RIP US

The US Senate has passed a bill that suspends the writ of Habeas Corpus. The US government will henceforth be able to legally imprison and torture anyone indefinitely without giving them an opportunity to defend themselves in court, be it US citizen or enemy combatant ('cause we know that one can either be the former or the latter, there is no option C), based on the mere suspicion of being a terrorist. A big thank you to the legal community, we will not be requiring your services any more. We are guilty as charged, fuck judicial procedure and assumption of innocence unless proven guilty.

Good bye Land of the Free, welcome Home of the so fucking craven that they would throw their own mother into a dungeon if they were to catch her eating humus rolled up in a pita.

A few words of caution for anyone with a wheatish complexion. Please dispose of all your turbans and dupattas in a safe and eco-friendly manner. Maintain a clean shaven profile and try not to look terroristy. If you have to venture outside, make sure you do so only under the cover of darkness.

Thank you Democratic Party. Thank you for remembering to wear your diapers before you pissed all over our kitchen floor. The next time someone assaults our rights, we know who to call.

Go here for a eulogy. Then go here to pay your last respects to the dying nation.

Osama if you don't wipe that smirk off your face I'm gonna walk over there and turn off your dialysis machine.

Speaking of fundamentalists, oh oh, Glenn Reynolds, the revered Instapundit, seems to be uncomfortable with this bill. How's that possible? After all, it's the Fearless Leader's wish. Here's why :

According to an email published by Jonah Goldberg, the bill doesn't just apply to aliens.....But if it's true, it's a major problem with the bill, one that increases the likelihood ofits being found unconstitutional, and one that would make me much more unhappy with the bill.

Imprison a foreigner without access to legal aid, attach electrodes to his testicles, hey that's just fine with me, says the Glennster. Just don't do it to an American citizen. 'Cause that would be an unAmerican thing to do.

Pope says dead Byzantine Emperor actually respected Islam

After raising a furor over his comments in an address in Germany, Pope Benedict XVI (16) is now taking steps to quell the rising tide of anger unleashed against him in the Islamic world.

During his address at the University of Regensburg, the pope had quoted 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus as having said, "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Naturally, this led to a violent reaction by Muslims who disagreed with this assessment of their religion, causing the Pope to withdraw the now-dead Emperor's remarks. In a ceremony at the Vatican, the pope re-quoted Emperor Paleologus as having said that he was sorry for the reaction he had caused within the Islamic community and that he had no way of knowing that people in 2006 would still remember his words from 600 years ago which had been uttered during the heat of the moment after losing all his earthly possessions to his friend, Abu Salim during a frantic game of poker.

However, the Muslim world, being unsatisfied with a mere withdrawal of the Emperor's statement, continued to seethe at the pope's quotes of the Emperor's accusation of Islam being a sword-friendly religion, even killing an Italian nun to argue their case. This finally resulted in the pope getting together with a number of diplomats from Islamic countries and telling them that in his latest post-mortem transmission from beyond the grave, the Emperor Paleologus had said that not only was he sorry for the reaction to his quotes, he even respected Islam and that he apologized for having put his good friend Pope Benedict XIV (16) in such a politically precarious position.

On being asked about the reason behind the sudden turn-around in the Emperor's views, the Pope Benedict XVI (16) replied, "Well, it's almost the beginning of Ramadan and the season for fasting and as we all know, hunger can really drive people to violence."

Monday Night Football to restore New Orleans' image as a city of rich black athletes

The NFL game to be played tonight between the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons at the Louisiana Superdome will be a major step forward in restoring the aura of wealth and prosperity back on New Orleans, the city that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina a year ago.

Tonight at 9:00 pm Eastern time, amidst the pomp and pageantry of the NFL's monday night games, the Louisiana Superdome will cast off the depressing image Americans have been associating with it for all of last year, namely, as a refuge for poor black people huddled within its cavernous interior, battling the hurricane raging outside. Instead, the Superdome will once again regain its former image as a place where rich black athletes compete against each other once every two weeks, six months of every year.

