massive mahinda victory to close election? how sunday leader columnist indi.padashow twisted election projection data

on january 7th indi.ca blog (run by the sunday leader columnist who also runs the scurrilous padashow blog) published a "hypothetical analysis ...on what could happen" at presidential election. the conclusion of that election projection was in his own words "very hypothetical, but looks competitive" with both major candidates getting close to 50% of vote.

in this post we will look at the data in this "analysis" and show that a 'competitive' / 'close' (as he keeps on repeating his posts) election can only be projected by manipulating data to suit that outcome.

without such obvious manipulation even his data shows a massive victory for mahinda rajapaksa.

i am making available a screenshot of the post and a copy of word document attached to that post separately in case anybody decides to change things.

i also made a comment there (which said most of what i write here, in brief) and was censored as usual. his censorship is personal. he does allow some critical comments by others but nothing from me. since i don't make comments under any other name all my comments get censored. of course he has a right to do as he please in his blog.

before going into data we have to ask, who did the 'analysis'?

not indi.padashow. he has trouble calculating simple percentages and having grown up in foreign countries is generally ignorant about most things sri lankan. this is one of his recent statements about the election. (click to enlarge)

lol. anyone who has even heard about the law or has seen the ballot and voted in a presidential election here, knows that it is possible to indicate 3 preferences.

funny isn't it, that such an ignoramus is presuming to lecture sri lankans about law and politics. funnier still that so called 'newspaper' sunday leader ( which has taken a management decision to back sarath foneka ) would employ him as columnist. even funnier that unp used this person, son of a political appointee (corrupt by son's standard for accusing others of corruption), to run their online campaign (nothing more than a website really ) in 2005. (he used to actually edit comments posted in that unp website so that even unfavorable comments appear favorable. not my comments, but then frequent blogger morquendi's, hardly a friend of mine). [indi does not deny any of this if pressed (given the evidence in his own blog and others, he can't anyway), but is not into voluntary full disclosure either as demanded by journalistic ethics. iow a worthy and fitting columnist for the rag sunday leader.]

if not indi who made the election projection?
in the post he says "i think the document is from parliament somehow". my request for more information on that point went unanswered.

the properties of word doc attached to post says it was authored by "ajiwadeen_m". we have no idea who that is .

there is also the fact that same numbers and same documents appeared in at least two or three other places (including some pro ltte terrorist blogs/websites, not the ones blocked in sl). indi makes no reference to this in his post though at least one was clearly earlier than his.

indi also tweeted this,


since he does not provide the details of author, but published them on his blog, we will consider them his, until we get further information .

a look at the data.
i will confine myself to most obvious unexplained discrepancies.

he provides two forecasts based on ethnic and district votes (forecast I & II). lets start with first one.

Major Ethnic Groups	Valid	MR		SF
	Votes	Votes	%	Votes	%
Sinhalese	8,424,360	4,633,398	55.0%	3,731,991	44.3%
SL Tamils	868,198	182,322	21.0%	607,738	70.0%
Muslims	1,039,375	291,025	28.0%	744,193	71.6%
Ind. Tamils	618,859	326,138	52.7%	290,864	47.0%
Others	33,090	12,905	39.0%	19,854	60.0%
TOTAL	10,983,881	5,445,788	49.58%	5,394,640	49.11%

there is no explanation as to where he got these numbers.

according to this muslims comprise 9.4% of valid votes. according to department of statistics and they make up about 7-8% of population.

imo the figure for sl tamils is way too high and indian tamil figure way too low. we do not know true figures bc 2001 census is incomplete due to terrorist control of several districts then. as such there is no valid source for this sort of a breakdown.

for now we will proceed with these rather shaky looking figures

muslim vote
he says 71.6% of muslims will vote for sarath fonseka? why? he does not give a valid explanation even in word doc. muslim politicians and parties are split. if anything more elected muslim mps support mahinda rajapaksa than oppose him. nor is there any proof of such an anti mahinda tendency among muslims in recent elections.
a more realistic and rational projection would split the vote 50/50, or 45/55. nobody rational will go beyond 40/60. but indi padashow projection does.

