Continuous Productivity

Waterboarding Tested

I think most people agree that waterboarding is torture based on what they have read about how the process works. Journalist Christopher Hitchens went one further and actually put himself through the process. This is a very powerful video:

China's Money Man

An insightful interview with Gao Xiqing at the Atlantic. He made an especially interesting comment about compensation:

Individually, everyone needs to be compensated. But collectively, this directs the resources of the country. It distorts the talents of the country. The best and brightest minds go to lawyering, go to M.B.A.s. And that affects our country, too! Many of the brightest youngsters come to me and say, “Okay, I want to go to the U.S. and get into business school, or law school.” I say, “Why? Why not science and engineering?” They say, “Look at some of my primary-school classmates. Their IQ is half of mine, but they’re in finance and now they’re making all this money.” So you have all these clever people going into financial engineering, where they come up with all these complicated products to sell to people.

I don't know quite what he means by that. I am hoping his view is not as simplistic as it sounds. Making the statement that people should be compensated equally just because they go into science and engineering is ludicrous. In fact, the most innovative companies that were science/engineering related have been compensated very well (see Gates, Bill; Brin, Sergey; Dell, Micheal; etc.) I don't know how you'd even begin to implement something like he suggests without stifling innovation (unless of course we are talking about really redistributing wealth). Commercializing science and engineering is as important, if not more important, of a skill as pursuing science for the sake of science and research. Without the ability to "productize" inventions, the great masses would never reap the benefits.

Yes, You Can be a Hindu and a Muslim

A very interesting profile of a Rajasthani community that is, essentially, both Hindu and Muslim:

They are people with a mixed Hindu-Muslim identity. And left alone, that is how they would like to be.

Deepa, 60, has a Hindu name but he thinks he is a Muslim because he follows Muslim practices.

"In my family, we celebrate Hindu festivals such as Holi and Diwali. But we also offer namaz (prayers) at (the Muslim festival of) Eid. We worship both local gods and Allah. This has been a tradition in my family. I do not know whether my ancestors were Hindus or Muslims."

Another Mehrat member is Mahendra Singh who has a Hindu name.

"We don't care about being Hindu or Muslim. It is sheer politics," he says.

Barely, 15km (9 miles) from Byawar town, Rasool runs a tea shop. He says his great grandparents were Hindus. But somewhere along the line, they became Muslims.

"It wasn't such a big deal to be Hindu or Muslim," says Rasool. His son Shankar is named after a Hindu god but he says they consider themselves Muslims.

India, I believe, is at the forefront of these hybrid religions due to its history and general tolerance.

As an Indian-American, I have many Indian friends that are Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. It's always striking to go to weddings, or baptisms, or other events and notice the similarities in food, rituals, interactions, etc no matter the religion of the people hosting the event.

Perhaps, I'm biased, but I think it's a testament to India holding on to its culture and heritage above religious boundaries.

Women to Keep Women Away

An Indian cricketer, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is so popular with his female fans that the country is providing elite female commandos to protect him:

"Dhoni has a Z-plus security cover [the highest level provided by the state]. Yet it is difficult to keep the female fans away," senior police officer Manvinder Singh Bhatia told the BBC.

"So we decided to deploy women commandos for his security as they can do the job with ease," he said.

Another police officer said, "The next three weeks that he is here we will ensure that he does not have to face any kind of embarrassment like the one in Calcutta."

An interesting twist on protecting celebrities. I suppose the logic is that the female commandos can be more "aggressive" with the female fans.

Albino Body Parts

The sun used to be his main enemy, but now he has others. Mr. Mluge is an albino, and in Tanzania now there is a price for his pinkish skin. “I feel like I am being hunted,” he said. Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts.

A very interesting article outlining the plight of Albinos in Africa. It is absolutely appalling to think that this is happening:

But the killings go on. They have even spread to neighboring Kenya, where an albino woman was hacked to death in late May, with her eyes, tongue and breasts gouged out. Advocates for albinos have also said that witch doctors are selling albino skin in Congo.

The young are often the targets. In early May, Vumilia Makoye, 17, was eating dinner with her family in their hut in western Tanzania when two men showed up with long knives Vumilia was like many other Africans with albinism. She had dropped out of school because of severe near-sightedness, a common problem for albinos, whose eyes develop abnormally and who often have to hold things like books or cellphones two inches away to see them. She could not find a job because no one would hire her. She sold peanuts in the market, making $2 a week while her delicate skin was seared by the sun.

When Vumilia’s mother, Jeme, saw the men with knives, she tried to barricade the door of their hut. But the men overpowered her and burst in.

“They cut my daughter quickly,” she said, making hacking motions with her hands.

The men sawed off Vumilia’s legs above the knee and ran away with the stumps. Vumilia died.

The Various Forms of Civilization

One of the more fascinating articles that I have read recently reminded me that there are still numerous "indigenous" tribes that don't quite live a life like ours:

The photos were taken during several flights over one of the most remote parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil's Acre region.

They show tribe members outside thatched huts, surrounded by the dense jungle, pointing bows and arrows up at the camera.

Check out the pictures!

Wal-Mart and Income Inequality

Very interesting post at the Freakonomics blog by Steve Levitt:

When people talk about inequality, they tend to focus exclusively on the income part of the equation. According to all our measures, the gap in income between the rich and the poor has been growing. What Broda and Romalis quite convincingly demonstrate, however, is that the prices of goods that poor people tend to consume have fallen sharply relative to the prices of goods that rich people consume. Consequently, when you measure the true buying power of the rich and the poor, inequality grew only one-third as fast as economists previously thought it did — or maybe didn’t grow at all.

Why did the prices of the things poor people buy fall relative to the stuff rich people buy? Lefties aren’t going to like the answers one bit: globalization and Wal-Mart!

