Month: February 2010

This topic just came up over the CNY holidays while I was thinking to myself out loud (i do that quite a bit). The question I posed was this – if we assume that the judiciary is corrupt to the core, how do we fix it? The answer that I came up with was a rather straightforward one – take a page out of history and reboot the judiciary.

You see, we now have a vehicle for sacking the Chief Justices if necessary. According to my understanding of the decision made on the Perak MB case, since it is spelt out in the Constitution that the Ruler has the right to appoint a MB, it is implied that the Ruler also has the right to sack the MB. Since there are a number of positions in our government that are appointed by the Ruler (such as Chief Justices), it is implied that the Ruler can sack them too.

So, I thought to myself, we now have the vehicle to clean up the mess at the top. However, if we assume that the judiciary is corrupt to the core, this would be futile as their new replacements would just be as corrupt as the people we got rid of. So, the question then became one of cleaning up the entire judiciary from the top down. I finally came to the conclusion that we would need to reboot the judiciary.

We will need to get rid of everyone from the top down. The question then became one of running a judicial system without any judiciary. The answer was pretty obvious – hire new judges who have nothing much to lose. This came off a page from our history books. When our country was first founded, a lot of our top civil servants and judges were imported from overseas because we just did not have all the necessary local expertise at the time. So, we could do the same thing today.

Just import the judges from around the world – people who are not beholden to any of our political leaders – and prop up the judicial system with a bunch of temporary judges. These people will be there for a while, in order to clean up the mess and to bring in a crop of new judges to take over their positions. These temporary judges could be culled from a list of distinguished justices from around the world.

Anyway, that was just a random thought that occurred to me.

Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.? That’s a tough one, but I’ll take a shot.

Say I’m working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ’cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had no problem with, get killed.

Now the politicians are sayin’, “Oh, send in the Marines to secure the area” ’cause they don’t give a shit. It won’t be their kid over there, gettin’ shot. Just like it wasn’t them when their number got called, ’cause they were pullin’ a tour in the National Guard. It’ll be some kid from Southie takin’ shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, ’cause he’ll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks.

Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And, of course, the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain’t helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they’re takin’ their sweet time bringin’ the oil back, of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin’ play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain’t too long ’til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic.

So now my buddy’s out of work and he can’t afford to drive, so he’s got to walk to the fuckin’ job interviews, which sucks ’cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin’ him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he’s starvin’, ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat, the only blue plate special they’re servin’ is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.

So what did I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure fuck it, while I’m at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

Sounds prophetic, don’t you think.

Happy Holidays! Have a safe journey and enjoy your time with your loved ones!

According to Wikipedia:

Wayang Kulit is a very unique form of theatre employing the principle of light and shadow. The puppets are crafted from buffalo hide and mounted on bamboo sticks. When held up behind a piece of white cloth, with an electric bulb or an oil lamp as the light source, shadows are cast on the screen.

Wayang Kulit plays are invariably based on romantic tales, especially adaptations of the classic Indian epics, “The Mahabarata” and “The Ramayana”. Some of the plays are also based on local happenings (current issues) or other local secular stories. It is up to the conductor or “Tok Dalang” to decide his direction.

The Dalang is the genius behind the entire performance. It is he who sits behind the screen and narrates the story. With a traditional orchestra in the background to provide a resonant melody and its conventional rhythm, the Dalang modulates his voice to create suspense thus heightening the drama. Invariably, the play climaxes with the triumph of good over evil.

The modern wayang kulit is actually quite elaborate, but it still sticks to its historical roots. It is still a form of theatre and a platform for story-telling. The electric bulb or oil lamp has been replaced with the technology of rear-projection screens like that used in the Smart Board 3000i. Instead of having a shadow play, we now have Powerpoint slides and Flash animation. Instead of having puppets made of skin, we now have life-sized skin puppets on a string.

However, the Dalang is still the genius behind the entire performance and his job is to sell vapourware hopes and dreams.

A submarine that cannot dive. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Only in Malaysia, does our navy end up buying a submarine that cannot dive. This problem developed due to some broken parts but there is a much deeper issue at hand. If such a new submarine is built with such shoddy workmanship that it is unable to perform its primary function, which is to manoeuvre under-water, one must wonder what other problems it may be hiding.

Maybe, once we try to actually fire something, we will discover that the torpedo bays do not flood, nor do the torpedoes actually work. Maybe if we try to use the periscope, we will find it short-sighted and unable to see anything beyond its bow. This seems to be endemic of a lot of things that we do in Malaysia, which is sort of a wayang kulit that looks and sounds extremely nice but lacks any real substance.

The crowning jewel of our Royal Malaysian Navy and carrying the proud name of our founding father, has trouble diving.

Here’s me guessing that our neighbour’s submarine will be able to dive.

I recently bought a bunch of bluray films, including Speed Racer. I decided to buy that film on bluray because I thought that it would be a perfect show case for high-definition. The film was nothing but colours and special effects. I started watching it and then I got a shock. There was a lot of detail in the film. Not only were the nasal hairs of Royalton rendered clearly, I could even see the bits of boogers stuck to them!

Now, I can understand why the porn industry has been generally staying away from high-definition videos. There is just so much detail in them, more than the normal eye can see. So, someone needs to be really careful and meticulous about their looks in order to look good in them. I can see future make-up artists being sent for special hi-def make-up classes to learn how to cover-up more of their clients’ flaws.

If anyone is curious, the list of blurays that I had recently bought – Moon, District 9, Terminator Salvation, Ironman, 300, Pan’s Labyrinth, Speed Racer, Matrix Trilogy, Wall-E, Final Fantasy Advent Children, District B13/Ultimate and Planet Earth. So, I have now a small collection of bluray films on top of my PS3 games.

I find it interesting that companies have race too in Malaysia. While there is officially a classification of bumiputra contractors by the government, this is the first time that I found out that there are such things as ‘Malay’ contractors. According to TheStar, Penang’s Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng, said that, “of 66 state government projects in the past two years, 44 projects worth RM68mil were given to Malay contractors.”.

I’m not trying to be pedantic here but, I wonder if he used the accurate term for it. If they are actually bumiputra contractors classified by the government, he should just use the appropriate term. I have never heard of a ‘Malay’ contractor. Of course, I could very well be wrong about this since I am not directly involved with such things. I wonder if we will ever get Chinese contractors or Indian contractors too. Actually, I think we do and they are all foreign companies!