Hurray!

Malay College 5 - 3 King Edward VII

It has been awhile since I last watched rugby, especially when it concerns my old school. And as I remember, it is always good to see KE loses to us. I wonder how this year team will fair against the Vajiravudh College.

Maybe, we need to reprioritize our wants and needs.


Well, back to econometrics. Wish me luck for the exam.

p/s - a major skirmish between the Thai authority and Pattani rebel had just happened, resulting more than a hundred dead. The event occured quite close to the Malaysian border and as a result, Malaysia is beefing up its security up north as to prevent a conflict spillover.

Earlier, Thailand Prime Minister had accused Malaysia of harboring these rebels but that misunderstanding has been solved a few weeks ago amicablly.

But make no mistake (love that cliché), something is really brewing up too close to home.

To come to think of it, it seems that only Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei could be considered safe and stable in the Southeast Asian region. In stark contrast, Indonesia has its Aceh and recently the reemerging Maluku problem while the Philippines with Mindanao and Sulu.

Well, maybe Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar sound stable for the moment but, pardon me, I don't consider these countries as Southeast Asian. Their politics and cultures seem too disconnect with their archipelagoes friends - I could be wrong though; you could say almost the same thing for France and Cyprus.

Today is Earth Day. It is the 34th Earth Day to be precise and the tree that was planted in front of University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment in conjunction with the 1989 Earth Day is now 15 years old.

Since 1989, a lot of things happened. The Berlin Wall, the fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, the Earth Summit, the Kyoto Protocol.

Sometimes, despite seeing how we are not doing enough to save the Earth, it is amazing to see how far we have gone. From the discovery of the ozone hole more or less two decades ago, the fight for a greener world has moved from confirming some of the most depressing environmental issues, from discussion among the top scientists to grassroots support and actually fighting it at the highest possible level.

In the US and probably in Europe, the politicians ignore the green lobbyists at their own peril. My only hope is for the same truth to be applicable in Malaysia. My dream is to see Malaysian somehow transforms itself from a conservative society to a liberal one. Until that happened, environmentalism would probably face a hard time garnering grassroots support in my home country.

Other than that, there is really nothing I have to talk about.

I was thinking on writing how to live a sustainable life in celebration of Earth Day but Yahoo! has already done that. I see little benefit in doing a redundant work. I couldn’t agree more with Yahoo!’s 10 big things you can do to make a big different. Most of the things I wanted say is said there. I guess all greens think alike. But I must say, our association with Leonardo Di Caprio is a little bit, umph, unexpected, perhaps. :)

Google is also keeping up with its tradition of Earth Day celebration.

And Ann Arbor, being hotbed for the green movement in the Midwest region, will be celebrating the Earth Day this Sunday. I am planning to celebrate Mother Nature.

You should celebrate Earth Day too. Or at least, turn off the tap, switch off the light, recycle the paper, get out of the car and walk.


Happy Earth Day.

Yesterday, an unofficial Naked Mile was organized successfully, dodging the Ann Arbor police’s abuse of power. When I read the victory of these students and alumni - who ran naked for a mile in celebration of the final day of class - managed against the police and the University administration, I can’t help but smile.

Though I do think it is inappropriate for people to run naked in urban area, I strongly support the Naked Mile. For me, supporting the Naked Mile is supporting freedom and liberty. No matter how stupid it is, all of free loving human should cheer for this anarchism triumph.

To be involved in the Naked Mile, to run naked for a mile in the middle of Ann Arbor takes courage. The courage not only about running naked; it is also about having the courage, the guts, the nerves, the valor to go against tyranny, to go against oppression of freedom.

Supporting the Naked Mile is imperative because it is a tradition. And this tradition must be defended at any cost. Michigan has a proud tradition of civil disobedience and for better or for worse it is the Wolverines’ right to defend this right. If the police threatened to arrest us, fight. We must fight for our right and fighting and exercising our right is a right thing to do.

Today is the last day of class and every true Wolverine should know that today is the Naked Mile. Today is the day that we defend that tradition. Today, we fight!

Again! It's ökologisch, sozial, basisdemokratisch, gewaltfrei!

It's freewill! Support liberty! Support the Naked Mile!

Hell to the orthodox conservative!

No matter how hard you try, you can't stop us now
- Renegade of Funk, Rage Against the Machine

p/s - development on religious issue in Michigan. I'm divided on this but it's an interesting issue nonetheless.
pp/s - there are fliers going all around campus, announcing that the President will be hosting a semester end celebration. However, the President Office is fast to react. The mail reads:
Flyers and email are appearing around campus, announcing a celebration
of the end of classes at the President's home on Thursday, April 22.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT IS A HOAX. There is no gathering planned.

