Sachin Is a Buffalo

WTF:

But according to Chinese astrology, Tendulkar is also a Buffalo, a cousin of the bull — and these two systems combined make him a Double Bull.

This is from an article by Bejan Daruwala on tips to help Sachin overcome 'THE Jinx':

1.Sleep in the lap of his wife and tell her to love him sweetly and gently

2. Cook his own mutton cheese burgers and eat them

3. Have a terrific bath

4. Jump in his Ferrari and go for a drive

Brevity Rules

Via Megan:

The government can't fix society for the same reason that you can't remove your own appendix.

Milton Friedman on Greed

Thanks

Click on the image to enlarge.

I did check the url, there are no pop ups by default but when you click on any of the pics to enlarge them a war starts between the javascript and Firefox's pop up blocker. Lovely.

Excruciating

Mohammed Hanif on probably the most excruciating speech ever made by a dictator:

But obviously, uncle didn't need any prompting. He launched into his routine about three stages of democracy. He claimed he was about to launch the third and final phase of democracy (the way he said it, he managed to make it sound like the Final Solution). And just when you thought he was about to make his point, he took an abrupt turn and plunged into a deep pool of self pity.

This involved a long-winded anecdote about how the Supreme Court judges would rather attend a colleagues' daughter's wedding rather than just get it over with and decide that he is a constitutional President.

As I said, I have heard some dictator speeches in my life, but nobody has gone so far as to mention someone's daughter's wedding for imposing martial law in the country.

I never expected Musharaff to explain his decision. And no, its not because he couldn't think of any good reasons - after all, you can rationalize pretty much anything - but because it was so obviously done to save his ass that any other explanation would have sounded false.

When you know reason is not going to work, what do you do? You turn to rhetoric. A speech full of impassioned and senseless vitriol proclaiming that the judiciary was standing in his way as he tried to eliminate the evil terrorists and single handedly save the nation was to be expected.

But speeches like those require fire. You do not whine that people aren't scared of you. You do not cry that your officers aren't immune from the law. And most importantly, you do not sound anything like Musharaff sounded on that day. You give a rallying cry to the country to follow you, their messiah. Any speech writer would have known as much. Mushi in his supreme arrogance decided to do away with him. After all, who cares about syntax when addressing their slaves? Seems like the proverbial pride before the fall. No?

(Counterpunch link via Amitava Kumar)

Relief

The chances of a mass public uprising against Musharaff seemed bleak to me. As long as their 'normal' lives were not affected and they got to watch the Indo - Pak series, will the masses rise out of their collective apathy? It was while being thoroughly disheartened by my own skepticism that I read this paragraph in Musharaff's guest post:

All dancing girls in bars have been banned. Such corruption has decayed our society. True Hospitality requires that we provide certain services to visiting dignitaries. From now on I will perform lap dances for visiting dignitaries myself. Some of the girls are giving me lessons on how to provide the other services as well.

Scared of what Musharaff will do to them, the men will stop frequenting the bars and will turn into a seething mass of suppressed sexual desires. In the end, libido will prevail. There will be a mutiny and inshallah democracy will be restored.

The Vanishing Artic

The Ethics Of Toys

The manufacturer of a line of talking Jesus dolls gave a most astonishing reason for his decision to make a Jesus toy:

The owner of the company said he started making the doll because he was troubled by a lack of morals and ethics in toys.

Lack of morals in toys? WTF?

Breaking News: Emergency Declared

Musharraf has declared emergency in Pakistan, the constitution has been suspended, the chief justice has been replaced and the other judges of the supreme court have been arrested. Communications have been cut in Islamabad and all television channels except Pakistan TV have stopped transmissions.

So It Goes...

What if Aldrin and Armstrong were unable to leave the surface of the moon? Seems like they had already planned for this worst case scenario.

Ugly gets redefined in this list of the Top 10 Worst Websites You'll Wish You Hadn't Seen.

10 Best Monster Ads.