World in My View

What Obama is doing Wrong

2012-01-02T22:36:00.002-06:00

Glenn Greewald lists all the things Obama is doing that are against Progressive/Liberal world view

The fallacy in this reasoning is glaring. The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations withdrones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of aCongressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremelyracist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed “a vast drone/killing operation”, all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes.

Getting Started with iPhone 4S

2011-12-30T16:41:00.000-06:00

List of useful apps to get you started

Flipboard, Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Foursquare more here and here

Top 100 Free Apps

Quixey - Search for an app by what you want to do

Gizmodo Best iPhone app list

Time Magazine - 50 Best iPhone Apps of 2011

iPhone Home screens of Top Techies

How to check your iPhone's Data usage

First, head to your iPhone's settings app. Scroll down to "General," then click on "usage." You'll see your minute breakdown, but at the very bottom you'll see your data usage (sending and receiving) over AT&T's cellular network. If you've never reset your stats, you'll find that this number will be fairly high. (source: geeksugar)

You can also call *DATA# and AT&T will send you a text message with your data usage this billing cycle.

Organize your ever increasing apps into folders

Steve Jobs presented the new folder feature as easy as dropping one app on top of another to create a new folder. Yes, that’s easy to do, but if you have several hundred apps on your iPhone, that process is a lot more tedious than most will like. Read more here

Keep up-to-date on iPhone happenings using these popular blogs' iPhone tags

All Things Digital

TechCrunch

lifehacker

How to restart an iPhone

To restart iPhone, first turn iPhone off by pressing and holding the Sleep/Wake button until a red slider appears. Slide your finger across the slider and iPhone will turn off after a few moments. Next, turn iPhone on by pressing and holding the Sleep/Wake button until the Apple logo appears.

Indian Cricketers with Most frequent Man of the Match Awards

2011-12-02T15:39:00.001-06:00

Sachin is the undisputed king. He has a Man of the Match for every 7 ODI inns. The following is a list of Indian cricketers with atleast 5 Mom Awards. Surprising omission Harbhajan Singh. He has only 4 MoM awards till date. Kohli is raising fast in the ranks

Top 10 countries Indian's migrate to

2011-08-14T19:12:00.001-06:00

India Migration Destinations

source: http://peoplemov.in/#f_IN

Obama's Achievements so far

2011-08-05T12:20:00.001-06:00

A good website with more specifics: http://whattheheckhasobamadonesofar.com/

From Andrew Sullivan:

Here are the political accomplishments: defeating the most heavily favored party machine in decades (the Clintons) while actually bringing his biggest rival into his cabinet, where she has performed extraordinarily well; helping to cement the GOP's broad identity as extremists opposed to compromise; entrenching black and Hispanic loyalty to his party; retaining solid favorables and not-too-shabby approval ratings during the worst recession since the 1930s. 44 percent of the country still (rightly) blame Bush for this mess, only 15 percent blame Obama.

On policy: ending the US torture regime; prevention of a second Great Depression; enacting universal healthcare; taking the first serious steps toward reining in healthcare costs; two new female Supreme Court Justices; ending the gay ban in the military; ending the Iraq war; justifying his Afghan Surge by killing bin Laden and now disentangling with face saved; firming up alliances with India, Indonesia and Japan as counter-weights to China; bailing out the banks and auto companies without massive losses (and surging GM profits); advancing (slowly) balanced debt reduction without drastic cuts during the recession; and financial re-regulation.

Yes, there have been failures. The election of Scott Brown; the 2010 mid-terms; the surrender to Netanyahu and AIPAC; the botched and ill-conceived war in Libya; the failure to embrace Bowles Simpson up-front; the collapse of cap and trade (maybe not such a bad thing anyway).

Interesting Stats about Asians in America

2011-05-12T08:00:00.000-06:00

The top 3.7 percent of all New York City students who take the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test hoping to go to Stuyvesant are accepted. This is what it looks like: Asian-Americans, who make up 12.6 percent of New York City, make up 72 percent of the high school.
The Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade has calculated that an Asian applicant must, in practice, score 140 points higher on the SAT than a comparable white applicant to have the same chance of admission.
According to a recent study, Asian-Americans represent roughly 5 percent of the population but only 0.3 percent of corporate officers, less than 1 percent of corporate board members, and around 2 percent of college presidents. There are nine Asian-American CEOs in the Fortune 500. In specific fields where Asian-Americans are heavily represented, there is a similar asymmetry. A third of all software engineers in Silicon Valley are Asian, and yet they make up only 6 percent of board members and about 10 percent of corporate officers of the Bay Area’s 25 largest companies. At the National Institutes of Health, where 21.5 percent of tenure-track scientists are Asians, only 4.7 percent of the lab or branch directors are, according to a study conducted in 2005.
While only 15 percent of the male population is at least six feet tall, 58 percent of all corporate CEOs are.

