English taken literally...

And for those grammatically correct friends...

On his 78th birthday, a man got a gift certificate from his wife. The certificate paid for a visit to a medicine man living on a nearby reservation who was rumored to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction.

After being persuaded, he drove to the reservation, handed his ticket to the medicine man and wondered what he was in for.

The old man handed a potion to him, and with a grip on his shoulder, warned, "This is a powerful medicine. You take only a teaspoonful and then say '1-2-3.' " When you do, you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life and you can perform as long as you want."

The man was encouraged. As he walked away, he turned and asked,
"How do I stop the medicine from working?"

"Your partner must say '1-2-3-4,'" he responded, "but when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon."

He was very eager to see if it worked so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom.

When she came in, he took off his clothes and said, "1-2-3!"
Immediately, he was the manliest of men. His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes and then she asked "What was the 1-2-3 for?"

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle.

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Penang vs Selangor: Water privatisation vs piratisation

According to Koon Yew Yin, Penang has shown how water could be privatised according to results-driven and performance-oriented objectives. More: http://www.freemalaysiakini2.com/?p=51472

It is a wonder how Penang could achieve this commendable feat during 1999 and 2002 while under BN rule; yet soon after, water privatisation was more of a piratisation in Selangor, despite having a role model to emulate from. Perhaps due credit should be given to Gerakan state leaders for standing up for the people of Penang on this particular issue. In the case of Selangor, then Umno MB, Khir Toyo had a free hand to create  greedy cronies in Rozali Ismail and associates, which resulted in a massive Rm6.4 billion debt by 2008.

To cover up, Selangor state BN has resorted to all kinds of spin in the mainstream media to create artificial water shortages in order to discredit Pakatan state administration. The latter has endeavoured to undo some of the lop-sided contracts which will cripple state finances and/or cause hardship to its water consumers. Instead of helping the people, the Federal BN government prefers to help its state opposition leaders to ensure the lop-sided contracts are maintained.


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How parents in their golden years cope with the IT age

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Land Grab Malaysian-style: legal but immoral

'It is evil when a law is crafted to take away land from the poor without their consent, fair compensation or share in its benefits so that a few might make it to Forbes’ list of billionaires.  We should all be foaming at our mouth with anger at this injustice but instead we just thank God daily that it is not our land they have come to take, at least not yet.' - Thomas Fann

21 years ago, YB Lim Kit Siang could foresee the ulterior motive, but like many Bills bulldozed through Parliament because of BN's two-third majority, his views were dismissed as over-reactions and did not get due publicity in the BN-controlled mainstream media, not that it would make any difference then.

Excerpt from Thomas Fann's article:


The leader of the opposition then, YB Lim Kit Siang in opposing Act A804 (1991 Land Acquisition Amendment Bill), gave this dire warning – “When it becomes law, it will destroy the constitutional right to property enjoyed by Malaysians for 34 years since Merdeka, and become the mother of all corruption, abuses of power, conflicts-of-interest and unethical malpractices in Malaysia…”

Was Kit Siang just over-reacting or scare-mongering when he said that or is it a prophecy that was and is being fulfilled till today?

The impetus for the passing of Act A804 was for the acquisition of 33,000 acres of land in the Gelang Patah area for the construction of the second link with Singapore and the construction of a new township by UEM, wiping out 19 villages and displacing 10,000 people.

The Johor State Government offered the affected small-holders compensation averaging RM26,000 per acre or 64 sen per square foot, far below the then market value of RM100,000 per acre for agricultural land.  In a subsequent civil suit by one of the affected land owners against the Government of Johor in 1995, it was revealed that a subsidiary of Renong was offering the intended development for sale at RM17 per square foot, a whopping 28 times more than what the original land owners got!
...
For the Second Link and the highway that linked it to the North-South Highway to be built, the Land Acquisition Act was necessary. Compensation to be fair had to not only take into account the then prevailing market value but also the loss of livelihood for the people who used to live off the land.

With Act A804, the government seized a lot more land than was required for the custom and immigration complex and the highway. We can safely say it seized almost 24,000 acres more for a private corporation, UEM, albeit it is a GLC (government-linked corporation).
...
Of course not all compulsory acquisitions are unjust or not justifiable; but there should be a fair and unskewed avenue for aggrieved land owners through the justice system to question certain acquisitions. The courts now are somewhat constrained by Act A804, and in almost all cases such acquisitions are not reversed.

Twenty years on, the same script is being acted out in Johor again (a BN stronghold), this time to the east in Pengerang. A total of 22,500 acres of land are being acquired for the development of the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC). The anchor project in this proposal is Petronas’ RAPID project which requires a sizable 6,424 acres.

Smallholders and plantations are being offered between RM1.80 psf and RM8 psf for their land. Can Pengerang be called Gelang Patah 2.0 where again on the pretext of development, a huge tract of land is being taken from their original land owners and placed in the hands of one or a few wealthy individuals and corporations? Is the PIPC the main play or is property speculation the main play? Would the same PM who mooted the Third Link to Singapore in 2009 make the announcement again after all the land has been acquired? Who are the direct beneficiaries of such development?

All these are so “legal” that one government official after another is spewing out that it is done properly under the terms of the Land Acquisition Act 1960. It may be legal, but is it moral?

Source:

http://thomasfann.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/land-grab-malaysian-style/
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If Confucius inspires you, then you should know about the Duke of Zhou

"Three thousand years ago, the Duke of Zhou set China a glowing example. A paragon of virtue, he spelled out a philosophy of a ruler in harmony with heaven that inspired Confucius, and came to fill the ideological vacuum left behind by Chairman Mao...
He's more a personality cult than a person. But the seed of the cult lies in a real historical figure and real events. The duke helped his brother sweep away a corrupt ruler and found the Zhou dynasty in the 11th Century BC.
Already north China had cities, public works and coinage. There was no empire as yet, but even ruling a kingdom required skill and subtlety.
After his brother died, the Duke of Zhou acted as a dutiful regent, and when his nephew came of age, he handed over power...
"He has become as it were everybody's favourite uncle. Because in his noble manner of handing power over - rightfully - to his nephew, he has become a paragon of goodness throughout China's history," says Frances Wood, curator of the British Library's Chinese collection.
Mostly in Chinese history everyone seems to be behaving badly. Regent uncles, dowager empresses, concubines, brothers… all end up doing the wrong thing. Skim read the dynastic ups and downs of imperial China and it is a terrifying bloodbath of unexplained deaths, heads severed, babies strangled, siblings thrown down wells, kings poisoned, whole families executed or challengers torn limb from limb. But not the Duke of Zhou.
That is what makes him such a big favourite with Confucians. At the heart of their political philosophy, and far more important than rules or contracts, is sincerity.
Showing respect to ancestors is extremely important in Chinese society
"To the Chinese way of thinking, that's a very decent thing to do, to hold on to your promise," says historian Xun Zhou of Hong Kong University.
"It's a mandate of heaven that his nephew became the king, and he did that."
The mandate of heaven is the Duke of Zhou's big idea. The ruler governs by virtuous example, which spreads virtue throughout the land, and in turn demonstrates his harmony with the divine.
But there's a get-out clause for rebels. If the king fails to rule virtuously, harmony is ruined and can only be restored by removal of the king."

More:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19821144#story_continues_1
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