President Bush's State of the Union address expected to sweep the Oscars

President Bush's sequel to last year's State of the Union address called "Return of the King", which he will be delivering today at 9:00 p.m EST, is expected to sweep this year's Oscar Awards. The address, which has been nominated in three categories, namely, Best Actor, Best Sci-Fi Film and Best Writing (adapted screenplay), is expected to win all three, thus giving President Bush the distinction of being the first ever US president to have been publicly felicitated for his talent as an actor.

In addition to the president, his chief advisor Karl Rove has also been nominated for Best Direction and Best Computer-generated Animated Character, the competition for the latter being especially fierce with Chris Matthews and Ann Coulter also being nominated.

The awards ceremony is expected to have its moments of awkwardness with Jon Stewart of the Daily Show being the host, who has been a virulent Bush critic for over 4 years and is expected to crack many more jokes at the president's expense during the ceremony itself. However, White House insiders point out that due to the absence of subtitles in real life, the president is expected to maintain his composure due to incomprehension.

Although the nomination of the president in the Best Actor category was not really a surprise due to his six years experience in playing the role of a president on-screen, what was amazing was his nomination being put forth even before the broadcast of the actual State of the Union address. Industry analysts explain this by saying that the jury didn't want the president to lose his chance at winning just because of the late timing of his address, especially as it would be a grave injustice to someone of his acting talent not to receive any acclamation for his pioneering efforts in the field of motion picture production (via HuffPo).

Although last year's State of the Union address, called "The Madness of King George", made it to the nominations, it didn't win any awards due to a shoddy ensemble and the president's lack-lustre performance that was short of believability. This year, with the president having improved his acting prowess through numerous pre-staged Hurricane Katrina photo-ops, as well as many of his characters having been promoted to bigger and better roles, the sequel shouldn't suffer from any such problems.

Pro-US Indian lobby puzzled by Pro-US American stance

The lobby of pro-US Indians (PUI) has expressed surprise and puzzlement over the rabidly aggressive posturing of David Mulford, the US ambassador to India. The ambassador incurred the displeasure of the PUI when he stated that if India refused to vote against Iran at the IAEA, it would have a detrimental effect on the proposed civil nuclear initiative between India and the US.

A PUI spokesperson remarked, "Even though we are proud to proclaim our unwavering support for all American-backed policies, initiatives and wars, we feel betrayed by America giving a higher priority to her interests, thereby hurting our feelings in the process. It is inconcievable to us, in spite of America's long history of such behavior, that she would do this time and time again."

The PUI, which has supported the American occupation of Iraq as well as a number of other Republican-backed issues that have found little support even inside the US, was profoundly disappointed at the US attempt to further its interests while treading on the interests of India. "We were okay with being pro-US as long as countries other than India were being coerced in the face of the US agenda. Now that India finds herself in the path of the American juggernaut, we need to rethink our stance on this issue", said the spokesperson.

The Bush administration, which has taken a strongly pro-US position towards denuclearizing Iran, which involves obtaining the support of India against Iran through blackmail, refuses to let the pro-US stance of the PUI stand in their way. "A country's gotta do what a country's gotta do", said President Bush, explaining his position on the issue. "We are sure they will understand, especially since they appear to consider the PNAC as their role model, whose statement of principles clearly explains the nature of American imperialistic ambitions towards the rest of the world. The statement is also specific on the lack of any role assigned to India within the scheme of its implementation except in the capacity of being the rest of the world."

Poll shows Americans wish for a third Bush term

A CNN poll shows that a majority of Americans consider President Bush's second attempt at being a president to be a massive failure. This led to the president gloating over the fact that this proves that most Americans wish him to have a third shot at the presidency which hopefully might finally be a successful one.

"Politics is similar to academics", said the President while imparting a civics lesson to students at the West Point military academy in upstate New York. "The school, which in this case is the American Union, won't give me a degree, which in this case is an ex-president's mansion, salary and a security guard, unless I have passed the presidency with flying colors."

The president is expected to start studying for his next attempt at the presidency, which will be held on November 2nd 2008, by looking back at all the mistakes he made during his initial two terms and blaming them all on Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party.

On being asked if Congress would be okay with scrapping the two-term rule for the presidency considering his special case of incompetence, President Bush replied, "9/11 changed everything. Congress doesn't count anymore."

Polluting nations vow to reduce greenhouse emissions by not holding environmental summits

Six of the world's biggest pollution causing nations met together in Sydney, Australia to wrap up multilateral talks in which it was decided never to hold an environmental summit again. This mostly unanimous accord will mark a historic breakthrough in the fight against global warming by lessening greenhouse gas emissions caused due to these summits.

