This is one of those books where you can almost tell that the author punched it out to take advantage the sujet de jour.
Except for the chapter on the electoral college and its history and the paragraphs describing how crazy Ahscroft is, it is not a particularly informative book.
Ashcroft's particular branch of Christianity frowns upon public dancing, which makes Footloose a political criticism well ahead of its time.
3.18.2005
5. Modern Iran by Nikki Keddie
This is a history of modern Iran written by a Marxist historian. In the book she argues that the revolution was largely the result of a class struggle between the ruling elites on the one hand and an alliance of the clergy, the merchant class and the urban and rural poor on the other hand.
I believe that her arguments have some merit, however, as with many other Marxist historians she gets trapped by the rigidness of the Marxist historiography and fails to see that there were other causes of the revolution beyond the class struggle that she articulates.
I believe that her arguments have some merit, however, as with many other Marxist historians she gets trapped by the rigidness of the Marxist historiography and fails to see that there were other causes of the revolution beyond the class struggle that she articulates.
3.03.2005
A Debate Worth Having
Liberals of varying colors spend a lot of their time deriding Bush's foreign policy and mis-adventures in the Middle East. But what if, in four years time, we have an independent and democratic Palestinian state in stable co-existence wit Israel, a fledgling democracy in Iraq, an independent Lebanon, and no nuclear weapons in Iran. What will we say about Bush then?
The reason I bring this up is that this scenario was a virtual impossibility a few months ago but is now a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome.
We will certainly be able to roundly criticize Bush's domestic policies. But it will be difficult to describe him as an ass.
The reason I bring this up is that this scenario was a virtual impossibility a few months ago but is now a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome.
We will certainly be able to roundly criticize Bush's domestic policies. But it will be difficult to describe him as an ass.
2.19.2005
The Craziness - A Little Cultural Education
After the prophet Mohammed died in the 7th century there was a battle between the Arabian Caliphs and Mohammed's sons as to who would take over as the ruler of Mecca. The Caliphs wanted to put themselves in charge and the sons of Mohammed wanted to put themselves in charge.
The Caliphs killed two of the sons. The third son, Hussein, who was living in Iraq at the time started to head back to Mecca to try to take over the throne. He was ambushed and killed by the Caliph's men as he was going through Karbala in Iraq.
So today's Shi'a are bloodying themselves to show their respect for Hussein's suffering. This ritual, however, is a concotion of modern fundamentalist Islam and not something that has been done for hundreds of years. The truly traditional way to mark this holiday is by prayer.
Oh Canada!
The Toronto Star's headline today blared that the two greatest hockey players of all time (pictured) who happen to be Canadian have stepped in and are poised to save the NHL season.
Their sources said that a season saving announcement will be made today and a 28 game hockey season will begin on March 1st.
Update
I am overwhelmed by emptiness now that not even these great Canadians could save the hockey season.
Their sources said that a season saving announcement will be made today and a 28 game hockey season will begin on March 1st.
Update
I am overwhelmed by emptiness now that not even these great Canadians could save the hockey season.
2.18.2005
Gawk
2.17.2005
4. The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq by Kenneth M. Pollack
This book was written in 2002 before the actual invasion of Iraq. Also the author (pictured) can be described as a hawkish democrat. He is definitely not one of the neo-conservatives running the US today.
The premise of this book is two fold: that Saddam Hussein is developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and that Saddam Hussein is one of the more evil leaders of modern history. Consequently, the author argues that the western world should take steps to try to oust him from Iraq. Pollack then produces a rigorous analysis of the different foreign policy options available to the United States to achieve this goal.
He convincingly argues that the policy of Containment, which has been in place since Saddam fist invaded Kuwait, is now falling apart because some European countries, the Chinese, the Russians and the Turks are not abiding by the sanctions any more. He further argues that it will be next to impossible to bring these rogue nations in line with the containment policy again.
Pollack then tackles the policy of Deterrence where the west essentially allows Saddam to do whatever he wants within his borders but hits him hard if he makes any predatory moves towards other countries. He also argues that a policy that seeks to overthrow Saddam by using the CIA also will not work in Iraq.
