Flying over the icy wastelands of the planet Hoth

Or possibly Iran; I get confused between the two.

Doha Airport

Arrived in Doha about an hour or so ago. The Qatar Airways flight was on the uneventful side; I spent most of the night watching Blackadder and going to the loo.


Also, call me a bigot if you want, but Arab kids can be pretty shrill.


Typing this at some terminal in the airport. It's actually 6.42pm local time, which is fucking me up because as far as I'm concerned it ought to be morning. Er, it turns out that it is morning in Doha. See? I'm fucked over already.

Also, is it just me or is Doha a rather more chaotic airport than most? Not just in a "people are everywhere" thing, but there seems to be no semblance of order in how people move about. It's almost like being in a market.

It ought to be noon, says my body, but the darkening clouds outside tell me otherwise. I'll never get used to that.

Flight to Istanbul won't be till eight. Now I just need to figure out what gate I should be at. (No, they left that off my boarding pass, and no one seems to have a clue...)

Capturing the essence of Christmas

I'm in KLIA at the moment. It's 11.44pm and the flight to Istanbul won't be till 3-ish. So... plenty of time to kill. I'm typing this from a cafe that charged me RM10 for 50 minutes of Internet time. I suspect I may have overpaid. And that I'm much too addicted to the Internet in general and blogging in specificity.

Anyway, Christmas won't officially end for another 15 minutes, so here's a really, really neat re-creation of the night Christ was born that's guaranteed to inspire some Christmas magic in all you hardened and jaded souls. Featuring cameo appearances by Soundwave and Wonder Woman.

Monkey fighting

Okay, really my last entry before flying off, but I had to share this really hilarious piece of writing. Novelist Lucius Shepard regales readers with a story about his friend Gordon, a would-be monkey fighter:

One day Gordon came to me excited and told me he'd found a place where he could fight a monkey. It appeared there was a ranch down near Monroe where one could fight a monkey for fifty bucks and shoot a buffalo for, if I remember correctly, two hundred. Gordon had signed up to do the former. He asked if I'd come with him. I said I didn't know if fighting a monkey was such a good idea, but Gordon was determined, so I agreed.

The next afternoon me and a couple of other guys in the band and Gordon drove to Monroe. The ranch proved to be a concrete block structure with a couple of outbuildings in the back and a pasture where some stupefied-looking buffalo were standing around. In one of the outbuildings, which stank of animal waste, was a walled pit floored with sand. Gordon was given a pair of boxing gloves and ushered into the pit. He was in good spirits. A few minutes later, a half-grown chimp was shoved through a door in the pit wall. The chimp sat on its haunches, making "ook-ook" noises, while Gordon circled, his gloves held high.

Summing up Christmas in Penang with just one photo

Took this in Chun Kit's car on the road towards the Gurney area on our way to Bagan Jazz Club. It could have been worse, mind you; there's actually a traffic light installed near the Sunrise roundabout now.

Best moment of the night for us was seeing a red Ferrari F355 break down in the middle of Gottlieb Road. Sucker.

Yeah, okay, I'm still here...

Killing time before the flight. So here's a rather good Christmas-themed Doctor Who short story by Paul Cornell.

On Muslims celebrating Christmas

Alright, a slightly religious-themed post for you people just before I go. Undoubtedly you've heard the occasional grumbling about how Muslims in this country shouldn't even acknowledge the existence of Christmas because it isn't a Muslim thing to do or whatever. It's gotten to the point where it's becoming a touchy subject when it shouldn't be. Someone asked me the other day if I'd be offended if she wished me "Merry Christmas". "Only if you don't give me presents as well," I said. Well, I wish I did. She might even fall for it, who knows.

But for Christians: it's okay to greet a Muslim "Merry Christmas" - it's not like we're going to hell if that happens, else the Crusades would have ended very very quickly and with a rather different outcome. And for Muslims: it's a fucking greeting, not an excuse to scream "JIHAD" and blow yourselves up. Your fellow man/woman is extending a hand of friendship - I suggest you do the same.

They might even give you presents for it.

In any case, other people in other countries don't seem to have a problem with it:

Like a couple of million other Australian children in the past week, Tiana and Kyla Ogutuci have helped decorate the Christmas tree with tinsel and coloured balls and a star on top.

They've eyed the presents underneath and speculated with their friends, filled with anticipation about the special day. But unlike most Australian children, Tiana, nine, and Kyla, seven, are Muslim.

