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Conflict & disaster Economics Liberty Politics & government

[679:448] Of negative real interest rate?

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.

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Sports This blog

[660] Of Buck the Fuckeyes

I did housekeeping for this site yesterday and I stumbled across this. A great recycling stuff.

Buck the Fuckeyes______________________________
OOOO SSSS U  U    SSSS  U  U CCCC K  K SSSS
O  O S    U  U    S     U  U C    K K  S
O  O SSSS U  U    SSSS  U  U C    KK   SSSS
O  O    S U  U       S  U  U C    K K     S
OOOO SSSS UUUU    SSSS  UUUU CCCC K  K SSSS
_______________________________Ohio State Sucks

Go Blue! Not to forget, go Sparties!

While doing some overdue proofreading and reading some oldies, unfortunately, I found some discrepancy in my numbering system. You see, I enter all these numbers manually and sometimes, I messed it up. In this instance, post number 467 currently comes up immediately after post 446. So, I need to do some minor correction and hence, the weird numbering for this post. This unusually system will continue until the problem is rectified. That means, 20 more posts and then we’ll go back to usual programming. Hooray!

Why wouldn’t I simply realign the numbers? Like I said, I did it all manually and making such correction is a pain in the neck. Or ass.

I blame all this on Ohio State. And Bush. Senior and junior. And on climate change too.

Heh, let’s see what happens if I tag Buck the Fuckeyes into Technorati.

erratum – the numbering has been corrected.

Categories
Photography Travels

[659] Of it’s a green world out there

Another photo from Malacca. This one was taken at my grandma’s place. It’s an old Malacca-style Malay house. After so many years, it’s a pity that I only began to appreciate the Malay architecture only after I returned to Malaysia from Michigan.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

The orange columns used to be less fiery and they were coated with light green. In similar way, the original photo is less striking. Reason is, I did some manipulation in Photoshop; I contrasted the colors a bit. Too much manipulation to my own “purist” liking.

And see the two huge black spaces? They aren’t the result of cropping. The lower space is a wooden beam while the upper one is actually the house ceiling. Not quite a ceiling but I can’t find the right vocab for it. In fact, if you observe closely the upper black space, you’ll see how wooden beams have been laid out to support the house.

The opening is not a hole either.

Still, the whole thing looks a bit too dark. Oh well. Buck the Fuckeyes.

p/s – went through my folder and found a sharper image for yesterday’s subject.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

I like yesterday’s orientation better though.

Categories
History & heritage Personal Photography Travels

[658] Of wildflowers by the road

I love flowers but I don’t quite go ga-ga (and wah piang! Boy, that exclamation left a deep impression on me) like girls do. Why do I like them? It’s just they’re part of green behavior kind of stuff. By they, I mean, the flowers, of course. Live flowers, not dead fresh flowers to be precise – I have a slight irritation with people that love to pick flowers. Hey, I’m a mad treehugger. What do you expect?

I paid Malacca a visit yesterday. While I was there, I noticed a few species of wildflowers which I can’t name. They grow near some bushes by some road near the town of Tampin.

I also learned that the Malaysian Prime Minister is due to visit that part of Malacca today (Alor Gajah if you’re wondering) while the Durbar is set to be held in the state later this year. There’s a better article about the Durbar at Malay Wikipedia. Maybe I’ll transwiki it later.

Back to the topic:

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

The focus is off by noticeable degree. In fact, I had no choice since my camera is unable to focus properly while the object is too close to the lense – yet, another reason why should get a new cam. The reason that I had wanted to get the object as close as possible to camera is, I wanted to fill the photo with the four clusters.

Much to my surprise, it was quite hard to manage. So, I settled with what I think the next best thing – focusing on the second nearest cluster of flowers and then fill available space with the nearest cluster.

Finally, could somebody identify the flower? Each cluster is as large as one’s thumb. My thumb anyway.

