Totalitarianism Today

TOTALITARIANISM TODAY

Friday, November 22, 2002

Here's some comforting news about national security

According to a recently-released State Department warning:

In light of the statement released by Usama Bin Ladin on November 12, 2002, the Department of State reminds Americans that U.S. citizens and interests remain at increased risk of terrorist attacks, including by groups with links to Usama Bin Ladin’s Al-Qaida organization. Terrorist actions may include, but are not limited to, suicide operations or kidnappings. These individuals have proved that they do not distinguish between official and civilian targets. Because security and security awareness have been elevated within the United States, the terrorist may target U.S. interests overseas. Recent events include the terrorist attacks in Kuwait and Bali. We remind American citizens to remain vigilant with regard to their personal security and to exercise caution.

On November 14, 2002, the State of Virginia executed Mir Ahmad Kasi, a Pakistani national, who was convicted in 1997 of the 1993 murders of two CIA employees. The potential exists for retaliatory acts against U.S. or other foreign interests in response to the execution.

Attacks on places of worship and schools, and the murders of private American citizens and other westerners, demonstrate that as security is increased at official U.S. facilities, terrorists and their sympathizers will seek softer targets. These may include facilities where Americans or possibly other foreigners are generally known to congregate or visit, such as residential areas, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, hotels, outdoor recreation events or resorts and beaches. Americans should increase their security awareness when they are at such locations, avoid them, or switch to other locations where Americans in large numbers generally do not congregate. There is a possibility that American citizens may be targeted for kidnapping or assassination.

Let me get this straight-- there is a heightened security risk related to a recent execution in the US? Clearly this calls for increasing executions of criminals here. Right? It breaks the heart I don't have to see the American government play fast and frivolous with the Principle of Non-Contradiction? Is Bush an existentialist or something?

Friday, November 22, 2002

So libertarian votes might have influenced electoral outcomes? My heart does not skip a beat.

Isn't that what being an opposition party is all about? You tell me a Republican won instead of a Democrat and, depending on whether they have strong positions regarding school choice, states' rights, foreign policy, and a few other issues, I will probably shrug and smile. After all, why should it matter whether a Republicrat beats a Demican or not? Both groups lack integrity, and I won't sully mine through association. Personally, I have very strong reasons for not voting in most (save a few local) elections.

Former Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne discusses what is wrong with the GOP from an LP perspective in an article for World Net Daily.

Randy Barnett challenges the conclusions reached by John Miller in his New York Times op-ed. According to Barnett:

What conservative Republicans often fail to realize is that libertarians are an important constituency that should not be ignored or taken for granted lest their votes be driven to the Libertarian party or even to the Democrats. Telling libertarians they should vote Republican despite their serious reservations about Republican policies is futile. These concerns need to be addressed rather than ignored.

Barnett frames his argument as a criticism of Republican movement away from states' rights and decentralized government. I'd like to point out that Republicans are much more supportive of states' rights when they do not have control of the federal government (as they do since midterm elections). Acton and Foucault both have wise words to apply here. Interestingly enough, when I interviewed Barnett last year, we didn't talk too much about the corrupting influences of power, albeit he has done a short teaching stint at Harvard Law School since then.

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

My kind of global government

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Naughty Jonah. Didn't mommy ever tell you that little boys should share?

Jonah Goldberg fans (such as myself, of course) should certainly read this lovely article by Paul Gottfried for Jonah's latest piccadillo. Looks like he forgot to practice equal-opportunity brown-nosing. Who would have ever thought conservatives could care?

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Information-sharing needs the back-up of legal remedy to be tit-fot-tat

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article by Ann Davis, a dangerous list has been passed around political and intelligence circles, with potentially devastating impact for those of Middle Eastern descent.

The list included many people the FBI didn't suspect but just wanted to talk to. Yet a version on SeguRed.com (www.segured.com4), a South American security-oriented Web site that got a copy from a Venezuelan bank's security officer, is headed: "list of suspected terrorists sent by the FBI to financial institutions."

