Dancing with Dogs: Morons Archives

Oh Dear

I guess it was only a matter of time until Hollywood latched on to Idi Amin to fawn over after the awesome Ms. Frida who couldn’t stop loving Stalin - Film shows Idi Amin as monster, cruel and charming.

Here are a few snippets that made me simply shake my head in wonder -

“I came away with a different understanding of him,” said star Forest Whitaker, already tipped for an Oscar for his role as Amin, where he alternates rants, cruelty and paranoia with affection for his entourage, and especially for the fictional Scottish doctor he befriends.
“All I had before was this image of a dictator who was killing all these people, and it’s true,” Whitaker told Reuters in an interview. “All these people did die during his reign. But afterward, after doing all the research, I started to see something of the other things.”

[snip]

“A lot of the things he tried to do were very popular,” said Macdonald, highlighting even the expulsion of the Asian business leaders as something that had resonated with Ugandans who became shopkeepers and business owners for the first time.

The Asians, expelled in 1972, had formed the backbone of the Ugandan economy before Amin came to power.
“Amin made Ugandans feel proud to be African, and proud to be Ugandan. He was someone who tried to get rid of the colonial inferiority complex,” Macdonald said.

There is a big difference between trying to humanize a monster and acknowledging that monsters like Idi Amin, Stalin and Hitler also belonged to the human species and exhibited some of the species’ characteristics.

While it is OK to point out some policies were popular, there should be a point also made as to how the popular policies were ineherently extremely hurtful. People fall for populist policies since they don’t know any better - there is a reason why a governing body should take the advice of qualified economists and other specialists who know their stuff way better than the regular people who cannot see beyond their own threshold.

What ultimately made me really uncomfortable about the article and the interviews were the tone of awe and amazement over Idi Amin with absolutely no balance of condemnation that Hollywoodians generally seem to have such a talent for….

Posted by shanti at 10:13 AM | TrackBack

September 6, 2006

Thoughts on Turner Diaries - updated

I almost debated putting this in the category of literature and media, but decided against it. Yes, I am reading this incredibly disgusting book that fills me with fear with every new line I read. For now, all I can see is how can a book so clearly convinced of the superiority of one race over all others still put “racism” in scary quotes - what believing your race is superior to all others to the point others’ lives are worth nothing is not racism? Why would someone who is clearly not afraid of airing his disgusting views on his race and others be so scared or concerned as to put the word racism in scare quotes throughout the book?

We are peaceful...as long as you don't want us to assimilate

My heart absolutely bleeds for these poor, little kids who after all simply think they are so much better than everyone else. Being so superior is not a sin, no?

For Conservative Muslims, Goal of Isolation a Challenge

The seventh- and eighth-graders were competing in a debate on this question: Is a segregated, all-Islamic upbringing key to protecting your Muslim identity? Eight of the dozen argued yes, using variants of the theme offered by Fatimah Waseem. Young Muslims “join with the non-Muslims, copy them and look up to them. This is hurting our identity… . Sometimes, we turn way from Islam,” she said. “In conclusion, … we cannot sway in the wind and become weak. We need to be protected … by segregation.”

I mean, who cares about integrating with a society that is just so much beneath them? After all, it isn’t like anybody here ever fought to be integrated with the normal society, right?

But the discovery that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were Saudi and that their violent al-Qaeda ideology was rooted in Wahhabism had a particularly deep impact on Salafis, whose theology and practices were suddenly suspect. The attacks “shook the foundations of anyone affiliated with Wahhabism or Salafism,” said Chris Khalil Moore, 31, of Annandale, a convert who became immersed in Wahhabism while studying in Saudi Arabia before abandoning that approach to Islam. “Because they were fingered, pointed at, as being the ideology that helped foster the mentality of those hijackers,” he said, “I think a lot of people got scared.”

Well, said! I know it is obviously not my place as an unbeliever woman to say anything about you in public, brother, but how dare anyone be scared of a group that only managed to kill a few thousands of people and believes unbelievers like me and that too women are not worth the air we breathe? It is obviously not because of incidents like this…..right?

One of the area’s most prominent Salafi preachers, Ali al-Timimi, is in prison, convicted on charges that he incited young Muslims to wage war against the United States.

How exactly do you reconcile this lament -

Salafi teachings begin to be more attractive to more Muslims as a defensive response,” said Peter Mandaville, an assistant professor in George Mason University’s Public and International Affairs Department. “In the face of this new global war on Islam, they are saying, we will hold fast and emphasize anew the fundamental tenets of our faith.

-with this from the same article -

For many years, the Saudis distributed a widely used English edition of the Koran with commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. But in the late 1990s, they began giving out a new edition called “The Noble Koran,” with commentary that reflected the Wahhabi outlook of two scholars at the University of Medina.

Dude, they don’t hate you - you are the ones who hate everything that is not you!

I also found this paragraph quite interesting - especially the parts I highlighted -

In mid-2004, federal agents raided the institute, confiscating computers and documents. But no one closely associated with the facility has ever been charged with a terrorism-related crime.

(I was right, brothers! Look at this - a terror conviction for an Al Huda teacher!)

Many local Muslims were particularly embarrassed by commentary that disparaged Jews and Christians even though neither group is mentioned in the original Arabic.”

It is very interesting that this article dwells adoringly on the strict gender-separation between the people -

A sign in a corner of the parking lot underscores its strict gender segregation.
“Sisters Only,” it reads.
Inside is the congregation’s prayer room — divided by a tall barrier so men and women cannot see one another during worship — and classrooms for Al-Huda School’s 300 to 400 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Here, too, is Muslim Link, a community newspaper published by Dar-us-Salaam.

It reminded me of this tidbit from another very interesting article I read this morning -

Hordes of horny men will wreak havoc across much of the world, according to a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Key reason: systematic abortion of female fetuses. Current result: “an estimated 80 million missing females in India and China alone,” plus imbalances elsewhere in Asia and North Africa. Future result: 12 to 15 percent more men than women in parts of the world over the next two decades. Implications: 1) “The growing number of young men with a lack of family prospects will have little outlet for sexual energy.” 2) “This trend would lead to increased levels of anti-social behavior and violence.” 3) “When single young men congregate, the potential for more organised aggression is likely to increase substantially and this has worrying implications for organized crime and terrorism.”

I seriously don’t understand what the article’s point was - are they saying that Salafism sucks or that it is increasing in popularity only because we are scared of it? (this was just a rhetorical question, btw). I find a lot of white-washing in here and excuse-making with absolutely no facts are no responsibility assignment. Everybody says that American Muslims are being discriminated against without once mentioning the reasons why or even mentioning the actual facts that prove if there is really discrimination. If 90% of terrorists fit a profile and people are worried youa re pretty close to the profile already is it really a good idea to get yourself closer to a self-destructive ideology? If a Muslim fell in a forest and hurt his little toe, are Jews still sons of apes and pigs? What hogwash!

Why not present the full facts about Wahabism and Salafism - you know, actual facts about what the preachers are preaching in the mosques and not what they say they are preaching? How about some actual freaking journalism from our journalists instead of stories that make my mind and not my heart bleed?

Posted by shanti at 3:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 23, 2006

Trolls beware!

You didn’t know you could get arrested for trolling blogs now, did you?

Lâ€™Affaire GoldFrisch III: We All Knew This Was Coming at Blog P.I. (beta)

Well, it is a good thing our trolls were not as bad as the one and only “Frisch”… the first troll to be prosecuted for trolling(per Instapundit). Heh!

Posted by shanti at 12:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 22, 2006

Relaxing with dead dictators - updated

Relaxing with dead dictators, especially genocidal ones - if that is your idea of a fun evening, look no further…

It’s like if “The Producers” opened an eatery - Yahoo! News

“This place is not about wars or crimes, but where people come to relax and enjoy a meal,” said restaurant manager Fatima Kabani, adding that they were planning to turn the eatery’s name into a brand with more branches in Mumbai.

I love how “Fatima” (sounds Muslim - what are the odds the next eatery chain she manages features huge images of Mohammed or the crusaders?) doesn’t understand why her little eatery called “Hitler’s Cross” should be about war and crimes and other icky stuff instead of relaxed and hip dining - the stuff one always associates with Hitler. I mean, they only serve “Halal” meat here, y’all! Jewish meat is available in owner Punit Shablok’s next restaurant, “The Gas Chamber”.

Update: In case you are wondering what kind of people let restaurants like this get into business, here is an email on the Desicritics group from Anil -

I am at loss , who exactly is stupid here? Is it the insensitive jerks who named name a restaurant after Hitler(mind you it is not illegal under Indian law to do so) or the reactionary Jews and guilt ridden Germans who are making a mountain out of a molehill?

I quoted the email in its entirety, so there is no question of context. What disgusts me is that somehow Jews are reactionary for complaining that people don’t idolize a nutcase who tried to exterminate their entire race? How very PC!

Posted by shanti at 12:07 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

August 21, 2006

Racism - Not self-defense - Updated

I tried really hard to not overreact to this item on the mutiny of some British passengers who refused to board a flight with two Arab-looking people who “might have” said something alarming in something that might or might not be Arabic. I didn’t want to jerk my knee too much - I tried to put myself in their shows - all I came up with was a big “F U” to the passengers who probably broke a few arms patting themselves on the back for bravely facing off with a couple of brown people.

I read through the entire thing - I understand how someone might have seemed suspicious wearing jackets during a warm patch of weather. I understand the atmosphere of suspicion the terror alerts create - the recently unearthed bomb plot would have made converts of some of the bravest people out there, probably. All that, still doesn’t excuse what happened. Where were cooler heads? Why couldn’t people think a little bit? The passengers have been through the same security measures all these dummies themselves came through, right? They have been checked as thoroughly as one can, right? What would have satisfied the idiots? IF the passengers stripped off completely?

How exactly are these morons making the atmosphere conducive for genuinely moderate people to not only live productive lives, but to report on those who are hell-bent on destroying those lives? This kind of nonsense serves no purpose but to propagate the racist tendencies and alienate those among us. I hope the passengers will NOT repeat this ever and call and write to apologoze to the innocent people they all virtually lynched in the plane.

Here is a good comment from Ann Althouse’s discussion of this same link -

The Krishnans said…

So lets see…Here is a scenario for thought. As someone who looks muslim - I am an Indian of Hindu ancestry - i have already been subjected to extra scrutiny by the TSA (i have no problem with that) and am waiting at my gate discussing the Bombay bombings with a colleague (who also happens to be Indian) and we are talking to each other in Hindi and the word bomb is part of our conversation. Mr and Mrs. Ignorant overhear us and freak out and refuse to fly with us thinking we are talking “Arabic”, look “muslim” and are security threat. All perfectly rational (but slightly silly - given that TSA has given us the once’s over). While certainly not racist, it smacks of paranoia. Its fine to be vigilant but the Malaga situation, at least to me, seemed to be an overreaction. But the one silver lining i see in this - flying while looking South Asian becomes more pleasurable because of empty planes.

Update: The passengers defend themselves…..

It was then, he said, that his wife Susanne began talking to another passenger who said she had sat next to the two men.
“She said she had heard them saying it was the last 30 minutes of their lives,” said Mr Wearden.

“It may well be that the two simply thought they were being funny, but it perhaps better explains the passenger reaction.”
He denied this reaction had been racist. “You hear about people making jokes about these things in airports and being arrested and told it is not a joking matter in the current climate. Well this was another case of that.”

Posted by shanti at 8:54 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

July 18, 2006

India hates the internet

Looks like I picked a bad time to go AWOL from the blogosphere - look what the Indian Government has decided to do - Verbal Rhapsody: The new Big Brother!

What a sad state of affairs where you’d rather throw the baby with the bath water….

Posted by shanti at 8:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 20, 2006

Butterfly Effect

So, a newspaper publishes cartoons in Denmark and people die in Nigeria. Some people really have too much pent-up rage and too little outlet to channel it, don’t they! I have got to wonder if by now non-Muslims are not chilled by this apparent “pan-Islamic” solidarity then when will they wake up. It is also really funny to go to see “secularists” who will denounce Hindutva-vadis and Fundamentalist right-winger Christians in a hearbeat falling all over themselves to justify this behavior. If nothing, it exposes the hypocrisies of the “multiculturalists” who really believe fundmanetalism truimphs.

update: Here are some interesting thoughts on religion via Althouse -

Mr. Dennett, anticipating the outrage his comparison will make, suggests that this how religion works. People will sacrifice their interests, their health, their reason, their family, all in service to an idea “that has lodged in their brains.” That idea, he argues, is like a virus or a worm, and it inspires bizarre forms of behavior in order to propagate itself. Islam, he points out, means “submission,” and submission is what religious believers practice. In Mr. Dennett’s view, they do so despite all evidence, and in thrall to biological and social forces they barely comprehend.

When you think about it, I don’t see much difference between religion and socialism. Both concepts require the individual to submit to a group-think as absolutely as possible. There is no room to maneuver or question the authority. I wonder is that is the reason why religion and socialism are anathema to each other - they are both essentially competing for the same resource - gullible individuals who somehow believe that the only way they can make themselves better is by submitting to the will of others.

Posted by shanti at 10:00 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

January 15, 2006

Thinking of Verizon's FIOS TV? Fuggedaboutit!

My husband has tried switching to Verizon’s FIOS TV for a week now. Apparently, they were all nice and helpful till they got him all signed up on the 9th of Jan. We had no idea what we were going to be in for at that point. The installation was scheduled for the 12th and we even get a confirmation phone call from the representative on the 10th. He was all excited about the new and improved HD TV and DVR they have promised him. On the 12th, of course, he takes off from work in the afternoon since Verizon said they will be over anytime between 1 and 5 PM.

He waits and waits and finally calls the customer service only to hear that someone should be over there shortly. No one showed up. When he called to enquire, apparently his order was messed up and they rescheduled it for the 13th (Friday) and they said they could come over anytime in the day, so he had to take the entire day off and wait again….in vain!

When he called the customer service Friday afternoon, he was told that we were not even scheduled for installation that day. They then said they were rescheduling it for Sunday (15th), again all day. We just found out that we were not scheduled for today either, but for the 24th of Jan. So, two-and-half days of waiting and over 5 hours of waiting on hold for customer support, we get a vague promise that they will show up 10 days from today.

We are sorely disappointed with the way Verizon has jerked us around on this while being extremely apologetic while doing so. Someone ought to tell them that it is easy to say, “sorry”, but harder to mean it when they don’t make any amends to stand behind the apologies.

Posted by shanti at 12:59 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

December 16, 2005

Get out of my house!

Things like this piss me off so bad, I cannot even think straight. Seriously, who the hell gave anybody rights to peep into a private citizen’s home when he is explicitly not doing anything criminal?

Smoking foes try to stop parents from lighting up-Metropolitan-The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper

Anti-smoking activists who are driving cigarettes from public places across the country are now targeting private homes — especially those with children.
Their efforts so far have contributed to regulations in three states — Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont — forbidding foster parents from smoking around children. Parental smoking also has become a critical point in some child-custody cases, including ones in Virginia and Maryland.
In a highly publicized Virginia case, a judge barred Caroline County resident Tamara Silvius from smoking around her children as a condition for child visitation.

As a parent, I understand smoking around kids is bad. My husband smokes, but he is only allowed to smoke in the yard and never around our son. That is something we decide for ourselves and we don’t need someone snooping around to make sure my husband is not smoking around our child.

Think about it - fatty food is bad for kids too. It makes them obese and condemns them to an extremely unhealthy life. Is the government going to levy fines on parents who feed their children bad food? Is the government going to feed the kids and force them to exercise every day since it is really all about the children ™? This is such lunacy, that I hope enough people get outraged with this stuff that they quit snooping on private citizens - especially when they are not doing anything remotely illegal.

Posted by shanti at 11:37 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

October 13, 2005

Suck it, Toral

Oh Toral, Toral, Toral! You sucky, self-important, bitch! Seriously, if you had half as much talent as you think you do, you could have stepped up and contributed to the team. As for your “religious” reasons for not wearing the costume? What crock!

More on this tomorrow when I am not so drunk or pissed!

Posted by shanti at 9:01 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 5, 2005

Out of their frigging minds

This is just awesome - when are we going to draft a bill that will penalize men whose sperm is being used by those criminally unmarried women to get criminally pregnant? What the ~~fuckity~~ fuck has marriage got to do with anything? While we are at it, why don’t we also draft legislations that will outlaw driving and voting for women so they can sit at home and stop indulging in criminal acts like having sex and getting pregnant without getting married? Morons!

Unauthorized Reproduction bill has been drafted

Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant “by means other than sexual intercourse.” According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother throu gh assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a “petition for parentage” in their local county probate court.

update: Ok, the bill seems to apply to only those women who use artificial methods of reproduction, so it might not go as far as my post or the linked post suggested, I take a little bit of my outrage back (see above). It still is an extremely bad law. How many women who can afford IVF treatments do these idiots think are not in a position to raise a child by themselves? Even if they are extremely poor, no body has the right to restrict a non-criminal woman’s right to get pregnant whenever she feels like it.

Update: The legislation has now been dropped

Posted by shanti at 9:22 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 3, 2005

No Pooh for you!

Well, apparently Winnie the Pooh and Piglet are now banned from a benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands. What next? Can we get computers banned fomr offices since the Amish are offended? How about banning men from my workplace since I can claim that my feminist sentiments are offended by their mere presence? Sheesh, people - whatever happened to live and let live?

Funny is this particular line from the story -

Councillor Mahbubur Rahman, a practising Muslim, backed the ban. He said: “I’â€™s a tolerance of people’s beliefs.”

