NBC is like the Shivraj Patil of American television

The greyest lady of all in newsbusiness, the New York Times, is to start charging people for reading their online edition from 2011. Which is funny because by 2011 we'll all be getting our news from the twitter client embedded in our brain. [Mediabistro]

The people of Massachusetts elected a crazy, wingnutty cosmo centerfold to replace Ted Kennedy in the US Senate. This gives the Republicans a 41-59 majority, which will somehow finally kill the world in 2012. Just like the Mayans predicted. [Gawker]

The Italian Prime Minister (aka the ND Tiwari of Europe) could even teach Indian politicians a thing or two about having your cake and eating it too. [WashPost]

Famous teevee journalist who writes books about food and hosts shows about getting stuff  custom made for yourself, thinks that bloggers and twatters are elitists. [Vir Sanghvi via FlyYouFools]

Shivraj "Crazy McPants" Patil and his extensive wardrobe are being rewarded for their performance as India's best minister of 'home' by being made Governor of Punjab. After this was announced, Patil, as is his habit, announced that "we will ensure that the perpetrators of this horrible incident will be caught and bought to justice". And then he wet his pants.  [Zee News]

Good news for all those stuck in the office because you don't really want to spend time with your significant other. The IPL will now be broadcast for free on You Tube. This will be even better than the teevee broadcast because you won't have to hear Ravi Shastri's "commentary" & "analysis" during the match. Another #win for the internets.  [Techie Buzz]

The NBC late-night show brouhaha is not just good for a few jokes, it's also a good business lesson. You can use this to make a PPT for the next company 'retreat' (if you work for a company which has enough money to have one) and sound all cool and zeitgesty. And if you really want the presentation to be a hit, make sure to end by making a joke about Jay Leno's huge chin. [WSJ]

Finally, in case you haven't already heard, Bill Gates joined twitter. He gets followed 208 times per minute. He also makes millions of dollars per minute. I fear that this is headed towards the all new Bill-Gates-will-donate-a-million-dollars-to-charity-for-every-follower-he-has spam meme. Kidding. He will probably give all his followers a free copy of Windows 7!  [PC Mag]

Maharashtra ready to be the new Australia

Everyone thought (not really) that they solved the MNS-is-punching-north-Indians problem when they elected the Congress-NCP people for a record third term. However, as it turns out, the election was fixed and no matter who they voted for, it turns out they elected the crazy guy who runs that bullying operation.

The Maharashtra Cabinet on Wednesday decided to grant taxi permits to only those people who have been residing in the state for 15 years.

The new rules also state that who applying for taxi permits must speak, read and write Marathi.

Ha, ha! Despite the Maharashtra government wanting the poors from other states to eat a bag of dicks, this won't last for long. That is because (a) As my Irish friend Colin (!) points out, it is against the feckin constitution and (b) When the noble bench of the Janpath High Court hears about this, they are going to put their foot down and hold the Maharshtra government by it's ear, and make them say "back-sies". 

Which will then accomplish two things: (One.) Make the "high command" look all magnanimous and statesmen-like and will help them burnish their "pro-people" credentials (whatever that is) &&& (Two.) Local leaders of the Maharashtra Congress can pretend to be "sources" for those sexy clued-in journalists and tell people (anonymously, of course) how "disappointed" they are at their own party, which in turn helps them polish their pro-Marathi-speaking-people credentials (whatever that is).

Game. Set. Match.

And if you're wondering, it's a two headed coin. You have no chance of winning. Go home and watch some teevee. Or get a blog and vent.

Whatevers.

 

Maharashtra to grant taxi permits only to domiciles [IBN-Live]

This is what a bad hair day looks like!

There are men who are born to a life of mediocrity. Men who are born to work, eat and wither away. Men who go by their whole lives, without being noticed at all. Men who fall by the wayside, never to be heard from again. Then there are those men who born into greatness. Men who have destinies to fulfil. Men who by the sheer force of their willpower end up changing the world. Men who are the true heroes of our time.

One such hero is Mr. Jairam Ramesh. Friend of the blog, hair enthusiast and all round nice guy. After first proving that global warming is a conspiracy and then still coming up with a solution for it, toupee Gandhi is now trying to solve the problem of BT Brinjal, which, as it turns out, is not a type of brinjal sponsored by British Telecom (who knew?).

