Showing posts with label United States Department of State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States Department of State. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

It Will Be A Real Race

Hillary is in a very strong position, inside the party, and the country, but I expect this race to be very real. The US presidential election is no shoo-in, never has been, never will be.

Blaming Hillary For Benghazi = Blaming W For 9/11
Hillary Clinton And The Global Gender Basics




Monday, December 15, 2014

One More Immigration Court Date

Official photographic portrait of US President...
Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: (Wikipedia)
(statement for court date on December 19)

In case you have not noticed, my trial now has lasted longer than Nelson Mandela's! I am amused. In the first few years I felt frustrated. How long can you feel that way? Now I feel amused.

There are things I know and things I don't know. And I am fairly humble about things I don't know. Honest to God, I don't understand your legal process. I don't have the slightest clue how this works. It is not about logic, and it is not about justice. It is strange, it is bizarre, it is weird.

It is not logical because when I first appeared in front of you people from Nepal were being granted political asylum in the thousands per year, maybe even tens of thousands, and that rate is still intact. So it is not possible this judicial process is not aware of the ground situation in Nepal. And I was the only among the 300,000 plus Nepalis in America to have worked full time for the democracy movement in the 2005-06 period. And I again did full time work for the Madhesi Movement a year later, and my comrades from the democracy movement from Nepal to NYC now had become bitter opponents. On top of all that, I became Barack Obama's first full time volunteer in NYC for which I paid the price I paid: the worst experience of my life. In this city. In this oldest of democracies. But I have no major begrudges. I am of Bihari origin. Democracy gets really rough and tumble in Bihar.

Logic would say that when you put all this together my case was a no brainer. But it has been anything but. It has been a major headache. I have missed wave after wave in the tech startup world, thanks to you. Your process has many of the worst aspects of a Third World bureaucracy. Reminds me of the Nepal I left: you would have to wait in line for years to get a landline. And to think it is lack of immigration that Japan and Europe are in the sorry shape they are in.

Half a decade later I am being made to realize this process has been trying to figure out if I am a good guy or a bad guy. This blows my mind. I am a gift to this country. I am a really, really good guy.

You mention Texas and 2002. Those brain dead cops, when I first talked about them in this court it was not a hot political issue in this country. How times have changed! They started firing after they saw my face. The truck was safely parked on the shoulder of a side road by someone about to call it a night. About a dozen brain dead cops emptied their guns into my truck. The closest bullets hit maybe five feet from my body. I was not scared in real time, because I am like, who is thumping so hard on my trailer! I am scared now! Your process is not about justice, because those brain dead dozen are the clear bad guys. Why is there even a debate! From where does the confusion come?

Talking about 18 wheelers --- just one minor observation --- I have seen more of America than anyone who ever ran for President Of The United States. That is just a fact.

There are things that I know, and there are things that I don't know. Let me tell you what I know. I beat Bill Clinton before Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton. John Kerry is the only presidential candidate in history not to have received a bounce from his convention. I did what I did, and then Bill Clinton did what he did. But he should not feel bad, because he did achieve his goal. He meant to clear the 2008 deck for Hillary, and he was able to do that.

In case anyone might think it was a fluke, I did a repeat performance a few years into this judicial process. I walked all over Williamsburg for a few hours taking pictures left and right, up and down. And, lo and behold, I was being followed around like crazy. I noted a special police van, fully peopled. A cop with a sniff dog had the dog sniff me. I said hello to the dog. As I walked down a street, as I neared a corner, I gave a fast right jerk to my head and spotted a cop quickly pull away, only moments before having had the gun at the ready. And I remember thinking, am I having a Jason Bourne moment here?

Look, I don't do physical. Free hand exercise is as far as it goes for me. What I do is political. But sometimes the conceptual gets so intense, you kind of spill a little into the physical realm. I am someone who is never going to run for public office. I don't have a country. It is not Nepal, it is not India, it is not America. At least I feel I am on the right planet, thank God. I would like to do all I can possibly do to help cure poverty, that is all. And I have determined digital tools are my best bet. They suit my style, and they are amazingly effective tools. I am going to use and build, build and use even more powerful tools. And to that end the rest of my life will be dedicated. That is the reason I need to be a successful tech entrepreneur.

