Oh my. What's going on at Ajax (tag)?

I think Jaap Stam is alright despite he was an P$V guy but letting Maxwell go is a sad story. I love how Maxwell plays. His style is elegant and effective. He's the only Brazilian Ajacied that I know of.

But Maxwell said earlier that he wouldn't renew his contract with Ajax and his contract would have ran out in summer. So, unless Ajax really wanted to let Maxwell go for free, Ajax had no choice but to sell him to anybody wiling enough to get Maxwell's service. That anybody is - surprise, surprise, not - Inter Milan. Ajax reported received a million euro from Inter Milan for Maxwell. Ajax will play Inter in the next round of the Champions League.

Other than Maxwell, another Ajax veteran might leave. Talk for a contract renewal between Galasek and Ajax has not been smooth. De Jong will leave soon while Pienaar is heading for Dortmund.

Still, to Jaap Stam, welcome to the red and white. Maybe, you're the new Chivu that we need. Lightbulb city club still suck though. That club across the Channel too.

Gunung Jerai is one of the more famous mountains in Malaysia. Yet, I've never been to Gunung Jerai which is located in Kedah, northern Malaysia. What brings the mountain to my attention is the "Save Gunung Jerai Campaign" (tag). Given that Gunung Jerai is as popular as Gunung Ledang, I was quite surprised to find out that former needs any saving at all.

Interested, I scoured the internet from more information and I was not disappointed. It was in the mainstream media a couple of days ago and I must've missed it entirely. And it turned out, this thing started a couple of years back, way back to 2001.

The problem at hand is a quarry. There is a quarry operating within the boundary of a forest reserve located nearby the mountain. Just like what happened in Selangor eh? According to the Star:

The state executive council made a decision on Sept 12, 2001, to surrender Compartment 16 of the forest reserve to quarry operator Syarikat Kemelong & Sankojaya Construction as "private property".

I'm not familiar with any related related regulation related to relabelling a section of a forest reserve as private property but it does sound fishy.

Apart from that, an activist even received a death threat from an unknown person. It won't take a rocket scientist to suspect that the person that made the threat might be related to beneficiaries of the quarry. More at Utusan; Sorry, it's in Malay:

Pegawai SAM terima ugutan bunuh

ALOR STAR 28 Jan. - Timbalan Setiausaha Kehormat Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM), Mohd. Azmi Abdul Hamid mendakwa menerima ugutan bunuh daripada seseorang yang tidak dikenali yang dipercayai mempunyai kaitan dengan projek kuari batu di Gunung Jerai, Yan.

Menurut beliau, ugutan itu diterima melalui telefon oleh isterinya di rumah, Rabu lalu yang turut mengancam untuk menculik anak-anaknya.

According to the Star in the same report, the operator of the quarry is Syarikat Kemelong & Sankojaya Construction. There isn't too much information about the company online. The only related stuff comes from the Malaysian Department of Environment's website. According to the DOE's site, Glisten Environmental Consultants is the quarry operator's consultant. A search on "Glisten Environmental Consultants" on Google doesn't give anything interesting either. Or maybe, I'm just too lazy to find out more.

Malaysia Today reports that 12 non-governmental organizations are appealing to the sultan of Kedah to intervene and stop the operation of the quarry. Sorry, this too is in Malay.

Sultan Kedah dirayu selamatkan Gunung Jerai

Oleh Zulkilfi Mohamed

KEDAH: 12 Badan Bukan Kerajaan (NGO) merayu Sultan Kedah DYMM Sultan Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah, supaya campurtangan berhubung cadangan projek kuari di Kompartmen 16 Hutan Simpan Gunung Jerai yang menyebabkan kemusnahan kawasan serta bencana yang dialami penduduk setempat, akibat aktiviti pembalakan dan kerja-kerja tanah di kawasan terbabit.

Frankly, I doubt the sultan will do anything.

Lastly, a site offers a short introduction on the Save Gunung Jerai Campaign. They call it a press release but, whatever. And yeah, still in Malay.

Losing 4 - 1 to Utrecht is unacceptable (tag). Blind has to go.

Period.

So, in truest form of doublespeak, a crooked bridge has become a scenic bridge. Shakespeare would say, what's in a name? Despite the doublespeak (tag), I fully support the idea of a bridge, bent or otherwise.

In my opinion, the only reason Singapore is being impossible is because an opening of Tebrau Strait would enable Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) in Johor to seriously challenge Port of Singapore. The growth of PTP has already alarmed the Singaporean government. For the past few years, several of the world's largest container ship operators like Maersk and Evergreen have migrated from Singapore to PTP. According to Wikipedia, Maersk's migration alone represented a 10% drop in business at Singaporean ports.