According to sources, the US and Australia jointly initiated the bill banning the holding of pollution causing summits. "Beginning today, the planet will benefit due to a 100% reduction in carbon dioxide produced by people travelling to countries holding climate-change talks", gushed a happy team US spokesman. "Email deletion, which is a more eco-friendly way to not make progress in cleaning the earth's atmosphere, will be a terrific substitute to holding global warming summits and disagreeing on everything that is said."

India and China, who will be the world's biggest polluters in the coming years, have expressed their disagreement with this bill, but could not email their disapproval fast enough to overturn it due to slow internet connections.

In related news, astronomers have discovered a new earth-like planet hovering around a star about 20,000 light years away. More significant is their claim that the star might be devoid of any intelligent life form due to the presence of large amounts of breathable air in its atmosphere.

Evil Old Google

So all right-thinking right-leaning conservative patriots in the US are livid in their anger against evil Google. Fuck, they say, evil Google is letting us down in our fight against communism and censorship. Google, they say, screwed up by surrendering to China's demands for it to censor its search results that China's leaders believed might be critical of its government.

And the right-wing has risen to the challenge. We will not stand for this, they thundered. A US company, censoring itself for what...mere dollars? Mere market share? Sheesh, they said, this is just plain wrong and unamerican. Some even went so far as to proclaim that they would be uninstalling Google Adsense from their website in protest. I commend these fine gentlemen. Bravo, I say. Now there's just one more thing you need to do.

You gotta turn off your Fox News. Yeah, you heard me, turn it off and don't tell me it ain't on, 'cause I know it is. Why, you ask? Here's why. You know Rupert Murdoch, the owner of News Corporation, which the Fox News Network is a part of? A long time ago in a land far far away called Australia, a young media moghul called Rupert Murdoch was broadcasting his satellite channels into communist China. All kinds of channels including Star TV, MTV, even BBC. Now BBC, even though you might think is a communist / socialist news channel, is not really that. In fact, the Chinese government was so mad with its coverage of human rights abuse in China that it threatened to disallow Rupert from broadcasting any of his channels into China if he didn't take it off the air. Now you might think, hell our Rupert would have done the right thing and given the Chinese government the finger, yeah?

Hell no. Young Rupert rolled over, bent backward and spread his legs, all in a single mellifluous move. Fuck the BBC, he said, I never liked Fawlty Towers anyways, he said. I'm removing it from my lineup. Please pretty please, can I come back now, he pleaded. And the Chinese government took him back into its fold. They held a welcoming banquet for him in Tiananmen Square. They all lived happily ever after. And finally, in 2001, after the BBC gave China a categorical assurance that it would never, I mean never ever again use the phrase "human rights abuse" in its newscasts, it too the BBC was allowed back into the country, but only in hotels and foreign-owned enclaves.

So see, my young right-wing friends, if you are really serious about being anti-Google, you gotta be anti-Fox News as well. Write to your cable provider to stop broadcasting it to you. Write to Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity that your patriotism no longer allows you the moral authority to enjoy their douchebaggery on the same network that has Chinese jizz on its face. And then and only then will you be entitled to squat naked on your front porch, waving the star spangled banner as you mutter obscenities at that treasonous search engine called Google which is giving aid and comfort to those red commie bastards.

Posts I do not quite get

In today's edition of "Posts I do not quite get", a new feature which I started today inspired by the subject of today's edition of "Posts I do not quite get", Gaurav Sabnis appears to be requesting the government to destroy a piece of greenery in Mumbai and convert it into, I don't know, maybe a parking lot, because the government will not allow him access to it.

I really didn't get this post. Mainly because the piece of greenery he points to is the Raj Bhawan, seat of the Governor of Maharashtra, which he wouldn't have had access to anyways because of security concerns. So if that piece of land isn't going to be made accessible to him anyways, wouldn't it be better for it to be green rather than a dirty shade of gray?

Furthermore, Sabnis asks, "What if I told you that it is our taxes that pay for the maintenance of this place whose contribution to actual governance is at best negligible?" This statement kind of muddies the issue as to who his beef is with. Is it the position of the governor as a figurehead?If so, why is he taking his anger out on the piece of green land whose existence and maintenance has nothing to do with governance? There are lots of other places my taxes pay for (if I paid taxes, that is), such as Parliament, the Rashtrapati Bhawan, NCL, NDA and thousands of other government buildings I wouldn't be allowed access to. Does that mean they shouldn't be maintained? That they shouldn't have gardens and trees?

If he were merely asking for the position of governor to be abolished because of its irrelevance, I wouldn't mind as much. But the reasoning he provides for its abolition, that because of the existence of the position of governor, he, Gaurav Sabnis, cannot enjoy the piece of greenery the governor's mansion sits on, is a pretty far-fetched one. And what Mr Sabnis is asking for is for this piece of land to "be liberated from the clutches of the Sahib." I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean all the trees on that land need to be chopped off and a big shopping mall be built in its place? Or does it mean he should be given admittance to that land irrespective of security concerns?