With their parents — Serhan and Buket — they are proudly Australian and proudly Turkish, too, and entirely confident enough of both their place and their religion to enjoy celebrating the season with the rest of the country.

They are not alone. Many Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha'is and people of other religions celebrate Christmas without compromising their own faith. And some non-Christian religions explicitly honour Jesus. For Muslims, he is one of the five holiest prophets; for Baha'is, he is the "messenger of God", while many Hindus accept Jesus as divine, as part of the wider Hindu pantheon.

So lighten up and have fun. I'll see you guys later.

Happy Christmas, Christians!

Off to Turkey for the holidays. Be back in a week. Don't do anything I'd do.

NEW WHO!! NEW WHO!!!

I only just finished watching the third season of Battlestar Galactica, undoubtedly the greatest drama (not just sci-fi drama) in television history. And in just a few days, Doctor Who will be back.





I don't think I realised how much I missed David Tennant and the show till I heard him speak those lines at the end of the trailer.

What a great time to be a sci-fi fan.

How was your Hari Raya Haji?

I hope it went better than mine, because mine sucked ass.

I knew that Raya Haji at grandma's in Kedah would be terrible, but what I didn't expect to be so awful was actually getting there. Traffic jams were hideous in the evening; everything slowed to less than a crawl anywhere remotely near Penang Bridge, never mind Penang Bridge itself. We picked my brother and his cousin up from the airport at 7-ish pm before heading off towards the bridge, and it took us an hour just to reach USM in what should have been a five to ten minute drive. Finally we thought, fuck it, and went home till midnight before heading out again.

And Raya Haji turned out to be even worse than I imagined it. I knew it would be dull, I didn't think it'd be this dull. Usually you could count maybe 20 to 30 people to reliably turn up; this time we barely broke an even dozen. And I have almost nothing in common with the people who did turn up, so the next 20 hours were spent sitting around at grandma's air conditionerless house mindlessly channel surfing. (Hollow Man 2: kinda boring. Ant Bully: surprisingly fun.) I could do all that at home. With air conditioning and Internet connection, no less.

Food was good, though.

Thank god that's done with and there's only one of these a year.

A question for would-be voters and pro-government types who insist everything is wonderful.

Are Malaysians better off today under Badawi than they were six years ago under Mahathir?

Answer that, and you'll know how you're going to vote in the coming elections.

"I don't even remember that." "Greenpeace does."

Huh. I'm actually impressed that Hollywood's trying something remotely original rather than continuing to mine mainstream DC/Marvel comics for its Spider-Man/Superman/Batman/X-Men fix. And it does look pretty interesting. And it's hard to go wrong with Will Smith. And Jason Bateman (Arrested Development!) has more work, so that's awesome, too.

Hari Raya Haji is around the corner.

Or, as I like to call it, the "balik kampung" holiday no one gives a shit about. There, I said it.

Seriously, the only reason this holiday is important is because of the mass pilgrimage that's going on right now in Mecca. For the rest of us, it's only good for giving us just one more public holiday in a calendar full of public holidays (thank god for cultural/religious diversity, eh?).

You have the "sacrifice the cows" bit, which has long since worn out its appeal for me. Even back when I was younger, when people actually gave a crap about family holidays, Raya Haji was practically the bastard child to Aidilfitri. Everyone loved Aidilfitri; Raya Haji (or Aidiladha) always felt like one of those obligatory "going home" holidays. "Oh god, another one? Fine, everyone in the van, we're headed to tok's." "AGAIN?"

It's not like there's any reason to go home all at once, yet people feel strangely obliged to do it anyway. And holidays aren't much fun when everyone there is feeling like they're practically forced to be there through vaguely-defined reasons and the stupid weight of tradition.

Someone's going to comment on this entry about how I'm a deviant murtad who's missed the spiritual significance of the holiday, and I should feel sorry for myself. To which I say: kiss my ass. I have fifty relatives on my mother's side all over the country; do you know how many of them outside Kedah are headed to grandma's? Zero. And these are people a hundred times more religious than I am, and they don't give a fuck. So I feel pretty comfortable wallowing in my blasphemy.

Still, a holiday's a holiday, and it's hard to pass up the chance for grandma's cooking, even if one has to suffer through the compulsory and insanely dull morning Haji mass prayers. But none of my favourite cousins are going to be there, and I'd rather spend the holiday in Penang with, you know, actual friends rather than with relatives I don't get on with all that well just because of some misguided "blood is thicker than water" reasoning.

"Why so serious?"

The first real trailer for the upcoming Batman sequel, Dark Knight. Looks friggin' sweet, I'll say.

