Jay Dwivedi

An attempt at mobile blogging

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:00:01 -0500

I had literally given up on my Tumbleblog due to time pressures but I realized that I can use the mobile functionality to blog. Let’s see how this works out. Hopefully I can now blog when I have nothing better to do than to fiddle with an iPod.

Hertz replaced my bad car

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:06:53 -0400

Well, after I had problems with my Hertz rental car, during the middle of the vacation, the car simply gave up and wouldn’t behave at all. Thankfully, it was still driveable at slow speed. While I was not thrilled about making a trip to Hertz to get a replacement, I called them and they offered a replacement right away but the location was a good 40 miles away. It took me about 3 hours in California traffic to make the trip to Orange County Airport but in the end it all worked out fine.

Hertz rental car at Santa Barbara

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:11:58 -0400

I had read in The Times the due to the economic downturn, the rental car companies were keeping their cars longer. That is exactly what I experienced here. While I got an awesome deal because of a promotion with Mastercard and discounted rates for AAA members, the car itself was full of scratches, the engine made funny noises, and the check engine light was ON. Yes, 25K is a lot of miles for a rental car, I realized.

Why bankruptcy is good? Simply because GM says so. After all,...

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:12:39 -0400

Why bankruptcy is good?

Simply because GM says so. After all, we Americans were stupid enough to give them our taxpayer dollars to waste.

Humor at the Spelling Bee

Thu, 28 May 2009 16:06:09 -0400

Helping to break the tension were the funnier-than-usual examples read by pronouncer Jacques Bailly. Asked by 11-year-old Nicholas Rushlow of Pickerington, Ohio, to use ”noisette” (a type of food) in a sentence, Bailly replied: ”Gail couldn’t keep her eyes off the piece of noisette in her date’s teeth.” The next time Nicholas spelled, he was given this gem, used to explain the word ”hebdomadally” (an adverb meaning once a week): ”Stacy told Alex that his dating prospects would improve greatly if he started bathing more than just hebdomadally.” The humor didn’t help this time. Nicholas misspelled the word.

Pakistan stockpiling nuclear arms

Tue, 19 May 2009 09:56:11 -0400

As the Times has reported, “Pakistan’s drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents,” and I am not convinced about Pakistani denials that I heard on NPR, I think I still hold the view that we with the help of India should take over Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

Switch from credit to debit card

Tue, 19 May 2009 09:42:34 -0400

The Times reports, “And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit. Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.”

Yes, I am one of those consumers with sterling credit and always pay my full balance in time (I have no recollection of ever paying any fee to credit card companies other than annual fee to collect miles). Now credit card companies want to screw me? Guess what? If they think that they can still keep me as their customer they are wrong. If there are no benefits to owning a credit card, I will simply cancel them (maybe keep one just to rent a car) and switch to debit cards.

Deathwatch for subscribers of Abandonment Tracker Pro

Sun, 17 May 2009 10:49:06 -0400

First of all, like hundreds of millions of shoppers on the web, I like to shop online without even registering. And as I said before, if it is not Amazon or similar other large online shop, I will simply go elsewhere to buy it. And that is why I have nothing but disgust for companies that are using this stupid technology. Indeed, if you have a great product and price, people will naturally buy. To get on their nerves, well, we know what happens to those companies. They die.

Here is what the Times says about this awful technology, “Abandonment Tracker’s remarketing depends upon knowing the e-mail address of the wayward prospect; knowing the phone number will make follow-up phone calls possible, too. (And if you’ve signed in, a store would be able to find you with the e-mail address you provided when you registered.) Charles Nicholls, SeeWhy’s founder, says he advises Web sites to have visitors “put their e-mail address in at the first step,” to increase the likelihood that it will be captured.”

Air Force One photo op disaster

Sat, 09 May 2009 09:36:23 -0400

NYT reports, “The director, Louis Caldera, who was appointed by President Obama to the White House post and had been a secretary of the Army in the Clinton administration, resigned on Friday for his role in approving the April 27 flyover. In a brief letter to Mr. Obama, Mr. Caldera said that the matter “has become a distraction for the important work you are doing as president.”

Indeed, it was a poorly executed plan and no one is convinced that Air Force One needs a promotion, particularly in these difficult economic times.

I am also hoping that Pres. Obama will maintain these standards: if you screw up you are out, no matter how loyal you were to the party or the president. That would be a welcome departure from Pres. Bush’s policy of not firing anyone even if they screwed up big time.

What to do with Pakistani nuclear arms?

Mon, 04 May 2009 10:06:38 -0400

David Sanger at the Times writes, “But the United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are located, and its concerns have intensified in the last two weeks since the Taliban entered Buner, a district 60 miles from the capital. The spread of the insurgency has left American officials less willing to accept blanket assurances from Pakistan that the weapons are safe.”

If we don’t know, we should put our intelligence resources to find out where they are and then allocate our defense resources to secure them at a moment’s notice as soon as the Pakistani government collapses. Neighboring India, a more stable nation, can be our partner in this process.

"Former governor of New Jersey and a disastrous head of the EPA writes in the Times, “Our..."

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:47:47 -0400

“

Former governor of New Jersey and a disastrous head of the EPA writes in the Times, “Our democracy desperately needs two vibrant parties. And for Republicans to be that second party, we need to remind the nation of the principles for which we once stood.”

I am not totally convinced that we need only two parties, but it is nice to have at least two parties. Let there be as many parties as there are ideologies. Democracy thrives when citizens have choices.

”

This is a very interesting chart and an excellent reflection of...

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:23:52 -0400

This is a very interesting chart and an excellent reflection of where we are today. Now many experts are arguing that the world is changing forever, but I disagree. I think as the economy turns around and people see their incomes rise, they will be back to their old ways.