Although most of New Orleans' black neighbourhoods still lie in ruins, the return of football to this city is an important milestone in the mission of making New Orleans habitable for tourists staying there for upto two days at a time. It is hoped that the plan for diverting the money earmarked for building schools, hospitals and government buildings into the rebuilding of the Superdome will return rich dividends by bringing football fans to the city, whose fanatical desire for hot dogs, alcohol and marijuana will provide a shot in the arm to the hospitality and drug peddling industries that were the worst hit after the hurricane.

New Orleans Saints wide receiver Joe Horn defended the decision to rebuild the city one football stadium at a time. "If you can rebuild a place that's 1.9 million square feet, you should be able to come back here and rebuild a 3,000-square foot house.", said Mr Horn. "And now that the Superdome has been reconstructed, we now know for a fact that building a 3,000 square foot house indeed lies within our capabilities."

Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco who was responsible for getting the FEMA to pay up 120 million dollars towards the reconstruction of the Superdome, said, "The Superdome was symbolic of a lot of misery. It is now a symbol of recovery. We hope that the brand spanking new sports arena will be a model for New Orleans residents to emulate as they rebuild their own homes and communities on their own."

Governor Blanco also pointed out that a significant portion of the reconstruction of the football stadium was carried out using FEMA funds collected through donations made by hurricane victims themselves. Recognizing the importance of football to their devastated city, these people voluntarily parted with the funds they had received from FEMA as hurricane relief after receiving a request from FEMA to return that money back to the government.

As tonight wears on and the image of NFL players wrestling for possession of the football washes away the image of hurricane refugees wrestling for food and space, the return of football to New Orleans will embody the very basic of American values : Symbolism over Substance.

Stupid post of the day

The solution to gun violence in colleges? To equip every student with a gun. Try to come up with as many reasons as possible why this is not such a good idea. Via the always reliable online repository of stupid posts.

Compassionate conservatism

Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, two Fox News correspondents who were kidnapped by a Gaza-based Islamist group, were recently released, but only after their captors forcibly converted them to Islam on camera at gunpoint.

Initially, many conservative bloggers denounced these kidnappings and expressed their support for these reporters. They also vented their anger against anti-Fox News biased liberals who they accused of feeling that the men deserved to be kidnapped. But once the correspondents were released after their conversion to Islam, it was a different story. On their return to America, the reporters received a cold reception from the conservative block, even from those who had previously cried rivers of tears on their behalf.

The reason for this bizarre change of heart? The extraordinary cowardice these men had displayed in submitting, at gun point, to renouncing Christ their faith. Many conservative bloggers even said that in the hypothetical event of themselves being in a similar situation, the hypotheticalness exacerbated by the fact that most of these bloggers will have very few opportunities to encounter battlezone conditions outside of JC Penney post-Thanksgiving sales, they would prefer death to religious conversion. Others claimed that the West's war against militant Islam had suffered a severe blow due to this rather wimpish capitulation of Western reporters to their Muslim captors. Of course, none of these critics actually had a gun pointing to their head as they wrote their brave screed, so it is difficult to know whether they would actually have followed up on their promise of choosing "de-capitation over capitulation" in reality.

Jon Swift, an amazing satirist whose blog I've recently discovered, brilliantly tears all these faux warriors to shreds as he points out the rare courage it takes for a conservative behind a keyboard to defend Christianity and Western values by fearlessly defying the threat of a gun pointed at someone else's head.

To be scared or not to be scared

A few days ago, Glenn Reynolds sank deeper into Kook quagmire by acting as an apologist for the passengers of Flight 613 who kicked a couple of Arab-looking, Arab-speaking men off the plane for being Arab-looking and Arab-speaking. Reynolds justified the knee-jerk reaction of the plane passengers by saying "this is the kind of thing that happens when people don't trust the authorities to protect them". Today, bizarrely, he links to an excellent blog post by Bruce Schneier that warns people not to over-react to the threat of terrorism.

