and that will cause domestic labor to be just as cost effective.
The recent actions of the Southern Poverty Law Center in supporting the Indian workers who were being exploited by the Mississippi boat building yard is a case in point. Instead of vilifying victims, you have to protect them, that will raise all boats.
It's also interesting that the corrupt Buffoon, Bollinger who is a big ship builder in Louisiana and apparently sold the United States a bunch of boats with huge problems was talking some rot to Stephen Sackur of BBC, who sounded duly impressed with him. Bollinger, a big Bush buddy, was bawling how they want workers in New Orleans. Apparently they meant cheap workers who will work in slave like conditions, that's what it looks like.
Yeah, so talking about bitterness is not a good idea, what will Barack do to improve people's lot, we dont know. So far, the answer seems to be trust me, I am cute and charismatic and my Mama took care of poor people with micro finance, so I too will hand out a couple bucks and help people start their own moonshine and meth stills in the backyard.
No hard leftie stuff about tackling the finance industry, oh no, not a word about usurious interest rates and the bilking of Main Street, oh no.
BTW, I am just as disappointed in Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Mary Landrieu, David Vitter and Larry Craig.
And let me say, it was a real pity that the SFgate article by Garofalo or Garofali on the ABC debate for some reason had all 84 of its comments removed.
For heaven's sake why, just a week or so after I commended sfgate for its resilience in keeping comments rather than scrambling to remove them or making stuffy preconditions like the NYT.
These are tough times people, we are not intimidated by a few hysterical or over heated remarks, we are offended by laissez faire and public cowardice and lack of initiative in fixing the major problems that keep people in poverty and even in rich countries like USA and Germany keep people in insecurity and unhappiness, while the few get richer and richer.
Richness is when all the people in the country are doing well.
Bye bye
Also the furor over the so called ABC debate, with Staphylococcus and Gibson. Staphylococcus is a known trouble monger, but Gibson after a period as an aging whitish majority male, kind of stuck in the mud groove person seems to have found a new persona.
I dont mind the time they spend on finding out whether Barack is dismissive of a major constituency, can you imagine if Gloria Macapagal had said something nasty about her constituents, or Manmohan Singh in India dismissed the concerns of Indian farmers.
In fact, I find Kamal Nath the Indian guy who goes to Davos and bawls against foreign farm subsidies more than a little annoying. Becoz the point is not abolishing farm subsidies, it is making farmers more secure. I have been bawling about this for a decade now, and luckily the American people approve of farm subsidies despite the hysterical media attempts to portray farmers as freeloaders. And now with the global food crisis, the importance of having a farm cader that is secure is more than ever emphasized.
Plus there is the inadequate farm support in the India budget, where loan forgiveness is not enough, even assuming it trickles down to the poor farmers. The one billion dollar subsidy they announced last year barely made an impact, I guess it all disappeared into corrupt official pockets. Plus, where are the subsidies and seed and transportation support, that is the big question. It is a horrible thing that the country of Jai Kisan, Jai Jawan not only ignores its jawans, but then makes a mockery of farmer support and this Kamal Nath dude, who BTW, the young media folks think is a big Hero at Davos, and you never hear of him in the Western Press when Davos is going on, is still bawling about abolishing farm subsidies, as if the problem is over supply of food, rather than under supply.
But the point is can you imagine if Manmohan Singh or somebody else made nasty remarks about how farmers are bitter. By the way, we can say that about Raj Thackeray stirring up bitterness against non Maharashtrians. There is a way to raise all boats, and the way is to work for the protection of migrant workers, once we guarantee their wages, security and health and get them IDs, automatically, there will be less incentive to use them as a source of semi legal or cheap labor and Maharashtrians will get their due share.
Same goes for the hysteria against migrant workers in the USA and elsewhere, the point is not to scare them silly, but for labor unions to insist on protections and minimum standards and that will cause domestic labor to be just as cost effective.
The recent actions of the Southern Poverty Law Center in supporting the Indian workers who were being exploited by the Mississippi boat building yard is a case in point. Instead of vilifying victims, you have to protect them, that will raise all boats.
It's also interesting that the corrupt Buffoon, Bollinger who is a big ship builder in Louisiana and apparently sold the United States a bunch of boats with huge problems was talking some rot to Stephen Sackur of BBC, who sounded duly impressed with him. Bollinger, a big Bush buddy, was bawling how they want workers in New Orleans. Apparently they meant cheap workers who will work in slave like conditions, that's what it looks like.
Yeah, so talking about bitterness is not a good idea, what will Barack do to improve people's lot, we dont know. So far, the answer seems to be trust me, I am cute and charismatic and my Mama took care of poor people with micro finance, so I too will hand out a couple bucks and help people start their own moonshine and meth stills in the backyard.
