Old Habits Die Hard

Yes, I may have been a little too hasty as pointed out by Bangsa Malaysia. Guilty as charged! I just could not help myself and do allow me to state my case. While it is true that one should not jump to conclusion pending police investigations, one must also have the presence of mind to remember where we are! Bro, do not forget, this is Bolehland, where everything is possible!

Here are some of those things that should not happen, but they did, and the perpetrators got away with it. Remember the Tun Salleh Abbas case? The Tun Mamak declared that after the usual Wednesday Cabinet meeting he went to the Palace and recommended to His Majesty to remove the Lord President. Fact is that fateful Wednesday was 1^st May, 1988, which was Labour Day, a public holiday, so need I say more? Petrol price increase, if ever, can only happen sometime in August, 2008. It went up a whopping 41% at midnight, the very same night!

After the 12^th GE, they declared that they shall be more sensitive to the Rakyat’s need and so there was talk of IPCMC and cleaning up the police force. That was it, just talk. Nothing has happened as far as the IPCMC is concerned. And as for cleaning up the force, all they did was to come up with a new look for them! The new look was sure clean, I am not so sure about the force. Couple of days back I was still able to come across newspaper report about some young girl raped by police! I still see traffic cops positioning themselves 50 meters away from road junctions behind bushes beneath giant trees! And very naively, I always thought that a policeman’s role is supposed to be a preventive role! How preventive can it be when they make it a point not to be seen?

It would certainly help to change my perception of them had they hauled in people like Hishamuddin during his keris waving frenzy. Incessant sounding of siren half an hour preceding the arrival of the mat rempits is also no preventive measure, more like clearing the road for them to me! Talk to any Indonesian construction workers; even those with permits, find out their opinion of our PDRM. Go to YouTube to see them in action, see how they supplement their income.

Coming to the AG and the judiciary, I also have my reservations. We all knew what happened on the eve of the Altantuya trial. Last minute changes to the prosecution team and antics like that does give cause for suspicion. Then we have the AG declaring, even before the case got underway, that there are only 3 people involved. The case has not even been tried, how could he be so sure? Or was he dictating it to be so? The findings and the expose of the famous Lingam case speak a lot about the state of affairs in the judiciary. Our new de facto Law Minister, a man found guilty of money politics in UMNO, not even selected to contest in the last GE, but made a Minister, suddenly wants to return credibility to the judiciary, and how does he do it? I always thought you’d use detergents or some kind of cleaning agent to cleanse things, but this guy uses money (ex-gratia payment) to do it!

The hippies thrust two fingers in the air reinforcing their call for peace, alas, in Malaysia, when you talk about justice, I only have my middle finger to show.

AL JUB

Well, well, well...The New Episode : So Do My people says...

Two toner said to me he feels so lucky being a Malaysian now coz the politics in Malaysia is very very interesting nowadays. Beat the Chinese soap opera on TV hands down.

Chulia Street, Blue Diamond is the witness when we discuss about the two most mysterious case in Malaysia. 1 is Altantuya and 2 is DSAI's sodomy case. Well, a new version, a remake or a sequel has just emerged. Lets do it right this time, since the Judiciary Institution has been raised to its actual platform by Zaid, the guy who was called more western than the west.

I am the sort of guy who would believe easily all these accusation coz I have not liked DSAI Al Jub all along. To be able to make a report that your ass has been intruded is not easy. Not an easy task coz you will be hated upon all your life by all of Al Jubs supporters. Moreover he was just engaged to be married to a very pretty young girl. Two toner has already put his mind to deem the report as hogwash. The way I read his comments on it. Don't you want to wait for the police report to be investigated? Let it go to court and I hope Gani Patail will get a second chance and not make a blunder but to prove to the world that the law in Malaysia still has its integrity and whack the "bugger" good.

This is not me siding anybody but since there was a big hoohaa about the judiciary, hoohaa's by the opposition that the present govt is open and transparent lets make this as a guinea pig for the new facelifted Judiciary to show their mettle...

Let the show begin...

Judicial Reform?

Disgusting! For the day to begin as such is simply awful. First thing I saw on CNN was this ticker reading that "Anwar accused of sodomy". It made me sick. After all this sideshow about judicial reforms and ex-gratia payments and now this.

It got worse when browsing the blogs, to find out that the man was purportedly forced to make this report and had been missing for 2 days. The stench is certainly getting unbearable! Mr. Zaid Ibrahim, what do you say?

