Sunday, July 22, 2007

NYC, Obama, Structure, Me



  • Not long after high school, I was a Vice General Secretary of a party in Nepal that had two MPs.
  • Six months into landing as an international student, I got myself elected student body president at Berea College in Kentucky, the number one liberal arts school in the South.
  • I am the only Nepali in America to have worked full time for two years for Nepal's magical April Revolution 2006, and Madhesi Movement 2007. We invented nonviolent militancy.

I am not "just a blogger." I am a leader. I am not a journalist, not that there is anything wrong with those who are, but rather a digital democrat. I pride myself in my political acumen and skills. Who else in the ranks has toppled a Third World dictator working almost completely in a Web 2.0 environment?

I want to clarify for my NYC comrades as to the kind of involvement I expect to have in the course of Obama 2008.
  • I am not interested in any organizational title at all. If that means I miss some key strategy sessions, so be it.
  • I have no desire to sit on any committee.
  • The only organizational structure I am interested in is The Matrix. If I can convince people to build it, fine, I will be part of it, at the highest levels. If not, I will stay outside the traditional organizational structures, and do out of the box thinking instead.
  • I give a few hours to Obama on a daily basis. This blog is my primary contribution. I fancy myself nothing less than Obama 2008's national Shadow Campaign Manager.
  • I have a young tech, startup. I want the option to "disappear" for months if I have to to do right by my company. That is an additional reason I don't want to sit on any committee, acquire any kind of an official title.
  • My goal is to attend as many Obama events as I can, and get to personally know as many Obama volunteers as I can. And I hope to videoblog the Obama operation in NYC extensively.
  • I am not going anywhere outside the city boundaries. That is final.