No hard leftie stuff about tackling the finance industry, oh no, not a word about usurious interest rates and the bilking of Main Street, oh no.
BTW, I am just as disappointed in Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Mary Landrieu, David Vitter and Larry Craig.
And let me say, it was a real pity that the SFgate article by Garofalo or Garofali on the ABC debate for some reason had all 84 of its comments removed.
For heaven's sake why, just a week or so after I commended sfgate for its resilience in keeping comments rather than scrambling to remove them or making stuffy preconditions like the NYT.
These are tough times people, we are not intimidated by a few hysterical or over heated remarks, we are offended by laissez faire and public cowardice and lack of initiative in fixing the major problems that keep people in poverty and even in rich countries like USA and Germany keep people in insecurity and unhappiness, while the few get richer and richer.
Richness is when all the people in the country are doing well.
Bye bye
Friday, April 4, 2008
so now I want to talk about a new strategy for America, which is go back to Tourism roots
and the reason I have been thinking about this for the past few days is the sorry state of Tourism in India, where every few days we keep hearing about some woman tourist harassed, this was after the young girl Scarlett Keeting got killed in Goa.
And basically it is tough out there even when you know the city and I just wonder how people even come for work and mainly from America, it is Indian ex pats who can return home and then conduct business between the 2 countries and I would not recommend for either black or white Americans to go out and touch the world, since really a lot of places in the world are a pretty tough gig, even the places you think are OK, like Germany, can be a tough gig, let alone places in Asia and elsewhere.
But then Chidanand Rajghatta in the Times of India, has now changed his tune from being a Bush and Musharraf booster to just being a kinda sorta straight reporter for American news for India and for advice to Indians, gave some stats on India tourism and other countries.
And I think he wrote that our tourism here is about 5 million which is pathetic, compared to 80 million for France and in the 50s for America and China.
So those were quite an eye opener, but then I began to think that certainly India can do a lot better, but so can America.
Becoz the 50s are just small potatoes and people still want to visit, but maybe the tourist traps of New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas etc are all tuckered out.
There are still vast areas especially in the South and Mid west that do not get their share and it is a pity that roads like the 1 -49 north of Shreveport are taking so much time to get built and even down South there is such a complicated road system, except for short stretches.
And it occurred to me that America hasnt realized that a) the energy crises is not going away
b) there is no energy fix and c) other countries including India and China are busy corralling big blocks of energy resources in Africa and Russian Bloc or Central Asian countries.
So America has not made her resources and infrastructure fit the people who dont just wanna get in their car and drive to a vacation spot or take a plane to it, especially since many vacation spots like say the Louisiana plantations or in Georgia or Mississippi or Rio Doso in New Mexico are not exactly plane friendly.
Plus you need a car when you get there and plus even if planes go or to places like Bemidji in Minnesota, you have to wait hours for connections and then ride those dinky planes which scare the heck out of you.
So even for the domestic industry, lack of tour buses, trains and good main artery roads deter good tourist traffic to a lot of places which could use the industry.
With the sad fall of New Orleans, Louisiana is really feeling the pinch, but a lot of other places which are still functional just wont get the business, becoz first of all nobody even knows they are there and if they did, nobody for instance in New York wanna go down there to drive.
On top of which, the slightly paranoid culture is another deterrent, like in the 80s classic movie about a couple of New Jersey boys and the New Jersey lawyer who set them free and his sexy Brooklyn talking girlfriend. I know the movie, but right now all the names escape me. The weirdness of many places in the South and Mid west and especially the fear of weirdo law enforcement can be a real deterrent to tourist dollars getting there.
And America's economic crisis like its energy crunch is not gonna go away with a bunch of wishes.
And domestic tourism is just a little bit, but mainly it is re allocating money that is already in the country.
In the end, what they have to do is attract a lot more money and it has to be from Overseas and for that they have to stop thinking about Foreign people as potential immigrants and start thinking of Foreign people as customers.
Universities have already made the switch, but tourist destinations and deep in the heartland both in the South and Mid West have not grokked the reality that somehow they have to be user friendly for Foreign people, who may not just hire a car and drive around.
so that means setting up tours, roads, buses and trains and user friendly food stops and user friendly convenience stops and all of this at the same time as keeping America safe from people who have harmful intentions, just like we have to do in India, we have to keep India safe from nuts and terrorists and in the case of so called friendly nations, spies. smugglers and drug dealers as well.
So it is not going to get less complicated, but a lot has to be done that's all.
Bye bye
And basically it is tough out there even when you know the city and I just wonder how people even come for work and mainly from America, it is Indian ex pats who can return home and then conduct business between the 2 countries and I would not recommend for either black or white Americans to go out and touch the world, since really a lot of places in the world are a pretty tough gig, even the places you think are OK, like Germany, can be a tough gig, let alone places in Asia and elsewhere.