Hope to learn more in due course before commenting further.

PHYSICS FOR HELL

Found this brilliantly presented piece while browsing the blogs. So I decided to seek permission to copy and paste it wholesale. The ever accommodating Zorro Unmasked has graciously allowed me to do so and here it is.

"I don't want to speculate about the existence of the above. To me, we do our hell on earth. For the too religious amongst us, if you thrive on self-immolation or a fire-loving hell-raiser and want to go to hell, I ain't stopping nobody. Enjoy this read that I received from my brother Mike:


The following is an actual question given on University of Washington chemistry mid term.
The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume
of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, and then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting, 'Oh my God.'

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

Don't Try This At Home!

Multi-tasking in computers are acceptable. For us, mere mortals, it could be dangerous!

PENANG

Was planning on reaching Penang yesterday, but so happens there was no connecting flight to Penang by the time I reach LCCT. Travel cheap my friend. It is much cheaper to travel by air nowadays if you were to really put your mathematics to test. With the cost of fuel jetting up to 2.70/litre + the toll + the energy + the swearing that you do + the possibility of getting yourself trapped by the speed limit + engine oil + tyres + wear and tear...well, lets fly guys...get high. At least the view of buns wiggling up and down the aisle is worth seeing and imagine...hahahaha.

Will be reaching Penang 2:30pm, 27/6/08 and hope to savour the delights before I leave and fly back to Timbuktu... My other half is not in Penang right now, enjoying with her family in London and Aberdeen for their sisters wedding, well, I'm left without transport in Pg. Lucky twotoner is available to pick me up..Been a long time since I last saw him. Had a lot of catching up to do too.

At the LCCT food court now writing this. Had about 2hrs to kill before my flight. Damn..What to do ha? Look at the MILF's? Hahahaha. None in that category so far.

Misai Nasi Kandar, Tajuddin Hussein...Here I come.

JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT

I am no fan of Tun Mamak, but I have no choice but to concur with him when he says that those sacked judges were bribed to speak ill of him.

I used to sympathize with them and felt that justice in Malaysia died when Tun Salleh was removed and some of the senior judges sacked. Twenty years later came this circus and it completely changed my views on the tragedy. At first, I was quite happy to hear of Zaid’s proposal, thinking it was good that attempts are being made to right the wrongs of the past administration. However, the way it was done has left me a very disappointed man. Disappointed the way the exercise was carried out, disappointed with the parties concerned, and now very convinced it’s a giant attempt by the government, the Bar Council and the aggrieved parties to insult our intelligence.

No amount of ex gratia payments can be considered adequate unless accompanied with apologies. If I have been wronged, I would expect nothing less than an official apology. The aggrieved parties acceptance of the ex-gratia payments without apologies actually surprised me.

It may be true that the mamak had misbehaved and threatened/bullied the Bench. However, it is true that these judges started to bad mouth him AFTER receiving the payments. The bottom line is, NO APOLOGIES WERE OFFERRED BY THIS GOVERNMENT!

So, it is obvious that this administration is no better than the last one.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE !

Last Sunday, 22^nd June, 2008, saw some 6000 people, 5814 to be exact, congregated at Stewart Park, Ithaca, N.Y. With two fingers thrust into the air, these people gathered and formed a giant peace sign, capping a three-day festival.

Trevor Dougherty, a student at Ithaca High School, organized the event. The crowd stood for about twenty minutes and word is, that this could actually make the “Guinness Book of Records” as the largest human peace sign.

Could this be a rebirth of Hippiedom?

X-GRATIA

Good to see the blog is up and running again after a lapse of quite a while. Twotoner must have been very busy, I guess.

Heard about those judges that was given 1.5mil each for being fired after the tribunal found them guilty of misconduct 20 years ago? Even the judge who was suspended and later reinstate was also given ex-gratia on the grounds that he was put in cold storage after that?

Have to admit that I feel it's not right to take such a move by the present govt. If they were found guilty by a tribunal, set up another one to clear them from the earlier judgement. Make it transparent as the Lingam's case rather than simply pay them with the taxpayers money. Its our money, mind you. Who is Zaid for that matter to make the judgement freeing these guys of all accusation without it going thru a tribunal or whatever shit that its suppose to go thru before coming out with a decision that cost the govt millions of ringgit.

