O3: No to Elections!

The reserve King of Nepal (in his own twisted view), Obstinate Octogenarian Ogre aka G.P. KOIRALA, the Supremo of Nepal Congress Party has shown his real colours - he, and of course, his lackeys, misnamed politicians, WILL NOT PARTICIPATE in forthcoming elections.

Of course, the slick-tongued brahmin have come with explanations, about on the same level of the islamist- and jihad-apologets, why the elections are not APROPRIATE at this time. His level of dialectics is such, had he been in power, and wanted to go to polls, he would easily found words to support that thesis!
Unless this bitter old man is safely DEAD or in JAIL there is little hope of progress and democracy in the land.
I think some, if not full, reason for his fight to return to the coveted PM-chair is his knowledge that true democracy and full accounting will lead not only himself but large part of his immediate family and various sycophantic hangers-on to JAIL! (Remember the GSA case in the UK? The disapeared 757?)
There are numerous examples of polls beeing conducted during civil conflicts - among others in Algeria, Kosovo, most recently in Afgfhanistan (I don't count the shenanigans of PLO as democracy, neither their elections as democratic!)and comming in Iraq. Other reason for his obstinacy (after the fear of JAIL) is his realization that the Nepali people have at last saw through him and his "party" and he will be margenalized, sidelined, wiped out! From the sneers of my nepali family and friends when O3 appears on screen I gather his credibility is ZERO.
So it's more surprising that both the NTV and the more liberal Kantipur TV always roll out this tired horse and give hime airtime... As if O3 was relevant... Or democrat!

Murderous Bus-drivers.

While back in Denmark last summer, which is also monsoon time here in Nepal, I was so overwhelmed to see so many reports of bus accidents on the internet, that I joked to friends: "The Nepali bus-drivers were killing more Nepalis than the maobadis!"
I'm not joking now - it was always easier to face the grimm reality with a sneer and an uneasy laugh from 8.000 km away. But right now here, when a new tragedy occured, it hits hard... The hills around ring with brass bands, some streets in Kathmandu are half-blocked with dinner-tents, one meets whole marriage parties with best saree-dressed women bearing gifts - it's the marriage high-season! This nepali month called Magh (trasncr. var. as "Makkar" etc.) the Hindu astrologers marked 9 auspicious days for marriages. So my lady and me were really sad to hear that a bus yesterday skid off the road in Phuytan, west Nepal, killing 42 wedding guests, groom, groom's father, brothers and assorted uncles. Bride is in hospital.
I havn't taken a bus out of the Valley the past 12 years: (after going to India via Bhutwal, both DOWN and UP the bus met with an accident and it was sheer luck we didn't fell into the river!) Had I done that, there is a high probability a would have been statstic! The quality of the bus-drivers, and their vehicles' brakes and tyres is HORRIBLE. The drivers have no training, usually someone in the family of the owner gets the job, goes to Kathmandu, meets someone, pays some money, gives the guy a photo and PRESTO! Nepal has a new bus-driver! Week-after-week, there go 50, here go 30 "passengers". Why be afraid of maobadi landmines? Statistically they kill 10-20 times less Nepalis then the "friendly" bus-drivers.
What worries me is the attitude of the STATE - there is no outcry from MSM media neither - but it's the state which is the PROTECTOR of the humble and the meek, the role which in the West is taken so granted - we actually only perceive the opposite - too much traffic-regulation and control - and nothing is been done.
Last week there was a story in the papers about theft of more than 540 holographic stickers from Valley Traffic Police, and subseq. recovery of same in a houses of some of the officials! Of course, as we used to say in the old communist Czechoslovakia: "He who doesn't steal, steals from his own family!", and if they pay the policemen peanuts, they'll get monkeys!

Go! G.W.Bush Go! Go, USA, Let's Roll: Liberty Call at High Noon in DC.

