When the government talks about engaging with bloggers....

Does he meant by....

this engage?


or

this engage?

Government to shuffe battle with bloggers, eventhough some of them are from their own party!

Government to engage bloggers in cyberspace
By Rocky Bru

Some of the biggest bloggers in Malaysia now are Umno bloggers. Dr Mahathir (he's quit the party but only until PM Badawi steps down) should touch 1 million hits in the next 24 hours. A million visitors in less than a month is phenomenal, unheard of. Probably a world record. Most bloggers take years to reach a million.

Khir Toyo's blog is big, too. Since March 28, he's attracted over 600,000 visitors.

Kelab Maya Umno, or myKMU, is one of the biggest websites and it is pro-Umno. Agenda Daily is pro-Umno, too. Bigdogdotcom has over 1 million visitors.


The number of pro-Government bloggers would still be small (only 20 out of 190 socio-political blogs surveyed by a varsity before March 8 were pro-Government) but the traffic they are generating is not.

So what's the problem?
Well, the thing is these Umno/pro-Umno bloggers are too critical of the party's leadership. Many are actually anti-Badawi and his policies, promises, and practices.

The Government wants to engage bloggers? Sure. If it can convince its own bloggers to support it, maybe it'll be easier to persuade others.

Right on Rocky Bru. How you want to convince the rakyat especially the generation Y-ers when you fail to convince your own party members with your policies! Each day you can see people running away to join the Pakatan Rakyat State Government while you guys make a fuss about Ezam Nor rejoining UMNO as if he's a messiah or something.

Weak leadership would result in chaotic policies, so be responsible and start a change that we can believe in. Remember destiny is for the sake of the country!

This letter touched the shit out of me...

Work hard and you will succeed
By Grateful Rakyat
From The Sunday Star

I AM writing to state my and my children’s stand on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and beg to differ from the letters by James Tan and Mohd Ghazali Osman (The Star, May 22)

I was born in 1944 and had to go through what other parents and their children had to go through in those days, living hand to mouth day to day and not knowing when our next meal would be.

I had to walk 10km to and back from school every day because we could not afford the 10-cent fare on a rickety bus.

And that only after going around the village shouting 'kuih-kuih, nasi lemak' over and over again until I had covered all the houses in the village.

Even during my secondary school days I had to go to the coffee shops to place my mom's nasi lemak and kuih on the towkays' tables and collect the unsold ones for lunch.

Sometimes I had to walk to the kedai runcit in the rain or the hot sun a kilometre away just to buy 5 cents worth of salt, or sugar, or ikan bilis, because that was all we could afford with my dad's income of about $1 a day as a petition writer.

In 1959 I was chosen to study in the Malay College, Kuala Kangsar, but unable to as we could not afford the $60 per term fees. I had to work after finishing Form 5 at $122.50 a month to help support my parents.

Then Allah gave us Tun Dr Mahathir.

The last three of my seven children got their degrees from ITM. Two of them are doing well in private cleaning services because of the infrastructure made available. I don't have to be a crony to be a successful retired businessman.

Anyone can be a millionaire in Malaysia if one tries hard enough.

Don't try to compare anyone to Dr Mahathir. No one can ever come close enough, not in a million years.

This is one heack of a beautiful letter.

‘Be Orwellian like Singapore’

KUANTAN: Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob briefly became a newscaster during the state assembly sitting here yesterday, reading an article about stringent measures taken by the Singapore Government on a group of political activists who screened a film about Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew without obtaining approval from the media regulator.

The article was carried by a local English daily yesterday and with the paper cutting in his hands, Adnan took several minutes reading it.

It was to drive home the message that by being too lenient and open to media practitioners including bloggers, there could be an influx of articles so much so that readers were inclined to believe falsehoods.

Adnan said that it was good if Malaysia could be strict like Singapore.

“In Malaysia, we just let them be and due to some bloggers, people tend to believe unfounded articles as the truth.

“This is to show that this is what we get when we are too open,” he said.

Adnan, however, noted that a blog had its uses as it could be a platform to explain the government's policies and programmes.

He also spoke in jest that even he had a blog while state Information, Science, Technology and Innovation Committee chairman Datuk Mohd Sharkar Shamsuddin had none.

