Category Archives: taking the piss

June 17, 2021 · 8:42 pm

High Noon in Mid-Air, August 2019: For the Murugappans of Biloela

ABC Account on 30 August 2019, with this title “Who are the Tamil family from Biloela and why are they being deported?” ……  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-30/who-are-tamil-family-from-biloela-why-are-they-being-deported/11463276

Last-minute injunctions have stalled the deportation of a Tamil family who have spent years fighting to stay in Australia. The plane carrying the Sri Lankan couple and their Australian-born daughters had already left the tarmac at Melbourne Airport when a judge granted a reprieve over the phone. Here’s what we know about the family’s case:

Dozens of people rushed to Melbourne Airport in a bid to stop the family being deported on Thursday night..   … Supplied: @HometoBilo)

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June 9, 2021 · 8:01 am

Sri Lanka’s Course, 1948-2020: Missed Opportunities, ONE

Sugath Kulatunga

At independence we had a stable democracy, a sound economy, and an effective public service and external assets equal to 100 percent of annual import value. We were second to Japan on almost all social indicators and above South Korea as late as in the mid-sixties. Singapore’s per capita income was just a little bit higher than Sri Lanka at that time. It is now over USD 64,000 whereas ours is USD 3852. The immediate looming question is why Sri Lanka with better physical resources failed to advance like Singapore.

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June 6, 2021 · 6:01 am

A Searing Wide-Ranging Critique from Qadri Ismail after 21/4 in 2019 ……. Now a Requiem

Qadri Ismail, in Groundviews, 5 May 2019 after the 21/4 Atrocities

Photo by Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The Washington Post

We hadn’t seen him in years, ever since he left to work abroad. So, on the day of his return, his mother invited the extended family to lunch. As he walked through the door we reacted collectively, gasped audibly. He wore a sharp suit but sported one of those long, unkempt, rowdy beards. Perhaps, I thought, there are no barbers in Saudi Arabia. (You never know, it’s a weird place).

 

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June 2, 2021 · 3:38 pm

SR Faces the Wasps around him Foursquare

SR’s EMAIL NOTE, 2 June 2021

Hi, Michael. You’ve been stirring up hornets using me as a stick. Very naughty of you.

 

The learned Vespidae whose nests you’ve disturbed have every right to feel annoyed. I’m a bit annoyed, too – you really shouldn’t have used my innocent little email like this. But I forgive you, mostly for the judicious and illuminating response you have elicited from Mick Moore. I found it the more satisfying to read because it reassures me that my understanding of the subject, though a layman’s and doubtless superficial, is still correct.

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May 9, 2021 · 3:04 am

Dujuan’s History Lesson for Non-Aboriginal Australians All

Vibeke Venema of BBC News, 6 May 2021, where the title reads “The ‘smart and cheeky’ Aboriginal boy teaching Australia a lesson”

A documentary about a 10-year-old Aboriginal boy’s experience in school, In My Blood It Runs, has reignited a debate about Australia’s failure to give indigenous children a good education and a fair start in life.

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May 5, 2021 · 4:19 am

IPL Kayoed …. KnockeD OUT!

HEADLINES 

  • IPL postponed amidst Covid-Surge
  • Australian players set for IPL exodus to the Maldives

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April 29, 2021 · 4:47 am

Kung Fu Lessons for Gota?

But, then, see ……………. https://thuppahis.com/2021/04/29/a-chinese-handshake-for-little-sri-lanka/#more-51213

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April 26, 2021 · 2:07 am

Amidst Doom & Gloom in India …. IPL Cricket…. !#@!!$!!!

Gideon Haigh, in The Weekend Australian, 23/24 April 2021, where the title runs: “Forget About India’s Covid Chaos, There’s Cricket to be Played”

In the Indian city of Nashik on Wednesday, 22 COVID patients in a hospital ward perished when the oxygen tanker on which their ventilators depended sprung a leak. Perhaps you saw the footage — scores of workers running ineffectually in all directions through swirling clouds of vapour, representative of the chaos and futility enveloping India as its second, steepling pandemic wave bears down.

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April 16, 2021 · 3:29 pm

Sri Lanka’s Ecological Crisis in Overview in the Context of the HR Accusations

Asoka Bandarage, in Asia Times, 3 April 2021, where the title runs thus:  ‘Human rights’ and Sri Lanka’s ecological crisis “

A UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution of March 16 brought extensive charges against Sri Lanka over alleged human-rights violations, but is arguably seriously flawed. Opportunistic and strategic use of human rights by the Western powers to maintain hegemony continually ignores violations of the rights of nature and humanity rooted in the destructive model of economic development the same powers introduced to the world.

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April 11, 2021 · 4:10 am

Kunanayakam’s Incisive Review of the West’s Machinations at Geneva and Lanka’s Failures

Gus Mathews

This is a very incisive interview with Tamara Kunanayakam, a former ambassador to the UNHRC in Geneva. In a no-nonsense manner she unravels why the pursuit of Sri Lanka by the Western nations is taking place.

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