Meanwhile, a supermarket trade group used a version of the list to try to check whether terrorists were raising funds through known shoplifting rings. The trade group won't disclose results. The FBI credits the effort, dubbed Project Lookout, with helping it rapidly find some people with relevant information in the crisis atmosphere right after the terror attacks. MGM Mirage says it has tipped off the FBI at least six times since beginning to track hotel and casino guests against the list.

The FBI and other investigative agencies -- which were criticized after Sept. 11 for not sharing their information enough -- are exploring new ways to do so, including mining corporate data to find suspects or spot suspicious activity. The Pentagon is developing technology it can use to sweep up personal data from commercial transactions around the world. "Information sharing" has become a buzzword. But one significant step inthis direction, Project Lookout, is in many ways a study in how not toshare intelligence. The watch list shared with companies -- one part of the FBI's massive counterterrorism database -- quickly became obsolete as the bureau worked its way through the names. The FBI's counterterrorism division quietly stopped updating the list more than a year ago. But it never informed most of the companies that had received a copy. FBI headquarters doesn't know who is still using the list because officials never kept track of who got it.

"We have now lost control of that list,'' says Art Cummings, head of the strategic analysis and warning section of the FBI's counterterrorism division. "We shouldn't have had those problems." The bureau tried to cut off distribution after less than six weeks, partly from worry that suspects could too easily find out they had been tagged. Another concern has been misidentification, especially as multipart Middle Eastern names are degraded by typos when faxed and are fed into new databases.

Then there's the problem of getting off the list. At first the FBI frequently removed names of people it had cleared. But issuing updated lists, which the FBI once did as often as four times a day, didn't fix the older ones already in circulation. Three brothers in Texas named Atta -- long since exonerated, and no relation to the alleged lead hijacker -- are still trying to chase their names off copies of the list posted on Internet sites in at least five countries.

And legal remedy is not really an option:

People who've asked the FBI for help getting off the bootleg lists saythey've been told the bureau can't do anything to correct outdated lists still floating around. The FBI's Mr. Cummings says that "the most we can control is our official dissemination of that list." Once it left the law- enforcement community, "we have no jurisdiction to say, 'If you disseminate this further, we will prosecute you.' "

It is interesting to note that one of the people who has made use of increased "information-sharing" in none other than Slobodan Milosevic, who referred to several US government documents to support the charge that the Kosovo Liberation Army works with Al Quaeda.

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Two by Dorothy Parker

Back in my English-major days, I was of the school that lacked the proper schooling to do much except resurrect loves lost and outworn for the sake a halfway-decent poem. When I ran out of loves, having exhausted all my renunciations, I quit the English hiatus. But I still have my favorites from back in the day. And this defiant little lady is one of them.

Coda
There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle-
Would you kindly direct me to hell?

Men
They hail you as their morning star
Because you are the way you are.
If you return the sentiment,
They'll try to make you different;
And once they have you, safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on;
They'd make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They'd alter all that they admired.
They make me sick, they make me tired.

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Getting serious about peace

For those willing to do whatever it takes.....

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

A toast to Peter Kirsanow and Greg Weston

The first toast is due as Peter Kirsanow, the Bush appointee (whom I had the honor of meeting thanks to David Beito of the Alabama Scholars Association) to the Civil Rights Commission, will get to keep his contested seat. According to Reuters:

The Supreme Court declined yesterday to review a ruling that upheld an appointment by President Bush to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and handed the White House a victory in a partisan dispute over the panel's political composition.

Without comment, the justices let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that the appointee, Peter Kirsanow, a conservative labor lawyer from Cleveland, should take his seat on the eight-member watchdog panel. The commission's chairman, Mary Frances Berry, had argued a Democratic appointee should be allowed to serve a full six-year term.

Established by Congress in 1957, the commission investigates civil rights complaints and issues reports, but it has no enforcement powers. The appeals court ruling said the term of commission member Victoria Wilson, appointed by President Bill Clinton, had expired last year, creating the vacancy filled by Kirsanow.

The court ruled Wilson had not been given a full six-year term. She was only finishing out the term of a commissioner who died, and that term expired on Nov. 29, 2001, the court said. A majority of commission members, including Berry and Vice Chairman Cruz Reynoso, fought the appointment of Kirsanow. They appealed to the Supreme Court to hear the case, saying the appeals court ruling would have far-reaching consequences for the commission.

