Ye Shiwen and american/british unsportsmanlike behavior

i have long pointed out the total absence of civilized values among modern westerners, in particular among british and americans.

they provided further proof of this when they attacked 16-year-old swimmer, gold medal winner, and world record breaker, Ye Shiwen, of "doping", yesterday (you can find more western viciousness here, and many other western media outlets)

on what grounds? nothing at all! she in fact has a completely clean record. nor is her improvement in performance extra special. holder of record she broke (by just 1sec), stephanie rice, displayed much bigger improvement when she established the record. so have others. iow there are no grounds for any accusation.

other than westerners finding her achievements "astonishing"! 

yes, westerners find great performances from non westerners, a crime. 

esp so if they are the ones losing out due to the performance concerned. contrast that despicable attitude with west's justifiable adulation of their own teenage and/or extraordinary performances from likes of missy franklin this year, michael phelps in 2008, and others through the years.  

 

this is true not just in sports, but with regard to achievements in art, science, technology, business, war, etc, etc..

[btw when it comes to substantiated cases, west leads the world, both in number and in profile, of athletes concerned, in doping.]

all excuses advanced by westerners for raising questions about Ye can be raised about many western sportsmen/women. so questioners should answer why they did not raise them before with regard to ppl like rice, phelps, etc. 

while west will get temporary relief for their bitter frustrations from such claims of sour grapes, they are of course not going to get real lasting benefits, if their targets, and world at large, stand their ground and expose the baseness of western attempts.

i think the target here, Ye Shiwen, in spite of her youth, will prove herself during this olympic games as well as during a long and successful career. 

in addition we as observers should not stay silent in this case and at other times when vile western character displays itself.

as i have said here before, while keeping solid records of their filthy behavior for future, we must also expose and confront the racist scum aggressively, in whatever capacity we have, however small or ineffective at present. 

civilization was/is/will be maintained by individuals doing the decent thing in face of baseness and barbarity.

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ps

while free ppl will do the decent thing, slavish ppl will obey and parrot western masters. sort of ass licker who found the insipid uninspired joke of an opening ceremony "impressive", will no doubt find it congenial to enjoy the attempted public rape a 16 year old. look no further than political sleazebag rohan samarajiva's son indi samarajiva, of many blogs like indi.ca and padashow, for a good example of this kind of slave.   

 

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egypt: dictator out, junta in. celebrations and congrats too early

hosni mubarak egypt's dictator was ousted yesterday, after 30+ years of brutal corrupt oppression and 17 days of protests, strikes, riots, looting, prison breakouts, lynchings, etc., etc..

a military junta of his closest cronies (with equally brutal and corrupt personal histories) have taken power in place of their master with vague promises to bring in democracy some time in the future.

herd, around the word (including a few idiots in sri lanka), are celebrating and offering congrats to egyptians.

!?

too early imo.
democracy is yet to dawn in egypt. i will keep my congratulations and celebrations till then. anybody with a brain should.
remember all those 'color revolutions' in recent past from ukraine to georgia to lebanon. hardly harbingers of democracy. egypt is likely, imo, to fare even worse.

america's impotent involvement
over the years united states of america gave more aid to mubarak's brutal regime than to any other country except isreal. it turned a blind eye to repression of opponents of that regime and even used the regime to do its dirty work by sending (/'rendering') terror suspects to egypt so they can be tortured without legal obstacles prevailing in american territory.

when protests started, obama administration in usa (and its poodles in west) which support many such regimes and directly commits and oversees even worse brutalities in iraq, afganistan etc., assumed its usual hypocritical stance as champion of democracy and human rights, and called for reforms but stopped short of calling for mubarak's resignation. but as days went on, usa became aware of his and its own impotence. to cut its losses obama administration seems to have decided to dump mubarak and try its luck with a friendly military junta. (cia chief got ahead of himself when he announced mubarak's departure on thursday).

btw it is indicative of so called super power's over stretch and ever increasing weakness that it is now always responding to events and has lost its ability to control them in favor of its allies as in the past.

[mainstream western media's coverage of protests with deliberate blind spots (disgusting anti jewish sentiments of protesters, role of widespread anti christian riots in late december and early january, etc.) and exaggerations (role of social media) deserve another post. ]

what next?
whether a junta consisting of mubarak's (and west's ) cronies can maintain power is an open question. only the events will show.

in any case, imo, there are two likely outcomes, and both does not involve a functioning democracy of even imperfect western (usa, eurape, etc.,) or asian (south korea, taiwan, japan, malaysia, india, and of course sri lanka, ) models.

outcome will be determined by how, now legitimized, protests are handled in the future (as in next year or two) by those in power in egypt.

there will be more protests. double digit unemployment and inflation ensured the high public participation of protests. those causes are not going to disappear; disruptions from protests (and this year's freak weather around the world) will make them worse.

