Our Constituencies Should Be Unpaired Back

To how they were in 1959 and 1963. That is 40 single-member constituencies (SMC) for Mauritius – we should add two for Rodrigues. It's ok for now that some are much larger than others. That's not a national priority. What is is to have very competitive elections in every riding and move away from such nonsense as "si zot anvi minis vot 3-0" and God knows what. We've seen how interesting the last by-election in no. 18 was. Plenty of good debates and surprising results. Let's face it, voters are becoming smarter every day. For example I was surprised to see that many people now fully understand that the flat tax had already caused a gigantic shortfall – a toohrooh of more than a trillion rupees at the end of last year. This is very promising for the quality of our debates.

Given that voters look set to connect a lot more dots – two are more casinos in city-centres = more drugs in school and elsewhere – the Electoral Boundaries Commission should do the spadework to allow a reversion to our setup of SMCs because they're coming back. Sooner than we think. The other big advantage of having 40-odd SMCs is that they would enable same-day results – with a likely winner announced on national TV around 8pm – as there would be three times less votes to count. This would cut the overall cost of a general election substantially.

So What Has Bernard Giraudeau Been Up To?

I am watching a movie about a week ago and the French actor who was quite popular as from the late 1970s is in it – I had also grown up reading stories about him in Paris Match. So I google him up. I immediately find out that he died eight years ago. How could I have missed that? I keep reading and discover that he died from cancer and that the latter had made him understand life and himself better. This reminded me of Steve Jobs qualifying death as very likely life's single best invention. Which he probably got from his Zen-Buddhism explorations. This is another way of saying that we have only the present moment.

Guess we can't keep tabs on everyone who's dying. Like Vinod Khanna – a prominent and magnetic actor in Bollywood – about whose passing I found out a few months after. He died of bladder cancer. Smoking doubles the risk of getting this type of cancer. A bladder isn't designed to handle toxins present in a cigarette. Smoking will also expose you to at least 10 other cancers.

Let's return to Giraudeau and listen how he managed the last stage of his life.

PJ Could Top Grim Table By Year-End

The one for ten years of biggest road fatalities. A word of caution though. In two years – 1995 and 2000 – there was a change of PM so the corresponding numbers don't entirely 'belong' to the PMs listed for them. We allocated the full year to the PM who was in office for more than half of the year.

PJ who is already in the list along with three former PMs – Bérenger's first entry of 144 for 2004 is at the 17th spot – is likely to see his number for 2018 go all the way to the top under three scenarios. The first two are if the last third of this year relative to the first two is like those for 2016 and 2014. The third if we extrapolate the total of 115 deaths reached at the end of August. Another entry might go in the middle of the table if 2018 is more like 2015. Of course all four entries would bump his entry for 2017 – his first year as PM – out of this ranking.

We haven't made good progress in road safety for way too long. And in the last thirteen years the economy-breaking Sithanen flat tax and other indecent fiscal exemptions have ensured that we didn't have enough money to bring road deaths down in a significant and persistent manner. Unlike say Singapore which has seen road fatalities decline in every one of the past ten years except two – here they have been increasing for each of the last three years with Bodha as Minister – reducing them literally by half. The type of tax structure you have determines the number of people who die on roads. So this makes the flat tax akin to a drone assassination programme. And exposes the absurdity of calls to transform the revenues of the dead sugar industry into a guaranteed fixed-deposit.

Kuma Fin Dekoloniz Moris

Ek trwa zafer. Nu sistem elektoral FPTP, taksasion progresif e sutenab ek talan. Sa li ti vre promye 37 banane apre lindepandans – ladan 14 an ti top parski nun regle ban problem difisil kuma bom demografik ek fin mont welfer steyt. Me depi 2005 nun rant dan en period de rekolonizasion ek flat tax Sithanen kin kas nu lekonomi. La ena enn deziem tantativ pu ranplas FPTP ek en sistem otokrasi ki pwena PR ek la lwa anti-transfiz ek si pa ki lot gonaz. Fer tan u lavwa. Ek diman en referandum lor sa zafer fondamantal la kuma Lepep ti mete dan pwin nimero 9 kontra de konfians dan so manifes elekroral – tiek paz 7. 

Vivekananda's Chicago Speech Turns 125

You must have heard about that famous speech he delivered at the Parliament of the World's Religions on September 11, 1893. Here's the text/video version which has been stripped of the standing ovation you can hear a bit better in this one. 'The cyclonic mock' was a disciple of Ramakrishna – a friend had explained this to me several years ago but I didn't pay that much attention – and considered the rockstar in that Chicago meeting.

I came across Vivekananda in some recent readings. More on this later.

Pink Floyd Frontman Blasts MSM for Hiding Reality

MSM here is short for mainstream media. Good time to listen to this and to wonder if it hadn't inspired the greatest ever TV ad.

Serbi Kalifye Deportasyon Sagosyen Kuma Enn Krim Kont Limanite

Taler la divan ICJ. Tayland usi ti fer enn prezantasyon byen interesan. So reprezantan ti pe dir ki byen ki zot pa ti kolonize zot finn peye enn pri elve pu pa vinn enn koloni. Vanwatu finn sulve bann pwin byen pertinan. Zot finn dir par ekzanp ki pa fasil pu enn ti pei fer Nasyon Ini dimann ICJ so lavi lor enn zafer. De dimunn kinn koz pu Vanwatu ti byen Zen. Mari agreab ekut zot.

Res zis Zanbi ek Linyon Afrikin. Swiv sa bann diskur la dernye kat zur fer nu konpran la lwa internasyonal, listwar ek enn ta lezot zafer pli byen dan enn mari ti letan.

Wai dekolonizasyon se enn size byen konplex. Bizin plizir variab pu analiz li byen.

Inside the International Court of Justice

So we should be expecting to hear from the ICJ within four to six months.