An AG comes to his senses

Yup: the stupid attempted murder charges against the 31 protesters have finally been dropped, about a day after the Prime Minister intervened. So is this a case of an Attorney-General being overzealous and the PM in damage control (no way they could have made the charges stick), or another "Me am Badawi the Merciful"-type tactic? Nothing would surprise me anymore at this point. Oh well. They still have the "mischief" and illegal assembly charges remaining. ("Mischief" is a crime now? So why isn't Zai in prison?)

I ♥ Zam

Seriously. The guy may be a shrill, incompetent doofus, but he's easily the most entertaining doofus in the current administration. Admittedly this is in a completely unintentional manner, but I get my laughs wherever I can these days. Like this bit a couple of months back.

Now? He's praising a Chinese-controlled news agency for being a "responsible" news service:

China’s news agency Xinhua has been playing its role in maintaining the good ties between both countries by not sensationalising news about Malaysia, unlike the western media that is putting the country in a bad light.

Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin said Malaysia and China enjoyed strong bilateral relations with each other, and neither wanted to jeopardise the close diplomatic ties.

He said the news agency was aware of the Government's policies, and chose not to interfere with internal matters, unlike the Western media.

“Both countries have experienced the Western media interfering in their affairs but I am happy that we understand their ill intentions,” he told reporters after a delegation from the agency, headed by its vice president Zhou Xi Sheng, paid a courtesy call on him at his office yesterday.

I'm just glad that Malaysia found common ground with some other country. Paranoia over Western bias? Check. Need for a tightly-controlled media that paints the country in glorious light contrary to the facts a "responsible" media? Check. Seriously, maybe the two of you should start seeing each other.

Oh Zam. Don't ever change.

How hard can it be to group-murder someone?

This is what I don't understand about the murder charges against the 31 Hindraf protesters: if thirty-one people really want to kill you, you're fucking dead.

As a country inexorably goes to hell, a lone journalist stands to say: I ♥ Bullcrap! Mmm!

For all my previous eviscerations of the standard of journalism in The Star, I can't believe I've missed the biggest shocker of them all in the form of Chelsea Ng's article on why it's a good thing to have the Malaysian judiciary devolve into a joke:

Zaki’s unprecedented leap to the Federal Court and, shortly after that, to the number two position in the judiciary has raised many eyebrows in the legal fratenity.

While most people agree that he would make a very good judge – he has fortitude and intellect – some thought that his appointment would serve as a clear example of the need for some sort of a Judicial Appointment Commission.

However, we should not be too troubled by this view.

The fact that many thought that both these top two judges were the best choice proves that the Prime Minister and the King must have consulted quite a few right people beforehand.

This is definitely a good sign for the judiciary.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. This is just... no. Zai's read it and I think he's having a coronary right now.

I so wish I saw this article much sooner just so I can pick it apart. Instead, KTemoc's gone ahead and done the legwork. Strongly recommend checking it out.

Now to be perfectly fair to Ng, the fact that editorial could even approve such a shite excuse for journalistic objectivity strongly suggests that the article was probably ordered written from on high. In fact, if I'm inclined to be generous, I like to think that Ng, upon receiving this thankless assignment that will do nothing for her reputation, thought, "Fuck this shit" and went completely overboard with the "Praise Be Badawi" slant that passes for journalism these days just to prove a point.

Everything works out much better in Jeffrey Fantasy Land.

In the mean time you're probably better off looking at Azmi Sharom's take, which is the closest thing to sane journalism on the issue in the mainstream press. The fact that it's also published by The Star of all places boggles the mind. You can't have it both ways, guys.

Oh, it's on now.

Not that I ever doubted they'd do it, but it's still discomforting to see them actually do it: the ISA was finally used on nearly half a dozen Hindraf leaders.

Police said they have detained all five leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) under Section 8 (1) of the Internal Security Act.

The five are P. Uthayakumar, M. Manoharan, R. Kenghadharan, V. Ganabatirau and T. Vasanthakumar. They were picked up at various locations in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Seremban.

They will be detained for two years, Inspector-General Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan said in a statement.

That last sentence is pretty scary, isn't it? That they can just grab you and toss you in a cell for two years, just like that.

Meanwhile, The Star devotes significantly more space to some group I never heard of that claims to represent 1.5 million Malaysians, and how they really, really hate street protests:

Damai Malaysia, an umbrella body comprising 395 non-governmental organisations representing nearly 1.5 million members, handed over a memorandum to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

The memorandum criticised recent illegal street demonstrations, which Damai said had caused problems and created tension among Malaysia's multiracial population.