To me this post just seems to be a pretty arbitrary bashing of environmentalists. And that is why it is a post I do not quite get.

Update : Gaurav Sabnis responds. Although I see what he was trying to say, namely that the governor's post is of too less consequence for it to reside in a huge swath of land in a prime location, I still think asking activists to make a big hue and cry about it is asking for too much because 1.> They probably have more pressing issues to fight, and 2.> they would probably be wary of what might happen to that land if the governor moves out of it. Because we all know what happens to all our historical landmarks and the state of disrepair they are mantained in. And even if the Raj Bhawan might be a reminder of our colonial oppression, it's still a part of our history.

Mexican immigrants to be hired for carrying out NSA surveillance

President Bush today announced that as part of his guest-worker program, a number of Mexican illegal aliens currently residing in the country would be recruited by the National Security Agency (NSA) to carry out surveillance on American citizens.

The secret NSA wire-tapping-cum-civil-rights-violating program has recently come under attack ever since the discovery of its existence, for carrying out possibly illegal activities under the guise of presidential prerogative. The program is now also facing difficulties finding suitable local talent to staff its eavesdropping centers due to most Americans' objection to being employed in a non-legal profession. In order to keep the remaining employees of the program from fleeing their posts and also to boost their sagging spirits, President Bush today will travel to the heavily secured site of the spy agency in Maryland and give a speech on why being a criminal and operating outside of the law is not necessarily a bad thing.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, on being asked for a quote, remarked, "It is always an emotionally difficult time for employees of a company on being informed that essentially, what they have been doing till now was not legal under the constitution. Such companies tend to face an extremely high attrition rate. Our solution to this problem is to utilize the guest-worker program in order to hire illegal immigrants for these extremely well-paid positions, especially since those people would be well qualified in the key area necessary to carry out the responsibilities that come with this job, namely, a non-adherence to the law."

Some Americans have expressed reservations about this program, but as Bill O'Reilly explained it on the O'Reilly Factor, "Would you rather have your neighbour listen in on your phone-sex, or some farmer from Tijuana who won't understand what you are saying anyways?"

New Shiv Sena offshoot to give up communalism for humanalism

The new political party formed by Raj Thackeray would be giving up the Shiv Sena's plank of fundamentalist Hinduism, reports say. The party that has not yet been given a name, according to Mr Thackeray, would be dumping the traditional Sena platform of communalism, instead embracing humanalism, a political doctrine that mandates the whole-hearted worship of his uncle and Shiv Sena leader, Bal Thackeray.

"We have a two-fold agenda here", said Mr Raj Thackeray. "It involves understanding the problems faced by people in the five revenue divisions at the grassroot level, and secondly, solving these problems through the medium of avuncular devotion. Towards this end, we have already created a lot of hoardings featuring my uncle's visage and erected them in a number of poverty ridden areas of the state."

However, in a one-of-it's-kind gesture, the newly deified Bal Thackeray has expressed reservations about the new religion started in his name, saying "Please do not use my photograph on your banner." The older Thackeray, in a birthday speech meant to revive the sagging morale of Shiv Sainiks due to the exodus of his nephew and other leaders from the party, lamented on the numerous divisions of the country along caste lines and exhorted his partymen to divide themselves along religious and linguistic lines instead.

The meeting then turned into a frenzy of flying metaphors with Mr Thackeray again reinstating himself as a natural deity, saying "Generally when there is a storm outside I maintain my cool. But when there is silence outside, I create a storm. And if the weather outside isn't so stormy, but not that silent either, I watch Zee Marathi."

Not being the speaker's daughter must be a bitch

So the Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee's daughter Anushila was travelling by train when a couple of goons asked her to make space for them to sit. She had a reservation so she asked them to fuck off. They began to harass her. And then, being the Speaker's daughter, she called up her dad, who called up the municipal corporation authorities who called up the police who came calling along with the chairman of the corporation. And then the police detained the goons, who pleaded their case to the police by saying, get this, they had harassed her because they had no idea of knowing that she was the speaker's daughter.

You know, I really feel sorry for all Indian women who do not happen to be the Lok Sabha speaker's daughter.

Oh, and they were let go with just a warning, by the way. I guess their excuse must have sounded pretty logical to the authorities.

Karl Rove promises 2006 will be a "chocolate campaign"

Speaking to reporters outside Ground Zero in New York City, Presidential advisor and Republican campaign strategist Karl Rove said that he envisioned the 2006 senatorial campaign to be a "chocolate campaign".

On being asked what he meant by that statement, Mr Rove replied, "Well, how do you make chocolate? First you milk the 9/11 cow, then add to it the dark chocolate of propaganda bullshit to make it a delicious drink to be swallowed whole by the voting public."

