App Store Economics - Nice Graphics from GigaOm

MacHeads Movie Trailer

Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton togeather

Here is a really hilarious video of Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton.

Is Trichet smarter than Bernanke ?

Ben Bernanke is the US Federal Reserve Chairman and Jean Claude Trichet is his ECB (European Central bank) counterpart. Over the last one year they have been moving in the opposite direction while Bernanke is cutting interest rates hard and aggressively, Trichet has been busy raising them in Europe. For US the primary concern so far has been the Slowdown in economy while Trichet is busy fighting inflation. Trichet has so far resisted all the political pressure to reduce interest rates in spite of the massive slowdown in Italy and Spain.
But now the slowdown is spreading all over Europe including France and the strongest European economy of Germany. UK is already battling with massive housing mortgage defaults and consumer credit defaults problem which is more grave than that of US. In such a scenario Trichet can no longer increase interest rates and has to cut them from here onwards, which will lead to fall in Euro.
Bernanke's aggressive rate cut program is on hold right now because of the increased inflation. However I don't think there will be any need to raise interest rates as inflation is easing now with reduction in commodity prices.
Only time will tell whether Bernanke's aggressive rate cuts can avoid a US recession or whether Trichet's aggressive push to control inflation is to be blamed for the mounting European recession.

China's Moon landing

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are significantly important for the communist government of China. Chinese government is all set to impress upon the West and its own people about the significant economic progress made by that country in last 20 years. And the grand Olympics opening ceremony which was held on 08-08-08 was their best chance to showcase that.
This opening ceremony was as important to Chinese government as was the Moon landing to US government in 60s. At that time US wanted to showcase its scientific capabilities and wanted to project itself as the World leader ahead of the Soviets. So they put all their weight (including Hollywood) behind that effort.
Similarly Chinese government wanted to project its economic might and engineering marvel by staging a grand never seen before opening ceremony. It was their equivalent of the Moon landing.
And were they successful in doing that, definitely yes. What a marvelous and amazing opening ceremony was that. I have never seen something like that and I am sure all Western were equally amazed at the marvelous show.
After seeing the Opening ceremony I can say that Chinese have landed successfully on moon.

Is Bollywood ready for Snoop Dogg?

These days Bollywood music is heavily influenced by American Hip Hop music and every other song seems to have Hip Hop tunes. However there is nothing new in that, I still remember the music from 80s when Bhappi Lahari's songs were so much influenced by Western Disco music and the 70s when music of RD Burman and other composers was influenced by Elvis Presley and others. In those days it never used to be official and those composers never accepted that they got influenced by Western artists.

However now there is a stamp of authenticity to it as American Hip Hop singers are themselves frequently lending their voices to Bollywood songs and even Snoop Dog is singing the title track of movie Singh is King.

As per this interesting article in New York Times, Snoop Dogs has big plans about his bollywood partnership. He wants to capture the mainstream Indian audience for his future albums and wants to do stage shows there.

Statue of Liberty and Immigrants

Here is a nice observation about statue of Liberty and immigrants, I found somewhere on internet.
The Statue of Liberty which was donated to the US by France, in 1886, still serves as a symbol for immigration in the United States. Some pages of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service web site still contain her picture, as does many immigration related web sites and materials. But the statue is engraved with a poem by Emma Lazarus, which is no longer valid, (I don’t think it ever was valid).

Instead of saying:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

It should say:
Give us your money and wait forever
Before you can breathe free
Do the wretched jobs that we won’t do
And we will debate about whether to let you in
Whether to let you live our dream