This guy Zaid was not even elected by the people. He was not even a candidate in the last GE. He was suspended from UMNO because of money politics. Yet, he was hand picked by Pak Lah to be a minister in the PM's dept. Now he's going round showing off, like a peacock on all that he has done to reinstate the integrity of the judges in Malaysia. He is basically an instrument to condemn the earlier govt under Tun, as Tun was being very vocal towards the present govt under the indecisive Pak Lah. This to me is bull.

The judges that was given ex-gratia were given pension and some of them were also made directors of this and that. Not that they were penniless or anything...About that guy who claims he was cold storaged, there are so many Malaysians who are cold storaged too, just because they work accordingly and not to the fancy of their bosses and don't get into the good books. Why? Straight employees and crooked bosses don't get along...Why not pay these fellow Malysians who also goes thru the same problem.

Ex-gratia like these seems to make them overwhelmingly happy and starts to blab blab blab and comparing how good the present govt is, very transparent and all that shit. Only a few of them are happy and praising Pak Lah at a cost of a few million ringgit while millions of Malaysians are going thru a hard time trying to make ends meet with all these price increase.

Well....Negaraku....Tanah tumpahnya darahku....Rakyat hidup selalu kena tipu...Rakyat derita....Pak Lah kaya raya.... Raja kita...Selamat berharta....

Botanical Lessons at The Championships, Wimbledon

It's the time of the year when they congregate at Wimbledon. Will it be a 6th consecutive title for Roger Federer or is it going to be the upstart, Nadal, or could it be Djokovic? No one can tell really.
Both Federer and Nadal have won their opening matches convincingly. There is no sure bet where the ladies are concerned too! We have a new number one in Ivanovic, and of course the Williams sisters, Sharapova and lots of big names in the running.

I was watching the Men's opening game between Federer and Hrbaty and that was when I learned that the oldest potted plant in the world, planted in 1775, can be found at the Kew Gardens, London.

The plant is commonly known as the cykad. It is known as a jurassic plant, meaning it existed during the days of the dinosaur. Botanically speaking, it is described as extinct. In other words, this plant cannot be found in the wild anymore! Currently, they can only be found in private homes or public parks and places like Kew Gardens. Well, I am no botanist, so I have decided to do a copy and paste job and the following is what I found for your reading pleasure.

The World’s Oldest Potted Plant

‘Laughing Stock or Hero?’ James Wandersee and Renee Clary ask, as they consider potted plants and profile one mighty example, from Kew Garden. Thank you, Jim and Renee, for another five-star (if flowerless) project. Your work on the sociology of plants continually inspires us.

By James H. Wandersee and Renee M. Clary
EarthScholars™ Research Group

Vice President Dan Quayle remarked of his role in White House conferences, “I am not, as they say, a potted plant at these meetings.” Brendan V. Sullivan, the famous criminal defense attorney, once exclaimed, “What am I, a potted plant? I’m here as a lawyer, that’s my job.”

Potted plants get little respect. Indeed, most people think of them as passive, trivial, dispensable, a nuisance to tend, and purely decorative. One cannot even assume that indoor potted plants are alive, given how easily today’s artificial (“silk”) potted plants can deceive the untrained eye!

However, there is a particular live potted plant you can visit that reclaims the dignity of potted plants everywhere....

Moving the giant cycad
Royal Botanic Gardens—Kew
c. 1980
Photo: NCCPG

This species (Encephalartos altensteinii) reproduces via seed cones, not flowers. It is a member of the Cycad family. Such plants have changed little since the days of the dinosaurs. This family’s fossils date back to the early Permian Period ~ 280 million years ago. The Ginkgo tree also appears in the fossil record about this time. Both taxa are considered “living fossil” plants.

So where can this amazing palm-like potted plant be seen? In a far corner of the Palm House at the venerable Royal Botanic Gardens-Kew (near London). Its iconic glasshouse home, 363 feet long, 100 feet wide and 66 feet high, was designed during Victorian times to house the exotic palms then being collected and introduced to Europe. Just two horticulturalists and two assistants maintain the entire Palm House plant collection today.

Francis Masson (1741-1805), RBG-Kew’s First Plant Hunter
Photo: Plant Explorers

This particular cycad was sent to Kew in 1773 by the famous plant hunter Francis Masson, at the encouragement of Sir Joseph Banks. (Banks became famous as the chief naturalist aboard the Endeavour, serving on the first round-the-world voyage commanded by Captain James Cook.) In other words, this plant is at least 234 years old, or about as old as the US Declaration of Independence!

