Nukkad

[Indrad]

Pakistani actor, Saba Qamar expresses how humiliating it is to have a Pakistani passport and how Pakistanis are dealt with suspicion and contempt at all the airports while Indians are let go without any scrutiny.

[Indrad]

now I realise she is actress of Hindi Medium, why are Pakistani actors being forced on us? ^^ strange that film is produced by T series karta dharta Kishan Kumar & Bhushan Kumar whose elder brother Gulshan was killed by underworld at order of Nadeem Shravan.
Nadeem since then is hiding in London.

[Indrad]

after being ambassador for UAE tourism (It's my Dubai), buzz is SRK will be given UAE citizenship.

[KJo]

now I realise she is actress of Hindi Medium, why are Pakistani actors being forced on us? ^^ strange that film is produced by T series karta dharta Kishan Kumar & Bhushan Kumar whose elder brother Gulshan was killed by underworld at order of Nadeem Shravan.
Nadeem since then is hiding in London.

Yes, and she was actually quite good in Hindi Medium.
My question is since Paki actors were banned, how did she get to work in a Hindi movie? Everyone else got kicked out.

Another thing to note is that for all the pyar mohabbat that Indian actors and players show for Pakis, the Pakis never loudly talk about peace and the need to maintain good relations with India. They just worked in India, made money and left. Some even badmouthed Hindus after they get back home.

[abhik]

Paki actors are banned? Since when?

[KJo]

Paki actors are banned? Since when?

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/02/09 ... _21710390/

[Shandilya]

......the Pakis never loudly talk about peace and the need to maintain good relations with India. They just worked in India, made money and left. Some even badmouthed Hindus after they get back home.

some piglets don't even wait till they get back home, remember that haraam-khor ghazal singer gulam ali of "chupke chupke raat din aasu bahana yaad hai"

and i quote that bastard "hamay tau kafir pasand nahi hain, per kafir kay paisay pasand hain" that too to a hindu diplomat.

* I dont like the kafirs, but I like their money.

[Marten]

This time I took a SW munna with me to a very large Japani OEM's HQ. After watching him silently take in the drab HQ building with equally drab rooms, corridors and no Silly-con valley type luxuries, I asked him if he wanted to move here - the look of utter horror on the Silly-con valley munna's face was

Was it in Tokyo? If so, was it in on top of a subway station?

No it is in the boonies in Aichi prefecture so take a guess For a nation with such attention to detail and refined art form in everything, their cities and towns can give Howrah and Kanpur a run for their money in turns of drab ugliness and untidy looks. Never ceases to amaze me. On the bojitive side I am thinking of getting a N scale N700 Shinkansen set from the Kato HQ store in Tokyo. And maybe a Rokuhan Z Scale 500 series Shinkansen (my personal favourite coz the N700 looks like a duck billed platypus). They are cheaper here than in massa.

What a lovely place. Am disappointed you don't like the Nagoya castle or other temple shrines there. The city itself must be far from crumbling (as compared to other Massan places). I gather you are visiting the makers of ole Bess.

[chetak]

is this "twice" born or merely the "second coming"

twitter

Nigerian Physician, Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye cut a woman baby out her womb at 23 weeks old, successfully operated on the baby after taking out a tumor, then placed the baby back into the mum's womb & the baby was later delivered healthy & naturally on time at 36 weeks.



Texas Baby Born Twice: Removed From Womb for Surgery Then Placed Back In Until Birth

[Zynda]

Ferrari 458 Italia burning up the tires (as much as possible given our roads, speed breakers & potholes) in Bengaluru.



That channel consists of videos of Supercars on Bangalore roads.

The more videos I watch on that channel it is clear that these guys can only play on a few roads in Bangalore. Always there seems to be an entourage of people on bikes with some having go pro cameras mounted on their crash helmets and others filming the vehicles at "strategic" points. Some times I see a same Innova or similar vehicle behind the Supercar. Who ever is driving these cars are connected (politically) to have some high level official be in those Innova kind of vehicles to "bail" or "disappear" the drivers from the scene quickly if they ever get in to a mishap.