But then, just as one is beginning to wonder whether Reynolds has finally broken through the iron curtain that separates the right-wing fearmongers from normal people, he goes ahead and endorses this goofy warning from a paranoid commenter at the blog post he links to, who says :

"What's to stop terriorists now just getting on flights and acting suspiciously on purpose. If no crime was committed (I was just checking my watch, saying my prayers, going to the bathroom etc.) they can cause disruption, create paranoia and terror at will and get off scott free."

So, after initially asking us to be afraid of Arabs flying on our planes, then warning us not to overreact, Reynolds is now saying that we need to seriously consider a fantastic scenario involving plane-hopping peaceful terrorists who fly from country to country in order to engage in indiscriminate watch-gazing, praying and bathroom-visiting on the plane for the sole purpose of getting that plane diverted and causing people's schedules to go haywire. Okay Glenn, quit confusing me now. Should I be a terrified pant-shitter or not? Just give me a straight answer, yes or no.

Dear God, you kinda lost me there

Hi God, good morning and thank you very much for replying to my instant message and accepting my chat invite :-). I know you are a very busy person and no doubt have numerous fans who send you chat invites and even more who instant message you even when your messenger status clearly says that you are busy and should not be disturbed. God how I hate such people :-(.

But God, please bear with me because I have something very important to ask you. I have to confess God, in the past two weeks you have lost me. I just don't get it, God, I have lost the ability to decipher your signals, I am totally perplexed. As you might be knowing (since you are all-knowing and stuff), I have been following your blog as well as your podcast for many years now, heck, I even play it on my headphones as I sleep because I feel subliminal indoctrination really works. Plus, I try to keep a look-out for any tell-tale messages you might have left for me when I wasn't looking in the form of natural disasters, humanitarian crises and such. For example, it wasn't that hard for me to realize that you created Hurricane Katrina in order to give me a hint that you were kinda pissed at me because I told you I thought my male neighbour was somewhat good-looking, and since then, I have acted on your wishes and inflicted permanent deformity on his face through the use of sulphuric acid. So as you can see God, my neighbour will not be tempting any more innocent men through his sinful yet delectable buttocks ;o) just kidding, God.

But God, I have to admit, for the past two weeks, your messages have been getting increasingly cryptic. I just can't seem to make out what it is that you are trying to tell me. For example, there was that one instance of this tree suddenly starting to spout water through its trunk. What did it mean, God? Why a tree? Why that particular tree? Did you want me to chop down that tree and turn it into a Bible? I know people are saying it might just be a burst water pipe and that the water probably rose up through its trunk, but have you heard anything funnier or less believable than that theory? What next, water rising up through the air? Evolution? ROTFLMAO.

Sorry God, I had to leave my desk because I was actually rolling on the floor there, you know I wouldn't use ROTFLMAO if I wasn't really doing it, don't you? God? God? Oh there you are. Please scroll back for my apology.

So as I was saying, God, then, a week ago, there was that chocolate bar that you sculpted into a statue of the Virgin Mary. Again, I confess, I didn't get it, dear Lord and Savior. Did you not want me to eat that piece of chocolate? I know sometimes eating chocolate can get me to feel a bit, let's say mildly amorous, but I did not know you felt so strongly about it. Or do you believe that chocolates, like human embryos, are living sentient beings and do not wish to be killed? But as I said, this is all just conjecture on my part.

But God, in my humble opinion, what you did in Mumbai was the most puzzling of all your actions. Why did you turn all that seawater sweet? Was it really to cure all of our illnesses and make us immortal? I got my mother back home in India to send me some of that stuff in a bottle, and I gotta tell you God, it really tastes like shit. If what they say is true and it is just the pollution making it sweet, I guess the water's gonna be getting a lot sweeter in the coming days after the sewage discharge of Mumbaikars quadruples on consuming this stuff. But then, God, maybe your point in decreasing the salinity of the sea was to try and get me to reduce the salt intake in my diet. Was that it? Please God, did you look into my future and see elevated blood pressure? I've got to know.

