Ugh. It's far too early in the morning for me to read another "Malaysians Fuck It Up" story. Especially if it's a story reported by the local Australian media about airplane safety:
A Qantas aircraft just back from a maintenance overhaul in Malaysia had a string of faults including problems with its navigation systems and rudder.
A flight attendant also received two electric shocks in the galley of the 737, which is used on domestic routes, documents obtained by The Age show.
The electric shocks, which occurred on a flight last week, were due to the galley not being properly grounded.
The aircraft in question returned to Australia at the start of last week after extensive maintenance in Malaysia.
(snip)
Its problems have led to renewed criticism from unions about Qantas' moves to outsource maintenance work.
Well, the good news is that this day can't possibly get any worse.
Is it me, or is Azmi Anshar the most irritating writer in Malaysia? Every time I try to read his "Dewan Dispatches" I feel like driving a rusty nail through my brain just to end the pain.
For a guy who's just been accused of having sex with another man and received death threats, Anwar Ibrahim sure adores the spotlight, doesn't he?
He's feeling on top of the world right now I'll bet. Not only has he sensationally filed a police report against the guy who allegedly beat him up while in prison, but he now has the explicit backing of the United States of America. That makes Anwar as close to untouchable as you can get.
Remember this in the future when Anwar Ibrahim becomes prime minister and the U.S. starts calling in favours.
I have no idea if the sodomy charges are true, or if there really were death threats against him. I will note, however, that when Anwar went to the police station to file that police report against the IGP, he seemed to have forgotten to tell the cops about the death threats. As far as I can tell, there's been no police report lodged by Anwar regarding any threats to his life.
Dun-dun-dunnnnnnnn...
Also, a question regarding the sodomy thing, because I've been reading report after report and I'm still not sure. Was the sodomy reported as unconcensual, or was it consensual? Because if it was the latter, then you'd have to wonder why there aren't any charges being filed against Saiful. It takes two, etc. But if it was unconcensual, then that, you know, makes it rape. But from the way the press keeps using the word "sodomy" instead of "rape", you'd think it was concensual. So... is it possible under Malaysian law for a man to rape another man? Or is that just conveniently filed under "sodomy", concensual or otherwise?
How else do you explain an MP making racist remarks and getting away with it, while another gets a two-day suspension for not knowing when to shut up? That's a fine Parliament you're running, Mister Speaker.
I gotta say, if this is BN's master attempt at taking Anwar's credibility apart, it's a really, really clumsy one. Where's the subtlety? Instead the character assassination has been so ham-fisted it'll probably solidify Anwar's support base instead. If the 1999 sodomy charges hadn't destroyed his career, why would it do that now? And the death threat thing is just stupid. If they were counting on Malaysians talking non-stop about Anwar's Secret Sex Life, the death threat just about assured that people would be talking about that instead.
BN denies it's behind the attacks, as you'd expect them to. Though it could always be because they wouldn't dream of being associated with such a embarrassing and stupidly-executed tactic to begin with. And Anwar's really milking this for all it's worth, isn't he? I mean, choosing to hide in the Turkish Embassy? What the fuck? What the hell does Turkey have to do with anything? (Cue conspiracy theories about how Anwar made the death threat story up to take attention away from Sodomygate.)
Sorry for the sparse blogging; haven't been in the mood to blog lately. Frankly, nothing really caught my interest the last couple of days. Nothing worth ranting writing about anyway. The Jeffrey Hardy Quah Job Hunting Update: Still going poorly. The good news is that I just subscribed to the Melbourne Uni Student Union alumni programme, so I can borrow comics and novels again. Handy if you're cutting back your book-purchasing on account of being a bum.
Snippets of what did catch my eye:
Proton promises to have "zero defects" in their car production. Also, pigs will fly, there will be peace in the Middle East and Mahathir will apologise for something.
The current Thai PM/Thaksin figurehead survives a no-confidence vote in spite of widespread protests. Honestly? Thais deserve him. They protested Thaksin when he was in power, got him kicked out... then, in the very next democratic election, elected a known Thaksin supporter to power. They don't get to act shocked that he's not working out for them.
A teenager dies due to an "allergy shock". The first thought that ran through my head before I read the article properly? "I thought the NS just ended."