possibility 1
junta or some of its members successfully maintain power creating a mubarak lite regime, compliant to west and paying only lip service to aspirations of egyptians. this would involve cracking down on protests at some point. tunisia, which also ousted its dictator, seems to be going this way; newly installed pro western president was given emergency powers, a story buried by mainstream western media.

result, no democracy.

possibility 2
junta fails in face of future protests and soldiers unwillingness to crack down. an unstable government made of weak out of touch pro western 'liberals' (eg elbaradei) will be installed. islamists (led by grandfather of all islamic fundamentalist parties, muslim brotherhood) will support this temporarily to get rid of junta. once that has been achieved, muslim brotherhood, which is the most organized and experienced political entity apart from government and has maintained itself in opposition to a repressive regime, will take control.

don't believe this scenario? well you better read history. that is exactly what happens in revolutions. barring a counter revolution (led by elements of old regime) most extreme and organized party among revolutionaries always gain control. perfect example,1917 revolutions in russia. (coincidentally first one took place in february there too, we know what happened by october).

a country under the muslim brotherhood is not going to be democratic.


interesting times
'may you live in interesting times', goes an (alleged) old chinese curse.
today the worldwide herd is unwittingly celebrating the dawn of interesting times for the egyptians.

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evidence of racist pro terrorist bias in the associated press(ap) 'reporter' bharatha mallwarachchi's latest hack job

in sri lanka's there are certain paid western and/or pro tamil tiger terrorist tools. esp so in ngo and so called journalistic community writing in english. some of them are so deeply committed to their racist and slavish agenda, that they go so far are as to deliberately forget standard professional practices and ethics in order to parrot and exaggerate unsubstantiated terrorist propaganda, and try their best to slander sri lanka, sri lankans and its institutions (ranging from government to buddhism).

bharatha mallwarachchi currently working for associated press is one such. in this post i will examine his latest hack job for its racist pro terrorist bias.

following image is a screen-shot of the ap report authored by this tool (click to enlarge). it was published within last 24 hours.

first there is the title "sri lanka evicts some war refugees from villages".
really ?
note that title is not enclosed in quotation marks.

this 'eviction' turns out to be a mere allegation by tamil national alliance (tna aka itak), in particular tna mp suresh premachandran. so far reporter has not produced any other evidence to back this beyond tna statement. he has not verified this from independent sources.

maybe tna and mr premachandran are independent sources? only a totally sloppy reporter who has not done his homework, or a deliberately biased one, would think that. tna was tamil tiger terrorists' proxy political party when they were still undefeated. they obtained 90%+ of votes in areas under the murderous terrorists then, while other political parties were completely suppressed. party has not regretted this association and still indulges in most racist rhetoric possible. all of this and more about tna is easily verifiable.

but for bharatha mallwarachchi all that does not matter. to him, if tna said something, that is no longer a mere statement but a fact.

btw i am not saying he should not report on tna statement; he should do it like professionals do reporting it as a mere statement by tna (providing tna's background).

contrast his treatment of tna statement with his treatment of governments' (old) statements about refugees. "The government said ...", "government says... ", "Officials say ..."etc., ; in every (note every) sentence referring to them the fact that government's statements were not verified were emphasized. that is right, if reporter cannot verify them. but he fails to make similar qualifications to that degree with tna statements in the report and title.

now why doesn't mallwarachchi verify any of these statements before writing?

for instance camps housing 'refugees' are funded and run to a great degree by united nation's agencies. why was this reporter unable to find the truth(or not) of government statistics from those u.n. agencies? it should be easy for a real reporter looking for truth.

then why doesn't he? pro terrorist propagandists were implying from the 1st moment of their existence that the camps were there for a sinister purpose (concentration camps perhaps?). reporting the easily verifiable fact that u.n. is funding and helping to run the camps certainly destroys any such conspiracy theory. now guess the reasons of mallwarachchi's studied total silence on easily verifiable u.n. presence!

that is not all .

he does not seems to have asked for a government response to tna statement as any professional reporter would have done before writing.

instead he quotes "the party sought government clarification, but there has been no response". but that is again a mere tna statement about alleged government non response to tna statement. a real reporter would have tried to contact government directly and have reported the results directly instead of relying solely on tna's word .

he also resorts to distortion and unwarranted speculation. he selectively quotes from remarks 'government spokesman' (actually cabinet spokesman, and minister) keheliya rambukwella made before these allegations from tna, during a press conference last week, as if his statements about landmines were a reply to them when they may not be. is mallwarachchi preemptively speculating and creating government response before government has even said a word? that is not his job! but such a hack probably does not know the meaning of professional ethics.

there is still more,
it seems mallwarachchi's politically correct wording is not correct at all and totally one sided.
"The Tamil rebels fought for a separate state, claiming decades of discrimination by the Sinhalese majority."