PTP is growing because it's a cheaper alternative to Singaporean ports. And it's growing in spite of the Causeway. Imagine if there were no causeway to prevent sea travels. With clear lines connecting PTP with two other Johor ports in the east - namely Johor Port at Pasir Gudang and Tanjung Langsat Port - PTP would become an even larger entrepot. That itself would encourage PTP to grow even further and faster.

I'm sure the Singaporean government know this and I suspect they're trying to slow PTP's growth down. Today in Utusan Malaysia, an article suggests that Singaporean reclamation projects at eastern and western reach of Tebrau Straits might be Singapore's effort to prevent the strait from becoming a viable sea route. That article helped me sealed my suspicion. After all, narrowing the strait is the surest way to keep PTP and other Johor ports' growth in check.

Singapore insists that construction of a bridge replacing the Causeway must bring benefit to both sides. However, opening up of the strait will hurt Singaporean trade. Given that, Singapore refusal to agree to a bridge is comprehendable, no matter how frustrating it is. So, when Singapore said it's not benefiting from the construction of the bridge, Singapore is telling the truth. More importantly, a convoluted truth because Singapore is applying a false dilemma fallacy. The result of "no bridge" has already been guaranteed when they supplied the condition. And not to forget, this is done on top of other nonsense reasons such as traffic volume into Singapore, higher toll and how Goh Chok Tong is feeling nostalgic about the Causeway given by Singaporean government.

A false dilemma is the appearance that only two choices exist when in fact, there are other explorable options. For instance, if Singapore refuses to replace its half of the Causeway, Malaysia could demolish its half and then replace it with a crooked bridge, which is what Malaysia is doing.

A crooked bridge is an unfortunately political turn. Nonetheless, I believe it is important for Malaysia to take our economy into own hands instead of the Singaporeans'. We should never make ourselves as somebody else's hostage. This bridge is us driving forward. This bridge is us giving the Tebrau Strait back its life.

Remember the Greenpeace's ship (tag) that collided with Japanese whalers in the southern seas?

Well, they're holding a haiku contest and the winner will win USD 20 worth of prizes of Greenpeace's merchandises. Heh, and I say, why not?

Blue are the skies, seas,
Birds flying, whales swimming, safe,
Spring's coming, rejoiced!

Haha. Lame.

p/s - a gem! Q & A: Our Omnipotent President by Fafblog. (via)

With the World Economic Forum going on (tag), let's all be honest to ourselves and call a spade a spade. In reality, the world economy works like this:

Americans do the research and create something new.

Australians praise American ingenuity.

Southeast Asians accuse Australians of sucking up and then look at Japan for help.

Japanese innovate and make something better.

Germans introduce an efficient plan to produce it.

Chinese make it at almost no cost.

Arabs supply the fuel and some verbal abuses.

Israelis complain about the abuses.

French and Brits talk about it, end up arguing with each other and then do nothing.

Europeans undertake extended holidays even when they're supposed to work.

Everybody else goes to work and then discovers that they need to call customer service.

Indians fill all call centers and take care of customer service.

Latin Americans refuse to believe what's going on and party instead.

Africans don't know what's going on and get fucked.

At the World Economic Forum, the people there are trying to find out how the Africans are getting fucked.

It's a miracle!

Malaysia is in the 2006 Environmental Performance Index's top ten list (tag). Tenth out of 133 countries. Well, ninth or tenth. We're tied with Ireland. What does the index measure? Well, according to the New York Times:

United States Ranks 28th on Environment, a New Study Says

By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: January 23, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - A pilot nation-by-nation study of environmental performance shows that just six nations - led by New Zealand, followed by five from Northern Europe - have achieved 85 percent or better success in meeting a set of critical environmental goals ranging from clean drinking water and low ozone levels to sustainable fisheries and low greenhouse gas emissions.

The official site for the index at Yale says:

By identifying specific targets for environmental performance and measuring how close each country comes to these established goals, the Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) provides benchmarks for current national pollution control and natural resource management results. The issue-by-issue and aggregate rankings facilitate cross-country comparisons both globally and within relevant peer groups. The EPI thus provides a powerful tool for improving policymaking and shifting environmental decisionmaking onto firmer analytic foundations.

I find this quite surprising given that Malaysians do not have a well-developed sense of environmental stewardship. Recent illegal toxic waste case, controversial logging activities and everything that happened last year sort of convinced me that Malaysia would perform badly in any environmental index. But I suppose, Malaysia has achieved many environmental goals like clean water and other environmental needs that allow low mortality rate.

But then, the index includes variables such as biodiversity. Given Malaysia's a tropical country, it shouldn't be too astounding that the country would score well in that and other similar subindicies. Still Malaysia scores quite well in places like environmental health (38/133), air (13/133) and water quality (33/133). Regarding air quality, seriously, the researchers probably weren't in Malaysia last year when the granddady of all hazes hit us. Still, that was caused by outside factor. So, can't really blame Malaysia. And water shortage is increasingly becoming a major issue in Malaysia.

