I am still on 24

Second season is more interesting, but, why oh why do they have to keep Kim Bauer alive. Horrible !
Anyway it has to be put on hold. There is, well, more pressing business.

Update :  Thoughts on season premier. The opening sequence is snappy, love the song. John Connor cutting his hair is kind of ironic, but its significance is not clear to me. Future prospect of passionate android love is awesome, made even more awesome by the fact that android is fetching Summer Glau.

When are we going to wake up

from this same re-occurring nightmare

Update: Open challenge. You know it is great that we have great patriots like Shri Manmohan Singh and Shri Shivraj Patil to protect this nation. Surely terrorists must be wetting their pants by the strongly worded condemnation.

Update 1: RC writes, terror should be politicized. Will that do the trick ? May be, who knows. I am afraid that our polity is irreversibly fractured. I doubt that Republic of India will be there in the next century.

Update 2: Call me crazy, but how long before Secularists ask Modi/Togadia/Advani to be hanged, to you know, address grievance of Indian Muslims.

Update 3: You know what has changed. After IM, no more crowing about we don't have Al-Qaeda in India. Of course, it is sad that it took so many innocent lives for secularists to shut up.

Update 4: Also, how long before secular media publishes report of police harassing Muslims, followed by "intellectuals" rallying to decry assault on secularism.

Update 5: Just wanted to ask this. Is Eminent Douchebag guest blogging at Fallen One's place. What else, can explain this nonsense. I mean what next, Satyagraha against power cuts, against bad roads. Hey Bhagwan !


Update 6: Also to answer what RC wrote, I don' think politicization is the answer. The reasoning remains same as in this post which was my take on his previous posts.

Bit of role playing

Here is the scenario,

You are in a group, comprising of, a renowned scientist, a beautiful but superficial actor, a capable and well respected politician statesman, an altruist, and last a good for nothing, filthy, adulterous, petty, in other words a well rounded asshole, truck driver who has been nothing failure.
Now by a series of unfortunate circumstances you find your group captured by highly intelligent tribe with a bad attitude (how bad ? Scotland bad ), who because they have bad attitude, want to sacrifice one of you.

Now here is what you have to do, assuming any one of the characters, make a case before the tribe why you should be spared.

Wohooo !

Finally it is here! Trailer below.




PS. It better be good. I hope it kicks Bourne Series and Sin City ass.

Update:  Why Wahlberg though, he is eye candy. I think it would have been more appropriate to have some brooding type, may be this guy.

Ah, these beautiful people

Jug Suraiya (who else) concludes at the end of a long article detailing Indian submissiveness to China.

The real reason, the real threat we face from China, is far more insidious than that represented by nuclear weapons, or FDI figures, or global market shares. It is that — with its monolithic, single-minded pursuit of success at all costs, human or material — China makes us apologetic and ashamed of what is, and ought to be, our most prized advantage over the Middle Kingdom: our democracy. Ragged, half-starved, flood-battered, riot-scarred but nonetheless democracy, not the jackboot of dictatorship. Our democracy ought to be our biggest pride. China threatens to make it our shame. That — and not nuclear deals or Security Council seats — is the real challenge of the Chinese dragon. How ready are we to face it?

PS. I really have to ask this. Where does this obsessive, all consuming, love for democracy and liberalism, to the extent refusing to even consider any inquire into nature of human affair outside these boundaries, come from ?
You know, Nietzsche was on the mark, Liberalism is the rotting corpse of a dead Christian God.

Just one last thing

Now that we are going to cease to exist due to collapse of space time continuum brought to you by scientists with too much grant and no social life to spend it on drinking binges, I want to tell you that I really really love you all, even though, frankly speaking, you are all idiots and morons.

Update: You know what this means! No more India Uncut either. Well, I will call it reasonable bargain, though I have a sneaking suspicion that there must be some better way than to destroy the cosmos. Also before we cease to exist, someone please ask goat lover to take a bath.

Update 1: Fantastic! More doomsday scenarios (via comments thanks to jobless Sriram).

The logical conclusion

Of South Asian identity politics* buffoonery and narcissist assholery of middle class.
Ladies and gentlemen, mark this as a new low.

* This is not to say that there is anything unenviable about any identity politics.

Give me a break

This dude thinks that Sarah Palin was nasty and shrill. What exactly did he expect her to do? Perhaps act like a diffident and  meek woman, and keep her head down. As far as I know, vice presidential candidates are supposed to be aggressive, so that presidential candidates can act, well, presidential. This Palin did admirably.  In fact, while I am not sure how much I like her religious conservatism, but I like her guts. The way hacks went after her family and herself whole last week was simply disgusting. I mean accusing her of being bad mother, and  dragging her daughter in this! It was like, "hey, lets fling all the poo we can, and see what sticks". And you know what's worse? They did it because she was a woman. They were hoping that she will wilt away terrified, and perhaps go back to kicthen. Well she proved them wrong. I can not be accused of being a feminist by any stretch, but my admiration goes to her for returning the fire.

PS. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with raising questions about her experience and past record. Just not that particular line of attack.

PPS. You know it's silly. Why am I discussing American politics ! I declare a moratorium.

A rose is as you like it

MAG protests that my criticism of liberalism is mistaken in that liberalism is actually classical liberalism, and not what I imply. My answer, it depends. If you believe that liberalism, like Marxism, refers to a particular doctrine then of course you are right to insist on the definition. As it happens I don't think that this is the generally accepted meaning. Meaning of liberalism (or conservatism), like left wing-right wing schism, is a moving target depending on the historical context. Sure liberalism started as classical liberalism, but early in the last century American progressives appropriated it for their agenda of increased government intervention. Why this switch happened is something I don't know (although I have my idea), but as things stand, in America liberalism stand for government spending, and I am perfectly OK with it. Here I concede that in Europe liberalism refers indeed to the classical variety. In India I don't think this matters, we are fighting our political battles on different battleground altogether.