And yeah, Buck the Fuckeyes!

p/s – added a fellow Malaysian Wolverine into my blogroll. Poke her!

pp/s – Roni, one of the guys that I used to play hockey with at Michigan, writes songs!

ppp/s – Australia made it to the 2006 World Cup. What’s next? Penn State winning the Big Ten title? Wait a minute…

p4/s – Malaysia and Singapore might squabble like kids, but Mexico and Venezuela have refined the benchmark.

Categories
Humor Politics & government Society

[657] Of 10 ways for PAS to secure Pengkalan Pasir

As mentioned before, I’m placing my money on UMNO to win the December 6 Pengkalan Pasir by-election. However, here’s a list of 10 ways to force odd to favor PAS. In the list:

#10. Bribe UMNO candidate. Doubt it will work? Hey, Isa Samad hasn’t been dragged to court of law yet despite his proven corruption. Instead, he’s been merely admonished by UMNO disciplinary board and suspended for a few years. Proof that most people in UMNO, even those in the high up, doesn’t mind corruption. What about Badawi’s anti-corruption drive you say? Hell, we have – given the situation, had – a tak nak rokok campaign but the Dewan Rakyat mocks it by promising players in the cigarette industry greater reward. What? Bribery is sinful you PAS people say? I somehow remember a logging concession in Kelantan. Or was it Terengganu?

#9. Send in thugs to convince voters to pick PAS. Tell all those people, tick the moon or we’ll break your bones. Of course, no bone will break and snap. It’s all merely intimidation. Macam tak biasa pulak.

#8. Declare, or rather re-declare a fatwa that implores that a vote for PAS is a ticket to heaven and a vote for UMNO is a ticket to somewhere too hot to handle. I still sometimes wonder how the hell does this work but hey, you’ll never know what makes a rightist nut ticks.

#7. Assert that Nik Aziz is more religious than Badawi and assert that Islam PAS is Islam while Islam Hadhari is bs. (caveat emptor – if the word u-turn sounds familiar, don’t attempt this. I repeat, do not attempt this.)

#6. Invite Ibrahim Ali into PAS and let him run as PAS candidate. Ibrahim Ali dreams of a chance to screw UMNO. So, given that PAS hardcores will be voting for whoever that sucks up on PAS, Ibrahim Ali’s vote will at least bring in extra precious numbers, particularly some of former UMNO’s votes. UMNO would be furious if this happen, I tell you.

#5. Or better yet, invite Mawi into PAS and let him run as PAS candidate. With Mawi, I’m sure PAS will secure all female voters’ vote. People has been talking about the Mawi factor as an asset. Hell, a good political entity would internalize that asset. Add that with PAS wackos, UMNO will be caught with defeat and disbelief.

#4. Say Buck the Fuckeyes! Well, they might not get enough votes but if I could vote in Pengkalan Pasir, I’d goddamn vote for them if they say out loud Buck the Fuckeyes. Anybody that wanna kick Buckeyes’ nut is my friend.

#3. Actually do something with the state economy and maybe even clean up that state capital of trash a bit. Declaring the state capital as an Islamic city won’t do a jack. Given how Kota Bahru looks (I haven’t been to KB for perhaps 11 years but doubt there is any change, except the name for Pantai Cinta Berahi…), it makes people smirk at the hilarity and indirectly insult Islam.

#2. Pray to god and do nothing.

And number one is, drumroll please….

#1. Pack up and leave for Pattani. PAS won’t get Pengkalan Pasir but at least they’ll win in Pattani.

Frankly however, my skepticism for PAS and my previous statement of I-don’t-care-who-will-win notwithstanding, I hope PAS will win. A PAS win may indicate that there’s some hope for a stronger opposition in the next general election. Malaysia desperately needs more dissenting voices in the Dewan Rakyat to undo the rubberstamping trend in the Parliament.

p/s – Wow. I didn’t know a Malaysian was nominated for Nobel Prize for literature. (via)