Lastly, Malaysia scores badly in renewable energy, sitting at the 98th place. This shows how Malaysia relies heavily on carbon-based fuel. This is even more apparent given that Malaysia emits 352 tonnes of carbon per GDP - that's worse than the worst polluter in the world, United States. In Asia Pacific, only mainland China, Mongolia and Vietnam are less efficient than Malaysia.

The index will be presented in Davos for the World Economic Forum, of which, our Prime Minister thinks, attending it, is not worth his effort. WEF begins this week. Alright, alright. I'm digressing and being unfair.

Overall, there's a bright future for Malaysia after all. But maybe not too bright if we don't stop the rot. Orang utans are facing extinction and we could experience a drop in biodiversity score. But, surely, you and I know an extinction means more than a drop in ranking. Much more.

I was supposed to have lunch with two friends of mine today but the plan didn't fly at the very last minute. In place of newly created time vacuum, I decided to do the next best thing. Photos! If Boris is photographing Utrecht, then I'm doing Kuala Lumpur (tag).



This facade belongs to an old building by the Klang river; behind the Federal High Court, across the river. A local told me that it was erected in the 1950s. When I first saw the facade, I knew immediately that I was going to fall in love with it. I think this is the best shot so far this year.

The photo is cropped version. The original isn't rotated on its origin - the camera's base is aligned properly, parallel to the ground. Yet, the len's plane wasn't parallel to the facade's. So, it created some imbalances and I don't really like it. I tried my best to repair the picture with my limited knowledge but it was too hard. So, I thought, hah, rotate it and problem solved! I also contrasted it to get the colors. The original is here:



It seems that three different companies occupy the building. How do I know? Well, the whole building itself seems to be in three different states - good, bad and kinda okay but could be better. See it yourself.



The three of them, if there are three of them, should work together to restore the building. The building should be protected and made a national treasure or sort. Or at least some fund should be establised to maintain the building. This is even more imperative given that the building stands less then 200 m away from Dataran Merdeka, one of Kuala Lumpur's main gathering places.

The back view is most disheartening.



One thing I hate about Kuala Lumpur is its treatment of the river. If I were one of the earliest planners of Kuala Lumpur, I would have made it compulsory for buildings to face the river. The Gombak and the Klang rivers deserve more respect than they are receiving at the moment. So much aesthetical potential squandered just by disrespecting the rivers!

Lastly, this is another side view of the facade.



That tall building to your right, if you're unfamiliar with the city, is Maybank Tower. It used to be Malaysia's tallest building, or second, before Kuala Lumpur Tower dwarfed everything in Malaysia. I'm not sure if Komtar in Penang is taller than Maybank.

p/s - Malaysia lost to France in a hockey friendly? Hell... Since when France is a hockey nation? This is preposterous!

pp/s - All-England Final - Malaysia versus Denmark. Second set now and looks like a fierce competition. Go Malaysia!

p3/s - I know this is old but I'm beginning to get jealous of gay man. If being gay allows a person to grope a girl's breast and then gets away with it, I want to be gay!

In the United States, in Ann Arbor, Friday has just passed. In Iraq (tag), it's been many hours into Saturday and in Malaysia, it's half way to Sunday. Friday was the deadline for Jill Carroll.



This is dedicated to Jill Carroll. I'm hoping not for the worst. There is too much madness in this world.

Something terribly wrong is going on here in Malaysia (tag). Despite disapproval from Malaysian Cabinet, a government-based religious body is going to go ahead and establish a moral police squad. As if having the Malaysian police force acting as moral police is not enough, now we are going to have an official moral police entity. Meanwhile, amendment to Article 121 (1A) of the Malaysian Constitution - an article which deals with division of power between civil and syariah courts in Malaysia - which aims to make the constitution more just, are receiving popular opposition from the Muslim community; popular support for the amendment is apparently coming from non-Muslims. This collision must be avoided.

If the plan to set up the moral police goes through, this is where Malaysian human rights watchdogs like Suhakam, Hakam, Suaram, etc, could prove their worth. In the name of privacy, a class action suit against the moral police is a must. The suit must demand the entity disbandment while at the same time, prevents of similar future establishment. I don't know about you but it seems to me these watchdogs, with exception of Suhakam, are dominated by non-Muslims and this might pose a delicate problem by turning it into a Muslims versus non-Muslims episode.

These days, as with the amendment of Article 121 (1A) of the Malaysian Constitution, it's unfortunate to see that it's mostly non-Muslims that are trying to defend various civil rights. To make it worse, some civil rights overlaps with Islamic sphere. This makes it easy for Muslim far-rightists to appeal to the Muslim masses that non-Muslims are trying to challenge Islam's authority. No thanks to this, Muslim rightists could easily gain popular support from Muslim community in Malaysia.

