From the 'Bihar is not a state, it's a state of mind' files...

This is priceless! Well, actually, priced at 10,000 rupees, to be precise...

A salutary lesson for those who might be melatonin-disadvantaged and are foolhardy enough to visit Bihar - always, but *always*, ask the price first.

Decline and Fall ...

A decade or two, when Hollywood started embracing the notion that videogames could be turned into movies, without all that messy business of finding stories, getting good screenplays, character development and similar wasteful activities, it seemed like the bottom of the barrel as far as creativity in Tinseltown was concerned.

Ha ha. And ha again.

Turns out all of us were ignoring a rich and potent source of compelling narratives, with gripping tension and rich characters - board games. Yes, that's right - board games. Read this and weep.

Coming soon to a theater near you - Scrabble The Musical!

As it sinks in - Part IV

The more things change, the less they change.

Growing up in Calcutta, possibly the last place on earth where you will still find street graffiti that embrace Lenin, Stalin and other colossi of Communism, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the rapid unraveling of the Soviet bloc, one of the memes that you heard all the time was that 'Communism did not fail, because the Soviet Union and all its allies never achieved true Communism. If it were implemented in its pure form, as it's meant to be, it would never fail'. This line of course was both true and absurd, because it is unlikely that Communism will ever be implemented on any world in its 'pure' form, and the closer you tried to get, the worse it got and the more people wanted to get away from it.

This purity meme never quite goes away and makes for such strange bedfellows! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the latest variant, from that witless idiot Jonah Goldberg - 'True conservatism has not been repudiated with the election of Barack Obama, because George Bush's reputation as a Conservative is simply a Liberal (boo! hiss!!) smear - he's not really a Conservative, because if he were, we would have won the election, Conservatism would have triumphed and I would get free blowjobs every day'. At least, that's what I think he's saying ...

Because it's difficult to read such tripe without laughing your mid-morning tea through your nose, given that he's got a hard-on for 'reformers' who worship 'market principles'. Oh, that's right - that would be the same market principles allied to naked greed that have brought the American economy to its knees. But then again, you know what Goldberg's pals are probably saying on Wall Street - since everyone knows all markets are actually not perfect markets, if only we had perfect markets with perfect information, none of this would have happened. (And of course, as we all know, if frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their asses on the ground quite so much!)

The leading 'intellectuals' of the Neocon movement have always had an uncanny resemblance to a pack of monkeys throwing their faeces against a wall and howling at those who didn't appreciate their genius. After eight long years, it's good to sit back and have a belly laugh at their efforts.

P.s. He also promises to be the gift that keeps on giving, since he seems to feel that the person to rally the troops is that well known patriot, Rush 'I got my housemaid to enable my prescription drug addiction' and 'I dodged the Vietnam draft because of a pimple on my ass' Limbaugh! And the person at the head of this fearsome band of intellectuals and reformers? Why the person who makes Vlad 'The Bad' Putin quake in his boots every time he looks towards Alaska - Sarah 'Mediocre and proud of it' Palin! For once, it looks like we're going to be laughing a lot over the next few years ...

As it sinks in - Part III

Required reading. I'd read Joe Conason on this subject, as well as more about John Judis and Ruy Texeira way back when, even before Kerry lost to Bush in '04. 2006 and last week are beginning to bear them out and it will not make pleasant reading for those who went to sleep happy on the 3rd November 2004, dreaming of that 'permanent Republican majority'. In common with most other tenets of the Republican/ Conservative faith, the best years for that particular meme are probably in the past already.

The gift that keeps on giving - Part I

Bring back Sarah Palin! After all, if the loony element of the Republican Party, I mean the Republican Party, insists that she is the One, the True Saviour of Real Conservatism, who am I to disagree?
And since when do Real Conservatives have to conform to Socialist Elitist dogmas that distinguish between continents and countries anyway, huh?

As it sinks in - Part II

This is really worth reading.

As it sinks in - Part I

While I am going to go down that 8 years overdue glass of champagne tonight, it's worth reflecting bit by bit on exactly what President Obama means. It means a great chance to reverse the slippage of the Supreme Court into total wingnut territory, as Glenn Greenwald summarizes here.

Bipartisanship? No thanks, not just now...

Hardly Socratic, but an interesting exchange of emails on a morning where everyone is waking up to a new dawn.

