Just finished watching the first part of the State of the Union debate on BBC World. One thing I learned was that Madeline Albright suports India's candidacy for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Another was that James Woolsey (former CIA director) was the only person who showed any cognisance of the fact that Peak Oil may be upon us. He rightly stressed that we need to start developing alternative energy sources and should also work on conserving the available resources. This point was made in the context of the emergence of India and China as strong powers and their energy demands in the coming decades.

I also got to see George Soros and Sid Blumenthal for the first time. When you read quite a lot of things written/said by somebody, you form a mental image of them in your mind. When you finally see that person, it invariably turns out that the mental image is at odds with how the person actually looks.