Women must work at home

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:34:18 -0400

Richard Paley, teacher of Divinity and Theobiology at Fellowship University, reports that at the Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair, 7th grade student Jonathan Goode was rewarded the second prize for finding that “Women were designed for homemaking.”

He “applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.

It is the first time I am reading science and creationism in the same sentence.

"“New Hampshire’s governor, John Lynch, a Democrat who enjoys bipartisan support, also proved..."

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:49:11 -0500

“

“New Hampshire’s governor, John Lynch, a Democrat who enjoys bipartisan support, also proved willing to go along with Mr. Gregg’s condition. Mr. Lynch told friends that he thought it would not be fair, or popular among a substantial number of New Hampshire voters, to replace Mr. Gregg with a Democrat. And he thought it would be a plus for the state to have a representative in the cabinet.”

The system of appointing a senator by a governor after a current senator is no longer serving, is totally broken. I favor a new election, but I find it dictatorial that a governor can appoint anyone she or he likes. In that respect what is happening is much more acceptable to me.

”

- Obama Set to Add Republican to Cabinet - NYTimes.com

Is Boxee a viable business?

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:43:34 -0500

I hate, like most other consumers, my cable company (Comcast) but it is hard for most consumers to switch (Comcast is also the provider of Internet and home phone service to me) to something else. Boxee may be interesting but I have no hope for companies who have no idea how to conduct business.

From The Times:

Avner Ronen, Boxee’s 33-year-old founder and chief executive, said the company could make money after it built up its user base, perhaps by licensing its software to consumer electronics companies like TV manufacturers — which are clearly not experts at creating elegant interfaces or simple remote controls. Mr. Ronen also shared what he called his “politically incorrect” vision of how the Internet would upset the television business by giving people on-demand access to the array of Web content. “The challenge for the cable industry is how they grapple with the fact that this is in some way a substitution for some of the things they do,” he said.

Unemployment rate rises to 17%

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:21:03 -0500

As they say, the devil is in the details. One of the problems with crunching numbers is that you can massage them any way you like and not many people bother to read the fine print. That is why ignoring discouraged workers maybe fine in the normal course, but is dangerous in times like this. There is another number that I like to look: the total number of unemployed people at a given time, not just the ones that have applied for benefits or are receiving them.

Figures collected for Reuters by John Williams, from the electronic newsletter Shadowstats.com, suggest that, while we are not there yet, the comparison is not as outlandish as it might initially seem. By his count, if unemployment were still tallied the way it was in the 1930s, today’s jobless rate would be closer to 16.5 percent — more than double the stated rate. “I expect that unemployment in the current downturn, which will be particularly deep and protracted, eventually will rival, if not top, the 25 percent seen in the Great Depression,” Williams said. He and other critics have one particular sticking point with the current way of measuring unemployment: the treatment of discouraged workers.

Why COBRA insurance does not work?

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:49:41 -0500

According to the Times, “Newly unemployed Americans will have to spend about 30 percent of their jobless benefits on average to pay for health insurance through their former employer, according to a new report. And if they want coverage for their families, the report by Families USA says it will take more than 80 percent of their unemployment check.”

While I have argued endlessly why universal health insurance is a must for all Americans, this point further illustrates how broken the system is. Now if an employee gets a pink slip, the unemployment benefits provide some income for a limited period of time and may allow one to have insurance for her/himself and/or family, that is not how things always work out. In many cases, people stop working for a variety of other reasons and have no unemployment benefits. These individuals and their families have no way of having any insurance at all. Imagine the impact it has on children!

Why Roland Burris should be Illinois Senator

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:45:55 -0500

The biggest strength of our justice system is that one is innocent till proven guilty. Accordingly, I would give that benefit of doubt to Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. On that basis and according to current laws in Illinois and USA, there is nothing that can stop him from doing his duties as a lawfully elected governor.

For all those who are afraid of endorsing an indicted governor, the message is that it is best to let the law take its course and in the meantime welcome Sen. Burris.

The Times writes, “Although federal prosecutors are seeking a corruption indictment of Mr. Blagojevich, he is in fact still the governor. The charges that he sought bribes to appoint certain candidates to the Senate do not automatically render illegal other official acts of his office like signing laws or pardoning criminals. And because there is no evidence that a bribe was solicited from, or proffered by, Mr. Burris, his appointment is presumptively lawful. Nor do the other arguments against Mr. Burris’s appointment hold up. The contention by the Democratic leadership that Mr. Burris can be denied a seat because the Illinois secretary of state refuses to sign his appointment papers is without merit — it would confer upon secretaries of state absolute veto power over governors’ appointments.”

GOP against stimulus to economy

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:20:44 -0500

Congressional Republicans on Monday criticized a $1 trillion stimulus as wasteful spending and signaled they will oppose having the bill ready by President-elect Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) demanded hearings and at least a week to review the bill to prevent wasteful spending and fraud.

In principle, I oppose all bailouts, whether they be of Wall Street or auto companies (I supported this one only on charitable grounds) or consumers, but it would be nice to have some consistency here. While George Bush turned our economy into a Socialist one and Republicans went along bailing everyone out, now they want to oppose if Obama wants to help the little guy.

George Bush The Socialist

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:13:58 -0500

“We can’t be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms,” said Solomon Yue, a cosponsor of a resolution that would put the RNC — the party’s national governing body — on the record as opposing the U.S. government bailouts of the financial and auto industries.

Indeed, even a hardcore liberal like me can agree with the RNC on this one. President Bush has turned our capitalist economy into a socialist one without any apologies. I couldn’t stop laughing during the 2008 presidential elections when McCain-Palin couldn’t stop calling Obama a Socialist while their own party was distributing taxpayer dollars like free money to their friends in the business world.