Dubya's Best Friend

The value of friends can never be under-estimated. The main characteristic that separates them from others is that we choose them and they choose us. Friendship is totally voluntary and hence sincere.
There are exceptions to that though. Take for instance George W. Bush's best friend - Osama bin Laden. We know that the bin Ladens and Bushs have many business relationships. But not in his wildest dreams would Dubya have expected so much assistance from Osama. He shored up the Bush regime. Already, many Americans saw Bush as a President chosen not by the people but by his father's Supreme Court buddies. His legitimacy was always in doubt if not questioned openly. The economy was going downhill and his Tax-Cut proposals were being debated fiercely. Then came 9/11. In 20 minutes of mayhem and murder, Osama struck fear into the hearts of Americans. A fear which Bush capitalized on to bludgeon his opponents into submission, to push the economy, as an issue, on the back-burner. He used the fear to get approval for controversial bills like the Patriot Act. He used the fear to lead Americans into a bloody and failed war in Iraq. (I don't care what Dick Cheney says. I like to put my faith in facts. In fact in a sane country, a person making such a statement with so straight a face would have been declared mentally unstable and hence unfit for public office) And by declaring that if the current regime is not re-elected, Americans can expect more terror attacks, he is using this fear to try and get the public to give him a second term. As a matter of fact if 9/11 hadn't happened, I seriously doubt the Republican Party would have given him a second shot at the Presidency.
And now, just three days before the election, Dubya's best friend has issued another tape. A tape warning Americans that they can expect more terror attacks. A tape, universally believed, to boost the President's chances. But then, what are friends for?
Whatever Osama may be, he is not stupid. He too knows that such a tape will help the current President in his re-election bid. Maybe, after having seen the Bush Regime for four years, he feels he has a better chance of surviving and striking at an America ruled by Bush rather than Kerry?

The wonder of Hammering

Given my Mechanical Engineering background, some people might be confused into thinking that I talking about the actual hammer and the act of using it. They are not far from the truth, though they haven't managed to hit the nail on the head. I am actually talking about the technique of hammering wherein a message is bombarded so heavily on the people (using radio, TV etc.) that it automatically becomes the truth. An example would be the song countdown shows on Indian TV. Though I haven't seen them for the past 4 years, I vividly remember them. Many of the songs on these shows were not worthy of being admitted on the worst-songs countdown. But they were hammered nonetheless which eventually resulted in more of their cassettes being sold which resulted in their staying in the countdown. It was like a self fulfilling prophecy. Recently though, I have personally experienced hammering. For the past 4 years, my interest in American football and baseball has been minimal. However I have a roomie who is totally into it and we have sports on our TV not only on the weekend but also on weekdays (it's worse, now that we have cable). As a result I nowadays find myself following baseball and watching the Aggie football matches.
Why this happens, I don't know. Maybe my friend Sachin could come up with a theory involving neurons and the non-linear dynamics of brain impulses to explain it. But I think that hammering is a success because it throttles choice. Hammering you with a particular message implies stopping other messages from reaching you. And in the absence of choice the brain accepts whatever it's got. I don't know how much sense this makes. So let the bouquets and brickbats hammer in.

To win an Election

Recently I saw a quote,on a website, attributed to Josef Stalin: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." Now I don't know for sure if this is actually something he said but a few exceptions immediately came to my mind.
One is that of Bihar. In Lalooland, those who cast the votes do actually decide everything. The catch? Those who do cast the votes are not the ones actually supposed to be casting them. Booth-capturing is so rampant that one is led to believe that Laloo does not wish to leave anything to the counters, whatever Stalin may say.
Another is that of West-Bengal. A few years ago I had a Bengali roomie. He used to tell me hilarious stories of entire villages mysteriously losing electricity if they voted against the ruling Communists. The electricity used to come back just as mysteriously when they voted for them in the next election. Only later did he assure me that the stories were not fiction but actual facts. It would seem that the Commies also did not wish to take any chances.
Another big election which immediately came to my mind was the 2000 US Presidential Election. Had Stalin been alive to witness that one he would surely have made changes to his quote. Because neither the casters nor the counters decided that one. The US Supreme Court did. This does not happen even in India. Now another big election is looming before us. The one in Iraq. Lets see who decides that one. One thing however, I am sure of. If the Iraqi leaders like Ayatollah Sistani show the foresight and wisdom to actually participate in the process, they can easily ensure that all US backed candidates lose their deposit. Wonder what Stalin would have said to that?
Let me finish with a joke about another one of Stalin's alleged quotes. This one is set in the Cold War Russia.
Once a very important and top-secret Communist convention was being convened in Moscow. Somehow the CIA was able to infiltrate a mole into the meeting. A few hours into the meeting, the KGB got wind that there was a mole in there. Within 5 minutes they had apprehended the mole. When asked how he achieved this astoundingly quick success, the KGB chief replied, "Stalin once said, the enemies of the Communists never slept (Meaning of course that they tirelessly worked to destroy Communism) ..... and that mole was the only one awake in the convention."