Anyways, Dr. Hairspray decided that enough was enough and it was time for a change. So he went to West Bengal, the brinjal capital of India (not really. But it adds a little sense to the narrative. So just shuddap and play along).

Since His Hairness is a man of the people, he thought that he would give the people a chance to speak to him. All his friends and co-heroes asked him not to consider views of the lesser beings. But he ignored their sage advice. 'Nay', he said to all the naysayers. He would discard his ego like a bad strand of hair and listen to the wisdom of the less heroic. The less knowledgeable. The people who have no greatness bestowed upon them. The ones who have not been chosen by the almighty to lead the people onto the light.

He braved rain, wind, wind blowing sand in his face, heat, and the arctic cold, (miraculously none of which was able to mess his hair. I need to find out which product he uses), so as to reach his people.

And what did the people do?

 

The people failed him.

All he wanted to do was listen to his people. And they shout at him. Scream at him? Throw ineligible words at him? Try to insult their beloved Captain Haircut? After everything he did for them?

All this just for some goddamn brinjals? It's confounding, is what it is. 

Shame on you, people. Shame on you! How could you? How can you sleep at night knowing how much hurt you caused to our heroes' heart?

However, a small setback like this does not deter our great hero. If the people want him to leave, he would get out of their hair in an instant. He doesn't need their permission to do what's good for them. A true hero sees things us mere mortals cannot even fathom. A true hero saves you from calamities you may never even know off. As some old guy once said, with great power comes great amounts of money great responsibility.

He may be wounded, but he still has a lot of fight in him.

He will be back.

To fight for the people.

To fulfil his destiny.

To take his people onto the light.

Stay tuned, mere mortal.

Stay tuned cause it's going to be one hair raising spectacle.

This bird has nine lives!

It's that time of the month again, when our minister of talking to scary foreign people, Tweety Tharoor, says something with some amount of truth (or as journalists call it, a "gaffe") and everyone catches fire. Usually he uses his satanic smart phone to cause a national uproar, this time he gave a speech at the Pravasi Bharat Divas (aka the annual meeting of the Narendra Modi fan club). So while everybody rehashes the Shashi Tharoor-flashes-someone-on-twitter meme into the Shashi Tharoor-disrespects-the-olds meme, and ends up blowing blows hot air up each other's asses, here's what they really mean to say:

The Media: ZOMG! We can't really do any real reporting because all the people who fuck with the country's resources have got us by the balls, but hey look Shashi Tharoor said something. Haha, this guy is like a gift who keeps on giving. STOP THE PRESSES!!! WE GOT A FRONT PAGE HEADLINE FOR TOMMOROW!! LOOK, OUR EDITOR JUST CAME IN HIS PANTS!! OR DON'T BECAUSE THAT IS JUST GROSS!!

The INC(I): How dare someone have an opinion on anything? Doesn't he realize that the Congress is like an army of pods? We are only allowed to think those thoughts which have been downloaded into our brains by either Soniajee Madam or Rahuljee "baba". Everything else is blasphemy. Wait, what do you mean Shashi Tharoor wrote a book spoofing both Nehru and Gandhi? When did that happen? DID SOMEONE TELL MADAM? Don't worry, I think we know who our next Ambassador to Yemen is going to be!

The Shashi Tharoor: Me . . . Me . . . Look at me . . . Imma reach out to y'all. Love me, follow me, read my son's articles, BUY MY BOOKS!!1!! MEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee . . . . . Gimme a T, gimme a H, gimme an A . . . ~ . . . 

The people in Fake India: OMFG! SRK IS ON TWITTER! Now we can see how seriously he
takes himself behind the facade of self-depreciation!

The people in Real India: I can haz blanket?

 

[Pic via Goofy Duck]
NRI voting: PM holds out hope, Tharoor picks holes in bill [HT]

Tharoor criticises Nehru's 'moralistic' foreign policy [DNA]
I was misquoted on Nehruvian policy: Tharoor [Zee News]

Master of all trades, jack of none!

God whisperer, Pilot, Navy Seal and now doctor. Is there anything this woman cannot do?