From where I sit, it looks like a ban is as bad as intolerance gets than anything else.

Posted by shanti at 9:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 29, 2005

Thursday deep thoughts

This is apparently what passes for deep, philosophical thoughts at Rediff these days. It is amazing how an author who is proud of some Americans disappointed in George Bush saying that he is taking the country backwards by 20 years, is completely unfazed by a thought process that doesn’t even belong in the last century, forget this one in the name of religion.

Want to choose America’s president?

The most disturbing question I asked a Muslim cleric in Washington was whether it was right for Indian Muslim girls to marry Hindu boys.
The answer, from Dr Abdullah Muhammad Khouj, was No.

I then asked if it was okay if the girl retained her religion while the boy retained his. The answer was “Al Haram, Al Haram (It’s a sin).” Dr Khouj added that Islam did not permit Muslim girls to marry non-Muslims. The marriage was possible only if the boys converted to Islam. He did say, however, that Muslim boys could marry ‘people of the book’ like Christians or Jews, and that the girls could retain their own religion. Marrying Hindu girls was impossible unless they first converted to Islam.

My question was based on the fact that, as Muslim girls get educated and become economically independent, it is difficult for Muslim families to tell them not to marry non-Muslims. There are many cases in India — including one in my family — but the cleric said they were un-Islamic. He added that one ought to explain to one’s sisters and daughters that there was life after death.
It is a question Indian Muslims will have to ask themselves and find solutions to. What will they do when such a situation crops up in their families? Will they be loyal to their religion or give in to demands of female family members?

[Emphasis mine]

Seriously, this author actually expects us to take him seriously when he is such a frigging wimp that he won’t even come out and say what he really means is that it will be hard to force your ancient will on educated and accomplished women in the name of religion! It is sheer cowardice or tacit approval of the “status quo” (take your pick) that he leaves that issue off with a stupid question couched in irritating terms like “demands of female family members”. Is this what passes for progressive thought these days?

Posted by shanti at 2:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 26, 2005

Expecting a virgin? I have a bridge to sell

What happens if you are a fading star who tries to gain a bit of relevance by advising kids about premarital sex and precautions? The same people who built you temples a few years ago, now come after you with brooms(?) and slippers. Here is my take on this - would the reaction have been the same if it was a male actor talking about girls having pre-marital sex? Would there be any reaction from people at all if it was a male actor talking about men having pre-marital sex? From the idiots raining fatwas on tennis players to those who see themselves as moral arbiters of the dresses college girls wear (thanks for the link, Chinaman!), what is this fundamental obsession of the so-called culture purists with women and their bodies?

Why is it that almost every aspect of culture the purists want to “protect” deals with controlling the womenfolk? Why is it that in a country where a majority worship sensual female goddesses, any sign that women may possess an innate sexuality met with oppression?

As for Khushboo’s ill-fated remarks, what she is really doing here is putting in words the reality of the days we live in. 10 years ago when I was in India, I knew of kids indulging in casual pre-marital sex. Once I left home to do my Masters’, I lived with my husband-to-be for two years before we got married. While neither supporting nor denigrating the arrangement, my point is that premarital sex is as common now as it was at any time and the one way you can prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions is by educating the kids about preventive procedures. Abstinence till marriage is a great thing in theory but tough to practice in an age when most men and women wait until their late twenties or thirties to marry - preferring to get settled in their careers, etc. before getting hitched. It is highly impractical and unreasonable to expect these men and women to not have sex while on the other hand they are being bombarded by graphically sexual images from every kind of media.

Posted by shanti at 12:17 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

September 22, 2005

Kids without daddies

If you take the study and the book mentioned in this article at its face-value, it appears as though I am doing my son a great disservice by staying married to his daddy. The best thing that I could do for his future apparently, is to leave my husband and go find myself another woman to leave with - sounds like a dead-beat-dad’s utopia doesn’t it? (Sumanth, you might have something to say about the book).

It is just amazing how if you read the parts quoted in the book, the author thinks there is something inherently toxic about masculinity and thinks boys are better off when they are painting their finger-nails and learning ballet. I wonder what she thinks about butch girls who are ultra-competetive and eschew the traditional idea of feminine to be tom-boys - would they be as toxic as the men they seem to be emulating?

The “study’s” author also seems to think that somehow only boys raised by lesbians have any empathy or consideration for other human beings - I think my husband who was definitely raised by a heterosexual couple would like disagree, citing all those times he has cooked and cleaned for me. I guess it is OK to paint with the broadest brushes available if you are on the politically correct side. It is also quite interesting how she misses (how obtuse must one be) the extremely obvious clues of the boys asking for a “daddy” - in her world, asking for a dad apparently doesn’t mean they want to have a dad (D’oh! Why didn’t I think of that?).

Incidentally, she is not too averse to male role models - she wants the boys to have male role models - she just prefers that these men just not be dads of the boys.

Drexler warns us about male influence, writing â€œfathers can be destructive and a boy may be better off without his father. Sometimes a father can be an aggressor who berates the mother, is hypercritical of his children orâ€”in less dire circumstancesâ€”is simply not a good role model.â€

It is just irritating just how far an obtuse and closed-mind can go to prove a point to its liking while ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Well, atleast there is one little boy who she can probably relate to well enough and think he is one well-adjusted dude since he has always worshipped his mom so…I think his name is Norman Bates!

(link via Dean)http://feminist4fathers.blogspot.com/2005/10/review-raising-boys-without-men.html

update: Here is another blog’s review of the book - he feels pretty much the same way as me and he has even read the book.

Posted by shanti at 2:11 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

September 16, 2005

Katrina and South Asian Blogs

I should kick myself and just go for a walk now - just google “Katrina vs Mumbai Flood” and see the responses of most South Asian blogs - typical responses deal with “racism” (yeah, it is’nt like we don’t have a caste system), “looting” (we are so much more crime-free - especially since our people don’t wait till a hurricane to loot around or rape people) - almost every single mention I have seen of the hurricane is a smug response deriding the US while claiming to feel “oh-so-sorry” about the victims. I have been to thousands of American blogs that raised tons of money on their own initiative for the tsunami - not in one place did I hear this kind of barely-concealed-glee at being able to lecture a country in need. What is it? some kind of an inferiority complex?

What is it about South Asians and Indians in general that makes us think we can kick someone when they are down while we are feeling all smug and morally superior about it? These are the same people mind you, who get their panties in a wad when another blog makes a stupid joke at their cost and shriek, “racism”! Excuse me, while I don’t get too offended about our delicate sensibilities when we ourselves don’t waste a minute trying to take advantage of another’s bad luck.

Epilogue: I am exhausted by this hate - I am going out to the Oktoberfest to get sozzled out on some good Hefeweizen - you all have a good weekend too!

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September 15, 2005

I hope they haven't broken their arms...

…they must have been patting their backs so hard! Seriously, I got via one of my husband’s friends, the vilest, most disgusting piece of shit I have yet to read about hurricane Katrina. I haven’t been this angry and disgusted at something in ages now and believe me when I say I want to reach out and strangle all those smug bastards who are passing this mail around (half of them living on the kind scraps the US throws them and begging in line for a US citizenship). Yes, I am still trying to temper my response so as not to be as shrill as those I criticize.

“inches of rain in new orleans due to hurricane katrina… 18 inches of rain in mumbai (July 27th)…. 37.1
population of new orleans… 484,674
population of mumbai…. 12,622,500

deaths in new orleans within 48 hours of katrina…100
deaths in mumbai within 48hours of rain.. 37.
WRONG! Death toll in Mumbai was 1000 and rising still…
Correction: The email lists only deaths in the first 48 hours, which is I guess an ingenuous way to avoid the total death toll numbers - still, the first 48 hours’ death toll in Mumbai seems to be about 421 per Snopes Forums where I got the MSNBC link from.

number of people to be evacuated in new orleans… entire city..woh ho
number of people evacuated in mumbai…10,000

Cases of shooting and violence in new orleans…Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in mumbai.. NONE

Time taken for US army to reach new orleans… 48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach mumbai…12hours

status 48hours later…new orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricty
status 48hours later..mumbai is back on its feet and is business is as usual

USA…world’s most developed nation
India…third world country..

oops…did i get the last fact wrong???
Well Done Mumbaikars (Indians) “

Ponder on that for a bit, will ya?

Let us think about this a minute and get a few more facts in -
# of feet of water NO was under - 20 (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/29/hurricane.katrina/)
# of feet of water Mumbai was under - how about “over” 5 feet?

Winds that hit NO and Mississippi - upto 155 MPH as a CAT 4
Winds in Mumbai - upto 73 MPH as a cyclone

NO is below sea-level.

The total SQ.footage destroyed by Katrina - more than size of Great Britain, i.e., greater than 216,777 SQ. KM - this is of course, almost 2/3rds of the entire state of Maharashtra (307,690 SQ. KM)

Do you now see how incredibly stupid this argument is?

Wanna talk about facts? How about a few more inconvenient facts that these nincompoops try to forget with their selective amnesia…

Death toll in tsunami in India - atleast 14000

This is of course, not taking into account the deaths that happen every time some religion decides to beat up on another religion or when a “giant tree falls” and innocent people are massacred just because they belong to the wrong religion.

Now do you see how pointless this argument is? People who take the opportunity of a disaster to advance their agendas - regardless of their nationality, color, creed and bias are worse than the vultures that feed on the dead. You want to score points? Do it on an even plane. A graveyard is a place for sympathy - not a place to argue or debate or jump up and down about how great you are and what a cool country you belong to. You people disgust me and make me sick!

One last thing to remember is that when you guys had the tsunami, this country’s private citizens and companies poured in millions of dollars in charity…talk to me when you can match them if not top them in generosity.

p.s. If this had been an American friend circulating a similar email during the tsunami or some such, I would have been equally disgusted and my reaction would be equally strong!

p.p.s. I guess I am not the only one -One of our readers, Dilip has this to say about this email - “I think the whole comparison to begin with smacks of an idiot with some convoluted notion of superiority over how a country manages disaster of unequal magnitude…self-evidently stupid if i can put it that way”

Posted by shanti at 7:17 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

September 6, 2005

No Irony Involved!

Steven Spielberg is making a movie about the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes and guess who is feeling left out - the terrorist subhuman who planned the massacre, of course!

In Reuters’ own words -

GAZA - The Palestinian mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics raid, in which 11 Israeli athletes died, said director Steven Spielberg should have consulted him about a new film on the episode to be sure to get the story right.
In an irony worthy of a John le Carre novel, Mohammad Daoud echoed veterans of Israel’s Mossad spy service in questioning the sources used for “Munich,” a thriller chronicling the massacre and the Israeli revenge assassinations that followed.
“I know nothing about this film. If someone really wanted to tell the truth about what happened he should talk to the people involved, people who know the truth,” Daoud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location in the Middle East.

UN-FRICKING-BELIEVABLE! So if someone makes a movie about the Mumbai blasts, we will have to consult Dawood Ibrahim? If we want to make a movie about the sub-sub-humans that mercilessly killed the children in Besslan we need to consult those that did it so we can the atmosphere and the details right? If we make a movie about Ted Bundy and Charles Manson, we need to make sure we get to hear his side of it so we can “understand” the poor souls? How pathetic is this! Of course, the icing on the cake is Spielberg’s response to the idiot’s rant -

He has vowed that “Munich” will be sensitive to all sides.

I had great respect for Spielberg - he has squandered it to the point I don’t feel like watching his movies anymore. There is nothing wrong with taking a stand. There is evil in the world and there is a time to look for gray areas and there is a time to expose evil in it’s horrible glory. Equivocating as a rule is nothing but cowardice. It will not change my mind about not bothering to watch the movie that…

An Israeli actress cast in the film confirmed press reports that it is based, at least partly, on “Vengeance”, a book on the reprisals campaign that has been widely discredited.

Why even bother spending money and making a movie about history if you choose to ignore the facts of the matter?

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August 11, 2005

Abortion rights trump truth

Abortion rights trump the truth - atleast for NARAL, apparently. The organization is so blinded by abortion politics and ideology that they are resorting to making false claims in ads about the newly nominated for Supreme Court Justice, John Roberts. Here is Factcheck.org’s take on the issue -

An abortion-rights group is running an attack ad accusing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of filing legal papers “supporting … a convicted clinic bomber” and of having an ideology that “leads him to excuse violence against other Americans” It shows images of a bombed clinic in Birmingham , Alabama .
The ad is false.

And the ad misleads when it says Roberts supported a clinic bomber. It is true that Roberts sided with the bomber and many other defendants in a civil case, but the case didn’t deal with bombing at all. Roberts argued that abortion clinics who brought the suit had no right use an 1871 federal anti-discrimination statute against anti-abortion protesters who tried to blockade clinics. Eventually a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed, too. Roberts argued that blockades were already illegal under state law.
The images used in the ad are especially misleading. The pictures are of a clinic bombing that happened nearly seven years after Roberts signed the legal brief in question.

This is what makes me distance myself from those militantly on any side of any issue - especially if the militancy of thought eliminates reason from discussion and disassociates itself from any rationality and open discussion. You can always argue with me and reason me towards your way of thinking - when you resort to outright lies to impugn on a person’t integrity to serve your agenda and rally up your base, you are pathetic and are not worth listening to.

Frankly, these people scare me - I am pro-choice (conditionally) and I don’t want anyone legislating against my body. I want to be on the side of people who want to be for womens’ rights - organizations like NOW and NARAL are now no better than the people they decry and have lost any credibility with people like me who want to be progressive but stop short of feminist extremism (frankly, I don’t even think these idiots are representing womens’ interests anyway).

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July 8, 2005

Idiotarians are out in full force...

The blood has not yet dried in th estreets of London, but morons are out in full force already - Here is a similar column from a certain Raman from Rediff, filled with gems like -

The fact that the US has been waging the war in foreign territory against foreign nationals and not against its own nationals in its own territory has deprived its operations of any measure of self-restraint. No weapon is out of bounds to the US troops participating in this war and no methods are above the law.

[emphasis mine]

A more elaborate deconstruction might follow if I feel like this is worth it, but I am amazed how the moonbats always manage to find someone completely different from the people who pulled the trigger to blame in every single incident. Also noteworthy is this one part from the column -

More Indian civilians have died at the hands of jihadi terrorists than nationals of any other country. Yet, we try to observe considerable self-restraint in our counter-terrorism campaigns. No air strikes, no use of heavy artillery, no armour, no shaving off of the beards of the detenus, no shackles on their legs, no restrictions on their praying in a group, no isolation, no ban on their relatives meeting them periodically, no instances of degrading treatment or disrespect to their religion

Aha - and India is so much safer for all of that caution isn’t it? No? My bad!

Allegations of torture are often made against the Indian security forces—-some of them true—-but nobody has ever accused them of practices like descecrating the Holy Koran, forcing the detenus to undress and indulge in simulated sexual acts with each other etc.

[emphasis mine]

Let me tell you right now how much it boils my blood when idiots lump “desecrating” a freaking book with actual torture. It is a book, made of paper and has no life of its own or feelings. You could put it in a shredder for all I care and it won’t feel a thing. It is idiotic how everyone conveniently forget the detainees themselves mishandling the Koran -

Hood also said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Korans. “These included using a Koran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Koran, attempting to flush a Koran down the toilet and urinating on the Koran,” Hood’s report said. It offered no possible explanation for the detainees’ motives. In the most recent of those 15 cases, a detainee on Feb. 18 allegedly ripped up his Koran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had given up on being a Muslim. Several guards witnessed this, Hood reported.

I guess wee little Islamist minds don’t get bent out-of-shape if it is a fellow Islamist doing the abuse, huh!

update: Here is a good story from the NYTimes exploring the various terror links in Britain. This little piece stood out to me, since L pointed it out in his first comment - “Complicating Britain’s antiterrorism strategy is its refusal or delays of requests for extradition of suspects by some allies, including the United States, France, Spain and Morocco.” - even though refusal of extradition to India is not mentioned.

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June 30, 2005

Low, low, low!

Seriously, Rediff has a messageboard question on their website saying that even before the ink dried on the defense pact between India and Us, there were revelations of Henry Kissinger called Indians “bastards” during the Nixon era. They want to find out if India should react to that. Does it make any sense whatsoever to react to decades-old stuff just because it has just been declassified? Nixon is no more, Indira Gandhi is not alive and Kissinger is in no way involved with the current administration - what is the point on making a big deal about this now?

I think this is what is the problem is with us - living in the past. We refuse to let go of the demons of the past and refuse to look ahead. Every time there is a remote chance of us getting anywhere better, we go into a self-destructive mode and shoot ourselves in the foot. Idiots!

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May 3, 2005

Jeff Van Gundy belongs in asylum

Yes, he does - I mean, does he seriously believe that the entire NBA league is out to get his poor, poor Ming? Does he realize that Erick Dampier and Shawn Bradley got into as much foul trouble as Yao Ming in the play-offs? Yao has 3.3 PF/game average in the regular season vs. 4.8 in the play-offs. Damp has 3.1/gm in regular season vs. 4.2 in the play-offs. Another big stat? Yao Ming has been 30 mpg in the play-offs vs. Dampier playing 20.6 minutes. Do the math and you will see who is getting more fouls called on them per minute.

