Why Are We So Shallow?

August 27th, 2007 gier

There are some days where I can really see why I should just stop this navel gazing on a blog and just faff about reading slashdot when I need a break. The object of disgust today is the following article on RPK’s Malaysia Today, titled “Dolah tertidur lagi…..” Go on, read it. Then read the comments.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the quality of the articles posted on Malaysia Today.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the quality of the readers of Malaysia Today — Your Source of Independent News.

There were a few sane voices in the comments section, but the vast majority of them … words defy me.

I would like to say here that Malaysia Today is, in actual fact, a piece of rubbish. Crap. Excrement. Offensive. If it gets shut down, it wouldn’t be too soon. “Your source of independent news” my ass! “Your source of independent lies” more like. And what’s so independent about copying and pasting news from NST, the Star, and Bernama anyway? Okay, there are some original writing there, but in what proportion? Are the blog posts that RPK copies from the original source (though attributed) considered part of Malaysia Today?

In the example given above, written by Dato’ Kamal Amir, I would like to draw readers the following paragraphs in the article:

Kononnya ada usaha dilakukan menghubungi pejabat dan kediamannya , khuatir kalau-kalau ada aral atau masalah disebabkan jemputan sudahpun memenuhi dewan seawal jam 9.00 pagi. Bisik-bisik kalangan wartawan foto menyatakan “Pak Lah masih tidur lagi!” dan majlis tersebut khabarnya terlewat lebih satu jam.

Sewaktu menerima berita yang dihantar melalui SMS oleh saudara Husein Lampo, yang kebetulan pula dari corong “hi-fi”, Ayu anak kecil saya seperti biasa memainkan pita bacaan surah Ar-Rahman oleh imam besar masjidil haram (menjadi kebiasaan kami mewarnai seisi rumah dengan aroma ayat suci al Quran setiap pagi jumaat).

Aduhai rupa-rupanya tadi malam adalah malam “sunatul jumaat” yang menjanjikan pahala kepada pasangan suami isteri untuk bermesra-mesraan sambil menggauli isteri yang halal di sisi hukum….

Maka segera menerpa di fikiran, apakah kelewatan kehadiran Perdana Menteri merasmikan majlis pelancaran buku berjudul “lilin membakar diri” kesan asyik masyuk menggauli isteri….. hingga kalampun lemah untuk berbicara membuatkan Abdullah Ahmad Badawi terlajak tidurnya hingga terlupa waktu subuh?

Terkadang naik lucu juga memikirkan kisah Abdullah Ahmad Badawi sejak mendapat isteri barunya “Madame Jeanne Danker”. Macam orang tidak pernah berbini, kalau anak muda yang baru melangsungkan perkahwinanpun masih malu-malu untuk berjalan berpimpinan tangan, tetapi Abdullah sedikitpun tidak merasa canggung dengan tingkah lakunya.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was the core of the whole idiocy, in my opinion. Proof? Pergh!!! Who needs proof when we can regress into character assassination! Let’s insinuate that the PM was too busy banging his wife, and therefore overslept, even missing Subuh prayers. Let’s add in our own religious credentials by mentioning that we listen to the Qur’an every Friday morning. And then just look at the fanboys frothing at the mouth.

If the opposition thinks that RPK and his site are credible, then all I’ve got to say is, with friends like that, you don’t need enemies.

Malaysia Today is atrocious. Please la guys, don’t la be so gullible and think that RPK’s all that. While I can concede that he’s got his good moments, the vast majority of the stuff he writes is just too full of bile, and some of his guest columnists are no better.

Oh, while we’re at it, calling names and all that, namewee’s a prick.

Posted in Rant | 3 Comments »

Gwen Stefani to wear traditional costumes in her Malaysian “Sweet Escape” Concert

August 17th, 2007 gier

Over at the bestest online comic in Malaysia, otherwise known as Malaysiakini.com, there was a report on the delectable Gwen Stefani’s upcoming concert in Malaysia, as well as the protest by a certain “National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students” a.k.a. Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM) regarding her predilection for “indecent dressing and obscenity.”

Now, it seems that Stefani “has agreed to wear traditional costumes in her Malaysian concert next week after conservative Muslim youths protested her skin-baring act, sponsors of the show said today.”

As such, PKPIM is now mollified — for the time being. The President of the PKPIM was quoted in the article as so:

Student union president Mohamed Hilmi Ramli said he was satisfied with the promise, but said he would send representatives to the show to “ensure she does not go out of line.”