It is interesting to see Supercars with V10 blocks revving up at intersections during stop lights ...truly mega millionaires club.

[Raja]

Marten mullah, I wish they had their chorporate offices in Nagoya castle. That is a beautiful place. Downtown Nagoya where I typically stay is all chi chi but go a little beyond and it’s become pretty drab pretty quickly. Even if you walk from Nagoya station to the castle you pass thru such neighborhoods. Surprising for a country which is so great at design and meticulous attention to detail. Even our resident Japan ke damaad Suraj San had mentioned something to that effect once.

No ol Bess was made by rival manufacturer onlee.

Anyways I will be back in Tokyo with our group in end of feb for the marathon. If we have time I will take SHQ to the Nagoya castle.

[Raja]

Posted here on GD’s request.... (originally it was shared with him privately onlee so abridged here):

“3 days of continuous 12-14 hour negotiation sessions with the Japanis have finally come to an end. Running ultras definitely helped in this case otherwise these fellas have a way of bringing in fresh troops and arguments from a million angles to try and wear you down till you surrender and agree to their ridiculous demands. Always polite, sometimes condescending and always deviously twisted meticulous arguments. They try to get your agreement on some small inconsequential thing and then use that to widen the gap and secure broader terms - Slowly, patiently. So if someone is a impatient hardcharging make-it-happen-asap 5k/10k type like most goras are, you suddenly realize you have lost your chaddis. Just like what happened to the French and Khan at Vietnam. Death by a 1000 cuts onlee. Slowly, patiently. To defeat an enemy you don’t need to be strong, you need to be smart. They have more ants just for looking at our documents and reviewing and scrutinizing every tiny bit of detail than the total members in our team worldwide. And our local Japani guys are of no use in this regard as culturally a supplier is a slave to the customer here. Theirs is not to question why. So not only do I have to get my arguments translated thru them but I have to watch their and others body language to figure out what got translated and what got lost either unintentionally or intentionally. To make it worse the Japani customer will never tell you their requirements in a straightforward fashion but will always tell you to implement some random thing without giving a reason why. So body language reading to figure out their actual intent is necessary. Despite not moving more than 10 ft in 12+ hours the effort felt like a 50 miler each day. Whenever the Japani side folks started looking tired and would slip out for a smoke break or to bring in fresh troops to carry on the good fight, I would get some perverse pleasure from it. A trick was to keep sipping green tea throughout to keep the brain alert while browsing BGR, trailrunnermag and race report blogs once in a while when they went on long winded rants. And then repeat my argument as if they had said nothing. Eventually they ran out of fresh assault troops and stamina and surrendered. So now I can proudly tell munnas on my deathbed that one time long ago I got a mighty keiretsu to back down and agree to all my terms. “

[chilarai]

^ I have found the Israelis to be to be tough negotiators as well. And unlike the Japanese they are not even polite
One time had two of them come over , the younger guy was cool and ate whatever the Singaporean Chinese cuisine offered, but the oldie was hardcore
he would touch no non-kosher food. Came with a bag of celery ( even offered us one stick each ) and the whole meeting of 3-4 hours he would be munching on celery and arguing until his demands were met !

[Indrad]

is this "twice" born or merely the "second coming"

twitter

Nigerian Physician, Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye cut a woman baby out her womb at 23 weeks old, successfully operated on the baby after taking out a tumor, then placed the baby back into the mum's womb & the baby was later delivered healthy & naturally on time at 36 weeks.

this is foetal surgery. Baby remains attached to mother through umbilical cord. Uterus is opened and operation carried out and whole thing closed.
This is being carried out since many years.
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6875

[chetak]

^ I have found the Israelis to be to be tough negotiators as well. And unlike the Japanese they are not even polite
One time had two of them come over , the younger guy was cool and ate whatever the Singaporean Chinese cuisine offered, but the oldie was hardcore
he would touch no non-kosher food. Came with a bag of celery ( even offered us one stick each ) and the whole meeting of 3-4 hours he would be munching on celery and arguing until his demands were met !

some of the orthodox Israelis I used to work with, would bring their own kosher food for the entire three month period that they were in the country, not even drinking Indian bottled water. Their companies would happily pay the hefty extra baggage charges without hesitation.