40mnts. ago, High noon in Washington: Listened to the Inauguration 2005, to it all live, the bands, the prayer: right here in the lap of the Himalays! Came loud and clear over the XMMS player (Winamp-clone on my Novell Linux) on the measly dial-up-line, that's amazing!
The speach touched me deeply, just what I dreamt about in the early sixties in dreary Czechoslovakia: "Why with all their talk in the (strictly prohibited listen to!) Radio Free Europe about freedom, and how we oppressed yearned for liberty, why don't they come and clean up this communist shit?" Little did I know about the MAD-doctrine and the containment-doctrine or the price USA would pay in an nuclear exchange...
But Dubya is different from Eisenhower and Kennedy: he DID won freedom of 50 million oppressed people, and THEN promised America's support in (nicely put) "dark cornes of the earth"!

"All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you."

Uuh-uuh, heady stuff, that ALREADY smells, well, CLASSIC!
I quit now, in the bamboo-grove outside coyotes whine, on the KFKA station (ah, the pleasures of internet!), coming from the Colorado Rockies, Rush Limbaugh comments live the glories of the day, and makes fun of the hapless, visionless, clueless Democrats and the the doomed MSM.


Go Dubya, Go, may God bless you and the U.S.A.
Good Night world from Bhaktapur.

Shawarmaer fyldt med bakterier

Iflg. Jyllands Posten har "6 ud af 10 shawarmaer fra tilfældigt udvalgte grill- og shawarmabarer i København et højt indhold af bakterier."
Ja, velbekomme! Nu er en af de sidste grunde til at være glad for multi-kulti "berigelse" faldet bort! Ikke bare disse folk snyder i skat, told, moms, ansæter andre flygtninge mens de hæver bistand - men de prøver også at forgifte os, ja! - dræbe -, med bogstavelig lort (citat: "6 ud af de 10 indkøbte shawarmaer blev der fundet et højt indhold af bakterier eller spor af afføring.")
Hvad er galt med det store slemme "R"? R som repatriering? Med bedstemor, rusten BMW og nul pension. Ryg og rejs, og byg eget land op! Jeg ved det er svært, efter man har vænnet sig til, og samtidig håner, den vestlige system, mens man venter på "Sharia"... Sharia? Aldrig!!!

"Who are you Kim Jong-Il? You are the dictator." Dissent in North Korea!

The heroes of NK-underground risk everything - not only their own lives, but their extended families' freedom as well:
The photographs obtained by South Korean intelligence include Kim Jong-Il's picture in military uniform upon which was written, in red ink: "Who are you Kim Jong-Il? You are the dictator. The people will not forgive you and will drive out of your throne. We want freedom and democracy. Reform and liberalization are the way to life." It was signed "The Freedom Youth Alliance."

This is not a triffle, this is as serious as it gets, and us, living in comfort, with internet, uncensored radio and TV, mobile phones etal, can hardly imagine the effect these few words written in haste and fear for life have! The revenge of Kim Jong Il's KGB is gruesome, and no doubt it's goons right now interrogate EVERYONE from the "Jan. 17 factory" in the city of Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, and they are not going by Amnesty Internation rules!
To borrow a phrase from Michael Ledeen over at National Review: "Mr. Bush, faster please, faster!"

15 Years of Democrazy!

It's sad to compare developments in Nepal and the comet-like rise of Eastern Europe. Both started the trasformation more-or-less at the same time, in the wild summer of 1989 - T'ien An Men slaughter, Budapest tearing down barbed wire of the Iron Courtain, the Fall of Berlin wall. Inspired by all this ferment, the underground, but tolerated parties came into the streets, and things turned ugly in January 1990: I remember driving with my lady near Patan Campus and saw a large group of police outside. We parked the Volkswagen a bit down and went back, to see "what's going on". Students were pelting the police with stones and bricks, police didn't even have plastiv shields! Then came a small TATA truck, and - it was filled with broken bricks. Npw also the cops had amunition. And then the left-wing equivalent of Swastika, the hated (for me and 100 of millions of survivers!) Hammer & Sickle, started apperaing on the walls, even on the walls of temples. The Commies arrived! I still believed the gentle nature of Nepalis, their love of freedom will see through this communist-bullshit.

