{"id":134435,"date":"2014-12-07T00:05:02","date_gmt":"2014-12-06T18:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=134435"},"modified":"2014-12-12T13:43:43","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T08:13:43","slug":"mr-president-where-is-my-laptop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mr-president-where-is-my-laptop\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. President; Where Is My Laptop?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Sudat+Pasqual&amp;x=7&amp;y=0\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Sudat Pasqual<\/span><\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_132578\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Sudat-Pasqual2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-132578\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-132578\" alt=\"Sudat Pasqual \" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Sudat-Pasqual2-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Sudat-Pasqual2.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Sudat-Pasqual2-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-132578\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sudat Pasqual<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong><\/strong><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Mahinda+Rajapaksa&amp;x=10&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Your Excellency<\/span><\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I must confess at the outset that I am deeply hurt and miffed by the fact that I was overlooked when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/expose-full-list-of-the-free-laptop-journos-media-minister-lied-to-parliament\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">the names of the jounos to receive new laptops<\/span><\/a> was finalized by your administration. I don\u2019t care much about car loans or car permits because I want to reduce my carbon footprint. I do admit that I have limited experience in journalism and even less of a readership and I do not belong among the elite Silvas, Sumanapalas, Seneviratnes, Ratnatungas, Weerawansas and Lathas of Sri Lanka journalism. I am also very happy (truly) for the almost 100 whom\u00a0unlike I received a brand new laptop from you. I may not be well known or have any sort of a following, but that is not for the lack of trying. I have been writing for over a decade. If the readers don&#8217;t like my writing, you shouldn\u2019t hold that against ME for THEY rejected me. I feel like one of the few MP\u2019s in your coalition who is not part of the cabinet; a total loser.<\/p>\n<p>And to tell you frankly this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Maithripala+Sirisena&amp;x=11&amp;y=7\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Maitripala<\/span><\/a> chap with his Maitripalanaya and santha dantha teentha pettiya outlook frightens me to no end. The fella sounds and acts like you did in the 1980&#8217;s with your Pada Yatras, freedom of speech, association, Palestinian rights and other bleeding heart causes. But that was when you were young and not wise to the ways of the cruel world. Since then you have wised up and carpe diemed your way into bank vaults in different continents as well as history books. That is true political maturation. But this Maitri man is talking about things like kinder, gentler Sri Lanka. He sounds like George Bush, Sr., for heaven&#8217;s sake! If he says Sri Lanka is like a shining city on a hill (kanda uda dilisena nagareyak), I will choke him with a silver spoon!<\/p>\n<p>I think he is serious when he says that he will not indulge in buying people, paying people for doing nothing, taking revenge of unfriendlies and keeping files on enemies of Lanka. If this fella gets elected politicians might start acting like civilized beings. What horror.\u00a0I will go into a Mervin withdrawal. I think he has been drinking too much of that Samudra water. I\u2019ve heard that Tilapia plop can make people delusional and the Samudra is full of those suckers. But I do have hope that the charade will come to an end when the rest of the profligates in your fold jump ship (I&#8217;ve heard that it is imminent but I have no proof to substantiate or refute the claim) and start demanding their kilo of raththran. Still, it is a risk even with you holding the upper hand with the bookies saying you have 1 in 2 chances of making it on January 8.That&#8217;s pretty good considering the last few years have been bit sloppy and a little too obvious. I mean you got to have a chat with your youngsters and tell them to show some restraint. One could justify the purchase 10,000 HP gas guzzlers because our divided highways with tuk tuks, pedestrians and meandering livestock are an annoying place to be if you are in a hurry to pick up your girlfriend but buying a whole island? Haven&#8217;t they heard about conspicuous consumption? Buying a whole island leaves a monstrously slimy paper-trail.<\/p>\n<p>You are also probably concerned about the free media yakkos yelping about killing media freedom etc, etc. Fear not because the yakkos mean well.\u00a0 They are also getting desperate. Don&#8217;t hold it against me but even I&#8217;ve had a couple of my drivel published in one those webbies (for free)!\u00a0 Anyway, if this blocking unfriendly websites don&#8217;t work out I suggest you get the Xinhua crowd to plant a converter virus in those sites to immediately translate all posts into Mandarin. See how useful I could be? I bet nobody among the laptop getters thought of that.\u00a0 I can even include subliminal messages in my writings (you know like Beatles&#8217; Helter Skelter and Charlie Manson deal).\u00a0 Not to go create bloody mayhem, but maybe to \u201cconvince\u201d the doubters that you are the real Maitriwanthaya.<\/p>\n<p>I will stop digressing and revert to my main point; time maybe running out on both of us. If the Samudra water gulping Maitriwantha comes to power, as the saying goes, api thennama gange (we will be up the s\u2026.t creek without a paddle). I will have to forgo this once in a lifetime opportunity and you may have to pack up and start life all over in an alien island in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>So, please do the right thing before all is lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":132578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mr. President; Where Is My Laptop? - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mr-president-where-is-my-laptop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mr. President; Where Is My Laptop? 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