A proud country which has given succor to a variety of people down the ages, whether it be the Jews, Parsi's or the Tibetan Refugees is now shamefully bowing down to the Muslim fundamentalists and thinking about banning Taslima Nasreen. Shame on them!. This is disgusting. And then to read this?
Muslim intellectuals say the real problem is the "sexual nature" of her work. "It is reprehensible what she has written," said Zafarul-Islam Khan, editor of the Milli Gazette, an influential newspaper for Indian Muslims. "Really this woman has the ability to live in London or New York and she should go. Why is the Indian government paying so much money to keep her here?"
THESE are Muslim intellectuals? Esphoks on them, no wonder.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Monday, February 11
Sunday, February 10
Tax Sensitivity in Electronic Commerce
I have talked previously about taxation on the internet. But there is quite a lot of underlying sensitivities and economics around what is the optimal level of taxation so that you do not kill the golden goose by over taxing the transactions. Here's an example of a paper which delves deeper into this issue.
Generally speaking, if you have high sales tax locally, then people will shop online more (solely based upon the situation in the USA, other countries levy online sales tax). It is a big issue, I quote:
Bruce and Fox (2001), using the concepts from these studies, estimate the annual revenue loss from business to consumer (B2C) commerce alone to be between $1.7 billion and $2.6 billion. Furthermore, each study predicts continued growth in state revenue losses in the future as the number of Internet users increases.
The author finds that actually, the tax sensitivity is not that high as previously thought. I quote further results:
Further analysis based on a splined tax rate indicates that only those facing the highest tax rates are still sensitive to rate changes. I also find that users who have been online for many years are significantly more sensitive to changes in the tax rate than are new adopters. Finally, including broadband and security variables in the model does not improve the significance
this is interesting. As it so happens, the only people who seems to be sensitive to local tax changes are those who are well experienced with the internet and/or are higher tax payers. Unfortunately, this is fairly typical in western societies, the people who really need to care about their financial situations (generally the people at the lower end of the scale) dont. So perhaps the fact that the government is stepping in to remove taxation is helping the consumers on their behalf. But that doesn't remove the problem of the slowly reducing tax income of the states. They have to think about a better way to handle this kind of issue of income shortfall. Perhaps a form of value added tax?
'Sharia is nothing but a human concoction of medieval religious opinion'
Hear hear! (thanks to Tarek for this note!). It was typical that the only people who welcomed that moron Archbishop's words were the extreme right of Muslim thought. That is what you are asking for, you blithering idiot?
Read and concur!
Technorati Tags: Sharia,United Kingdom
Abu Hamza getting a gay nurse? Can there be any better poetic justice?
I was laughing fit to burst. I know it is very childish and very very illiberal of me, and yes, I know this was published in the Mirror, but hey! read and giggle! Whose human rights will you establish? the rights of the nurse or Abu Hamza? But the idea of him getting a gay nurse is divine justice, what more proof do you want there is a God?
I quote:
HATE preacher Abu Hamza has refused any more treatment from his prison nurse after finding out the man is gay. The nurse, nickname Queenie, has been helping to wash and dress the convicted terrorist for more than two years. A prison source told the Mirror the full-time staffer is openly gay and has a camp voice.
Officers at Belmarsh jail are said to be surprised Hamza, 48, has not noticed before. Now the cleric is claiming it is against his religion and human rights to be treated by a homosexual. The source said Hamza's solicitor wrote to the governor demanding his client is given a new regular nurse.The prison service refused saying it does not discriminate on grounds of sexuality.
The source said: "The nurse is upset about it. He has spent the last couple of years doing everything for Hamza, even wiping his bottom. "It shows how little respect Hamza has for others. The nurse dresses him, washes him, cleans his teeth, cuts his toenails, trims his beard and applies ointment for his skin disorder." Egyptian-born Hamza, serving seven years for inciting murder and racial hatred, requires care because he is limited by his hook hands.
The source said: "His nurse is open about being gay. He even speaks with a camp voice. His nickname is Queenie. "Hamza has been refusing treatment while he is on duty but he won't be able to keep that up because it is causing him a great deal of discomfort." The prison service said: "We do not comment on individual prisoners."
Reminds me of the joke:
An airline's passenger cabin was being served by a gay flight attendant who put everyone into a good mood as he served them food and drinks. As the plane prepared to descend, he came swishing down the aisle and announced to the passengers, "Captain Marvin has asked me to announce that he'll be landing the big scary plane shortly, lovely people, so if you could just put up your trays that would be super."
On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed that a well-dressed, sophisticated woman hadn't moved. "Perhaps you didn't hear me over those big brute engines. I asked you to raise your trazy-poo so the main man can pitty-pat us on the ground." She calmly turned her head and said, "In my country, I am called a Princess. I take orders from no one."
To which the flight attendant replied, "Well honey, in my country I'm called a Queen, so . TRAY UP BIZNATCH!
Give me the broken beer bottle when you are finished
I am still suffering from bloody vista problems on my PC. It is haunted, it shuts down without warning. It freezes when the temperature of the moon reaches a certain level. It refuses to shut down 3 times out of 4. It has yet to manage to get my webcam working. Fully 30% of my programme's do not work.
So yes, I can appreciate what this gentleman went through. I can only hope the service pack 1 will help but going by previous experience, it will completely bugger up my life and give me some incurable disease or something.
And yes, pass me the beer bottle after you are done.
Saturday, February 9
Veils!
While Turkey allows its women to wear veils in Universities and Colleges, not wearing them has a bit of a downside to them. This is what happens to them. I quote:
The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture. The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.
Curious, no? Also see my previous essay on veils but it is a bit of an old essay. And then that stupid Archbishop wants Sharia Law in the UK.
Nefertiti's Eyes
A lovely description of what happened when the first tomb after King Tut in 1922 was opened. They determined that the distinctive features of the Queen as shown in the image below became the norm rather than the previously shown way.
![[image]](http://www.archaeology.org/0803/etc/thumbnails/nefertiti1.gif)
She is beautiful, look at those eyes and that neck! I can stand there for hours talking to her, she does indeed talk to me! :)
Swedes versus Kurdistan!
I had a bit of a discussion online with a gentleman of the Swedish persuasion who did not like what I had written here. I told him that moral equivalence has its limits. Here's one example of a limit:
You say," said Lord Napier (confronted as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in India by locals protesting against the suppression of suttee) "that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
The death of a college mate
It is with deep regret that I have to say that Jack Sadler died in Afghanistan. I only came to know yesterday when the college sent around notification about a memorial service to be held on 4th of March. Here is the MoD announcement and here is the KCL announcement about his death. May his soul rest in peace and may his family be comforted at this terrible time.
Technorati Tags: Afghanistan,United Kingdom
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