omg! obambi the humorless mocked! expect thunder, lightning, and hurricanes!

read this.
warning: it may be considered blasphemous and sacrilegious by obambi groupies like indi padashow or peacenik criminal sanjana hattotuwa (coincidentally both are former groupies of mervin silva), so their cronies better stay away.

given the mr sanctimonious phony's inherent nature, i almost, almost, wish the great black hope merchant to get elected (probability of which is 65%, as opposed to 30% for mccain, according to prediction markets at present) . i mean what fun will everyone have mocking him (and his fans) for the next 4 years at least! world be damned!

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some thoughts on remembering and writing about black july

it is right that we remember and never forget what happened on july 1983.

other bloggers have written about this yesterday and today. mostly in the form of personal recollections but with some reflections, more or less, on broader concerns (i have written about my personal experiences of 83 somewhere else sometime ago, i may write more fully again in the future).

however i have several moral concerns about how we write about it and our motives. because i believe that most of the writers had the best motives, i am not accusing anyone, but i will point out what i consider wrong and should be avoided when writing and reflecting about 83. readers and writers can read the articles and posts concerned and others of similar ilk, and judge for themselves. (all these judgments of mine are of course, as with all moral judgments, completely subjective. while i consider them wrong that does not mean i am urging bans on people who express them, rather i am pointing out why i find them morally unacceptable)

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when we write about july '83 (or anything else for that matter),

1/
we should not indulge in generalizations, such as, "sinhalese" did that or "tamils" this etc etc. people who do that are racists and only marginally different from racist rioters who attacked innocents. if we accuse, we should be specific; either naming people and/or their specific actions. for instance it is wrong and racist to accuse "sinhalese" in general, for '83.

2/
we should not exaggerate, either to increase the emotional impact of suffering or to ... boast ( i think that is the right word, tough i gave it some thought before using it ) about "good deeds". it is completely ok to describe suffering, and write about people acting with common humanity and helping others. but please do not exaggerate. exaggerations unless done by a great creative artist, are not hard to detect.

3/
do not speculate about "lessons for people" and other such nebulous stuff.
major point brought up when people reflect on '83 is about what majority of people "learn" (or did not learn ) by it. such questions are by nature unfocused, superficial, and unanswerable, and do not contribute to rational discussion. writers who ask this then generally tend to go on a tangent and indulge in unfounded speculations. "people" is a big word ,do not speculate about people's knowledge or actions because they are by definition unknowable. instead give your opinion after clearly indicating it as such. in doing so stick to facts if you can, and in this case observe what happened when similar preconditions for july 83 prevailed later.

4/
finally do not commit the major error of believing and implying in those writings, that ltte terrorism resulted from july '83 or that it was a major contributing factor in intensification of that terrorism.

that is false causality.

atrocities of ltte do not necessarily flow ( as some believe) from grievances of its members even if some of them have suffered grievously during 83. (imo what happened was that some criminals without any moral base used 83 as excuse to join ltte and ltte used 83 as a propaganda justification for its crimes).

to believe such a lie is a grave injustice to all those who have suffered and did not take out their anger on innocents. do people take out their fury on others unjustly? yes (this is not limited to ltte cadres) .but they are doing so by their own free will and as such are criminals no matter what they suffered. (to put it in another way, poverty is no excuse for theft.).

people choose to kill and commit other crimes. imo we are human beings because we have free will. (if you do not believe in free will and think human beings to be automations reacting blindly to events, you should ask yourself why you are writing about july '83 on the first place, beacuse by such reasoning everything, including riots, were inevitable).

killings of 13 soldiers by ltte is not an acceptable excuse for rioting. killings of innocents and other crimes on july '83 by rioters is not an excuse for joining ltte.

individuals who commit crimes (either rioting , joining ltte, or stealing, etc) giving some grievances or other ( real or fake ) as an excuse, would have committed those crime or something similar anyway; by choosing to commit crimes they betray their lack of a moral base for making such decisions, nothing more.