they certainly claimed to be acting for tamils but were they? this is an important distinction.
tigers are not equal to tamils (only racists equalize them). making the tiger murderers representative of tamils as they claimed to be (and enforced by killing and terrorizing all other tamil leaders) is a mark of a racist pro terrorist.

mallwarachchi takes their claims as as pure truth.
unbiased person would have said "tamil tigers claimed to be ..."

and were they "fighting' (implying fighting against military only)? a real reporter would have referred to their actual methods (deliberate targeting of civilians even children and places of religious worship etc, use of suicide bombers etc ) and consequences (their inclusion in lists of terrorist organizations including those in usa, eu, etc) even if he does not prefer to not use the word 'terrorist' directly to them. all these are well documented.

unbiased person would have said "tamil tigers (listed as a terrorist organization by several countries due to their actions) claimed to be fighting for a separate state on behalf of tamils, alleging decades of discrimination ....etc ".

but for mallwarachchi they are 'tamil rebels' merely 'fighting'.

"rights groups have accused the government and rebel forces of deliberately targeting civilians."
again his desire to follow the pro terrorist propagandist agenda of creating moral equality between government and ltte is clear. yes rights groups have accused the government of targeting civilians, but so far without any proof whatsoever. in contrast what mallwarachchi calls 'rebel forces' have admitted, documented, and convicted, of hundreds of deliberate bombings of civilian buses, trains, airports, banks , places of religious worship etc etc killing thousands. now can he explain why he stops at mere 'accusation' when verifiable facts are available to all?

are his colleagues at ap going to say al-qaeda is merely accused of 9/11? really?

"according to U.N documents, more than 7,000 civilians died in the last five months of the conflict "
as pointed out above mallwarachchi seems to be totally unaware of u.n. agencies working in refugees camps but has no problem finding non existent positive statements from u.n. that 7000 civilians died. in fact there are no such documents with such concrete statements from u.n., only allegations (clearly so indicated) at third hand. a professional (if he/she wants this at all in his report ) would have said." according to u.n. documents, more than 7,000 civilians may have died in the last five months of the conflict though the figure was never verified by u.n. "


does anybody still think bharatha mallwarachchi is a professional reporter? isn't he rather a willing tool of racist pro terrorists? if you think he is not such a tool let me know why below.

it is a pity and a shame that once respected news organizations like the associated press are employing ppl such as this racist with his pro terrorist agenda .

will they employ a committed 9/11 "truther" conspiracy theorist as a reporter? they won't. but we in sri lanka are poor and powerless in world, so maybe ap thinks we would suffer the slanders of this hack without protest.

we wont stay silent. this protest and exposure may not have any effect just now, but as i have said before these things count in the long run. truth and sunlight always triumphs. we should continue to document these despicable biased reporters and expose them to the world and future in detail. we should choose aggressive confrontation over silent suffering in the face of dirt bags like bharatha mallwarachchi.

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wikileaks video of u.s. helicopters killing ppl/reporters in iraq + some thoughts

i tweeted on this earlier but in case anyone missed, here is wikileaks video of u.s. helicopters killing ppl and reporters in iraq in 2007. details are in the video. its authenticity has not been disputed. (warning : some may find this disturbing.)



as far as i can see no major western news media organization has posted wikileaks video in their main outlets in full (in blogs/cnn ireport/etc, yes, but not in frontend)

on sunday americans also admitted that their coalition forces had a role in killing of some afghan women in february. there were many other similar incidents in the past.

meanwhile american installed and later elected afghan president hamid karzai has continued to condemn international coalition's disregard for civilians casualties.

he has also claimed that westerners are responsible for the fraud in recent afghan elections. he even named alleged main fraudsters; peter galbraith, american former deputy head of the un mission, and philippe porillon, french former head of european union election monitoring team. (the story is also available in non western media w/o the pro western anti karazi spin. i selected a western source so that reader can decide what is spin and what is not therein)

there are claims of fraud in recent iraqi elections too (anyway why does results take so long (weeks) to be released in both those countries? in sl they come out within hours and the process is open).

my thoughts
now i fully support american war against terrorism and use of military violence in the process.

i am also aware of the almost certain possibility of accidents, as well as outbreaks of indiscipline, criminality, and insanity, in some members of military in spite of all the best efforts of political and military leadership, and institutional precautions.

what i cannot stand is hypocrisy.

why is sri lanka and sri lankan military accused of all sorts of war crimes in its fight against ltte tamil tiger terrorists (with almost no credible and authentic evidence to back up the charges) while western government aren't (even with much more solid evidence for their alleged crimes)? accusations are certainly not made on the same level.

