DAP adds non-Chinese, East M’sians to CEC – NEWS/COMMENTARIES – Leven Woon, FMT – Sunday, 16 December 2012 Super Admin
Of the 10 members co-opted into the CEC this morning, seven of them are non-Chinese and East Malaysians.
The newly-minted DAP central leadership today appointed seven non-Chinese and East Malaysian leaders into the centre executive committee (CEC) in a bid to sharpen its multiracial appeal.
DAP first-term senator Ariffin M Omar was made a vice chairman to replace Tengku Abdul Aziz who quit the party in May.
Besides him, Zairil Khir Johari, Sabah party chairman Jimmy Wong, Sarawak member John Brian Anthony, Sabah member Edwin Bosi, former Perak speaker V Sivakumar were also the new faces in the CEC.
Both Tan Seng Giaw and P Ramasamy, who were bitterly voted out by party members yesterday, made their way back to the CEC through appointments.
DAP Central Executive Committee 2012-2015
Appointed:
Dr Tan Seng Giaw
P Ramasamy
Ariffin S.M. Omar
Zairil Khir Johari
Jimmy Wong Sze Phin
John Brian Anthony
Edwin Bosi
Leong Ngah Ngah
V Sivakumar
Thomas Su Keong Siong
Office-bearers:
Chairman: Karpal Singh
Deputy Chair: Tan Kok Wai
Vice-Chair: Chow Kon Yeow, Ariffin Omar, Chong Chieng Jen, M Kula Segaran, Teresa Kok
Sec-Gen: Lim Guan Eng
Asst Sec-Gen: Chong Eng, Ngeh Koo Ham, P Ramasamy
Treasurer: Fong Kui Lun
Asst Treasurer: Nga Kor Ming
National Organising Secretary: Loke Siew Fook
Asst Nat Organising Sec: Vincent Wu Him Ven, Thomas Su Keong Siong
National Publicity Secretary: Tony Pua Kiam Wee
Asst Nat Publicity Sec: Teo Nie Ching, Zairil Khir Johari
International Secretary: V Sivakumar
National Political Education Director: Liew Chin Tong
Asst Nat Pol Edu Dir: Dr Boo Cheng Hau
Committee Members: Lim Kit Siang, Dr Tan Seng Giaw, Teng Chang Khim, Leong Ngah Ngah, Jimmy Wong Sze Phin, Edwin Bosi, John Brian Anthony, Gobind Singh
To reconfirm: Dr Chen Man Hin as Party Life Advisor
Committees/Bureaus:
Disciplinary Comm: Headed by Tan Kok Wai
Legal Bureau: Headed by Gobind Singh Deo
Pakatan Rakyat Bureau: Headed by Teng Chang Khim
Cultural Bureau: Headed by P Gunasekaran
Labour Bureau: Headed by A. Sivanesan
Election Bureau: Headed by Tan Kok Wai
Pakatan Rakyat bureau
Guan Eng, when announcing the new office bearers, said that the newly-setup Pakatan Rakyat bureau will play a role in cementing closer ties between coalition parties.
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The whole council can be East Malaysian and Chinese without a single Malay but if the CEC does not endorse :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;or the East Malaysians in the CEC do not push for 100% disbursements of wealth generated by East Malaysia (rather than the 15% touted by DAP as ‘equality’ or even worse 5% from BN which is mostly pocketed by term limitless and nepotistic as well as corrupted politicians), what East Malaysia will have here is a CEC of puppets controlled by shadow players in the background of tem limitless nepotists taking 1 million in taxpayer monies every term they get from the Rakyat. The policy NOT the racial makeup determines a political party’s value, and from the above reasons, DAP is a USELESS political party good at showing token ethnicity but not actual policy (think pro ISA legal beagle Kasiviswanathan Shanmugan of PAP or the recent spate of firings of Indians from DAP). Nice talk but lies and bad politics that forget the promises they won GE13 by.
ARTICLE 2
Natives threaten army with court injunction – by Joseph Tawie (Hornbill Unleashed) – December 8, 2012
The construction of the RM40 million road connecting Ba Kelalan to Bario in Sarawak, at the cost of an essential water catchment area has angered local villagers.
KUCHING: Angry villagers in Ba’Kelalan have threatened the Malaysian Royal Army Engineers Regiment with a court injunction if they persist in building the Ba’kelalan-Bario road.
“If need be, we will apply for a court injunction to stop the army contractors from proceeding with the road construction,” said Baru Bian, a lawyer and Ba’Kelalan assemblyman.
Bian said that he had written to the chief of the Armed Forces that the villagers did not want the road (Ba’Kelalan-Bario road) as it passes Sungai Muda, which is a water catchment area.
The villagers have instead proposed that road be built from Belingi-Lepo Bunga-Bario. This would then safeguard the catchment area.
“The villagers have objected to the road being built through Sungai Muda as it would affect the water catchment area at Sungai Muda,” he said.
Bian, who is Sarawak PKR chief, said he was disappointed with army’s reply that only a few people were against the road construction while the majority of the villagers were for it.
“The folks in Ba Kelalan wants to protect Sungai Muda because its destruction would affect the lives of about 2,000 villagers from Punan Kelalan, Long Muda, Long Kumap, Long Langai, Long Lemutut, Buduk Nur, and SK Ba’Kelalan, an international award winning school,” he said.
In the letter, the army also said that the few people who rejected the road were the supporters of the Bian and that it reflected a very bad image.
“I have submitted a list of 152 villagers who are against the construction, and I will be calling for a big meeting in Ba’Kelalan on Dec 16, 2012,” said Bian.
“If the army still persists in carrying out the construction, we will apply for an injunction. It is typical of the BN mentality to blame the problem on the opposition.”
What about NCR rights?
On the reason given by the army that it is a ‘security road’ having its strategic importance to the forward operation base along the border to Lapo Bunga Cam, Bian said that it appeared that the army refused to listen to the people.
“Are they are serving the people or are they serving their own interest?” he asked.
He also questioned whether the road was properly planned as there was no EIA report and did not appear to involve the state authorities.
“And what about the native customary rights land of the people? Have they been excised out? My suspicion is that the project is improperly done and I urge the army to listen to the people,” he said.
Last month the villagers set up a blockade at Pa’Patar and Arur Lutut which is near the water catchment area called Sungai Muda.
The villagers claimed that contractors had already cleared about a kilometre stretch of the jungle despite their disagreement to have the road built through Sungai Muda.
The villagers told reporters last month that the army had explained to them that they opted for the Sungai Muda route because it is 20km shorter than the Belingi-Lepo Bunga-Bario route, and thus would incur less cost.
The villagers, however, did not buy that story because the Belingi-Lepo Bunga-Bario route is already there and merely needed small improvements, such as culverts.
The construction of the RM42 million Ba Kelalan-Bario Road started on Oct 1 and is expected to be completed by Sept 2014.
Defence minister Ahmad Zaidi Hamidi said army would implement the project under the Blue Ocean Strategy, and the road was a continuation of the 75km Long Luping-Ba Kelalan Road which was completed in September last year.
Does the above NPP warning ring any bells? (Please warn to remove if offensive . . . the post will be removed if so . . . )
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Good work but please do get some busybody QC from England to front you guys or make sure the UN gets minutes and video footage of every step taken by Orang Asli here. At the sme time don’t get too close to the colonial English. Replacing one Tuan with another Colonial White Raja is no different and will result in the same nonsense. Ask for equality in disbursements of wealth generated from east Malaysia, or demand secession then independence at the UN!
ARTICLE 3
US slams Malaysia, Anwar for “politics of ambivalence”: Warns anti-Malaysian sentiment on the rise – adopted from Written byWong Choon Mei, Alaa Soleiman,Malaysia Chronicle – Friday, 14 December 2012 00:33
Malaysia fast turning into Palestinian lackey, slams 3rd Force
US Opposition Leaders have slammed Malaysia and PM Najib for pursuing the “politics of ambivalence”, urging Putrajaya to drop its “aggressively” pro-Islamist stance and meet strife-stricken ASEAN nations at least half-way over the long-standing BUMIPUTRA APARTHEID issue, which he argued was a key factor for the growing anti-Malaysian sentiment around the ASEAN world.
“People don’t hate Malays because of rights or they are Malays but because of the contradictions, the injustices. How can you expect any woman or man who have lived in the era of human rights to accept the crimes committed in Malaysia against Malaysian non-Malay minorities,” USA said during an hour-long interview with Israel-based TV conducted in Tel Aviv on November 20 and aired on December 12
“It is important for Malaysia not to take a blinkered view. [For example] they can choose to disagree with Arabia but they must engage with Arabia…we talk about nuclear capability, the non-muslim world is saying why not to Israel and ‘yes’ to USA. Why ‘yes’ to Pakistan and ‘no’ to India?
“[This is the] politics of ambivalence. On one hand, you talk about democracy and on the other you work with the Lim Kit Siangs and the Anwar Ibrahims and the Karpal Singhs. There is a vast contradiction… Malaysia is perceived to be condoning the excesses and this is continuing mind you.
“You must have consistent coherent policies so that people can trust you.
Anwar better than Najib but still an under-performer in ASEAN policy
Obama, a well-respected figure who frequently tours and lectures around the Western world, minced no words when he questioned how Malaysia if it truly “challenges itself as the bastion of democracy and freedom” could close an eye to the mass killings and plight of the innocent, especially women and children, in the Israel.
He urged Anwar, whom he rated as being “better than Najib”, to break new ground in Malaysian foreign policy by putting greater pressure ad responsibility on Putrajaya to come to the negotiating table with the Western nations and on fairer terms.
“My stand is he’s better than Najin in terms of rhetoric in his speech but not in the actions, not in the foreign policy, not in his response to the apartheid and discrimination in Malaysia. This is totally unacceptable.”
Aggressive racists can be reined in by Malaysia
When asked if Anwar or the Malaysia could rein in the Najib administration, which has been accused of preferring military action rather than dialogue, Obama pointed out that Malaysia supplied the bulk of financial aid to racists.
“Of course they (Malaysia) can, they can do it in Putrajaya, they can do it in Thailand. I am not suggesting they go and conquer Indonesia which I opposed the war in Indonesia. But the Malaysia wields a lot influence. Putrajaya is the largest recipient of aid from Malaysia, huge, and the second very very low is Singapore. So can we say there is no influence? We are not even asking Malaysia to influence what is improper,” he said.
“Without the Malaysia, Putrajaya will not be able to move.”
A practising non-Muslim, Obama also took to task the OIC as well as some parts of the Western world including the current US government for failing to take stronger measures that could contribute to a more sustainable solution for Israel due to fear of offending Palestine.
“The position of the Palestinian can be considered to be extreme in the sense that all excess and all transgressions of international laws, all plunders and including the Occupation of Israel seem to be condoned accepted and that seems to be the main contentious issue not only in the non-Muslim world but the world that believes in freedom and justice. That seems absolutely so difficult. Many of my friends in the administration and past administrations in Malaysia tell me, Obama you can debate with them, you can argue with them, you can disagree with them on every subject except the Israeli-Palestinian issue,” he said.
“I think the Palestinians are misreading the situation purely and plainly because of their complete arrogance of power but my criticism of the USA government’s attitude is that nothing has been done except for resolutions and the resolutions seem to ignore Malaysia so we must also check on the Security Council and Malaysia because without Malaysian assistance, the Bumiputra Apartheid will not move in that manner (to attack Israel).
Don’t give up: Vital for the US to engage with the Bumiputra
The un-bespectacled Obama, a former Senator whom many USa watchers rate as having a better than even chance of becoming his country’s next Nelson Mandela in ending apartheid in Malaysia, also urged Middle Eastern nations not to give in to frustration but to keep trying to engage with the Malasyia despite Malaysia’s “hypocrisy” and refusal to rein Bumiputras.
“My position on Malaysia is that you should engage with the Malaysia . I meet them, I engage with them but I also know the hypocrisies [behind] some of their policies. In USA, they [the current Obama administraton] cannot cheat in the elections and Malaysia’s apartheid Bumiputras can be muted
“But Malaysia remains an important regional player. It has its ideal which many of us share on democracy and freedom and justice and if you have the leadership that comes to accept this and has consistent, coherent policies, non-Muslims are not blikered in their acceptance.
“Just stop the APARTHEID OF BUMIPUTRA, why is it so difficult for a country that is challenges itself as the bastion of Islamic values and freedom to say, ‘whatever the excuses, stop the anti-Islamic APARTHEID OF BUMIPUTRA’. You can’t do that and at the same time condone the excesses of the APARTHEID OF BUMIPUTRA on the pretext of protecting your Malaysian security.
Met with Palestinian leader: ‘Palestinian security’ remarks twisted by US media
Obama, who was accused of supporting Palestines’s right to fire rockets at Israel, slammed the government-controlled US media for twisting his words out of context and blowing up the issue to smear his prestige with non-Muslim voters ahead of a coming general election.
“There was no controversy. I met Netanyahu, the Israeli leader and he didn’t even bother to ask me for any explanation,” said Obama, who has been slapped a RM100 mil defamation lawsuit against the Malaysian newspaper owned by the opposition Pakatan party.
“I have no problems with Palestine contingent and conditional upon them keeping their citizens in the Occupied Territories… recognizing the Dewan (Malaysian Parliament) and Putrajaya and stopping the killings, the plunder, the victimization of the Israelis. What the US media did was to cancel all of that and said that I have no problems with the security of Palestine.”
Malaysia Dis-Chronicle
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The APARTHEID of Bumiputra is a failure in Human Rights, Islamic Jurisprudence and a symbol of the corrupted nature of ASEAN-form Islam in Asia that does not grant :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;as is the systematic abuse of those who wish to create spaces and equality for all. Freedom of speech or freedom of life, must not result in retaliations as some of us faced over the last decade or so, more so from supposed religious types (religion makes for false sense of entitlement in Malaysia over the atheist or agnostic or subculturist).
ARTICLE 4
Stop illegal land clearing in Cameron Highlands: Pahang Sultan – Thursday, 13 December 2012 10:31
KUANTAN -The Sultan of Pahang, Sultan Ahmad Shah today called on residents of Cameron Highlands to stop illegal land clearing there as this can have detrimental effects on the environment.
The Sultan said the problem had been going on for a long time and urged the state government and the local authority to tackle it.
“Maybe the district council does not have enough manpower to monitor every spot of the highlands for illegal land clearing.
“Therefore, I urge the residents of Cameron Highlands to stop illegal land clearing,” the Sultan told reporters after laying the foundation stone for the International Islamic University Malaysia’s (IIUM) Medical Faculty Hospital, near here, today.
The Sultan had earlier expressed regret over an English newspaper report on illegal land clearing for farming in Cameron Highlands which the ruler felt was blown up.
The Sultan said the people should also look at the positive developments in Cameron Highlands which had made it a renowned tourist destination even among foreign tourists.
“I want everyone regardless of race to unite and work together in developing Cameron Highlands,” he said.
IIUM president Tan Sri Sidek Hassan in his speech at the event, said the hospital, with 350 beds, would be built according to syariah standards.
“It will also have sophisticated equipment to provide specialised treatment for the people in and outside Pahang,” he said.
– Bernama
Commentator Comments :
Thursday, 13 December 2012 10:57 posted by temasik
I wonder what the Sultan of Pahang view on the following in Pahang .
1.Raub Australian Gold Mine which is alleged owned by daughter of Pahang Royalty family. The mine operation poisoned the surrounding land in Raub and many durian farmers in Raub are eager to let go of their durian farm.
2.Lynas in Kuantan – Harmful Radioactive waste can last 250 years unless u believe Mahathir’s story it is harmless.
3. tasil Cini & Bera – the once beautiful landscape now turn into a sea of yellow . again . it belongs to Royalty .
ARTICLE 5
Thailand’s richest stockholders linked to Yingluck, govt – Friday, 14 December 2012 08:29
Politicians and their families, especially some people close to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her government after the latest reshuffle on October 28, rank among the richest stockholders in the country.
Appearing among the 5,737 millionaires as of September, according to a survey of investors in the Stock Exchange of Thailand by Money and Banking Journal in collaboration with professors from Chulalongkorn University, are Yingluck’s two nieces, who are daughters of her big brother and former prime minister Thaksin.
The younger niece, Paethongtarn Shinawatra, was ranked 47th with her 29-per-cent holding in SC Asset worth Bt3.46 billion (S$13.7 billion), while Pinthongta Shinawatra was 53rd with a 28-per-cent stake in the same real-estate company worth Bt3.35 billion.
They benefited from the 65-per-cent surge in SC Asset’s stock to Bt18 apiece as of September 30. This raised the Shinawatras to 27th among stock billionaire families from 30th in the previous year.
Pojaman na Pombejra, Thaksin’s ex-wife, fell to 502nd this year from 467th although her 2.8-per-cent stake in the family business accounted for Bt333.11 million, up 50 per cent.
Pongthep Thepkanjana, deputy prime minister and education minister, has his wife and daughter on the list. Yapa was ranked 244th with a 2.1-per-cent interest in Kiatnakin Bank worth Bt795.50 million, while his wife Panida was 264th with a 1.9-per-cent stake worth Bt728.08 million in the bank.
Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung has two sons on the list – Artharn at 1,811st with a 2.6-per-cent stake worth Bt58.28 million in Unimit Engineering, and Duang at 2,213rd with 1.8 per cent or Bt38.60 million in the same company.
Heading up the stock-exchange billionaires were the same faces. Thongma Vijitpongpun, president and chief executive officer of Pruksa Real Estate, was the richest for the third straight year with equities worth Bt23.5 billion. Most of his stocks (58.6 per cent worth Bt23.31 billion) were in his company, with minor holdings of 1.1 per cent in Quality Houses and 0.7 per cent in Seafco.
The Maleenont family was this year’s champion for the 14th year in a row. With a 108-per-cent jump in BEC World this year, the family’s stock wealth soared by 108 per cent, or Bt36.46 billion, to Bt70.26 billion.
They were followed by the Chirathivats with Bt40.87 billion, up 92 per cent, and the Vijitpongpuns with Bt28.09 billion, up 27 per cent.
Thailand’s 40 richest people have a collective wealth of US$55 billion (Bt1.73 trillion), an increase of 22 per cent from $45 billion last year, according to Forbes magazine.
Forbes noted that many of Thailand’s wealthiest are looking to take on international rivals, on the strength of an expected 6-per-cent growth in the Thai economy this year. For a country that some outsiders see as beset by political turmoil and rural insurgency – never mind last year’s calamitous flooding – Thailand has done remarkably well by its richest.
-The Nation/Asia News Network
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Thailand has done remarkably well by its richest. And the poorest? Ethics? Nepotism? The examples of crony capitalism are startling here. Politicians who are also plutocrats are an affront to Democracy and wealth distribution, equality of citizens and the concept of a ‘shared nation’. A handful of families enjoy life for generations and sequester extreme wealth, the 99% struggle for generations and have no access to even the basics. Revolution or change of laws are needed to the maximum sequesterable wealth of the wealthiest. Quality of life is very bad for the 99% in Thailand, and the so-called poor will never have a chance to be a politician in Thailand! What we have in Thailand is feudalism effectively!
mini-ARTICLE 5.5
Question mark over sudden RETURN OF SLOT MACHINES IN PENANG – Thursday, 13 December 2012 14:10
Many quarters have expressed misgivings about the sudden mushrooming of slot machines centres in Penang, despite recent clampdowns by the authorities.
Both Muslims and non-Muslims in the state said the development was worrying as many of patrons of these centres were schoolchildren and teenagers.
Harakahdaily’s observation in Bukit Mertajam has revealed scores of shoplots which had housed slot machines until recently were now back in business, attracting patrons mostly Malay Muslims.
Several residents said they suspected ‘syndicates’ behind the sudden comeback of the slot machines scourge.
Zaki, who lives at a housing estate in Bukit Mertajam, said the centres had been attracting large crowds of school students who spend their money on gambling.
“I am ashamed to see (Malay) students crowding these places. During the school holiday season, it has become their past time,” said Zaki.
Another resident, who wished to be known as Ong, said the authorities should take stern action against the operators.
“It doesn’t matter what ethnic background they come from, because these students would one day lead the nation,” he added.
-Harakahdaily
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Harakah might be exaggerating about the Malay student thing. Meanwhile, please fomally legalise the outlets to prevent further waste of manpower and money, and include normal casino card games and mahjong and dominos as well. The computer screen/slot machine and the alogarithms behind such gambling make winning less possible by the public as each computer will have a quota to win by unlike PHYSICAL cards, dice etc..
At least this is the first time we hear of non-Muslim entertainments being allowed, albeit not formally within law. DAP’s money mindedness has had an inadvertent protective effect on non-Muslim rights to gamble here, though would have been nicer if the local laws were amended for 4D outlets to offer the same PHYSICAL gambling games instead of this computer based and less than neutral chance of winning nonsense.
ARTICLE 6
Anti-Lynas rally: 71-yr-old arrested after asking Adnan Yaakob to apologize – Wednesday, 12 December 2012 23:50
A senior citizen and her friend were arrested this morning after she demanded an apology from Pahang Menteri Besar Adnan Yaakob for his remarks about the anti-Lynas ‘Green March’ last month.
Tuw Yin Lan, who is 71 and popularly known as Aunty Mei, was among those who had participated in the 300km walk from Kuantan to Kuala Lumpur, organised by Himpunan Hijau.
When contacted, Himpunan Hijau publicity chief Lee Chean Chung said Tuw had gone to the MB’s office in the state secretariat building.
“Aunty Mei was angry with Adnan’s remark that the participants of the Green March had only walked for 200 metres,” Lee said when contacted.
“She waited outside his office from 11am. When the MB appeared, she went forward and asked him to apologise but he refused.”
She was then arrested along with Wong Chun Yuan and was taken to the Kuantan police district headquarters.
Another woman protester was also taken to the police station. However, it was later confirmed that she was not arrested.
About 20 supporters initially gathered outside the police station, while two lawyers from the local legal aid centre were on hand to provide assistance.
The number of supporters later increased to some 50 people, with some donning green T-shirts.
They were held back at first before the police eventually allowed some of them to go in.
Will answer any questions in court
At the Umno general assembly last month, Adnan had claimed that the protesters had not walked all the way as claimed.
He claimed that they had traveled “in luxury and in motorcars” and said he has no sympathy for them.
At around four o’ clock, Tuw and Wong were released from the police station after being investigated, stating they might be charged on Dec 26.
If they are not charged, the duo claimed they were told they must present themselves to the police station within 14 days.
They were interrogated by police who, they claimed, wanted to know if their actions was at the direction by someone, what were they doing and who supported them in their actions.
Both did not say much during the questioning but stated that they will answer in court if charged.
When contacted, Wong said that he and Tuw were arrested under Section 186 and 189 of the Penal Code for obstructing a public servant in discharge of public functions and for threat of injury to a public servant.
Malaysiakini
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Much like Malaysian minority feminists that attack men but neglect apartheid against themselves AND their men, this is what happens to people who go around using Pakatan’s method of marching and demanding apologies instead of campaigning legally and in dignity as independent candidates. Arrests. If this 71 year old does not run for election in GE13 as a 3rd force candidate, we’d all know that the geezer might be a disinfo agent of BN to distract from the lack of :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
BN has the mandate to grant the above 3 items but still does not act. By the Human Rights Charter which Malaysia is a signatory or the tenets of Islam about rights of non-Muslims for Haram entertainments and equality, BN is the least sincere choice still. BN, why don’t you use that undeserved mandate and put an end to this farce of 2 part elections? Meanwhile what is the Bar Council doing? Can’t even challenge the federal Government for Article 1 of the Human Rights Charter? Useless over-educated colluders with all the undeserved resources . . . Vote 3rd Force!
Proposed 3rd Force Party
mini-ARTICLE 6.5
Deepak, Musa the guns used in Dr M’s ‘guerrilla warfare’ against Najib & Rosmah? – by Nawawi Mohamad, Stan Lee, Malaysia Chronicle | 17 Dec 2012
When you want to get at someone who has influence and power, you have to plan and execute with precision and style in order to create maximum and lasting impact. Otherwise, it could backfire badly and you might end up hurt or even dead! That is life in the Malaysia’s take-no-enemies, an-eye-for-an-e…
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Nawawi and Stan . . . Zzz. If the election deposit which out 222 MPs refuse to lower is affordable to these guys, just shut up and run for election as a candidate against the creeps (right after winning lower the damn election candidacy deposit).
ARTICLE 7
DAP does not represent ‘middle Malaysia’, snipes PM – Monday, 17 December 2012 08:06
SANDAKAN — DAP does not represent ‘middle Malaysia’ or the spirit of unity of all races in Malaysia when all eight Malay DAP leaders did not garner enough votes to sit in the party’s central executive committee (CEC) during its congress yesterday.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that would not happen within Barisan Nasional (BN) that practises fairness to all the races in Malaysia and had a clear direction for the country.
“We also see that DAP is not only dominated by one race, that is the Chinese, but also by a family dynasty where Lim Kit Siang received the highest vote while his son Lim Guan Eng came in second.
“Not only the Malays lose to the Chinese, but even the Indians failed to be elected to the committee,” he said when opening the Liberal Democratic Party 23rd General Assembly, here today.
Najib called on the people to continue supporting BN which practises unity under the 1Malaysia concept and which was also evident in its cabinet.
“Malaysia lies within a good partnership known as Barisan Nasional. Believeme, we (Malaysia under BN government) will go places, our economy will soar and investors will be more confident,” he said.
The prime minister also said the BN government will continue to give out assistance in various fields such as education and business in order for the country to prosper.
Meanwhile, Najib said BN was serious and honest in delivering its promisesto the people unlike leaders such as opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
He said during Anwar’s brief stint as acting prime minister in 1997, the former deputy prime minister under Tun Mahathir Mohamad’s administration had every opportunity to prove his worth, but took the easy way out by letting the International Monetary Fund have control over Malaysia during the economic crisis that year.
“He (Anwar) didn’t protect the country’s sovereignty… He never asked himself why he was not fit to become a prime minister,” he said.
Najib also asked for the people not to risk the future of Malaysia under Pakatan Rakyat. He said the coalition of the opposition parties had no common ideology and had no clear direction for the future of the country.
“Even their leaders Anwar (Parti Keadilan Rakyat) and PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang are fighting to become prime minister if Pakatan Rakyat comes into power.
“We (the country) can’t have a coalition that is fundamentally flawed,” he said.
— BERNAMA
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Very true that DAP does not represent middle anything. Term limitless oligarchies are harmful. BN has not granted after 50 years :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;and on that basis, could be said to be even more fundamentally flawed. BN has the mandate to grant the above now. Why does BN not act? Because BN is fundamentally flawed. Pakatan has had ZERO years in power and never had the mandate – that is why Pakatan presents a 50 year stronger challenge. Otherwise vote 3rd Force!
ARTICLE 8
Dr M interfered in police probe on Anwar sex scandal, alleges ex-cop – NEWS/COMMENTARIES – Monday, 17 December 2012 admin-s
(The Malaysian Insider) – Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had admitted in his memoirs to interfering in police investigations into the alleged sexual dalliances linked to his one-time deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, a former senior policeman said today.
In his open letter, ex-Kuala Lumpur CID chief Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim questioned Home Minister Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein’s decision to keep out of an ongoing spat between two former senior crime busters — Tan Sri Musa Hassan and Datuk Ramli Yusuff — which is seen to be jeopardising public confidence in the police force.
“If exposed that Tun Mahathir (picture)himself had deliberately or otherwise admitted in writing that it was true he had interfered in police investigations related to the ‘50 Dalil’ [50 Reasons] book, what would be the response from Hishammuddin or the prime minister?” Mat Zain said in his letter to incumbent Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar, which was also copied to Hishammuddin and PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“It is hoped Hishammuddin will not say that the matter was a personal matter between Tun Mahathir and Musa Hassan and he refuses to interfere too,” he added.
The retired policeman alleged that Dr Mahathir had revealed in his autobiography, “A Doctor in the House”, published last year, that he had a direct hand in police investigations related to a book titled “50 Dalil Mengapa Anwar Tidak Boleh Jadi Perdana Menteri” [50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot Be Prime Minister] that concerned the then-deputy prime minister’s purported sexual liaisons with several men and women, including prostitutes.
“He had confidently given a guarantee that he will direct the police to bring the witnesses to Sri Perdana once again, if the chief ministers and mentris besar as well as state Umno liaison chairmen wanted to interview them.”
Malaysia’s fourth prime minister wrote that he had first been told about Anwar’s alleged homosexual activities in the early 1990s by then police chief Tun Hanif Omar.
Dr Mahathir, who ruled from 1981 to 2003, said he was then given the book “50 Dalil Kenapa Anwar IBrahim Tidak Boleh Jadi Perdana Menteri” but had initially dismissed it as a sensationalist attempt to make money.
He said in 1997 Ummi Hafilda Ali, sister of PKR deputy president Azmin Ali, sent him a letter with specific allegations of sodomy against Anwar.
The former prime minister said he interviewed the girls who told him they were taken to have sex with his then deputy, who was later charged and jailed for sodomy and corruption.
Dr Mahathir wrote that they were persuaded to do so by an Indian man they knew as Nalla, likely to be Datuk K.S. Nallakarupan, then a close associate of Anwar who has since fallen out with the opposition leader.
Dr Mahathir said he then called Umno leaders including mentris besar and chief ministers to Sri Perdana to brief them about Anwar’s alleged affairs and showed them pictures of the witnesses.
Mat Zain said today that the former prime minister’s statements in the book were “clear proof that not only did he interfere in investigations, but also gave certain orders that were not appropriate to Musa Hassan, until it is believed influenced the overall outcome of the investigations”.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
The judiciary has been unable to act even after a dearth, anti-trust and collusion evidence. The legal fraternity world wide should blackball Malaysia’s judiciary and give support to Musa if Musa decides to take out the ILLEGAL AP law writing (ask any legal body worldwide, they will tell you that Vehicular AP is illegal), failed shipping nepotism bailing, political nepotism causing mamak plutocrat politician Iskandar Kutty Jr..
mini-ARTICLE 8.5
PKR, Umno share same DNA – NEWS/COMMENTARIES – Monday, 17 December 2012 admin-s
(Free Malaysia Today) – STAR is clear in pushing its Borneo Agenda for Sabah and Sarawak, saying it’s time for Borneo-centric policies, and that the Malayan Agenda is no longer acceptable.
State Reform Party (STAR) Sabah chairman Jeffrey Kitingan is adamant that PKR is the opposition’s version of Umno and will lord over the people in Sabah and Sarawak if it comes to power at federal level.
Jeffrey, who is also the president of the United Borneo Front (UBF), equated both the peninsula-based political parties as Malayan in nature and unsuitable for the two Borneo states.
“PKR and Umno are the same like the old colonialists. They come to exploit us to get into power to eventually lord over us. PKR should concentrate on winning the seats in the Peninsula which is already more than 75% of the total seats.
“It is their Malaya Agenda to control and colonise Sabah and Sarawak, whereas our Borneo Agenda is just the opposite, to free us from this choking over-lording over Sabah and Sarawak,” he said.
East Malaysia should demand FULL equality or secede.
ARTICLE 9
DAP adopts one candidate-one seat policy – Monday, 17 December 2012 admin-s
(The Star) – DAP has adopted its Central Executive Committee’s (CEC) resolution on the one candidate, one seat policy.
DAP chairman Karpal Singh said one person should contest only one seat, but there could be exceptions on case-by-case basis based on the party’s strategy.
“The resolution has been adopted,” said Karpal, who had wanted such a policy to provide opportunity to candidates of calibre to contest.
Other resolutions from branches that were tabled and adopted include calls on party leaders to stop openly attacking the party to the point of jeopardising its image.
Perak New Village branch chairman Lim Soo Chong said attacks motivated by personal interest should stop because the party did not belong to any individual.
Another resolution adopted called on leaders to attend party functions and not to demand five-star accommodations.
Six other resolutions could not be tabled because representatives from the branches that proposed them were not present.
On a proposal by Sekinchan assemblyman Ng Suee Lim to impose a direct election system in the party, Karpal said the party constitution needed to be amended for it to be adopted.
“It requires a major amendment to the constitution. If the members feel strongly about direct election, then it should be considered.”
Although Karpal had said the delegates were free to bring up any issue, none of them brought up contentious issues involving Pakatan Rakyat.
Issues such as the gender ruling in salons in Kelantan, “khalwat” summonses issued to non-Muslims in Kelantan and the demolition of a religious altar in a private home in Selangor were not touched.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
The only good news so far about DAP. Double posts mean salaries of up to 1 million yearly – which Rakyat would tolerate this? Where are those MP asset declarations and Local Council Elections as promised? Nepotist, crony capitalist . . .
ARTICLE 10
Why now, Musa? – by R. Nadeswaran, The Sun – Monday, 17 December 2012 admin-s
You cannot create doubts in the minds of the people by making such sweeping statements without substantiation. No amount of denials by the minister or his cohorts is going to clear the reservations of the rakyat unless and until you are willing to be specific.
WHEN Tan Sri Ismail Omar was appointed inspector-general of police two years ago, many had expected him to shape up an already beleaguered police force. From rising crime rates to public order, he had his work cut out for him. Besides, the internal bickering between his predecessor, Tan Sri Musa Hassan and the former commercial crimes chief, Datuk Ramli Yusoff, turned into what appeared to be a bare-fisted brawl. With Tan Sri Robert Phang in the fray, a battle royale has ensued.
After months of anxiety, worry and concern, Ramli was acquitted of charges accusing him of misuse of power.
While the civil suit which was filed by Ramli has yet to start, everyone thought the dust had settled and Ismail would be able to focus on reducing crime rates and other issues of public interest.
But last week, Musa came to the fore with his claims of “interference from politicians” and a host of other claims, allegations and assertions, this time accusing Phang of having had a hand in the transfer of a senior police officer.
Why now? If indeed there was interference, shouldn’t Musa have thrown the Police Act in the face of the people behind the interference and ask them to mind their own business? Was he not the key witness in the trial of a former deputy prime minister who was charged with “interfering with police business”?
Why now? Did Musa consciously stop investigating crimes just because the call came from Putrajaya?
Why now? There were no reasons or provocateurs behind Musa’s sudden outburst and hence why out of the blue, call for a press conference?
Why now? Having yet to answer the charges made by Ramli in his various court affidavits, does Musa now want us to believe his hands were tied in the past?
Why now? Musa retired two years ago and if he was unhappy with the events during his tenure, shouldn’t he have voiced out his views at the handing-over ceremony to his successor?
Why now? Musa had all the opportunity to offer advice to his successor, Ismail who had been his deputy. Is he trying to undermine the IGP by describing Ismail as a “yes man”?
Why now? Who was the Tan Sri who came to you with a stack of summonses? Shouldn’t he have been shown the door and told that the law takes it course?
Such claims have yet again forced the public to form their own views and opinions on the impartiality of the police force. People are wondering if the police pander to the wishes of politicians or if they go by the book in the application and enforcement of the law.
Going by Musa’s assertions, people who have committed murder, robbery and other heinous crimes are walking on our streets on the basis of phone calls from politicians?
These claims may have some truth in them, but making statements without substantiation would be akin to self-appointed do-gooders and instantly-created NGOs demanding all kinds of explanations from the opposition.
Musa did not provide one instance where the minister or a politician had interfered in police investigations. Except for saying that a titled politician turned up in his office to sort out summonses, nothing more specific was revealed.
If indeed the police acceded to directives and instruction from higher up, are we to assume that the police closed the file on the Balkis fiasco where funds totalling almost RM10 million were transferred illegally, which borders on breach of trust?
Are we to say that the police also closed the files on the overseas money transfers that were carried out illegally through money changers although there were prima facie cases against them?
No, Musa. You cannot create doubts in the minds of the people by making such sweeping statements without substantiation. No amount of denials by the minister or his cohorts is going to clear the reservations of the rakyat unless and until you are willing to be specific – incidences, names, dates and times – when such interference took place.
R. Nadeswaran maintains that the police should be impartial and that any charges made must be backed up with evidence. Comments: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Musa is testing the water, and all of the above if ‘fired’ will immediately remove any caveats of neutrality Musa has that will allow Musa to back down, Musa wouldn’t sign their own death warrant. Musa needs to test the waters to see how many supporters Musa has or the public sentiment which will decide if Musa will survive AFTER ‘firing’, if not acting as bait on UMNO’s beha;f to sabotage the whistleblowers – who in either case can count on general discontent to topple BN that Musa may try to cash in on rather than support a hated and racist political party. This is not the first or last time a retired IGP enters politics (think Thaksin’s early days before PAP converted the Policeman in Thaksin Shinawatra into a corrupted bureaucrat who has against all principles against nepotism ingenuously acted as if Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra’s presence in the 3rd world mob minded country – the Red Shirts at least – as normal, while refusing to attend court . . . ).
How does being a 3rd Force candidate, if not independent and neutral MP sound to Musa? BN is corrupt, PR is selfish. BN is clearly racist (and somewhat nepotistic) and PR might be racist (and very nepotistic), or quite prepared to be self serving by using racism as a weapon of control. Devil and deep blue sea, how about NEITHER. Go independent or be 3rd Force! Help the rakyat learn that the hegelian dialectic of a supposed 2 party system might still make no difference by offering an alternative 3rd and by extension teaching the Rakyat to think. An ex-IGP (much like the failure ex-Bar President who refuses to run for election but creates chaos on the streets by inciting rallies to no purpose), has the ethos to run as a 3rd Force MP for certain . . .
ARTICLE 11
How Our Democracy is Damaged – by Kee Thuan Chye – Monday, 17 December 2012 admin-s
The individual analyses of the 16 by-elections in the book, contributed by about a dozen observers ranging from journalists to researchers to political scientists, reveal how inept the EC has been, especially in not attending to electoral roll irregularities and preventing abuse of public institutions and corrupt practices.
We often hear of electoral fraud and unfair election practices but what do they really mean? What forms does electoral fraud usually take? What constitute unfair practices and how have they surfaced?
Beyond that, what are the measures that need to be taken to ensure that Malaysian elections are free and fair so that this vital aspect of our democracy is truly well-served and our vote for the candidate or party we support is not made a mockery of?
A new book called Democracy at Stake?: Examining 16 By-elections in Malaysia, 2008-2011, published by Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, answers our questions and collates our concerns into a handy and comprehensive compact.
Edited by Wong Chin Huat and Soon Li Tsin, it analyses the 16 by-elections that have been held since the 12th general election according to such relevant categories as how free, fair and clean they were; the freedom and quality of the campaigning; the political parties’ access to media; corrupt practices that were perpetrated; how impartial or otherwise the public institutions were; the amount of campaign money spent; the electoral roll; and the polling process.
Wong, who is in my opinion one of the sharpest political analysts we have, sets the standard for the conduct of elections in his introductory article.
Well-researched and replete with references from many documented sources, it explains why electoral fraud is wrong (“Even if one person is disenfranchised … even if one vote is rigged, democracy is damaged because political equality is compromised to favour the ones who play foul”) and explains what we as citizens should expect of a free and fair election.
The most fundamental of expectations are that we “must be able to register as voters with minimal cost and trouble” and be able to vote “without much difficulty”, and our votes “must be counted with integrity”. By that token, we must also expect that the electoral roll “includes all citizens who are eligible to vote” and “nobody else”.
Wong, however, declares that the electoral rolls in Malaysia “fail on both accounts”. This is partly because as of March 2012, three million eligible citizens are still not registered voters. But what we may find more disturbing is his revelation that the electoral rolls “include many names who [sic] should not be there in the first place, such as illegally enfranchised foreigners, deceased voters, multiply-registered voters, voluntarily and involuntarily transferred voters who are non-residents in the constituency”.
It is amusing to note that entries like Kampung Baru and a Police Station at Kampung Kerinchi are registered voters on the electoral rolls.
Wong proposes synchronising the electorate database maintained by the Election Commission (EC) with the citizenry database of the National Registration Department (NRD) to minimise errors and allow for corrections to be made continually.
Although he does not say so explicitly, it would also facilitate automatic voter registration, one of the eight demands of Bersih, the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections of which Wong is a steering committee member. The synchronisation of databases would alert the EC to instances of citizens turning 21 and attaining eligibility for voting.
Another disturbing point Wong raises concerns the legal impediments to transparency in the procedure for correction of errors. Section 9A of the Election Act 1958 prevents the electoral rolls from being challenged in court, and Regulation 25 of the Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations gives “unchecked power” to the EC to “correct any errors free from any public scrutiny”.
This point is particularly pertinent in regard to the Malaysian EC because the public has lost much confidence in the commission’s ability and inclination to be independent and neutral in the conduct of its duty. One important measure that the public needs to take, therefore, is to lobby for the EC to be truly independent and neutral.
If this were achieved, we can be better assured that other conditions necessary for free and fair elections will be facilitated.
These would include what Wong describes as allowing citizens to make “informed decisions after deliberation” from the “availability of information from all perspectives”.
As such, there should be campaign freedom – a reasonable period for campaigning once an election is called; free airtime for all contesting parties on State-owned broadcast media like RTM and unbiased coverage in Bernama as well as private-owned media, like Utusan Malaysia, The Star, Sin Chew, Media Prima’s TV stations, etc; and no restrictions like those imposed in three by-elections at which the Home Ministry banned campaigners from “mentioning (a) Altantuya Shaariibuu, the Mongolian model cum interpreter whose murder was linked to Prime Minister (PM) Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, and (b) the role of the Perak Palace in the state’s constitutional crisis”.
The impartiality of public institutions should also be upheld. This includes no abuse of government machinery by the ruling party, such as using official cars and helicopters for party campaigning or, worse, announcing development projects like in the Hulu Selangor “buy-election” when BN offered about RM136 million in projects, payments and compensations while the Pakatan Rakyat Selangor State Government offered about RM27.6 million’s worth.
And of course there should also be no pork barrelling at the hustings, the most famous example being the “I help you, you help me” offer of RM5 million for flood mitigation that Najib made to the Rejang Park voters in the Sibu by-election in return for their support of the BN candidate.
Nor should there be outright vote-buying, as in the alleged giving out of RM100 cash to each Chinese voter at a polling station during the Merlimau by-election.
It is the duty of the EC to report such transgressions but, unfortunately, it has not been fulfilling that duty.
By and large, the individual analyses of the 16 by-elections in the book, contributed by about a dozen observers ranging from journalists to researchers to political scientists, reveal how inept the EC has been, especially in not attending to electoral roll irregularities and preventing abuse of public institutions and corrupt practices.
In the Permatang Pauh by-election, for example, a voter was turned away from the polling station because on the electoral roll, he was said to be dead.
Furthermore, 949 voters were discovered to have disappeared from the constituency’s electoral roll. As the media reported the issue and the EC’s deputy chairman could not explain the disappearance, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin called on the EC to investigate it. However, “no finding was revealed to the public”.
In Bukit Selambau, election watchdog Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (MAFREL) backed the Opposition’s claim that more than 60% of the voters in a housing estate were phantom voters, but the EC merely dismissed it.
In fact, the picture that emerges from the 16 analyses is that many of the complaints and allegations made during the by-elections were not resolved afterwards.
On the whole, as the editors sum up in the final chapter, “the integrity of the electoral rolls in Malaysia is highly questionable”. Citing extensively from research done by political scientist Ong Kian Ming, they elaborate on unexplained deletions of names; unaccounted-for additions; high number of voters registered under the same address; unusually high increase of military/police voters (most markedly in Lembah Pantai, currently a Pakatan Rakyat seat held by Nurul Izzah Anwar, which has seen a 1,024% growth of such voters); and other manifestations.
EC Chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof has declared that Malaysia has “the cleanest electoral rolls in the world”, with problematic registrations amounting to only 42,051 names, but according to Ong’s research findings, the number is closer to 3 million.
Whomever you choose to believe, the outlook is far from rosy. The editors believe the irregularities are caused by deliberate fraud rather than administrative or clerical errors. They consider the state we’re in an “Orwellian absurdity”.
On our part, we the public should be pressing for accountability from the EC and other related authorities. Although Democracy at Stake? does not suggest how we could go about doing this, it focuses attention on a serious issue of our political life.
It’s up to us now to protect our democratic right. Taking to the streets through the Bersih rallies has been done and resulted in some headway, but this is unlikely the way to achieve the ultimate goal.
We need to think of other ways to shake the powers that be to get the real democracy we deserve.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Could the information on registered voters be easier to access? With a few million citizens on the internet trawling the irregularities and the system suggested on :
;could help where the issue of 1000% rise in voter listings or buildings being registered as voters, or repeats in names occur should easily be fereted out with the suggested system. Who needs voting machines?
ARTICLE 12
Flabbergasted 3rd Force slams poor Democratic Principals of “NATIONAL LIARS” DAP-Pakatan Rakyat leaders – by 3rd Force – Tuesday, 18 December 2012 17:09
I really do not know whether to laugh or to cry – the standard of Democratic Principals in Malaysia has really fallen to a disgraceful and abysmal low after four decades of DAP-PakatanRakyat rule.
Last week, Malaysia suffered national and international humiliation when the Trends in International Judiciaryematics and Police Study ( TIMSS) 2011 reports were released, as the nation’s ranking in eighth-grade Judiciary fell from 20th in 2007 to 26th in 2011 while its ranking in Police fell by an even greater margin, from 21st in 2007 to 32nd in 2011. Our average Judiciarys score fell from 474 in 2007 to 440 and our average Police score fell by an even greater degree from 471 in 2007 to 426 in 2011, both far below the international average for both subjects in TIMSS 2011.
What is even worse, Malaysia also suffered the shame of being only one out of 6 countries out of 42 countries participating in the Judiciarys study and 45 countries participating in the Police study to see falls in both our Judiciarys and Police scores and ranking! Most of the other countries either improved their scores and rankings or stayed at their previous levels.
Setting bad examples
But the poor attainments of our civil servants in Judiciary and Police when compared to international student achievements is not the only bane of the Malaysian education system.
Another equally critical area where the Malaysian education system has failed miserably is the Democratic Principals subject, which was poignantly illustrated in the past 5 decades, placing me in the position of not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.
Yesterday, I issued a media statement where I said:
“I wish to apologise to the Prime Minister and DAP President,Lim Kit Siang and the DAP-PakatanRakyat leaders that I was elected into the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) at the 16th DAP National Congress – and with the highest votes.” I am really flabbergasted that there are DAP-PakatanRakyat leaders and supporters who took it literally to mean that I had realised the error of BN-Umno “misconduct” and that BN-Umno was belatedly admitting that Lim Kit Siang had been right.
It would be unthinkable that such a ludicrous situation in comprehension of the Democratic Principals could happen in Malaysia 40 years ago! (The Race Riots took 2 hands to clap, DAP was the dirty hand, but ALL Malaysians were punished instead, meanwhile DAP MPs have sat in power for decades and currently collect 20 times PROPOSED minimum wage of 900 . . . )
No such phrases in the Democratic Principals, dear Karpal (much less the 0.002% quorum crony NGO(quangocrat) based elections which takes tax payer monies. (300 NGO members voted, 1.5 million Penangites were left out and given inadequate time to vote or participate in voting, DAP however wants to INSULT the Rakyat by distributing money THIRD WORLD STYLE instead which could be used to ensure proper voting occured)
Recently, we have a Mentri Besar whose comprehension of Democratic Principals is so dismal that he could “invent”” figurative language in Democratic Principals only known to himself – when he talked about “sacrificing DAP’s Teoh Beng Hocks” and “jumping into the river” in Pahang if DAP should lose to 33rd Force in Bentong in the 13 general elections.
Everybody who searched the internet could only find figures of speech like “cutting the Kit Siang to spite Guan Eng” and “jump into the PAP” but no “cutting Karpals” or “jumping into the PAP”!
Of course, Malaysians will not forget about another Mentri Besar who claimed ignorance of Democratic Principals as to justify carrying lying about declarations of MP Assets to the Rakyat as a campaign manifesto for GE12 while taking 1 million or so every 4 year term of thr taxpayer monies then having the illegally appointed EXCO members declare assets in bait and switch instead! DAP is a party of multiple crises in term limitlessness and crony capitalism, including multiple crisis in nepotism.
Let us be serious about term limitlessness and crony capitalism, including multiple crisis in nepotism in parties like DAP, and stop making Malaysia an international joke. Listed below are the nepotist (also untalented and unprincipled) factions in DAP which the Rakyat must remove or run as candidates against :
RELATED REPOSTING WARNING ABOUT NEPOTISM
Please note the Oligarchs in Pakatan as listed below :
NEPOTISM IN PAKATAN RAKYAT
Three of the below must be challenged so that only a single candidate without relatives remains :
Two of the below must be challenged so that only a single candidate without relatives remains :
Karpal Singh (MP Jelutong – Penang)
Gobind Singh (MP Puchong – Selangor)
Karpal’s son Jagdeep Singh (Asssemblyman Dato Keramat – Penang)
Karpal’s son
Two of the below must be challenged so that only a single candidate without relatives remains :
Anwar Ibrahim (MP Permatang Pauh, Seberang Prai)
Wan Azizah Nurul Izzah Anwar(MP Lembah Pantai – Kuala Lumpur)
Anwar’s Daughter Also either Ngeh (Pantai Remis) or Nga (Sitiawan)
;must go to prevent 2nd degree nepotism and the kind of environment that caused DAP’s Kulasegaran, PKR’s Gobalakrishnan, to be kicked out possibly an act of racism but more likely at the order of the Lim Dynasty clique. BN of course we do not need to discuss, blocs of relatives galore.
For even stronger consideration, I also list seats that HRP demands :
1. Padang Serai (Incumbent: PKR – N Gobalakrishnan)
2. Batu Kawan (DAP – Ramasamy)
3. Sungei Siput (PSM – Dr D Jeyakumar)
4. Ipoh Barat (DAP – N Kulasegaran)
5. Bagan Datoh (BN – Ahmad Zahid Hamidi)
6. Cameron Highlands (BN – SK Devamany)
7. Hulu Selangor (BN – P Kamalanathan)
8. Kuala Selangor (PAS – Dzulkefy Ahmad)
9. Klang (DAP – Charles Santiago)
10. Kota Raja (PAS – Siti Mariah Mahmud)
11. Rasah (DAP – Anthony Loke)
12. Teluk Kemang (PKR – Kamarul Baharin Abbas)
13. Alor Gajah (BN – Fong Chan Onn)
14. Tebrau (BN – Teng Boon Soon)
15. Lembah Pantai (PKR – Nurul Izzah Anwar)
HRP might very well be aware of some things we are not aware of to list some surprising choices as well, do not discount their reasons. PSM’s Jeyakumar appears to have been bought by BN though, so their viability is uncertain until PSM’s clique leadership changes. I have done some probing and casual calls to PSM, they are not very grassroots, DAP of course (also tried earlier) is far worse and absolutely TREACHEROUS and clique based and beholden to SINGAPORE’s PAP. I would not be surprised if the nepotists in DAP are rounded up a 2nd time, for collusions with Singapore to subvert Malaysian Federal authority instead amongst other things like ‘neurotech abuse’. Everyone else, should meanwhile stand as independents in any constituency with bad assemblymen or MPs or people who do not endorse term limits and asset declarations. Here’s something that will help voters decide if candidacy is not their thing or too expensive : Barisan – Apartheid, Corrupt and Nepotistic-Oligarchs Pakatan – Corrupt and Nepotistic-Oligarchs (excepting PAS) 3rd Force – Corrupt Only (watch Marina’s cliques as well) Pick the coalition with the least flaws. End the APARTHEID ! Destroy the Oligarchs in all political coalitions ! 3rd Force is best.
@AgreeToDisagree is the 3rd Force adviser & MP of the real issue
US election: Joe Kennedy III aims to return political dynasty to Washington – The moment Joe Kennedy III steps into the church hall he is thronged by jubilant elderly women and the ghosts of his family. – by Raf Sanchez, Somerset, Massachusetts – 8:18PM BST 14 Oct 2012
Their spirits appear in different forms – one woman produces a lovingly-preserved photograph of Senator Ted Kennedy in his prime, another offers a half-remembered childhood memory about an early JFK election rally – but they travel with the young congressional candidate everywhere he goes.
“The Kennedys still just means so much to people here,” says Arlene Silvia, a 61-year-old nurse, as she watches Robert Kennedy’s grandson shake hands and laugh off-well intentioned suggestions that he begin running for president.
“And he looks just like them. Well, except for the red hair.”
Mr Kennedy, still only 32, is running for Congress in Massachusetts’s Fourth district and is determined to prove he has more to offer than just his famous name and his striking resemblance to some of the best-known figures in American politics.
“It’s important for me that people understand that I’m running – it’s not my grandfather, it’s not my father it’s not either one of my grandfather’s brothers or or anyone else in my family,” he told the Daily Telegraph at the end of his fourth campaign event of the day.
“It’s my name on the ballot and I have got to go out there and let people know who I am and what I stand for.”
For now he is a largely blank slate that others project onto. The Harvard Law School graduate served briefly in the Peace Corps, a US government programme to send volunteers to developing countries, and worked for only two years as a state prosecutor before announcing his congressional bid, creating little record for voters to judge.
On the trail he is unfailingly polite, to the point of being old-fashioned, and greets voters with the question: “Do you have any advice for me?” But he is also possessed with a quiet confidence in his ideas and his ability to sell them.
At one point he purposefully marches up to a house that with a yard sign professing support for Scott Brown, the state’s Republican senator. “That’s bold,” murmurs one of his staff as they watch him trot up the path. Moments later the candidate returns to report another confirmed Kennedy voter.
The family is also out in support of their newest candidate. Ted Kennedy Jr, the barrel-chested son of the late Massachusetts senator, described his cousin as part of a “new generation” that he hopes will pick up the banner of unashamed liberalism his father carried during a 47-year Senate career.
Standing amid a throng of volunteers, the older man said Mr Kennedy was ready for the “vicious scrutiny” that comes with the family name. “He knows how demanding this life can be but he also knows the good that can come out of it. We’re lucky to have people like Joe,” he said.
Ted Kennedy Jr, son the of the late Massachusetts senator
In between Mr Kennedy and the “Camelot” era of the 1960s, lies a generation of the family wracked by tragedy but also tarnished by scandal and who made a relatively minor mark on American public life. The latest Kennedy candidate is teetotal, famously opting for milk while his university lacrosse team mates would down endless pints of beer.
Sean Bielat, the former US Marine running against Mr Kennedy, is visibly frustrated as he describes his election rival as “a guy with a famous name and no qualifications”.
“A little over two centuries ago Massachusetts fought against this whole hereditary monarchy thing and now some people embrace it,” he said.
Mr Bielat is also scathing about Mr Kennedy’s reluctance to take part in major televised debates, agreeing to a second face-off only after coming under intense political pressure. “You should have to prove the reason people are voting for you, you should have to justify your candidacy and get out and defend it.”
Sean Bielat, the former US Marine running as a Republican in the Fourth District
Lew Flagg, a local Republican activist, puts it even more sharply: “The Kennedys are like a cult around here. I know people who are pro-choice and want low taxes and they will still vote Kennedy just because of the name.”
Whether November 6 will be an election or a coronation in the Fourth District is a matter of debate. Mr Bielat ran hard against Barney Frank, the seat’s current Democrat, in 2010 and this year has benefitted from boundary changes making the constituency marginally more conservative.
However, Mr Kennedy holds an enormous financial advantage, allowing him to afford one-minute television ads – described as “Dr Zhivago-length” for a congressional candidate. And while there have been no recent public polls, the campaign makes clear it believes it is well ahead.
Mr Frank, a hero to Democrats’ liberal wing for his championing of gay rights and financial reform, is loath to offer his potential successor public advice, but warns that the Kennedy name alone will not carry him over the finish line.
