Dynasties

While the US wets itself with the prospect of another election catastrophe, US voters should be looking to the world's largest democracy for inspiration. It would seem that the Indian public have responded to BJP's fundamentalism with savvy and wit. Both the BJP and the Congress (I) party have shown themselves unfit for anything but compradorism. The voters have shown their disapproval of the BJP and Congress by voting for a range of third parties. The markets have shown their disapproval of public opinion by whaling on the Rupee, and the Bombay stock exchange is down a couple of per cent. But with the full results still a long way off, and with plenty of time for the world's largest pool of computer engineers to play with the electronic voting machines, we won't know the results for days, if ever.

Best thing about the polls, other than the humiliation of the zealots - and the BJP is really worse than Congress (I) - has been the punditry. It seems that most Indians think that dynasties are a good thing. There's so much to celebrate in this poll that I'm tempted to leave it there. And I will. Except to remark that my favourite internet dynasty is the Brooke-Crawley clan. The Virtual Stoa, the Virtual Tophet, and Mischievous Constructions are three of the best written blogs out there. Michael Brooke's blog and robot_alarm_clock's Smart or Happy are the newest additions to the blogroll. Hail!