50 Biggest Football Egos

While I am not thrilled about seeing 3 Milan players on the list, I really can't complain. Also missing from the list are: Pique, Rafa Benitez, and the entire Inter Milan team ( well maybe not Zanetii and Forlan), and Sanchez.

For the list PLEASE CLICK HERE

Getting the timing right in Palestine.

US wants peace, Israel wants peace, Palestine wants peace, the world wants peace. That much we all agree on. But neither wanting peace, nor agreement on a 2- state solution is the problem. The problem, sadly for the millions Palestinians, is timing.

Of all the years to pressurize the US administration, forcing a yes/no stance on the issue of UN membership for Palestine a year before an uncertain US reelection campaign hardly seems like a wise choice. So why do it? Surly, the Palestine leadership must have known that US will veto such a reckless move. Its done so time and again on issues half as magnanimous as this.

Mr. Abbas must have surly known his low odds of getting this resolution passed. But by charging head on with his demands he has forced the burden of action (or inaction) on Israel and the US. Internally, there is a growing support for the end of settlement, and mutual peace and recognition in Israel. Polls conducted by PSR in March, 2011 shows that 52% of those polled in Israel want a mutual recognition of identity as part of a permanent status agreement. Further, among Israelis, 74% oppose settlers’ actions which damage Palestinian property and block roads (labeled “price tag”) in response to removal of illegal outposts by the Israeli government. Nethanyahu has to answers to this growing section of his constituency.

Externally, the growing isolation of the Israel is old news. Weakening relations with historically supportive Arab states, and questionable legitimacy amongst US and European public is documented. Most members of the community of nations support Palestinians claim for statehood; and at least 11 members of the Security Council are in favor for such.

US too is in a bind. Obama must tip-toe the line between losing the Jewish vote (79% of the Jewish vote went to Obama- Biden in 2008), and hurting larger American interests in the Middle East. Also, the moral question of supporting an occupying state over the occupied is increasingly weighing on American conscience. And while avoiding the veto in the Security Council might the help save face, all doubts of Americans flip flopping on the Palestine question will be put to rest. Critics will argue that USA and Israel are thick as thieves and it will take more than a liberal president and couple of democratic revolutions to change their thinking.

As I said earlier, it all about the timing. “Last week, the Quartet of mediators - the US, the UN, the European Union and Russia - called on Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks within one month and aim for a deal by the end of 2012.”, reports BBC. The end of 2012 will show us the results of the US Presidential elections. The diplomatic gamble for UN membership for Palestine depends highly on an Obama reelection. Once reelected, Obama does not have to worry of a third term in office. He will be relatively freer to pursue the goals laid out by him in the famous 2009 Cairo speech.

So the best option for Palestine is to come back in 2 years, September 2013, having negotiated the details of statehood with Israel. This way Israel and USA will have exhausted all excuses, everybody can save face, and legitimate concerns of statehood can be addressed. We will then see Palestine as a nation among the community of nations.

Palestine must continue to use the wave of international legitimacy to force Israel to the table under the conditions of "no new settlements". Israel must get serious about settlements and an inevitable Palestine state, and US must realize that the new political reality in the Middle East demands it ensure a fair solution.

The Palestine leadership can take these two years to resolve some of the questions that are bound to be raised after a state is created : better their case for a state, remove all doubts. They should address detailed peace based upon 1967 border, and security agreement with Israel; address concerns about Jerusalem, and settlements, trade agreements, economic restructuring, political restructuring, securing of loans. Securing its boundaries from non-state extremists and pacifying legitimate concerns about Israel’s security. It can and must also raise concerns about Israel refusal to give a police or a military force.

For the next two years, an increase in violence between Israel and Palestine would be unwise for Palestine. Another problem will be the election of a hardliners in Israel and US.

Timing is the key. It always has been. Mr. Abbas played his hand wisely, lets hope he continues to do the same.

Another reason to save the planet!!

Don Cheadle is Captain Planet from Don Cheadle

Plant trees or I'll turn you into a fucking tree!

A Citizens Letter to the New Prime Minister

Congratulation Dr. Bhattarai, to you and your family! We wish you all the best for the future. May you be a better leader than we hope, and are hitherto accustomed to.

I have no doubt that you shall find your term in office challenging and awfully frustrating. You now bear responsibility for a politically fragmented country that has lost trust in its leaders and has been robbed of optimism. These are times when grand decisions must be made with urgency and wisdom. A balance many consider impossible.

Having irreparably cast off the shadows of 240 years of apathy we find ourselves ill prepared to face what we were promised would be a better future. Years of wasted opportunity and petty squabbling have undermined the aspirations with which we poured onto the streets in April 2006. And while the political future of the present Constituent Assembly members will be determined in time, the future of the nation and all its citizens is under threat.