Upon receiving the memorandum, Abdullah said that illegal street demonstrations were not part of our culture or way of life.

There are many, many things about this that annoy me.

Firstly, I don't care if he's the PM or not, but no 68-year-old geezer is going to define what the Malaysian culture is or should be for me.

Secondly, who the fuck is "Damai" and why are they presuming to speak for me? At least, I'm assuming they're speaking for me. Considering that the headline reads as:



Also consider that nowhere in the article is that quote repeated, so either it was left out or the writer/editor was being overly presumptuous. I'm terrible with math (I left the exam hall for a 2-hour math paper after 20 minutes), but I'm pretty sure 1.5 million out of a population of 20 million isn't even close to "majority". And the alleged "395 NGOs"? I assume it doesn't include these guys.

Also, isn't the point of a "silent majority" is that they keep their mouths shut and don't tell you anything?

Would be interesting to see what else happens over the next few weeks.

Can't take it no more

So over the last few months - hell the last few days alone we've had a series of protests and high profile arrests in Malaysia, ranging from Anwar's alleged immigration detention to mass arrests at the steps of Parliament itself. People are getting the crapped kicked out of them. It's all sickening news if you're a Malaysian, but after my brief but embarrassingly overpowering bout of political depression a few months back I'm trying to look for the positive in things. Admittedly it's difficult to feel happy/shiny about the iron fist of fascism hammering kidney shots into the helpless torso of freedom and justice, but I'm going to try anyway.

Actually, all this news is making me more and more enthused about politics in Malaysia.

My major problem with Malaysians and politics in the past had been apathy. Government corruption is hardly a secret, but as Marie pointed out the other day people are too comfortable to care. As long as I make a half-decent living, why should I risk getting locked up in a dirty prison cell with repeated phonebook-to-face contact? The common response is usually, "Yeah, it sucks. But what to do?" And they get on with their lives.

Now? We've had massive protests in the span of two, three months. People are being warned that they'd be arrested if they continue demonstrating or protesting and they're doing it anyway. Even the mainstream media is forced to report it, albeit with the usual objective (AHAHAHAHA) slant, making sure it sticks in the public consciousness.

For the first time since the spirit-crushing enterprise that was Ops Lalang, Malaysians are pissed. They aren't hiding behind their comforts anymore, because they actually give a shit this time. The last five years sucked hard that people are making their voices heard, and they don't seem to be letting a couple of pesky arrests and threatening-sounding media statements to slow them down.

There's still plenty of time for all that to change, and it might depending on what the Government does. But in spite of the bashings and arrests, there's a change in how Malaysians are viewing the country and its leaders. I can feel it 6,600 kilometres away from home, surely you guys can, too.

We've come a ways in the last five years, mostly for the better. More and more people are getting sick of the status quo, and they're doing something about it. You have to feel pretty damn good about that.

Badawi: Half a decade just isn't long enough, man.

The PM: Five years? That's all you're giving me to fix the country?

Stating that he was worried because voters are easily persuaded, Abdullah advised Malaysians to show the Government what they really want through the ballot box.

Abdullah also said that he had been the Prime Minister for only five years and not much could be expected from him, as there was a lot to do.

"Can't expect (me) to do it within five years of premiership. People are criticizing me, but things take time to grow. I want to succeed more than anyone else because I feel responsible," he said.

I like how the Prime Minister simultaneously insulted "easily persuaded" voters and indicted himself in a mainstream news article. He pretty much admitted that the country's been messed up the last five years, or at the very least nothing's changed since Mahathir stepped down.

And to be fair, an entire half decade is far too short a time to expect anyone to clean up the government, right? How much work can you do in five years? Abraham Lincoln needed a year to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, but that's over a hundred years ago and obviously doesn't count. Actually, wait, how much did you accomplish in the last five years? Just to give us an idea of where this country'll be in the next five, I mean.

So I guess we need to give the PM the next five years to do what he promised to do five years ago when we voted him in. Sure, why not? He's bound to get it right one of these decades. Right?

It begins.

Word comes in that various people who took part in the BERSIH rally have been arrested. Notables include Tian Chua and PAS Vice President Mohamed Sabu (who was apprehended in the middle of his daughter's wedding). (Via.) Also arrested were lawyers who took part in the more recent "Festival of Rights" rally.

As of this writing The Star hasn't gotten off its fat ass to report it, while New Straits Times already has the story.