PS. Oh and by the way, you can follow this blog. Isn't it awesome.

The Speech

Here is the entire video. My thoughts later.

Update: Here are my thoughts. I am underwhelmed by the speech as such. The frequent interruptions for applause were too annoying, and frankly smelled of desperation. Also may be it is just me but I didn't find Sarah Palin cute, but unlike Respect Ma'am I didn't find her jarring either. What I got from watching her was that a) She is a determined woman, and her opponents if they underestimate her it will be at their own peril (I could almost detect steel in her poise) and b) She relishes attacking, and she is good, not Guiliani good (what can I say, I love the man), but good in her own way. She eviscerated Obama, and I think he must be licking his wounds. I didn't find anything troubling with her aggression. In a way, it was a perfect response to the way her family was dragged in the mud by zealous followers of Obama.

I wanted to make a general point about speeches. There is a perception that the only purpose of speech is to list policy proposals. That, at least to me, is a horrifying idea. Speeches are either meant to rouse the foot soldiers of your campaign by great oratory, or to familiarize general audience with your general philosophy for governance. In this few policy proposals can be included to illustrate how the particular governing philosophy is better that that of opponents but this should not be turned to a dreary seminar on health policy (which, as goat lover can vouch, are no good). Greeks, the original masters of democracy, realized this. Which is why they considered rhetorics as important as dialectics.

Help

My head hurts.

PS. I hate economists. Not as much as I hate those who peddle the grand social narratives, but I hate them nevertheless.

Pardon The Snark

But this post easily qualifies for the blogging equivalent of the old adage, "When one has have a hammer everything looks like a nail".

It is bad, but that is not my main gripe. One expects this kind of post choc a bloc with tedious nonsense and meandering rhetoric from 'induhvidiualists' like Desi John Galt or The Eminent Douche bag, but not from Fallen One, who is usually coherent, instead the post comes off as superficial and presumptuous, a bad case of intellectual sloth.

I guess, what I want to say is may be philosophy is not The Fallen One's strongest point.

And people please lay off this liberal nationalism, it is borderline stupid. Also I am getting pissed off.

What do you think about the speech

Where the speech refers to acceptance speech by Sarah Palin. The part I liked best was this

But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - when that happens, what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?

This is rhetoric of course, but it has a flourish, a flow belonging to an era gone by. Even though they are not looked upon favorably, I have a weakness for long sentences which flow into each other, whether in writing or in speeches. Done right, it is sheer poetry. This is remarkable considering English doesn't give easily to poetry. On the other hand, a little bit of error and the rhetoric descends from poetry to incoherence, the serenity of music shattered by cacophony of disjointed thoughts. Which is why, one has to savor few displays of it. And let me clarify the credit goes to speech writer. As far how the speech really went, I have no idea, not having the video, but the oratory is not a deal breaker for me. I am for good or bad saddled with strong opinions about what is right and wrong, and I judge on those notions. This means that often I am not open even to good arguments, but that's how it is.

And this is why I don't like Obama. I am not particularly invested in US politics. I do think Republicans should lose, if only for supporting Iraq misadventure. But the problem is, I don't like liberals, and Obama is one without doubt. It's not so much as I am opposed to his policies, I have no idea what his or McCain policies are, I can also reconcile to the idea that he will be a competent president, it is just that I abhor liberalism. Liberalism can't see the world in any other terms but as eternal conflict between exploited and exploiter, sort of Christianity without Christ. Since it has, at its origin class conflict, it is compelled to see man as a victim, of other man, of circumstances, of history. For liberals wealth is not a result of ingenuity, hard work or entrepreneurship, but cause for exploitation and oppression. Which is why distaste for profit, or any activity whose aim to generate the profit. Liberalism thrives on discord and distrust, finding nourishment from politics of scarcity, as rationing agent, in the guise of Robin Hood. The best that one can hope from a polity founded on conflict is deadlock of political discourse as a norm, only offset by accidental interventions from outside.

I have not much patience for Ayn Rand and snake oil she peddled, but if given the option between of folly of regarding Man as a victim and regarding Man as a hero, I will rather commit the latter folly. True there is a too real danger that such a folly can lead to fall, but it also holds promise of rise, even of becoming, and even the fall, if it should occur, that fall has quality of Greek tragedy, as fate of Icarus or Prometheus.
In contrast Liberalism, grandiloquence and sophistry notwithstanding, has nothing to offer but a future of mediocrity, a dismal tomorrow, a mirage packaged as utopia.

FYI

24 is pretty good.

Developing....

PS. Any good serials to recommend ?

Update: OK finished Season 1. Question. Why exactly wasn't Kimberly Bauer bumped off at the end ? I mean she is sheer personification of all that is dumb in this world. This streak of dumbness continues in the second season. Plus I hate Elisha Cuthbert. No one, and I mean no one, should be subjected to The Girl Next Door

Attention

Read and learn (pdf document). Courtesy Respected Ma'am.

Beyond belief

Absurdity of this article is beyond belief.

Update Ok, I am almost embarrassed to write this. The article is beyond absurd because one expects an article titled "Jaipur blasts aftermath: Victims of social taboos", to actually say something about Social taboos.