The 11th Hour

Caught portions of the movie 'The 11th Hour'. This is a documentary in line with Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'. This movie seeks to increase the awareness of the hideous condition of our environment and tries to bring about a change in how we think. Definitely liked what I saw but one para narrated by David Suzuki, an environmental activist, really stuck. Here is the paragraph:

Economists don't include all of the things that nature does for us for nothing. Some technologies would never be able to do what nature does. For example, pollinating all of the flowering plants. What would it cost us to take carbon dioxide out of the air and put oxygen back in, which all the green things do for us for nothing? It's possible to do a crude estimate of what it would cost us to replace nature. Well, it turns out, Constanza, estimated it would cost us $35 trillion a year to do what nature is doing for us for nothing. Now to put that in perspective. If you had added up all of the annual economies of all the countries in the world at that time, it would come to $18 trillion. So, nature is doing twice as much service for us as the economies of the world. And in the madness of conventional economics, this is not in the equation.

These are the kind of things that people should listen to. Everyone has their view of this world. This particular point should be noted down by economists and business people. Global Climate change is not just a problem that science alone can fix. It is not something you should think about only in your individual capacity but it is something that big Wall Street firms can sit up and take notice too. After all there is an economic formula that can applied even to this. This environmental problem that we face needs a change in everyone's thinking and at all levels...

Earth's Environment

There is a day coming up next month sometime, when everyone around the world will blog about one topic, the environment. A good move to increase awareness...let me, start now.

First off, to the uninitiated, go see the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth'. A good movie but it is just on the surface of the whole thing. What this movie should do to you is to incite you to dig deeper for yourself. Take the environment issue personally and become aware of what is happening. Because if you don't then all the hard work you are doing, all that you are spending on yourself, saving up for a rainy day trying to ensure your future, your children's future and so on is of no use…in the next 50 years something's got to give. The environment and the Earth cannot keep taking the pressure we put on it. The amount of carbon gases we have already put into our atmosphere is enough to melt everything, remember we live in a greenhouse. It is not enough to just stop the emissions but also there is a serious need to somehow remove these greenhouse gases. In theory the Earth can enter an ice age very easily and the signs are all there. Not early signs...grave signs. Wake up and smell well errr...see the melting of the polar and Greenland ice caps. Also it is not just the melting, when temperatures rise things expand, so even the existing water in our oceans is going to expand and water levels are going to rise.

So do something about the environment, see it as an investment and it is the best one you can make today...

Live Earth

The concerts are live on VH1 in India tomorrow 7.7.07...

untitled

The Democratic party controlled House of Representatives in the US today passed the Iraq pullout bill. Obviously Bush has threatened to veto this bill as soon as he gets it and now the house and the president are headed for a showdown. The house just like the rest of the country is totally polarized. The republicans and conservatives are still adamant about the war.
The civil war in Iraq is beyond the US armed forces and the troops are hopelessly caught in the middle. The US is now erecting a wall to divide the people of someone else's country. Read this story: Building a wall in Baghdad instead of policy in Iraq

This just indicates how Bush and his folks have no idea what they are doing in Iraq. The justifications for this war have changed year to year ever since it started and all of them have been artificially manufactured. Being an outside observer I hope this bill passes because this US occupation in Iraq right from day one has been nothing but stupidity commited to cover up for some totally different failure.

These were some of the pro-pullout comments in the debate in the house...
"Our troops are mired in a civil war with no clear enemy and no clear strategy for success," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
"How many more terrorists will President Bush's foreign policy breed before he focuses a new strategy, a real strategy? This bill says enough is enough."
"He was wrong then. And he's wrong now. It's the will of one nation versus the stubbornness of one man."

Now the other side. I am just surprised people are saying these senseless things. Politicians are the same everywhere man. So power hungry that they'll join any two sentences with no logical connection just to defend their claim.
"[By pulling out] We will embolden our enemies and it's our kids and their kids who will pay a very, very steep price,"
Can't even comment on this. Makes no sense...
"We have a solemn obligation to the American people to finish the job we started."
The job was wrong to begin with and is still wrong to date. What obligation, do they even remember what it was originally after the Sept 11 attacks?
"Al-Qaida will view this as the day the House of Representatives threw in the towel,"
This is just some bravado...

Some articles covering the bill:

U.S. House approves Iraq pullout date, despite likely veto
House OKs Iraq Pullout

Save Darfur

Down and out
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about
With, without
And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about
--- 'Us and Them' - Pink Floyd

There is a genocide going on in Darfur, Sudan. An estimated 400,000 people in Darfur have died since the conflict began in 2003. An estimated 2 million people have been displaced from their homes, mostly seeking refuge in camps in Darfur's major towns. Two hundred thousand have fled to neighboring Chad.

First, I cannot understand why such killings happens at all, what goes on in the brains of people where all of them just start taking lives on such a widespread scale. What prompts not 1, not 10, not 100 but like half a country to take to killing the other half.

Second, why does the international community take so much time in reacting. Do something, arrrrgh...God!

Have we human beings just absolutely lost the plot? What are we doing to each other on this planet and what the feck are we doing to this planet....sigh!

Educate yourself:

Darfur Genocide
Save Darfur
Darfur Conflict

Huh?!?!?
...There is a deluge in the deserts of Rajasthan (villagers expect the water to recede only after 3-4 months!)...
...The ice Shiv Lingam in Amarnath didn't form this year (it formed later under some controversy that it was done artificially)...
...Cherrapunji, the place we were mesmerized with in school as the wettest place on earth, has received almost nothing in monsoon rainfall...

Bush Defends War Strategy

Quoting repeatedly from Osama bin Laden, President Bush said Tuesday that pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq would fulfill the terrorist leader`s wishes and propel him into a more powerful global threat in the mold of Adolf Hitler.