I would just like to inform President Hilmi that he doesn’t have to send any representatives to the show. We here at mentera.org have received a sneak preview of one of the costumes that she will be wearing for her concert, and it is shown below. As such, we would like to respectfully request from Mr. President that the tickets they must have bought for their representatives be given to us instead. As opposed to going there looking morose and grim in ensuring that Ms. Stefani “does not go out of line”, the mentera.org representatives will on the other hand ensure that we “have a rocking good time!!!” After all, we reckon that we’ve got as much authority as PKPIM to ensure anything out of some American singer who is holding a concert here.

Posted in Mentera Moden, Rant | 2 Comments »

Analogy Overload

August 13th, 2007 gier

In an interview given to Malaysiakini, published on the 9th. of August 2007, Dato’ Norza Zakaria said that “Umno’s ‘Beckhams’ can’t be waiting forever.” The exact statement as quoted by Beh Lih Yi, Malaysiakini’s reporter is:

“It’s just like playing soccer, the good players are still on the bench. We don’t want those who are playing to come from [the era] of R Arumugam or Mokhtar Dahari when David Beckham is waiting – he can’t be warming the bench forever,” Norza, 41, told malaysiakini in an interview on Monday.

I couldn’t believe what my ears were seeing and what my eyes were hearing! I get that he was alluding to having the new guard in and letting the old guard out, but really …

Firstly, if those guys were playing on the same team, Backham would not be warming the bench at all. He’d be playing, because Arumugam and Mokhtar Dahari are both no longer with us. They’ve passed away. I don’t know whether that means that Dato’ Norza considers that the existing upper echelons of UMNO to be bangkai bernyawa, but I hope not.

Secondly, if those two were still alive, they’d still be better men than David Beckham. If nothing else, if Spiderman Arumugam or Super Mokh were to be seen wearing sarongs, they wouldn’t look like fairies. It’d actually look natural, because we Malaysians like to wear our kain pelekats in public. Further, David Beckham’s hairstyles would never match Spiderman Arumugam’s locks or Super Mokh’s mullet. So there.

In the following paragraph of the same article, Dato’ Norza (on a roll) expanded further:

Drawing another analogy, he said: “It is also like a sit-com when you have the same actors all the time. If it is 600 episodes, you have to change the actors.”

For what it’s worth, I think that sitcoms that change actors tend to crash fairly rapidly. Imagine if someone else other that Kelsey Grammer was playing Frasier? So, okay, Kirstie Alley replacing Shelley Long didn’t kill off Cheers, but that’s because Kirstie Alley was hotter than Shelley Long. Also, in Roseanne, the girl playing Becky left and was replaced by the girl now in Scrubs, but the original girl then came back … so, I think it’s obvious that I haven’t watched any recent sitcoms. And that it’s also obvious that the sitcom analogy is not a very good one to describe the situation inside a political party … on the other hand, maybe it’s the most apposite analogy you can find.

Moving forward, we have this following quote:

Norza added: “While (the government) is telling the younger generation that there is no quota from now on and it will be based on merit for those entering universities, I think it’s about time that the Umno leadership should be selected based on merit and we must lead by example.”

Now UMNO is like a university? Also, is Dato’ Norza implying that the UMNO leadership is not based on merit? Goodness! What on earth can it be based on, then?

Finally, I would like to end this with the last line in the article:

“I have started running this race, I will have to finish it,” he said.

Football, sitcoms, universities … and now a foot race … Boom Shakalaka Boom! I would just like to say, at the end of the day, once you consider all angles, looking for the optimum win-win situation, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Posted in Politics, Rant | 3 Comments »

The Superstitious Rocketman — One Week After

August 7th, 2007 gier

It has now been a week since Mr. Jeff Ooi, esq. became a politician. As an institution that is proactive and reactive at the same time, we at MILF-PRON have conducted an analysis of his performance thus far. The following is our report on the Superstitious Rocketman.