In unrelated news, the Ford Motor company's Truck Division has responded to the challenge posed by the new Dodge Ram extended cab pickup truck by releasing it's own truck model which has a cabin spacious enough to accomodate every Ford employee.

US to air-drop camera crew and equipment in Northwestern Pakistan

Frustrated with the poor quality, graininess and general amateurishness of Osama Bin Laden's terror-attack-threatening-videos, the US has announced its intention to provide the terrorist leader with all the hardware and technology he needs to do a better job of producing his videos in the future. Towards that end, US Air Force C-17 transport planes began to airlift state-of-the-art video and audio recording equipment to be dropped into the badlands of Northwestern Pakistan where Mr Bin Laden is supposed to be staying. This military exercize will hopefully result in better production values for Mr Bin Laden's next video as well as positive identification of the video as having originated from the man himself.

Each time Mr Bin Laden releases a video of him informing the infidel dogs of the Western world of his bloodthirsty intentions, CIA and anti-terrorism experts are hampered by the fact that the video and audio quality of the recording is so poor as to cast into doubt the authenticity of the tape itself. This results in uncertainty in the minds of the video-viewing public whether there is really a need for them to spontaneously defecate in their collective shorts at that very moment or to adopt a wait-and watch attitude till the matter is resolved. Since this resulting delay compromises both the ability of the terrorist to incite fear into the hearts and minds of his intended subjects, as well as his subjects' abilities to get terrified, it was mutually decided through a hasty text messaging conversation between President Bush and Osama Bin Laden that the US would soon be providing the terrorist with modern motion picture recording technology and equipment in order to smoothen the give and take of terror-inspiring video footage.

The president, in an uncharacteristic burst of goodwill, also offered to air-drop a camera crew, which would be headed by Hollywood film producer and strident Bush critic Michael Moore into Pakistan along with the recording equipment in order to aid Mr Bin Laden in producing his videos. However, this generous offer was rejected after Mr Bin Laden was informed that Mr Moore would be providing his own background commentary for the video, as well as featuring himself in a cameo role.

Administrative Request

Just wanted to know if anyone finds the blog layout to have weirded out, for example, the left sidebar having migrated to the bottom of the page, etc. No, the google ads don't count. They ARE supposed to be there to the right. And I'm actually earning money off them too. Almost 25 cents in 3 days. Pretty soon I hope to have put away a nice nest egg that will allow me to retire from my job and live in a box.

But anyways, my request was, in case anyone finds they can't view the blog correctly on their browser, please let me know in the comments section.

Thank you.

Older species of wildlife to be exterminated to make way for new ones discovered in California

Twenty-seven hitherto unknown species of spiders, scorpions and other insects have been discovered in a cave underneath the Sierra Mountains in California, prompting the Bush administration to issue an environmental red alert.

President Bush, who has always been in the forefront of environmental conservation, has approved a Congressional bill that would reduce the number of wildlife species currently populating the earth in order to make space for these newly discovered species. The bill will be a major step forward in environmental conservation by conserving what is left of the planet's land mass and keeping it safe for human habitation. While speaking on the issue, Bush said, "Our planet has the means to support both Americans as well as the rest of our animal friends who can live together in perfect equilibrium. However, when new species of animals suddenly emerge from Nature's armpit, it disrupts this delicate balance, and so, to enable these newer species to thrive, we have to get rid of those older species that have already enjoyed their fair share of life on this planet."

Bush has asked all American corporations to enlist in this gigantic natural conservation effort by exterminating any species of wildlife they feel make little or no contributions to the planet's natural diversity. Oil companies have been the first to step up to the plate by offering to drill in the Arctic wildlife refuge where a number of species such as polar bears, arctic foxes and snow geese could be made extinct in a matter of years, thus creating more space for spiders and SUVs to exist in mutual harmony. Timber and logging companies have also followed close behind with their proposal to eliminate thousands of acres of woodland in Oregon which could not only do away with several species of plant and animal life but also reduce global warming which the administration is now ready to believe isn't a mere figment of liberal imagination.

In a move that should do a lot for Sino-American relations, China has offered to aid the US in its endeavours to conserve the planet's natural resources by doing its part and exterminating the endangered Royal Bengal Tiger, a primary source of Royal Bengal Tiger Penis, which is widely used by Chinese men in soup form to bolster their drooping manhoods during fornication.

CNN hires douchebag to reel in Fox News viewers

CNN has announced its intention to hire Glenn Beck, a conservative radio talk-show host, and give him a prime-time show on its Headline News channel. Glenn Beck, who is a douchebag of much repute, will now offer television news aficionados who are in a mood for some old-fashioned douchebaggery, a wider choice in this genre, which up to now, had been monopolized by the Fox News Network.

