date:20080819

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 8:10 PM, Udhay Shankar N [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Think the Unthinkable
 Counterpoint | Vir Sanghvi
 August 16, 2008

 The exception to this trend has been Kashmir. Contrary to what many
 Kashmiris claim, we have tried everything. Even today, the state enjoys a
 special status. Under Article 370 of our Constitution, with the exception of
 defence, foreign policy, and communication, no law enacted by parliament has
 any legitimacy in Kashmir unless the state government gives its consent. The
...
 Then, there is the money. Bihar gets per capita central assistance of Rs 876
 per year. Kashmir gets over ten times more: Rs 9,754 per year. While in
 Bihar and other states, this assistance is mainly in the forms of loans to
 the state, in Kashmir 90 per cent is an outright grant. Kashmir's entire
...

I have nothing intelligent to add to this thread. Both Singhvi's and
Aiyar's articles quoted in this thread talk about the perceived
ingratitude of the Kashmiris. It oddly echoes the feeling the Han
Chinese have of being slapped on the face by the ungrateful Tibetan
protesters.

S.
-- 
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping
 its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think
 it was called, 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'. -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 03:44 -0700, Thaths wrote:
 I have nothing intelligent to add to this thread. Both Singhvi's and
 Aiyar's articles quoted in this thread talk about the perceived
 ingratitude of the Kashmiris. It oddly echoes the feeling the Han
 Chinese have of being slapped on the face by the ungrateful Tibetan
 protesters.

yup, and the indians claiming some right to hold on to kashmir
regardless of what kashmiris want sound like the han chinese too. no
wonder some chinese look on in injured bemusement at india's supposedly
principled support of the dalai lama.

-r

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 09:12 +0530, ss wrote: 
 The other principle that India the modern nation state is that diverse people 
 of many religions and faiths - and this includes Islam CAN live together in 
 one country. The Indian constitution, and the ethos of India the nation state 
 does not allow Islam to opt out and indeed the majority of Indian Muslims do 
 not want that either. The one opportunity for those who wanted out came in 

while this is a much cited reason to keep kashmir part of india, it's an
odd argument. 4 million kashmiri muslims make little difference one way
or another to india's religious composition, compared to the 150 million
or so muslims in the rest of the country.

 Indians are such a meek people that they will boldly shout in support of 
 extremists and not even squeak about the fact of ethnic cleansing of Hindus 
 from Kashmir. And now some separatists in an ethnically cleaned Kashmir  want 
 freedom. I refuse to accept that, in the light of what is happening in 

lots of people talk about some separatists, tiny minority etc. isn't
the appropriate way to find out how much support there is independence
or whatever among certain people to poll them? of course, including the
ethnically cleansed hindus, who as i noted earlier have their claims
to kashmir much better documented than refugees from many other places.

geeking out on military maps and geopolitical strategy is a (fun)
distraction from the basic question of what people want for themselves.

-rishab

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

2008-08-19 Thread Venky

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:09:54AM +0530, Srini Ramakrishnan wrote:
 On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Krish Ashok [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 [...]
  But the bigger issue is what happens if they do secede and there's a sudden
  de-escalation in military expenditure. Somebody is sure to pull some strings
  to get a few more wars started elsewhere to make up for lost profits.
 
 Your assumption is that you are dealing with logical people who will
 stop once they have their wants fulfilled. I would love the said
 de-escalation to happen, guns and bombs are a waste of time, money and
 lives. Except, it just won't happen.

I've always found predicting the future to be a dodgy affair.

 There are large bodies of people
 on both sides of the border who are interested in keeping the feud
 going, with our without Kashmir. This is an ideological war we find
 ourselves in, there is sadly no room for logic. We didn't ask to be in
 it, but I don't see a way out. Do you?

For me, it boils down to this -- if there is a free and fair
referendum and the people of Kashmir vote to secede, I do not see
any moral or ethical way I could justify holding them back.

Will this reduce the violence in the region?  Maybe, maybe not.
Either has no bearing on the fact that holding a people against
their will is, at least in my book, a crime.

Venky (the Second).

-- 
One hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong.

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

2008-08-19 Thread Srini Ramakrishnan

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Venky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[...]
 Will this reduce the violence in the region?  Maybe, maybe not.
 Either has no bearing on the fact that holding a people against
 their will is, at least in my book, a crime.

I suspect it will result in massively increased violence in the rest
of India - I don't want another partition style massacre, that's all.

Cheeni

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

You just have to look at the fine examples of Lebanon and Palestine to kind
of predict what's going to happen.

srs

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
 Of Srini Ramakrishnan
 Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 5:47 PM
 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
 Subject: Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir
 
 On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Venky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 [...]
  Will this reduce the violence in the region?  Maybe, maybe not.
  Either has no bearing on the fact that holding a people against
  their will is, at least in my book, a crime.
 
 I suspect it will result in massively increased violence in the rest
 of India - I don't want another partition style massacre, that's all.
 
 Cheeni

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 The reason why modern India is moving ahead is because it was built up on 
 certain principles. Among these was the subservience of the population to a 
 constitution, no matter how faulty and incomplete that subservience may 
 appear to be. 

That is not the reason that India is moving forward. Subservience
never advances anything other than the interests of the rulers, who
are inevitably most interested in themselves and not in the
people. What is moving India forward is an increase in freedom, that
is, the very opposite of subservience. Every time someone opens up a
company, that is an act of independence, not an act of
subservience. Whenever anyone buys a truck to take vegetables to
market, or writes a newspaper editorial, or wires up an illegal cable
television network in a neighborhood, those are acts of independence,
acts of self determination, and not acts of subservience.

 The other principle that India the modern nation state is that
 diverse people of many religions and faiths - and this includes
 Islam CAN live together in one country.

Can, sure. Are required to and are capable of are two different
things.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 The other principle that India the modern nation state is that
 diverse people of many religions and faiths - and this includes
 Islam CAN live together in one country.

 Can, sure. Are required to and are capable of are two different
 things.

I was perhaps a bit ambiguous here. I should expand.

I am sure that, under the correct circumstances, the people of India
and the people of China, who are quite diverse, could live under a
single government. Should India, in an effort to demonstrate that it
is a modern nation-state capable of incorporating many diverse peoples
under one umbrella, now attempt to rule China? After all, it
would showcase how progressive and modern the Indian constitution is,
or at least, so one might conclude from the logic here.

By the way, the United Kingdom is a modern nation state that now
consists of many different people with diverse backgrounds and
faiths. Perhaps the United Kingdom should run India, in order to
demonstrate quite how modern and progressive it is!

Perry

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 5:09:08 pm Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote:
 geeking out on military maps and geopolitical strategy is a (fun)
 distraction from the basic question of what people want for themselves.

Not looking at these things is a weakness that is frequently covered up by 
clever language - so it cuts both ways.

Anyhow I have said what I think and I will drop the issue. There are obviously 
a lot of opinions and the balance of opinions on this issue will decide what 
happens.

shiv

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Venky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 For me, it boils down to this -- if there is a free and fair
 referendum and the people of Kashmir vote to secede, I do not see
 any moral or ethical way I could justify holding them back.

I've never understood the kneejerk Indian opposition to a plebiscite
in Kashmir. Why would a supposedly free and democratic nation object
to the principle of self-determination? Shiv, perhaps you could
explain that to me -- since you seem well versed in the issues.

Of course, if one extends that line of thought further, one would be
forced to conclude that the American Civil War was wrong -- after all,
democratically elected governments chose to secede in that case.

-- b

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 7:43:44 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote:
 That is not the reason that India is moving forward. Subservience
 never advances anything other than the interests of the rulers,

Wrong choice of word.  My bad. Respect for the supremacy of the constitution 
is what I meant when I wrote subservience to the constitution - thereby 
giving you a handle to wrestle with the semantics. 

But like I said - I have stated my view and will drop the subject now.

shiv

Re: [silk] VW to launch beetle in India next year

2008-08-19 Thread Sean Doyle

The main problems I've had with it (and there were a few) are electrical. It
handles very well - I think it's fun to drive.
I've also been in two traffic accidents with it and the other cars had much
worse damage than mine. I'll admit (Massachusetts driving story) that both
times it was my fault - I was stopped at a stoplight and everyone knows that
in Massachusetts that can be fatal. In one of the accidents I was hit from
behind and then I hit the car in front of me. I had some pretty bad
scratches on my back bumper and a headlight popped out (which I popped back
in) but the car in the back lost its bumper and the hood was crumpled. So -
it's a sturdy beast.

Gas mileage could be better - it's only ~ 27 mpg. In general I'm happy with
it.

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 12:55 AM, Thaths [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 10:23 AM, Sean Doyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Otherwise - a nice car.

 The new Beetle? A nice car?! While it looks great - an excellent
 offspring of an illustrious parent - inside and out, I've heard awful
 horror stories about maintenance woes and frequent breakdowns.

 Thaths
 --
 I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping
  its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think
  it was called, 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'. -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 8:19 PM, ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 5:09:08 pm Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote:
 geeking out on military maps and geopolitical strategy is a (fun)
 distraction from the basic question of what people want for themselves.

 Not looking at these things is a weakness that is frequently covered up by
 clever language - so it cuts both ways.

And that was a neat piece of evasion. :-)

Either that, or you think that the basic question of what people want
for themselves is irrelavent.

