Want to buy Uranium Ore? Go to Amazon. No kidding.

You can buy Uranium ore on Amazon. New from $29.95, used from $2499. It will be shipped to you. And it is compliant with the NRC.
We are always in compliance with Section 13 from part 40 of the NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules and regulations and Postal Service regulations specified in 49 CFR 173.421 for activity [...]

One Star Pound. Optimized voice mail manipulation.

I love this article, not just for the geeky calculation of how much cell phone companies make annually by adding in the 15 second instructions to leave a voice mail, but also because it uses D.O.T. D.O.T are Desi Optimization Techniques. Many (not all) of my desi friends love to optimize their lives, their chores, [...]

Increase in store vacancies in Manhattan

Perhaps I’m blind (or biased) but some how I don’t see the sort of crisis being talked about in this New York Times article when I walk around the city.

The storefront vacancy rate in Manhattan is now at its highest point since the early 1990s — an estimated 6.5 percent — and is expected to [...]

The story of the US credit binge (it’s shorter than you think)

Came across this very good analysis by Jeffrey Grundlach, Chief Investment Officer from TCW, on Barry Ritholz’s blog The Big Picture .
The analysis is written for people reasonably unfamiliar with finance. There’s just a lot of common sense lines in the story. If we ran our own finances like the US govt, we’d [...]

Poem of the week – July 19

Adrian Mitchell may have been known as “British Poetry’s Voice of the Left” for his pacifist anti-war poems, but to me, he was a writer first about human nature, and then about war. His anti- Vietnam poem, To Whom it may Concern also called Tell Me Lies made him an international figure. A couple of [...]

Poem of the week – July 12

About 10 years ago, I came across a story about a famous Tamil poetess and saint called Avvaiyar. The famous Indian writer and Tamilian R.K. Narayan wrote an essay The Cold Fruit in a collection called A Story-Teller’s world , in which he shares a story about Avvaiyar that he had heard in [...]

Is this America? Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny

Just watching a rerun of Bill Clinton’s appearance on Elvis Costello’s superb music show “Spectacle” and it ended with a wonderful and thoughtful piece by the great jazz musicians Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny called “Is this America”.
Thanks to Aman who introduced me to Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny. Forever indebted, [...]

Manhattan rents drop

More Manhattan real estate blues from Bloomberg.
Manhattan Rents Decline as Unemployment Cuts Demand

How the study of yoga helps a daughter understand her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease.

The Happy Days blog on the New York Times has a piece written by Elizabeth Kadetsky on how her yoga teacher training helps her deal with her mother’s illness on a regular basis. For those of us who apply the principles of yoga (steadfastness, dispassion, acceptance, truthfulness, humility, non-judgment) in our daily lives, there is [...]

What India must do if it is to be an affluent country

There’s the usual media brouhaha after the annual budget presentation, and Pranab’s budget has provided enough fodder for naysayers and pundits.
Separately, there seems to have been a public debate in Delhi and Mumbai recently on the occasion of the release of a report sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Martin Wolf writes more about in [...]