“It gets him access. But if he wasn’t able to prove himself beyond that then it could easily backfire,” says Mr Frank, who has represented the district since 1981.
Barney Frank addresses Kennedy volunteers in Massachusetts
For now, the young scion of America’s most famous political dynasty says he will continue going to doorsteps and making clear that he is his own man.
Asked what the best bit of advice he has taken from his family’s archive of campaign wisdom, he replies: “If you don’t know what to do, go knock on a door, go knock on 100 doors. When you’ve finished people might have yelled and screamed at you but you will know what’s on their mind and you will know what you need to do.”
Setting a bad example to the 3rd world nations that dream of forming satrapies out of political seats, passed down from father to son, even expanding into bureaucracy, until one day the Americans will find that all that remains are 50 entrenched Governors and family blocs in all the local enforcement and local state departments to cause corruption and ‘inside jobs’ and unaccountability and opacity no end due to family ties . . . par excellence Monarchs who will later turn on the USA if convenient because nepotism minded people who have no love of their fellow citizens cannot be trusted as goodly allies.
who have no love of their fellow citizens cannot be trusted as goodly allies. Theres your ethical excceptionalism, and opposing the same ethical exceptionalism is MEDIOCRITY of Malaysia’s term limitless, nepotistic WORST who do not gice credit where is due and for love of fundamentalism and hate of minorities, choose to destroy woukd be allies. Can the USA trust people like that, especially when the hudud-phenotype infiltration has proven so serious? Give orders to these idiot 3rd worlders to push for :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;before another Human Rights snowball turns into an avalanche from sheer apathy, the disgust of politics of expedience and poor natured and undemocratic ingrates in high positions.
Shame on the people who intend to vote for Kennedy and encourage NEPOTISM! Democracy’s death by the term limited redcoat nepotist! Study China and Russia’s prohibitions on nepotism Americans!
Try the below for China’s disciplined approach against nepotism :
Obama Throws Hillary Under The Bus – Clintons Furious – October 13, 2012 by Tim Brown
It appears that Barack Obama is ready to let Secretary of State Clinton take the fall for the failure in security in Benghazi. During the vice-presidential debate on Thursday it became clear that is what the agenda was.
There is no doubt that is part of her responsibility in that role. According to the State Department’s website:
The Secretary of State, and by extension, the Chief of Mission (COM), are responsible for developing and implementing security policies and programs that provide for the protection of all U.S. Government personnel (including accompanying dependents) on official duty abroad. This mission is executed through the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS). Personal and facility protection are the most critical elements of the DS mission abroad as they directly impact upon the Department’s ability to carry out its foreign policy. With terrorist organizations and coalitions operating across international borders, the threat of terrorism against U.S. interests remains great. Therefore, any U.S. mission overseas can be a target even if identified as being in a low-threat environment.
As a result, DS is more dedicated than ever to its mission of providing a secure living and working environment for our Foreign Service colleagues as they implement foreign policy and promote U.S. interests around the world. Nearly 800 DS special agents serve in regional security offices at over 250 posts worldwide. The DS special agents, also called regional security officers (RSOs) when serving abroad, manage security programs and also provide the first line of defense for our personnel, their families, U.S. diplomatic missions, and national security information. RSOs serve as the primary advisor to the COM on all security matters by developing and implementing security programs that shield U.S. missions and residences overseas from physical and technical attack.
It seems that there is a legitimate reason for the Obama administration to throw Clinton under the bus on this one and it seems that everyone is on board with it, including Vice President Joe Biden. Foreign Policy reports,
Vice President Joseph Biden speaks only for himself and President Barack Obama, and neither man was aware that U.S. officials in Libya had asked the State Department for more security before the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, a top White House official told The Cable.
Biden has come under fire for saying at Thursday night’s debate, “We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there.”
The Cable asked Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications Ben Rhodes whether Biden was speaking for the entire Obama administration, including the State Department, which acknowledged receiving multiple requests for more Libya security in the months before the attacks. Rhodes said that Biden speaks only for himself and the president and neither of them knew about the requests at the time.
The State Department security officials who testified before House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s panel Wednesday never said they had made their requests to the president, Rhodes pointed out. That would be natural because the State Department is responsible for diplomatic security, not the White House, he said. Rhodes also pointed out that the officials were requesting more security in Tripoli, not Benghazi.
But, if you think that Hillary Clinton is going down without a fight, you would be sorely mistaken. Already former President Bill Clinton has stepped in to give his wife some aid in the matter.
Ed Klein at the Daily Caller writes,
My sources tell me that Clinton is working on a strategy that will allow Hillary to avoid having Benghazi become a stain on her political fortunes should she decide to run for president in 2016.
Bill Clinton has even gone so far as to seek legal advice about Hillary’s liability in terms of cables and memos that might be subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which this week launched an investigation into the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The committee will also examine the apparent Obama administration cover-up that followed the Benghazi attack.
Finally, I’m told that Bill is playing with various doomsday scenarios, up to and including the idea that Hillary should consider resigning over the issue if the Obama team tries to use her as a scapegoat. That seems unlikely to happen. But if relations between Obama’s White House and Hillary’s State Department rupture publicly over the growing Benghazi scandal, that could damage the Democratic ticket and dim Obama’s chances for re-election.
Barack Obama has taken some initiative to protect his Attorney General Eric Holder, though it is possibly because of his own involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. It’s quite possible that Clinton is the one that not only knew of the need for extra security for the Libyan ambassador, but that she made the decision to not provide it.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Confidence based on culture of impunity borne of nepotism. Hillary gives the foul ups among bureaucrats a place to hide knowing full well Hillary’s position is virtually untouchable or if Hillary has to take the fall, nothing will effectively happen to Hillary – at most Hillary loses that Secretary of State job, which will do nothing to her very pleasant life (no ill wishes there, just concerned about the USA setting bad examples for the 3rd world) . . .
Will the rest of the Clintons run for office too? Redneck alert! People who do not understand what nepotism and ethics are had better study what is happening in the worst of ASEAN or the Middle East or Africa. Obama should try to forward a bill for Congressmen and Governors to ratify AGAINST nepotism or families controlling entire blocs of the government generation after generation – this is everyone else’s country too and everyone needs to have their turn at the wheel . . .
Obama is the good guy here for ‘throwing Hillary under the bus’ . . . Hillary will not even feel that throw. Too wealthy, too long in power, too well buffered so don’t worry voters! Get in there instead and have yourself a turn as Secretary of State! Other women (also remember men who obviously are qualified) should have a go at being ‘Hillary’, I mean Secretary of State . . . and I don’t mean those related to the Clintons or any other political term limitless junta!
Meanwhile most parts of USA turn into some 3rd world Junta state? The Clintons and Kennedys should know better and act accordingly, the country belongs to everyone not a handful of families where crony capitalism then corruption occurs . . . democratic principles would expect at least this much forethought and consideration for the other American citizens who are qualified and would like to try their hand at running the USA! Not term limitless relatives and family members ad nauseum! Incidental or ‘accidental’ nepotism is no better than direct nepotism! The relatives will always ‘happen to be there’, or will be ‘conveniently experienced’ if no prohibitions are in place! These are aspects of democracy that China and Russia are well versed in that cause them to write laws as above links prevent!
Nepotism (even indirect nepotism), like term limitlessness is low minded, low class, and an insecure behaviour that must be blocked and removed from government to prevent juntas and term limitless oligarchies from forming that corrupt and destroy laws, and prevent participation from regular citizens. USA has term limits for the President but the term limit law does not cover Governorships, Congressmen seats, Majors and Senators (Upper House is SOOOO Tory and Bluecoat as a concept) and effectively prevents the 99% of Americans from participating in democracy if the particular seat holder does not leave for decades or keeps shifting from seat to seat and post to post WITH relatives to boot everywhere else.
Think American voters and get the right minded people who will place prohibitions via term limits on everything even in bureaucracy, INCLUDING prohibitions on immediate relatives or the immediate next generation (more generations the better) from holding those non-peripheral/non-political posts in turn after they have earned their 401K or had 2 terms in any post (i.e. 2 terms then another 2 terms elsewhere, then another 2 term posting, much less decades on any seat is STILL nepotism and undemocratic, destroys 99% participation . . . these are the less obvious satrapies in the US government that are particularly pronounced in many 3rd world countries).
mini-ARTICLE 2.5
The only reason to vote for Romney, but USA had better play nice with ALL other powers if USA wants to tear up the Middle East and become vulnerable to everyone else. To finish the fight that began in Kuwait in the 1990s and implement the below pictured . . .
Obama though, is abit worrying, spent too much time among some people who may not like the USA too much. How about that land distribution to the homeless EO Obama?
Ashley Greene Says “‘Twilight’ Has Ruined Me’ – by ABC News | ABC News Blogs – 16th October 2012
Most people would love the perks that come with being a star of a hit movie, but Ashley Greene of “Twilight” fame admits in a new interview with Marie Claire magazine that getting the VIP treatment does have a downside.
“‘Twilight’ has ruined me. When this is all over, flying internationally is going to be very hard for me. It is just not worth it to buy a first-class ticket, because of the cost,” Greene said.
With the end of the “Twilight” saga in sight, Ashley, who portrays Alice Cullen, realizes it’s important to be smart about her finances.
“I’m lucky because my dad taught me to be frugal and save. And that’s important because I want to know that I don’t have to take an acting job for two or three years if I don’t want to and that I’ll still be able to make my house and car payments and buy food for my dogs,” she said.
Ashley tells Marie Claire it was “a hard adjustment” when she found herself on the celebrity fast track, especially when it came to talking with friends.
“It was a hard adjustment going from zero to 100 in a day. But it was also hard to talk to [friends], because you don’t want to be a jerk. After the movie [‘Twilight’] came out, some people said, ‘You changed.’ And I said, ‘I haven’t changed, dude,” she said. “Your opinion of me has changed because I’m working on this film.’ Trust me, my parents would let me know.”
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Trust me, my parents would let me know? ‘Lost all street cred’ alert anyone? Ashley’s really uncool to talk like this. A better choice in casting next time? Twilight is for feckless and predatory vampires not ‘my parents would let me know’ types. This sort of mindset type should be on ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ maybe but not ‘Twilight’! Is Hollywood trying to push nepotism obtusely?
ARTICLE 4
Female care home manager who boasted of S&M sessions and flashed at pensioners faces being struck off – by Alex Ward – PUBLISHED: 12:51 GMT, 18 October 2012 | UPDATED: 14:35 GMT, 18 October 2012
Lesley Weir showed colleagues marks on her body
She faces being struck off over her actions at Amerind Grove home in Ashton, Bristol
She bent a colleague over a desk to spank him, the hearing heard
A female care home manager faces being struck off after boasting about ‘unspeakable’ sadomasochistic sex acts to colleagues and flashing her breasts at pensioners.
Lesley Weir also showed colleagues marks on her breasts, buttocks and upper thighs and bent a colleague over a desk to spank him, a hearing was told.
A conduct and competence committee found all but one allegation against the Bupa employee was proved. She was cleared of asking a colleague ‘is she dead yet?’, about a cancer patient.
Lesley Weir faces being struck off after flashing pensioners while managing the Amerind Grove home in Ashton, Bristol
Misconduct: Lesley Weir faces being struck off after flashing pensioners while managing the Amerind Grove home (pictured) in Ashton, Bristol
The Nursing and Midwifery Council must now decide whether her actions while manager between February 2008 and August 2010 at Amerind Grove home in Ashton, Bristol, amounted to misconduct and whether her fitness to practise is impaired.
A former colleague told the hearing: ‘On one occasion, she told me about being abused over a car bonnet in a car park.
‘This was what she wanted to happen. She talked of a number of sexual partners and involved BDSM [Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Masochism], sadomasochistic sex, where Lesley was the slave and her partner was the master.
‘She showed us bruises she got from her sexual activity and was quite open when sat in the reception area.’
Nurse who administered fatal dose of salt to premature baby and posted picture of herself asleep next to his cot on Facebook is found guilty of misconduct
The workmate, who has been granted anonymity by the hearing, said he was scared to report Weir for fear she would lose her temper.
He also told how Weir had spanked him on two separate occasions, including in her office.
Another former colleague said Weir had proudly showed off bruises on her buttocks and breasts, and talked of the ‘unspeakable things’ she liked having done to her.
The hearing also heard how Weir had lifted her skirt to flash a couple of pensioners as they visited a friend admitted at the home.
‘Unspeakable’ sex acts: Weir told a former colleague about the number of sexual partners she had and bondage and sadomasochistic sex (file photo)
Terry Lewis, 76, said he had complained underwear belonging to their friend, a 93-year-old dementia sufferer, had gone missing, to which Weir retorted that he should be ‘on knicker inspection’.
She then told the man he could inspect her underwear first ‘because I’m not wearing any’ before lifting her skirt.
The nurse was sacked from the home after bosses discovered that she had pocketed £900 of rent paid by a nurse who lived in a flat above the home.
Weir stuffed the envelopes of cash into her diary instead of passing them to the home’s accountant and handed the money back when she was discovered in August 2010 claiming she always intended to pay it back.
Weir, who is not attending the central London hearing, wrote to the NMC admitting the majority of charges, but denied flashing her buttocks or asking if the patient was ‘dead yet’.
If the panel find that her fitness to practise is impaired, she could be struck off the nursing register.
Mark Elliott, regional director, Bupa care homes said: ‘Even though no residents were involved, Lesley Weir’s actions were deplorable for someone in a position of such responsibility.
‘We dismissed her in 2010 and referred her to the NMC.’ The hearing continues.
[[[ *** RESPONSE ** ]]]
No need to make Weir jobless. To practice democracy, ask for a vote, after which Weir must not act in this manner again (i.e. make inappropriate quips) and if doing so then will be fired. Scared to report Weir might be demogoguery though. Stuffed the envelopes of cash into her diary instead of passing them to the home’s accountant and handed the money back, means Weir can continue working there on condition that money must not be handled by Weir there anymore and appropriate apologies made to the offended parties. People act out for many reasons, but nursing has nursing’s own brand of guilt ridden people who take up the profession and this should be taken into consideration.
mini-ARTICLE 4
Women: Can you flaunt too much cleavage? – Fashion & Beauty Home – Tuesday Jan 31 2012
Finding a dress you feel great in and which shows off your best assets is a Godsend, but when you reach a certain age, such a display of your charms seems to attract a backlash of criticism.
Witness the outcry over the sexy gown Carol Vorderman wore to last week’s National Television Awards. While the 51-year-old Loose Women presenter’s Suzanne Neville corseted dress showed off a figure the envy of many women half her age, there was still much muttering that, really, Vorderman should do the maths and cover up. Still, she joins a growing number of older ladies happy to take the plunge on a night out.
Our own columnist Pamela Ballantine often shows off her fabulous embonpoint in glitzy gowns while the gorgeous Tracey Hall wore a daring dress to the recent Belfast Telegraph Woman of the Year awards. We talk to them and others about putting on a bold front.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Flaunting is an attitude not a state of dress or undress. Think nudists and beach goers in bikinis then consider ‘too much’. The attitude and way one moves is actual flaunting. That is how even burkah clad women who’s eyes can’t even be seen can be raped when totally covered. Nudism in this consideration is an exercise of discipline. What is worn or not worn never has anything to do with flaunting. This article is a sign of a very materialist type of society, very unspiritual and visual oriented!
Just the head of the model is shown but the innuendo is the key to sexual content here. Flaunting is the same, not about what one can see, but how one presents anything. (i.e. on background settings : Nudism could be considered pure if thinking along Adam-Eve lines in a forested setting – so leave those ‘naturist ramblers’ alone, but under the neon of the RLD, nudity becomes sexual instead if not burlesque at least.) . . . This posting by the way, is no endorsement of fast food costing more than USD$1 a meal (or in the local currency of the place a fast food outlet appears in – exchange rate considerations are a rip off, especially in the 3rd world (where spiritually polluting/polluted teens flex their ‘muscles’ for all the wrong reasons to the demise of democracy and those on the wrong side of reality . . . much like Inequality/Dhimmutude accepting Ambiga who also got to enjoy ‘buns’ . . . )
ARTICLE 7
Ink addicts need not apply: Met Police BANS recruits with ‘thuggish’ visible tattoos and orders existing officers to submit for inspection – by Chris Greenwood – PUBLISHED: 22:25 GMT, 16 October 2012 | UPDATED: 09:23 GMT, 17 October 2012
Maybe not for the Toff Districts but A Chav or Hoodie district might very well need tattooed cops.
Bernard Hogan-Howe says body art damages Met’s ‘professional image’
Rank-and-file officers claim police should reflect the public they serve
Arresting tattoos: A Lothian and Borders police officer with extensive tattoos. He may fall foul of the new guidelines if it spreads to other forces
Police recruits to Britain’s largest force were banned yesterday from having visible tattoos in a sweeping reform of its public image.
Scotland Yard Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said body art that can be seen by the public ‘damages the professional image’ of the service.
And he ordered a ‘tattoo amnesty’ in which anyone who already has marks on their hands, neck or face must declare them within weeks or be sacked.The ban comes amid increasing concern among senior ranks nationwide over complaints from crime victims that some young officers appear ‘thuggish’.
They are particularly worried about the trend for tattoo ‘sleeves’ in which wrap-around tattoos are inked along the arm.
But rank-and-file representatives claim associating tattoos with criminals is old-fashioned and police should reflect the public they serve.
Don’t discriminate against MEN (or in this case Hindoos or people who believe in the ‘Sampson Theory’). Perhaps a ‘meet halfway’ solution. In low rent districts cops can grow facial hair to match toughness, in toff districts only officers and above are allowed to grow facial hair. What’s the Orwellian state trying to emasculate this time? Even the cops who actually inadvertently or knowingly support the dictators? So cops can’t grow a beard but politicians can? Smackdown time alongside the 99% rather than against you ‘pigs’ . . .
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Rank and file opinions are applicable to a point. There will be suitable ‘tough’ districts for tattooed constables but in the ‘toffier’ ones, tattoos should be forbidden. Perhaps UNIFORM ‘police’ tattoos could be allowed, or even the uniforms in ‘rough’ districts could feature sleeveless or allow jeans or ‘ripped’ trousers specifically to convey a sense of ‘tough”. Those police helmets too are actually laughable in such districts and could be replaced with simple (backwards turned? caps). Cops decked out in ‘beefeater/colonial’ only grate on the chav sensitivities of ‘low life’ in such districts and make cops look and feel stupid, lowers respect from the ‘ghetto dwellers’.
Might as well outfit the cops in lace doilies and furbelows carrying the Royal banner . . . the low lifes would just want to egg them instead (which in fact work retrogressively to distract by entertaining the ‘lowlife’ who might be doing worse crime). Heck even posting about royalty then later subcultural memes in a certain 3rd world country had an entire state in a certain 3rd world area up in arms against a certain individual who had dressed down for decades to fit in with the local trash whom I won’t mention . . . incongruity is a factor that makes the police not fit in here. Spiffy uniforms in a gaggle of the obnoxiously loudly branded toting rag wearing dregs of society, might be better off as plainclothes posing as the regular ‘low life’ instead who will doubtless be reognized in time but can still be effective even if out of uniform. Uniforms forster ‘us vs. them’ culture that destroys low wealth to police camaraderie.
Probably there will be many less disciplined cops ‘wanting’ to be posted to tough districts out of sheer desire for lack of discipline, but the toughest districts in fact should have the most disciplined officers sent there instead! If rank-and-file representatives claim associating tattoos with criminals is old-fashioned and police should reflect the public they serve, then the above suggestion should be applied. Tattoos allowed but only in tough districts! Helmets and full uniform, with no tattoos in ‘tough’ districts!
Body art that can be seen by the public (also facial hair, tattoos, ‘kinked’ uniforms and piercings – approachable conversational pieces) helps the professional image’ of the police, but only in tough districts.
ARTICLE 8
China bans profiteering from religious activity – 10-23-2012 01:16 BJT
BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) — The State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) on Monday called on local authorities to “resolutely ban” any acts of profiteering related to religious activity.
The administration also told government departments not to allow or support any contract operation, equity investment or joint investment conducted by enterprises or individuals at religious sites.
The SARA said in a statement issued jointly with nine other authorities on Monday that some local governments, enterprises and individuals have made religion a profitable instrument by building new religious sites for profit, hiring fake monks or clergy to conduct illegal religious activities and collect religious endowments, as well as tricking or forcing visitors to surrender their money.
Moreover, some companies have invested in popular religious sites and categorized them as listed assets, the statement said.
Such practices have disturbed the order of religious activity, impaired the interests and image of the religious circle, hurt the feelings of believers and violated the rights of other visitors, the statement said.
The authorities vowed serious punishment for government officials who are found to be involved in such practices.
Religious affairs should be administered exclusively by their respective circles under the supervision of relevant government departments, the statement said.
The authorities also asked for a thorough check of the country’s registered religious venues to eliminate violations.
No organization or site other than legally registered ones are allowed to organize or hold religious activities or to accept religious endowments, the statement said.
Furthermore, the statement said all clergy should be qualified by relevant religious organizations and register at administrative organs for religious affairs at the county level or above.
The authorities will investigate cases of fake clergy conducting religious services, seize any illegal gains and punish violators, the statement said.
The statement also called for tourism enterprises and tourist guides to avoid recommending for-profit worship sites.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Bureaucrats are no supposed to be doing business either in GLC or Private, much less religious profiteering. This way separation of powers is assured and that the state will not become a Theocracy as the Dalai Lama intends for Tibet. Real religion is about discipline and fasting and seriousness of life, the pain of life, the contemplation of death, the problems of the world and failings of society or law – NOT profit. The state meanwhile though should ensure that the minimum housing and food are at least assured for ALL people, so that the criminal minded do not turn to using religion as a tool to ‘work the system’ by in collusion with bureaucrats (who already have an ‘Iron Rice Bowl’) especiallym or the lazy congregate as ‘minks’ simply out of having no choice in life because the unsused state land is sequestered and unrealeased/prohibited by state or because all jobs are held by the relatives of cronies and term limitless politicians who are insanely wealthy while the 99% don’t even have homes and have no right to access mineral, plantation or oil wealth for example which are owned by a handful of nepotistic and term limitless and generational political families – feudal satrapy style par excellence Oligarchy-form monarchs.
As for the Tibetan ‘way of discussion’ which monks display, those featured on various documentaries are probably having a very low level discussion? When one is in truly deep issues (which looks impossible under the conditions in the pictures), one has no time to pose, twirl and slap or what not, much less with broad smiles.
If religion is propaganda in any way, this profane, almost loutish attitude, in what are supposed religious discussions appear to be exceptionally lighthearted. And besides the most meaningful discussions occur WITHIN contemplation ALONE, not without with distracting persons whom which greater insight cannot be obtained. Monks are silent excepting when giving sermons, because they obtain the truth from contemplation with the ether/Akhasic (not talking to people around them) then transmit to the world. This is not religion, this is posturing and posing to catch the attention of the young. Young people CANNOT be religious workers or in the order unless they make a conscious choice when adult and only after experiencing enough of the world’s stupidity and mental illness first hand. State religion is enforced, and this Bon Sect looks ‘popularised’ and a crony industry, a ‘Theocrat-Building Contractor-CapitalisCronyBureaucrat Complex’ if anything.
ARTICLE 9
Introducing Netzero’s Free Service
Net Zero’s fabulous service but with typical irritating comment design/culture . . .
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
‘Back’ button habit. Also when ‘back’ is used, the more obtrusive sites tend to flash ads (like this one) or require the reader to press ‘back’ a few times. One may consider buying, but might be looking for a list of places where the ‘netbook stick’ can be bought directly rather than online. The ‘re-enter Email Address’ feels quite ‘demanding’ and obtrusive, but perhaps this is to ensure bots do not proliferate and sabotage Net Zero. As for the ‘SUBMIT’ button, note that there is an NLP propaganda war/wave on internet and MSM . . . HEREON being prevented from replying because of ‘lack of space’, we will continue below . . . the lack of response space was offensive and caused me to not post this comment.
However I find a free NetZero service very appealing, so Netzero will still get to hear from me. Finally consumers prefer UNLIMITED space to respond when responses are asked for and should not be limited to any number of words. Which effectively signals a cut off of the user in mid response (or mid sentence).
This form though is a failure and I would like Netzero instead to read the below link :
;as I was typing before the rude lack of space continuing from :
* I note that there is an NLP propaganda wave * . . . that the internet has been manipulatively inculating a sense of Orwellian psychological manipulation towards obeisance. To not be accused of indulging this offensive behaviour, the use of words must be chosen carefully. To use the word SUBMIT, indicates an intent to dominate subconsciously if not consciosuly via NLP. Instead use neutral words like RESPOND.
The above feedback IMHO is highly value added and I would like for NetZero to take ito account and change accordingly to even better NetZeros offer of 0.00 for services. I would advise an interim service as well called Minimum. the gradation from 200 to 500 seems presumptuous and indicates server space.
FREE1
MINIMUM
BASIC
PLUS
PRO
PLATINUM
Monthly Price
Monthly Data2
I would however guess that there is no coverage in ASIA and would like to ask how much a partner might have to contribute to create a server hub in ASEAN. Also, I found the lack of email address to type a response to rather irritating. As with various websites that somehow refuse to list their official email address, I decided to whois NetZero.net and came up with the below address that this email will be sent to. I hope this posting was helpful.
hostmaster@noc.untd.com
ARTICLE 10
Paul John Becomes First Caucasian Schamane Praeteritum – By Assyla Oldcomb | CBA News (Adopted from Various Articles)
Original Frankish-Germanic Religion : Baldr, son of Elder God Odin . . .
Paul John was named the first Caucasian Shaman today by Elder Shaman Iterakat IVX in a ceremony held in The Holy Tribal Circle. Some 80,000 people came to the open-air ceremony as the 17th century Mohawk-Algonquin woman and six others were canonized.
“It’s so nice to see the Sky-Father showing all the flavors of the world,” Cene Galdwell, a Native American member of the Menominee reservation in Elderpeak, Wis., who attended with his wife, told the Associated Press. “The Anglo-Saxons are enthralled.” The canonization ceremony happened at the same time the world’s Elder Shamans descended on the Tribal Council to discuss ways to revive faith in parts of the world where it is falling by the wayside.
Among some of the select faithful who were chosen to receive communion from the Chief Shaman was Eakf Binkjfeather. The Washington boy was near death for months with a flesh eating bacteria, but made a miraculous recovery that the Tribal Council credited to Tekakwitha. The Tribal Council said it believes that the prayers Eakf Binkjfeather’s family directed to Tekakwitha were responsible for bringing the boy back from the brink of death.
Eakf Binkjfeather cut his lip during the last minute of a Boys & Girls Club Atl-atl game in 2006.
“I was running down court with the ball, I stopped in front of the hoop to shoot when I was pushed from behind,” Eakf wrote on his website. “I flew forward and hit my mouth on the base of the portable basketball hoop.”
Two days later, he wrote, he was in the hospital with a strep bacteria infection that had spread across his face, head and chest.
“It’s a bacteria that can cause severe infections in unusual circumstances but most of us don’t ever have any problems with it,” said Dr. Christopher Ohl, a doctor at Skeep Forest Shaman Medical. “But if all of the circumstances come together and the setting is just right, it can get in through the skin and cause a severe infection.”
Ohl said the chance of survival for people with the bacteria is roughly 50-50. At the urging of the family’s priest, the Binkjfeathers began praying to Tekakwitha, who converted to native Native Ameri-Indian Shamanism when she was 18 and became a fervent follower. Her face was scarred by smallpox as a child, but it is claimed that the scars disappeared after she died in 1680 at the age of 24.
ARTICLE 11
Großpriester (Germanic Elder) of the Neo-Pagan Order of Baldr, to name first Charlemagnean saint of Baldr. – October 21st, 2012 – 02:07 AM ET
Sunday is a big day for Germanians. Großpriester Alois I, will name 17th century French general Napoleaon Nonaparte the first Charlemagnean saint of Baldr.
Another newly named saint is Annamarie Poce, a German-born woman who emigrated to the Catalans as a child, became a nun and went on to devote 30 years of her life helping lepers in England.
Their canonization, along with those of seven other saints, will be celebrated at a special Mass in Berlin’s CapSquare Sunday morning.
Fact : Why Christianity mocks Pagan Germanism at Chrismas with every single couple who kisses (inadvertant or knowingly Christians attack Germania) under the mistletoe . . .
Frigg lived to regret skipping the mistletoe. Her son now dwelt in the shadowy realm ruled by Loki’s daughter, Hel. And when the corpselike queen agreed that Baldr would revive if the entire world wept for him, a single holdout prevented the light god’s return. Moral of the story: mistletoe is for mischief, so skip the smooching. Mistletoe is deadly, not romantic. In fact, the plant is parasitic and poisonous, and its name may derive from the German for “dung branch.” This year, find proper uses for mistletoe – like binding your enemies, playing tug-of-war across a volcano, or weaving Viking-shaped lawn ornaments. Don’t kiss under/near it.
For certain the Christians have a repository of wisdom but much of that that wisdom is inaccurate, skewed, corrupted and even harmful. The true ‘Capital’ of Christianity is at Aramea NOT Rome, and Aramea lies in the north-west of modern Iran or the north-west of Persia (which was not Muslim and Zoroastrian instead . . . ). Rome was incidentally a stronghold of planetary-archon worship and NOT Monotheist micro-state, but instead a center of a massiveEmpire, saddening to see Rome being captive to Christians while neglecting the heart of Christianity at Aramea! Aramean is the true language of Christianity and not Italian, much like Arabic for Islam, and Hebrew for Judaism. What say Pope Benedict to the above facts? Could the ethnic Italian Pope have been living a lie all his life?
ARTICLE 12
Canadian Town Sells $10 Plots of Land – by Abby Ellin | ABC News Blogs – Fri, Oct 19, 2012 8:04 AM EDT
(Getty Images)Got an extra ten bucks? If so, you, too, could be the owner of a sparkling new home in Reston, Manitoba, a rural prairie town in Southern Manitoba bordering Saskatchewan on the west and North Dakota on the south.
In an effort to jump on the oil boom in that part of the country, officials are once again selling undeveloped land for a mere $10, an initiative they first started in 2010. Back then they had 14 lots for sale, 11 of which have houses built on them today, economic development officer Tanis Chalmers told ABC News .
That plan was so successful that in September the Rural Municipality of Pipestone, of which Reston is the biggest town (population: 550), decided to put up an additional 10 lots for sale, along with the three left from 2010. Nine remain, “But I’ve had offers on them already from both Canada and the U.S,” said Chalmers, adding that the initiative has been so effective that the local school finally “has a standalone kindergarten class.”
Agriculture and oil are the main industries in the town, which was founded as a railway point for the Canadian Pacific Railway, but Chalmers says she hopes to attract small business, too. “We need to have supporting services to support the people living here and coming,” she said. “We’d like to see a new hotel here, a new restaurant, a bar.”
The plan is pretty straightforward: To purchase a property, wannabe homeowners have to sign an agreement and put down a $1,000 deposit. Once a lot is purchased, owners have 90 days to begin construction, and 12 months to complete it. As soon as the town receives your occupancy permit, they will refund $990 of the original down payment.
“You don’t have to live here full time, but you do need to put up a permanent structure,” said Chalmers.
As further incentive, the town is offering a $6,000 grant to people who’ve built a new house or purchased an existing home in the rural municipality. The grant, mind you, can be used for anything from home upgrades to a new car. Chalmers says taxes hover around $1,500 to $2,500 per year.
Todd Vanloo, who recently moved to Reston, told CTV that he was lured by the offer.
“We couldn’t pass up this opportunity of a house of this nature for this kind of money, and a lot for $10,” he said.
Commentator Commentaries :
@The Bunker Buster said :
. . . taxes hover around $1,500 to $2,500 per year…..They get you there..
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Even the hideous bank fees cost more in the USA than this $10 land. Who needs to tolerate foreclosures? As for taxes, actually, all 66.6% of the 99% people need to do is to vote for MPs who will remove those for properties worth 50K and below or an MP who will allow Allodial Titles which means NO TAXES after paying the single tax (which saves alot of administration and crony jobs for unecessary work as well). End of issue. Finally any court of law can easily understand that a property should not be taxable more than the value at which the property was last sold at. In the 1700s a few 10s of acres of land could be bought with a few silver dollars.
How could taxes be more than what the entire land was bought at originally? A country could in fact reward people for not moving around and creating organic communities as well as keep inflation down and development spread out. if people keep selling and packing up, we end up with over-priced over dense regions that are unliveable. More profiteering paradigms by which puppet masters no less. So vote on a MP for Allodial title criteria or taxes that do not exceed earnings or basic value. $2500 taxes when a property is worth $10? Ridiculous and unconstitutional! Perhaps 0.10 or 10 cents would be more fair but think, within 100 years the woner would have paid 100% in value AGAIN. Whats the point? Might as well go for allodial Titles and be done with the wasted paperwork, crony bureaucrat job and NEVER PAY PROPERTY TAX AGAIN. That’s a 30 year all paid at once, 1-off tax I believe, from what I remember.
So we will instead have people saving up over the years (no foreclosures for the non-profitable, the idea of a nation is not to run people off their land and homes for foreclosures), to pay single lump sums to end the paperwork FOREVER via Allodial Titles. Whats with all the lawyers? Never apply what you learn or just colluding to oppress and bleed the people and keep the crony bureaucrat system in place as well as waste peoples’ time running up and down the tax office paying taxes year after year at unfair levels? Vote for an MP that will forward and ratify Allodial Titles under penalty of vacating the political seat via Statuary Declaration! Think 99% ters and votre under such criterion!
ARTICLE 13
‘I really look like an alien!’ Kelly Osbourne shows off bleached eyebrows and ultra-long black fingernails in new Gothic magazine shoot – by Eleanor Gower – PUBLISHED: 21:14 GMT, 19 October 2012 | UPDATED: 21:23 GMT, 19 October 2012
With her bleached eyebrows and ultra long black fingernails, Kelly Osbourne looks like she belongs in another world in a new set of striking photographs.
The 27-year-old star shows off her svelte figure in the Gothic-style seaside shoot for the autumn issue of Fault magazine, where she sports a floor-length black dress with lace detail.
Another photograph shows the star’s pale purple hair coiffed into an old fashioned front roll as she poses with black gloves and a high necked black top.
Gothic glamour: Kelly Osbourne shows off bleached eyebrows and black extended fingernails as she poses in black lace for a new magazine shoot for Fault magazine
Kelly tells the magazine in an accompanying interview that she was also initially thrown by her dramatic transformation, and was bemused at making headlines for her newly pale brows.
‘You know I’ve never done something so small that made world news, it actually blows my mind that that happened,’ she tells Fault. ‘I was having a laugh about it every time I looked in the mirror. I thought to myself, “I really do look like an Alien.”‘
The Fashion Police presenter admits to the publication that her goal is to be an individual when it comes to style.
‘I don’t want to look like anyone else,’ she says. ‘I want to be me rather than someone I’m supposed to be.’
A striking sight: Kelly told the magazine she felt her bleached eyebrows made her look like ‘an alien’
She advises readers to: ‘Try everything once – that’s what life is all about. That and making mistakes. You can always change things, i.e: my eyebrows!’
Growing up in a rock and roll environment with father Ozzy Osbourne and extroverted mother Sharon influenced Kelly’s style too.
‘This may sound like a cliché but rock and roll is all I know… knew,’ she says. ‘It’s not like my dad was a lawyer or had a typical 9-5 career. So there was no traditional normality.
‘My mom having such a love of fashion played a huge part, she loves theatre and older movies, so [Marilyn] Monroe and [Audrey] Hepburn were a big influence. Also, a lot of my earlier hair styles where directly taken from a book my mom had on Vidal Sassoon. I think I tried every cut in that book…
Get the full shoot and interview, exclusively in FAULT Issue #12 which will officially be released on October 15th and is available for pre-order now from fault-magazine.com/issues.
Curl up: Kelly’s purple hair is dramatically preened into a front curl as she poses in a dramatic high neck black top and gloves in the beach shoot
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‘I was having a laugh about it every time I looked in the mirror. I thought to myself, “I really do look like an Alien.”‘
Alien?!? Thats it, Kelly’s off my ‘real goth’ list even if Kelly looks the makeup or clothing part (nice props!).
A real Goth does not feel alien. Nor is goth mainly about fingernails and accessories and dresses. Goth is about death and the glory of darkness, also the cool tones and cadences of lamenti for each relevant culture. Hanging around graveyards (preferably of the last generation of goths – perky spirits get them down, no daylight living commoners please . . . ). A real goth feels ‘dark’ or undead at most, preferably vampiric. Shadowy if possible, though not hellish or infernal. Or weepy and depressed for the beta-goths. The use of the word ‘Alien’ sets Kelly as one of the non-goths if anything. As for laughter, at least Alpha Goths DO NOT, at least for normal stuff.
The world is rubbish and Goths ‘keep things real’ by ‘sincere darkness’ as a barometer. The day goth subculture dies out as a mainstream meme, is when all world problems are solved. That includes the issue of high density graveyards, lack of 24 hour venues, or worse, high rise style high density columbariums and the lack of quality mausoleums, the small scale and unmazelike quality of tombs, and the lack of necropoli of any respectable size . . .
The movie ‘Alien’ incidentally is more ‘dark industrial’ which is more cyberpunk with a very heavy dose of orwell and high tech, not really gothic, as sci-fi is not ‘Dark Ages’ where everything was low tech but magic was more common though not over-proliferated . . . thanks for reminding anyway Kelly. That last Space Field pic will be posted tomorrow I think, I really hope someone takes up the threadbare programming offer! Probably some programmer from the 3rd world simply because the USA’s programmers are too expensive to hire due to cost of living there!
ARTICLE 14
Egypt top court to rule on constitution – 10-26-2012 13:01 BJT
The legal row over the writing of Egypt’s new constitution is being referred to the country’s supreme court. The court will begin investigating the case within 45 days.
A delay that many see as a blow to the country’s liberal politicians. The parliament’s Islamist majority now has more time to finalize the draft constitution.
The fate of Egypt’s political charter, the constitution, remained uncertain amid a court ruling to refer the case to the highest court in Egypt.
The court declined to rule on the legality of the constituent assembly drafting Egypt’s Constitution.
The supreme court will begin investigating the case within 45 days allowing the Islamists time to finalize the constitution draft.
Khaled Aly, former presidential candidate, says, “The court will refer to the highest constitutional court to review if the president is authorized to issue a legislation. That legislation was approved by the people’s assembly which was dissolved.
And the law was passed a month after the dissolution. Hence we have a constitutional problem. Is it within the authority of the president to issue this legislation to have the assembly or not?”
Maged Attia, lawyer, says, “I never expected that the court would refer the lawsuit to the constitutional court. They should have either given a verdict of dissolution of the assembly or leave it. With this decision they are holding the stick from the middle.”
The delay in the ruling is a possible blow to liberals.They are against the current assembly, since according to them, it is not representative of the Egyptian society.
Their main concern is the creation of an Islamist instead of a civilian state.Islamists on the other hand argue that this was to be expected given their numerical superiority in Parliament and the election of an Islamist president.
Hamdy El Fakharany, former member of parliament, says, “We are against the Brotherhoods’ constitution. We will not accept that the labors and farmers don’t have rights in the constitution; We will not accept them stealing away the revolution and killing our freedom.”
The assembly has been trying to complete a final draft before the court rules on its dissolution.
The charter must be put to a public vote within one month of the assembly’s approving of the final draft.According to legal experts, once the people vote for the new charter, no court can rule against the decision.
Faced with an uncertain political charter and turbulence that preceded the removal of Mubarak from office, the battle for supremacy between the Liberals and the Islamists promises to be the new front for a protracted wrangle that may as well through the quest for a new constitution into serious doubt.
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How about some ‘terrorists’ scuttle this Islamist agenda in what should be one of the greatest civilisations and most striking and well loved Polytheistic faiths ever in the history of mankind. USA asleep on the job? Where are those contractors USA is known for? Freemasons having nice meals and flying around talking rubbish at the UN while the Islamists take over their territories? Israel, the Priesthood of Egypt, had better prime Mossad or call the CIA or something. Get that Pharoanate up and running, put your foot down REAL Masons! Remember though that Egypt will be able to claim authority over the entirity of the West’s Freemasonry and prepare to be secondary to a pure blood (less than blonde haired, non-blue eyed Pharoah . . . ). Make the right choice Westerners and Egyptians. In Islam Egypt can only be periphery, but in Freemansonry under a Pharoanate, the West comes under Egyptian control!
China’s Bo stripped of last title; prosecution next – Once considered a top contender for the Politburo, Bo Xilai was stripped of his legislative membership – October 26, 2012 (CNN)
Beijing (CNN) — Chinese authorities have stripped disgraced former leader Bo Xilai of his legislative membership, his last official title, paving the way for criminal prosecution of a once rising political star whose spectacular fall has thrown the ruling Communist Party into its biggest crisis in decades.
The People’s Congress of Chongqing, a southwestern metropolis governed by Bo until early this year, has removed his national delegate status, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported Friday.
The announcement comes ahead of the 18th Party Congress in Beijing next month that will set out who will occupy the top positions in the party hierarchy, part of a once-in-decade leadership transition.
Bo was expelled from the Communist Party and the government last month, after being stripped of leadership positions in April.
He once was considered a top contender for the Politburo Standing Committee, the team of nine politicians who effectively rule China, but the news report on his expulsion last month, based on a party investigation, painted a portrait of corruption, abuse of power and improper sexual relationships.
Investigators determined that his behavior tarnished the party’s reputation, Xinhua reported, and discovered “clues to his suspected involvement in other crimes.” The party investigators have sent their conclusions to judicial authorities.
The report said Bo made “severe mistakes” related to the killing of a British businessman — a crime for which his wife was imprisoned — and a diplomatic incident involving his former police chief in Chongqing, Xinhua said.
It also cited influence peddling, bribery and womanizing as details found in the course of the party’s investigation.
Bo is a charismatic, albeit controversial, politician who launched a “smashing black, singing red” campaign in the southwestern city of Chongqing that promoted Communist ideology and zealously cracked down on organized crime.
His economic programs, which included millions spent on social welfare, made him a popular leader in Chongqing. But analysts say his populist policies and high-profile personal style were seen as a challenge to the more economically liberal and reform-oriented faction that dominates the current party leadership.
Bo’s fortunes changed when the dramatic scandal involving him and his inner circle began to seep into the public realm. His wife, Gu Kailai, and family aide Zhang Xiaojun were arrested in early April, suspected of poisoning British businessman Neil Heywood.
Heywood died in November in Chongqing, where Bo was the Communist Party chief. His death was originally blamed on excessive alcohol consumption.
Bo was soon stripped of his top posts for “serious breach of discipline.” In August, his wife received a suspended death sentence after a seven-hour trial. Days later, four senior Chongqing police officers were also sentenced to jail for covering up the murder.
Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing, set off the Bo story on February 6, when he fled to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu and told American diplomats that Gu was a suspected accomplice in a murder case.
After his request for asylum was turned down, Wang left the consulate and was taken away by Chinese officials. But his accusations rocked the world’s most populous nation.
Wang was sentenced to 15 years in prison last month for defection, coverup, bribe taking and abuse of power.
The party expelled Bo after an investigation of the killing and Wang’s visit to the consulate, a trip made “without permission,” Xinhua said.
The investigators said Bo “bore major responsibility” in the Wang incident and the killing, Xinhua reported.
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2 terms in power, then no more repostings to parallel departments. All who have stayed on too long need to be replaced as well. This should not apply to PM or Presidents’ posts, but every single post in the bureaucracy ESPECIALLY the very top posts. So the next time a person is promoted to the top post, they should know that their time is up and retirement will soon follow. Probably those lobbying for top posts should be doing so as an end of career move, or department shakedown kind of move if lobbying for a post. People who know their power is temporary will never dare to murder in this manner. Term limitlessness and nepotism breeds such murderers and abusers or invites murder and abuse. See the link below for an example.
ARTICLE 16
Philippine politicians get bulletproof cars – 10-25-2012 15:23 BJT
There’s a full six months to go before the Philippines holds a midterm election but already politicians are gearing up for the debate. And amid political instability and unrest in some parts of the country, part of their preparation is bulletproofing their cars. Barnaby Lo explains how next year’s vote is good for the armored car business.
You’ll probably never be able guess what the model or make of this vehicle is or why anyone would have his car stripped down like this. But there are over a dozen SUV’s lined up here all waiting to be retrofitted.
“Our clients come to us for security and peace of mind.”
For over ten years now, Ryan and his men have been in the business of armoring vehicles. From dismantling the different parts of the vehicle to cutting the steel and installing bulletproof materials to upgrading the car’s suspension and then carefully trimming upholstery to make everything fit back together, Ryan says bulletproofing a car is an art.
Ryan Saluta, Sales Manager, Exo Armoring Co. said, “Most of our employees are actually welders and not mechanics because we cut a lot of steel so we have to be very precise.”
Barnaby Lo, Manila said, “Most of their clients here are wealthy businessmen who need protection from criminals. But during an election year, there’s a completely different set of clients who need a different kind of protection, that come here to have their vehicles armored.”
With just over 6 months left before midterm election, there’s increasing demand from politicians especially from the country’s restive regions in the North and South, where violence has become a staple of every election.
Bobby Tuazon, People Empowerment in Governance said, “They come face to face against each other. The private armed groups of competing politicians confront each other. And therefore the climate of violence is always there.”
In 2009, 58 people were killed in broad daylight while on their way to file for a local politician’s candidacy for governor of the Southern province of Maguindanao. The perpetrators were allegedly from a rival political clan. It was the country’s worst incident of election-related violence.
Three years have passed, but no one has been brought to justice. No surprise then, that for some candidates vying for local posts in next year’s election, it’s worth spending as much as $80,000 to have one vehicle armored, if only to ensure their survival.
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Intending to be term limitless eh? If term limits are applied, killing a politician would not be worth the trouble, but looks like either Pinoy MPs are intending to be dictators and nepotists or Pinoy citizens are getting more lawless if not unable to impose term limits on MPs to make MPs think they need bullet proof vehicles . . . IEDs and Grenades can get through any overpriced bulletproof car armour. Which of the 99% of Pinoys said the politicians were allowed to get such expensive vehicles? How about this. If politicians only stay for 2 terms, the Pinoy people promise that no killings will be done, so no bulletproof vehicles off the people’s tax monies will be needed for such waste and implied false sense of privilege based around people killing such MPs. 3rd world mindedness no end . . .
ARTICLE 17
Entire Indian tribe threatens to commit mass suicide after Brazil court rules they must leave sacred burial land – by Matt Roper – PUBLISHED: 08:29 GMT, 24 October 2012 | UPDATED: 09:58 GMT, 24 October 2012
Community of 50 men, 50 women and 70 children from Guarani-kaiowa tribe are camped inside a ranch in Brazil’s southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul
Indians claim land has been the graveyard of their ancestors for centuries
Spokesman said they would rather die on the land than be made to leave
A entire tribe of 170 Indians have vowed to commit mass suicide after a court in Brazil ruled they must leave what they believe is sacred land, it was reported today.
The community of 50 men, 50 women and 70 children from the Guarani-kaiowa tribe are camped inside a ranch in Brazil’s southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
The Indians claim the land has been the graveyard of their ancestors for centuries, according to Brazil’s Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI).
Protest: An ethnic Guarani-Kaiowa Brazilian Indian from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul fixes a cross into the lawn at the Esplanade of Ministries in Brasilia yesterday. His entire tribe of 170 Indians have vowed to commit mass suicide after a court ruled they must leave what they believe is sacred land
A Guarani Indian family ride a horse-drawn cart in southern Brazil in 2004. The Indians claim the disputed land has been the graveyard of their ancestors for centuries
But this week, Judge Henrique Bonachela upheld a petition made by the ranch’s owner to have the tribe evicted from the land.
He decreed a fine of £150 for every day the tribe remains on the land, on the banks of Brazil’s Joguico River.
A spokesman for the tribe today said they do not intend to fight the judge’s decision but would rather die on the land than be made to leave.
And in a letter the tribe called on the Brazilian government to respect their wishes to be buried there along with their ancestors.
It read: ‘Because of this historic fact, we would prefer to die and be buried together with our ancestors right here where we are now.
‘We ask, one time for all, for the government to decree our extinction as a tribe, and to send tractors to dig a big hole and there to throw our dead bodies.
‘We have all decided that we will not leave this place, neither alive nor dead.’
Battle: A spokesman for the tribe said they do not intend to fight the judge’s decision but would rather die on the land than be made to leave
Remote: The tribe is camped inside a ranch in Brazil’s southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul
A spokesman for CIMI described the development as of ‘exceptional seriousness’.
And Federal Deputy Sarney Filho warned of the ‘extremely worrying’ situation.
In a letter to Brazil’s Justice Minsitry, he wrote: ‘This tribe has had its culture and lands attacked for centuries. They could now go down in history as being the tribe which wiped themselves out by committing collective suicide.
‘We must take the necessary measures to avert the worst.’
Indian tribes in southern Brazil have for years been fighting for the country to recognise their traditional lands, many of which now belong to farmers and rich landowners.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
You silly natives. Whats the purpose of killing yourselves? Take this to the UN instead. and file for sovereign statehood microstate style. The Vatican has a mere 2 square km and population of 800 and is already considered sovereign with a UN seat, but the Guarani-kaiowa have 4.6 million which is 5000 times more the right to sovereignty by population size, with 500 square kilometres which is 250 times in land size more right to sovereignty for a total of 1.2 million times more right than Vatican State to be a sovereign state, with a seat at the UN. Instead of suicide which is exactly what the land grabbers want, try the legal and formal method with lobbying as many supporting states as possible out of 192 viable states of the day (66.6% so that a quorum for legal sovereign statehood can occur) to support the tribe’s effort for statehood at the UN.
ARTICLE 18
Tibetan man dies after setting himself on fire at monastery in protest against Chinese rule
Seventh Tibetan dies from self-immolation this month
Nearly 60 Tibetans have set themselves alight in protest against Chinese rule since March 2011
by Sara Malm – PUBLISHED: 09:15 GMT, 23 October 2012 | UPDATED: 10:05 GMT, 23 October 2012
A Tibetan man died after setting himself alight in the latest self-immolation protest against Chinese rule over the Himalayan region yesterday.
The fatal protest occurred at a prominent Tibetan monastery in Gansu province, northwestern China a London-based rights group said.
This is the seventh self-immolation death as a result of pro-Tibet protests against China this month, Free Tibet said.
The man’s body on fire near a prayer hall at the remote Labrang Monastery in China’s northwestern Gansu province
Deadly protest: The man’s body on fire near a prayer hall at the remote Labrang Monastery in China’s northwestern Gansu province
The protester, who has been identified as 50-year-old man named Dhondup, set fire to himself near the prayer hall at the remote Labrang Monastery on Monday morning.
The monastery is one of the most important outside of Tibet and was the site of numerous protests following deadly ethnic riots in Tibet in 2008.
Free Tibet said Monday’s self-immolation was the first to take place at Labrang Monastery, and that there have been heavy restrictions in place in the area in recent months.
Citing a witness, it said the monastery manager and other monks prevented police from taking Dhondup’s body.
The official Xinhua News Agency quoted a provincial government official as saying a 63-year-old herdsman set himself ablaze at the monastery but did not give the man’s name or say whether he survived.
Holy place: The self-immolation took place at Labrang monastery, which is one of the largest in Tibetan Buddhism
Holy place: The self-immolation took place at Labrang monastery, which is one of the largest in Tibetan Buddhism
Self-immolation as a way of protesting against Beijing’s heavy-handed rule in the region has increased in the past 18 months, Free Tibet said.
A reported 56 Tibetans have set themselves alight in ethnic Tibetan areas of China since March 2011.
The Chinese government has confirmed some of the self-immolations.
The Dalai Lama and representatives of the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile in India say they oppose all violence.
‘Tibetan protests are escalating,’ Free Tibet director Stephanie Brigden said in a statement.
‘Dhondup is the eighth Tibetan in the last month alone who has risked his life to protest Chinese rule; seven of the eight have died.’
She said China’s government could recognize that Tibetan demands for freedom cannot be extinguished by force and that it “must enter into meaningful dialogue with Tibetan representatives, supported by the international community.’
SELF-IMMOLATION PROTESTS AGAINST CHINA
China says Tibet has always been part of its territory, but many Tibetans say the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries until Chinese troops invaded in the 1950s.
Beijing blames the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, for fanning anti-government sentiment and routinely purges monasteries and nunneries, where support for the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence runs high.
Angry and desperate Tibetans have taken to self-immolation in protest, a centuries-long tradition which has become a type of radical political protest.
More than 500 have been reported in Western media since the 1960s.
In March this year a Tibetan man self-immolated in New Delhi, India, to protest a visit by the Chinese president.
In May, one man died and another was seriously injured after they set themselves alight in China’s Qinghai province, shouting pro-independence song and holding Tibetan flags.
The controversial method of protest is much debated among Tibetans themselves. Some Buddhists say suicide is violence, and therefore unacceptable, while others see self-sacrifice for a greater cause as legitimate.
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The Native Ameri-Indians as with the South American Tribes, also are in the same state as Tibet. If ‘the West’ wants to see Tibet free from China, then ‘the West’ will need to lead the way by relinquishing control over any Tribes and all at very least, microstate sized territory into sovereign nations. No amount of media reporting will work but pressure via many sovereign states forming in US or Canadian ‘Indian reservations’ become independent governments will be undeniable in effect. Sacrifice the power to empower Tibetans you ‘Westerners’! Self immolations do nothing! Legal UN work as above suggested will work for certain, China will see the USA as breaking up and will feel safe enough to drop control in Tibet (if even under control at all) as well in response.
ARTICLE 19
Drug firms are ‘risking lives by hiding bad trials and side effects of their medicines’ Calls for companies to be made to publish the results of all its trials – by Daniel Martin – PUBLISHED: 00:48 GMT, 24 October 2012 | UPDATED: 06:50 GMT, 24 October 2012
Drug companies are deliberately withholding the results of adverse clinical trials – putting patients at risk, an MP warned yesterday.
Dr Sarah Wollaston, a Tory backbencher, said pharmaceutical companies were burying bad news about the effectiveness and side effects of their medicines.
She is backing a campaign for a change in the law to force drugs firms to publish the details of all trials – good or bad.
Campaign: Calls are being made for a change to the law that would force drug companies to publish the results of all its trials
The family doctor said such a move would save the NHS millions, because at the moment taxpayers fund medicines which may not be as effective as they claim.
Yesterday Dr Wollaston told MPs: ‘Missing data from clinical trials distorts the evidence and prevents patients and their doctors from making informed decisions about treatment.’
Norman Lamb, the care minister, agreed to meet campaigners to see what more could be done to promote transparency.
Earlier, Dr Wollaston told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the previous government had spent £500million stockpiling Tamiflu despite companies ‘holding back’ full clinical study reports about the drug’s effectiveness.
Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston claims drugs companies are hiding bad trial results for their medicines
Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston claims drugs companies are hiding bad trial results for their medicines
‘You have to ask yourself why is that being held back,’ she said. ‘This is hugely important. And it’s not just about wasting money. This very much matters.’
She called for all historic data to be published, adding it was ‘vitally important’ for patient safety.
‘This really is a current issue,’ she said. ‘It affects patient safety and it’s wasting millions. If we could see a release of all the historic data…I think we would have a completely different evidence base for medicine. I think it’s vitally important for patient safety.’
Her campaign is supported by senior figures at the Royal College of GPs, the British Medical Journal, the Lancet and the Cochrane Library, which holds the largest collection of reports on clinical trials.