Barack Obama's taking great pains to avoid public appearances with Muslims. Just like that, he's lost a lot of goodwill with me, and anyone who's read this blog would know that I was a huge Obama fan. Yes, people are trying to build the myth that he's a stealth Muslim, because that's apparently a terrible thing. Yes, the Muslim thing could cost him votes. But you know what? The people who are going to think he's a Muslim and not vote for him probably aren't going to vote for him anyway. One of the things I liked about Obama is that he had guts; he's not afraid to call out the people he's speaking to, and he's taken a lot of principled stances in the past. Every time the Republicans tried to attack him on something he always took the fight head-on. The guy was fearless. But ever since he won the nomination it's like he lost his spine. He also caved in to Bush on a wire-tapping bill recently, so this doesn't bode well at all.
And here I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, we could go through the rest of 2008 without hearing another Allah-damned body snatching story:
An unemployed man has filed a summons at a High Court here challenging the conversion of his deceased stepbrother to Islam.
S. Selvam, 48, a former mee goreng (fried noodles) seller, filed the summons at the High Court registry here on Wednesday, naming the state Islamic Religious Affairs Department, the Perak Islamic Religious Department and the Parit Buntar Hospital director as defendants.
He is seeking a declaration that B. Elangesvaran, 34, was a Hindu when alive and when the latter allegedly committed suicide four days ago.
(Nitpicking time: I'm not sure what "unemployed" has anything to do with the story, other than to paint a not-very-pretty picture of Selvam. I don't think there's anything malicious involved, mind you, but it is rather unnecessary.)
Does this sort of thing happen in other countries? Saudi Arabia? Indonesia? Egypt? Iran? Does anyone know? If so, it would make me feel very slightly better about this, because otherwise we would look like a bunch of stupid maniacs. Oh, those crazy Malaysians and their body-snatching ways!
Now, there are a couple of ways to look at this story. One: that Selvam's brother really should have been more considerate about this whole conversion thing. Sure, the family might not have liked to know that Elangesvaran converted to another religion after spending his whole life in one. That's perfectly understandable. But with all the highly-publicised stories about shit like this happening seemingly every couple of months, maybe Elangesvaran should have known better. "Just so you know, I'm a Muslim now, so when the government comes to take my body and bury it with all the other cool people, don't freak out, 'kay?" Or something like that.
Then again, he apparently did commit suicide, so consideration of other people's feelings might not have been high on his list of priorities.
But there's a second way to look at this story - the people working at the religious department are inept morons who shouldn't be trusted to use a crayon without accidentally stabbing themselves in the eye:
Selvam said he had contacted the Perak Islamic Religious Department (Parit Buntar is in Perak) for confirmation and proof of his brother's conversion but the department had failed to provide him with any official documents with the deceased's signature or thumbprint as proof of his conversion.
“I was only served with a police report alleging that my brother had embraced Islam at the Penang Islamic Religious Deparment in Lebuh Pantai and a letter, with some scribbling allegedly done by Elangesvaran, that he had converted.
“The letter, however, did not contain my brother's signature or thumbprint or the signatures of any witnesses to indicate that he had embraced Islam as required under the tenets of Islam,'' he said.
Whenever we're dealing with such serious matters as conversion of one's spiritual path, you'd expect some level of competency with the bureaucracy. Not magnificent levels of competence. Just... competence. Like, "Please sign this form, and this, and this, and this, and put your thumbprint here, and can you score a couple of witnesses while you're at it? Because that's kinda important" level of competence.
According to the article, none of the most basic practices of boring-yet-freakin'-important bureaucracy was observed. So either we have a bunch of monkeys working in our religious departments, or some maniac is converting random people post-mortem and not doing a very good job of it. Why? Who the fuck knows. A competition thing? "My god's cemetery's bigger than yours", etc. etc?
Hell, I don't know anything. I do know that this shit really has got to stop. It shouldn't have happened at all, and it shouldn't be happening again and again and again. It's beyond embarrassing.
Traffic police in Kelantan will stop issuing summonses against Muslim motorcyclists who wear the serban (Islamic head dress) instead of crash helmets, pending a directive from Bukit Aman and the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
State CPO SAC (I) Datuk Abdul Rahim Hanafi said Bukit Aman's legal division would study the interpretation of wearing the serban instead of helmets under the current traffic laws.
Wow. No wonder the holier-than-kamu semua types insist on wearing serbans; they're not just to show off how religious they are, but it turns out that they're legitimate protective headgear that can stop your heads from getting smashed apart like an exploding watermelon during a traffic accident. I mean, that must be why we'd approve it, right? It wouldn't be because we have freakin' idiots in charge, right? RIGHT?
If you've read this blog for any length of time, you probably know my feelings regarding the National Service. (To sum up: any programme that gets kids killed literally every single year since its inception is probably a bad idea.)