While we recognize that the tangles of the political system ensure that you will not govern us alone, you alone will be held responsible for the accomplishments of your administration. The moral obligation of the CA is the completion of the peace process and ensuring we have a constitution within the prescribed time. Anything less will be deemed a failure. Is that fair? I don't know. I wish it were different, but it isn't.

You, being an educated man, carry additional burden of expectations. We, as a people, keep telling ourselves that our politicians are fools because they are uneducated, and if only we were to have an educated person leading us, we could overcome the perils of these testing times. As of right now, you’ve become a symbol of what an educated Nepali can offer this wronged nation, and if you disappoint there is much to grieve over. Have no illusion, we will hold you to a higher standard than we have held your predecessors.

We hope you remember –what many forget –that you are a public servant. Through you were voted in by the few elected members, we the people legitimize you and your office. Your priorities are to represent the nation and its interest. The interests of you party, your friends, and yourself are and must be subservient. Keep in mind that the country suffers each day under the brutal incompetence of the system you now have the reins of. How best to ease that pain is up to you?

Also know this: regardless of how you govern us in the next few months, and what its consequences are, the resilience of the Nepali people will ensure we survive this political hurricane. We have endured much and are thick skinned to political belittlement. But when our patience runs out, it will give way to an anger that has shaped the course of our history time and again. When the dust settles we will hold each of you accountable for wasting our time, resources, and hopes. I only pray we act more responsible than you and your colleagues.

We don’t expect great things from you. We only hope you do your duty.
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P.s- Please share if you like it. Please comment if you have a problem. Praises and insults are much appreciated.

and the Lucky winner is...

Nepali politics reminds me of a sport, but I can’t seem to remember which one.

Cricket? Nah, that’s requires integrity. How about Football? Nope, it requires team work.
Perhaps Tennis? No. Chess? Close but not quite.

Common on, you know the game. It’s based solely on individual push and shove. No team work involved. No scope for corporation. No give and take. Its requires very little skill and excellent timing.

Anything? Any idea? More hint? Okay.

Winning the game always gets you a handsome prize; which the winner flaunts in the face of the prize giver like an annoying child teasing its parents. Also, in all their impudence, the winner uses the prize to seduce other players into playing more games. More games mean more opportunities to win.

And the dance carries on. Push and shove till there is a winner. The winner gets a prize. The possibility of winning that prize lures people to carry on playing the game. All is dandy except for the person giving away the prizes. Every time there is a new winner grand spoils are doled out to the victor. Ever wondered where the money comes from?

I swear the name of the game is on the tip of my tongue. What is it?

Polo? no. no. no. Elephant polo? you’re just being silly now.

"Mother father swear"* it’s almost there. Yes.

Eureka! Eureka! Yes, I remember.

It reminds of musical chairs. That’s it. A selfish dance round chairs where the sole purpose is to eliminate the other players –by hook or crook –till there is only one winner. And the winner is rewarded handsomely by the prize giver –that’s us, the general public.

Except this is worse. Nepali politics is nonstop game of musical chairs that’s fixed. If you let me win this time, I’ll let you win the next time and in the end we all are winner. I apologize if I said Nepali politicians can’t cooperate? Thick as thieves the lot of them!

Like any fixed game there needs to be a show of competition to avoid suspicion. 5 point agreement, 2 point agreement, 7 point agreement followed by months of disagreements on the agreements already agreed to be agreed upon. He says this, shouts at that all the while confounding us till we stop caring. Yet, like fools, we give out Pajeroes and clear the roads for the prime minister. And the dance goes on.

If we move to stop the game they scare us witless with threats of incomplete peace processes and standing armies. And so the dance goes on.



* mother father swear- in desi lingo that is the most serious oath of honor one can possibly take.

Freaky Love Song of an Geek.

------------------------------------------------
I am addicted to you.
As if you were the never ending seduction of Facebook.
you open more windows into my soul
than Google has pages.

ages to come will copy and paste
our story in their lives and blogs
to unclog poetry-less hearts
reciting mantras in our praise,
Saying “these were love, real lover, true lover.
They skyped their amour through tentacle of time and space”.
Yes, we are lover, real lovers, true lover.
Indeed we have routed
through the precarious web of 1G, and 2G, and 3G, and 4G
In my nights and your days
And your nights and my days.

I promise to Explore
my way to you.
and if I fail I will follow
the trail lit ablaze by the burning fox
and it will guide me through the
tempting hoax of having won things I don’t want
cause all I want is you
I want to slide my fingers through the touch screen of your face
I realize your body has more apps than my soul has space
so I’ll save you
little by little in my lungs, and toes and knees.
And if I crash
Your one tweet can bring back my wits.
and in the off chance jealously hacks into my system and deletes you,
remember you are the password to my soul
and the secret answer too.

Its time to get ready for Christmas?