"The ruling adversely affects the autonomy and effectiveness of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights," they said, adding that the panel best performs its mission when it operates free from presidential interference. The Justice Department replied that the appeals court decision was correct and told the Supreme Court that further review was not warranted.

Kirsanow's appointment brings the number of Republicans on the panel to four, according to the commission's Web site.

The second toast is for Greg Weston, who actually remembered my gushing about Kirsanow and forwarded this news to me today. Congratulations to Peter and sincere thanks to Greg, who always seems to remember the little things-- the mark of a really special friend.

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

A note for Maxine, who tells me to inquire further

As Susan Sontag remarks in On Interpretation, modernity holds the notion of love in something near contempt, a mode of apperception simultaneously derided for its delusion and idealism. This is partly because love has been redcued to a means of self-deception, to a pathos, if you will. Stendhal considered love to be an "essential fiction". Love itself, doesn't make mistakes-- love is a mistake. This concpetion of love as a chosen madness led modern artists and writers to explore love as a stimulus for revelation about self and Other. In this way. love, like art, becomes a means of self-expression. We show our hand in how we love, who we love, and why we love. And then, we dare to express consternation or indulge in that immodern sentiment of melancholy when our love-fiction reaches the credits.

So why, then, is love a necessary delusion? Why can't we be rational and scrap the whole thing by admitting to ourselves that all we need is food, shelter, and sex? Alas, the endless quest for "happiness" trips us here, as humans continue to seek success in their careers, families, and communities as means to this final goal. Placing aside all hedonistic assumptions which tie happiness to pleasure-- a clear example of bad economic modeling where an eye to the short-term undermines the long-term picture-- the inidividual search for happiness is a constant across all cultures and time periods.

How this desire for happiness relates to love was best demonstrated by American psychiatrist Harry Harlow, who conducted a series of experiments showing that love plays a crucial role in mental well-being. Using baby monkeys and artificial mother-dolls, Harlow proved that babies would cling to the mother-dolls even when food was offered elsewhere. Harlow conducted these experiments at the University of Wisconsin- Madison during the 1950's and 1960's, when the dominant theories portrayed humans and other animals as machines which responded to rewards and punishments. On this view, babies cling to their mothers not for affection or love, but out of anticipation of food rewards. Behaviorists groaned when the results of Harlow's experiments showed how important love was to mental health. Later, Harlow conducted another series of experiments revealing the extent to which lack of love and affection led to severe and variant forms of psychosis in individual patients.

Granted, the fact that humans need love does not speak to its self-delusional qualities. But if love increases (or even underlies, as Harlow suggests) our chances of individual happiness, then courage before love seems like a better option than refusal to countenance it. I haven't answered any questions here. Admittedly, I did not intend to. As usual, I prefer provocation to definitive and exhaustive explanation. Leaving the last line to Sir Walter Raleigh's first line in The Lie,

Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand:
Fear not to touch the best,
The Truth shall be thy warrant.

Monday, November 18, 2002

The clash of "cultural literacies"

Judith Shulevitz enters the battle over educational standards with the refreshing acknowledgment that more than just the hope that our children will learn is at stake. Shulevitz defines "cultural literacy" as follows:

Cultural literacy: familiarity with the key terms of Western history, literature and philosophy, as well as mathematics and science. The phrase was first popularized in a controversial 1987 work of that title by the English professor E. D. Hirsch Jr. in which he called for schools to return to a classically oriented core curriculum and criticized the ideals of progressive education, particularly formalism, the belief that the goal of education is to teach students how to learn, not to impart a specific body of knowledge. In the 1980's, ''cultural literacy'' was associated with the back-to-basics movement. In the early 21st century, ''cultural literacy'' has come to be associated with the educational standards movement, which seeks to hold students to high levels of competence in reading, math, science and history.

Is there such a thing as "core knowledge" in a world where academia is segregated by specialization and individualism is an excuse for intellectual laziness? Shulevitz notes that even the question assumes certain philosophical positions.