This very reason is why I disagree with the way the Malaysian Consultative Council for Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikh (MCCBCHS) is handling the matter. They should have worked with other rights-conscious Muslims instead of presenting themselves as champion of the non-Muslims. The way MCCBCHS acted only encourage a Muslim versus non-Muslim worldview. Memo by the 10 non-Muslim ministers on religious conversion to the Prime Minister is another unwelcoming development. Again, they should find at least a Muslim minister to join in, presenting an united Malaysian front and not an united non-Muslim front. The non-Muslim ministers and MCCBCHS' recent actions are merely strengthening far-rightists' base.

Populism could be very hard to counter with logical thinking. PAS, a Malaysian Islamist party, has already expressed support for the moral police and opposition to the amendment. They see this opportunity and they will definitely manipulate the masses to its own gain. I'm sure that the 10 ministers are also working on popular frequency. I hate this because currently, we are in a very volatile situation. All these developments might push everybody, including centrists, to a quagmire. Here, I offer a strategy for Malaysians to prevent themselves from falling into rightists' hands.

The strategy to counter a rightist populists' point is to prevent any of them from making populist's argument in the first place. To put it bluntly, we need to stop a snowball from becoming an avalanche. That is, since the Muslim far-rightists are starting to make this as a Muslims versus non-Muslims dichotomy while the non-Muslims surprisingly are unaware of that they are falling into rightist's hand, it is very important for the rights groups which unfortunately are apparently but not necessarily (I'm sure that liberal and moderate Muslims are concerned with erosion of civil liberties too; remind yourself of Nixon's "silent majority") dominated by non-Muslims to cast a Muslim face on the movement. Or at least a neutral face. Dr. Chandra Muzaffar looks like a possible candidate, though I'm not sure where he stands on the matter. Regardless, it's very important that the face is not a mere puppet.

The same strategy applies to DAP or any other so-called multiracial political parties too if they plan to expand; though, they need Muslim Malays instead of just Muslims.

Before reading on further, please make explicit mental note that civil rights groups and rightists do not refer to the same group. Civil rights groups are placed in context of rights and privileges while rightists are found in right-left spectrum. Be very clear of that. Having the two groups sharing the same root word is, I suppose, an ugly language accident.

Once the civil rights groups have a Muslim face, the rightists will have trouble making their Muslim/non-Muslim points. Once that's done, with them deprived of Muslim/non-Muslim dichotomy, these rightists will probably fall back to "secularism is the root of all evil" argument. For instance, this "secular militant". But "secularism is the root of all evil" is easy to counter since once these rightists do that, they are only blabbering and will start to rely on spurious conspiracy theories that nobody actually cares.

erratum - Bernama says that 10 ministers handed the memo and that's inaccurate. Only 9 ministers were involved.

I might have heard the news wrongly and I'm neither a Malaysian telcos industry expert nor a not-so-casual observer. Nevertheless, while I was lying on my stomach and effortlessly switching channels, I came across a news report over TV3 about broadband infrastructures owners charging users exorbitant fee (access fee maybe?). These users, I presume, in context anyway, are broadband internet service providers,

The relevant minister, Lim Keng Yaik, through the clip, was almost angry and visibly frustrated at the owners. These owners, judging from excerpt of Keng Yaik's speech, sound like monopolies. So, it's safe to assume they act as monopolies too. Monopoly leads to inefficient pricing which in turn leads to inefficient outcome and, in this case, prevents greater broadband penetration in Malaysia. Current Malaysian broadband penetration rate is low and the government wants to change that. As Lim Keng Yaik's ministry is responsible for telecommunication sectors in Malaysia, I understand his frustration.

I felt a sort of empathy for him until I heard - think I heard, rather - he said, if the owners refuse to cooperate with the government in lowering the fee, the government will stop issuing more broadband licenses. Now, I'm not sure what kind of license he was talking about. But it seems, through context again, he was referring to the permits for laying down broadband infrastuctures like fiber optics and stuff. If what I heard is true, then this is bad economics (tag).

The problem is monopoly and a monopoly charges higher price for its good compared to a competitive firm. If the government stop issuing the licenses, wouldn't that would actually reward the monopolies instead of punishing them?

I mean, halting the license issuance would effectively guarantee the existing infrastructures owners of market power.

If license doesn't refer to the owners but instead refers to ISPs however, then maybe the punishing plan might work. Stoppage of the license issuance to ISPs would deprive owners of broadband infrastructure of revenue. But then, that wouldn't help broadband penetration in Malaysia at all.

