Despite pretty vigorous rigging efforts by the government, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won most of the seats in the north. The final count was UPFA (govt) – 45, TNA 18, TULF (another Tamil party) 2. The government won the overall vote count based on elections in the south, but all the attention was on the north. Despite bribery and dubiousness, people still voted for the TNA.

I just finished on the Stream. Got cut off at the end, but had a beginning and a middle! My basic point is that the Tamil/Sinhala frame is A) not accurate IMHO and B) not productive (in somewhat demonstrable fact). I think we need to look beyond who is wronged and get down to what do we do about it. Tamils have legit issues with land grabs. Colombians have legit issues with land grabs, as do Hambantotans, as do elephants. We can all work together on that. Look at the protests that made a difference:

Nobody declares war anymore, but we still fight. What’s going on? If you look at the use of the word ‘war’ it’s declined dramatically after World War II, at least in the Google corpus of books. If you’ll note the other data points, you can see that people finally began making love and not war around 2003. Peace fought an extended battle with conflict beginning in the 80s, only recently emerging ahead.

Did some dodgy shit go down during the end of Sri Lanka’s war? Yes. What many people miss, however, is that horrible shit had been going down for 30 years. Mahinda didn’t start the bloody war, he just ended it, bloodily. Does that make it better, not really. But it does make sense. I’d missed this post but the author left a comment and I checked out his blog.

There’s a lot in the news about how the news is dying. It isn’t true. Newspaper growth is booming worldwide, it’s just become a saturated industry in America. So, yes, US papers may have to close foreign offices. However, The Times of India could start setting up foreign offices there. Around 75 of the top selling newspapers are Asian and 70% of countries are reporting stable or increased circulation over 5 years. There are more newspapers being launched and many more people to be reached in Asia and Africa.

Lipton’s Seat is one of the highest points in Sri Lanka. You can supposedly see 60% of the island, down to the sea. This is where the planter Lipton (of Lipton’s Tea) used to sit and it makes the area an ideal mythical home for Ravana. When we went, however, it was shrouded in mist. The thing about being that high is that you often end up literally in the middle of a cloud. There is an observation deck at the top of the hill. I was tired and lay down on the wood boards and took whatever photos emerged from there. Mind you that there are zero stunning vistas or anything, these are just images of people, silhouettes really, against the ever burgeoning mist.

There was a protest to free General Sarath Fonseka. He should be freed. Opposition is not a coup. On the contrary, it’s Mahinda who surrounded the Elections Commissioner and the opposition with troops. The real threat to the state is Mahinda’s corruption of it to serve his own needs, now down to punishing someone who dared oppose him. Thankfully people are protesting.

Commenters and some bloggers have made valid complaints that I’m using this blog to campaign after the deadline. I’ve tried to avoid overt campaigning, but I guess they have a point. I’ve tried to restrict my commentary for the past few days to a peaceful election, but I am sitting in the UNP office, which is pretty partisan. I’m only reporting on election violence, a lot of which is absolute hearsay. So here is a grain of salt.

The Sunday Leader ran another interview with Sarath Fonseka, this one alleging that Gotabaya Rajapakse ordered surrendering LTTErs to be killed. Sarath seems to be on the phone with Frederica Jansz every week, without too much of a filter. I think the story may be true, probably is true, but not exactly prudent to tell.

I have gotten pretty good at online Scrabble and I rarely lose. Alas, this makes me a bit of a loser. Playing online (with the Scrabble dictionary) is a bit of a skill in itself apart from the usual double words of friendly play. Rather than a big word, the ideal formation in this Scrabble is something akin to a square. A tight bunch of usually nonsensical words which make for a bunch of score in one turn. Also, whoever gets the high scoring K, J, X, Q and Z tends to win. Since words like ko, jo, xi, qi and za are permissible this leads to numerous double and triple word bombs. I previously thought this Scrabble dictionary was bullshit, it includes words like nae, kat and others humans never really use. The titles of what seems like the entire Hebrew alphabet for example. However, being rules, it tends to make for a good game as long as everybody follows the same.