Time for a kill

The world is topsy-turvey these days and it often feels that our lives are out of our control governed by unknown forces beyond our reach. A "Joseph K" feeling if you will. Then you hear of the latest hullabaloo over bonus payments from A.I.G. to the very group within the company that basically destroyed it and cost shareholders about $200 billion. At times like this I really miss some feral, third-world justice. People in the streets, being violant, being human, angry and expressing it. They say it is illegal to NOT give them the bonuses now because it was in the contract. Oh, the stifling respect for law and even more so to order. We don't need no order. We have too much of it. We need good, old  street-style beatings to discourage the execs from claiming bonuses. The answer to 'your money or your life' is such a welcome certainty in these times.

Oh well, we will all just watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and feel superior and move on with our stolid, inert lives.

Pay your taxes already!

So, that makes three people in the Obama administration who've had tax problems so far. Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer withdrew their nominations and Timothy Giethner went on ahead to become our treasury secretary anyway.

Politicians and tax avoidance seems to be go hand-in-hand with Wall St. execs and incompetence (with benefits) and homosexual Republican guy-bashers.

Democrats have had a particularly tough time lately. What with Rangel, Blagovich and now the tax-cheating trio.

From my perspective -- everyone cheats on their taxes. However, if you are going to try to become the treasury secretary or nation's health czar, does it not behoove you to have your minions run a check and confirm that everything is a-ok?

In other words -- it is not the corruption but the incompetence that these people should be punished for.

"...Like riding a tiger..."

It is quite reassuring to note that on a complete collapse of business ethics the United States does not hold a monopoly. Satyam, India's "premium" outsourcing company has shown the world and specially the United States how spectacular corruption can be done that would make the world take notice (made a big-fat headline on WSJ -- I don't remember seeing one on Indian business before). The petty corruption that has plagued India for years and earned it a bad reputation among the industrial ("civilized" world) can finally take a back-seat. Mr. Ramalinga Raju has finally created some sort of competition for Bernard Madoff, who, probably couldn't have come up with a gem like...

It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.

Very impressive indeed. 

"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.”

Why I love corporate America

Auto CEO's took private jets to ask for a bailout. I can understand why. If you've ever taken a private jet you would understand why you never ever want to fly commercial again. It costs, of course, but if you get used to it -- it is like cocaine.


Bet begging in a Bentley is unbecoming and going to a begging in a private jet is unseemly. However, this is one of those 'only in America' moments that one cannot help but enjoy. This is just brilliant. Thank you, America, for giving the world this wonderful gift. The world is forever indebted.

Microsoft does it again

No, they didn't steal people's music or create the single-most inefficient human experiment in history this time. Just that their new dig ads at Apple are created using a Mac!

It is as if the retarded ads featuring Seinfeld (who I generally love and who on the show used a Mac!) were not enough. 

Is Yahoo already sold?

So Yahoo shuts dooors of its DRM-based music store and guess what happens to any music anyone bought from their DRM stores. It is not going to be playable beyond September anymore when they shut their DRM servers down. Wow! Maybe Yahoo has already been sold to Microsoft. Maybe not in the way you think but in ideology. Microsoft just did the very same thing a few months ago. Amazing. Apparently companies will continue to sodomize their customers and then wonder why the customers ran away? I don't get it.

Microsoft: Can a company be more useless?

Just read the following on the PVRBlog on Microsoft. Sometimes I think they are unduly targetted by a hateful public and critics. However, when I read stuff like this I really think that the world should sue the hell out of them and put them out of business.

"The first story is the shuttering of their MSN Music service. It was an attempt to take on the iTunes Music Store and offer paid music downloads. After a couple years of service, they've decided to close down the service but in doing so, they'll turn off the servers that authorize your music tracks so if you ever update your operating system or buy a new computer, your old purchased music files will not play. You would have to buy the songs again using the newer Zune store."

Just one word: Wow!

But that is not enough, PVRBlog goes on to describe another little nugget where the proverbial Big Brother really raises its ugly head.

The second story is about NBC shows coming to the Microsoft Zune media player, but with one feature NBC wanted added to the device: the copyright cop. If you buy a NBC show and transfer it to your Zune, a small application will check your Zune for "pirated" shows and movies that weren't purchased from the Zune store, and delete them. It's rumored that this is why the NBC/Apple partnership ended at the iTMS and they removed shows -- because Apple refused to build in this kind of capability.

I just don't know where companies get these kind of ideas from. I just don't know why businesses treat their own customers like jerks. Again, this is the reason that every knowledgeable Yahoo user shuddered at the thought of being acquired by Microsoft.

Of non-fiction and not quite

So once again there is much hullabaloo on a fake memoir (as if there is any other kind.) To me it simply exposes the naiveté of Western media, readers and editors. Editors, for trusting the authors, readers for trusting the editors and authors and for the media for trusting anything.

More than that is this perversely stupid idea that the terms 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' have kept their meaning while everything else has been morphing around them. For some, the terms seem to have, for some reason, circumvented the last few centuries and are still stuck in the age or reason (or darkness, take your pick.)

I for one have always been skeptical of non-fiction for it seemed too fictitious and fiction for being a bit too less so.

Sriram wrote about something similar the other day though on a slightly different topic but discussing, while on it, the fundamental issue that we need to be a little more awake. These days the terms Fiction/non-fiction aren't a basic classification of a human pursuit any more than sports/gambling are or news/entertainment are. It is all the same thing.

But everyone has the right to remain stupid. It is our fundamental right. Next only to suicide.

Frailty of moral compass

Every morning as I struggle to get out of the bed, I feel alright when I recalibrate my moral compass to the monetary north.