America's World

Sarah Palin center staged the tea party convention in Tennessee. She predicted a good year for conservative candidates. She claimed the policies of President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress will be short-lived. She cited recent Republican victories at the polls, including Scott Brown's longshot win in last month's special Senate election in Massachusetts and predicted more victories for the conservative candidates this year. She criticized big government spending gridlocked congress. Palin complained of lots of talk but no results from Washington.

The convention was attended by around one thousand people who paid $ 550.00 per head. Reportedly, Sarah Palin was paid a hundred thousand dollars. However, the media coverage has been enormous which is rather surprising. Is it because of the feminine beauty and attraction of Sarah Palin or is there some genuine meat in it which would have been covered the same way if it was a person other than her?

Pakpattan - the name is enough to start the travelers, cautiously curious and devoted faithful dreaming. Already the magic words like sultans and saints are stirring in the head. Let your gaze slip over the dhaki - original citadel of Pakpattan - and the town will suddenly appear. The antiquity is its own message: the town is heritage, and heritage permeates the town. Read the story of the town by S A J Shirazi.

The Industrial Revolution has done lot of good to us all. Gone are the days when it would take hard work of craftsmen to manufacture products at a speed much lower than that of their demand, or when it would take days and weeks to travel from one part of the world to the other or from one part of the city to the other on horse driven carts. Air conditioning and preservation of foods and medicine are also the outcome of the technological development of the world. However, all these goods have been having their adverse effects too. The telling effects of the emission of gases which are injurious to the environment and the climate are becoming more and more visible with every day passing. These effects are so grave that these have brought the adversaries together to make collective efforts to offset the fast occurring climate change. Copenhagen conference manifests the same.

New York City’s Department of Environmental Conservation has taken the lead and is worth emulation by other cities and countries. Their team of twenty officers is named as Green Police. It is responsible for enforcement of environmental regulations. It issues citations to environmental violators. The Green Police has the authority to pull over vehicles that do not comply with emission standards. They are duly equipped with exhaust measuring gauges to measure the amount of pollution a vehicle is emitting. The Green Police also inspects food vendors and ensures implementation of environmental regulations. For example, if the fish species are not large enough complying with conservation laws, it will take to task the persons responsible for the same. The Green Police ensures that the food items or their constituents are not being supplied from prohibited areas or are otherwise not prohibited. The police will be watching the companies to see if these are complying with the regulations related to cutting emission of foul gases and shame them to better energy efficiency.

The Green Police initiative is indeed a good leap forward which will go a long way to help better the deteriorating environmental situation.

Since Obama's visit to China last year, the relations between China and America were perceived to be moving towards cordiality. Obama administration's announcement on Friday of a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan has turned out to be a bombshell in the apparent atmosphere of cordiality. Chinese have retaliated immediately. They have announced sanctions against unspecified U.S. companies involved in the arms sale. It is quite fair to expect that China would block mutual cooperation on stifling the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. It would sour ongoing trade and investment disputes and charges of Chinese Internet censorship between the two giants.

Once Washington and Beijing established relations, the two had agreed that there was only one China, and that Taiwan was part of China. Beijing expected that America would stop lending its support to Taiwan which would directly or indirectly encourage Taiwan to stay independent of China. However, Washington considered it otherwise, taking the stand that Taiwan would reunite with China of its fee will through peaceful means. Thus, America continued to supply arms to Taiwan for its security. To date this arms sale has been at a small scale. Every time USA supplied arms to Taiwan it was protested by China. These protests, however, were mostly restricted to war of words alone. Taiwan, too, had stopped giving threats to declare independence from China. Contrary to that and, in stead continued to expand trade with Mainland China which has become Taiwan’s largest export market.

Beijing has called the present arms sale “a gross intervention into China’s internal affairs [that] seriously endangers China’s national security and harms China’s peaceful reunification efforts.” China has expressed that the sale be stopped and has taken several steps toward that end. China has suspended planned high-level military exchanges and visits. It may postpone or cancel the visit of China’s president to the United States planned for later this year. If President Obama opts to see Tibet’s Dalai Lama, of Tibet, the situation would get worse from bad.

What has female work choices to do with geeking. A lot! First, let us see the origin of term geek and establish why geek girls and not the geek boys. Tom Ziegler researched the origin and changing usage of the term geek and quoted this in geek.com feature, "It appears that "geek" outstrips "nerd" by almost 400 years! Seems Mr. Alexander Barclay back in England wrote the following in 1570: He is a foole, a sotte, and a geke also which choseth ... the worst [way] and most of ieoperdie [jeopardy]. Why, old Willy used it in Twelfth Night, Scene I, as Malvolio says to Olivia: Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd, kept in a dark house, visited by the Priest, And made the most notorious gecke and gull That e're invention play'd on?

Read how the Internet is not only changing male female ratio in workforce giving female population more choices to work.

Gambling has been on since ages. Bingo games and casinos are the current popular forms of gambling. Some people are gambling addicts, there are others who play bingo games just for the sake of fun, amusement and entertainment. With the advent of computers and internet, the current most popular form of gambling is playing online bingo games. Money changing hands is all but an economic activity. More frequently the money changes hands, more of economic activities come in to play. Although no exchange of goods take place while gambling, the winners spend the won money to buy goods and the losers curtail their expenses. But gambling by itself does not generate any true economic activity which can positively contribute towards boosting economy. There are more losers and less number of winners. Gambling is more of a matter of chance. There is no exclusive art or science involved which can cause one to win. The foregoing aspect apply equally to gambling via casinos, electronic bingos or any other form of gambling. However, the taxation on gambling provides money to the state to run its affairs and to spend the taxes for the well being of its citizens. There are also moral issues attached to gambling. There are people who consider gambling to be morally and ethically wrong. So, whether gambling contributes towards boosting economy or not is an open question which can be debated either way. Perhaps, economic experts can have a better say on the subject. But will they also agree or only agree to disagree? I doubt if the ones who play, play it to contribute towards boosting economy. They do so being addicted to it or just for the sake of fun, and will continue to do so with disregard to the fact that their acts of gambling contribute towards economy or not and whether gambling is morally and ethically right or wrong.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has slammed Chinese policy of censorship on internet calling it as denial of freedom of flow of information. American government has been supporting the world's largest internet search engine Google who has been battling with China on latter's imposition of censorship on a large number website. China put the ban on these sites on the pretext of the sites being pornographic. To date China has been sidelining the issue to be only commercial in nature; between Google and China. Google even threatened the Chinese that it may close down its Chinese language Google search i.e google.cn. The recent statement by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and harsh response by Chinese is the first instance where internet has become the center of attraction in the field of politics at such a higher level between the most developed country of the world at one end and the most populated country of the world at the other end.

Statement of Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman of China posted on the ministry's website Friday afternoon read that the criticism leveled by Mrs. Clinton was “harmful to Sino-American relations.” “The Chinese Internet is open,” he said. China considers that uncensored access of internet to its citizens as a means of cultural invasion by America. English-language edition of Global Times of China said, " Mrs. Clinton “had raised the stakes in Washington’s clash with Beijing over Internet freedom.” It further labeled it as, " “information imperialism,” and that, “U.S. government’s ideological imposition is unacceptable and, for that reason, will not be allowed to succeed.”

Earlier, when US President Obama visited China last year, he had looked forward to a conciliatory approach towards China without creating much talked about hype regarding human rights. The current war of words over the internet is bound to have negative effects on Sino US relations.