records
Records - I just made it 23 hours without turning on my computer; that’s got to be a record. Today is a good day for baseball. Our M’s tied the record set in 1906 for most wins in a season, and they still have a chance to beat it. Barry Bonds set the record for homers+=2 last night, and Cal Ripken retired, breaking his personal record for worst full-season batting average.
I am trying to figure out what Annan means when he says “solve the Kashmir problem” diplomatically. Kashmir is part of India last I knew, so who are the conflicting opponents in this “diplomacy”? India and India? Or India and terrorists? Annan makes no sense. Who exactly should India negotiate “diplomatically” with? Some terrorist group of thugs? Is it really diplomacy to negotiate with someone who is not representing anyone other than himself and fellow thugs? Who are the citizens who voted to make the Jaish-e-Mohammed their government? If nobody voted for them, they don’t speak on behalf of the people of Kashmir. And if they have no citizens, no state, and no diplomats, what the heck is Annan blathering about?
Even wackier is this news that some US Congressman claims that Sikhs are being repressed in India. They quote the congressman as having called for “Free Khalistan”. This is so outrageously ludicrous a quote that I have to assume it is a bald-faced lie and only meant to cater to the credulous pro-Taliban readers in Peshawar. The article claims further that there is American support for Nagaland separatists. So we are led to believe that Americans (and our congressmen, no less), support the idea of carving off three new countries based on religious lines — one for Muslims (Kashmir), one for Sikhs (Khalistan), and one for Christians (Nagaland).
Someone over there needs to be set straight. America is all about secularism and separation of church and state. So is India. This is the only way to guarantee freedom of religion (and freedom from having someone else’s priest write your laws). Things get incredibly ugly when nations are created on ethnic or religious divisions; this is exactly the problem in Afghanistan, and represents everything that democracies oppose.