And if what he said actually meant stopping issuing licenses to existing owners, then that might make better sense. In fact, I think, this is the case.

Right now, I hope I heard it all wrong. I can't find anything off the internet yet. So, I can't confirm what Lim Keng Yaik said or meant but I'm sure a report will pop up somewhere within the next 24 hours. I'll do a postscript entry here once the report is out. Stay tuned.

p/s - wow. 3,000 tonnes at all three sites. Sounds like Malaysia needs to bring down the cost of safely dumping waste legally fast.

Two more illegal toxic waste dump sites have been discovered (tag). Well, not discovered per se but was announched instance by a person that helped moved the waste around. Found it out through TV3 and good old Bernama carries an article about it. While Bernama doesn't name the location of the other two sites, TV3 reveals that the two others are located in Yong Peng, Segamat which is also in Johor.

Earlier this month - still an ongoing controversy - drums of illegally dumped aluminum dross were discovered in Labis. And while the article states that a total of 300 tonnes of aluminum dross were dumped, TV3 insists a couple days ago that the quantity is far greater. The Department of Environment will have a lot of answering to do for the next few days. This revelation proves that Department of Environment is ineffective.

So, Johor - a state with crooks running around freely on one big land designated as a huge toxic waste dump site. What's next?

Ah, Selangor. The states where nature reserves are gazetted for anything but nature conservation.

p/s - Article 153 of the Malaysian Constitution is Wikipedia's current Today's Featured Article. It's mostly fellow Malaysian Wikipedian Johnleemk's work. As with any featured article, this article is suffering above average act of vandalism. One vandal wrote "Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia grants the peoples of this world to declare that Wikipedia is Communism."

Heh.

Another vandal is a little bit too naughty. Do not click on the naughty link if you are easily disturbed. How disturbing the link is? Well, let's say that Parents For The Online Safety of Children would be extremely worked up if they saw that.

pp/s - one thing for sure, there won't be too much fun for far-leftists in Singapore this September.

p3/s - almost bullshit. Why don't they sue Jeremy Clarkson too...

Yahoo! has AP's version of the report. It's on the front page too.

I've been following news on Hulu Langat logging with great interest for the past few days. Locals there allege that logging activity is occuring within the boundary of a nature reserve. State government however insists otherwise and goes as far as saying that the trees fell there are on private property.

One reason for my interest is Selangor's ugly reputation in environmental care (tag). I still remember what happened to a nature reserve in near Shah Alam with the state government's consent. This case in Hulu Langat might strike an awful resemblance with that of the reserve near Shah Alam.

The question that needs an answering right now is obviously the status of the area. Who is right - the locals or the state government?

If it is the locals, the state government would be hard pressed to find a scapegoat or two all over again. In the case of the reserve near Shah Alam, if I recall correctly, the developers were charged of several offences but the government officials that approved the development essentially got away. If the logging in Hulu Langat occured within the boundary of another reserve, like what had occured at the reserve near Shah Alam, then, who approved it?

If it is the state government is right, then there is no case at all and the loggers should be allowed to continue their work.

But if the logging activity is done within the reserve, when the approval was given out?

A Google search reveals that an approval for logging activity in Hulu Langat was given on April 2001 to a firm named Fungsi Mewah Sdn Bhd. I however am not sure if the 2001 approval is related to the area in question currently but according to Bernama, the reserve itself was declared as a "Heritage Park" on August 27, 2005.

Through TV3, we know that the loggers are Fungsi Mewah Sdn Bhd - the same company that received the logging permit in 2001. This connection might suggest that the alleged logging within the reserve was approved in 2001. If all assumptions stand, it's odd how nobody within the government remember about the concession when they declared the area as a reserve. A sign of incompetency perhaps?

Of interest, Google seach reveals that Fungsi Mewah has several interesting connections with Selangor Chief Minister Khir Toyo.

Whatever the answer is, the state government has ordered a stop to the loggers. But according to TV3, the loggers are ignoring the order. Bernama confirms this. Fungsi Mewah alleged connections with Khir Toyo might have contributed to the firm's audacity to ignore the Chief Minister's order.

But then, if the logging is done on private property as the Chief Minister has mentioned, why issue stop order in the first place? Odd, isn't it?

Ajax's (tag) first league game for 2006 is currently on. It's Ajax versus NEC and it should be an easy fight unless something bad happens. Despite facing a weak opponent, this game is important because this is Klaas-Jan Huntelaar's first game for Ajax. Huntelaar is currently the Eredivisie's top scoer. This game will see how Huntelaar fit in Ajax's system.

Ajax, despite its ability to play beautiful game, severely lack fire power. Many strikers have come and gone but most of them fail to fit into Ajax's system. The last reliable striker Ajax had was Ibrahimovic, now at Juventus. In fact, Ibrahimovic says Juventus may be bigger than Ajax, but the pressure on a striker is much heavier in Amsterdam.