even when they are made there is a telling difference in how accusations are framed; it is never the 'americans', 'british', etc., or their governments, who are committing 'war crimes' but some specific soldiers, 'bad apples', etc., but in accusations against sri lanka it is always 'sri lankans', 'sinhalese', 'tamils', and sl government, who are committing the alleged war crimes.

all that is due to double standards, hypocrisy, and yes, racism .

of course realistic sri lankans expect that sort of treatment from west. we know we have to fight our own battles and cannot expect west to act with justice and fairness to us. look at the pathetic predicament and treatment of karzai for what happens to ppl who depend on west.

that is why we should not allow those hypocrites to assume some sort of fake moral superiority in order presume to pass judgment on us. we have to aggressively confront them with facts and truth and reveal their hypocrisy and presumption. it may not have any effect on them, but we need to make our position clear; they have no right to judge us.

but there are born and paid slaves here who see no such double standard in behavior of the west in spite of evidence. that sort of filth believe the best about their masters in west and worst about us. its about time sri lankans at large treat these as they deserve. i for one has always done that.

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challenge: name a single real news story that was censored in sri lanka recently

opposition propagandists and terrorist propagandists claim that sri lankans are not informed about what is happening in sri lanka bc news here is censored.

imo that is not so.

it can be argued, that not a single real news story, that would have passed a good editor in any reputable newspaper in west, was censored here.

please prove me wrong if you can.

as i always say to anyone who claims sri lankans are kept in the dark by government, go to the nearest newsstand (there are plenty everywhere ) and just read the headlines. not only real news, but unsubstantiated substandard stories, pro and against government/opposition/whatever are available to anyone. same with other media.

yes there was no story about election commissioner held at gun point on 27th, but that was not censorship, bc that never happened. same with sore loser sarath fonseka being 'under siege' and 'hotel arrest'.



to claim that these rumors were spread bc there was censorship of in mainstream independent media and there is a vacuum of information as one of official online unp/sf propagandists, indi 'padashow' samarajiva', does is false.

far from 'running media center for national security press releases', mainstream media in sl did report the facts truthfully. the false rumors were artificially created and spread on purpose to denigrate and undermine sri lanka and its democracy. indi padashow participated in that effort willingly and knowingly. he is now acting the sore loser like his masters' bc his artificial bubble of clueless hopes have burst.

my challenge to him or any anyone else making the same false claims about censorship : name a single properly substantiated news story that was not published in sri lanka recently in context and in proportion to its news value.

-
does that mean there is no censorship in sri lanka? no.

attempts at censorship (mostly ineffective) directed against false anti sri lanka propaganda did and is taking place. government is quite open about it.

government blocked the terrorist propaganda website, tamilnet in 2007. some of those who were spreading false rumors through sms texts in bulk on 25th and 27th clearly aimed at denigrating and undermining sri lanka, national security, and sri lankan democracy at that particular point of time have been arrested. formerly terrorist jvp's propaganda rag lanka raided and shut for a day was due to it publishing an article inimical to national security.

note that there was nothing unconstitutional or illegal in any of government actions. for example, police who raided lanka followed proper legal procedure and were armed with court orders, search warrants, etc. same court also allowed the paper to reopen.

however i would support use of legal force only if these ppl were either intending to use force, conspiring with those who did, or somehow engaging in activities that could very well result in harm to sri lankans (such as disclosing details of intelligence operations as alleged about lanka article). since investigations are continuing we don't know enough to judge specifically about recent actions.

-
i personally do not approve any kind of censorship, of news or of propaganda.

i believe in countering false propaganda by exposing the propagandists and their real loyalties to the world with evidence.

that is why when government blocked the terrorist propaganda website, tamilnet, i protested. even though i detest what that website is doing. i also helped literally thousands of ppl to counter the block bc my post is in top 10/20 search results for relevant keywords in google.lk. (btw one of the reasons this blog gets so many visitors is that i have posted lot of practically useful posts in the past).

similarly i have never called for banning corrupt peacenik sanjana hattotuwa's groundviews blog or its predecessor moju. even though both published blatantly untrue terrorist propaganda.

i believe in exposing their lies to sunlight through confronting them with facts and reason. aggressively so.

if the propagandists are allied to terrorists, their pro terrorist connections and lies should be exposed, whether they be tamilnet or groundviews. their racist ideologies and prejudices should be laid bare. eventually truth will triumph. tamilnet has lost all credibility. these days ppl visit it only to know how the terrorist pussies are spinning a particular story, not for facts. moju was deleted by sanjana when the criminal burden of its terrorist parroting lies became too much to sustain. note how sanjana hattotuwa is not maintaining an archive copy of moju site (even though he is maintaining such for various others).

if the propagandists were working to undermine national security and sri lankan democracy, and their actions do not go beyond mere propaganda, i would support and be satisfied with any effort to expose their lies and connections.