It was provoked by my Facebook status update, which read: ".... is happy. Very very happy and watching Fox News, loving the sight of those blowhards spin and squirm, still lying as the ship sinks below the waves!"

NW

I think your Facebook status smacks of schadenfreude and is another indication that the pendulum will now swing to the other extreme -- right-wing hubris replaced by left-wing lunacy. So much crowing, so much "good riddance to the Republicans." Is this the much-boasted of Era of Change? Already the Democrats are licking their lips about how their majorities in Congress have kicked the Republicans in the ass and will help them drive their own pork through. I bet the left-wing base (like you) will turn a blind eye to the depredations of their own side that are sure to follow.

I hope I'm wrong.

What a pity more people don't read Kipling these days. He wrote the Recessional during Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the very pinnacle of the British Empire. It's sobering reading, and perhaps the left-wing, now that it has secured that much dreamed of victory and is puffing out its chest, should take seriously.

Here it is, in case you haven't read it: http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Recessional.htm

God of our fathers, known of old-- Lord of our far-flung battle line Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine--Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Me
Today at 2:22pm

Sorry boss, I don't agree. If the likes of DeLay and Palin were still in power, they would not be reading Kipling to each other. (She probably thinks he's some European Communist, which would at least make him laugh in his grave) The exact reason Cheney and Bush were able to ram the public up the fundament is because liberals have always tried to find the middle path and woke up too late to the transformative nature of the American right wing at this point. Read the preface to Krugman's The Great Unraveling. If you have a Republican party that is already saying the real reason for their loss is that they were not 'conservative enough', that they didn't attack enough and that Palin was the best thing about them, then trying to be conciliatory to them is like offering mediation to a wounded rattlesnake. You cannot fix the economy, the energy crisis, the Iraq war or the healthcare crisis by trying to be conciliatory to Limbaugh and gang. Wait and watch for the speed with which they go on the attack - the modern Republican party is now little more than a cancerous growth that is only capable of being in endless opposition.

And frankly, I think it's way past time that liberals stood up and displayed some spine for our beliefs. Why the fuck are we hampered by perceptions of some pockets of left-wing extremism when right-wing extremism is pervasive, all round and so aggressive and refusing to admit even a chink of reality through the window? Did you see Limbaugh or Coulter backing off a jot during the Clinton years or the Bush years? You shoot the mad dog and throw a bone to the good ones. If the Obama administration decides to play nice they will find their entire legislative agenda in deadlock in 30 days.

They have not been elected to play nice - a black man with a suspicious name has wiped the floor with a white war veteran. If they have to implement the change that the voters are asking them to, it will not be done by playing nice. These changes have to be rammed through - if the Republicans stand in the way, and all the signs are that they will, they should be roadkill. Two years from now, if Obama is not able to show the legislative accomplishments that he has been voted in for, the excuse can't be that I was nice to the Republicans, but they wouldn't play ball.

I really think you should read that Krugman piece - he talks about how Napoleon took all of the European empires by surprise because everyone believed that all his extremism was just talk and that once they got to the real business of ruling, he would moderate himself. Then he drew the parallel to Bush and the current Republican gang, who pushed harder and faster to the right than the Democrats ever thought was possible and therefore, while the Democrats believed the rhetoric about bipartisanship after 9/11, Rove, Cheney and co simply got a better grip on the knives and pushed them in harder between their ribs. That kind of stuff has to be burned out of the system, not by talking nicey-nicey.

Me
Today at 2:24pm

P.s. Remember why Clinton was not able to do anything about healthcare reform? Because he tried to get the Republicans along and they declared a jihad on Hillary and him. To repeat that experience once again, in the name of cleaning up the political culture would be rampant stupidity. Remember what the Republicans said about bipartisanship when they came to power - another name for date rape, according to Grover Norquist. That's what they really think - forget all the 'let's all get along' crap that will be coming out now.

YES! YES! YES!

8 long years; 8 long years we've waited for this!


What's the only thing that can make this any better?


Watching Fox News and hearing a panel of lying bloviators say that they want to take a nap for the next four years! Yes, please - make than forty and I'll buy you the pills.

Listening to a loony right wing radio talk show host say that the reason they lost is because their candidates were not right wing enough. Presumably he wants to put Palin front and centre for the next election - I say, go for it! Put Palin and Limbaugh on the same ticket and watch the GOP emulate the Titanic!!