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Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) — Ford Motor Co. selected Tata Motors Ltd. as the preferred bidder for Jaguar and Land Rover, putting India’s largest truckmaker in a position to take over two iconic British luxury auto brands. [Tata in Talks to Buy Ford’s Jaguar, Land Rover Units. Bloomberg. January 3 2008]
Hmm…
If in the end it is down to these two politicians, there will be no contemplation at all for me: it is Obama all the way:
DES MOINES — Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a first-term Democratic senator trying to become the nation’s first African-American president, rolled to victory in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday night, lifted by a record turnout of voters who embraced his promise of change.
The victory by Mr. Obama, 46, amounted to a startling setback for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, 60, of New York, who just months ago presented herself as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. The result left uncertain the prospects for John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, who had staked his second bid for the White House on winning Iowa. [Obama Takes Iowa in a Big Turnout as Clinton Falters; Huckabee Victor. NYT. January 4 2008]
With Obama winning the first race, one thing may be clear: skin color does not matter!
In the Republican camp, Ron Paul performed way better then Rudy Giuliani. Looks like the libertarian is going to outlive the mayor. This is very impressive given how much financial back Mr. Giuliani has compared to Ron Paul. In other words, Guiliani is humiliated.
This blog shows why the victory over Giuliani is so sweet:
It was mid-May, and the former mayor of New York was riding high following one of the early debates among the Republican presidential candidates. The primo sound bite had been a snap to identify: Giuliani’s outraged, impassioned reply to Paul’s assertion that U.S. foreign policy, especially the periodic bombing of Iraq in the aftermath of 1991’s Gulf War, was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Giuliani, not waiting to be called upon, seized the moment by terming Paul’s comment “an extraordinary statement” and urging the Texas congressman to retract it (which Paul did not).
To give Paul his due, even in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 — when the emotional response to the assault was at its rawest — serious scholars had begun hashing over the role played by American policy in the Mideast, particularly long-standing support for Israel, in fueling Islamic extremism and hatred for the U.S. But in the format of a candidate debate — where rhetorical zingers count far more than lengthy discourse — Paul’s remark amounted to a grooved fast ball down the middle, and the consensus at the time was that Giuliani parked it.
As MSNBC’s online political note put it at the time, Giuliani may want to “hire out Paul for the campaign trail — he could be the Washington Generals to Rudy’s Globetrotters” (i.e., the patsy willing to get beaten in every game).
That was then, this is now. In Iowa, Paul, 10%; Giuliani, 4%. [Ron Paul gets some revenge. Top of the Ticket. January 4 2008]
Paul’s performance is also this: a middle finger to Fox News!
For the result itself:
IOWA RESULTS
DEMOCRATS (official)Barack Obama – 37.6%
John Edwards – 29.7%
Hillary Clinton – 29.5%
Bill Richardson – 2.1%REPUBLICANS (96% complete)
Mike Huckabee – 34.3%
Mitt Romney – 25.3%
Fred Thomson – 13.4%
John McCain – 13.1%
Ron Paul – 10.0%
Rudy Giuliani – 3.5%[Huckabee and Obama take Iowa wins. BBC News. January 4 2008]
The NYT has the full result for the Iowa race.
The rise of Huckabee, is worrying. His social and economic opinion are bad news for all libertarians. If Ron Paul does not make it, I will go for Romney.
But damn! Ron Paul did well despite mounting criticism directed against him in the last few weeks.
Next stop: the “Live Free or Die” state. You cannot get anymore libertarian than that!
When I read an article relating to the resignation of Chua Soi Lek in The Star today…:
…I just could not resist it:
I just love the Prime Minister. He gives too many opportunities for humor. Perhaps, he aims to rival the current US President!
‘Superstition.’ What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called ‘faith.’ But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was called superstition! Who had the right to call other people’s belief superstition? [Sophie’s World. Jostein Gaarder. Page 42]
Wow. Gaarder’s Sophie’s World and two previous books that I read, Beinhocker’s Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Remaking of Economics and Dawkins’ The God Delusion, have common themes to relate to each other. Beinhocker’s and Dawkins’ share the idea of evolution while Dawkins’ and Gaarder’s touch on religion. Granted, the shared themes are not the main themes of each book but there are no doubt overlaps.
I tried to connect Beinhocker’s the previous book in my list, Rehman Rashid’s A Malaysian Journey but I would have to resort to a very broad topic to find a common theme — for instance, the language is English — which would not be too astounding to deserve a mention.
I wonder how I could relate Gaarder’s with the next book I plan to read. Maybe, I am getting ahead of myself. Still, though I have just started with Sophie’s World, I have a feeling that it will not take me long to reach the ending, especially when I have finally settled with favorite time of the day to read book while cutting down on the time I spend on the internet.
This is quite embarrassing but I think I am addicted to the internet again. It is not as severe as it once had been during the glorious day of Utopia and World of Warcraft but it is slowly getting there. To my defense however, I spend most of the time on Wikipedia reading up on history, philosophy and other curiosities that pop up out of nowhere. And of course, blogging.
This is unhealthy. Thank heavens for the Nature Society. Now, I can go do healthy stuff while surfing the internet on my Blackberry in the wild!
Err… right.
Argh. Blackberry is a bane.
The 42nd President of the United States of America faced impeachment because he lied about his sexual relationship with an acquaintance while 43rd President escapes any chance of impeachment in office despite misleading the public into going to war. Absurd? If that is so, then the episode surrounding Chua Soi Lek that led to his resignation is doubly absurd.
I honestly believe that the Malaysian society has quite considerable length to go if liberty is our benchmark. The treatment that Mr. Chua receives from many quarters proves just that. Instead of looking for the intruders of privacy, the victim is being crucified. It is as if people are celebrating the peeping toms for wrongfully shaming an individual.
What the former minister had was consensual sex. Despite being a public figure, he, like all of us, has a private life. His conduct may be deplorable but what he does with his private life is definitely none of our business, just as what you do with your private life is none of my business.
Perhaps, he should resign, along with other politicians that lead this country. The reason for resignation however must be something that relate to the public sphere, like failed policies, misuse of public fund or sheer incompetence.
The only crime here is the violation of privacy and the intrusion positively cannot be tolerated. The perpetrators must be apprehended and accordingly punished because that is the only right thing to do.