-- b

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 7:43:44 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote:
 That is not the reason that India is moving forward. Subservience
 never advances anything other than the interests of the rulers,

 Wrong choice of word.  My bad. Respect for the supremacy of the constitution 
 is what I meant when I wrote subservience to the constitution - thereby 
 giving you a handle to wrestle with the semantics. 

Why should anyone respect the supremacy of a sheet of unfeeling
paper?

The purpose of a legal system is to provide utility for the people
among whom it operates. That is the only goal that deserves
respect. If the sheet of paper specifies actions that on balance harm
people then it deserves to be crumpled up and tossed out.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Biju Chacko [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 Of course, if one extends that line of thought further, one would be
 forced to conclude that the American Civil War was wrong -- after all,
 democratically elected governments chose to secede in that case.

I happen to think the US civil war *was* wrong. It was the not
uncommon case of both sides in a conflict being wrong.

1) The South was wrong for contending it had the right to enslave
   people.
2) The North was wrong for contending it had the right to impose
   itself on the South.

I believe the South did indeed have the right to leave -- I just don't
think it had the right to maintain the system of slavery.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 7:43 PM, Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 The reason why modern India is moving ahead is because it was built up on
 certain principles. Among these was the subservience of the population to a
 constitution, no matter how faulty and incomplete that subservience may
 appear to be.

 That is not the reason that India is moving forward. Subservience
 never advances anything other than the interests of the rulers, who
 are inevitably most interested in themselves and not in the
 people. What is moving India forward is an increase in freedom, that
 is, the very opposite of subservience. Every time someone opens up a
 company, that is an act of independence, not an act of
 subservience. Whenever anyone buys a truck to take vegetables to
 market, or writes a newspaper editorial, or wires up an illegal cable
 television network in a neighborhood, those are acts of independence,
 acts of self determination, and not acts of subservience.

And if someone sets up a closed compound where polygamy and child
marriage are the norm, is that too an act of independence? Or is it
merely criminal? At what point does a group bucking the will of the
majority stop being criminals and start being freedom fighters?

The point is, there is some amount of legitimacy on both sides of the
Kashmiri problem.

While it is easy to pass judgment on the Kashmir issue as Islamic
terrorists or Indian Colonialism, reality is a nasty blob of gray
somewhere in between. There are no easy solutions.

It is difficult to predict all the repercussions of a Kashmiri
secession -- particularly on the stability of India as a nation. I'm
no rabid nationalist -- but I see the Indian Union as something to be
preserved.

Conversely, if the average Kashmiri doesn't consider himself Indian,
how can anyone compel him to be one?

For what it's worth, in my opinion the average Kashmiri doesn't really
give a damn about politics. As long as he's got a full belly and he
thinks he's got a say in how he's governed (but isn't forced to
actually say anything) he'll be happy. The solution to the Kashmiri
problem is to get him to that happy place.

-- b

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 8:22:46 pm Biju Chacko wrote:
 I've never understood the kneejerk Indian opposition to a plebiscite
 in Kashmir. Why would a supposedly free and democratic nation object
 to the principle of self-determination? Shiv, perhaps you could
 explain that to me -- since you seem well versed in the issues.

Briefly the sequence of events is as follows:

1947 - British India split into India and Pakistan. 600 odd Independent 
states ruled by kings/princes asked to decide whether they wanted to join 
India or Pakistan as per the legal terms of the agreement. 

Maharaja Hari Singh of the independent princely state of Kashmir tries to buy 
time to decide by signing holding treaties with India and Pakistan. India 
agrees. Pakistan doesn't.

Pakistani irregulars backed by Army in Mufti attack Kashmir - and overwhelm 
Hari Singh's defences and almost reach Srinagar. They are literally held up 
because they waste time raping and pillaging.

Hari Singh hollers for help from India and signs the accession agreement to 
join India in exchange for help.

By 1948, Indian forces push back raiders from Kashmir to what is the 
present Line of Control and are poised to retake the rest of Kashmir

At this stage, Nehru inexplicably goes to the UN and agrees to a UN mandated 
cease fire and agrees (offers) to hold a plebiscite.

The terms for holding the Plebiscite (agreed in 1948) are
1) Pakistani forces to leave the occupied territory first
2) Indian forces to leave after that
3) Plebiscite to be held.

It turns out that Pakistani forces did not leave and neither did the Indian 
forces.

Much water has flowed down the Jhelum since. Nehru's plebiscite decision was 
never popular in India and he came in for much criticism. Pakistani troops 
not pulling out was a convenient excuse and a perfectly valid one from the 
legal standpoint.  The plebiscite agreement is now defunct for many reasons 
and can be discarded as a data point in history. Nothing will bring it back.

Despite my references to India as a weak state and Indians as meek, Indian 
actions in history do not really support that contention 100%. Indian forces 
made sure that Hyderabad's recalcitrant Nizam was defeated and the state 
joined India. The Portuguese were summarily evicted after military action 
after they failed to leave. 

I believe that the biggest error made by Pakistani leaders was to 
underestimate India. But in many ways the formation of the country was a 
mistake. But I can't see what else would have happened.

I have written an article about my views on the effect of partition on Indian 
Muslims that is currently online (for reader comments). The link below leads 
to that article.

http://www.adl.gatech.edu/research/brmsrr/2008/BRMv7No1PartitionFactor080806.pdf

Use the link below for comments
http://brmsrr.blogspot.com/2008/08/partition-factor-in-status-of-indian.html 



shiv

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 8:34:48 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote:
 The purpose of a legal system is to provide utility for the people
 among whom it operates. That is the only goal that deserves
 respect. If the sheet of paper specifies actions that on balance harm
 people then it deserves to be crumpled up and tossed out.

OK. If you say so..

shiv

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Perry E. Metzger [19/08/08 11:06 -0400]:

1) The South was wrong for contending it had the right to enslave
  people.
2) The North was wrong for contending it had the right to impose
  itself on the South.

I believe the South did indeed have the right to leave -- I just don't
think it had the right to maintain the system of slavery.


You cant have your cake and eat it too. Sure the civil war was about
secession rights far more than free the slaves.

Texas wasnt too much on slave owning, cattle rather than cotton so far
fewer employees needed, unlike the deep south with labor intensive work
like, say, picking cotton. They still joined the confederacy ..

But .. something had to be done. There wasn't any UN around either to pass
sanctions against the Confederate States of America. 


I think it was churchill who said you can either jaw-jaw or war-war

Giving up Kashmir would be dumb. Treating the kashmiri muslims like the
israelis treat the palestinians is even dumber, and encourages a lot more
local support to whatever freedom fighting, jihad, terrorism or whatever
you call it goes on.

Though, the kashmiri muslims / hurriyat seem to be on a winner now.
Peaceful mass demonstrations, memoranda to the UN etc etc while the
hindu nationalists are being their usual obnoxious self, setting up an
economic blockade on the kashmir valley among other things.

srs

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 9:00 PM, ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 legal standpoint.  The plebiscite agreement is now defunct for many reasons
 and can be discarded as a data point in history. Nothing will bring it back.

In other words, the official Indian stance is that the wishes of the
Kashmiri people are irrelevant?

-- b

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 8:46 AM, Biju Chacko [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 9:00 PM, ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 legal standpoint.  The plebiscite agreement is now defunct for many reasons
 and can be discarded as a data point in history. Nothing will bring it back.
 In other words, the official Indian stance is that the wishes of the
 Kashmiri people are irrelevant?

Does the Kashmiri peoples include people living in Azad Kashmir?
Ladhak? Jammu? I suspect that both India and Pakistan do not want a
plebiscite because they fear that they may not get the result they
want.

In the 60 years since the promise of the plebiscite much has changed.
Kashmir no longer has the realistic option of independence. And
because of the de facto partition of Kashmir and movement of
populations out of the region, a plebiscite might not truly reflect
the murky greyness of the wishes of the kashmiris.

S.
-- 
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping
 its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think
 it was called, 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'. -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 9:16:43 pm Biju Chacko wrote:
 In other words, the official Indian stance is that the wishes of the
 Kashmiri people are irrelevant?

You will have to Google for the official Indian stance.
I found this on wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_dispute

  India holds that,
 For the UN Resolution mandating a plebiscite to be valid, Pakistan should
 first vacate its part of Kashmir. The Constituent Assembly of Jammu and
 Kashmir had unanimously ratified the Maharaja's instrument of Accession to
 India and had adopted a constitution for the state that called for a
 perpetual merger of the state with the Indian Union. India claims that this
 body was a representative one, and that its views were those of the
 Kashmiri people at the time. India does not accept the Two Nation Theory
 that forms the basis of Pakistan. India asserts that Kashmir being a
 religiously diverse region with a large number of Hindus and Buddhists, the
 region under a non secular Islamic Nation Pakistan is against the secular
 credentials of Kashmir. India points at the religious cleansing of the
 minorities in Pakistan after the independence. The state of Jammu and
 Kashmir was made autonomous by the Article 370 of the Constitution of
 India, though this autonomy has since been reduced India also points to an
 opinion poll held in Jammu and Kashmir that most of the Muslims living in
 the Kashmir valley do not want Kashmir to be a part of Pakistan.[18] India
 alleges that most of the terrorists operating in Kashmir are themselves
 from Pakistan-administered Kashmir and that Pakistan has been involved in
 state sponsored terrorism.[19] India states that despite Pakistan being
 named as an Islamic Republic, it had allegedly being responsible for one
 of the worst genocide of Muslims when it allegedly killed millions of its
 own countrymen in East Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. India
 also points to articles and US reports[20] which suggest that the
 terrorists are funded mostly by Pakistan as well as through criminal means
 like from the illegal sale of arms and narcotics as well as through
 circulating counterfeit currency in India.