Earlier, when replying to a written question from Abdul Rahman Mohamad (BN – Padang Tengku), Mohd Sharkar said he had no intention of setting up a blog because readers whose negative comments were not posted might take the matter into another blog and condemn him or the state government.

The same time an UMNO member calling for more press freedom, this time it's another UMNO member calling for less press freedom!

Don't you just love it?

Joke of the month: Sexy school Uniforms

Thursday May 22, 2008
School Uniforms Sexy, Says Group

KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian group condemned the uniform worn by girls at government schools, saying it encouraged rape and pre-marital sex.

“The white blouse is too transparent for girls and it becomes a source of attraction,” National Islamic Students Association of Malaysia vice-president Munirah Bahari said in a statement.

“It becomes a distraction to men, who are drawn to it, whether or not they like looking at it,” she said, calling for a review of uniform policy so that it did not violate Islamic ideals.

In multicultural Malaysia, home to majority-Muslim Malays as well as ethnic Chinese and Indians, female students at government schools have a choice of wearing a white blouse with a knee-length skirt or pinafore.

They may also wear a “baju kurung” and a headscarf is optional for Malay students.

Munirah said that “covering up” according to Islamic precepts was important to fend off social ills, including “rape, sexual harassment and even premarital sex.”

“This leads to babies born out of wedlock and, to an extent, even prostitution,” she said.

“Decent clothes which are not revealing can prevent and protect women from any untoward situations,” she said, suggesting that girls wear a blouse of a different colour or with an undergarment.

However, the girls themselves also came in for criticism, with the association saying that some used the white blouse to lure men.

“This is the source of the problem, where we can see that schoolgirls themselves are capable of using this to attract men to them,” Munirah said.

“This could see them getting molested, having premarital sex and all sorts of things.” – AFP

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like Bill Hicks once said:

"You know what's ironic about these fundamental groups towards sex and pornography? It's that they're the ones who keep on telling their followers to reproduce!"

Seriously, what's so sexy about this?



Anyone?

Saddest day in Malaysian history:

Mahathir quits Umno
Ahti Veeranggan | May 19, 08 12:45pm

Former Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad today announced that he was quitting Umno with immediate effect and urged other members to emulate him.
MCPX

He said he was quitting the party, which he led for almost 22 years until handing over the reins to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in 2003, as a sign of no confidence in his successor's leadership.

"I will only come back to the party when there is a change in leadership," the ex-premier told a crowd at a forum in his home state of Kedah this morning.

He also called on all Umno ministers, deputy ministers and all levels of party leaders to join him in leaving the party.

However he asked these members not to join any other party.

"Wait till Abdullah to quit as the prime minister and party president and then we can return to Umno," he said.

Mahathir joined Umno at its inception in 1946 and in recent years has been Abdullah's most vocal critic.

He entered active politics as a member of Parliament for Kubang Pasu in 1964.

He lost his seat in 1969 and was expelled from the party after attacking then president and prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.

I got a question,
What happens to Mukhriz?

I disagree with TDM's decision to do this, as much as I dislike AAB I think his move would merely cause additional problems. His son is almost ready to take over the Pemuda helm and I don't think this move is indeed wise.

But then again, if this force AAB to go down it might do something good.

Mahathir, whether you hate him or love him, must be regarded as one of the most colourful and brilliant politicians in our history. He was the longest serving PM and was instrumental in bringing down the first PM, if he succeeds this one that would 2 Prime Ministers and help two Razak's to the throne.

I knew this year would be the year of turmoil...

But i'll still love him as our leader and this photo will forever remain in my heart:

Richard Dawkins can fuck off!

I'm a Muslim but i don't care if it offends other people or not. I have atheist friends, but do i care if they are Atheist? No. I don't care if evolution happens. Heck, maybe evolution is a part of creationism. But still, i don't care.

One thing i don't like about atheism is their "philosophers/scientists" or whatever you call it. I enjoyed the works of Nietzche, but with people like Hitchens, Dawkins, Hari and Pullman, they should just fuck off. Especially Dawkins.

Some atheists aren’t satisfied by simply having this argument and feel the need to actually dedicate their lives to it by writing books and appearing on TV. Dawkins, a scientist and author who has a chair at Oxford University and has many acclaims. He’s done other stuff in the past but at the moment his whole thing seems to be going round the world and explaining to religious people that they’ve wasted their lives.