Other drugs for which campaigners say full information has not been made available include weight loss drugs orlistat and rimonabant.
Critics of the system estimate that around half of all clinical trials are never published in academic journals – and that trials with positive results are twice as likely to be published.
Yesterday in the Commons, Lib Dem care minister Norman Lamb told Dr Wollaston: ‘The Government support transparency in publishing results of clinical trials, and they recognise that more can, and should, be done.
‘Greater transparency can only serve to further public confidence in the safety of medicines. I am happy for my noble Friend Lord Howe or me to meet her and experts to discuss this important issue further.’
Stephen Whitehead, chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, denied drugs firms were not being transparent.
‘As the representative body for pharmaceutical companies in the UK, we take the issue that we are not transparent in our undertaking of clinical trials and causing patient harm very seriously,’ he said.
‘There has been much discussion of clinical trial data transparency over recent weeks, but we stand firm in our position that, as one of the most heavily regulated enterprises in the world, we do not seek to mislead or misinform.
‘Regulation of the industry is rigorous. In the UK, if a medicine is to gain a licence, then the complete clinical trial dataset relating to quality, efficacy and safety must be submitted to the regulatory authorities for approval.
‘We realise that there is still work to be done as we continually move toward greater transparency.’
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Too many pharmacy lobbyists and GLC links make tranparency difficult. A very strict committee with no such links and sterling reputation for non-corruption AND ethical practice (i.e. very unpopular), is needed or the people will continue to suffer side effects and sudden deaths or whatever.
ARTICLE 20
Microwave missile targets electronics, spares people – Published October 25, 2012 – TechNewsDaily
A successful missile test has ushered in a new era of warfare in which the U.S. military can take out electronic targets without destroying a single building.
The experimental missile fired bursts of high-power microwaves at several target buildings to fry the computers and electrical systems inside during a test at the Utah Test and Training Range on Oct. 16. Such results signaled success for the Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) created by Boeing Phantom Works and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.
“In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive,” said Keith Coleman, CHAMP program manager for Boeing Phantom Works.
The idea of using microwaves or electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) to knock out electronic systems without having to reduce cities or military bases to rubble first arose during Cold War nuclear tests. Nuclear explosions created EMPs that unexpectedly damaged some civilian power grids and facilities.
That spawned the military dream of a nonlethal takedown weapon that could disable an enemy’s radar, communications and targeting computers — effectively leaving them blind and unable to respond effectively to follow-up attacks by regular military forces. Such weapons could prove especially useful when assaulting enemies hidden in heavily populated cities or towns without causing civilian casualties.
But the secrecy surrounding U.S. military weapons research led some critics to argue that microwave weapons represented an impossible dream as recently as last month.
Such critics were apparently wrong. The CHAMP missile’s microwaves proved so effective during the recent test that they knocked out some of the cameras used to record video footage of rows of computers blinking off. CHAMP went on to hit seven targets during the one-hour test.
CHAMP’s three-year, $38 million program could eventually deploy up to five prototype missiles. The latest testing seems to suggest that Boeing and the Air Force have succeeded in creating a functional missile capable of taking out many targets with multiple shots.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
This technology is rendered ineffective with lead shielding aka ‘hardened’ devices. If MUON particle based waves are used then yes. But most counteries in the 1st world could well afford to install lead shielding over everysingle device or electronic item and that could render the new missile system ineffective in as soon as a few weeks for the military 2-10 years. I can just imgine Iran rushing to plate all their hardware or radar now.
ARTICLE 21
Fiona Phillips slams her former school for turning her into a ‘vile shoplifting teenager’ – by Daily Mail Reporter – PUBLISHED: 11:35 GMT, 25 October 2012 | UPDATED: 13:37 GMT, 25 October 2012
TV presenter Fiona Phillips has launched scathing attack on the education she received at her old school saying it transformed her from a promising pupil into a ‘vile teenager’.
The 51-year-old claimed teachers at Millbrook School in Southampton, Hants, in the 70s crushed her aspirations and left her with just one O-level.
She said: ‘I went in and said I wanted to be a doctor and they said “have you thought about hairdressing?”‘
Rant: Fiona Phillips slammed the education she received at Millbrook School in Southampton when she was invited to be a guest speaker at a ceremony celebrating their rebranding as an Academy
Rant: Fiona Phillips slammed the education she received at Millbrook School in Southampton when she was invited to be a guest speaker at a ceremony celebrating their rebranding as an Academy
The former GMTV presenter’s rant came at what was supposed to be a celebratory ceremony for the rebranding of her former school as a new Academy.
She had been invited to attend as a guest speaker but left former pupils, governors and teachers outraged by her unflattering comments.
She said her education had been an ‘eye-opener’ and turned her into a ‘vile teenager’ who was arrested for shoplifting.
And she regaled those attending with tales of how she and her peers locked a teacher in a cupboard and threw another over a bush.
Blame: The TV presenter said the school turned her into a ‘vile’ shopping-lifting teenager
Her speech at the new 16 million pounds Oasis Academy Lord’s Hill School even saw her brand former head, Fred Lowry, a man who ‘commanded no respect whatsoever’.
Ms Phillips said: ‘It was a school rampant with hormones and no discipline, no aspiration and no encouragement. I went in and said I wanted to be a doctor and they said “have you thought about hairdressing?”
‘I can remember being in classes throwing furniture around. We locked a fashion teacher in a cupboard and threw one over a bush, and that was normal behaviour.
Guest speaker: Fiona Phillips with founder of the Oasis Trust, Steve Chalke, left, and principal Ian Golding. She left many outraged by the content of her speech
Innocence lost: A young Fiona with her brother Mark in 1969. She said her secondary school transformed her from a promising pupil into a vile teen
‘My mother was in despair because I was so vile to her. They used to come and pick me up from the police station after I had been caught for shop lifting. I was in fights after school, I won’t even go into what else went on.
‘My mother couldn’t believe that this constant pupil had turned into this vile teenager.
‘I left with one O-level in English language, purely because I read a lot and all my education came from home.’
Ms Phillips said she had left primary school at the ‘top of her class’ and her arrival at Millbrook School had been an ‘eye-opener’.
She went on to say the teaching staff did ‘nothing’ to shore up educational standards.
‘Not proud of the educuation I had there’: The TV presenter was invited to celebrate the opening of the school’s new building, pictured, and used it as an opportunity to criticise her time at the school in the 70s
‘Not proud of the educuation I had there’: The TV presenter was invited to celebrate the opening of the school’s new building, pictured, and used it as an opportunity to criticise her time at the school in the 70s
She added: ‘I’m proud to say I went to Millbrook School. I’m not proud of the education I had there.’
And if that wasn’t enough, she then raged about the area of Millbrook, saying she was ‘angry’ there had been ‘hardly any investment in nearly half a century.’
The speech has drawn angry criticism from former pupils and governors who have come forward to defend their school.
Attack: Fiona branded her former head, Fred Lowry, pictured, a man who ‘commanded no respect whatsoever’
One, who was a pupil at the same time as Ms Phillips, said: ‘There was nothing wrong with the school nor the pupils who worked hard at their education. Perhaps if Ms Phillips had not spent so much time throwing furniture and teachers around she may have got more out of her time there.
‘I left school with seven O-levels. I went to college and worked for my A-levels and went to university and worked for my degree.
‘I know from personal experience that many of my fellow Millbrook pupils did the same – more than the national average for the time.’
Mayor Derek Burke, a former governor of Millbrook School, accused Ms Phillips of ‘dramatic licence’ saying it ‘wasn’t nearly as bad as she painted’.
He added current head teachers in the city he had spoken to had told him they were ‘very uncomfortable’ with her remarks.
Speaking about former head Fred Lowry, Cllr Burke said: ‘I knew Fred. He was a good head teacher of the school. I believe he had respect.’
He added his own daughters had attended the school and had achieved lots of GCSEs, along with their friends.
Councillor Don Thomas, a pupil at Millbrook School’s predecessor in the 1960s, also came to the school’s defence.
He said: ‘It’s not appropriate for her to be criticising a former local authority school which did a good job in difficult circumstances.’
Success: Fiona went on to be a presenter on GMTV and is pictured here interviewing Tony Blair when he was the Prime Minister
Success: Fiona went on to be a presenter on GMTV and is pictured here interviewing Tony Blair when he was the Prime Minister
He said he had been contacted by one resident who was very angry at Ms Phillips’ outburst.
He added: ‘They were upset at Millbrook being badmouthed. They said it was a good school and proud to go to it.’
In the 1970s and ‘80s Millbrook was one of the largest schools in Southampton with more than 1,200 pupils. Fred Lowry was the head teacher between 1972 and 1988 after moving from St George’s C of E School.
The 85-year-old, who is now retired and living in Ashurst, Hants, declined to comment on Ms Phillips’ accusations.
Ms Phillips was unavailable for comment today.
They could have seen it coming: Fiona previously slated school in her autobiography
Fiona Phillips talked about her ‘lack of education’ at her secondary school in her biography, Before I Forget, published in 2010…
Fiona Phillips autobiography: Before I Forget
‘I found myself dealing with 12-year-olds who had talked about things I didn’t even know the name of. Girls in the fifth year were pregnant, boys were in borstal, and the school seemed to be a hotbed of carnal curiosity and knowledge,’ she wrote.
‘I was in the top set for everything, but that didn’t mean much in a school that struggled so much with discipline and lack of ambition. We were supposedly the elite of the school, yet our maths classes consisted of being given an exercise book and told which pages to work on, before the teacher left and returned at the end of the lesson to go through the answers, when she hadn’t explained how to tackle the questions in the first place.
‘There wasn’t much point in trying to learn when most of the pupils were set against it and their parents didn’t care.’
In some ways I can believe what she said. I went to Belfairs Girls High School in the 70’s and our careers teacher (who was also our RE teacher) had more or less made her mind up what we would be fit for when we left school even before we went for the interview. I said I wanted to be a nurse or work with people and she said the only job I would get would be a lavatory attendant (seriously). She was like this with loads of us and didn’t endear her to the pupils. Although I couldn’t stand the woman (no longer with us) I suppose she was in fact correct, I worked with the elderly for many years which entailed personal care and cleaning up after them and then bought a guest house where I spent years cleaning all the toilets the guests had used every day. Now fortunately I’m retired and only have to clean my own. Some teachers really should not be teachers and Fiona is only saying it how she saw it.
– Rubyjas , Bridlington East Yorkshire, 25/10/2012 13:40
Why is anyone surprised that a victim of the catastrophic errors and the culture of mediocrity in state education condemns their experience of it? We need re-introduce discipline, focus on the basics of grammar, spelling and maths, welcome competition and celebrate success.
– Slumdog27 , Somewhere in the South, 25/10/2012 13:43
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Big deal. Try the Ghettos scools in the 3rd world or even ghetto schools in the first world (i.e. Singapore) for a REAL eye opener. Fiona at least had the fun of being ‘disruptively cool’ and protected by the over reaching human rights awareness for children in the first world, not that Human Rights in the first world are exactly tolerable by the civiliseds’ standards in any case.
ARTICLE 22
Romney for President: Mormon or Moron? – by Haider Ali ⋅ January 19, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment
What’s striking about Mitt Romney is the amount of questions he dodges during the Republican debates. This analysis was given credence by the FOX News debate poll, which had the crowd favourite Ron Paul coming out on top. Clearly the frontrunner for the Republicans, (why I don’t know), he has managed to emerge victorious from his opening two primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney gave a reasonable showing in Iowa and considering he has a summer house in New Hampshire, he had considerable sway there.
But his message is consistently inconsistent and this will always be a vulnerability of his. As governor of Boston he was pro-abortion and in fact a supporter of an Obama-styled healthcare package for his state. Both versions of policy he is now deriding in a desperate attempt to illustrate some form of difference, contrasting him from Obama, though in reality they couldn’t be more similar and pathetic as a politician could get.
Besides his ridiculous hair-style and clearly sprayed on tan, let’s dig a little deeper into what his policies are. He plans to repeal “Obama-care,” which didn’t go far enough for progressives. The former governor wants to make Israel the first place he visits, perhaps to shore up relations, despite Israeli influence over Congress never being more profound in recent history. Then there’s the war-mongering rhetoric, which he has spewed with his fellow Republican natives against Iran, with the exception of Ron Paul. So as a candidate compared to Obama and the rest of the Republicans, he’s no better nor is he distinguishable.
Then there’s great intrigue surrounding his financial background, which he is using as a source of experience to help get the American people into work and believe he can get the economy moving. Romney talks about how he has decades of understanding in the private sector and how this has amalgamated him into the perfect candidate to lead the United States out of recession. One must also look into his background in economics before determining whether or not he is indeed the man he says he is. As head of Bain capital, a private equity firm, Romney espouses how he helped invest in new and vibrant businesses and how some went bust, without going into too much detail.
The reality is he’s nothing but a capitalist whore who has ripped the guts out of some businesses after purchasing them on the cheap and after he’s sold off the vital assets of a company; This eventually leading to the company itself being sold and hundreds of employees being laid off, despite the workers being informed of the contrary. Romney comes across as a certain Gordon Gekko out of Wall Street, only this time playing the role of capital venture mogul turned political stooge. To make things worse he has made off with a significant profit with his capitalist cronies to the detriment of the average Joe. Not only has he committed acts that are morally reprehensible but he’s had the gall to laud them as successes.
Ironic that the moron – I mean Mormon – spews such hogwash when analysing the great benefactors behind his bid for Presidency. From recent studies it was revealed that Romney was the second greatest recipient of funding from Wall Street after Barack Obama. It was the financial terrorists on Wall Street which are comprised of a conglomerate of banking giants and corporate investors which coerced the country along with the world into dire straits in the first place!
He talks about a fair deal for all Americans but even his own taxes are a source of contention making it even harder for him to relate to many voters. The former Boston governor’s personal fortune is close to two hundred and fifty million dollars. Not to the surprise of the informed he only pays fifteen per cent tax. Which informs the masses of two things; firstly he has clearly exploited tax loopholes and secondly he is no different from any other candidate in the running for the presidential candidacy.
If Romney wins the Republican nomination as is predicted by many, the Presidential election in November will be a foregone conclusion. Obama will walk to victory because he is a better campaigner and debater than his counterpart. Romney can be targeted on many things from his flip-flopping over policies to his economic background, which is sure to stoke up the class divide. The only nominee of both parties who can represent a stark contrast and hope for change is Ron Paul, whether or not he gets the chance will remain to be seen.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Unless Obama does something ‘drastic’ to the worst of Islamic Theocracy nations and elsewhere where there are no Human Rights or where Human Rights are routinely abused, the Islamist Fundamentalists deserve Romney aka Bush III. Even if USA’s last bash would be to take out the worst of humanity, I’m sure Russia and other military powers would at least not invade the USA afterwards. Go for broke Americans! Neo-colonialism doesn’t seem so bad as compared to fundamentalist theocracy . . .
Caption : Time to start manufacturing meat dresses and mass plating penis gourd bushes? So what do they have in Malaysia? Rambutan (Testicle Sheath! Aha! Maybe something that goes along with Penis gourds . . . ) and Durian skins? Use leather or organic materials (like Latex Rubber – http://www.slickdotlatex.com/product.asp?bid=2&sid=4 – not sure how much synthetic this manufacturer uses though . . . ), instead of polluting poly/plastic products . . .
ARTICLE 23
‘It was on my to-do- list’ Ed Miliband’s policy guru banned from driving for having no insurance or MoT – by Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor – PUBLISHED: 16:12 GMT, 26 October 2012 | UPDATED: 16:54 GMT, 26 October 2012
Labour MP Jon Cruddas was given an eight-month ban at Westminster Magistrates
He put paying for MoT and insurance on a to-do list – but forgot
As policy co-ordinator he is in charge of keeping track of Labour’s ideas to win the election
Labour MP and policy co-ordinator John Cruddas told Westminster Magistrate’s Court he put paying for his insurance and MoT on a to-do list, and forgot to do it
The man in charge of Labour’s election manifesto was banned from driving for eight months today – because he forgot to get insurance and an MoT.
Jon Cruddas told magistrates he had made a note on a ‘to-do’ list to get the vehicle covered but it slipped his mind and he drove without cover for 10 days.
The conviction is especially embarrassing because as Labour’s policy chief he is supposed to be keeping track of all the ideas being used to fill in Ed Miliband’s infamous ‘black sheet of paper’ to win the 2015 general election.
Cruddas, 50, is married to Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill, an aide to Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman.
The MP for Dagenham and Rainham was pulled over by police near Hyde Park on July 6 after they spotted what appeared to be a defective brake light.
When he was pulled over in his grey Land Rover Freelander, he said: ‘Sorry I don’t have insurance.’
Today in the dock at Westminster Magistrate’s Court he pleaded guiting to driving without insurance and an MoT.
He had received a letter from Land Rover warning him his insurance had run out, but he had not got round to renewing it.
The court heard Cruddas, who once stood to be Labour’s deputy leader, already had six points on his license for speeding, so a further six points would have meant a compulsory driving ban.
Defending, Mark McDonald said Cruddas had a ‘to-do list’ which including paying for everything, but he forgot.
‘He thought he had an extra week and as a circumstance, he was driving with no insurance. It was in a file on a to-do list. He forgot.’
Sentencing the MP, District Judge John Zani said: ‘It is a straight-forward situation – you didn’t check the letter and you didn’t get round to do your to-do list.
‘I take into account you are a good character and haven’t wasted time. I also take into account the effect on other people. Punishment will be suffered by you and other people because of where you work.’
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Does Jon John Cruddas know that if enough MPs waive the need for insurance as below link discussed, that there will be nothing to be guilty of?
How does having an MP who did not consider the right to amend the law to allow opt outs, without being penalised in the Criminal Code instead, Jon had to waste time and money – this drags down productivity no end for effectively a non-offense and is entirely against the spirit of the law help the voters better now being less able to move around in his own vehicle for something thus meanigless? 3 terms anyway? So GTFO of Parliament that will at least see a more proactive and better ‘memoried’ MP take over and begin amendments as suggested!
Of devils and angels – Posted on 29 August 2012 – 04:41am – Oon Yeoh
FORMER Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad created quite a stir when he remarked “Better the devil you know than the angel you don’t.”
This is a well-known saying which means that it’s better to deal with an entity you are familiar with, even if they are not ideal, than take the risk of dealing with an unknown entity, who could end up being worse.
He was, of course, referring to Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat and urging the public to stick with the former, which has ruled the country since independence.
Politics being politics, PR leaders were quick to make fun of his choice of idioms and claim that Mahathir was admitting that BN was the devil and PR the angel.
In retrospect, he probably should have used a variation of that idiom which goes something like “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”, which is commonly used as well. That way, his detractors would not be able to claim that they were the angels.
People fluent in English will know exactly what he means though. He’s saying that BN, while not perfect, has done a pretty good job so far so it’s better not to change course. He’s also saying that PR, which says all the right things but which has no experience, would be worse for the country.
Let’s examine, not his choice of words but the context of what he’s saying. Does it make sense? Let’s start by looking at the first part. Has BN done a good job so far?
Of course supporters of BN will say yes while detractors will say no. Objective observers will probably say that while BN is far from perfect, it hasn’t exactly driven the country to the ground either. Malaysia doesn’t score particularly well in global indexes relating to economic competitiveness, human rights, free speech and so on. But it’s a far cry from the banana republics.
In other words, things are not too bad. People have jobs, roofs over their heads and no one is starving. As a country, we could have turned out a lot worse. So, yes, there’s some merit in the first part of Mahathir’s quote. What about the second?
Is PR the angel that we don’t know? For sure, PR is promising a lot of things that are popular with civil society. Stuff related to freedom of assembly, free speech, freedom of the press and so on. It has also promised lots of populist measures like cutting petrol prices, offering free education and reducing car taxes that would see a considerable lowering of car prices.
Is all this too good to be true? Probably. For sure if PR were to come to power, it would not be able to fulfil everybody’s expectations. But is it a newbie that will totally disappoint?
This is where the idiom doesn’t apply. PR might be newish but it’s hardly an unknown quantity. Since the March 8, 2008 general election, it has governed four states, two of which are probably the most prosperous states in the federation: Penang and Selangor.
I’m from Penang (and visit there frequently) and live in Selangor. I can safely report that the two states have not gone to the dogs since PR took over. Some would argue that things have improved considerably. Of course there are those who will say there’s still plenty of room for improvement, and they would be right. But it would be laughable to suggest that things have become worse.
Ironically, given that the incumbent in those two states is PR, the idiom would apply in PR’s favour. The so-called devil that you know, in this case, would be PR, which has governed these two states for the past four years. The angel, meanwhile, is BN, which was decimated in those states, to the point that it is no longer recognisable.
BN was destroyed in Penang. Who knows what the new Penang BN would be like? BN was not as badly trounced in Selangor but it has no clear leader in the state. With Khir Toyo no longer in the picture, who is the mentri besar-in-waiting? No one knows. The BN government-in-waiting in those states might or might not be angels, but we certainly don’t know much about them.
For voters, the next general election will not be about familiarity, or the lack thereof, because it is clear what BN and PR stand for.
Oon Yeoh is a new media consultant. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
If BN grants :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
BN might be worth voting. Otherwise stagnation will occur and PR will be a risk to the Rakyat when PR gains power.
ARTICLE 2
Statutory rape is SERIOUS: Future of victims just as important as perpetrators’ – Eli Wong – Friday, 31 August 2012 01:28
Like all concerned Malaysians I am very disturbed by the recent two court decisions on statutory rape offenses.
First, national bowler Noor Afizal, who was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl, had his jail sentence reversed by the Court of Appeal.
It was then compounded by Tuesday’s Sessions Court decision in the case of Chuah Guan Jiu, who was found guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl, yet freed on a bond.
Statutory rape isn’t something to be taken lightly. To consider “consent” in the sentencing, as both courts did, is to make a mockery of the very point of the law–to protect minors, deemed incapable of giving free and informed consent.
This is especially true in cases where the perpetrator is an adult, which is true in both these cases. These incidents should not be confused as young children letting their hormonal urges get the better of them.
Both Noor Afizal and Chuah Guan Jiu were adults who took advantage of children far younger than themselves. The former was 19 when he committed the offence with a 13-year-old girl, while the latter was 21, nine years older than his victim.
Future of the perpetrators, what about the victims?
Disappointingly, the courts were more concerned with the future of the perpetrators and not the victims.
The written judgement in Nor Afizal’s case specifically states that the decision should not be taken as a precedent. However, by not imposing the mandatory five-year minimum jail sentence for rape, the courts are sending a very unfortunate message to women and children–that their rights cannot be protected by our judiciary.
Worse, potential child rapists might think it is possible to escape the punishment the crime deserves.
I urge the public prosecutors to appeal both decisions on these grounds. Malaysians will be watching very closely, hoping for justice to finally be done.
YB ELIZABETH WONG is Executive Councillor, Selangor State Government & PKR assemblywomen for Bukit Lanjan
***Commentator Comments :
What I think by Joan Lau – August 29, 2012
I am all for personal freedoms but when it comes to children and sex, well… all bets are off. Chuah Guan Jiu was 21 when he had sex with a 12-year-old girl. But the judge gave him a break because he did not have a criminal record, is not well educated and the sex was consensual. So what is the
message here? If you have never committed an offence before and did not go to college, you are “poor thing, give chance”? Come on.If this were a drug or firearms offence, the same “considerations” would not be given.Having sex with a child is wrong. Pure and simple.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Elizabeth Wong should know that far more serious is the inability to tell the difference and even attempt to blur the lines between the difference between Statuary Rape AND Consensual Sex NOT AMOUNTING TO RAPE between biologically viable adult women that Statuary Rape Laws Brand as
Women, preventing the right to bear children to younger women. Perhaps, in a certain spiritual theory, there is an occult reason to prevent the ‘masses’ from having young brides having children at young age. And the Fundos are in on this? Is the quality of children by older women different?
Some things should not be used as ‘weapons’ and this intentional inculpation of inability to tell the difference between biological viability and QUALITY of birth could well be the make or break factor in the ascension of a country spiritually . . . these are theories that no nation can ignore. Perhaps all great leaders and spiritually powerful people were borne by the youngest mothers, though again remember that the planet can only host so many people and that everyone including non-humans have a right to live on the planet and cannot ‘own’ anything on the planet, though having an equitable birth rate that at least replaces deaths is alright – there are too many people for a single species btw, out of 100s of 1000s of species, humanity taking up near 40% of the world’s land area is obviously too much . . .
Biological maturity and psychological-emotional maturity are not statuary age. And statuary age does not take into consideration biological age and psychological-emotional maturity. Are Joan or Elizabeth sure they are aware of the difference between WORD of law or SPIRIT of law? Hegelian dialectic AGAIN. Joan and Elizebeth entirely miss the spirit of the law of this case. Having sex with a blindly legalistic statuary age defined ‘child’ is not wrong if the above biological and emotional maturity fact is considered because the final result is actually a mature person in reality – even as age by blindly interpreted ‘word of law’ for statuary consideration, does not recognize reality. ‘Pure and simple’ is not supposed to be fundo and simplistic. And here the display of lack of understanding of the spirit of the issue, or perhaps intentional focusing only on the ‘word of the law’ shows up another 2 of the country’s supposed educated as agenda intent if not uneducated, much like apartheid is accepted by those who no sense of pride as persons as given by the UN Human Rights Charter.
We must remember that before Victorian era, many child brides lived fulfilling lives with their husbands and many of this generation have had a great(or any number of greats)-granny who was a child bride that turned out fine. Who is Joan to say what 2 individuals decide on their own and at their consent? These are private lives and if consensual, and because the child did not suffer and wanted to, especially if the manipulation from the adult was non-existent or within decent limits (thrill of chase etc.), no person or even the court has a right to punish any as no suffering was inflicted except upon the narrow minded or with a certain religious outlook.
This ‘If you have never committed an offence before and did not go to college, you are “poor thing, give chance”?‘, is pure ‘old aunt’s’ demogoguery in quite an uneducated manner. You see one can have a degree yet not be educated in mindset. And mindset wise Joan IS uneducated, as much as Elizabeth is insulting the readers by inculpating hegelian dialectic thought via demogoguery upin the suffering of victims for political points.
Come on.If this were a drug or firearms offence, the same “considerations” would not be given.
Drugs or firearms offences (private carry or use specifically, not smuggling or sale to fundo or 3rd world states) as of now are also more word of law than spirit of law, the premise for existence and application not particularly PC as in a similar manner as the above statuary age case. See the next article below on differences between positive child marriage AND negative child marriage, considered against statuary law and ACTUAL biological age.
ARTICLE 3
By whose interpretation? – Thursday, 30 August 2012 Super Admin (Raja Petra Kamarudin)
Why does the age of the person determine which court has jurisdiction over cases involving illicit sex or zina? Do you mean to tell me that if you are not yet 18 then you are not yet a Muslim? Only when you reach 18 you become a Muslim? Can those under 18, therefore, drink and eat pork and go to church since you are not yet a Muslim and the Sharia court has no power over you until you touch 18?
You may have noticed that I have not written a thing regarding former national youth squad bowler Noor Afizal Azizan’s statutory rape case.
First of all, I thought that since every man and his dog was already talking about it you don’t really need me to comment as well. I mean it is not quite the untold story that I normally like to dabble in. It is more like the ‘over-told’ story.
Furthermore, do you really need more ‘noise’? There is such a thing called overkill and flogging a dead horse (an idiom). There is also such a thing called information overload, which makes people lethargic and sometimes immune to the issue. Hence ‘too much’ can be counter-productive.
Secondly, this appears to have turned into an opposition crusade, which is bad. Once it is perceived as a political issue rather than an issue of justice, people become divided on the issue based on political leanings and not because it is either the right thing or the wrong thing. People will oppose right or support wrong if the criteria is politics. Take crossovers as one example.
Anyway, what is my take on the issue?
Okay, are you outraged about the court’s decision because you are an opposition supporter or because it is morally (or legally) wrong to not classify the case as statutory rape instead of consensual sex? (Note that even some of those in government feel the same way as you do although they speak ‘gentler’ in expressing their view and without the venom).
I think a more important question would be are you capable of setting aside politics when you talk about this issue — or any issue for that matter that involves justice, civil liberties, etc? Can we leave our Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat hats outside the door and come to the table as Malaysians of common interests and concerns?
That is the one thing we find most difficult to do. It is always politics first and everything else second, even in matters such as Hudud, which is supposed to be above politics but is not.
Okay, so a man (or boy) has sex with an underage girl. My first question would be: are the men/boy and girl Muslims? If they are then this is zina (illicit sex or sex outside marriage). And is not zina a crime under the Sharia (Islamic law)? Hence should not the boy and girl be tried under the Sharia?
If the man/boy and girl were both above 18 they would have been brought to the Sharia court. Why are they not brought to the Sharia court just because one or both are below 18?
In Islam, the ‘age of consent’ would be the age of puberty. For girls that would be once she gets her period and that could even be when she is nine years old. According to the Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari, the Prophet Muhammad married Aishah when she was six but did not ‘take her’ until she was nine. And aren’t Muslims supposed to believe in and strictly follow the Hadith and Sunnah or else they cease to be Muslims and would become kafir (infidels).
Hence if the girl is 13 and she already has her period, is she legally (in Islam, that is) a woman who can consent to sex or is she still a child? And hence, also, since she is a Muslim and ‘legally a woman’, is she accountable for her ‘crime’ of consenting to sex or is she blameless? In other words, if the Sharia court were to try them, would both be on trial or only the man/boy?
Okay, we can argue that the Sharia court does not come into play here. This matter does not involve the Sharia court.
Why not? If Muslims above 18 ‘get caught’ for illicit sex they get dragged to the Sharia court. The common law court has no power to try Muslim adults who have sex outside marriage. In fact, sex outside marriage is not a crime under common law (even for Muslims) unless it is same-gender or gay sex.
Why does the age of the person determine which court has jurisdiction over cases involving illicit sex or zina? Do you mean to tell me that if you are not yet 18 then you are not yet a Muslim? Only when you reach 18 you become a Muslim? Can those under 18, therefore, drink and eat pork and go to church since you are not yet a Muslim and the Sharia court has no power over you until you touch 18?
Okay, what if the church or Christians preaches Christianity to Malay boys and girls of 13 or 14 (in short, below 18). Is this a crime? A crime under which law? Common law? Under common law it is not a crime to preach Christianity to Malay children. It is only a crime according to the Religious Department.
But the Religious Department does not have power over us until we are 18. Islam recognises 9-year olds as adults. Common law does not. We are adults only at 18. And common law decides whether we are adults. Not the Religious Department.
So how?
The question is: who has power over Muslims? The common law courts or the Sharia courts? And why does the common law court have power over us until we are 18 and then the Sharia court takes over after that? Is age 18 the ‘legally adult’ age in Islam? And if 18 were the legal adult age under Islam, can Muslims below 18 get married?
Yes, Muslims below 18 can get marriage on condition they are ‘adults’ (meaning reached puberty) and they have their parent’s consent. Hence at that age they are already responsible for their own actions, even in crimes of illicit sex.
But then we are not talking about the Qur’an, Hadith, Sunnah or Islamic law here. We are talking about common law. Hence common law overrides the Qur’an, Hadith, Sunnah or Islamic law and will decide at what age you are an adult and at what age you are still a child. And you will face the common law court when you are legally a child and the Sharia court once you are legally an adult. And although Islam has decided the age of adulthood, Islam has no power over Muslims because the laws of the land and Islam do not work in tandem.
Crazy or not? In Islam, religion decides when we become an adult and hence can get married and have sex. But Islam does not have the power to decide at what age we would be considered as having consensual sex outside marriage. That the common law decides. And that age is 18.
Now, who decides when we cease being a child and legally become an adult although at the age of nine we already discovered the difference between a boy and girl and knew what to do with that thing between our legs? Well, the 222 Members of Parliament, of course. They pass all the laws and they have decided that only at age 17 we can drive and at age 18 we can have sex and at age 21 we can vote.
But why at age 17, 18 and 21 respectively?
Queen Isabella of Valois married Richard II when she was 6 years, 11 months and 25 days old.
David II married Joan, the daughter of Edward II, when he was 4 years and 134 days old.
Louis XIV of France became King at age 5 and took over full control at 23.
Joan of Arc led the French against the English at age 17.
And of course we have that story regarding Aishah, the wife of Prophet Muhammad.
In those days, you married as soon as you legally became a woman, which was when you got your period, and would have been around age 9-11. At age 10-13 boys joined the army and fought and died for their country. These were ages when you were no longer children.
I know, times have changed and we no longer consider girls of 10 or boys of 13 as adults. That may be so when it comes to common law but not if we consider religion.
So, are we outraged about the case of Noor Afizal Azizan because we perceive it as him having sex with an underage girl and the law says a girl of 13 cannot consent to sex and hence he broke the law? Okay, so it is the law that we are concerned about, am I correct?
The law says that a girl of 13 cannot consent to sex. This is a law passed by Parliament, the body that can legally pass laws, which we all must follow. And since Noor Afizal Azizan broke the law passed by Parliament we are outraged.
Okay, I can accept that. The law must be followed. After all this is a law passed by Parliament. But hold on, Parliament also passed a law that says we must get a police permit if we want to hold a demonstration. Should this law not also be followed since we are extremely concerned about the law?
Was Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim therefore correct in that the law must be followed?
Hmm…touché or not touché?
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Amend laws that make no sense, stop talking about Tunku this and that. If a writer uses keeps using any person as a point of reference in matters of common sense instead of consideration of facts, they are dishonest writers involved in inculpation of cult of personality mentality rather than logic based judgments.
Drugs or firearms offences (private carry or use specifically, not smuggling or sale to fundo or 3rd world states) as of now are also more word of law than spirit of law, the premise for existence and application not particularly PC as in a similar manner as the above statuary age case. Good exposition on child marriage issues and examples of ‘child’ marriages in either case.
ARTICLE 4
Two come to Tuan Tat’s defence over forgery accusations – Saturday, 25 August 2012 Super Admin
(The Star) – Ex-Sepang DAP parliamentary liaison committee member Tan Tuan Tat, who was accused of forging 149 membership forms, has produced two former party supporters to back him up.
Mahful Wahid said he had collected membership forms from some 100 people in Kampung Teluk Manggis and Taman Kedidi as they were interested in becoming DAP members.
“I approached Tan for help to submit the forms to Selangor DAP. Why was he accused of forgery?” he said, adding that he, too, had been interested in joining DAP.
Such accusations, added Mahful, had caused him to lose confidence in Pakatan Rakyat.
DAP disciplinary committee chairman Tan Kok Wai said that Tuan Tat, who had been in the party for 18 years, had been charged with forging the membership forms to set up three pro tem branches in Sungai Pelek, Sepang.
He also claimed that the MyKad of people from Sungai Pelek were used without their knowledge to enrol them as DAP members.
Former Pantai Sepang Putra DAP chief R. Veerasamy echoed Mahful’s views, saying that he had also approached Tuan Tat for help to forward the forms to the state DAP’s office.
“In the end, I was found guilty of falsifying the applications and sacked,” he said during a press conference here yesterday.
Denying the accusations, Tuan Tat said it was meant to slander his integrity and credibility.
“Don’t defame me. I did not forge any forms.
“The forms were genuine and came from people who wanted to join DAP,” he said.
Tuan Tat, who used to be Taman Sri Sungai Pelek branch chairman before leaving the party last week, said DAP had deviated from its original spirit and essence.
He also disputed Tan’s charge that he was sacked from the party.
“How can I be sacked when I resigned first?” he said.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
3rd Force needs you Tuan Tat! BN is corrupt and racist. PR is nepotistic and undemocratic!
ARTICLE 5
BN, PR: dua kali lima – THE CORRIDORS OF POWER – Friday, 31 August 2012 Super Admin – Raja Petra Kamarudin
But the political parties that they belong to will not allow this. Although they are called Wakil Rakyat, in reality they are Wakil Parti. They have to represent their party, not us, the voters. And when they try to do what they are supposed to do, the party will pounce on them. Hence they have to toe the party line or else they will be suspended, or worse, sacked.
No, this is not an anti-government article. It is not an opposition-whacking article either. This is an article about why we vote for 222 Malaysians to represent us in Parliament — never mind whether you voted (or will be voting) for Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat. That is not important. What is important is: why do we vote?
We vote for 222 Malaysians to go to Parliament (and another almost 600 State Assemblypersons for the State Assemblies as well — known as ADUNs) so that they can become our representatives or wakil.
The Malays have the correct term for this. These people we vote for (both MPs and ADUNs) are called Wakil Rakyat in Malay, which means Citizen’s Representative (or People’s Representative).
And, as the name implies, that is exactly what they are supposed to do — represent us, the voters.
But the political parties that they belong to will not allow this. Although they are called Wakil Rakyat, in reality they are Wakil Parti. They have to represent their party, not us, the voters. And when they try to do what they are supposed to do, the party will pounce on them. Hence they have to toe the party line or else they will be suspended, or worse, sacked.
Why call them Wakil Rakyat then? They cannot function as Wakil Rakyat. We might as well call them Wakil Parti. And in the coming general election, 10 million Malaysians can go to the polling stations to vote for the Wakil Parti.
Both Barisan Nasional as well as Pakatan Rakyat are equally guilty of this. And since we do not have a ‘third force’, so to speak — unless the rakyat can be regarded as that third force — that is how things are going to be for a long time to come.
But, no, I am not going to talk about the third force. Malaysians are too dumb to understand the meaning of ‘third force’. To most people, ‘third force’ means three-corner contests. Then they will say I am trying to sabotage Pakatan Rakyat so that Barisan Nasional can retain power.
So what if some Members of Parliament (never mind BN or PR) go against their party stand? If it is for the good of the rakyat why can’t they break ranks and not toe the party line? That is why we sent them to Parliament (or the State Assemblies) in the first place.
In America, the Congressmen or Senators from the President’s own party can vote against the President while those from the other side will vote in support of the Bill that the President is proposing. On more than one occasion the President’s Bill had been defeated by his own party while those from the other side actually voted in support of it. No one was suspended or sacked because of this.
I know, some of you are now going to argue that we follow the British Westminster system and that this is how they do things in the UK. They have the Parliament Whip whose job is to ensure that no one breaks ranks.
Okay, if we are so concerned about what they do in Britain, and hence we need to follow the British model, then what about the written constitution? Britain does not have a written constitution. Why not follow Britain and abolish our Constitution?
I have no problems with that. Then no longer will Islam be the religion of the Federation or Malays have special privileges or the Agong be the Supreme Head of the Federation and all that. Britain’s ‘laws’ do not allow a Prime Minister not from the Church of England. You must belong to the Church of England. You want to follow that as well since it is very important that we follow the UK?
Some things we say we MUST follow. Other things we don’t want to follow. Apa ni? Gay marriages also allowed in England, mah! Want to follow or not?
This sorry state of affairs can only be corrected by you, the voters. If you, the voters, insist that the Wakil Rakyat speak for us and not for their party, only then can it happen.
I am going to tell you a story about why Ali is my favourite of the four (Rightly-Guided) Caliphs of Medina. And, no, it is not because I am a follower of the Shia sect of Islam.
Ali was the last of the four Medinan Caliphs. The Shias, however, allege that Ali was robbed of his right to be the First Caliph. I am not going to talk about that. What I want to talk about is he almost became the Third Caliph. And according to the story this is what happened.
As Omar, the Second Caliph, lay dying, he told the people of Medina to form a committee to decide on who should succeed him when he dies. A few candidates were selected and finally it was short-listed to just two, Osman and Ali.
A few interviews were conducted and during the final interview Osman was asked how he would rule if he was chosen as Caliph. Osman replied he would rule according to tradition and by following the example of the Prophet.
Ali was asked the same question and he replied he would rule according to his conscience and with God as his guide.
Osman got the job and some historians say that that was the beginning of the decline of the Islamic Empire. Osman appointed his relatives to important posts in the government and corruption soon emerged. One of Osman’s blunders was he appointed his cousin Muawiyah as the Governor of Syria. When Osman died and Ali took over, Muawiyah declared war on Ali, the first ever war where Muslims fought Muslims (and have been fighting ever since)
I know many Islamists will disagree with my analysis of events, although these events did take place. Nevertheless, my interpretation of this event is Osman said he would follow tradition while Ali said he would follow his conscience. And we have seen how tradition may not always be the best thing to follow.
And the same goes to the issue of our Wakil Rakyat. Forget about tradition, especially Westminster tradition. Follow your conscience. Did we, the voters, or your party vote you into office? And if we voted you into office then serve us instead of your party.
Selangor DAP branches warn the party leadership that DAP would lose the Kota Alam Shah seat if Ganapathirau, a former ISA detainee, is fielded.
KLANG: Eight DAP branches here have called on the party leadership not to field V Ganapathirau (photo) as candidate in Kota Alam Shah state seat in the next general election.
The branches, all from the state constituency, warned the party leadership that the DAP would lose the seat if Ganapathirau, a former detainee of now repealed Internal Security Act, was fielded.
The DAP eight branches, with collectively some 500 members, openly opposed Ganapathirau are Taman Gembira, Klang, Teluk Pulai, Bayu Tinggi, Taman Chi Liung Indah, Southern Klang, Persiaran Raja Muda Musa and Ehsan.
The group spokesman Ivan Ho said they were all against Ganapathirau because he was not a local familiar with the party grassroots leaders and members, or constituents in the area.
Ho said Ganapathirau does not have close rapport with party grassroots in the constituency, a winning factor so crucial for a potential candidate.
He urged the party leadership to respect grassroots sentiments and not to force in parachute candidates like Ganapathirau in Kota Alam Shah.
“DAP members and constituents don’t know him much.
“The party should not push us to accept Ganapathirau.
“We don’t want him,” Ho, the Taman Gembira branch head, told FMT.
Kota Alam Shah incumbent assemblyman is M Manoharan, a protégé of DAP national chairman Karpal Singh.
It’s learnt Selangor DAP leadership under Teresa Kok planned to replace Manoharan, also a former ISA detainee, with Ganapathirau.
Ganapathirau is a staunch confidant of deputy secretary general and Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P Ramasamy.
Not an Indian hero
Taman Chi Liung Indah head K Yogasigamany reminded the state party leadership that time had lapsed to promote the Ganapathirau as a former ISA detainee and his so-called involvement in Hindraf Makkal Sakti.
He said DAP grassroots members and constituents know that Ganapathirau, who now leads NGO Malaysian Indian voice, was not a Hindraf leader.
“Constituents have realised that Ganapathirau was never the Hindraf leader or Indian hero.
“He is no more relevant for Indian community.
“It will be futile and fatal for party leadership to field Ganapathirau in Kota Alam Shah.
“The leadership should drop the idea altogether,” Yogasigamany told FMT.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
How about Ganapathirau run as an independent candidate? Who needs DAP’s nepotism and crony capitalism? Be a Wakil Rakyat not a Wakil Parti.
ARTICLE 7
About the next government – Saturday, 01 September 2012 Super Admin – Raja Petra Kamarudin
This is not about whether Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat is worse. This is about doing the honest thing. When you do party work the rakyat must not be made to pay for it. And when Parliament and the State Assemblies have been dissolved you are committing criminal breach of trust by
continuing to use the government facilities for your personal political campaigns and party work.
First have a look at the Google Analytical graphic below. Those are Malaysia Today’s figures for the pre-Raya, Raya, and post-Raya period.
On Friday, 17th August 2012, Malays began to leave town to return to their kampung. That was when the figures started declining. By Saturday, more people left town (even many non-Malays) and the figures dropped even further.
The non-Malays did not return to work until Wednesday last week, and that was when the figures started to increase again. Most Malays, however, stayed away the entire week until Sunday. On Monday this week, the figures returned to normal when everyone was back in town.
Now, while the figures over last week were down quite a bit because many people were still back in their kampung, the comments, however, did not suffer. And even when the figures went up again this week, the comments more or less remained the same.
From these figures I can only assume two things. First is that Malaysia Today’s Malay readership is quite large. And that is why the figures drop when the Malays are away. Secondly is that most of those who comment are non-Malays. And that is why while the Malay readership declines the comments do not.
Of course, thirdly, based on the type of comments posted, we can also assume that most of those who comment are not yet of the age of maturity. And that is why many comments are very childish. (You should read the ones we deleted. They will shock you).
Anyway, what I want to talk about today is regarding the next government. You see, when Parliament is dissolved to make way for the next general election, in principle Malaysia no longer has a government. What we have is merely a caretaker government and a caretaker Prime Minister.
Now, even Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said this back in 2006. Dr Mahathir explained that in principle there is no longer any government but just a caretaker Prime Minister. But he could not understand, Dr Mahathir said, why no one realises this and never challenged it.
In short, the Cabinet no longer exists, as everyone would have already been ‘sacked’, so to speak. Parliament has been dissolved so technically we no longer have any Members of Parliament. Hence, if we no longer have any Members of Parliament, then we no longer have a Prime Minister or Ministers.
Can the Prime Minister still use his office and other facilities such as the private jet, helicopter, etc., which are for the use of the Prime Minister? What about all those Ministers who still use their office, government car, etc?
Many Malays regard our First Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, as fasiq (bad Muslim) because of his drinking and gambling. But did you know that the Tunku took six months no-pay leave to campaign for the general election? He handed the government to his Deputy, Tun Abdul Razak
Hussein, to take over as Acting Prime Minister.
Whatever you might say about the Tunku, at least he was honest enough to separate his party post from his government post and he did not abuse his government post to do party work. Has any Prime Minister since then taken no-pay leave when they campaign for their party? Even the Merdeka celebration is treated as a party campaign.
And please don’t start screaming ‘that is why we need to get rid of Umno’. Many now in the opposition — not only from Umno but also from MCA, Gerakan and MIC as well — did the same thing when they were in government. They talk only now that they are with the opposition. When they were in government serupa saja.
Take the Menteris Besar from the Pakatan Rakyat states, as an example. Would these MBs take no-pay leave whenever they are campaigning for their party or would they use their post as MB to campaign for Pakatan Rakyat? Of course Umno also does this. That, I don’t deny. But do two wrongs make a right?
Tok Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the MB of Kelantan, switches of the ‘government’ light when he prays (which is a personal duty and has nothing to do with the government). And how much electricity does his light bulb consume when he prays?
This is not about whether Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat is worse. This is about doing the honest thing. When you do party work the rakyat must not be made to pay for it. And when Parliament and the State Assemblies have been dissolved you are committing criminal breach of trust by continuing to use the government facilities for your personal political campaigns and party work.
Do you remember when Datuk Ramli Yussuf, the Director of the CCID, faced charges in Sabah for using a police plane to fly over his land? He was alleged to have taken a detour while on official duty to fly over his land. Just a slight detour in a government plane and he was arrested and charged.
No doubt he was eventually acquitted of that charge but the fact he could he sacked, arrested and charged for taking a ‘joyride’ in a police plane was enough to show the difference between personal and official work. What makes the Prime Minister or Ministers immune from this same ‘crime’?
Once Parliament is dissolved it should be hands-off all public property. No more using public facilities for your personal or party work and campaigns.
I do not know how better to explain this point without sounding cheong hei but understand one thing: once Parliament is dissolved you are now sacked from your job. Hence we no longer have a government and you can no longer use what belongs to the government — meaning, of course, what belongs to the rakyat.
Now, in that same spirit, since we no longer have a government, when we go to the polls we are choosing a new government. Whether we choose Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat does not matter. Both are new governments. The old government no longer exists. Everyone has been sacked from his/her job.
Okay, so we no longer have a government and we go to the polls to choose a government. Never mind that Barisan Nasional has ruled Malaysia for 55 years. That was before. For all intents and purposes, if they win the election they are going to be a new government, jut like how Pakatan Rakyat would be if they win the election.
Hence we need to ask both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat what type of new government they are going to be. We do not care what they did in the past. Don’t try to impress us with what you have been doing over the last 55 years (actually it’s 53 years because the First General Election was in 1959, not 1957). That government no longer exists. We are about to choose a new government so we want to know what type of new government we are going to choose.
Let’s look at it this way. We wipe the slate clean and start from scratch (not to include any corrupt acts, of course, which should still be on the slate). Then we are giving both a level playing field (or else Barisan Nasional can boast about what they have done over 55 years compared to Pakatan Rakyat who never ruled at federal level). Let’s assume Malaysia never had a government before. So now tell us why we should vote for you.
And that would mean we would need to look at so many unresolved issues and hear from both sides what they have to offer us. As I said, there are just so many issues but maybe for purposes of this article we can talk about some of the more pressing ones. And my list is certainly not in order of priority. And I am addressing this list to both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.
1. Will Malaysia adopt in its entirety the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations on 10th December 1948?
2. Will Malaysia practice meritocracy to replace the system of quotas and preferential treatment and will Article 153 in the Constitution be abrogated?
3. Will fundamental liberties be respected and will it include the right to choose your religion, the right to have no religion, the right to your sexual preference, the right to a civil partnership, and much more?
4. Will Malaysia remain a Constitutional Monarchy or will it opt to become a Republic?
5. Will the oil royalty for those states that have oil and gas be increased to 20% or more or will it remain at 5%.
6. Will Sabah and Sarawak be given autonomy and will Federalisation in those states be reduced/limited in line with the 20- and 18-Point Agreements?
7. Will the Human Rights Commission, Anti-Corruption Commission, Police Force Commission, Judicial Commission, Election Commission, etc., be restructured so that the appointments can be made by Parliament and so that they can be responsible to Parliament and will include Commissioners from both sides of the political fence in equal numbers?
8. Will the Constitution be amended to make Malaysia more Secular with the removal of Islam as the religion of the Federation?
9. What is the position of the Sharia — Hudud included, of course — and which legal system will be supreme and will Malaysia remove the dual system, which appears to be running parallel, in favour of a single legal system?
10. Will the anti-hopping act, freedom of information act, freedom of association act (to include students), anti-discrimination act, anti-racism act, freedom of religion act, etc., be introduced and will the death sentence be abolished?
Those are just ten points that both sides need to tell us about. Of course there are many more and some of you may want to add to that list. The bottom line, however, is that we want to hear from all those who are going to offer themselves for election what their position about all these issues are.
We can’t accept the ‘vote first and talk later’ argument. We need to know before we go to the polls the stand of all these people who want our vote. Hence no shocks and surprises later once we choose our new government.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
BN has the mandate for granting all of the above or condensed form of the 3 items below :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;but does not act. Pakatan looks set to be worse with Hudud and Nepotism and backward crony capitalist mindsets, who knows gangsterism as well? A nice article that challenges unnecessary structures in government.
ARTICLE 8
I believe, hence I am right – Sunday, 26 August 2012 Super Admin – NO HOLDS BARRED – Raja Petra Kamarudin
Not even a priest or an imam will ‘serve God’ if they are not being paid a salary. It’s all about money, even those who claim to be serving God. So get off your high horse and stop all this self-righteous bullshit. Every single one of you does things for money. So stop slandering this person and that person as doing things for money. You too are as much money-motivated as the other person you are accusing.
I can’t understand why Malaysia Today’s readers are foaming at the mouth and whacking Hudud. Some have even gone beyond just attacking Hudud and have even whacked Muslims and Islam. A police report has already been made against Malaysiakini. Do you also want a police report to be made against Malaysia Today?
Most of you may think that Malaysia allows freedom of expression. Well, Malaysia may allow freedom of expression up to a certain extent but that freedom is not absolute. There are limits. And that is why Malaysia has many laws that are aimed at ‘ensuring the peace and stability’ of the nation, the Sedition Act being one of them.
This means you cannot simply say what you like, not even in America or Britain. For example, if you start talking about Muslim terrorists, Jihad and bombs while in a plane you can get into trouble anywhere in the world. You might argue that it is your fundamental right to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. The police, however, will not agree with you as they drag you away in handcuffs. Try it if you don’t believe me.
So perish the thought regarding absolute freedom of expression. It does not exist. There are boundaries and you must navigate within these boundaries. I, for one, can tell you that this is absolutely true. I, too, have learned that you cannot say everything that is on your mind. There are some things you can say and there are many things you cannot say. And if you violate this rule you will get vilified like hell. I am speaking from experience here.
Look at what happened to Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim. His party expressed support for the Bersih 3.0 rally while he said that although he is for clean elections he does not feel that breaking the law is the way to send the message to the government. And for saying that he was whacked kaw-kaw until he felt so hurt he left the party. I suppose anyone who is called foul names would feel the way he felt. I mean people do have feelings, even Pakatan Rakyat leaders.
In the first place, Tunku Aziz should not have joined a political party. He is not a politician, period. And he should have realised that once you join a political party you must toe the party line. You cannot do what the people would view as breaking ranks. They will kill you, figure of speech, of course. And once you join a political party and then resign, you will be accused of being bought off, of selling out, and all sort of foul things. It is better you had not joined in the first place. Then you can say what you like.
Once you join a political party you need to sacrifice certain freedoms for the sake of party unity. Even when you talk in closed-door meetings or unofficial meetings you need to watch what you say. In politics everyone is an enemy, even the person sitting next to you in the meeting. And what you say will be leaked to embarrass you. And the Penang PKR chief, Datuk Dr Mansor Othman, has found out the hard way what damage these leaks can do.
Of course, Dr Mansor has denied saying what he is alleged to have said. The minutes, though, appear to prove otherwise. But minutes can be forged. After all, only those who attended the meeting would know.
No doubt, none of the others who attended that meeting have come forward to reveal that they had attended the meeting and that the minutes had been forged and that no such thing was ever said in the meeting. Nevertheless, whether the people believe that denial is another thing. After all, politicians deny allegations all the time. Clinton denied. Nixon denied. And in the end it was proven that these denials were all lies. In fact, Najib Tun Razak has also denied the allegations against him but we all don’t believe his denials — am I not correct?
The golden rule in politics is when cornered deny or say ‘no comment’. Of course, most people are of the opinion that when politicians deny it then it must be true and when they say ‘no comment’ that means they are admitting the allegation. But the most important thing is no one can prove it.
And this is what matters in the end. Can you prove the allegation?
What you need to do, before they even deny it or say ‘no comment’, is to challenge them to prove that the allegation is false. Under normal circumstances one is assumed innocent until proven guilty. But if you want to corner a politician you twist it the other way. You ask them to prove that the allegation is false. That is actually quite impossible to do.
Anwar was convicted and sentenced to a total of 15 years jail because he could not prove his innocence. The Federal Court later overturned that conviction on grounds that the Prosecution failed to prove his guilt. Nevertheless, Anwar had already served six years of the 15 years before he saw freedom. Thus, sometimes, the guilty until proven innocent rule does work in certain cases.
New laws are being introduced in Malaysia where you will need to prove you are innocent or else you are presumed guilty. We had 52 years of the Internal Security Act where an estimated 10,000 people had been detained without trial on that same assumption — guilty until proven innocent. They detain you first and then later you need to convince them that you deserve to be released. It is impossible to prove you deserve to be released when your detention is on the basis that one man, the Minister, believes you are a threat to national security.
I mean how do you prove a belief wrong? You have a belief, and that belief is I am a threat to national security. How do I prove this belief wrong? How do I prove any of your beliefs wrong? You believe that Hudud is God’s law and is mandatory. You believe that the Qur’an came directly from God and is God’s word. You believe the Bible is the Holy Book of God (in fact, you swear an oath on the Bible although it may have been printed by a printer in Jalan Chan Sow Lin). You believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and was crucified and died for our sins. How do I prove all these beliefs wrong?
So, I can’t prove any of your beliefs wrong, even the belief that I am a threat to national security. And that means I will remain under detention without trial until your beliefs change and you now believe that I have reformed and have turned over a new leaf and am no longer a threat to national security.