The Pakistani view
 Pakistani view
 Pakistan's claims to the disputed region are based on the rejection of
 Indian claims to Kashmir, namely the Instrument of Accession. Pakistan
 insists that the Maharaja was not a popular leader, and was regarded as a
 tyrant by most Kashmiris. Pakistan also accuses India of hypocrisy, as it
 refused to recognize the accession of Junagadh to Pakistan and Hyderabad's
 independence, on the grounds that those two states had Hindu majorities (in
 fact, India occupied and forcibly integrated those two territories).
 Furthermore, as he had fled Kashmir due to Pakistani invasion, Pakistan
 asserts that the Maharaja held no authority in determining Kashmir's
 future. Additionally, Pakistan argues that even if the Maharaja had any
 authority in determining the plight of Kashmir, he signed the Instrument of
 Accession under duress, thus invalidating the legitimacy of his actions.
 Pakistan also claims that Indian forces were in Kashmir before the
 Instrument of Accession was signed with India, thus, Indian troops were in
 Kashmir in violation of the Standstill Agreement, which was designed to
 maintain the status quo in Kashmir (although India was not signatory to the
 Agreement, signed between Pakistan and the Hindu ruler of Jammu and
 Kashmir). [21][22]. From 1990 to 1999 some organizations report that Indian
 Armed Forces, its paramilitary groups, and counter-insurgent militias have
 been responsible for the deaths 4,501 of Kashmiri civilians. Also from 1990
 to 1999, there have are records of 4,242 women between the ages of 7-70
 that have been raped.[23][24]. Similar allegations were also made by some
 human rights organizations.[25] In short, Pakistan holds that
 The popular Kashmiri insurgency demonstrates that the Kashmiri people no
 longer wish to remain within India. Pakistan suggests that this means that
 either Kashmir wants to be with Pakistan or independent. Indian
 counterinsurgency tactics merit international monitoring of the Kashmir
 conflict, and the Indian Army has carried out human rights violations -
 including torture, rape and extrajudicial killings - against the Kashmiri
 people. According to the two-nation theory by which Pakistan was formed,
 Kashmir should have been with Pakistan, because it has a Muslim majority.
 The K in Pakistan stands for Kashmir. India has shown disregard to the
 resolutions of the UN (by not holding a plebiscite). The Kashmiri people
 have now been forced by the circumstances to rise against the alleged
 repression of the Indian army and uphold their right of self-determination
 through militancy. Pakistan claims to give the Kashmiri insurgents moral,
 ethical and military support (see 1999 Kargil Conflict).

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 8:34:48 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote:
 The purpose of a legal system is to provide utility for the people
 among whom it operates. That is the only goal that deserves
 respect. If the sheet of paper specifies actions that on balance harm
 people then it deserves to be crumpled up and tossed out.

 OK. If you say so..

Do you believe otherwise? Is the function of government to impose
arbitrary rule, or to serve the needs of the people living in the
governed territory? If it is to rule, then why should anyone, other
than someone interested in the raw and arbitrary exercise of power for
their own benefit, want it?


Perry

Re: [silk] aadu pambe


Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote, [on 8/19/2008 1:10 AM]:


so can someone give me a rough idea of the lyrics of the song i've had
looping for hours now [1]?


I ordered the CD via a link from phat-phish.com - will report when I 
receive it.


Udhay
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

[silk] A Capital Idea

for rishab.

-udhay

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03wwln-guestsafire-t.html

On Language
Me, Myself and I
By CAROLINE WINTER
Published: August 3, 2008

Why do we capitalize the word “I”? There’s no grammatical reason for
doing so, and oddly enough, the majuscule “I” appears only in English.

Consider other languages: some, like Hebrew, Arabic and
Devanagari-Hindi, have no capitalized letters, and others, like
Japanese, make it possible to drop pronouns altogether. The supposedly
snobbish French leave all personal pronouns in the unassuming lowercase,
and Germans respectfully capitalize the formal form of “you” and even,
occasionally, the informal form of “you,” but would never capitalize
“I.” Yet in English, the solitary “I” towers above “he,” “she,” “it” and
the royal “we.” Even a gathering that includes God might not be
addressed with a capitalized “you.”

The word “capitalize” comes from “capital,” meaning “head,” and is
associated with importance, material wealth, assets and advantages. We
have capital cities and capital ideas. We give capital punishment and
accrue political, social and financial capital. And then there is
capitalism, which is linked to private ownership, markets and
investments. These words shore up the towering single letter that
signifies us as discrete beings and connote confidence, dominance and
the ambition to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

England is where the capital “I” first reared its dotless head. In Old
and Middle English, when “I” was still “ic,” “ich” or some variation
thereof — before phonetic changes in the spoken language led to a
stripped-down written form — the first-person pronoun was not majuscule
in most cases. The generally accepted linguistic explanation for the
capital “I” is that it could not stand alone, uncapitalized, as a single
letter, which allows for the possibility that early manuscripts and
typography played a major role in shaping the national character of
English-speaking countries.

“Graphically, single letters are a problem,” says Charles Bigelow, a
type historian and a designer of the Lucida and Wingdings font families.
“They look like they broke off from a word or got lost or had some other
accident.” When “I” shrunk to a single letter, Bigelow explains, “one
little letter had to represent an important word, but it was too wimpy,
graphically speaking, to carry the semantic burden, so the scribes made
it bigger, which means taller, which means equivalent to a capital.”

The growing “I” became prevalent in the 13th and 14th centuries, with a
Geoffrey Chaucer manuscript of “The Canterbury Tales” among the first
evidence of this grammatical shift. Initially, distinctions were made
between graphic marks denoting an “I” at the beginning of a sentence
versus a midphrase first-person pronoun. Yet these variations eventually
fell by the wayside, leaving us with our all-purpose capital “I,” a
potent change apparently made for simplicity’s sake.

In following centuries, Britain and the United States thrived as world
powers, and English became the second-most-common language in the world,
following Mandarin. Meanwhile, the origin, meaning and consequences of
our capitalized “I” went largely unchanged, with few exceptions.

One divergence stems from the Rastafarians, who intentionally developed
a dialect of Jamaican Creole in order to break culturally from the
English-speaking imperialists who once enslaved them. Their phrase “I
and I” can be used in place of “I,” “we” or Rastafarians as a group, but
generally expresses the oneness of the speaker with God and all people.
“I and I” is thus, in some ways, a conscious deviation — really the
exact opposite of the English ego-centered capital “I.”

Not long ago, certain presidential candidates could have used a bit of
the “I and I” spirit. At the close of the primary season, the news media
scrutinized Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama’s use
of the first-person pronoun, the implication being that a string of “I”
’s signifies ungracious self-inflation. On the last day of voting,
Clinton led the pack with 64 “I” ’s and McCain followed with 60. Obama’s
“I” count lagged at 30, and he was the only candidate whose combined
“we” ’s (37) and “you” ’s (16) outnumbered his “I” ’s. These were spoken
pronouns, but, of course, our understanding and use of language is
informed by the printed word.

So what effect has capitalizing “I” but not “you” — or any other pronoun
— had on English speakers? It’s impossible to know, but perhaps our
individualistic, workaholic society would be more rooted in community
and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of
ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot. There have, of course,
been plenty of rich and dominant cultures throughout history that have
gotten by just fine without capitalizing the first-person pronoun or
ever writing it down at all.

Re: [silk] McKinsey on the economics of solar power

2008-08-19 Thread Eugen Leitl

On Sat, Aug 02, 2008 at 11:47:50AM -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

  * By 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment capital
  will probably boost global solar-generating capacity 20 to 40 times
  higher than its current level.
 
 I disagree. I think capacity is going to be more like several hundred
 to 1000x the current level. :)

Three orders of magnitude is a bit much for just 12 years (that would
mean 10x of Germany's entire energy use just for Germany).

-- 
Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org
__
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

Re: [silk] A Capital Idea

2008-08-19 Thread Deepa Mohan

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Udhay Shankar N [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 for rishab.

 -udhay

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03wwln-guestsafire-t.html

 On Language
 Me, Myself and I
 By CAROLINE WINTER
 Published: August 3, 2008

 Why do we capitalize the word I? There's no grammatical reason for doing
 so, and oddly enough, the majuscule I appears only in English.



That brings me to wonder, why capital letters came to be, at all...or, to be
more precise, why there are capital and small letters, some of which
actually look different from each other? Are there scripts other than
the Roman, which have capital letters? Capital letters seem to be a way of
distinguishing the word from the others in the sentence in some way...how do
other scripts do this? mera naam krishna hai, mein punjaab sey aaya hoon
seems perfect without the capitals

Deepa.