But then Chidanand Rajghatta in the Times of India, has now changed his tune from being a Bush and Musharraf booster to just being a kinda sorta straight reporter for American news for India and for advice to Indians, gave some stats on India tourism and other countries.
And I think he wrote that our tourism here is about 5 million which is pathetic, compared to 80 million for France and in the 50s for America and China.
So those were quite an eye opener, but then I began to think that certainly India can do a lot better, but so can America.
Becoz the 50s are just small potatoes and people still want to visit, but maybe the tourist traps of New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas etc are all tuckered out.
There are still vast areas especially in the South and Mid west that do not get their share and it is a pity that roads like the 1 -49 north of Shreveport are taking so much time to get built and even down South there is such a complicated road system, except for short stretches.
And it occurred to me that America hasnt realized that a) the energy crises is not going away
b) there is no energy fix and c) other countries including India and China are busy corralling big blocks of energy resources in Africa and Russian Bloc or Central Asian countries.
So America has not made her resources and infrastructure fit the people who dont just wanna get in their car and drive to a vacation spot or take a plane to it, especially since many vacation spots like say the Louisiana plantations or in Georgia or Mississippi or Rio Doso in New Mexico are not exactly plane friendly.
Plus you need a car when you get there and plus even if planes go or to places like Bemidji in Minnesota, you have to wait hours for connections and then ride those dinky planes which scare the heck out of you.
So even for the domestic industry, lack of tour buses, trains and good main artery roads deter good tourist traffic to a lot of places which could use the industry.
With the sad fall of New Orleans, Louisiana is really feeling the pinch, but a lot of other places which are still functional just wont get the business, becoz first of all nobody even knows they are there and if they did, nobody for instance in New York wanna go down there to drive.
On top of which, the slightly paranoid culture is another deterrent, like in the 80s classic movie about a couple of New Jersey boys and the New Jersey lawyer who set them free and his sexy Brooklyn talking girlfriend. I know the movie, but right now all the names escape me. The weirdness of many places in the South and Mid west and especially the fear of weirdo law enforcement can be a real deterrent to tourist dollars getting there.
And America's economic crisis like its energy crunch is not gonna go away with a bunch of wishes.
And domestic tourism is just a little bit, but mainly it is re allocating money that is already in the country.
In the end, what they have to do is attract a lot more money and it has to be from Overseas and for that they have to stop thinking about Foreign people as potential immigrants and start thinking of Foreign people as customers.
Universities have already made the switch, but tourist destinations and deep in the heartland both in the South and Mid West have not grokked the reality that somehow they have to be user friendly for Foreign people, who may not just hire a car and drive around.
so that means setting up tours, roads, buses and trains and user friendly food stops and user friendly convenience stops and all of this at the same time as keeping America safe from people who have harmful intentions, just like we have to do in India, we have to keep India safe from nuts and terrorists and in the case of so called friendly nations, spies. smugglers and drug dealers as well.
So it is not going to get less complicated, but a lot has to be done that's all.
Bye bye
was the Hillary Bosnia lie deliberate and what impact will it have
So I should say that when I first heard that Hillary had fibbed about Bosnia, I was pretty dismayed. Oh no, I said, this sounds like their Clinton selective memory and all the bad things we hate about Bush and Cheney.
And of course, it triggered fears the right wing nutso machine would say they had always been liars and had lied about Whitewater and the $5000 check and shredded documents and of course the lie about the health committee which she pretended was just her folks, when it was a bunch of outsiders too and she got scuttled in her own preciousness.
And then we had to defend Clinton male about his precious parsing and his sex which was not sex and then sit through excruciating details while all kinds of annoying right wingers salivated over the details and told us how semen got on to the blue dress and put up with Ken Starr's torturous reaches of fantasy to make it all seem like an impeachable offense.
So it triggered a lot of weird feelings and basically my impulse was there's a bunch of voters gonna vote on this, they are gonna decide.
And then I thought, maybe the chick did mis-remember, maybe she was scared her mad husband was sending her into a war zone rather than a pacified zone, so she recalled her fears rather than the calm, happy reality.
And then Jay Leno said, do ya wanna sleep deprived lady answering the phone at 3 am.
So the lie per se had quite a deterrent effect, although like I said I was not ready to throw my support to Hillary, but thought if people wanted Barack, they should have him, although his untestedness and his babe in the woodness and his inability to articulate a strategy for American defense were quite scary, even before all the weirdness of his pastor and the Hate America gig he was on.
Then lately, in fact after reading Hillary joked about the snipers in Burbank on Jay Leno, a show which will only air here in Mumbai tonite and I may see it tonite or in the re run if any at 3.00 pm tomorrow or Monday, I am not sure, I began to see things differently.