We regret any confusion or inconvenience this may cause, and wish you
the best as the academic year comes to a close!

I hope nobody reads the email. LOL! The President is screwed!

I have been invited to Gmail! w00t! 1 GB of space baby!
The layout seems to be very simple and I like it. Simplicity with a extraterrestrial free space is good. And just to show off, here is what Google sent me:

First off, welcome. And thanks for agreeing to help us test Gmail. By now you probably know the key ways in which Gmail differs from traditional webmail services. Searching instead of filing. A free gigabyte of storage. Messages displayed in context as conversations.

So what else is new?

Gmail has many other special features that will become apparent as you use your account. You’ll find answers to most of your questions in our searchable help section, which includes a Getting Started guide. You'll find information there on such topics as:

How to use address auto-complete
Setting up filters for incoming mail
Using advanced search options
You may also have noticed some text ads or related links to the right of this message. They're placed there in the same way that ads are placed alongside Google search results and, through our AdSense program, on content pages across the web. The matching of ads to content in your Gmail messages is performed entirely by computers; never by people. Because the ads and links are matched to information that is of interest to you, we hope you'll find them relevant and useful.

You're one of the very first people to use Gmail. Your input will help determine how it evolves, so we encourage you to send your feedback, suggestions and questions to us. But mostly, we hope you'll enjoy experimenting with Google's approach to email.


Speedy Delivery,

The Gmail Team

Of course, there is a talk that Gmail violates privacy by scanning the private mail in order to display ads. But for the time being, the opportunity cost is low for me. I am willing to sacrifice a bit of privacy for one of my favorite firms. It's Google for God's sake. Who hates Google?
Maybe Yahoo! and MSN but hey, almost all of us hate MSN, don't we?

And Earth Day is two more days. Do your bit for Mother Earth by reading the mail below!

Dear Mohd Hafiz,

This Thursday, April 22, is Earth Day, and I have some great
news! Thanks to the incredible support from more than 850 online
donors, we have set a one-week online fundraising record for
Environmental Defense. We are now over $150,000 toward our June
1 goal of $725,000.

This is tremendous first week, and we thank everyone who joined
the 51 Club. Your commitment to Environmental Defense Action
Fund and our work to pass the McCain-Lieberman global warming
bill has gotten our campaign off to a terrific start!

If you have not yet joined the 51 Club with a minimum donation
of $51, don't wait any longer! If you have already joined,
please consider a second or a third gift now --
http://actionnetwork.org/ct/n11Lsyp1SaI_/

Your support is critical if we are to win the 51 votes necessary
to pass the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act in the
Senate.

The odds are against us. Passing the most comprehensive and
practical global warming proposal ever offered in Congress will
be tough. Frankly, the opposition from special interest
lobbyists remains strong. It is precisely because
McCain-Lieberman takes such an important step toward reducing
pollution that the big polluters and many oil, energy and auto
companies are spending millions to stop it.

ExxonMobil is one such company. The extent of ExxonMobil's
cynical public relations campaign came to light in a recent PBS
report on NOW with Bill Moyers, which reported that the company
has funneled millions of dollars to organizations that raise
doubts about global warming. Their basic strategy was laid out
in a confidential memo that blatantly spelled out their
disinformation tactics. The memo, titled "A Global Climate
Science Communications Action Plan," reads: "Victory will be
achieved when uncertainties in climate science become part of
the conventional wisdom."

Let us be clear: any type of "victory" ExxonMobil will claim in
pulling the wool over the public's eyes will be short-lived.
There is scientific consensus about the dangers of global
warming, and corporate interests should not sway you from this
fact. We are up against some mighty foes, and the stakes are too
high to back down. This is why we are asking for your help
again.

So, this Earth Week, act now and join the 51 Club today with a
minimum donation of $51. Together, we can counter the special
interests and win this critical vote --
http://actionnetwork.org/ct/n11Lsyp1SaI_/

Sincerely,

Ben Smith
Manager of Online Activism
Environmental Defense Action Fund

PS: Thanks to the over 260,000 people who have signed our online
Emissions Petition supporting the McCain-Lieberman bill. Thanks
also to the hundreds of people who have mailed and faxed in
print petitions, which continue flooding into our mailroom every
day.

Fifty one bucks?
What can I say? Die Grünen: ökologisch, sozial, basisdemokratisch, gewaltfrei.
Anything for a noble cause.