That's fine. But do we care? No. Do we care you're an atheist? Fuck no. Why should an atheist like Dawkins care if there are people with religion? It's like a straight man caring about gay sex(which is a reality sadly).

It's not like people are gonna say to Dawkins - "Gee thanks Richard. I used to believe that there was a universal controller, but thanks to you i'm now free". Okay, so maybe there are people who became atheists because of Dawkins, and yes it is true that his book "The God Delusion" sold 31 million copies. But Dawkins, with his arrogant smirk and intolerance, believes that the world would be better without religion. It's like saying that children will be free without parents.

One reason he cites is that wars have been fought over religion, therefore it is bad. Yes Richard, wars have been fought over religion, millions of people have died in its name but do you really think that there would have been no war without it? I think we’d probably just have had wars for different reasons don’t you? Sadly people just fight with each other sometimes, people’s interests are at odds sometimes, sometimes people look across borders and think ‘Y’know what? I’d quite like all that land for myself.’ More often than not religion’s just an excuse.

‘Religion gets in the way of scientific progress!’ is another form of bullshit spewed by atheists like Dawkins. Religion may not be compatible with science, but science and religion can exist together without clashing of ideas. Look at the likes of Al-Razi, Albert Schweitzer, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Al-Jabr, Al-Ghazali and such. These scientists and inventors are religious. However, what Dawkins seems to forget is how these innovators can be intelligent while being religious. Simple: The leave out religion so that they could continue their works. Dawkins thinks that "If a man with a religion wants to do science, he has to involve hsi religion" That's not true. Scientists have never involve their religion with theirs cientific achievements. Never. Does Mohamad El Baradei ever involve his Islamic beliefs when he's dealing with Iran's nuclear issue? Never.

But what about intolerance? Religions promote intolerance right? Okay, a very small minority use religion as an excuse to be homophobic, racist etc. But again, there are just small minded people in the world who are going to see somebody doing something different and get all angry. People hear what they want to - if someone’s chosen to fixate on the obscure parts of the Bible or the Qur’an that deride homosexuality then, let’s be honest, they’re most probably quite the homophobe anyway. It’s not as if there aren’t racist/sexist/homophobic academics now is it?

And what pisses me more about Dawkins is that he downplays the positives of religion. Rumi, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, David Lynch, Stephen King and Bono have such a hard-on for God that they created arguably the greatest work of art, film, music and literature in history(Eventhough i hate Bono). I’m pretty sure that some Muslim brothers would still perform the haj & umrah when every copy of ‘The God Delusion’ has been rightly pulped - are we really more of an advanced society without God?

I remember watching Dawkin's documentary "The Root of All Evil", and one thing that kept pissing me off was the use of the word "truth" continually. To start with, considering it was such an integral part of his argument, you would think he would define the term 'truth' at least once. But alas, it was left unsubstantiated.

Richard Dawkins thinks truth is inalienble with science. That is such a rigid and presumptious way to look at truth. What has been considered scientifically sound in the past has been disproven: 'The earth is flat'. Science cannot provide us with total stability or objectiveness. My personal understanding of truth is a philisophical one of individual perception. Something is only true if I perceive it to be true. Truth is only that which I agree for it to be. And is not completely based on scientific knowledge

Nietsche once wrote "There are many kinds of eyes..., and consequently there are many kinds of 'truths', and consequently there is no truth"

The perception argument for truth is classic post modernism, and I personally disagree with the idea of their being 'no truth'. If truth is only what we perceive, then the 'truth' can be twisted to fit ones own ends. On the other hand, I think that hunting for truth by logic and science alone is foolish and is subject to ones own perception and use of that logic. As the cliche goes, the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two arguments!

Dawkins, as usual, believes there is only his way and that somehow that his pure, robotic logic is delusion and perception free and hence can only be the truth. Unfortunately, like most of his arguments, it is a lie...

So, in conclusion; are those guys at the Christian rock concert & Nasyid gatherings waving their hands in the air a little weird? Yes. Deluded? Maybe, but you definitely can’t call them miserable. They’ve figured out a way to exist in this bizarre world that works for them and they’re not hurting anyone, so leave them alone you sanctimonious prick!