now assume it was 40/60, instead of 28/72, among muslims, what will be the results? 1-1.5% increase in mahinda total vote percentage with similar decline in fonseka's

indian tamil vote
( i prefer to call them up country sri lankan tamil but will stick with this name for now)
here he says vote will split 52.7/47.
now ceylon worker's congress (cwc) the main political party of indian tamils, as well as second biggest, upcountry people's front (upf) are supporting president. only few defectors from them are with fonseka. and historically cwc has delivered 70+% of the indian tamil vote. in every election it had defections (usually the same ppl) but that does not seem to hamper its vote delivery. but indi padshow's number cruncher assumes for unknown reasons this time will be different. why? no reason given

now assume this vote splits conservatively at 60/40, instead of 53/47 as in indi projection, or more realistic 70/30, what will be the results? 0.5+% increase in mahinda total vote percentage with similar decline in foneska's.

these two almost certain but still very conservative roll back of unexplained irrational manipulations will result in a 51.5/47 split in total votes. a 4.5% or about 500,000 vote margin. realistic vote splits among muslims and indian tamils will double even that .

sri lankan tamil vote
i am not going to say anything about sri lankan tamil vote split. i don't know how it will split. it could be same as this prediction says(21/70/9) or it could be 40/50/10 or even 45/45/10.

anything is possible, so i am not going to speculate on any manipulations there.

ordinary tamils here, in india, or in diaspora, have generally rejected racist terrorist supporters ( like tna/itak) by not voting or voting for others if they get a chance .

as i said before i don't think sri lankan tamil vote will be high as these numbers. quite possibly it will be lower than indian tamil votes.

but lets leave him with his 21/70/9 split without change .

sinhalese vote
here he gives a 55/44 split. in recent provincial council elections the split in mostly sinhalese areas was 68-70/31-29.

however this is best examined by looking at his district based forecast (forecast II).

let us concentrate on kurunegala district (with no special connection to either candidate)

this is the last provincial council election result -
valid votes 709,186, upfa 497,366 (70%), unp+jvp 209,632 (30%)
in the padashow projection -
valid votes 938,397, mr 495,474 (53%), sf 436,355 (47%)

in other words, valid votes go up by 230k (which is ok since more ppl vote in national elections than in provincial elections),
but upfa vote fall by 2k (and 17% as share). almost all the extra votes go to sf, increasing his vote share by 17%

is that realistic? of course not.

reasons for this manipulation?
in word doc he says he reduced mahinda's vote in each district by 10-15% from what upfa got in 2008/09 provincial elections. no explanation why a major party will get less votes from a larger number of valid votes in a national election than in a provincial election.
he also says that since unp doubled its vote numbers from 2004 provincial election to 2005 presidential election, he is assuming it will do so again.

here are the actual figures for kurunegala
2004 pc election - valid 604,979, upfa 362,084, unp+slmc 240,078.
2005 presidential election - valid 896,497, mr 468,507, rw 418,809.
valid votes went up by 290k, upfa votes went up by 105, unp went up by 178k.

iow, he replicates 2004-2005 unp vote increase in pc to presidential elections, but does not want to do likewise with upfa's. bias much?

now let us assume that 2004-2005 scenario gets reenacted without the irrational manipulation .

we assume that valid vote increase from 2009-2010 is as he says, 230k, then instead of all of that going to sf as in indi projection, only 2/3rds goes to sf as in 2005. that would be about 154k. upfa will get other 1/3rd, 76k.

then the results for kurunegala in 2010 will be, valid votes 938,397, mr 573,000 (61%), sf 364,000 (39%) (in every step i rounded up for sf while rounding down for mr).

this is a percentage difference of 8% and in number of votes, 77k (compared to indi projection) for kurunegala .

same with other districts. it is less observable in districts where pc elections were held in 2008 before the war ended, but still there.

so even if we add only 1/3rd of increase in vote from pc to presidential elections to mr, and add the rest to sf , we get an 5%+ increase in mr vote share, over what indi.padashow gave mr in his projection.

this conservative change applied to his all island district based forecast (forecast II) results will give us a overall vote split of 53/46.
remember this accepts without question his figures for north and east provinces, as well as colombo and central (which as you may guess were similarly manipulated but will require lot of space to untangle, so i am not doing that here)

if we apply the above logic to sinhalese votes in forecast I, we get a 60/39 split in that segment. adding 418k (3-4%) to mr's total vote share, while reducing sf total by that amount.
even if we, to be on the safe side, reduce it by half, we still get 57/42. adding 210k (2%) to mr vote share while reducing sf's by same.