Expect more "HINDRAF ARE TERRORISTS WHO MUST BE TAKEN DOWN NOW!!!"-type stories to dominate the headlines over the next few weeks for distraction purposes for completely innocent reasons.

If you have a driver's license, you've just been drafted.

Well, not really. But we might as well be, because apparently more people died on Malaysian roads every year than Americans in Iraq:

Malaysian roads are like warzones, with over 6,000 deaths and losses of between RM5.6bil and RM5.9bil incurred from road accidents yearly.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said although Malaysian roads were in good condition, the number of deaths, which also represents some 500 deaths per month, was more than that recorded by the United States in its four years in Iraq.

About 4,000 American lives have been lost since the United States invaded Iraq.

The Tourism Ministry might want to think about going after the thrillseeker demographic. "You haven't lived till you've driven on a Malaysian road. And after that, you really might not."

Actually, I'm more entertained by the fact that even Malaysian journalists don't give a shit about Iraqi deaths. Poor guys just can't catch a break.

Futurama Lives!

How on earth did I miss this? Screw clean politicians and world peace - I want this more than anything else now.

Oh, you lying bastard.

US President George W Bush has said he has "no recollection" of the existence of video tapes of CIA interrogations and the plan to destroy them.

The CIA says it wiped two tapes of interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects to protect the identities of its agents.

But human rights groups accuse it of destroying evidence of practices that may be tantamount to torture.

Mr Bush continued to have confidence in CIA Director Michael Hayden, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

The president "did not remember" being told of the tapes prior to Thursday, she said.

Suuuuure you didn't.

So either the President is lying through his teeth (or rather, his press secretary) or he knows even less than his own Congress. Neither of which surprises me, actually.

I'm back, baby

How do I know this? It's the first week of the month and I've already exceeded my total blogging output for October. Beat that, Sheena.

Went to the office of the Masters course coordinator Jenny Lee this afternoon for a small get-together session with lecturers and classmates over pastries and booze. Funny how in spite of the relatively small size of the course you still come across people you've never even seen before but apparently have been here for nearly as long as you have.

Also met up with Mark Davis, the guy who marked the previously-mentioned graphic novel list group project. We narrowly missed a H1 (equivalent of an A), but as disappointed as we were I can't really fault the mark; graphic novels inherently cost a lot more to produce than "proper" novels, and the usually low sales figures mean that it's hard to justify doing them. So a lot of our numbers are probably a tad inflated in order to keep up with the assignment's minimum requirements. Just one of the disadvantages of trying to do something different, folks.

On the plus side, one of the proposed books I pitched for the list was apparently a big hit among the notoriously hard to impress markers/book editors. It's a book about the Bali Bombings titled 88 Australians. Written by a "Luis Scola" (we had to come up with fake names to go along with the fake books), the marketing blurb I wrote for it went like this:

On 12 October 2002, 202 people, including 88 Australians, were killed in a terrorist attack in Kuta, Bali. The effects of this horrendous attack are still being felt to this day.

Where did it all go so wrong? How did the world suddenly become so senseless?

Luis Scola attempts to answer such questions and more through his most ambitious project to date. Based on court transcripts, interviews with survivors and publicised intelligence reports, Scola seamlessly weaves fact with fiction as he tells the stories of two different people: a young tourist seeking romance, and a young bomber seeking vengeance. The two will never meet, yet their lives will intertwine in ways they could never imagine.

Scola puts a face on a faceless enemy, and shows how ordinary people are capable of extraordinary carnage.

The exact quote one book editor gave was, "This could really work." Knowing how rarely I'll hear that in the real publishing world, I'll take it.

The Hindraf thing: rapidly getting out of hand

I've gone on record supporting the spirit of what Hindraf's said to be about, i.e. the betterment of ethnic Indians, who've gotten a pretty raw deal the last couple of decades. I wish they'd lose the "Hindu" part of their name; why bring religion into this? Not all Indians are Hindus, you know.

Cue the Government PR Machine. Not only are arrested protesters being charged with attempted murder of a policeman (oh come on!) and denied bail, but now Hindraf leader P. Uthayakumar is apparently being linked to, of all things, terrorism. (Still waiting for the undoubtedly forthcoming evidence.) Uthayakumar vehemently denies this, but judging from the headache-inducing, hate-filled rants found here, it's working.

Let's head back to that The Star article (that paper again!) for a minute:

One of Hindraf’s leaders, P. Uthayakumar, was reported as saying in an interview in Monday's edition of Singapore’s New Paper that that he would not rule out using violence.

