Categories
Sports

[689] Of from seventh to fourth and on fire

Ajax won 2-0 against NAC. That’s three consecutive victories in the Eredivisie. At the same time, excessive good luck brought Ajax from the seventh place to four.

On the same day Ajax faced NAC, all Ajax’s nearest competitors ate too much grass and hence, allowing Ajax to march on. The sweetest is, of course, Feyenoord’s loss to ADO Den Haag! Seeing Feyenoord losing to a team that sticks at the bottom is even better than seeing Manchester United failing to progress beyond Champions League’s group stage.

Another much needed good news is Rosenborg. He seems to have found his form, scoring three goals in the last five matches. It might be too soon to celebrate but if Ajax has found its striker, the world will tremble.

Currently, AZ Alkmaar sits on top of the table, sharing points with second placed PSV. Feyenoord’s third and Ajax, as mentioned earlier, up in fourth.

All in all, this revival looks good. w00t!

Categories
Pop culture

[688] Of a tribute to Leo McGarry, to John Spencer

A tribute to Leo McGarry, a great character in a great TV series. A tribute to a great actor, John Spencer.

According to Wikipedia further:

During the episode The Portland Trip, it is strongly suggested by a conversation between the President and Leo that Leo attended the University of Michigan, at least for undergraduate work.

Fair Use. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:John_Spencer.jpg

You will be missed.

‘West Wing’ Actor John Spencer Dies at 58
By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer

LOS ANGELES – Actor John Spencer, who played the role of Leo McGarry in “The West Wing,” mirrored his character in several ways: Both were recovering alcoholics and both were driven.

“Like Leo, I’ve always been a workaholic, too,” he told The Associated Press in a 2000 interview. “Through good times and bad, acting has been my escape, my joy, my nourishment. The drug for me, even better than alcohol, was acting.”

Spencer died of a heart attack Friday. In a sad parallel to life, his character on the show had earlier suffered a heart attack that forced him to give up his White House job.

Spencer died after being admitted to a Los Angeles hospital during the night, said his publicist, Ron Hofmann. He would have been 59 on Tuesday.

I’ll be sacrificing my Wikipedia user page for him for a few days.

Go Blue. And God bless.

Categories
Sports

[687] Of ABTFI!

In the next round of Champions League, Ajax will be up against – guest who? Hint: Italian team. Hint 2: Familiar faces. Drumroll please – Inter f-Milan!

Goddamned f-again! For the love of everything sensible in this world, why must Ajax face Italian teams and Arsenal every time there’s a Champions League season at hand?

I’d have prefer anyone by the f-Italian. Somebody must’ve cursed Ajax over something: thy shall play the Italian (and Arsenal) forever and ever. Bah!

I don’t believe Ajax has a chance to progress further beyond the last 16 stage. All seven possible teams that Ajax could have gone up against, namely f-Juventus, Barcelona, Villareal, AC f-Milan, Inter f-Milan, Lyon and Liverpool are too huge to handle given Ajax’s current sorry state. Ajax’s currently stand at sixth in the Eredivisie, under team such as NEC and RKC. Most embarrassing. Luckily, in the last few match, Ajax’s bucking up.

Right now however, knowing that Ajax will be up against an Italian team again, Ajax must win. A Dutch win will show the crybaby in Milan how to differentiate between the beauty and the beast.

Categories
Economics Liberty

[686] Of levy on CD-R

I had wanted to blog about the Music Council of Malaysia’s call for a levy on blank CD-R earlier. For some reason however, it slipped off my mind. Thanks to an article in The Star today, it came back to me. I think, if you’ve been reading enough of my stuff, you know what I’ve to say. For those that don’t, I’m don’t share the same table with the Music Council.

The Music Council, according to an article in The Star, states that:

…it had asked for the levy because it is concerned over the loss in revenue to the music industry whenever customers make copies of music CDs (see In.Tech, Dec 8). It believes that two out of three CD-Rs sold in the country are used for copying audio-visual material.

The Recording Industry Association of Malaysia claimed that such ‘home recordings’ are a serious problem for the industry.

The nature of the issue is almost similar to protectionism. Yet, this case isn’t quite about competition because the music and CD-R aren’t very comparable. But the bottomline is, an industry is trying to make their product relatively more competitive to some other good not by increasing the quality of their good but instead by forcing the other good’s cost to go up. In the end, it’s nothing more than an interest group with protectionism in mind.

Earlier, Malaysian telcos dealers and distributors have requested the certain Malaysian authority to restrict competition because competition hurts their profit.

