Stay out of Afghanistan

General McChrystal's assessment of the Afghanistan counterterrorism effort has an interesting paragraph on India's influence in that country:

While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India.

(See full text of the unclassified version in the Washington Post).

So, let me get this straight: The Indians are helping the Afghans, which we all want to do, but this will exacerbate regional tensions.

The only reason for exacerbating regional tensions, he says, is because the Pakistanis don't like Indians helping the Afghans. He warns that the Pakistanis will take "countermeasures" in Afghanistan and in India. Countermeasures like what, more state-sponsored terrorism? But I thought the Pakistanis were on our side, and any Pakistani support of the Haqqani terrorist network is only "reported" support from "some sections of the ISI". Tsk, tsk--- things get so complicated when you don't call a spade a spade. I thought generals were supposed to speak plainly. But the religion in Washington says that the Pakistanis are on our side, and evidently McChrystal doesn't want to touch that Shibboleth right now.

I wonder what General McChrystal suggests should be done about this Indian "problem". To help save Afghanistan, should we be asking the Indians to get out and stay out? Inquiring minds want to know.

Security starts with common sense

About the incident at Newark where Shah Rukh Khan was questioned for a couple of hours (NYT Lede blog link):

As an American, here’s what bugs me about this incident: Security personnel interrogated the film star for nearly two hours before letting him make a phone call. During that time, our taxes were paying their salaries and they were not looking at hundreds of other passengers.

Shah Rukh Khan is not just a VIP; he is probably better known than Tom Cruise to ethnic Indians. According to the Asian American Federation,

Indian Americans were the largest Asian ethnic group in New Jersey in 2000, with 180,957 people, or more than one-third (34 percent) of the state’s Asian population.(aafny.com)

Detaining him was obviously a waste of time. Any of dozens of passengers or staff at Newark airport could have told Security who he was. Our security databases and procedures are inadequate, and our personnel lack common sense and an awareness of their environment, which is the first principle of security.

Is the TSA the agency that is responsible for this? I feel safer already, traveling in the U.S. under their watchful eye.

The return of the right-wing conspiracy

I thought Obama's press conference was very useful and tried to illuminate why health reform is urgent and what the main principles are in the bill that he wants.

Then, I look at the coverage in the NYT and Washington Post---and almost every user comment in the first hundred or so is intensely negative and full of lies! What's going on? Clearly, the Republican FUD machine (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is in full gear.

Others have noticed this, too: see I am so annoyed.

The Ice House Lincoln

Readers might know that Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Mass., was once "harvested" for winter ice, which was shipped regularly to Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in the 19th century. If you didn't know about this fascinating trade, or the crazy entrepreneur Frederic Tudor who started it, you can read a review of "The Frozen-Water Trade" here.

But that trade is a gift that keeps on giving. Last Saturday a rare Lincoln stamp was sold for over four hundred thousand dollars. The stamp was on an envelope sent by a New England ice merchant to India:

Markings on the envelope reveal that it traveled across the Atlantic, by train through Germany and Italy, by ship to Egypt and again from Suez to Bombay, and then by train across India.

(see article in today's NYT here). Cheers.

Composing plain text messages in fixed width fonts

A pet peeve of mine:

Many people don't know how easy and convenient it is to compose messages in plain text with a fixed-width font. Apparently, the people who wrote the google mail application don't, either. So, here are my reasons:

1. Better keyboard feedback - each character I type moves the cursor ahead by a good amount, whether it's a narrow character like a comma or a wide character like a "w". You can type faster this way.

2. Ability to quickly format a short table or list in the message without using the mouse. Not having to use the mouse helps you type faster.

3. Plain text messages are easy for people on diverse mail systems to read exactly the way they are formatted, since they are usually presented with fixed width fonts.

4. Plain text is a simple, elegant, and efficient way to communicate -- smallest size per content.

It should be very easy to add this option to gmail. But when I had asked this question a few years ago by sending email to google help, I never got any replies or acknowledgement. Lack of this basic feature is the reason I don't use gmail as much as I otherwise would.

Come on, Google Mail team. We're not asking for much.

Rajeev Motwani, the Enabler

Rajeev Motwani died last Friday in a freak accident at his home, and Silicon Valley is now a poorer place. (Article in the Mercury News).

Not just because he was a key investor in startups and helped found many dozens of them (summary here). I always knew he was a cool dude because of his original PageRank paper with Sergey Brin and Larry Page (see paper). PageRank was the technology at the heart of Google.

But the outpouring of grief on the web is totally unlike anything I had expected to see. He appears to have touched many, many people. He had the knack of quickly getting to the crux of a problem and help his listener understand it. A few minutes of conversation with him has often changed people's lives. Google cofounder Sergey Brin puts it well:

his legacy and personality live on in the students, projects, and companies he has touched. Today, whenever you use a piece of technology, there is a good chance a little bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it.

(Sergey Brin's full blog post is here).

A person can love it

Boston Brahmin saw the latest revival of Guys and Dolls on Broadway last weekend, and it was a matinee to remember. This is a classic, the quintessential Broadway musical about New York characters from a certain mythical age. The language and the music are thoroughly enjoyable. You don't need to know anything to follow the simple story and admire the professional production. The little Brahmins had a ball, too-- and as teenagers, they are not easy to please.

A tale of two couples, Nathan Detroit, a fast-talking, down-on-his-luck gambler in 1930s New York, his anxious stripper fiancee Miss Adelaide, Sister Sarah Brown, a missionary trying to reform the city of sins, and her beau Sky Masterson, Guys and Dolls is based on characters from Damon Runyon's short stories. There have been many revivals of the original 1950 production. Nathan Detroit has been played over the years by luminaries Frank Sinatra and Nathan Lane; this latest version is played by Oliver Platt, who has big shoes to fill, and he does so. (Hear Platt's interview today on NPR)

The New York Times reviewer called this Guys and Dolls "static" and "stiff" (see review). Well, he obviously didn't see the same show that I did. Trust me, you want to see this.