And finally, what is it with this latest sign where you made all those idols drink milk? I didn't know you were into dairy products, who would've guessed? But I guess you are a simple person, just like me ^o^.

But whatever it was, God, I just feel like we are not on the same wavelength anymore. It seems like you are trying to tell me things and that I'm not quite getting them. Could you please be somewhat less ambiguous about your commands? If you want me to go kill someone just tell me that in plain language, send me a text message, an email, please don't use symbols such as, say, a goat that shits a turd in the shape of a revolver or something. Seriously God, that stuff is pretty hard to decipher. Plus, it might just be a coincidence, in which case, I would have committed a sin in your eyes, and as everybody knows, you are only okay with crimes that have been explicitly sanctioned by you.

And about all those other things, God, I have a humble suggestion. Just create a Wikipedia entry and add detailed explanations as to your real intent behind performing all those wonderful miracles. And don't worry, no one's gonna edit it. After all, people don't want to go to Hell, do they?

Bye God and thank you for chatting with me. I will let George W. Bush know you said Hello.

XOXOXOX on your feet.

Airline to allow passengers to land and take off

Close on the heels of its critically acclaimed and highly successful new policy of allowing passengers to take airplane security into their own hands by kicking anyone they suspect of being a terrorist off the plane, UK-based Monarch Airlines has announced its newest initiative for enhancing traveller comfort during the journey. This new policy initiative will allow any Monarch airlines passenger concerned about the pilot's ability to take off or land the plane to carry out the task himself.

Towards this end, every passenger seat in the newly ordered Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners will come equipped with a joystick and a complete set of controls for flying the plane. In the event of any passenger feeling mentally threatened due to a perceived lack of confidence in the pilot's flying capabilities, the passenger will be able to switch to manual override and take over the plane himself.

Air travellers applauded this new feature. "When I am landing or taking off, I always feel nervous, I keep wondering whether the pilot has extended his flaps, whether the landing gear is down, or if there are any other planes in the way", explained passenger Heath Schofield. "Now instead of relying on the pilot, I can check on all these things myself. The only person I trust to keep myself safe is me."

Blogger Glenn Reynolds agreed with this assessment. "This is the kind of thing that happens when people don't trust the authorities to protect them from incompetent pilots", said Mr Reynolds. "After all, the probability of getting killed in a plane crash due to pilot error is almost 1 in a million. In fact, it is even greater than the probability of your plane getting hijacked by terrorists. Therefore, it makes sense for every passenger to be allowed access to the controls of the plane in order to safeguard their own lives."

Blogger Sister Toldjah had a different angle on the issue. "If you look at most plane crashes, they all occurred with a pilot at the controls. Thus, it is necessary for air travellers to refuse to fly any plane manned by a "pilot". This isn't profiling, it is just common sense."

In its ongoing effort to improve the quality of its service, Monarch Airlines is now considering keeping a handgun under every seat in the plane in order to allow passengers to shoot anyone who begins to display a terrorist-like demeanour after the plane has taken off.

Inane Instapundit link of the day

Glenn Reynolds puts up a post on the British terror plot and says :

"Some people have decided that the war on terror is passe. But although you may not be interested in terrorism, terrorism is still interested in you."

When Glenn Greenwald takes him to task (via) on making such an arbitrary statement without backing it up with evidence, Reynolds amends his post, adding a link to someone who, one would think, would presumably be supplying the evidence needed to back up Reynolds' statement by providing a list of people arranged in alphabetical order who've decided that terror is passe.

On clicking through that link, all we get is this insanely stupid post by Roger Simon, which is nothing but a childish diatribe directed towards Ned Lamont who won the CT democratic primary over Bush choirboy Joe Lieberman. This diatribe is basically a fictional account of how the author imagines Mr Lamont's reaction to the foiling of the terror plot would be. Let me repeat this. The Instapundit, when asked to back up his statement that "some people have decided that terror is passe", links to someone who conjures up a fictional reaction from Ned Lamont which purportedly proves that he thinks terror is passe.