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Suresh Ramasubramanian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 Perry E. Metzger [19/08/08 11:06 -0400]:
1) The South was wrong for contending it had the right to enslave
   people.
2) The North was wrong for contending it had the right to impose
   itself on the South.

I believe the South did indeed have the right to leave -- I just don't
think it had the right to maintain the system of slavery.

 You cant have your cake and eat it too.

That depends on how large the cake supply is, I suppose. :)

 Sure the civil war was about secession rights far more than free
 the slaves.

 Texas wasnt too much on slave owning, cattle rather than cotton so
 far fewer employees needed, unlike the deep south with labor
 intensive work like, say, picking cotton. They still joined the
 confederacy ..

 But .. something had to be done.

Perhaps, but the question is always what.

The civil war itself killed something like 600,000 soldiers, and who
knows how many civilians. On the other hand, even the most
intransigent slave holding societies in the world like Brazil broke
down and eliminated slavery within decades of the end of the US civil
war, and it is far from clear that the US South could have sustained
slavery for very much longer, either.

Would an extra couple of decades of slavery, and the retention of the
principle of self determination, have been a good trade for something
close to a million deaths? It is hard to say. If I were a slave, I
would clearly have said no. If I were a conscript who died miserably
at Gettysburg, I would clearly have said yes.

The question is not a new one, and there are far more positions than
there are good answers. Lysander Spooner, who was a virulent
abolitionist, favored the use of violence to end slavery, but not to
prevent secession.

 There wasn't any UN around either to pass sanctions against the
 Confederate States of America.

Clearly, if the North had simply allowed the South to leave, things
like the Fugitive Slave Act would have ceased to be -- slaves escaping
from the South would no longer have had to fear being returned at
all. The North could have taken other moral stands against the South,
and quite clearly the South needed trade with the North more than vice
versa.

 I think it was churchill who said you can either jaw-jaw or war-war

More easily said for a political leader than for a conscript with a
gun in his hand and a mandate to die over a cause he cares little
about. :)

 Giving up Kashmir would be dumb.

Well, lets consider the positives:

1) Elimination of a major, perhaps the major, cause of conflict
   between India and a neighboring state.
   a) Lowered military spending.
   b) (probably) lowered terrorism.
   c) Lowered risk of conscripts and civilians dying.
   d) Lowered risk of nuclear warfare.
   e) The possibility of opening up valuable trade, and significant
  resultant economic benefits.
2) Affirmation of the right to self determination (at least if a
   plebiscite is held to determine the fate of the region), along with
   the ability for India to push for that right in other places
   without seeming hypocritical.
3) Less energy spent debating a question that has raged on for
   decades. The benefits to the Silk list alone would be significant!

The major negative, as I see it, is reduced machismo. There would be a
perception that whomever negotiated the deal had given in, was
wimpy, rewarded terrorism, etc. All these seem like fairly silly
reasons to be worried, so far as I can tell.

As for the Kashmiris themselves, I think they would be foolish to want
to go, but then again I'm the sort who amuses himself by imagining all
sorts of alternate universes. Consider, for example, an alternate
universe in which India integrated with Great Britain in 1950, 96% of
the members of parliament at Westminster were representatives of
districts in the former colony (considering relative populations of
60M vs the combined population of India and Pakistan), the PM at
Downing Street was not a native of those peculiar islands off the
European coast, and the Anglo-Saxon population of the Empire was
nearly completely disenfranchised. :)


Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Perry E. Metzger [19/08/08 13:02 -0400]:

1) Elimination of a major, perhaps the major, cause of conflict
  between India and a neighboring state.


Er no. They'll fight with us and vice versa (and the hawkish bloggers and
wikipedians on bharat rakshak.com and the paki equivalent will do the same
online - ss is a mod on bharat rakshak I think). Kashmir, or whatever
other issue.


  a) Lowered military spending.


Not bloody likely. Especially not in pakistan where the army has more of a
say in government than anybody else.

srs

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Biju Chacko [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 That is not the reason that India is moving forward. Subservience
 never advances anything other than the interests of the rulers, who
 are inevitably most interested in themselves and not in the
 people. What is moving India forward is an increase in freedom, that
 is, the very opposite of subservience. Every time someone opens up a
 company, that is an act of independence, not an act of
 subservience. Whenever anyone buys a truck to take vegetables to
 market, or writes a newspaper editorial, or wires up an illegal cable
 television network in a neighborhood, those are acts of independence,
 acts of self determination, and not acts of subservience.

 And if someone sets up a closed compound where polygamy and child
 marriage are the norm, is that too an act of independence? Or is it
 merely criminal? At what point does a group bucking the will of the
 majority stop being criminals and start being freedom fighters?

I'd draw the line here: if people are engaging in acts in which all
the participants are completely willing, then I see no reason the
majority should interfere. If people are forcing their will on
unwilling participants, then there is a cause of action.

Some, but not all, polygamy probably counts as voluntary, though most
forms of marriage involving 10 year olds almost certainly do not count
as voluntary. Slavery clearly is not a voluntary relationship, but
giving up all your worldly goods and serving a religion as a celibate
priest usually is even if one might regard the religion as bizarre or
a cult. Buying and injecting heroin into your own body is largely an
act that only involves voluntary action, forcibly injecting it into
someone else is not.

 The point is, there is some amount of legitimacy on both sides of
 the Kashmiri problem.

Doubtless. There is a significant issue of displaced persons, for
example.

 While it is easy to pass judgment on the Kashmir issue as Islamic
 terrorists or Indian Colonialism, reality is a nasty blob of gray
 somewhere in between. There are no easy solutions.

Life rarely has easy solutions. I would not call giving up Kashmir an
easy solution, by the way. It only seems like the means most likely to
reduce rather than increase the problem.

 It is difficult to predict all the repercussions of a Kashmiri
 secession -- particularly on the stability of India as a nation. I'm
 no rabid nationalist -- but I see the Indian Union as something to be
 preserved.

 Conversely, if the average Kashmiri doesn't consider himself Indian,
 how can anyone compel him to be one?

 For what it's worth, in my opinion the average Kashmiri doesn't really
 give a damn about politics. As long as he's got a full belly and he
 thinks he's got a say in how he's governed (but isn't forced to
 actually say anything) he'll be happy. The solution to the Kashmiri
 problem is to get him to that happy place.

Most people around the world don't want to be involved in politics. I
think generally they just want to be left alone in peace. As you note,
the problem arises when their bellies are not full and they are not
left alone to live as they will.

-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [silk] A Capital Idea

2008-08-19 Thread Kiran Jonnalagadda

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:28 PM, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 That brings me to wonder, why capital letters came to be, at all...or, to
 be
 more precise, why there are capital and small letters, some of which
 actually look different from each other? Are there scripts other than
 the Roman, which have capital letters? Capital letters seem to be a way of
 distinguishing the word from the others in the sentence in some way...how
 do
 other scripts do this? mera naam krishna hai, mein punjaab sey aaya hoon
 seems perfect without the capitals


These days I look up Wikipedia before Google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_letters


-- 
Kiran Jonnalagadda
http://jace.seacrow.com/

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Suresh Ramasubramanian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 Perry E. Metzger [19/08/08 13:02 -0400]:
1) Elimination of a major, perhaps the major, cause of conflict
   between India and a neighboring state.

 Er no. They'll fight with us and vice versa (and the hawkish bloggers and
 wikipedians on bharat rakshak.com and the paki equivalent will do the same
 online - ss is a mod on bharat rakshak I think). Kashmir, or whatever
 other issue.

Perhaps. I'm not sure I see a better means of de-escalating the
tensions, however.

   a) Lowered military spending.

 Not bloody likely. Especially not in pakistan where the army has more of a
 say in government than anybody else.

Even if no one lowers expenditures on the ordinary maintenance of the
military, surely the operational expenditures in doing things like
maintaining armed camps in inaccessible glacial terrain would of
necessity vanish?

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [silk] McKinsey on the economics of solar power


Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On Sat, Aug 02, 2008 at 11:47:50AM -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

  * By 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment capital
  will probably boost global solar-generating capacity 20 to 40 times
  higher than its current level.
 
 I disagree. I think capacity is going to be more like several hundred
 to 1000x the current level. :)

 Three orders of magnitude is a bit much for just 12 years (that would
 mean 10x of Germany's entire energy use just for Germany).

There is a lot of the world where there is virtually no electrical
power now -- indeed, that covers most of the world's population. There
are also several billion people living in countries on a steep upsweep
in their power consumption -- India and China immediately come to
mind. One should not assume the West is where all the action is.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

2008-08-19 Thread Vinayak Hegde

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:32 PM, Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Giving up Kashmir would be dumb.

 Well, lets consider the positives:

 1) Elimination of a major, perhaps the major, cause of conflict
   between India and a neighboring state.
   a) Lowered military spending.
   b) (probably) lowered terrorism.
   c) Lowered risk of conscripts and civilians dying.
   d) Lowered risk of nuclear warfare.
   e) The possibility of opening up valuable trade, and significant
  resultant economic benefits.

Elimination of conflict is a pipe dream since so much of the Pakistani
identity depends upon being Anti-Indian. What I fail to comprehend is
the continual comparison of India to Pakistan by Indians - knowing
that Pakistan is a vassal state of the US (just look at the aid being
pumped into Pakistan) and a failed nation. Besides the Anti-Indian
stance is one of the reasons what makes the Army generals powerful in
Pakistan.

