The difference between Men and Women

Question : Shall we go out for a drink?
A:

Click to Enlarge (Original Source)

He's a good looking Hooker, with a Real whip..

That's best one-liner I've ever heard about a Cricketer. Here's CricInfo on TM Dilshan:

..He is a good-looking hooker too, with a real whip in his arms when he does, but he is a compulsive one [..] it has ultimately led to his downfall [link]

I thank Andi S. for the pointer.

Out for a few more

This blog has been slow for last couple of months. Blogging will continue to be extremely lite (or non-existent) until February. I think.  There's much to blog about, not so much time. 

I'm in my last few weeks of college, where everything I hear has the word "final" attached to it. Final projects, final exams,  final battle, etc. 

Meanwhile I post stuff at the mutiny. Mostly, links to other things.

Bloggable Links

A few links I liked, I could have blogged about..

• Dinidu de Alwis is no more. No he's not dead, just quit blogging. Pity.
• On Mumbai -- Two of my favorite Bombay-based bloggers offer their take on the Mumbai attacks. Here's Amit Varma and Ajay Shah
  
  
• Thoughts on Democracy Vs. Technocracy -- Will Wilkinson in fine form.
• In defense of Bobby Jindal
• Museum of Communism. Interesting Ad campaign.
• Look mom, I'm on TV. I learn I have the propensity to overuse the words "complex" and "interact".
• Addendum : How to raise income per capita (Please don't show this to Cabraal)
  

Off Blogs

I've been off blogs for a while. Both writing and reading. The reasons are many; first I was busy with a lot of things, then I decided to travel to Delhi for a while. Now I'm back to a lot of piled up work, as is often the case with longish trips. I will start blogging again I think, but don't bet on it.

Oh and this blogged turned 3 last month. Time flies no?

Illogical Protectionism

Today's Sunday Times economist's column is well worth a read. Here's an important observation,

The President when introducing the Budget said the cesses and increases in several import duties were to encourage local production of these commodities or substitutes for them, as is the case of milk, sugar, wheat and maize imports. The economic logic is that higher prices for these goods would raise domestic prices for them or substitutes and be an incentive for domestic production. Therefore the increase in prices is needed for this incentive effect. However the Minister of Consumer Affairs and other government parliamentarians are saying these increases in duties would not raise prices.The Minister of Consumer Affairs, an Economics teacher is on the contrary taking steps to control prices of these commodities. If prices do not rise then there is no way in which the measures taken by the budget are incentives for domestic production.

The whole thing here.

Logic was never a strong point of the present administration. Import substitution, which the administration's economic strategy is based on, will give the results it has always given -- higher prices, fewer choices, less quality of life and eventually, a resounding victory for the opposition.

The world's most annoying paragraph

Could possibly be this:

At the end of the day, what would you add to this fairly unique list? With all due respect, I personally, at this moment in time, absolutely shouldn't have suggested that it's not rocket science because 24/7 people are saying this and it is literally a nightmare.

Here's the background story. Pointer and the paragraph from MR.

P. J. O.Rourke on the Free Market

P.J. Has an excellent piece on how the Republicans 'blew it'. Here's an interesting paragraph:

What will destroy our country and us is not the financial crisis but the fact that liberals think the free market is some kind of sect or cult, which conservatives have asked Americans to take on faith. That's not what the free market is. The free market is just a measurement, a device to tell us what people are willing to pay for any given thing at any given moment. The free market is a bathroom scale. You may hate what you see when you step on the scale. "Jeeze, 230 pounds!" But you can't pass a law making yourself weigh 185. Liberals think you can. And voters--all the voters, right up to the tippy-top corner office of Goldman Sachs--think so too.

I agree. The market fundamentally provides a bunch of signals. You can ignore them -- and this is true whether you're an automaker or a lawmaker -- at your peril.

The article offers a lot of insight with less-than-usual, but still good, humor. I recommend you give it a read.

Here's another sample of what you can expect:

If we do have morals, where were they while Bosnians were slaughtered? And where were we while Clinton dithered over the massacres in Kosovo and decided, at last, to send the Serbs a message: Mess with the United States and we'll wait six months, then bomb the country next to you.

The whole thing here.