Congratulations! The people of Maldives and USA

It has been almost year since i published anything in this blog. Today i thought i will write something. The first thing i want to do is congratulate the people of the Maldives and the United States for electing Mohamed Nasheed (Anni) and Barack Obama. The presidential elections in the Maldives and in the US went the way i dreamed. Two of my dreams for the year 2008 have been fulfilled, and its worth writing a blog post to celebrate after a break of almost a year.

Today i also came across a funny revelation while going through The New York Times; there have been some tensions between the camps of Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. There are several reasons for this friction, and one thing that i thought to mention here involves Palin's excessive spending on wardrobe.

Apparently Palin had a shopping spree and spent US$150,000 for wardrobe. She was advised by a McCain aide to buy three suits for the Republican National Convention and three more suits for the fall campaign. The clothes were budgeted between $20,000 to $25,000.

It got me thinking. $20,000 for just six suits? I guess it shows the difference between the rich America and our own country where we spent on average $12 for a shirt. On the other hand certain individuals and families in our country have spent large amounts for Rolex watches, original European paintings by the great masters of art, expensive suits and a few other luxuries.

Sarah Palin spent more than the budgeted amount. She spent $150,000 to the dismay of the McCain camp. Read the rest of the story here.

On Wednesday, two top McCain campaign advisers said that the clothing purchases for Ms. Palin and her family were a particular source of outrage for them. As they portrayed it, Ms. Palin had been advised by Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain aide, that she should buy three new suits for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September and three additional suits for the fall campaign. The budget for the clothes was anticipated to be from $20,000 to $25,000, the officials said.

Instead, in a public relations debacle undermining Ms. Palin’s image as an everywoman “hockey mom,” bills came in to the Republican National Committee for about $150,000, including charges of $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue. The bills included clothing for Ms. Palin’s family and purchases of shoes, luggage and jewelry, the advisers said.

The advisers described the McCain campaign as incredulous about the shopping spree and said Republican National Committee lawyers were likely to go to Alaska to conduct an inventory and try to account for all that was spent.

Ms. Palin has defended her wardrobe as the idea of the Republican National Committee and said that she would give it back.

“Those clothes, they are not my property,” she said. “Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the R.N.C. purchased.”