If the people behind the attack on the Swaminarayan temple in Gujarat were Indian Muslims (which at this point seems unlikely), then I’m afraid the country will see violence the like of which it has never seen before, despite the appeals of calm from Deputy PM Advani, Leader of the Opp Sonia, and (surprise!) the Pol Pot of Gujarat Narendra Modi, and the fervent oh-no-not-agains of the chatterati. If the perpetrators were in fact mercenaries or Pakistani, and there is reasonable proof, there will be enormous pressure on the government to act against Pakistan — either diplomatically, or failing that, militarily (despite the fervent oh-nos from the anti-war left, including — oh, horrors — more articles by Arundhati Roy). Between riots and war, it is almost a Hobson’s choice. No points for guessing which any popularly elected government would choose, though.

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Thomas Friedman in the NYT: countries that are globalizing sensibly but steadily are also the ones that are becoming politically more open, with more opportunities for their people, and with a young generation more interested in joining the world system than blowing it up.

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It is too much, I guess, to expect a Bollywood director to actually make an original film.

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Italy’s Miss Yawn 2002: Italians are just plain tired of the girl-next-door, which they like to call “acqua e sapone” (soap and water look) and apparently want more sex, spice and suspense in their misses.

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Slate: The New Warren Buffett Way: from value investor to vulture investor.

With so many stocks having plummeted, so many companies beset by scandal, so much money fleeing the market, and such a crisis of investor confidence, one might expect that the classic value situations that are Buffett’s hallmark would be everywhere. Buffett should be grabbing an underpriced company every few days. The fact that Buffett, who has oodles of cash to put to work, hasn’t found many — and has instead been nibbling on distressed properties — shows just how overvalued stocks still are.

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Spent some quality time struggling with Java’s I/O routines over the weekend (I know, I have no life…) Any Java/Linux guru reading this — help/comment would be very appreciated. My problem’s about this servlet that does fine on Win2k, but takes ages to execute on Linux, but only when the client is another Java app. Any ideas?

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