so when one of the online unp/sf propagandists, blogger indi 'padashow' samarajiva and same terrorist parrot sanjana hattotuwa' and their suckerboys like dinidu de alwis began to spread false rumors in blogosphere and in twitter on 25th and 27th (complementing their colleagues who were spreading the same lies in bulk offline through sms text etc.) principled thing to do was to expose them for what they are, as i said at the time.

in fact exposure of their lies, hypocrisy, bias and loyalties, based on their actions and facts should continue as long as they continue to engage in propaganda.


to conclude,

there is no news censorship in sri lanka, there was/are legal attempts underway to curb propagandist who may be undermining national security and democracy.

i do not believe in curbing even propagandists as long as they are nothing but propagandists. best way to counter propagandists is to expose them, their connections, and confront them with facts and reason .

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ps
on purely personal scale, with regard to censorship, i have not even called for removal of unp propagandist indi 'padashow' samarajiva's online thuggery against me, conducted through a second hand blog at present, from even kottu.

i have satisfied myself (in addition to documenting his disgusting activity for record purposes) with pointing out the hypocrisy and double standards indi.padashow applies to those who do his dirty work, in contrast to treatment meted out to those who used similar tactics against terrorists. former is encouraged and promoted while latter, like satire site tamilnet.tv, are banned from kottu.

wonder what indi 'padashow' samarajiva's kottu cocoon defenders have to say about this double standard.

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degenerate bloodless shell of unp

for what does united national party (unp) stand for?

unp still sits at the center of one of the two huge webs of patronage relationships that act as arteries of political life in sri lanka, but there is no blood running in those arteries. it has fallen so low that it cannot even field a candidate of its own for presidency and resort to beating up probably hostile journalists covering its meetings.

once, unp used to be a standard center right party.

but is it now?
let's examine

unp for free markets and capitalism?
in 1977, then unp administration opened the economy. some unp governments have engaged in privatizations of nationalized institutions and liberalizations of markets. all good, and in right direction imo.

however, nobody in current unp, least of all its leader ranil wickremesinghe, has the courage to stand up and defend those things, or more broadly capitalism and free markets, based on principles. there is certainly no margaret thacher in unp. at most unp will say, that we are being forced to open up markets due to globalization or that world bank/imf conditions demand that we do this or that liberalization or privatization.

nobody in unp is willing to say that free markets, open trade, and less government, are benefits in themselves and we should adopt such polices anyway without being forced to do so.

in fact last unp government (2001-2004) even implemented anti market polices, such as imposing a guaranteed price for buying paddy which led to all sorts of market distortions and over production. leading to inevitable protests (including suicides) by farmers at both harvest seasons. current non unp administration has thankfully let this policy slide out of sight. does anyone remember when the last farmers' protest was?

under imf prodding last unp government did put a blanket freeze on government hiring but did not have the courage to admit it was doing so (let alone try to reduce the number of public servants). such half baked actions only make government even more inefficient in that blanket freeze prevented needed ppl from being hired, while wasteful overstaffed departments kept on being so.

there were many such half baked actions on the part of that unp government. half baked bc they were not based on a well thought out coherent philosophy.

current administration of course is not pro liberalization. one does not expect it to be. it was elected on an anti liberalization platform. unp now in opposition, has not been able to make a coherent case opposing policies expanding government and subsidies. in fact there has been no opposition on its part to such polices.

we cannot call present unp a center right party when it comes to economic issues.

unp on national defense
on national defense unp is more akin to a loony left fringe party than a center right party (governing united people's freedom alliance(upfa) is very much to the right of unp here) .

this is the main cause of unp's unpopularity.

unp let all sri lankans down by not supporting efforts to defeat terrorist liberation tigers of tamil ealam (ltte). when terrorists deprived and threatened freedom, human rights, democracy, and justice of sri lankans of all communities, unp chose a policy of appeasement.

it adopted an immoral peacenik 'peace at any cost' position advocated by foreign (and perhaps terrorist) funded ngos wholesale, even while bloody murderous consequences of appeasing terrorists was apparent to all. it remained obstinate when government under mahinda rajapaksa showed that trying to defeat terrorists with violence, if need be, was both moral and pragmatic. instead several unp leaders tried to belittle the glorious achievements of the military. they have yet to abandon these polices or issue retractions for their statements.

public's distrust of unp position on these issues is well deserved.

ethnic grievances
unp once had a solid base among minority communities due to historical reasons, rather than bc of any credible attempt to address their (very real) grievances. rise of race/religion based parties is a telling indicator of unp's short comings in both articulating and addressing those grievances. now these (let us be frank, bordering on racist) parties (thankfully split in to factions) determine unp policy in these matters. unlike upfa, unp has been unable to stand up to more extrme demands of these parties when it needs their support. so much so that unp was unable to field candidates for jaffna and vavuniya local council elections earlier this year.