source: http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/

Most Viewed Pictures on Flickr

2011-05-06T08:57:00.000-06:00

Direct Flight Destination Info For all the Airlines

2011-02-09T12:54:00.000-06:00

Comparing Economies of India and Pakistan

2010-11-05T13:19:00.001-06:00

Top Indian Twitter Users (Tweeters) with Most Followers

2010-05-07T23:03:00.005-06:00

Here is the list of Top Indian Twitterers for now. The count changes every minute. So, this list could be obsolete in no time.

The following is a screenshot from another site which keeps up-to-date tracking of the followers and new twitter power users from India. The site is http://www.indiancelebsontwitter.com/

Britney Spears Closing in on Ashton Kutcher in Twitter Followers

2010-04-21T13:12:00.000-06:00

Britney Spears could dethrone Ashton Kutcher as the user with most followers on Twitter in as little time as a month. She is trailing @aplusk by only 43k and gaining in on him at a rate of 42k per month.

Verified Tollywood Stars on Twitter

2010-04-13T14:32:00.000-06:00

Here'z a list of Telugu Stars genuine Twitter accounts:

Sumanth (http://twitter.com/actorSUMANTH)
Mahesh Babu (http://twitter.com/urstrulyMahesh)
Siddharth (http://twitter.com/Actor_Siddharth)
Rana Daggubati (http://twitter.com/RanaDaggubati)
Nagarjuna (http://twitter.com/iamnagarjuna)
Genelia (http://twitter.com/GENELIAD)

Position Changes in Points Table: IPL 2010

2010-04-08T15:31:00.005-06:00

Punjab consistently stayed at the bottom and Mumbai pretty much at the top. Other teams fighting for the remaining spots.

Top 5 Richest People in Hyderabad, India

2010-01-14T10:24:00.005-06:00

Here is the list of Top 5 Richest people in Hyderabad, India. Interestingly, 3 of them are in the Pharmaceutical business.

Source: Forbes

>

Saif Ali Khan's Familial History and Lineage

2010-01-13T13:33:00.003-06:00

Amitabh Bachchan's blog post got me interested in reading about Saif Ali Khan's lineage. Here's the relevant part from AB's blog:

I take him back to New Delhi and his grandmother and her sports convertible E - Type white Jaguar, which she drove herself into the Teen Murti House, the official residence of the first Prime Minister of India, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru . We being jaw dropping spectators inside the House on many occasions as she regally drove in. Begum Pataudi, mother to Tiger Pataudi, father to Saif, strong and graceful in demeanor. Can never forget that image.

Most of you might know that Saif is the son of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore. Here are somethings you may not know:

About Sharmila Tagore:

Sharmila is a grand niece of Rabindranath Tagore
She converted to Islam and changed her name to Ayesha Sultana
She was born into a Bengali family in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India

About Mansoor Khan Pataudi (Tiger):

The Begum Pataudi, Amitabh was referring to is, Tiger's mother Sajida Sultan. She belonged to the well-known House of Bhopal. She became the Nawab Begum of Bhopal after the death of her father, Nawab Hamidullah Khan
Tiger is the son of Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, 8th Nawab of Pataudi and ex-Captain of Indian Cricket Team
His great-uncle was Pakistani general Nawabzada Sher Ali Khan Pataudi

About Saif Ali Khan:

He has two kids with Amrita Singh. Sarah Ali Khan, born September 1995 and Ibrahim Ali Khan, born March 2001.

An old interview with Saif's parents in 'The Hindu' here about their history.

Download DB2 Drivers

2010-01-05T11:33:00.004-06:00

I am using the SQuirreL SQL Client 2.6.9 for connecting to our DB2 db. I went through lot of issues to make it work. All the issues were cleared once I downloaded the latest DB2 client from this link IBM Data Server Client

The client installation will create a SQLLIB folder under IBM in Program Files. The SQLLIB folder has a java folder which has the db2java.zip. This zip is needed for IBM DB2 App Driver to work.

For the IBM DB2 Net Driver you need to put db2jcc.jar and db2jcc_license_cu.jar (both in the java folder) in the extra class path of the SQuirreL client.