He was quoted as saying that the protest by monks in Myanmar last September inspired Hindraf’s public protest.

“The monks were prepared to die for their cause. I’ve shown slides of monks getting shot and killed during my roadshows and I think it struck a chord with the people.

“I think it’s quite unlikely we’ll head down that path towards a civil war but there’s always that possibility. Some of the uneducated may resort to violence,” Uthayakumar was quoted as saying by the paper.

He also allegedly made similar statements in an interview with Indian national television in a programme called Times Now, where he warned of serious consequences.

(Emphasis mine.)

Dissection begins... now.

Okay, Uthayakumar didn't do himself any favours here with the rather insulting "uneducated" remark. Not to mention that ridiculous ethnic cleansing thing. If there's anyone more in need of a PR person to rein him in, it's him. But how the heck does that mean that he "won't rule out using violence"? People are looking at that one sentence and have somehow arrived to the conclusion that, "OMG! He wants to sow violence and hatred in Malaysia! OMGWTF!!11!!" Add the link with the Burmese monks thing and suddenly you have Uthayakumar the Tamil Tiger Wannabe, even though the Myanmar government was the one instigating the violence (anyone else see a parallel here?) and the monks were about the least violent people you could ever meet.

And the last sentence in that article kills me. "Serious consequences" to what? Care to elaborate? What did he say exactly? WHERE'S THE FUCKING RESEARCH?

Uthayakumar could have come out a bit stronger against violence, but then again I wouldn't be surprised if he was misquoted. I mean, look at that layout. Does that look like a news source you'd trust? I wouldn't trust it to tell me what colour the sky is.

But it's working. The ethnic divisions will get a little wider, as Malay and Chinese look at Indians as overemotional thugs while Indians look at the other two as the all-controlling political and economic masters looking to keep the black man down. Everyone will play the race card. Whatever goodwill that came out of BERSIH will rapidly evaporate, just in time for the '08 elections to come around.

Will voters be so easily swayed? Yes. John Howard proved it.

They throw people in prison for anything these days.

If you were like me, you assumed that we're experiencing some kind of time warp where one could be arrested for such harmless but public displays of affection. (Though you might not need a time warp for that, considering the direction Malaysia's been falling lately.) Or perhaps we're witnessing a classic tale of cross-cultural forbidden love enfold, where two star-crossed lovers are torn apart by a backward society hellbent on racial, religious and cultural purity.

Actually click on the article though, and it turns out that the kiss was far from affectionate or, for that matter, consensual. So we have god knows how many shamelessly misleading headlines from The Star now, and this one isn't even politically-motivated. Keep it going, guys. You're on a roll.

Poll: Malaysians really are morons.

From The Star:

Malaysians are not only the strongest supporters of democracy in Asia but are also the most confident that their country's elections are fair and free, according to a recent study by TNS and Gallup International.

New findings from Gallup's Voice of the People research showed that Malaysians' belief in the transparency of their elections stands in contrast to the sentiment expressed by more than half of respondents across the region who do not consider their country's election processes to be impartial.

Yeah, okay, I don't want to get into a whole thing here, but this is why I get depressed by Malaysian politics.

Wait, that's it? After all that?

So my results came in this morning. You know, the results for all the assignments and projects I killed myself for, resulting in the sporadic blogging you've seen the last couple of months?

To summarise for all three subjects: one shockingly excellent result (mainly because it was one of those assignments where everything flowed so smoothly I was suspicious) for the only theoretical subject I did this semester, one "GODDAMMIT! SO FRICKIN' CLOSE!"-type result (for the list of graphic novels thing I spoke about before on this blog), and one major disappointment. That last one especially killed me, because it was otherwise very well-received by my internship hosts (it was a research project you had to do that had to be beneficial to your employer, so you're writing for both your internship and the examiner, so that's hard enough).

The weird thing? I worked myself like a dog on those last two assignments, which included a massive number of hours working in the computer lab (plus an inadvisable 27-hour stint) and lost a lot of sleep worrying myself over. On the other hand, I didn't lose sleep at all for the first one (other than the occasionally twinge of "that was easy... too easy..."), and I never stayed past 5pm in the lab for it.

Bloody hell. So is this the part where I go back into the real world?

After a two-year postgraduate course and the toughest, most mentally exhausting semester of my life, that seemed like a rather anticlimactic finish.

Nokia phones scare the shit out of me.

As trendy and popular as Nokia models are, you might, I dunno, want to stay the hell away from handphones that have batteries capable of burning a hole through your tiled floor.