This is a war whose exact battle lines fluctuate with the tides of fashion, but the larger disagreement remains constant. It is about how people learn, which is another way of saying that it is about human nature. Traditionalists think that the child is unformed and must be molded; progressives think that his innate genius must be called forth, half through coaxing, half through inspiration. Traditionalists believe in filling a child up with subject matter; progressives believe in teaching him how to learn. Traditionalists think some information is more important than other information; progressives think it's all subject to interpretation....

[Hirsch] believes that a curriculum grounded in traditional knowledge of history, literature, math and science, and taught to all students regardless of race or income level, can only help promote the liberal ideal of universal social mobility. Some liberals object that Hirsch's difficult curriculum will be harder for underprivileged students to learn and will thus put them at a disadvantage; but that is a variation on the progressive nostrum about education having to be tailored to students' actual social conditions, which by midcentury had led to great numbers of the poor being shoveled into vocational programs. The liberal position is further undercut by the fact that expensive private schools, even the ones that call themselves progressive, teach the classics nowadays.

Education reform notables such as Milton Friedman have supported Hirsch's way of thinking. Apparently, Hirsch's "liberal traditionalist" ideas have gained new converts, including none less spectacular than Sylvia Peters, an African-American award-winning principal from Chicago and founding member of the much-touted Edison Project. Currently Peters is leading the redesign of elementary schools in the impoverished Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of Baltimore-- part of a wide-ranging effort by The Enterprise Foundation, the city of Baltimore and local residents to transform and reinvent this troubled community. Peters prefers the term "cash knowledge" to "core knowledge", as she believes this is the sort of stuff that opens opportunities for high-paying careers.

She likes to cite Hirsch’s own example of the Black Panthers, who in the 1960s were culturally literate and articulate in writing their demands for fairness and equal representation. The Panther manifesto was peppered with references to the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the New Testament. That cultural intelligence is part of what made the Panthers so threatening to members of the dominant culture.

Hirsch's view of core knowledge does assume that students should be educated in their "national culture", as understanding one's culture allows one to understand the context of literature, art, and intellectual movements. As Hirsch notes, "Knowledge of words is an adjunct to knowledge of cultural realities signified by words, and to whole domains of experience to which words refer." Knowing how words are used matters very much to success on standardized tests, which often require students to engage in "reading comprehension" exercises.

And yes-- what kids learn is as important as how they learn. To the misfortune of under-priveleged children, pedagogy tends to ignore this little fact. Teachers in Crooksville, Ohio acknowledge this point.

From the Progressives of the 1930s to the Constructivists of today, Hirsch says, the "learning how to learn" philosophy of education has produced generations of children who are ignorant of world history, geography, literature. The "skills" approach to teaching hits poor children especially hard, says Hirsch, robbing them of their ability to participate in American democracy and compete in our economy. Content-rich Core Knowledge -- which introduces children to a structured body of knowledge -- is meant to repair that damage. Critics say the curriculum will bore students with "drill and kill," mechanical memorization of dry facts, figures, and dates. Others worry the content is too advanced for young children to understand. And although some critics agree a curriculum should be content based, they don't agree with Hirsch's choice of content, dubbing it elitist and Eurocentric. But in Crooksville -- one of 350 schools in 40 states that are using the curriculum -- administrators and teachers believe Core is essential to their children. "We are dealing with kids who are narrowly confined to their small world," says Superintendent Timm Mackley. "We are trying to share the wealth of human knowledge with them."

To pay for teacher training and materials, Toeller wrote and received several grants from private Ohio foundations. Adding in federal money from a program for Appalachian schools, the Crooksville staff gathered about $100,000 in seed money. The school's 30 teachers came in on a Saturday for training. (The Core Knowledge Foundation charges about $500 for training sessions, plus the travel expenses of the trainer.) To gather ideas, some teachers visited a school in Richmond, Ind., which also uses the curriculum.

For the first time, all the teachers at each grade level were teaching the same content to their children. Carpenter says this consistency is helpful, because she knows exactly what her students have studied before they come to her. Another outgrowth of the curriculum's coherence: The Crooksville teachers began to share materials, ideas, and resources.