One more thing, today in the Michigan Daily, Jess Piskor has written one of the best pieces the paper has ever published this semester:

The leaders of this worldwide revolutionary message are without doubt Electronic Arts, Chevrolet and Nike. Their slogans, taken together clearly spell out what needs to happen: “Challenge everything.” “Start a Revolution” — “Just do it.”

Kudos. Finally, after a lot of crap, somebody actually tries to reinstitute glory to the Daily editorial board.

p/s - Monaco is on fire.

Last week, Bush unbelievably endorsed Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal plan from some of the occupied territories.

If one reads merely the surface - of which I did for the first few hours before I actually read up the whole plan a few hours later last week - one would certainly say, wow, that’s an improvement towards peace.
Yet, the world is far for being perfect. Utopia is still a utopia.

Upon delving further into Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal, the plan, like what was said in the NYT dead-tree edition last Friday, the plan is anything but a sincere unilateral withdrawal. It is more about exchanging partial Israeli withdrawal for part of the lands without the Palestinian consent.

The best thing is, Sharon negotiated the plan with himself, forcing the Palestinian, the supposed to be the other participant of any Israel-Palestinian - using nowadays cliché - out of the loop.
Seriously, Sharon discussed the plan, of all persons, with himself. A joke?
No. Sharon was explicitly quoted saying, "I discussed this between me and myself and came up with a new initiative”.
Puzzled? Me too.

Though there might be some truth to Bush’s statement that it is unrealistic for Israel to mobilize a full departure from the occupied lands, it is more unrealistic believe that the Arab and especially the Palestinian would accept Sharon’s proposal.
It is already hard to convince the Arab and the Muslim as a whole to accept the existence of an Israeli state. To convince them to swallow the possibility that Israel might keep some of the annexed territories will probably be too great a task.


Bush is unrealistic. The cool My Teddy Bear for USA!

p/s - Just found out that Ann Arbor plans to hold an Earth Day celebration this Sunday at the historic farmer market. w00t! Also, the Naked Mile, I believe, is this week. Hopes to see some girls. :)

Scarily, Malaysia is becoming more and more similar to Singapore.
In the past few weeks, the former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir has been appointed as an adviser to two of the most prominent companies in the country. Namely, the two firms are Petronas and Proton. Despite resigning from Malaysia top political executive post, Mahathir seems to be able to find a niche inside Malaysia corporate structure.
In Singapore, Lew Kuan Yew still holds a considerable amount of power after more than a decade stepping down from the President post.
I simply hope Mahathir’s new job as an adviser is not the same as J.W.W Birch’s job was. I hope it is simply an advising job rather than an instructing job.
Via Screenshots.

Somebody has to stop Mahathir, seriously.

And crap, because of bureaucracy and my procrastination, I might have to delay my planned internship in Europe for a bit of time. And worse crap, I HAVE to find some place to stay for the time being. Crap and a lot of crap. Too much crap makes you a piece of crap. Got crap?

p/s - Earth Day is coming! It's on April the 22nd! Yeah!

With the exams gathering around the corner, I have little time to update despite the fact that I have been reading up on a few interesting developments, namely China reassessment of its plan to dam the River Nu due to the environmental groups pressure, the latest EPA air quality report and what seems to be China's economic bubble. And of course, the talk that inflation is coming back with a vengence.

And despite being busy, funnily, I still found some time to go to an AIESEC-organized "regression dinner". Hmm...

However, one news stands valiantly among the noise - Portsmouth beat Manchester United by a goal. An era has passed - good luck on catching up Chelsei, er, I mean Chelsea. HAH!
Finally, I see a rainbow at the end of the road. I wonder how Kerol is feeling. But for certain, I feel like singing:

Somewhere over the rainbow,
skies are blue,
and the dreams that you dare to dream,
really do come true...

Well, enough euphoria. It's time to go back to buying and selling a call, and buying and selling a put.

Today, Ann Arbor gets two spots in the mainstream media. One concerns the latest longevity progress done by the University of Michigan and the other is about a satire - the satire proposes a "direct flights between Madison, Berkeley, Ann Arbor and the New School for Social Research". Via Ann Arbor Is Overrated.

Finally, somebody mentioned Michigan and in particular, Ann Arbor's liberalness (if that is really a word) in a nationally circulated newspapers.
I have no doubt, Bush will not get Michigan for November, no matter how hard he tries.

