New heights of crazy talk

Apparently Grady Warren is a presidential candidate for 2012. Apparently this is his website, but… it seemed more like a fishing-cum-politics blog of sorts.

Anyway, here’s him, speaking his piece:

I’d post a sample quote, but in this case the whole video is a class apart. Please watch this… and then remember to vote for whoever he is running against. In fact, please let this guy NOT be in political power anywhere.

I was talking about Sarah Palin, but compared to this she’s an angel, no?

Update: Oh, and I almost forgot. He himself loves Sarah Palin. Partly because of her politics, and partly because:

[…] to millions of men, she is their fantasy wife.

Heh.

—

Link via Pharyngula.

When EPIC fail is the norm.

In my last post, I said:

Considering this is West Bengal bureaucracy… Wow!

This is why:

Meet Amit Banerjee. He is 49, but if you go by his voter identity card, he is going on 267. The “EPIC proportions” of Banerjee’s age is thanks to a goof-up by the Election Commission.

According to Banerjee’s EPIC card, he was 259 years old on January 1, 2003.

Yes, that’s the norm we’re used to living by.

(And, um… Pardon the pun in the title.)

Non-Resident Indian votes in Bengal elections

I didn’t even know you could do that!

Most amazing, is this part:

“I don’t have an EPIC. But when I told the poll officials that I was an NRI, they located my name on the list. The rest was easy,” Dutta told Metro.

They found his name on the list, even though he wasn’t pre-registered? Considering this is West Bengal bureaucracy… Wow!

Honesty?

Honesty, I said.

Really? It seems Nitish Kumar plagiarized a research paper to write a book.

Heh. Nice!

Change in West Bengal!

So there’s change in West Bengal. Everyone, rejoice. It’s been a long time coming.

Personally, though, I have mixed feelings.

The CPI(M) has lost its position, which I think is a positive outcome. That’s one group of people who’ve messed up big time in West Bengal over many years. (Really, they should write a ‘What not to do’ manual of politics.)

But now, two questions remain. One, these are the National Elections, which means CPI(M) is still in power in WB. The State elections are two years away, where the CPI(M) must also be beaten handsomely for any real change to come in.

Two, and this is more important: If the CPI(M) do lose two years from now, who’s going to take over, and NOT make a mess of it? There are of course candidate(s) – even though I’m not sure the plural is really applicable – but is there really anyone who is capable of leading a government?

I’d like to think being CM needs a cool head, calmness in speech, and foresight. Those qualities are somehow hard to find in West Bengal, it seems. (A case in point: even though the Tata Nano project had its absurdities on the part of the government, what did anyone gain from driving Tata out of West Bengal? Shouldn’t that situation have been more maturely handled? [This is what I wrote, a few days before the Tatas decided to leave.])

Will the next REAL candidate step up please?

Dr. Manmohan Singh, PM (again)

So the Indian National Congress has enough seats (with support, of course) to form a government. After a lot of flak about his being a mere ‘underling’ to Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Dr. Manmohan Singh has come through, and emphatically. Telegraph makes a point about Dr. Singh being more than a weak PM, and I think I agree.

I know, I don’t follow the news as closely as I’d like to, but I haven’t noticed any situation where the PM has done anything to put his position in scrutiny.

I am in general wary of politicians, but I think Dr. Singh has been one of the few politicians of the recent past who I have respect for: Mr. Atal B. Vajpayee as PM, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam as President, Mr. Jaswant Singh as Foreign Minister under Mr. Vajpayee, and Mr. Pranab Mukherjee as Foreign Minister in this administration. Dr. Singh joins the list for being a dignified, respected, learned, and I’d like to say principled PM.

India thinks Dr. Singh is a good PM. I agree.

P.S.: Compare, if you will, with the character that we have for President of India at this time: she called for an women’s only IIT in her husband’s home town, soon after becoming the Head of State.

Building a new IIT? I can understand. A women’s only institute? I can at least see where she’s coming from. But at her husband’s home town? C’mon.

And this lady is the President of India.

P.P.S.: There’s another interesting incident about Mrs. Patil’s visit to Brazil (I think) and her son quietly making a personal trip to the US in the middle, but I won’t go into that as I couldn’t locate any relevant news article about that. (Can someone find me a link?)

Election fun begins

Talk about honesty.

Assuming that his party will win enough seats to make a difference in the Lok Sabha, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has pledged his allegiance. To the highest bidder.

Give special economic packages to his state, he says, and he will lend his support to whoever does so.

This is refreshing only in the sense that he is being honest about his motives for extending political support, instead of the usual roundabout way of ‘thinking about the country’ and ‘wanting India to develop and be a world power’.

This kind of thinking is all it takes anyway.

Being John McCain

Puranjoy asks, on his blog, where the old John McCain was during the run for President of the USA.

I think the answer is pretty simple. That is exactly what pressure, and expectation, can do to a person. Mr McCain was conscious of every word that he uttered, of every speech, and every phrase, that he used, always worrying, always wary, that his words might be used against him. And in that muddle, Puranjoy, was lost the old McCain.

Only, things like this should not happen to the President of a Nation. Is that why Mr Obama was the worthy choice?

About Barrack, this time

The latest:

Jailed political fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer who helped launch Barack Obama on his political career, is whispering secrets to federal prosecutors about corruption in Illinois and the political fallout could be explosive.

The plot thickens… but wait, here’s more:

… based on the known facts, charges so far and testimony at Rezko’s trial, there’s no indication there’ll be a so-called “October surprise” that could hurt the Democratic Presidential nominee — even though Rezko says prosecutors are pressing for dirt about Obama.

Wait and watch, then?

Palin at it again

The latest:

Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, an investigation by the Alaska Legislature has concluded.

… Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, had herself exerted pressure to get Trooper Michael Wooten dismissed, as well as allowed her husband and subordinates to press for his firing …

… The report concludes that the action was a violation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

The plot thickens, eh?