By saying that I disagree with the levy, I’m not saying I accept piracy. Duplicating copyrighted media without permission, as much as I hate to admit it, is plain stealing. Still, accussing everybody that uses CD-R is involved in piracy is unfair. Imposing blanket levy is even more unfair.

What the music industry needs is a stronger anti-piracy enforcement, not protectionism. In fact, I’d rather see stakeholders in the music industry to initiate legal actions against those involved in piracy, like what the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been doing against illegal file sharers for the past few years in the US. Legal actions won’t introduce market frictions, unlike levying. At least in the long term.

p/s – for the whole morning, I couldn’t access my own site. I couldn’t access a few other sites like Screenshots either.

pp/s – turned out it wasn’t just me. There was a network outage near Putrajaya yesterday. (via)

Categories
ASEAN Humor

[685] Of Malaysian imperialism… err… federalism: ASEAN

Ever wonder why an ASEAN Charter is being cooked up only 38 years after the formation of ASEAN? Ever wonder why it was Mahathir, Malaysian former prime minister, that first gave serious consideration to a formation of loose East Asian trade confederation? Ever wonder why all these are happenning only when Malaysia holds ASEAN’s chair?

There’s only one answer: it’s Malaysian imperialism gone wild!

I don’t know about you but I feel Malaysia is personally responsible in bringing Southeast Asian together. Don’t believe me?

Remember before 1963, when there was Malaya? And then suddenly, there was Malaysia. Indonesia and the Philippines protested. Indonesia went further down the road and declared hostility against Malaysia. At the same thing, there was Malphilindo – a precursor of ASEAN – that main purpose was to cool down the mercury. Malphilindo was a smokescreen to ensure Malaysian survival – nothing else. Malphilindo failed but so did Indonesian hostility against Malaysia. Then, it was ASEAN.

Scholars believe that ASEAN at first was formed to counter communist insurgency which was rampant in Vietnam. Don’t believe those scholars. They were paid by Malaysian agents to further the cause of Malaysian imperialism. ASEAN is formed primarily to guarantee Malaysia’s dominance of Southeast Asian politics.

That’s why when Singapore outdid us in economic development, we were furious and hold grunges against the people down south. We were also disappointed that Brunei turned down an offer to join the Malaysian Federation in 1963. And we funded the rebels in Mindanao when the Philippines tried to encourage separatist movement in Sabah. All these challenged Malaysian ambition.

After our failure to expand Malaysian dominance to Singapore and Brunei, we started to realize that federation is not the answer to ensure Malaysian superiority over Southeast Asia. We found three other more effective ways to expand our frontiers.

First was economic cooperation. Ever wonder the percentage of lands owned by Malaysian corporations in Indonesian Sumatra? Ever wonder why Malaysia, instead had joint-exploration agreement in the disputed areas in the Gulf of Thailand with Thailand? In spite of the gulf is actually named after Thailand? Got you thinking, didn’t I?

Second, claiming more areas and bringing them up to International Court of Justice. ICJ is a Malaysian puppet. The Americans know this and that’s why they refuse to submit to the ICJ. Remember Sipadan and the other island? Does Pulau Batu Putih ring a bell? Ever wonder why Malaysia refuses to give up Tanjung Pagar to Singapore despite the fact that it’s in Singapore? How about Ambalat? Spratly?

Third, funding of rebels. Mindanao, Aceh, southern Thailand. You think Malaysia doesn’t have a hand on it? Isn’t it a bit suspicious that all these provinces are located near Malaysian borders?

Unfortunately, the three methods take years, decade and perhaps centuries to realize Malaysian imperialism.

Hence, come the ultimate strategy, which is political and economic integration of Southeast Asia. Here is where ASEAN and the charter come into play. An ASEAN charter sets to pave a way to a more integrated Southeast Asian communitee. C’mon. Think.

Furthermore, when Myanmar gets into trouble, who is always there first? Malaysia. At the current WTO negoatiation, who represents ASEAN’s interest? Malaysia. Some others too. Despite Malaysia has merely 24 million citizens while Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines have more than 60 million people each – Indonesia has more than 200 million people! -, how on do you explain Malaysian dominance in ASEAN? How could 24 million people control half a billion people in Southeast Asia?

Malaysian hands are the invisible hands within ASEAN. In reality, ASEAN is just another name for Persekutuan Malaysia Raya – Greater Malaysian Federation. The name isn’t Greater Malaysian Federation because we don’t want to alarm those in the other member states. From the look of it, it’s working sublimely.

Previously, I had proposed ascension of Brunei, annexation of Sumatra, invitation to several troubled Malay Thai states and reintegration of Singapore into the Union. This was the situation:

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

In reality, Malaysia really is:

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

LOL! Watch out Australia!