Crossing the Pacific, in The Star's words, "Malaysia is set to become the sole global manufacturer of two models of Steyr assault rifles with a joint-venture agreement signed between the National Aerospace and Defence Industries (Nadi) and Austrian weapons-production giant Steyr Mannlicher Holding GmbH".

I am looking forward to see the Free Aceh Movement to use the Steyr assault rifle smuggled in from Malaysia against the Indonesian national army in the future. Oh, the joy of a second Konfrontasi!

Not...

A site with a collection of photos, depicting the current state of Chernobyl. Via Seat of the Revolution.
Let's pray the same terrible incident won't happen again.
Say no to nuclear power; there are other better alternatives.
Say once is enough, twice is too much.

While I was wasting my precious time, I accidentally opened up my now-defunct diary. The entry was motivated by possibly, the most humorous experience I have ever experienced yet. It was about Mirai, Ivan, Jaz and me, to and fro Ann Arbor, Michigan and some place in Ohio.

The entry could be found here.

God. I miss those people. I missed Mirai. I missed Ivan. I missed Cole. I missed a lot of the others. I missed the days I spent with the team during the weekends at Ypsilanti. I don’t know why I’ve stopped attending the SCT 2005 meeting. I really don’t.

Recently, the car that I helped build, Spectrum, had a race against the solar car team from Western Michigan University. Proudly, Spectrum won, finishing 50 seconds ahead of its rival. Also, the team has updated their website. it looks better than the one that we had for 2003.

Wish the SCT 2005 all the best. May you guys recapture the champion title from Missouri Rolla in 2005 whereas SCT 2003 had failed.


I'll never forget that 3 miles. I wonder what would have had happened if we didn't make it. Oh, what fun!

nb: all mays and mights in Italic were added well after after this entry was published. The words are added after a discussion with a friend. Whatever the addition, I don't support the war but I accept the positive externality the war has produced on the environment of the marshes.

I may have changed my mind about Iraq. The more I think of it, the more appropriate the war seems to be.

Saddam Hussein is no angel. He killed his own family. He murdered his own people. He tortured them. He enriched himself at the expense of the Iraqis. He lived lavishly like the ancient Egyptian pharaohs while some of the Iraqi minorities struggled to meet ends.

Saying so, it doesn’t mean I support Bush. If I may, he and his administration are among the worst liars I have ever heard or seen in my life. He even dared lied to the world at the United Nations Security Council.

Yet, the war did and does benefit the Iraqi. Although hatred against the American troops is running high in Iraq, the freedom to express that hate was simply a nonexistence during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Under that despot, the Shiite couldn’t possibly take their voice down to the street. They couldn’t perform their full religious responsibility freely and openly. The US and its allies, regardless of the real underlying reason for the invasion, changed that for the better.

But what really might bent my opinion was not his treatment of the Kurds or of the Shiite. It was not the way he kicked freedom right at the stomach. Though I believe freedom, democracy and human rights are important, in this case, they are the secondary reasons on why I may switch camp.

The prime mover that altered my view, given that I am a green, was the way he treated the Earth.

During the days after Saddam Hussein’s defeat after the invasion of Kuwait, a few rebelled against him thinking that Saddam had been weakened. Unfortunately for the rebels, the Baath-controlled government was not as weak as they had perceived and the rebellion was crushed swiftly. Consequently, some of the rebels seek refuge in the marshes near Tigris and Euphrates.

In his quest to quell the rebellion further and to squeeze the rebel out, Saddam oversaw a major draining of the marshes. The Tigris and Euphrates were blocked from entering the marshes. To justify this action, Saddam cited agricultural reason for the water diversion. Regardless of what Saddam said, little agricultural program was carried out.

The diversion in the end not only managed to suppress the rebellion, it also managed to be one of the biggest ecological destructions in modern history. Almost the entire marshes, a prominent natural feature of Mesopotamian geography that once covered as large as 20 000 km² are lost under Saddam’s regime. According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), as much as 90% of the marshes is gone. All other species that are dependent on the marshes are probably gone too.


A 1973 satellite photo taken from UNEP's Desk Study on the Environment in Iraq. The map shows the marshes before Saddam's action. I've editted it to make it smaller.

The same area in 2000, taken from the same study.
Apart from that, the area is also suffering a severe salination. Furthermore, if nothing is done in time, the area faces extreme desertification threat.


The marsh former glory. Reproduced with permission from Laputan Logic.

The marsh generally now. Reproduced with permission from Laputan Logic. Photo by Daniel B. Grünberg.
The disappearance of the marshes is not just a tragedy environmentally. It is a cultural tragedy too. The Marsh Arabs or the Ma'dan in Arabic, have been the inhabitants of the marshes for more than 5 000 years. Their ancestors had possibly witness the rise and fall of the great Mesopotamian ancient civilizations.