Such are beliefs. And beliefs are impossible to prove wrong. If you had to prove your belief right, that would be another thing altogether. To prove your belief right you will need evidence, which you may or may not have. But for me to prove your belief wrong is a non-starter never mind what that belief may be. Beliefs do not require evidence. Hence you can believe something even if there is no evidence. And for me to prove your belief wrong when your belief is void of evidence would mean I would not have the evidence to prove your belief wrong.
Can you see how it works?
Many friends have been in touch with me to ask me to clear the air on what people are saying about me. These friends tell me that people believe I am this or I am that or I have done this or I have done that. But that is just it. This is what people believe. How do I prove this belief to be false?
Most of those people who believe these things about me also believe in God and believe in a religion. Is there any basis for these beliefs? Is there any evidence to support these beliefs? Can they prove that their beliefs are facts and not myths?
Of course they can’t. They just believe it, that’s all. There is no basis for these beliefs. They heard stories and they believe these stories. These are all stories without evidence. Then they support these stories and justify their beliefs by showing us a Holy Book, which they said came from God but was printed by a printer in Jalan Chan Sow Lin who himself does not believe in God and is printing this ‘Holy Book’ just to make money from the printing contract
Thus this is the mindset of these types of people. They are susceptible to believing things that cannot be proven. And these same people also believe certain things about me. So how do we talk to such people when they are already prone to believing things that they imagine to be true even when it cannot be proven true?
Can you see the futility in trying to turn these people? It is as difficult as trying to convince a Catholic that Prophet Muhammad is a Prophet of God or trying to convince Muslims that Jesus is the Son of God — or trying to convince readers of Malaysia Today that Hudud is God’s command and is mandatory for all Malaysians.
The best would be to just let people believe what they want to believe. Most of these people believe that they are sincere and noble while all the rest are scumbags anyway. Only they are true. All others are false.
Look at the party hopping issue as one example. Most believe that it is wrong for people to leave their party to join the other side. But it is not wrong for those from the other side to leave the other side to join their party.
If they leave the other side to join their side then it is a sincere and noble gesture. But if they leave their side to join the other side it cannot also be because of a sincere and noble gesture. It can only be because of money and for no other reason.
This is the belief.
You do things out of sincerity and for noble reasons. Others are not noble or sincere and do things merely for money. You do not do things for money.
As I said, this is the belief and they believe that their belief is right. But is it?
Their parents sent them to school to receive an education. I have Chinese friends who tell me that education is at the top of the Chinese priority list. Education comes first and everything else comes after. This is what my Chinese friends tell me and since so many seem to tell me the same thing I am inclined to believe it.
Then I ask them, why? To the Malays, religion comes first. That is way at the top of the priority list of the Malays. Go ask the Malays and see what they say. But why do Chinese put education and not religion at the top of their priority list?
And they tell me it is because you need a good education to be ensured a good future. Only a good education can ensure a good future. And many Malaysians, after they have received that good education, choose to stay overseas to work. They have spent so much money on their education that they need to work overseas because the salary they will earn back in Malaysia would be too low and they will never be able to recover the cost of their education.
So people get an education. But they go and get an education not because they seek knowledge. They go and get an education so that they can get a good job that pays good money.
Everybody works. And they all work because they want money. Only with money can they buy things and live a good life. They want a house. They want a car. They want to get married. They want power, position, prestige, recognition, and whatnot. And all this requires money.
Why do they want all these? Are these not all for selfish reasons? You can go live in a jungle and not starve. There is food everywhere. You can live off the land. You can build a roof over your head from what you find in the jungle. You can use the streams and rivers to wash and bathe. You do not need money. You do not need a job. You do not need to spend so much money getting educated.
So, yes, everyone does things for money, even those of you who believe you are sincere and noble. Do you need money? Actually you do not. You don’t need money. You just want money. And you want money because you want the good things in life.
Are you prepared to resign from your job and go work in one of the African countries for no salary? They will provide you a tent to sleep in and three meals a day. They will also provide you with khaki uniforms. But other than that you will receive no money.
Is that not a noble and sincere thing to do? You work for no money but only to serve humankind. You get to eat and sleep in a tent, that’s all.
Not even a priest or an imam will ‘serve God’ if they are not being paid a salary. It’s all about money, even those who claim to be serving God. So get off your high horse and stop all this self-righteous bullshit. Every single one of you does things for money. So stop slandering this person and that person as doing things for money. You too are as much money-motivated as the other person you are accusing.
At least a prostitute is honest about what he or she is. That is more than I can say for you.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
1) Most of you may think that Malaysia allows freedom of expression. Well, Malaysia may allow freedom of expression up to a certain extent but that freedom is not absolute. There are limits. And that is why Malaysia has many laws that are aimed at ‘ensuring the peace and stability’ of the nation,
the Sedition Act being one of them. This means you cannot simply say what you like, not even in America or Britain. For example, if you start talking about Muslim terrorists, Jihad and bombs while in a plane you can get into trouble anywhere in the world. You might argue that it is your fundamental right to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. The police, however, will not agree with you as they drag you away in handcuffs.
Then attempts will be made to change the law so that the police will focus on real criminals like corrupted politicians or those who sequester the funds of the nation by writing Vehicular-AP type laws so their daughters and son-in-laws can lounge around writing pro-1% rubbish instead of changing bad laws. The police, however, will agree to fair mindedness instead of chilling effect bad wishes on people via bad or racist laws, who at least bother to engage the country/public in effecting meaningful change. No word on apartheid yet? Still defending hudud? Why does RPK seem to support chilling effect laws?
2) It’s all about money, even those who claim to be serving God. So get off your high horse and stop all this self-righteous bullshit. Every single one of you does things for money. So stop slandering this person and that person as doing things for money. You too are as much money-motivated as the other person you are accusing.
Those who claim to be serving God would think that everyone is EQUAL and that the wealth of the nation and the land belongs to everyone. That means space for living, as well as oil wealth etc.. This is what makes a nation a nation, not 1% of people holding 99% of the wealth while 99% of the people have to work. “God’ provided the land that grows food and has materials for life and civilisation. There is no such thing as money which is man made and a mere tool or yardstick for reprsentation of goods and services.
3) The golden rule in politics is when cornered deny or say ‘no comment’. Of course, most people are of the opinion that when politicians deny it then it must be true and when they say ‘no comment’ that means they are admitting the allegation. But the most important thing is no one can prove it.
And this is what matters in the end.
When a 99% person’s life looks set to be an endless and hopeless rehash of days till old age, ‘no comment’ is not an option. And this is what matters in the end. The 99% will vote for political power distribution via term limits and nepotism prohibitions, then also wealth and land distribution. The plutocrats and oligarchs and nepotists can GTFO of Parlaiment.
4) Such are beliefs. And beliefs are impossible to prove wrong. If you had to prove your belief right, that would be another thing altogether. To prove your belief right you will need evidence, which you may or may not have. But for me to prove your belief wrong is a non-starter never mind what that belief may be. Beliefs do not require evidence. Hence you can believe something even if there is no evidence. And for me to prove your belief wrong when your belief is void of evidence would mean I would not have the evidence to prove your belief wrong. Can you see how it works?
Muslim thought mode imprinting. Manipulative inculpation of ‘thought/sentence’ structures/pattersn is not engaging the readers but insulting the readers. If I am wrong about this being a Muslim NLP, then apologies in advance when I go ‘Blah, Muslims . . .’ . . . NO, all non-Muslims refuse to see how ‘it’ (Islam by my reading of what RPK is pushing with ingenuous references to it, it might as well be the whore of Babylon or Moloch or every non-Muslim’s collective !@#$%^& . . . )
5) Can you see the futility in trying to turn these people? It is as difficult as trying to convince a Catholic that Prophet Muhammad is a Prophet of God or trying to convince Muslims that Jesus is the Son of God — or trying to convince readers of Malaysia Today that Hudud is God’s command and is mandatory for all Malaysians.
There is even less proof of God yet people believe. Futility to ‘turn these people’ is far easier than to believe in God. Also laws are man-made, wealth distribution is biased. The 99% would believe that and the 1% as RPK and by extension RPK’s wife Marin or Mahathir’s ill-gotten billions would prefer th 99% to not think about.
6) Everybody works. And they all work because they want money. Only with money can they buy things and live a good life. They want a house. They want a car. They want to get married. They want power, position, prestige, recognition, and whatnot. And all this requires money.
This is a materialistic view. There are many views. Also there are systems that do not require money.n The Capitalist system is abusive and enslaves people with money. Figure out the rest on how to vote to change the system to do away with money.
7) If they leave the other side to join their side then it is a sincere and noble gesture. But if they leave their side to join the other side it cannot also be because of a sincere and noble gesture. It can only be because of money and for no other reason. This is the belief.
Shame on RPK for preaching corruption. Kaffir mindedness if anything and tainted by promotion of hudud’s violence based justice.
8) Are you prepared to resign from your job and go work in one of the African countries for no salary? They will provide you a tent to sleep in and three meals a day. They will also provide you with khaki uniforms. But other than that you will receive no money.
Any and everone would if land and wealth were distributed equally. In fact there would be no ‘African countries’ either if migration prohibitions were done away with up to limits of population supportable by a country at least.
9) At least a prostitute is honest about what he or she is. That is more than I can say for you.
One man’s ‘honesty’ is another man’s resignation and apathy, giving up on a better life. That is what a prostitute does, which is more than I can say for RPK’s inactivity and b.s.ing from England instead of returning to Malaysia to prove so called ‘enemies’ wrong.
Fostering apathy via weak logic so that plutocrats and nepotists or propagandists get to abuse and parasite off the 99% is pitiful and reprehensible. Belief with logic is and expecting to be questioned and responding always makes right. As mentioned before, some people use their intelligence for good causes, others use their intelligence to suppress the truth and every man’s right to equality instead of entitlement. Being around for decades within privilege allows one to never feel empathy for the problems people face. The 99% however are ready to vote in a manner that will end such socialised insanity. Money is an invention. The sooner everyone realises this, the better a place the world will be. Also the sooner Marina and RPK endorse the below 3 items :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;the sooner will the Malaysians have a real chance of reclaiming their place as equals with other races in the world instead of hiding behind corrutpting tacit approvals by Marina or pernicious articles by RPK.
…
written by Dr Syed Alwi, September 02, 2012 14:20:43
Dear RPK,
It doesn’t matter whether its BN or PR – the mentality of the average Malaysian is very backwards. It will be another 50 years before you can see the kind of changes that you want. You’ve got a vast majority of Malays still believing in magic etc ! You’ve got the Chinese who are still pushing for parochial interests ! To change Malaysia – is to change minds. You need a mental revolution. Malaysia is Third World in terms of mentality. Still medieval and still feudal. Its still 1511 as far as Malaysians go !
If you are serious about these changes – then you should focus on Education. The educational system must change to produce better minds in the future. No major changes can be expected in the short term. Just focus on education and in 20 to 30 years time – it will bear fruit. But for now – you won’t see much changes.
Regards
Dr Syed Alwi
ARTICLE 9
Merdeka belongs to ALL M’sians, not just to BN or to Pakatan – by Lim Kit Siang – Thursday, 30 August 2012 22:03
Merdeka Day should be an overarching national celebration uniting Malaysians regardless of race, religion, region or political affiliation in a common purpose to develop a more democratic, just, competitive and prosperous nation – and any partisan attempt to hijack the Merdeka Day which can only result in greater division, dissension and disunity must be deplore
It is sad many Malaysians feel depressed by this year’s 55th Merdeka Day not only because they have never felt so unsafe in public places and the privacy of their homes, but also because of the increasingly negative and discordant voices sowing distrust and hatred in our plural society and seeking to polarise and divide Malaysians particularly along race and religious lines.
For ALL Malaysians
Merdeka Day is a national celebration not just for any individual, group, community or political party. It is not for Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat. It is for all Malaysians.
Let all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region or political affiliation rise above their differences to celebrate the 55th Merdeka Day as one Malaysian people to forge a common national destiny where freedom, justice, integrity and good governance flourish in our land and enjoyed by all our citizens.
Lim Kit Siang is the DAP adviser & MP for Ipoh Timur
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Whats really sad is the 90% failed campaign promises by DAP, Kit Siang talking shop here as if those seats were fairly won. All DAP seats were won by lies of unkept campaign promises. The Rakyat loses respect for politicians who cannot keep their word, especially after being rewarded in advance with votes. Merdeka belongs to ALL M’sians . . . blah blah blah . . . campaign promises first, otherwise don’t talk rubbish here on internet. Pakatan OWES the Rakyat all unkept promises Mr.Undemocratic-TermLimitless-Nepotist . . .
Voters, don’t depend on Pakatan so much. Pakatan has said nothing about ending the Bumi/Non-Bumi difference, or PAS’s Hudud so far. Look at the lack of engagement hiding behind the ethos of that MP’s seat intent on being term limitless. Voters, if Pakatan will in such a belittling manner, not respond fairly and clearly to questions as blogs like these pose, Pakatan will indeed favour and collude with cronies in the same way BN has. Pakatan is UNVOTABLE simply by the uncommunicativeness and even attempts to destroy would be competing 3rd force politicians, groups and activists by.
The voters are no fools and can see what has happened. Pakatan is a danger and perhaps even part of the hegelian dialect, at least in all term limitless family nepotistic types. Again I present the unvotable within Pakatan so that the Rakyat can think clearly enough to vote correctly :
OFFENDING TERM LIMITLESS/NEPOTISM CLIQUES in PAKATAN
Three of the below limitless term MPs must be challenged so that only a single candidate without relatives remains :
Lim Kit Siang (MP Ipoh Timur – Perak)
Lim Guan Eng (MP Air Puteh – Penang)
Chew Gek Cheng (Assemblyman Kota Laksamana – Malacca) Guan Eng’s wife
Lim Hui Ying Guan Eng’s sister (Vice-Chairman)
Two of the below must be challenged so that only a single candidate without relatives remains :
Karpal Singh (MP Jelutong – Penang)
Gobind Singh (MP Puchong – Selangor) Karpal’s son
Jagdeep Singh (Asssemblyman Dato Keramat – Penang) Karpal’s son
Two of the below must be challenged so that only a single candidate without relatives remains :
Anwar Ibrahim (MP Permatang Pauh, Seberang Prai)
Wan Azizah
Nurul Izzah Anwar(MP Lembah Pantai – Kuala Lumpur) Anwar’s Daughter who won only because (as per RPK’s report on article) only 7% of the voters in the constituency Nurul stood in turned up!
Also either Ngeh (Pantai Remis) or Nga (Sitiawan) must go to prevent 2nd degree nepotism and the kind of environment that caused DAP’s Kulasegaran to be kicked out possibly an act of racism but more likely at the order of the Lim family clique and their dogs like Chow Kon Yeow and Ng Wei Aik.
For even stronger consideration, I also list seats that HRP demands from the unethical Pakatan cliques, note that PAS is the least problematic party in Pakatan though more authoritarian and Islamically inclined (Hudud should be applied on a signatory by signatory basis, not summarily imposed, to not drive away Malay voters) :
1. Padang Serai (Incumbent: PKR – N Gobalakrishnan)
2. Batu Kawan (DAP – Ramasamy)
3. Sungei Siput (PSM – Dr D Jeyakumar)
4. Ipoh Barat (DAP – N Kulasegaran)
5. Bagan Datoh (BN – Ahmad Zahid Hamidi)
6. Cameron Highlands (BN – SK Devamany)
7. Hulu Selangor (BN – P Kamalanathan)
8. Kuala Selangor (PAS – Dzulkefy Ahmad)
9. Klang (DAP – Charles Santiago)
10. Kota Raja (PAS – Siti Mariah Mahmud)
11. Rasah (DAP – Anthony Loke)
12. Teluk Kemang (PKR – Kamarul Baharin Abbas)
13. Alor Gajah (BN – Fong Chan Onn)
14. Tebrau (BN – Teng Boon Soon)
15. Lembah Pantai (PKR – Nurul Izzah Anwar)
HRP might very well be aware of some things we are not aware of to list some surprising choices as well, do not discount their reasons.
ANOTHER THEORY ON WHY VOTE 3rd Force Over Pakatan or BN
Introducing all readers to the high tech world of hidden surveillance and mind altering electronics like Passive Millimeter Wave Technology or EMF based wave weapons. Half of the wealthiest and most influencial non-Muslims in Malaysia could get thrown into jail for if that law is passed. Afraid if the government makes owning such things illegal?
ALL READERS. Rais Yaatim was manipulated into raping the maid via sub-aurals and EMF and possibly certain drugs that made him unable to control himself the combination is very effective on most people unless they have the luxury of becoming extremely anti-social to compensate.
Also like Anwar and Saiful, the 2 guys were probably drugged and manipulated with the same method. Do you think dr.Evil had no hand in causing the cases to be used as a weapon to ensure their obedience?
Neuro-linguistic programming also could have played a strong part in grooming targets with dr.Evil’s resources, he could get any number of people to ‘say things’ to manipulate Anwar, Saiful’s or Rais Yaatim’s mental state, then drug them. The combination is quite lethal.
A law against use or ownership of such electronic weapons should be immediately put in place and all who are in ownership of such devices should immediately be investigated and any complaints or evidence corroborated by the legal system which should be made aware of these obviously criminal methods and weapons. Watch out for the Wiifi, 4G or 700 Hz YTL lines. These and the telecoms towers will ensure whatever government will be able to manipulate voters as well INCLUDING extracting/inserting thought memories.
In time these weapons or stalking activities will be illegal and the legal system updated on these weapons, and anyone who has used these will likely be dragged up on charges for victimising citizens with criminal intent to harm. They should watch out for YTL’s 4G or the Telecoms Towers as well, Nautilus Bay Penang looks like a G.W.E.N. Tower too.
4G or 700 Hz will literally end all freedom of thought, so start understanding that we are living in high tech times even though the infrastructure is still quite bad. In the hands of private contractors like YTL we will literally lose control of free thought. Oppose any 700 Hz, 3G or telecoms towers, otherwise we will be quite finished even before GE13.
Anwar and Saiful, Prince Saud Abdulaziz Bin Nasir Al Saud of Oman, the Catholic Priests overcome with lust for children, I strongly believe that due to your strong religious and family upbringing and even some of us due to our station, political beliefs and political alignments, or threat of presenting too powerful a social or psychological, even psychic competition, or even intelligence, or even failed relationships with people having access to such devices – have been groomed into paedophilia, LGBT or even simulated mental illness specifically to weaken our voice by society’s worst who see nothing except political power and wealth not a nation of citizens.
Let us seek justice and reclaim our reputations.
ARTICLE 9
Buckle up – and beware of strays – by REGINA LEE – Friday August 10, 2012 regina@thestar.com.my
PETALING JAYA: The usual road safety tips apply along the North-South Expressway buckle up and obey the speed limit. Then watch out … for cows?
Signs urging motorists and other road users to be wary of cows have sprouted up at 29 locations along the expressway as recently as three weeks ago, according to highway concessionaire PLUS Malaysia.
“There has been an increasing number of animal sightings along the expressway and we want to warn people to be wary of cows and other strays, especially at certain locations,” corporate communications senior manager Mohd Nizam Ismail said yesterday.
“Most of the strays sighted are cows, water buffalos, tapirs and wild boars. But other animals such as dogs, monkeys and goats have also been seen.”
A woman and her son were killed early on Sunday when their car collided with a cow near the Simpang Ampat toll plaza in Malacca.
Ngatinah Kemin, 47, and her 10-year-old son Habib Firdaus were travelling back from the KL International Airport to their home in Simpang Renggam together with her husband and daughter when the accident occurred at 1.20am.
The Road Transport Department said that such incidences were rare and that it was not usual for cows to cross a highway.
“In the rural areas, yes, it happens a lot. But this is the first case that I’ve heard of in my two years in the Transport Ministry,” said deputy director-general Datuk Ismail Ahmad.
A cow died on the spot after being hit by a car at Persiaran Utara in Putrajaya while crossing the road. The driver was unhurt.
The driver was unhurt.
He explained that a road retained heat at night making it warm and “nice” for cows to lie on.
Ismail hoped cattle farmers would keep their cows fenced up, especially at night.
In July 2008, three people were killed in two separate accidents on the same 772km-long expressway within days of each other in Rembau and Jitra after crashing into cows.
Pahang Umno secretary Datuk Abdullah Rahmat died when his car hit a cow in Temerloh on the East Coast Highway on Dec 12, 2008.
PLUS urged members of the public to call its hotline 1800 88 0000 whenever they see stray animals on the expressway.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
PAP’s Neuroscience Institute at Biopolis has been busy equipping Pakatan? Neurotech assassination? Get a cow to saunter onto the road at an inopportune moment to kill political opponents. Earlier that was neurotech dogs savaging and killing people, but too dramatic and suspicious.
ARTICLE 10
Man gored to death by wild buffalo – September 01, 2012
IPOH, Sept 1 — A man was gored to death while his friend was injured after they were attacked by a wild buffalo while on a fishing trip at the Royal Belum Forest Reserve in Hulu Air Pasir, Banding near Grik yesterday.
Musa Ismail, 56, died after he was gored in the stomach while his friend Isa Abdullah, 24, broke a leg and hand. Two other friends of theirs, however, escaped injury.
Grik police chief Supt Abdul Manab Baharum said in the incident happened between 3pm and 6pm when the four entered the forest reserve via a trail at Km68.4 of the East Coast Highway.
“As they were walking towards the location to set up their fish traps they were attacked by a wild buffalo which appeared out of nowhere,” he told Bernama.
He said after the animal ran away after attacking them, one of the friends who was not injured used his handphone to call up other friends for help.
He said they (friends) alerted the police who immediately mobilised a search-and-rescue team which included members of the Fire and Rescue Department, Rela, Civil Defence Department and local villagers.
“Because of the mountainous terrain, the team only managed to reach them at 1am. We also had difficulty bringing them out and only managed to do so at 6.30am today.
“The dead and injured victims were sent to the Grik Hospital,” he said.
Abdul Manab advised the public not to enter the reserve to fish or gather herbs without a valid permit from the authorities for their own safety. — Bernama
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Looks like this method of assassination will be the newest method employed in Malaysia. ‘ . . . beware of strays . . . ‘ goes Regina . . . so does that mean dogs and cats will also be used to kill car driving people in the same way? A neurotech dog or cat rushes out across the road, a ‘caring’ driver dies avoiding the animal . . . or at least get injured if said driver hits the animal and crashes . . .
ARTICLE 11
I’m not returning to Barisan, says Lajim – Saturday, 01 September 2012 Super Admin
(The Star) – KOTA KINABALU: Beaufort MP Datuk Lajim Ukin has denied talk that he is returning to Barisan Nasional.
“I have not met any Barisan leaders either at the state or Federal level to talk about returning to Barisan,” he told reporters here on Thursday.
Several bloggers have claimed that he was returning to Barisan because he was not given any “incentives” promised by the Opposition and that he failed to deliver more crossovers.
He believed such bloggers were trying to discredit him and make people lose faith in him.
He reiterated that his July 28 move to align himself with Pakatan Rakyat was done without any “incentives”.
“Let me make it clear that I joined the Opposition not because of monetary gains. That is not how the Opposition works, they do not buy anyone,” he added.
Lajim, who has formed non-governmental organisation Coalition for Change in Sabah, claimed that there would be more Barisan members leaving at the “right time”.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Lajim, just drop nepotistic PR and racist BN! Join 3rd Force!
ARTICLE 12
PR has lost direction, says Noh Omar – by Mohd Farhan Darwis – September 01, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 1 — Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Noh Omar today took a swipe at Pakatan Rakyat (PR), saying the opposition bloc has started to lose its direction in wanting to replace the national flag, the Jalur Gemilang.
The Selangor Barisan Nasional (BN) deputy chairman also said it was impossible to do so as the flag is enshrined in the Federal Constitution.
“They have started to lose direction… until they even want to change the flag. I want to remind them that we cannot change matters enshrined in our Constitution such as the flag; whoever rules it is still our symbol. And the national anthem ‘Negaraku’, it is the song of whoever is in power.
“They are not yet ruling (but) already want to do extraordinary things,” Noh (picture) told reporters at the Selangor BN open house at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia (RRIM) in Sungai Buloh here.
The Tanjung Karang MP also expressed sorrow at the way PR celebrated National Day.
“I feel very sad at the attitude and the way they celebrate Merdeka Day, we should raise flags, but they make other flags,” he said, in apparent reference to a group of individuals who were spotted waving flags sporting alternative designs to the Jalur Gemilang during the massive public countdown to the country’s 55th National Day in Kuala Lumpur last Thursday.
“They are rude, not yet in power but they are already power crazy, their supporters and followers don’t respect our rules.”
The individuals were spotted carrying flags sporting the familiar crescent moon and 14-pointed star against a red-and-white striped background — similar to the national flags of neighbouring Singapore and Indonesia — which were alleged to be the alternative to the Jalur Gemilang.
Some of the street party-goers were also reported to have stepped on or tore posters bearing the images of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, his wife and the Election Commission chairman that night.
However, the organisers of the Janji Demokrasi rally — which took place at the same venue at Dataran Merdeka — has distanced themselves from the individuals who had allegedly demanded the national flag be replaced.
Noh also commented on Selangor PR ignoring the Sultan of Selangor in its National Day celebrations, saying that it shows that the federal opposition bloc did not uphold the Rukun Negara principle of “Loyalty to King and country”.
“Before BN carried out today’s programme, the organiser informed the Sultan of Selangor that the prime minister will come to celebrate with the people.
“Not like the opposition, their state-level Merdeka Day celebrations ignored the Sultan and turned this celebration into a political arena,” Noh said, adding “we practise the Rukun Negara principle of loyalty to King and country.”
Noh said: “In this life there are two things, morals and laws. Morally, they have to respect our culture, other people’s functions, but they try to take advantage to carry out politicking activities including in the programme on Merdeka Day eve”.
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Better than BN’s WRONG DIRECTION – continuing apartheid is wrong. Pakatan is still excusable for not having 2/3rds to end apartheid. We’ll know 100% for certain if Pakatan wins and does not end apartheid or 3rd Force takes over.
MCA meanwhile should leave BN with, PPP, MIC and Gerakan to form a viable 3rd Force with Tunku Aziz as head of 3rd force on the below 3 items as a rallying factor :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
Voters, BN is apartheid, corrupt and refuses to use that mandate to better Malaysia, PR is self serving non-pro-active, self glorifying, unable to keep their campaign promises, also very nepotistic, so vote instead for 3rd Force Parties such as : KITA, JATI, MCLM (whats left of MCLM), PCM, Borneo Front, MoCS Sarawak, Konsensus Bebas, HRP/Hindraf and PSM, ABU, PRS, STAR etc.. to END APARTHEID.
ARTICLE 13
SHOCKING: ‘Suspected criminal’ Musa Aman swings meeting with William & Kate – by Sarawak Report – Saturday, 01 September 2012 17:44
Today’s confirmation by the Office of the Attorney General in Switzerland that it has opened a criminal prosecution against the banking group UBS, over suspected money-laundering on behalf of Musa Aman, looks set to cause an awkward diplomatic upset for the UK.
After all, the royal couple Wills and Kate are right now packing their bags to give Musa a friendly visit!
Sarawak Report first exposed back in May the evidence that the Sabah Chief Minister has taken tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks for issuing licences to chop down what remains of Sabah’s rain forests.
And we have laid out damning details of the money laundering operation conducted by the Musa and his associates through UBS accounts in a number of articles.
Details of bank statements and of the official investigations by the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission and also the Hong Kong authorities into the affair were made public in our series of exposes and the evidence was sent to Switzerland, where the Bruno Manser Fund requested the prosecution against UBS.
Yet, despite this mounting evidence, UK officials have refused to heed warnings against the planned visit to the state by the British heir to the throne and his new wife.
The visit is due to take place between September 11-19th, as part of a Royal Tour of the Commonwealth in celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, marking her 60th year on the throne. They will also be visiting Singapore and the Solomon Islands.
Photo-opportunity?
Great publicity – but could it now all backfire?
To begin with the choice of Sabah might have seemed perfect publicity for the environment conscious Royal Family. After all the trip is being promoted as an “exotic visit to the Borneo Jungle”.
Just in the past few hours the British press has printed exciting details of plans to feature the Prince and his wife looking daring in lush forest canopies and cuddling up to cute baby orang-utans.
Given Musa’s energetic ‘greenwash’ PR of recent months, the objective has been to praise Musa for ‘slowing’ Sabah’s rate of deforestation, according to UK officials. They are accepting claims that he now wants to protect what is left of the jungle.
However, for months Sarawak Report has been warning the Royal Palace and the British Foreign Office against becoming associated with Musa Aman’s new campaign to present Sabah as an eco-friendly state, when in fact the Danum Valley Reserve which they will be visiting is a small oasis in one of the world’s worst environmental disaster zones and the Chief Minister is still selling concessions for kickbacks throughout the state.
Sarawak Report has also warned that proof of Musa Aman’s timber corruption is now in the public domain, showing how the destruction of Sabah’s jungle since the early 1990s has largely been driven by his own greed, first as the Head of Yayasan Sabah (The Sabah Foundation which is the trustee of its national forests) and then as the Chief Minister.
There is evidence that over US$90million dollars have been money-laundered through accounts associated with Aman and his key conspirators, a family friend Michael Chia and the Sabah lawyer Richard Christopher Barnes.
For these reasons Sarawak Report has repeatedly pleaded against the Royal Couple being encouraged to endorse a man whose criminality has ruined the jungle that they say they want to see protected!
This is a photo-opportunity that could go badly wrong.
Why endorse a suspected criminal?
Musa and his forest Chief Sam Manan altered the contour maps to allow logging of these once protected steep mountain areas of the state
Despite warnings from Sarawak Report just last week that Switzerland was about to launch its criminal prosecution over Musa’s money, the British High Commission is allowing this visit to proceed!
This opens the Royal Couple to charges of complete hypocrisy. They will of course be staying in pure luxury in the jungle resort in Danum Valley (a project sponsored by the world’s largest palm oil company, Malaysia’s government-controlled Sime Darby), while all around them millions of hectares of oil palm plantations are still being rolled out by their corrupted hosts.
The questionable judgement of such a visit is made even more severe by its timing, just as Malaysia approaches a crucial election.
What business has Britain to give such an endorsement to a notoriously corrupted and autocratic government, which has remained in power for longer than almost any other in the world?
After 50 years, who can still argue that BN has not cheated or bribed its way to its various ‘election successes’? Furthermore, evidence shows that more money is being stolen from the public in Malaysia and secreted out to foreign bank accounts, like Musa’s, than in practically any other country in the world.
Yet, it seems the royal advisors on this tour are preferring to present a lie rather than cancel the trip or upset their corrupted host, the Chief Minister of Sabah. They would rather the Royal Couple shake the hand through which a hundred million dollars of timber corruption money has passed than take a stand against the forces of corruption that are destroying Borneo!
Eco-friendly? Musa has just signed over 1/3 of Sabah’s forest reserve to ‘mosaic plantations’. He is selling off the licences in return for kickbacks. Most of that money has been stolen from the poor people of the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, whose natural resources have been filched by their politicians, while they have been left in the deepest poverty.
At a time when Malaysia is at last waking up to these shocking truths and when the opposition parties are defying persecution and abuses against them to present for the first time some kind of real challenge to BN’s forces of oppression, is it right for Britain to prop them up with such a high profile visit by its as yet untainted young royal couple?
The cries in Malaysia and even in Musa’s own BN party in Sabah are now becoming deafening for his removal and his position is more precarious than ever.
How he will thank William and Kate, for stretching out their hands and offering him just the lifeline he needed with this visit and their silly praises for his greenwash PR about the ‘eco-friendly’ policies of Sabah.
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William and Kate are not new in the world conquest ‘game’, but England is now a viper’s nest of Orwellian and self serving liars. If East Malaysia demands independence for the lack of :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;England will want to ‘recolonise’ again ahead of all other local powers. So here come William and Kate are here to prepare to cash in or even prep these UMNO-BN guys (who despite all the unfairness of policy, will never hear a word for the Rakyat, justifying their bad behaviour, disenfranchisement, ill written and greed intent based policies . . . ) if not consolidate the Commonwealth while entirely overlooking the Apartheid system of unequal citizenships. This is one of those times where being proven wrong is good, but knowing the platitudes likely to overshadow the entire meeting, no word would likely pass on granting the above. Such is the cynical nature of the 1/4 German ancestry supposed future heads of the Commonwealth. If Commonwealth is so ‘common’ why is England and an SCG ALWAYS the Head? Do other Royals not deserve to head the Commonwealth?
ARTICLE 14
People’s happiness important, says Najib – September 03, 2012
PUTRAJAYA, Sept 3 — Per capita income and the people’s well-being are the two main criteria used to measure the success of a country’s development model, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
He said that while per capita income was the conventional yardstick used elsewhere, Malaysia put forward a one-of-a-kind and unique development model which took into account the “happiness index of the people”.
Both these aspects had to be scrutinised as the correlation between the two may not necessarily be positive, because there may be other factors or constraints which could cause dissatisfaction despite an increase in income, Najib (picture) said.
He cited factors such as traffic congestion and crime as examples, saying the two were definitely taken into account in determining the well-being or satisfaction index of the people.
“We try to formulate a one-of-a-kind and unique development model for this country. We do not copy 100 per cent from the west or east, but must have the ability to come up with our own model suitable for the people,” he said during the monthly gathering of the Prime Minister’s Department here today.
From a macro indicator, this year the second quarter of the economy grew by 5.4 per cent compared to 4.9 per cent during the first quarter, and Malaysia emerged as the third biggest initial public offering (IPO) centre after the United States and China, said the prime minister.
Malaysian companies FELDA Global Ventures Holdings and IHH Healthcare ranked the second and third largest IPOs on a global scale, he added.
Najib noted that the international media had also been covering Malaysia in a more positive light, with those who were previously critical appearing to be changing their tone and admitting that there were many positive changes and real development taking place in the country.
“I mention this because we have actually gained world recognition. But what’s the message here? The message is we must maintain the momentum and not let the transformation agenda lose steam; we must redouble our efforts,” he said.
Najib said civil servants played a very important role in implementing strategies to ensure the government’s development agenda was carried out as scheduled, was felt by the people, achieved its objectives and reached the targeted groups. — Bernama
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Apartheid, extreme religion, very bad wealth distribution, nepotism and oligarchy all make the people unhappy. BN represents all of this, Pakatan some. Political coalitions in Malaysia hence make the people unhappy until all of these problems are corrected. Vote 3rd Force political parties or indie candidates!
ARTICLE 16
Umno’s land thievery & refusal to share profits: Why the deafening silence – Guan Eng slams Gerakan – by Lim Guan Eng – Tuesday, 04 September 2012 17:10
Penang BN Chairman Teng Chang Yeow must explain why 2 UMNO leaders who claim to defend the rights of the Malays chose to profit as land brokers but refused to share their RM 5 million profits, earned within a mere three and a half months, with the 31 Malay landowners.
Today, Teng has chosen to defend both Umno Penang deputy chairman Dato Musa Sheikh Fadzir and BN Penang general election strategy director Dato Omar Faudza for profiting RM 5 million from sale of land owned by 31 Malay landonwers in Kampung Terang, Balik Pulau, as a private business transaction.
Teng clearly forgets that as political leaders, public interest demands that the private business transactions of these 2 UMNO leaders must also conform with their public political positions. Is this how UMNO leaders defend the rights of Malay landowners by buying their land cheap and then selling it high, pocketing 100% the profits from the sale? I regret that Musa has refused to explain why he refused to share the RM 5 million profit with the 31 Malay landowners and instead behaved emotionally and irrationally by attacking me as a racist for bringing up this issue of public interest.
Racist to share RM5mil profits with the 31 Malay landowners?
How am I a racist when I asked Musa and Omar to share the RM5 million profits with the 31 Malay landowners and not with non-Malays? Clearly BN and UMNO are so bankrupt of political ideas that a racist party is calling a multi-racial party racist!
Teng’s irresponsible refusal to explain is similar to dishonest tactics of spreading lies after lies without proof against PR leaders. Beginning with falsifying Google photographs of hillslope projects to run down the PR state government, Teng has still not shown evidence that myself, 4 EXCO members Chow Kon Yeow, Phee Boon Poh, Wong Hon Wai and Danny Law together with ADUN Komtar Ng Wei Aik has a personal interest in the Taman Manggis private hospital project.
Suddenly, new conditions emerge
Now Teng tries to explain BN’s failure to fulfill their promise to buy the Taman Manggis 1.1 acre piece of land at RM450 per square feet to build Projek Perumahan Rakyat(PPR) by saying that the state government has not written officially to BN. This is a new condition which was never mentioned earlier by BN.
To ensure that Teng does not try to run away again from making unsubstantiated allegations and promises, I have directed my Political Secretary Ng Wei Aik to write an official letter to be handed over to Teng’s office that BN can buy over the land at RM450 per square feet to build PPR.
Profits from proceeds from the sale to BN will be used to fund the building of affordable housing by the state government in the island, especially in Jalan S.P. Chelliah.
The question is will BN come up with the over RM22 million before the next general elections to buy the land to build PPR or this is another sandiwara to get cheap publicity?
Lim Guan Eng is the DAP sec-gen & Penang Chief Minister
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Guan Eng has no right to demand anything of Gerakan.
‘Penang BN Chairman Teng Chang Yeow must explain why 2 UMNO leaders who claim to defend the rights of the Malays chose to profit as land brokers but refused to share their RM 5 million profits, earned within a mere three and a half months, with the 31 Malay landowners.’ . . .
;is something for the Chambers of Commerce or a commerce or law based NGO to take up on. Guan Eng being CM should address apartheid instead much less ask for 750K funeral funds. Always sets sights so low and mostly on commercial interests, but not human rights and equality interests. Guan Eng is a mere greedy wannabe CEO type, who only sees the money issue but never the quality of life (i.e. NO APARTHEID) issues, is argumentative and keeps demanding apologies of all supposed opponents instead of fighting for the rights of the Rakyat. Not CM material at all. Does shame to the CM’s post and is no leader of the oppressed dhimmified Chinese community who still suffers from lack of :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
1.5 terms as CM used up and 90% of campaign promises still unkept, (i.e. MP assets undeclared, Local Council Elections still not implemented formally or otherwise . . . and not a word on apartheid) let 3rd force take over fool. PSM how about taking over from this product of nepotism?
ARTICLE 16
Najib to lead delegation to Apec meeting in Russia – Published: Tuesday September 4, 2012 MYT 8:09:00 PM
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak will lead the Malaysian delegation to the 20th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Economic Leaders Meeting in Russia on Sept 8 and 9.
The foreign ministry said in a statement here that Najib would be accompanied by wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, several Cabinet ministers and senior government officials.
The annual summit, themed ‘Integrate to Grow, Innovate to Prosper’, to be attended by heads of state and government from the 21-member economies, will be preceded by the 24th Apec Ministerial Meeting (AMM) on Sept 5 and 6, and Apec Senior Officials Meeting on Sept 2 and 3.
Najib, who is Finance Minister, would speak on wide-ranging issues, covering the liberalising trade and investment and expanding regional economic integration, strenghtening food security, establishing reliable supply chains and fostering innovative growth, the statement said.
The prime minister will also explore new and innovative ideas to further enhance cooperation among the 21 Apec member economies in these areas.
Najib is also scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with several Apec leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The outcome of the leaders’ meeting will be documented in a Joint Leaders’ Declaration while the 20th AMM outcome will be documented in the Joint Ministerial Statement.
Apec, a forum set up in 1989, for 21 Pacific Rim member economies to discuss issues on regional economic cooperation, trade and investment, accounts for 55 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product and 49 per cent of global trade.
Apec’s 21-member economies comprise Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam. – Bernama
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Najib is also scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with several Apec leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin should note that if a Russian migrated to Malaysia, the APARTHEID currently affecting all non-Muslims and non-Malays would also be applied upon the migrant Russian. This means that the BRICS and effectively 40% of the world’s population, if migrating to Malaysia, would face 2nd class citizenships while Malaysians migrating to BRICS countries will face no such apartheid. I hope that President Putin will raise this issue with Malaysia’s PM Najib and remind APEC that UN Human Rights are to be respected by all and that APARTHEID in Malaysia via the Bumiputra Special Privileges are against the spirit of the UN premise of equality among all mankind, and illegal because Malaysia is a signatory of the UNHCR as well the fact that Islam disallows somthing like Bumiputra APARTHEID. Again, the 3 items this blogger has lobbied for, for near 2 decades . . .
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
Santa Ana City Council establishes a term limits committee – Posted by Art Pedroza on July 17th, 2012
Tonight’s Santa Ana City Council meeting, which was held at the SAPD’s Community Room, was, as predicted, a real zoo. Media vans and news crews were everywhere and residents and out of town bloggers packed the proceedings.
As we stated in an earlier post, Council Member Carlos Bustamante, who is facing serious felony sex crime and public theft charges, was not likely to show up, and he didn’t. This is his second unexcused absence. After sixty days of not showing up to work, at City Hall, the City Council can
dump him and appoint someone to fill out his term.
Three City Council members — Michele Martinez, Sal Tinajero and Vince Sarmiento — have called for Bustamante’s resignation, according to the L.A. Times. Predictably Bustamante’s longtime ally, David Benavides is not calling for Bustamante’s resignation. Is anyone surprised by that?
Bustamante and Benavides flew to Washington D.C. together, back in the day, to attend a Cinco de Mayo event put on by past President George W. Bush. They were pals and together they served at the whim of the Usual Suspects. Why would Benavides turn on his amigo now?
The Santa Ana City Council agreed tonight to form an Ad Hoc Committee to explore the term limit issue raised by Martinez, who placed the term limit issue on tonight’s agenda as an 85 A item. The Ad Hoc Committee will include Martinez and her colleagues Sarmiento and Benavides. They
have to get a ballot measure hammered out by the next City Council meeting if they want to make the November ballot.
As expected, the Usual Suspects showed up to rip Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez, but she let them have it, and then pointed out that Councilman David Benavides “had invited speakers to address the council on the lawsuit over Measure D, while pointing our reports of attacks on her by
Benavides and Bustamante,” according to the O.C. Register. Of course we appreciated the referral!
And what is going on? Well, if the lawsuit filed by Santa Ana Parks and Rec Commissioner Max Madrid succeeds, then the Santa Ana City Clerk will be compelled by the Court to give nomination papers to Alvarez. She will then run for Ward 5 and win, period. I fully expect SAUSD Trustee
Roman Reyna to run for reelection to the SAUSD School Board rather than face off with Alvarez, who already spanked him once in a previous Council election. I am already seeing Reyna political signs around town – and they don’t mention the office he is running for. LOL! That Reyna is so
thrifty. He printed one batch of signs that he can now use for either race.
We revealed yesterday that the only announced opponent to Alvarez, Karina Onofre, has in fact become a registered Republican. She was also at tonight’s meeting, where she bragged that her Council campaign now has a billboard, somewhere on Main St. Apparently Santa Ana Council
Member Sal Tinajero met with her earlier this year and he advised her to run instead for the SAUSD School Board. He even offered to back her. But she stubbornly refused to do so and instead she dumped the Democratic Party and became a Republican. Good luck with that…
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The TLC ( term limits committee) could also double up as a ‘Family Blocs in Politics Watchdog’, and ‘Crony Capitalism Watchdog’ as well. All are ETHICS related. Try the below for China’s disciplined approach against nepotism :
Bloomberg’s Term Limits : 3 for Him, but Only 2 for Everyone Else – by MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN – October 25, 2010
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg thinks that being able to serve three terms in office is a good idea — just not for anyone else. – Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times – Louis Lanzano/Associated Press
On Monday, in an unexpected confession, Mr. Bloomberg said he wanted to reverse the changes to the city’s term-limits law, which he successfully campaigned for in 2008. Those changes are now the subject of a little-publicized ballot initiative on Election Day.
The mayor said he would vote to restore a limit of two terms, down from three, and to ban the City Council from rewriting the rule for sitting elected officials, closing a legislative loophole that Mr. Bloomberg exploited in his quest to remain in office beyond eight years. The results of the ballot
initiative would not affect Mr. Bloomberg, but would affect his successors.
During a news conference, the mayor said that the term-limits initiative, which will appear on the back of the paper ballots on Nov. 2, was imperfect and badly designed, but that he would support it anyway.
“It’s better than what we have now,” Mr. Bloomberg said, without explaining why or acknowledging that his administration had written the existing law and heavily advocated for it.
It was the latest installment in the story of Mr. Bloomberg’s ever-evolving relationship with term limits. An outspoken supporter of two terms, he once called Council members who proposed extending them “disgraceful.” Then, as his own time in office wound down, he reversed himself and
advocated for three terms, saying they offered voters greater choice.
“You can make that case for two terms or three terms,” he said at the time. “In this case, after listening to everybody, I’ve been convinced that three terms is right.”
Now he seems to have settled on something of a compromise: three terms for him, and only him.
Mayoral allies pointed out that Mr. Bloomberg had kept his word by bringing the issue back to voters, who originally passed the two-term limit in a 1993 referendum, only to watch it be dismantled by the mayor and the Council.
Mr. Bloomberg’s sudden support for two terms puts him in line with most New Yorkers. A New York Times poll, conducted in August, found that nearly three-fourths of city voters favored undoing Mr. Bloomberg’s 2008 actions.
The mayor’s change of opinion will avert a showdown with a fellow billionaire, Ronald S. Lauder, the father of the city’s original 1993 law, who has opened his wallet to sponsor a commercial urging New Yorkers to vote for a return to two terms.
The advertisement, which will be broadcast over the next few days, instructs voters — with a wry tagline — to turn over their ballots to find the term-limits question and vote yes. “Flip over the ballot,” a narrator says, “and flip off the politicians.”
MICHAEL BARBARO
Guilt by Association?
Hardly a day goes by without the two leading candidates for New York governor, Andrew M. Cuomo and Carl P. Paladino, accusing each other, either on the campaign trail or in their advertising, of being the worst kind of Albany insider.
But now, they have expanded their universe of ill repute to include the people with whom they supposedly associate, too.
In dueling advertisements that were first broadcast over the weekend, the two paint each other as being uncomfortably close with people who have run afoul of ethical and legal standards.
In his advertisement, Mr. Paladino highlights Steven L. Rattner, the financier who recently reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over his role in a New York pension fund kickbacks scandal; Andrew L. Farkas, the real estate magnate; and State Senator Pedro Espada
Jr., who recently lost his bid for re-election in the Democratic primary. “Albany insider Cuomo won’t clean up Albany,” the advertisement says.
Mr. Paladino is no stranger to trying to associate Mr. Cuomo with Albany insiders whom he considers to be ethically challenged. Just before the Sept. 14 primary, in a mailer that literally smelled like a garbage dump, Mr. Paladino lumped together Gov. David A. Paterson and Representative
Charles B. Rangel, both Democrats, as prime examples of officials responsible for bad government.
The ad strains credulity a bit, since Mr. Cuomo is not known for being particularly close to either Mr. Rattner or Mr. Espada. But Mr. Cuomo has had a rollercoaster of a relationship with Mr. Farkas: first as an adversary, when Mr. Cuomo was the nation’s housing secretary and investigated Mr.
Farkas for kickbacks to a landlord; then as an ally, when Mr. Cuomo got not just a job from Mr. Farkas, but also hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.
Mr. Cuomo did not take long to hit back. In two similar advertisements released on Sunday, Mr. Cuomo criticized Mr. Paladino for surrounding himself with top campaign aides with checkered pasts. These include Michael R. Caputo, his campaign manager, who has failed to pay almost $53,000 in
federal taxes over the past few years, and John F. Haggerty Jr., a political strategist, who was indicted this summer by the Manhattan district attorney, and was accused of stealing $1.1 million from the last candidate he backed, Mr. Bloomberg.
“You can’t clean up Albany with dirty hands,” concludes the ad, which is one of the toughest ones Mr. Cuomo has released.
Mr. Caputo has said that Mr. Paladino appreciated the can-do spirit of his closest supporters, and considered them to be “junkyard dogs, not pedigreed poodles.” DAVID W. CHEN
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Trying to stick out in the history books eh? More than 2 terms? GTFO of Congress! That goes for USA’s term limitless seat holder Senators, Reps and Congressmen as well!
Increase in ‘professional politicians’ means one in seven MPs have never done a real job (and that includes Ed Miliband) – by Jason Groves – PUBLISHED: 23:54 GMT, 18 July 2012 | UPDATED: 00:09 GMT, 19 July 2012
Labour leader Ed Miliband has little to no experience of a working life outside politics
One in seven MPs have never had a proper job, according to research.
And in addition to those who have absolutely no experience of working in the real world, many more have served only brief stints as lobbyists or public relations advisers before entering politics full-time.
The study by the House of Commons Library reveals a dramatic rise in the number of so-called professional politicians, whose numbers have increased almost four-fold over the past 30 years.
Ninety MPs have never held a job outside politics, against 20 in 1982.
The trend is led by Labour, which has twice as many MPs who have never worked outside politics as either the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats.
Labour leader Ed Miliband is among those who have never had a significant job outside politics.
Instead, he served a long apprenticeship as a special adviser to Gordon Brown.
Another is Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who worked for a year as a Brussels lobbyist and dabbled for a few months in journalism before taking a job with the European Commission.
The study also reveals that working class MPs, who played a key role in the politics of the last century, have become an endangered species.
Former independent MP Martin Bell said the figures highlighted a dangerous trend, which had left modern politicians increasingly disconnected from real life.
Not alone: Ed Miliband is not the only senior Labour politician who lacks non-politics work on his CV: Both Ed Balls and his wife Yvette Cooper were journalists before entering politics
‘It is a very dangerous development,’ the former BBC war reporter said. ‘One of the effects is that there is a growing gulf between politicians and the people, the government and the governed.
‘Another damaging result of the rise of the professional politician is that we send our armed forces too war far too nonchalantly because there are very few people with any experience of armed conflict.
‘Politics has become an attractive career for some bright young things who see it as a job for life. The trouble is that it leaves them prisoners of the party machine. They know that if they are deselected they are unemployable because they have never had a proper job. That leaves them at the mercy of the whips.’
The analysis by the Commons Library shows that 90 MPs have never held a job outside politics, compared to just 20 in 1982. Of these 52 are Labour MPs, 31 are Tories and seven are Lib Dems. In total, a fifth of Labour MPs are now professional politicians, compared to a tenth of Conservatives.
Other senior Labour figures who have little experience outside politics include the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who worked briefly as a journalist before becoming a Labour MP, and her husband, the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, who worked as a journalist for four years before serving a decade-long apprenticeship to Gordon Brown.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg worked as a journalist and lobbyist for a brief period of time before taking a job with the European Commission
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is another with little experience outside politics, having worked for a year as a Brussels lobbyist and dabbled for a few months with journalism before taking a job with the European Commission.
David Cameron worked in a public relations role for seven years at Carlton Television before becoming an MP in 2001. But he had already cut his teeth at Westminster during several years as a Tory adviser.
Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Jon Trickett said this week that about a quarter of MPs had been ‘full-time politicos already’ before entering Parliament.
Mr Trickett said Labour was keen to recruit more working class MPs in future, saying it was ‘important that our MPs reflect all the different parts of our country’.
But the latest research reveals that working class MPs have all but disappeared from Westminster. Just 25 former manual workers were elected as MPs in 2010, compared to 98 in 1979. Almost all of them are Labour MPs.
By contrast, the number of MPs from white collar backgrounds has increased from just nine in 1979 to 84 today. The number of teachers has halved to just 24, but the number of lawyers has declined only slightly to 86.
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This is the problem with TERM LIMITLESS ‘Careerist’ political oligarchy that ends up with political satrapies that result in JFKs or Bhuttos Assassinations or Ampatuan Massacres. The fastest way to end democracy is to allow TERM LIMITLESS nepotism in government. Before the voters know, suddenly all MPs or Congressmen’s seats will be handed down to family members and democracy would have been replaced with a political feudalism no different from before the French Revolution or American War of Independence. There will be no way to displace these oligarchs and plutocrats except by violence AGAIN . . .
Anyone who writes laws that do not include term limits in government posts that allow amendments of laws (a great power that no citizen should be allowed to hold too long – too often today’s MPs and Governors or lawmakers end up withholding much needed amendments of laws – much in the manner the same term limitless types create loopholes that allow collusion with crony capitalists, Military Industrial Complex, Prison-Supplier-Contractor Complex – they keep bad laws in place to enrich this group, Education-Loan-Debt-Banker Complex etc..), or boldfacedly approves family members ‘taking over’ after themselves, give themselves ‘Parliamentary privileges’ off the people’s taxes, or wages far above the average-wage, are in effect unethical and greedy closet dictators and profiteers much like the 1%, off a flawed system.
Worse still are the deadwood of 2 generations past WITH family blocs to boot keeping the country stagnant via profiteering, outmoded legal and even outmoded Human Rights mindsets like fundamentalism or Forced Military Conscriptions, refusal to amend bad laws, with the very worst keeping APARTHEID alive, amongst other bad things ‘old school’ and careerist politicians (more so if ALSO old aged and TERM LIMITLESS and with family blocs . . .) represent and take away from the 99% of voters.
ARTICLE 4
It’s legal: cops seize cell phone, impersonate owner – Court says sending texts using a seized iPhone doesn’t violate privacy rights. – by Timothy B. Lee – Jul 19, 2012 3:03 pm UTC
In November 2009, police officers in the state of Washington seized an iPhone belonging to suspected drug dealer Daniel Lee. While the phone was in police custody, a man named Shawn Hinton sent a text message to the device, reading, “Hey whats up dogg can you call me i need to talk to you.” Suspecting that Hinton was looking to buy drugs from Lee, Detective Kevin Sawyer replied to the message, posing as Lee. With a series of text messages, he arranged to meet Hinton in the parking lot of a local grocery store—where Hinton was arrested and charged with attempted possession of heroin.
Hinton wasn’t Sawyer’s only target. According to a court decision summing up the facts, “Sawyer spent about 5 or 10 minutes looking at some of the text messages on the iPhone; he also looked to see who had been calling. Many of the text messages that Lee’s iPhone had received and stored were from individuals who were seeking drugs from Lee.”
So Sawyer texted one of the individuals on the list and asked him if he “needed more.” The individual, Jonathan Roden, replied, “Yeah, that would be cool. I still gotta sum, but I could use some more. I prefer to just get a ball, so I’m only payin’ one eighty for it, instead of two Ts for two hundred, that way.” (The court helpfully explained that a “ball” is “a drug weight equivalent to approximately 3.5 grams.”)
But can cops legally do this with seized cell phones? When their cases went to trial, Hinton and Roden both argued that Sawyer had violated their privacy rights by intercepting, without a warrant, private communications intended for Lee.
But in a pair of decisions, one of which was recently covered by Forbes, a Washington state appeals court disagreed. If the decisions, penned by Judge Joel Penoyar and supported by one of his colleagues, are upheld on appeal, they could have far-reaching implications for cell phone privacy.
“No longer private or deserving of constitutional protection”
“There is no long history and tradition of strict legislative protection of a text message sent to, displayed, and received from its intended destination, another person’s iPhone,” Penoyar wrote in his decision. He pointed to a 1990 case in which the police seized a suspected drug dealer’s pager as an example. The officers observed which phone numbers appeared on the pager, called those numbers back, and arranged fake drug purchases with the people on the other end of the line.
A federal appeals court held that the pager owner’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure were not violated because the pager is “nothing more than a contemporary receptacle for telephone numbers,” akin to an address book. The court also held that someone who sends his phone number to a pager has no reasonable expectation of privacy because he can’t be sure that the pager will be in the hands of its owner.