In The News

Obama Holds Smaller Leads in US Race Angus Reid Global Monitor Democrat Barack Obama is the most popular presidential contender in the early stages of the 2008 electoral campaign in the United States, according to a poll by Zogby International. At least 45 per cent of respondents would vote for the Illinois senator in head-to-head contests against four prospective Republican nominees. Obama holds a three-point edge over Arizona senator John McCain, a four-point lead over former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a 14-point advantage over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and an eight-point edge over actor and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson. ........ "If that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now—where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife—which we haven’t done,. We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea."
Democrats 2008: Hillary 35%, Obama 28%
Republicans 2008: F. Thompson 29%, Giuliani 28%
Approval for Putin Reaches 85% in Russia
Obama, Giuliani, Hillary Most Popular in U.S.
Giuliani, Hillary Still Lead in Florida
Obama Leads McCain, Romney in US RaceAngus Reid Global Monitor according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. 47 per cent of respondents would vote for the Illinois senator in 2008
US ready to flatten FATA if attacked by al-Qaeda from there DailyIndia.com American intelligence officials have said that should a resurgent al-Qaeda think of attacking the United States again after a gap of six years from Pakistan's volatile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Bush Administration would not hesitate to move in troops to "flatten" the area. ....... the al-Qaeda has reconstituted itself in the wild tribal areas of north western Pakistan. It is now stronger than at any other time in years, and is actively plotting new attacks. ....... the Bush Administration is captivated by General Musharraf because "he is a secular moderate" ...... the FATA is an area fanning extremist violence, and therefore, requires decisive attention. ....... no one in Washington believes that Pakistan's intelligence service has been purged of Taliban sympathizers. ...... "The Pakistani Army is designed, trained and equipped to fight India in Kashmir and deter New Dehli with nuclear weapons. That requires a dramatically different kind of strategy from what is needed in the tribal areas, whose leaders do not consider themselves part of Pakistan" ........ the western mountains of Pakistan have been the hatching grounds for some of Al Qaeda's deadliest plots, such as 7/7 in 2005 and the thwarted plot to blow up multiple trans-Atlantic commercial jets last August. ......... The options include initiating aggressive campaigns of deniable covert action in Pakistan to capture or kill Qaeda operatives, and pray that American Special Forces or C.I.A. officers don't get caught. Another would be to carry out air strikes against known terrorist compounds in the tribal areas. A third would involve carrying out a large-scale ground offensive across the border from Afghanistan to capture and, or, eliminate Qaeda and Taliban remnants, and lastly, but the least likely, to send thousands of heavily armed American soldiers on a cave-to-cave search of North Waziristan with the objective of effectively dismantling the Al Qaeda's Pakistan base of operations. ..... after each attack, the terror groups tap a deep bench and elevate another operative to a more lofty position.
US threatens Pakistan raids ABC Online "Our stance is that Osama bin Laden is not present in Pakistan," Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told AFP in the Pakistani capital. "If anyone has the information he should give it to us, so that we can apprehend him. ..... Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told CNN that instead of intelligence estimates, the United States should give Islamabad clear evidence of the Al Qaeda presence inside Pakistan. .... Democrats agitating for an end to the Iraq war have accused Bush of making the United States more vulnerable to terrorism by neglecting the strengthening Al Qaeda threat from Pakistan.
Ruling Party Wins Big in Turkey TIME a profound sign of Turks' disaffection with the traditional secularist elite.
LA no 'pub team', insists Beckham Scotsman
WINDS OF CHANGE ARE NOT ALL BLOWING HILLARY'S WAY Yahoo! News Sen. Clinton is clearly the candidate of the head. She is logical, methodical, thoughtful. Sen. Obama is clearly the candidate of the heart. He appeals to the romance of politics, to its sense of possibility. These two candidates both are from Illinois. She carries the whiff of Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson, intellectual and guarded. He carries the whiff of Sen. Paul Douglas, civil rights crusader, environmentalist and reformer. Both would like to be Abraham Lincoln, but even Abraham Lincoln wasn't Abraham Lincoln in 1859.
Can Obama turn backers' passion into votes? Minneapolis Star Tribune He raises tens of millions of dollars over a few months. His supporters are passionate. And his grass-roots movement threatens a more established rival. .... Dean's slow rise and rapid descent .... He must turn the intense devotion of his backers into a force that can win primaries, expanding his base of support beyond the narrow band of Democratic elites who backed Dean. .... "It looks like a movement candidacy, and it's generating an enormous amount of enthusiasm, excitement and money," said Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist who was a top adviser to Dean. ..... Obama trailed Clinton by 16 points when he entered the race in February and by 15 points last month .... a "sequential strategy" that focuses exclusively on building a robust campaign organization in Iowa, where a caucus victory could provide a springboard to success in the New Hampshire primary and the early nominating contests beyond. ...... the race is much closer in the early states where residents know more about Obama. ....... a clearer picture is expected to emerge after Labor Day, when voters will be paying more attention. .... Only twice in the past eight contested primaries has the Democrat leading at this stage gone on to win the nomination. ...... Dean, now chairman of the Democratic Party, led both national and state polls in December 2003 ...... Obama's campaign is doing some retooling: He is focusing more on the economy...... Aides are working to get the occasionally long-winded senator to speak in shorter, crisper sentences, particularly in debates and town hall meetings. ...... At this point in the 2004 campaign, Dean had done relatively little to build effective organizations in the crucial early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Federal election records show Dean spent $177,402 in Iowa and $116,830 in New Hampshire during the first six months of 2003. ....... Obama, by contrast, has spent $866,000 in Iowa and nearly $500,000 in New Hampshire, according to the latest numbers. The money went mainly to the nuts and bolts of a ground campaign: rallies and events, mailing lists, office space, and salaries for nearly 100 people on the Iowa payroll and about 50 more in New Hampshire. .... Davenport and Dubuque are part of media markets where Obama has been on the air since 2004. .... their success at fundraising will allow them to build a get-out-the-vote operation that could rival or eclipse Clinton's in the early states.