 2) Affirmation of the right to self determination (at least if a
   plebiscite is held to determine the fate of the region), along with
   the ability for India to push for that right in other places
   without seeming hypocritical.

The problem is having to define Kashmir and Kashmiris as Thaths
pointed out. There has been large scale migration from the valley.
Besides JK consists of Ladakh and Jammu regions in addition to
Kashmir itself.

 3) Less energy spent debating a question that has raged on for
   decades. The benefits to the Silk list alone would be significant!

Ok I shall now shut up :-)

-- Vinayak

Re: [silk] McKinsey on the economics of solar power

2008-08-19 Thread Jeff Bone

Udhay, can I get a copy of this?

On Aug 1, 2008, at 11:02 PM, Udhay Shankar N wrote:

Requires registration. Mail me offlist if you want a PDF of the
article.

Udhay

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Energy_Resources_Materials/Strategy_Analysis/The_economics_of_solar_power_2161_abstract

The economics of solar power

* Solar energy is becoming more economically attractive as
technologies improve and the cost of electricity generated by fossil
fuels rises.
* By 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment capital
will probably boost global solar-generating capacity 20 to 40 times
higher than its current level.
* As the new sector takes shape, producers of solar components must
drive their costs down, utilities must place big bets despite enormous
technological uncertainty, and regulators must phase out subsidies
with

care.
* The actions these players take will determine the solar sector’s
scale, structure, and performance for years to come.

This article contains the following exhibits:

* Exhibit 1: Within three to seven years, solar energy's
unsubsidized cost to end users will approach the cost of conventional
electricity in a number of markets, including parts of the United
States

(California and the Southwest), as well as Italy, Japan, and Spain.
* Exhibit 2: Installed global solar capacity will grow by roughly
30
to 35 percent a year, from 10 gigawatts today to about 200 gigawatts
in

2020.

--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] McKinsey on the economics of solar power

2008-08-19 Thread Jeff Bone

Apologies for hitting the list w/ that...

:-/

On Aug 19, 2008, at 12:27 PM, Jeff Bone wrote:

Udhay, can I get a copy of this?

On Aug 1, 2008, at 11:02 PM, Udhay Shankar N wrote:

Requires registration. Mail me offlist if you want a PDF of the
article.

Udhay

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Energy_Resources_Materials/Strategy_Analysis/The_economics_of_solar_power_2161_abstract

The economics of solar power

* Solar energy is becoming more economically attractive as
technologies improve and the cost of electricity generated by fossil
fuels rises.
* By 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment capital
will probably boost global solar-generating capacity 20 to 40 times
higher than its current level.
* As the new sector takes shape, producers of solar components must
drive their costs down, utilities must place big bets despite
enormous
technological uncertainty, and regulators must phase out subsidies
with

care.
* The actions these players take will determine the solar sector’s
scale, structure, and performance for years to come.

This article contains the following exhibits:

* Exhibit 1: Within three to seven years, solar energy's
unsubsidized cost to end users will approach the cost of conventional
electricity in a number of markets, including parts of the United
States

2020.

--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] A Capital Idea

2008-08-19 Thread Vinayak Hegde

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:28 PM, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 That brings me to wonder, why capital letters came to be, at all...or, to be
 more precise, why there are capital and small letters, some of which
 actually look different from each other? Are there scripts other than
 the Roman, which have capital letters? Capital letters seem to be a way of
 distinguishing the word from the others in the sentence in some way...how do
 other scripts do this? mera naam krishna hai, mein punjaab sey aaya hoon
 seems perfect without the capitals

The curious case of danah boyd (the lowercase is intentional -
http://www.danah.org/name.html).

-- Vinayak

Re: [silk] A Capital Idea

2008-08-19 Thread Aishwarya Subramanian

There's also bell hooks, of course.

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 11:02 PM, Vinayak Hegde [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:28 PM, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
  That brings me to wonder, why capital letters came to be, at all...or, to
 be
  more precise, why there are capital and small letters, some of which
  actually look different from each other? Are there scripts other than
  the Roman, which have capital letters? Capital letters seem to be a way
 of
  distinguishing the word from the others in the sentence in some way...how
 do
  other scripts do this? mera naam krishna hai, mein punjaab sey aaya
 hoon
  seems perfect without the capitals

 The curious case of danah boyd (the lowercase is intentional -
 http://www.danah.org/name.html).

 -- Vinayak

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Consider, for example, an alternate
 universe in which India integrated with Great Britain in 1950, 96% of
 the members of parliament at Westminster were representatives of
 districts in the former colony (considering relative populations of
 60M vs the combined population of India and Pakistan), the PM at
 Downing Street was not a native of those peculiar islands off the
 European coast, and the Anglo-Saxon population of the Empire was
 nearly completely disenfranchised. :)

Would never have happened. How many MPs did Hong Kong have in the GB
parliament? How many MPs representing the interests of the residents
of Falkland Islands?

Way before the winds of change blew strong and fierce, the British
were set on a path of granting limited self governance to the colonies
(cf. Government of India Act (1935)). It is highly unlikely that the
British would have more fully integrated the colonies with
representation in the Westminster Parliamentary system.

S.
-- 
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping
 its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think
 it was called, 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'. -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Vinayak Hegde [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Elimination of conflict is a pipe dream since so much of the Pakistani
 identity depends upon being Anti-Indian.

I keep hearing this argument. What are the numbers to support this
claim? And I would be very interested in learning more about Pakistani
views on what they think the Indian identity is.

 What I fail to comprehend is
 the continual comparison of India to Pakistan by Indians - knowing
 that Pakistan is a vassal state of the US (just look at the aid being
 pumped into Pakistan) and a failed nation. Besides the Anti-Indian
 stance is one of the reasons what makes the Army generals powerful in
 Pakistan.

Let us not forget the crores of brown paper envelopes and consultant
fees and miscellaneous kickbacks that a prolonged conflict or enemy at
the gates keeps generating. Bofors? Coffins for Indian soldiers killed
in Kargil? Night vision binocular procurement? If it was not East
Asia, it would be Eurasia.

 The problem is having to define Kashmir and Kashmiris as Thaths
 pointed out. There has been large scale migration from the valley.
 Besides JK consists of Ladakh and Jammu regions in addition to
 Kashmir itself.

I think the most pragmatic (and likely) solution for the conflict is
the de jure recognition of the Line of Control as the border between
Indian Kashmir and Pakistani Kashmir. We came close to it during the
bus diplomacy initiative. If such an accord were reached we would
still have some way to go for Peace. The ISI should stop (it will if
the US leaned on it heavily) cross border terrorism and the Indian
military/police should go about rebuilding trust by carrying out a
hearts and minds operation similar to that conducted in Punjab in the
late 80's, early 90's.

Thaths
-- 
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping
 its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think
 it was called, 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'. -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Thaths [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Consider, for example, an alternate
 universe in which India integrated with Great Britain in 1950, 96% of
 the members of parliament at Westminster were representatives of
 districts in the former colony (considering relative populations of
 60M vs the combined population of India and Pakistan), the PM at
 Downing Street was not a native of those peculiar islands off the
 European coast, and the Anglo-Saxon population of the Empire was
 nearly completely disenfranchised. :)

 Would never have happened.

Of course -- there was not the slightest possibility of it whatsoever.
That doesn't make the contemplation of the counterfactual any less amusing.
Among other things, it sheds light on the nature of empires.


Perry

Re: [silk] A Capital Idea

On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 22:17 +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
 for rishab.

hehe. i think it's a sign of good writing to be able to do 500 words on
an essentially inexplicable quirk of language. although i actually
rather preferred the economist's article [1] on english spelling reform:
You write potato, I write ghoughpteighbteau, and the alternative
spelling of fish and chips as ghoti  tchoghs.

english spelling is truly idiotic.

-rishab
1.
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11920829

Re: [silk] aadu pambe

On Mon, 2008-08-18 at 16:30 -0700, Thaths wrote:
 On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 1:57 PM, Madhu Kurup [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  The name of the song translates into Dance (or perhaps a combination of
   dance and sway) Snake. Broadly, I believe it's talking about the
  environment - The time of the children of the forest has gone by

so i sent the track to my mom, who said:

You know that Aadu Pambe is quite shocking. As children, we would be
exposed to this, in dance class, on dance stage and from
mother/grandmothers. It is actually a snake-charmer,s song, saying ,
Dance Snake, I am searching for you. The raga is I think
PunnaagaVaraali, one of the Varaali famiily.  Panthuvaraali is like
Shree.  Punnaaga (note the incorporation of  naaga = serpent in the name
of the raag) is more like Gauri, [a mind-blowing raag in hindustani
music that's almost never performed as it is supposed to drive you mad -
RG] and  singing the raag on stage is considered  an adventure, as
snakes can actually come  with  these vibrations being created. [...].
So I really think that they shouldnt have  put this on Mallu Rock! 

i pointed out that i'm sure the rockers would be pretty thrilled at the
thought of conjuring up snakes on the stage :-)

-rishab

Re: [silk] aadu pambe

2008-08-19 Thread Vardhini Shankar




The name of the song translates into Dance (or perhaps a combination of 
 dance and sway) Snake. Broadly, I believe it's talking about the 
environment - The time of the children of the forest has gone by

Madhu M Kurup /* Nemo Me Impune Lacessit */ mmk222 at cornell dt edu


The original from where Avial borrowed the aadu paambe refrain is  the well 
known Aadu Paambe , Vilaiyaadu Paambe
(raagam: Punnaaga varaaLi) . That one is in Tamil not MalayaaLam and
has lots of verses many of which are not incomprehensible . Most
popular versions begin with  Naadhar mudi melirukkum naagappaambe, if
I remember right.  