CNN, which is sagging in ratings as compared to its rival Fox News, is expected to reel in a number of Fox News viewers with this move that makes a significant addition to their repertoire. Mr Beck, whose resume includes a number of projects he can point to with pride that showcase his multifaceted douchebagging abilities, such as that instant when he referred to hurricane Katrina survivors as scumbags, or his statement when he said "It took me a year to hate 9/11 families", or that graphic moment on his radio show when he fantasized about killing Michael Moore using the technique of strangulation, will be a worthy addition to CNN's hitherto motley crew of amateurish douchebags such as Howard Kurtz and Wolf Blitzer.

Fox News, which has had a tremendous headstart in making douchebaggery an intrinsic part of mainstream media by featuring on its news channel a number of professionals in the field such as Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and John Gibson, is expected to respond immediately to this move by CNN and shore up it's talent by hiring more douchebags. Skinny blonde bitch Ann Coulter, who once proclaimed that the US should invade all Islamic nations, kill all their leaders and convert everyone to Christianity, is expected to be a frontrunner with insane bug-eyed blogger Michelle Malkin, who is in favor of racial profiling and internment, following closely on her heels.

In unrelated news, thousands of Muslim couples in various states of partial undress waited with bated breath as scholars of Islam pondered and debated over the quintessential question of whether full frontal nudity is acceptable during marital sex. (via RawStory)

Pro-life father

Jason Strickland beats step-daughter almost to death.

Step-daughter goes into vegetative state.

State asks doctors to remove her from life-support, citing permanence of her vegetative state.

Removal of life-support and consequent death of step-daughter will make it a homicide.

Jason Strickland turns pro-life, asking court to continue life-support.

Says "We should be coming down on the side of life as opposed to death."

Satan smiles in Hell, rubs his palms together and orders a spiked dildo to be made for Jason Strickland's asshole.

Tired of masturbating, BJP youths take to the streets

BJP youth activists, fed up with a life of ceaseless genital flagellation and self pleasuring, took to the streets of Indore today to voice their protest against the arrival of their masturbatory muse in the city. Activists of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) ran wild through the city, tearing up posters of Mallika Sherawat, an Indian actress, for causing irreparable harm to Indian youths by forcing them to indulge in self-gratification more frequently than usual.

"She has crossed all boundaries in making us cross all boundaries in letting out our bottled-up sexual frustration", said a BJYM leader. "If all of India's brilliant young minds are mentally engaged in the activity of trying to imagine how Miss Sherawat's soft and lusciously creamy flesh would feel to a groping BJP hand, who is going to work towards India's progress?" "Down with the anti-Indian temptress", said another teenaged BJP activist who was observed meticulously tearing up posters of Miss Sherawat's new film "Khwahish" and folding them into algebra textbook sized wads.

Senior BJP leaders voiced their agreement with the stand taken by their party juveniles. "If Mallika Sherawat wants to showcase her body in her movies, then she has a moral and ethical obligation to make that body available to each and every young man in India. A failure to do so would be against Indian culture."

India's fragile democracy, which has always had to contend with religious conflict, has lately also had to overcome gender conflict and the problem of Indian women abusing their freedoms by declining to wear suitable attire in public, consequently leading to Indian men abusing their reproductive organs. With regard to this issue, the BJP has emerged as the only political party principled enough to stand for the rights of abused penises throughout the country by infringing upon the rights of Indian women responsible for their abuse.

Miss Sherawat's spokesman has commented on the controversy, saying, "Miss Sherawat thanks her fans for their devotion and pledges to make many more of her body parts available for their viewing pleasure in her upcoming films."

Google Ads added

Just out of fucking curiousity. Might remove them later.

Pat Robertson to outsource apologizing duties to Bangalore

Notorious televangelist and douchebag of God, Pat Robertson, has announced on his television show, "The 700 Club" that he will henceforth be outsourcing all his apologizing duties to Bangalore, India. Robertson explained that an inordinately high number of recent episodes of him putting his foot in his mouth had required him to issue a huge number of apologies to the public. In order to make his apologizing more efficient, he has been forced to relegate that task to companies based in a country with an abundant apologetic workforce.

Robertson recently had to apologize to ailing Israeli Prime minister Ariel Sharon's son after he said that Sharon's stroke was divine retribution from God. A few months ago, Robertson had also apologized to his viewers after calling for an assassination of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. Correctly noticing that by offering all his apologies in person, he was wasting a lot of precious time and resources which could be better allocated elsewhere, he contacted Wipro, a reputed BPO operating out of Bangalore, India.

"We were glad to help Mr Robertson in his apologizing", said Kamal Mehta, a Wipro sales executive. "The advantage of outsourcing your apologies to Indian BPOs is that, since India has a lot of cheap labor with a huge inferiority complex with respect to the West, it makes Indians very well-versed and extremely proficient in the art of apologizing."