in other words, unp does not have a policy on how to address any ethnic grievances that still exist. its policy will be determined by factions of ethnic parties supporting it. pretty pathetic and not reassuring to voters (like myself) who like to see an end to race based policies of any kind.

other issues
in all other issues unp has not taken any coherent stance.

its foreign policy seems to be 'kowtow non stop to west and hope for best', rather than for a policy of building fruitful relationships in sri lankan interest in all parts of the world,esp in asia.

its corrupt politicians rail against government's corrupt politicians, not convincing anyone why we should exchange their lot for present lot.

it wants 'good governance' through implementation of 17th amendment, with its independent commissions to govern various things (public service, police etc. etc.). even though last unp government deliberately failed to implement it. (for the record, i am no fan of 17th amendment. imo it is an undemocratic, unworkable, loophole ridden, bureaucratic, money wasting monstrosity, but i better keep my thoughts on that subject for another post).

defending traditional values and culture is a staple of center right parties, but unp (or rather its leader) seem to be quite clueless about sri lankan culture or its values.

unp doesn't have a policy on various civil liberties one way or other. btw ranil who is 'gay' (i am against simple categorizations of sexual orientation hence quotation marks), as whole of sri lanka knows, doesn't have the courage to admit the fact, hiding behind an obviously fake marriage.
etc. etc.

internal democracy
not only has the party not stood up to protect sri lankan democracy, it has a deplorable record of internal democracy.

in latest example of this, last week it expelled some of the leading members from internal party positions due to their vocal opposition to unp decision to back non unp candidate general sarath foseka as presidential candidate.

as i have pointed out before, move to back fonseka benefits ranil wickremesinghe. after the almost certain defeat of general, ranil will be able to keep on as party leader till next election. (if he was the candidate and got trashed, there was a chance of him getting the boot). his association and acceptance of current unp's support and conditions will be part of the main reason why general will lose.


to conclude
ranil wickremesinghe led unp can no longer be considered a center right party with any kind of coherent philosophy. it is drifting without ideas or a vision.

this bloodless degenerate shell now function purely as a political vehicle for its leader, rather than as a living proponent of a political philosophy palatable to sri lankan voters.

of course unp still sits at the center of a web of patronage relationships, but without blood those arteries will die out eventually.

sarath fonseka's campaign (and his defeat), may transfer some blood to keep them alive for a little bit longer, but to revive the beast more direct and drastic action is needed. to start pumping blood again, at the very least, unp has to get rid of ranil, and it has to uncompromisingly stand for something that public wants (hopefully capitalism and robust protection of rights and interests of sri lankans from all threats internal or external) , rather than what its leader wants and what some of his out of touch sycophants in colombo wants.

this paralysis and inaction of almost half of sri lankan polity is bad for the country, bc upfa or its leader will not face any credible check on its/his power. it is not wise to always count on goodwill of unchecked power.

unfortunately, there is no chance of unp reviving anytime soon.

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this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

some quick points and questions about the channel 4's alleged "execution video"

british channel 4 tv has broadcast a video showing execution of naked, blindfolded, and bound men. they claim it shows tamils being killed by sri lankan military.
video is available on the web. here is a rapidshare link (h/t bailaman). (viewer warning - disturbing graphic content )

here are few things to keep in mind when looking at video and before drawing any conclusions from it.

clearly it is a horrible crime, if real. and those responsible should be brought to justice.

however in order to take this seriously or any kind of action to be taken, we need clarity concerning several things ( esp given the well documented and exposed doctoring of pictures and video by ltte terrorist propaganda.) .

[let us not forget channel 4 along with some other british media cater to a large tamil diaspora in uk (that includes lot of organized racists that sympathize with and financed the ltte murderers of us, sri lankans.) channel 4 in particular has failed to cover or expose this murderous financing and those involved. so much for its investigative abilities or objectivity]

first who provided the video? the video was allegedly provided by a group called "journalists for democracy in sri lanka (jds)" which has a german address. no names or interviews with anyone from this group were provided by channel 4. why? even though this group allegedly consists of exiled sri lankan journalists.

as they confess, channel 4 has clearly not independently verified the video. also it is wrong to claim it "cannot" be verified. i have nothing against their broadcasting a video of an alleged crime. however the claims they make (see below) cannot be justified if they have not verified it.

it is not clear where it was made and when. channel 4 claims jds claimed it was made in january 2009. but these are mere claims only, with nothing to back them up. sri lanka has a long history of conflict against terrorists, in north against racists and in south against marxists. lot of other criminal/vigilante/splinter groups too involved in these conflicts. so if this took place anywhere in sri lanka, it could have happened anytime during last few decades.

