Every TV political pundit is twisting and turning as hard as he or she can to tell us what the primaries yesterday meant, all with a slant, bias or whatever based on the network they’re on, what party they represent and what gives the best ratings. Here is the list of the winners yesterday. Simply put, what do you think the results mean? Who do you predict we will have to choose from in November? If you voted yesterday and want to share your selection, why that person?

Sania Mirza, the most successful tennis star in India, has announced that she has no desire to play in her country any more…

“Every time I play in India, there is a problem,” Mirza, currently ranked 29th in the world and No. 1 in Asia. “Considering all that, I thought it would be better not to play in Bangalore,” she added, explaining her decision to boycott India’s most prestigious tennis tournament, the Bangalore Open, in March.

“In fact, I feel it would be better if I don’t play in the country for some time.”

In December, Mirza, a young Muslim from Hyderabad, was accused by Indian nationalists of desecrating the national flag after she was caught on camera resting her bare feet on a table next to the Indian colors. Earlier that month there was anger from Muslim groups when she filmed an advertisement at a 17th-century mosque in her home town, the southern city of Hyderabad.

Both cases made front page news and triggered two lawsuits. After the flag incident, Mirza was summoned to appear before a court in Bhopal, to answer a case, filed by a private citizen, under the Prevention of Insult to the National Honour Act. The police are pursuing a case of trespass in relation to the filming in the mosque.

Folks presume that electoral democracy somehow equates with individual freedom. India has a long way to go.

Hollywood Reporter – Jan 29, 2008:

Music publishers, the record labels and digital music distribution outlets began a three-way legal wrestling match Monday over just how much songwriters and the publishing houses should get paid for digitally delivered music.

The case before a panel of copyright judges is different from the usual squabbles over money that pit the major record labels against new-media companies because it also features a family fight between the music publishers and songwriters and the rest of the music industry.

At issue is the so-called “mechanical royalty” — payments made for copies of sound recordings, including those made by digital means, to songwriters and publishers.

In a twist for royalty fights, such new-media players as Yahoo, Apple and Napster and major record labels agree with one another and want the royalty they pay to the publishers and songwriters to be lowered.

According to papers filed by the RIAA at the Copyright Royalty Board, the labels want the board to reduce the rate to 8% of wholesale revenue.

New-media companies want the rate to go even lower, contending that it should disappear when music is digitally streamed.

The Des Moines Register

Businesses could be fined as much as $625 for selling U.S. or Iowa flags made in other countries under legislation an eastern Iowa lawmaker plans to propose. “I personally don’t want my coffin draped in a Chinese-made flag when I pass away,” said Rep. Ray Zirkelbach, a Monticello Democrat and Iraq war veteran who will introduce the bill later this week. A draft copy of the proposal provided to The Des Moines Register shows that business owners or operators would face simple misdemeanor charges for violations. In addition to fines, people could face as much as 30 days in jail for selling a foreign-made flag. Iowa’s law would mirror one in Minnesota enacted less than a year ago. Minnesota’s fine is up to $1,000 and three months in jail. In 2006, Americans imported $5.3 million of foreign-made flags, most of which came from China, according to the Flag Manufacturers Association of America. Jane Carberry, an owner of A-D Flag Headquarters in Des Moines, said Zirkelbach’s proposal has already won her support. She said her business has been open since 1958 and has never sold a foreign-made flag. “Foreign-made flags can be produced quite a bit cheaper, so they can sell them cheaper,” Carberry said. “It’s hard to compete.”

An article about the Prophet Muhammad in the English-language Wikipedia has become the subject of an online protest in the last few weeks because of its representations of Muhammad, taken from medieval manuscripts.

In addition to numerous e-mail messages sent to Wikipedia.org, an online petition cites a prohibition in Islam on images of people. The petition has more than 80,000 “signatures,” though many who submitted them to ThePetitionSite.com remained anonymous…

A FAQ page explains the site’s polite but firm refusal to remove the images: “Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group…”

Sadly, strident Islamists do not respect the view of Muslim scholars – and their own history – much less those who simply catalogue information.

Europe became aware of its new secondary role in Africa during the latest round of trade negotiations at the EU-Africa summit last month. The EU, which had grown accustomed to getting what it wants from Africa, was fiercely rebuffed by the majority of African nations that refused the terms proposed by the European Commission.

The reason African countries could now stand up to their former colonizers was an alternative and more attractive Chinese market, which has been offering African countries better prices and more investment…

Europe’s inability to bully Africa into submission — though a few countries have since caved in and signed the economic-partnership agreement — confirmed China’s status as Africa’s preferred trading and aid partner…

“China doesn’t ask anything of them,” Fredrik Erixon said. “They identify products and they make the investments and of course that’s the relationship that any African government would prefer. Europe’s demanding approach has raised the transaction cost to the point where it’s impossible for any African government to prefer European investment or aid to Chinese investment and aid.”

Commerce and trade relationships trump EU ideological priorities. Shock and amazement!

It’s a stretch for some to understand that doing business with someone is part of getting to where you can do more than business. And not the other way round.

STYLES make fights — or so goes the boxing cliché. In 2008, they make presidential campaigns, too.

This is especially true for the two remaining Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Reporters covering the candidates have already resorted to traditional analysis of style — fashion choices, manner of speaking, even the way they laugh. Yet, according to design experts, the candidates have left a clear blueprint of their personal style — perhaps even a window into their souls — through the Web sites they have created to raise money, recruit volunteers and generally meet-and-greet online.

On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC…

Emily Chang, the cofounder of Ideacodes, a Web designing and consulting firm, detected consistent messages, and summed them up: “His site is more youthful and hers more regal.”

I guess I’ll have to look at the websites and see if the analogy is apt. Regardless, it’s still worth a chuckle.

When Saad Tawfiq watched Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on February 5 2003 he shed bitter tears as he realised he had risked his life and those of his loved ones for nothing.

As one of Saddam Hussein’s most gifted engineers, Tawfiq knew that the Iraqi dictator had shut down his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes in 1995 — and he had told his handlers in US intelligence just that.

And yet here was the then US secretary of state — Tawfiq’s television was able to received international news through a link pirated from Saddam’s spies next door — waving a vial of white powder and telling the UN Security Council a story about Iraqi germ labs.

“When I saw Colin Powell I started crying. Immediately. I knew I had tried and lost,” Tawfiq told AFP five years later in the Jordanian capital Amman.

Now in his fifties, a round-faced man with a small moustache and lively eyes behind delicate spectacles, Tawfiq described how the CIA set up an elaborate operation to recruit Iraqi weapons scientists and then ignored the results.

When you realize our government’s idea of diplomacy is – how big a bomb should we use – you shouldn’t be surprised over tales like this.

Wireless phone headsets of the kind beloved by Wall Street executives and high-end law firms can be bugged by simple off-the-shelf radio scanners unless they are encrypted.

“These guys are bugging their own office, essentially,” security consultant Doug Shields told United Press International.

He said that, for a recent client, he had used an inexpensive commercial scanner capable of monitoring frequencies in the 900 MHz and 1.2 GHz ranges, which is where many of the popular hands-free headsets operate.

He said the scanner could hear conversations inside buildings as far as 600 feet away. “Sometimes, when the other party has hung up, the wireless connection remains open and you can hear what (the party at your end) is saying afterwards…”

Jack Johnson, former chief security officer for the Department of Homeland Security…told UPI that, in general when it came to new technology, “ease -of-use considerations tend to trump security.”

“It’s not until after the technologies are in use that we realize the vulnerabilities,” he said.

All together, now: “There is no patch for stupidity!”