In a lengthy chapter analyzing the invasion of Afghanistan he demonstrates why an approach like the one that the US used in Afghanistan where it used the Northern Alliance as a proxy invading force will not work in Iraq.
Finally, almost by elimination, he shows that the only viable foreign policy option is to invade Iraq.
One of the key arguments that Pollack uses to support his thesis is that Iraq's WMD program is substantially more advanced than it turned out to be. He believed that in 2001 Saddam had over 300 missiles capable of delivering either chemical or biological weapons as far as Tel Aviv. Furthermore, he believed that Iraq's nuclear program was sufficiently advanced that it could produce a bomb in the next 5 years.
Clearly he was wrong. If Iraq's weapons programs had been as advanced as he believed then his arguments and suggestions would make a lot of sense. The book, however, is an excellent primer on the foreign policy issues facing the United States in the Middle East.
The premise of this book is two fold: that Saddam Hussein is developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and that Saddam Hussein is one of the more evil leaders of modern history. Consequently, the author argues that the western world should take steps to try to oust him from Iraq. Pollack then produces a rigorous analysis of the different foreign policy options available to the United States to achieve this goal.
He convincingly argues that the policy of Containment, which has been in place since Saddam fist invaded Kuwait, is now falling apart because some European countries, the Chinese, the Russians and the Turks are not abiding by the sanctions any more. He further argues that it will be next to impossible to bring these rogue nations in line with the containment policy again.
Pollack then tackles the policy of Deterrence where the west essentially allows Saddam to do whatever he wants within his borders but hits him hard if he makes any predatory moves towards other countries. He also argues that a policy that seeks to overthrow Saddam by using the CIA also will not work in Iraq.
In a lengthy chapter analyzing the invasion of Afghanistan he demonstrates why an approach like the one that the US used in Afghanistan where it used the Northern Alliance as a proxy invading force will not work in Iraq.
Finally, almost by elimination, he shows that the only viable foreign policy option is to invade Iraq.
One of the key arguments that Pollack uses to support his thesis is that Iraq's WMD program is substantially more advanced than it turned out to be. He believed that in 2001 Saddam had over 300 missiles capable of delivering either chemical or biological weapons as far as Tel Aviv. Furthermore, he believed that Iraq's nuclear program was sufficiently advanced that it could produce a bomb in the next 5 years.
Clearly he was wrong. If Iraq's weapons programs had been as advanced as he believed then his arguments and suggestions would make a lot of sense. The book, however, is an excellent primer on the foreign policy issues facing the United States in the Middle East.
2.12.2005
The Wheels Are Coming Off
I have never seen a basketball team disintegrate as the Raptors are doing. If you go to their games you can tell how disaffected the players are: they're practically walking up and down the court, they are not paying any attention to the coach during the breaks and they often seem more excited to see their opponents - chest thumps, smiles and some easy conversation - before the game than winning the game for their team.
Then there is the off court stuff. Last week Alston and the coach, Sam Mitchell, got into a fight at half time in the locker room. Alston did not play the rest of the game and was ultimately escorted by security guards to the team's bus. Some witnesses say that the he was in tears. For the past few days Alston has been asking for an apology and some of his team mates agree that he deserves one.
Then last night Vince's mom came out and said that in December Vince and Mitchell also got into an altercation in the locker room.
I have seasons tickets to the Raptors and I sit next to the "super fan," who is on good terms with most of the Raptor players and, for example, went to Vince's wedding last summer. He has taken a paternalistic liking to me and often tells me stuff about what's going on with the team. I don't entirely believe everything he has to say but I can't totally discount it either.
According to the "super fan," Mitchell has a very physical style and is often wrestling and sparring with the players in practice and in the locker room. So he was not at all surprised at the Alston situation. The "super fan" thinks that Mitchell will be fired very soon.
If all of this is true Mitchell is a very bizarre guy.
So we are left with a team without a franchise player, which has gone through something like 5 coaches in 8 years and no real prospects on the horizon.