I find it amazing how many economists and pundits dismiss the impact of buying power. Just look at countries like India where as recently as a decade ago, the bulk of the population did not even have telephones. Compare it to India now where even the poorest carry cell phones. And that is just one example of the buying power increase that is a direct result of globalization and cheap labor.

Once You Leave Home...

Gupta, 38, moved to this gated enclave after 15 years spent studying and later working as a Goldman Sachs banker in New York and London. 'Ten years ago, if I had considered moving back, people would have questioned my sanity, and assumed I couldn't hack it in the US,' he said. 'Now everyone recognises that India is a very exciting place. There are tens of thousands of people like me making the decision to return.'

A trend that has been gaining momentum for at least the last 5 years is highlighted in a recent Guardian article. I remember that even when I was completing grad school back in 2003, many of my classmates that had come to the US for education and work purposes were planning to go back to either China or India to start their own ventures.

The Contrast That is India

We all know about India's economic growth and the amazing engineering and business talent.  But, what often gets overlooked is that India is still a third-world country with deep and, oftentimes, very backward beliefs and traditions:

In villages and cities across India, parents are aborting girls more often than at any time in history, doctors and children's rights groups say. In some rural areas, girls are also being killed after they are born. It all adds up to a dramatically skewed national ratio of females to males: 954 girls are born for every 1,000 boys, according to the government's 2001 census. In the United States, there are 1,050 newborn girls for every 1,000 newborn boys.

Due to this amazing disparity, the government is incorporating an incentive system that pays families to raise a girl:

Give birth to a daughter, and the family gets cash. Vaccinate her, more cash. Send her to school, feed her, delay her marriage, cash payment for each step.

The staggered payments will be handed out in seven, mostly rural states, beginning at $400 and extending up to an additional $2,500. They will "force the families to look upon the girl as an asset rather than a liability, since her very existence would lead to cash inflow to the family," Renuka Chowdhury, women and children development minister, told reporters earlier this week.

I love how they have reversed the traditional economic model of child as labor and turned a "liability" into an "asset."  Go on and read the entire article- it details the economics of the doctors that perform these abortions, whether this plan will work, and other cultural implications.

Bank Mole

I was unaware of this, but apparently the current international investigation into the Liechtenstein tax haven fiasco was initiated by a mole that used to work at the LGT Bank:

Authorities in Liechtenstein have condemned the purchase of what it says is confidential bank data.   

LGT Treuhand, part controlled by the principality's royal family, claims the list of 1,400 customer names are contained on DVDs that were copied by Mr Kieber in 2002.

So, it seems that countries such as Germany and the UK paid upwards of $7.7M to the mole for confidential bank data that he had copied onto DVD's while he was an employee at the Liechtenstein bank.  I am sure this has sent a shudder up and down the spines of not only many wealthy folks that use international banks, but also entire countries that market these banks as the utmost in financial privacy. 

Finally, the interesting and downright scary part about paying a mole that illegally (or at least unethically) copied client data onto a disk is that these countries are (un)intentionally creating a market for similar transgressions.  That is, any bank employee that wants to make a quick million (or five) can just copy data, offer it to countries, and get a new identity.  It's a nice gig with limited downside. 

Don't Be Cheap

According to E'temad, the woman, identified as Hengameh, decided to claim her entire dowry of 124,000 red roses after 10 years of marriage to "punish her very stingy husband".

"Shortly after marriage, I realised that Shahin was very cheap," she told the newspaper. "He even refused to pay for my coffee if we went to a cafe or restaurant."

An amusing article forwarded  by a loyal reader.  You know what they say about a woman scorned- she'll get her roses.

Andreessen AND Obama

It has been a while since Marc Andreessen has posted.  So, this morning when my feeds indicated that my Andreessen folder had a new post, I clicked right away.

Marc was kind enough to recap a meeting he had with Barack Obama prior to the start of the campaign season in early 2007.  He recaps the meeting and his perceptions of Senator Obama.  Again, anyone who knows me well, knows how I feel about each of these gentlemen- as inspirations, as leaders, and most importantly as men that break molds.  So, I was excited as I have been in a while to read Marc's perception of Senator Obama.  The salient points:

First, this is a normal guy.

I've spent time with a lot of politicians in the last 15 years.  Most of them talk at you.  Listening is not their strong suit -- in fact, many of them aren't even very good at faking it.

Senator Obama, in contrast, comes across as a normal human being, with a normal interaction style, and a normal level of interest in the people he's with and the world around him.

Normal and Smart:

Second, this is a smart guy.

I bring this up for two reasons. One, Senator Obama's political opponents tend to try to paint him as some kind of lightweight, which he most definitely is not. Two, I think he's at or near the top of the scale of intelligence of anyone in political life today.

You can see how smart he is in his background -- for example, lecturer in constitutional law at University of Chicago; before that, president of the Harvard Law Review.

But it's also apparent when you interact with him that you're dealing with one of the intellectually smartest national politicians in recent times, at least since Bill Clinton. He's crisp, lucid, analytical, and clearly assimilates and synthesizes a very large amount of information -- smart.

Please go read the entire post, it will be well worth your time.

Fear-Mongering: Bush Style

I don't know what's worse, using a picture as a scare tactic, or the ignorance of those that let obvious manipulations determine their voting direction:

The photograph published on Monday shows Mr Obama - whose father came from Kenya - wearing a white turban and a white robe presented to him by elders in the north-east of the country.

The Drudge Report said the image had been circulated by "Clinton staffers".

Castro Resigns

"I neither will aspire to, nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief," he told the newspaper, Granma.

The 81-year-old handed over power temporarily to his brother, Raul, in July 2006 when he underwent surgery.

It will be interesting to see what sort of interactions the EU and US will have with the island going forward.