Unless that's sort of your thing, you know. Then go for it, what do I care?

On Dora Goh: Did we fuck up?

One thing I didn't want to get into after Dora Goh was released was the police's reaction to people who blogged about the case:

However, several bloggers went further by posting the woman’s photograph, much to the ire of the police who felt the action could have jeopardised the woman’s life.

Apparently a lot of bloggers were a little pissed off about it. It's natural that people feel like they're being scapegoated to the point where, as Freethinker pointed out, they might be overreacting a tad. I didn't go into it because I thought that the cops might have a point for once.

I can't pretend to understand the complexities of criminology, so I have no idea what the negatives would be in putting up details of Goh's kidnapping, other than a few vague "things could have escalated"-type reasons which are hardly useful answers. But I did note that The Star, whose journalistic standards I've poked at repeatedly, never once mentioned Goh by name. (Although the article was written only after Goh's release, instead of treating it like a missing persons case like we all did.)

So were we in the wrong? Did we put Dora Goh at risk? I don't know. Maybe. But I will say this: the morning Dora Goh disappeared, no one had any idea what happened. All people heard was that a young woman was apparently forced into a car and driven off. That's literally all the information anyone had. No one knew if it was a ransom thing or, well, something worse, but people freaked. And everyone, from Goh's employers to her family to her friends begged friends, family and strangers to spread the word, in the scant hopes that someone had an answer.

If I knew beforehand that it was a ransom thing, I doubt I'd have blogged about it. But no one knew that - all we heard was, "Dora Goh is missing. Help us find her."

If there were, I don't know, guidelines or something about the proper way to react to news like this, that'd be awesome. But there isn't. So you do what you can and hope for the best.

Batman versus Graffiti

Gotta say, this is looking better and better everyday. Really loving the marketing for the film so far, and the emphasis on director Christopher Nolan's mantra of making a "serious film that doesn't take itself seriously". (Superman Returns sequel, please take notes.)

And while we're on the same subject, you might (or might not) want to have a peek back into Batman's shockingly homophobic past. Seriously, who the hell okayed that idea?

Yeah, okay, that was pretty cool.

River of Karma put up a nice little video of what happened at a US baseball game when a disabled dude tried to sing the national anthem. This reminded me of a similar incident that happened a couple of years ago at an NBA game. A teenage girl (who couldn't have been older than 15) tried to sing the anthem in front of tens of thousands of fans in the arena and millions around the world and flubs it badly. You could just tell that this was going to be the most horrible moment of the poor girl's life... until coach Maurice Cheeks stepped in.

"Holy Zombie Jesus!"

As Christmas a.k.a. Prezzies Day approaches, comic book artist Ethan Van Sciver pitches the perfect religious project:

I read (the New Testament) last night, and I think I understand it.

Here's a rough outline:

What is perceived to be a star over Bethlehem, which guides the shephards and Wise Men to the Baby Jesus is actually an intergalactic virus carried by a meteor, which crashes into a rocky embankment.

Because the New Testament is the very first account of a zombie outbreak.

The rocky embankment is hollowed out and made into a tomb. Lazarus is eventually buried there, and he is the first to revive, and begins to bite the Pharisees. Protecting his disciples from the virus, now that they are awed by his power, is Jesus's fulltime job, and he's good at it. But what will happen when the Zombie Roman Empire and the Zombie Jooooz conspire with a traitor within to finally bring him down? And how long can they hide the secret of a Zombie Son of God?!!!

And then things get out of control and 5 headed lions fly around.

I'd buy 50 copies of that book. Make it happen, sir.

Democracy Linkblogging Around the World Edition

Congratulations, PAS. You've just become the first Opposition party to fucking blink.

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Woman beats Beijing favourite in Hong Kong election. It's just the one seat, but it's seen as a referendum on people wanting proper democracy in Hong Kong for a change. From the same country that kicks Tibet around for fun. Good luck with that.

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You think Malaysia has problems with the election system? Fucking Putin just stole the elections right from people's noses. Of course, more people around the world actually care because unlike Malaysia, Russia's actually pretty damned important.

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Happy to see Palestinian prisoners being released. So can we see this as a step closer towards true Middle Eastern peace, or are the newly-freed Palestinians pissed off about their captivity enough to, you know, bomb some more Israelis?

Yup, that's me: Mr. Killjoy.

I ♥ John Campbell.

John Campbell answers everything you ever wanted/needed to know. (Via.)

Teddy bears and Muslim priorities

Word just came in that Gillian Gibbons had just been pardoned. Whew.

