As the UN's climate change chief, Dr Rajendra Pachauri has spent his career writing only the driest of academic articles. But the latest offering from the chairman of the UN's climate change panel is an altogether racier tome.
Some might even suggest Dr Pachauri's first novel is frankly smutty.
Return to Almora, published in Dr Pachauri's native India earlier this month, tells the story of Sanjay Nath, an academic in his 60s reminiscing on his "spiritual journey" through India, Peru and the US.
On the way he encounters, among others, Shirley MacLaine, the actress, who appears as a character in the book. While relations between Sanjay and MacLaine remain platonic, he enjoys sex a lot of sex with a lot of women.
In breathless prose that risks making Dr Pachauri, who will be 70 this year, a laughing stock among the serious, high-minded scientists and world leaders with whom he mixes, he details sexual encounter after sexual encounter.
The book, which makes reference to the Kama Sutra, starts promisingly enough as it tells the story of a climate expert with a lament for the denuded mountain slopes of Nainital, in northern India, where deforestation by the timber mafia and politicians has "endangered the fragile ecosystem".
But talk of "denuding" is a clue of what is to come.
#3
And, as the link in the article says, the candidate sponsoring this ad himself spent 9 months in jail for tax evasion in 1992. A plague on both their houses?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
01/31/2010 19:48 Comments ||
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The only other orally delivered State of the Union Addresses that were written with fewer average words per sentence than Obama's 16.6 average in his 2010 Address, and that scored lower than Obama's 8.8 Flesch-Kincaid score (measuring the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level), were:
· George H.W. Bush's final Address in 1992 (7.5, 15.8 words per sentence)
· Lyndon Johnson's 1965 Address (8.6, 16.1 words per sentence)
· Harry Truman's 1951 Address (8.6, 16.3 words per sentence)
Though, with his shorter sentences and shorter words, Obama's Address may have been readable for junior high school students, it is not known if the average 12 and 13 year old was able to sit still through Obama's speech. At approximately 7,300 words, only Bill Clinton spoke more words before Congress and the nation in State of the Union speeches since 1934 (in 1994, 1995, 1999, and 2000).
#3
His sentences might have been short
Of course they were. They have to fit the TOTUS. And that's the secret that WOWed the media elites so much. Greatest orator evah. More like attention deficit disorder.
Posted by: ed ||
01/31/2010 17:05 Comments ||
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#4
Even if he did write the damned speech (which I doubt), this is the most asinine critique of a president I've ever seen.
Of all the things on a very, very long list to critique, this stupid article almost falls under the category of 'obfuscation'.
I would, however, appreciate a bit more attention to whether Bama actually wrote 'Dreams' himself, and to Bama's little appearance at the Baltimore gathering of Republicans the other evening.
Whenever he's off-teleprompter, the curtain pulls back a little bit more...
Indeed, that which I was partly referring to. My point is we should be focusing on something a little more tangible, though I have reservations about any optimism at all that the majority of the voting public will grasp the economic realities until it bites them in the a$$.
A dose of hard reality is a comin...I predicted it over a year ago and not proud that I likely did not err.
HT to Weasel Zippers
The U.S. has canceled a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan awarded to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor who did not face competitive bids.
The cancellation comes after Fox News first reported on the details of the contract last week, prompting lawmakers to make inquiries into the deal. sunlight, the best disinfectant
State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley said that USAID terminated the award and is now working on an appropriate resolution.
"If you want to say this violates the basis on which this administration came into office and campaigned, fair enough," Crowley told Fox News. It does
The contract had been awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi that was hired to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in war-torn Afghanistan.
A synopsis of the contract published on the USAID Web site said Checchi & Company would "train the next generation of legal professionals" throughout the Afghan provinces and thereby "develop the capacity of Afghanistan's justice system to be accessible, reliable, and fair." imported seedy community organizers, just what the Afghans need
The legality of the arrangement as a "sole source," or no-bid, contract was made possible by virtue of a waiver signed by the USAID administrator.
When Checchi was contacted by Fox News for its earlier report, he confirmed that his company had indeed received the nearly $25 million contract but declined to say why it had been awarded on a no-bid basis, referring a reporter to USAID.
Asked if he or his firm had been aware that the contract was awarded without competitive bids, Checchi replied: "After it was awarded to us, sure. Before, we had no idea." really, did you respond to a RFP? No? Lying sack
Joseph A. Fredericks, director of public information at USAID, told Fox News the Checchi deal was actually a renewal of a five-year, $44 million contract, awarded in 2004 by the Bush administration after a competitive bid process.
Crowley said the new contract was only for a year, and that USAID "didn't want to have a gap" in the programs. Now that it goes to bid, it is a "possible outcome" that Checchi will get the contract anyway.
"What was missing was a determination that there was an urgent and compelling reason to award" the contract on a no-bid basis to Checchi; thus the revocation following the protest, he said.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Fox News the no-bid contract in this case "disturbed" him.
Issa had written to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah requesting that the agency "produce all documents related to the Checchi contract" on or before Feb. 5. Citing the waiver that enabled USAID to award the contract on a no-bid basis, Issa noted that the exemption was intended to speed up the provision of services in a crisis environment.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, told Fox News she, too, was seeking answers about the Checchi contract.
As a candidate for president in 2008, Obama, then a senator, frequently derided the Bush administration for the awarding of federal contracts without competitive bidding.
Less than two months after he was sworn into office, President Obama signed a memorandum that he claimed would "dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts across the entire government."
"If you want to say this violates the basis on which this administration came into office and campaigned, fair enough," Crowley told Fox News. Hokay. Consider it said
Federal campaign records show Checchi has been a frequent contributor to liberal and Democratic causes and candidates in recent years, including to Obama's presidential campaign. The records show Checchi has given at least $4,400 to Obama dating back to March 2007, close to the maximum amount allowed.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/31/2010 11:42 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
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#1
"'If you want to say this violates the basis on which this administration came into office and campaigned, fair enough,' Crowley told Fox News."
In other words, you admit Bambi, et al., LIED.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/31/2010 12:03 Comments ||
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#3
For what its worth, here's the link to the USAID Organization. I was trying to look up some names associated with the players and initiatives.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
01/31/2010 15:17 Comments ||
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#4
If it's true that they had the prior contract, if its true it was only for a year to get through the RFP process, then they have done nothing wrong other than the CEO being clueless. It is very common, when State falls behind in getting the RFP out, to let a new contract for a year. It is a new contract, without competition, and legal. If fox starts digging into contracts awarded to get through competition our entire DOD system will collaps, as well as our wing nuts at State and USAID.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/31/2010 15:48 Comments ||
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#5
WTF are "rule of law stabilization services and why should we be paying for these in Afghan with or without a competitive contract?????
This smells like something Vince would be smooth talking the government into....but he's too honest.
Teaching budding Afghan lawyers how to run late night commercials and sue for whiplash.
Posted by: ed ||
01/31/2010 20:08 Comments ||
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#7
They are 'rule of law' stabilization, done by State, as opposed to 'military' stabilization efforts. Former include things like establishing a legal code & judicial system. Latter include patrolling cities and training police and army forces.
And yes, as 49Pan points out, this sort of thing is pretty common to bridge a contracting gap, especially when (as in this year) Congress takes months to approve a full budget.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