Before the drainage of the marshes, according to Wikipedia, it was estimated that almost half a millions Marsh Arabs had lived in the marshes. Right now, it is reported that merely 10 000 still linger hopelessly there. A culture that has survived for 5 000 years is being threatened to the edge of extinction in less than three decades.


A Ma'dan village in 1974. Reproduced with permission from Laputan Logic. Photo by Nik Wheeler.
However, this was not the first time the Tigris and the Euphrates were diverted at the expense of the marshes. During the Iran-Iraq War that lasted for approximately eight years from 1980 to 1988, the Tigris and Euphrates were diverted in order to slow down the Iranian counterattack. In spite of this, the effect from the Iran-Iraq War was minimal.

Currently, the occupying forces are slowly diverting the water from the ancient Tigris and Euphrates back in the marshes. If the so-called Coalition of the Willing hadn’t invaded Iraq, such action wouldn’t be possible. As much as I hate to say this, as much as the war is unjustified and based on lies and deceits, restoration of the marshes is possible because of the invasion. With the cooperation given by the occupying forces, UNEP has also conducted several studies on the current situation of the marsh and thus allowing conservation effort to start.

Yet, whether damage is repairable or not, we are left at the mercy of time. I truly hope it is repairable. I hope to see, or at least read somewhere in future publications about the recovery of the marshes. I hope to see first hand or through third person source, flying and singing birds conquering the blue sky of the marshes, for the water buffaloes to swim in line, for kids to again sing among the marshes without worry.

I, from now on - no matter how unjustified the war was, whether or not WMD was there in the first place - support the war. I might be too late for more than a year but thank God, somebody else didn’t make the same mistake.

Note - Click here for Laputan Logic on the Marsh Arab

It is amazing how people cement their belief into a small box without even considering that they could be wrong. If I go to a libertarian site, the people there would be celebrating the death of Sheikh Yassin while at the forums monopolized by the Muslims, most of them would be cursing Israel for killing the one of Hamas’ leaders.

I wonder, would he find a place in heaven or in fire down below? Was he a martyr or was he a killer?

As a brother in Islam, I can’t help but feel enrage by Israel’s action. How could one kill a helpless person that was sitting on a wheelchair in front of the mosque? How could Israel fire a missile from high up in the sky targeted at an old man down below?

But then, how could such a respected person, revered highly by most of the Muslims all around the world condone suicide bombing when clearly Islam prohibits suicide? How could such a person allow the killing to continue when he had every power to stop it?

The advocates of Israel would say that the killing was necessary to discourage further infiltration of Israel. But don’t they know that they are pouring more fuel to the raging fire? Would killing stop further killing from happening in their case?

For the sympathizers of Palestine, why do you curse Israel’s action but totally ignore the devastating effect of suicide bombing? Is being killed by a suicide bomber is any different than being killed by a missile?
I’ve always thought death is death. Is there any different between being killed by an AK-47 bullet and by a missile launched from a F-16?

Good Lord! A spade is a spade.

And for God's sake, why can't these people make peace?

For an idealist like me, who are sitting in front my computer without having to fear the possibility of being killed by a suicide bomber or facing the possibility my home being demolished by a bulldozer tomorrow, of course it’s easy for me to say why can’t they just negotiate.

And do you know why it’s easy to say that?

Because there is peace.

When there is peace, we are not supposed to be blinded by bias and prejudice like most of those Israelis and the Palestinians and the advocates of both sides. When there is peace, we are supposed to be more rational, more objective in our thinking and belief.

If you are the one that curses Israel for the oppression that they have done but say nothing when a suicide bomber pays an Israeli a visit or the one that says Israel has every right to defend itself while disregarding the Palestinians' rights, then you are a bigot – you don’t deserve this peace that I am, and possibly you too, are enjoying.

Seriously, all you bigots should go to the Gaza Strip or Jerusalem or anywhere in or near Israel and fight for the side that you are cheering for. Die for your cause if you truly believe in Hamas or Sharon’s method.

Let us the idealists have our peace while you are pouring your own blood for some dead cause.

And if you share my religion, ask yourself this, does your God endorses these killings? If you say yes, then your God is not my God.


Hi. I am My Teddy Bear and I endorse this message.
My Teddy Bear for USA 2004.

p/s - The fundamentalist has struck again. This time, they blew themselves up in Spain.