India's first (unmanned) moon mission is to lift off today. I am not making this up. People go and read "The White Tiger" and tell me if you think this is a smart use of funds for India.
Many Mexican teachers are on strike over an agreement between the government and their union to abolish the practice of buying one's job, requiring proof of literacy from all new teachers, and instituting remedial training for non literate current teachers.
Finally a bit closer to home, the totally irony-challenged President of the United States of America said this weekend: "It is essential that we preserve the foundations of Democratic capitalism, a commitment to free markets, free enterprise and free trade."
1 comment:
With regard to the observation on India, I have to agree that the moon mission is not a particularly smart use of public money. But it is to be noted that the project is an off-shoot of a space program that has gone a long way in helping the Indian farmers with infinitely useful telemetry data. Also the Indian space agency's commercial wing, Antrix corporation, is one of the better performing public sector units, raking in quite a bit of profit by launching European and Israeli satellites at an amazing cost advantage. Nevertheless, none of this hardly justifies the moon mission, purportedly being carried out to explore for fusion fuel on the moon.
Btw, IMHO, "The White Tiger" is trash. And no, the Man Booker cannot salvage trash.
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