if we combine sinhalese, muslim, and indian tamil, sanitized vote numbers we get a overall split of 53.5/45. a 900k, 8 .5%, margin .which can hardly be called 'close' .


here are the sanitized results for forecast I - 53.5/45
here are the sanitized results for forecast II - 53/46

imo the vote margin will be bigger, as i have been saying from the start

remember i have not sanitized most of the manipulations, only the most obvious and easily demonstrated ones (esp in forecast II). i have also not sanitized his initial questionable valid vote numbers.

also as anyone who followed this carefully would have realized, when sanitizing manipulations i took a very conservative route (from rounding down votes for mr & up for sf, to cutting the possible mr increases by half )

given all that, it is safe to say even numbers of sarath foneska's devoted supporter indi.padashow, stripped of obvious manipulations, indicate that sf is in for a trashing.

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ps
by all means point to any errors on my part if any .
pss
i wonder if i get banned from kottu this time, for exposing indi padashow 's doings again. even though there is nothing false here. lol

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who to vote for? a guide

the main failing of a representative democracy like sri lanka is that voter cannot decide on each policy individually, one by one. we have to decide between individuals who make promises to act according to a package of policies.

(btw while the outcome of this election, a big victory for mahinda rajapaksa, was clear from the start, imo mere certainty's of outcome should not be a sufficient reason to favor it.)

i will come to individuals later, now we will look at,
how to evaluate a package of policies.

first we will have to ask, are the policies consistent with each other? in other words do they adhere to any ideology.

in sri lanka as in other democracies the electable candidates are not likely to be creatures of any ideology. there are few minor candidates who may have policies that are ideologically consistent. any vote for them will be wasted, except as an almost invisible protest. (btw bc in sl minor candidate ideologues are either marxists or racists, and there are no libertarians, i cannot make such an empty protest even if i wanted)

2 major candidates are ideologically inconsistent. however vaguely left of center mahinda rajapaksa is more coherent than all over the place sarath fonseka.

since a choice based on ideology is out of question, how are we to continue, esp given their preference for empty platitudes and slogans rather than policy specifics or implementation details.

to judge between such undefined policy collections, we have to focus; we have to concentrate on what we consider major policy decisions facing the country and drop all minor ones. then we have to make out from available material whether there are any material differences between the candidates about those.

what are the major policy issues?
national security and economy will be my answer. some would also add good governance/corruption. (so i will comment on that as well)

national security
we defeated murderous tamil tiger terrorists. that is a glorious national achievement (to which both candidates contributed significantly; one of course had greater responsibility by definition). that achievement should be defended in every way possible.

nobody should be allowed to roll it back. esp not by giving power to unrepentants who were willingly either racist pro terrorists and/or pro appeasement peaceniks (i.e. those who believed peace is worth any cost, even the cost of human rights, freedom, justice and democracy; they opposed defeating the tamil tiger terrorist pussies with violence if needs be, preferring instead to handover fellow sri lankans to terrorist oppression in appeasement). ppl with such attitudes at such a time proved that they are both morally pervert and unrealistic. by refusing to repent and renounce their former attitudes, and continuing to denigrate the national victory, they now prove they are incapable of learning and/or corrupt to the core .

now such ppl (unp leadership, tna, likes of mano ganeshan, peacenik ngos) are supporting sarath fonseka. why? bc he has agreed to their conditions, which while not explicit in rolling back the defeat of terrorists, will give means to these ppl to do exactly that. his willingness to accept of such conditional support coupled with his own irresponsible statements to media, only indicate his less than willing commitment to defend the great national achievement.

some might object, that mahinda rajapaksa too has a few such supporters. he has some such ppl, but in contrast to fonseka's, they after renouncing the attitudes referred to above, in most cases even helped in defeating the terrorists. nor will they be in a position to roll back the terrorist defeat in case of a mahinda victory since he is not working under conditions imposed by them.

i think on this issue, the voting decision is very clear for anyone who values freedom, human rights, democracy, and justice. sarath fonseka and his current supporters should not be allowed to achieve power.

economy
no recognizable policy by either candidate, beyond irresponsible spending sprees of gigantic proportions. needless to say, if carried out, such actions will lead to total collapse. thankfully they are impossible to carry out, so will not be implemented.

in any case, government's ability to influence economy is pretty limited, bc sri lankan are very good at ignoring government (from taxes to regulations) and getting away with it.

