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back again without prejudice or malice...

First, allow me to apologise for being away without notice. I wasn't on strike unlike some of our re-owned bloggers. Nevertheless, i would give them the benefit of doubt for their decision as for most of us bloggers, sometimes we do get those pukie feelings following our country's political scenes. Truly lives up to its name.. 'Malay politics at its best/ugliest' depending how one would want to see it. Perhaps RockyBru knew something that we do not know especially so when PM came out with those 'treachery remark' on bloggers right after Rocky decided to take a 2 weeks break.

So why the long absence? Well, last Friday morning i was awakened by a call from my daughter, Samantha calling me from her room. She must have thought that i have left for work. Much as i expected for a call that come that early from a person who only wakes up at mid-morning, the news was that my father-in-law, the late Mr Lim Thong Yew, forgot to wake up that fateful morning. He was 84. So we did only the rightful thing by being there to help out and pay our last respect to a man who have graced a major part of our lives.

We arrived home from Ipoh on Monday night. Tired and worn out from an emotional trip. I was actually lost on the development of events over the last few days despite having update myself by glancing through some newspaper. Balasubramaniam, Protes rally and all those stupid statements made by our PM and DPM. Cant be bothered by them and their outright lies through their controlled MSM. What's important right now is to prepare and make arrangement for Samantha to further her studies in NUS. She is leaving for Singapore next Wednesday.

Boy, am i glad we made the right decision to opt out from the local offer of a Bio-medical engineering degree by University Malaya to the Science degree as offered by National University of Singapore after reading a letter by P. George in The Star yesterday. Any sane mind would have made the same decision as we did. Prestige and brighter future were the factors in our decision making despite the financial hardship that we may have to face later on. But these are small sacrifices for parents to make for the betterment of their children.

Excerpt of the letter from The Star below:

"I REFER to your report “Decision soon on apex varsity” (The Star, July 8). I would like to urge the authorities involved in making this decision to look closely at the public universities in Singapore, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University which are funded by the Singapore government and which are the best in Asean and amongst the best in Asia and the world.

The well-regarded Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World University Rankings 2007 shows the National University of Singapore (NUS) at 33rd place and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) at 69th place, among the top 100 universities in the world.

Indeed, NUS is ranked among the top 50 universities in the world for natural sciences (25th), life sciences and biomedicine (12th), technology (10th), social sciences (20th) and arts and humanities (21st).

What will it take for Malaysia’s soon-to-be-decided apex university to be able to compete with the likes of NUS in Singapore, and more ambitiously, with the top 10 universities in the world such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, Imperial College, Princeton, California Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, University College London and MIT?

If one were to take Singapore’s NUS as an example, one guiding principle would be to recruit the best available administrators and professors, lecturers, tutors and research assistants internationally and pay them according to international standards, while assessing their performance on rigorous and transparent criteria.

Another guiding principle would be to recruit the best students from within Malaysia and from other Asean and Asian countries based on clear and transparent meritocratic criteria.

Yet another guiding principle would be to provide generous funding for scholarships and bursaries so as to ensure that no qualified student, no matter how poor, is denied a chance to study at an apex university.

But given the situation in Malaysia, where the Government tends to regulate higher education and universities with a heavy hand, and where bureaucracy and national agendas call the shots, the drive to set up one or more apex universities could well be an expensive exercise in futility and be doomed to abject failure.

As it is, our best students are being lured overseas year after year, often with full scholarships, to top-ranked universities, with a strong possibility that they may not return to Malaysia after graduation. And this trend will intensify, given the global hunt for talent, both in the region and around the world.

Yet the government does not seem to have the political will to address the relevant issues in higher education head-on".

P. GEORGE,

Johor Baru.

Rest In Peace, Dad, Mr Lim Thong Yew

breaking news: be careful when you travel to holland...

Marijuana Is In, Tobacco Is Out Under Netherlands' Smoking Ban
By Martijn van der Starre

June 20 (Bloomberg) -- Starting July 1, marijuana will be the only leaf that can be smoked in public places in the Netherlands. Cannabis devotees aren't celebrating.