Others, though happily ate everything including pork and non kosher seafood.

[chetak]

is this "twice" born or merely the "second coming"

twitter

Nigerian Physician, Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye cut a woman baby out her womb at 23 weeks old, successfully operated on the baby after taking out a tumor, then placed the baby back into the mum's womb & the baby was later delivered healthy & naturally on time at 36 weeks.

this is foetal surgery. Baby remains attached to mother through umbilical cord. Uterus is opened and operation carried out and whole thing closed.
This is being carried out since many years.
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6875

Yes, I know, but for some strange reason, it seems to be a big deal in some texas boondock where it happened.

[Indrad]

yes I am also surprised no idea, why. foetal sacrococcygeal tumor (tail bone tumor) was removed for the first time many yrs ago. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14533891

[Zynda]

At Bengaluru's Bellandur Lake, Massive Fire Rages For 7 Hours

BENGALURU: At Bengaluru's 1,000-acre Bellandur Lake, infamous for pollution and toxic foam, a massive fire broke out this afternoon. It took more than 5,000 army personnel and fire-fighting equipment to bring the fire that raged for seven hours under control.

Videos of the fire show thick black smoke rising in the sky above the lake.

Later in the evening, the fire started again at two places in the lake, which is Bengaluru's largest.

Army personnel are still alert to prevent the fire spreading into the army and adjoining civil area.

No loss to life or property has been reported.

Bellandur Lake made big news last year when in August it spewed out so much toxic foam that residents living nearby complained they had to stay indoors. The lake had also caught fire last year.

The National Green Tribunal had directed the Karnataka government to fix the lakes last year, but there has been no solution yet. The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), which is the custodian of the lakes, has been working to remove weeds and is using high-power pumps and coir foam mattresses and other filtering techniques to stop the frothing, but to little impact.

Experts from Britain and Israel have visited to study the problem and they say that the solution is simple - stop pouring pollutants into the lakes.

Bellandur Lake, the largest of the 262 lakes and tanks in Bengaluru, receives about 40 per cent of the city's sewage.

The Environment Ministry had said in 2016 that everyday about 1,280 million litres of sewage is generated in Bengaluru, while the city's infrastructure has the capacity to handle only 721 million litres of sewage.

Since 137 out of 500 sewage treatment plants are defunct, only 600 million litres sewage is treated and the rest goes to the lakes.

The central government had in April 2016 said that it would invest Rs. 800 crore to rejuvenate the lakes in Bengaluru, especially the Bellandur Lake.

The above is not even funny any more.

[Mort Walker]

Raja-ji,

What is the property tax rate in the Bay Area in good school districts per sq. ft. on a typical city lot of 0.25 acre?

In low tax places in the US it is about $1.50/sq.ft. for good school districts.

[Raja]

If you calculate it based on your lot size area, the property tax I pay is ~1.55/sq ft and schools are good here. My lot size is in the ball park you mentioned (< 0.5 acre). But here that would be misleading since property tax is a function of sale price (yeah yeah assessed value - all the assessor does is rubber stamp the sky high sale price) rather than unit area method for primary residences. So it comes down to when you buy, how you negotiate and luck. Do any states in massa use the unit area method to calculate property taxes?

[Raja]

^ I have found the Israelis to be to be tough negotiators as well. And unlike the Japanese they are not even polite
One time had two of them come over , the younger guy was cool and ate whatever the Singaporean Chinese cuisine offered, but the oldie was hardcore
he would touch no non-kosher food. Came with a bag of celery ( even offered us one stick each ) and the whole meeting of 3-4 hours he would be munching on celery and arguing until his demands were met !

It’s easier to deal with impolite yet tough negotiators as being impolite makes them lose some leverage. It’s like dealing with Trumpanzee vs Slick Hillary. Former is easier to deal with than the latter. I think the chankian old Israeli was just taking a leaf out of Adolf’s playbook and trying to outgas his competition out of the room (too much celery will do that).

