Categories
Environment

[390] Of minor oil slick near Sabah

A few days ago, a pipeline in Sabah, a Malaysian on the northern part of the island of Borneo, ruptured, spilling crude oil into the sea. It was reported that an oil slick with the dimension of 2800 meters by 30 meters was observed. The pipeline was repaired quickly, preventing more spills and I am sure, cutting the owner of the pipeline losses, which happens to be Shell.

Though pipeline was repaired, slick was merely observed on the first day. A report in The Star, a local press has the exact wordings:

“One of our vessels is monitoring the oil slick,” the spokesman said, adding that there were no reports of casualties or immediate threat to people and facilities.

On the second day, Shell monitored again without doing anything. I was already agitated. Shell had this to say:

A Miri-based Shell spokesman said yesterday that the slick was “dispersing and disappearing” with heavy rains over the area while the emergency response team was also carrying out cleaning works.

“It is not a major slick, the amount leaked could have been about three barrels of oil,” he said, adding that the pipelines had been depressurised.

Three barrels. I do not really know how much is that but let say the thickness of the slick is one millimeter. We know the both the length and the width of the slick so, the volume should be 84 meter cube.

On the third day, or maybe it was the fourth:

“The situation is back to normal and the minor oil sheen has dispersed naturally,” according to a statement from Sabah Shell Petroleum Company.

What does that supposed to mean? Naturally dispersed? You have just responsible for tossing almost 100 meter cube of carcinogenic material into the sea and you call that being naturally dispersed?

It would only be natural if the spill were not there at all, you irresponsible dimwit! You should have cleaned your mess!

I wonder if passing the buck to Mother Nature is a culture in Shell Malaysia?

Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[389] Of Sudan and the United Nations

It is incredibly slow how the world community is reacting against the alleged genocide in Sudan. Yesterday, the United Nations Security Council merely passed a resolution threatening economic and diplomatic sanction against Sudan. That is probably a progress but nevertheless, it is a frustratingly slow development. The Sudanese government on the other hand has rejected the resolution swiftly.

Whether it is genocide or not, people are dying as the moments pass. I believe the United Nations should send a size of credible peacekeeping force to make sure Sudan would disarm the government-backed militias that are currently displacing many. Enough rhetoric; now it is time to act.

What I am more disappointed in is the Islamic community, especially the OIC which is currently led by Malaysia. An uproar was heard when the Muslims were the one on the other side of the gun. However, when one of them is holding the trigger, they stay quiet and act as if nothing big is happening.

This is absolutely true when I was attending the Friday prayer at the local mosque probably three weeks ago. After the prayer, somebody went up and announced a few minor things. But one of the not so minor issues was Sudan. He claimed that the media is manipulating the issue, depicting the Muslims as the aggressors. He went further but claming in actuality, it is the Muslims that are being oppressed.

Clearly in Sudan, it is the Muslims that are committing the atrocity, not the other way round. I who was sitting in the mosque hearing the announcement was utterly shocked. I stood immediately after that and left, disgusted by the hypocrisy shown by probably a prominent local Muslim figure.

The African Union (AU) had promised to send in some sort of force into Sudan but so far, nothing has happened yet. The AU said they have to delay the deployment due to logistic problem.

The Arab League offered help earlier but was refused by Sudan. Even if the Arab League was accepted by Sudan, I doubt it would do any good. The Arab League is useless because they cannot even solve their own problem and thus, there is no strong reason to see how the League would be of any help. In the end, it is only the United Nations that could help. The excessive red tape does not help however.

In the resolution, the UN gives Sudan 30 days to comply with the UN demands. I hope during those 30 days, Sudan will comply. I however do not feel Sudan will comply and if this if true, I hope those 30 days will end fast and thus, allowing tougher stances to be developed.

Categories
Economics Environment Politics & government

[388] Of DNC, John Kerry and Howard Dean

I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws

– John Kerry, July 29th 2004, Boston.

Nuff’ said.

Anyway, the Republican convention will be on August the 30th if I am not mistaken. It will be interesting to see how the GOP will react to the Democrats’ call for more positive competition instead of a cynical one.

So far, a lot of Bush’s campaign ads on the TV have been trying to discredit Kerry. Kerry has a few too but Kerry has not spent as much as Bush on negative ads.

And after four days of watching the DNC, I say Barack Obama is the best speaker.

Nevertheless, it is quite hard to see who will win the coming election.

On the other day, on the second day to be exact, Howard Dean gave his speech and he said democrats should not be ashamed of being democrats. People were confused with his words but later in an interview on PBS with Jim Lehrer, Dean explained that statement.

He said, people think Clinton got into office because Clinton was more of a centrist rather than a liberal. When he said that, then the “ah” came.

David Brooks, of who was on the show along with Mark Shields, disagreed and stressed later that Clinton won because Clinton took a sort of centrist position instead of a more liberal one.

Howard Dean is probably one of the true Democrats but I have to agree with Brooks. Clinton won because he took a centrist position.

I agree so because there is sort of case in economics that supports Clinton-was-a-centrist argument. It is something like this.

Imagine a one dimension line that represents a beach. At the same time, there are a lot of people on the beach, the sun is up there, clear sky and there are two ice-cream vendors at both end of the beach. Now, people from the right till the middle would go to the right-positioned ice-cream booth while the left-positioned will be visited by people from the left till the middle; this is based on the assumption that distance is the deciding factor on which booth should be visited and price is the same.

Now, if the right booth moved closer to the left while the left booth stayed left, the owner of the moved booth would get more customers. This is true because more people would be closer to the right booth than the left booth. If the right booth shifted straight to the middle while left stayed left, all the people on the right side would go to the right booth and half of the people on the left side of the beach would visit the right booth; the left booth would get only half of what it would have gotten if both booths had stayed at both end of the spectrum.

