Category: Politics & government

Categories
Politics & government Science & technology Sports

[224] Of Chinese space program

China is planning to launch a manned space mission next week and to say that I am not surprised will be an utter lie.
Almost everybody received a slap in the face once China announced it. The shock came not as jealousy but as pure unexpected development. Of course, China and a few other countries such as Japan have declared their intention of joining the elite space-faring group in the past few years. However, most people would have placed a bet on Japan as the next nation to experience zero gravity; few had anticipated China.

Though I am delighted to hear China’s intention, I feel China is taking too fast a step at a time.

The announcement came barely two weeks before the actual planned launch date. Furthermore, according to the Chinese press, the candidate for the taikonout (or taikonouts but essentially, an equivalence of cosmonaut and the astronaut) was (or were) chosen a few months (it might be just weeks) ago. Usually in the US, it takes the pilot and the crew months of training before undertaking such mission. Although the public is given the impression that China is prepared, I doubt the pilot, or the crew is. Worse, China has conducted only four unmanned space missions with its Shenzhou IV craft.

Thus, I come to a conclusion that though this is a great development to reignite the space race, it is merely propaganda at work. If you don’t believe me, consider this one fact – the launch will somewhat coincide with the Communist Party assembly of which opened yesterday. At the same time, the assembly is being held in closed door in secret. No significant news has leaked yet. Perhaps the announcement came in as a distraction, to sway the public away from the current political development.

In any case, I wish China the best of luck. I wish China’s space program doesn’t suffer the same setbacks as the American, the Russian, the European and the Brazilian had suffered in the past.

p/s – Congratulations to the Badgers for screwing up the Buckeyes. The Buckeyes deserve the loss. And to the Golden Gophers, maybe next year. LOLROTF.
35 – 38! Keep on dreaming, babeh! Dream very hard!

Categories
Politics & government

[223] Of the Terminator Governor

I’m still on hiatus but Californians, rebuff Schwarzenegger!
The Republican is certainly going to bow to the grey lobbyists’ pressure and overturns all the years of hard work done making California a green friendly state.
Imagine what Bush’s silly Healthy Forest Initiative will do to Yosemite!
Imagine a treeless national park!
Imagine Terminator’s future in California!
Imagine a Terminator on top!

Please, keep California golden and green. Don’t make it rusted and grey!

Categories
Politics & government

[209] Of rest in peace Anna Lindh

Disagreements should not be resolved by guns nor knifes.
This post is dedicated to Anna Lindh. May her dream of a united Europe comes true.

Rest in peace love.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government This blog

[208] Of two years after 9/11

It’s September 11 2003, exactly 2 years after new fascism was born into this modern world.Note – This is The __earthinc’s first remote post. Kudos to Ev of Evhead for making it possible.

Categories
Politics & government

[198] Of increasingly insignificant UMIMSA

A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late…

I can’t help but feel envious toward Malaysian students’ association in other universities such as in University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for their professionalism in organizational matters, or as matter of fact, in many other students’ societies in Michigan.

The Malaysian students’ association here couldn’t even be considered a proper organization. It is not even registered under Michigan Students’ Association. In fact, I don’t consider it as useful to me right now. It has outlived its usefulness. The only organization that I really enjoy being in is the Solar Car Team.

Perhaps I should praise the Malaysian Students’ Association or the sassier acronym, UMIMSA for organizing Malaysia Week. Nevertheless, I don’t really call it as a success as majority of the event visitors were Malaysians. The event was held in order to introduce Malaysia to foreigners but I dare bet that Malaysia receives more publicity from terrorism to Malaysia Week.

By criticizing it, I am not saying UMIMSA is useless at all, though currently, sadly it seems exactly that. UMIMSA does have a role. All I am saying is that the organization should be more proactive for its members. By proactive, it includes professionalism. If all UMIMSA does are luncheons and dinners, then UMIMSA has no right to collect membership fee. Having to pay USD 20 just for chicken wings, turkey or fried rice is outrageous.

However, I am glad seeing UMIMSA at least organized something though with UMIMSA’s size, much is left to be desired.

Why do I say no professionalism? First of all, time management. Never have I seen anything that was organized by UMIMSA was punctual to the minute, or should I say, to the hour. Secondly, nothing that is going to be done was told in advance with sufficient amount of time. Even the Malaysian Week for example, was made public to its members barely two or three weeks earlier. As a result, as I saw it, the preparation was substandard. Thirdly, everything was passed through my mouth, no paper work, no nothing. Not even a proper report. To some extend, the attitude of the committee members are amazingly irresponsible. A clear example was during the Michigan convoy preparation for the 2002 Midwest Games. A supposedly-not-to-have-happened mistake had cost the convoy members more money than it supposed to be. The post-mortem – nothing, not even a decent apology.

Sometimes, even the activities that were planned during its first committee members meeting was not carried out. This situation happened last year when I was a member of the committee. This year however, beside the Malaysia Week, I saw no other activities at all (eating is not an activity). There are only two possibilities to explain this – one, as I have said earlier and two, nothing was planned. This year, even the skiing tradition was not carried out.

UMIMSA’s incompetence has resulted in its members to organize events on their own. On one instant, most of Malaysian class of 2005 went ice skating in Yost Ice Arena on their own, bypassing the association. It was not just the class of 2005. Even the class of 2006 had organized a barbeque on their own, without any help from UMIMSA. Even now, the freshmen are planning to organize Malaysia Day inline with the upcoming Malaysia’s Independence Day and a paintball trip somewhere in the near future, again bypassing UMIMSA.

Perhaps UMIMSA might be able to redeem itself in my eyes when the new freshmen reach Detroit on this August 22nd. Yet, skeptically, I think only a handful of persons will fetch the freshmen out of pity rather than in UMIMSA’s name.

UMIMSA needs to do something for its own sake because each time it does not do anything, the more people are going to do things on their own and slowly if not immediately sidelining UMIMSA for good. As long as UMIMSA continues as it is right now, I will not feel the urge to actively engage in it as I had and planning to in the Solar Car Team.