The release came about after two British Muslims worked behind the scenes to secure a pardon, which hopefully will shut up any nonsense about how Muslims never do enough to correct the crimes of their fellow people. I doubt it, though.

But even with such good news comes some rather disheartening ones, mainly the reactions of a lot of Sudanese Muslims to the possibility of a pardon:

Sudan's influential Council of Muslim Scholars on Sunday urged the government not to pardon Gibbons, saying it would damage Khartoum's reputation with Muslims around the world.

Hundreds took to the streets of the capital on Friday, many waving swords and Islamic flags, calling for her death.

"Retracting this light sentence ... would wound the sensibilities of the Muslims in Sudan," Council Spokesman al-Sheikh Mohammad Abdel Karim told Reuters.

"This is not a matter to be settled politically. This is a matter which goes to the very core of Muslims and their sensibilities."

I don't want to have to keep repeating myself, because that gets a little annoying after a while no matter how much I like to read my own writing, but swords? Death? For fuck's sake I get that you see this as a symbolic attack on our prophet, but fuck you. If this is the worst thing you can imagine happening to our religion then I almost want to envy you.

And the "core" of our "sensibilities"? A fucking teddy bear? That's where you think Muslims' sensibilities should lie? I always knew that the fundamentalist element of Islam is out of touch with the realities of the modern age but I didn't think it'd be this ridiculous. No wonder the rest of the world tend to see us as a bunch of bloodthirsty reactionaries.

But we see a pattern (sort of) emerging around the world. Whether it's teddy bears or condoms in 7-11 or attempting to leave the religion, our priorities are extremely misplaced. We have passion and that's great, but we're passionate about all the wrong things. We rant and rave about stuff that just isn't important, and we overreact to the point of physical violence and emotional trauma (e.g. what Revathi Masoosai had to go through). And we spend all this energy and when we get to the really important stuff, like poverty or education, we're too tired to care anymore - they're no longer important; gotta save all that righteous anger-type energy for the really really important stuff in the great scheme of things.

The great scheme being Us versus Them, of course. Nothing rallies a bunch of scared, uneducated people around you like paranoia and conflict and the threat of the outside world poking their heads in where they don't belong.

On killing God.

A sure way to get me to do something is to tell me that I shouldn't do it.

For example. When I first saw the trailer to Golden Compass my first thoughts were: Okay, pretty movie, good cast, doesn't interest me at all. Pass.

But tell me that I shouldn't watch the movie because the premise is allegedly one where God dies: book me a ticket right now.

On Hindraf and "ethnic cleansing"

(Not my most imaginative entry title, but I'm tired and hungry and fuck it, I'm taking the easy way out for once.)

Yeah, okay, calling the economic and social hardships of Malaysian Indian society an "ethnic cleansing" isn't exactly the smartest thing in the world you could do, because 1) no one will take you seriously, and 2) it only offers the Government free ammunition. (Re: Tian Chua.) Also, the people of Darfur would like to have a word with you. It was an outrageous statement, and the Hindraf leaders can't possibly be stupid enough to believe it.

But at the same time... it worked, didn't it? Hindraf's been around since, what, May? Now, I haven't been in Malaysia since February, but I seriously doubt most people even heard of Hindraf. (I did, but never heard from them again.) They were about as effective as, well, a Malaysian opposition, really.

Now? All everyone wants to talk about for the last couple of weeks are Hindraf. Oh, they're tarnishing Malaysia's good name (though I'd say the damage's been done a looooooong time ago). Oh, we have "clear policies" to help Indians, or so says Samy Vellu, whom we all know has been such a champion for Indian rights. We should revoke their citizenship, even, says some guy, proving that yes, it actually is possible to out-outrageous Hindraf at this point.

Everyone's dodging the real issue, of course: that Indians have been fucked around more than any other race in Malaysian history. Don't give me that nonsense about how other races have it bad too - no one has it as bad as the Malaysian Indians. It's not even up for debate. The Malays have the bumi thing going for them. The Chinese have the business world practically locked up. (Yes, I'm generalising here. Doesn't make it less true.) What do the Indians have? They don't even have opportunities. (Again, generalising, but you get the idea by now.) So let's not pretend that "we're all suffering equally".

Is calling it an ethnic cleansing taking things too far? Sure, but not as far as you might think. And if it keeps them in the news and gets people to talk about it, and if the Government's stupid enough to arrest them them for it, thus making heroes out of them and making sure the story sticks around that much longer... well, why the heck not.

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