There's high hope that Huntelaar won't disappoint as how Sonck was and how Charisteas, the Greek hero during Euro 2004 is. This is especially so when Steven Pienaar, Hatem Trabelsi and Nigel de Jong are leaving Ajax at the end of the season. Apart from that, this season has somewhat been a borderline disaster for Ajax. Currently sixth and a game in hand, if Huntelaar performs and Ajax ride on its recovery momentum, things might brighten a bit.

With a little bit of lucky, Ajax might even claw back into the top three. And since Huntelaar is eligible for Ajax's Champions League campaign, if he is as good as a lot of Ajacied are hoping he is, a semifinal for Ajax might not be too much to ask.

p/s - well, something bad is happening. Score ties at one all, 20 minutes into the second half and Huntelaar has yet to shine.

pp/s - What. The. F-... (via)

A post dedicated to Manchester City. All hail to the devils slayer.

This must be one of those better weeks. Just several days ago, the "devils held".

p/s - half of total 300 tonnes of toxic waste has been removed. But there are some indications that part of the waste might have reached Muar River. Muar River is a major river and the town of Muar is a major town by the river. How major? Wikipedia says the town itself has more than 200,000 people. That's larger than the pretentious city of Shah Alam. Is this our little China? Perhaps? Not as serious, true but still...

According to Bernama:

27,000 Sea Perch Die, Breeder Loses RM250,000

MUAR, Jan 13 (Bernama) -- A company rearing sea perch fish in cages in Sungai Muar here Friday lost RM250,000 following the sudden death of 27,000 fish weighing between 500 gram to 3kg each...

... "Probably the change in the water quality as a result of the flood at Hulu Sungai Muar and toxic waste pollution from a factory nearby could have caused the death of the fish," said the Jailani who had been breeding sea perch for the last 15 years...

This makes me wonder, how many legit dumpsite does Malaysia have and how many recorded illegal dumping are there in 2005?

pp/s - TMnet is truly impossible.

ppp/s - Did I mention that Manchester City beat Manchester United 3 to 1?

p4/s - Did I mention that Cristiano Ronaldo's middle name is red?

p5/s - Did I mention that... bah. Read all about it at Soccernet.

p6/s - RealClimate explains the drought in the Brazilian Amazon. I get the statistics part but I can't pretend that I fully comprehend the atmospeheric/climatology jargons though without further reading.

p7/s - holy shit. Jill Carroll is from Ann Arbor! Jill Carroll is a freelance journalist that reported for the Christian Science Monitor in Iraq before she was kidnapped. She's still missing but I hope she's alright.

Malaysia and several other ASEAN members (tag) have been criticizing Myanmar for the latter's lack of meaningful democratic progress. To the southeast beyond Thailand, lies Cambodia with a dictator is in the making. Despite Cambodia's alarming progress towards dictatorship, ASEAN leaders are yet to say a word about it.

For the past few days, Cambodian government have been arresting Cambodians critical of the government on the ground of defamation. The arrest has sparked condemnation from several organization, including Amnesty International. AI in its press release accuses the Cambodian government of manipulating Cambodian courts. The New York Times in one of its articles says that this is not an isolated incident. Opposition leaders and others have been arrested by the government. This makes these arrests as a part of a larger erosion of freedom in Cambodia:

Cambodian Leader Cracks Down in Bid to Solidify Power
By SETH MYDANS
Published: January 9, 2006

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Jan. 8 - The harshest political crackdown in years is under way here in what some analysts are calling the final stage in Prime Minister Hun Sen's drive to consolidate unchallenged power.

Over the past year, he has choked off the last effective political opposition while continuing to marginalize the monarchy, manipulate the courts and intimidate labor unions and other civic groups. In December, the leader of the only significant opposition party, Sam Rainsy, who had already fled the country, was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison for criminal defamation.

Now, with a series of arrests and lawsuits on defamation and related charges, Mr. Hun Sen is for the first time directly attacking the human rights groups that, by default, serve as a de facto democratic opposition...

ASEAN has a unique role to apply pressure against Cambodia. The 10-member confederation could admonish the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and perhaps, put a check on current Cambodian political atmosphere. But it is not doing so and I think I know why they are silent on the matter.

ASEAN takes pride of its non-interference policy but it makes an exception for Myanmar thanks to US and EU initiative. Unlike Myanmar, the European Union and United States are not pushing ASEAN to deal with Cambodia accordingly. With no outside push, ASEAN seems happy to stay away from making a comment on its members. Well, I think it's just wrong and ASEAN needs to make a statement on Cambodia.

