Zardari

Wall street jounal on Zardari's meeting with Palin:

Palin entered the room first followed several moments later by Zardari, who laid it on thick.

“How are you? So nice to meet you,” Palin said, adding that she was “honored to meet him.”

Zardari remarked that Palin was “even more gorgeous” than he had expected.

“You are so nice. Thank you,” Palin said, seeming to change the subject, but Zardari continued. “Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.”

The slew of cameras present ask the pair to shake hands again, to which Palin suggested they “pose” together. Zardari offered this gem: “If he’s insisting, I might hug.”

and this guy is the elected president of a country, disgusting. I wonder if his speech to the UN was a way to show the global public that he hadn't fallen for Palin or as a way to make ammends for what he said to her. The guy was known as Mr. 10 %. Taking 10% of every deal he ever approved while his wife held office. He is a convicted criminal who spent time in jail, yet still got elected into presidency.  Not too many people liked his predecessor, but no one can claim that he was a criminal who spent time in jail and had a sobriquet like Mr. 10 %.

source: 

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/09/24/palin-meets-with-more-world-leaders/

Einstien qoute of the day

I read an interesting quote today made by Einstein "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it". One a personal level this means that I can't expect to solve a problem that I created unless I alter my self. This is a daunting prospect when one person is concerned and I believe it is next to impossible when an organization or a government is concerned. I believe the current bailout plan being discussed in the Congress is not a solution. It seems more like a patch to keep things going until it becomes someone else's problem.
On a different yet some how related topic, Project management is not something that everyone can step into without training or prior experience. In many firms the only way to reward people who do well in technical positions is by having them move up in the corporate ladder into management/administrative positions. This brings me to my main point; Good programmers do not make good project managers. Some skills overlap, like the ability to think clearly but most are mutually exclusive. Moving a good programmer into a position as a project manager turns out to be a double whammy. You loose a good programmer and gain a bad project manager. Some organizations have found a way out of this by giving talented technical people the option of moving into management positions or staying in the current role with additional perks and benefits that would be akin to the one s/he would receive for moving up the corporate ladder. Google comes to mind as a company that has successfully implemented this policy. This is one of the reasons why I would love to move into a company that has software development as it's core business. My current experience with project management leaves a lot to be desired.

Blame Greenspan

Alan Greenspan was the Chairman of the federal reserve of the United States during the period of time when the financial crises that is now called the housing mortgage bubble crash was perpetrated. He once said in a speech in 2004 that more people should consider taking out adjustable rate mortgages(ARM). The only issue was that when he said this he was already getting ready to raise the interest levels. Why would some one say something like this? What did he stand to gain from making statements like this one?

That having been said I have a lot of respect for the guy, he took some of the blame for the crises when he said that the housing bubble was fundamentally engendered by the decline in real long term interest rates and I really want to read his memoirs.

In other news, Saudi Arabia ranks 40 in the survey of Best and Worst Countries of IT by Business Week. It's interesting that Saudia's rank is behind virtually every major and minor European country including Romania(39) & Lithuania(35). India ranks 46 and when you get to the slide that talks about India you are presented with a photo of a bunch of monks working on computers. I really really want to know what kind of work they are doing or what kind of websites they are visiting. Enough of my ranting,

Ramadan Kareem everyone!