“…it was only meant in jest….” I knew it straight away.

We should have sense of humor.

We all need it (sense of humor) badly these days, I reckon.

This joke is not that harsh as you think.

Hope that Heshan will read the responses in good spirit.

I wish to reinforce what I said in my previous reply.

Language is only a medium which we use to convey the message across to one another.

Discussion of linguistic meaning of words and sentences which are taken out of context is not worth the time and effort.

In short, when we put any words (with similar meaning) to a context all those words mean one thing which is the message.

One the other hand, when we take a word out of a context it (one word) means many things which are useless.

Hope that you will catch what I am throwing.

Someone, you have a point. Judgement from above does not concern me, but the truth does, and I do no like to see baseless assertions and invalid generalizations go unchallenged. But in that context, I agree that my last reply was pretty pointless (it was only meant in jest). My apologies to Heshan.

Thank you for your comments.

The semantics of the statements and words is context sensitive.
You have come out with only 3 lines of descriptions.
However, you could find thousands of dictionaries on the web.
Unfortunately, we got only handful of knowledge.
No wonder why we are unable to come to a common ground.

I suppose you are rather limited in your knowledge of the English language. The fact that it is imprecise does not help products of standardization.

cun·ning (knng)
adj.

2. Executed with or exhibiting ingenuity.
2. Skill or adeptness in execution or performance; dexterity.
2 clever

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cunning

“…I very nearly spilt my tea over my keyboard reading this…”

Dear SomeWhatDisgusted,

Don’t run down Heshan like this.

I can tell you a story to illustrate this fact.

One day, a lawyer and a doctor met with an accident on the road.

Doctor started shivering.

Lawyer offered a drink to doctor and said “take this drink and you will be fine.”

Doctor accepted it and asked “why didn’t you take this drink?”

The lawyer replied “police will come in a minute. I’ll take after police come”

The moral of the story is that how hard for the doctor to tip the balance in favor of him, in case, if this case goes to the court.

Ps: Remember, the big judge is watching us all from above. Take it easy and have a nice day.

@ Venkai,

The fact that there needs to be freedom of movement is understood. It need not have come from Sir JH’s mouth for the people to realise the importance of the freedom of movement anyway.

But on the issue of people begging for food and essential items etc. (as you claim) and what TNA thinks about it, one cannot raise the argument any further that the TNA MPs are making certain ‘govt-friendly’ statements simply due to security reasons. If then, you reach the point where you will have to agree with someone who claims that TNA MPs are a bunch of politicians not fit enough to represent the Tamil people anymore. So it is well to assess the public statements issued by TNA or others (such as JH) more rationally. And no one has claimed that things are perfect, now. There is ‘improvement’. And JH was in Sri Lanka not under the best of circumstances – only under ‘more positive circumstances’. So there is so much room for improvement, Venkai. But there is some progress.

I do agree, however, with the point you’ve raised about politicians in general – which I too raised in one of my comments above.

You can fight the ghost forever, or let him rest in peace and move on. People need to imagine that life is possible without checkpoints, suicide bombers, soldiers everywhere, barbed wire, identity cards, and high security zones. Fear is for those with weak minds. One of my cousins held his & breath for 20 seconds & climbed out of the window of a flooded train during the tsunami – 1000 other people were not so lucky. There is NOTHING you can’t face without a strong mind.

Some evidence show that still there are some iving ghosts of Prabakaran who are still plotting the same destruction to the Tamil people by trying to misguide them. Gods sake please let the people of this country live peacefully, keeping your distructive intelligence aside.

Tamils are innocent as saints. Sinhalese are prawn to do wrong things by birth.

I think anybody with some brains will accept this marvelous theory! Ha!Ha!!

“…The thing with lawyers is that they know to break the law, legally!..”

I don’t agree on this statement.

There is no legal way of breaking the law.

They, probably, know how to tip the balance in favor of them.

Probably you have not heard about the statement made by the TNA in Parliament thanking the Govt

You seem to be propagating LTTE propaganda, whats your purpose? Why did you not have this sympathy for the Vanni Tamils when Prabhakaran was chopping off their limbs and shooting them in the back as stated by Anna Marie Loos of Medicine Sans Frontiers?

Do you now that 2000 Kg of C4 was discovered just a couple of weeks ago?

