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Debate Blogging

Kerry can have a peaceful night's sleep, Bush will need a new pillow.

Bush - Closing thanks are mumbled and grudging (Thank you mmm, thank you mmsenator), won't turn over America's needs to other nations

Kerry - repeats war experience, plan on Iraq, strong alliances, "future belongs to freedom, not to fear". Good closing overall
Closing Statements

Kerry - "issue is what you DO about it"

Bush - "saw same intelligence, came to same conclusion" AGAIN

Kerry - using extra time to rebut China argument given by Bush before

Kerry - touts his experience of going down into the KGB vaults

Bush - good response on Putin, I thought that was a tough question but Bush is definite in his answer

Bush - Mistake talking bilaterally to North Korea, reason - China won't be involved, "I don't think that will work"

Kerry - "Nuclear proliferation biggest risk to national security"

Kerry - "I've been consistent on Iraq"

Bush - "I won't change my core values"

Kerry - "You can be certain and be wrong"

Bush - "I just know how the world works"

Bush - "Mixed messages send wrong signals" N+1th time

me - is Bush even interested in this debate?

Bush - "I agree it is genocide as Colin Powell has stated"

Bush - Completely lost on Darfur. "ummm, aaaa, ummmmm aaaa"

Kerry - "we have a backdoor draft going on today"

me - Kerry is a good debator

Question - Darfur, neither one of you has pointed out what you plan to do about it

Bush - We don't need bilateral talks, because Kim Jong Il wants that

Kerry - For two years this administration didn't talk at all to North Korea. Very strong criticism on this one

Kerry - "The President did nothing" on Iran

Bush - "China has more influence on North Korea, perhaps more than us", showing he did his homework on that topic, of course

Bush - 'nucular' ;)

Bush - Takes swipe at the International Criminal Court of Justice

Bush - finds "Global test" funny

Kerry - Criticizes turning away from treaties, one being the Kyoto Protocol

Kerry - I won't cede the right for a pre-emptive strike/war. Uses "Jim", shouldnt they address the people in general?

Kerry - brings up Iran, North Korea, Darfur

Bush - "Of course I know OBL attacked us, I know that", "Saddam Hussein would've made weapons"

Kerry - points to Bush's attempt at making common cause of Iraq war and the WoT, calls it "unfortunate"

Bush - "hopefully won't have to go pre-emptive again"

Bush - "the enemy attacked us, Jim" Jim?

Kerry points to NIE which gave "best scenario - more of the same"

Bush repeats 100,000 troops trained line, calls Allawi brave leader

I started watching halfway into the debate, if Bush has been like this throughout, well he's not winning this contest

Kerry - clarifies 'bringing back troops position'

Kerry - Defends with "you break it you own it/fix it" rule

Bush - repeats for the Nth time Kerry's inconsistensy

Kerry - "Vital for us not to confuse the war with the warriors". Good line.

Live comments - Bush sounds a little out of depth, he's slurring at times and keeps repeating Kerry's inconsistent. Doensn't offer anything worth listening to or repeating



He Said What?
DailyKos points to this amusing, in a looting-is-an-expression-of-freedom way, quote from the man directing America's strategy in Iraq,
“At some point the Iraqis will get tired of getting killed and we'll have enough of the Iraqi security forces that they can take over responsibility for governing that country,”
I'd fire him for sheer stupidity.



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A Review and a Rant
"Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yoursef: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true."

This paragraph from Balzac's Le Pere Goriot stands guard to one of the best written novels I've read in some time now. Resisting the charm of magical realism, Rohinton Mistry, in A Fine Balance, writes simply and masterfully, the book is so complete it fills you up, with sadness mostly, but also reminiscence and a longing to be back in the city by the sea. After the rather poorly written The Moor's Last Sigh, AFB was a welcome relief, it's been a while since I read a book that narrates, without any embellishments of fantastic exotica and incestuous innuendo. AFB in that sense is not at all multilayered, it is, to borrow an analogy from the story, a patched quilt of complex relationships and the hopelessly intertwined lives of its protagonists. The author was criticized for exaggerating the impoverishement of India's poor, and even of the middle class, by feminist Germaine Greer, he responded by calling her comments asinine, and I agree, her comments are blase. I have atleast one aunt who would be a good model for Dinabai, there was a Shankar outside the railway station I took my train to college from everytday, bereft of limbs, he used to roll on the scorching asphalt, his lean body glistening with sweat, teeth missing and scraggly beard, he used to call out for alms, banking on the pity his condition inspired. My mother used to give tuitions at home and some of her students came from a small slum close by, one of them, lived with atleast six siblings, father and an intermittently sick mother in a small shack with an improvised and shaky second storey across from what was once a river but now reduced to a convenient dump for everything from industrial waste to used motor oil. He often had trouble naming his numerous brothers and sisters. which brings me to two other issues, one, the growth in India's population, there seems to be no plan on the ground to control it, rather I keep reading India is poised to take over China as the world's most populous nation in a few short decades but I never hear of any major government initiative to deal with that problem, that worries me greatly, I don't see how our land, our infrastructure, our resources and our economy will deal with almost one fourth of the world's living. The second issue is about figures released by the Indian Census Bureau which cite a growth rate of 29% from 1991 to 2001 in the Muslim population, lower than the 33% in the decade before (and much lower than the goofed up figure of 36% initially touted which had the RSS and BJP rankled), but still a figure that raises concern. A friend of mine chided my concern saying Allah provides and there shouldn't be a concerted effort to reduce the population in accordance with Islamic principles, an argument I find both disingeuous as well as alarming because it is comfortably accepted in many circles. An article in Mid-day, a Bombay (nee Mumbai, nee Bombay ;)) daily, recently says,
Muslims are incapable of social reform because they do not view change from Islamic practice as reform but as heresy.
which is exactly the problem the Indian Muslim community faces, reform is a horrendously difficult task and I'm at a loss to predict how or when, and in what form, it will take place, if ever.
Anyway, heavy and serious matters aside, if you have anything to do with Bombay or India or the Emergency, then you absolutely have to read A Fine Balance.

Cross posted on LoI


Mostly Speechless..
...in dumbfounded horror. Except for one thing, how is it that Russia seems to take this rather aggressive approach to hostage situations? This and the previous incident, seem to suggest the Russians don't really believe in negotiation, I'm not sure if this is because the terrorists or hostage takers won't negotiate or if the Russian police and commandos believe, erroneously as it has twice turned out, that they can resolve such situations without much bloodshed. More than two hundred people died in this case, more than a hundred in the theater hold up in October 2002 but I haven't heard too many people criticizing the approach taken by the Russian law enforcement. It is impossible to be certain whether a protracted negotiation process would really result in a smaller number of deaths but I have a feeling it would, simply because what has happened in both of these incidents is a worst case scenario rather than the best.



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