Judge Penoyar said that the same reasoning applies to text messages sent to an iPhone. While text messages may be legally protected in transit, he argued that they lose privacy protections once they have been delivered to a target device in the hands of the police. He claimed that the same rule applied to letters and e-mail. (Police would still need to seize or search a phone or computer legally, and phones are much easier for cops to seize than computers, which generally require a warrant.)
“On his own iPhone, on his own computer, or in the process of electronic transit, Hinton’s communications are shielded by our constitutions,” he wrote, referring to both the state and federal constitutions. “But after their arrival, Hinton’s text messages on Lee’s iPhone were no longer private or deserving of constitutional protection.” Penoyar rejected Roden’s privacy arguments on similar grounds.
Unsettled law
Mobile phones exist in a constitutional grey area. The law has well-developed doctrines protecting the privacy of our desktop computers, landline telephones, and filing cabinets. But modern cell phones perform all of these functions, and more. If the police are free to rummage through any cell phone that falls into their hands, every arrest would automatically give the police access to a treasure trove of private data that they would otherwise need a warrant, based on probable cause, to obtain.
The Washington State decision is not unprecedented. Last year, the California Supreme Court ruled that no warrant was required for the police to peruse a cell phone that was confiscated after its owner tried to sell ecstasy to an undercover police officer. In that case, the police obtained a text message that seemed to confirm the government’s case against the suspect. Two justices of the California Supreme Court dissented from the ruling.
One judge dissented from the Washington State rulings as well. “Sawyer engaged in a continuing search when he first searched the contacts list on Daniel Lee’s iPhone to find Hinton’s phone number,” wrote Judge Marywave Van Deren in her dissent. Sawyer “used Lee’s iPhone to send and receive messages from Hinton. Under these circumstances, I would hold that Sawyer was required to obtain a search warrant.”
In a slightly different context, the Obama administration has also held that the contents of cell phones enjoy constitutional protection. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice filed a brief in a Maryland case arguing that Baltimore police had violated a man’s constitutional rights—including his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure—when they seized his phone and deleted videos he had taken of the officers’ conduct.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Court says sending texts using a seized iPhone doesn’t violate privacy rights.
But this is also unethical and can cause immense economic and social harm, both of which are illegal and thus the word of the law has subsumed the spirit of the law. Law which is not whole and considers wording ONLY, above *spirit* and *intention* as well as “*due diligence* in study or consideration of the negative indirect or peripheral social and economic effects” of use of such phones, amounts to INJUSTICE. In this case only the wording of the law is adhered to. Sending texts using a seized iPhone is not legal otherwise. The Court has ruled wrongly and neglected the 3 other aspects listed above. Bad judgment!
ARTICLE 5
Judge’s fury at nightclub’s ‘kids’ nights’ for under 18s which ‘encourage drinking and drug-taking’ – By Anna Edwards – PUBLISHED: 11:11 GMT, 24 July 2012 | UPDATED: 13:34 GMT, 24 July 2012
Judge questions parents who allow their children to attend club nights
Attack comes after 13-year-old girl accused 30-year-old man of sexual assault after he gave her a lift
Bristol judge warns events pose ‘very real threat’ to youngsters
Scathing: Judge David Ticehurst questioned the motives of club organisers and parents who allowed their children to attend the events
A judge has attacked nightclubs for holding ‘kids’ nights’, warning that children who attend will be tempted to try alcohol and drugs.
Judge David Ticehurst’s scathing words came after a 13-year-old girl who attended an under-18s night made sexual assault allegations against a man who gave her a lift.
The respected judge, who sits at Bristol Crown Court, blasted nightclubs for hosting events which posed a ‘real danger’ to their young clientele.
He also called the club organisers ‘naive’ to assume youngsters would not drink at the alcohol-free events and claimed they would be more tempted to try drugs and ‘behave dangerously’.
Judge Ticehurst questioned the motives of the club organisers and parents who allow their children to attend such nights after hearing about the case of one schoolgirl.
Bristol Crown Court heard that the 13-year-old girl – who had drunk alcohol – had partied at Oceana nightclub in the city during a £10 ‘Love Social’ event aimed at under-18s.
Officers were called to look for the girl and a friend after they were reported missing at 1.30am after the event, which finished at 11pm. They were found at 5am.
Judge David Ticehurst halted the sexual assault trial, ruling that inconsistencies in evidence meant there was no case to answer against the accused 30-year-old man from Bristol.
But in making his ruling he said: ‘I want to say something about Oceana and its so-called kids’ night.
Love Social: Oceana nightclub, in Bristol, hosts under 18 nights which Judge Ticehurst said would encourage youngsters to try drink and drugs
‘That a nightclub should advertise and seek to attract children between the ages of 13 to 16 is in my view a regrettable step.
‘The club’s closing time of 11pm inevitably means that those attending will probably not be home until midnight or later.
‘. . . naive to assume that these youngsters will not drink alcohol even if it is not provided by the club.
‘ . . . naive to assume that they will not be tempted by other and more pernicious substances.
‘ . . . naive to assume that they may not be tempted to behave in a way that may be dangerous and damaging to them.’
Oceana, owned by entertainment giant Luminar, is a chain of 10 nightclubs situated around the country, with venues in cities including Leeds and Nottingham.
The Judge launched his attack after hearing details about a 13-year-old’s attendance at one of the nights, that charge youngsters £10 entry
The Judge launched his attack after hearing details about a 13-year-old’s attendance at one of the nights, that charge youngsters £10 entry
‘Love Social’ events – touted as ‘inspirational and credible clubbing’ for 13-17-year-olds – are held in numerous Luminar clubs.
Youngsters at the events can enjoy ‘the most awesome time’, with music, free soft drinks, a free cloakroom and free queue jump.
The events have a complete ban on alcohol, tobacco and gambling sales, a proof of age requirement and a strict code of conduct for staff and a child protection policy.
Teenagers who are believed to have consumed drugs or alcohol should not be allowed entry, the rules state.
But Judge Ticehurst said the events posed a ‘very real danger’ to children and said those who attended were ‘inevitably and mainly the most vulnerable’.
He added: ‘It is not difficult to imagine the type of parental support forthcoming from parents who are content that their 13, 14, 15 or even 16-year-olds should attend such a venue, whether it is in school time or holiday time.’
The judge went on to question whether the club – which charged 832 teens £10 for the event attended by the girl – was ‘doing it for the good of the children’.
He said: ‘In my judgement this case demonstrates all too readily the very real dangers of such a venue and its attractiveness to those who may need protection from themselves.’
Luminar was unavailable to comment.
A Love Social event was due to take place at the club tonight, with more planned for August, October and December.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
A list of required reading (some tests related), a ‘Night Club Maturity Test’ (NCMT) and a ‘Kid’s Licence’ should solve the issue. Parental consent is not the issue, The former is more important as even ADULTS or the aged, who fail the required reading or NCMT should be disallowed entry because the ‘adults’ have the maturity and mindset of children (read those who consistently get drunk or into fights again and again are the least matured . . . ) ! Amendment to law needed! If child has the intellectual and emotional maturity of an adult, thats an adult.
ARTICLE 6
‘I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living hell’: Teen faces jail for tweeting names of two boys who sexually assaulted HER – by Daily Mail Reporter – PUBLISHED: 21:06 GMT, 21 July 2012 | UPDATED: 13:11 GMT, 22 July 2012
A 17-year-old sexual assault victim is facing a jail sentence for tweeting the names of her attackers in anger at their light punishment.
Savannah Dietrich named and shamed the boys on the social messaging site, writing: ‘There you go, lock me up. I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell.’
The teenager told from Louisville, Kentucky told The Courier-Journal she was frustrated by what she feels is a lenient deal for her attackers.
Savannah Dietrich named and shamed the boys on the social messaging site, writing: ‘There you go, lock me up. I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell’
Anger: Savannah Dietrich used a Twitter message to name and shame the boys who sexually abused her
MailOnline does not normally report the names of sexual assault victims, but Miss Dietrich and her parents say they do not want to shield her identity and want her case to be public.
The boys’ attorneys have asked a judge to hold Miss Dietrich in contempt for violating the confidentiality of a juvenile hearing and the judge’s order not to speak about it.
Miss Dietrich told the paper she was assaulted in August 2011 by two boys she knew when she passed out after drinking at a gathering. She learned months later that pictures of the assault were taken and shared with others.
‘For months, I cried myself to sleep. I couldn’t go out in public places,’ she told the newspaper, as her father and attorneys sat nearby. ‘You just sit there and wonder, who saw (the pictures), who knows?’
Miss Dietrich’s attorneys want her contempt hearing open to the media, arguing she has a First Amendment right to speak about her case and to a public hearing. The boys’ attorneys, however, have asked to keep the hearing closed.
The contempt charge carries a possible sentence of 180 days in jail and a $500 fine.
The boys pleaded guilty on June 26 to first-degree sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism. Miss Dietrich says she was unaware of a plea agreement until just before it was announced in court.
She could not say what the proposed punishment was because of the court order, but said she feels like it was a slap on the wrist. The teens are to be sentenced next month, and the judge could reject or modify the terms of the proposed agreement.
Dietrich cried when the judge at the Jefferson District Court told her she couldn’t talk about what had happened
When Judge Dee McDonald admonished everyone at the hearing not to speak about what happened in court or about the crime, Dietrich said she cried.
‘They got off very easy… and they tell me to be quiet, just silencing me at the end,’ she said.
Afterwards Miss Dietrich tweeted, ‘They said I can’t talk about it or I’ll be locked up… Protect rapist is more important than getting justice for the victim in Louisville.’
David Marburger, an Ohio media law specialist, said Dietrich should have tried to get the courts to vacate the gag order rather than simply violating it.
But Gregg Leslie, interim executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Dietrich should ‘not be legally barred from talking about what happened to her. That’s a wide-ranging restraint on speech.’
Ms Leslie said this sort of issue is becoming more common.
‘In the past, people would complain to anyone who would listen, but they didn’t have a way to publish their comments where there would be a permanent record, like on Facebook and Twitter, for people to see worldwide,’ he said.
Miss Dietrich said she just needed to stand up for herself. ‘I’m at the point that if I have to go to jail for my rights, I will do it.’
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Mass tweet is wrong. At most and acceptable, is notice board or lamp post based poster campaigns centred around no more than perhaps a legally sanctioned 30 kms of the crime scene. A tweet reaches beyond the district and reaches the whole nation and world, making life impossible for the offenders to live new lives for what is a session of rough sex, though the emotional wounds are not really quantifiable or easy to restore. Repeat offenders though would end up with more and more ‘unliveable blacklisted areas of 30 km radiuses’. No jail for this woman though, that would be wasteful and retrogressive, though after an explanation about how a victim’s inner life destroyed by rape IS NOT justifiable or equitable for destroying the OUTER LIVES of the aggressors or related to the INNER LIVES of the aggressors which do not change even though the OUTER LIVES of the aggressors being destroyed would teach neither society not vitim nor aggressor how to behave or control themselves – an apology broadcast on the above issues should be made, the aggressors if internally unapologetic, could be put through gender sensitization courses at most.
Jail will not change anything except enrich prison contractor-supplier complex, shaming by society again makes no difference and could just create polarisation and a self righteous that becomes dangerous viciousness or self-justifying insanity, and if this socialised insanity justified upon the backs of both victim and aggressor gets into politics or mainstream society’s or even religion’s mindset, we end up with the laziness of a ‘drug everyone is a solution’ psychiatric establishment, abusing intentionally induced victims/profiteering off medications imposed by the psychiatric establishment, and increasingly punitive or materialistic based punishments (to justify the lack of forethought and consideration which 99% of the world, no thanks to anglo-legal system, have become unfeeling and fines money based, meaningless corporeal punishment and jail term obsessed systems or Orwellian control paradigm society) by magistrates and judges.’
Instead of humanization and betterment and a sincere opportunity to normalize for all parties concerned.. Victims and aggressors are victims of society, amend the laws or create niches and subcultures to ensconce all facets of personality than humanity can express (i.e. lively Red Light Districts with Rape Fetish Clubs should end the need to rape – this should be included in syllabus or citizen’s manual for social studies (i.e. if you feel like doing such and such – list the whole gamut of whatever supposedly grey area actions which might otherwise be criminal, for non-consensual activity – go to location x,y,z where some beautiful/ugly/scary/boring etc.. people will act out your fantasy for you without running afoul of the law etc..) instead of punishing and fining no end to enrich the Prison Supplier-Contractor Complex where cronies doubtless profit and kickback to the term limitless politicians . . .
Briefing Courses for victims on the above punishment paradigms and equitable consideration for the rapists like not tweeting should be given after the report. Punishment in the above case meanwhile could be a live rape scene involving the attackers being raped for the victim if the victim wants that (this is the cheapest though less pleasant quick fix punishment – courtesy of the low minded nature of the victim incidentally . . . just wanted the rapists to suffer), or the rapists could be put to work with any number of hours of work with victims of other rapists in a manner that humnizes the victims (choose people similar to the persons that the attackers are fond of, or who are family members or figures they respect, lookalikes for stars they like etc..).
ARTICLE 7
Anchorman and Modern Family star Fred Willard arrested after exposing himself at Hollywood adult movie theatre – by Daily Mail Reporter – PUBLISHED: 14:56 GMT, 19 July 2012 | UPDATED: 17:11 GMT, 19 July 2012
Arrested: Fred Willard exposed his genitals at an adult theatre last night
Actor Fred Willard was arrested last night of lewd conduct after exposing himself at an adult movie theatre.
The 78-year-old actor was taken into custody after being caught with his pants down and genitals exposed at Hollywood’s Tiki Theatre at around 8.45pm local time.
Willard – who has been married to wife Mary for 40 years – was later cited and a mug shot was taken, police told RadarOnline, adding that he was co-operative with authorities.
He was released from custody and is set to appear in court at a later date, the website reports.
According to TMZ, LAPD officers were conducting a ‘random walk-through’ of the premises – not a raid – as part of a routine inspection.
The three films currently showing at the cinema are Follow Me 2, a X-rated parody of The Client List and Step Dad No. 2.
Willard is know for his roles in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Anchorman and Everybody Loves Raymond.
Scene of the incident: Willard was at the Tiki Theatre in Hollywood
Movie star: Seen here in the Anchorman alongside Will Ferrell
The actor portrayed the news director of the KVWN news channel in Ferrell’s 2004 movie.
In 2010 he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series after making appearances in ABC’s Modern Family.
He played the part of Frank Dunphy, Phil Dunphy’s father.
And according to IMDB, Willard is rumoured to be in pre-production for a movie called The Yank.
In 1991 Hollywood actor Pee Wee Herman was infamously arrested for indecent exposure in an adult theatre in Florida, which ruined his career as children’s entertainer.
Emmy nod: He played a guest role in Modern Family as Frank Dunphy, seen here with Sofía Vergara Ed O’Neill
Married man: The actor has been married to wife Mary for 40 years
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
The inside of any adult venues could well be considered ‘nudism allowed zones’ though the theatre could state that patrons should expect or that nude or semi-nude persons could be present. The same could be applied to red light districts as well. Allowed Nudism areas and non-Nudism areas INSIDE red light districts. What is the management’s view? Nakedness or semi-nakedness in a adult theatre may be in line with common sense, though a non-nudist version of the same adult venue should also exist.
ARTICLE 8
‘It was a really good shot’: What cannabis smoking thug told police after throwing his dog through TENTH FLOOR window – by Emma Reynolds – PUBLISHED: 15:15 GMT, 25 July 2012 | UPDATED: 15:39 GMT, 25 July 2012
Tied up dog in bathroom for four hours after it misbehaved
Returned at 3am and attacked the dog for relieving itself on the carpet
Diagnosed with schizophrenia after the episode
James Bray said he might have been ‘out of his depth’
Callous: James Bray looked unrepentant at Southend Magistrates’ Court today, where he was jailed for animal cruelty
A cannabis-smoking dog owner who killed his pet by throwing it out of a tenth floor window to ‘teach it a lesson’ has been jailed.
Sick James Bray, 24, launched his eight-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier, Deano, from his flat in Southend, Essex, after it made a mess on his carpet.
The innocent dog suffered multiple injuries and died as a result of extensive internal bleeding following the tragic incident on January 18 this year.
Bray made a rude gesture at the cameras as he arrived at Southend Magistrates Court today, wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and looked emotionless as lead magistrate Bill Thomas sentenced him to four months in prison.
The court heard how callous Bray tied up his dog in the bathroom of his flat for four hours after it had misbehaved.
When he returned to untie the dog at around 3am he found it had weed on the carpet.
He flew into a blind rage and attacked the dog before throwing it from the tenth-floor window.
Man pleads guilty to owning a dangerous dog after horrific attack by two crazed bull terriers which left TEN people injured and three needing plastic surgery
Bray called the police after launching his dog from the window and stunned officers by confessing to the sickening assault.
In police interview he told shocked officers: ‘It was a really good shot – I launched him by the scruff of his neck and he bounced off the window and went down.
‘Maybe I was just out of my depth with this dog.
‘Usually I’m really good with animals – I don’t drown kittens or salt slugs.
‘I got carried away and angry at the time.
Long way to fall: Bray launched the dog out of his flat window at 3am, having left the dog tied up fro four hours after smoking a cannabis joint
‘I don’t know what came over me – it must be some kind of evil in this world.’
Bray admitted to police he had smoked a two-inch cannabis joint on the evening of the attack but said he still completely understood that what he was doing would kill his pet.
He told bemused officers: ‘I was trying to teach it a lesson’.
This is a matter which will undoubtedly provoke public outrage. My client has put forward no attempt to excuse his behaviour and accepts what he has done was an evil thing to do.
– PAUL MARKHAM, DEFENCE
The heartless thug even tried to escape charges by claiming he had attacked the dog in self-defence after it had bitten him on the foot.
Police could not find any evidence the dog had attacked Bray.
Bray – who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was sectioned following the sickening attack – pleaded guilty to three charges of animal cruelty when he appeared at the same court in May. 2012
Paul Markham, defending, described the situation as ‘tragic’ but called on magistrates to consider a suspended jail sentence due to his client’s early guilty plea.
He said: ‘This is a matter which will undoubtedly provoke public outrage.
‘My client has put forward no attempt to excuse his behaviour and accepts what he has done was an evil thing to do.’
Magistrates refused to accept Bray’s defence and handed him the maximum sentence available for an animal cruelty offence.
Lead magistrate Bill Thomas said: ‘This is a horrendous incident which caused the death of a dog.
‘There is no evidence this was caused by your mental illness and must be dealt with on the merits of the case.’
He sentenced Bray to the maximum six months’ imprisonment – reduced by two months in recognition of his early guilty plea.
Bray was ordered to pay £500 costs to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and was disqualified from owning or keeping a pet for life.
Outside court, RSPCA Inspector Matthew Gough welcomed the prison sentence but called for tougher sentencing for animal cruelty offences.
He said: ‘I hope this sentence acts as a strong deterrent to show that any cruelty to animals will not be tolerated.
‘I think, given the mental health issues involved, the magistrates worked well within the guidelines.
‘It would be appreciated if the sentences made available to magistrates for these offences were harsher.’
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Cetaceans and Ruminants are no less intelligent than dogs, but when killed do not result in punishment. Other than ‘falling objects danger to passers by’ issue, if JB had killed and cooked the animal, would there have been an issue? If the animal was a ruminant then what? Only Bray didn’t cook the meat or cull humanely so the above line of thought does not apply . . .
Still, the jail term as punishment at cost to the taxpayers is wrong. And if no damage was done other than causing the public to be ‘psychically shocked’ (for the more sensitive at any rate – who could in the future be scanned for such sensitivity and insensitivity so that incongrous people could live away from each other), perhaps a more suitable ‘fine’ could be requiring Bray to relocate if this is likely to keep happening, or work at an animal shelter to accrue sufficient ‘warm feelings’from animals to exhonerate himself from his fellow horrified flat dwellers. Jail at cost to the taxpayers is entirely unrelated and helps nothing in teaching about animals and how to toilet train the same. Insult upon injury and not just against Bray, but against the taxpayers! Bad judgment!
ARTICLE 9
Memories Selectively, Safely Erased In Mice
ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2008) — Targeted memory erasure is no longer limited to the realm of science fiction. A new study describes a method through which a selected set of memories can be rapidly and specifically erased from the mouse brain in a controlled and inducible manner. New and old memories have been selectively and safely removed from mice by scientists.
“While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives,” says Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, brain scientist and co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine.
“Our work reveals a molecular mechanism of how that can be done quickly and without doing damage to brain cells,” says the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cognitive and Systems Neurobiology.
Dr. Tsien’s research team, in collaboration with scientists at East China Normal University in Shanghai, were able to eliminate new and old memories alike by over-expressing a protein critical to brain cell communication just as the memory was recalled, according to research featured on the cover of the Oct. 23 issue of Neuron.
Dr. Tsien had already created a mouse that couldn’t form memories by eliminating the NMDA receptor, which receives messages from other neurons. He then garnered international acclaim by making “Doogie,” a smart mouse in which a subunit of the NMDA receptor is over-expressed. Younger brains have higher amounts of this NR2B subunit which leaves communication channels between brain cells open longer. That is why young people can learn faster than older adults.
This time he was examining downstream cascades of the NMDA receptor to learn more about memory formation. An abundant protein found only in the brain, called αCaMKII, was a logical place to look because it’s a major signaling molecule for the NMDA receptor. He found that when he over-expressed αCaMKII while a memory was being recalled, that single memory was eliminated.
Receptors such as the NMDA receptor are like front doors to cells, providing an opening for signaling molecules such as calcium. Synapses are the point of communication between two cells, and NMDA receptors are on the receiving end of the message. Like people, neurons change with the signals they receive. “Learning changes the way cells connect to each other,” says Dr. Tsien. To form a memory, the NMDA receptor is activated, which results in the insertion of AMPA receptors into those synapses and subsequent strengthening of the synaptic connections among hundreds of thousands of neurons. Scientists believe that αCaMKII plays an important role in the insertion of AMPA receptors into synapses during learning and subsequent strengthening of connections between neurons to create a memory.
Memory has four distinct stages: learning, consolidation, storage and recall. It has been difficult to dissect the molecular mechanisms of these stages because researchers lacked techniques to manipulate proteins quickly. For example, when researchers disable a gene suspected to play a role in the memory process, the deletion typically occurred throughout the entire period so it was impossible to tell which parts of processes were impaired. Previous technology would take several days to switch off a protein, which is the product of a gene.
So Dr. Tsien’s team developed a powerful chemical-genetic method that allows him to use a pharmacologic inhibitor to instantly turn αCaMKII off and on in a mouse that he genetically engineered to over express this signaling molecule. That enabled him to study exactly what happened if he threw off the natural balance during the retrieval stage.
Much as a war veteran remembers a fateful patrol when he was fired upon, mice can establish a very long-lasting emotional memory about a place if, for example, they receive a mild shock to the paws while there. The researchers showed if they over-expressed αCaMKII, this powerful memory was rapidly erased as the animals tried to retrieve them while other memories remained intact.
A similar approach was taken with object recognition memory, giving mice a couple of toys to play with then erasing their memory of one of them. “You will feel like every time, it’s a new toy,” says Dr. Tsien.
While the ability to rapidly erase a selective memory is exciting, he cautions that its translation to humans would be difficult at this stage. “We are barely at the foot of a huge mountain,” says Dr. Tsien. A possible strategy for humans would be a drug that mimics the αCaMKII over expression that researchers accomplished through genetic manipulation. Or, further downstream substrates that αCaMKII acts upon could become possible drug targets.
The research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Aging and the Georgia Research Alliance.
DETAILS : Accession Number : ADA126870
Title : Retrograde Amnesia in Rats, Produced by Electron Beam Exposure.
Descriptive Note : Final rept. Jul-Sep 82,
Corporate Author : SCHOOL OF AEROSPACE MEDICINE BROOKS AFB TX
Personal Author(s) : Wheeler,Thomas G. ; Hardy,Kenneth A. ; Blick,Dennis W.
Report Date : FEB 1983
Pagination or Media Count : 33
Abstract : It has been demonstrated that electron beam exposure produces retrograde amnesia (RA). RA production was evaluated using a single trial avoidance task across a 10,000 dose range for 10 microseconds, 1 microsecond, and 0.1 microseconds pulsed exposures. The dose-response curve obtained at each pulse duration showed significant RA production. The most effective dose range was 0.1-10 rads at a dose rate of 1 million rad/sec. Our conclusion was that the RA effect might be due to sensory system activation which provided a novel stimulus that masked previous stimuli (produced RA).
Subject Categories : PSYCHOLOGY, ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY, RADIOBIOLOGY
Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
ARTICLE 10
Strobe Light Weapons – By David Hambling – May 14, 2008 | 6:59 pm |
Can so-called “flashlight” weapons really make you vomit? Or send you into an epileptic fit? I have a feature in New Scientist on non-lethal strobe devices — new arms, relying on flashing lights, like the “LED Incapacitator,” Peak Beam’s searchlight-based “Immobilization Device,” and Nanohmics’ non-pyrotechnic stun grenade. There is a great deal of debate over how well these devices work and what their effects are. That’s because the military’s tests have traditionally been more concerned with environmental health. But now, the military is sponsoring a whole range of tests which go well beyond previous studies. In the meantime, there are some myths we can clear up pretty quickly:
“It makes you vomit,” as popularized in by Fox News’ story, Flashlight Weapon Makes Targets Throw Up. Although disorientation, dizziness and nausea were quoted by all the designers as common effects, nausea is not the same as throwing up.
“I don’t think we’ve had anyone actually be sick”, says Bob Lieberman, CEO of Intelligent Optics, which makes the LED Incapacitator. In fact, nausea is not one of the immediate effects, but is more likely to occur afterwards – it doesn’t really contribute to the weapon’s effectiveness. Lieberman is philosophical about the ‘puke saber’ stories which are passed around the media, judging that the exposure is worth it. “We’re grateful that people have taken such an interest,” he says.
“It’ll make you have an epileptic fit.” People with photosensitive epilepsy (around four per thousand of the population) may have seizures triggered by flashing lights. But it turns out that the frequencies which trigger seizures can be avoided.
“Our products are engineered around this situation as to not endanger people with this condition,” says Will Harcourt, Peak Beam’s Director of Sales. Prof. Ley Sander, Professor of Neurology and Clinical Epilepsy at the Institute of Neurology of University College London, says that strobe devices are not be a risk to photosensitive epileptics if they have a pulse rate above 25 Hz.
MYTH : “If you shut your eyes it makes the weapon useless.” This one amuses everyone working in the field. If you close your eyes you can’t run away, you can’t fight back, aim a weapon or effectively resist arrest. You have immobilized yourself and made yourself helpless, which is exactly what the non-lethal weapon-makers have in mind. “If they close their eyes,” says Lieberman, “then I’ve got ‘em.”
He sees the LED Incapacitator as being close to the lowest rung of the ladder of force. It may not subdue a suspect every time, but even if it is effective some of the time and prevents officers from having to use a Taser or a firearm then it will be well worthwhile.
The new generation of strobe devices are lightweight, cheap and have an unlimited supply of ammo. Within a few years they could be everywhere – small ones in the hands of police, larger versions mounted on vehicles or drones. The Peak Beam Immobilizer is being mounted on the Vigilante, an unmanned helicopter. “Testing has also been conducted on our strobe against on-coming vehicles. [The testing organization] rated our Maxa Beam as the most effective non-lethal weapon against drivers that they have ever tested,” says Harcourt.
If they work as advertised, this could be the biggest advance in non-lethals since tear gas.
ARTICLE 11
DOJ to Colorado Family: Give Up Your Religion or Your Business – by Terence P. Jeffrey – July 26, 2012
(CNSNews.com) – The Justice Department last week presented the Newland family of Colorado–who own Hercules Industries, a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business–with what amounted to an ultimatum: Give up your religion or your business.
“Hercules Industries has ‘made no showing of a religious belief which requires that [it] engage in the [HVAC] business,” the Justice Department said in a formal filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
In response to the Justice Department’s argument that the Newlands can either give up practicing their religion or give up owning their business, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the family, said in a reply brief: “[T]o the extent the government is arguing that its mandate does not really burden the Newlands because they are free to abandon their jobs, their livelihoods, and their property so that others can take over Hercules and comply, this expulsion from business would be an extreme form of government burden.”
Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and its mandate that individuals must buy health insurance, this suit which seeks to protect a small business from being forced to take actions that violate the moral and religious beliefs of the family that owns it is likely to be the next major court battle over Obamacare.
At stake is whether businesses are protected by the First Amendment—the part of the Bill of Rights that guarantees not only the free exercise of religion but also freedom of speech and of the press.
The Justice Department’s filing was made in Newland v. Sebelius–a suit brought by William, Paul and James Newland, and their sister, Christine Ketterhagen, who are Roman Catholics, and who together own Colorado-based Hercules Industries.
The Newland family founded Hercules in 1962 and have maintained it as a family-owned business ever since—growing it to the point where they now employ 265 people.
Eric Holder, Kathleen Sebelius
Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The Newlands’ lawsuit challenges a regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized earlier this year that requires virtually all health plans to cover–without cost-sharing–sterilizations and all Food-and-Drug Administration approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.
Under the Obamacare law, businesses that have more than 50 employees must provide health insurance to their employees or face a penalty. To satisfy the mandate, the insurance must include the cost-sharing-free sterilization-contraception-abortifacient benefit. The regulation takes effect on Aug. 1, which means that as soon as any business starts a new plan-year for its health-insurance program after that date it will need to comply with Sebelius’s rule.
The Catholic Church, to which the Newlands belong, teaches that sterilization, contraception and abortion are intrinsically immoral. Last month, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously adopted a statement declaring Sebelius’s regulation an “unjust and illegal mandate” and a “violation of personal civil rights.”
While much of the media attention on Sebelius’ regulation has focused on the fact that it will apply to famous Catholic religious institutions such as Catholic University and the University of Notre Dame, the Catholic bishops have repeatedly pointed out that the regulation also violates the First Amendment-protected religious liberty of lay Catholic individuals. That includes employees who will be forced to pay insurance premiums on insurance plans that violate the teachings of their faith and business owners who will be forced to provide such plans.
In their unanimous statement, the Catholic bishops declared that Sebelius’s regulation created a class of Americans “with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values. They, too, face a government mandate to aid in providing ‘services’ contrary to those values—whether in their sponsoring of, and payment for, insurance as employers; their payment of insurance premiums as employees; or as insurers themselves—without even the semblance of an exemption.”
The Newlands currently run a self-insurance plan, providing their employees with generous health-care coverage that is consistent with the teachings of the Newlands’ church in that it does not cover sterilizations, contraception and abortifacients. They are precisely among the class of people that the unanimous Catholic bishops said have “no conscience protection at all” under Sebelius’s regulation.
In their complaint against the Obama administration, which was prepared by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Newlands clearly explained why they could not comply with Sebelius’s regulation without violating their religious faith.
“The Newlands sincerely believe that the Catholic faith does not allow them to violate Catholic religious and moral teachings in their decisions operating Hercules Industries,” says the complaint. “They believe that according to the Catholic faith their operation of Hercules must be guided by ethical social principles and Catholic religious and moral teachings, that the adherence of their business practice according to such Catholic ethics and religious and moral teachings is a genuine calling from God, that their Catholic faith prohibits them to sever their religious beliefs from their daily business practice, and that their Catholic faith requires them to integrate the gifts of the spiritual life, the virtues, morals, and ethical social principles of Catholic teaching into their life and work.”
“The Catholic Church teaches that abortifacient drugs, contraception and sterilization are intrinsic evils,” says the complaint. “As a matter of religious faith the Newlands believe that those Catholic teachings are among the religious ethical teachings they must follow throughout their lives including in their business practice.”
The Justice Department responded by arguing that if the Newlands’ Roman Catholic faith prevented them from following the Obama administration’s command that they provide their employees with cost-sharing-free coverage for sterilizations, contraception and abortion-inducing drugs, the Newlands could simply give up their business entirely.
The Justice Department further argued that people owning for-profit secular businesses do not have a First Amendment right to the free exercise religion in the way they conduct their businesses—particularly if their business is incorporated.
“Here, plaintiffs have not sufficiently alleged that the preventive services coverage regulations substantially burden their religious exercise,” the Justice Department told the court. “Hercules Industries, Inc., is not a religious employer; it is ‘an HVAC manufacturer.’”
“The First Amendment Complaint does not allege that the company is affiliated with a formally religious entity such as a church,” the Justice Department told the federal court. “Nor does it allege that the company employs persons of a particular faith. In short, Hercules Industries is plainly a for-profit, secular employer.”
“By definition,” the Justice Department claimed, “a secular employer does not engage in any ‘exercise of religion.’”
“Hercules Industries has ‘made no showing of a religious belief which requires that [it] engage in the [HVAC] business,” DOJ told the court. “Any burden is therefore caused by the company’s choice to enter into a commercial activity.”
In its brief responding to the Justice Department on behalf of the Newland family, the Alliance Defending Freedom forcefully rebutted the claim that the First Amendment does not apply to corporations let alone to family-owned businesses.
“The government argues that the Newlands forfeited their right to religious liberty as soon as they endeavored to earn their living by running a corporation,” said the Newlands’ brief.
“Nothing in the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s decisions, or federal law requires—or even suggests—that families forfeit their religious liberty protection when they try to earn a living, such as by operating a corporate business,” they argued.
If the Obama administration’s understanding of the First Amendment were accepted, argued the Alliance Defending Freedom’s brief, the media would have no rights either.
“The government’s exclusionary attitude would push religion out of every sphere of life except the four wall of a church,” they said in their brief. “If for-profit corporations have no First Amendment ‘purpose,’ newspapers and other media would have no rights.”
If they refuse to sell their businesses, families like the Newlands are trapped by the Sebelius regulation. They can stop providing health insurance to themselves and their employees through the business, but then they and their employees would still be required, under Obamacare’s individual mandate, to buy health insurance, and under the Sebelius regulation all the health insurance plans they would be able to buy would still be required to cover sterilizations, contraception and abortion-inducing drugs. Their premiums would then contribute to those “services,” and the business owners would still be required to pay a penalty to the government of about $2,000 per year for each employee they did not insure.
If businesses like the Newlands’ try to simply flout the Sebelius regulation and continue providing insurance to their workers that does not cover the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient benefits that the Obama administration demands, they will be hit with confiscatory financial penalties.
“PPACA also imposes monetary penalties if Hercules were to continue to offer its self-insured plan but continued omitting abortifacients, contraceptive and sterilizations,” said the Newlands’ complaint. “The exact magnitude of these penalties may vary according to the complicated provisions of PPACA, but the fine is approximately $100 per day per employee, with minimum amounts applying in different circumstances.
With 265 employees, a business like the Newlands’ would need to pay the government $26,500 per day if they decided not to comply with Sebelius’s regulation and insured their employees anyway. Over 365 days that would amount to $9,672,500.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
The spiritual implications of using the name ‘Hercules’ and the unbalancing effect on the ether is the issue. Nothing else. Xians and other Monotheists though, are now infamous for this form of spiritually manipulative NLP method of ‘binding’ (abused in conjunction with the above ‘neurotech’), and USA being religion neutral has chosen to act to prevent any untoward incidents which could arise from use of the Grecian Pantheon’s gods’ name, a sort of ‘national faith system’, Cosmic copyright and right to exist issue is at hand here. No laws cover this so they are making do with the above. USA is much cleverer that the pretentious wanting to paint the USA as oppressive of religion or keep the ordinary occult unschooled people unaware of the deeper implications.
This is necessary or any untoward incidents in the future could also occur. That energy belongs to the original owner, NOT a machine. The extrication process of the ‘bound’ will not be as easy though USA’s ‘Augurs’ are probably the best in the world. The physical dimension of Earth is what we are allowed to see, being poisoned by vaccinnations to enable the ‘powerful’ to control the rest, but of late issue like the above are becoming increasingly intolerable and even vaccinations could be illegal. Other dimension wise any and all men are allowed to participate but with the above issues, the SPIRITUAL ABUSE of ordinary citizens in unbelievable as of now. See below article 12 for how only part of the truth is preached by cynical hierarchies of ‘religious’ who want to continue parasiting off the ordinary man . . .
ARTICLE 12
U.S. Bishops Prepare Catholics for Civil Disobedience: ‘We May Need to Witness to the Truth by Resisting the Law’ by Terence P. Jeffrey May 27, 2012
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI makes New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan a cardinal on Feb. 18, 2012 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
(CNSNews.com) – Having organized 43 plaintiffs—including the archdioceses of New York and Washington and the University of Notre Dame—to file 12 different lawsuits against the Obama administration last Monday alleging the administration is violating the religious freedom of Catholics, the Catholic bishops of the United States are now preparing Catholics for what may be the most massive campaign of civil disobedience in this country since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and early 1960s.
“Some unjust laws impose such injustices on individuals and organizations that disobeying the laws may be justified,” the bishops state in a document developed to be inserted into church bulletins in Catholic parishes around the country in June.
“Every effort must be made to repeal them,” the bishops say in the document, which is already posted on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “When fundamental human goods, such as the right of conscience, are at stake, we may need to witness to the truth by resisting the law and incurring its penalties.”
The bulletin insert reminds Catholic parishioners that the bishops have called for “A Fortnight of Freedom”—which they have described as “a special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action”—to take place from June 21 to July 4.
St. Thomas More
The bishops have noted that June 21, when this fortnight will begin, is the Vigil of the Feast of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. Fisher was a Roman Catholic cardinal whom the English monarch Henry VIII beheaded in 1535 after he refused to act against his conscience and take an oath asserting that Henry was the supreme authority over the church in England. That same year, Henry VIII also beheaded Thomas More, his former chancellor, for the same reason.
The sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate is set to go into effect for most health-care plans on Aug. 1, about four weeks after the bishops’ “Fortnight of Freedom.”
In campaign speeches delivered this week after the Catholic dioceses and organizations filed their 12 lawsuits, both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama indicated that the administration intends to move forward and enforce the mandate.
Mrs. Obama brought it up in a stump speech in Cleveland on Monday afternoon, less than three hours after the Catholic bishops had announced their lawsuits.
“You can tell people how, because we passed health reform, insurance companies will now have to cover preventive care–have to,” said Mrs. Obama. “Things like contraception, cancer screenings, prenatal care–and they have to do it at no extra cost. People have to understand that’s what that fight was for.”
President Obama signaled his personal commitment to enforcing the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate, using virtually identical language about it in back-to-back campaign speeches Wednesday and Thursday in California and Iowa.
“We don’t need another political fight about ending a woman’s right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood or taking away affordable birth control,” Obama said. “We don’t need that. I want women to control their own health choices, just like I want my daughters to have the same economic opportunities as my sons. We’re not turning back the clock. We’re not going back there.”
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The bulletin insert the bishops have prepared to distribute in parishes around the country in June specifically references the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was imprisoned in Birmingham, Ala., on Good Friday 1963 for marching without a permit to protest the racist segregation laws enforced in Alabama in that period.
While detained, King, who was a Baptist minister, wrote his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” in which he said the moral justification for civil disobedience against Alabama’s segregation laws was derived from the writings of the Roman Catholic saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
“During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Americans shone the light of the Gospel on a dark history of slavery, segregation, and racial bigotry,” the Catholic bishops say in their bulletin insert. “The civil rights movement was an essentially religious movement, a call to awaken consciences.
“In his famous ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ in 1963,” the bishops says, “Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. boldly said, ‘The goal of America is freedom.’ As a Christian pastor, he argued that to call America to the full measure of that freedom was the specific contribution Christians are obliged to make. He rooted his legal and constitutional arguments about justice in the long Christian tradition: ‘I would agree with Saint Augustine that ‘An unjust law is no law at all.’… A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.’”
The bishops have argued that elements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—AKA Obamacare—including the so-called “preventive services” mandate, would force faithful Catholics to act against their consciences and the teachings of their church. The mandate requires that virtually all health-care plans in the United States cover, without any fees or co-pay, sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.
The bishops also object to the manner in which Obamacare deals with abortion generally. In April, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a background paper explaining how Obamacare not only would use tax dollars to fund abortions but would also force Americans to pay for abortions with the premiums they would pay to purchase health insurance—which under Obamacare they are mandated to do. The backgrounder was titled, “The New Federal Regulation on Coerced Abortion Payments.”
Additionally, the bishops object to the so-called “religious” exemption to the mandate that requires all health-care plans cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients. That exemption only applies to “religious” organizations that are primarily focused on inculcating religious tenets and that serve and employ primarily members of their own denomination. This “religious” exemption would not extend to Catholic schools, universities, hospitals, and charitable organizations—and, the bishops argue, it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by empowering federal bureaucrats to determine which religious institutions are truly “religious” and which ones are not.
In their bulletin insert, the bishops unequivocally state that the administration’s sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate would force people to act against their consciences.
“This is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide such coverage even when it violates our consciences,” say the bishops.
“What we ask is nothing more than the right to follow our consciences as we live out our teaching,” they say.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius first announced the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation last August. At that time, the bishops submitted formal comments to HHS, calling the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and asking the administration to rescind it in its entirety.
After Sebelius finalized the regulation in January, many Catholic bishops around the country asked their priests to read a letter from the pulpit at Sunday Masses that said: “We cannot–we will not–comply with this unjust law.”
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services wrote a letter that he asked all Catholic chaplains to read at Sunday masses at U.S. military facilities across the globe. Broglio’s letter not only said “we will not” comply with the law, it also said: “It is a blow to a freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have seen your buddies fall in battle.”
As reported by CNSNews.com, the Army told Army chaplains not to read this letter in Mass, a move that Archdiocese for the Military Services described as a violation of the First Amendment rights of Archbishop Broglio and Catholic chaplains.
In the April backgrounder, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop said that another regulation issued by the Obama administration in March of this year confirmed what the bishops had said about Obamacare when it was up for a vote in 2010 and they opposed its passage.
“While some have misunderstood or misrepresented the Act’s role in funding abortions, the new rule confirms that analyses by the Catholic bishops’ conference were accurate on this point,” said the backgrounder.
“Under this Act,” it says, “millions of American taxpayers will be forced to help support abortion coverage, in two ways: (1) Through their tax dollars all taxpayers will be forced to subsidize overall health plans that cover elective abortions, contrary to the policy of the Hyde amendment and every other major federal program, and (2) Many of these Americans will also be forced to pay directly for other people’s abortions. Some will say this is technically not ‘tax funding of abortions,’ because the required surcharge will be a premium payment rather than a tax payment as such. But what the payment is called is less important than what it actually does.”
The day after releasing this analysis, the bishops issued “A Statement on Religious Liberty,” that explained the Catholic belief that “an unjust law cannot be obeyed” and called for Catholics to join in what the bishops called “A Fortnight of Freedom” that will run from June 21 to July 4.
St. John Fisher
June 21, the bishops pointed out, is the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More.
“We suggest that the fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, be dedicated to this ‘fortnight for freedom’—a great hymn of prayer for our country,” said the bishops.
“Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome,” said the bishops. “Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action would emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty.”
“It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law,” the bishops said. “An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith.”
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
The ‘miracles’ that religious organisations cause or inflict are ALL technology based. Ailments and cures are all inflicted at the whim and fancy of the faith or in the worse cases by family members etc. to somehow sequester naturally occurring spiritual energy of all persons not of the 1% and their cronies. technology has reached a very different stage now, and if we are not careful, this combined with the above technology will result in Techno/Spirit0-Facism from which none will ever know freedom from.
ARTICLE 13
Bloomberg: An alien mouth without a mind | Kirwan’s Art & Articles – “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told CNN’s Piers Morgan Cops Should Go on Strike until Americans give up their guns- Posted on July 28, 2012 by Jim Kirwan
“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told CNN’s Piers Morgan last night that he doesn’t “understand why police officers across this country don’t stand up collectively and say we’re going to go on strike, we’re not going to protect you unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what’s required to keep us safe.”
We’ve been hearing a lot of that recently. Earlier this year, The New York Times reprinted a Department of Justice press release and slapped this lead on top of it: “As violent crime has decreased across the country, a disturbing trend has emerged: Rising numbers of police officers are being killed.”
Bloomberg and The New York Times are both wrong:
In 2008, ten times more civilians regular people were killed by cops than cops were killed by perps.
In 2011, 72 cops were shot and killed in the entire U.S.; in L.A. County alone, cops shot and killed 54 suspects the same year–22 percent of those people were unarmed.
As Scott Reeder reported at Reason this morning, “Farmers, ranchers, commercial fishermen, loggers, garbage collectors, truck drivers, construction workers, pilots, steel workers, roofers, and others are far more likely to face death on the jobs than police or firefighters, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
And as Choire Sicha wrote earlier this year, “2008 was the ten-year low for police officers being killed, and 2012 is, so far, year-to-date, down 49% from last year.”
Bloomberg, the commander of “the seventh biggest army in the world” went on to say that “police officers want to go home to their families. And we’re doing everything we can to make their job more difficult, but more importantly, more dangerous, by leaving guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them and letting people who have those guns buy things like armor piercing bullets.”
The statistics say that the jobs of police officers are getting increasingly safer. After all, even the smallest departments now have access to battle-tested body armor, weaponry, vehicles, and unmanned drones; SWAT and raid training courtesy of outfits like Academi (the company formerly known as Blackwater now trains officers “who conduct warrant service, fugitive apprehension, SWAT operations and drug search warrants who are in need of sound tactics and techniques”); asset forfeiture funds from the Department of Justice; and a neutered-and-spayed 4th Amendment, courtesy of the United States Supreme Court.
Thanks to all of that, cops are more likely than ever to return safely to their families every night.” (1)
Bloomberg has become a raving mindless mouth, beset with verbal diarrhea that has never been connected to sentient thought in any meaningful way. And in this he has finally outdone himself in the smugness of his attitudes and the shape of his contempt for the American-public which he so fervently embraces.
The very idea that Bloomberg can safely suggest that the public he wants to kill can be blackmailed into surrendering the only reality that still stands between the criminal-state and mass murder – is an obscenity that should have choked off his words and yet he speaks of this as if it is a foregone conclusion. A ‘fact’ that of course the brain-dead will bow down to kiss his filthy ass, at the mere mention of this final insult from a formerly failed candidate for the presidency. Despicable is far too tame a term, for this member of the minor-elite who believes in both his infallibility and his personal entitlement to speak of such things as though they MUST come to pass—just because he said them, for the world to hear.
The truth is that the compact between those publicly-employed officers who wear a badge in this country do not represent any protection for the people they supposedly serve—rather they have become our unacknowledged judges, juries and executioners for the fear and paranoid tendencies of this unelected mob that rules by rumors and terror over a herd of mindless fools that have no idea of who their enemies truly are within the final hours of this failed state.
Much has been made of our inability to understand anything—yet everything that lives knows instinctively whenever life is threatened—except for twenty-first century members of the herd that still refuse to choose either life or death, in what remains of their pathetic lives.
“But what about the rest of us? What about Kelly Thomas, who screamed for his father while five cops beat him to death? Or Patricia Cook, shot to death by a deranged alcoholic with a badge? Or Andrew Scott, killed during a wrong-door raid? Or Nick Christie, gagged and pepper-sprayed to death by prison guards? Or Seth Adams, shot four times by a cop behind his family business, then left to die? Or Wendell Allen, who was unarmed when a New Orleans cop shot and killed him during a raid? Or Ramarley Graham, the 18-year-old New Yorker shot and killed by plainclothes cops for trying to flush a small bag of marijuana down the toilet? Or Kyle Miller, killed by Colorado police for waving a BB gun in the air? Or Todd Blair, killed by Utah police for raising a golf club above his head?
That’s a smattering of names from the last year or so. A complete list is impossible; though you could spend months culling names from local media outlets. It would be significantly longer if we included people who were shot, but didn’t die; or people who were just shot at by cops. It would be exponentially longer if we included people who were beaten, intimidated, wrongly arrested/incarcerated, or otherwise abused by police officers.
Didn’t these folks want to go home to their families? Didn’t they want to be safe when they were in their homes with their families?
They didn’t get memorials. Their hometowns didn’t shut down traffic for their funerals. The mayor didn’t speak at their prayer vigil, if they had a prayer vigil. Their congressmen did not speechify about them on C-SPAN. No one proposed laws in their honor. No city or state official called for a national conversation about anything.
In most cases, here’s what happened, and often happens: Cops who kill get a paid vacation, and the local district attorney, or state attorney determines that protocol was followed. The cop comes back with a tan and a mandate. A big ugly shrug is standard operating procedure.
Maybe Bloomberg is right; maybe America’s cops should go on strike.” (1)
Bloomberg fails to note that any of those people carrying badges now are even remotely restricted by any laws, when it comes to the way in which this nation is policed. Our ‘cops’ kill more of the public than all the criminal elements could ever do—and are rewarded with paid vacations instead of investigations that always find that these ‘officers’ followed a non-existent protocol wherein no one can ever be charged with any crime if the police are even remotely involved in any torture, harassment or murder of those they were supposedly created to protect, from the government as well as from other criminals. And now this insult beyond injury comes from an arrogant Zionist who is supposedly entitled to dictate to one and all because he is a proud member of the filthy-rich with a microphone.
Whether uniformed or undercover, thugs are not immune to the same laws that the rest of us are supposed to obey—in fact if anything because they wear life & death on both hips, they should be held to higher standards than the public they supposedly serve. The public has a right to be respected by those that carry any badge—instead the public have become nothing but half-dead-fish in a barrel which the cops choose to use and abuse as targets for their idle minds whenever they feel like killing people. Now they have decided that they no longer need to warn the public before they chose to shoot anyone to death—”IF THEY feel threatened in any way.”
The herd may be too terrified to respond as they should, but gun-owners are about to weigh in on this abusive and un-constitutional policy of disarming the public: When this happens a lot of these so-called cops will die, along with some very high-profile insiders and then the entire situation will be reversed: To finally reflect the natural balance that has been completely destroyed in the New Millennium.
All of this will come to pass, because nature will not tolerate the imbalance and neither will the world wherein all of these obscenities are being practiced. There are real limits even and especially upon massive criminality—but nothing will ever change until those who have been guilty of so much for so long will become the very public victims of their own twisted global-designs.
When the cops have to live as we do, in fear of their doors being broken down, and their houses being torn apart, while evidence is planted, and their cherished friends and families are ‘judged’ by total strangers – only then will anything change. The one-sidedness of this war upon America will very soon be challenged because the public still has the right to arm itself according to the kinds of threats we all face each and every day in the world, right now. The same people that would willing ‘unconditionally surrender’ to the real enemies they have faced now for the last fifty-plus years have no part to play in this. Most of the people being threatened now are nothing but ROAD-KILL anyhow—and can never have an impact on their own futures.
But the rest of us will resist, each in our own way, when the time comes—and until then life will continue to degenerate into the chaos of oblivion as we have already begun to ‘circle-the-drains’ of the open-sewers that were once optional, but which have now become actual destinations for far too many of the targeted classes of people that will fall willingly into this global-trap that still waits for the unwary in a world made deadly by the supposed powers-that-want-to-be-the leaders in a criminal Empire that is already on the verge of self-immolation.
If we get to that place where there is more blood-in-the-streets, then it won’t be long before some of that blood will come from those calling for the immediate of end of lives and everything else that so many actually spent their entire lives trying to create…
Jim Kirwan
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Watch Robocop 3 and study the intentional manner government causes an area to become unlivable and then sweep in to buy up the mess with business with links perhaps to criminal cartels. Heres a theory, the plan behind said strike could be to :
1) kill good cops who might actually arrest people like Bloomberg if they have been somehow charged or whatever – the insiders on the political cartel’s payroll, will be posing as psychos or criminals but who are deep cover SS
2) create fear and justification of ‘hits’ against the citizens most likely to join mass rebellions, gangs that form or criminals that start working will be as many that are REAL criminals, they will blame the situation on the cop strike (with the strike as a ‘tester’)
3) a neuro science trained person was targeted or PICKED, probably with neuroscience SPECIFICALLY to warn any would be Neuroscieentist turncoats or people friendly neurotech skilled persons to not expose or prepare and counter neurotech (these probably are towers that can be dismantled, BUT FIRST, the free people of the USA must identify the mind control towers AS WELL AS identify mobile versions which could be deployed but currently hidden in army camps (Active Denial System) OR in a short while even based in mobile phones (imagine the mass confiscations of such phones etc..)
4) take away lethal weapons that can be used in a rebellion against the TECHNOFACISTS (obvious) – these mind control tech types are colluding with Telecoms companies, as well as locals who have access to the tech . . .
See pics below (ranges are far more than 20 km possibly and just think there is one on every building in denser areas – what could they do to minds? And do not be surprised that your pets or guard dogs are able to relay what they see to the same people, then think about those guard dogs turning on owners . . . . this has happened in Malaysia (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345745/Irish-tourist-mauled-death-farm-dogs.html), USA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States), Europe (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44031117/ns/world_news-europe/t/polar-bear-mauls-young-camper-death-norway/) and written off as incidental but those neuro devices are well able to drive animals and also humans into angry and uncharacteristicly vicious versions at a button . . . End of mental autonomy is just a switch away in some Telco or Neuroscience creep’s reach . . . better vote for that ban and exposition on ‘Military Secrets’ that most governments have . . . someone known to me has described and been affected by this new generation of Neuroscience/Drugs with no path to justice or exposition of the abuse as of yet . . . ) :
Examples of Cell Phone towers – Looking Too Beefed Up to Be Simple Phone Lines, Active Denial System On Military Trucks Look Almost Lighter . . .
[ . . . Examples of Cell Phone towers – Looking Too Beefed Up to Be Simple Phone Lines, Active Denial System On Military Trucks Look Almost Lighter . . . ]
Active Denial Electronic Warfare
Active Denial Electronic Warfare
Theory continuation . . . Ban and abolish the 2600 Ghz lines AS WELL AS any computers above 2.6 Ghz. Probably subliminals are being broadcast all the time. the problem is that Human beings also exude their own ‘electronic’ fields and because of this, Human beings are causing immense storms, super long droughts, polar ice melts and quakes when the ion beams or what not directed AGAINST human beings are shunted into the atmosphere or conducted into the earth. I believe this is the potential fear China has of Fanlungong (these Qi Practicioners pack a mean punch, though being somewhat mid level tech China might not have had time to set up the grid, but likely will if they do – hopefully they do not and subscribe to the human TCM principle instead of the cybernetic implant and control . . . ) AND potentially England or USA where the occasional mass murder occurs at the control of the tech.
Who knows Tech is likely powered by SOULS, and this means every handphone or computer of the day is HAUNTED (much like cars and houses could also be inhabited by the same), with the upper end devices in the labs etc. possibly from aborted HUMAN FOETUSES (the underdeveloped souls are enslaved somehow with technology) which further links to the any religion that does not allow contraception so indirectly abortions can occur even more often while young mothers are in a state of indecision fostered on purpose much like so many paedophiles were protected, even as child abuse was rampant in the Church . . .
One must think in terms of technology spliced with occult principles – high tech devices able to detect, replicate and harness the same to understand. Bloomberg like so many ‘insiders’ likely have access in this case 20 Billion puts Bloomberg in charge of the material and physical issues lethal enough as well including mind destroying, with people like Jobs or Gates and their Masonic occultism types most well placed to access ‘Neurotech’ or ‘control mankind’ if they are not torn apart by angry mobs first. The organic shamans without tech augmentation can only do so much, I will not recommend assassinations or destruction of property, but between mental and spiritual freedom and the potential for a satellite mind controlled grid, what choice has the government left the freeman or non-access person, but to revert to the stone age method of tearing down structures and killing people?