Poll: Clinton holds commanding lead over Obama Newsday
Republicans 2008: Giuliani 33%, F. Thompson 25%
Angus Reid Global Monitor
Police foil attack on legislator in troubled south Nepal International Herald Tribune A group armed with knives, swords and guns had surrounded the home of Prabhu Sah, a legislator for former communist rebels, on Saturday in Patuara village ..... the attackers were from the Terai Liberation Front
Musharraf on the Brink in Pakistan? Time Pakistan's Islamist extremists have retaliated with a series of attacks that have killed more than 180 people, most of them soldiers and police. ..... if Musharraf really does take both gloves off in the tribal areas, that will just increase the likelihood of a split in the army, according to Hamid Gul, former head of the powerful Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Restoring the Draft: No Panacea Right now, there are only two real ways to extend or even increase the surge: call up more reservists — always tough to do in an election year — or extend active-duty combat tours from the current morale-wrecking 15 months to an even more painful 18 months. ..... the third, most controversial option — is it time to reinstitute the draft? ..... drafting people could make it easier for the Army to reach its 2012 goal of 547,000 soldiers. ..... 91% of last year's recruits were high school graduates ..... minorities are over-represented in the all-volunteer military because they have fewer options in the civilian world ..... African Americans accounted for 13% of active-duty recruits in 2005 ..... minorities are not being killed [in Iraq and Afghanistan] at greater rates than their representation in the force
Who Dies in Harry Potter? God Rowling has three fancy houses and more money than the Queen ..... By selling 325 million books in 66 languages, she has almost single-handedly made the case that the novel can still be a global mass medium. ..... If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy: God. ..... Harry's power comes from love. This charming notion represents a cultural sea change. In the new millennium, magic comes not from God or nature or anything grander or more mystical than a mere human emotion. .... psychology and technology have superseded the sacred.
Harry Potter's Last Adventure he's supposed to become a man, and get the girl ..... excited, curious, burning to get to the bottom of a mystery ..... the richness and sheer high-resolution of Rowling's fictional world .... Must Rowling insist on making evil people short, fat or ugly, or all three? ...... fans have already worked through all the possible endings on the Internet with such massive rigor. If we'd spent all that energy on particle physics instead, we would have found the Higgs boson by now. ..... Rowling's abiding thematic concern: the overwhelming importance of continuing to love in the face of death ...... Harry, though also an orphan, has found the courage to love. "Do not pity the dead, Harry," a wise man tells Harry in Deathly Hallows. "Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love." ..... the cosmology of the Potterverse: there are no higher powers in residence there .....The attic and the basement are empty. .... turning the last page of Deathly Hallows made me look forward to rereading the first book.
How to Leave Iraq the U.S. could save the $10 billion a month that it is spending on the war and rescue the U.S. Army and Marine Corps before they both collapse. ..... by withdrawing from Iraq, we'd unleash a bloodbath, hand al-Qaeda and Iran huge victories, destabilize the Persian Gulf and empower terrorists everywhere to attack our allies and our homeland ..... remain in Iraq until a democracy emerges from the chaos of the Middle East — a project they openly acknowledge is the work of a generation. ..... no matter what your views of the war or its genesis, things are likely to turn out different from what you expect. ..... the reduction in the U.S.'s military footprint in the region should be accompanied by a sustained surge in American diplomacy. .... In a world of bad options, a phased withdrawal is the least bad one out there.
The Plight of the Antiwar Democrat pro-life, pro-gun but antiwar .... Pelosi announced her plan to hold a series of votes on Iraq this month--one each week throughout July ..... 62% of Americans, including 84% of Democrats and 66% of independents, now believe it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq in the first place .... a pro-gun fiscal conservative whose sandy hair, hazel eyes and freckles make him look far younger than his 39 years.
The Future of Facebook a 23-year-old CEO in Silicon Valley. ..... more than 150,000 new users signing up daily, it is growing three times as fast as rival MySpace ..... it's actually been growing and doubling about once every six months for quite a while. ...... we're not trying to build a community — we're not trying to make new connections. ..... a "social utility" rather than a "social network?" ...... rebuffed Yahoo's offer to buy Facebook for nearly $1 billion .... we're very focused on what we're building and not as focused on the exit ..... more than half of our users use the product every day — it's a more efficient way for them to communicate with their friends and get information about the people around them than anything else they can do. ...... your investors who put a total of $38 million into the company ..... we took our venture round from Accel Partners just about two years ago ..... we grant options to all of our employees. At this point we have more than 250 ....... the launch of Facebook Platform. ...... There are whole companies that are forming whose only product is a Facebook Platform application. .... 30 million active users on Facebook. ....... more ways for advertisers to reach people and communicate in a very natural way, just like users communicate with each other...... Facebook's exclusive advertising deal with Microsoft, which gives the software giant the right to sell ads on the site ...... With more than 40 billion page views every month, Facebook is the sixth most trafficked site in the U.S., and the top photo-sharing site. ..... We have more than 10% or 15% of the population of Canada on the site. ..... We haven't translated the site yet, but that's something we're working on and it should be done soon. What we're doing is pretty broadly applicable to people in all different age groups and demographics and places around the world. ..... I work, meet with people, and discuss things all day ..... a hyper-fast paced, high-profile technology company? ...... 'In order to be doing something like this, you have to really, really like what you're doing, because otherwise it just doesn't make sense.' ..... a team of really smart people who come from different backgrounds and have different experiences and think in different ways .... We're just focused on building things.