All stats aside, I think even ethically what Mark Cuban did was right (and I admit 90% of the time Cuban goes over the top on issues). Cuban had a problem with the way Yaoi was setting moving picks and he sent the league the tapes to review - if that results in the refs being more careful while calling fouls and more vigilant, I am all for it. If JVG thinks they are missing calls (I can think of the obviously missed call against Finley when he was out-of-bounds while stealing from Barry), he should do the same. Just like the non-called fouls on Yao that may have made a difference for the Mavs in the first two games but didn’t, these missed calls while reviewed, will not help anything but to prevent such mistakes in the future.

I don’t think NBA officiating is all that great - every single fan out there feels like the referees have it out for them. That doesn’t mean it gives the coaches free rein to talk conspiracy theories. Play ball and leave the “truth is out there” fantasies to the X-files crowds, JVG! I hated it when the Mavericks used to whine for calls last year (they are much better this year) and I feel JVG is as pathetic in not recognizing his team’s weaknesses that are killing them and trying to focus the issue on stupid things instead.

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May 2, 2005

Llllloser!

Seriously, this dude needs to get on with his life and get a new wife.

ABC News: Groom Still Wants to Marry Runaway Bride

DULUTH, Ga. May 2, 2005 - The jilted groom whose bride-to-be ran away four days before their wedding still wants to marry fiancee Jennifer Wilbanks, saying, “Haven’t we all made mistakes?” “Just because we haven’t walked down the aisle, just because we haven’t stood in front of 500 people and said our I Do’s, my commitment before God to her was the day I bought that ring and put it on her finger, and I’m not backing down from that,” John Mason said Monday in an interview with Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” show.

I have been in a similar situation where I rejected the groom my parents tried to get me married to because I was in love with my husband (then still my boyfriend). This guy went and spilled the beans to my parents and still wanted to marry me. At that point, I was so disgusted that I would have run away from home rather than marry this creep. It is hard to respect a doormat and a lot of men will do better at relationships if they stop taking every single thing lying down.

Posted by shanti at 8:26 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

January 26, 2005

Simmering Anger

Think hypothetically - let’s say something bad happened to you. You are initially not very bothered by it since it is not such a big deal in the overall picture. You try to mend it and make it alright. The person who has done you bad refuses to back down - it all turns into a big fight. There are sides in the fight now. There are people who support you since the wrong was done to you (regardless of the how big or small deal it is) - there are people who support the person who wronged you.

Now, you start wondering why would someone support someone who obviously did something wrong and refuses to accept any responsibility. As far as I can tell, some people are perpetual champions of the underdog and the only quailification be that the person is an underdog - he/she doesn’t have to be in the right. Some people on the other hand, have no bone in the fight, but just like appearing all compassionate or understanding - again, doesn’t matter who did wrong or who did right.

Ultimately, the whole dynamic breaks down into a group who want justice served regardless of the size of the transgression, a group who will give a pass in the name of compassion without so much as a pause to think about the offended sensibilities of the victim and even if the wrongdoer still refuses to admit he/she did anything wrong and finally a group of people who just snipe at everybody depending on the opportunity.

Seriously, if you are in the first group, you would be getting more and more angry by now and something that didn’t seem like such a big deal now becomes a fight to get justice since the other side will not give you an inch without trying to play victim (I know wrongdoers playing victim is the classic problem in a lot of cases we are seeing these days). Apparently as far as a few people are concerned, doing right doesn’t matter. Of course, there are gray areas in all these scenarios, but how is one side helping but entrench the other side unless they are willing to meet them half-way? When a simple sorry will do to alleviate a lot of trouble, it is very disingenuous to actually concoct a cock-and-bull story and then accuse your accusers of a witch-hunt. Sometimes, some people deserve all they get.

Note: There is a reason I am not naming any names here - we wouldn’t want to start a feeding frenzy here now, do we?

update: Read this too.

Rohan Pinto apologized. Yes, he did and Amit has it here.

Posted by shanti at 10:15 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

January 24, 2005

What up, Radio?

What is going on with Radio shock-jocks these days? There used to be a time when they came close to the line but never crossed it while still managing to be funny. First comes the controversy of the RJs calling Indian call-center employees and abusing them - now they are actually trying to make fun of tsunami victims with the “tsunami song”. Huh? How are lyrics like these supposed to make you laugh? What kind of sick and disgusting vile beings come up with such songs?

..All at once you could hear the screaming ch*nks and no one was safe from the wave there were africans drowning, little chinamen swept away you could hear god laughing, “swim you b*tches swim”

So now you’re screwed, it’s the Tsunami
you better run or kiss your ass away, go find your mommy
I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head
and now the children will be sold to child slavery…

It is one thing to make prank calls to stores and tease the employees or even frustrate them - it is completely over the line and unacceptable to leave people in tears over the harrassment and try to cash in on human tragedy by using racist gags. It is sick! I think it is in the hands of consumers to show these radio stations that there is a difference between crazy and just plain nasty and we the public will not let them get away with blurring those lines.

Posted by shanti at 10:44 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

December 2, 2004

I am having waay too much fun!

Just this one more article from the Verbal Terrorist and I promise I will stop. This is her Peace Prize acceptance speech that was pointed to me by Dina to supposedly make me see the light and accept Roy as my personal savior. Heh! ZNet |Vision & Strategy | Peace?…

A few gems from the speech, if I may quote…

In 1991 US President George Bush senior mounted Operation Desert Storm. Tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed in the war. Iraq’s fields were bombed with more than 300 tonnes of depleted uranium, causing a fourfold increase in cancer among children. For more than 13 years, twenty four million Iraqi people have lived in a war zone and been denied food and medicine and clean water. In the frenzy around the US elections, let’s remember that the levels of cruelty did not fluctuate whether the Democrats or the Republicans were in the White House. Half a million Iraqi children died because of the regime of economic sanctions in the run up to Operation Shock and Awe.

Note the first sentence - one fine Day George H.W. Bush woke up and decided to invade Iraq. Yep, just like that! It isn’t like Iraq invaded Kuwait and Kuwait asked for help or anything - it isn’t like her beloved UN wanted Kuwait liberated or anything. For a reknown environmentalist, I would like to know where are critiques of Saddam draining the marshes to starve the people dependent on them and causing irreparable harm to the marsh lands. What about oilwells he set on fire? Nooo…not relevant to the discussion.

A new, detailed study, fast-tracked by the Lancet medical journal and extensively peer reviewed, estimates that 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives since the 2003 invasion. That’s one hundred halls full of people - like this one.

Of course, the Lady will just forget to mention that the study actually says that they are 95% certain that the number of deaths could be anywhere between 8000-194,000…Oops or not, since her brand of people only believe in the emotion evoked by the numbers she throws around - not the factual basis. I bet the defense will be - “8000 or 194,000, they are still dead people and it is awful!”. I agree with the argument, but I wish before rushing to defend her they would admit she lied!

The head of Britain’s BBC had to step down and one man committed suicide because a BBC reporter accused the Blair administration of ‘sexing up’ intelligence reports about Iraq’s WMD programme. But the head of Britain retains his job even though his government did much more than ‘sex up’ intelligence reports. It is responsible for the illegal invasion of a country and the mass murder of its people.

Again, we will of course forget to mention there was an inquiry into the Blair administration’s conduct and they did not find any “sexing up”.

Even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq - stunning new evidence has revealed that Saddam Hussein was planning a weapons programme. (Like I was planning to win an Olympic Gold in synchronized swimming.) Thank goodness for the doctrine of pre-emptive strike. God knows what other evil thoughts he harbored - sending Tampax in the mail to American senators, or releasing female rabbits in burqas into the London underground. No doubt all will be revealed in the free and fair trial of Saddam Hussein that’s coming up soon in the New Iraq.

Because as we all know that Saddam was but a cute, little fuzzy-wuzzy who absolutely never did anyone any harm. It wasn’t like he massacred Kurds by hundreds of thousands with non-existent chemical weapons - it wasn’t like he tortured people for fun or had a team of professional rapists or murdered peolpe and charged their families for the cost of bullets…let’s move on, alright? Poor non-fair-trial-getting Saddam!

Next, she goes on to point out relations between Bechtel and Saddam and the eevil Republicans - some real, most dubious or atleast circumstantial - but through it all the blame seems to lie squarely on everyone else involved except Saddam - that poor victim of his circumstances! Also, note that there is no mention of the oil-for-scandal or the UN or Germnay, France and Russia who were making money off of illegal contracts while Iraqis were starving. No, we decided more people would back us if we just painted America and Bechtel black, so we will not make any efforts to be fair or balanced.

Invaded and occupied Iraq has been made to pay out 200 million dollars in “reparations” for lost profits to corporations like Halliburton, Shell, Mobil, Nestle, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Toys R Us. That’s apart from its 125 billion dollar sovereign debt forcing it to turn to the IMF, waiting in the wings like the angel of death, with its Structural Adjustment program. (Though in Iraq there don’t seem to be many structures left to adjust. Except the shadowy Al Qaeda.)

Hey, what about the 18 billion dollars America poured into the reconstruction? I guess it doesn’t count.

The only kind of resistance that has managed to survive is as crazed and brutal as the occupation itself. Is there space for a secular, democratic, feminist, non-violent resistance in Iraq? There isn’t really.

Money quote, of course - not the fault of the poor resistance for being comprised of terrorists - blame America! Why is it that she will not mention the one good thing that came out of American invasion of Afghanistan, which was the holding of free and fair elections for the first time in decades? Shhh, we only do America-bashing here. Oh well, I will paraphrase somethign I read recently to say I fail to see how her arguments lead her to her conclusions or how people who see venom in her attackers fail to see the venom belying her flowery prose. To each his own, I guess - as for me, this is the last time I will talk about her here…I hope!

Posted by shanti at 10:47 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

December 1, 2004

Sage wisdom

I didn’t stop arguing in the other Roy thread because I lost the argument - it was because at some point it becomes tiresome to talk past people who are waiting to switch goalposts on you and change the direction of the argument from one place to another just so they can keep arguing and never have to acknowledge you might have a point somewhere. It is absolutely tiresome to have to explain the same point over and over again to where you begin to wonder if people are talking to you for the sake of discussion or if they have already made up their minds and are trying to engage you long enough to make you “see the folly of your ways”.
Here though is a vintage gem from Roy - read on…

The Algebra of Infinite Justice | Arundhati Roy | December 2001 issue of The Progressive magazine.

In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions the U.S. insisted upon. She replied that it was “a very hard choice,” but that all things considered, “we think the price is worth it.” Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the U.S. government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die.

No mention in the above paragraph about Saddam’s adventurism - nothing about how he could have had the sanctions lifted by complying with the UN’s mandate - nothing about the oil-for-food program that should have provided enough supplies to keep the civilians going - nada. Zilch!

Operation Enduring Freedom is being fought ostensibly to uphold the American Way of Life. It’ll probably end up undermining it completely. It will spawn more anger and more terror across the world. For ordinary people in America, it will mean lives lived in a climate of sickening uncertainty: Will my child be safe in school? Will there be nerve gas in the subway? A bomb in the cinema hall? Will my love come home tonight? Being picked off a few at a time—now with anthrax, later perhaps with smallpox or bubonic plague—may end up being worse than being annihilated all at once by a nuclear bomb.

So what would have made America safer? Giving in to Al Qaeda and Taliban? Not responding to a deliberate attack on the country?

The U.S. government and governments all over the world are using the climate of war as an excuse to curtail civil liberties, deny free speech, lay off workers, harass ethnic and religious minorities, cut back on public spending, and divert huge amounts of money to the defense industry.

Laying off workers as part of a conspiracy? I am sure an economy in a recession that got hit again on 9/11 had nothing to do with the lay-offs. The lady does funny real good!

Terrorism has no country. It’s transnational, as global an enterprise as Coke or Pepsi or Nike. At the first sign of trouble, terrorists can pull up stakes and move their “factories” from country to country in search of a better deal. Just like the multinationals.

Those darn MNCs! Will they lay off bombing civilians and terrorizing innocent people, already!

The September 11 attacks were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by Osama bin Laden (who knows?) and delivered by his couriers, but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America’s old wars: the millions killed in Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel—backed by the U.S.—invaded Lebanon in 1982, the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

…because Bin Laden was so worried about the Koreans, the Vietnamese and others so much that he orchestrated the attacks, right? The Lady will again I am sure “unintentionally” leave out any mention that Operation Desert Storm came about under the auspices of the UN and because Saddam invaded Kuwait another sovereign nation - why bother with messy facts when we can just leave them out and paint a one-sided picture of the reality? Also, let us talk about Korea but not mention that South Korea backed by the US is a well-to-do industrialized nation while North Korea is a virtual torture camp. Also, she talks about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon - why is there no mention of Syria’s current occupation of Lebanon?

Technically, the Lady might be right - like I would be right if I said technically Bin Laden did not cause 9/11, you know because he was not one of the hi-jackers but just the mastermind of the plot (Chok, before you ask me how I know for sure it was him, I would point out to you he was bragging about it on video - the same way those “resistance” fighters of yours make videos and brag about them - the same way they did with Margaret Hassan - but I guess I still don’t know if they did it since they forgot including a notarized statement certifying they did it). Roy surely appeals to people who like to look at only one side of the problem and pretend that anyone rich and powerful is automatically suspicious and anyone trying to mug the rich has got to be a victim of the rich one’s oppression.

Personally, I am not afraid to admit America did as many things wrong as she did right. Roy and her ilk on the other hand prefer to only look at the dark side America and try to forget that there could be fanaticism and genuine evil that could have driven someone to attack America - not poverty. I am able to look at it with an open-mind - guess who is the one trying to make facts fit into her world view instead of trying to evolve a world view depending on the facts available? Yes, it is easy to make bombastic statements and get away with it as long as she sees there are people around who will pretend the things she doesn’t mention don’t exist but will hang on to everyone of her words excoriating her favorite whipping-boy. It doesn’t make it right.

One more thing - Ravikiran who coined the term verbal terrorist is a pro-Iraq-war Libertarian from India - Yazad who agrees with the sentiment is an anti-Iraq-war CEO of an NGO group from Mumbai and definitely not a Hindutva type being he is an atheist - MadMan is an atheist who thinks she is nuts - I am pro-Iraq-war-don’t-care-much-for-Indian-politics in US - JK thinks similarly and he is pro-Iraq-war ~~Democrat~~Independent (hates Bush) - Sameer who feels similarly is anti-Iraq-war, anti-Bush from India…what is my point? It is that just because you think Roy is a hack doesn’t mean you are pro-war or pro-BJP for that matter - I guess it is stereotyping only when someone else does it.

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August 27, 2004

Black humor

Via Niraj, comes to us this gem of a joke for the weekend - niraj: MUSHARRAF FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?. I agree with Niraj on this - I cannot stop laughing…

Posted by shanti at 12:05 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

August 19, 2004

Neanderthal women

We were at a group lunch this afternoon at a Chaat place - 4 women and 5 men (all first-gen Indian immigrants). All the women had already got their food and started eating, so one of the men went and got water for all of us. Instead of saying “thank you” and letting it go (for my peace of mind), one of the women pipes up, “Oh, sorry we women are not being very lady-like”. Naturally, someone asked, “What do you mean, not lady-like?”. Then comes the reply…

“You know, we women should have been serving you all - not the other way around”!

I couldn’t respond immediately, as I needed to first pick my jaw up off the floor, check the nearest calendar to make sure we didn’t sit in a time machine that transported us way back in time and then count till 100 to make sure I wouldn’t rip her fucking head off.

I guess I wouldn’t have been that surprised if she were 62 instead of 26. I am just amazed that women want to bring back crap like that, because (in her words) “it is stuff like that, that makes our culture so rich and our tradition so glorious” - Excuse me, while I barf. Too many woman have fought too hard win equality for women without morons like this chomping at the bit to give them away.

p.s. For the record, let me add that just because this woman was desi, doesn’t mean all desi women think like this - she was an aberration. She herself always struck me as a very no-nonsense woman, which made the incident all the more surprising.

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August 13, 2004

Marriage for keeps or appearances?

N.J. Governor Resigns, Admits Gay Affair

You know why my blood boils when I hear stories like the one above? It is because I cannot even begin to imagine the amount of humiliation, the sense of betrayal and the total loss of self-esteem a wife must face when her husband who has had kids with her leaves her for a man - it is even worse in a sense than being dumped for a woman.

See, it is hard but understandable when a man leaves you for a younger, prettier thing - you know he used to love you at some point - he doesn’t anymore. It is easy to reconcile yourself to this and easy to forget if not forgive. When you are left for a man though, it means the man was gay and the whole marriage was a sham - there never was any sense of love between you. The man was simply denying his feelings and putting up with you for appearances sake.

The whole setup makes the woman feel used - what about the kids? How do you explain to them what happened? How can you forgive someone who screwed your life while he is trying to get his bearings straight? Y’know, I wish men like this didn’t marry at all. I wish they would first decide if they were gay or not and then choose their path - not marry first and decide they were gay later…for the children™!

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August 3, 2004

Is this for real?

Riiight, Sharon! We believe ya! I bet it was that same conservative climate that brought in $100+ million to “Farenheit 911”. Why don’t you just go back to uncrossing your legs and leave political point-making to those who are good at it?

IOL: Stone wanted to kiss Berry in Catwoman

Sharon Stone blames US President George W Bush for the absence of a lesbian kissing scene in Catwoman - because of the current conservative climate in America.
Basic Instinct star Stone, 46, was keen to enjoy an intimate moment with Oscar-winning co-star Halle Berry, but believes a puritanical streak running through the country put an end to any potential girl-on-girl action.

Stone says: “Halle’s so beautiful and I wanted to kiss her. I said, ‘How can you have us in the movie and not have us kiss? That’s such a waste.’
“That’s what you get for having George Bush as president.”

