Muridke and Quetta, too

The House and the Senate both passed the multi-year bill on assistance to Pakistan. Aid to Pakistan has been continuing for many years now. What's different about this package is the strings attached to the money.

The bills require "a certification by the Secretary of State" that Pakistan's government is (1) helping the United States to dismantle supplier networks for nuclear materials, (2) acting against terrorist groups within its borders, and (3) that the military is not interfering in governance.

The third point is really the key: that the Pakistan military must keep its nose out of politics, leaving policy to the civilians.

But wait, there's more! Take a look at the key provision (2) in more detail:

(A) ceasing support, including by any elements within the Pakistan military or its intelligence agency, to extremist and terrorist groups, particularly to any group that has conducted attacks against United States or coalition forces in Afghanistan, or against the territory or people of neighboring countries;

(B) preventing al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated terrorist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, from operating in the territory of Pakistan, including carrying out cross-border attacks into neighboring countries, closing terrorist camps in the FATA, dismantling terrorist bases of operations in other parts of the country, including Quetta and Muridke, and taking action when provided with intelligence about high-level terrorist targets; and

(C) strengthening counterterrorism and anti-money laundering laws

Notice in (B) the mention of Quetta and Muridke. This is also new (and it wasn't in the original Kerry-Lugar Senate version). (Link to H.R. 3642).

Quetta is the city in Balochistan where the Afghan Taliban leaders are based. So far, the US military has ignored Quetta, to Boston Brahmin's utter bewilderment. Adding that to the bill explicitly is a good thing for the US effort in Afghanistan.

Muridke is the town near Lahore where the Lashkar-e-Taiba (or, technically, its civilian front organization) is based. The inclusion of Muridke is sure to make the Indians happy, and it is a acknowledgement that the Pakistan military has been making meaningless distinctions between good and bad terrorists.

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).