Over at George Mason University's Mercatus Center is this paper: "Postwar British Socialism and the Fabian Society (Chapter 7 from The Clash of Economic Ideas)":

[Abstract:] After Labour‘s landslide victory in the 1945 election, in Castle‘s words, "What we set out to do was to ensure that this system of fair shares and the planning and controls continued after the war, and when we won, that‘s what we did." She was right about the "fair shares" (government rationing) and controls. Prices controls and rationing of consumer goods continued for years after the war. Labour‘s postwar program of nationalization was the fruit of many decades of intellectual activism by the Fabian Society, a democratic socialist movement long led by Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, and George Bernard Shaw. In Labour‘s 1945 election victory, over 200 members of the Fabian Society were elected to Parliament. The shift from the doctrine of free markets and free trade to the doctrine of extensive government control was partly caused by the influences of the Fabian Society in Great Britain.

A recent recall of more than 500 million eggs potentially infected with salmonella in the United States creates a sales spike in the purchase of locally produced eggs.

Scott Rasmussen on the importance of figuring out what premises voters share when devising a poll:

The division of Americans into these groups has real significance for the way polls are conducted and how their results are interpreted, according to Mr. Rasmussen. One reason some polls offer misleading results, he says, is that the premise behind questions asked isn't always shared by those queried. "Many pollsters have asked voters whether policy makers should spend more to improve the economy or reduce spending to cut the deficit. But I found that 52% of Americans think more government spending hurts the economy and only 28% think it helps," he says. "The trade-offs pollsters offer voters often don't make sense to them. How you frame the question often obscures the results you get."

John Fund, "America's Insurgent Pollster," 21 Aug. 2010. Wall Street Journal, 21 Aug. 2010 <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703579804575441330559553568.html>.

According to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the West is losing to Islam, and she thinks that's a bad thing.

Our civilization is not indestructible: It needs to be actively defended. This was perhaps Huntington's most important insight. The first step towards winning this clash of civilizations is to understand how the other side is waging it—and to rid ourselves of the One World illusion.¹

How does she think the West is losing to Islam? She thinks that Islam is outspending the West in terms of exporting its culture:

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's independence day speech indirectly reveals a likely public policy failure, which in the long term could result in the eventual transformation of India into a Maoist state, much as how Nepal itself is well on its way toward becoming a Maoist state. In Manmohan Singh's speech, these two paragraphs in a nutshell show how the government views the problem and what it therefore sees as the solution. Some comments follow (bolding in quotations added):

From the Hindu:

The Left, the BJP and a few other parties have been disrupting Parliament proceedings for the past two days over the alleged involvement of the Maoists in organising Trinamool Congress rally at Lalgarh in West Bengal. They have been demanding a probe. To a question, Mr. Chidambaram said there was no evidence that the CPI (Maoist) was getting overt support from any international terrorist organisation or international militant organisation.

Read more at The Hindu.

DATE: 9 August 2010

ALBUQUERQUE: Spoken Sanskrit seminar open to the public will be held at the Hindu Temple Society of New Mexico at the corner of Utah and Zuni (South East) from August 9, 2010, to August 13 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The seminars are free for all the participants. Donations are encouraged.

Basu Ghosh Das, born in Chicago in 1955, is a traditional scholar from India and has conducted spoken Sanskrit seminars in India, Russia, and the United States.

BANGALORE: India on Saturday said it has taken up with Nepal the Pashupatinath temple incident in which two Indian priests were yesterday thrashed, their clothes torn and sacred thread cut by dozens of Maoists who stormed the temple protesting their recent appointment.

From January 21-24, a "Rashtriya vidvat goshti" ("national conference of traditional vedic/sanskrit scholars") was held at the Purnaprajna Vidyapith (Sanskrit College run by the Madhva Sampradaya, and specifically the Pejawar Math of Udupi, Karnataka), Bangalore.

Journeyman Pictures has had out since August 2008 a 21 minute video titled India's Maoist Revolution, which focuses on Maoist activity in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh state. As per the video, one-third of Indian territory is affected by Maoist insurgent activity. And as per the two commentators--Ajai Sahni of the Institute of Conflict Management and Arundhati Roy--the Maoist insurgency is a result of class conflict. "The overwhelming majority of India's population goes unrepresented," says Sahni.