Slumdog San Jose...

Today I found people scavenging through my trash bin for bottles and cans that they could sell, or other things they could use.

This was the most shocking and amazing discovery in the many years I have lived in this country. For the past several years, while I have been living in the comfort of my home, some really really under-privileged souls (most likely illegal) have been sifting through my garbage to make a living for themselves.

An this in the United States of America - now that is a real shocker.

As a people we have decided to ignore or not 'see' these people who have been living under the radar. I have heard the term - 'under the radar' - several times on news networks like CNN, but as I found out today it is defined as 'under the poverty line', 'too poor for us to care', 'too alien for us to care', 'too unimportant for us to care'... Typically by not thinking and/or talking about these people in the last few years, we as a people have been denying the reality to ourselves.

In fact, this policy of deciding to selectively not 'see' a section of society that exists is practiced rampantly in countries like India - where the lavish hotels stand along-side the slums and the rich just decide to ignore the plight of the poor by adjusting their senses and just not recognizing their presence.

The sight of people scavenging through the garbage is certainly going to shape my view of America, the world, and the immigration policy of this country which forces people to remain in a despicable state and does not offer them a chance to move up the ladder no matter how hard they try.

Religious ads on Religulous website!!

Religulous is a new movie by Bill Maher that discusses the futility of organized religion.

And guess what?? Google has just the right ads for this website - see below!

Interesting McCain fact...

In part due to the strong leadership(sic) displayed by John McCain in the past few days, not a single Congressman from his home state of Arizona voted for the rescue package.

McCain = Mc Came!

Thank you George W Bush

What is the cost of $700bn to me and my family is the question I am trying to get answered.

Simple math tells me it will be $2333 per person, if you consider the population of 300 million. Assuming that 10% of the population does not pay taxes, this number goes upto $2500 or more per individual.

For a family of four this is about $10K.

And if you are part of the upper part of the middle-class, then your share will obviously be much higher - let's say by 25% - which brings the number to $12500 to an average family.

Wow!

Now, that's like 2 good vacations to Hawaii, or many short vacations to Southern California, or 2 weeks in Florida in an all-inclusive resort, or...

Thank you George W Bush - Asshole.

Does my kid go to a madrasa?

I was at my son's back to school night the other day, and something his science teacher said made me think about the kind of school system we are building in California.

She was describing the life sciences syllabus for the year, and on the topic of Evolution she told the parents that if they would like their kids to not study it, that would be fine with the school too.

All these years I have not cared too much about this debate about Evolution, but now that it has struck home, I felt there was a scary similarity in how religious schools in Islamic countries are run - madrasas - and where our school system is being forced to go by the religious conservatives.

Why don't we let our schools teach Science as it is supposed to be, and let the religious interpretation be confined to the churches, temples, mosques and wherever else people go to do their "religious" stuff.

E.D. Hill is Illiterate

My dad use to classify people into the ones who were educated and the ones who were literate.  It was hard for me to distinguish the difference between the two when I was younger, but E.D. Hill is a prime example of somebody who maybe highly educated, but still illiterate.

As you may or may not know, Fox anchorwoman E.D. Hill was forced to apologize after referring to Obama's fist jab with his wife as some kind of a terrorist action. You can find kids doing such fist jabs on Disney channel all the time - maybe in E.D. Hill's view, we are raising a nation of terrorists.

Unfortunately it took 4 days for the apology to come through, and only after several groups and "literate" people started campaigning for it. Ultimately, I do not think that E.D. Hill really understood why she had to give the apology - she just did it because Fox asked her to. Now, that's what makes her illiterate!

Watch Ms Hill apologize here:

Obama - Clinton(err Daniels) ticket

At some level a Obama-Clinton ticket sounds like a Wayne Palmer-Daniels ticket - fans of 24 season 6 would know exactly what I am saying here.

In the show Daniels was a white vice-president of a black US president.

Daniels came around as a vice-president who did not have respect for the president, was always looking over the president's shoulder and conspiring to take his job. And he even commits perjury to eventually get the job.

While 24 is obviously very dramatic, I could not but help avoid this comparison!