Akward is the new funny!

It seems that creating akward situations in daily life and then forcibly put people into them makes for really really funny television. Just look at all the comedies Scrubs, The Office, Fraiser. All of them, have seemingly normal and abnormal people put into really embarassing situations and their reactions are what we wait for. The Office takes the cake in these type of comedies. Its filled with character which are obnoxious, hyper, insolent, oblivious, over zealous to the seemingly normal. You put all these into a akward situation and you get gold! I simply love The Office. Its brilliantly written and superbly casted and acted out. Of course its a spinoff of the british comedy by the same name. But nonetheless they were able to give it its own character and it did magnificiently well. Ricky Gervais, the creator of the original Office and the executive producer of the new American version, is a comical genius of our time. I would even go so far as to compare him with Oscar Wilde. Well wasnt 'The importance of being Ernest' kind of a akward situational comedy. Grevais is not only a gifted writer but also an equally gifted actor. I just love 'The Office'.

Politicians of the future

to appear in student newspaper along with "A Nuclear Hypocrisy".

By now it is abundantly clear that politicians have little or no control on the economic fate of the people they try to govern. Except of course, worsen it. One doesn’t have to go looking far for examples, but one look at the sub prime mortgage crisis, the social security bankruptcy, the falling dollar, the rising price of oil, the global shortage of food and energy etc. can easily serve the purpose. I am not saying that politicians are solely responsible for all these calamities striking at once, of course there are always hundred different things that contribute. In fact I am saying the exact opposite, that politicians cannot be directly responsible for all these things because they didn’t do it! What they are really responsible for is letting these things happen to their people. For letting power, which the people had given them, go from their hands to unscrupulous hands.
This began from the idea that free markets are good for people and state intervention into market regulation is a bad idea. In the twentieth century, governments have slowly but steadily lost their grip on the industry to capitalists giving rise to the all powerful free market system. However politicians didn’t give up control of the economy without any resistance. It was a slow process which involved extensive propaganda to get the public approval. In fact one of the contributors to the rise of the profession of public relations was this very idea and people promoting it. How this came about is a matter of a different debate altogether. When a private institution is allowed to determine the value of money, it is definitely a situation you don’t want because they will increase and decrease the value according to their interests, and specifically those of their share holders, to gain maximum profit and create the booms and busts.
But irrespective of all this the question is, isn’t politicians supposed to protect us from these booms and busts to maintain stability? Why is it assumed that interfering with the market is always harmful in this global economy? In my opinion it is assumed that the market is a fair system. Anyone can generate the capital and anyone can have a share. But the problem with the practicality of this is that only a very few do generate the capital and only a very very few do have a share. It is inherently an unfair system, because the little guy is always pitted against a grossly unmatched opponent. Spencer called it survival of the fittest. So my politician of the future would be one who doesn’t blindly follow any system of economic regulation. The politician of the future should be determined to get control of what is really lost from the people, i.e. the labor and the industry. He/she should be willing to get control of the financial system and regulation of the currency in global market. The real genius of the capitalists lies in making everyone believe that the market is a fair system. It is actually a “fair game” system.

A Nuclear Hypocrisy

Isn’t North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons supposed to be as bad as Iran acquiring nuclear weapons? Well apparently not according to the US foreign policy. In 2005 when North Korea acquired and tested nuclear weapons it was strongly criticized and lots of sanctions were imposed and vilified in the international press. A lot of pressure was put on NK to sign the NPT and stop it nuclear enrichment program. And so it did after reaching a consensus with the international community and the United States. But now when Iran is supposedly trying to acquire uranium enrichment levels suitable for making a nuclear bomb, talk of imposing sanctions and negotiation is a thing of past. The US is planning to put up guided missile and radar sites in the Czech Republic and Poland to counter the apparent threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weaponry. And this is after the National Intelligence estimate clearly states that Iran had already suspended its nuclear enrichment program and doesn’t even have nuclear weaponry. It also let the IAEA inside the country and examine its nuclear facilities which led to the revelation of the program in the first place. In fact Iran is the only controversy ridden country which has voluntarily signed the NPT. It was the only country which voted yes for the European Unions suggestion that there should be an international body that governs the supply of enriched uranium to UN countries so that it can be ensured that none of it is used for purposes other than civilian energy generation. You know who was strongly against it? The United States of America. Well it can be argued that US already has bases in South Korea to counter any perceived threats from North Korea. But same can be said about its military bases in the Middle East, and the newly created 14 or so bases in Iraq. And by the way, isn’t all this supposed to be bad for the country. Say if China did have bases in US, would that not be against the sovereignty of the US? Isn’t this whole “moral relativism” a property of the liberal side, as purported by the conservatives? The liberal versus conservative façade in the US has caused some real political blunders and more importantly foreign policy blunders right form WWII which not only affects the people of the country but the people of the world. The main reason for the irrational reaction against Iran is to protect the American interests in the Middle East, i.e. Saudi Arabia, and not let a Shia dominated power rise in the Middle East. And by the way, does anyone ask why was A. Q. Khan the Pakistani nuclear scientist and father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb, pardoned by then President Pervez Mussahraf, a good ally of the US, after having sold the nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea. David Frum says facts always have a liberal bias. Well if facts are biased then they are not facts in the first place! Facts are pieces of information which help the most in the realization of reality and consequently the truth. And if you know the truth, then it is simply understandable that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear technology. After all doesn’t Iran too have to save its people from American backed military terrorism?