Near a side entrance to the glasshouse, atop an old, perforated, cast-iron grating, the world’s oldest potted plant resides in a large teakwood box. (Actually, this is probably not the oldest potted plant specimen alive today, but, after our after being led down many botanical-historical pathways only to find flaws in documentation or unanswered questions, it is the best known and documented candidate we have been able to find.) It has been over 180 years since this particular cycad plant grew a cone (both male and female plants are necessary for reproduction to occur). Emma Fox, Kew’s Keeper of the Palm House, watches and waits with great anticipation. When the Palm House was renovated in the 1980s, this grand old plant—weighing in with its soil and container at over 2 tons—had to be moved very gingerly to temporary quarters.

Kew’s “ambassador from Africa”
Photo: EarthScholars™ Research Group

This unique potted plant has the potential to be a marquee plant, but for some reason, Kew doesn’t publicize its presence much. It is a potential ambassador of endangered plant species in Africa as well as a repository of rare genetic material. In Africa, this cycad is known informally as a “bread palm,” since a bread-like, starchy food can be prepared from the center of the stem.

Alas, many visitors leave the Gardens without ever seeing it! The recent, full-color, BBC book, A Year at Kew (2004) —a wonderful insider’s view of plant life year-round at the Gardens—allocates only one sentence to the huge cycad (p. 108). We have observed it many times during our studies at Kew and never cease to marvel at how long and well it has been tended, and how it continues to grow. Laughing stock or hero? We say hero! Who of us can live and grow that long?

As for the other potted-plant prejudices, these creatures are far from passive. They simply move and grow on a scale that differs from human time, something Charles Darwin pointed out long ago in The Power of Movement in Plants (1880). Potted plants are far from trivial. B.C. Wolverton, a retired NASA research scientist, has written How to Grow Fresh Air (1997), describing the scientific research on house plants as air purifiers; Wolverton explains how air contaminants enter our homes and notes the adverse effects these chemicals can have on human health. The book provides concise, quantitative data about which substances some 50 different houseplants remove from the air. In addition, potted plants release (and use some) vital oxygen.

So potted plants have aesthetic value, health value, cultural value, and teaching value. We can testify to the latter. Our nation-wide research studies on public understanding of plants have found that the sustained, observation-driven, recursive interactions involved in tending a plant throughout its life cycle (whether a potted plant or a garden plant) heighten a person’s visual awareness of all plants—indoors and outdoors—and lead to an increased appreciation of the importance of plants in human affairs and in the biosphere. Plant-caretakers also can recognize the missing details, subtle color differences, and false perfection of artificial plants.

Kew’s old cycad is a hidden treasure for plant connoisseurs, and we think it should be on the life list of every plant lover. Yes, we have appropriated the term life list from bird watchers because we assert that plant watching is equally challenging and interesting. Why not start your own life list of plants this year? There’s a large and fascinating kingdom of plants beckoning you!

Posted by Julie on 03/09 at 03:34 PM
Culture & Society • Gardening & Landscape • Permalink

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Barisan gets motion passed with big majority

That was how the headlines in "The Star" read today. So he lives to fight another day. In the meantime, this is where he is leading the nation to. Picture is self explanatory.

Neighbourly Advice from TalkingCock Singapore!

by Pak Cham Kai

Despite the International Court of Justice ruling that Pedra Branca now belongs to Singapore, the Sultan of Johor has told the Johor State Assembly, “It doesn't matter how long it takes, but I will find ways until the island is returned to Johor.”

But how? We speculate:

1. Challenge Singapore to a winner-take-all match of Lom Chiam Pas.

2. Late at night, when no one is watching, secretly swim out and kapo it.

3. Threaten to blockade all overland deliveries of durians from Segamat until they give Pedra Branca back.

4. Quickly point at Indonesia, shout, “Look! What’s that?” and then quickly swipe the island away.

5. Wait until the next Great Singapore Sale and buy it when it’s on discount.

6. Hire a squad of super-bomohs to magically whisk the island back.

7. Make a photocopy of Singapore’s face, and paste it at his void deck with the words “Owe Island, Pay Island”. If that doesn’t work, hang a pig’s head outside his flat.

8. Hire a bunch of Nigerians to email Singapore with some scam, and bluff them into giving us their island.

9. Hire a group of China girls to “act cute” with them, and bluff them into giving us their island.

10. Quickly take the island, and then escape with it through a toilet window – those sotong Singaporeans sure cannot catch me one!