Windmere Park Charter Academy in Lansing, Michigan bases its curriculum on Hirsch's "core knowledge". Perhaps the time has come for liberals to acknowledge that traditonal education might just be more progressive in terms of educating and preparing more disadvantaged children for successful careers and personal lives. Teachers should know about the subject they are teaching, not just about how to make a blackboard to illustrate it. The mere fact that one has read "the great books" does not mean that one has internalized their values in a way that undercuts localism or minority culture. If we care about children, we should care about their futures in more than just the sense of using their educations to promote the novel, socially-liberated inidividual. After all, sometimes the best and most satisfying liberty (i.e. writing a good book, getting married, etc.) emerges in full recognition and acceptance of our constraints.

Monday, November 18, 2002

Wiretap surveillance gets real

The Justice Department can add another victory point to the ongoing tally.

The Justice Department has broad discretion in the use of wiretaps and other surveillance techniques to track suspected terrorists and spies, a federal appeals court panel ruled Monday. In a 56-page opinion overturning a May decision by the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the three-judge panel said the expanded wiretap guidelines sought by Attorney General John Ashcroft under the new USA Patriot Act law do not violate the Constitution.

The special panel from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the lower court to issue a new ruling giving the government the powers it seeks.

Monday, November 18, 2002

It takes 482 pages to mummify liberty.

The Homeland Security bill, which has now reached the Senate, recieves staunch opposition from libertarian and conservative groups who see a bad moon rising. Phil Kent, President of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, explains: "It basically amends the Privacy Act of 1974 and allows an unprecedented surveillance of the commercial transactions of ordinary Americans". Kent, however, is not the only concerned individual. One senior Hill staffer described the Homeland Security legislation to me as "the most horrible thing to pass Congress" and "much, much worse than the Patriot Act" in terms of increasing federal government power at the expense of individual liberties.

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), who reelection with 68% of the vote, calls it "The Homeland Security Monstrosity". In a speech to House members, "Oppose The New Homeland Security Bureaucracy", given November 13th, Congressman Paul urges fellow Congressmen to think about the consequences of granting the federal government such broad and sweeping powers.

"HR 5710 also expands the federal police state by allowing the attorney general to authorize federal agency inspectors general and their agents to carry firearms and make warrantless arrests. One of the most disturbing trends in recent years is the increase in the number of federal officials authorized to carry guns. This is especially disturbing when combined with the increasing trend toward restricting the ability of average Americans to exercise their second amendment rights. Arming the government while disarming the public encourages abuses of power."

Jeff Johnson writes about why "Homeland Security Compromise Troubles Some Consevatives". Jon Dougherty, on the other hand, voices privacy concerns in his article, "Doctors: Bill allows forced vaccinations". A commentary in the Orange County Register mourns the loss of worthy opposition members:

The only substantive opposition to some of the more troubling aspects of the homeland security proposal has come from a dwindling band of libertarian-minded Republicans led by House Majority Leader Dick Armey (who is retiring) and Georgia Rep. Bob Barr (who lost in his party's primary). They managed to eliminate a national ID card from the House version, and to put Congress on record in opposition to Attorney General Ashcroft's TIPS program, which would have mustered private citizens to spy on their neighbors. But the proposal still expands government power to snoop on ordinary citizens.

Jacob Sullum casts a war-weary eye on Poindexter's new Office of Information Awareness, which some of my relatives (who lived under Ceausescu's Romania) describe as "bordering on Ceausescu-like paranoia" and "totalitarian". Ron Paul warned about it today in Congress. Sullum comments:

Former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), a member of the U.S. Commission on National Security, said Poindexter's project, which has a $200 million annual budget, could be "a huge waste of money." He said it represented "total overkill of intelligence," based on "an Orwellian concept." Repeat after me: Total Awareness Is Total Security.

These are the times that try more than men's souls-- one's most deeply-held beliefs and values are put to the test. I am not ashamed to be held responsible for anything I have ever written on this web page. It isn't heroism to urge change and be cognizant of how this threatens the status quo-- it is merely good citizenship.