The reason for such need is simple - it's the ASEAN Charter which guarantees human rights. Though the Charter has yet to be drafted, this is a chance for ASEAN to prove to the world and more importantly, to its own citizens that the charter will not be just another piece of paper. If ASEAN fails to speak up against Cambodia, it will be harder to deal with such case in the future even when the Charter is in place.

Then, of course, besides the lack of outside pressure, another reason why ASEAN is not doing anything about the issue is because its more prosperous members, particularly Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, are not quite saints when it comes to human rights.

p/s - Volkswagen ends partnership with Proton. So, Proton is going to keep Lotus after all.

At ReCom.org, it's usually a style to add Re- in front of everything. It's all about ReCom, ReCommend, ReMag. And now, it's about reviving ReMag. If I may be lame, which I am most of the time, it's ReMag: ReVival.

ReMag was a little project by ReCom.org. An online magazine with articles written by Malaysians. It started two years ago but five editions later, it suffered a slow death. ReMag 6 was supposed to go out on December 2005 but it didn't. It was because for ReMag 6, we tried to run the project on a new model but the model collapsed under its own weight - contributions started to dry up as prospective authors accused ReMag editors as a bunch of elitists. The project's theme itself was considered of being too serious by many outside of ReMag editorial board. Hackers' attack on ReCom.org killed off everything that was left, including the archives. For more than six months now, ReMag has been a mere blank page.

A few days ago, effort to revive the project started to pick up. For some reasons, people became excited about it all over again. One of the people is me - I found myself in the project once again. The aim right now is to gather old editors that worked for us and find new ones. More importantly, it's time to solicit Malaysians to write for ReMag yet again.

When ReMag was up and running, it was healthy. Surpisingly too, it was popular. I didn't know that until the project died out. At the same time, there was no competitor. Currently however, I could think of two competitors out there - one is theCicak and the other is inkyhands. The best thing is, some people at ReCom recognize most people at theCicak and inkyhands due to previous networking. So, fun.

Now. If you are interested in contributing to ReMag, please mail me at mnoorsha [at] umich [dot] edu. There's no preset topic and you are free to send anything worthy of read. If you are interested in being an editor or are able to findle with technical details and able to write in HTML, PHP or mess around with CMS, mail me too. For more information, visit ReCom.org.

So, ReMag. Coming soon at www.ReMag.org.

As in right now, there are just too many cats (tag) around me.



Cute but too many nonetheless. And they are starting to get on my fragile nerves. I think I'll cook some for dinner. Wait, I can't cook. Oh well. Life is just an experiment and so is cooking. Yeah. A sacrifice for Eid. Muahahaha. Alright. I'm getting a bit crazy. Too much ammonia, you know. It might affect sanity, sometimes.

LABIS: More than 300 people overcome by ammonia fumes caused by a chemical reaction at a nearby illegal dumpsite fled their homes yesterday.

The gas prompted residents living near Sungai Gatom to evacuate their homes.

Haha, I still remember that it's NH₃! Or was that ammonium?

I wonder how a cat meat would taste like when cooked with ammonia. Won't be too kind to the tongue I presume. You'll never know until you try, eh? Let's do it.

Lame and not funny.

So yeah, some narrow minded and paranoia people in local authority arrested hundreds of people for attending a black metal show near Kuala Lumpur about last week. Moral police that have nothing else to do but masturbate on their supposedly moral superiority, instead of using it on real crime, used up precious police resources to harrass black metal fans. These moral police insist that those fans are worshipping the devils. Well, moral police are wrong. They are attacking the wrong group.

How do I know? In The Star today:


Moral police should act against the real Devils worshippers. This cult must be stopped immediately!

Our hope in stopping these misguided souls that also pray to manure now lies in the hand of our heroes the moral police! Moral police! We need you!

Praise Burton Albion for doing God's work in holding the Devils down. This might give time for Malaysian moral police to get their act together!

Manchester United fans, watchout. Believe it or not, you might be next.

p/s - alert, alert! Stupid moral police on the loose. Kosmo! editors and the article's author need to resign on ground of stupidity.

Yesterday, Malaysia Airlines' (MAS) new managing director, Idris Jala announced that MAS will move out of its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur in effort to cut cost. This might signal an eventual sale of the building. Today, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister made known that the government won't interfere with MAS operation. This is good news.

Several weeks ago, when Idris Jala brought up the possibility of selling MAS HQ building in Kuala Lumpur, politicians, some senators from the Dewan Negara and other old dogs were up in arms, harping at Idris Jala for even considering the matter. After all, MAS is Malaysia's national air carrier, much like how Proton is Malaysian national car manufacturer. It's national pride and the sale of MAS building could dent that pride. Hence, their reaction is comprehensible. Their opposition however is irrational.