This post is so asinine that words fail me. It fails to make a single point except that whoever voted for Ned Lamont was, in some way, pro-Islamic fascism. No, it does not provide a single shred of evidence to back that claim. Mr Simon says is :

"No one looks dopier today than the collection of self-righteous fuddy-duddies who voted for Ned Lamont in Tuesday's Democratic Primary in Connecticut. In the darkness of his soul Lamont himself must be wondering how to react to the news that another ten jets filled with innocent human beings were about to explode over the Atlantic. Not good for his campaign."

And then he follows up with some Coulterish babble which of course, is devoid of any meaning whatsoever.

But Mr Simon does not specify what, if anything, does Mr Lamont's being anti-Iraq war have to do with the British terror plot. Secondly, it does not prove that Mr Lamont thinks terror is passe. All in all it is one of the saddest, stupidest right-wing posts I've ever read. And I feel bad for Glenn Reynolds that this is the best he could come up with to support his statement. In my opinion, he should have looked some more, maybe even used ask.com. But he probably just didn't have time. I think we should give him the benefit of doubt because he is a busy person with many friends and family who need to be linked to.

Monday morning hafta

Go here. It is up. And feel free to browse around. It's all good.

Israel apologizes for attack on UN post, says it forgot to reprogram American-made bombs

Israel has accepted full responsibility for its attack on a United Nations post in Southern Lebanon on tuesday, which resulted in its total destruction as well as the deaths of two four UN observers. This attack, carried out through smart bombs that were shipped to Israel by the US, dazzled the international community by its precision targetting of UN personnel while keeping Lebanese civilian casualties to a minimum. Israel has apologized to the international community, saying that it forgot to reprogram the targeting mechanism of these smart bombs, which, as they leave American assembly-lines, come preprogrammed to destroy UN bases throughout the world.

The United States, which is currently engaged in a perpetual state of warfare against the United Nations, has developed a huge arsenal of bombs to be utilized in attacks against that organization and its peacekeeping bases throughout the world. These bombs involve state of the art technology which allows them to determine the locations of UN personnel on the ground and target them for elimination with pinpoint accuracy.

The US has already added the United Nations to its list of "rogue terrorist organizations", and has accused it of being actively involved in aiding worldwide terrorism and insurgency by refusing to provide the US with a blank check for invading any country it pleases. The UN has also angered Americans by carrying out peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in countries attacked by the US or any of its allies, in this case, Israel.

Many American conservatives have advocated that in addition to eliminating United Nations terrorist camps throughout the world, the United States should not balk at destroying those that exist on its own soil, regardless of the American casualties that would result in the process. These counterterrorism experts justify these casualties by saying that "if by ignorance, complicity, neglect or helplessness the Americans wouldn't throw the UN out and establish a strong government, then they must pay the price for the sins of the UN". Although most agree that the appointment of John Bolton's moustache as American ambassador to the United Nations was a step in the right direction, more needs to be done towards bringing the UN to its knees in order to force it to toe the line of American foreign policy regardless of its ill-effects on the rest of the UN member nations.

The Hindustan Times quotes us

Over the weekend, the July 23rd issue of the Hindustan Times gave us some print space and quoted our thoughts on the Indian government's blocking of websites. Here is the entire column. Other bloggers who were also quoted were Patrix of Nerve Endings Firing Away and Samanth Subramaniam of A Writer and his Webblahg.

Look to your right. I am a celeb hiker. Yeah, the print's kinda small but here's the quote :

This 30-year-old with a day job as a software developer in the US prefers to be known as killer.eggplant or curiousgawker. Took to blogging in 2005 because it was either that, or “standing on a park bench with a mike”

‘How can citizens trust a government not to screw up a good policy when it cannot even manage to bring a bad policy to success?’