if there is a difference, it is one of degree. mahinda camp (confident of victory, in contrast to desperation in foseka camp) seems to be more restrained, knowing they will be held to account for not keeping to promises, come next election. one election promise will illustrate this. fonseka promises rs.10,000/= monthly salary increase to all public servants. mahinda so far has made a point of not following this with a counter bid, pointing out its unrealistic nature. of course he has upped or initiated other such 'promise bids'.

it goes without saying that as a libertarian, i am completely frustrated at this state of affairs; there is no candidate to stand for a pro market, less government, position. this is partly the fault of unp as i have explained before.

in all this, it must be remembered that sri lankan economy is doing well in spite politicians; growth is likely to be in 6%+ levels in next few years, inflation is at 25 year low, and stock market is at a record high.

anyway, there is not much of a difference when it comes to economy. mahinda has already shown that he hasn't/can't ruin it in spite his promises, while fonseka's similar promises probably won't be carried out either if he gets elected.

iow, fonseka has not shown why he should get the vote based on economic issues.

good governance and corruption
i don't think this is a major issue. but some ppl do try to make it an issue and it is the one that is most talked about by politicians and commentators, while imo most voters will decide based on above two issues.

anyway, i don't see a difference between the candidates on this issue. both are corrupt, both have corrupt supporters, both sides used/use government property and benefits for campaigning.

what could be more absurd than ppl like ravi karunanayake denouncing corruption (as he did in unp ass licker harsha de silva' program yesterday). lol.

while corrupt should be punished lawfully if possible, i seriously doubt individuals promising to eradicate corruption of others. at most there will be political show trials of opponents that go nowhere due to technicalities if the accused is no fool (such outcomes are a part of democracies, for show trials with convictions (and executions) go to china).

some supporter of fonseka talk of 'good governance' through implementation of 17th amendment. most voters would not know the difference between it and 13th. imo 17th is an undemocratic, unworkable, loophole ridden, bureaucratic, money wasting monstrosity, and cannot and should not be implemented. (i really should write a post about it, but 17th is so cloud cookooish i can't motivate myself). in any case i doubt unp, jvp, tna, and others, who were each in part responsible for failure to implement it at various times, will agree to it when in power and handover power to unelected commissions of fractious nominees.

only way to achieve good governance and less corruption is to reduce the size of government, limiting its ability to spend our money and its ability to interfere in our lives and activities. handing power for both to a new set of government commissions will not do that.

iow there is no difference between the main candidates or their supporters on this issue.

individuals
how confident are we that these ppl will keep to their promises.

we know a lot about rajapaksa. we know he has not kept most of his economic promises (thank god) and has kept his promises regarding the terrorists (thank god again). we can generally expect rajapaksa to govern from a pragmatic center left position as he has done so far.

about fonseka we don't know much beyond his constant whining (bc he thinks he is not being appreciated enough), and his willingness, through resulting bitterness, to enter unprincipled incoherent alliances and endanger his fellow officers/subordinates/superiors by uttering irresponsible and false statements, in revenge. not very good signs for a man who wants to be a political leader.

conclusion
on the main issues other than national security there is not much difference.

on national security it is clear fonseka and his supporters must be defeated to ensure we continue to enjoy the benefits of liberty from terrorists in the future.

i will vote accordingly. you should too.

results
i think by giving a big margin of victory for mahinda rajapaksa, sri lankans will send a clear message of unacceptability of anyone who welcomes and works to further, the agendas of unrepentant peaceniks and terrorists supporters.

opposition after ridding itself of peacenik leaders, could have made this a more competitive election (and gained my vote) by fielding someone who does not accept such support and who has clear contrasting pro market economic policies. they may still have lost this election, but they would have remained with a firm principled platform to build on and absorb any dissatisfaction with the next rajapaksa administration. they blew it.

now they will have nothing to build on after fonseka's inevitable defeat. most we can hope for is that they will get the message as to what kind of opposition is needed.

