or why I hate US elections and am happy that I have somewhat insulated myself from them:

Nimrata, why are you ashamed of being Indian? I look at this picture and you look like a Farangi (If I were using Cantonese, the word that comes to mind is “gweilo”).  Did they lighten your skin up? Did they Photoshop you to change your looks? Sikhism is a noble religion.  Why did you give [...]

There is an interesting interview on today’s Newshour about the rise of the religious right in the US. One of the interviewees points out that the number of evangelical Christians in the US is declining due to its involvement in religion. I’ve found that gunloon comments tend to reinforce my belief that the US needs [...]

I couldn’t have said it better: Americans Elect: Democracy in the Internet Age Posted by Andrew B. on August 9, 2011 This is exactly the kind of development we need to get us out of the current One Party State: Though many feel we are stuck with a two-party system after numerous attempts to elect a [...]

Cross posted from http://penigma.blogspot.com/2011/03/who-spent-social-security-trust-fund.html with permission: Social Security should have a surplus. Republicans and Tea Partiers, like Rand Paul, tell us the money was spent, and they want to change benefits and the retirement age. They hate what they like to call ‘entitlements’; they never liked them. Like unions, they have been looking for pretexts [...]

I heard an interesting programme on The BBC World service called The Forum, where they were discussing the long term v. the short term which raised some very interesting issues regarding the US economy and capitalism. Not that many of the things they talked about were revelations, since I say them quite a bit, but [...]

The US media is full of talk about a budget being proposed by The US Sentate’s “Gang of Six”, yet the media tends to neglect that there is a gang of Seventy–The US Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). These are the Democrats in the House who have already vowed to oppose any deal which cuts benefits [...]

The convention in mainstream journalism is that the new stories give you the facts, and the columnists give you their opinions (hopefully backed by facts). But in the coverage over the debt ceiling and budget debates sometimes you’re better off heading straight to the columns. Today offers a good example. In the Washington Post (7/15/11), [...]

It was only a day after I learned of the existance of ALEC (the  American Legislative Exchange Council) and made the post Who is ALEC? that I learn about Truthout’s Article  Koch Brothers, ALEC and Their Corporate Allies Plan to Privatize Government.   Unfortunately, the US has the dollar rather than the Pound Sterling or I [...]

Few have ever heard of it, but the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is the ultimate smoke filled back room. On the surface, ALEC’s membership is mostly comprised of thousands of state legislators. Each pays a nominal membership fee in order to attend ALEC retreats and receive model legislation. ALEC’s corporate contributors, on the [...]

It never fails to amaze me how stupid Americans can be.  Why do they have this infatuation with privatising Social Security and Medicare?  That means that the money would be invested which as the adverts say, “past performance isn’t an indicator of future performance”. In other words, the stock market  can go bust and you [...]

Nothing like a little voodoo economics to scare the crap out of the ignorant US public. Let’s talk about the budget deficit and how large the national debt happens to be. Guess what? The US deficit is mostly the fault of the Bush tax cuts, the Bush wars, and the financial collapse that happened during [...]

I’ve been wanting to go off on a rant about tourists for some time. It seems that tourists are drawn to most of the places I’ve lived. I realise that they provide jobs, but they can also be a bit obnoxious. This is due to the fact that they tend to stop and gawk at [...]