A strange commonality between the beauties and the geeks

Strange but true….I know of a friend (classical opera singer) stuck in NYC without work since she is unable to get the required visa. (Source: The Economist)

Beauty and the Geek

A new bill proposes more visas be allocated to fashion models

IT’S not often that fashion models are paired with IT workers, except in the lurid fantasies of computer geeks. But because of a decision made back in 1990 they must compete for the same over-subscribed H-1B, a temporary work visa for specialised occupations. Until 2004, when the government lowered the cap on the number of H-1Bs it issued, it didn’t matter so much. But now demand has far outstripped the limited number of visas available, and many foreign models are being denied the chance to sashay down America’s catwalks.

Anthony Weiner, a New York congressman, wants to fix this tragic glitch. He has proposed a bill amending the rules so that the models will be reclassified into their own special immigration category. This would free up more visas for the nerds; and it would allow 1,000 models to strut their stuff in America each year, compared with just 349 in 2007, half the annual number admitted between 2000 and 2005.

U.S. professor gives Israeli prize money to Palestinian university

A US professor of Mathematics (and former Field’s Medal winner - David Mumford) has decided to donate his prize money from a prestigious Israeli award to Bir Zeit University in Palestine. I am struck by the depth of Prof. Mumford’s comments regarding his otherwise simple act of philanthropy. It was not about trying to solve a problem, nor even about trying to help build peace in the world - it was about realizing what brought success to him and then using his prize money to make those factors more available to scientists in an otherwise besieged part of the world. Brilliant.

I was just telling a friend this weekend that i want to support world class higher education in the developing parts of the world, and especially in Pakistan and Palestine. I truly believe that higher education, especially in the sciences, can enlighten, emancipate, encourage, and motivate people like no other thing. Education brings confidence and an ability to start rationalizing situations and problems so at least a solution can be imagined, if not immediately implemented. Prof. Mumford is right: Education brings hope. And that part of the world really needs hope.

—

U.S. prof. gives Israeli prize money to Palestinian university
By Ofri Ilani
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/986898.html

The American mathematician David Mumford, co-winner of the 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics, announced upon receiving the award yesterday that he will donate the money to Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, and to Gisha, an Israeli organization that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement.

“I decided to donate my share of the Wolf Prize to enable the academic community in occupied Palestine to survive and thrive,” Mumford told Haaretz. “I am very grateful for the prize, but I believe that Palestinian students should have an opportunity to go elsewhere to acquire an education. Students in the West Bank and Gaza today do not have an opportunity to do that.”

NY Times: Branded a radical by hate-groups, a Muslim educator loses her school

Apalling…..When something like this happens, we all suffer. Americans, Jews, Muslims, Christians…Everyone.

From The New York Times

April 28, 2008

Battle in Brooklyn | A Principal’s Rise and Fall

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”

Things have not gone according to plan. Only one-fifth of the 60 students at the Khalil Gibran International Academy are Arab-American. Since the school opened in Brooklyn last fall, children have been suspended for carrying weapons, repeatedly gotten into fights and taunted an Arabic teacher by calling her a “terrorist,” staff members and students said in interviews.

The academy’s troubles reach well beyond its cramped corridors in Boerum Hill. The school’s creation provoked a controversy so incendiary that Ms. Almontaser stepped down as the founding principal just weeks before classes began last September. Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda.

In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.

The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.

The Vulcan Project: High resolution mapping of fossil fuel based CO2 emissions in the USA

This is a cool video on CO2 emissions from the USA. It is from Purdue University, where a group of researchers have developed a tool for high resolution mapping and analysis of fossil fuel based CO2 emissions from power plants, traffic, industrial activity, and the residential/commercial energy consumption.

The technical significance of the work is probably best stated by Kevin Gurney, a leader of the project (source: Green Car Congress):

Before now the only thing policy-makers could do was take a big blunt tool and bang the US economy with it. Now we have more quantifiable information about what is happening in neighborhoods, on roads and in industrial areas, and track the CO2 by the hour. This offers policy-makers something akin to a scalpel instead.
—Kevin Gurney, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric science at Purdue University and leader of the project

Client 9 and how to spend our tax-cut dollars in the US?

The business circles have been buzzing with jokes about (former) NY state governor Eliot Spitzer, who is now better known as Client 9, and his scandal involving a prostitute called Kristin (real name: Ashley Duprey). Hardly a day has gone by since the scandal broke out on news that I have not heard a joke related to it. I even joined a business conference call last week where one party dialed in and instead of using their real name, announced themselves as Client 9. There was a deadening silence… until we realized the joke and broke out into laughter.

All realities around Client 9, his beloved Kristin (who has a My Space website and yes, I did check it out), and his poor wife aside, I am amused by the whole issue. Why do we care so much about other peoples’ sex lives? Why are the holier-than-thou usually found with their pants down by their feet? and why are the democrats paying $5000+ for a sexual rendezvous while republicans are looking for it for free in public restrooms? (this is a Jay Leno joke!)