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biggest problem facing sri lanka - sms spam

it seems that kottu cocoon has decided that biggest problem facing sri lanka is sms spam (mobile phone texting spam). not just any sms spam, but 1 sms new year wish by president mahinda rajapaksa.

this lack of proportion is understandable. after all in the fantasy world of the cloud entombed cocoon where these bloggers insist on living, even a sms (at best a bit of earthly reality at third hand) has more substance than everything else.

as usual they are incoherent in their objections. so here are some questions and answers to clarify things.

are unsolicited texting spam annoying?
certainly. though perhaps less so if they appear as a mere wish, and not a solicitation.

does the receiving party pay for the sms?
not in sri lanka.

is it new?
no. objecting bloggers would have some credibility if same bloggers (almost to a man pro terrorist appeasement/peacenik bloggers) were not silent about all the other spam we got during the years. esp political spam from certain politicians then in united national party and active in appeasement 'peace' talks.

is it illegal?
no.
it is legal to send a sms new year wish.
and it is legal to send political msgs, both text and voice. they are part of political campaigns in other countries, esp in the west.

is this a violation of right to privacy?
depends on what you mean by privacy. probably not
your phone number was used. if you think that is a violation, yes

is there an unsubscribe option?
no. it would be useful to have an unsubscribe option or a more general blocking option. we can then block specific source of messages. it is up to phone companies to provide that.

how much did it cost?
if they were sent to everyone with mobile phone in sl, they must have cost between 10-20 million rupees (however it is clear that some have not received, with few annoyed at not receiving). compared to money spent on other media, that amount is small.

who paid for them?
phone companies ( if they were sent for free ) , or government, or campaign of mahinda rajapaksa.

is such payment legal?
probably. depends.

phone companies are probably doing nothing illegal if they were carrying new year wishes of president.
they also have a right to be partisan, if they want.

legality is most uncertain if government paid for it. while it is a mere new year wish, there is no doubt that, mahinda buffalo is blurring the line between his office and his candidacy to his advantage. if not in this instance, in others. however every sri lankan election was conducted in the same manner by those in power. is that good? no. but it would be impossible to prosecute anyone due to technicalities. nor is this problem (use of benefits of office to conduct partisan politics) confined to sri lanka.

a question about legality of payment would/should not arise if campaign paid for it.



is any of this a big national issue?
no.

should it be?
no.

will it change election results?
no.
as i said before, mahinda rajapaksa is going to win by a big margin anyway. even if any sustained sms campaign (not just 1 new year wish) was launched i don't expect we will be able to notice anything.

some after publication changes to this post made before 5.40pm 1/2/2010.

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2010 sri lankan holiday calendar

given the large number of people who visited and downloaded this information and probably found it useful last year, i am giving below sri lankan holidays for year 2010 according to the calendar published by department of government printing.

if you want the holidays in ical (ics, icalendar), csv, or html, formats, which you can import into calendar/time management software, then you can download the files from this drop.io drop. (make sure you select the 2010 ones.)

i blogged about what think about the number of sri lankan holidays sometime ago (basically imo holidays are good for economy as long as they encourage people to spend. so i want less poyaday holidays and more secular holidays and long weekends)

unlike last year, there are no 6 day long (or 5 day long) weekends in 2010. longest is the 4 day wesak weekend in may.

thursday, january 14 - tamil thai pongal day *†‡
friday, january 29 - navam full moon poya day *†
thursday, february 04 - national day *†‡
saturday, february 27 - milad-un-nabi (holy prophet's birthday) *†‡
sunday, february 28 - medin full moon poya day *†
saturday, march 13 - maha sivarathri day *†
monday, march 29 - bak full moon poya day *†
friday, april 02 - good friday *†
tuesday, april 13 - day prior to sinhala and tamil new year day *†‡
wednesday, april 14 - sinhala and tamil new year day *†‡
wednesday, april 28 - adi wesak full moon poya day *†
saturday, may 01 - may day *†‡
thursday, may 27 - wesak full moon poya day *†
friday, may 28 - day following wesak full moon poya day *†‡
friday, june 25 - poson full moon poya day *†
sunday, july 25 - esala full moon poya day *†
tuesday, august 24 - nikini full moon poya day *†
friday, september 10 - id-ul-fitr (ramazan festival day) *†
wednesday, september 22 - binara full moon poya day *†
friday, october 22 - vap full moon poya day *†
friday, november 05 - deepavali festival day *†
wednesday, november 17 - id-ul-alha (hadji festival day) *†
sunday, november 21 - il full moon poya day *†
monday, december 20 - unduvap full moon poya day *†
saturday, december 25 - christmas day *†‡


* public holiday
† bank holiday
‡ mercantile holiday

while full moon poya days are not officially designated mercantile holidays, they are called "common holidays applicable to all employees"

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update on 25th january 2010
tuesday january 27, 2010, was declared a public and bank holiday by government today. it is the day after presidential election. it is not included in downloadable calenders.