The other two celeb hikers had their pictures accompanying their quotes. Due to my dogged refusal to provide a mugshot of myself, they added some kind of a fruit to give a human face to my quotes. After consuming the better part of a day and a half in mulling over the philosophical significance of having a fruit for a face, I finally realized that it was an eggplant with horns. 'Cause I am a killer eggplant. Which happens to be my email ID. It all made sense now.

To be honest, when I chose "killer eggplant" as my new email ID, I wasn't really sure if I was making the right move and whether I should postpone the decision to a time of less inebriation. But now I realize it was a good choice on my part. Those horns, man. They are the bomb. And the bright green of the dangling leaf proves that I am still garden fresh. I am pretty sure that I would make a delicious baingan bharta. Thank you HT graphics artist.

Update : After some more investigation and exploration of avenues, we managed to find an enlarged viewer-friendly version of the column.

Hindu Republic of Pakistan behind Mumbai blasts, says Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid

The Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Mr Syed Ahmed Bukhari, today denounced the Hindu Republic of Pakistan for its involvement in the Mumbai bomb blasts of July 11 (via comments at The Acorn). Speaking to a gathering of worshippers inside the historic 350 year old Jama Masjid mosque, Mr Bukhari lambasted the Central government for falsely implying that the Islamic fundamentalist Lashkar-e-Toiba organization was responsible for the blasts and added that in all likelihood, it was neighbouring Hindu Pakistan that had a hand in the attacks.

Mr Bukhari was especially critical of the Indian government's quickness to lay blame at the feet of this humanitarian organization. Pointing to the Lashkar-e-Toiba's pioneering work in feeding the homeless and clothing the naked, Mr Bukhari said that it was inconceivable that this peaceful organization would even know how to manufacture explosives out of ammonium nitrate and RDX, technology which Mr Bukhari claimed, has never left the inner sanctum of the mosque.

On being asked who, in his opinion, were the actual perpetrators of the bomb blasts, Mr Bukhari suggested that RSS cadets and Shiv Sena insurgents operating from across the border were most probably the culprits. "A cursory glance at Indian history will show that most bomb blasts that have occurred in this country have been traced to Hindu militants funded and trained by Pakistan. In this case, there is no reason to believe otherwise."

Mr Bukhari ended his speech by denouncing the government's policy of singling out Islamic terrorists for persecution. "We want equality before the law'', said Mr Bukhari, alleging that Maoists and insurgent groups in the North-East were receiving preferential treatment."It is high time that the government shed its centuries old communalistic mindset and started embracing terrorists of all castes and creeds".

Is this the future of mankind

Israeli children writing final words on bombs meant to kill the Lebanese. Can anybody seriously look into the future of the middle-east and claim that war in that region is going to solve anything?

And what the fuck are the parents of these kids doing, infusing them with such hatred? To all Indians who point a finger towards Israel and gushingly proclaim, "Look at those ballsy guys, they're surrounded by enemies and yet they continue to survive", while advocating that India follow a similar policy of eternal warfare towards its neighbours, I would like to ask these people, do you seriously want your kids to turn into monsters like these?

Something to think about.

Update : More here and here (H/T : Electric Blues in the comments). It appears that the children were a victim of media manipulation. However, I am nevertheless aghast at the parents who allowed their kids to be photographed signing those bombs and the media's publishing of these images which can only serve to inflame the situation some more.

It is also necessary to point out that the sight of Arab kids dressed up as suicide bombers is as despicable as that of Israeli kids signing bombs. How about keeping the next generation of humans untainted with all the hatred of our times?

Poll shows unused human embryos would rather be flushed down the toilet than be used in life-saving research

A new poll carried out by the Bush White House conclusively proves that more human embryos would prefer to be destroyed by being flushed down the toilet than being used for stem cell research.

The US Senate passed legislation yesterday which would expand federal funding towards stem cell research, utilizing human embryos from fertility clinics that would otherwise have been discarded. The study of human stem cells contains a vast potential for discovering cures to various debilitatory diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's by virtue of the unique property embryonic stem cells have of transforming themselves into a variety of specialized body cells.