 

p.s. I'd bet good money that the kid is thinking "What am I doing here?? FML"!

The future is finally here: Scientifically accurate predictions for the next awful ten years of your life

Even though the jury is still out on whether this is technically the start of the new decade or not, we are simply going to ignore all that and just like the mainstream media do whatever the hell we want to. Since everyone and their mother have summed up the last decade in hundreds of nauseating ways, we thought that we would channel the dead spirit of nostradamus (and the people who were pretty darn sure that Iraq had WMD's) and just like them, based on absolutely nothing, come with predictions which might or might not be true. Who really knows or cares because isn't everything printed on the internets the gospel truth?

The decade will start by forcing everyone who wants to travel in an airplane to basically travel nude because some dipshit who got tired of scamming people by pretending to be the son of a deposed prince and then wanted to blow up his crotch to prove a point which no one really knows (or as Joe Liberman put it, 'preemptive War on any Muslim sounding country'). Since no luggage will be provided, airlines will try to recoup their losses by charging people with large body parts more money under 'extra baggage'. Emo kids and reality teevee stars will also be asked to pay double, due to their large amount of emotional baggage.

If no celebrities will die then Larry king will get Nancy Regan to séance with Michael Jackson's ghost in which he will finally confess to being a white catholic Republican lady in disguise. This will ensure that Jebus forgives all his 'alleged' child-porn sins.

The oracle of hope, President Obama, will win the 2012 election by default because Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin will end up inadvertently shooting each other in their Last Hunter Standing match at Wrestlemania, which would be held to decide the nomination for the Republican candidate.

The green movement in Iran will finally win their fight for electoral reform. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will escape to America where he will be hired as a contributor to Fox News wherein his only task would be to appear on the screen for five minutes during the Glenn Beck show and make scary faces while continuously shouting "Death to Diet Bagels".

Sometime during the decade, Arnab Goswami will get tired of shouting at the camera and decide to take matters into his own hand and will invade Pakistan along with Farook Dhondy and Suhel Seth.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will gay-marry Hussain Sharrif so that their love-child, Benazir Bilawal Asif Nawaz Hussain Zardari Bhutto Sharif, will become the youngest President of Pakistan.

Manmohan Singh will cite 'health grounds' and Jayanti Natrajan's body odour in his resignation letter to future astronaut and current President, Prathibha Patil, which will pave the way for Rahul Gandhi to become Prime Minister of both the India's, the 'real one' (which only exists in Madhur Bhandarkar movies) and the 'fake one' (which only exists in Karan Johar movies).

96 year old ND Tiwari will become the Governor of India's 137th state, which will solely consist of all the children he has 'allegedly' illegally sired over these years. He will continue to have orgies in the Governor's mansion.

However, all the screwing will stop when Narendra Modi and his merry band of non-voting NRI's, who will make it compulsory for everyone to vote for them, take over and no one will ever have sex in India ever again.

Have a great decade, people! If this doesn't make you look forward to it, I don't know what will.

The Democratic Peoples Republic of Narendra Modi

The glorious government of the world's greatest #1 chief minister of all time, Narendra Modi, has found a solution to the whole people-who-don't-vote problem:

Gujarat on Saturday became the first state in India to make voting compulsory in all local body elections, with chief minister Narendra Modi terming it a "move to strengthen democracy". Amid opposition from the Congress, the assembly passed the controversial Gujarat Local Authorities Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2009.

The bill makes voting mandatory in elections to all seven municipal corporations, 159 municipalities, 26 district panchayats, 223 taluka panchayats and in 13,713 village panchayats of the state. The bill, which also seeks to raise the reservation of seats for women in local self governance bodies from 33% to 50%, was passed by voice vote.

Yeah, baby. Forcing someone to do something is what democracy is all about. Just like when you don't want ice cream to melt, you take it out from the freezer and put it outside, under the sun.

This is how democracy works, you stupid non-believers. You vote for your leaders, and they decide what you drink, what you read, what you eat because obviously, in a democracy, you have no right to decide any of those things. If you really want any of those things, try a different state. Or country. Whatever. Although, make sure it's not North Korea, because they have compulsory voting there too, among other things.

