Revenge of Osama?
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Revenge of Osama? - Listen, we don't know if Osama is dead or alive. But he seems to be taking his revenge on America during this Thanksgiving weekend. As you know Thanksgiving for Americans is like Eid for us in Pakistan. That's one time when families fly in from all four corners of the US to gather under one roof and eat the traditional turkey dinner. Fears of a plane being blown in midair is driving a media frenzy. This past Thursday was Thanksgiving. A day before, I went to Newark (near New York) Airport to drop off a relative flying to Florida. As per new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rules, airline passengers must check in two hours in advance. Why? Well they have to undergo full X-ray body-scan that renders subjects virtually naked and intimate pat-downs for those who refuse to walk through the machine because they think it to be an intrusion of privacy. A Muslim male between the ages of 18-45 is a passenger to watch. As my relative walked towards the check-in counter, I looked around to notice whether any TSA officials (big beefy surly guys with blue shirts) were zeroing in on him. No. He went through the scan machine without any hoo-hah, and on to the hand-baggage check. Within seconds the security check was over and there he was on the other side in the waiting lounge waving goodbye to me. The whole security process was open for anyone curious to know if the TSA screeners were putting passengers through a grinder. Wait… who just walked in for a security check? It was Brooke Shields – the 'pretty baby' and 'Blue Lagoon' femme fatale. The 45-year-old was in New York pitching for 'La-Z-Boy' furniture. She appeared quite comfortable being scanned. So why the furore? Blame it on the media. The whole weeklong, TV channels blabbered about how the TSA was driving airline passengers crazy with their new security rules. We saw several times body scans of naked males showing the viewers how passengers look like under an X-ray machine. We saw how women passengers were groped by TSA security women making sure they didn't have explosives hidden inside their under garments. We saw fights erupting between angry passengers and security officials at the airport. We were told that many refused to go through security checks and declined to fly. Even an 'Opt-Out Day' was nationally organised by protestors on the web. The campaign was a damp squib. But for a few, the rest of America continued flying. Some odd balls, just to make a point, turned up at the security line wearing only swimsuits and bikinis. What does this controversy tell us of the American psyche? Touching is considered improper. Early in life, parents drill it in their kids: don't let anyone touch you! While the US is a permissive society where teenage consensual sex or cohabiting outside of marriage is not such a big deal, society and law here have zero tolerance for any man or woman touching another without his or her permission. You can go to jail for 'physical assault'. Americans on the whole are fed up with their governments spending billions in Iraq and Afghanistan to ward off terrorism. They have a valid reason: 80 billion dollars are spent annually on intelligence alone! So obsessed is the government with making sure that there is not another 9/11, that domestic issues like a 10 per cent jobless rate sending many plunging below the poverty line are not being addressed as they deserve. So, how are Americans venting their anger? They voted out the Democrats as happened most recently in midterm congressional polls. They are vowing not to allow Obama another presidential term in 2012. The war against terror is slowly but surely affecting America as it ends this century's first decade. The ghost of Osama may never leave. . Read Full Post
Soft and hard targets
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Soft and hard targets - If the minister for religious affairs is to be taken at his word, members of the federal cabinet are locked in a tug of war to save their positions in view of an imminent abolition of close to a dozen federal ministries as part of the implementation of the eighteenth constitutional amendment. Efforts, one has the impression, are afoot to look for and discredit soft targets among ministers with a view to having them shown the door. Yes even a minister can be a soft target! Being a soft or hard target, like being tall or short, is a relative term. The same individual can be a hard or a soft target, strong or vulnerable, depending on whom the comparison is being made with. Speaking analogically, the hound is a hard target compared with the sheep but is a soft target compared with the tiger. The elite are a hard target in comparison with the commoners but a soft target compared with the royalty. The hand or the leg is an important organ in the body. But neither can claim the position of the heart or the brain and either can be conveniently amputated to save the body. On the same analogy, ministers are powerful people but they are not equally powerful. Some of them command a greater influence in the body politic than the rest for one reason or another: the gift of the gab, knowledge and wisdom, family connections, or being simply closer to the man at the top. Hence, the familiar term 'the kitchen cabinet'. Some ministers are so powerful that they are synonymous with the government and one must go crazy before targeting them. If circumstances compel exit of some ministers, the axe will inevitably fall on soft targets. In the instant case, it is yet to be seen which minister is the brain and which is the hand. Soft and hard targets aside, the fact that ministers have to trade charges to save themselves is a sad reflection on the state of our politics in that it betrays an acute sense of insecurity in the cabinet – the real executive in the parliamentary form of government. A government in which the situation of a cabinet minister is not secure can hardly be expected to work efficiently and effectively and deliver the goods to the people. Failure is the inescapable fate of such a government. Being a minister is a matter of immense pride and privilege and generally the fruit of immense labour. Ask a minister and he has a lot to tell of the much ado with which he got himself inducted into the cabinet. In case he is unseated, with what face will he face his constituency? Not only will he be divested of his pride and privileges, his voters will tease him with all sorts of questions as to why he failed to protect himself from the onslaught of his colleagues and how he can safeguard their rights and redress their grievances. Just as every parliamentarian is not a minister, every constituency is not that of a minister. Hence, taking away ministerial slot injures the pride not only of the incumbent but also that of the people he represents. This is cruel, inhuman, unjust, and atrocious. The president and the prime minister have to ward off such a situation at all costs, for the removal of a minister turns out as both a personal and a national loss. They should make it a point to ensure that no minister is made to vacate his office in the name of provincial autonomy, good governance, or fiscal responsibility. Besides, the size of the cabinet needs to be increased rather than trimmed to enable it to grapple with the growing number of problems facing the country. But what is the solution? One solution can be to have two ministers for one ministry: one federal minister and one minister of state. As they say, two heads are better than one. Already several ministries – foreign and finance, interior and information, for instance – have such an arrangement and are giving a better account of themselves than those having only one minister. Admittedly, this is not a perfect solution to the problem, because a federal minister who is demoted to the rank of a minister of state will have a legitimate cause for complaint. But then an imperfect mind can't come up with perfect solutions. . Read Full Post
ELECTRICITY GAME BY OUR LEADERS IN PAKISTAN
From the Blog I own Pakistan: ELECTRICITY GAME BY OUR LEADERS IN PAKISTAN - Electricity produced in Pakistan is from three main sources. 1). Hydral 2). Thermal (Gas/Steam/Furnace Oil) 3). Nuclear There are four major power producers in country which include Water & Power Development Authority (WAPDA), Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). Below is the break-up of the installed . Read Full Post
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