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ps.
additionally some people have reflected about indifference (or not) of majority of people in '83. that too is a generalization, but if applied to specific individuals it is a valid question.

in this regard it is more relevant to ask such questions about the present. we should all ask from ourselves as individuals what we are doing, now,about the existence of criminal ltte (which is incompatible with principles of human rights, justice, peace, and democracy, as the existence of criminal rioters on the streets was). are we willing to appease ltte and sacrifice fellow sri lankans to ltte terrorist pussies' mercy, and be indifferent to their suffering to get a (unsustainable) "peace", that does not respect human rights, justice, peace, and democracy? what makes that diffrent from being indifferent in 83 ?

ngo peacenik criminals, that is people like paikiasothy saravanamuttu, jehan perera, jayadeva uyangoda, sunila abeysekera, sunanda deshapriya, sunila abeysekera, nimalka fernando, rohan edirisinha, jeevan thiagarajaha, and their ilk (and their underlings like sanjana hattotuwa), some of the most vocal commemorators of '83 have indicated by their actions that they willing to be "indifferent" to others' suffering in order to appease ltte, as some politicians in 83 government were indifferent to sufferings of victims to appease the rioters. once again peacenik prove themselves to be professional hypocrites.

anyway are you indifferent now?

chessboxing

what a sport ! somebody put this on tv!

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israel should (probably will) "bomb" iran soon

if they have the capacity (most ppl think they have) israel should attack and "take out" iran's suspected nuclear facilities soon (as in before end of year). imo they probably will.

there are several reasons.

• obviously attacking after iran has developed a nuclear bomb is silly.
• waiting for "diplomacy" to succeed has failed, again obviously. while usa and rest can take the risk of waiting, israel cannot. iran's n-bomb = bye bye israel (sooner or later).
• high probability (65% chance according to futures market prices) of obambi winning and thus putting even more pressure on israel to fruitlessly wait than bush administration.
• iran's present capacity to respond will only cause limited damage to israel itself. iran's missiles (it has them, silly photoshoping was just to show it has more) are inaccurate and targets in square kms not meters. as such with conventional warheads they are less lethal than terrorist suicide bombers; a threat israel is well used to.

as such, israel if it follows its own best interests (as any state should), should and probably will attack soon.

but what will be the consequences of that attack, on the rest of the world?

that will depend on rationality of iran's leaders. if they are sensible to their own interests, rest of the world has not much to fear.

in that case, iran will not attack americans directly, or close the straits of hormuz given the likely terrible repercussions on themselves (such actions and american response will be costly to americans too, but iran will get the worst of it in the end). in this scenario iran will fire off several missiles at israel and will stop at that. (it is already helping terrorists to attack israel and americans so there wont be any increase in that front anyway).

worst that rest of the world will have to suffer, will probably be a week of very high oil prices. in fact imo attack will be beneficial in the sense it will take away one cause of instability (i.e. constant speculation about the israeli attack - iran's missile tests increased oil price by $6 on last thursday) in the region for some time.

of course if iran's leaders act like crazies all bets are off. but that is unlikely. for one thing, iran is not quite a dictatorship, it is a theocratic oligarchy. more people there are in leadership, less crazy and thankfully more selfish decision making will be.

will israel's leaders have the balls to do what is in their best interests? we will soon see.

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ps
iran and nuclear weapons
i was deliberate in avoiding the question of moral right (so to speak) of iran to have nuclear weapons in main post.

in the opinion of most, nobody (including usa) has a moral right to n-weapons. but that is irrelevant and naive. in reality it is in best interests of usa to have nuclear weapons given world history and politics. similarly, it is in best interests of iran to try to have them, and of usa and israel to try to prevent iran having them.

most of rest of the world's (i.e. those who value democracy and capitalism, aka individual political and economic rights - including sri lanka and me as an individual) interests coincide with usa's for the most part, and to a lesser extent with israel's.( however there is no harm in playing iran against others to milk both sides, as sl already do).

will government use strike to rationalize public service?

if government has any sense it should use tomorrow's jvp and unp organized labor strike to get rid of lot of free loaders in the sri lankan public service.

sri lankan public service, overstaffed, corrupt, and wasteful, is a strain on the budget and thus on the economy. due to various legal and political reasons, governments have failed to retrench and rationalize it.

this strike offers a golden opportunity to do so, both politically and legally. government should make full use of it.

however given present government's leftist views that is unlikely, imo. pity.

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