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And Darwin laughed!

Palestinian attackers get wrong target

Gaza City - Palestinian militants attacking an Israeli armoured bulldozer inadvertently killed three other Palestinians Tuesday. The roadside bomb in the Rafah refugee camp went off a few metres from where the bulldozer - part of an Israeli operation to destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels from Egypt - was piling up dirt in a crowded residential area, Associated Press Television News said.

But of course, what good is the Arabic News if they realize truth when it is staring them in the face? This is the spin put on the incident - Three Palestinians killed in an Israeli incursion in Rafah

Three Palestinians were killed and other 10 were injured by the fire of the Israeli occupation forces in Rafah camp for the Palestinian refugees to the south of Gaza, near the borders with Egypt. News reports said that these forces incurred in the area since at dawn backed by helicopters, tanks, and bulldozers and are carrying out vast breaking in operations, land levelling and demolishing of houses.

Never miss a chance at dishonesty even after the whole world knows the truth, do we!

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July 26, 2004

Hypocrites

Sandeep has a post praising actor Ompuri - Bravo Om Puri - for not backing down due to calls by certain morons like Mahesh Bhatt asking him to refuse the award of OBE (Order of British Empire) from thje Queen of England. Apparently Bhatt feels it is improper for Ompuri to accept the award because he doesn’t like the British Government’s war on Iraq.

Now, it is very interesting to note that the self-same Mahesh Bhatt had no problems with Dilip Kumar’s acceptance of the ‘Nishan-e-Pakistan’ award from Pakistan -

Meanwhile, film-makers Mahesh Bhatt and Anand Patwardhan, actor Jayant Kriplani, journalist Nikhil Wagle and many others have come out in defence of Dilip Kumar.

Apparently Bhatt protests award acceptances only when the country in question is killing non-Indians…nice going, doncha think?

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June 2, 2004

Anybody but me...

… that seems to be the line of thinking these days for most people, as in this case of a father who abused his child to death, via A Small Victory - No One Ever is to Blame. This evil, evil man’s attorney is going to argue that somehow it is not his fault but is somehow caused due to his ancestors being enslaved, oh, about a few hundred years ago. Michele smacks the argument down pretty good in her post and I completely agree with her that I am amazed that this guy’s attorney can actually spew that kind of crap in front of a judge with a straight face. Maybe the next time I feel like smacking a white person, I can do that and then claim that it was because white Britishers lorded it over my countrymen pre-Independence. It is abhorrent that a sadistic father caused his child’s death by abusing him and it is beyond reprehensible for him to try to blame it on anybody else but him.

I hope he fries in hell!

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April 26, 2004

Verbal terrorist strikes again

Can Arundhati Roy sink any lower in her support for all things scummy, horrible and cruel in the world? Not, says JK in this post - varnam: Brutal Silence. This woman is beyond disgusting and I am ashamed to have her pretend to speak up for my country and people atleast as far as foreign media is concerned. Someone shut her up, please!

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April 5, 2004

Vultures

Every place where there is a dead body, you will find vultures circling the dead. Kathryn Cramer is one such despicable person, who is trying really hard to smear one of the four dead contractors whose bodies were mutilated in Fallujah, by trying to link his name to a neo-Nazi…based on what evidence you say? Oh, they share the same name! It doesn’t matter that they look different , have different wives, different kids and a little research shows that the dead man was in the Army when the neo-Nazi was upto all kinds of nonsense in Idaho! Nope, what matters is that this woman thinks she is on to something and will not relinquish it, dead people be damned!

Michele smacks her down a lot better than I can ever hope to - A Small Victory: paranoia, paranoia, everybody’s coming to get me.

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April 4, 2004

Are people really this stupid?

I am serious! Look at some of the comments posted to this blog entry - Dancing with Dogs: Indian cricket finally getting some. How on earth do people think they can contact Yuvraj Singh via this entry, I have no idea. Why do they think I am somehow affiliated to him from this? Are there people really this dumb in the gene pool?

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March 24, 2004

Beyond ridiculous!

CNN.com - Oregon county bans all marriage - Mar 23, 2004

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) — In a new twist in the battle over same-sex marriage roiling the United States, a county in Oregon has banned all marriages — gay and heterosexual — until the state decides who can and who cannot wed. The last marriage licenses were handed out in Benton County at 4 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. EST) Tuesday. As of Wednesday, officials in the county of 79,000 people will begin telling couples applying for licenses to go elsewhere until the gay marriage debate is settled.

(via webguru)

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February 25, 2004

Passion & Holocaust

MSNBC - Crowds flock to see opening of ‘Passion’

Jewish and other religious groups planned protests later in the day. Among them Amcha, The Coalition for Jewish Concerns, planned to protest wearing concentration camp uniforms at one New York theater to liken the film’s portrayal of Jews as akin to the Nazi Holocaust.

Being neither Christian nor Jewish, I have absolutely no bone in the fight over Mel Gibson’s new movie, “The Passion of Christ”, but don’t you think it is a little too thin-skinned to say the movie’s portrayal of Jews is like the Holocaust? Gimme a fucking break! This reminds me of the PETA and their “chicken holocaust” ads that were equally insensitive to real victims and made a farce out of the issue. People, it is just a movie - I am not walking around claiming that “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” is somehow akin to slaughter of Indians or specifically Hindus, whom the movie insulted and made fun of…

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December 2, 2003

Rights for Illegals!

Niraj links to an article in this post, niraj: CALIFORNIA AGAINST DRIVER’S LICENSES FOR ILLEGALS talking about the possible repeal of the incredibly stupid law to issue driver licenses to illegal immigrants. He mentions the words of a certain congresswoman who apparently thinks the repeal is very bad -

“I today am saddened that I have to vote to repeal this law,” said Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes. “I believe in this policy, I believe in those people, and I believe they have a right … to work, to drive their kids to school.”

Even though Niraj is rightly worried about security when it comes to illegal immigrants, I wonder why is it that the right of illegals to drive more important to the congresswoman than the right of citizens to be able to drive safely on the streets.

When you think about it, it doesn’t matter if none of these illegals are terrorists or terror-supporters - I am worried about more mundane things like, do they carry insurance? I bet 90% of them don’t, since they cannot afford it. When these illegal drivers hit somebody, the other driver becomes liable for his own injuries since the illegal is uninsured and thus sees a raise in his premiums for no fault of his. I don’t understand how congress(wo)men elected to represent the citizens of the country think it is somehow their duty to protect illegal immigrants at the cost of welfare of citizens and legal immigrants. Despicable, really!

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November 19, 2003

Stoopid!

So, the country with world’s second largest population is running almost nose-to-nose with the leader of the stat as far as populace is concerned and is expected to beat the top country soon - what do the political hacks in power suggest their people do? Why, they ask them to breed a little more, of course! They even offer incentives to people who breed more than they should…I don’t think I can muster up enough outrage to fit the situation. Ughhh!!!

Shiv Sena asks Hindus to have more kids

The Shiv Sena has hit upon a bizarre idea to counter what it claims is the growing population of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh. The right wing outfit has given a call to Hindu couples in the state to have more children and decided to reward those families that have more than four children.

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November 18, 2003

Yaawn!

MTV.com - News -New Allegations Spark Search Of Jackson’s Neverland Ranch

Police have executed a search warrant at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in California’s Santa Barbara County after new allegations of sexual misconduct were raised by a 12-year-old boy, according to MSNBC.

I will only add that given Jackson’s history, any parent who let his/her child near that creep deserves to lose custody.

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October 30, 2003

Can't have it both ways!

US sanctions forcing women into sex trade, says Myanmar : HindustanTimes.com

So, are the sanctions responsible for women turning to prostitution….

Myanmar’s junta on Thursday blasted the United States for its tough new sanctions against the regime, seizing on a State Department report which found the measures were forcing young women into the sex trade.

or, are they not…

However, it conceded that it was not yet clear whether the sanctions were working, saying they were having “some unexpected effects” on Myanmar’s economy, which has long been near collapse.

As is usual in such cases though, these idiots find blaming the US sanctions if the easy way out instead of admitting that the real problem is the military control of the government and the harrassment of freedom-loving people like Aung San Suu Kyi. No sirreee, since that would actually involve taking some responsibility for the condition of the country they are ruling. We prefer to blame the zionist, imperialists for everything instead.

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October 17, 2003

Open mouth, stick foot!

ABCNEWS.com : Malaysian Explains Anti-Jewish Remarks - When foot gets stuck, try to back-pedal with even more stupid statements like - “But if you say anything at all against the Jews, you are accused of being anti-Semitic” - umm…the definition of anti-semitic is against Jews, moron! Of course, I bet your assertions that those damn Joos control the world and need to be defeated at all costs…

Update:
Is Malaysia sorry - IHT: Malaysia issues apology

or isn’t? Telegraph | News | Malaysia ‘not sorry’ for remarks about Jews

What about Chirac? Did he really condemn Malaysia - Chirac leads Europe in condemning Mahathir’s Jew remarks - OCT 18, 2003

or made sure EU didn’t go far enough in the condemnation? Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | West accuses Malaysian PM of racism

The EU response which was withdrawn from its final draft statement after objections by the French president, Jacques Chirac, said: “His unacceptable comments hinder all our efforts to further inter-ethnic and religious harmony and have no place in a decent world.

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October 15, 2003

No comment!

World Still Looks to Cuba as an Alternative Model

Bush Steps Up Effort to Destabilize Castro’s Regime” (Oct. 11), on the Bush administration’s plans for further restricting visits by U.S. citizens to Cuba, quotes President Bush as saying tourists support an “illicit sex trade” encouraged by the Cuban government that exploits “innocent women and children.” This is a falsehood. As visitors to the island for research and educational instruction over the last 30 years, and specifically once a year for the last four years, we can testify that this organized “trade” simply does not exist.
The vast majority of the Cuban people remain supportive of the present system. Cubans value their sovereignty, and most resent the increasingly overt way in which U.S. officials based in Cuba, including the head of the U.S. Interests Section, are instructing and materially supporting dissidents.

Even U.S. opponents of the current policy often claim that Cubans need to be able to enjoy the “benefits of capitalism.” The results of U.S.-dominated capitalism in most of the countries of the Third World have not proved beneficial for the majority of their citizens. Fidel Castro is a figure paid attention to and admired in nations whose peoples are seeking alternative models for progress. In the U.S., changing Cuba is the objective of most of the leaders of both our ruling political parties; the disagreement is on how to do it. Why is this? They do not recognize that Cuba is a still-vibrant and credible challenge to an unjust and destructive world order.

Donald W. Bray
Professor Emeritus Political Science
Marjorie W. Bray
Professor, Latin American Studies, Cal State L.A.

I mean, really - if Cuba is such a thriving and vibrant country and such a role model to the world, why do people jump into leaky boats every single day to run away to the fascist Republic of America? Mmm…I guess these professors give a new meaning to the words, “those who can, do and those who can’t, teach!”.

Posted by shanti at 11:46 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

October 13, 2003

Bobby Jindal Arab-American?

Atleast so says an extremely “smart” head of the College Democrats in a story brought to us by Joanne Jacobs - joannejacobs.com: Who’s smart?. The funniest part of the story of course, is when Ashley apologized for calling Jindal Arab-American and saying that he is sorry to have used the un-PC term, when the PC-way to call him is Indian-American. Huh?

Posted by shanti at 1:31 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

September 26, 2003

Such bigots!

How can someone claiming to be preaching God’s word be as narrow-minded and bigoted as these people? It really boggles my mind to see such absurd declarations as this. Indians and Hindus in particular have allowed people from all religions to stay free and spread their faith freely among the indigenous population. This is because Hinduism is probably the only religion that I know of, which doesn’t claim to be the ONLY path to God and allows followers to explore paths that best suit their spiritual needs.

The other problem is of course, if you scroll down in the same article, you find these preachers complain of increasing persecution against them. Hmmm…they go to India, lure kids and tribals to accept their faith with offers of food and money - trash the faith of the majority populace every chance they get and then cannot for the love of God understand why their once gracious hosts want to turn hostile?

Christian Children’s Clubs Bless Communities in India

CBN.com - With more than 1 billion people, India has the second largest population in the world. More than a third of that population is made up of children under the age of 18.
The predominant Hindu religion offers children little hope for a better life. But, India’s Christians offer hope and a new life in Christ.

…
Specifically, DeVries said, “The impact and the answers to the prayers of children were just sweeping through that area. And, as our people visited the slum and then walked out of it, local leaders joined them and said to the leaders of our team, ‘You know, before we walked in darkness but now we walk in light.’ And these were Hindus talking to our team.”

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September 18, 2003

Ooooh, scary!

I bet Oprah is quaking in her little booties, while laughing all the way up to the bank ;)

IOL : Swedish watchdog slams ‘pro-war biased’ Oprah

Stockholm - Sweden’s broadcasting watchdog said on Wednesday it was censuring an Oprah Winfrey talk show for showing bias towards a United States military attack on Iraq.

(link via LGF)

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September 17, 2003

We need someone who can read around here

NY Daily News - front - No Iraq link to 9/11

WASHINGTON - Breaking with other top Bush administration officials, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice disputed the possibility yesterday that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Really? Which administration official asserted Saddam was involved with 9/11? Bush? Cheney? Chomps? Are you kidding me? Oh, looks like they dug up a quote - let’s take a look at it.

But with the White House having asserted otherwise, recent polls showed nearly 70% of Americans believe there was an Al Qaeda-Iraq link to 9/11, and Vice President Cheney said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Iraq was “the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11.” Cheney said that, in the aftermath of the attacks, “We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s; that it involved training, for example.”

So, Cheney believes that Iraq has been a base for “terrorists” - terrorists are affecting America as they did on 9/11 - Iraq has links with Al Qaeda - ummm, how does that mean Saddam is involved with 9/11 again? In a roundabout way and extremely vaguely, implicitly it can be said that that was what Cheney is “hinting” at - not so if you realize that he did stop short at drawing a clear link…

Posted by shanti at 5:25 PM | Comments (30) | TrackBack

Oh Yeah?

Ummm…Mr. Blix, if that was the case, then what was the UN doing trying to inspect Iraq for the last 10 years, levying sanctions on the country and enforcing no-fly zones? Why wasn’t Saddam cooperating with you? Why did you want more and more time to complete your inspections? Why the heck did you yourself claim Iraq violated the sanctions by trying to import missile engines? Why did Iraq refuse to grant any interviews to El Baradei as the same report suggested, if they were hiding nothing?

Yahoo! News - Hans Blix: Iraq Destroyed WMD 10 Years Ago

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix now believes Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago and that intelligence agencies were wrong in their weapons assessment that led to war.

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September 15, 2003

More candles, please!

Yes, Nayar and other people like him can be called naive - but when they are in a position to influence public opinion by spouting nonsense that could affect India’s security, they cease to be harmless to the nation.

GN Online: Kuldip Nayar: Appeasing Israel could affect India’s stock in Middle East

The same Israel has travelled a long way. It has forcibly occupied territory of neighbouring countries. The moderates have been pushed aside. The state has acquired a face, which is brutal and vindictive. True, the fear of annihilation has contributed a lot to what Israel has become today. But it does not realise that it has tried to solve political problems through the military. Instead of pointing out this, the joint statement issued by New Delhi and Tel Aviv gives the impression of India going along with Israel. We have avoided the name of Palestine. It is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

So what should Israel do? Light candles at the borders and hope that the ~~suicide bombers~~, er, martyrs don’t use them to light the fuses of the bombs strapped to their stomachs?

This is a policy which is directly opposed to the sensitivities of the Arab nations. The reason for Arab anger was that Israel was planted in their midst despite their opposition. Still they could have been mollified if an independent state of Palestine was founded.

Yes, we need to worry about the Arab nations - the same ones that don’t even grant citizenship to the Palestinians and keep them in refugee camps? The same countries that don’t give Palestinian refugees any right to work? The same countries whose “freer” people are driving Palestinians away from their country? The same Arab countries that NEVER once sided with India against Pakistan and likely NEVER will? You tell it like it is, Mr. Nayar - What would we do without you?

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September 9, 2003

Scary!

RIAA lands big, bad music thief who is single-handedly causing them losses to the tune of billions of dollars -

The RIAA sees the face of evil, and it’s a 12-year-old girl

The RIAA has nailed one of the most prolific file-traders in the U.S., filing a lawsuit against 12-year-old Brianna LaHara. When not at the playground with her friends, “Biggie Brianna” is trading music files from her home in New York. The little girl received one of the 261 lawsuits filed by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) on Monday, according to the New York Post. She may look like a sweet and innocent child, but the RIAA says it’s only going after major copyright violators at the moment. So you make the call.

Update: They caught one more and this one is even scarier -
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Grandfather caught in music fight

Durwood Pickle, 71, of Texas, said his teenage grandchildren used his computer during visits to his home. “I didn’t do it, and I don’t feel like I’m responsible,” he said.

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September 3, 2003

Bidwai shoots his mouth off...again!

The whole article is patently stupid in typical Bidwai-ishtyle, so I am just commenting on a few egregious errors -

Cancel the Sharon visit!

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel took over all these areas. They have since been under its military occupation. Likud staunchly justifies the occupation in the name of Biblical-era ‘Greater Israel.’ When it came to power in 1977, it vigorously promoted the illegal settlement of the Jewish colonies in the occupied territories.