Local pot smokers, who usually cut joints with tobacco, and owners of the ``coffee shops'' where they are allowed to light up will have to change their habits when the nation implements the indoor tobacco ban. Puffing a pure marijuana cigarette in public will still be permitted; smoking one with tobacco will merit coffee shop owners a 300-euro ($466) fine for the first offense and 2,400 euros for a fourth.

``Every customer will have to learn how to smoke pure,'' said Robert Kempen, co-owner of The NooN and Mellow Yellow in Amsterdam, which sell marijuana and hashish. The rule makes him ``sick to death,'' he said, rolling himself a joint.

Coffee-shop proprietors say the ban will put some of them out of business as smokers stay away. The nation's 720 outlets that serve marijuana smokers generate a large portion of their revenue from selling drinks, food and rolling papers to their patrons. Dutch sales of cannabis alone totaled 1.2 billion euros ($1.86 billion) in 2001, according to the most recent figures available from the nation's statistics bureau.

To permit tobacco smoking, shops will have to build separate, unstaffed rooms, and many say they don't have the space or money to do so. Others are investing in water pipes and $400 vaporizers, initially intended to aid people with lung problems inhale medicine, to help smokers light up without tobacco.

`Times Have Changed'

``It's a bad year for marijuana smokers,'' said Gwydion Hydref while smoking in Coffee Shop Johnny. The Welshman works for Wickedtrips, a company that offers vacation packages, including a ```no holds barred' weekender'' to Amsterdam ahead of the smoking ban. ``Times have changed.''

The Netherlands follows other European countries in banning tobacco. Ireland was the first country in the region to forbid smoking in public places in 2004. Sweden, Italy, Malta, France, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania, Portugal and England and others have followed, with full or partial restrictions.

The Dutch ban, which prohibits tobacco smoking in all public places of employment to protect workers' health, is only for tobacco and makes no change to marijuana policy, said Saskia Hommes, a spokeswoman for Dutch Health MinisterAb Klink. The government will have to see if the law is enforceable, she said.

The Netherlands decriminalized the use of marijuana in 1976, though it stopped short of fully legalizing the drug because international treaties prohibited it from doing so. The country's first coffee shop, named after Donovan's song ``Mellow Yellow,'' had opened its doors four years earlier.

`Bloody Awful'

Government policy toward the shops has become less lenient in recent years, with the number dropping by 39 percent in a decade as authorities cracked down on sale to young people and revoked the licenses of owners who commit crimes.

Still, the shops have devoted patrons who are upset about the latest development.

The ban is ``bloody awful,'' said Nima Gani, a musician smoking at The NooN. Gani plans to stop visiting The NooN and smoke his ``Blueberry'' marijuana and tobacco joints on the street.``I feel like my freedom is getting smaller and smaller,'' he said.

To enforce the new policy, the government has more than doubled its number of food and consumer product inspectors to 200, said Bob Kiel, a spokesman for the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority. The agents will make unannounced visits to bars, restaurants and cafes, as well as coffee shops. There are no guidelines to help inspectors distinguish between a mixed joint and a pure one, he said.

Hashish and Joints

Coffee shops sell everything from pre-rolled joints for 3.50 euros each to hashish for as much as 18 euros a gram, said Mark Jacobsen, chairman of the Amsterdam Association of Cannabis Retailers. The ban will make it even harder for the shops to stay in business as visitors and revenue will drop, said Jacobsen, who is building a wall to divide The Rookies, a shop he co-owns.
``Sales will definitely fall,'' said Rida Oulad, who works behind the counter at Ibiza in Amsterdam. ``Why would you go to a coffee shop where you can't smoke and the only remaining activities are sitting and watching television?''

Gani, for one, isn't happy about the changes. He says he can't smoke at his real home because his mother would hit him ``over the head with a pan.''

Still, he has no plans to stop rolling joints mixed with tobacco: ``Smoking pure grates my throat.''

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

Geez!! They don't know how lucky they are. Imagine all these complaints coming out through their lips. Last i read somewhere that smoking marijuana causes the brain to shrink. Now we know why those Dutch have pea brains. But they surely can play good football. Holland to win this Euro 2008. My money is on them. But Russia wont be an easy meat for them.

saving Planet Earth....

This article have been circulated over the internet. Thought it would be informative to blog this article to help pass the message across the world... for the battle against global warming.. For saving Planet Earth.