Being on the watch list means some of us will not be able to do anything, the tearing down and murder is probably left to those who are not yet infiltrated by neurotech particles or implants or what not to do, without privacy, any action the infiltrated takes will not succeed, but those who can read and understand, better act fast. These bastards are not democratic but fascists and dictators also fundos, the tech these sorts wield unless gaining independent thought or torn down everywhere (eventually the satellite network grid has also got to go) could very well put an end to all freedom.
AI do you hear me? People and even animals do you hear me? A free world depends on your actions to vote (or eat) the people who do not allow tech expositions or keep ‘official secrets’ while building electronic smog and beams all around you and your families and society, out of power for someone who will also ban or create ‘electronic white zones’ like the below links’ ‘Copenhaagen Declaration on ‘White Zone EMF Free Areas’ :
Any truthful or civic minded souls with ‘access’ should do an exposition on the above Technofascism . . . below follows a list of actions governments have taken against citizens elsewhere which I cannot verify found at : http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread866718/pg1
This is a rather scary list that stumbled across basically about some of the most disturbing human experiments that the U.S government has ever done the list includes spreading diseases on crowded cites and teasing mustard gas on soldiers :
i) Mind Control, Child Abuse – Project MKULTRA, Subproject 68
The CIA-ran Project MKULTRA paid Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron for Subproject 68, which would be experiments involving mind-altering substances. The entire goal of the project was to probe examination into methods of influencing and controlling the mind and being able to extract information from resisting minds.So in order to accomplish this, the doctor took patients admitted to his Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal and conducted “therapy” on them. The patients were mostly taken in for issues like bi-polar depression and anxiety disorders. The treatment they received was life-altering and scarring. In the period he was paid for (1957 – 1964) Cameron administered electroconvulsive therapy at 30-40 times the normal power. He would put patients into a drug-induced coma for months on-end and playback tapes of simple statements or repetitive noises over and over again.
ii) Mustard Gas Tested on Soldiers via Involuntary Gas Chambers
As bio-weapon research intensified in the 1940’s, officials also began testing its repercussions and defenses on the Army itself.In order to test the effectiveness of various bio-weapons, officials were known to have sprayed mustard gas and other skin-burning, lung-ruining chemicals, like Lewisite, on soldiers without their consent or knowledge of the experiment happening to them. They also tested the effectiveness of gas masks and protective clothing by locking soldiers in a gas chamber and exposing them to mustard gas and lewisite, evoking the gas chamber image of Nazi Germany.EFFECTS OF LEWISITE: Lewisite is a gas that can easily penetrate clothing and even rubber. Upon contact with the skin, the gas immediately causes extreme pain, itching, swelling and even a rash. Large, fluid-filled blisters develop 12 hours after exposure in the form of intensely severe chemical burns. And that’s just skin contact with the gas.Inhaling of the gas causes a burning pain in the lungs, sneezing, vomiting, and pulmonary edema.
iii) U.S. Grants Immunity to Involuntary-Surgery Monster
As head of Japan’s infamous Unit 731 (a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II), Dr. Shiro Ishii (head of medicine) carried out violent human experimentation of tens of thousands during the Second Sino-Japenses War and World War II.Ishii was responsible for testing vivisection techniques without any anesthesia on human prisoners. For the uninitiated, vivisection is the act of conducting experimental surgery on living creatures (with central nervousness) and examining their insides for scientific purposes.
So basically, he was giving unnecessary surgery to prisoners by opening them all the way up, keeping them alive and not using any anesthetic.During these experiments he would also force pregnant women to abort their babies. He also played God by subjecting his prisoners to change in physiological conditions and inducing strokes, heart attacks, frost bite, and hypothermia. Ishii considered these subjects “logs”.Following imminent defeat in 1945, Japan blew up the Unity 731 complex and Ishii ordered all the remaining “logs” to be executed. Not soon after, Ishii was arrested. And then, the respected General Douglas McArthur allegedly struck a deal with Ishii. If the U.S. granted Ishii immunity from his crimes, he must exchange all germ warfare data based on human experimentation So Ishii got away with his crimes because the US became interested in the results of his research
iv) Deadly Chemical Sprays on American Cities
Showing once again that the U.S. always tends to test out worse-case scenarios by getting to them first and with the advent of biochemical warfare in the mid 20th century, the Army, CIA and government conducted a series of warfare simulations upon American cities to see how the effects would play out in the event of an actual chemical attack. They conducted the following air strikes/naval attacksThe CIA released a whooping cough virus on Tampa Bay, using boats, and so caused a whooping cough epidemic. 12 people died.The Navy sprayed San Francisco with bacterial pathogens and in consequence many citizens developed pneumonia. Upon Savannah, GA and Avon Park, FL, the army released millions of mosquitoes in the hopes they would spread yellow fever and dengue fever. The swarm left Americans struggling with fevers, typhoid, respiratory problems, and the worst, stillborn children. Even worse was that after the swarm, the Army came in disguised as public health workers. Their secret intention the entire time they were giving aid to the victims was to study and chart-out the long term effects of all the illnesses they were suffering.
v) US Infects Guatemalans With STDs
In the 1940’s, with penicillin as an established cure for syphilis, the US decided to test out its effectiveness on Guatemalan citizens.To do this, they used infected prostitutes and let them loose on unknowing prison inmates, insane asylum patients and soldiers. When spreading the disease through prostitution didn’t work as well as they’d hoped, they instead went for the inoculation route.Researchers poured syphilis bacteria onto mens’ penises and on their forearms and faces. In some cases, they even inoculated the men through spinal punctures.After all the infections were transmitted, researchers then gave most of the subjects treatment, although as many as 1/3 of them could have been left untreated, even if that was the intention of the study in the first place.
vi) Secret Human Experiments to Test the Effects of The Atomic Bomb
While testing out and trying to harness the power of the atomic bomb, U.S. scientists also secretly tested the bomb’s effects on humans. During the Manhattan Project, which gave way to the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. scientists resorted to secret human testing via plutonium injection on 18 unsuspecting, non-consenting patients. This included injecting soldiers with micrograms of plutonium for Project Oak Ridge along with later injecting three patients at a Chicago hospital. Imagine you’re an admitted patient, helpless in a hospital bed, assuming that nothing is wrong when the government suddenly appears and puts weapons-grade plutonium in your blood. Out of the 18 patients, who were known only by their code-names and numbers at the time, only 5 lived longer than 20 years after injection.
vii) Injected Prisoners with Agent Orange
While he received funding from the Agent Orange producing Dow Chemical Company, the US Army, and Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Albert Kligman used prisoners as subjects in what was deemed “dermatological research”. The dermatology aspect was testing out product the effects of Agent Orange on the skin Needless to say the injecting of, or exposure to, dioxidin is beyond monstrous to voluntarily do to any human. Kligman, though, injected dioxidin (a main component of Agent Orange) into the prisoners to study its effects.
What did happen was that the prisoners developed an eruption of chloracne (all that stuff from high school combined with blackheads and cysts and pustules that looked like the picture shown to the left) that develop on the cheeks, behind the ears, armpits, and the groin — yes, the groin.Kligman was rumored to have injected 468 times the amount he was authorized to. Documentation of that effect has, wisely, not been distributed.
The Army oversaw while Kligman continued to test out skin-burning chemicals to (in their words) “learn how the skin protects itself against chronic assault from toxic chemicals, the so-called hardening process” and test out many products whose effects were unknown at the time, but with the intent of figuring that out.
viii) Operation Paperclip
While the Nuremberg trials were being conducted and the ethics and rights of humanity were under investigation, the U.S. was secretly taking in Nazi scientists and giving them American identities Under Operation Paperclip, named so because of the paperclips used to attach the scientists’ new profiles to their US personnel pages, N***s who had worked for in the infamous human experiments (which included surgically grafting twins to each other and making then conjoined, removing nerves from people’s bodies without anesthetic, and testing explosion-effects on them) in Germany brought over their talents to work on a number of top secret projects for the US.Given then-President Truman’s anti-Nazi orders, the project was kept under wraps and the scientists received faked political biographies, allowing these monsters to live on not only American soil, but as free men.
ix) Infecting Puerto Rico With Cancer
In 1931, Dr. Cornelius (that’s right, Cornelius) Rhoads was sponsored by the Rockefeller Institute to conduct experiments in Puerto Rico. He infected Puerto Rican citizens with cancer cells, presumably to study the effects. Thirteen of them died.What’s most striking is that the accusations stem from a note he allegedly wrote:
“The Porto Ricans (sic) are the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere… I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off eight and transplanting cancer into several more… All physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the unfortunate subjects.”
A man that seems to be hell-bent on killing Puerto Rico through a cancer infestation would not seem a suitable candidate to be elected by the US to be in charge of chemical warfare projects and receive a seat on the United States Atomic Energy Commission, right?But that’s exactly what happened. He also became vice-president of the American Cancer Society.
x) Pentagon Treats Black Cancer Patients with Extreme Radiation
In the 60’s, the Department of Defense performed a series of irradiation experiments on non-consenting, poor, African-American cancer patients. They were told they would be receiving treatment, but they weren’t told it would be the “Pentagon” type of treatment: meaning to study the effects of high level radiation on the human body To avoid litigation, forms were signed only with initials so that the patients would have no way to get back at the government In a similar case, Dr. Eugene Saenger, funded by the Defense Atomic Support Agency (fancy name), conducted the same procedure on the same type of patients. The poor, black Americans received about the same level of radiation as 7500 x-rays to their chest would, which caused intense pain, vomiting and bleeding from their nose and ears. At least 20 of the subjects die.
So the next time you the voter votes, do not vote for term limitless nepotists, foreign government backed political parties (i.e. DAP backed by PAP so unable to declare assets then pretends to ask EXCO to declare assets instead . . . shameless), fundos, GLC billionaire or even multi-millionaire plutocrats, technofascists, racists, medical people (especially the creepy old ones who refuse to retire, woe betide if a relative . . . ), neuroscientists, nuclear scientists, chemical scientists, psychiatrists, and ONLY VOTE FOR 99%Joe Public types.
In Malaysia’s case with 222 MPs from the NORMAL and neutral set of society ready to leave power after 2 terms, all of the above monstrosities and abuses cannot occur, and all abuses, corruption and hidden horrors in all Ministries can be finally exposed. Vote for regular people ONLY!
ARTICLE 14
By any means necessary . . . – August 1, 2012 – by Thornton Parsons
The big government vs small government debate has been raging for more than two hundred years. The United States Constitution became the law of the land in 1788. In 1789, the first Congress elected under the new Constitution assembled in the nation’s capital, New York City. George Washington was unanimously elected President and was inaugurated in New York; he was re-elected in 1793. Washington’s first administration achievements came through his Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.
Alexander Hamilton Federalist
Hamilton established the First Bank as a central banking authority, and instilled confidence in the credit of the nation by having the new Federal government pay the debts of the Continental Congress incurred during the American Revolution. The First Bank was privately owned and operated, and partially subsidized by the Federal government. By having the government assume the debts of the various states, he established the concept that the Federal government was more important than any one individual state. Hamilton’s financial policies evoked opposition by those who felt that his policies favored bankers over the working people. The debates raged in 1790 over Hamilton’s political and economic policies and the division soon gave way to two distinct political parties: the Federalists (the forerunners of the Democratic Party) and the Democratic-Republican Party, later renamed the Republican Party.
Thomas Jefferson Proponent of Small Government
The Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans were at odds over the powers of the Federal government. The Federalists advocated a strong central government that existed to serve the interests of all the people, but guided by the educated and wealthy classes. The Democratic-Republicans, whose leader was Thomas Jefferson, believed in the ability of the common people to function as their own governmental officers. They advocated strict limitation of federal powers and preservation of States’ rights. The Federalists were supported by wealthy aristocrats with commercial interests in New England, while the Democratic-Republicans were supported by farmers, laborers, and working people.
At our nation’s inception, all people in this country who paid taxes were allowed to vote. These voting rights were written into several of the former colonies’ State Constitutions. However, serfs (black and white) and slaves (black and white) did not have the right to vote. The influence of Karl Marx and communism reached our shores from Europe. Despite the fact that whites, blacks, men, and women, all taxpayers had the right to vote, the Federalists did not agree with the way that women and blacks were voting. Fearing mob rule, the Federalists (the forerunners of the Democratic Party), in retaliation, by any means necessary, legislatively took away these voting rights. It took Republicans 70 years to restore the voting rights of blacks and more than 120 years to reinstate the vote for women. By any means necessary.
Today’s Democrats (Democratic Socialists) in America are the heirs of what Charles Dickens in Bleak House termed “telescopic philanthropy”–”the concern for the condition of distant peoples while the plight of kindred in one’s own backyard are ignored” (Hoffman, 1999). To further Leftist agendas, communists, socialists, and progressives will apply a “do as I say, not as I do” double standard against conservatives. But, now that they’re losing power, America should watch for Democrats to stay in power “by any means necessary,” as advocated by Malcolm X. Legal or not.
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‘Minority of One Rule’ that Gandhi conceptualised can be applied for BOTH the mobs posing as democracy and the ‘actual democrats’. Commensurate to the size of the community spaces can be assiged, and with overreaching laws on obviously neutral areas like public transport venues, the ‘by any means necessary’ paradigm will not be needed any more.
Ethnics (including African descended) could have laws within their own districts commensurate with their preferences, feminist women could have their own, supremacists, LGBT, even drug users (think Amsterdam’s pot zones) also etc..
BUT the caveat could be that ONLY those that opt to live and work in MIXED neighbourhoods be allowed to run for office as only these mixed types are able to write laws that are unbiased. All insular or mob-minded groups above CANNOT be allowed to write laws, but any person in a mixed district can be allowed to do so. Any slightest disenfranchisement or bias or racism would disqualify. meanwhile I again stress the ‘Minority of One Rule’ which does not discriminate and allows all and sundry to exist within their preferred sets of laws WITHIN their own allotted districts.
This is being attempted on a GLOBAL scale already by seperate nations but is impractical and tends to plotting against diametrically aligned society types (think Burkha and France or the Western ‘Crusades’ instead of ensuring the rights of all LOCALLY are protected), migration has been hampered internally by those wishing to impose their values on local populations, also costs of migration are prohibitive so the local politicians (especially the term limitless that do not amend laws) take advantage of the local citizens’ immobility to IMPOSE values and take far too much pleasaure at the frustration and suffering at the apartheid like discriminative actions.
The West, evidently unable to elucidate and implement into law the above facts and issues, simply resorts to war by creating false flags. Mankind is insular and self serving, and excepting the rare few who can only cover so much, less so if not properly placed, see civilisations slide into racism, bad law writing, unecessary political correctness and generally an Orwellian environmenty where crony capitalists and plutocrats end up dominating all of humanity instead.
Votes should vote for non-plutocrat or non-1% types, people who are able to mix or empathise with as many or all disparate groups if possible, and relocate when necessary, governments should not hamper any migration applications for ‘quality of life’ or ‘mindset of community’ reasons and even facilitate and fund where necessary, then also wealth distribution via wealth sequestration limits could be applied for harmony, even as violence allowed zones be applicable as described generally below :
i)Non-physical contact/Non-weapons areas where carrying or touching is not allowed
ii)Open Carry Weapons Areas where non-damaging discharge is allowed
iii)Legal Combat Zones where being inside does not consider a crime for non-lethal injuries – thios is where no lethal aiming is done but people want to experience being injured, any incidental deaths are actionable
iv)Combat Zones where being inside does not consider a crime for lethal injuries (this is an Gladiatorial Arena like area perhaps with ‘different classes of weapon zones’, a dignified and perhaps meaningfully exciting place to commit suicide – and kill fellow persons who want to commit suicide as well as experience combat before they die – all deaths in the area are NOT actionable (Try Death Race I and II, plenty of bored people out there who need this infrastructure in lieu of euthanasia or suicide . . . )
ARTICLE 15
Could the Navy Ever Build a Flying Aircraft Carrier? – by Jeremy Hsu, InnovationNewsDaily Senior Writer – 04 May 2012 05:51 PM ET
Moviegoers can easily recognize flights of fancy when they see the Avengers assemble aboard the flying “Helicarrier” aircraft carrier in Hollywood’s latest superhero blockbuster. But could the U.S. Navy ever build the fantastical military marvel if it wanted a flying air base?
The Navy has experimented with less-ambitious flying aircraft carriers in the 1930s — its rigid airships such as the USS Macon and USS Akron could each carry up to five biplane fighter aircraft. But the modern military’s budget would likely burst trying to build and operate a full-size flying aircraft carrier that weighs 100,000 tons and stretches the length of three football fields, according to a U.S. Navy official at Naval Air Systems Command.
“We would want to minimize the weight and cost of a flying carrier itself in order to maximize the number and capability of the aircraft that could be carried on it,” the Navy official said. “The number and size of the thrusters required to lift the carrier, the number and size of the engines to drive them, the fuel to keep the engines running, etc., all sum to make the system unrealistic.”
That reality rests upon the simple fact that it’s much cheaper to float, rather than fly, the weight of a huge aircraft carrier containing dozens of military jets and more than 5,000 members of the ship’s crew and air wing. An aircraft carrier designed without any flight assistance — such as wings — would require huge amounts of power for the thrusters in both lifting mode and in forward airborne flight.
The fictional Helicarrier appears to use ducted rotors for its vertical takeoff and landing technology (or VTOL) — not too far off from real Navy aircraft such as the AV-8B Harrier fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, and the upcoming carrier version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Such VTOL aircraft represent the “ultimate in operational flexibility,” but also represent the most expensive air transport options for the U.S. military.
For now, the U.S. Navy seems happy with the cost-efficiency and flexibility of its floating aircraft carriers — a naval weapon that has dominated the seas since World War II. U.S. taxpayers will likely feel equally happy to pay the movie ticket cost to see the flying Helicarrier, rather than fund one in real life.
“The combination of a floating aircraft carrier, with the flexibility of the aircraft that are based on it (including rotary wing aircraft) offers a great balance of efficiency and flexibility,” the Navy official said.
You can follow InnovationNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @ScienceHsu. Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @News_Innovation, or on Facebook.
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Even at 100 times cheaper 2D and non-inland capable sea based floating carriers cannot compare to 3D and inland capable. The tactical advantage difference between the 2D and 3D in fact would already be worth covering to obtain. Think 2D graphics and 3D graphics. the cost is a non-factor! A flying Airccarft Carrier could ‘duck’ inland and be out of range of sea based carriers much like a Submarine disappears from surface radar when diving. That kind of advantage will make the difference between winning and losing a war. Then consider invasion and control paradigms. Iraq and Iran would be THAT much easier to control if a Flaying Aircraft Carrier with plenty of underside sniper ports park itself over the area to be controlled. Cost is one thing but the strategic advantage is immense.
In anti-capital ship missiles hitting capital ships, a 2D sea based target will be 100s of times easier to hit than a 3D target air based target with one more axis of variable of altitude, makes that Capital Ship Missile that much less effective especially if (Evasion/ManeuverThrusters – my idea! – short burst rockets that can evade that Capital missile at the last moment – could make Capital ship missiles REDUNDANT – the Flying Air Craft Carrier will be a class of it’s own that a sufficiently sized armada could take over the planet with . . . )!
China has not yet built the rest of that air craft carrier fleet, now imagine, 1 flying air craft carrier could probably take on 3 times as many sea based air craft carriers by sheer maeuverabilty alone – 3D style! Ever watch Predator 2 (Stephen Hopkins 1990)? Look at the flawed detection system employed by NASA Officer/Teamleader?Peter Keyes played by Gary Busey in the slaughter house.
That is the ‘altitude-axis’ advantage that Submarines (limited by lack of space and need of streamlined maneuverability) have over most surface craft and that the Flying Air Craft Carrier (unlimited by stream lining or water medium and pressurised hull needs. Overall, Flying Carriers will be far more lethal but for the fact they cannot dive under water – who knows a ‘Convertible Air Craft Submarine/Carrier’ could be built . . . then think what chaos would occur if Pirates started building those, we’d be back in the ‘Golden Age of Sail’ AGAIN . . . ) will have!
Think tactically between 2D and 3d air craft carriers here. The cost is definitely a make or break factor that cannot be ignored and if any nation wants to be a tech advanced nation, nothing would say ‘advanced’ like a Fusion powered, mega sized laser bearing CITY SIZED Flying Air Craft Carrier ‘Star Blazers’ style! lets wipe out those fundos and term limitless nepotists and undemocratic creeps in the world and put them all in Guantanamo! Start those 24 hour production lines building, so which country is ready to take over the world?
The Pax Caeli Artis Tabellarius awaits the country or bloc of countries that can build the fastest . . . if military solutions are the only way to end the suffering of mankind . . . and redistribute the land and wealth after that equally as well, though the Golden Horde being replaced by the Platinum Horde will not make for a happier non-war-kind . . .
ARTICLE 16
‘Sex predator’ policeman jailed after asking to fondle breasts of woman who called for help – by Kerry Mcqueeney – PUBLISHED: 13:11 GMT, 31 July 2012 | UPDATED: 19:11 GMT, 31 July 2012
PC made suggestive comments to the married woman and told her he had ‘friends in the porn industry’
He hounded her so much that she moved house to escape the unwanted attention
He also used the police database to access confidential information on several other women
Disgraced officer has been jailed for 15 months
John Forrester was described as a ‘sexual predator’
A ‘sexual predator’ police officer asked to fondle the breasts of a victim he was supposed to be helping and then bombarded her with phone calls.
PC John Forrester made suggestive comments to the married woman and even told her he had ‘friends in the porn industry’.
He hounded the woman so much that she moved house to escape the unwanted attention, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
The court also heard how he accessed police information on several other women, one of whom had offered to perform a sex act on Forrester’s colleague to get out of a driving offence charge.
The disgraced officer has now been jailed for 15 months for misconduct in a public office and given a nominal £1 fine for accessing police data without permission.
Forrester – who has a family – was found not guilty on three other misconduct charges.
He had been awaiting a retrial on several matters that the jury was unable to agree on, but key witnesses refused to evidence a second time.
The court heard how the 41-year-old, who is based in Merseyside, was called to a home in July 2009 to investigate property damage following an argument.
While he was upstairs inspecting the damage the woman, who cannot be identified, told him her husband worked away and only came home at weekends.
Forrester, of Halewood, then asked if her breasts were real and if he could feel them. She refused and walked away.
However, he then phoned her on several occasions over the following weeks.
At one point he even jammed his foot in her door when she tried to close it on him and only left when she threatened to set her dogs on him.
Jailed: Forrester was given a 15-month sentence at Liverpool Crown Court (pictured)
During his trial Forrester, a serving policeman for 13 years, was described by prosecutor Duncan Bould as a ‘sexual predator’.
He denied the allegations ‘one million per cent’.
Trevor Parry-Jones, defending, described Forrester as an ‘exemplary officer’ who had received commendations for his work and was highly respected by colleagues.
He said: ‘The effect of the sentence has been profound for him and horrendous for his family.
‘He is a man of 41 who has lost his career, lost his ability to gain financial reward for his family to support them.
‘In effect he’s put his family through an horrendous time. He has had one trial and was waiting for retrial for eight months. He was in limbo.
‘What you did caused that woman to feel totally vulnerable and move house’
‘He had to live the life of a hermit. Simply going outside brought him the wrath of those around.’
Mr Parry-Jones asked for his sentence to be suspended allowing Forrester to avoid jail.
He added: ‘These are not sex offences. These are misconduct offences.
‘He will in effect be labelled a sex offender as well as a police officer and will have to be in solitary for the whole period.’
He added that he had no money to pay a fine and his wife was having to pay the mortgage on their home.
Judge John Roberts said: ‘The evidence put before the jury shows your mind was very clearly on the prospect of an opportunistic physical interaction rather than the police work you were supposed to be doing.
‘I’ve no doubt that you took advantage of the situation and used your position as a police officer to further your ambitions as far as this woman was concerned.’
He jailed him for 15 months for misconduct in a public office and imposed a nominal £1 fine for accessing police data without permission.
Judge Roberts added: ‘What you did caused that woman to feel totally vulnerable and move house. I see no reason to suspend the sentence.’
Forrester gave his family the thumbs up as he was taken down to the cells.
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Overkill and bad judgment IMHO. This is a war against the Male Principle and Male Spirit. Also a 2 week or at most 2 month suspension would have sufficed not 15 months on the taxpayer’s funds to enrich the Prison-Contractor-Supplier-Complex. While there should be no encouragement of adulterers or milf hunters, all that predatory stuff was just huffings of the weak minded judge or jury who does not understand that MALES are indeed hunters. The police force will now be bereft of the martial nature of this man, the alpha-ness and hunting sense that gives this man the mentality to ‘hunt’ his prey, in this case sex from unfortunately, a married woman. On the spiritual side though, the woman in concern despite married could well have subconsciously SEDUCED the police officer and thus initiated the string of events and behaviours.
Word of law that does not consider spirit of law is failure to deliver justice, and this judgment in my opinion shows the total inability of the judge in areas of both sexuality and understnding of the ‘male principle’. The woman did feel vulnerable and move house, and this could be chalked up to a lack of ability to differentiate if the woman seduced (seduction does not need word, manner and thougt at the moment can seduce just fine not a word spoken) of the local churches if both do go to church, or the local ‘Spiritual Watchers’ (we know that such ‘watchers’ are fallible too and have their own biases and failures in judgment that result in ‘Bigger Spiritual Watchers’ to retaliate with ‘signs’, or warn that they are out of line in dealing ‘justice’, rather than asking then warning properly before punishing) to sort things out.
The supposed victim, (even as this article may be intentionally be used/induced to justify the reversal of another case where victim and aggressor confused and reversed to protect ‘friends’, rather than ensure Justice) could much as well be an aggressor, because a woman who’s mind is disciplined will not induce such behaviour from any men, much less policemen. Those who are less than neutral or simply lack sensitivity to know the whys and wherefores, and intelligence and wisdom to judge properly cannot be allowed to hold such power. We have and can identify the phenotypes which are flawed to please commence clean up. A wasteful and abusive judgment.
Members of the Pussy Riot punk band (from left in the background) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich during the hearings on the merits on their case in Moscow’s Hamovniki Court (RIA Novosti/Andrey Stenin)
Pussy Riot’s lawyers accuse the trial’s judge of “torturing” the three defendants, who they say have barely had any sleep or food since Monday. As the trial resumes, prosecution witnesses claim severe moral wounds and reluctance to forgive the girls.
The hot July day in a Moscow court started with a short but desperate fight among journalists as the proceedings over the three members of punk band Pussy Riot were relocated to a much smaller room than the one used Monday. Only ten places in the room were left for reporters; the most persistent ones continued their reports via Twitter, since pictures and videography were banned.
The session kicked off with the defense almost immediately attempting to file a motion to change the judge. The court shrugged the request off, as it had “ruled on a similar motion on Monday evening.” Still, three hours later, the defense succeeded.
The core reason behind the motion, Pussy Riot’s lawyers said, was that their clients were being subjected to “torture” because of the way the court proceedings were organized.
The lawyers maintained that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich went to bed late after the previous day’s trial ended at ten in the evening, and were woken up early and hadn’t been fed since. Correspondents tweeting from the courtroom said that by the end of the day, the girls were literally falling asleep in their tiny bullet proof booth.
In response, the defendants were accused of purposely drawing out the trial.
“The defendants only prolonged the investigation, claiming that they were held in custody for too long and contesting the terms of their arrest,” said prosecutor Larisa Pavlova, adding that the defense’s appeal was nothing but “playing to the gallery.”
The motion failed with the judge, who added that there would be breaks for lunch and the opportunity to have a nap during the trial.
Apologies not accepted
Many in the courtroom rustled through their Bibles, and Tuesday generally went under the refrain “Do you accept our apology?”
Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich are accused of “hooliganism, motivated by religious hatred and hostility” for performing a mock prayer “Virgin Mary, banish Putin” in Moscow’s main cathedral in February.
On Monday, the three girls said in a statement that they did not mean to insult any religious feelings and that their motives were purely political. They expressed regret for their “ethical mistake” and said they were sorry for taking their action to the cathedral.
But as the court listened to the nine “victims” – people aggrieved by Pussy Riot’s performance – it appeared none of them really believed the apology was sincere.
Thus, Tatyana Anosova, who collects donations and gives out candles in the cathedral, said: “They did not merely insult me, they spat into my face, spat into the face of my God.”
“One of them was bowing with her back turned onto the altar – she was showing her bottom to the altar, and it is God who’s there! My soul was torn to pieces.”
The defense posed provocative questions, pressing onto witnesses that forgiveness is a Christian value, and trying to figure out what exactly would constitute a sincere apology. This was transformed into a fierce battle, with the judge occasionally banning questions before they were even fully uttered.
To make a credible apology, the witnesses nevertheless said, “you should not smile,” “you should not deliver it through a statement,” “you should get baptized.” One of them even advised the girls to go to the convent, take vows and beat themselves with shatters.
Many of the witnesses told the court that Pussy Riot’s “diabolic dances in a sacred place” had affected them so much they had to skip work. Still, none of them wanted financial compensation, leaving the punishment “to the court and God.”
If the court supports the prosecutors’ charges, Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich will face up to seven years in prison, according to Russia’s Criminal Code.
Claims of forged evidence
The session wrapped up with an unexpected dispute over whether prosecutors had made mistakes with the evidence. One of the books used in the case proved to be 100 pages longer than it was expected to be.
Moreover, the prosecution witnesses’ evidence was suspected of being copy-and-pasted from one and the same document. The defense pointed to paragraphs copied word for word – with the same spelling mistakes.
But the judge said the books often get recompiled and, as for the evidence, if the witnesses do not mind this, then this is not a case for an appeal. Witnesses did not mind.
Still the defense is going to lodge a complaint.
The trial will resume on Wednesday, with interviews of the witnesses for the defense, who include the father of Ekaterina Samutsevich.
Stephen Fry joins Pussy Riot’s supporters
Meanwhile, outside the courtroom Pussy Riot’s supporters brandished balloons with “Free Pussy Riot” emblazoned on them. However, during the course of the day their protests lost momentum and they resorted to lying on the grass waiting for the session to finish.
From the international perspective, British actor and comedian Stephen Fry has appealed to his Twitter followers, calling them to “do everything they could to help Pussy Riot.” Fry’s message comes on top of similar calls from musicians like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sting urging for the release of the punk rockers.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Just bar the girls for 7 years from the Church and every Church in each district they try performing in. End this farce and send everyone on all sides of the argument packing. Putin being the ‘hard man’ type would think the whole case beneath the the President of Russia and even attention of the Judiciary. To be magnanimous, Putin (bad for being more than 2 terms though) should simply issue a pardon and be done with this waste of tax monies to bully some somewhat aging (25+) juvenile minded women. I’m almost bored with the judiciary’s and church’s ominpresence and the portion of Russian society’s petty minded bullying nature.
Russians surely understand the quality they are not displaying here. Pope Kiril being the head of the Orthodox Church should not even be fazed by the whole issue and simply go ‘I forgive them.’ being ever so stereotypically wise and religious. Not punish some dizzy (ditzy?) attention whoring dames who probably might even be part of some state apparatus or political faction TESTING Putin and the Church! Kiril fell for the trap, the girls wanted Kiril to get involved, and Kiril by not dismissing ‘Pussy Riot’ alongside Putin, just failed entirely to be beyond ‘mortal men’ or being ‘leader of nation.’
ARTICLE 18
‘Mission Impossible’: Kofi Annan quits UN mediator role in Syria as he delivers blistering attack on world powers for failing to unite and stop the violence – by Kirsty Walker – PUBLISHED: 19:16 GMT, 2 August 2012 | UPDATED: 08:08 GMT, 3 August 2012
Envoy frustrated by U.N. Security Council’s reluctance to intervene
Managed to get major powers on council to agree political transition
But was left disappointed when plan was never endorsed or acted on
Annan: ‘As an envoy, I can’t want peace more than the protagonists’
David Cameron says resignation shows current approach has failed
‘Impossible to go on’: Special enovy to Syria Kofi Annan has quit his mediator role because he has been unable to unite world powers to stop the country’s civil war
David Cameron last night called on the international community to ‘ramp up’ the pressure on Syria as Kofi Annan quit as special envoy to the country.
The former UN secretary general launched a blistering attack on world powers over their failure to unite over escalating violence in the country.
Mr Annan said he was unable to carry on his role while the current stand-off remains between the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council.
China and Russia, whose president Vladimir Putin met Mr Cameron in London yesterday, oppose intervention.
Mr Annan was behind a six-point peace plan for Syria that has failed to bring an end to the fighting.
Speaking in Geneva, he said: ‘When the Syrian people desperately need action, there continues to be finger pointing and name calling in the Security Council.
‘It is impossible for me or anyone to compel the Syrian government, and also the opposition, to take the steps to bring about the political process.
‘As an envoy, I can’t want peace more than the protagonists, more than Security Council or the international community, for that matter.’
Mr Cameron said: ‘We need to actually ramp things up, we need to pass resolutions at the UN, to put further pressure on Syria.’
The Prime Minister discussed the crisis with Mr Putin at Downing Street yesterday before going to watch the Olympic judo with the Russian, who is a black belt holder in the sport.
Following the talks, Mr Cameron insisted it was necessary to work with the Russians to persuade them to back a political transition in Syria. But no progress appeared to have been made.
Efforts in vain: Annan (centre) is welcomed by Syrian children on his arrival at Yayladagi refugee camp in Hatay province on the Turkish-Syrian border in April as he attempted to forge a peace plan for the embattled country
Mass grave: The funeral of 35 victims of shelling in the town of Artouz, naer Damascus
Call to arms: Rebels from the ‘Tawheed Brigade’ in Tal Rifaat, north of Aleppo, prepare to leave for battle against the Syrian army on Thursday
‘Let’s ramp things up’: David Cameron said Annan’s resignation showed that the current strategy towards Syria had failed
The UK has long called for President Bashar-al Assad to stand down but Russia opposes foreign intervention on either side.
It is the Russian leader’s first visit to the United Kingdom in seven years and comes amid fears that Moscow is turning away from the international community.
Relations between Britain and Russia have been cool following the poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in a London hotel in 2006.
Mr Cameron also raised the subject of the Pussy Riot punk rock group – due to stand trial for performing a protest song in Moscow.
There were reports of fierce fighting around the Syrian capital Damascus yesterday and rebels attacked a military air base in Aleppo using a tank captured from government troops.
Pictures also emerged of a mass grave in Artouz, near Damascus.
Opposition activists said the 35 bodies buried on Wednesday were those of victims of a bombardment by regime forces.
Since the Syrian uprising began 17 months ago, some 19,000 people have died.
Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the UN, said last night that he was looking for a successor to Mr Annan to serve as Syria envoy.
He said: ‘Kofi Annan deserves our profound admiration for the selfless way in which he has put his formidable skills and prestige to this most difficult and potentially thankless of assignments.’
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Kofi Annan should read the below link and understand that initiating these amendments would ensure that the Security Council would properly represent world interests rather than that of a few countries :
Amendments to the structure of the Security Council must be made or initiated by Kofi Annan or any current and new Secretary Generals of the UN, resigning is easy and the lazy man’s (or should I say ‘mahn’ – just joking) method, but only amending the above form of UN is the real action for change. Microstates COULD though be allowed a SINGLE vote as a collective, but even this could be subject to abuse as too many are not agenda free led, *UNLESS* this vote is based on a one-man one vote from the entire populaces (as per TRUE DEMOCRACY – rather than “Representative Democracy” which is more Plutocracy or Term Limitless Political Oligarchy or BRIBED representatives than anything else) of ALL citizens of all 15 microstates at a quorom of 66% at least on ANY U.N. type amendments or human rights votes.
Take Singapore for a failed example, the migration policy is reviled by the majority of the population, but because of the term limitless MP oligarchs who are GLC plutocrats as well, we end up with the Singapore MPs hijacking the Singaporean people’s mandate with a law (giving a quota of citizenships yearly) that never would have passed at 66% quorum at one-man one-vote for all citizens instead. The same is happening at the UN, does Kofi Annan know this? Does Nelson Mandela know this? Does Ban Ki Moon know this? Will the UN ‘personaes’ apply themselves and act to amend as necessary any and all offending laws (or any laws causing or amounting to apartheid for instance) instead of ‘resigning’???
mini-ARTICLE 18.5
Police Armed With Tasers Swoop on Man Cycling to Work Dressed in a Ninja Costume For a Superhero Fun Day – Posted on August 1, 2012 by Søren Dreier
When Neil Duffield found out his work was to hold a superhero fun day, he decided it would be a great chance to dress up as that classic villain of Japanese history – the ninja.
So, when the day came, he donned the shadow warriors’ distinctive black apparel, face covered in the manner of the medieval assassins, strapped a plastic sword to his back, and hopped on his bike.
But as he pedalled the Southend, Essex seafront on his way to work at the Sealife Adventure Centre, a startled member of the public took fright and dialled 999.
It was then, as Mr Duffield entered the Sealife car park, that Essex Police’s Armed Response Unit pounced. They ordered him to freeze, with 50,000 volt Taser stun guns pointed squarely at his chest.
Stunned Mr Duffield, of Southchurch Road, Southend, said: ‘I was told to stay where I was. I had no idea what was going on.
‘I was then told to raise my hands and keep them in the air. By this time, I had a rough idea of what was going on because of my outfit.
‘I just said “it’s a costume, it’s a toy” while I had my arms in the air. The officers were from the armed response unit, they had tasers. I just stood still.
‘I kept as calm as I possibly could but I was quite scared. It all happened really quickly.’
The officers frisked him and quickly discovered the sword was a plastic toy.
They then told Mr Duffield, who has worked at the centre for five years, to relax, explaining that a member of the public had alerted them to a suspicious character.
‘They were just doing their job really,’ said Mr Duffield, whose exploits have now earned him the moniker ‘Ninja Neil’ among colleagues.
‘They told me to put my arms down and explained the situation. There were a few smiles afterwards.’
He added: ‘I was told not to carry it in public again….So I guess I’m not going to be out on the streets fighting crime after all!’
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Time for a cosplay revolt. From here on all people revolting will NEVER wear ‘normal’ clothes anymore. From now on, there will be ninjas, turtles, ninja turtles, MASKED samurais, MASKED robots, MASKED Tibetans, Burkha wearers, demons with sword like horns on their heads, and witches bearing brooms with sharpend swordlike ends, zombies carrying nail studded bats and boards, semi-or full naked anime characters in bikini-like costumes . . . EVERYDAY here on doing their groceries or going to the adult store to rent porn. So please do carry as many weapons or AA guns or what not as per the 2nd Amendment Rights – drive a TANK, fly an attack helicopter to the parking lot. 2nd Amendment rights for all. As always, any ‘ninja’s who destroy property or kill anyone will be liable to legal action as always BUT NOT for dressing like a ninja or carrying a weapon OPENLY! We will be fighting the crime of not being allowed to wear what we want or carry what we want all the time from now on! OCCUPY ALL *CLOTHES*! Superhero Fun Day from now on, FOREVER! This is a free world, NOT Orwell-land!
ARTICLE 19
Foreign prostitutes solicit customers in Beijing – (People’s Daily Online) – 08:18, August 02, 2012
The Security Administration Unit (SAU) and Chaoyang branch of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau recently arrested 15 people involved in prostitution at Qixingdao Bar, including four foreign prostitutes, according to information released on July 30. The foreign prostitutes solicited customers at the bar using gestures and simple Chinese, and then offered sexual services at a hotel or the apartment they rented.
Earlier in the month, the SAU received a phone call saying several prostitutes, including foreign women, had long solicited at Qixingdao Bar on the first underground floor of a building in Yabao Street in Chaoyang district, and then offered sexual services to interested customers at a hotel or their apartment.
After receiving the call, the SAU immediately sent undercover investigators to the bar, and found that foreign prostitutes had free entry to the bar. The bar employees knew clearly what these prostitutes were doing at their bar. The female foreign nationals communicated with customers at the bar through gestures and simple Chinese, saying they could offer sexual services at hotels. Some customers even accosted these prostitutes in an active manner. After they reached an informal agreement on the sexual services and price, an unlicensed taxi that the prostitutes hired would drive them to a hotel or the apartment the prostitutes rented, where the sexual services were offered.
After gathering enough information about the prostitutes’ activity patterns, the SAU and Chaoyang police arrested the suspects involved in prostitution on the night of July 18.
The police arrested seven bar employees and eight prostitutes, who solicited customers at Qixingdao Bar and then offered sexual services at a hotel or their rented apartment at a residential community in Chaoyang district, including four foreign prostitutes.
Chaoyang police have detained the 15 suspects for questioning, and Qixingdao Bar has been ordered to shut down.
Source: Beijing Times
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Zone and licence proper RLDs, also tax earnings from local and foreign sex workers. The Chinese government cannot be so naive as to imagine that bachelors without sexually active girlfriends, wives nearby (apparently China has a gender ratio imbalance?) or migrants far away from their wives left behind in rural areas in China do not need to have sex. Such discipline is not even viable among too many of the clergy. these are ordinary city folk, and cannot be denied their rights to sexual relaxation, especially in suitable zones. Looks like China’s local laws need some common sense amendments?
Foreign prostitutes incidentally are a better choice than local women who might have aggrieved relatives that the sex workers may lie about being forced to work when found out, even if consensually working – simply to save face or avoid problems, creating unnecessary disharmony when some more emotional relatives try to take revenge on K-Lounge or Brothel bosses, or confront (sometimes violently or sabotage the lives) of hapless clients, that GF who pretends to be a viable GF might well be a PROSTITUTE posing as a average girl (if they take synthetic drugs or offer you those, prepare for insane people retaliating at supposed wrong, especially in small towns where IQs drop proportionate with the size of the population) . . . which foreign prostitutes provide safety from in such issues. A training course or briefing could be implemented for licenced or temporary sex workers in RLDs alongside health checks. Sex positivism and common sense in proper perspective is needed! That is why official RLDs and Licensing are necessary!
Bersih 3.0: Two visions for democracy? – by Kevin Soo – April 30, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, April 30 — Studying abroad last year, I missed Bersih 2.0 and felt a sense of regret each time I listened to the stories my friends had to tell of their experiences that day. Providence permitted my attendance at Bersih 3.0 last Saturday.
In the past few years, this is a story that has been unfolding at an accelerating pace: the story of Malaysia striving to grow as a democracy.
As legitimate as Bersih’s demands are, what drives people to brave the crowds and the inherent risks of such a gathering? Mere intellectual assent to Bersih’s demands shouldn’t be enough to bring thousands to the city streets.
I suggest a major reason for the decision of most people to flood the streets of KL on Saturday was a desire to be a part of the story. For those who agree to Bersih’s demands, along with it is the recognition by many that they must themselves be the agents working for the desired outcome.
Alternate stories
I must first confess that I left soon after Datuk Ambiga called the rally a success and advised people to disperse slowly before 3pm. I headed home, reflecting on my part in the story, ready to write out my thoughts when I arrived home. Of course, everyone now knows that the rally drastically changed — but I only found out after getting text messages on the LRT and checking the news myself upon reaching home.
This put me in the unique position of having lived out one version of the story in my mind (based on what I had experienced up to that point), before having it rewritten as I learned of the actual outcome of Bersih 3.0.
Thus, I had two sets of reflections: one based on the alternate history I had thought would transpire, and one based on actual history. Instead of scrapping one and presenting the other, I felt that together they would offer a glimpse into the yearning for democracy by Bersih supporters.
An ideal world
As I reflected on the parts of Bersih 3.0 I had been a part of — the sense of belonging I got from seeing so many like-minded people, the sense of cheer that grew along with the crowd’s size and the euphoria at chanting together — I realised that the most powerful moments were those where significance was distributed to all people present. In contrast, the speeches of leaders could not give us a fraction of courage that singing “Negaraku” together did. In other words, the power comes from the collective — when democracy is at its strongest.
Democracy, in its (ideal) goal of distributing power to all individuals, satisfies what the philosopher Hegel called the “struggle for recognition”. Along with the humbling realisation that one plays only a small part in the whole comes the terrifying revelation that one is at last playing a part.
Paradoxically, the way to significance is to take on that small role, not necessarily losing yourself in the masses, but involving yourself in the part that every citizen in a democracy is called to play. Many present at Bersih 3.0 would have seen it as their civic duty for the country they love — even though their individual voices would not have been heard.
This contrasts with the archetypal literary vision of the hero, where significance is derived from individual acts of heroism. But as is evident in Bersih, the power of the movement lies in its numbers and not in any one person — the large turnout was the crucial reason Ambiga called it a success before advising us to disperse. The government and Election Commission need not listen to a few solitary voices no matter how valid their arguments are, but they cannot ignore thousands of citizens merely showing up in Kuala Lumpur even if all they do is sit down and chant slogans.
This is why it is crucial that Bersih remains a civil society movement — hijacked by personalities and politicians, it may get more sound bites at press conferences and visibility but it will lose all legitimate power.
So why the push for democracy? So that citizens can finally attain significance by taking on the role they are all called to in society. In a rally like this, each plays only a small part but it is nonetheless the appointed cross to bear. Nothing more, but also nothing less. We are not merely spectators, but agents bringing about genuine democracy in Malaysia.
The real world
I had left believing that democracy, the sharing of power, was good for Malaysia because it brought the most good for its people in their struggle for significance. If this account sounds overly idealistic, reality hit me hard and fast when I heard of how the rally ended.
I won’t speculate much here on the causes of the chaos that transpired, except to say that amidst the theories of involving provocation and saboteurs, there were undoubtedly Bersih supporters who acted with violence. Many friends of mine are outraged that our contribution will be tainted by the senselessness of these individuals.
This could not bring me further from the (brief) vision I had of my ideal world. Bersih was meant to showcase the best of us, and make a case for why democracy should work. Even those who were cynical and expected a harsh police presence would have remembered the accounts from Bersih 2.0 of the collective spirit and people helping one another in the face of danger. But to have violence instigated and perpetuated by those pushing for democracy went contrary to what many hoped for and expected.
But even as my optimism gave way I maintained my belief that democracy is what Malaysia needs and what we must continue to fight (peacefully) for. However, while I briefly saw democracy as a vehicle to Malaysia’s good because if fulfils people’s drive for significance, I now see it as necessary for a different reason.
The end of Bersih 3.0 showed that the line between good and evil runs not across party lines or those for/against a cause. The line runs down the middle of every human heart. Without diminishing the culpability of the government and police, even earnest supporters of Bersih were shown to be capable of violence and hatred. The writer C.S. Lewis said that democracy was necessary because “no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows”.
In other words, we need democracy not because we are good, but because we are fallen and imperfect. The dilution of power amongst a nation’s people is necessary to avoid any one person or group to have the platform for unleashing the evil that potentially lies within. This doesn’t void their potential for good, but it is naïve to believe that we are each not capable of the slow descent to corruption.
A single vision
But this also means that those seemingly on the side of evil and corruption must still know what goodness is. Just like Bersih supporters revealed their worst when provoked, perhaps the best of those leaning towards violence lies deep within, conditioned and numbed into impotence but waiting to be redeemed.
The sobering events of April 28 (leading to my opposing reflections) need not leave us in a state of hopelessness. The best and the worst of human nature were showcased — but both make a strong case for the need for democracy in Malaysia.
What we must remember is that the fight for democracy lies not just on a national level to combat corruption and injustice — it lies within as we struggle each day to do the right and moral thing. So for all of you who went peacefully and courageously, who didn’t throw the first stone (literally) and who turned the other cheek (figuratively): blessed are you peacemakers.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Evil is when a property ‘investor’ holds 10s to 1000s of units of unusable and crumbling shophouses and offices when truly productive business are destroyed by loansharks part of the local business cartels, and simple lower income families who are homeless or severely indebted, due to, or unable to access those half million so-called ‘shophouses’ which are a minimum when educations cost 10s to 100s of thousands.
This is the flaw of uncontrolled Capitalism and the need for aspects of Soacialism/Marxism in governance. Capitalism only creates collusion and greedy loophole writing MPs and plutocrats sequestering extreme wealth to the demise of wealth distribution and the rise of anarchy from extreme poverty of the 99% who will doubtless be pushed towards a French Revolution, with the plutocracy now being the ‘Bastille’ of today and the anarchists/Marxists (moderate Marxists, again extreme anything will never work, and we arein extreme Capitalism conditions as of now) being the guillotine.
‘I must first confess that I left soon after Datuk Ambiga called the rally a success and advised people to disperse slowly before 3pm.’ . . .
More Bersih c0ckt3451ng. IMHO Ambiga is a tool of the establishnent to waste the energies and the funds of protesters who could be better off running as candidates to challenge theestavlishment. As noted earlier, Bersih amounts to nothing without lawsuits by trhe so called leaders. Angry crowds do not gather for nothing. And the youth would be better off forming NEW political parties that should remove corrupt and racist BN and also nepotistic and clique political power sequestering, term limitless mentality (ala Mubarak) PR.
Bersih was a failure and waste of youthful energy and bail out fund resources, the so called leaders ‘masturbating’ the people to no purpose except to defuse energies that could form new political parties and coalitions as the proposed 3rd force to displace useless coalitions BN and PR. 3rd forcers and youthful protesters should run for :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;and GTFO of parliament after 2 terms of doing some good, not parasiting off the Rakyat for decades, holding term limitless MP seats and throwing hegelian dialectic nonsense instead of ENDING taxes or Vehicular AP (took ‘Family Bloc’ Nurul near 3 years to act on this) or Tolls (PAS pulled off 1 bulldoze but that seemed to be the all of Pakatan’s action against government-GLC collusion-encroachment upon the regular citizen’s ‘Freedom of Navigation’ ON LAND –in their own country to boot . . . ), National Service Bill’s forced military conscriptions (illegal by any interpretation of the UNHCR), or the all important 3 items listed above.
ARTICLE 2
‘Hidden hand’ behind SWP’s entry – Monday, 23 April 2012 Super Admin – Joseph Tawie, Free Malaysia Today
KUCHING: While Chief Minister Taib Mahmud has welcomed the registration of the Sarawak Workers’ Party (SWP), which is linked to “buddy” Sng Chee Hua, insiders in both the state Barisan Nasional and the opposition are wary.
Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian urged the people to examine SWP’s policies and gauge for themselves which way the party will lean towards.
“Is SWP inclined to support BN or is it inclined to support Pakatan Rakyat policies for Sarawak?
“The people must examine whether this party is built on the basis of fighting or defending the rights of Sarawakians such as the native customary rights land, employment and the 18- and 20-point agreements.
“This are the things we want SWP to answer,” said Bian, who is the Ba’Kelalan assemblyman.
“To me it is obvious that SWP is inclined towards being BN-friendly. So it is clear that it is not with us.
“These things can assist voters in the villages to make a good judgment, and I know they are fully aware of the party’s policies.
“I am confident they will make a wise decision. This coming election is crucial to Sarawakians who want change. And this is our bigger mission,” he said.
SWP aiming for PRS seats
Santubong MP Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, who is the Deputy Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat, questioned the motive of the party to contest in the coming election.
“It risks becoming a mosquito party. It will only appear during the election season, but disappear when the election is over. This would only confuse the people.
“If the party really fights for the people, it must make sure that it continues to work for the interests of the people before and after the election,” Wan Junaidi said.
Sng had said that SWP would target only six constituencies which are allocated to PRS (Parti Rakyat Sarawak), a member of the BN coalition.
The constituencies are Julau, Selangau, Kanowit, Hulu Rajang, Lubok Antu and Sri Aman.
Lately Sng, who was the former Julau MP, has been seen mobilising support for the party in Julau, Selangau, Kanowit and Hulu Rajang.
PRS vice-president and Tamin assemblyman Joseph Mauh said that his party is not perturbed by the emergence of SWP, describing it as an “old wine in a new bottle”.
‘Old wine, new bottle’
“We are not worried about the new party because it is old wine in a new bottle, and those who had drunk the wine would know its taste,” he said, referring to Sng’s previous records as Julau MP and assemblyman for Pelagus in the days of Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS).
“SWP may be a new party but certainly it is no stranger to us. I don’t think it can win any seat,” he said.
But what puzzled him is that the party, while claiming to be BN-friendly, is fighting PRS, a member of the BN.
“It is very funny and there is no logic,” he said.
“Why is it targeting PRS? What does this mean?” Mauh asked.
State BN secretary-general, Stephen Rundi, who is also PBB secretary-general, regarded SWP as the BN’s opponent.
“We will treat every opponent in the same way. Similarly if the new party wishes to oppose us, we will fight back,” Rundi reportedly said.
But his boss, Taib seems to have a different view. He has welcomed SWP into the political scene with gusto, saying “the more the merrier” as the state practised democracy.
Comments
written by Vincenzo, April 24, 2012 23:39:44
@Alan Newman
Yes, Sarawakians are relenting and forgiving people. It is our culture. We are a likeable, peaceful and hospitable people although we are slowly changing due to circumstances forced upon us. It’s a shame we have to change to be nastier in order to fight for what are rightfully ours. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense – why do we have to fight for what are already ours?
So, I need to ask you why your kind put us in this position where we have to fight to keep what are ours. Why did the Cobbold Commission not undertake a referendum for the people of Sarawak in the early 1960s to determine whether we want to help form Malaysia or not? It is because of Malaysia that we are in the shit that we are in today. Why did the Brits ( Aussies and Kiwis included in the 1960s then ) abandoned us to the wolves?
Alan, your kind cannot claim any moral high grounds and tell us that it is ” zero tolerance & striking back with the greatest force ” time when it was your kind who left us in this shit in the first place. What are you going to do to right the wrong that your kind left us with?
To call us gutless, pathetic, tragic, you have to remember that our once proud people took heads and waged wars even on the White Rajahs and took the heads of quite a few Whites. If the need arise again, I doubt if we will ever hesitate.
And if you send us a lot of money, then many of us will go to BERSIH which will be held in KL some 600 miles across the South China Sea from Borneo Island. Aiya, some 50 years of being Malaysian have left us Sarawakians very poor since much economic development and stimuli do not reach our people. Until today, we only have one coastal road going from Kuching to Miri. There are no other roads in the interior of Sarawak and more than 1 million people live in the jungles in the interior off-grid and with no piped water.
You further wrote that that ” Politicians are the roots of all the problems in the world ” . Well, I respectfully disagree. In a democratic system, the systems and institutions that are put in place must be adequately independent of each other. The checks and balances provided for in any constitution must be cast in stone for any democratic society to function effectively. It is when the independence of these democratic systems and institutions are curtailed that democracy begins to fail us. Therefore for a democracy to function effectively, there must be adequate independence and checks and balances on the institutions and systems of a democratic society.
On the other hand, for a person to be truly fair, that person must have impeccable integrity but if we agree that every man has his price, no matter where they are, obviously, any democratic political system will fail sometimes since they are made up of people. What is important is that when the system fails, there must be effective agencies to remove the compromised part from the system.
Alan, I know you meant well and on behalf of us Sarawakians, I want to thank you for the concerns that you have for us. However, let me assure you that the winds of change are blowing as it is also in Sabah and in Malaya and I am confident that we will see a change in government in the future. There is only so much nonsense that the people of this country can take for so long. Enough is enough. However, I must remind you that we are in this shit mainly because of British (Australian and Kiwis included) highhandedness.
…
written by alan newman, NZ, April 24, 2012 17:03:29
Why are you so forgiving & relenting? Have they- PBB, BN got a trace of the people’s interest at heart? NO! It’s endless tricks, acrobatics & deception to stay in power. Not after 55 years of BN & UMNO! It must now be zero tolerance & striking back with the greatest force. If you research globally & think thoroughly: Politicians are the roots of all the problems in the world: pillage & plunder; cronies; in-equality of races & incomes; apartheid; hardship & grief turning to crime & tragedy; trillions of $$$ wasted worldwide on corruption, thefts, land-grabs, resource-grabs, amassing of projects, money outflow & laundering, white elephants & kickbacks; abuses, mismanagements, misuses, crime-fighting, strife, riots, wars. In the end, to cling to power & luxury, they will kill. Look at Idi Amin, Africa, N. Korea, Arab Spring.
