Moborate

I had half made up my mind to tweet about my impressions of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf 's (PTI's) Karachi rally today (yes, I did go despite the lack of Christmas pudding on hand) but seeing as how each tweet usually seems to end up needing two or three more to clarify and how, inevitably, someone's who's missed them asks you why you did not say anything about such and such, I decided it might be better just to do a brief post on the whole thing. PTI Jalsa: late afternoon (Photo: via PTI website) So here goes: 1. It was a big, big crowd: Exactly how big? Who really knows? Nobody we knew had done the only acceptable way of enumeration, by counting the legs and dividing by two. But the general consensus among media hacks was that it was above 100,000 people. Could easily have been 150,000 also. No, it was not 500,000 as the PTI spinners on stage were insisting by the end. No, there weren't a huge number of people outside the main ground or inside the grounds of the Quaid...

Continuing moronic statements by trolls on this blog and some no doubt military establishment-goaded television anchorpersons have forced me to address - hopefully for the last time - certain basic issues to do with the whole ' Raymond Davis ' saga. Unfortunately, such is the deterioration of our national discourse and perhaps of our educational system that not only are people often unable to grasp simple arguments but are willing, immediately and without understanding the nuances of the points being made, to ascribe ulterior motives to anyone presenting facts that go against popular opinion. So for the sake of clarity, I will attempt to make my points as questions and answers in bullet form (no pun intended). Roughly the same questions have come up repeatedly in earlier comments. The man known as Raymond Davis in custody 1. Do I 'support' 'Raymond Davis'? No. I hold no brief for him or others like him. Nor do I wish to see 'security contractors' / yahoo...

Just came across this hilarious skit from Dunya TV 's Hasb-e-Haal , where the resident comic genius known as Azizi (real name Sohail Ahmed) parodies former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi 's persona after his recent bombastic speech . In common parlance, this would undoubtedly be known as the 'taking' of Shah Mahmood... Enjoy.

In case you missed the Oscar-worthy performance of former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on February 16, you might want to take a look at the following clip in which he not only boasts about his great vision and achievements as Foreign Minister and divulges details about the internal workings of the government, he also refers to himself repeatedly in the third person. "Shah Mahmood was right there", "Shah Mahmood cannot be pressured", "Shah Mahmood kept the flag flying" etc. etc. etc. Whatever else we may have learnt from this entirely self-promoting press conference, it does in fact tell us a few things about the suave pir from southern Punjab. 1. For one, the man has an ego the size of Multan. Anyone who has can refer to himself in the third person with nary a hint of irony or embarrassment has to have something going on in his head that we should all be wary of. Remember a certain Nawaz Sharif? 2. He obviously fancies himself as the reincarnati...