Two years ago Maple Leaf Entertainment - the company that owns the Air Canada Center, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors - was sold to a very large Canadian pension fund. In a subsequent post I will tell you why I think that today's Raptors are just what the owners want.
Then there is the off court stuff. Last week Alston and the coach, Sam Mitchell, got into a fight at half time in the locker room. Alston did not play the rest of the game and was ultimately escorted by security guards to the team's bus. Some witnesses say that the he was in tears. For the past few days Alston has been asking for an apology and some of his team mates agree that he deserves one.
Then last night Vince's mom came out and said that in December Vince and Mitchell also got into an altercation in the locker room.
I have seasons tickets to the Raptors and I sit next to the "super fan," who is on good terms with most of the Raptor players and, for example, went to Vince's wedding last summer. He has taken a paternalistic liking to me and often tells me stuff about what's going on with the team. I don't entirely believe everything he has to say but I can't totally discount it either.
According to the "super fan," Mitchell has a very physical style and is often wrestling and sparring with the players in practice and in the locker room. So he was not at all surprised at the Alston situation. The "super fan" thinks that Mitchell will be fired very soon.
If all of this is true Mitchell is a very bizarre guy.
So we are left with a team without a franchise player, which has gone through something like 5 coaches in 8 years and no real prospects on the horizon.
Two years ago Maple Leaf Entertainment - the company that owns the Air Canada Center, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors - was sold to a very large Canadian pension fund. In a subsequent post I will tell you why I think that today's Raptors are just what the owners want.
2.08.2005
Go Daddy Ads - The Ugly Side of the Superbowl
I find this a little difficult to believe because I think that the NFL would have checked the ads well before the game had started.
If Go Daddy is telling the truth then it is very sad how much control corporations are exerting over our lives and how spineless some corporations, like FOX, have become.
2.03.2005
T plus 46 days
The wheels are coming off! All of a sudden my idea of not registering for wedding gifts and asking people to donate to charities is coming under attack on multiple fronts. My mother, who is supported by my sister, think that our guests will perceive it to be a form of snobbery if we don't register. They argue that people will think that we are so well off that people couldn't possibly buy us a gift that we don't have.
Others have weighed in saying that our guests will not listen and buy gifts anyway so you might as well try to get them to buy you things you want.
And still others have said that we should donate to charities anonymously so asking guests to donate in our name is not good.
I thought it was such a good idea...
Others have weighed in saying that our guests will not listen and buy gifts anyway so you might as well try to get them to buy you things you want.
And still others have said that we should donate to charities anonymously so asking guests to donate in our name is not good.
I thought it was such a good idea...
1.23.2005
3. When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein
This is an excellent book. First a little background. In the mid-1990s the hedge fund (hedge funds are pools of money, like mutual funds, that take specific kinds of bets on the stock or bond markets. Some specialize in derivatives, others are short on the market, others are long on the market and still others specialize in bonds) industry began to boom. One of the catalysts to the boom was the establishment of a fund called Long Term Capital.
The fund was established by a group of very smart - Nobel prize winners, MIT mathematicians, Harvard finance gurus and industry heavy weights - people who defected from what is now Citibank. They went out and raised what, at that time, was an unheard of amount of money. They then borrowed against that money and purchased various kinds of bond related derivatives. They took an almost purely mathematical view of the capital markets and built complicated financial models for almost every kind of asset. For example, their models would tell them when German interest rates were abnormally high compared to French interest rates. So they would short French bonds and buy German bonds and make some money on the spread between the two.
In the late 1990s, however, things began to go dramatically wrong. At this point Long Term Capital had investments amounting to about $150 billion. The downward spiral began with the credit crisis precipitated by Russia's default on its international debt and the international community's reaction to the default.
This book is the story of what happened once things started going wrong. The book is well written and reads like a thriller more than a business book. Highly recommended.
