"I want to make money..."

I don't think there is any political, commercial or moral corruption that would surprise me. However, I am still quite surprised (even shocked) by the amazing stupidity that once in a while surrounds corruption. Take the case of the Illinois governor. I mean how stupid do you have to be to sell, of all the seats in the world, the president-elect's seat? And that no -- no ordinary president-elect but the chosen one! Did not occur to him once that the media and the people will be over this replacement anyway? And then you take a hammer and swing it full-force right on to your tiny toe. Very sad -- not the corruption -- but the incompetence. If Mr. Blagojevich expects rewards for his gross incompetence then maybe he should've been heading a Wall St. bank and not a state.

“I’ve got this thing,” Mr. Blagojevich said on one recording, according to the affidavit, “and it’s [expletive] golden. And I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing. I’m not going to do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there.”

Mumbai massacre

There isn't anything that I have to say that probably hasn't been said before. I just want to make a note of an op-ed by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times today. While I am not a great fan of Friedman's often superficial hysteria, I think he gets it this time. He indicates what I think (It is hard to say for sure on these subjects) that fundamentalism is inherently a problem that will have to be solved from inside. No amount of surveillance, counter-violance or wars by outsiders are going to resolve it. People in whose midst terrorists grow -- whether they be the people from Karachi or Columbine -- will have to deal with their own devils.