I was WRONG, oh boy was I wrong!

Madness continues in the Kingdom

One could understand the Gang-of-Four parties (the group led by Nepal Congress O3 [Obstinate Octogenarian Ogre] G.P. Koriala) and their interest in spreading mayhem. But CPN-UML? This party is led by an even greater swindler and deciever, M.K.Nepal. He's the one who sees no contradiction of holding "secret" talks with the maobadi madmen last year in Lucknow, even while the commissars murdered his "cadres" in the hills of Dang, no cotradiction of having ministers in current HMG and at the same time supporting his students/goons burning efigies of same ministers in the streets. Talk about split-political personality! Talk about having cake, not paying for it, and eat it!
As the recent Nepali Times observe:

Give credit where it's due: the Deuba administration has shown considerable courage in taking a potentially-suicidal political decision.
...
Politicians are known for populist grandstanding, that is what they are made for. So it's not surprising the UML comrades want to have it both ways: Supplies Minister Ishwar Pokhrel hikes petro prices with a fishy one-week delay and his party's student wing is out on the streets vandalising public property in protest. Even by the reckless standards of Nepali politics, the UML's two-faced opportunism is stunning. Then Pokhrel makes the shocking admission to us that dealers are allowed to hoard.

All this doesn't make the fuel price hike less inevitable. The 30 percent increase in global oil prices in the past year has put Nepal Oil Corporation Rs 5.12 billion in the red. The corporation's losses are threatening to bankrupt the state as well.

The basic rule of business is you can't sell a product for less than what you bought it for unless you are: a) stupid, b) a welfare state or c) Nepal Oil Corporation.

There you have it! All in black, or more likely RED figures. But where is the effort to communicate this to the streets? Once we got into this irrational rut the emotions of the nepalis take over, like bull seeing red!

Sirens of Titan!

Pitty KURT VONNEGUT was not on board the HUYGENS sond. This vista could serve as a front-page illustration of his hilarious, satirical book (VERY-VERY-BRIEF review: the purpose of human civilization is to produce a spart part for an inter-gallactic ship...)



Sizes have been estimated to indicate scale of the features in this image of Titan's surface. The two rock-like objects just below the middle of the image are about 15 centimetres (left) and 4 centimetres (centre) across respectively, at a distance of about 85 centimetres from Huygens. The surface is darker than originally expected. (Credits: ESA/NASA/University of Arizona.)

Vonnegut used to run a car dealership called "Saab Cape Cod" in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, but he failed to sell the Swedish two-stroke SAAB cars, and went into bankruptcy. He has jokingly said that this may be the reason he has never received a Nobel prize... At least they could call the sond "Kurt" or something, but it is the brain-child of ESA (Europeans)...

The Palestinian Womb Bomb ... is a dud!

CAROLINE GLICK writes in Jeruslem Post that the highly touted Womb Bomb is, like many other (safely dead) Arafish' statements, a BIG LIE!
First, the number of Arabs is much lower than the Palestinians' study from 1997 showed!
Second, the rate-of-(popul.)growth is not 3,7%PA, more likely 2.6%PA, simmilar to Arab women in neighb. Jordan, Egypt and Syria.
It's a pity Sharon based his policy of leaving Gaza on this lie!
Mybe this is one of the reasons for the lower birth-rate - stoning of women?

Samyak Mahadan festival

Beautiful Buddhas from different bahals (buddh.monasteries) of the Valley are put on display evening before beeing taken to a field infront of Swayambhunat (known by tourist as "the monkey temple")
The festival is about thousand years old, and so are some of the Buddhas! Absolutely stunning, the level of artisanship, and the love and care the people took of these idols! Do they need commies? Like they need a broken leg!
I went the next day, Friday, to see the ceremony and HM King. Taking into consideration that brutal civil war was raging 50 km away the level of security was surprisingly light. Maybe HM wants it that way, I stood 20 m from his shiny Jaguar...