One of the issues that was fixed with the new client is this :

the driver being used is not jdbc 2.1 compliant (this is because of the older SQLLIB i got from a colleague, before installing the client)

Remove all DOM table rows/content using JavaScript

2009-12-07T14:05:00.002-06:00

  
 var Parent = document.getElementById(tableID);
 while(Parent.hasChildNodes())
 {
    Parent.removeChild(Parent.firstChild);
 }

Gays or Lesbians with their own TV Shows

2009-11-16T13:59:00.001-06:00

From NYT:

The lengthening list of prominent “out” lesbians on the small screen — Ms. DeGeneres, Ms. Maddow, Suze Orman, Jane Velez-Mitchell, Wanda Sykes

Internet Usage graph for India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and China

2009-11-12T12:02:00.002-06:00

Google just added World Bank data to its public data tool. I just did a graph using that to compare the internet usage in India, Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka.

It clearly shows we are lagging behind Pakistan and way behind china and cannot compare with USA which is around 80%. So, I think this issue is an important one and the Indian Govt should do its part to fix this issue.

The $$$ behind Jay Leno's new show

2009-11-03T15:03:00.001-06:00

From The Daily Beast:

These days Leno is not having a lot of fun, but he is still in the game. NBC is charging his advertisers an estimated $48,000 per 30-second spot—about a 50 percent discount from what much higher-rated shows such as Law & Order SVU and E.R. were getting last year in the 10 p.m. time slot. Leno—who unlike Letterman has no history of controversy—provides a safe and comfortable environment for advertisers while his show, costing an estimated $500,000 per episode, comes in at a fraction of a typical scripted hour, which can run in the $3 million range. NBC has claimed that by replacing the scripted shows with Leno, among other measures, the network has cut $250 million from its annual expenses.

How to Clear your Browsing History Clean

2009-10-08T07:45:00.000-06:00

Clear your browsing history clean. Found this in lifehacker. Pretty cool tip. Here'z a snippet

ipconfig /displaydns

That shows all the DNS servers your machine has communicated with, and, surprise surprise, some of them may not be something you want everyone to see (torrent DNS, etc.)

You can clear this by typing: ipconfig /flushdns

Read the whole post by clicking here

Places I have Visited So Far

2009-10-06T13:22:00.002-06:00

A map of all the places I have visited so far in USA:

visited 23 states (46%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or website vertaling duits?

and in India:

visited 6 states (17.1%)
Create your own visited map of India or Best time to visit Wroclaw

Technology Behind Twitter

2009-10-01T08:54:00.004-06:00

From Wiki:

The Twitter Web interface uses the Ruby on Rails framework.^[24] From the spring of 2007 until 2008 the actual messages were handled by a Ruby persistent queue server called Starling^[25] but since 2009 this has been gradually replaced with software written in Scala.^[26]

They started shifting from mysql + memcache to Cassandra as a database this year (2010).

The Origins of the Last Name Bachchan

2009-08-20T09:28:00.001-06:00

From Amitabh Bachchan, in his own words, on his blog:

Bachchan was my Father’s nom de plume. A pseudonym, a pen name, a fictitious name used when working for a particular social cause. It emanated from his Mother, my Grand Mother, who lovingly called him ‘bachcha’, or child.

Why Do Stocks Go Up and Down

2009-08-19T15:27:00.000-06:00

There is always some reason for the stocks to rise and fall. I am always mystified by the surety with which the columnists come up with why the stock fell or rose on a particular day. The following is a collection of reasons with links to the actual articles

Market Bounces Back as Energy Stocks Rise (8/19/09)
Indian Stocks Fall on Monsoon, China Concerns (8/19)
Major U.S. stocks indexes tumbled by the biggest amount in six weeks Monday as investors feared they have been too quick in betting on an economic rebound during the market's five-month rally (8/17)
Stocks retreat as investors worry about consumer spending (8/15)
U.S. stocks leapt higher Wednesday as investors scooped up bank stocks after a pullback in the sector to start the week (8/12).
U.S. stocks on Tuesday closed lower for a second day, ... with investors cautious one day ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy statement. (8/11)
US Stocks Edge Lower As Traders Lock In Profits (8/10)
Stocks slipped Wednesday as investors shied away from big moves ahead of the government's monthly reading on job losses and the unemployment rate, which comes out before the start of trading on Friday (8/5)

ps: this is my 300th post :)