Monday, November 18, 2002

How to speak realpolitik, otherwise known as "intermediate German", to your recalictrant fraulein

Bundnisfahigkeit is "the state of being a good ally".
Weltanshauung translates as "worldview".
Fingerspitzengefuhl means "sand-papered-fingertip sensibility".
Schadenfreude means "guilty pleasure in seeing an ally embarassed".
Bundnis translates loosely into "alliance, compact, league".
Fahig is an adjective used to describe something that is capable of being done or someone that is "capable of doing".
Bundnisfahigkeit means "the capablity of being an ally".
Unbundnisfahigkeit, consequently, means "the incapability of being an ally".

Sunday, November 17, 2002

Libertarians as secret "Democratic Party operatives" (or Pigs have learned to fly)

An old friend and a forward led me to an article by National Review writer John J. Miller for the New York Times detailing Libertarian John Sophocleus' electoral conquests in Alabama. According to this article, "the only reason the governor's race in Alabama was so close this year as to be disputed beyond election night was that the Libertarian candidate, John Sophocleus, attracted 23,000 votes".

"It's important to appreciate that Libertarian voters are not merely Republicans with an eccentric streak. Libertarians tend to support gay rights and open borders; they tend to oppose the drug war and hawkish foreign policies. Some of them wouldn't vote if they didn't have the Libertarian option.

But Libertarians are also free-market devotees who are generally closer to Republicans than to the Democrats. "Exit polling shows that we take twice as many votes from Republicans as from Democrats," said George Getz, a spokesman for the Libertarian Party.

Yet Libertarians are now serving, in effect, as Democratic Party operatives. The next time they wonder why the Bush tax cuts aren't permanent, why Social Security isn't personalized and why there aren't more school-choice pilot programs for low-income kids, all they have to do is look in the mirror.

"Democratic Party operatives", eh, Monsieur Miller? Is that a threat or a promise? Or just emotion wreaking havoc on your argument?

Sunday, November 17, 2002

Views on sound money

Chris Farrell dicusses new perspectives on Adam Smith's interpretation of the role of economics in creating or furthering a good society. Also, an absolutely fascinating forum on whether current conservatives are betraying Reaganomics, including contributions from Grover G. Norquist, Michael Reagan, Sen. Phil Gramm, Ralph Reed, Elliot Abrams, Gary Bauer, Gov. Frank Keating, Sen. Trent Lott, Rep. Christopher Cox, Gov. David Beasley, James C. Miller III, Rep. Dick Armey, Rep. David McIntosh, and Jeane Kirkpatrick.

Sunday, November 17, 2002

Why techies should take Bangalore seriously

Manjeet Kripalani made an excellent argument for taking Bangalore seriously even in the wake of Silicon Valley's demise for the most recent issue of Businessweek. Unfortunately, it is available to subscribers only, so I cannot link it. Clearly, however, the benefits of Bangalore are becoming more obvious to investors.

The first major wave of investment in India began in the 1980's, when multinationals like General Electric and Citibank too advantage of the large pool of low-cost, well-trained, English-speaking technicians to begin software-code-writing operations. Since then, the software services sector has grown into an $8 billion annual export industry, with high growth expectations (projections suggest $50 billion by 2008). Now US companies want to turn Bangalore into a hub for R&D, as opposed to the more menial chores of software writing.

Even Bill Gates has realized the benefits of doing tech business with India. In this month's visit to India, Gates announced a $450 million investment over the next three years.

It's mostly for his .Net (pronounced dot-net) project, even the $100 million of the total that he'll invest in Microsoft's software development center in Hyderabad, India's up-and-coming cybercity....Gates then visited Wipro, India's largest publicly held software services company and another Microsoft partner. Wipro recently struck a $10 million deal with the software giant to run Microsoft call centers.

The main impediment is infrastructure. Bangalore is short on electricity, which requires big complexes to keep their own power generators. Investors also worry about the fickle trends in the Indian government's investment policy towards foreigners, as well as continuing tension with Pakistan. The Karnataka government is attempting to mediate some of these problems by bettering transporation through fixing roads and creating a new airport designed specifically to assist Bangalore's investment promise reach fruition. Already, Bangalore'e economy is growing 10% annually-- twice the national average. Such promise should not go undeveloped.