I already made it yesterday, but I need to reiterate* it.

I don’t like Wodehouse. I have read his books, but I don’t find them funny. I realised that there was something abnormal about me when I realised that everyone else around me used to read them and find themselves in splits, while I turned page after page trying to find a joke. I think I skip all the funny parts because I don’t expect to find humour in longwinded sentences. I like my jokes to be pithy.

As for what kind of humour I like, try The Importance of being Ernest by Oscar Wilde. Also try Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister

*Strictly speaking, shouldn’t it be iterate the first time and reiterate if I repeat it again?

from all the screaming that took place at the Bloggers’ meet today. We weren’t fighting or anything (though we did end up discussing about libertarianism. I wonder how the subject came up 😉 ). It’s just that the Cafe Coffee Day was too noisy and we had to scream at the top of our voices to be heard. I hope everyone had a good time. As for me, I had a Kenyan Safari. I also had an oddly unsatisfying feeling that comes from talking too much and not letting others talk. Yazad falsely claimed that Kenya was at the other end of Africa from Ethiopia. See for yourself and judge how good a liar he is.

Amit is right. This analysis is really good. But what’s with this disturbing paragraph?

This cuts both ways. The Congress won the Andhra Pradesh election of 2004 with informal Naxalite help. There are murmurs it wants to extend this experiment to the 76 Naxal-active districts across India, and call an early Lok Sabha election.

If true, this is not only shocking, it is treasonous.

Please remember to come over for the Bombay Bloggers’ Meet on Sunday. The highlight of the meet will be a duel between Amit Varma and me on the issue of Musharraf. As I have challenged him, he gets to choose the weapons. We will be shooting at each other from 23 yards. We are both looking for seconds to carry us back in case of any casualties.

The market will soon be flooded with cheap imitations of IIT graduates

This is something I am really curious about. Do our leaders know it when they are being hypocritical? I mean, take Somnath Chatterjee. He has been told that he won’t be allowed through diplomatic channels into Australia and he throws a fit. He can’t say “I am too important to be subject to frisking”, so he throws the “It’s not about me – it is the country’s prestige at stake” fit.

Do these guys know that they are lying? Or are they deceiving themselves too?

Incidentally, I didn’t say that Amit Varma was wrong, only that his argument was fallacious. There may be a good case for dealing with Musharraf, but it cannot be “We must deal with him because in the slim chance that we succeed, the payoff will be really good.” Any decision to deal with him must look at what realistic chances of success are.

Amit says that there is no harm in trying. That’s silly. Of course there is. The potential harm is that we will be suckered into making concessions once again, without getting anything in return. He also says that this time its different because Pakistan has agreed to abandon the primacy of Kashmir. Huh? He has never said anything like that. It’s just wishful thinking on the part of the “Shower so much love on the Pakistanis that they get overwhelmed with emotion and agree to become our friends” crowd.
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For a fine example of the moralistic fallacy (i.e. the belief that because something aught to be true, it is in fact true), please head over to India Uncut.

Amit Varma says that because it would be nice to have India and Pakistand as friends, we should proceed towards the goal regardless of whether we have any chance of success under Musharraf.

If you ever become an evil overlord

Japan’s problems have always been unique!

I am starting a series of posts on how I write. The series will not, I hasten to add, deal with how I choose what literary flourishes I use in my writing. It has more to do with how I choose which side of an issue to take, how I build my arguments, what tone I choose, and other things in that vein.
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Pornocracy.

Yes really, there is such a word. It refers to rule by prostitutes. At one time, apparently the Papacy was controlled by a couple of harlots.