Mr. Juseleeno, born in 1960 (reportedly still alive in 2008), is a Brazilian who has made many predictions, and MOST have come to pass, including Princess Diana’s death by car accident (which is instigated by someone near her and will probably unfortunately be written off as a car accident), 911 and the 2004 Indonesian tsunami.

He sees the future in his dreams, and has an average of 3 to 9 such predictions per day. When he wakes up, he will write them down, and send warnings to those concerned. If it concerns only a normal individual, he will write a letter to warn him/her. If it is a famous person (celebrity, politician etc.), or matters concerning the public, he will not only send it to the individual himself/herself, but also related agencies, government, and media. He urged the media to publicise these predictions, but the reply always went along the lines of rejection for fear of arousing public panic.

Future predictions:

2008, July: There will be an earthquake in Japan, which will cause a tsunami of 30 plus metres high to occur as well.

2008, 18th September: An earthquake with magnitude of approximately 9.1 will rock China , simultaneously causing a tsunami of more than 30 metres to occur, resulting in the deaths of more than 1 million people. Although this huge earthquake will happen after the Olympics have ended, there will be a series of relatively smaller earthquakes occurring in China before the huge earthquake. The China government, which is more concerned with the success of the Olympics, will most likely neglect to employ appropriate cautionary measures, thus the high casualty rate. If the China government does not publicise the occurrence of these minor earthquakes and evacuate people, the number of deaths will be as predicted.

2008, 17th Dec: Terrorist attack in America.

2010: The temperatures in some countries of Africa could be as high as 58 degrees Celsius, and there will be a serious shortage of water.

2010, 15th June: The New York Stock Exchange market will fail, causing an international financial crisis.

2011: The research on the treatment of some cancers will be completed, but a new life-threatening virus will appear. People who are infected will die after only approx. 4 hours of coming into contact with the virus.

2013, 1st – 25th November: Research on treatment of cancers, except for brain tumors, will be completed. An earthquake, caused by volcanic eruptions, will happen on Bahama Island of the Canary Islands. A gigantic tsunami of roughly 150 metres will result. America mainlands, Brazil etc. will be affected, with the tsunami pushing into the land as far as 15 to 20 kilometres. Before the occurrence of this gigantic tsunami, the sea/ocean water levels will sink by about 6 metres, and large flocks of birds will start to migrate.

2014: A small planet that has been gradually closing in on Earth might eventually collide with Earth, and this collision, if come to pass, will affect the survival of humans as a whole.

2015: By the mid of November, the average temperature of Earth could be as high as 59 degrees Celsius. Many people will die from the overheating, and international confusion and terror ensues.

2016, April: A huge typhoon will invade China, causing massive damage. The 43rd USA president, George Walker Bush, will enter the hospital, and faces a life or death situation.

2026, July: A super earthquake will occur in Sans Francisco, and it will be named “The Big One”. Huge damage to surrounding areas. Many volcanoes will re-activate, and the height of resulting tsunami will be more than 150 metres.

Mr. Juseleeno made known his predictions in hopes that people will take heed of his warnings, so that these disasters may be avoided. He hopes there will be a major change in the thinking of people’s mindsets in the time period 2007 – 2008. One factor will be the environmental issue of global warming, which is more serious than what some meteorologists assume.

Whether these predictions will materialise or not, i think it's high time for everybody to play their part towards a greener and cleaner environment. The signs are already showing everywhere with climate changes and with disasters, getting more and more devastating.

ACT NOW BEFORE THIS PLANET EARTH FALLS APART !!

i apologise...

i was advised against posting my article titled "interesting story from the street" on reason it may get me into trouble. The post has since been deleted.

Sorry for the inconvenience..

something from the past... 96 years later..

here i am.. my own blog finally

It was the recent election fiasco that opened up my eyes to the importance of blogs to counter all the bulls that was spread in our very own controlled media streams. Most importantly, at least to me, it is also where i can freely express my opinion without fear or favor.

I must also thank misschickenkiller for guiding me in creating my own blog. My chance encounter with her blog and a simple request from me... and there she was.. throwing her know-hows to me. Thanks misschickenkiller.. I owe you one.

Dont really know where to begin but i guess with time and happenings around us, very soon this blog will be filled with comments and fun.