But out of respect for this court, I have done what I have been asked to do. On Monday, December 15, I got legal insurance through Legal Shield (www.legalshield.com). But then I proceeded to do all the work myself.

I called a bunch of numbers in Texas. And I was able to locate someone who said she will fax Rudra the traffic ticket from May 27, 2002 to his fax number (212) 290-2303. I believe that is what you wanted.

I called the Gray County District Attorney, 205 North Russell Street, Pampa, TX 79065, Phone:(806) 669-8003 who led me to the Pampa TX DA's Office at 806 669 8015 who led me back to the Gray County number who then led me to one of the three judges' office, Judge Curfman's at 806 669 8015 who gave me the numbers for the other two judges Martinez (806 669 8032) and Carpenter (806 779 2721). I was told it was probably Judge Carpenter who received my 60 dollar payment since he deals with the Interstate 40 part. And that was correct information. Someone at Judge Carpenter's office was able to pull up information related to the number you gave me (TX 06911603). The wonderful lady at the other end of the phone said she will fax that document to Rudra at his fax number that I gave her.

I explained to them that the immigration court wants an attorney representing me to contact the DA's Office in Pampa Texas to get some kind of a form for a May 27, 2002 incident involving the 18 wheeler I was driving. The words on the ticket were "failure to control speed." The speed limit was 70 miles per hour. My truck was programmed to not go faster than 68 mph. So I could not have been speeding. How often does this country give speeding tickets to a standing truck! But since I was not native to TX I thought it best to just pay the 60 bucks and be done with it, probably an unwise decision.

Now if we can please proceed to let me get going with my tech entrepreneurship, I would be most grateful. I want to do good. I have always wanted to do good, political demonizations here and there aside.


Monday, June 13, 2011

Going To War With Communications Technology

Mobile phone evolution (Japan 1997-2004)Image via WikipediaNovember 2005: Barackface: Pentagon, Hexagon: The Pentagon masterminds the physical wars the US wages. .... I propose a Hexagon, a physical building, perhaps not as large, as an appendage to the US State Department structure, preferably in New York City somewhere, perhaps in Queens. ..... This is about waging a war with communications technology. This is about spreading democracy the grassroots way. This is about the immigrants in New York City taking the lead for their respective countries.

March 2006: Barackface: Long War: This Long War might give an opportunity to instead master a war with communications technology. Because if you don't, you are practically gearing for a hot war with China. I would think that is a total no no.
New York Times: U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors: The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks. ...... The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.” ......... Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet. ....... liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe. ...... stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya ....... $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on protected military bases inside the country. It is intended to offset the Taliban’s ability to shut down the official Afghan services, seemingly at will. ........ has brought together an improbable alliance of diplomats and military engineers, young programmers and dissidents from at least a dozen countries, many of whom variously describe the new approach as more audacious and clever and, yes, cooler ....... operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones in the hills near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls ...... a separate infrastructure where the technology is nearly impossible to shut down, to control, to surveil ....... disempowers central authorities from infringing on people’s fundamental human right to communicate ...... “No matter how much circumvention the protesters use, if the government slows the network down to a crawl, you can’t upload YouTube videos or Facebook postings,” Mr. Anderson said. “They need alternative ways of sharing information or alternative ways of getting it out of the country.” ........ a project that would modify Bluetooth so that a file containing, say, a video of a protester being beaten, could automatically jump from phone to phone within a “trusted network” of citizens. ....... By the end of 2011, the State Department will have spent some $70 million on circumvention efforts and related technologies ...... “The Afghans wanted the Cadillac plan, which is pretty expensive” ...... From the activist geeks on L Street in Washington to the military engineers in Afghanistan, the global appeal of the technology hints at the craving for open communication. ..... “I don’t think this revolution could have taken place without the existence of the World Wide Web.”
The military action in Libya was necessary - to prevent a Rwanda, to send a signal to dictators elsewhere - but it is not scalable. You could not take it to Saudi Arabia, not Iran, not Russia, not certainly China. But you can take these stealth communication tools everywhere. The phone is mightier than the sword.
Enhanced by Zemanta