Most of it refers to some story or the other in
Hindu mythology involving snakes (Eg: Kuttramattra sivanukku
kundalamaanai).  The Avial track definitely reused the tune,  they
probably found it a v.catchy refrain. Or does the line Aadu paambe,  thedu 
paambe mean something more in the context of the entire track?

Vardhini

Re: [silk] A Capital Idea


Rishab Aiyer Ghosh [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 english spelling is truly idiotic.

Rather, though the lack of any central authority makes it impossible
to reform in practice. (It also is the language's main strength,
IMHO.)

Perry

Re: [silk] A Capital Idea

2008-08-19 Thread Charles Haynes

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 english spelling is truly idiotic.

 Rather, though the lack of any central authority makes it impossible
 to reform in practice. (It also is the language's main strength,
 IMHO.)

I agree with you Perry, and I think the idiocy will only get worse
as English incorporates SMS speak and regionalisms (like Indian
English usages) that spread globally.

Even if u and ur set my teeth on edge. Hey you kids! Get off of
my lawn^H^H^H^H language.

(how soon before people don't understand ^H?)

-- Charles

Re: [silk] VW to launch beetle in India next year

2008-08-19 Thread Derek Shaffer

Hi all,
Time for a brief introduction.  I've been lurking in this list for a long 
time, but have never posted... well, not intentionally.  I posted a rant about 
Ubuntu a while back on my blog that seems to have been mirrored here, so I 
figured I might as well join. :-)  Anyway, I'm Derek Shaffer, son-in-law of 
Deepa Mohan, who is also on the list.
Regarding the New Beetle, I'm a little surprised that it is coming to 
India, though I guess this sort of marks a milestone in the types of vehicles 
that are available to the Indian market (if the Accord V6 didn't already do 
that).  Vehicles available on the Indian market are typically vastly more 
oriented towards space efficiency and fuel efficiency than ones sold in the 
U.S. (Europe falls somewhere in-between), and vehicles whose shapes are 
determined by the styling needs rather than the functionality needs are 
uncommon.  The New Beetle, while it is a very high quality machine and a very 
cool modern representation of the best selling car in history, is extremely 
space inefficient.  It has a large footprint on the road and relatively little 
space for passengers and cargo.  This is not a problem for the U.S. market, but 
on roads where every inch/cm counts, is it likely to sell?  It will also be at 
the expensive end of the market, which may present an
 additional challenge for it as well.  I'm going to be very interested to see 
how well it is accepted.
Regarding reliability, the New Beetle is not immune to the electrical 
issues that are typical of VWs (and therefore Audis and Skodas -- all from the 
same parts bins), but I think most buyers are aware that there is a trade-off 
between Japanese reliability and European road behavior (personally, I 
certainly prefer the latter).  VWs and Skodas seem to have done well enough in 
India.


-Derek


- Original Message 
From: Thaths [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Sent: Monday, 18 August, 2008 11:55:57 PM
Subject: Re: [silk] VW to launch beetle in India next year

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 10:23 AM, Sean Doyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Otherwise - a nice car.

The new Beetle? A nice car?! While it looks great - an excellent
offspring of an illustrious parent - inside and out, I've heard awful
horror stories about maintenance woes and frequent breakdowns.

Thaths
-- 
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping
its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think
it was called, 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'. -- Homer J. Simpson

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 10:02:30 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote:
  On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 8:34:48 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote:
  The purpose of a legal system is to provide utility for the people
  among whom it operates. That is the only goal that deserves
  respect. If the sheet of paper specifies actions that on balance harm
  people then it deserves to be crumpled up and tossed out.
 
  OK. If you say so..

 Do you believe otherwise? Is the function of government to impose
 arbitrary rule, or to serve the needs of the people living in the
 governed territory? If it is to rule, then why should anyone, other
 than someone interested in the raw and arbitrary exercise of power for
 their own benefit, want it?

Er - I.m not in this any more. You lost me when you decided to toss out the 
Indian constitution. It is crucial to this discussion .

The government and what the government does is totally dependent on that 
piece of paper you have just tossed out - the constitution. At least that's 
the way it works in India. If you toss out the constitution in India - it 
gets even easier to eliminate Kashmiri people and keep the land. Article 370 
of the Indian tossed out piece of paper expressly disallows Indians who are 
not Kashmiris (such as myself)  from owning land in Kashmir. 
If a parliamentary vote can remove this Article, Indians from other parts of 
India could settle in Kashmir and India could do to Kashmir what China is 
doing in Tibet -that is inundating the  local population with Chinese from 
other parts of the country. 

Kashmiri separatists are actually being taken for a ride by the government of 
India where the separatists think they are justified in agitating even while 
they are protected by a special artificial clause (a law) that stops Indians 
from settling gin Kashmir. That is like saying that people from Delhi can't 
settle in Bangalore. 

But by doing this the government is gaining brownie points and the separatists 
know this. They (the separatists and the people of Kashmir, (Muslims, Hindus 
and Buddhists) are faced with a fait accompli. if they agitate for separation 
they are reminded that their agitation is hot air that rests on article 370 
that protects their special status. If that provision goes India can dump 
several tens of millions of landless Indians from Bihar and MP and Jharkhand 
in Kashmir and tell the Kashmiris that they have to live like the people of 
any other state in India and share their land.

Other than war with external support (Pakistan anyone?) defeating the Indian 
nation state  - Kashmiri separatists do not have the chance of a fart in a 
hurricane of getting what they want. Not only is India going to hold on - it 
is holding on to the moral high ground as well by implementing a law that 
prevents Indians from doing what the Chinese are doing in Tibet. Most Indians 
don't even seem to understand the game that is being played out. And everyone 
else is clueless and powerless.

shiv

Re: [silk] VW to launch beetle in India next year


Derek Shaffer wrote, [on 8/20/2008 6:11 AM]:

Hi all,
Time for a brief introduction.  I've been lurking in this list for a long 
time, but have never posted... well, not intentionally.  I posted a rant about 
Ubuntu a while back on my blog that seems to have been mirrored here, so I 
figured I might as well join. :-)  Anyway, I'm Derek Shaffer, son-in-law of 
Deepa Mohan, who is also on the list.


And spouse of Anjana, who is also ditto. Welcome to the vocal minority. :)


Regarding the New Beetle, I'm a little surprised that it is coming to 
India, though I guess this sort of marks a milestone in the types of vehicles 
that are available to the Indian market (if the Accord V6 didn't already do 
that).


And the Hummer, and the Maybach, etc etc.

VW is in the interesting position of having 3 brands (Skoda, Audi, VW) 
jostling for approximately the same market segment in India.


Udhay
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] A Capital Idea

On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 10:17:25 pm Udhay Shankar N wrote:
  i suggest that You try, as an experiment,
 to capitalize those whom You address while leaving yourselves in the
 lowercase. It may be a humbling experience. It was for me.

Not for ME though. i hv no prblm.

Actually capitalization makes English text easier to read. Every capital 
letter stands out as a marker that one can recall and re-focus on for a 
re-read. Capitals act as adjuncts to paragraphs.

shiv

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

2008-08-19 Thread Balaji Dutt

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 1:02 AM, Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote:


  Giving up Kashmir would be dumb.

 Well, lets consider the positives:

 1) Elimination of a major, perhaps the major, cause of conflict
   between India and a neighboring state.
   a) Lowered military spending.
   b) (probably) lowered terrorism.
   c) Lowered risk of conscripts and civilians dying.
   d) Lowered risk of nuclear warfare.
   e) The possibility of opening up valuable trade, and significant
  resultant economic benefits.


I have to wonder if I'm rushing in where wiser heads would stay away but
still, I couldn't resist piping up :-)

I don't agree with the argument of lowered military spending or generally
lower chances of military buildup. There is a simpler geographical reality
to consider - as the Capital city of a country with enemies on both sides,
Delhi is vulnerable - located as it is at the neck of India with hostile
states only a few hours away by road on both sides. This is not a pleasant
though for most of Indian military strategists.

Consider for example that Kashmir was given a plebiscite and did secede to
become independent. It is not too outrageous to argue that a state with no
industry, limited agriculture and no direct trade routes is going to become
a vassal state of its nearest powerful neighbor. Given the inclination of
those in Kashmir who demanded the plebiscite in the first place, we can
expect that neighbor to be Pakistan.

Suddenly, the Indian military establishment is faced with the prospect of
having Pakistani MBTs parked about 500 kms away from Delhi. Given the top
speeds of the frontline MBTs in the Pakistani army, that's about an
overnight drive before you see Pakistani T80s rolling down Rajpath. [1]

Compare that to the 900+ Kms that the Indian Army has today, not to mention
part of that route is basically fair-weather roads that are only passable in
Summer. [1] Also consider that the Indian Army and Pakistani Army are far
more evenly matched in the types and quantities of armor they possess today
[2] [3] [4] [5] then 40-odd years ago [6].