The fund was established by a group of very smart - Nobel prize winners, MIT mathematicians, Harvard finance gurus and industry heavy weights - people who defected from what is now Citibank. They went out and raised what, at that time, was an unheard of amount of money. They then borrowed against that money and purchased various kinds of bond related derivatives. They took an almost purely mathematical view of the capital markets and built complicated financial models for almost every kind of asset. For example, their models would tell them when German interest rates were abnormally high compared to French interest rates. So they would short French bonds and buy German bonds and make some money on the spread between the two.
In the late 1990s, however, things began to go dramatically wrong. At this point Long Term Capital had investments amounting to about $150 billion. The downward spiral began with the credit crisis precipitated by Russia's default on its international debt and the international community's reaction to the default.
This book is the story of what happened once things started going wrong. The book is well written and reads like a thriller more than a business book. Highly recommended.
1.22.2005
T plus 35 days
We had a wedding meeting tonight to review wedding invitation templates and possible venues.
My idea of emailing the wedding invitation to everyone rather than having one printed fell on deaf ears. I was hoping to pull off a coup similar to not registering for gifts. Alas, failure.
Wedding invitations are complicated. So many decisions. Do not have great fun for such a meeting.
Venues was simple. I voted for the Four Seasons and Mona finally gave in. I had an ace of an argument: there will be a lot of elderly people who will have traveled quite a bit to get to the wedding and it is important that the wedding should be in the hotel where they are staying so that if they need to take a rest they can do so easily.
I've realized that the elderly card can win so many different arguments.
My idea of emailing the wedding invitation to everyone rather than having one printed fell on deaf ears. I was hoping to pull off a coup similar to not registering for gifts. Alas, failure.
Wedding invitations are complicated. So many decisions. Do not have great fun for such a meeting.
Venues was simple. I voted for the Four Seasons and Mona finally gave in. I had an ace of an argument: there will be a lot of elderly people who will have traveled quite a bit to get to the wedding and it is important that the wedding should be in the hotel where they are staying so that if they need to take a rest they can do so easily.
I've realized that the elderly card can win so many different arguments.
T plus greater than fourteen days
It's been pretty smooth sailing since the beginning of the year. I have decided to run the wedding planning like a business. If we need to discuss some wedding plans then we have to schedule a meeting with each other, set an agenda and have the discussion. We are not allowed to discuss the wedding outside the meeting. Otherwise it would take over our lives with constant discussion of this thing or the other thing and I really do not want to become one of those couples who are engrossed in their wedding to the point of nauseating their friends.
The date has been set - September 17th.
In Iranian culture the man pays for the wedding and the bride's wedding dress so my family will be quite involved in the wedding plans. So my sister and Mona have planned a dress shopping trip to New York in February.
I have set a budget of 250 to 300 guests.
My biggest victory was that I convinced Mona that we do not need to register for gifts anywhere. Instead we will encourage guests to donate money to our favorite charities. I think that I have recovered days of my life as a result.
The date has been set - September 17th.
In Iranian culture the man pays for the wedding and the bride's wedding dress so my family will be quite involved in the wedding plans. So my sister and Mona have planned a dress shopping trip to New York in February.
I have set a budget of 250 to 300 guests.
My biggest victory was that I convinced Mona that we do not need to register for gifts anywhere. Instead we will encourage guests to donate money to our favorite charities. I think that I have recovered days of my life as a result.
T plus two to fourteen days
The day after we got engaged we - my sister, her husband, her children, my parents, Mona and I - headed off on vacation.
This is when I really started to feel overwhelmed with the constant "we're so excited" high pitched screaming from certain family members and the regular volleys of complicated wedding related questions from Mona.
I desperately wanted everyone to mellow out so that I could take some time to get used to my new life paradigm. I told Mona as much who, very helpfully, explained that she was just excited right now and that she would calm down quite quickly. That went a long way.
I just decided to tune out the others during the trip.
All in all I was feeling quite good.
This is when I really started to feel overwhelmed with the constant "we're so excited" high pitched screaming from certain family members and the regular volleys of complicated wedding related questions from Mona.
I desperately wanted everyone to mellow out so that I could take some time to get used to my new life paradigm. I told Mona as much who, very helpfully, explained that she was just excited right now and that she would calm down quite quickly. That went a long way.