Note:

The above unsolicited advice is used without permission!

Monday Blues at Parliament

Can the PM survive this?

HAVE WE BEEN HAD?

Prior to the 12^th GE, the various political parties in the country have made numerous pledges and promises to the Rakyat. Election manifestos of the ruling elite and the pretenders to the throne were filled with all the niceties on good governance and the like.

There shall be no increase at the pump (petrol) they said, oh, such sweet music to the electorate. It was most unfortunate that oil prices just kept rising and it did not take much for the rakyat to anticipate that there was no way the government could go on subsidizing. Rumours went round about a hike in petrol prices and the government responded swiftly by announcing that if there were to be any price increase in petrol, it would only come sometime in August 2008. At midnight that very night, the petrol price in the country was raised by a whopping 41%! The Barisan Nasional government lied! Man, you lie in court, it’s called perjury, when the government of the day lies, it’s called good governance! So this government is not so “bersih” after all, I do not know how “cekap” and “amanah” they are.

In the name of national reconciliation, they made ex-gratia payments to some sacked judges and the former Lord President, but they claim that it should not be construed as an apology! What this whole episode was about is still a mystery to many. However, most would view it as an attempt to make the mamak look bad. Anyway, the whole exercise was a complete farce. When this decision to reimburse the judges was made, it was decided that the official announcement would be made over dinner and at the same function, a major overhaul on judicial appointments would also be announced. Here comes the funny bit of the story. This dinner was paid for by the government, hosted by the Bar Council, Malaysia, official announcement of major reforms on judicial appointments, but save for those entitled for the ex-gratia payment, the entire Bench was benched! Now, was the Bar Council coerced into ostracizing the Bench or were they so ignorant of protocol and decorum!

Well, we all know what happened on that fateful day in March, 2008. There was and still is a lot of confusion in the BN camp. There were like little lost lambs looking for direction, unsure of their positions and also quite confident that they are unable to rule the entire 5 year term. Try they did by resorting to rhetoric and veiled threats to the non Malay community. Suddenly we have unheard of before Malay organizations claiming erosion of Malay supremacy, which the PDRM felt was perfectly all right and no sedition at all. So much for the impartiality of the Malaysia police!

The biggest joke of all was their findings at the post mortem as to how they fared so badly. They blamed it on the internet, when it was all about corruption, arrogance, racism and much more.

On the other side of the fence we have the Pakatan Rakyat, a loose coalition of strange bedfellows. Though they have their own ideologies and differences, somehow, in their quest to make the coalition work, all three were signatories to “The People’s Declaration”. Signing the document was a major show of solidarity and of course this sent the general public into a frenzy. Putting ink to paper effectively changed the political scenario in the country into a two party system, which is a welcomed change. Unfortunately, after the euphoria of the elections, this alliance started showing cracks! I may be extremely wrong, but in my opinion, we Malaysians are most unfortunate to have politicians of such character and caliber!

There were some things they did which deserve praises but basically deep down, these parties are still trying to promote their own agenda. The latest is the call to protest the appearance of some artistes at a football game by PAS youth. Certain characters in the DAP who refuses to wear the “songkok”. These politicians are nothing more than hypocrites of the highest order. I just cannot fathom why it is all right for Malaysians to wear the baseball cap and not the “songkok”. These are headgears, period! I am cocksure these DAP fellas had sometime in their life worn the baseball cap, which has nothing Chinese in it! More shocking is the announcement by the party that no disciplinary action will be taken against this Gwee (devil, satan in Hokkien) fella! Come on, we gave you our vote so that we may get some representation in Parliament/State Assembly, so where is my representation when you chose to be a spectator at the proceedings!

Looking at the antics of these Opposition Parties, I do not believe this Bangsa Malaysia thing has any future. The opposition politicians have shown that they are no better than the slime balls and scumbags of the Barisan Nasional!

Perhaps what we need is some kind of foreign invasion before the Bangsa Malaysia in us can surface. For now, I think we’ve all been had!

FUEL....

Man...it has been a long time since I set foot in this blog..Been busy actually running up and down burning fuel in the east coast. Since the recent increase in price I have no choice but to install a new meter for the car...









Then I had another image that I guess all of us should have a look at since the government is saying that we still are having the cheapest domestic fuel comparing to other countries.