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merry christmas to you all! feel it! + christmas movies i watch

indi padashow says "it feels not like christmas". wtf? is he nuts?

yes spirit of christmas is a subjective thing, but that blogger always writes like a 'civilized' tourist in native drag for a photo op, observing and commenting on 'barbarian' sri lankan customs. that is why he has a long record of getting all things sri lankan wrong; from fight against terrorists down to christmas in sl. that is why he thinks there is a competitive election going on when everyone who is connected to the soil knows that it was a walkover from the start and after the irresponsible lies/gaffes of fonseka a boring old trashing. but i will save those thoughts for another post.

this is about christmas.

as regular readers of this blog know i was brought up as a roman catholic. i call myself an atheist simply bc i am unable to believe in god, rather than bc i have any antipathy towards the church or any love or respect for irrational inconsistent confusions of fellow atheists. people i live with, friends with, or in love with, have always been catholics for the most part.

from my point of view this one of the best christmas seasons i have lived through. iow indi padashow is nuts.

parties, carols, shopping, baking, decorating, cards, school holidays for kids (of my partner), wrapping presents, and thousands of other things are already past or on going. there will be mass, opening of presents, visiting and receiving relatives, cake, more parties, eating and drinking, games, to come. all round good cheer.
btw we do our little bit to spread it to everyone.

suburbs i live around are choked full of ppl and lighted up. driving is impossible.
as always this is the best season for businesses (even in mostly buddhist sri lanka). btw as i have written before, i welcome unabashed consumption and commercialism; "world will be boring and poor (literally) if not for the rampant consumerism of this season".

happy holidays, christmas, and a new year to every one!

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christmas movie tweets

as followers of my twitter know i have been watching christmas movies (alone, with others, or with kids,) in past week or so. i haven't finished them yet. but wanted to gather the tweets into one place. i may update it with later tweets.
term 'christmas movies' used loosely. i don't intend to define it.

"the shop around the corner"(1940). charming, funny & touching, but well grounded not cloyingly sentimental 4.5/5
btw "you've got mail" (1998) is a remake of "the shop around the corner". while not terrible,it is imo very much inferior. 3/5


'miracle on 34th street' 1947 original in b&w. classic! what more can i say? 4.5/5
'miracle on 34th street' 94 remake on tv. should really show much better 1947 original with edmund gwenn, maureen o'hara & natalie wood.


watched "it's a wonderful life" for nth time . 4.5/5 no need to say more.
talking about "it's a wonderful life" > a 1991 article by jimmy stewart about the film & frank capra http://tinyurl.com/ylem9vg


watched "bishop's wife" for the 1st time. enjoyed it very much. 4/5.



'a christmas carol'-1938 version-short,pointed & nicely put together.1984 ver-fleshed out & real. both 4/5


'christmas in connecticut' starring barbara stanwyck et al. forgotten how hilarious it is. 'moonlight snow and a cow' 4/5

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'rebel without a cause' screen test of james dean, natalie wood, and sal mineo + corresponding scene from movie

rebel without a cause is a movie i love. i have watched it countless times. i am also a fan of both james dean and natalie wood.

so i was glad to see this youtube video (uploaded by blumoon531. thanks!) of a screen test of three man actors; dean, wood and sal mineo. it is actually two tests, second one runs for few seconds and has no audio.



in the next video (uploaded by jimmysgirl. thanks!) you can see the actual (much improved) scene corresponding to the first screen test. the video contains most of the initial 'abandoned mansion' sequence of the movie and is 7 min long. screen tested scene starts at about 3.35 and continues almost to the end (in fact uploader has edited out few seconds of the sequence at the end and replaced it with few seconds a kiss from a little later).



note: second video has very low audio. if your speakers/earphones at maximum volume don't help, you might try downloading and playing it in a media player; after few minutes, audio becomes normal quality and remains so even on replay. no idea why.

for those who don't know already, all three actors in these videos died prematurely.
james dean, famously due to a car accident, at age 24, even before this film (2nd of his only 3 feature films) came out.
natalie wood, from drowning at age 43.
sal mineo was stabbed to death at age 37.

of course you can find lots of clips from movie, as well as fan made tribute music videos on youtube. there are even copies of the atrocious original trailer. i don't think full movie is there. i don't recommend watching the movie (or any other movie) on youtube if you have not seen it already. it deserves better.

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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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