In other news, David Hasselhof has divorced Pamela Bach, his wife of 16 years after he came to realize that she was not as proficient in the art of performing CPR as he had previously believed.

Bush praises rebuilding effort in undamaged parts of New Orleans

President Bush today visited those parts of New Orleans that had not been affected by Hurricane Katrina and touted the remarkable progress that was being made in their rebuilding. The President, who met with New Orleans small business owners and local government officials in the Lower Garden District neighbourhood of New Orleans, which was one of the few that was not flooded during the hurricane aftermath, expressed his happiness at what he was seeing there.

"I will tell you, the contrast between when I was last here and today is pretty dramatic," Bush said to reporters. "Then, the city was full of water, black people and broken homes. Things look much better today", he said, referring to the excellent condition of homes in New Orleans that hadn't suffered any damage in the first place.

New Orleans residents from the Seventh and Ninth wards which Bush did not visit this time, most of whose homes were destroyed during the hurricane and are still living without electric power and with the danger of crime, agreed with the president's assessment. "My neighbourhood used to be a haven for crime and drug peddling", said Mark Andrews, 42, an electrical contractor living in the Seventh Ward. "But now, with the President's wise decision not to rebuild it, it's real quiet and peaceful."

Bush praised the city's success in bringing much of its infrastructure back. "Water supply has been restored. We have lots of water", he said. Bush also rapped Congress for diverting $1.4 billion of the levee rebuilding money to non-New Orleans-related projects. "Congress needs to restore that $1.4 billion," he said. "And I would pursue it more aggressively if it were not for the fact that I myself diverted a lot of those levee-building funds to the Iraq war."

Bush also touted New Orleans' tourism appeal and invited Americans to visit the city. "It's a heck of a place to bring your family," he said. "Especially if you've always wondered how your daughter would look topless."

In other news, it was yet another relatively mundane day at the Hajj pilgrimage, where a mere 345 pilgrims were killed in a stampede while stoning a symbolic devil who turned out not to be symbolic after all.

Arnold Schwarzenegger mystified by Newton's third law of Physics

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today had to resort to the relatively un-superherolike activity of getting 15 stitches in his lip after an accident involving him and his 12 year old son on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, which collided with a car.

Arnold expressed surprise at the fact that his contact with the car, instead of leading to a spontaneous photogenic explosion with debris being scattered to places as far-flung as Compton and Long Beach and leaving the Hollywood actor and his bike intact, in actual fact, threw him off the bike into a ditch, where he was left bleeding and stunned at this strange turn of events. When apprised of Sir Isaac Newton and his third law of Physics which states that "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction", Mr Schwarzenegger pooh-poohed the 17th century British scientist, calling him a girlie-man of Science.

Arnold has, since then, requested his robot stand-in from the future to fill in for him as Governor of California while he recuperates from his accident, and has expressed an even greater shock on being informed that there exists no such thing.

The presence of stitches on his lip is reportedly expected not to deter Mr Schwarzenegger from opening his mouth in order to request the Federal Government for additional funds for his debt-ridden state.

Indians hail the inclusion of Hindi as a terrorist language

Indians are celebrating the inclusion of Hindi in the syllabus to be taught to American children as a language spoken by terrorists. President Bush today announced that American students would be taught a number of foreign languages, including Hindi, as a part of "The National Security Language Initiative", in order to strengthen the security of the nation by enabling its citizens with the means to understand what the heck terrorists are saying to each other.

"It is a major achievement for India to be included in the League of Terrorist-language-speaking nations", remarked an exultant Indian government official. "We are now officially on the world map, designated by a skull and crossbones", he continued.

President Bush, elaborating about the details of the plan, said, "the National Security Language Initiative has three broad goals. First is to expand the number of Americans mastering “critical need” languages. I will be kick-starting the program by learning English which, they say, is a critical language, by virtue of being spoken by almost half the world's population."

Bush also said that in order to instruct American children in potential terrorist languages, it would be necessary to recruit teachers from terrorist nations. "The only way America can be safe and secure is to bring in scholars well versed in terrorist languages and provide them with a safe base of operations in the US", remarked the president.

The president's initiative has met with whole-hearted approval in all Middle-Eastern suspected terrorist nations including Iran, Syria and Pakistan, all of which have provided the president with a list of highly eligible applicants that should be provided safe passage to the US as language trainers.

However, not all Indians were satisfied by the president's initiative. Mr Nagaraj Rao, who can be found in the comments section of the abovementioned news article, complained about the non-inclusion of Tamil as a potential terrorist language. "Why exclude Tamilians from your list?", asked an irate Rao. "Look at Sri Lanka. We can bomb and blow things up along with the best of the best", he added.

Mecca Tragedy leads to increased religious fervor

The recent tragedy in Mecca where a hostel colapsed, pinning below it and killing more than 50 Muslim pilgrims that had travelled there for the annual Hajj has already resulted in overbooking of Hajj tickets and hotels for next year's ritual.