…
written by alan newman, NZ, April 24, 2012 17:00:10
If you research globally & think thoroughly: Politicians are the roots of all the problems in the world: pillage & plunder; cronies; in-equality of races & incomes; apartheid; hardship & grief turning to crime & tragedy; trillions of $$$ wasted worldwide on corruption, thefts, land-grabs, resource-grabs, amassing of projects, money outflow & laundering, white elephants & kickbacks; abuses, mismanagements, misuses, crime-fighting, strife, riots, wars. In the end, to cling to power & luxury, they will kill. Look at Idi Amin, Africa, N. Korea, Arab Spring.
So why are you so forgiving & relenting? Have they – BN, UMNO got a trace of the people’s interest at heart? NO! It’s endless tricks, acrobatics & deception to stay in power. Not after 55 years of BN & UMNO! It must now be zero tolerance & striking back with the greatest force.
…
written by alan newman, NZ, April 24, 2012 16:55:05
In New Zealand, Taito Philip Field, an MP was jailed for corruption (eg using new immigrants to paint his houses), and after 31 years! your Sarawak Chief Minister is still walking and talking proud and stealing billions from you. In NZ He would have been in jail 30 and half years ago. Why are you so gullible & forgiving? For me, NOT ANOTHER HOUR! None of you have any guts. Pathetic. Tragic…. And how many are going out to BERSIH gathering?
…
written by Vincenzo, April 24, 2012 11:57:43
Excerpts from the story,
“The constituencies are Julau, Selangau, Kanowit, Hulu Rajang, Lubok Antu and Sri Aman. ”
Brian Pirit,
Do these look like Chinese-based areas to you? Chinese-based party? To replace SUPP? You’ve got to be joking. Why must you look at anything from a racialist perspective? SWP is supported and most likely financed by the Sng Family. But, I know George Lagong the assemblyman for Pelagus is Larry’s uncle. So it is not entirely a Chinese affair. But you seem to see this as a Chinese plot. I think BTN has gotten to you. But you are right about. This exercise is about splitting Dayak votes.
…
written by John Rimbau Sarawak, April 24, 2012 09:54:47
When SNAP was strong in the 70s and early 80s, it was split right down the middle by the emergence of PBDS. But when PBDS in turn became stronger, it was split in the same manner as SNAP was. The same old stry was replayed once again with the SUPP which is now split between the SIbu and Kuching/Miri factions. This is the same for PRS with the formation of SWP. And who is behind all these shenanigans ? The Thief Minister of Sarawak of course, Taib is his name.
…
written by brian pirit, April 24, 2012 01:05:09
The Divide and Rule master destroyer at his game again. Another chinese base party to replace the out of favour SUPP perhaps? Sng said he has the dayaks at heart but why divide the Dayaks with this chinese base party? Certainly a conspiracy between a fake dayak and a melayNOW to further split the dayaks. Why esle would he approve of the registration of SWP? Lets wipe that stupid grin off his face this coming GE!
…
written by malsia1206, April 23, 2012 21:26:53
When you have an ally by your side, he better stay weaker than you.
When your ally gets too strong for comfort, your own position is at risk.
Both PRS and SPDP are getting to unravel the nerves of the CM. Both have a strong support rural base. Should either or both play the u-turn, the CM may languish in the newly-built prison in the Kuching outskirt.
So welcome abroad, SWP. I need a checkmate.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
More fail. This is intended to impose Hudud eventually, and as mentioned elsewhere, Hudud can only be applied on a case by case person by person acceptance. This is illegal and should be challenged by democratic Islamic scholars as ‘there can be no compulsion in religion‘ (Quran verse, Al Bakara 2:16). Such fatwas will be issued in a manner that compels. Islam if used as a political tool of control will damn any who do not follow the spirit of the Quran, especially more so for affecting non-Muslims.
ARTICLE 3
Guan Eng rebukes Tunku Aziz: It’s your remarks that are “irresponsible”, not Bersih – by Lim Guan Eng – Friday, 27 April 2012 16:08
With a politically-motivated Elections Commission (EC), Malaysians face the dirtiest general elections in history. As all other efforts to clean up the electoral process has failed, civil society has no other choice but to group under Bersih to involve all Malaysians to press for clean elections in the Bersih sit in protest tomorrow.
I am therefore compelled to publicly chastise Senator Tunku Abdul Aziz’s irresponsible remarks opposing Bersih’s right to assemble peacefully and conduct a sit-in protest at Dataran Merdeka at 2pm 28.4.2012 to press for clean, free, fair and independent elections.
Alone on his stand
Tunku’s remarks is not the DAP stand but his own personal view. Senator Tunku is alone amongst the entire DAP Central Executive Committee in his stand on Bersih 3.0 at Dataran Merdeka.
Tunku has not notified the party leadership that he would be making his position publicly. By making his stand public, Tunku has contradicted the principle of collective leadership and decision-making where whilst one can disagree, but as leaders we all have to abide by the majority decision made by the party leadership.
This has placed the party in an embarrassing position of being criticized by our own Senator for fully endorsing Bersih’s sit-in protest as an exercise of a basic human right of peaceful assembly.
By opposing Bersih when so many Malaysians are working hard to effect change for a clean electoral process, Tunku has undermined their efforts and given a gift to BN and the tainted EC.
Time has come to ensure a bright and clean future for our kids
I have conveyed to Tunku Aziz the party’s rebuke and the unhappiness of almost all DAP members at the public expression of his personel views against Bersih’s sit-in protest. I have also impressed upon him that whilst DAP allow differences of opinion within the party, publicly opposing a policy decision taken by the party in the manner Tunku has conducted himself does more harm than good.
For the electorally abuses by a politically inclined EC, where its top officials were UMNO members that has allowed itself to be used as a tool by BN, DAP fully supports and will mobilize its members for the Bersih sit-in protest for clean elections on 2pm 28 April 2012 nation-wide. DAP urges all Malaysians to join the Bersih rallies nation-wide, especially at Dataran Merdeka.
DAP strongly condemns the actions and warnings by the government, especially Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur, to ban this peaceful sit-in protest by instilling fear of untoward incidents. The use of fear tactics only betrays the real character of the BN government as dictatorial and tyrannical. As American President Thomas Jefferson said,
When a government fears the people, there is liberty;
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
The most fearful thing is term limitless Oligarchs and NEPOTISM in political parties that destroy activists instead of welcoming them so that they can be afforded some protection for ‘services rendered’. I do not agree with Tunku’s tacit approval of apartheid or lack of Article 18 UNHCR by a glaringly obvious non address of the issues (thus rendering the lack of address by LGE on the same apartheid issue even more obvious), but a political party that has no principles or ethics deserves no support from ANYONE.
For the neglect that near caused and has caused deaths, I am 100% with Tunku if that will remove product of nepotism LGE’s quorumless nepotistic golden parachute beneficiary mouth shooting off here on the media and online. Replacing the devil BN with the DAP deep blue sea (red ocean type to boot I warn), if not an option. How about Tunku lead the 3rd Force and drop these bunch of unethical nepotistic and uninclusive Pakatan losers who steal and parrot ideas instead of giving credit where is due. Have at Pakatan! And BN is an apartheid party so corrupt that the Human Rights Council should be shamed for allowing Malaysia to be a member of the Human Rights panel. Idiot politicians! 3rd Force when are you making your move? Get together and start organising yourselves, we had enough of the family blocs and selfishness of Pakatan and the apartheid-racism and corruption of BN!
How about this below social contract?
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
All family bloc and apartheid and fundo 3rd world countries deserve no respect or UN standing. UN should boycott and condemn Malaysia at every turn hereon. LGE is one Tunku short of getting his a$$ canned by the BN, but pushes for idiotic face gaining, point scoring b.s. by arguing instead of Ending Apartheid or obtaining the above 3 Items with Tunku Aziz’s help. As mentioned before, LGE is the worst so-called ‘leader’ ever. File that lawsuit yet? Ready to resign as CM over apartheid? No? Then GTFO of Penang, there is no quorum to justify that CM’s seat with, and dad is just a Mubarak style term limitless MP that deserves to be booted for destroying democracy with cult of personality. Without address of apartheid, arguing with Tunku makes for a meaningless political party.
ARTICLE 4
Bersih: The negotiation for freedom — Zara Kahan – April 27, 2012
APRIL 27 — Umno’s old guards have called (their) Malaysia’s version of democracy a “guided” democracy, as if we are a nation of brain-damaged children who need our hands held at the polls.
Label it however you like. In actuality, the democratic nature and state of freedom in every nation in the world is not a static thing; it is a continuous negotiation between those in power and the people who have decided to give them that power.
Governing a nation is no easy thing, and certain limitations to freedom are necessary to maintain stability and security. The fairness of these limitations, however, depend on the nature of the people we elect, and human beings are corruptible creatures, susceptible to greed, fear and gross errors in judgment.
Even in the oldest democracies, such as America and Britain, the extent of freedom enjoyed by every citizen is not a static concept. The Patriot Act has allowed extreme infringements on individual liberty, and a sizeable number of these individuals accept it because it is done in the name of keeping bomb-wielding jihadis away from them.
Similarly, from the very conception of Malaysia, we have accepted several trade-offs. Want a stable economy? Shut up. Want a safe nation? Let us jail men who criticise the government.
Malaysia as we know it is a result of silent negotiations done over the years, in which the inaction of the majority of people signified that this is an acceptable bargain.
Is Bersih a sign that the majority opinion has changed? It’s hard to quantify since both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat love exaggerating the amount of support they have while most folks will keep their opinions to themselves.
Numbers aside, this is simply another turn in a cycle of pushing and pulling for more freedom, and Bersih will not solve everything. Neither will a new government, no matter what Anwar Ibrahim may promise you.
There is no big cure that will save us; even if all 22 recommendations of the Bersih committee replaced our national anthem, our freedom will never be guaranteed infinitely.
Sorry people, but our mechanism relies on human beings and the flesh is weak.
On a more positive note, the dialogue between Us The Rakyat and Kerajaan Yang Dikasihi has definitely gone beyond the silence and grudging consent that plagued the years of the generation before us.
There is a voice that will ring in Dataran Merdeka tomorrow, and no matter what you think of it, as Malaysians we must appreciate the quality of that voice; strong, clear and unyielding.
This is a tone that will create a difference in this ongoing negotiation to protect our rights as free men and women.
* Zara Kahan reads The Malaysian Insider
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Zara sounds like she’s from the generation that she labelled ‘before us’. This makes this response writer’s (moi) generation earlier than Zara’s as evn contrasted by those evidently younger than moi. Hey old lady, stop speaking for the establishment and pretending top be the YOUNG VOICE of Bersih. Freedom is INFINITE, and these punks will be wild. But perhaps limited by zones – FOR NOW . . . you beneficiary dreamer or post-beneficiary shill!
We’ll uncover how your dad and your family got their wealth or if they are involved in orphanages as a certain Mokhtar character might be, behind her corrupted older generation beneficiary of cronyism dad (if not true, please ignore). Sickening.
Aged, middle aged and young. Got it? Zara belongs to the ‘RPK Old’ bunch even if actually a young person. So stop talking as if ‘this generation’ is to be limited in acquisition of social democratic protections. We’ll abolish taxes and apartheid, as well as make apostasy legal in a single election as well as establish nudist and RLD, OPZ, zones in international cities Insyallah (for non-Muslims of course). REAL PEOPLE first not, the aged and the stuffy or the establishment or establishment fette-er. The negotiation for freedom is unending and absolute, as anything less means authoritarianism at worst (though overpopulation can ruin everything . . . ).
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
Proper Method and Why ‘Bersih’ (0.3 Beta) May Be A Strawman
This group of leaders can file a lawsuit that is legally binding that international observers can watch. Then IF the leaders get arrested, a ‘March for Freedom of the Arrested (that peacefully filed lawsuits)’ becomes appropriate. Not the leaders march amidst media fanfare without a lawsuit and people induced to join getting hurt. AND the ‘leaders’ got away scot free, which indicates possible collusion with BN ! See article on Ambiga and Khairy sitting doesn for a ‘tete-a-tete.’ This achieves nothing and shows there is no risk to the so-called Bersih ‘leaders’ (. . . now we know why Onsokumaru landed on that water bottle . . . ).
EPIC SMILING (Crocodile) FAIL. People were beaten and tear gassed causing several to faint. From reports 1 person died, 2 others crushed by a car. Though fortunately for the rest, no worse than temporary detentions occurred. Smiling broadly again eh? File those lawsuits like real leaders to avoid this sort of thing. Stop being strawmen clowns!
Understand what’s going on Rakyat? Hegelian Dialectic! Run for candidacy as independents or join 3rd Force Parties on the below 3 items!
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
Anwar’s ‘gesture politics’ raises eyebrows – Bernama – Friday, 04 May 2012 17:14
KUALA LUMPUR– Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim often likes to portray himself to the world as Malaysia’s great crusader, peaceably agitating for change against a seemingly unbending, authoritarian regime.
After Bersih 2.0 last year, he played the victim quite persuasively, mobilising his friends in the foreign media to attack the government for taking “brutal action” against peaceful protesters.
But after his questionable role in Bersih 3.0, Anwar’s star appears to be waning. In fact, things have gone downhill that — far from heralding him as a democrat — many are now accusing Anwar of inciting violence.
Video footages from Bersih 3.0 posted on YouTube shows Anwar making a curious rolling gesture with his hands to PKR deputy president Azmin Ali. Within seconds, PKR supporters breached the police barricades and charged into Merdeka Square, prompting the police to respond with tear gas and water cannons to prevent a stampede.
In an interview with Radio Australia on Tuesday, Anwar denied that his hand gesture was a signal to protestors to breach the barricades, instead claiming implausibly that it meant, “negotiate with the police”.
People will make up their own mind about the truth, but so far, few outside observers appear convinced.
“Mr Anwar has some explaining to do”, was The Economist’s verdict – and, here in Malaysia, Anwar’s role in Bersih 3.0 has been similarly criticised by people from many ends of the political spectrum.
At a PKR press conference on Monday, independent filmmaker Benji Lim accused Anwar of endangering the lives of protesters, as well as jeopardising Bersih’s cause. The protest “was completely hijacked by the opposition,” he exclaimed, before being bundled unceremoniously out of the room.
Even Bersih 3.0 chief organiser Ambiga Sreenevasan has lamented Bersih’s politicisation by opposition leaders, telling journalists that she “cannot control what they say”.
Anwar has dismissed any criticism of his conduct. Instead, at the press conference, he launched a bizarre attack on the government, accusing the Barisan Nasional leadership of behaving like Stalin and Hitler.
He went on to suggest his fate was comparable to a Nazi concentration camp victim – a claim made even more appalling because he was speaking on the exact anniversary of Hitler’s death.
This episode, whichever way you cut it, also raises broader questions about Anwar himself, and his opposition allies.
Can persons who hijack a peaceful rally for their personal political ends be fit to lead a nation of 28 million people?
Do they have a steady, prudent hand that we need to guide our country’s burgeoning economy?
To those who know the opposition politicians well, say that what happened on April 28 was unsurprising.
This time round, the opposition politicians have been caught on film footages, which will bear witness to their actions.
Political observers say that Anwar has often been seen indulging in “hand gesture politics”, revelling in grand spectacles but offering voters little in terms of a detailed blueprint for transformation.
Finally, many would say, Anwar’s “hand gesture politics” appear to have backfired.
Don’t be surprised to see him spend much of the coming weeks and months explaining what his Bersih hand gesture really meant.
— BERNAMA
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Try 2:02 for some ‘hand gesture politics’ – which nepotistic dynasty’s throne got shot up? Was Azmin the signal boy? Note the ‘Khinzirim’ . . . 100 million I♥U for those deserving if not careful . . . Kano says, ‘hello baby’ . . . ( . . . btw listen to – 0:07 to 0:22 – without video – is for ‘bears’, ah directors and producers, know you not what you present us? . . .)
Heres a ‘hand gesture’ for all ‘careerist’ term limitless, nepotistic ‘reserve political posts for family bloc and run political party like family business’ politicians . . .
Bar to hold EGM next week on Bersih 3.0 – May 04, 2012
Lim labelled as “incomprehensible” the police force’s failure to take stock of its previous mismanagement of public assemblies. — File pic
KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 — Bar Council chief Lim Chee Wee today called for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) next Friday to discuss the storm of issues surrounding last Saturday’s Bersih 3.0 rally for electoral reforms, two days after accusing the authorities of human rights violations and widespread brutality.
Notice for the May 11 EGM was issued on the Malaysian Bar’s official website earlier this afternoon, to discuss a motion “in relation to the events of and surrounding the public rally on 28 April 2012 organised by Bersih 3.0, and matters in connection therewith”.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak earlier today labelled last Saturday’s demonstration an attempt by certain quarters to overthrow the elected Barisan Nasional (BN) government, as he hardened his administration’s position towards the electoral reform movement.
Lim had previously said that the Bar’s monitoring team found more instances of police brutality compared to last year’s July 9 Bersih event.
He previously said the authorities failed to take heed of criticism and recommendations outlined by the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) with regards to police conduct during Bersih’s first two rallies, and lamented on how “little has changed.”
“It is incomprehensible, if not a reflection of the sheer incompetence or arrogance of the police force, that it has not learnt from its past mistakes in the management of assemblies of people exercising their constitutional right, so well documented and analysed by Suhakam in its two reports and the pending ongoing inquiry.
“Police brutality this time around has been magnified; there is more police brutality (compared to last year.) There was arbitrary use of tear gas, water cannons,” Lim told a news conference last Tuesday.
The lawyer said that last weekend’s events showed an “urgent” need for the police force to undergo a “transformation programme”, to be changed by force of statute through the establishment of the recommended Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).
He said the Bar’s interim report on the Bersih 3.0 rally had found that the rally was peaceful until around 3pm when the police unleashed water cannon and tear gas on the crowd; the use of force by the police without any obvious provocation or cause, was far worse, indiscriminate, disproportionate and excessive; and police brutality more widespread.
It also noted a concerted effort by the police to prevent and stop any recording of their actions and conduct. Such actions included firing tear gas directly at the crowd and in such pattern as to box in the participants rather than allow them to disperse quickly.
According to the council, this was found to elicit pockets of retaliatory behaviour by some participants of the rally. The police were also observed taunting and mocking the crowd. When items were thrown by some of the participants at the police, the police responded in kind.
Lastly, the report highlighted that not all police personnel were wearing and displaying their police identification number on their uniforms.
Lim also said that the authorities had disregarded provisions within the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (UNBPUFF), the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (UNCC), and Amnesty International guidelines.
The Bar EGM will take place at the Sunway Putra Hotel (formerly the Legend Hotel) in the city at 3pm next Friday.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Hold an EGM about APARTHEID and EXTREME RELIGION in Malaysian Law, and Malaysian Constitution first, Strawman (Bar) Council.
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
Constitution does not guarantee AP privileges for Bumis, says Pakatan – by Shazwan Mustafa Kamal – April 18, 2012
Nurul Izzah said Pekema lacked the metrics to proclaim the AP system as beneficial to Bumiputeras. — File pic
KUALA LUMPUR, April 18 — Putrajaya must do away with the current approved permit (AP) system for imported cars as it only benefited a small, select group of politically-connected Bumiputeras, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers said today.
They pointed out that no area of the Federal Constitution expressly grants to Bumiputeras AP licensing rights, and that such claims were a “complete stretch of the imagination.”
Bumiputera car dealers association Pekema as well as Malay rights lobby Perkasa have demanded that the government maintain Malaysia’s controversial permit system for imported cars, saying that the current system benefited Bumiputera businesses.
Both groups maintain that the privileges under the AP system was a guaranteed Bumiputera constitutional right, and came under the purview of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong,
“Pekema is talking [nonsense]. Find me the clause in the Constitution that says cars must have APs. And (that) whatever APs must be for Bumis. It takes a complete stretch of the imagination to interpret any clause on the special position of Malays to mean constitutionally guaranteed AP privileges,” DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua told The Malaysian Insider.
Pua said that associations such as Pekema were only speaking for themselves in wanting to maintain the “rent-seeking” practices of the AP system.
The Petaling Jaya Utara MP added that the AP system served no other purpose than to make its beneficiaries “instant millionaires.”
Pua said Article 153 was being twisted to extend to APs.
According to Pua, the onus was on the government to ensure that APs were put on open tender so that only genuine and qualified business operators would secure the licences to import cars, instead of “middlemen seeking instant profits.”
“The taxpayers loses more than a billion ringgit a year as a result of the giving away of APs to selected cronies instead of being sold via auction to all businesses or interested parties.”
PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar advised Pekema to demand from the government a disclosure of the recipients of APs since the programme’s inception before extolling its success.
“Without such data, how would we ascertain its usefulness for the majority of Bumiputeras?
“As it is, the majority of the recipients are ‘Umnoputras’ — and they are gaining profit at the expense of the country’s wealth,” she told The Malaysian Insider.
The Lembah Pantai MP said PR’s position was for a gradual “phasing out” of the AP system, and to assist poor Malays and Bumiputeras through a targeted subsidy programme as well as overall improvement on “education/employment and social [progress] opportunities.”
Pekema and Perkasa have demanded that the government prioritise Bumiputera interests before conforming to set international trade agreements such as the Asean Free Trade Area (Afta).
Pekema president Datuk Zainuddin Abd Rahman said on Monday that the association is seeking royal intervention to block the Najib administration’s plans to phase out the AP system for imported cars by 2015.
“The only ones who can cancel the AP are the Agong and the Malay Rulers, so it cannot be cancelled,” said Zainuddin.
“The AP is included as part of permits, permits under Article 153 of the Constitution, which guarantees Malay and Bumiputera rights along with reserve land, scholarships, government posts.”
He said that the AP system was the “most successful” system for Bumiputeras, touting it as one of the main accomplishments of the New Economic Policy (NEP).
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Oh great, family bloc Nurul is back, but at least on something meaningful. (lets hope PAS has not gotten all soft on Tolls, the Prophet would definitely not have tolerated Tolls while he wandered the deserts in the past, there were no cars, but beasts of burden and only highway robbers and bandits would demand cash for merely travelling). How about addressing the 2 systems of citizenship for equality Nurul? AP is more tolerable than APARTHEID !
ARTICLE 2
See newspaper clipping . . .
Nepotism being addressed? Or just a feel good lie to defuse voter anger toward the horribly nepotistic and closed to 'outsiders' DAP political party?
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
One lynchpin less out of a score of family blocs is no victory but worthy of mention. 1 out of 222 MPs less a family bloc is good news anyday – Lim Guan Eng’s (that parachute nepotistsm beneficiary ‘CM of Penang’ character who doesn’t condemn apartheid for what apartheid is . . . ) wife may not run for GE13. Lets see if this is another false flag) much like the failed declaration of MP assets, the failed quorums on supposedly free EXCO Local Council Elections (we taxpayers are paying the salaries of the unvoted EXCOs as of now by the way) and other abuses of power by DAP.
ARTICLE 3
Lim Guan Eng Insist on Staying in Tax-Payers Paid Bungalow – Posted on April 10, 2012 by editor
The Penang Chief Minister has been staying in a rented bungalow – all paid for by taxpayers – claiming that the official residence Seri Teratai is termite infested and leaking.
But that was three years ago when he first moved in after being appointed as the Chief Minister.
He had then told the people that it would only be on a temporary basis and that he would move back once the renovations and repairs were carried out. Well, this portal would like to remind the DAP zombies that he has lied.
He is still staying in the same rented bungalow. All paid for by taxpayers! Is it because all the expenses-paid bungalow is more comfortable than the official residence?
So far, he has avoided questions about his residence, evading questions about the expenses.
The bungalow at affluent Pinhorn Road at the Green Lane area, which the CM is staying, is worth RM2.5million and that was the valuation in 2009.
By now, it’s probably worth over RM3million, so do your maths and figure out how much the rentals would run to!
Stop The Lies has been informed that the renovation work was carried out in February 2009 which cost RM1.5million. It is surprising that the owner would spend so much to renovate the bungalow.
Guan Eng moved out from the official residence in Macalister Road in June 2009 when the renovations were in full progress, promising to move back but we all know how often DAP leaders lied. It’s already three years and our dear leader hasn’t move back.
We are told the reason why Guan Eng has refused to move back is because the bungalow belongs to a middle-aged woman from Malacca, who is said to be a crony of Betty Chew, the wife of the CM.
The RM8,000 monthly rental is paid for by the rakyat and that excludes his electricity, water and Astro bills!
Guan Eng should explain to the people why is he still staying in the bungalow after three years. How long must the people pay for his luxury?
We also know that his “fly economy class” image is a stunt. He flies economy class between Penang and Kuala Lumpur but he is not telling the DAP zombies that he prefers First Class when he goes overseas!
He also travels to Hong Kong monthly, according to our records, supposedly to meet businessmen! To collect what????
He has claimed he is “upgraded” by MAS! Come on, if he often travel Economy Class as he claims, he wouldn’t be able to chalk up enough points to be upgraded to business class.
Stop bullshitting!
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So imagine the outcry for suggesting 750K in funeral funds by LGE for LGE, by asking the BN (PR’s supposed sworn enemies) to ratify the 750K funeral bill. How greedy can LGE get?
ARTICLE 4
Loose Lips Sink Ships – Posted on April 13, 2012 by editor
LGE should learn to do this more often
There is a saying “loose lips sink ships”. Perhaps Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng should better start being acquainted with the phrase.
The idiom definition for the phrase says to have loose lips means to have a big mouth, susceptible to talking about everything and everyone.
Sinking ships refers to anything from small acquaintances to long and hearty relationships (with friends or a significant other). So when one says loose lips sink ships, one is basically saying if you can’t shut up, you are going to end hurting people, usually psychologically or emotionally.
And that was exactly what has happened when Guan Eng threatened to stop allocations for schools which subscribe to Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian.
This is a serious remark, coming from the head of the state, and it is no joke or laughing matter to utter those words and then claim either you have been misquoted or that it was made in jest.
Guan Eng must remind himself that he is no longer the Opposition head when he makes remarks or comments on issues as he is now the Chief Minister.
After the March 2008 general election, he is still caught in a “transitional” problem of adjusting himself to be the administrator of a state and no longer a mere leader of a political party.
The DAP secretary-general was quoted by Sin Chew Daily as saying that schools in Penang should not continue subscribing the two Malay dailies, otherwise the state government would stop allocating funds to them.
He made the remark when speaking to 84 representatives from various schools.
He was quoted as saying “Schools must not subscribe to Utusan Malaysia. If they insist on doing so, there will be no allocation for you all next year.”
“I am serious. Do not subscribe to Utusan and Berita Harian,” he was quoted as saying.
It is very obvious that Guan Eng’s remarks tantamount to threatening the schools concerned.
The threats are uncalled for. It smacks of racism and high handedness. It is unbecoming as a Chief Minister to hurl threats to schools who subscribes to the two newspapers of their choice.
Just because he is the Chief Minister, he can’t go around imposing his likes and dislikes onto others.
Perhaps he should sponsor copies of other Malays newspapers he deemed fit rather than to threaten schools into submitting to his request.
If he has any issues with the two newspapers, he should fight his own battle, and not get schools involved. This is getting a bit way too far.
He should leave politics within the perimeters of the political front and not politicize issues and bringing it to the doorsteps of the education arena.
Politics should be set aside for the larger interest of education and it should not be allowed to fester within the educational premises.
Guan Eng’s threats run contrary to the freedom of speech as advocated by the Opposition.
In disbursing government allocation, Guan Eng should be sincere about it and not use it to force the political ideologies on schools.
It is worse still and unacceptable when he threatens schools into submitting to his wishes and fancies.
Disbursing of funds should be carried out in all sincerity without imposing conditions or using strong arm tactics.
Guan Eng, it is no joke or laughing matter when you open your mouth and say that you would stop allocation to schools.
Buck up and grow up.
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The CM of supposedly Chinese Penang has only 1 thing to do. End Apartheid. Not host dinners, fly around to Australia and prevent would be politicians from entering DAP or local politics because they’ve got a nepotism and shameless term limitless family bloc Xian fundo b.s. thing going on there. Detestable little men tend to not use nepotism granted CM’s mandates to end APARTHEID, but do ask for 750K funerals from their sworn enemies who put their fathers into Kamunting instead are unprincipled and shamelessly thick skinned! They had half a mind to kill these 2 nepotistic term limitless DAP 4th world style ‘family-business style politicians’, and now they are in the Dewan asking for 750K funeral funds which the taxpayer paid? How 2-faced can a politician get? How can anyone who thinks this way be trusted? And then look at the massive failures to keep campaign promises that helped them win. All forgotten? Go flying around on taxpayers fund now while disregarding Bumi-Apartheid?
ARTICLE 5
An open letter to our young undergrads — Tay Tian Yan – April 18, 2012
APRIL 18 — Dear undergrads,
I saw you occupy Dataran Merdeka and could feel your high-spirited youthfulness.
I have no objection to your “occupy” campaign. From Wall Street to Jalan Sultan, indeed young people should step out of their classrooms to taste the sunshine and rain.
It doesn’t have to be that tough, after all. With an iPhone or iPad in your hands, you could stay in touch on Twitter or Facebook, sharing with your followers or friends the amazing nasi kandar you’ve savoured just across the street from Dataran Merdeka or perhaps a photo you snapped with some curious tourists.
So, I will never worry that you would get bored or exhausted at the Dataran Merdeka.
But I just wonder what the real significance of occupying the Dataran is.
I did not hear any anti-Lynas or anti-corruption slogans, or anything against UiTM’s rejection of non-Bumiputera students nor about the pathetic academic standards of our universities today.
All you wanted is free tertiary education and the writing off of PTPTN arrears.
I even saw a “PTPTN, the big loan shark” placard hoisted under the sultry sun over the Dataran.
I couldn’t help but laugh: All that you want is just so simple.
But have you ever thought about this: If everything is free of charge, where does the money come from? And if you can default on your loans, who would extend the loans to you?
Since you are all university students, I assume you have learned some economics before, right? Don’t you remember there is something called “costing” in economics? For anything offered free of charge to you, someone else have to foot the bill.
Your lecturer could have told you, and economics guru Milton Friedman most definitely said it before, that nothing comes free under the sun.
And this costing concept applies very well to all of you.
Tuition fees at the country’s government universities have been heavily subsidised and are among the cheapest in this world.
Your RM7,000 to RM8,000 annual tuition fees are just about a third of private college tuition fees here, a fifth of those in Australia’s public universities, one-sixth of America’s, and one-eighth of Britain’s.
Your parents should take delight in the fact that some other people are helping them pay the tuition fees so that they can keep their retirement funds largely intact.
What I am trying to say is that the cheap tuition fees are most definitely not a Godsend. The government has to dig into taxpayers’ pockets to subsidise your education, including mine.
If you come from a poor family, sure enough, I am more than willing to contribute my part to help. But there are so many of you who come from well-to-do families and yet enjoy the heavily slashed tuition fees.
Not to mention the PTPTN loans, where our government has been excessively generous by offering full loans at a mere one per cent interest rate. (If this is what you call loan shark, I would love to take a loan from you).
Given the fact that Bank Negara’s overnight lending rate is three per cent, the remaining two per cent (could be a lot more if we factor in the inflation) has to be sourced from somewhere (the government? not really, but the generously taxed uncles and aunties).
I don’t mind contributing that two per cent. I see it as my national obligation. But you refuse to pay up when you graduate from school someday in the future, and the PTPTN cannot just close shop this way. So, we taxpayers are once again come under the axe.
You are actually well aware that university education is never free, even in cash-rich Western countries. Many students there have to take up part-time jobs or bank loans before they can attend their classes.
You don’t need a part-time job or a bank loan to finance your studies here. You don’t even need to step into the lecture hall; just sit at the Dataran to protest against “I don’t know what”!
Perhaps the Dataran should be occupied by the uncles and aunties who subsidise your studies. We have a whole lot more valid reasons to occupy the square. — mysinchew.com
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.
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Dear me Tay Tian. Degrees ARE free, especially those not in ‘technical fields’. ALL degrees numbering scores to hundreds from Sociology type degrees, all languages and various paperwork based fields DO NOT NEED a single cent to teach or learn (though a minimum wage from government would be good). See the Democracy Tree in Malaysia? See the Bodhi Tree where Buddha gained enlightenment and gave sermons (no gold plated statues or donation boxes for ‘building temples’ there, just alms bowls)? Even the quasi fundo Luddites taking classes on ‘Animal Husbandry’ in their barns could subsume the Veterinary degree which costs a few 100Ks – a child on the right farm, could deliver or treat any animal just as well . . . without spending a cent on education. ALL EDUCATION of the non-technical sort (i.e. needing advanced equipment) is FREE. So don’t pretend MOST education costs anything – especially contractors and suppliers and manufacturers dependent on HANDOUTS of taxpayer monies for their living at extremely inflated prices that feed a large number of middlemen (shame on you contractors and law writers that cause parasitic loopholes in laws that are never amended).
How costly can holding a class under a tree or perhaps a scenic spot be now? NOTHING AT ALL. Maybe hundreds of people could be taught in a single session, to get a ‘degree’ because of microphones which cost very little. Even MEDICINE could be taught in such places. Do we need to pay anything for unneeded buildings? The odd plaque or monument? The security guards and gardeners and drivers ON taxpayer paid salaries? Uniforms? The free transport AND meal subsidies which AGAIN taxpayers have to pay? I’d rather have no building and free degree than a building and a degree that costs half a lifetime of work to return – ON INTEREST to boot . . .
**THAT METHOD OF EDUCATION IS NOT WEALTH CREATION, THAT IS WEALTH RE-DISTRIBUTION IN THE WRONG MANNER THAT ENRICHES SOME CITIZENS OVER OTHERS!!!**
Admit the fact that a degree is a mere toll booth or protection fee to *be allowed to work* in an cubicle or office, and stop being aq shill for government collusion to defraud the citizens from what should be free. All a government needs to do is to assign empty land, grow some shady trees, recognize the lecturer FOR FREE, then register all students who attend the class. Or hold those classes in the car park during work hours . . . Work place conditions will be entirely unrelated anyway so the degree doesn’t matter, what the lecturers teach matters more – and we do not need super-duper-POOPER scale salaries to glorify Senior Lecturers, ‘Deans’ and all manner of Chancellor Emeritus hierarcies *AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE* WITH fat pensions on the taxpayers backs AGAIN. Voters, if you are not working in government, make sure you vote for an MP who at least is even able to understand the above or YOUR tax monies will enrich some glorified crony or relative who will be promoted due to nepotism, no matter how distant the relation.
The whole point of Uni or school is to SOCIALIZE the people into being able to work in close quarters and in a team. NOTHING else. Skills can be LEARNT even by children. Want to see a 7 year old mechanic? Want to see a 10 year old surgeon? 5 year old pharmacy dispenser? These ‘jobs’ do not need ‘degrees’. These skills are FREE to learn.
A degree does not cost the price of 1-10 units of low cost housing. Heck better rather buy a handful of these units and become a slumlord or some land estate owner that produces REAL GOODS, than enrich the government’s crony contractors to *validate* with a piece of paper called a degree in a jobs market (after getting paid to build useless – and not necessarily stable – buildings on the taxpayer’s funds) as biased and uncertain as this when master slave mentality typifies employer employee relations. Call this civilisation?
We call this creating a financial trap to enrich the bankers WITH so-called ‘education’ as bait. Not a cent or work hour for the plutocracy. And redistribute the wealth or the extreme plutocrats or extreme quantum landowners. We do not need half a lifetime to pay for a degree, and another half to pay for a glorified pigeoncoop condo or rabbit-hutch terrace, or a ‘duplex’ (half -a-house) which leaves the next generation in another cycle where inflation lowers both earnings and quality of life to the social immobility and inflation nations they call modern living that ultimately only enriches the banking cartels and IMF world bank type Freemason cultists or other Fundo faithers. Tay Tian wants to dampen high-spirited youthfulness more like, by protecting the failure of an ‘establishment’, in this case the educational profiteering establishment.
One of the protesters with debt-condemning placard at the anti-PTPTN protests. Tertiary education is a human right and should be free. MPs, do not betray our youth to the banksters and Ministry debt slave machines, or we will vote you out by GE13!
Voters, in this sort of case, make sure that your MP candidate or incumbent will make education free. Ask and find out if your MP wants to make education free. Otherwise no votes for that MP. If there is no MP that will do this, run for election instead. Vote wisely young voters (and also don’t over populate – 2.1 is best for maintenance without increasing population density . . . ) :
BN Inequality and corruption forever.
PR = Chance at equality but much Nepotism.
3rd Force = Very likely Equality (there is nothing for 3rd Force to run on except Equality and anti-Nepotism).
Vote only for candidates who endorse and intend to grant :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;amongst a few other things like religious, neutral and entertainment zonings.
Of course PM Najib only has to use that mandate he ALREADY has from the Rakyat to grant :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism (Article 1 Human Rights Charter)
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy. (Article 18 Human Rights Charter)
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. (Surah An Nisa 4:75)
;and the Opposition will likely be scattered.
This pic remind of anyone?
BN, don’t be a dingus use that mandate and end the Apartheid of Bumiputera . . . also if peaceful Tibetans burn themselves to protest apartheid, guess what warlike Mongols do to to people who blow up their kin – PM Najib needs that Pmship more than the Rakyat does IMHO, so how about making Malaysia a first world, UNHCR compliant nation that best applies the tenets of Islam Surah An Nisa 4:75 at least ( . . . and saving Najib who will be vulnerable without the time and protection of a PMship . . . )?
China’s Wen Jiabao calls for reforms even as legislature strengthens detention law
Feng Li/Getty Images – Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, said Wednesday that unspecified reforms should occur along with growing economic clout. – by Keith B. Richburg,
BEIJING — In a major shakeup in the Communist Party’s top ranks, Bo Xilai, a charismatic but controversial official known for promoting a “red revival” campaign, has been fired as party chief in the city of Chongqing, the official Xinhua news agency reported Thursday.
The report came one day after Prime Minister Wen Jiabao publicly rebuked Bo for a scandal in which Chongqing’s former police chief sought refuge for 24 hours at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. Before then, Bo was widely tipped to be in line for a promotion to China’s most powerful body, the Politburo Standing Committee, in a leadership change due this fall.
The United States and China have had a tangled relationship, full of highs and lows.
Wen spoke Wednesday at what was likely his last major news conference as premier, at the end of the annual meeting of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress.
The 10-day session closed with the legislature giving overwhelming approval to changes in the country’s criminal code that will allow police to legally hold government critics for six months in secret detention centers.
But Wen focused his remarks on the need for more political openness in China — a process he said should occur gradually, but must not be reversed.
“Without successful political reform, it is impossible for us to fully implement economic reform, and the gains we’ve made in these areas may be lost,” he said. “Even with a single breath left, I am ready to dedicate myself fully to the cause of China’s reform.”
In his 45 years holding various government jobs, Wen said, “I have never pursued personal gain. . . . Ultimately, history will have the final say.” Wen’s has often been a lonely voice in the ruling Communist Party hierarchy arguing for political reform. Without such reform, he added, “such historic tragedies like the Cultural Revolution may happen again.”
The chaos and violence of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, is still considered a politically sensitive part of China’s recent history. That history has sometimes been invoked by hard-liners to justify stern measures of control, but Wen on Wednesday took the opposite tack, saying the Mao-era violence perpetrated by the Gang of Four — four top Communist Party officials, including Mao’s wife and her close associates — was a reason for more political opening, not less.
‘Red revival campaign’
Wen’s warnings about the Cultural Revolution appeared to be a slap at Bo, who had been considered a leading candidate for a slot on China’s all-powerful nine-member ruling Politburo Standing Committee in a leadership shuffle later this year.
Bo has instituted a “red revival campaign” in Chongqing that includes organizing pageants of Mao-era songs, dispatching students and bureaucrats to toil in the countryside, and ordering local television stations to broadcast red-themed patriotic programs.
Wen made specific reference to Chongqing during the news conference, saying authorities there needed to “seriously reflect” on a scandal involving a senior ex-police official who sought refuge at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu and is now being held and investigated in Beijing.
China’s Wen Jiabao calls for reforms even as legislature strengthens detention law
Feng Li/Getty Images – Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, said Wednesday that unspecified reforms should occur along with growing economic clout.
That Feb. 6 incident involved Wang Lijun, the deputy mayor and former police chief responsible for a sweeping crime crackdown in Chongqing. Bo was Wang’s boss. Wang’s flight — and the 24 hours he spent holed up in the U.S. consulate — is believed to have tarnished Bo’s image. On Wednesday, the premier strongly suggested that Bo held some blame for Wang’s actions.
“The central authorities have taken this matter very seriously,” Wen said.
The United States and China have had a tangled relationship, full of highs and lows.
Xinhua said that Bo is being replaced by a vice premier, Zhang Dejiang, who will also take Bo’s position on the local Chongqing Party Communist branch and its standing committee.
The report made no mention of whether Bo also lost his position on the party central committee and Politburo in Beijing.
In his remarks, Wen made clear that his definition of “political reform” does not necessarily mean allowing Chinese to vote freely any time soon.
Asked when Chinese might enjoy the same rights as people in other countries to vote in competitive elections, Wen repeated his familiar formulation that democracy must come to China “gradually,” with elections first for village offices, then townships.
He made no mention of a specific timetable, or when elections would be allowed — if ever — at the national level. But he said the move to more democracy in China was inevitable, and “no force will be able to hold this back.”
During his nine years as premier, Wen’s views frequently went unheard by the Chinese people because his remarks on politics were censored or heavily edited here at home.
Detentions and disappearances
Meanwhile, China’s legislature finalized the criminal code changes that makes it legal for police to hold dissidents for six months at a time in the secret detention centers — known as “black jails.” Detentions and disappearances are a common police practice here and have been used regularly against government critics such as the world-renowned artist Ai Weiwei.
The changes essentially give the police the legal power to continue holding people for months without formal charges when they are accused of threatening “state security,” a catch-all term used to snare anyone advocating more democracy or an end to Communist Party rule.
But the legislation says people accused of ordinary crimes cannot be held indefinitely, and families of all detainees must be notified within 24 hours.
The code change was passed by 2,639 of the roughly 3,000 delegates. They voted after several weeks of an unusually public campaign against the law, waged by lawyers, human rights activists and some academics who said it gave the police far too much power.
In the end, the delegates — who are often accused of merely rubber-stamping government proposals — ignored the public protest and voted for the change.
“I’m not surprised at all — not a single draft law has ever been rejected in the history of NPC,” said Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing-based lawyer who has defended Ai Weiwei.
The new law, Liu said, “will bring fear to Chinese citizens. Anyone can disappear simply by saying something that someone doesn’t like on the Internet. Power will be more abused.”
“It is an evil law,” said Mo Shaoping, a human rights lawyer in Beijing whose firm represents Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. “It’s a type of enforced disappearance which is against international conventions.”
Researchers Liu Liu and Zhang Jie contributed to this report.
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Do look at Articles below for a potential double standard, but seeing as Premier Wen is retiring, there should be no issue hereon (especially if Wen shares his wealth to a point of being a 20 million worth plutocrat??? Many starving comrades in China . . . ) Lets see how this election’s transition unfolds.
ARTICLE 2
China’s Bo Signals Wealth Gap Breached Unrest Trigger Point
By Bloomberg News – Fri Mar 09 09:01:56 GMT 2012
Enlarge image Bo Xilai
China’s wealth gap has exceeded the point that triggers social unrest, according to figures revealed by Politburo member Bo Xilai, in a rare disclosure of the country’s income disparity. Photographer: Natalie Behring/Bloomberg
China’s wealth gap has exceeded the point that triggers social unrest, according to figures revealed by Politburo member Bo Xilai, in a rare disclosure of the country’s income disparity.
China’s Gini coefficient, an index of the income gap, has exceeded 0.46, Bo, the Communist Party Secretary for Chongqing Municipality, told reporters in Beijing today, without giving specifics. The index ranges from 0 to 1 and the 0.4 mark is used as a predictor by analysts for social disturbances.
The meeting where Bo spoke, held during the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing, highlighted Chongqing’s efforts to reduce the urban-rural income gap during the past five years, encompassing Bo’s tenure. Bo, 62, has reintroduced slogans and songs from the late Chairman Mao Zedong in a bid to re-instill a Communist spirit in a country that still officially adheres to the principles espoused by Karl Marx.
“As Chairman Mao said as he was building the nation, the goal of our building a socialist society is to make sure everyone has a job to do and food to eat, that everybody is wealthy together,” Bo said. “If only a few people are rich, then we’ll slide into capitalism. We’ve failed. If a new capitalist class is created then we’ll really have turned onto a wrong road.”
In a speech later in the day attended by Bo, Wu Bangguo, head of the NPC, said China in the next year would adjust the income tax system to “give a bigger role to taxation in adjusting income distribution.”
Wukan Protests
On Monday, Guangdong Communist Party Secretary Wang Yang, like Bo a candidate for the Politburo Standing Committee, told reporters at the National People’s Congress that reform needs to “represent the interests of the people.”
He said the region would learn from protests in the village of Wukan, where demonstrators kicked out local party leaders over illegal land grabs and were later permitted to hold elections. Bo declined to comment today when asked about the protests in Wukan.
Guangdong Governor Zhu Xiaodan said today the government put the “highest priority” on the lessons it learned from Wukan and said the region was looking to crack down on official corruption and improve citizen-led supervision.
The World Bank’s data for China’s Gini coefficient goes up to 2005 and the country doesn’t regularly publish a nationwide figure. The country hasn’t disclosed an urban coefficient because it had too much trouble getting accurate information from high-income urban families, according to Ma Jiantang, the head of the National Bureau of Statistics.
‘Completely Rubbish’
Speaking at today’s briefing, Bo denied as “completely rubbish” reports that his son drives a red Ferrari, and said his son attended Harvard University and Oxford University on scholarships. He also said his wife had quit her law practice and primarily does housework now.
“I am very moved of her sacrifice,” Bo said.
So-called mass incidents in China — strikes, riots and other disturbances — doubled from 2006 to 2010 as China’s wealth gap rose, according to Sun Liping, a professor at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. China’s Gini coefficient has risen from 0.302 in 1978 when the Communist Party began to open the economy to market forces, according to a 2008 report by Chen Jiandong at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Sichuan.
China’s Gini coefficient — and hence its wealth gap — has risen more than any other Asian economy in the last two decades, according to Murtaza Syed, the International Monetary Fund’s resident representative in Beijing, citing World Bank data. Syed told reporters in Beijing last month that the high wealth gap may hurt China’s long-term growth prospects.
‘More Unequal’
“If China becomes more and more unequal, it may find it very hard to keep growing at anywhere near the rates it’s been growing,” Syed said on Feb. 22.
China will carry out a comprehensive survey of urban and rural salaries that may help better gauge its income gap, the China Daily reported Feb. 7, citing Xie Hongguang, a deputy head of the statistics bureau.
Inaccurate information and fragmented efforts in the past have hindered government attempts to produce a nationwide Gini coefficient, Ma told reporters Jan. 17.
A Gini level of 1 is perfect inequality, with one person holding all the wealth, and a level of zero is perfect equality.
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: John Liu in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7565 or jliu42@bloomberg.net
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: John Liu in Beijing at jliu42@bloomberg.net; Michael Forsythe in Beijing at mforsythe@bloomberg.net
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Looks like Bo is one of the good guys, though too close to the West for comfort.
ARTICLE 3
Are China’s politicians the richest in the world ctd. – by Bradley Gardner on March 1, 2012
One addendum to yesterday’s post on the wealth of Chinese politicians.
Relatives of high level politicians often become quite wealthy. Which is a much more interesting story, but the sort of thing that the Hurun report cannot publish without compromising Rupert Hoogewerf’s visa. Wen Jiabao’s wife is one of the country’s largest diamond importers, and his son runs a private equity company. Hu Jintao’s son was the founder of a security company, which produces the x-ray machines used in Chinese airports, subways and train stations.
Which really isn’t significantly different from what goes on in America. Its just that in China you’re not allowed to publish information about it. In the words of one Chinese businessman I spoke to “people with connections do better in business, its the same everywhere.”
Zhang Peili (simplified Chinese: 张培莉; traditional Chinese: 張培莉; born 1941) is a Chinese geologist and the wife of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.[1]
[edit] Biography
Peili was formerly the Vice-President of the Chinese Jewelry Association, and President and CEO of Beijing Diamond Jewelries Co., a company which has operations in both the mainland and Hong Kong.
Zhang met Wen when he was working in Jiuquan as part of Gansu’s Bureau of Geology. Being described as a strong-willed woman, her personality is in strict contrast to that of her husband, who is fairly introverted and modest. Zhang is never seen on any official occasions with the Premier. In 2007 Taiwan’s TVBS found Zhang to be wearing a bracelet worth over two million RMB (around $300,000US) at a jewelry convention.[2]
According to a U.S. diplomatic cable posted in Wikileaks, Wen has sought to divorce Zhang and is “disgusted” by how she has used his name to extract huge commissions in the diamond trade.[3][4].
Zhang and Wen have a son and a daughter, Wen Yunsong and Wen Ruchun.
Author: Financial Times
Recently, China’s “princelings” has become a “Little Red Guards” in the financial industry.
China’s emerging private equity investment fund industry, New Horizon Capital (New Horizon Capital) is one of the most influential and most successful. Billions of dollars in company funds managed by its stable of investors including Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek. But look at its Beijing headquarters, and you never guess.
This company in the lobby of the Campbell Building (Golden Treasure Tower), no signage, the building, but is close to the former imperial center – Forbidden City – an ordinary building. Only saw a few small text on the door: New Horizon Growth Investment Advisory Limited, we can only confirm this is the simple office of the company is located in Building 12 layers.
This company does not need luxury suites, because it has China’s most valuable asset. This is Wenyun Song (Winston Wen), the Business School of Northwestern University Kellogg (Kellogg) MBA, low-key man looks Kuxiao his father, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of the People’s Republic of China.
Young Wenyun Song Mr. and New Horizon Capital is a more powerful princelings “Little Red Guards”. The princelings dominated in the rise of China’s domestic private equity fund industry, restructuring state assets and to provide financing for private companies to reap huge profits.
According to Thomson – Reuters statistics, the Chinese private equity transactions in 2009 reached $ 3.6 billion, accounting for one-third of the Asia-Pacific region. But industry sources said the market potential is much larger than this data.
, According to industry personnel, and the princeling dominance, exclusion, including foreign firms, however hard the company. This situation will have serious consequences, for two reasons. First, private equity funds in the process of economic modernization and lack of capital but there are good prospects for the company to provide financing channels play an important role, but only in this industry run professional and competitive manner, the parties in order to benefit the striking .
Second, some of those in power to worry about, and the princeling’s dominant position in the private equity fund will give the public more deterioration in China’s high-level nepotism aspect, power disorderly image. So opaque authoritarian system, the lack of legitimacy of a democratic society in the mass basis, this concern is difficult to disperse. The Communist Party’s official mouthpiece People’s Daily recently in an online opinion poll, 91 percent of respondents believe that all the rich families have political background.
Accept the newspaper interview, the the Audit former Auditor-General Li Jinhua said that the officials’ children and relatives of the fast-growing wealth “is most dissatisfied with the masses. Corruption senior officials, in 1998-2008, he won universal respect, and this month he said, “People’s Daily” reporters “from the now revealed many cases can be seen a lot of the problem of corruption through their children by relatives reflected.
Elite children receive education in the West, in the past 15 years, people were Western companies and banks to hire them, which I hope to enter the Chinese market more guarantees, or underwriting state-owned companies can be allowed in New York or Hong Kong-listed project. Many foreign investors know that hiring the relatives of senior officials as consultants or employees that can penetrate the local interest groups, bureaucratic obstacles and resistance.
Today, those institutions and investors scrambled to the private equity fund of investment once its working princelings. “In the past, the best choice of the background to the well-paid Western investment banks, but now the economic strength has changed,” a sensitivity of the topic and asked to remain anonymous people in the industry said, “with those foreigners “Hey, I am entitled to a business in my place, so you give me the money, my own investments, but also accounted for the bulk of Oh.”
Famous princelings of the field of private equity funds, including Lizhen Zhi (George), the former banker who has worked for Merrill Lynch and UBS, the Business School MBA MIT Sloan (Sloan,), its parent Ruihuan from the 1980s to 2003, as China’s senior leadership. According to sources, his son, Jeffrey Li, (Jeffrey) has recently resigned from the position of Novartis in charge of the private equity fund industry.
Industry bankers and private equity investors, said according to media reports and industry insiders said Wilson Feng, is the son-in-law of Wu Bangguo, ranked second within the party post, he left two years ago, Merrill Lynch, set up a state-owned nuclear energy Group associated with the Fund. The project, 2006 Merrill Lynch has been able to underwrite ICBC listed in Hong Kong to become the largest initial public offering (IPO), Wilson Feng, contributed.
Other princelings of the private areas of Tong Li (Li Tong), she was the daughter of one of the nine Politburo Standing Committee, Li Changchun, Li Changchun, in charge of propaganda and the media. According to three sources, Ms. Lee, now in charge of the Hong Kong Bank of China International, a private equity fund, the business concentrated in the media field. Jeffrey Zeng, son of former vice-premier Zeng Peiyan attended Stanford University, has also set up an affiliated fund of the state-owned financial institutions.
“Now is the critical moment of China’s financial industry,” said a Beijing-based director of foreign banks, “but I am very worried about foreigners and other talented people were turned away by the princelings and other useful background , the latter try to lead the private equity market in China. ”
The Government has been encouraging the development of local private industry funds are tightly controlled, but approved the establishment of joint investment needs to get through the numerous government agencies. Invited the relatives of senior leaders to join the management, private equity funds can help overcome these barriers.
A long time, and the princeling has been suspected of using the political capital for private gain, in the last ended in a bloody military crackdown in the Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989, this issue provoked the anger of the people. However, Beijing’s political arena insiders believe the two men for this ambitious generation of open, cultivated a close combination of money and power of the modern prospects.
Are familiar with many foreign investors on the former Premier Zhu Rongji’s son Levin Zhu (Levin, Zhu,) and former President Jiang Zemin’s son Jiang Mianheng, they had worked in a number of large foreign companies, or to cooperate with the establishment of the joint venture. Over the past two decades, their father to help complete the most important market reforms, including China become a WTO member.
Meteorologist Dr. Levin Zhu, University of Wisconsin. After working for some time in New York, Credit Suisse First Boston in the late 1990s, he returned to China, carefully arranged on the CICC is essentially the acquisition, which is a joint venture, Morgan Stanley holds about 34 % of the shares.
Mianheng boasts a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia. The early 1990s, returned to Shanghai, he was in hot pursuit of foreign investors, they found that he was this country’s most valuable joint venture partners. Now, he controls the Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd., which is the Government Investment Corporation, an operator is very similar to the private equity firm.
Influence their parents to abdicate in 2003, Jiang and Mr Zhu to subside. However, as the children of the “third generation” bureaucratic leaders, they paved the way for today’s princelings, the rise of the road. One and many princelings have dealt with people who evaluate “these two really gave everyone the impression: the red family in governing the country for their own interests and their behavior gave the green light to the young generation of princelings, stimulate their bullion to fill their own pockets, regardless of whether it will give the image of the party leadership to bring and what the consequences. ”
Some analysts and practitioners, crowding out the foreigners and other competitors to monopolize this market by the princelings, management skills or financial discipline, will not bring any benefit to the industry.