channel 4 claimed that killers speak a "country boy sinhalese accent" (!?!), in a "casual" tone.
indeed, a few words are heard in sinhalese in the background.
words as far as i can hear can be translated-

"as if can see... looked away "
"(indistinct)"
"that is a real..."
"strike? strike (repeated)" (i translated "gahamu" and similar as "strike", may be "hit" is better?)
"take turns like ...(comparison indistinct) ..."
"coming like ...(no comparison)"
"me (or i was) requested (by) this thing(or one- "oka")"
"telling stay and look? ...what? "
"sssstriiiike (sic). ours, its government property ... let's strike"

however it is not clear that killers in video speak at all, we do not see their mouths. and those killed are silent; no screams or moaning heard .

lot more gun shots are heard than those used for alleged killings in video, which are carried out by shooting one by one in single bursts of fire. where are the other shots coming from? in spite those shots, those recording and taking part in killing in the video, do not seem to feel threatened, even though they seem to be in an open field. camera for instance is steady and does not respond to shots heard, considering it is hand held.

it is quite possible that sound in the video was added later from a separate video/sound footage of fighting. this is just a theory but not outlandish given the doctoring of pictures and videos by ltte terrorist propaganda.

and the video was allegedly made from a mobile phone by a soldier (again channel 4 does not provide any basis for these claims). to a completely inexperienced person on the subject (like me) it seems to be made from a better quality camera. also there is no date or other identification marks on video footage.

killers do wear uniforms that show some vague similarity to sl military uniforms, but they are certainly not distinct enough for claims to be made that they are sl army uniforms.

there is no basis whatsoever in video to claim that those killed were tamils.


ethics and motives of claims, comparisons, and conclusions
in addition to those questions, there is also the ethics and motives of equalizing and identifying of various others with alleged killers (esp by "media").

even if this video is authentic. what does it prove? some (usual suspects the ngo peaceniks etc.) have already tried to make out that sri lankan armed forces are "guilty" and "same as ltte terrorists". others say that sri lanka should prove its innocence with a "neutral inquiry".

those conclusions are unwarranted even if the video is authentic.

how are sri lankans as a whole a guilty of this crime? or even sl military as a whole? at worst, it is a case of indiscipline by few criminal idiots in military. to slander thousands and millions of others who have no involvement is unwarranted and despicable .

this crime should be dealt with using normal judicial procedures relating to murder and military discipline (if video is verifiable and can be admitted as evidence) or if otherwise, sri lankan and other intelligence services dealing with terrorists' propaganda. those interested can follow those procedures and if there is anything wrong with them speak out .

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i also don't see how or why this makes sl military same as ltte. ltte deliberately carried out killings of civilians as a policy. on the other hand, there is no proof that sri lankan military or civilian authorities sanctioned anything similar. on the contrary, they ruled out certain weapons and tactics (at the cost of lives for them) bc they can result in civilian deaths when terrorist murderers were holding civilians as human shields.

only a pro terrorist propagandist will claim that this video (even if authentic) proves sri lanka military is same as ltte.
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if you feel that i have not covered any point about the video or that i was mistaken in anything feel free to comment. i may cover this later in another post if more details are forthcoming about the video.

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my twitter - http://twitter.com/sittingnut
this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

to interrupt the "yes! great idea!" chorus to "kottu print"

indi.ca has put forward the idea of publishing some of the posts in sri lankan kottu blog aggregator (which he administer and own) as a section of sunday leader newspaper.

almost all responses to this idea published at the time of writing were in agreement and failed to make the obvious objections. bloggers who wrote them should ask themselves why they failed to object? don't leave all objections to authority to be made by a "pariah" (to the kottu cocoon) like me, who bc of other quarrels may be suspected of mixed motives.

i wrote a comment at about 11 am, with a small addition about an hour later. those as usual have not appeared (as owner of blog indi.padashow has a perfect right to not publish my comments and only publish yes comments if that is what he wants). by same logic i have a perfect right to taunt him for wanting only yes comments, as i did on twitter. lol
btw here are my personal twitter account and this blog's twitter account. for more information on them go here.

(update: blogger rehani in comment with time stamp 2009-08-17 12:13:18 ( few min after my witter taunt ) has made some of the points i made)

but since i think points i made there were valid (imo) and perhaps need general consumption i will make them here in a post (i will also publish the original unedited comments at the bottom as well, though they basically say the same.)
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bad idea!

it is a bad idea to publish blog posts created for a new medium on old failing newspaper medium.

one of results will be curtailing of new modes of expression so that they fit in with the restrictions of old medium.

i am not just speaking of non availability of multi media formats that most blog posts incorporate, though that should also be noted.

publishing for a newspaper will involve editors, editorial policies, and style guides (don't know whether leader has them but most newspapers do) both explicit and implicit. blog posts that will be published will be included or excluded and edited according to those policies, whatever indi says now. blogs on the other hand allow bloggers to express their ideas, reflections, opinions, satire, whatever,... without restraint, using whatever style they want.