Pride rarely has a place in business, especially when it gets tough. More often than not, a person, an entity or whatever has to swallow its pride and get on with it. What's better or the best option won't necessarily feed one's ego. MAS is facing this dilemma and Idris Jala realizes this. He deserves respect for simply being able to perceive the scenario and look beyond pride. The politicians that disagree with Idris Jala deserve a kick for putting too much emphasize on pride.

The government should mostly do what it does best and that is governing. Government intervention on MAS is unneeded and unwanted. Malaysian government should learn something from Singapore Airlines - the firm, despite being linked to the government, must be free to work out its own strategy.

Pride won't save MAS and neither will politicians that oppose the sale. These politicians are a bunch of statists. Do we really expect these statists to know more about MAS than the managing director himself?

No. Unless, if the politicians themselves have proper background in business. But that's rarely the case, isn't it?

p/s - the price of internalizing pollution - over USD 3 billion.

China will invest 26.6 billion yuan (US$3.28 billion; �?2.69 billion) over the next five years to clean up the Songhua River, a key source of drinking water for tens of millions of people that was polluted in November by a toxic spill that reached into Russia, reports said Sunday.

That amount doesn't even reflect full cost accounting. Imagine what the figure would look like with full cost accounting. Already, a third spill is in progress.

BEIJING (AFP) - A third major toxic spill in China in as many months has threatened water supplies to millions of residents of two central cities, officials and state media have said.

A clean-up accident allowed industrial chemical cadmium, which can cause neurological disorders and cancer, to flood out of a smelting works and into the Xiangjiang River in Hunan province on January 4, Xinhua news agency said Sunday.

If things go as they are going at the moment, the PRC might just overtake the US as an environmental devil.

pp/s - and Michigan goes unranked for the second time in six months. Bravo Carr!

Quoting Hsin:

All I'm rooting for at the Orange Bowl is as much controversy as possible! Maybe the refs will do an even worse-r job.

There's already one. Justice O'Connor is being biased and letting the Longhorns to start first. And she's from Taxes! Obviously she would go for Texas!

Alright. Alright. I'm being an asshole.

Let the Rose Bowl (tag) begins!

Damn. Being sick today is fun with the game on TV.

p/s - seeing how the Trojans got their first touchdown, I think the Longhorns are getting cream'd.

pp/s - maybe not. USC 7 - 9 UT. But that UT touchdown totally wasn's a legit touchdown.

ppp/s - hook 'em horns. UT 16. SC doesn't seem to be doing anything to stop UT in the second quarter.

p4/s - SC is leading right now but Texas is on fire!

p5/s - Texas leads. And yeah, yeah, yeah. Michigan lost to SC in Rose Bowl 2004. So what? The commentators need to shut up.

p6 - whoa! Vince Young made a 45-yard rush!

p7/s - Vince Young is probably one of the craziest quarterbacks I've ever seen. Just because of him, I think I'm switching camp. Plus, Texas beat OSU earlier. So, Hook 'em Horns!

p8/s - Texas has two minutes to win the game. Or else.

p9/s - 5-yard penalty against SC and first down for Texas. Holy shit!

p10/s - what did I tell you? Vince Young is crazy! He rushed and touchdown Horns! Then a 2 pointer. Long live the king. USC is off the number 1.

p11/s - well, not yet. There are 19 seconds left and SC is calling a timeout.

p12/s - Yahoo!


Now, enter 2006. Truly.

Until very recently, many people have been criticizing Joe Paterno for Littany Lions' poor performance. Including me. This season however, Paterno proves that old dog can learn new tricks.

I wish Penn State the best of all luck. And Go Big Ten!

p/s - Right now, the Orange Bowl (tag), Penn State versus Florida State, is entering its third overtime, tied at 23 - 23.

pp/s - Penn State won. Now, there's only one thing left - Trojans versus Longhorns. As much as I hate to say this, I'm rooting for Trojans. Nope. No Texan for me please.

Yield curve is currently a hot topic in the United States. At least, in the economic circles (tag). Why is it so hot?

Well, yield curve is a locus of points of interest rate for bonds of different maturities and right now, it's inverted. Inverted yield curve means expected future short term interest rates are falling. At the same time, inverted yield curve usually precedes a recession.

Earlier in December 2005, the Federal Reserve raised the US interest rate. While at it, the all-powerful Alan Greenspan for the first time in many months, abandoned the word "accommodating" from his vocabulary. Many see that as a hint that the US market has reached its peak.

Greenspan however has dismissed the talk of upcoming recession. He and a few others don't believe that an inverted yield curve is a signal of a downturn. I hope he's right.

If he's wrong, given that the US is Malaysia's largest trading partner, Malaysian export might suffer quite a bit unless demands from elsewhere pick up. Malaysia certainly doesn't need to catch an American flu.

How about that to start the new year? Pessimistic already?