Chameleon Nature of Maoist Strategy In Nepal Global Politician the real and quite inflexible Maoist strategic objective of securing total and unequivocal power...... Ample & consistent evidence of ability to get their way through blackmail and pressure tactics - so why not make the most out of the situation? .... Apparently unhappy by the fact that UNMIN did not give a clean chit to all their underage combatants and perhaps more than a little embarrassed that some 19 percent of initially registered combatants are no longer present in the camps, the Maoists now demand that the verification process be halted until those verified at Chula Chuli are immediately integrated into the Nepalese Army....... in Nepal, negotiations simply mean the incremental subjugation of the government/SPA position in favor of the Maoist position. Initially the government / SPA may agree to only 10 percent of the Maoist demands. However, slowly but surely, they invariably give in inch by inch until the Maoists have it their way. The SPA then declares, what has been at best a delay of an unmitigated disaster, a 'victory for peace in Nepal' and we move on to another round of 'negotiations'.
CPN-M fighters fled the cantonment in southern Nepal People's Daily Online following internal argument among themselves. .... Three busloads of YCL cadres and several more on motorcycles mounted a night-long search for the PLA soldiers and they are still searching
Romney Camp Claims Giuliani Is No Longer GOP Favorite Washington Post
Female President Elected in India Washington Post hundreds of millions of Indian women and girls who face bitter discrimination in everyday life. .... the country's often male-dominated political scene. .... her deep political ties and friendship with Sonia Gandhi ...... A lawyer by training, she most recently served as the first female governor of the northern state of Rajasthan. ...... health minister of Maharashtra state in 1975 ...... there have been three Muslim presidents and one Sikh. ..... Girls are viewed as an economic burden because, traditionally, a bride's father is required to pay a groom's family an often large dowry. ..... about 10 million female fetuses have been aborted over the past two decades. ..... sexual harassment in the workplace remains a serious concern, even in urban centers. ..... the president's role as commander in chief of the world's fourth-largest army
Hispanics aim to stop 'wave of hate' United Press International the "wave of hate" used to sink the immigration bill in the U.S. Senate last month. ...... ... The National Council of La Raza plans to start a campaign to register and mobilize voters and to address "hate" messages spewed by conservative talk shows
Google the wireless broadband carrier?
iTWire
Google aims to boost wireless competition Boston Globe
Google to FCC: Accept our rules and we'll bidWashington Post the company will commit a minimum of US$4.6 billion toward the auction ..... Verizon Wireless said that complying with Google's ideas would amount to corporate welfare and bad public policy. ....... the company's public policy blog. ..... "Google is demanding the government stack the deck in its favor, limit competing bids, and effectively force wireless carriers to alter their business models to Google's liking," Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs, said in a statement on Friday. "We would repeat that Google should put up or shut up -- they can bid and enter the wireless market with any business model they prefer, then let consumers decide which model they like best." ........ "Google and its allies, with their collective market capitalization approaching half a trillion dollars, don't need a government handout at taxpayers' expense." ...... Google is urging the commission to ensure that end users can download any applications, services or content they want. Consumers should also be able to buy a phone and use it on any network. In addition, Google says the winner of the spectrum should be required to allow third parties to resell services over the network on a wholesale basis. ........ former FCC chief Reed Hundt and former Netscape CEO James Barksdale, have proposals similar to Google's.
DoT chalks out road map for WiMax rollout Economic Times in the 2.5 Ghz frequency band .... in the 2.5 GHz-2.69 GHz
WiMax is more suited to city size Times of India The difference between WiMax and Wi-Fi is often likened to the one between a cellphone and a cordless phone. .... speed can go up to 9.2 Mbps.
I will work as long as I can: Amitabh Zee News as he does not want to ever face a financial crisis or feel insecure. ..... Bachchan, who burnt his fingers with the company he floated in 1996, was glad that the firm had finally made a turnaround. .... AB Corp (the company he floated) is now finally debt-free ..... Bachchan himself is scheduled to work on two international projects -- Director Deepa Mehta`s "exclusion" that centres round the plight of 376 Indian asylum-seekers who were denied entry to Canada in 1914 and Director Mira Nair`s "Shantaram" which is based on Gregory David Roberts` acclaimed novel.
Bachchan unlikely to get a breather in farmland row Hindu
Stop talking about cure for AIDS: expert The Age 40 million infected and 25 million already dead from AIDS.
Google Pushes for Rules to Aid Wireless Plans New York Times In the Internet giant’s view of the future, consumers would buy a wireless phone at a store, but instead of being forced to use a specific carrier, they would be free to pick any carrier they wanted. Instead of the wireless carrier choosing what software goes on their phones, users would be free to put any software they want on it. ..... Google believes that the cost of voice calls and data connections to the Internet may be partly subsidized by advertisements brought to users by Google’s powerful online advertising machine. ..... There might even be a Google phone. ..... mobile phone users would become significant consumers of online advertising, Google’s core business. ..... Google’s set of proposed rules would have the F.C.C. require that any devices and any application could be connected to the wireless network using the auctioned spectrum. Further, they would require that whoever wins the spectrum make a portion of it available to resellers on a wholesale basis, which Google and other technology companies believe is necessary to promote broadband competition. ...... The licenses, considered the beach-front property on the electromagnetic spectrum, are in the 700 megahertz band of radio frequencies, which are being surrendered by television stations as they convert to digital broadcast. The auction, to be held early next year, is expected to raise more than $10 billion in revenue for the government. ..... open handsets and open applications

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