Ummm, Mr. Bidwai, have you forgotten something in the opening line? you know, stuff about who actually started the war - Israel was attacked - she won the war and as the winner, laid claim to the territories…I know it is easy to selectively “forget” stuff like that, when you have to vociferously defend suicide bombers who target women, children and the elderly celebrating festivals, so that God will hook them up with divine hookers in heaven. And then there is this, further down -

Third, Mr Sharon has played an extremely negative role in the recent past. He opposed the Oslo accords, even though these favoured Israel. The second intifada was triggered by his highly provocative walk in September 2000 on the holy Haram al-Sharif site in East Jerusalem. Under him, Israel has pursued targeted assassination and ruthless repression, by relying on tanks, helicopter gunships, laser-guided weapons, and F-16s carrying 2000-pound bombs. He is more culpable than Hamas for the collapse of the ceasefire on August 21, triggered off by a missile striking killing senior Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab.

So, let me get this straight - Sharon walked on the Temple Mount - which is the holiest site for the Jews while being just the third-holiest for Muslims - and poor Palestinians felt so oppressed by that, that they had no choice but to launch a war against the Israelis? Makes sense (in the parallel universe that Pra-fool inhabits). The bigger whopper is towards the end of the paragraph - Sharon was obviously responsible for the break-down of the truce by targeting a Hamas homicidal maniac - didn’t you know blowing up a bus full of civilians and children was still “truce” (in the alternate universe, etc., etc.) In a normal world of course, a responsible journalist would condemn the Palestinians and their brutal tactics and their distribution of sweets and holding parties when Israeli blood is shed - but I guess it is too much to expect from this moron. I really don’t understand why Rediff still carries his articles - are they that hell-bent on sensationalism? Do they actually pay for this kind of crap?

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August 25, 2003

Fun with tin-foil

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

OK, an anti-Capitalist who doesn’t vote, but still feels free to rant against neo-con schemes, police state, environment, unjustifiable, murderous military adventures (isn’t the military’s biggest job to commit murder in the loosest sense of the word? The primary purpose of the army is to kill before you are killed, but anyways…) - 10 points to those who can guess where this nutjob comes from…no peaking ;)

Editor — I’m anti-capitalist. I didn’t vote for Gov. Gray Davis. I reject the politics of subservience to money. Yet I’m voting against the recall (and for Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante), and here’s why: Americans are living through the most extreme attacks upon public and civil rights, free elections and the government’s role in assuring public education and health care in my lifetime.
American democracy, to say nothing of the world’s safety and the U.S. economy, can’t afford more deregulation and unending war.
The recall is part of an unraveling of public rights — not a chance to change direction.
As the Arnold Schwarzenegger circus shows, TV won’t allow issues to determine the winner. The recall is thus about furthering neoconservative schemes that have weakened our nation’s economy and resources, created a police state in Washington, D.C., despoiled our environment, outraged most of the world and put our young people at risk in unjustifiable, murderous military adventures. Just say no. MARC SAPIR

Berkeley

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August 22, 2003

Please Explain

Gay Muslims Defend Their Identity in the U.S.

“My dad would shoot me and then commit suicide,” said Sadiq, a quiet, neatly dressed Palestinian who is attending college in the northeast United States.
Being gay in the United States has never been easy.

But being gay and Muslim, especially after Sept. 11, 2001, is a unique act of defiance requiring homosexuals to defend their religious identity in the face of an increasingly suspicious U.S. government and sexual orientation amid hostility from the conservative Islamic community.
Many would rather deny their sexuality than sacrifice family, friends, culture or religion by coming out of the closet.

Read the quoted passage above - then tell me what doesn’t fit in. Bingo! Why is being gay in the USA hard? Compared to what? Yes, many people discriminate against gays still and are not comfortable around them - but neither more nor less than the way people treat gays in all the other advanced countries in the world.

Now, look at the third sentence in the passage quoted - why is it extra hard for gay Muslims after 9/11? If you read the rest of the article, you will see that these gay Muslims have a lot more to fear from fellow Muslims than from any other “average, ignorant American” (as they are known on that planet that is Reutersville). So what purpose do those quotes serve in the article except to use every freaking chance to bash America? I wouldn’t know.

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But, of course!

So, 10000 people die of the heat wave and it is their fault for dying? I mean, how dare they die and make Chirac mad!

The Calgary Sun: Heat wave claims 10,000 - French president blames the public

PARIS — As many as 10,000 people may have died in France’s heat wave, the government acknowledged yesterday, and a solemn President Jacques Chirac promised health system changes. But he also criticized the public, saying many elderly victims “died alone in their homes.”

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August 20, 2003

Another p-sec

Pooja Bhatt weds Munish Makhija

However, father and director Mahesh Bhatt refused to attend the wedding since Pooja got married in a temple.

But then he is a very secular man, this Mr. Bhatt - isn’t he? Oh, I see it! Secularism is only for others - not for me!

I think all these so-called pseudo-secularists and pseudo-environmentalists and activists should make this their motto - “Not for me!”, because you know what? All their preachings and teachings are only meant for poor, ignorant us - they would never think of applying the same rules to their lives.

Posted by shanti at 2:38 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

August 19, 2003

Yeah, right!

Oh, and in case you guys missed it, I take full responsibility for the JFK assassination, Gandhi’s assassination and MLK’s. (I will make sure people who point out that I am too young to have presided over those, assassinated. Heh)

Al Qaeda claims credit for US blackout

The operation “was carried out on the orders of Osama bin Laden to hit the pillars of the US economy” and as “realization of bin Laden’s promise to offer the Iraqi people a present”, the statement, which the Al-Hayat newspaper obtained from the Web site of the International Islamic Media Centre, said. “Let the criminal Bush and his gang know that the punishment is the result of the action, the soldiers of God cut the power on these cities, they darkened the lives of the Americans as these criminals blackened the lives of the Muslim people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. The Americans lived a black day they will never forget. They lived a day of terror and fear… a state of chaos and confusion where looting and pillaging rampaged the cities, just like the capital of the caliphate Baghdad and Afghanistan and Palestine were. Let the American people take a sip from the same glass,” Al Hayat quotes the statement as saying.

Of course, the funniest claim in the release is this -

“Let the criminal Bush and his gang know that the punishment is the result of the action, the soldiers of God cut the power on these cities, they darkened the lives of the Americans as these criminals blackened the lives of the Muslim people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. The Americans lived a black day they will never forget. They lived a day of terror and fear… a state of chaos and confusion where looting and pillaging rampaged the cities, just like the capital of the caliphate Baghdad and Afghanistan and Palestine were. Let the American people take a sip from the same glass,” Al Hayat quotes the statement as saying.

Ummm…Mr. Bin Laden, I am really sorry, sir, but there haven’t been many cases of looting and pillaging during the blackout…Please, don’t be mad! See, it so happens that we are not the Middle East. Yes, sir - I know those infidel dogs cannot be better than you, but you know those damn Americans and New Yorkers! They managed to keep their calm during 9/11, now they manage to do so in a freaking blackout. They file out and help each other as humanely and courageously when they are dying by the dozens as when they are merely inconvenienced by the loss of power. Why can’t they be like regular Arabs and loot a few things or burn a few flags? Ughhh!

Mr. Bin Laden, seriously, you don’t want to mess with these people - they might seem like really pampered brats to your eyes, but take out your ideological blinders and look - here is a country that is not afraid of you anymore. When a white rapper can make joke videos about you (Eminem’s “Without Me”), I hope you can understand it is not that easy to intimidate these people. I mean, think about it - they cut off the head of Taliban by invading Afghanistan and installing a friendly regime, what do you do? Oh, you cut off their power! For a whole day! Big, bad, scary man! (NOT). Again…Heh! :D

Posted by shanti at 7:50 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

August 18, 2003

Stupid is as stupid does

Minneapolis is considering opening public restrooms to both sexes

Public bathrooms in the city of Minneapolis may be open to all sexes if a city councilman has his way. That is, as long as you’re just there to do your business and leave.

Riiight, so who is going to track a pervert who pretends to be doing his business while checking out women in the restroom with him? What about the men who pee in the open stalls if a woman walks in on them? Who comes up with these idoitic things anyways? Pinnacle Of Evolution

According to the zoologist Clive Bromhall, gay people are the “pinnacle of evolution.”

Apparently, they are so evolved they don’t have to reproduce anymore. Seriously though, the book says gay people are so much more “evolved” because they retain their infantility even when they get older - apart from the stereo-typing here, here I was thinking that maturity was a good sign, not childishness.

Posted by shanti at 6:47 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

July 11, 2003

Dumb-da-dumb-dumb

Ram Gopal Varma sued for ‘mental torture’
This is what I call true imitation of the American “legal” culture ;) But then if it were up to me, I would first sue Mahesh Bhatt, Suraj Bharjatya and then few other directors of their ilk for “mental torture and anguish” at having to endure three+ hours of crap parading as cinema. Hey if you want to sue horror film-makers, why not sue the Ramsay brothers, makers of “true horrors” pretending to be movies?

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma and his actors in Bhoot are in the dock, charged with mental torture by Kishoregiri Bhupatgiri Goswami of Rajkot. …
Goswami, an employee at a courier company, said he underwent immense mental torture and was unable to sleep after watching the ‘horror’ scenes in the film. He alleged Bhoot continued to haunt him even 20 days after watching the film and that ‘the mental trauma had affected his physical activities.’
…
Goswami has found a sympathiser in the Rajkot-based Bharat Vigyan Jatha, a rationalist organisation which issued a
press release saying such movies should be banned.

Oh, and if that is what the “rationalist” organization thinks, I don’t even want to know how the idiotarian organizations feel about issues.

(Thanks L, for the amusing link)

Posted by shanti at 10:28 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

July 10, 2003

Academic freedom in Pakistan

Is Gulliver’s Travels vulgar?

The review appears to have been triggered by complaints made about the syllabus by the wife of a retired army general. She criticised the inclusion of two poems, including one by Auden, which she said promoted Jews, and a poem by Vikram Seth, who she said was too pro-Indian. She also said the poems of Adrienne Rich were unsuitable for study because she is a lesbian.
…
Perhaps the most bizarre criticism is of a Sean O’Casey play, The End of the Beginning. The committee quoted a portion from the play: “When the song ended, Darry cocks his ear and listens.” Dr Arif underlined the word ‘cocks’, the daily said. [emphasis mine]

I guess they ban “cats” in Pakistan too! :p

Posted by shanti at 1:22 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

July 2, 2003

Oh well!

Baby girl survives 16 hours in ‘grave’

I bet the dad had nothing but the girl’s best interests at heart - daddy knows best, doesn’t he? But then I don’t know the man, his village and his “culture”, so I guess I cannot really say it is a horrible and heinous crime!

On the morning of June 30, a Patel family at a village within Hanumana Police Station area was blessed with a third daughter. This ‘trauma’ made her father bury the child in a hole near the hamlet.

Posted by shanti at 3:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 30, 2003

Multiculti hypocrisy

There is something about the so-called multiculturalists that really grates on my nerves. Mind you, I can spot them a mile away - buzzwords being, “cultural sensitivity”, “cultural pride”, “heritage” and such. Not that taken separately these words mean anything bad. Nope, there is nothing wrong with being sensitive to other cultures or being proud of your culture and heritage. What bothers me is when someone else is proud of your culture.

You heard me right. It is extremely irritating for me to hear how proud someone else is of my culture and heritage, to the point that they won’t condemn or worse, let me condemn even the bad things about my own culture or about other cultures I see around me. What is wrong with this attitude - here is what! It makes me feel like I am in a damn showcase. I feel like I am this doll placed real carefully into this “cultural” setting and the mcs (multiculturalists) think it is so cute, they’d rather have me stay in the hut in the setting than disturb it and let me move into a mansion.

What really gets me of course, is that these mcs always think they are out doing good for us stupid natives. They think we have no idea how pretty our “culture” is and don’t care about protecting it, so they can see pictures of it on TV and feel good about themselves. It doesn’t matter if the so-called culture makes woman cover their bodies in thick, black veils in hot, scorching summer or burns brides for not bringing enough dowry. Nope, it doesn’t matter since these are people are sooo enlightened, see? They can see all the rich goodness of your culture that you are too stupid to notice. It is like a rich man telling a poor one that he is better off poor, because the rich man’s life isn’t really perfect and having the poor man around will make for a much diverse experience.

Whenever a fellow Westerner challenges these mcs though, the challengers are usually dismissed quickly as ignorant, insensitive and rednecks. As a third-worlder, try talking to them sometime and try telling them how good their people - their women especially - have it, as opposed to the oppressed women of most of the third-world countries. All you will see is a blank face for a minute - you will be able to literally hear the buzz in the mind and a synthetic voice going “doesn’t compute!” - only for a minute. Then they wake up and zombie-like start regurgitating pap about diversity and culture and humanity as if you never said a word before. Isn’t it funny how the so-called champions of the third-worlders are the ones who end up hurting them as much if not more than the supremacists, by brushing away quickly any criticism or call for reform in the “culture” they are trying to preserve!

Update: This is what I am talking about - A trap for Muslim women in Europe

OSLO: Western Europe is increasingly a house divided against itself. While non-Muslim Europeans live in democracies, most Muslims in the same countries inhabit theocratic enclaves where they are expected to tread a narrow path or suffer the consequences. Muslim women have it worst. Not only are they subject to the often tyrannical authority of husbands, fathers and community leaders, if they seek to escape that authority, they cannot necessarily expect support from the police and other government agencies, which often feel that “intruding” in such matters would show disrespect for immigrant culture.

(emphasis mine).

Posted by shanti at 3:47 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

June 26, 2003

Horrible!

Whether this attack was intended towards a Muslim or a Hindu or anybody, I think it was extremely cruel and horrible. I hope they lock the perpetrators up and throw away the key. Such people are not fit to live amongst other human beings.

Indian tortured, stabbed in Boston

In a gruesome incident of hate crime against expatriates, an Indian graduate student was robbed, beaten, burned with cigarettes, stuffed in a trunk, stabbed and dumped in the middle of road by four men after he made a food delivery to them in Boston. …
“It’s probably one of the most vicious robberies I have ever seen, but it’s not unheard of,” Fairhaven Police Chief Gary F Souza was quoted as saying by a city daily.
…

The men originally intended to rob Bhalerao, but intensified their assault thinking he was Muslim, continuing to beat him even as he tried to explain that he was Hindu, Souza said.
“He pleaded with his attackers… They were telling him he should go back to Iraq,” the police officer said. In addition to the beatings, the suspects burned Bhalerao’s face and ears with a lit cigarette.

Posted by shanti at 7:21 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 21, 2003

Piece of junk!

The whole column was a piece of junk, but these passages stood out to me not for the audacity of their claims, but the author’s arrogance in asking his readers to accept the claims without providing a shred of evidence to back them up. I would have given it a little more thought if he could actually come up with reasons show why it isn’t in American interests to let India and Pakistan negotiate bilaterally. Obviously, America wants a counterweight to China, but only a stable and prospering India can do that. Just to counter China, does this guy really think America wants to “colonize” the billions-of-people-filled India? Is he nuts?

The author keeps coming up with nightmare scenarios of America’s colonizing Russia(?), Pakistan(?) and all kinds of crazy ideas, without checking the plausibility of such things happening or even if it would be in American interest to do so. He breathlessly says it is the born-again Christian leading them all american barbarians to conquer the world! Oh, the sky is falling! They got rid of a tyrant in the cradle of civilization! (I guess tohim, it was a bad thing (?)).

I put so many question marks above, because he mentions the good things America did and spins out nightmare scenarios - I really don’t understand his thought processes. Did he ever consider the possibility that America elects a new leader every four years and the people can easily replace George Bush if they so choose to in a year? My God! talk about fomenting hysteria - of course, if you read the comments, you will find there are people who actually agree with this. I guess as long as you bash America and make ominous noises about Pax Americana and imperialism (I think he forgot hegemony), that is enough to warm the cockles of some hearts.

America’s great game

Today, the sad truth is America is inextricably involved in Kashmir, whether India likes it or not. America is merely waiting for the opportunity to pounce and hijack the entire Kashmir issue and resolve it under the auspices of the international community — another American euphemism for the USA and its satellite state, the UK. American interests lie not in a bilateral settlement (which is practically an impossibility) but in an American brokered peace, where American arms ensure freedom and peace in a nominally autonomous Kashmir.

Posted by shanti at 7:42 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

June 9, 2003

Hmmm.....

So, first comes an email with this link forwarded to me by "John Doe" - Bush falsely claims "we found the weapons of mass destruction" (6/1) - and then there is "amused" saying I am "still an idiot", because I support Israel. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, but it makes me wonder if this is one of the banned S'Pore trolls or some others who swore they will never post here because of the "comment policy".....

Hey, if you really want to get back and comment here, just give us your real name and apologize in public - we know you have a blog - maybe we will consider letting you back in. Heh!

Posted by shanti at 2:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 3, 2003

Crapalicious!

Found this ridiculous article on a Muslim site - of course, after laughing my head off at the irony of a "Muslim" pointing out how bad us women have it in Hinduism, I just had to respond. Please don't read any further if this will offend anyone's wee, wittle, sensitive minds.

Women in Hinduism

note: I am saying this author deliberately falsified facts and twisted them and misinterpreted them (Shurpanakha was a Dravidian woman? She was a demon, dumbass!) to make what are on the surface, seemingly valid points. This thesis is a big lie that is further based on lies that have been repeated often enough they are considered the truth, unless you care enough to dig deeper.

Child Marriage - Girls are to be married when 5 years old !

Of course, when Mohammad marries Aisha at the "mature" age of 6 and actually sleeps with her at 9, that is divine, ain't it?