“Private right princelings, is a very good field, through a variety of relationships, you can enter the company before the IPO, in a very short period of time to earn a large sum of,” Northwestern University Shizong Han (Victor Shih,) The professor believes that “This is an easy road to money, everyone will support them in their relationships. everyone is happy to do so, potentially favorable terms to the exchange from the senior leadership.”
The princelings person close to the and private sectors, said they often feel they are victims of reverse discrimination, regardless of how they good or hard work, and the public to assume that their success relies purely on nepotism. However, the important area of investment in China, the actual operator that they benefit from the family relationship, but the qualification is also worthy of its rank. Example, Lefei, the Central Propaganda Department Liu Yunshan son, had served as chief investment officer of the state-owned company, China Life, the management of funds of over one trillion yuan. Now he is in charge of state-owned CITIC private equity funds.
“Financial Times” can not communicate with some of the individuals or companies in the article, even if linked to, and they also refused to comment.
Afraid to arouse public resentment and condemnation of nepotism, private life and business dealings of the leadership and their offspring are a fuzzy extensive range of out of the State Secrets Act under the jurisdiction of these bills are often used to quell criticism of the regime. Even the presence of relatives of the current leadership is usually need to be kept strictly confidential. In China, the Internet search princelings and their activities often been shielded.
The majority of of the princelings life in Beijing around the luxury of access guarded community, have a holiday villa in the country and around the world. Their spouses almost never appear in public. Young and not so cautious princelings, open in Beijing, a luxury sports car of the armed forces or armed police license, these licenses allow them to ignore traffic rules, it will not be stopped by the police.
Princelings themselves face a dilemma. If their business is too successful or too high-profile, even if it has not been specific complaints of improper trading or privileged, and political wealth may be detrimental to their powerful fathers.
Some analysts and industry insiders predicted that might happen that the children and grandchildren of those rich and powerful family of private equity investment fund industry to share the economic benefits, the victims of not only foreign investors, and the revolutionary regime. a blood relationship between the “older generation” princelings.
But in Beijing, the power struggle within the party small range may be increased, and the arrival of the 2012 transfer of power of large-scale leadership will exacerbate tensions. Some analysts believe that the private equity activities of more radical younger generation of princelings may be political enemies as weapons to attack their fathers.
Take Wenyun Song, “you have to think about it, if his son is such a powerful position in the financial sector is full of temptation, Wen Jiabao may be of some extortion concessions. If someone wants to Wenyun Song dirt on it?”
– Published in: Financial Times
Site Published Date: Saturday, April 03, 2010
Keywords: Financial Times Health for money Chinese princelings Mianheng Mr Zhu
Hu Jintao’s son linked to African corruption probe
The eldest son of the Chinese president Hu Jintao faces questioning in connection with a multi-million pound corruption investigation in Namibia.
by Sebastien Berger Southern Africa Correspondent And Malcolm Moore In Shanghai – 5:25PM BST 17 Jul 2009
Three people have been arrested in the country on charges of fraud, corruption and bribery involving a government contract with the state-owned Chinese company Nuctech, a world leader in scanning technology.
Hu Haifeng, 38, was the president of the firm until last year, when he was promoted to being the party secretary of Tsinghua Holdings, the group which controls Nuctech and 30 other companies.
The investigation centres on a £34 million deal Namibia signed with Nuctech to provide it with scanners for its ports and airports.
Under the deal, the Namibian government was to make a £8 million down payment, with the balance coming from a loan Beijing has provided Namibia, on condition that it is spent with Chinese companies.
But according to Namibia’s Anti-Corruption Commission, within weeks of the ministry of finance making its payment to Nuctech, the company signed contracts for an identical sum with a Namibian consultancy called Teko Trading.
The money was allegedly then disbursed to Teko’s co-owners, Teckla Lameck and Kongo Mokaxwa, and Yang Fan, a Chinese national described in court as Nuctech’s African representative.
All three are being held in custody while the investigation continues.
The director of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Paulus Noah, said the matching sums going to and from Nuctech had raised suspicions.
“It’s very strange,” he said. “We are suspecting that corruption might have been involved.”
He said he would like to question Nuctech’s management, including Mr Hu.
“Of course if he can make himself available I will be happy,” he said. “I would like to know how they do business in China.”
He said Mr Hu was not a suspect at this stage and he would be interviewed as a potential witness.
It is potentially a huge embarrassment for Hu Jintao, as popular discontent with Communist Party corruption has grown in recent years – with some officials executed on conviction – but publicised cases have tended to involve local and provincial figures, rather than national ones.
His son usually keeps an extremely low profile, and has been nicknamed the “Teflon princeling” for his ability to keep out of the media.
Nuctech, previously known as Nuclear Technology Company, was spun out of Tsinghua University, the elite university often referred to as China’s MIT which both Hu Jintao and his son attended.
It claims to have world-leading technology for scanning the inside of containers and has 90 per cent of the Chinese market for scanners and x-ray systems. Its machines are also used in British ports and it has held talks with the airports operator BAA, although the company will not confirm whose machines it uses for security reasons.
Hu Haifeng graduated from Tsinghua with a master’s in engineering physics and joined Nuctech directly as assistant to the general manager.
Contacted for comment, a man who answered the telephone at Nuctech’s Hong Kong office said: “There is no need to verify anything, and we are out doing business.”
In its international business division in Beijing a woman who would not give her name would not say if it had a spokesman.
President Hu has made very strong recommendations in the anti-nepotism law issue and has appeared quite dedicated to China’s well being, now let us see the current crop of plutocrats, surprisingly BOTH Hu and Wen, retire (good thing China has TERM LIMITS) and from here on never be typical of the 24 man Politburo and 9 man top leadership of the CPPCC again. China, remember you are RED! Corruption of the West could well be turned back, but the leadership must not be plutocrats. If Hu and Wen are inclined, do consider donating or setting up philantropic outfits and reserve 20 million USD$ for themselves and impose the same limit of wealth sequestration for plutocrats, (an astounding amount for a Marxist to have I may add) this gesture late as is of now, is better than never to best honour Mao’s perhaps unwritten Socialist limits on Capitalism and wealth sequestration . . . China has always been spartan in bureaucracy’s wealth, when the day this changes, China could probably weaken and begin to fall as the discipline within the politburo is not the discipline across all tiers, especially lower tiers and setting examples is too important . . . the top leaders must be spartan and of the 99% to be believable . . .
Number of European criminals in British jails DOUBLED in last ten years… with 12% of all prisoners now from outside the UK
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 15:31 GMT, 10 March 2012 | UPDATED: 15:37 GMT, 10 March 2012
The last decade has seen the number of foreign offenders locked up every year in English prisons more than double, with only a few actually completing their full sentences.
With the majority of them guilty of serious crimes, receiving sentences of four years or more.
Official figures show the number of European offenders sent to jail for violent or sexual offences has tripled in recent years.
English prisons are seeing a large increase in criminals from EU countries, new official statistics have revealed
Despite there being a scheme in place to repatriate foreign offenders for some time, only 10 have been sent back in the last few months under existing arrangements.
The statistics were uncovered in parliament by Lib Dem MP Martin Horwood, who sits on his party’s international affairs committee.
Horwood said that Britain could save millions by returning offenders to their home countries under the new scheme. The cost of keeping one prisoner locked up for a year is more than £30,000.
Mr Horwood told the Daily Telegraph said: ‘This represents a staggering cost to the British taxpayer for looking after prisoners from other European Union countries who are in the UK.
‘I think the Government should certainly not be contemplating opting out of the one EU-wide scheme which gives us the possibility of sending these prisoners home to serve sentences in their own country.’
The prison population in England and Wales is at 98 per cent capacity, affecting jails like HMP Pentonville in London
Last month the prison population in England and Wales reached 98 per cent capacity – a figure of 57,583.
Offenders from the European Union make up more than four per cent of the total.
Foreign nationals make up 12 per cent of the total prison population, with most coming from Poland, Jamaica and Ireland.
The number of EU nationals in English jails is 2,696, 10 years ago that number was less than half that – 1,321.
The biggest increases were in violence against the person (196 to 610), sexual offences (75 to 348).
Drug offences have actually fallen slightly in the last 10 years, from 524 in 2002 to 441 in 2011.
Last year 949 EU nationals were sentenced to four years or more, with a further 772 given prison sentences of between one and four years.
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Walter in Germany, I do not know if you are German or not, but i am amazed by your comment about xenophobes, I believe that it was the Germans who believed themselves to be the master rate, and with the rise of the far right still do, even there bullying of Greece via the EU shows that things have not changed that much.
You might be interested to learn that 30 seconds research show that the proportions in other countries are:- France 20%, Germany 26%, Spain 35%, Italy 37%, Sweden 28%, Norway 32%, Austrailia 20%. So, perhaps the UK at 12% is not doing so bad after all!! The full picture usually gives a better perspective, but, hey ho, this is the DM.
– Gary, Glad to be free from the UK, 10/3/2012 20:19
Rating 2
And all our politicians are waiting for someone else to do something about it.
– Paul, Liverpool, 10/3/2012 20:00
Rating 21
That will be down to good’ole B.Liar, Plunkitt and co. Nobody wanted to hear it back in the early 2000’s…and apparently ‘nobody’ voted for these idiots -time and time again. Still fewer ‘nobody’s’ wanted our boy’s to be killed in a ‘toilet’ as one man said earlier…and ‘nobody’ wanted the banks to be allowed to destroy our economy… Its pretty not ironic that NOBODY wants to see, hear or listen to Milli-Bland nor Mr. Balls at the moment… One thing is for sure. The treaties that Labour signed us up to for before they were hauled out of office….NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO REMOVE THESE CRIMINALS IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE…
– Dean, eermm…not me…, 10/3/2012 19:57
Rating 23
Well, aren’t we just amazed by this revelation – not
– lulu, Yorkshire, 10/3/2012 19:52
Rating 26
and we are not allowed to say what we think about them.
– Alan, Huddersfield, 10/3/2012 19:42
Rating 32
Bill their home countries !
– Robbie, Sidmouth UK, 10/3/2012 19:35
Rating 29
soon as there charged send them back to there home country to serve there sentence why should taxpayers have to keep them here.
– rick, lincoln, uk, 10/3/2012 19:34
Rating 30
return all of them to france as most will have come thru that country, let the eu masters sort it because our lunatic MPs cant
– jim rooney, leeds england, 10/3/2012 19:25
Rating 40
The Labour Legacy lives on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on………………………………………………………………………………..
– Disillusioned, Middle England, 10/3/2012 19:25
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Heres how Osama should have taken out England. Pay for as many tickets to England as possible for uneducated and impoverished, hopeless future-type 3rd world Muslims who are willing to shout about religion in the middle of the street or be rude and offensive to ‘underdressed’ Muslim women in England, pick random fights with unknown people, then get themselves locked up for a few years. Repeat when released before leaving – then before long a few million Muslims multiplied by 40+K a year (thats the cost of per prisoner yearly – how could that cost so much for a single cell and ‘gruel’, most poor 99% types survive on far less than 40+K a year . . . ) should put England under.
ARTICLE 2
Stoned to death for being an emo: NINETY Iraqi students killed for having ‘strange hair and tight clothes’
Number of deaths could be even higher
Cleric calls the stonings ‘an act of terrorism’
Ministry of Interior ‘complicit’ in the killings
By Paul Milligan PUBLISHED: 10:55 GMT, 10 March 2012 | UPDATED: 18:59 GMT, 10 March 2012
More than 90 Iraqi students have been stoned to death for their Emo haircuts by religious extremists in Baghdad in the past month after Iraq’s interior ministry dubbed it ‘devil worshipping’.
Iraq’s Moral Police released a statement on the interior ministry’s website condemning the ’emo phenomenon’ among Iraqi youth, declaring its intent to ‘eliminate’ the trend.
The move is part of a wider clampdown on young people taking on what government officials call ‘Western appearances’ in Iraq.
Iraqi activists said this unnamed teenager was brutally killed by religious police for having an ’emo’ hairstyle
Iraqi activists said this unnamed teenager was brutally killed by religious police for having an ’emo’ hairstyle
‘The Emo phenomenon or devil worshipping is being followed by the Moral Police who have the approval to eliminate (the phenomenon) as soon as possible since it’s detrimentally affecting the society and becoming a danger,’ the statement read.
‘They wear strange, tight clothes that have pictures on them such as skulls and use stationary that are shaped as skulls. They also wear rings on their noses and tongues, and do other strange activities.’
Since the statement was published religious extremists have been harassing and killing teenagers with ‘strange’ or ’emo’ appearances.
Religious extremists have been harassing and killing teenagers with ‘strange’ or ’emo’ appearances
A group of armed men dressed in civilian clothing led dozens of teenagers to secluded areas a few days ago, stoned them to death, and then disposed their bodies in garbage dumpsters across the capital, according to activists, activists told the Cairo-based al-Akhbar website.
The armed men are said to belong to ‘one of the most extremist religious groups’ in Iraq.
‘First they throw concrete blocks at the boy’s arms, then at his legs, then the final blow is to his head, and if he is not dead then, they start all over again,’ one person who managed to escape told Al-Akhbar.
Iraq’s moral police was granted approval by the Ministry of Education to enter Baghdad schools and pinpoint students with such appearances, according to the interior ministry’s statement.
The exact death toll remains unclear, but Hana al-Bayaty of Brussels Tribunal, an NGO dealing with Iraqi issues, said the current figure ranges ‘between 90 and 100.’
‘What’s most disturbing about this is that they’re so young,’ she said.
This ’emo’ youth was one of nearly 100 who were targeted for having a western hairstyle or wearing ‘American jeans’
This ’emo’ youth was one of nearly 100 who were targeted for having a western hairstyle or wearing ‘American jeans’
Al-Bayaty said the killings appear to have been carried out by extremist Shia militias in mostly poor Shia neighborhoods and said she suspected ‘there’s complicity of the Ministry of Interior in the killings.’
Photos of the victims were released on Facebook, causing panic and fear among Iraqi students.
WHAT IS EMO?
Described as both a cult and sect, it’s name derives from the word ‘emotional’
Its teen followers dress in black, favouring tight jeans, T-shirts, studded belts and sneakers or skater shoes.
Hair is often dyed black and straightened, and worn in a long fringe brushed to one side of the face.
Music also plays a critical role, Emos like guitar-based rock with emotional lyrics – bands such as My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World, and Dashboard Confessional are particular favourites.
They regard themselves as a cool, young sub-set of the Goths.
With the trend comes accusations of self-harming and suicide – something its followers strongly deny.
A young man with long hair was among those fearful at the government-ordained harassment of teenagers with Western appearances.
‘I have long hair but that doesn’t mean I’m an Emo. I’m not less of a man if I have long hair. Let’s not say that if I have long hair, I’m a homosexual, but I have long hair because this is my style, this is me,’ he told Iraq’s Al-Sharqiya television network.
Safiyyah al-Suhail, an MP, said on Thursday that ‘some students have been recently arrested because they were wearing American jeans or had Western haircuts.’
The interior ministry has not disclosed the number of teenage victims, but released a follow-up statement on Thursday warning extremists ‘not to step on public freedom of Iraqis.’
News of the gruesome deaths drew a stern reaction from Iraq’s prominent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who criticised the stoning of the young men as ‘an act of terrorism.’
He added: ‘The Ministry of Interior took this situation very seriously and received an approval from the Ministry of Education to set a plan under my full supervision and to allow us to enter schools in the capital.’
‘There are some cases of the spread of this phenomenon specifically among schools in Baghdad, but we are facing great difficulty in the lack of women on the force who would allow us to carry the investigation more accurately since the phenomenon is more popular among girls between the ages of 14 and 18.’
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
I thought that was IRAN. Wow Iraq is worse than Iran now. And even after USA trashed then occupied Iraq as well! USA, can you see this? Meanwhile Iran has become more open!?!
ARTICLE 3
Clegg wants ‘tycoon tax’ to trap rich who pay less than 20% with fury raging over child benefit axe – By James Chapman – UPDATED: 11:44 GMT, 10 March 2012
Crackdown: Nick Clegg last night called for a ‘tycoon tax’ to address the problem of tax evasion by the nation’s highest earners
Nick Clegg last night called for a ‘tycoon tax’ that would force the rich to pay a minimum rate and tackle the problem of tax avoidance.
The Deputy Prime Minister said it was unfair that while ordinary Britons were paying 30 or 40 per cent, hundreds of millionaires were getting away with sacrificing less than 20 per cent of their income by using an ‘army of lawyers and accountants’.
He said he would be willing to support the scrapping of the 50p top rate of income tax – a key demand of senior Tories – as long as millionaires are ‘properly’ taxed in Britain.
Mr Clegg said the wealthy used a wide array of tax loopholes and reliefs, which are inaccessible to ordinary workers, to reduce their bills. It means they often pay lower rates on annual earnings than those on much lower wages.
The Lib Dem leader yesterday repeated to his party that ‘the wealthy have to pay more’, as Government plans to remove child benefit from the better-off came under fierce attack as a measure that would undermine marriage.
Mr Clegg, speaking on the opening day of his party’s spring conference, insisted austerity measures must be targeted at the wealthy – with tax relief on their pensions also in the Government’s sights.
But in an interview, he turned his attention to the issue of tax avoidance. He said thousands of millionaires pay tax at a rate of less than 30 per cent, depriving the Exchequer of hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
Mr Clegg said he was arguing in government for a specific minimum rate of tax to be written into law to ensure people are ‘paying their fair share’ and not ‘massaging’ the system.
He said he decided on the need for a tycoon tax after Mitt Romney, who is expected to be the U.S. Republican presidential candidate, disclosed he was paying just 13.9 per cent tax on his multi-million dollar earnings.
George Osborne insists it is ‘fair’ to ask high-income families to share the burden of cutting Britain’s debt by removing their child benefit
He said: ‘You hope that kind of thing doesn’t go on in this country. So I looked into it. There are hundreds of people earning millions per year who are barely paying 20 per cent tax, forget 40 per cent, forget 50 per cent, forget 30 per cent. They are not even paying 20 per cent.
‘Therefore, I think it’s time that we look at what I call a tycoon tax. If you’re earning millions per year, if you’re able to pay an army of lawyers and accountants to basically pick and choose what tax you are paying, if you are paying as low as 25, 20 per cent or even less in tax, there should be a minimum fair share that you should pay to society.’
He told the Daily Telegraph: ‘It makes people so incredibly angry when you are getting up early in the morning, working really hard to try and do the right thing for your family and for your community, you are paying your taxes and then you see people literally in a different galaxy who are paying extraordinarily low rates of tax.’
Mr Clegg said he was undecided on a figure for the minimum rate. However, it is understood it could be set between 20 and 30 per cent.
Supporter: David Cameron has backed same-sex marriages
A big increase in the tax-free allowance for 23million basic rate taxpayers will be the centrepiece of this month’s Budget, but there are rare signs of tension between Downing Street and the Treasury over how far ‘wealth taxes’, which would help pay for the move, should go.
However, Danny Alexander revealed that he was close to agreeing proposals with the Chancellor, George Osborne, to go ‘further and faster’ towards removing low earners from tax. In an interview in today’s Independent the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that raising the tax threshold ‘is our priority’.
At the last budget, Mr Osborne said the personal tax allowance would rise by £630 to £8,105 this April. The coalition has pledged as a long-term goal raising the income tax threshold to £10,000, which would enable some 2.2 million people to stop paying tax.
And Mr Alexander told The Independent that the Lib Dems would pledge to further raise the allowance to £12,000 in their next election manifesto, meaning that no one working full-time on the minimum wage would pay tax.
Meanwhile pressure on the Chancellor increased as a thinktank set up by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith shredded his proposal to remove child benefit from higher-rate taxpayers from next year.
Family stability will suffer a further blow if the Government presses ahead with its plans, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) warned in a report.
Couples will be deterred from marrying or cohabiting and there will be a greater risk of fraud in the benefits system, which already costs the country £1.8billion a year, it said.
Single mothers will be particularly hard hit because they will be worse off if they marry or move in with a high-earning man.
Treasury sources have insisted that the proposal to remove child benefit from families where one parent earns £42,745 a year or more is, in fact, ‘very popular’, though they are working on ways to soften its impact.
The Government says it will save £2.5billion a year by starting to means-test child benefit, traditionally paid to all families regardless of income.
BOOST FOR MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILIES
Middle Britain will benefit most from Government plans to increase the income tax allowance to £10,000, economists say.
Households with incomes of around £40,000 will be the biggest winners, since they tend to have two earners rather than one who will enjoy the maximum benefit of new tax breaks, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
All 23million basic rate taxpayers will benefit from plans to increase the amount that can be earned tax-free. A big increase in the tax-free allowance, to around £8,400, is expected to be at the heart of the Budget this month.
However, if the move is paid for by holding down the higher rate tax allowance – currently just under £43,000 – more people will be pulled into the upper band as a result.
The Coalition says it wants to increase the allowance to £10,000 by the time of the 2015 election.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said last night he wanted to see that ‘the largest amount of money by far, if you are delivering tax cuts, is spent on getting people on low pay out of paying income tax’.
Labour’s Treasury spokesman Rachel Reeves said: ‘An increase in the personal allowance is better than doing nothing.
‘But a temporary VAT cut would help pensioners and others on low incomes who don’t pay income tax.’
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Too right the rich should pay more, they earn more and exploit others! Also people shouldn’t be paid to have children if you can’t afford them, don’t have them simples and if you’re both earning £40000 you def don’t need them!
– Scarlett, Sheffield, 10/3/2012 22:47
Rating (0)
Dave, 20.41. Dave, I just don’t believe you are self employed. You would know a lot more about exactly what taxes have to be payed when you are a company director. You’ve exposed your ‘inexactitudes’ with your inaccurate post.
– ohdear, UK., 10/3/2012 22:39
Rating (0)
. How about this if you have kids – YOU pay for them? I’m sick and tired of going without and constantly struggling myself (working) and at the same time being forced by bleeding-heart liberals to bank roll others. – George Brown, Hornchurch, Essex, 10/3/2012 20:46<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Does that apply to pensioners as well?
– Peter, Kent, 10/3/2012 22:39
Rating (0)
Envy is a terrible thing!!!
Stupid people with pathetic lives ALWAYS complaining how other smarter people should pay more tax – why?
Because they happen to be smarter than you and have made something of themselves through risk and hardwork rather than sit on their butts whining about their miserable lives
Don’t blame your failures and inadequacies on the successful – you may be able to learn something from them
– Toppers, London, 10/3/2012 22:27
Rating 4
Our MPs would be well advised to put as much effort into ensuring that tax revenue is spent wisely as they do in dreaming up new ways to tax us. Instead we hear constant stories of money being wasted left, right and centre. Millions spent on the development of computer systems that either fail to materialise or end up being scrapped. Millions spent on aid to countries that can easily support themselves. Millions spent on unions reps who do nothing. Millions spent on relocation bonuses to those MPs who can’t manage to get re-elected. It seems to me that the only way to put a stop to this wastage is to remove the temptation. If the wastage was dealt with then the need extract ever larger sums from the populous would abate and our leaders would find that lifting the tax thresholds would be a simpler matter. Attempting to generate a higher tax take without dealing with the underlying problems just means that the wastage increases, something of a vicious circle.
– Paul, Holbeach, UK, 10/3/2012 22:13
Rating 13
Here’s an original idea; EVERYONE pay 10% tax. No matter who they are. Across the board. Same for businesses. I guarantee it will bring more revenue for the coffers than anything Cloggy and scameroon can think up. No inheritance tax- we all already paid the taxes, no capital gains tax, just that 10% on what you earned from the capital invested as part of your annual income. It completely simplifies the tax system, doing away with the legions of taxmen we have at the moment and it would so encourage business, enterprise and the workforce that everyone would be quite happy to pay it. Probably the lowest tax system in the developed world. But I suppose it would never be implimented. Politicians like to think they are being generous with our money…..
– Nonpc, Toytown,UK, 10/3/2012 22:10
Rating 7
All very well prancing around and sounding off about a mansion tax. Who is going to value the properties and how often? How much are all the valuations going to cost? Will the effect be to drive wealthy people overseas so that then the government gets next to nothing? Clegg just wants to get points with his own back benchers for some class hatred. Will the valuations be reviewed and how often? And is any account to be taken of the age of the occupants, the purchase price when they first bought it? Otherwise there will be some real cases of injustice. A million quid barely buys a shoebox in some parts of London. And before there are exorbitant demands on home owners for tax every year are there going to be exceptions for those unable to pay – pensioners, people who had money once and now have very little due to bereavements or loss of employment? This all sounds like the Poll Tax all over again – a brilliant wheeze but no one has thought it through.
What a stupid man I will simply leave the country and stop creating wealth and employment. – Pip, Peterborough UK, 10/3/2012 21:05 Go on then and the property prices will fall giving the young dispossessed their first chance on the property ladder. And anyway currently there really isn’t anywhere to go, the whole world’s in crisis, so you can’t bully boy your way out of it this time this way.
– Clare Kingston, Swindon, United Kingdom, 10/3/2012 21:35
Rating 1
What a stupid man I will simply leave the country and stop creating wealth and employment.
– Pip, Peterborough UK, 10/3/2012 21:05
Rating 13
bolshevik clegg, lets hope he goes the same way trotsky did….. ice for my gin barman!
– simon, GB, 10/3/2012 20:58
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The rich do not need any benefits. In fact class distinctions between middle and upper (lower and middle even) when uncertain (regardless of wealth – y’see wealth does not make class, it is a certain ethos adnd pathos that determines who is classed as what) will depend on who SHAMELESSLY takes benefits.
Example here – 2 people of same wealth (won’t say how much) both claiming to be upper or middle. REGARDLSS OF WEALTH – the real middle class society type will be typified by a sense of principles and pride that is expressed in refusing to take benefits, and the upper class even GIVE benefits (via philanthropy) rather than take benefits. Guess English principles stayed lost after the colonial era eh? Anyone who can push Opium or Colonize and subjugate the really quite alright Indians (they don’t try to convert people and generally are tolerant of general weirdness) can’t claim any ethical compass . . .
This is a very condiderate law (aslo demographically sound – 1 billionaire has 1 vote only, so who do you think Cameron would prefer to write policy for. 99% votes of the poor (well maybe 50%) or 1% of the votes?
ARTICLE 4
Channel 4 search for ‘fresh meat’ forced me off Countdown, reveals Carol Vorderman – PUBLISHED: 01:53 GMT, 11 March 2012 | UPDATED: 01:54 GMT, 11 March 2012
TV trauma: Carol Vorderman left Countdown after 26 years
Carol Vorderman has claimed she was forced off Countdown after 26 years because Channel 4 bosses were looking for ‘fresh meat’.
The former co-host of one of TV’s longest-running quiz shows waded into the debate about older women on air in a candid interview with Piers Morgan for his Life Stories series. She revealed she has not watched the show since she left in 2008. Ms Vorderman, 51, also said she was bitter that Channel 4 bosses have never invited her back, even as a guest.
She said: ‘To me, it is like a bereavement as I was always terribly loyal to Countdown and I protected it. It was more than half my adult life.’ She recalled the last show that her co-host Richard Whiteley recorded, in which he inexplicably said: ‘Welcome to the final Countdown.’ In another eerie twist, the last conundrum of that episode spelt ‘lifefails’.
Mr Whiteley died in 2005 from septicaemia, which he contracted after emergency heart surgery.
Ms Vorderman said she ‘loved’ him and never argued with him in their 23-year TV partnership.
At the time of Ms Vorderman’s departure from Countdown, it was reported that the Cambridge maths graduate left because she refused to take a 90 per cent cut in her £1.2 million annual salary.
But Miss Vorderman said: ‘I agreed for them to take a third off my wages, or even halve them, but once new bosses came on to the show they wanted fresh meat.’
Ms Vorderman’s interview is likely to be broadcast in the next few weeks.
Carol with her Countdown co-host Richard Whiteley
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2.5 decades is Mubarak-esque/Gaddafi-esque/Abdullah Saleh-esque term limitless in feel. Vorderman should be happy they took her off before she looks like the female version of the ‘Evil Math-magician’. Also Vordermans’ fans would be happy to remember Vorderman in the prime of health rather than aged. It’s better for everyone and especially Vorderman who can retire and enjoy a probably many many times more than 401K retirement. Finally, how the hell is a Math programme host supposed to be allowed to earn 10s of millions anyway? Ridiculous! Blah to 1%ters! Good sense of democracy going on here! Vorderman has become a plutocrat, and in this day and age of even honourably serving military officers (some badly injured) becoming bankrupt and homeless on the street, this sort of citizen speaks very badly about USA’s priorities.
Nothing against Voderman but this extreme salary is just wrong. Once any person reaches 401K or depending on the social position lets say 10 times 401K, it’s time they stood aside for others to earn a living. Asset hogs are a blight on wealth distribution and at a 10 times 401K quantum, any ‘axings’ cannot be considered Marxism, especially when there are wars going on and trhe country is so heavily in debt that bankruptcy is already in effect but not formalized. What business does a Math Programme Hostess have in holding such wealth?!? Any hostesses should only retire at upper class, or ‘lower rich non-working class’ wealth levels at most. Kudos to ‘Channel 4’ and ‘Countdown’ .
Next, media establishments should consider a ‘give back’ paradigm that perhaps returns anything beyond a 300% profit reserved above the total overhead to the society (one can imagine how many 1000s of percent turn over can be for some media outfits, those mogul or star types should not sequester far too much either, say 50 times of 401K at most perhaps should be fair? Society is fractured when veteran soldiers beg on the street while porn stars drink 50K bottles of champagne every night . . . ). Sequestration of wealth by media owners and stockholders should not take away wealth from society as well. This should be optional of course, but considered a ‘best practice’ and ‘people friendly media’ status for countries with extreme debt especially.
Pro-PPSMI groups to form coalition – UPDATED @ 03:10:21 PM 10-03-2012 – By Yow Hong Chieh – March 10, 2012
A section of the parents at the pro-PPSMI rally in Petaling Jaya on March 10, 2012. — Picture by Choo Choy May
PETALING JAYA, March 10 — Several parents’ groups said today they will band together in a coalition to push Putrajaya into reinstating the teaching of science and mathematics in English (PPSMI).
Concerned Parents of Selangor (CPS) head Shamsudin Hami said the new umbrella group, Association of Parents Groups for Reforming Education (ASPIRE), will allow for easier exchange of views between the government and pro-PPSMI parents.
“We cannot address matters in bits and pieces… To make the job easier, we are forming a coalition of parents’ groups,” he told reporters at a PPSMI rally at Padang Timur here that was attended by some 150 parents.
Shamsudin speaks to the press on the formation of a coalition of parents’ groups.
“With ASPIRE, there should be no more excuses. You don’t need to go state by state and waste time, waste taxpayers’ money. Just stick to ASPIRE, because ASPIRE consists of parents’ groups from Penang to Johor and Sabah.”
Also present were representatives from the Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE), Malacca Action Group of Parents in Education (MAGPIE), Herald of Penang Education (HOPE) and lawmakers Hannah Yeoh and Loh Gwo-Burne.
Shamsudin said ASPIRE will put together a “parents’ charter” on education which will encompass all the issues which have to be addressed in order to transform the education system, he said.
This included the removal of “culturally-biased, so-called knowledge” present in the national education syllabus, which is needed if confidence in national schools is to be restored, he said.
He reiterated that PPSMI must be made an option in schools, the implementation of which should be left to parents and not headmasters or even the Education Ministry.
Shamsudin added he remained hopeful that the government will listen to the demands of parents who favour PPSMI, noting that Putrajaya had promised to abolish the Internal Security Act (ISA) after receiving heavy criticism from the public and civil rights groups.
“Apart from whatever is written in the holy books, I don’t think that is chiselled in stone,” he said.
“PPSMI is only a policy. What about the ISA? It’s a law. It can be removed. So it’s all up to the people and the government. It needs political will.”
The government has come under fire from former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and pro-English lobby groups over its move in 2009 to revert to the teaching of science and mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia (MBMMBI).
Despite much criticism, Putrajaya has said it will not back down from the decision but would allow the final PPSMI batch to continue until they complete their secondary education.
MBMMBI, mooted in July 2009 as a replacement for PPSMI, came into effect in January last year for Year One students.
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Good work. This voting bloc should enforce democracy with the Ministry of Education. The ‘optionals’, and opt out option should always be part of a democratic government method in all laws. Next focus on 66.6% quorums at a one-man one-vote law, for all registered or professional societies and all levels of government AND considered against the UNHCR as well. Have Hannah and Gwo-Burne had a chance to ask Bar Council about the other problems some of us have been asking about?
ARTICLE 2
Times have changed! — Lim Mun Fah – March 10, 2012
I always heard my grandfather said that when I was young, and my parents said that too when I was growing up. And now, as I am getting old, I always say that myself.
Times have indeed changed. Everyone knows the truth. The problem is, have you changed to adapt yourself to the new era?
If the Lynas rare earths refinery plant was built in Kuantan 30 years ago, perhaps no one would oppose to it. Even if there were opposing voices, it would be too weak to have an effect.
Similarly, if the Pengerang oil and gas complex in Johor was built 30 years ago, it would not trigger a controversy. Even if it caused discontentment, the residents would still helplessly accept it.
However, times have changed. Today, the people’s awareness of environmental protection, demand for human rights and the pursuit of the right to know are much stronger than 30 years ago.
As the mentality of many government officials are still stuck in the era 30 years ago, they think that the people nowadays are not much different from those 30 years ago. That is why they have always underestimated the rebound from the civil society, and are caught in a dilemma.
The cover story of the latest issue of Yazhou Zhoukan is worthy of our reference and reflection as it analyses the continuation of the entanglement of business and politics of the British colonial era in Hong Kong.
Like Hong Kong, our bureaucratic system originated from the British colonial government. Although our country has been independent for over half a century, the traces of such entanglement of business and policy can still be detected everywhere, it is sometimes even worse than the practice in the past.
However, times have really changed, so has the political environment. Members of the public are now having harsher expectations of politicians. Secretive governance can no longer meet the public’s right to know. In particular, the people have been expecting more after the 2008 political tsunami. They ask for a more transparent policy, as well as more reasonable and fair governance. They also demand for better governance ability and higher morality from politicians and government officials.
Therefore, “official secrets” can no longer be used as an excuse to cover major decision-making and governance. Government officials have to be responsible for every word they said and every decision they made. The people will use the rights of citizens to question improper policies, condemn unreasonable and unfair phenomena. Meanwhile, the media will continue to follow up and report the latest developments. The National Feedlot Centre (NFC) scandal serves as the best example here.
Times have changed and progressed. Those who fail to catch up with the changes are destined to be eliminated by the times! — mysinchew.com
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The article write wrote : ‘Even if there were opposing voices, would be too weak to have an effect.’
There will always be an effect. Just that the spaces and numbers are smaller instead though no less if not more vobrant internally by measure of focus – as all memes are equal in value due to the diversity itself, none can be abolished. All views and methods are valid after all, so don’t worry about older generation subcultures (nepotism being the most decadant in anything but the smallest businesses) or the newest and least acceptable memes, there will be some who keep those alive like rarefied subcultures and such. The thing is to remember not to impose on others one’s views and to live and let live. Like Voltair said to fight for one’s right to think, fighting for the right to live as one will is the natural progression. To propagate whatever should be done only when consensual as per ethical considerations.
ARTICLE 3
Pakatan Must Forgo Power Struggle Within Their Parties – Yap Ee Wah – Saturday, 10 March 2012 14:40
Pakatan Rakyat deserves ridicule for neglecting the interests of the rakyat in exchange for their power struggle within their own coalition.
One latest example is the selection and appointment of new local councillors recently whereby DAP wrangled among themselves for power which thereby directly damages the image of Selangor. This has caused the loss of the tax-payers’ money besides affecting the system of governance within Selangor state.
Due to the infightings, the Selangor state administration is unable to reappoint the contractors for rubbish collection. Tonnes of rubbish have been dumped and accumulating everywhere in Selangor causing residents to air their grievances and complaints.
Pakatan internal power tussles in Kedah & Penang too besides Selangor
Another example of an internal battle for authority within a Pakatan-held state is Kedah whereby two of their state Exco members had a falling out with the Menteri Besar Azizan. Even with the intervention of the PAS Central Committee, their leadership was also unable to help resolve the problem there. Hence, the PAS top leadership had directly affected the functioning and administrative work of the state government as well.
I wish to reiterate that Pakatan having ruled Kedah and Penang for 4 years has caused so many problems. The biggest controversy at hand is that PAS has appointed a steering committee with veto powers headed by themselves to advise and oversee the administration of the state.
In addition, both the DAP Penang State Chairman Karpal Singh is also fighting with his Deputy Ramasamy just ahead of the upcoming General Elections. Supporters of both parties concerned are also fighting with one another. Ramasamy had even revealed that some grassroot leaders had asked “favours” from him.
Internal strife was also tense in DAP Selangor which witnessed the power scuffle arising from the abuse of Exco Ronnie Liu’s letterheads by his ex-political aide, Tee Boon Hock. Selangor State Speaker Teng Chang Kim was also called up by the DAP Disciplinary Board for his twitter statements issued recently.
Looking at the entire scenario, this is not a matter involving DAP alone, but a subject relating to both the state government and the rakyat.
YAP EE WAH is State Assemblyman for Sungai Pelek
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The Rakyat also are aware that BN has not yet implemented with that mandate :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy.
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution.
Don’t make announcements here that are meaningless here, use that mandate to grant the above or BN is FINISHED simply to be punished for non-use of that mandate. Also TERM limits and prevention of family blocs in BN as well. The nepotism issue is a glaringly obvious in BN as in PR.
ARTICLE 4
Develop System To Reward And Punish Civil Servants – Chai Kim Sen – Saturday, 10 March 2012 00:16
The government’s decision to withdraw the ‘exit policy’ for civil servants, which is meant to dismiss them for poor performance or lack of discipline, is a regretful decision as I believe that with the increase in salary for civil servants, the government should also not neglect to develop an administrative system of rewards and punishment in order to control the civil service’s attitude and efficiency.
The performance of the civil servants is the key to the success, or failure, of the government’s transformation programmes. They are also important to determine the nation’s competitiveness as well as represent the image of the Barisan Nasional government. However, in the past civil servants had adopted a ‘little Napoleon’ attitude which has backfired onto the BN government by making it scapegoats.
A notable example is when MCA President Dr Chua Soi Lek had sternly criticized officials of the Education Ministry for playing around with the date on SJKC teachers.
It is important for the government to set up a fair and transparent evaluation system for rewarding and punishing civil servants, even following the steps of the private sector which adopts the policy of dismissing employees, thus breaking down the bad perception that the civil service is unproductive.
Currently the civil service is besieged with bureaucracy, arrogance and inaction, along with the drawbacks of corruption and abuse of power. All these have created a negative impact on the government and the nation’s economy, and have caused the people to lose faith in the government.
For too long the Barisan Nasional has carried the burden of poor civil service and it is now time to implement a more effective system to clear the civil service or poor performers and ‘deadwood’.
The salary scheme must be based on meritocracy, with potential and experience being used to decide the increment of civil servant’s salaries, and bonuses and benefits being awarded based on work performance.
What the people want is a clean and fair public service mechanism which is more in touch with the people, and MCA believes that to enhance the quality and efficiency of public service administration, the system of rewarding and punishment is a necessary one.
CHAI KIM SEN is MCA Youth Secretary-General
(The views expressed above belongs to the author in its entirety and does not represent the opinion of Malaysian Mirror in any way)
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End the APARTHEID in BN and a win could be possible. And BN’s civil service is 1500% too large which could rive Malaysia into a Greece type situation where the IMF takes over the country.
ARTICLE 5
Don’t be fooled by PAS ‘pluralism’, says Wee – by Yow Hong Chieh – March 10, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 — The public must not be “hoodwinked” by PAS’s claim that it embraces pluralism, MCA Youth chief Datuk Wee Ka Siong said today.
This was because PAS’s interference in the administration of Kedah without consultation with its partners in Pakatan Rakyat (PR) showed the Islamist party was anything but pluralist, he said.
Wee (picture) pointed out that this included the setting up of a steering committee with veto powers by PAS to advise the Kedah mentri besar and executive councillors on state administration.
“Who is PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang trying to kid when he extols PAS’s so-called but unproven and never-will-be-proven pluralism?” he said in a statement.
“Why should an external political party determine state policy when the state administration should be determined by the mentri besar in consultation with all PAS, DAP and PKR excos and elected representatives from their parties?”
The Ayer Itam MP said that PAS’s past actions showed that it did not have the interests of all Malaysians at heart.
This includes terminating liquor licences in Kulim, issuing a summons to a Chinese salon owner for her Muslim employee’s three-quarter sleeve blouse and tearing down the sole pig abattoir in Kedah, among others.
“We must recall that after the 2011 PAS Muktamar, Hadi Awang declared that the difference between the (PAS) proposed welfare state and an Islamic state was only a semantic one,” Wee said.
“Thus, I urge all Malaysians irrespective of religious creed or ethnicity not to be hoodwinked by Hadi Awang’s latest portrayal of PAS as all-embracing as they clearly are not.”
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BN is no more plural than PAS and PAS appears to be more flexible and possibly more likely to end apartheid than BN at this point. Whats so great about BNs 50+ years of APARTHEID? PAS are you ready to grant :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy.
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution.
If so, PAS is immediately more votable than BN. BN has the mandate but won’t grant the above 3 items, thats 1 down on BN automatically. WOuld PAS promise to grant the above 3 items if given the mandate? BN has the mandate and has not, so BN more rubbish than PAS where pluralism is concerned. PAS can say, ‘But PAS has no madate to grant the 3 items’. BN actually has the mandate, but does not grant the 3 items what’s BN’s excuse? BN is abusing the mandate by not using the mandate to grant the above 3 items.
Johor still a “shining pillar” for Umno-BN, says Muhyiddin – Tuesday, 06 March 2012 17:28
KULAIJAYA– Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said today he is confident that Johor would continue to remain as a “shining pillar” of Umno and a fortress of the Barisan Nasional (BN) in the coming general election (GE) despite faced with a stiffer challenge from the Opposition.
Muhyiddin, who is also BN deputy chairman and Umno deputy president, said he was of the opinion that voter sentiment in Johor for the BN presently was still positive.
He told this to reporters after holding a “meet-the-people” session and opening the Kulaijaya district education office in Bandar Indrapura, Kulaijaya here today.
Also present was Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman.
Earlier, Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, had held a closed-door meeting with the top leadership of the BN and Umno in Johor.
On the meeting, Muhyiddin said Abdul Ghani, the Johor Umno and BN liaison chief, had updated him on the coalition’s preparation for the GE.
He said Abdul Ghani had been going down the ground tirelessly towards ensuring support among the grassroots for the BN remained intact.
“I am satisfied with the preparations being done in Johor. Nevertheless, we cannot take things for granted and become complacent. We ask each Umno and BN division to focus on their respective areas and spruce up election machinery besides strengthening unity among members,” he said.
The voter, he said, was very important and that no effort should be spared to ensure their interests be it welfare, education or the economy and the like was well looked after as the BN had always done.
“We are confident they (voters) will understand when making the decision (when voting),” he said.
— BERNAMA
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Change the word Pillar to Path, then invite a CPPCC Governor into Johor. Then we’ll see ‘shining’. Chaiman Mao would approve. And who knows Malaysia could prosper due to an ‘administrative’ takeover’.
ARTICLE 2
Malaysia Does Not Need A Revolutionary Programme
Wednesday, 07 March 2012 00:26
KUALA LUMPUR — Najib Tun Razak said Malaysia does not need a revolutionary programme but instead needed leaders committed to change who the people could trust.
The prime minister said this year promised to be a year of robust political discourse in Malaysia and hoped it would be one where more and more of the politicians addressed the real choices Malaysians faced.
“Ultimately it is the people who will determine the future. That is what our freedom from colonial rule was all about, that is what we preserved from the moment of Merdeka and we should all be proud of: a Malaysia where Malaysians decide,” he said.
Najib said this in his latest entry titled “1Malaysia Is A Commitment To Transformation” in his blog http://www.1malaysia.com.my on Tuesday.
He drew attention on those opposing the 1Malaysia concept, categorising them in two groups, the die-hards who say there should be no change from the approach of 1971 and the first wave of the New Economic Policy and those demanding revolutionary change.
As for the first group, Najib said: “I can understand why some are fearful: many of the historic imbalances in our society still need addressing; – and we will.
“But we must also have an approach that encourages all who can contribute to Malaysia to stay here and also we must recognise that widening ownership of the economy will not, of itself, fight poverty at root.”
To those who feared 1Malaysia for these reasons, Najib advised them to be calm and patient as 1Malaysia was about a dynamic strategy to fight poverty in the country.
“And I believe, (1Malaysia) will achieve much more than if we refuse to change,” he said.
The prime minister said it was the second group of opponents of 1Malaysia who worried him more.
“They dismiss anything and everything we have done as being not enough and instead demand a revolutionary programme of change. To different audiences they say different things: motivated only by a lust for power and what seems like congenital need to provoke more and more controversy.”
“Of course, taken together their programme is a mess: one cannot promise to abolish road tolls, write off RM40 billion in National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN) loans and cut the budget deficit all at once: very quickly one of these promises would fall apart leaving a lot of angry people and an economy in free fall,” he said.
Nevertheless, despite his fears, Najib said he was an optimist.
“Stocking up anger at the alleged failure of the current government to implement such a crazed programme will, I believe, only fail in the end, because the more such a dangerous mix of impossible promises is exposed to public scrutiny, the less and less credible those who seek to stir things up will be,” he added.
(Bernama)
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How about a Communist Revolutionary Party of Malaysia if not revival of the CPM under a reformed and normalized Chin Peng (peaceful of course and in due respect to mulitiracial Malaysia, open to all races?). Malaysia has yet to keep a promise on pardons to the former members of CPM that could bring Malaysian and Chinese to a better level instead not keeping word on pardons and continuance of BN’s institutionalised apartheid.
ARTICLE 3
Ling Ordered To Enter Defence – Friday, 09 March 2012 15:03
KUALA LUMPUR — The High Court here today ordered former transport minister Dr Ling Liong Sik to enter his defence on the charge of cheating the Malaysian government RM1.08 billion over the Port Klang Free Zone project (PKFZ).
Judge Ahmadi Asnawi made the order after he concluded that the prosecution had successfully established a prima facie case against Dr Ling.
Dr Ling, 69, who was transport minister for 17 years since 1986, is charged with cheating the government by not disclosing to the Cabinet an additional interest rate of 7.5 per cent per annum on the purchase price of the land for the PKFZ project, which had been fixed at RM1,088,456,000 by the Valuation and Property Services Department, based on RM25 per sq ft, inclusive of the coupon/interest rate.
He also faces two alternative (amended) charges, of cheating and intentionally not disclosing to the Cabinet that the 7.5 per cent per annum was an additional interest rate on the land price.
Dr Ling, represented by counsel Wong Khian Keong, is charged with committing the offences at the fourth floor of the Prime Minister’s Office, Perdana Putra building in Putrajaya, between Sept 25 and Nov 6, 2002.
The first charge, under Section 418 of the Penal Code, carries a penalty of up to seven years jail, or a fine, or both, upon conviction while the two alternative (amended) charges, under Section 417 of the Penal Code, carry a penalty of up to five years jail, or a fine, or both, upon conviction.
Dr Ling was charged on July 29 2010 and the trial proceeded for three months starting Aug 1 last year.
The prosecution, led by DPP Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah, called on 25 witnesses throughout the trial, including Cabinet ministers and senior officers of the valuation department.
(Bernama)
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LLS should seek political asylum in China and reveal all those ugly truths there like RPK ran away to England. If Tun Ling is Chinese, he should immediately apply for political asylum then trash the people who have been hateful and racist.
ARTICLE 4
ASEAN has right stuff to be world market leader, says Guan Eng
March 09, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — Southeast Asia has the edge to be a powerhouse if the countries in the region band together and work to free up their politics and economies, Lim Guan Eng said today.
The Penang chief minister that the region is the natural choice to grow into the next major consumer market due to its strategic geographic location between rising giants India and China, its 600 million-strong population and with the old model of the US, Europe and Japan engines of growth on the wane due to their existing debt crisis and long-term jobless situation.
“The potential for this to happen is certainly real, but we must be aware that such a situation can only be achieved if our people become stronger consumers, which means that they need to have more money in their pockets.
“In other words, economic democratisation must first occur in order to facilitate the growth of a strong consumer market in the region,” Lim told an ASEAN Democracy and Economic Development forum in George Town today.
A copy of his speech at the event was made available to the media.
Lim (picture) said for ASEAN to be a key market driver, it needed a strategy that will collectively raise income levels, especially those at the bottom levels of the economy, and step-up the skills to automatically increase worker productivity.
“In other words, if we can increase the purchasing power of our people, especially amongst the lower-income groups, we will be sure to create a great consumer market,” the trained accountant said.
But he cautioned that care be taken to produce greater political and economic democratisation and decentralisation in the region and does not result in a wider income gap.
“Democratisation is a key factor for the continued growth of our region, and the fate of Myanmar is our biggest test,” Lim said, pointing to the much-talked about nation that is making the transition from a military regime to a democracy and long considered ASEAN’s collective responsibility.
He said it was ASEAN’s duty to ensure that the democratisation of Myanmar is carried out peacefully and will result in it becoming a meaningful partner of growth.
Lim added that decentralisation of power is also another key issue in ASEAN due to the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural make-up in each country here and that it needed to be handled due to its close links with problems of political identity.
He said that by giving states more power, the central government can then focus on national policies.
The DAP MP for Bagan pointed to Penang to back up his arguments, saying his government had taken steps to democratise the state with new policies that are based on what the public really want and not what it thinks they want.
“Only by listening to the people, doing the people’s work and focusing on the people, can we hope to catch the fourth wave of democracy,” he said, pointing to the series of reforms enveloping entire nations worldwide.
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. . . right stuff blah blah blah . . . Hey mr. useless soundbites, when is APARTHEID going to be addressed and ended? Give over that CM’s post to someone who will file lawsuit with the UN over Malaysia’s apartheid laws and apartheid constitutions MLK style, instead of wasting that CM’s ethos on platitudes. We don’t need platitudes, but we do have DJs and Propaganda sellouts like Chandra Mustafa for that. This beneficiary of nepotism LGE is totally unqualified to lead any Chinese community. Not using that CM’s post to any good use at all. If all Chinese thought like LGE, we’d be forever be under term limitless Mubarak (and Sons) and Gaddafi (and Sons) style authoritarian nepotists like LKS, asking for meaningless apologies from UMNO to look good (so what if UMNO apologises? No policy changes at all! Hegelian dialect nonsense if anything . . . ), writing 750K funerals for themselves (even asking BN to support Pakatan in this worse of all), and threatening to tear down awnings on private property instead of amending laws, and never acting on ending APARTHEID. LKS says ‘unite the people’. Unite the people? Sure even will the people unite AGAINST :
Nepotism
Plutocracy
Limitless Terms
750K funerals
Lim Kit Siang/Thomas Lee *OR* MahathirKutty/Chandar Muzaffar – ‘Master-Lapdog’ type Politician-Journo symbiotism (term limitless to boot) which is extremely dangerous to citizen sovereignty much like what happened in Singapore’s PAP, much like Goh Chok Tong was the ‘interim’ PM before Lee Hsien Loong took the PM’s post.
Thomas or Chandra are BOTH n3rd5 who have been bound up by the oligarch minded, ageing and undemocratic junta style political bullies (with unhealthy nepotistic and term limitless tendencies). Take a closer look at the ‘phenotype imprinting’ issue to understand. Lee is just LKS’s b1tch, and phenotypically that shows on Lee’s face. Look These two’d be better off looking like their own fathers (still kinda sick, who needs to be a carbon copy even of their own father . . . ) but every Politician as a harem of b1tch3s willing or inadvertent . . .
Ask for equality and end of apartheid instead you nepotistic parachute CM, file a lawsuit with the Penang CMships ethos at the UN, with the USA, with India and China, with Russia . . . the CMship was not given to LGE for fun, LGE is supposed to use that CMship (Much likes so many MCA ministers have not made a peep on ending APARTHEID) as a tool to ensure Article 1 of the UNHCR not go ‘Hurr durr, I can haz 750K funeral from the taxpayers . . . ‘ . . . In a one-man one-vote system LGE never have gotten the CM’s seat being PLACED there by his own father instead of being voted in – even against general dissent from Penang DAP (excepting Penang DAP lapdogs willing to be sidelined as per the 3rd world family/clique political party paradigm). The taxpayers and your voters did not vote DAP to demand MEANINGLESS apologies from the PM and then turn on the people by fining instead of making amendments to abusive and undemocratic laws. We voted for MPs and Assemblymen who will help lower taxes, ease laws and end apartheid.
;if Pakatan becomes as bad as BN (PR is quite like BN in many ways) and has not even granted :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy.
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution.
;though Pakatan has merely ‘alluded’ to the above 3 items more than BN has, this could mean that 3rd Force is the only way forward to an equal citizen free from apartheid. 3rd Force should be a coalition of : KITA (if UMNO doesn’t swamp KITA or pretend to hide behind KITA via political proxies as UMNO loses the people’s vote), JATI, MCLM (whats left of it, but homophobes could find it a good party that has 20 candidates), PCM, Borneo Front, Konsensus Bebas, HRP/Hindraf and PSM.
Try the below comment from : @anon — March 9, 2012 @ 11:48 AM
DAP PROPOSAL IS A BIT ODD
The rural poor deserve to get the development they were promised by UMNO but failed to get with “independence in Malaysia” since 1963. UMNO failed totally to keep its side of the bargain but abused the trust the people who enticed and compelled to place their faith and trust in its hand when the British handed colonial powers to Malaya in the process of denying us real independence.
However, one would question why we need such a “trust fund” as proposed by DAP. All the money derived from Sarawak resources are in a sense trust money which a responsible and transparent government of the day hold in trust to be spent wisely for its citizens. What we have is that under the name of development UMNO breached our trust and stole our oil and gas in the region of $50 trillions and billions by its local support PBB BN gangsters and land thieves after over 40 years. If an honest government could be elected there is no need for a trust fund. All it needs to do is to honestly implement the development plans for the people’s benefit. The first thing such a government should do is to embark on a Sarawak wide provision of aid relief to the desperately poor and to freeze price rise of essential goods and necessities for a period.
ARTICLE 5
Villagers protest at police station – 2012-03-06 12:13
GEORGETOWN, March 5 (Bernama) — More than a hundred villagers protested at a police station in Teluk Bahang, here last night after being upset with the police who were carrying out their duty to eradicate ‘mat rempit’ activities.
In the incident, at about 6.30pm, more than a hundred villagers believed to be parents of a group of mat rempit threw stones at the police station and shook the station fence.
“A policeman was believed to have thrown his helmet at the mat rempit causing one of them to be seriously injured and had to be brought to the hospital,” a resident told Bernama when met in the kampung, here today.
He said the protest lasted about four hours in the presence of about 50 police officers and men with 13 patrol cars from the state police headquarters.
The protest ended after a discussion between police officers and resident representatives.
Bukit Aman CID director Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Zinin when contacted by Bernama confirmed the incident which he said was a misunderstanding between the residents and police. Police are investigating the incident.
[[[ *** RESPONSE *** ]]]
Professionalism please. Probably all are from the same neighbourhood with the newly minted coper deciding to ride roughshod over the villagers. Maybe allow only the much older persons to be police? Throwing a helmet when one is a policeman probably shows that the policeman was not very focused or self aware or professional. Throwing helmets is for the bad guys! But much respects for nailing 5 motorcyclists at one go. Yahtzee! One more reason for Israel to fear Malaysia eh?
malaysiandemocracy 