Anyways…I am outside the country right now and even here, the Client 9 story is following me. Or at least I can’t seem to get over it. Allow me my fun, please.

Here is a short letter to the editor I read today in the International Herald Tribune:

George W. Bush said each American would get a $600 check as a part of a stimulus package. If we spend the money at Wal-Mart, it will all go to China. If we spend it on computers, it will go mostly to Korea or India. If we spend it on gasoline, it will go to the Arab countries. None of these scenarios will help the US economy.

We need to keep the money in America. Currently, it seems that the only way to do that is to drink beer, gamble, or spend it on prostitution, the only businesses still left in the United States.

- Ted Rudow Menlo Park, California

Obama: Yes we can!

Two very interesting music videos supporting Obama. I so like his speech delivery! Uplifting.

Kleiner Perkins investing in alternative powertrains - Fisker Automotive

Last week was the Detroit International Auto-show. This is the largest gathering of its type in the United States where largely the large automakers around the world, especially the US big 3, show off their latest car models etc. Traditionally this event has attracted automotive engineers and salesmen of all sorts, and media that was more nostalgic about the automotive past than the real future. This year, at least to me, seemed very different. For one, this year’s show coincided with the primaries in Michigan and hence all the major presidential candidates showed up to demonstrate their unity with the auto-workers etc.

…but that was hardly the big news for me. The big news this year has been the focus on green technologies in the automotive sector and the focus on alternative drive-trains. And the big news has been the inclusion of a new type of investor in the automotive world - top notch venture capital firms. I had just finished writing about Vinod Khosla’s investments in alternate powertrains that I read about Fisker Automotive, a plug-in electric hybrid car-developer/manufacturer that just got over $10million of investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.

I have written before about Tesla Motors, probably the most prominent among this new generation of car developers that promise excitement in our mobility solutions while simultaneously providing solutions to the automotive industry’s carbon foot print. The technologies deployed by such car makers are typically very impressive: light weight fiber composite structural materials, electric or hybrid drive-trains, next generation battery systems, etc. And the performance is equally impressive as well: sports-car accelerations, long mileage on single electric charges, impressive fuel economy and cabin comfort.

But the question that they must face, in addition to those around the CO2 and other emissions of the coal power plants that feed electricity into the plug-ins’ batteries, is around the supply chains that they must establish to consistently produce high quality cars in a timely fashion. Can these upstarts get dependable supply chains established (that took traditional auto-makers decades to establish?), and will they be able to reduce costs at a pace that will be necessary for mass-production? VCs will probably look for VC returns in some reasonably short period of time, and more importantly, to maximize the societal/environmental impact one would want many such vehicle son the road as quickly as possible. Hence the scalability of the solution matters tremendously. I continue to look for optimistic signs for them…

Here’s a nice article from Wall Street Journal on these new car-investments from key VC firms:

Protest against ‘Emergency’ in Boston

Pakistani students and community gathered today in the Boston Commons to protest the imposition of a pseudo-martial law, aka Emergency, by President Musharraf in Pakistan. Here are a few images and a short video from the protest.

Kudos to the students who quickly came together and helped spread the word about the demonstration. There was media present there, including GEO TV and a few other TV channels. Let’s hope all these demonstrations strike some sense in our current government’s head. They seem to be on a self-destruct mode.

Who chose the red color for the occasion, by the way? Fauzia, the main organizer, also had a lovely red coat on.

Thank you to New York on Eid!

Despite all that has been wrong with American foreign and domestic policies, I give a lot of credit to Americans for this. Muslim hijackers brought down the tallest buildings in their largest city - and what do they do (eventually)? They light up the next tallest building in the same city (Empire State Building) in green lights to mark the most important Muslim festival of Eid. Thank you, New York! Thank you, USA!

Benazir Bhutto - on ’sale’?

I know the title of this post is provocative. But it does convey what I feel currently. There is a political circus going on in Pakistan, and one exiled prime-minister after another, and one US diplomat after another, is making their rounds in encumbering a nation of 140 million with their insincere views. While the political situation is being readied for a show-down in October, political lackeys and power-hungry sycophants are lining up to be awarded a favor or two for their impassioned political speeches. From a distance, it all looks like a circus, with the same clowns and monkeys changing their appearances for the acts to make their audience clap in appreciation.

Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif (pictured here) are two former Prime-Ministers of Pakistan that are very familiar to Pakistanis of my generation. They, in many ways, represent the very reasons why my generation lost faith in Pakistani democracy. Each ruled for 2 or more terms in the office, each time they came into power a new band of idiots looters followed in tow, and they each left country disgraced and corrupted. And now, when the nation once again yearns for democracy, the very same people who ruined it previously are seen brokering with each other for power in a democratic setup.

But let me be clear, do not speak for a majority of Pakistan. When I speak to people back home, they appear confused. In a nation of 140 million, they are astounded that no other person(s) has been able to rise to the national level as a leader? Is that so because anybody aspiring to do so was either fired from the political parties, or sent to jail? That almost seems like the problem in Palestine.