Devout Muslims throughout the world, taking this tragedy to be an act of a furious God, have vowed to finally carry out that Hajj pilgrimage they have always been putting off year after year. On being asked for comment, one such would-be pilgrim said, "Praise be to the Lord, He is angry at us. Why we do not know. But we need to pray to him and satiate his blood lust by gathering in huge numbers to a place that is infrastructurally not equipped to deal with such crowds, thus resulting in tragedies like this every year. But this is just how He is testing our resolve, and we will sacrifice all common sense at the altar of blind devotion and continue to gather en masse in unhygienic conditions, where, even a small rumor would be enough to send an entire crowd into a stampede resulting in a number of deaths."

At the other end of the spectrum, devout Hindus who are also in the process of gathering in equally large numbers for their annual pilgrimage, the Kumbh Mela, which has had its share of tragedies due to pilgrim overcrowding as well, have expressed their views on the deaths in Mecca. "The Lord has spoken with his hand, smiting with his Trishul those of the religion of the crescent. This proves that we Hindus are the faith of His choice, and hence, we will continue to do our fair share of overcrowding at the Ganges river as well. Any deaths that might follow due to drowning or people stepping on each other's throats would just be pure coincidence."

In addition, numerous Hindus have also indicated that in order to express their fealty to their Lord, they will be embarking on religious expeditions to far-flung places high up in the Himalayas that are only accessible by treacherous roads, on buses which have a habit of frequently falling into deep gorges, killing all the pilgrims within.

In the developed world, Christians in the US have renewed their belief in their Lord due to the terror-free celebrations of Christmas this year that went by without President Bush instilling any more terror inside their hearts by promising more terror attacks.

In related news, women suffering from the first stage of battered wife syndrome continued to receive spousal abuse and continued to return back for more.

Amar Singh to bring phone-tapping culprits to justice by having phone sex

Samajwadi party leader Amar Singh today reiterated his indignation at the government's alleged tapping of his cellphone and added that in order to bring the perpetrators of the phone-tapping miscreancy to justice, he would be indulging in phone sex.

In a press conference broadcast on NDTV, Mr Singh expressed displeasure at the violation of his privacy that had occurred when his cellphone was allegedly tapped by the government. He said that beginning today, he would deliberately be talking dirty and using vile language on his cellphone in order to ensure that it would, in fact, be tapped so that he would have the requisite proof of it being tapped. In fact, continued Mr Singh, getting hot and bothered and slightly squirming in his seat, in the interests of justice, he was planning to engage in a bit of phone sex so that the culprits of the crime could be caught.

Mr Amar Singh then gave out his cellphone number to the viewing public and speaking directly into the camera, implored any right thinking patriot of the female denomination to join him in his fight against civil rights violations by having phone sex with him.

Mr Singh made it clear during the press conference that the resulting conversation which, he emphasized, was to be of such an obscene and depraved nature that the eavesdroppers listening in on his private line would be unable to resist the urge to record it, thus creating tangible proof of the phone-tapping, would remain sealed in government records, with only him being allowed to access it periodically, so that his lady partner should have no fear of her brave act becoming a liability by harming her reputation in society.

After the conference, Mr Amar Singh was observed hastily retiring to his bathroom, reportedly, because he was expecting an important phone call.

Update : Inasmuch as I would like to take credit for Mr Singh's strategy, he actually did say in a television interview that he was going to say dirty things and swear a lot on his cellphone just so that the people tapping his phone could have a good time.

What I'm up to

For those who are unaware, I am currently enjoying a pretty undeserved vacation in India. It is currently extremely difficult for me to comment on matters of any relevance since I am using a dial-up connection which pretty much means I can only log on at night after 11:00 pm. And even after that, the connection speeds I get are pretty horrible. And I'm using IE 5.0. CNN hates IE 5.0. So does virtually every other web site in the world. So blogging has been reduced to a minimum.

But, today for the first time, I read IIPM's full-page advertisement in the paper edition of the Indian Express. Along with being an IIPM prospectus, it also contained a treatise on economics in the section they referred to as "Why IIPM's Course is Superior to Other MBAs". It contained the following salient points :