President Bush, however, has expressed his intent to veto the legislation, saying, "We do not know whether the embryos would wish to die a natural death in the sewers of our cities or be used to save the lives of our citizens."

In order to gauge popular opinion, human embryos stored in fertility clinics nationwide were woken up from their state of embryonicity in order to ascertain their view about the Senate legislation. Although most were unable to respond to questions or any other form of sensory stimulii, many succeeded in communicating telepathically to White House pollsters, saying that even though their knowledge of the Bible was limited, their faith forbade them from being used to further the cause of science.

Most Senate Democrats, excepting one, voted for the legislation. However, Republicans not afflicted by diseases the study of stem cells could find a cure for, have supported President Bush's intention of vetoing the bill and quashing stem cell research. The White House, in turn, responded by saying that "It's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder." "Go Israel", added Tony Snow, the White House spokesman.

The incompetence of the Indian government

Man, this really makes me squirm in embarassment. The Indian government is actually mispelling the websites it wishes to block, and as a result, blocking the wrong ones . Forget the really obvious incorrectly blocked websites like Princess Kimberly. Where the government really screws up is in blocking the following websites:

• http://pajamaeditors.blogspot.com : Er .. what? This site gets an average of 24 visitors a day. Is it possible that the government actually wanted to ban the Pajamas Media website (http://pajamasmedia.com) , a kinda mediocre, but nevertheless popular aggregation of right wing pro-Bush bloggers? Did someone in the government google "pajama" and ban every website that appeared in the search results?

• http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com : This is an easy one. I think it's safe to say that the government probably wished to block the rabidly right-wing and much accessed website Expose the Left (http://exposetheleft.com) and not Exposing the Left, which, with all due respect to the "editors" of the website, isn't as big a player in conservative psycho-babble and Bush-worship as is its almost-namesake.

• http://mypetjava.mu.nu : I don't know what the fuck this site is about. Looks like one of those technical geeky ones. More blockable, however, is this one, The Jawa Report , (http://mypetjawa.mu.nu) , also a hugely popular right-wing pro-Bush website. Notice the difference? jawa, versus java.

• And finally, http://thepirateco.us doesn't even fucking exist. Who the heck knows what this was supposed to be. Maybe someone in the government has an irrational fear of pirates. Or something.

Goddamnit, can't the Indian government even indulge in some freedom-curtailing and dictatorial authoritarianism without skewering its dignity in the process? How can one trust a government to pursue and catch the perpetrators of the Mumbai bomb blasts when it can't even bring its ludicrously wrong-headed policies to a successful conclusion? Christ, these clowns can't even do the wrong things right. It's like the neighbourhood peeping Tom who climbs the wrong tree in front of the wrong house and spends the night trying to peep into the wrong window. Shit, this government sickens and embarasses me with its ineptitude.

Ann Coulter running out of English language based profanity

Reports suggest that conservative commentator Ann Coulter has hired a team of consultants from Harvard University's Department of Linguistics to help her sift through thousands of dictionaries and thesauruses in order to dig up any words of profanity in the English language she might have missed during her career as a deranged right wing polemicist.

The best-selling author first became aware of her rapidly depleting repertoire of English language based profanity while venting her spleen at the widows of the 9/11 attacks in her new book. Speaking to reporters, Ms Coulter said, "I tried to come up with words to describe these...these..these...bimbos and could only manage 'witches' and 'harpies'. That's when I realized I was in serious....doo doo."

Ms Coulter, in a constant attempt to keep her writing fresh and her hate-mongering free of cliched catch phrases that are typical of most right-wing polemicists, has always strived to come up with newer and more horrifically vulgar phraseology to describe people she doesn't agree with politically. However, the high frequency and verbosity of her outpourings of rage and hate has finally caused Ms. Coulter to reach the limits of English language's abusive potential.

