Everyone, and the Opposition, wants the prime minister to go. Nope, I don’t pretend to nurse any special affection for any leader, but, come on, out over something as flimsy as a “leak” from one of the few hundred commissions set up every year? A little ridiculous, eh? “Breach of privilege”. What breach, and whose privilege?
A small, ignorant question: Haven’t we had such “leaks” before? Don’t our “commissions” work a bit like that tap next to the potty, forever leaking? Haven’t our media houses always seen the next front page, and the next 10-o-clock-news lead, thanks to the commissions’ propensity to leak at odd hours?
But has any prime minister/leader ever quit over something as t(r)icklish as that? Strange things (leaking House, choking drains, soaking spirit, stinking environ) sure do happen in monsoons.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
sudennly surprised: is our blasted 'war against terror' over?
Suddenly surprised Subject sees satanicworses sit up and actually open.
The poor and abortive attempt at alliteration apart, it was a shock. A terribly late, horribly outdated and completely redundant-by-now shock. But a shock still. For some weirder than weird reason, the blogger site refused to open and blink at me, on at least this terminal in office, even after the infotech ministry (or whoever) withdrew (or did whatever) with the post-Mumbai blasts ban.
A friend who knows a tad more about computers than merely spelling it out said it was a problem with the feed that my office gets.
Whatever…
Been a long time. And with not a lot of reason to hit the keyboards at this time of the night, that, perhaps, has to do so far as “reason” for this particular blog goes. Loads of grouse and garbage about the ban later (some newspapers even devoted a WHOLE page to blogger-grouse during the ban), I am still unable to eject a rear-splitting expletive at whoever was responsible for getting the ban in place. That, perhaps, has got a lot to do with the fact that I really use the medium for keying in garbage (like this), unlike wiser, thought-provoking souls who write wiser, allegedly thought-provoking garbage.
But THEY wanted a war against terrorism, didn’t they? All those smooth-talking, smart-looking, English-speaking, liberalism-spouting Alecs and Alices on prime-time TV discussions after the July 7 (just can’t get myself to call it 7/11) blasts. Crack down, they said. Wage a WAR, they said. Take a leaf outta George W’s book of “Patriot Act” (Read Michael Moore for more on that), they said.
WAR AGAINST TERROR, they said.
Freaking hell! Sounds way too cool for anything ever conducted in India!
They got it, didn’t they? With the embargo against some of the sites (shites, as Irvine Welsh would perhaps have said). But, lo, there they went again — crying wolf. How in the name of freedom can the government clamp down on the only freedom we ever tasted? they demanded. In newspaper article after opinion piece.
What can I say? You wanted a war, buddy, you got one. War, by its very definition, means an emergency. Make that Emergency, with capital ‘E’. There can’t be a semi- or partial war. Not against terror. Not against drugs. Not against abortion. Not against any of those others (Commies, semi-Commies, Arabs, semi-Arabs, sense, nonsense) that that Bush boy fought.
A war means total clampdown. Want war? Get ready to bid your blog bye-bye. Otherwise, shut up and spare us the balderdash.
The poor and abortive attempt at alliteration apart, it was a shock. A terribly late, horribly outdated and completely redundant-by-now shock. But a shock still. For some weirder than weird reason, the blogger site refused to open and blink at me, on at least this terminal in office, even after the infotech ministry (or whoever) withdrew (or did whatever) with the post-Mumbai blasts ban.
A friend who knows a tad more about computers than merely spelling it out said it was a problem with the feed that my office gets.
Whatever…
Been a long time. And with not a lot of reason to hit the keyboards at this time of the night, that, perhaps, has to do so far as “reason” for this particular blog goes. Loads of grouse and garbage about the ban later (some newspapers even devoted a WHOLE page to blogger-grouse during the ban), I am still unable to eject a rear-splitting expletive at whoever was responsible for getting the ban in place. That, perhaps, has got a lot to do with the fact that I really use the medium for keying in garbage (like this), unlike wiser, thought-provoking souls who write wiser, allegedly thought-provoking garbage.
But THEY wanted a war against terrorism, didn’t they? All those smooth-talking, smart-looking, English-speaking, liberalism-spouting Alecs and Alices on prime-time TV discussions after the July 7 (just can’t get myself to call it 7/11) blasts. Crack down, they said. Wage a WAR, they said. Take a leaf outta George W’s book of “Patriot Act” (Read Michael Moore for more on that), they said.
WAR AGAINST TERROR, they said.
Freaking hell! Sounds way too cool for anything ever conducted in India!
They got it, didn’t they? With the embargo against some of the sites (shites, as Irvine Welsh would perhaps have said). But, lo, there they went again — crying wolf. How in the name of freedom can the government clamp down on the only freedom we ever tasted? they demanded. In newspaper article after opinion piece.
What can I say? You wanted a war, buddy, you got one. War, by its very definition, means an emergency. Make that Emergency, with capital ‘E’. There can’t be a semi- or partial war. Not against terror. Not against drugs. Not against abortion. Not against any of those others (Commies, semi-Commies, Arabs, semi-Arabs, sense, nonsense) that that Bush boy fought.
A war means total clampdown. Want war? Get ready to bid your blog bye-bye. Otherwise, shut up and spare us the balderdash.
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