We start by several observations:

1. We know that the Rocketman is angling for a Parliamentary seat in the upcoming general elections. Why do we say this? Well, his political website is at http://parliament.jeffooi.com/, that’s why. Here, we see that Mr. Ooi, esq. has embraced one of the basic tenets of being a politician, which is: No point in being coy, but instead be as blindingly obvious as possible.
2. He has also hewed towards one of the multi-cultural Malaysian politicians’ Standard Operating Procedure by making a blog post entirely in Chinese here, thus alienating more than half of the population who have absolutely no idea what he’s on about there.
3. While he has jumped from one party (Gerakan) to another (DAP), it is too early to say whether he is a member of the politician sub-species known as the katak. After all, just as one swallow does not a bukkake summer make, one jump does not a frog make.

Let us now proceed to analyse his performance so far.

1. In the week since he became a Rocketman, world oil prices have reached record highs and he has not done anything about it. This must count as a disappointment to all.
2. No one has been remanded, or arrested under the I/OSA, so that must count as a plus.
3. On the other hand, no one who were already remanded or arrested under the I/OSA were released, so that negates the plus point above.
4. He attacked the UMNO Youth Deputy Chief’s statement regarding Anwar Ibrahim and the Jewish conspiracy that was published in the Star newspaper. However, as we were accessing the page on the Star to see what Mr. Ooi, esq. was on about, we were distracted by this report which was eminently more interesting, and therefore lost our thread of thought. So, we count that as a plus for the Rocketman.
5. He has not fulfilled any of his promises since entering the political stage, which is a negative.
6. One the other hand, he hasn’t actually made any promises, which is a plus, since he wouldn’t need to dodge any bullets just yet.

In summary, given the analysis above, we conclude that with the entry of Mr. Ooi, esq., the Malaysian political landscape has changed not a jot. As such, we must consider his performance thus far to be a disappointment. After all, a week is a long time in politics.

Posted in MILF-PRON, Politics | 1 Comment »

Sack Senator Tajulurus Mohd Zain from UMNO!

August 1st, 2007 Mack

The above mentioned Senator recently made headlines for demanding that Idris Jala be sacked from his position as Malaysia Airlines CEO. At first I thought it was a waste of space, but then changed my mind. It’s not a waste of space if I can use it to blog about, and since blogs are the only thing that matter in the universe with the exception of porn, the said news article now is indeed a good thing.

For one, Encik Tajulurus has no business calling for anyone to be sacked. It is not his ‘urusan’. Secondly, his reason are as lame as he is, and this has led him to be blasted by a top editor in the largest read daily newspaper, and above all, a snub from the Prime Minister. The PM said it was not right to call for Idris’ removal. Quite right.

Which means that Tajulurus dah tersilap arus, last-last kena berus. Normally, this is not a problem — at least for UMNO. However, of late UMNO has suffered greatly from pompous behaviour like this. One can even say that things have gotten for ‘bad to worse’. I think it’s time UMNO did something about that.

I have some suggestions.

1.    Sack anyone who makes public statements that brings disrepute into UMNO. If they just sit down quietly and reput takpa but cakap kat press, tendang keluar. That way, nobody will dare pak chew cheng in public, embarrassing the whole party, if the likes of Zainuddin Maidin and MP from Kinabatangan has not done it already.

2.    The Supreme Council enacts an ISA-like ruling within UMNO. Belia 4B is used like RELA, and instead of being peeping-toms, they act as UMNO Police and arrest people like Tajulurus. Take them to a rehabilitation camp where they are cleansed of all the demons that possesses them when making stupid remarks to the press. Kalau boleh, bagi mandi bunga sikit, buang suey. I don’t see why this cannot be done, unless the ’supremacy’ of the Supreme Council is merely a name someone concocted while on crack, or ganja — in a flight of self grandeur.

3.    In school, some of the biggest gangsters were made prefect. Heck, the biggest gangsters in most schools were the prefects, given that the institution of having prefects is to be the faculty’s ‘enforcers’. So take the biggest gangsters in UMNO and make them prefects of sorts. Give them the power to recommend to the ‘teacher’ — in this case the UMNO Disciplinary Board — to punish people like Tajulurus by public caning. Whack kao-kao, unless they seem to enjoy it. Then rescind the punishment to other means, like cleaning all the toilets in PWTC with a toothbrush or doing the Supreme Council’s laundry for a week. Behave like a juvenile, then be treated like it, yo!

That way, you have less of these monkeys fooling around and making a mockery of UMNO. Only then can UMNO’s blogbusters a.k.a. “I ain’t afraid of no blogs, yeah” can be a credible outfit, proudly claiming we take care of things from the inside.

Think about it. Hehe.

Posted in Rant | 1 Comment »