Dowry - Vedas prescribe this pracitice

No, they don't. Any half-way-learned person will remember that just a few decades ago, the prevalent custom in India was the "Kanyasulkam", in which the groom paid the bride's parents. Oh, but wait - Muslims protesting dowry? I thought they didn't have the custom!

Bride-Burning - if the dowry is insufficient

How is this practice based on Hinduism again?

No Property

Actually Hindu women in India enjoy much better property rights than the women in "Islamic" countries who are treated as property - thank-you-very-much!

Mass Wife-Burning (Jauhar) - Often 100s are burnt at a time

Someone needs to remind this idiot that Jauhar was committed by the royal women to avoid being raped and humiliated by the invading Muslims during the ancient times. Maybe they wouldn't have if the invaders hadn't been such sex-maniacs.

Widow-Burning (Sati) - Sanctioned by the Vedas, Puranas, practiced by Krishna’s wives, it still continues

Absolutely wrong custom, but again, voluntarily practiced for the most part in the ancient times - no one does this any more and this is actually illegal now. So? Show me one Islamic country where the Government has actually dared to rule illegal something that is proscribed in the Quran.

These were just some of the summary points of the hate-filled column. It is laughable that the author in one place mocks at the Hindu system saying that a man of 18 years of age was suggested to be best for a 6-year-old girl. I wonder if he forgot Muhammad was pushing fifty when he married 6-year-old Aisha.

And then there is this assertion - "Father-daughter incest occurs in the famous story of Prajapati (later identified with Brahma, in tunr incorporated as an incarnation of Vishnu) and his daughter [RV III.31.1-2]. Moreover, this was punished. Prajapati is thought to have done something wrong, and Prajapati was pierced by Agni as a punishment " - so, something wrong was done and was actually condemned, not brushed away under the rug as Muhammad's marrying his adopted son's wife was. No, that was divine - this is incest.

Physician, heal thyself!

Update: Like Ashwini just pointed out, one of the sources for this "thesis" is the Panchatantra, which by no means of imagination is a "Hindu" scripture, and same goes for the "Kamasutra".

Go here to read more rantings of a "sick" mind - I would ask the piece-of-crap to go to Faith Freedom to ask some questions to himself about his own divine faith, before he starts flinging mud on other religions.

Another update: Can you tell I am really pissed? I have got to say - how insecure are these people with their faith that the only way they can feel better about themselves is by putting down other religions - not that I feel sad for them or anything....

Posted by shanti at 12:14 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

How do you make this cartoon better?

ComicsPage

Why? You would replace Sharon with a suicide bomber and Bush with Sharon - it would then fit in a little better with the ground realities, doncha think?

Here is what the Chicago-Sun Times have to say about the vile thing -

The cartoon's message--that Israel's interest in peace is sparked, not by a desire to end bloodshed, but by American cash--is a lie that sails beyond legitimate comment into a baseless slur. We recognize there is a distinction between opinions critical of Israel and anti-Semitism. But wherever that line is, Locher's cartoon, with its hump-backed, balloon-handed, hook-nosed Jew, steps far over it. The cartoon is like a swastika painted on a synagogue door, an act whose hostility and use of the shunned symbols of hate dwarf any shred of legitimate meaning. Printing it was a callous offense against all Chicago.

Posted by shanti at 9:42 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

June 2, 2003

Exactly!

The fine line of celebrity stupidity

What's even more surprising about all this is that Streisand has given hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to help protect the environment. So, isn't a suit like this just a bit hypocritical? The message of the lawsuit seems to be that protecting celebrities is a lot more important than protecting the environment. A lot of Hollywood stars would probably secretly agree to that, but in their image-conscious universe in which it's important to appear both beautiful and virtuous, no one except maybe Charlton Heston or Arnold Schwarzenegger would let themselves be caught implying that their interests come before the public good.

This was exactly how I felt when I read about Streisand suing environmentalists working for the conservation of the California coastline. I guess environmental activism is all fine and dandy only when you are on the pedestal preaching to those dirty, unwashed masses of the third-world countries. Sorry, we don't care of no environment in our own freaking backyards.

Posted by shanti at 8:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 1, 2003

What do they think they are doing?

I bet some of these people actually call themselves "global peace" protesters or some such. Worthless pieces of flesh, who cannot ever build a thing in their lives but are experts at destroying things other people built.

Demonstrators converge on G-8 summit

THE MOST VIOLENT protests early Sunday were in the Swiss city Lausanne, across Lake Geneva from the G-8 summit site. Demonstrators wearing masks hurled rocks at police and a posh hotel and looted a gas station and a supermarket.

One protester was seriously hurt when he fell from a highway overpass. Lausanne police chief Eric Lehmann said the fall was an accident but demonstrators blamed authorities.

Posted by shanti at 3:28 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

May 13, 2003

Poor thing!

Now this baby needs to hire a good lawyer once he grows up and sue the heck out of his parents - Come on people, have some consideration for what the kid has to go through his whole life with a name like that. This reminds me of some people who name their kids weird stuff just because it sounds cool - like Nishi (darkness)....

Chinese couple name their baby son Saddam SARS - smh.com.au

A couple in China have named their baby son Saddam SARS to mark the two important events taking place at the time of his birth, a news report said today.

(link via Michele)

Posted by shanti at 11:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 5, 2003

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is only for me and not you dirty, snivelling third-worlders! At least so seems to be the position of the so-called artists mentioned in the article below. These are the same people who signed on all the anti-war petetions and came down on Saddam's side, now they are backing Castro. These are the same asses who shriek their little voices hoarse about how Ashcroft is just lining 'em up and shooting 'em down in the secret concentration camps and crushing dissent and what not! Apparently, they are not so interested in protecting the freedoms of the jailed "dissidents" in Cuba. F**king Hypocrites!

Artists, writers defend Castro -- The Washington Times

HAVANA - Singer Harry Belafonte, who recently called Secretary of State Colin L. Powell a "house slave," has joined actor Danny Glover and more than 160 artists and intellectuals to defend Fidel Castro's government against criticism over its recent crackdown on dissent.
The group issued a two-paragraph declaration denouncing the war in Iraq and condemning U.S. "harassment" of Cuba, which it calls a "pretext for invasion."

Mexican sociologist Pablo Gonzalez announced the declaration Thursday at a May Day celebration in Havana, Reuters news agency reported.

It was also signed by Latin American Nobel laureates Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rigoberta Menchu, Aldolfo Perez Esquivel and South African writer Nadine Gordimer, also a Nobel prize winner.

Posted by shanti at 9:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 29, 2003

UN and Credibility

How fun! This body ousted the US a while ago from itself, but doesn't see anything wrong in electing Cuba, that bastion of Human Rights back. The UN keeps its credibility and there are reports of pigs flying. And then there are the morons who will scream to death over Ashcroft's "persecution and suppression" of free speech in the US, but are eerily and disgustingly silent about Cuba recently "cracking down" on those damn "dissenters" who seek to undermine Castro by asking for a little freedom. Strage world we live in, folks - very strange! Cry over this, bleeding-hearts!

U.S. Enraged as Cuba Returned to U.N. Rights Body

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Cuba was reelected without opposition on Tuesday to the United Nations' top human rights body, prompting a fierce response by Washington that it was "like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security."

The voting took place in the 54-nation U.N. Economic and Social Council, which two years ago ousted the United States from the Human Rights Commission for the first time since Washington helped found it in 1947. The United States was returned to the body in a vote the following year.

Posted by shanti at 4:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 17, 2003

Riiight!

I emphasized Mr.Rouhani's main point, in trying to make sense of what he is trying to say. "Imposing our society's view"? You mean, like it is wrong to ask dictators to step down?Wrong to ask tyrants to stop torturing and murdering thousands of people. imprisoning children, hiring professional rapists and burying people alive? Ummmm...OK! I see it - and I hate your equating American values with those of Saddam. Enough said.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor -- Bob Pryor asks what would justify the war to liberal anti-war folks (Letters, "Liberal rationale," April 15). He cites the "liberation" of the Iraqi people, the still-not-found weapons of mass destruction, etc. I'm not a "liberal," but I'll take a shot at answering.
None of those points justify war. War would only be justified given a specific, credible and imminent threat of attack. Barring that, we're at best simply (and illegally) imposing our society's view on a weaker nation.
A. ROUHANI
San Jose

If you thought that was stupid, read this, I am not even adding any editorial comments to it. It doesn't need them.

Editor -- In response to the article, "AWOL minesweeping dolphin found safe" (April 2), I would like to give another perspective. The temporary disappearance of Takoma, one of the dolphins used to hunt for mines in the Persian Gulf, proves that dolphins should not be relied upon to protect our troops. Although dolphins are highly intelligent, they are very social and can be easily distracted by other animals, or their wild cousins.
Regardless, it is unethical for the U.S. Navy to enlist marine mammals in the war. Dolphins would never voluntarily give up their freedom to participate in something that is completely beyond their comprehension. Like us, they want to be with their families and friends.

Unlike us, however, they have no conflict with Iraq or any other country. Marine mammals have no borders. They don't drop bombs or shoot guns and should be left in peace in their world. Surely the Navy is advanced enough to carry out its mission without digging into the ocean depths for reinforcements.

MARK BERMAN
Assistant Director
International Marine Mammal Project
Earth Island Institute
San Francisco

Posted by shanti at 12:58 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Poor Fisk!

I feel sorry for Robert Fisk! I really do. The poor man cannot seem to catch a break. He goes to Afghanistan during the war and he gets mugged by the Afghans. Now he is in Iraq and he is cussed at by the Iraqis while he is trying to "reclaim" books from 10-year-old kids! This is just so funny - I am sorry, but it is just really funny! I wonder if this man even understands how pathetic he sounds.

Robert Fisk: Library books, letters and priceless documents are set ablaze in final chapter of the sacking of Baghdad

I saw the looters. One of them cursed me when I tried to reclaim a book of Islamic law from a boy of no more than 10. Amid the ashes of Iraqi history, I found a file blowing in the wind outside: pages of handwritten letters between the court of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who started the Arab revolt against the Turks for Lawrence of Arabia, and the Ottoman rulers of Baghdad.

(link via blog-grandpa)

Update: Oh, and this AP story via The Command Post adds a pretty interesting spin to the looting stories.

Posted by shanti at 12:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 12, 2003

Deep breaths!

Ok, after several deep breaths, let me explain it gently and sloooowly to Laurel, that there is a BIG, fricking difference betweem Castro sentencing and sending to prison, people who dare to dissent against his "government" and Bush "ignoring" the anti-war protestors. See, Laurel - see the difference? I doubt you would, you lunk-head!

U.S. Envoy to Cuba Is No Diplomat

It appears that Michael Ramirez's editorial cartoon on Castro (Commentary, April 8) has a typo and the wrong image. The image should be Bush, with the words: "USA/Bush's Political Machine/Ramirez" across his chest. And Bush would be strangling a war-protesting grandmother. The words across her chest would read: "Freedom of Speech."

Laurel Wetzork

Santa Barbara

Update:
There is a nugget of truth in every rant. Laurel is right about war-protesting grandmas, since according to polls, it is mostly the older people who are anti-war (snicker!) - check this out.

Posted by shanti at 1:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 10, 2003

Bye, Bye, Onkar!

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, degenerate dimwitted dumbass - I knew your veneer was too good to be true - Enjoy "penting up your aggressions", my friends (not!)! Oh, btw - if you try any other crappy ways of posting, you said you were posting from on campus(Nanyang Technological University) - I will report you to the school authorities for harrassment. On one hand though, I do feel sorry for you guys if the highlight of your pathetic lives was to post comments on my blog, tsk! tsk!

My first truly permanent banning - Woo Hoo!

|| comments ||

"cypherrao - read shanti's take on varsha's article. i know you aren't posting there any more, but the comment war has degenerated into a discussion about the Israel-Palestine issue, with due credit to yours truly.

Le maestro de digrecion.
A.C.C.

Onkar.

ps : ACC = Arrr Ctsk Ctsk"

"onkar>yeah i have been keeping track. i dunno y did i say i wont comment anymore, i have a lotta things pent up now, cant say there and I dont wanna waste blog space here talking abt some dimwit woman. Oh btw did u read wat that other idiot Madhu said - I am eternally grateful that my parents immigrated to the USA. ass kisser... "

Posted by shanti at 9:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Oh boy!

I guess this just goes to show that some people spend their entire lives with their heads buried deep in their asses. This idiot really thinks it is shameful for the Iraqis to topple down the symbols of the tyrant who ruled them with an iron fist for decades? Oh, I forgot, it was just staged on a Hollywood sound stage. Nutcase!

The U.S.-British Coalition Gains Control of Baghdad

The toppling of the Hussein statue in downtown Baghdad had to be one of the most distasteful, shameful and arrogant displays of power I have ever witnessed. And, true to form, the media ate it up. Maybe Gen. Tommy Franks thought Hussein had weapons of mass destruction planted inside. The exploitation of this sorry event, as well as the story of Jessica Lynch, by the media leaves something to be desired of the Fourth Estate.

Roger G. Lowney

San Diego

Posted by shanti at 11:15 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 5, 2003

Roy rah-rahs for Saddam

Arundhati Roy is one of those people who has never met a dictator who they cannot support and fawn all over. Psychiatrists need to come up with a new name for this syndrome most extreme lefties sseem to be suffering from - it could be the legacy of the communist doctrines they have been brought up on and accept without a single question. JK has a wonderful deconstruction of her most recent screamingly shrill screed - varnam: Godess of Small Brains.

Update - look below for a little Photoshop fun :)
Completely, totally serious warning: Look at your own risk - we don't claim any responsibility for the mental and nervous breakdowns you might suffer as a result of the image below.

Posted by shanti at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 4, 2003

Shut up, Chris!

What is wrong with Chris Rock? Agreed, Kirsten Dunst is not that bright either, but she can hide behind her young age as an excuse. But Chris, Bin Laden as a "positive" role model? For whom? the Jihadis? How dumb can you be? What was the need again to bring Powell and Rice into it as "black people"? Is that the only identity they have got? Jeez!!!

MSN Entertainment - News - Tough Luck

Dunst admits the situation in Iraq prompted her to get more involved. "It's not that we're not patriotic," she told TeenHollywood.com "It's just that we don't want war." She also feels she's the perfect person since she was so apathetic she didn't even vote in the last election. "I didn't even vote in 2000," she said. "I think it was just laziness. I wasn't raised in a family that was real political and I'm just now becoming aware of these issues. I just want to be more informed."

Comedian and star of Head of State, Chris Rock, has also chimed in on war. "We should avoid war at all costs," Rock recently told reporters. "I don't understand war in many ways. Condalezza Rice and Colin Powell are the black people in the White House, they are right there, it's just that somebody has got to take the seat. Negative people got to be positive role models, Osama Bin Ladin's got to be a positive role model."

And our ever-so quirky Nicolas Cage prefers to be as non-descriptive and non-committal as possible. "I was raised to try to keep my political views to myself," he says. "I'm not a politician, I have my personal opinions, but I try to express myself through my work. I have to say I don't like the idea of women and children dying, but that's all I'm going to say about it."

Posted by shanti at 2:20 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

April 2, 2003

Stooopid Moron Watch!

You can virtually smell the glee and pride with which she thinks she is "eviscerating" the dumb Americans and their equally dumb soldiers. My God! I am such a genius, I found out all by myself, this little thing about American soldiers being shocked at Saddam's gangsters fighting in civilian clothes!!! Woo Hoo!

Well, there is this thing called "Geneva Convention", you dumbass - that prohibits combatants, especially soldiers, to fight in civilian clothes. It has a good reason too, since that leads to a general wariness in the opposition soldiers about real civilians and will lead to increased civilian casualties - Of course, you are so busy gloating over the stupid point you think you are making, you missed that. And of course, those extremely funny comments about the laundry and the boot-polishing - were you born with so much intelligence and wit or did you have to eat some kind of special brain food?

The column is filled with so much more crap like that and dumb assertions, that you might suspect that it was really a "cut and paste" job from a bunch of "anti-war" web sites, with not a hint of original thought or research behind it. Check out the comments for further information she misrepresents.

Note: I was going to be very good and not use profanity or resort to name-calling in my blog, but then once in a while a moron walks by, who will just raise my BP high enough.

Dumb Americana

"We were attacked by militias who were not even wearing uniform!", he complained, "they were in civilian clothes!" Really? Civilian clothes? Shock and horror! Did the Iraqis forget to do their laundry during the bombings? Did they forget to polish their boots before strolling out to face the B-52s?
After all, when the forces of "good" are trying hard to defeat the forces of "evil", the least the forces of "evil" can do is be well-dressed! American naivete would be funny if it weren't so worrying.

Posted by shanti at 4:24 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

March 5, 2003

Ridiculous!

This is idiotic on so many levels. Will they ban all cow-stories in deference to the Hindu faith? There must be a lot of Hindu immigrants in the UK too. Will they stop selling and eating Pork and Beef next? That offends a lot of those overly-sensitive people too, you know. Dumb asses!

School in UK bans 'The three little pigs'

The most interesting part of this story is that it seems to be clearly an instance of white guilt. See this-

Barbara Harris claims it had been school policy for seven years to avoid telling the stories to young Muslim children, following complaints from Muslim parents and the books had been removed after a teacher had accidentally breached the policy.

and then this -

Local Muslims have condemned the move as 'nonsense', as the Koran permits followers of Islam to talk or read about pigs as long as they do not eat their meat.

Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra a member of the Muslim Council of Britain, who agreed that the Koran contains references to pigs, said, "I wish schools would consult the religious authorities before doing these things."

The chairman of the Indian Muslim Welfare Society in Batley, Ibrahim Dockrat, said he is puzzled and the school policy appeared to be a knee-jerk reaction to complaints from some parents. "I am surprised that it has been blown out of proportion, that they would have acted in this way. If you are going to use religion, you need to be able to substantiate that by seeking religious guidance from properly qualified people."

So there we have it - the Muslims think this is ridiculous, but Ms. Harris seems to think she knows what is good for their kids better than them....Hmmm....

Posted by shanti at 11:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 4, 2003

Clue, clue - will work for a clue

So that I can pass it along to the moron who found my blog with this search on Google.

"What made Saddam Hussein famous!!!"

Posted by shanti at 4:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 2, 2003

LMAO

This is just too fricking funny. What did they think when they went there? That they can just sit in their hotels, stuff their bellies and pat each other in the back for their extreme "courage" and "heroism"? Morons!

Human shield Britons quit Baghdad

Nine of the original 11 activists decided to pull out after being given an ultimatum by Iraqi officials to station themselves at targets likely to be bombed in a war or leave the country. Among those departing last night was 68-year-old Godfrey Meynell, a former High Sheriff of Derbyshire, who admitted that he was leaving out of "cold fear". He had been summoned, along with 200 other shields from all over the world, to a meeting at a Baghdad hotel yesterday morning.

Abdul Hashimi, the head of the Friendship, Peace and Solidarity organisation that is hosting the protesters, told the shields to choose between nine so-called "strategic sites" by today or quit the country.

(link via ever-so-nice Kathy K)

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February 13, 2003

LMAO!!!

If only Bin Laden had met Julie Anderson a few years ago - today he would (chortle) be a (guffaw) reformed (LMAO) man!!! What is also extremely funny is that the lady apparently didn't realize that Bin Laden was a war-monger till he released his latest tapes - I guess she doesn't read or watch much news.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Editor -- As an American, I have been appalled at the war-mongering of our government on the issue of Iraq. As a Muslim, I am today disgusted at the war- mongering of Osama bin Laden. While the former uses principles of freedom as justification for violence, the latter uses religion. Both are wrong.

Just as I urge President Bush and his Cabinet to realize that this war will only serve to promote hatred and resentment around the world, I strongly urge bin Laden to think about the message of the prophet he claims to adore. Mohammed said, "You will know the believers because they are the ones who spread peace."
JULIE ANDERSON
San Francisco

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February 12, 2003

When it rains, it pours!

I said it was raining idiots, didn't I? More of them here - If Indian youths are stupid enough to be corrupted by a Valentine's card, they deserve to be corrupted. On a side note, guys, don't try to use this as an excuse to not buy your "special someone" gifts, cards and roses - I gave my husband hell, the one year he forgot - I am sure Indian girls are still as militant about the holiday ;-)

Sainiks burn Valentine cards; to disrupt revelries

Shiv Sainiks on Wednesday made a bonfire of Valentine's Day cards and threatened to disrupt the celebrations on Valentine's Day which they claimed was being used by multi-nationals to corrupt Indian youths.

"The Valentine cards sold at Archie's are an indecent depiction of love and and degrade women", Shiv Sena Delhi unit president Jai Bhagwan Goyal told reporters as Shiv Sainiks assembled at Jantar Mantar to protest against the celebrations.

Update: JK's take on the issue - Run for Your Life - it's Valentine's Day!.

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Gosh darnit!

It is raining idiots now. Seriously, this guy advocates that India gather up all the countries opposed to war and write a letter to US saying they won't do business with America if they go to war. Good job, buddy - ever pause to wonder what is India's benefit? Why should India risk everything and do this ridiculous thing? Ummm.....he has no idea. He has some extremely incoherent ideas about North Korea being worse than Iraq, blah, blah, blah, but not one decent argument about what is in it for India to do something so radical.

Finally, isn't it all about a country's national and self-interest? If Ramanand Sengupta doesn't like war, he is free to go be a human shield, or protest it all he wants - it's a free country. It is stupid to expect to pressure the Government to risk a billion lives on silly ideology - yes, I said silly ideology - the same one that made us come up with the stupid "Non-alignment" stance that pushed us closer to communist Russia and let Pakistan cozy up to Democratic America. America is poised to be a very good customer to India, a lot more than Russia or China would do for us. Where does he think the tech boom that is happening in India coming from? China? France? Germany?

And then, this guy expects Russia and China to back us in this incredibly stupid act. Yes, they will, from the back. When it is "do or die" time, both the countries will abandon India in a jiffy, if it suits their self-interest. And there we will be, on the side of the loser as usual. It is ok if people want to be anti-American or anti-war, but to hate America so much so that you want your birth-country to suffer just to spite America is beyond ridiculous.

What India needs to do about Iraq

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February 11, 2003

Funniest stuff ever!

The Incredible Adventures of O'Keefe and his Band of Human Shields!!!, especially the part about "world citizen" - LMAO!!!

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February 5, 2003

From the cess pool that is Model Minority

Ok, first he said that Asian-Americans need to speak a separate language - now he says we need to separate ourselves from eeeevil, white people and NOT pursue the "American dream", since a white man dreamt it (huh?) - what will he advocate next? that Asian-Americans should go back to where they came from, so they can "re-cuturize" their evil, assimilated selves? (BTW, not all people reading MM are idiots - see comments on the article for proof).

model minority: Asian American Empowerment - Against Assimilation

I, for one, had to purge myself of the feverish hallucination called the American Dream. I had to uproot the weeds of white colonialism tangled within myself. I had to search beyond the lies to find that the promise of equality and acceptance would always be blocked by white hatred and institutional indifference.

Surrounded by self-deceit, I didn't channel my negative energy into self-hate or nihilistic materialism. Instead, I shook off the shackles of self- hate and began searching for identity, strength and my own place in this society...

Accomodation is a synonym for murder; as Asian Americans, we must reject it completely. We must not kowtow in front of the white establishment, sacrificing our precious identity and culture in exchange for worthless material crumbs.

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February 4, 2003

Ick!

What is it about some people that they cannot derive pleasure except when they are debasing others who have achieved something these debasers could go for 10 lifetimes without achieving? Don't tell me that this is in the strain of the MTV thing - it was meant to be funny, in whatever weird way - this, not - however tongue-in-cheek it tries to appear.

anil dash - archives

Here in Manhattan, they have a statue of Gandhi in Union Square Park, and I was kind of hoping they'd have a little plaque that said, "He drank his own urine and slept naked with his niece!" But I'm guessing that's not why they put the statue there.

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All hail, Bhatt the philosopher!

I guess idiotarianism is not the sole property of Hollywood "intellectuals" - pseudo-secular idiots like Mahesh Bhatt can claim it too. Oh my, Bush must be so broken up over not being able to Mahesh Bhatt whose last hit movie was in the year of.........I don't know - I don't think I was even born then!

Mahesh Bhatt refuses meeting with Bush - The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Noted film director Mahesh Bhatt has refused an invitation to attend the 51st National Prayer Breakfast meeting with US President George Bush in Washington on Thursday.

"It occurs to me, on second thought, that participating in such sessions with the President is to condone born again Christian Bush's terrorism of demonic proportions around the globe," Bhatt said in a letter to a friend in Washington, copies of which were released here.

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February 3, 2003

PALESTINE, SCHMALESTINE

Instapundit on what it means that the shuttle broke up over Palestine!

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January 30, 2003

Once upon a time.....

....I really respected this man! It is sad to see him resort to racist remarks to achieve....what exactly?

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Mandela condemns US stance on Iraq

"Their friend Israel has got weapons of mass destruction but because it's their ally they won't ask the United Nations to get rid of them.

"They just want the oil," Mr Mandela went on. "We must expose this as much as possible."
.............
"Is this because the secretary general of the United Nations [Ghanaian Kofi Annan] is now a black man? They never did that when secretary generals were white," he said.

Update: Some South-African reactions to Mandela's comments - Madiba's attack on Bush surprises opposition

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Interesting!

MTV India sends stinker to MTV US on Gandhi spoof : HindustanTimes.com

An episode guide at the network's website describes Gandhi as "stupid enough to take a swim in its piranha-infested moat," where 'Special Education' kids are ostracised and imprisoned.

Sarcastically describing the attempts as a part of the world's most expensive and ambitious cloning project, the website said the project is about a group of scientists creating clones from DNA extracts of dead people who have changed the course of human history.

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January 29, 2003

Is this man bitter or what?

Is Shania Twain Human? / In which the timeless question is posed: Why is this adorably terse and sexless pop diva so famous?

And you can bet some Super Bowl producer somewhere said to these latter acts, hey, why not make it easy on yourselves and just lip-synch to a tape, like Shania does, no one will really care, ain't like it's Carnegie Hall or anything, not like anyone in the openly deceitful ShrubCo era expects anything more.
.............
and of course there's not a single thing wrong with that, except that it's completely and depressingly disingenuous and hollow and sad and in an oil-drunk ShrubCo world, it feels like exactly the last thing we really need.
....................
Much like ShrubCo's blatant warmongering, much like Cheney barely trying to conceal the outright oily corporatization of our nation and its war interests, much like a gov't that doesn't even pretend to conceal its true draconian motives

Somebody, hurry up get this poor man some prozac. I have seen my share of bitter people but never someone so self-congratulatory, ill-informed, fact-twisting, I-said-Ha-Ha-I-am-so-cool person as this one. I feel sorry for him. I really do. As a person, I derive pleasure not from berating people or hating them passionately. I see the innate goodness in most people and even if I don't agree with some, I have no doubt as to their intentions, even if they are going about implementing them in a wrong way. I am a happy being. I get my joy and happiness from the people close to me, my pets and my friends. I don't need to call everybody who doesn't agree with me names to feel all intellectual and satisfied. I feel sorry for Morford. I really do.

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Excuse me.....

.....while I wipe the "lavender tea" off of my keyboard - These people have got to be kidding us.

Dobby, the computer-animated elf in the new Harry Potter film, could be at the centre of a court battle over his resemblance to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

A Russian law firm is reportedly drawing up legal action against the special effects people who dreamt up Dobby, arguing that the ugly but caring elf has been modelled on Mr Putin.

(link via Easy Guru)

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January 27, 2003

Chibonics!

model minority: Asian American Empowerment - In Our Own Language

Self-hatred is a complicated concept.

Cowardly assimilation to white ideals is what immediately comes to mind. When we speak of Asian Americans abandoning their ethnicity, we tend to only consider complete cultural surrender to the white mainstream.

However, for many Asian Americans at Berkeley who posses a higher ethnic awareness, it's possible to go running to the other extreme. In a society ruled by white culture, it's tempting to latch on to African America as the only strong, identifiable alternative. But let's not fool ourselves. Jazz and rap are culturally ours as much as Bach and Brahms. James Baldwin speaks for Asian Americans as much as Shakespeare does. Taking African American culture as ours is a delusion and a violent misappropriation.

A community of color is an admirable long term long-term goal, but it is no excuse to be intentionally imitative and submissive.

...or Inbonics, Pakinics, Japanics, whatever you call the idea, fact is it is stupid. Why is speaking proper English white? Why is it that you cannot assert your cultural identity without mandatory skewering of a good language? That aside, how are you going to decide on what language to get your street slang from? Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Urdu or one of the 14 official languages spoken in India? Why are all these so-called APAs "oriented" (according to them "oriental" is a slur, so obviously, I have to use forms of it) towards the "yellow" people? What about the brown ones? Aren't we Asians? We Indians already have "Hinglish", that is hard for any non-Indian, non-Hindi person to understand. Does that put us in a better position as minorities than other APAs who don't have a bastardized version of English to call their own?

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January 24, 2003

Oh Dear!

I am glad I have joined the deep-breathing-counting-till-100-when-you-are-so-angry-you-want-to-rip-someones-face-off club with JK and Ashwini. Or else, I would have called Emil a stupid jerk. I would have told him it is ridiculous to think that someone is going to come after Asians with knives in their hands ala Norman Bates, just because Shaq made fun of Yao (who supposedly represents the Asian-Americans, though he is a puppet of the Chinese Basketball Association). I would have also told him that constant race-baiting like his columns is what frustrates really sane people into believing that all Asians have to be inferiority-complexed, whiny, cry-babyish fools. I would have also told him to shut the fuck up and shove his columns where the sun don't shine. But I didn't now, did I?

AsianWeek.com: Opinion: ShaqÂ’s Taunt Â— Prelude to Hate Crimes?

ShaqÂ’s words were hardly self-mocking fun. They were taunts. Taunts are preludes to hate crimes. Over the last few years there have been 400 to 500 hate crimes against APAs in America, according to the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. Two of the hate crimes since Sept. 11 were murders; and almost all of them stem from the same well that produced Â“Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-so.Â”

ThatÂ’s not exactly an innocent, Â“Your mama wears combat boots.Â”

Update: Does Emil-the-dumbest-Asian-of-them-all really think that the murders after 9/11 happened because of stupid racial taunts and did not have anything do with the fact that the 9/11 terrorists were all Arabs, who look very much like most Asians?

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January 23, 2003

Obligatory remarks!

Ok, tell me what is one issue that is always present in Praful Bidwai's essays, regardless of the topic of discussion?

Hint: Praful Bidwai: A confused NRI policy

At work here are mutually incompatible, notions of inclusion and exclusion. How can we extend citizenship to foreign nationals, but deny elementary civil and political rights to those who we vehemently claim are our citizens -- Kashmiris from the valley, Muslims from Gujarat, and for long years, people from the Northeast?

Bonus points for those who can identify one truly oppressed group of Indian citizens that are living a refugee life in their own country, that Bidwai forgets to mention here.....

Update: Ashwini's thoughts on the subject (I don't think she is really happy about what he said)

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October 10, 2002

Are Muslim women better off than Hindu women?

According to an Islamic website,
In the Hindu religion, there is a class called ‘Brahmin’. Now, the Brahmin media made a big campaign some time ago out of the Shah Banu case and they blew it out of all proportion. They implied that Islam restricted the freedom of women. Let us compare the positions of the Hindu woman and the Muslim woman. See the following facts for comparison and then try to bring these Brahmins to their senses.

Hindu Woman:
1. The Hindu woman has no right to divorce her husband.
2. She has no property or inheritance rights.
3. Choice of partner is limited as she can only marry within their own caste; moreover her horoscope must match that of the intending bridegroom/family.
4. The family of the girl has to offer an enormous dowry to bridegroom/family.
5. If her husband dies she should commit Sati (being cremated with her dead husband). Since today’s law in India forbids Sati, society mainly punishes her in other “holy” ways (see below).
6. She cannot remarry.
7. The widow is considered to be a curse and must not be seen in public. She cannot wear jewellery or colourful clothes. (She should not even take part in her child’s marriage!)
8. Child and infant marriage is encouraged.

Muslim Woman:
1. The Muslim woman has the same right as the Muslim man in all matters, including divorce.
2. She enjoys property and inheritance rights. (Which other religion grants women these rights?). She can also conduct her own separate business.
3. She can marry any Muslim of her choice. If her parents choose a partner for her, her consent has to be taken.
4. A Muslim woman is allowed to remarry
5. Mixed marriage is encouraged and is a means to prevent racism creeping into society.
6. A Muslim mother is given the highest form of respect.

I had seen this above list on a bunch of web sites, and it grated on my nerves, so here goes my refutation of the above crap -

According to Indian Law Made Easy, “A petition for divorce may be presented by either the husband or wife for dissolving the marriage ” and people considered direct heirs to a dead person’s property if there is no will - “Son, Daughter, Widow, Mother, Son of a predeceased son, Daughter of predeceased son, Widow of predeceased son, Son of a predeceased daughter, Daughter of predeceased daughter, Son of predeceased so of predeceased son, Daughter of predeceased son of a predeceased son, Widow of predeceased son of a predeceased son”, which refutes points 1 and 2. According to Muslim Personal Law in India, though, “Under the Muslim Law ….The husband can dissolve the marriage tie at his will. A divorce can also take place by mutual agreement. But the wife cannot divorce herself from her husband without his consent. She can of course purchase her divorce from her husband and can have the marriage dissolved by Tafweez (delegation).”

Of course, points 3-8 are obviously true of the Hindu way of life…..if you are talking about pre-Independence India. But even in the pre-Independence days, the very fact that a very “Brahmin” Indira Gandhi fell in love and married Feroz Gandhi, who was a Parsi, against the wishes of her father Jawaharlal Nehru is telling, isn’t it? Also, after the death of her husband, instead of “dying on his funeral pyre”, Indira Gandhi became the first woman Prime Minister of “Hindu” India and stayed in power for about 17 years. She cut her hair short, wore colorful clothes and pretty much lived life the way she wanted to and was revered and admired by all Indians and called “mother”.

Also, there are plenty of examples all over the Hindu scriptures even, where women defied their parents and married men of their choice, even if they belonged to different castes - “Kshatriya” Rukmini eloped and married “Yadav” Lord Krishna - and they are both worshipped by Hindus.

According to MedIndia, you can see that the average age of marriage of women in India is 19 years - when a woman is not a child by any standard. I know that these statistics include women of all religions in India, but since India is made up of around 80%-75% Hindu populace, these numbers could be taken as representative of Hindu women.