The above is admittedly a doomsday scenario, but isn't that what all
military establishments survive on?

To me atleast, there is a simpler truth underlying the political
establishment's stance on Kashmir - you give up land, you give up safety.
IMO, it's why no expense was spared in fighting Khalistan but the Naxalites
are ignored, and why Aksai Chin doesn't matter but Kashmir does.

[1] http://is.gd/1L9l
[2] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/pakistan/army-equipment.htm
[3] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/army-equipment.htm
[4] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/t-80-specs.htm
[5] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/t-72-specs.htm
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1965#Tank_battles

--
Balaji (who is going to regret sending this email 2 minutes after clicking
send)

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 10:02:30 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote:
  On Tuesday 19 Aug 2008 8:34:48 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote:
  The purpose of a legal system is to provide utility for the people
  among whom it operates. That is the only goal that deserves
  respect. If the sheet of paper specifies actions that on balance harm
  people then it deserves to be crumpled up and tossed out.
 
  OK. If you say so..

 Do you believe otherwise? Is the function of government to impose
 arbitrary rule, or to serve the needs of the people living in the
 governed territory? If it is to rule, then why should anyone, other
 than someone interested in the raw and arbitrary exercise of power for
 their own benefit, want it?

 Er - I.m not in this any more. You lost me when you decided to toss
 out the Indian constitution. It is crucial to this discussion .

Is it?

So far as I know, the Indian Constitution is a document drafted by
human beings as a means of achieving their goals. It is not, in
itself, a goal -- or at least should not be.

The function of a legal charter like a constitution (if it is to have
a legitimate function) is to achieve some set of external goals
desired by its drafters. One cannot point to the document as a source
of legitimacy or an end in itself -- the legitimacy necessarily comes
from the people who are participants in the chartered organization,
and the ends must be their ends.

A law or a constitution can say monstrous things. The fact that
these horrors are printed on fancy paper and enforced by courts does
not legitimize them. The Nuremberg Laws were not just in spite of the
fact that they were passed with all i's dotted and all t's crossed.
The Union of South Africa had a constitution that insisted that only
white people deserved rights. Can one justify that idea based on the
fact that the constitution said it?

A constitution can also say wonderful things, like that all people
should be free to speak their minds without fear, or that all people
can expect equal treatment before the law.

However, we cannot judge that a provision is monstrous or wonderful
merely because it is embodied in a document printed on fancy paper
with official seals stamped in the corners. We must judge based on
external criteria.

The crux of this discussion, the core of the question of how one
judges, is to examine the implicit criteria -- to make the goals
explicit, to subject them to the bright light of the daytime, and to
decide both whether they are the appropriate and whether the proposed
constitution, or law, or policy, furthers or hinders them.

You keep retreating to what documents say rather than discussing what
is desirable. This is not helpful. Tell us, rather, what it is that
you wish to achieve?

 Article 370 of the Indian tossed out piece of paper expressly
 disallows Indians who are not Kashmiris (such as myself) from owning
 land in Kashmir.

Perhaps this is good, perhaps it is bad, but how does the mere fact
that it is in a constitution tell us what is desirable?  That doesn't
give evidence of what the appropriate policy should be, or what
appropriate goals should be. It just tell us what people have
currently chosen to write down.

In Ireland the laws say abortion is illegal. In the US the laws say
that it is legal. Does that mean abortion is evil in Ireland and good
in the US? No, it just tells us that the documents say different
things, and we have to look elsewhere than the laws themselves to find
a framework for deciding what is desirable.

Laws do not tell us what should be. They only tell us what is. If we
want to have a meaningful discussion about what should be, we cannot
search for justification in laws. We have to appeal to much more
fundamental principles, and to discuss what the laws *should* say.

So, what are the underlying principles here? What is the basis on
which to judge what is good?

Tell us what it is that you are attempting to *achieve*, and tell us
why you think others should agree with these goals, and why the
policy furthers these goals. *That* is a meaningful discussion.


Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir


Balaji Dutt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 I don't agree with the argument of lowered military spending or
 generally lower chances of military buildup. There is a simpler
 geographical reality to consider - as the Capital city of a country
 with enemies on both sides, Delhi is vulnerable - located as it is
 at the neck of India with hostile states only a few hours away by
 road on both sides. This is not a pleasant though for most of Indian
 military strategists.

Well, this is an entirely new argument, and not an unreasonable
one. Your claim, summarized, is that the reason to hold on to Kashmir
is not based in any sort of abstraction but merely in the concrete
strategic importance of the territory as a buffer zone with a hostile
power.

I would still question this.

First, in a situation where both powers are nuclear armed, is there
any realistic possibility that the Pakistani government would believe
it could invade and conquer Delhi without large sections of the
country becoming radioactive wastelands? Further, given the significant
disparity in per capita income, population and consequent military
strength, would it be reasonable of the Pakistani government to
believe that India would lose such a war even in the unlikely event
that it remained conventional rather than nuclear? In short, wouldn't
the impossibility of winning deter a war?

Second, is not a major reason to fear a war, in itself, the
possession of the buffer zone in question? It would seem to be
somewhat unreasonable to try to prevent a war by maintaining a
situation that has been the cause of major conflict.

 The above is admittedly a doomsday scenario, but isn't that what all
 military establishments survive on?

The real doomsday scenario is likely not an army marching on Delhi in
the face of massive resistance, but a nuclear missile sailing
unimpeded through space. The fact that both sides are nuclear powers
changes everything.

 IMO, it's why no expense was spared in fighting Khalistan but the
 Naxalites are ignored, and why Aksai Chin doesn't matter but Kashmir
 does.

I thought that the fact that Aksai Chin was almost uninhabited and
utterly desolate also had some bearing on the matter...


Perry

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

They arent likely to use anything other than their smaller tac nukes, not
when there's every chance that the fallout from even a successful first
strike will reach them very quickly indeed .. not to mention that any
retaliation would leave them, as well, converted into glowing rubble.

[eoe sensible military strategists rather than religious fanatics, on both
sides]

All previous wars India and Pakistan have fought have been conventional wars
- troops, tanks, ships .. and a substantial component of any future war is
likely to be the same

srs

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
 Of Perry E. Metzger
 Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 8:52 AM
 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
 Subject: Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir
 
 
 Balaji Dutt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
  I don't agree with the argument of lowered military spending or
  generally lower chances of military buildup. There is a simpler
  geographical reality to consider - as the Capital city of a country
  with enemies on both sides, Delhi is vulnerable - located as it is
  at the neck of India with hostile states only a few hours away by
  road on both sides. This is not a pleasant though for most of Indian
  military strategists.
 
 Well, this is an entirely new argument, and not an unreasonable
 one. Your claim, summarized, is that the reason to hold on to Kashmir
 is not based in any sort of abstraction but merely in the concrete
 strategic importance of the territory as a buffer zone with a hostile
 power.
 
 I would still question this.
 
 First, in a situation where both powers are nuclear armed, is there
 any realistic possibility that the Pakistani government would believe
 it could invade and conquer Delhi without large sections of the
 country becoming radioactive wastelands? Further, given the significant
 disparity in per capita income, population and consequent military
 strength, would it be reasonable of the Pakistani government to
 believe that India would lose such a war even in the unlikely event
 that it remained conventional rather than nuclear? In short, wouldn't
 the impossibility of winning deter a war?
 
 Second, is not a major reason to fear a war, in itself, the
 possession of the buffer zone in question? It would seem to be
 somewhat unreasonable to try to prevent a war by maintaining a
 situation that has been the cause of major conflict.
 
  The above is admittedly a doomsday scenario, but isn't that what all
  military establishments survive on?
 
 The real doomsday scenario is likely not an army marching on Delhi in
 the face of massive resistance, but a nuclear missile sailing
 unimpeded through space. The fact that both sides are nuclear powers
 changes everything.
 
  IMO, it's why no expense was spared in fighting Khalistan but the
  Naxalites are ignored, and why Aksai Chin doesn't matter but Kashmir
  does.
 
 I thought that the fact that Aksai Chin was almost uninhabited and
 utterly desolate also had some bearing on the matter...
 
 
 Perry

Re: [silk] VW to launch beetle in India next year

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 7:16 AM, Udhay Shankar N [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 VW is in the interesting position of having 3 brands (Skoda, Audi, VW)
 jostling for approximately the same market segment in India.

That's true of VW internationally too. There is a great deal of
overlap between products of VW, Audi, Skoda, SEAT and Lamborghini.
That's probably because they're run in a much loosly co-ordinated
fashion than many other multi-brand manufacturers like GM, for
example.

-- b

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

2008-08-19 Thread Balaji Dutt

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote:



 Well, this is an entirely new argument, and not an unreasonable
 one.


Given the incredibly high standard of the discussion on this issue, I have
to thank you for tolerating my slightly crackpot view on this :)


 Your claim, summarized, is that the reason to hold on to Kashmir
 is not based in any sort of abstraction but merely in the concrete
 strategic importance of the territory as a buffer zone with a hostile
 power.

 I would still question this.