1.> Capitalism is not so hot. Communist China has a higher economic growth than capitalist countries. In fact, China's growth is, contrary to popular belief, not due to the propagation of unregulated sweatshops owned by American firms in China which slave daily to produce cheap merchandise in order to satisfy the consumer cravings of America's capitalist society, but due to China's government enforced planned economy. For India to succeed, it has to emulate China because capitalism, in case you missed it, is not so hot.
2.> IIPM will teach you how to emulate China without compromising on your civil liberties. Basically, you won't be imprisoned in "classrooms" held in "buildings" on "campuses".
3.> IIMs are utilizing the laws of demand and supply to maximize the salary of their graduates by spewing out a smaller number of graduates every year. These graduates, moreover, are inferior in quality to those of IIPM. IIPM will correct this imbalance by spewing out a greater number of their own graduates. How and why this will result in a higher salary for their graduates is a mystery. But it will happen. Pony tails do not lie.
4.> IIPM will let you in on the secret behind this mystery if you sign up.
5.> IIPM will send you on educational tours to "developed" countries. You will be given a free name tag for such tours with II_M written on it. You will be told that the P fell off but that it should not be an issue.
6.> Pune has an IIPM campus with a postal address. I will engage in some intrepid journalism by scouting it out and taking pictures to verify its existence.
7.> Fuck, I left my camera in my friend's car. I will obtain it from his car.
8.> Actually, it's right here in my closet. I am a fool.
9.> Fools like me need to apply to IIPM's 22 month diploma course which boasts 1944 hours worth of coursework where, among other things, they will instruct me on how not to lose my camera.
10.> IIPM is conducting placements for some of its own ventures. Ex-IIMs are invited to apply as well so that they can be made fun of during the interview and sent off packing in humiliation while a camera snaps pictures to place in next week's papers.

And finally, Arindam is best enjoyed in black and white.

How tobacco companies are like black people

When the white folks from way way back brought those dark-skinned people from Africa to toil in their fields in the quaint practice we now refer to as slavery, there were some that were not satisfied by merely having unlimited control over another human being's life. These people felt the need to derive some more benefits out of their master-slave relationship, some more mental satisfaction that could be milked out of their position of power. And so, they coined the term "nigger" in order to demean the slave, and thus, get that rush of power one feels when one believes one is superior to one's fellow human.

Years went by and the slaves were finally freed. But the derogatory term "nigger" still lived on. But then the African American community, in a masterful stroke of genius, turned the tables on the unwitting white racist populace by adapting the term "nigger" for their own use. Thus, by calling each other "niggers", blacks neutralized the demeaning effect of the word, at the same time, saying "up yours" to those white folks who would still wish to indulge in it's usage. Now, the term "nigger", when used amongst the black community, signifies the coolness and hipness of being African American, by basically taking the detested word, bitchslapping all the racism out of it and injecting into it that aura of being the shiznit.

Tobacco companies have utilized a similar tactic with respect to the surgeon general's statutory warning about all the health risks that come with the use of tobacco products. There was a time when the warning on cigarette packs was so tiny, one had to look for it. Then, the government, probably realizing that people who smoke cigarettes would probably require a bigger font size to comprehend the warning, made it mandatory for it to be more legible. Big Tobacco was nonplussed. Fuck, they said, if we tell people our products kill em, wouldn't they stop buying our products? It was a legitimate concern.

And then, Big Tobacco remembered the deniggerification of "nigger" that had been accomplished by black people. And they said, hell, you know what, we could probably use the same strategy here. We need to make dying from our products cool. We need to make it macho. We need to make sooty tarred lungs the new look for men. We need to do to bloody sputum what Britney Spears did to being trailer park trash. The in-thing.

And so, tobacco companies went to town on their statutory warnings. Nowadays, when you see an ad for cigarettes, you don't even remember the brandname, what you do remember is the warning, which often takes up the entire ad space in big, bold letters. Camel : Cigarette Smoking causes irreparable damage to your health. Fuck, irreparable, you say to yourself. That's just too fucking cool. I gotta get me some of those. Marlboro : Cigarette smoking will suck the life out of your lungs and leave you gasping for breath. Man oh man, you say, as your knees go weak, you feel faint and on the verge of an orgasm just from the sheer coolness of it all. Something so potentially murderous has just got to be experienced. Newport : Call a funeral home, you're already dead. Reading this would probably make you cram 10 cigarettes into your mouth at once.

And by the looks of it, I think it's working. I have a smoker friend in Canada, who, for reasons of privacy I will refrain from identifying, except for the fact that he owes me 350 US dollars. So this smoker friend tells me you know, cigarettes are actually good 'cause they remove the last 10 years from your life which would probably be pretty shitty years for you living-wise anyways. 'Cause, you know, due to all the adult diapers and loss of bowel control and shit like that.

But his statement was so naive, so fucking stupid that I felt like reaching in through the phone line, out through his receiver and slapping his face repeatedly. Smoking's not gonna relieve you of your final 10 years, shithead. Smoking will just make those final 10 years come 10 years earlier. You will still be crapping all over the place like a disaffected poodle, but you will be doing it at 50 instead of 60.

So you see, that's how tobacco companies have adopted a tactic previously used by African Americans against the N word and used it to make dying of lung cancer extremely cool. And boy oh boy, emphysema is just so fucking photogenic.