I also realized one important thing. It pays to have a deep technical understanding even in business negotiations for ITvity. Otherwise it’s easy to lose one’s chaddis as I see happen around me. Too much ppt giri and management/visionary hawabaazi makes one roadkill. It pays to be a SS Shekhawat type SF karnail rather than some golf playing karnail warming chair cushions in raksha mantralaya.

[Suraj]

Nice story, RB! Good thing the other side didn’t know to block BGR and running websites from their network for the duration of the negotiation or you’d have caved in within 5 minutes

Yes it is true that Japanese cities are efficiently setup but not pretty . They’re not ‘run down’, just practical rather than pretty . But then I’ve really been to Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto for most part . Kyoto is the only one with some old fashioned prettiness to it, mainly because it wasn’t bombed much in WW2 .

SHQs folks and sisters live in one of the most desirable suburbs of Tokyo (Kichijoji) but I would not call even that place beautiful . Its modern, efficient and accessible, but that’s it . Certain parts are pretty, like the park and temple, but the rest is stereotypical Japanese grey concrete, glass and steel , and the ubiquitous standard residential neighborhoods with spotlessly clean well marked roads.

[Raja]

Heh heh....way ahead of them there. I always use sarkari Phone with its own data plan or a mobile hotspot for laptop for internet access. I never use the dushman’s network.

The Khans bombed Japan to hell (not including the 2 atom bombs) yet these guys built everything back including their historical structures, sometimes using a innovative mix of new and traditional techniques which preserve their authenticity. They didn’t leave them in ruins and do rudaali breast beating to the rest of the world. They meticulously built everything back and moved ahead in the world. The Japanis earned every bit of their success.

[Mort Walker]

If you calculate it based on your lot size area, the property tax I pay is ~1.55/sq ft and schools are good here. My lot size is in the ball park you mentioned (< 0.5 acre). But here that would be misleading since property tax is a function of sale price (yeah yeah assessed value - all the assessor does is rubber stamp the sky high sale price) rather than unit area method for primary residences. So it comes down to when you buy, how you negotiate and luck. Do any states in massa use the unit area method to calculate property taxes?

In low tax states, counties use the median sale price within a school district as the base, from there they set the price based on the constructed (built-up) area excluding the garage and unfinished areas such as basements and attic areas which can later be finished. It typically works out to $1.50-$1.60/sq.ft. of constructed area. I'm paying $1.59/sq.ft. on 3500 sq.ft. finished area and IMHO, it is too high, but the school district is an Apple Certified district where they hand out Macbooks to middle and high school kids.

The reason I ask is that I was reading the median price for a house in the bay area is about $680K. Given the new tax laws that limit property and state taxes to $10K, which is impacting the upper middle class even in low tax states, people in high tax states like CA, NY, and NJ are going to get hit hard. Those who have saved up and have combined annual incomes between $250K-$360K would eventually leave those states.

[Mort Walker]

The Khans bombed Japan to hell (not including the 2 atom bombs) yet these guys built everything back including their historical structures, sometimes using a innovative mix of new and traditional techniques which preserve their authenticity. They didn’t leave them in ruins and do rudaali breast beating to the rest of the world. They meticulously built everything back and moved ahead in the world. The Japanis earned every bit of their success.

Japan received much build up aid post WWII due to Gen. MacArthur. Additionally, Japanese manufacturing industry was quickly brought up to speed to support US forces in the Korean war in 1950. Toyota was given contracts for vehicles needed in Korea. This isn't to diminish the Japanese from their hard work where they wouldn't be where they are today, but the US provided a security umbrella and built up sectors of industry.

It was also the US Marshall plan that helped the UK and Germany after WWII, but more importantly the US provided them too with a security umbrella both conventional and nuclear. After WWII India on the other hand was setup to fail with Islamic radicals at its borders and a communist horde to the north. Combine this with the poor leadership of Banditji, it is absolutely amazing where India is today against all odds. There was no Marshall plan for India, but got aid and loans with conditions. However, there was no security umbrella like Pakiland who blew their chance at development.