 First, in a situation where both powers are nuclear armed, is there
 any realistic possibility that the Pakistani government would believe
 it could invade and conquer Delhi without large sections of the
 country becoming radioactive wastelands? Further, given the significant
 disparity in per capita income, population and consequent military
 strength, would it be reasonable of the Pakistani government to
 believe that India would lose such a war even in the unlikely event
 that it remained conventional rather than nuclear? In short, wouldn't
 the impossibility of winning deter a war?


I agree that the presence of nuclear weapons on both sides, especially with
the weak command structure surrounding the delivery of such weapons is
worrying. At the same time, I urge you to consider the history of the
US-Russia nuclear war documented by Richard Rhodes in his trilogy.

Reading that series, a few things become apparent:

1. The military argument was always in favour of strategic nukes - it kept
soldiers away from battle; the invention of MIRVs allowed for precise
predictable targeting much favoured by military planners (boosted to absurd
levels in the McNamara era). Related, the military-industrial establishment
milked the enormous expenditure required to maintain strategic nukes for
some very nice empire building and additionally, given the difficulty of
actually establishing how many weapons the other side possessed, easily
justified endless increases in military spending.

2. Tactical nukes were always looked upon in disdain by military commanders.
Their effects were too unpredictable in their effects to allow for the type
of careful planning that most military commanders, schooled in more
traditional warfare preferred.

3. The enormous cost and effect of strategic nukes therefore inevitably lead
to political oversight - and every single leader of the US/USSR dreaded the
cost of actually pushing the button and commented on the futility of
stockpiling such weapons.. even Khrushchev/JFK during the heights of the
cuban missile crisis. Despite this insight amongst those ultimately
responsible, the fog of disinformation and the paranoia of hawks (like
Edward Teller) kept the US and USSR in expensive stalemate.

Does any of the above work against a rogue commander actually launching a
nuke as a desperate attempt to claim victory? Of course not, but I would
argue that the (admittedly short) history of nuclear weapons indicates
otherwise.




 Second, is not a major reason to fear a war, in itself, the
 possession of the buffer zone in question? It would seem to be
 somewhat unreasonable to try to prevent a war by maintaining a
 situation that has been the cause of major conflict.


I agree it seems unreasonable, but the political elite might deem it a
bloody, expensive form of insurance.

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 11:26 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
[EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote:

[eoe sensible military strategists rather than religious fanatics, on both
 sides]


My own thought on religious fanatics using a-bombs is that the knowledge
required to defeat normal safeguards on portable tactical nukes without
damaging the intricate electronics required for a chain reaction is not yet
fully within thier grasp. Also, given the far easier access to conventional
explosives and the presence of their enemy in locations where they have the
geographic advantage to attack at will argues against full-blown nuclear
strikes by  terrorists. Dirty bombs on the other hand are a different
ballgame altogether [1]

[1] Shameless self-linking:
http://blog.balaji-dutt.name/2008/02/10/what-we-owe-to-the-a-bomb/
--
Balaji

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

2008-08-19 Thread J. Andrew Rogers



On Aug 19, 2008, at 7:57 PM, Balaji Dutt wrote:
I don't agree with the argument of lowered military spending or  
generally
lower chances of military buildup. There is a simpler geographical  
reality
to consider - as the Capital city of a country with enemies on both  
sides,
Delhi is vulnerable - located as it is at the neck of India with  
hostile
states only a few hours away by road on both sides. This is not a  
pleasant

though for most of Indian military strategists.



Most of Europe has lived with this reality for a long time, for better  
or worse.  I would make the point that one does not invade a country  
without telegraphing that fact weeks to months ahead of time; there is  
plenty of time to make those hours to the Capital turn into days and  
weeks with proper preparations in even the most pessimistic scenarios.  
I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the Indian  
military was capable of a fairly hardened defense given adequate  
warning from a country with comparable military technology like  
Pakistan.  That becomes some very costly ground to cover, a fact  
obvious to even the most delusional Pakistani General.



Suddenly, the Indian military establishment is faced with the  
prospect of
having Pakistani MBTs parked about 500 kms away from Delhi. Given  
the top

speeds of the frontline MBTs in the Pakistani army, that's about an
overnight drive before you see Pakistani T80s rolling down Rajpath.  
[1]



Absent any defence or preparations whatsoever.  But I do not see that  
happening in even the most dystopian scenarios.




The above is admittedly a doomsday scenario, but isn't that what all
military establishments survive on?



I think it is a little more complicated than that.  The object of the  
military is to make a country too expensive to invade, and to a lesser  
extent, attack.  There are many ways to maximize the return on  
investment toward that end, and the logistics of supporting vast land  
buffers is not particularly efficient by the reckoning of many  
competent military theorists, largely because the idea is predicated  
on putting large quantities of military equipment in those buffer  
zones.  Buying time is almost purely a function of the ability to  
resist, which has only a slight relationship to land distances.


One of the basic strategies of the US military that has served it well  
over the last several decades is to convert the operational expense of  
massive, region-covering hardware into research-fueled CapEx that  
creates a buffer at least as hard but with a much smaller logistical  
footprint -- militaries live and die on logistical footprints.  It  
turns out that for modern military systems, the reduced OpEx of more  
modern designs can fully amortize the research and CapEx within a  
decade or so.  It is a virtuous cycle of sorts; the more research that  
is done, the cheaper a given level of military power actually is, in  
inflation-adjusted currency.  It is not intuitive and so many people  
resist the notion.  It might be better to invest the money for  
supporting a huge land buffer into research and technology that  
obviates the land buffer in the military calculus. It is not only less  
costly on many different levels, but investments in technology  
research tend to pay off for the broader economy in ways that are hard  
to predict.


In short, there is substantial empirical evidence that research and  
CapEx is much more efficient than dumping resources into OpEx for  
military purposes, though many people find the notion counter- 
intuitive.  While it was famously said that quantity has a quality all  
its own, that quality has proven to be ersatz in modern practice.   
Given a sufficiently hard technology wall, the amount of physical  
buffer land becomes superfluous and in the worst case buys little more  
than a sliver of time.



Cheers,

J. Andrew Rogers

[silk] Viral batteries

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080818-using-viruses-to-build-self-assembled-nanoscale-batteries.html

Using viruses to build self-assembled nanoscale batteries
By John Timmer | Published: August 18, 2008 - 04:00PM CT

The lithography techniques we rely on to give us the latest in
electronics are getting more expensive and technically challenging with
each new process shrink. A number of researchers are now looking into
whether we can solve some of the problems by turning to biology.
Biological systems self-assemble into complex, ordered structures on the
nanometer scale, all at room temperature and with cheap ingredients. The
latest development in biology-based circuity comes courtesy of
researchers at MIT who have crafted a battery with an anode wired-up
using a virus. But that's probably not even the best part—these
nanoscale batteries can be printed onto most conducting surfaces.

The battery is described in a publication that The Proceedings of the
National Academies of Science will release later this week. It's the
latest work from Angela Belcher, who has been laying the groundwork for
viral-driven electronics assembly for a while now. Her lab's virus of
choice, M13, is only capable of attacking bacteria. The virus is a
filamentous structure hundreds of nanometers long, but only 6.5nm in
diameter—smaller than the finest electronics features currently in use.

The virus' coat of proteins self-assembles from thousands of identical
proteins, which allows researchers to manipulate the protein structure
in order to allow the virus to serve as a template for other materials.
In this case, a few tweaks to the protein's sequence allowed it to
interact with cobalt oxides, which can function as anodes in
lithium-based batteries.

But an anode is only part of a functional battery. The new paper
describes a process that allows the battery components to largely
self-assemble. The researchers built a template of polydimethylsiloxane
that contained round posts roughly five microns in diameter. On top of
the post, they deposited a dozen alternating layers of two solid
electrolytes: polyethlenimine and polyacrylic acid. These layers formed
a cap on the substrate about 150nm thick. On top of that, the
researchers deposited the M13 virus, dipped in a cobalt oxide solution
that converted the viral layer into the nanobattery's anode.

To get access to any charge stored in this battery, however, it needs to
be wired up to a larger conducting device. Fortunately, the solid
electrolytes don't adhere to the substrate well, which allowed the
researchers to simply print the batteries on a conducting surface; a
flat platinum electrode, in this case. This printing stamped multiple
batteries down on the surface of a single electrode.

The authors ran several of these systems in a series, with a cathode
provided by a bit of lithium-covered copper. Once dipped in a
lithium-based solution, they were able to run the system through
repeated cycles of charging and discharging. Less than a centimeter's
worth of the batteries managed to hold anywhere from 375 to 460 nAh,
depending on the charging conditions.

The authors note that these batteries can be stamped pretty much
anywhere on a conducting surface, including flexible ones. They're
currently at work trying to figure out how to incorporate a cathode into
their production technique. These batteries aren't likely to be
solutions for big problems, like laptop batteries, but they could find a
niche in the world of miniaturized, low-power devices.

--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir

On Wednesday 20 Aug 2008 8:36:53 am Perry E. Metzger wrote:
 Tell us what it is that you are attempting to *achieve*, and tell us
 why you think others should agree with these goals, and why the
 policy furthers these goals. *That* is a meaningful discussion.

I am stating my opinions. I am not trying to make others agree with my 
opinion. If that is not meaningful to you - we'll just have to leave it at 
that. At any rate I will have to leave it at that.

shiv

Re: [silk] Vir Sanghvi on Kashmir