This is applicable to political party and certainly true in the case where there are two dominant parties. And this certainly dismisses Dean’s suggestion.

Anyway, I heard Ralph Nader has a good chance of getting into Michigan’s ballot. I would love to see Ralph Nader wins but given the situation, I will have to go with John Kerry.

Categories
Politics & government

[387] Of the Democratic National Convention in Boston

For the past two days, I have been watching the Democratic National Convention with great interest. The excitement is so much different from watching UMNO’s convention back in Malaysia.

On the first day, Bill Clinton was up. I think the thing best remembered about his yesterday speech is this:

On the other hand, the Republicans in Washington believe that America should be run by the “right” people — their people — in a world in which America acts unilaterally when we can and cooperates when we have to.

I like it when he said Republicans want America to be run by the right people – their people. And somehow, it rings true for Malaysia if the words American, Washington and and Republicans are switched to appropriate words like UMNO and such.

And:

During the Vietnam War, many young men, including the current president, the vice president and me, could have gone to Vietnam and didn’t. John Kerry came from a privileged background. He could have avoided going, too. But instead he said, “Send me.”

Al Gore was great too. He, as expected talked about the environment and I think he almost mentioned eco-terrorism.

All in all, I would say that the environment received sufficient attention.

Today, it was more about medicare.

But the spotlight, in my opinion was on Barack Obama, the one person stood up on the podium not by reputation but by charisma. He is currently a senatorial candidate for the state of Illinois.

Barack Obama is oratorically great; his speech was simply inspiring. Unlike all the other speakers so far, he was probably the only one that is not widely known unlike Bill Clinton or Al Gore. Despite that, he managed to rouse the crowd in a way Howard Dean did once. Though Howard Dean, which gave his own speech today, stirred the crowd in the crudest but effective way many months ago, Obama excited the delegates with his coolness in expressing his words.

I bet tomorrow papers are going to talk about Obama a lot. If it were up to me, I would declare Obama as the best speaker so far for the past two days.

Categories
Politics & government

[386] Of we shall build an older bridge

When the Bosnian War started in 1992, I was a kid in an elementary school. I heard about it frequently then in the mass media but I did not really understand what caused the war. All I knew was that it was an atrocity by the Serbs. Some called it genocide.

Though the Serbs were blamed, I now do not think anybody could be blamed. Despite their cruel act, they were merely defending a crumbling federation. In a way, it was a fighting for a marriage integrity. If I were in their shoe, I would probably do the same thing – a necessary evil for a greater purpose from a certain point of view.

Whatever it was called, I could not care less because I did not feel the pain back then. To mention it again, I was a kid and more, that war happened thousands of miles away. It was virtually impossible to me to hear the scream of the victims. Life was easy for me. I was only concerned about my playtime and from time to time, a few questions something like what is one plus one or a little bit worse, what is six times nine. Multiplication was a bitch back then.

Day in and day out, I grew older and I trust that it is not too much to say that I grew up. Unfortunately, the conflict in Bosnia also progressed for the worse. A few things that I remember about the conflict were cities as such Zagreb, Sarajevo, Srebrenica and Banja Luka; the main participants of the war of course, which included the Croats, the Serbs and the Bosnians; a few prominent individual like Karadzic and others; a few unbelievable events like the bombing of Belgrade by NATO and how the Russian moved in a few paratroopers as to protest NATO’s action; a few buildings like a mosque in some obscured place and the bridge in the city of Mostar. Somehow, the name Novi Sad also comes to mind but I do not remember what Novi Sad was.

There were a few other things. One is the Malaysian military deployment to the Balkans as part of a United Nations’ peacekeeping mission and a sudden in flux of Bosnian refugees into Malaysia. If my memory does not fail me, there was a Slavic named Adam or something in my life once. He stayed with my grandparents at about the same time when the conflict occured. I am not sure whether he was a Bosnian or not, or even a Slavic but he was certainly a Caucasian. And if I am correct, around the same time, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were making a hit. I wonder what happened to him now.

It was not until about four years later, peace was achieved at Dayton, Ohio thanks to the then President of the United States, Bill Clinton. That peace seems to last though a few other things continued for some times in Kosovo and in Macedonia after the peace treaty as part of a larger conflict that in the end erased Yugoslavia from the map.

When I was small, I developed a love for architecture. In fact, I once dreamed to be an architect. I love buildings and when I first saw the bridge in Mostar, the image was instantly glued to my mind. This one unique bridge crossing a river at an audacious angle; it seemed that the architect of the bridge would have an easier job if he had built a typical bridge. But what do I know?

I am neither an architect nor an engineer. But what I do know is the beauty of the bridge, importance of the bridge, the symbolism behind the marble structure.

The bridge represented unity among the Bosnians, the Croats and the Serbs. And when the bridge was destroyed by artillery shells, it appeared that the symbolic meaning of Mostar changed from unity to disunity. I do not know how the residents of Mostar felt after seeing the destruction of the bridge but if I were there, not as a kid but as me in this moment of time, I would have been torn apart into pieces. I would have been devastated.

Today, or was it yesterday, the bridge reopens after a reconstruction effort by an arm of the United Nations, UNESCO. The bridge, from pictures that I saw, is strikingly gorgeous; a white construction across a literally blue river as it had in the past. It looks peaceful despite the fact the bridge has met death once.

Once, I heard someone somewhere said, with respect to the bridge that he, they will build an older Old Bridge. Impossible to build an older bridge to say the least, but the words are discernable given the devastation of the war.

May the bridge stands older than the original Stari Most. May it stands older than you and me, and everything else that come and go.

This calls for a celebration of peace.