According to the new law, all registered voters in Gujarat will be required to vote. Those absent will be asked to submit a valid reason . The bill empowers the election officer to declare people who do not vote as 'defaulter voters'.

Of course, the only people who will benefit from this law will be those election officers who will now be able to earn bribes so as to exempt those prickly 'defaulter voters' from getting prosecuted. And those who can't afford too, well, too bad. They should have thought of that before registering to vote.

Anyways, the ultimate irony was reserved for when the bill was being 'debated' in the Gujarat assembly:

Chief minister Narendra Modi and most of his ministers were absent when the Bill was being voted in the House. Cabinet ministers Vajubhai Vala, close Modi ally Dilip Sanghani and Jay Narayan Vyas. Ministers of state Jaswantsinh Bhabhor, Vasan Ahir and Purshottam Solanki were also missing from the Assembly. Nearly 40 per cent of MLAs in a House of 181 were absent during voting.

You know what? Instead of trying to mandate people to vote, maybe they should make it compulsory for politicians to not be two-faced, hypocritical, no good neanderthals.

Somebody should put that on the ballot

Hell, I'd vote for it.

 

Controversial local bodies' bill passed in Gujarat assembly [DNA]
Modi absent when compulsory voting bill tabled [TOI]
A guide to voting in North Korea [Japan Probe]

Even Rocket Singh cannot save the newspaper industry

India's favourite bussinessy "newspaper", The Economic Times, which a lot of retired old men read so that they can impress their wives and each other's wives by using words like "derivatives" and  "quant fund", brings you the most important breaking business news story of the day:

Bollywood's latest offering "Rocket Singh - Salesman Of The Year" is going great guns in the US with its review currently the number one most read movie story on the New York Times site.

The NUMBER ONE article on the NY Times website? YOU DON'T SAY!! OMFG, this must mean that Ranbir Kapoor will win an Oscar this year, for looking like a bearded version of his Mom!!!

Great! So do we have any numbers to back up those claims? Any box office receipts, revenue collections, anything?

In an equally flattering review, Film Journal International says: "David-and-Goliath workplace drama from India goes unexpected places, and hits satisfying chords."

OMFG, AGAIN!! They compared the movie to a biblical story! This is even BETTER than the Oscars! We'll ignore the fact that the sentence is full of so many grammatical errors.

Rocket Singh, FTW!!

But seriously, where are the numbers? Aren't you the friggin' Economic Times? Shouldn't your assumption be based on the, errrr, ummmm,*ahem*, economics? Just sayin'.

Okay. Fine. Let's just find proof of your obviously accurate assumption using teh googlez.

When a Bollywood movie grosses less than a Harman Baweja film in the opening weekend at the box office, there are only two words in the English language to describe its miserable fate: EPIC DISASTER.

Yes, folks.

Ranbir Kapoor’s Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year has fared miserably at the U.S. box office.

So bad that even Harman Baweja’s What’s Your Rashee had a higher opening gross ($169,005).

Epic disaster? Even sad little Harman Baweja's movie fared better?

You must be kidding me!!

This can't be right. EVERYONE IS READING THE REVIEW ON THE NEW YORK TIMES WEBSITE. HOW CAN THIS NOT TRANSLATE TO SUCCESS AT THE BOX OFFICE??

Hmpfh.

You must be lying.

Let's ask someone who knows what they are talking about.

What do you say, self-important movie critic, Taran Adarsh?

The keenly anticipated Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year has emerged a gigantic disappointment in the key international markets. The film is one of the lowest openers of Yash Raj in U.K. and America, which has come as a rude shock for the entire industry. The opening weekend of Rocket Singh - Salesman of the Year should've been huge in these territories because Yash Raj movies, generally, open very well in the international markets and also because there's a sizable Punjabi population in U.K. and Canada-America.

Gigantic disappointment? Even in Canada-America, which is not a REAL COUNTRY! WTF?

But how can The Economic Times not give us an accurate picture?

First Tiger Woods.

Now The Economic Times.

Is there anybody left in this world who I can trust?

 

Oh, wait.

Maybe there is. [click here]

 

Rocket Singh going great guns in US [ET]
Rocket Singh - Epic Disaster at Box Office [Search India Blog]
Rocket Singh is a colossal disaster overseas [One India]
Movie Review - Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year [NYT]