Via Protein wisdom comes this link to a story in the LATimes that laments US propagandazing the poor, innocent, Iraqi civilians with paid stories that “are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments”.
Oh! The humanity! The sneakiness of it all and the awfulness of planting stories that are actually fact-based!
It has got to be against some UN convention or the other, I tell you. I mean, here I was I thought all you really needed for a good story is for it to be “fake but accurate” or atleast filled with lots of baloney and PC-emotion. Why does the damned US try to confuse the issue with facts?
Update: Here is more on the issue from Vodkapundit!
Here is something good - thecookscottage (via Instapundit). Drop me links to more desi cooking blogs in the comments if you guys know of any.
I know it has been a little over a week since I got back from India, but it did take me about this long to get non-jet-lagged and find enough time to actually think back and post a bit about my experiences. I left here with my son and flew into Mumbai via Amsterdam (Ravi’s dire predictions about NWA not-withstanding). I had landed in Mumbai on the 29th of October in the night and the first thing I notice… is the stifling heat! By the time I got my bags claimed, you might have mistaken me for someone who stepped out of the shower without wiping the water off, I was so dripping with sweat form every pore of my body. It was an experience I had to get used to after a long time (I had last been in India March 99, so it was quite a bit). Of course, the fun was only beginning.
First thing I did when I got settled in was to call Yaz - turned out he was happily enjoying dinner with Amit and Gaurav and others muching away delicious meat with no thoughts of trying to call a hungry freind over (sniff!). I had known Yaz for over three years now, but this was the first time I had ever heard him talk and it was a pretty strange feeling to finally put a voice to the person (I had already seen his pictures, I had an idea what he looked like).
Yaz being who he is, asked me to call Ravi - the shy, withdrawn person that he was sold to me as (I know, I actually fell for it). I am happy to certify to the world that Ravi is not shy! There! He is in fact a lot of fun to talk to and of the 15-20 minutes we probably talked that night, we spent about 10-minutes just laughing at each others’ PJs and convered such important topics as getting Ravi his own page at the Wikipedia (he didn’t sound the way I imagined him to sound either). We had all made plans to meet up for a little breakfast before my 11:00 AM flight to Vizag.
Amit was the first person to show up the next morning and kept me company till Yaz and Ravi showed up. Gaurav was also able to join us a little bit later (we were too happy a celebrity such as him actually sat there and ate with us to give him a hard time about coming in late :p). It was a great way to start my trip off really, since the meet could not have gone any better. It was a meeting of old friends, we had so much shared history - we had so much to talk about, the cartel quiz by MadMan, Ravi’s SARS jokes (joke being just a loose description here) and tons of other things we had been through together as bloggers. Before I knew it, I was anointed Godmother of the “cartel” and my son was drafted into it. I was actually quite sad when it was time to leave, but I had a wedding to attend to in Vizag and my sister would have buried me alive if I missed it. More on that coming a bit later.
Well, a friend of mine has started a new blog called Company Talk - the idea is to dish on the different companies around from an end-user perspective. Go wish him luck and fight with him if it pleases you (whatever you do, don’t forget to give him a hard time - he loves arguing).
Here is the touching story of a woman who when pregnant, went off with two drunk strangers to have no-string-attached sex and feels terrible that one of them tried to have sex with her without putting a condom on. Any person who has tried to respond in comments about how risky it is to go off with drunk strangers has been rebuffed with “victim-blamer!” inspite of almost all of them bending over backwards to make sure that they say they are NOT in fact blaming the victim, but are trying to tell her how she can better handle certain situations. Implied in most of the righteously offended’s outrageous comments is that since you are asking a woman who is most likely to be a victim to be a little more careful, you are being all mean and oppressive to the matriarchy. The way I see it, if someone wants to rape, you can ask him to pretty please not to do it, but [s]he is going to do it anyways. It is not going to stop anything - till we live in a utopia where all men and women refuse to have non-consensual sex, what is wrong with asking a woman to be a little more careful?
Compare and contrast this hideously self-indulgent thought process to actual situations people live in where they could be gang-raped for being of the wrong caste, paraded naked because of stupid rumors and sexually harrassed to suicide in many cases in the name of eve-teasing. These are women who face real problems where the victim has absolutely no blame and is being victimized for the simple fact of being who she is. I find it very hard to sympathize with someone who knowingly puts herself in a stupid (yes, I said it - it was a stupid thing to do) situation when there are other real victims to be empathized with. File this under one more reason why I feel sick of a lot of Western-style feminism.
Just to add a little bit more to the topic, I am not saying I never put myself at risk. I have been incredibly naive and stupid at a younger age and did some extremely silly things just so I can gain acceptance of someone or to even just keep someone with me. That doesn’t mean I look back and say it was all my fault - I don’t blame myself for the stupid things while at the same time have gained enough from those experiences that I am not going to repeat that stupidity again.
I will possibly explain more and provide more links when I am not as tired or jet-lagged.