but so what? you might object; ppl who keep on writing in a manner deemed unsuitable by editors of newspaper will not lose anything .they will still have the blog while ppl who conform will have another medium of expression. (and let us not forget that lot of bloggers can be classed as failed or wanna be newspaper writers. they will welcome the opportunity.)

yes. but i am not objecting to this on behalf of any of those ppl, but as a reader and appreciator of blogs (from world over) in contrast to newspapars. when ppl conform to newspaper restrictions their writing will change, and their readers will lose. we should also note that as a medium, blogs have been immensely successful and newspapers are failing. mainly bc readers do not get what they want from newspapers.

it is a bit like comparing a free market economy with a planned regulated economy, favored by socialists. in one side there is free unrestricted competition, and readers will decide. what ppl want to read will last or will find niche markets/readers. on the other side, decision will be with editors who will favor what they think their newspaper readers want to read.

in other words, if this idea is successful (a big if), for a time (best it can hope for), and lot of bloggers try to conform (as they have a right to do) to inevitable explicit and implicit restrictions, in order to see themselves in print (and/or to get the money) the blog readers will lose. sri lankan blogosphere and ultimately sri lanka will be poorer for it.

we should encourage new medium to its full potential, instead of restricting it to limits of an old medium.

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i have some further objections

i doubt whether anyone with any decent principles will want to get published in sunday leader newspaper. that is a paper that made its name through slander, blackmail, and all sort of other dirty stuff. it is also failing, with relatively few advertisements (bc of limited and falling circulation).
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it is already possible to get bloggers to publish if anyone wants them in newspapers; ask them! if a newspapers want blog posts as articles they should contact the specific writers concerned and ask for the posts to be rewritten to fit that medium. simple. btw bloggers who agree to this should be paid the normal rate not some low rate.
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the top 10 at kottu (one of the proposed selective criteria) can be easily manipulated.

this happened to one of my posts in feb 2007, ironically on the subject of kottu (which generated other posts in other blogs) when someone (for reasons unknown) sent my post to top of the list in a clearly artificial way. this was confirmed by log in my blog. (btw i informed all concerned through email as it was occurring).

while such manipulations were not repeated for my posts (yes my posts do sometimes end up in list still. but surprisingly that is probably bc some ppl read them in spite of their boring length it seems), all indications are that problem was not fixed (even though the fix is pretty simple). the kottu list can still be manipulated. in fact if there is an open permission, this can be demonstrated by sending any random post to the top of list.

so this selective criteria is a no-no.
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how to implement this bad idea to least objections.
in case these ppl are determined to implement this bad idea, here are some steps that must be taken.

1/ the editor of some sort has to make a selection to avoid manipulation.

2/ bloggers must be asked for consent and allowed to reedit their own articles to conform to old media format.

3/ they should be published with disclaimer/description like the following
"these articles are blog posts of note that appeared on kottu aggregator in past week as selected by editor and published with consent and editing by original writers".

these step will mitigate some objections and will be truthful to boot (rather than pretending they are the popular posts or true reflection of sri lankan blogosphere etc).

but to repeat, this is a bad idea to begin with.

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here are the original censored comments.
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not a good idea

bad to publish blog posts created for a new medium on an old failing newspaper medium.
( quite apart from being published in one specific newspaper, which is short on ads=circulation, and which made a name through lies and blackmails and other such stuff. not a place to be seen for some ppl with principles ) .

one of results will be curtailing of new modes of expressions so that it fits in with the old restrictions of a failing medium ( i can see that some of the comments above already trending to such a policy )

if newspaper wants newpaper articles they should contact the specific writers concerned and ask for article rewritten to fit that medium (and make sure to pay the normal rate btw)
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also the top ten posts at kottu can be easily manipulated . as happened to one of my posts,(in feb 2007, ironically on the subject of kottu, to points made in which indi here sort of replied ) when someone ( for reasons unknown ) sent it to top of the list in a clearly artificial way as was confirmed by log in my blog . (btw i informed all concerned through email etc ).

while such manipulations has not repeated to my posts later( tough posts do some times end up in list) , all indications are that this was not fixed ( even though the fix for this is pretty simple ) , and the kottu list can still be manipulated .

if there is an open permission, this can be demonstrated by sending any random post to the top .

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to add a small point to what was already written (where? here is to hoping that comment will reappear !) , specifically requesting articles to be reedited takes care of some problems.
a disclaimer/description to the effect -"these articles are blog posts of note that appeared on kottu aggregator in past week as selected by editor and published with consent and editing by original writers"- or some such will cover most objections .and will be truthful to boot ( rather than pretending they are the popular posts or true reflection of sri lankan blogosphere etc .