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.
The U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur was closed on Friday due to a security threat, a spokeswoman in the Malaysian capital said.
“We got some information indicating there was a threat to the embassy and decided to close at 11.40 (22:40 EST) this morning,” Kathryn Taylor said. “I’m afraid I can’t be more specific.”
Two possibilities.
One: another stupid braindead you-know-who zealot(s) is/are trying to spread his/her/their ideology of hate and fear to Malaysia (tag), while in the process, disturbing the peace. Worse, making life harder for the people that they claim to “fight” for.
Or: The people at the US embassy just wanted to get an extra day for themselves. Hey, if Monday is a holiday, it doesn’t hurt to declare Friday as a day off too. Four-day weekend dude.
Pick one.
Mr. Karam Singh Walia, by all standards, is definitely Malaysia’s most well-known environmental journalist. Almost every week, it seems almost everyday to me, a less-than-popular Malay idiom will come out of his mouth with his hands flying in the air relentlessly, comically.
For at least five years now, he has been highlighting all the little local environmental issues on Malaysian air. By little, by no way do I mean insignificant. In fact, he’s the one that is doing more to green’s cause than anybody else that I could think of at the moment. More importantly, he is perhaps one of the few that are fostering green grassroots in the country.
According to World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia, two of his notable works are:
Of particular note, in October 2000, Karam’s coverage of Cameron Highlands placed highland forest conservation issues firmly in the public eye. His efforts in Cameron Highlands resulted in the Federal Cabinet’s freeze on development in the highlands. Subsequently, a special Cabinet Committee on Co-ordination of Highlands and Islands was formed to help plan and manage developments of highlands and islands in the country.
In 2002, Karam took up the issue on the threats to the Bukit Gasing green belt in Petaling Jaya. There was an immediate response from the government and within 24 hours of the first newscast, Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur had promised to gazette its part of the hill as a protected area.
A net search reveals that he has won several awards. Last year according to WWF-Malaysia further, the Sultan of Perak, which is the organization patron, conferred Mr. Karam Singh Walia with Patron’s Award last year.
So, yeah, if there is to be a green party in Malaysia, I’ll nominate Karam Singh Walia as the party’s president!
Yeah! And the __earthinc welcomes Mr. Annan back from his prolonged vacation over the Pacific. He’ll be visiting Pengkalan Pasir soon to investigate current influx of aliens into the area. Rumors have it that these aliens have more than doubled human population there. Worse and to many’s horror, these aliens, allegedly, are stealing people’s genital in the open!
p/s – damn. should end this entry with a pantun?
pp/s – whoa! Zarqawi, that alleged Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, might be dead! (via Iraq The Model via Pito’s Salas via Technorati).
If the leak is confirmed, what an achievement it is – it hasn’t been too long since Southeast Asian bomber was killed in Indonesia. This might demoralize all those terrorists. Osama Bin Laden, the real wanted man, is still somewhere out there, however.
Then again, which GM workers care about Zarqawi and all the hocus-pocus when GM plans to cut 30,000 jobs, eh?
Apart from Bucking the Fuckeyes, something odd came across my mind earlier.
If Malaysian nominal interest rate currently hovers around 2.7% according to Bank Negara (Interbank interest rate), as it has been for many months now while inflation for October is around 3.2% according to Business Times, then wouldn’t that mean, according to Fisher equation, Malaysia had a negative real interest rate a few weeks ago?
Something is wrong here. Am I taking the right interest rate?
Base lending rate (BLR) however is 6%, according to Maybank while ABN Amro Malaysia offers 5.5%. If BLR is the benchmark, then it’s my mistake.
Nonetheless, if indeed Malaysia had a negative real rate just a month ago, then our current capital outflow might not entirely due to the current huge rate differential between the US dollar and the Malaysian ringgit.
p/s – dirty Republicans at work. But nothing less than an ingenious political maneuvering:
House GOP Seeks Quick Veto of Iraq Pullout
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – House Republicans maneuvered for swift rejection Friday of any notion of immediately pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, sparking a nasty, sometimes personal debate over the war following a Democratic lawmaker’s own call for withdrawal.
Just a day after Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., stoked a surging political fire over President Bush’s Iraq policies by proposing that troops return home now, Republicans brought a measure to the House floor urging that a pullout begin immediately.
The symbolic vote was intended to fail, and furious Democrats accused the GOP of orchestrating a political stunt.
Republicans’ call for vote for an immediate withdrawal of US troop from Iraq forces Democrats into a corner with no safe way to go.
Indonesia, while mocking justice, is fast becoming a nation that runs on farcical judiciary.
Australian Schapelle Corby is sentenced to 20 years behind bars for attempting to smuggle marijuana into the country while another Australian Michelle Leslie faces the possibility of maximum 15 years in jail for ecstasy. Abu Bakar Bashir, the cleric who has been found guilty of conspiring in the 2002 Bali attack which killed more than 200 people on the other hand received merely three years of jail time – that penalty has been reduced to mere 20 months.
Doing drugs is bad and I at least am willing to agree to that. It however is certainly no worse than murder. But no, no – the Indonesian authority has differing view.
Indonesian Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin is reported of saying that the psychopath fundamentalist and murderer Abu Bakar Bashir is eligible for further lessening in conjunction of the upcoming Eid. This is absolutely absurd and distastefully dishonors victims of the Bali bombing.
If the Indonesian authority decides to shorten the killer cleric’s sentence soon, they might as well release him and supply all the explosives he needs for future ops.
Or maybe, this is Indonesia’s idea of Halloween.