WTF...how?

India
Over some drinks, last week, someone remarked how in some communities parents want their daughters to be married only to someone settled in the US. Now along those lines there were some other comments like "I will never go there", "And I am proud to be an Indian" and "I never felt at home there or could never somehow call that place my home". Anyway that apart, Fahrenheit 9/11 was coming on TV and there is one segment where they show how on a regular basis the US have invaded countries. That got me thinking...

In 1998 the US bombed a far away country and destroyed a primary school and an Asprin like drug making factory. They never helped Rwanda but they happily went and flattened Iraq twice. They gave Osama 3 billion to spend and god knows how much more to Saddam to fight against Iran. They have assassinated probably half a dozen presidents and leaders in South American countries throwing these countries in chaos and sending them spiraling into further poverty and then installing puppet dictators.

What I am getting at is my country has never done that. We have never invaded anyone. Despite having one of the worst neighbours ever possible we have never been the aggressor against even them. We have the worst corrupt politicians but still we have never bombed a primary school. We have never bred hate and violence in such blatant forms to satisfy the greed of the elite rich and the so called "corporations". I can safely say that our collective conscience is clear in this matter. This makes a big difference in my mind, proud of that record...

Che Guevara
The second thing that I quickly wanted to write, came to me while watching Motorcycle Diaries. The movie is about Che Guevara. While living in Los Angeles I had read and known about him but hadn't seen the movie as yet. The movie covers Ernesto Guevara and his friend taking a road trip on a rickety motorcycle across South America. Something changed in him during this trip. He saw the economic disparity in the countries he traveled through and that changed him to become one of the most influential leaders who fought for the weak and poor. His photo (below) is among the most recognized pictures in the world. Che, which became his famous nickname meaning "man" or "pal", is the symbol in the fight against inequality and injustice all around the world.

But what sort of popped in my head was a song that AC/DC plays in their live shows called Bonny. Angus Young, one of my all time favorite guitarists, plays a very soulful version of this song. Anyway the song goes:

I`ll take the high road
And you`ll take the low road
And I`ll be in Scotland afore ye

So did Che Guevara take the high road or the low road? I am not sure. Don't get me wrong, there is no doubt his intentions were righteous and I find what he accomplished very admirable and inspiring. But was it the high road? Now let me ask you if Gandhiji's road was the high one or the low one??? I have no doubt as to which road it was...

Apparently Che was inspired by Gandhiji and claimed armed conflict was never his first option but looks like finally revolución was the only option he was left with...

Rwanda Rwanda...

...can anybody hear our cries, can't you hear us calling you...Wyclef Jean sings in "Million Voices" from the movie "Hotel Rwanda".

Over the weekend I got some "education" on the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994. A friend gave me the movie "Hotel Rwanda" and a documentary called "Ghosts of Rwanda" with a warning "Hey they are disturbing". I had had some exposure to various civil wars in Africa and the horror of their killing methods. Wilbur Smith in his books describes some of the horrific ways in which people are killed in these African wars. In the mid 90's I also remember the news of the tens of thousands bodies floating over a lake into neighbouring African countries. Anyway, so I watched the movies...

In about hundred days following the assassination of Rawandan President on April 6th 1994 about 800,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis and Hutus were slaughtered by militant Hutu groups. One of the groups called themselves the Interahamwe ("coming together") and Machetes were used as the main weapon for the ethnic cleansing.

Despite pre warnings sent by both the Red Cross and the UN peacekeepers the world didn't react until it was too late. No one in the world, the UN, the powerful countries, no one reacted. Everyone just sat and watched about a million people being hacked to death.

UN had a decent sized peace keeping force but at the start itself Belgium pulled out most of its troops and the commander of the UN peacekeepers Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire was then left with some 450 ill equipped troops to guard the whole country. He had requested for only about 2000 peacekeepers to handle the situation. 80 countries in the UN were approached but none of them agreed to lend any troops. And to think a few thousand troops could have saved maybe half a million human beings. It was a gut wrenching ordeal to see Dallaire as an individual take full responsibility and say:

"I was the commander and my mission failed and hundreds of thousands of people died and that I can't find any solace in statements like "I did my best". A commander can't use that as a reference in any operation. He succedes or he fails and then he stands by...to be accused of and to be held accountable for...and my mission failed".

The UN tied Dallaire's hands by telling him that he should not take any pre-emptive action and "avoid armed conflict". Before the killings started he had requested Kofi Annan, who was the heading the peace keeping department at that time, for a strike at the arms cache of the militia and was told not to do so saying "you do not have enough data".

The Clinton administration still suffering from the setbacks of peacekeeping at Mogadishu, Somalia also did not do anything to prevent or control this tragedy. (On a quick side note "Black Hawk Down" is an awesome movie about the Mogadishu incident, one of my favorites). The Clinton administration made excuses and played with words like "We don't know yet if this is a Genocide. Genocide has a legal meaning to it and we don't know if we can say that". Only later in 2003 Bill Clinton would accept that "...I will always regret about the Rwandan thing...".

Here are some Wikipedia links:
Rwandan Genocide
Genocide
Genocide in history
Rwanda

Hybrids...

Cars, that is...

Why is it that of the 9-10 hybrid cars in the US market 2 companies are at the forefront and both those companies are Japanese, Honda and Toyota??

The Toyota Prius Compact Sedan gives 60 miles per gallon which is 26.67 kms/liter, pretty good when you compare to the monster SUVs probably giving like 8 or even less miles to the gallon (3.5kms/liter).

As Calvin says "I wonder if you can refuse to to inherit the world"...