the good ole boys wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 1:43pm:


Now now, Homo. Islam is not a race, remember, so it can't be about brown peoples.

Or is it?

As an aside, and related to what karnal said, one of the big mantras you'll hear from the coal lobby is that we have a moral obligation to supply the poor people of India with electricity. Turns out in fact that all this coal is only going towards maintaining and expanding the power for the rich and middle classes - the poor people, you see, simply don't have the required infrastructure built in their villages and shanty towns for the coal grid to supply them.

Its low-cost portable solar units that is the real big boom for India's poor - and these, not coal, is what is making the difference. I'm not sure if Bill Leak is a shameless sell-out of the coal industry - but shame on him anyway for such misleading propaganda - even apart from the racism.

polite_gandalf wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 2:27pm:


The current coal infrastructure is also notoriously inefficient. Daily blackouts are common in India.

Saying blackouts isn't racist. Electricity is not a race.

Let me just string up a power line for you, Sahib... it will not take long.....

gizmo_2655 wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 2:27pm:


See my last post - cheap portable solar units are a huge booming industry in Indian slums.

As K said - Indians are not starving. This is in fact another facet of the bigotry - the assumption that all poor third world people are starving, and couldn't possibly have any use for modern technology. You belittle them by saying on their behalf that they don't need electricity - when in reality, this is exactly what they want - as demonstrated by the huge demand for these solar units in the slums and villages.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 2:34pm:


Yes, Gizmo. Maybe the Paris Conference can call off the meeting on CO2 emissions and get everyone to send food to India instead.

That could work.

polite_gandalf wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 2:33pm:



Well, tell that to the people living in the slums around New Delhi.

"India hurries to hide its poor
Officials want slums and beggars out of sight for the Commonwealth Games. Critics say they expected more from a nation that has long prided itself on its humanitarian policies.
October 01, 2010|By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times.

Reporting from New Delhi — The government people came one night in late September and built a partition covered with bright blue plastic sheeting and adorned with cartoonish tiger mascots and "Come Out and Play" slogans. It hid the slum known as Coolie Camp on the airport road where the foreigners pass.

Irfana Begum, 40, who collects garbage, must now lug her three-wheeled bicycle over about 300 feet of rocky ground to get to the road and make her living.

Begum, a 15-year resident of the slum, squatted in the dirt in a dusty sari, her bare feet adorned with toe rings. "They're trying to pretend that poor people don't exist in India, for their image," she said near a pile of plastic and glass bottles, cardboard and used vinyl sheeting.

"It really makes us angry," she said.

By hosting the Commonwealth Games, a mini- Olympics that begins Sunday and is to be attended by 71 nations, India hoped to propel New Delhi into the ranks of world-class cities such as London and New York and mirror Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympics.
ut amid bad planning, alleged corruption and shoddy workmanship, crews have barely finished the main sports venues, let alone various urban renewal projects. The result, residents and experts say, is an effort to hide the impoverished, including those in this slum near an athlete training center.

"I'm so appalled and angry at this," said Harsh Mander, a member of the ruling party's National Advisory Council after passing the cheerily camouflaged Coolie Camp. "Poverty is nothing to be ashamed of, but government and middle-class elements want to hide it."

The government has tried to rid the capital of beggars, and has used two "mobile court" trailers, with police and judges in tow, that grab and sentence panhandlers. Many receive one-year detentions in "beggar homes" or are temporarily exiled to neighboring states, leading to bureaucratic squabbles over who they "belong to."

Authorities have also cracked down on an estimated 300,000 street vendors, a significant burden on families who live hand to mouth. Daulat Ram, 50, a handicapped barber who lives in Coolie Camp, has seen his business decline precipitously since he was forced off the main road.

Most cities that host such mega-events resort to window dressing. Seoul expelled 720,000 people from their homes before the 1988 Olympics and shuttered dog-meat restaurants. Eight years later, Atlanta issued 9,000 arrest citations for the homeless. Athens removed hundreds of Roma, also known as Gypsies, before the 2004 Games."

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/01/world/la-fg-india-hide-20101002

Sure..there are NO poor in India..right??? /sarc off

gizmo_2655 wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 2:41pm:


*FACEPALM*