What really bothers me about the above propaganda is that it assumes that a society stays stable and stagnant and unchanging since the time of the founding of a religion to the present day. Hinduism as a religion and a way of life has been around for thousands of years before Islam. Even so, Hinduism has a built-in flexibility that made the religion “modernizable” (if that is a word) as opposed to the rigid tenets of Islam. Hinduism has moved forward thousands of years on to the 21st century where feminism is considered, while Islam is still where it started and trying to turn back the clock (like the Taliban) where possible. The thing is, most Hindus have found a way to balance their religion with modern lifestyles, and have already made the transition towards a better life and equal rights for men women. That is not the case with Islam as a look at any “Islamic” country will tell you.

As a woman, in Saudi Arabia you cannot even drive your own car, in Afghanistan you are not allowed to step out without being covered head to foot, In Nigeria, you are stoned to death if you get pregnant outside wedlock - this is the face of Islam for you. I wish all these list-makers would sit down quietly for a moment and look around the world and see which religions’ women are faring better in today’s world - women of Islam or Hinduism.

Update: I am closing the comments thread - there is too much name-calling going on and too little discussion.

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October 9, 2002

PARTY LIKE IT'S 1399

Tim Blair has a hilarious post about some arrests in Iran at a party where young people of opposite sexes “mingled” with each other. An excerpt….

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1399:
Iranian police have arrested 120 party-goers at three private gatherings in wealthy districts of the capital Tehran and charged them with mingling with the opposite sex and dancing, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
They must have been on drugs. You know, the drugs that make you go crazy and start mingling.

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October 2, 2002

Asianweek Watch

Ok, time for the new edition of “Asianweek” - time for Shanti to blow another fuse! Our eminently quotable Emil Guillermo does not disappoint, and his column “Emil Amok” is as usual the racist, cliche-ridden, stereotype-filled diatribe that we all expect it to be. So, apart from the usual supects (Bush and Ashcroft and America and …you know the drill….), who is the main focus of his column - a “somewhat masculine-looking lass from Georgia named Eunice Stone”. Ok, I am getting ahead of myself. In case you think he is unfairly criticizing poor Eunice Stone, wait till I put the whole thing in context for you.

Unfortunately for me and fortunately for them, “Asianweek” does not provide it’s content online. I get the print version, and I cannot access their website. So, I am going to quote some choice paragraphs from Emil’s lucid, coherent and well-thought-out rant, that will no doubt leave you wanting for more. Please E-mail me for the whole worthy essay.

“We all got a taste of [TIPS] the other day. I woke up to hear a breathless anchor say there was a stretch of highway shut down in Florida because the car of some suspected terrorists was being searched by a robot and bomb-sniffing dogs.”

So far, so good - now we wonder what drop this rollercoaster is coming up with….

“But this is even better than the Gomer episodes Bush and Ashcroft must have seen - this one features a real live Gomer. And for the sake of modernizing, it’s a woman. Not Aunt Bea, but a somewhat masculine-looking lass from Georgia named Eunice Stone.”

Ok, we got our weekly quota of gratuitous “Bush is stupid” and “Ashcroft is mean” references in. Now, we want to be “modern”, so we pick on ladies - that too, for their looks - man, we are liberated.

“Stone was eating breakfast at a Shoney’s - you know, home of the classic breakfast bar off Highway 75. (Frankly, if I were in the vicinity, I’d take the Pancake House or the Waffle House over a Shoney’s anytime). Anyway, she told Fox News that she heard three men talking and laughing at a nearby table.”

Now Emil impresses us further by demonstrating his extraordinary taste in cuisine and his literary talent by including details that are neither pertinent to the matter at hand or interesting.

“Eunice’s antennae were up. Were these men laughing at her makeup? At something they heard on howard Stern? Eunice said they were saying “If they think they were sad on 9-11, wait until 9-13,” and then they continued laughing. well, you know, what’s someone like Eunice Stone, an all-American gal and modern-day Gomer, supposed to think?”

Riiiight. Emil, you are so right - all women can think of is their makeup and how all men listen to Howard Stern - especially if they are all-American. No racism here - no derision - no condescension. do you see something? me, neither.

Damn the ambiguous pronouns. we’re on Orange Alert, and there’s zero tolerance for intelligence”

Huh, whose intelligence, Emil? The intelligence of “all-American gals” or that of muslims playing practical jokes on unsuspecting people on September 11th? You are being too “ambiguous” for me here. You see, I am a girl and cannot understand such big things.

“Besides, laughter about Sept.11? That’s sacrilege in present day America.It better be damn funny otherwise. Would she have the courage to yell, “Citizen’s arrest! Citizen’s arrest!”?”

Laughing about 9/11 is sacrilege? I wonder why people would frown upon juvenile jokes about the murder of 3000 innocent people! Come on, it is just “American” lives - me, I still think nothing beats the Holocaust for humor quotient - the gas chambers, the torture - I crack up when I think of murder.

“But for what? Were those men really joking about Sep.11? Is that a crime? Did she hear it in the right context?”

Good questions, Emil. How do you know the answer? Why did you indict Eunice Stone and draw scathing cariacatures of her without mentioning the possibility she might be right? What if the guys really sounded convincing and did play the joke on her? How do you know for sure what happened?

“In any case, who needs analysis? Stone’s pulse was going. “It really scared me. I was really scared,” she told the crew at Fox. “Why were they sitting out there laughing at 9-11?”“

The funny thing here, is that the first sentence in the paragraph applies as much to Emil as he tries to make it apply to Eunice Stone. But then, who needs analysis? Eunice Stone had no right to be scared - that silly, “all-American” (don’t forget “masculine-looking”) woman! How can she be scared when three Arab-looking males joke in front her about 9-11 (when 19 men looking very similar to the three in front of her murdered 3000 people)?

“Without knowing anything definitive, Eunice Stone, who says she normally doesn’t make it a habit to eavesdrop, couldn’t help being her own dear patriotic self.”

That’s it! you are patriotic if you eavesdrop on people - if you are American.

“But here’s what she could go on: One of the three men was wearing a Muslim skullcap, not a baseball cap that says “John Deere”. One of them even had a beard that came to his chest. Not even the wrestler Haystack Calhoun had one that long. And then she heard the phrase, “Do you think we have enough to bring it down?”
Bingo! Eunice was ready to proclaim 2 + 2 = 5!
“I just thought something is not right”, she told Fox, and then called the Georgia State Patrol on her cell phone. See, she is a modern woman.”

He sneers so much at the poor lady that his upper lip has stretched over his head and hangs off of the back of it. He goes on with the filth, and gets back into his tired, old arguments about how America is a sucky place to live in since 9/11, how all men with beards and skullcaps and no “John Deere” caps are being sent to concentration camps and being roasted by women with cell phones. He also hopes that Eunice Stone would turn out to be “a crack-using welfare cheat and illegal immigrant from God-know-where”. I will leave it here so I can go take a loooong shower!

This is but one week in the life of Asianweek - the poison in one column is enough to make a community wilt. This magazine and this guy claim to represent me and other Asians in America. Not in my name! If someone wants to engage with the scumbag, you can E-mail him at emil@amok.com.

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October 1, 2002

My First "Fisking"

Just saw an article on rediff.com by a certain Praful Bidwai that would not be out-of-place in an Iraqi newspaper. So, here goes his article and my refutation. It is not as much fun as the other bloggers seem to have since most of Praful’s arguments have been refuted time-and-again already. Also, his column was too long and tedious to go over it with a real fine-toothed comb. So here goes - note that all emphasis has been added by me:

“After President George W Bush imperiously taunted the United Nations either to show ‘some backbone’ — that is, fall in line with Washington — or become ‘irrelevant’ like the League of Nations, the US is set to move a new Security Council resolution on Iraq.”
Coming from the citizen a of country where shows of “backbone” consist of a lot of sabre-rattling and a whole lot of gas but no action, the above line shows a tiny hint of jealousy towards the US. I mean, here is a country actually giving an ultimatum to the same UN whose “plebiscite resolution” still hangs like a sword over India’s head, and India will not do a thing about it but grovel and whine to anyone who will listen “look at what the Pakistanis are you doing! somebody, look, somebody, help!”.

“This is likely to contain unreasonable conditions which Baghdad might find impossible to comply with — despite its decision to welcome UN weapons inspectors.”
Now this whole line was such a gem that I found it hard not to emphasize the whole thing and be done with. What are the unreasonable condition you are talking about, Praful? like the one giving Iraq the 7-day deadline to declare all it’s WMD programs and then 23 days to open the country up for inspections? And just what are the Iraqis welcoming? first it was unconditional inspections, then it was only military bases and now this. More to the point is the question, why can’t/won’t Saddam comply? what is he hiding?

“But Iraq’s non-compliance is exactly what Washington wants! Because then, it can get the Security Council to authorise an armed attack on Iraq on which it has already set its mind. Washington is going through the Security Council not because it respects it, but because its key allies, including France and Germany, and China and Russia, are reluctant to act without a UN mandate. A UNSC resolution is a fig-leaf for what America has already decided on: a ‘regime change’ in Iraq.”
Wow - good thinking, Praful - buy a clue, man - “regime change” had been the American way of thinking since 1990. If that was all America wanted, they would have got it by now.

“Iraq is not about to attack the US, its allies or any other state. Nor was it recently involved in ‘terrorism’ or in September 11. Terms such as ‘threats to’ the peace cannot apply to a state that has not attacked another since 1990. “
Ah, poor Iraq! I cry for you! so Praful what about the alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence people in Prague? It is just not the “imperious” US claiming it - even the Czechs are admitting it. How did Abu Nidal end up in Iraq and how did he die? What about Saddam paying the families of suicide bombers and thus sponsoring terrorism in Israel? What about him attacking his own citizens, with chemical weapons, no less?

“Iraq is being wrongly accused of ‘defying’ UNSC resolutions. In reality, it has complied with them, in particular the all-pervasive Resolution 687 (of 1991), which mandates the destruction of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — WMDs — under international supervision. Yet, the ultra-hawkish US Vice-President Dick Cheney claims with supreme confidence: ‘there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has WMDs… he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us… The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action.’”
If you remember to read your daily newspaper, Praful, you would have known that it was not just the “ultra-hawkish” Dick Cheney who said that - it was also in the dossier published by Tony Blair.

“The sanctions regime was used to supply intelligence to the CIA. Former UNSCOM chief Rolf Ekeus confirms this. As does US Marine Scott Ritter, formerly with UNSCOM, who says Iraq now has no WMD programme.”
Now you are taking at face value the word of the Scot Ritter, who has flip-flopped on the WMD issue so many times, he doesn’t know East from West anymore.

“The US’s anti-WMD tirade would have sounded less hypocritical if it were not the world’s biggest possessor of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, with their unacceptably gruesome human and environmental consequences. The US in fact is guilty of tearing up or opposing treaty after arms control treaty, including the Biological Weapons Protocol, Landmines Ban, Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty, the International Criminal Court, not to speak of the CTBT. It not only wants to maintain its WMD arsenals but also build and test new nuclear weapons. The new, aggressive policies outlined in the recent Nuclear Posture Review contradict the US’ international legal obligation under the NPT to abolish nuclear weapons.”
India did not sign many of those treaties too, Praful - and India has nuclear weapons too. Remember that, if not for US’ atomic weapons, we would all be speaking German, Japanese or Russian by now. But then, I have a feeling you would think it was a good thing.

“The US condones de facto WMD possession by many states, including Russia, France, Britain, China, Israel, India and Pakistan. So long as they continue to possess WMDs, others will seek to do likewise. The US’ singling out of Iraq has less to do with its now de-fanged WMD programmes — which can be neutralised by reasonable multilateral inspections — than with other, US-centred, causes.”
I would suspect that the US condemnation has to do with the fact that Saddam is a homicidal maniac who shouldn’t run with scissors, let alone WMDs - I know Musharraf qualifies for a condemnation too, but that is another story.

“First and foremost, this is an election year in the US, with the entire House of Representatives and a sixth of the Senate up for contest. Post-September 11, war is more popular than Mr Bush’s domestic policies, which have little to show for themselves. The nationalist Hard Right knows the Democrats are reluctant to be seen oppose the administration on ‘national security’ and be branded ‘appeasers.’ Electorally, the Republicans are evenly poised against the Democrats. War could tilt the balance, completing the Hard Right’s takeover of America.”
Ah! give it up to him, folks! he has come up with a reason other than oil, imperialism and internal politics for Bush to want to invade Iraq…oops strike that - he thinks it is politics too. See, the Republicans are “hard” right, while democrats are just…democrats, who are also afraid of speaking out. Ever heard of McDermott or Bonior or Daschle, Mr.Bidwai?

“Second, Mr Bush’s one-year-long war against ‘terrorism’ has produced few results barring a ‘regime change’ in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s welcome ouster. To this day, 80 per cent of Al-Qaeda/Taliban top leaders remain unaccounted-for. Afghanistan is in an extremely volatile state, with the Hamid Karzai regime lacking military muscle and moral-political authority. Mr Bush has to show some kind of ‘victory’ in the so-called ‘historic’ war against ‘global terror.’ Hence Iraq — not because Mr Hussein has any connection with September 11, but because 9/11 can be exploited to target him.”
Same tactic, different story - Praful, Bush wanted to oust Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan - he did that. When was the last time you heard from Osama? Listen, US did it’s job in Afghanistan and now they want to carry it over to one of the heads of the serpent called “terroris”. Get it?

“Closely tied to America’s Iraq plans are grander designs to restructure the entire West Asian region by installing slavishly pro-Western regimes in key states. Cheney has spelt out the purpose of a ‘regime change’ in Iraq: ‘Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jehad. Moderates … would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced.’ This would tell the Middle East’s people ‘they have a friend and ally in the US …’”
So, you say that being moderate instead of extremist is to be a slave to the West? I say it is a good - faster please.

“The third factor at work is Black Gold — the US interest in oil. US energy companies have reacted sharply to a recent RAND Corporation report terming Saudi Arabia ‘the kernel of evil,’ a likely prey to Islamic extremism, which cannot responsibly perform its role as the world’s biggest oil producer. They want Iraq’s huge reserves — 112 billion barrels, second largest in the world — to be opened up. Once ‘Evil Saddam’ is displaced, production can also cranked up from the present 2.4 million barrels/day to 4 mbd. Oil is all-important. No US cabinet has been closer to the energy industry than Bush Jr’s. It is the energy industry.”
Ok, I take my previous words back - it is about the oil, after all. If the US wanted oil that bad, Praful, they would do business with Saddam - he does want to sell oil and make money, you kow - not try to oust him. Also, if oil is all that the US is interested in, when are they occupying Mexico? Venezuela? Russia? Where are the oil reserves in Afghanistan?

“Driven by these questionable motives, the US is likely to lead an all-out attack on Iraq. To get UNSC sanction, it will twist the arms of the 10 non-permanent members of the Council. Neither Russia nor China, leave alone France, will probably exercise their veto once they know Washington’s mind. But two things are clear. The US’ NATO allies will support the war only with reservations — unlike 1991, after Iraq invaded Kuwait and ‘collective self-defence’ could be invoked. Second, the US today has no significant Arab allies who are willing to contribute troops.”
No body is helping US, blah, blah, blah - If you read Bush right, what he means is that he doesn’t care who helps him - remember the bit about “you are either with us or you are against us?” He is not beggin for help.

“Bush Jr lacks a clear plan for a post-Saddam Iraq. There are at least a dozen anti-Saddam parties/factions in Iraq. But they are too weak, divided and mutually hostile to provide a viable alternative. That is one reason why the US-led coalition decided to leave Mr Hussein in power in 1991. A post-Saddam Iraq could well break up into a northern Kurd-dominated state, a southern largely-Shia country, and a Sunni Arab centre. That would be worse than the status quo — even for US oil interests.

The regional and global repercussions of an attack on Iraq will be grim. War will unleash powerful resentment from Iraq’s neighbours, and strengthen the US’ enemies. It will negate whatever gains have been achieved in the so-called ‘war on terror,’ convincing many that the US is invading Iraq without a casus belli or provocation. The Palestinian crisis will further worsen (if that’s still possible). The Middle East could plunge into unprecedented turmoil and violence. Zionist and Islamic fundamentalists will be the principal beneficiaries — and soon, their rivals from other religions. The US will have established that ‘Might is Right,’ with unspeakable consequences for the structure of multilateral institutions. This structure has evolved over two centuries through nation-states voluntarily abridging absolute sovereignty. The undermining of multilateralism spells anarchy, chaos and brigandage.”
Read this for thorough refutation - How War Will Open Arab Eyes

“This confronts India with a serious dilemma. New Delhi has good relations with Iraq, its single biggest oil supplier. There are 3.1 million Indians in the Gulf whose remittances are much greater than all the FDI flows put together. War also spells instability in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan — an unpleasant prospect for India. New Delhi has been cautioning against war. But this is now yielding to ambiguity — because India wants a ‘strategic partnership’ with the US! Thus, Mr Vajpayee kept silent on Iraq during his UN speech. As America cranks up war preparations, India will find it hard to take an independent stand. Like with the 1991 refuelling, it will be asked to fall in line. That bodes ill for our future.”
Well, it is not really like what India thinks makes any difference to the US - my advice to India would be help if asked, remain neutral if not, but never make powerful enemies - we all know how much good the “neutral” stance did us during the Cold War…

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March 29, 2007

For Womyn's Sake!

March 21, 2007

Let the bear live!

December 6, 2006

Sadistic misfits

October 27, 2006

Don't "Sheikh" it, baby!

September 20, 2006

You are Hindu, because I said so

September 18, 2006

Irony? Not even close!

September 14, 2006

And the point is....

September 13, 2006