I just decided to tune out the others during the trip.
All in all I was feeling quite good.
T plus one day
Oh my god what have I done!! That was my reaction the next morning. A little panting and a lot of anxiety but nothing a cold shower did not cure.
T minus months and weeks
After about 9 months of going out with Mona I had a pretty good idea that I would be spending at least the next few years if not longer with her. So starting in June 2004 I started thinking about marriage. My first big step was when I bought her engagement ring in July. I then began what would turn out to be a series of three runs at getting engaged before I could actually pull it off.
The first run was in August during our vacation to Italy. I had it all planned out. I was going to propose one evening in a secluded Roman piazza. As the end of the trip approached and the pressure mounted I had the stereotypical male reaction to marriage: cold sweats and anxiety.
The second run was in early October during our vacation to the Bahamas. This time it was going to be a beach themed proposal. Again, cold sweats and anxiety.
The third run came in early November in Toronto. This time I had not planned anything special. But I had the same response.
The final run came in mid-December in Toronto at home. This time I did not have the same reaction. Either I became used to my anxiety or it must have been the right time. We got engaged on December 17th in a nice unpretentious way at home.
The first run was in August during our vacation to Italy. I had it all planned out. I was going to propose one evening in a secluded Roman piazza. As the end of the trip approached and the pressure mounted I had the stereotypical male reaction to marriage: cold sweats and anxiety.
The second run was in early October during our vacation to the Bahamas. This time it was going to be a beach themed proposal. Again, cold sweats and anxiety.
The third run came in early November in Toronto. This time I had not planned anything special. But I had the same response.
The final run came in mid-December in Toronto at home. This time I did not have the same reaction. Either I became used to my anxiety or it must have been the right time. We got engaged on December 17th in a nice unpretentious way at home.
1.19.2005
Truck Pantheon
Another addition to the pantheon of awful trucks poluting the streets. We should ban them all.
1.18.2005
3. The Perfect Store
I should have known that this book was going to be an 'official' history of ebay when in the introduction the author wrote that he had been given almost free access to ebay's staff and documents.
The book begins with the story of how the two founders began ebay and explains how they grew the company to what it is today. Intersperssed throughout the narrative are short portrayals of some long time ebay users who are apparently somehow famous in the 'community'.
The story of how they founded the company, some of the early decisions that they made and how disoirganized things were at first is interesting. It is really surprising, and kind of cool, how long ebay ran on its original software and original servers. As late as 1998 ebay was on the same platform as when it was founded.
All in all a mediocre book.
The book begins with the story of how the two founders began ebay and explains how they grew the company to what it is today. Intersperssed throughout the narrative are short portrayals of some long time ebay users who are apparently somehow famous in the 'community'.
The story of how they founded the company, some of the early decisions that they made and how disoirganized things were at first is interesting. It is really surprising, and kind of cool, how long ebay ran on its original software and original servers. As late as 1998 ebay was on the same platform as when it was founded.
All in all a mediocre book.
1.07.2005
1. The Persian Puzzle by Kenneth M. Pollack
I don't agree with everything that Kenneth Pollack writes but he is a smart historian and poltical scientist. It is unfortunate that he has made a case for invading Iraq in a different book.
This book is a rare book on Iran's situation because it gives a great overview of Persian history in making its arguments. Pollack then goes on to make a convincing and forceful - no he does not advocate invasion of Iran - argument about how the US needs to handle its Iranian foreign policy.
A highly recomended book.
This book is a rare book on Iran's situation because it gives a great overview of Persian history in making its arguments. Pollack then goes on to make a convincing and forceful - no he does not advocate invasion of Iran - argument about how the US needs to handle its Iranian foreign policy.
A highly recomended book.
The Struggle
I've had blogs for a few months now but I have always struggled with things to write about that are interesting enough to warrant the effort of actually blogging them. But now I have two things to write about. First, I got engaged last month so I am going to give y'all a blow by blow of how that's going. Second, I have taken on the 50 book challenge so I will write short reviews of each as I make it through them.
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