Sorry for being away, but I was away
All I'll say about PIA is that you know you're flying a great airline when your hands actually smell worse after using the soap in the toilet.
Five Rupees is now back on its feet after a three-week break. Crazy three weeks, huh? Before I left for home, Saddam was alive, the Indians couldn't handle South Africa's pace, AI was a Sixer and my neighbors in Karachi didn't have 4000 goats keeping me awake at night. Anyways, since I just got back, I can't spend an eternity blogging but am merely posting the day's most interesting stories.
Ahmed Rashid says people are telling him that Musharraf will be elected by the existing assemblies at the end of 2007 (while maintaining his role as COAS), will then dissolve said assemblies, set up a caretaker government that will hold free and fair elections and then attempt another endorsement as President from the new assemblies in the spring of 2008 (BB's and the PPP's role in all this is unclear, at least to me). Brent Scowcroft says that as part of trying to find peace in Iraq, the U.S. should push harder for a solution to the Israel-Palestine issue (remember, before the Iraq war started, when neocons said that the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad and everyone else in the world said, no, it's the other way around? Where are those neocons now?). Hussain Haqqani, everyone's favourite Bhutto-phile, talks about the contrasting deaths of Saddam and Gerald Ford. A guy in Multan had his ears and nose cut off because he married a woman for love, a woman who unfortunately happened to belong to one of those wonderful tribes that pays visits to people wielding axes. George Will says the minimum wage should be $0. For some strange reason, I actually found myself agreeing with him. Shaukat Aziz says there's no deal being made between the government and the PPP with the delightfully ambigous phrase "I want to make it clear here that the PML will contest the next general elections along with its coalition partners, and get success on the basis of its policies" while, of course, refusing to explicitly state who those coalition partners will be. For whatever it's worth, Sher Afghan says talks between the government and the PPP have reached the "decisive stage". (By the way, for non-Pakistani readers, I should mention that this is a time-honoured tactic peculiar to Pakistan: people from the same institution often say completely contradictory things, hoping the mixed messages throw off opponents who don't know what to expect. The PCB, the Army, the government, industralists, KESC, you name it, they all do it. I love Pakistan). Finally, a Daily Times columnist writes about the poor guy who got his shalwar taken off and got thrashed by the police (picture here) simply because he was protesting the disappearance of his father. Good times.
All I'll say about PIA is that you know you're flying a great airline when your hands actually smell worse after using the soap in the toilet.
Five Rupees is now back on its feet after a three-week break. Crazy three weeks, huh? Before I left for home, Saddam was alive, the Indians couldn't handle South Africa's pace, AI was a Sixer and my neighbors in Karachi didn't have 4000 goats keeping me awake at night. Anyways, since I just got back, I can't spend an eternity blogging but am merely posting the day's most interesting stories.
Ahmed Rashid says people are telling him that Musharraf will be elected by the existing assemblies at the end of 2007 (while maintaining his role as COAS), will then dissolve said assemblies, set up a caretaker government that will hold free and fair elections and then attempt another endorsement as President from the new assemblies in the spring of 2008 (BB's and the PPP's role in all this is unclear, at least to me). Brent Scowcroft says that as part of trying to find peace in Iraq, the U.S. should push harder for a solution to the Israel-Palestine issue (remember, before the Iraq war started, when neocons said that the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad and everyone else in the world said, no, it's the other way around? Where are those neocons now?). Hussain Haqqani, everyone's favourite Bhutto-phile, talks about the contrasting deaths of Saddam and Gerald Ford. A guy in Multan had his ears and nose cut off because he married a woman for love, a woman who unfortunately happened to belong to one of those wonderful tribes that pays visits to people wielding axes. George Will says the minimum wage should be $0. For some strange reason, I actually found myself agreeing with him. Shaukat Aziz says there's no deal being made between the government and the PPP with the delightfully ambigous phrase "I want to make it clear here that the PML will contest the next general elections along with its coalition partners, and get success on the basis of its policies" while, of course, refusing to explicitly state who those coalition partners will be. For whatever it's worth, Sher Afghan says talks between the government and the PPP have reached the "decisive stage". (By the way, for non-Pakistani readers, I should mention that this is a time-honoured tactic peculiar to Pakistan: people from the same institution often say completely contradictory things, hoping the mixed messages throw off opponents who don't know what to expect. The PCB, the Army, the government, industralists, KESC, you name it, they all do it. I love Pakistan). Finally, a Daily Times columnist writes about the poor guy who got his shalwar taken off and got thrashed by the police (picture here) simply because he was protesting the disappearance of his father. Good times.
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Miscellaneous
3 comments:
Welcome back! :O)
Hope Pakistan was fun, how's NB doing? Don't hear from him often.
nb's fine. you don't hear from him, i presume, because the internet in pakistan is so unbearably slow people don't feel like doing anything, including writing emails. it's precisely why five rupees had a 3 week hiatus. but we're back! joy to the world!
Ahsan dear, remember what i told you about eating your vitamins daily.
Miss you already my little sweety-poo.
Mummy's sweet, rebellious little god-hater better call every weekend, okay jaan? Dont worry, I wont tell your friends that you did. I dont want my little baby losing his darling little image of the tortured, unconventional intellectual.
Googly goo.
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