"When I read today that Michael Schiavo was going to be campaigning for a Democratic candidate for the post of Governor of Florida, the blood rushed to my head and I rushed to my computer to write an article", said Ms Coulter. "But I just couldn't come up with anything. The only words I managed to type out were what a bad bad person he was. Michael Schiavo is a very bad evil stupid bad man. God, somebody please help me, I am losing my ability to articulate my hatred in rabidly poisonous format", she sniffed.

Apart from penning a diatribe on Michael Schiavo's evilness, Ms Coulter has a couple of other projects in the works such as her upcoming article berating the community of amoral secular liberal Galapagos island finches who, contrary to the anti-evolutionist claims she makes in her new book, are actually continuing to evolve from large-beaked birds into smaller-beaked birds due to the scarcity of large seeds on the islands.

Keeping in mind the future of her career in mud-slinging and name-calling, Ms Coulter is exploring the potential for incorporating non-English languages into her writing. "My editor tells me that many Indian and Far-Eastern languages are actually treasure troves for profanity-seekers", she explained. "Look forward to a liberal infusion of Hindi and Mandarin-based invective in all my future columns."

Ann Coulter conservative evolution Michael Schiavo

Mumbai

When will the insanity end?

100163 dead (and counting).

Go here to leave a message for your folks if you can't get through. All the best.

Hugh Hewitt, please shut the fuck up.

Update : Apparently an unexploded bomb was defused (via Ultrabrown). This would constitute fresh evidence for the police to work on. The first few hours are probably the most critical in pursuing the perpetrators. During this time it is essential for instigators from both sides to lay off the theatrics and let the police do their work.

Update2 : Many right wing bloggers in the US (eg : abovementioned Hewitt) are somehow trying to link these bomb blasts with their own selfish pro-Bush agenda, as bongopondit pointed out in the comments. The rest are engaging in highly clueless analysis of the events. For example Captain Ed of the prominent right wing "Captain's Quarters" blog. Here is his erudite commentary :

It looks like al-Qaeda or an Islamofascist offshoot has decided to add another nation to its blood enemies.

and

What motivated AQ to go after India? It's hardly the first country one associates with the West, and many Muslims live within the majority-Hindu nation.

It's almost as if Captain Ed woke up today, discovered the existence of a country called India through CNN and decided it was time he graced us with his expert opinion on Indian politics. Dear Captain Ed, India has been afflicted by Pakistan and Al Qaida sponsored terrorism long before the US stopped supplying Al Qaida (and Pakistan) with arms and weaponry. Then, the learned Captain opines :

But mostly AQ and other Islamist terrorists have targeted tourists, and India is in the middle of its tourist season.

Uh what? Tourist season in mid-monsoon? Can't get any more clueless than that. Furthermore,

AQ wants to destroy India's economy, fragile enough as it is, by keeping tourists away from the country.

Ah, thank you, Captain Ed, for clarifying the terrorists' intent, namely, to destroy India's economy, which is supposedly wholly reliant on all those wealthy Western tourists. It probably makes Captain Ed feel good inside, thinking that tourists from his part of the world are solely responsible for keeping India's economy continuing to chug along like the old decrepit tractor that it is. And finally,

It looks like India will have a 7/11 to match Madrid's 3/11 and our 9/11.

No more special dates for us, thank you. We've already had too many of those.

Update3 : Major roundups : Desipundit , Ultrabrown, India Uncut, Gaurav Sabnis

Update4 : Forgot to mention it yesterday but kudos to everyone who worked trying to connect anxious family members at Mumbaihelp. Great going, people. Here's another place to go to for help (via Aravind through comments).

The Other India

The good folks at "How the Other Half Lives" have invited me to blog alongside them and so here I am, doing exactly that.

Here's my first post.

Stupid Joe Biden

"You CANNOT go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts without an Indian accent."

Joe Biden (political career 1973 - 2006)

Video here. (via Atrios).

You know, I wouldn't be so offended if it weren't for the fact that we Indians try so goddamn hard to fake an American accent while talking to other Americans, can't we at least get some recognition for our efforts?