The New York Nannies

The New York Times is not exactly renowned for libertarian views but this particular oped – where the author complains about excessive private philanthropy – is staggeringly regressive even by their standards.
Indeed, the article, after acknowledging that private philanthropy in the US exceeds that of any other country, goes on to state:
Critics of government spending [...]

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“Did you use the word?”

Eugene Volokh has a great post about the Hindley affair. Yet another example of political correctness taken too far in America.
Someone once said that the greatest American ideal isn’t democracy or mobility or justice or equality, but freedom. Apropos of nothing, I remember the song -
“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what [...]

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What a match!

Federer vs Tipsarevic 6-7 7-6 5-7 6-1 10-8.
I was up till 2 AM watching this epic battle and every moment was worth it.
Here is a great highlights capsule from ESPN. It is merely 1:45 long but includes some of the best points that were played last night.

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Don’t blindfold Gandhi!

Not even as a token of protest…
Ingrid Newkirk and the PETA activists had gone to Gandhi Park, blindfolded the statue of Mahatma Gandhi and hung a board that said ‘reject cruel sport jallikattu.’
Following a complaint lodged by a Congress functionary, police registered cases against Ingrid and others for creating religious ill-feeling, defaming the national leader, [...]

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Scrabble vs Scrabulous

Hasbro and Mattel, the makers of the enourmously popular board game called scrabble, want to shut down scrabulous.com, and especially its Facebook avatar.
The article above quotes an angry Scrabulous fan from the United Kingdom : “Do these greedy fools not realize that they should be paying the creators of Scrabulous for all the damn fans [...]

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How libertarian are you?

This nice test measures ‘libertarian purity’, with a high score indicating strong support for anarcho-capitalism.
By the way, I scored 65. The test tells me: You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your friends probably encourage you to quit talking about your views so much.

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A sterling tribute and some comic relief

A wonderful article by Vir Sanghvi on Ratan Tata.
Meanwhile, Mamata Bannerjee wants one million Nanos to be given away for free…

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More trouble for Microsoft in the EU

Microsoft faces new European Union Antitrust probes.
Antitrust laws are a severe limitation on the liberty of a private organization. They, in essence, penalize a company – and take away certain elements of its freedom to operate autonomously – for being too successful or influential. The dominant view is that these curtailments of liberty are outweighed by the benefits they give to [...]

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Ratan Tata interview

A nice read.

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Delivered as promised

The Tata car for 100,000 INR is here. And it is green too, with a mileage that is almost twice as good as other cars on the market. 
I am an unabashed admirer of the Tatas and have been meaning to write a longer post about them for a long time. I will do that some day; for now read this note by [...]

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A sovereign, ********, secular, democratic republic

An Indian NGO questions the requirement that all political parties adhere to socialism in writing.
Will this case lead to change? I am sceptical. Yet, one can always hope, and I will.

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More on sledging

Tim de Lisle has a piece in Cricinfo where he says that sledging without an obvious skin-colour dimension is often as offensive as racial sledging. I agree. However, his solution to the conundrum is to ban all sledging. Mine, as I wrote yesterday, is to allow it.

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Sania offends the Indian heart

In keeping with the flavour of our times, a case has been filed against Sania Mirza for insulting the national flag. In the words of the petitioner, Sania “forgot where her feet were” and also did not remember “the value of the tricolour in the heart of Indians”.
I do not begrudge the petitioner. In going to [...]

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Monkey matters

The poor umpiring and Harbhajan Singh’s three match ban for alleged racist remarks to Andrew Symonds have marred what was otherwise an excellent test match.
Even if it is true that Bhajji is guilty (which does not seem to have been unambiguously proved) I feel that the three match ban is unreasonably harsh. Harbhajan is alleged [...]

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Shame on New Year’s eve

This is horrifying.
I have a question for the reader (especially the guys). Imagine yourself horny and drunk and suddenly in the middle of such a situation. What would you, as a spectator, do?

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