Picture Perfect

There is an unwritten rule that photographs taken for official documents must make their owners look hideous. In this regard I am reminded of Jaspal Bhatti's take on the Voter ID Cards issued in India. As he correctly pointed out people have to be forced into believing that the horrible thing printed on the card is actually their face. You may think that this is not true. You may say that you have seen Driving licenses with nice photos on them. But I assure you, compare the photo to the actual person and more often than not you will go "ewwwww" (referring to the photo of course). This is particularly distressing for me as I am not exactly what you would call photogenic.
My first memory of such photos is from college. I still remember my photo on my college ID. In order to avoid the reflection from my glasses turning my eyes into two flashes of light, the photographer asked me to lower my chin and peer over the top of the glasses. I do not wish to describe the effect here, but rest assured it still haunts me. Thankfully, my company id did not require a photo. Here at Texas A&M, I have had 3 id cards to date. None of the photos are worth looking at. The most harrowing was the last one I got made. The girl behind the counter asked me to stand on the blue square and clicked away......3 times (no kidding). She finally gave up on the third attempt. The result is that inspite of the flash being operational my TAMU id card has such a dark photo that one has to really squint in bright sunlight to make out the contour of my face.
But it's not just the machine's fault. I think people get nervous when asked to pose for any photo. When the photo is for an official document it's worse. Case in point is my DL. Anybody looking at the photo would be left in no doubt that my face has been cropped from a photo of me in a police cell holding a slate spelling out my prisoner number. And that's bad because I have to show this card wherever a picture ID is required. Luckily for me, I just changed houses and today I went to the DPS to get a new DL reflecting my new address. I decided to leave nothing to Fate. I shaved extra close. I washed my face twice before leaving home. I wore contact lenses so that the glasses won't ruin it for me. I even stood before the mirror and practiced my smile a few times. When the lady asked me to stand on the blue square, I did and brought on my perfect practiced smile. But the lady, having taken many such photographs was aware of the unwritten law. She asked me to get my chin down a bit and while I was doing that, without giving me time readjust my smile back in place she clicked. And so now I wait in agony for the 2-4 weeks the lady said it would take for the new DL to reach me. What is worse is me knowing that when the DL arrives, the agony will be extended till such time when I change my address again.
I think government should allow people to get busts made for them and then take pictures of the busts. That way a lot of unpleasantness will be avoided and the next time somebody asks me for my picture id I would be able to present him with my DL without any embarrassment.

Where is da bomb?

Recently read a long report in NY Times. No surprises in the article. It outlines the reports submitted by the US Energy Department, categorically stating that the Aluminium tubes being bought by Iraq, the only "evidence" forwarded by the US to support it's WMD theory, are patently unsuitable for Uranium enrichment.
For the past year, skeletons have been tumbling one after the other out of the Iraq closet. First, the failure of american troops and spooks in finding any WMDs in Iraq. This was explained by Bushies by saying that they may have been spirited away to Jordan or Syria. Then, the contention of the Bush administration that Americans would be welcomed in Iraq has been proved wrong. This war, instead of hurting global terrorism, has given it a fillip by providing another "cause" for the terrorists to champion. Now the above article proves that either Bush lied to the American public about the WMDs or he is and is surrounded by the biggest bunch of incompetent nincompoops ever. Since I wouldn't want to label a person of Colin Powell's achievements a nincompoop, I am putting my money on the lying theory. Also the fact that the invading US armies secured and protected the oil-fields of Iraq rather than it's various Nuclear establishments tells us clearly, where the priorities and fears of the government lay.
It may come as a surprise to most but I have a few American acquaintances who say that even if the war on Iraq was a mistake (and an intentional one at that), they still support Bush because he stands firmly by his (wrong) decisions instead of learning from them and correcting his errors!!!!! This may be explained by the fact that I live in Texas.
Jokes apart, if I had been an American, the question I would be asking myself would be whether I want to vote for a President who lied to me to make me support his private war?