I still feel it is a scary occurrence becoz it triggers a lot of there go the Clintons fibbing again and I was genuinely concerned that she did not know whether she was in sniper territory or calm territory.
Especially since a guy, I think it was someone called Heyman, apparently working for the US through the UN, said, hey, the point of the trip was to show that Bosnia was at peace, that's why we sent the First Lady and even Anderson Cooper said, would they send Sindbad and Sheryl Crow if there were snipers on the tarmac.
But now I think the fib may have been deliberate and the First Lady wants to be sure her war creds are intact, but does not want to invoke her trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, for obvious Bush related reasons, but wants to differentiate herself from the Kumbaya Candidate Barry Obama.
Because his babe in the woodness and his feeling we will all just get along is just as scary as McCain's warrior impulse, even with all the problems in Iraq and around the world, but somehow, America is going to have to deal with being a guarantor of world safety, preferably with the ability to bring other people along.
This is not to say people are longing to go to war, although George Clooney may want us to in Darfur and some guy in an op ed wrote some scary stuff about 3 days ammo and a bunch of bombing sorties, which lemme tell ya, if we even think of getting into Sudan, will make Mogadishu look like a happy memory or a mild blip.
We do not want the Chinese triads and the Sudanese nuts on our case, tell the rebels to make peace and we will help them to get the resources they need. We are not going to get our hands on Sudanese oil by encouraging the rebels to keep fighting and they are the ones who have refused to sign the peace deal.
But in any case, I think Hillary deliberately lied about the snipers and people keep repeating that, it is to show she doesnt mind running into a war zone.
This itself is a differentiation from the Kumbaya Barry Obama and I think it may make a difference in the places she hopes.
We'll see.
And of course, it triggered fears the right wing nutso machine would say they had always been liars and had lied about Whitewater and the $5000 check and shredded documents and of course the lie about the health committee which she pretended was just her folks, when it was a bunch of outsiders too and she got scuttled in her own preciousness.
And then we had to defend Clinton male about his precious parsing and his sex which was not sex and then sit through excruciating details while all kinds of annoying right wingers salivated over the details and told us how semen got on to the blue dress and put up with Ken Starr's torturous reaches of fantasy to make it all seem like an impeachable offense.
So it triggered a lot of weird feelings and basically my impulse was there's a bunch of voters gonna vote on this, they are gonna decide.
And then I thought, maybe the chick did mis-remember, maybe she was scared her mad husband was sending her into a war zone rather than a pacified zone, so she recalled her fears rather than the calm, happy reality.
And then Jay Leno said, do ya wanna sleep deprived lady answering the phone at 3 am.
So the lie per se had quite a deterrent effect, although like I said I was not ready to throw my support to Hillary, but thought if people wanted Barack, they should have him, although his untestedness and his babe in the woodness and his inability to articulate a strategy for American defense were quite scary, even before all the weirdness of his pastor and the Hate America gig he was on.
Then lately, in fact after reading Hillary joked about the snipers in Burbank on Jay Leno, a show which will only air here in Mumbai tonite and I may see it tonite or in the re run if any at 3.00 pm tomorrow or Monday, I am not sure, I began to see things differently.
I still feel it is a scary occurrence becoz it triggers a lot of there go the Clintons fibbing again and I was genuinely concerned that she did not know whether she was in sniper territory or calm territory.
Especially since a guy, I think it was someone called Heyman, apparently working for the US through the UN, said, hey, the point of the trip was to show that Bosnia was at peace, that's why we sent the First Lady and even Anderson Cooper said, would they send Sindbad and Sheryl Crow if there were snipers on the tarmac.
But now I think the fib may have been deliberate and the First Lady wants to be sure her war creds are intact, but does not want to invoke her trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, for obvious Bush related reasons, but wants to differentiate herself from the Kumbaya Candidate Barry Obama.
Because his babe in the woodness and his feeling we will all just get along is just as scary as McCain's warrior impulse, even with all the problems in Iraq and around the world, but somehow, America is going to have to deal with being a guarantor of world safety, preferably with the ability to bring other people along.
This is not to say people are longing to go to war, although George Clooney may want us to in Darfur and some guy in an op ed wrote some scary stuff about 3 days ammo and a bunch of bombing sorties, which lemme tell ya, if we even think of getting into Sudan, will make Mogadishu look like a happy memory or a mild blip.
We do not want the Chinese triads and the Sudanese nuts on our case, tell the rebels to make peace and we will help them to get the resources they need. We are not going to get our hands on Sudanese oil by encouraging the rebels to keep fighting and they are the ones who have refused to sign the peace deal.
But in any case, I think Hillary deliberately lied about the snipers and people keep repeating that, it is to show she doesnt mind running into a war zone.
This itself is a differentiation from the Kumbaya Barry Obama and I think it may make a difference in the places she hopes.
We'll see.
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