Trying to get the Murderers hiding behind the Tamil civilians out before the 1 st of December when the camps become open camps?

Prabhakaran is dead and gone. Whether he deserves punishment is a question of personal taste. Do you want to punish his ghost now?

We don’t know what John Holmes said in private!! May be he does not want to be called a “white tiger” and refused entry at the airport!!!! He has subtly told that the people need freedom of movement. It is a well known fact that IDPs are being transferred from Menik farm to other camps away from the eyes of the world in order to avoid pressure from EU, UN and other organizations!!! They are taken only to the selected camps. Even though they know the Govt’s duplicity they cannot do much as the Govt. has the standard claim that they are “infringing on their sovereignity”

If the govt. has nothing to hide, why did they not allow TNA MPs all this time? After all they are the elected representatives of these people.. Is there any explanation for allowing politicians from India to visit the camps?
For the TNA MPs there is also the fear of their lives. It is not a secret how several Tamil MPs and prominent Tamils and Sinhalese met their death in Sri Lanka!!!!

Most of these people in the camps are well to do, who had their houses and farms and some are professionals. Some of them have their siblings, parents, children who were prepared to take care of them. It is wrong to keep them in this condition and forced to beg for their food and essentials.

It is almost 6 months since the war ended. There is no talk about a political solution. Politicians are more worried about remaining in power than solving the problem. There is no leadership quality in any of the politicians in Sri Lanka. Common people have paid the price for this, but politicians have amassed wealth at the expense of the sufferings of the people!!!! There is no hope for Sri Lanka unless we get a leader who puts the welfare of the country above his/her personal gain!!!!!

Yapa,

“grotesque, gruesome” incidents surfaced in Sri Lanka long before the LTTE came into the scene!!!! Infact LTTE is the by-product of the organized pogroms against the Tamils in 1956, 1958, 1977, 1983 and there after that it became every day affair in Jaffna and other places where Tamils lived. Laws were enacted so that the security forces who were doing all the atrocities were committing them under the guise of PTA!!!! No punishment, no investigations. Even if they had investigations, it was sham investigations and nothing came out of it.

“Describing it as “miracle” where thousands of innocent civilians killed by bombing, starvation, depriving medicine and wanton destruction of billions worth of property, hope and livelihood is sickening!!!! As if this is not enough men,women and children are held in concentration camps without education, livelihood and freedom and made to beg for their food and clothing!!!

This shows the callous regard for suffering of the Tamils held by the majority of the people!!! They are more worried about which war criminal is going to win the election!!!!

May be the author should have said “grotesque, gruesome” to describe the war on the innocents!!!! Grotesque and Gruesome is nothing new to Sri Lanka!!! It happend several times since independence affecting all the communities in Sri Lanka!!!”

An excellent description of what happened to the Tamil people under Prabakaran. He kept the Tamil people as decribed above untill end of the war.

Thanks for the comment, even though I don’t agree with much of what you’ve said. But on the issue of IDPs placed in the camps (according to you, in ‘concentration camps’), I would suggest that it may be useful to follow the views expressed by Sir John Holmes and the TNA MPs who visited certain camps, recently.

Yes – any type of war is always a grotesque, gruesome, affair. Just like terrorism, for instance. This I have never denied, and never will.

Please read Dr P. Jeganathan’s writings to enlighten yourself

This shows the callous regard for suffering of the Tamils held by the majority of the people!!! They are more worried about which war criminal is going to win the election!!!!

May be the author should have said “grotesque, gruesome” to describe the war on the innocents!!!! Grotesque and Gruesome is nothing new to Sri Lanka!!! It happend several times since independence affecting all the communities in Sri Lanka!!!

Hot on the heels of his last gaffe, Heshan gives us yet another puzzler. I very nearly spilt my tea over my keyboard reading this.

p.s. You’re a good sport though Heshan. There aren’t many strangers on the internet who I can take the piss out on and not feel too bad about doing so…

My personal take on the rigging issue is this: If Ranil is MR’s opponent, there will be no great need for rigging to take place. IF SF is the opponent, it will be different, bcs SF is the greatest challenge MR could face at this juncture.

But Heshan, don’t be so harsh on lawyers!! Also, to rig, one does not need to be a lawyer. Chandrika wasn’t! Btw, Ranil too is a lawyer – hence ‘cunning by nature’! The thing with lawyers is that they know to break the law, legally!