New Sign of Racism In The US

I admit this comes as a shock:

The number of those who approve of the drone strikes drops nearly 20 percent when respondents are told that the targets are American citizens. But that 65 percent is still a very big number, given that these policies really should be controversial.

I used to think that the American government is the sole culprit in all the misdeeds done in America's name all round the world, while retaining a warm feeling towards at least half of the Americans (assuming they are divided 50-50 between liberals and conservatives).  No longer.  

I use the word 'racism' since I believe that the 20% are OK with the drone attacks on non-Americans because they (the targets) are 'brown people'.

"Underground Metro more prone to terror attacks: Sreedharan"

Says E Sreedharan.  Underground Metro more prone to terror attacks: Sreedharan

The terror card.  But how could that be?  The overground Metro stands exposed to all and sundry.  Just yesterday Namma Metro was stopped for 30 minutes because someone from one of the high-rise houses (three-storeyed I guess) right next to the elevated track seems to have thrown a bag of garbage on the track.  Underground stations have fewer access points, so should be easier to monitor.

That wasn't the reason for having it overground apparently.  Cost was the reason for that.

'An underground metro rail will have five times more security risks when compared to an elevated metro,' Sreedharan said at the Urban Mobility India (UMI) conference-cum-exhibition here. 

... 

Sreedharan said that it would be his dream to give Delhi an all underground metro but it would not be financially viable. 

'As an engineer and a planner, it would be my dream to give Delhi a metro which is all underground... it is just not affordable for a developing country like India. We have been able to leverage limited resources making the metro financially viable,' he said.

Yes, $5 billion is OK, anything more is a bit of a problem.