FLASHBACK ~ Did I read this in The Star or NST? NOPE!

In view of the recent reappearance of Balasubramaniam Perumal (a private investigator hired by Abdul Razak Baginda to keep Altantuya off his back) and a rash of accusations posted by maverick blogger RPK undermining Bala's credibility - and hinting that he may be more deeply entangled in the sordid murder than he has let on - I'm prompted to repost this excerpt from Asia Sentinel which first appeared on this blog on 23 June 2008...

Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor at a press conference (pic:NST)

An influential Malaysian blogger alleges that Najib’s wife was present when the Mongolian translator was murdered in 2006

Asia Sentinel

One of Malaysia’s most prominent bloggers, in an explosive statutory declaration to a Malaysia court, has alleged that the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak as well as a Malaysian Army officer and the officer’s wife were directly involved in the murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu on October 19, 2006, and that people at the very top of the Malaysian government are aware of the fact.

The declaration, by Raja Petra Kamarudin, who edits the web publication Malaysia Today, has been ignored by Malaysia’s government-linked mainstream media. However, it threatens to finally break open the case. Even if it doesn’t, it adds considerable chaos to the country’s political mix. The Barisan Nasional, the national ruling coalition, is reeling from the loss of its two-thirds majority in March elections.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, taking the brunt of criticism over the loss, has already promised to step down at some future date to cede the premiership to Najib. District elections are due in July in the United Malays National Organisation and there are suspicions that the verdict in the Altantuya murder trial is being delayed until the elections are completed.

Raja Petra wrote that Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, and Acting Colonel Aziz Buyong and his wife, Norhayati, Rosmah’s aide-de-camp, were present at the scene of the murder and that Aziz Buyong was the individual who placed C4 plastic explosive on Altantuya’s body and blew it up. Both Najib and his wife have repeatedly denied any involvement in the case although top society in Kuala Lumpur has been buzzing for months with rumors of their complicity.

Shaariibuu was executed by two shots to the head and her body was blown up with military explosives in a patch of jungle near the suburban city of Shah Alam. One of Najib’s closest friends, Abdul Razak Baginda, once the influential head of a political think-tank, and two of Najib’s bodyguards, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar of the elite Unit Tindak Khas or Special Police Action Unit, have been the subject of a marathon murder trial that got underway more than a year ago.

Neither Najib nor his chief of staff, Musa Safri, has been questioned nor summoned as a witness despite the fact that Baginda in a sworn statement in November 2006 said he had contacted Musa for help in dealing with Altantuya, his jilted lover. That has raised widespread suspicions that the court – prosecution, defense and judiciary – have all been struggling to keep the case under wraps. It has been subject to numerous delays for reasons that are unclear.

Raja Petra himself is due to go on trial in October on sedition charges that were filed against him for writing an article titled “Let’s Send The Altantuya’s Murderers to Hell” and accusing Najib, his wife and others of complicity in the murder. He amplified the statement considerably in his statutory declaration, made last Wednesday, in which he also said that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had been handed a full report by military intelligence on the involvement of his deputy premier’s family. Badawi gave the intelligence report to his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, for safekeeping, according to Raja Petra’s statement.

Raja Petra, a member of the Selangor royal family, also wrote that one of the country’s sultans had been given a full report on the matter. He didn’t identify the sultan, but that raises additional implications, presumably that there is at least one member of royalty who can back up his declaration, which was made under oath, if he is subjected to additional charges over the matter.

From the time Altantuya’s body was discovered, there has been widespread suspicion that not only figures at the top of the government were involved but that the 28-year-old translator and mother of two may have been involved in a much bigger controversy than a jilted relationship. She made several trips to Kuala Lumpur to attempt to confront Baginda, at one point standing in front of his house and screaming “Razak, bastard, come out.” The last time she was seen alive was again in front of his house, when she was bundled into a car and taken away.

She accompanied Baginda to France when he was involved in negotiating the purchase of two Scorpene submarines and a used Agosta submarine produced by the French government through a French-Spanish joint venture, Armaris, for the Malaysian defense ministry, which was headed by Najib. The submarines were bought through a Kuala Lumpur-based company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd, which at the time was owned by yet another company called Ombak Laut, which was wholly owned by Abdul Razak Baginda.

The €1 billion (RM4.5 billion) contract to buy the submarines was non-competitive and netted Perimekar €114 million. Although Najib has sworn an oath to Allah that he had never met the woman, he was in France at the same time one of his best friends was there, dealing with matters over the submarine. A cousin of Altantuya's testified at the trial that she had seen a picture of Najib together with the dead woman, but she was quickly hushed up by both defense and prosecution lawyers about the matter.

Altantuya, by her own admission in a letter discovered after her death, wrote that she had been blackmailing Abdul Razak, presumably to keep his family from finding out about their relationship. But in his cautioned statement to the police, Baginda said he had already informed his family of the relationship and said she was pressuring him for US$500,000. Her father, Setev Shaariibuu, a psychology professor in Ulan Bataar, has said she was killed because she "knew too much," although he has never elaborated on that statement.

Given the close relationship between the two men, and that Najib was reported as presenting jackets made available by Perimekar to the submarine crews training in France, and that Altantuya was along with Baginda, it is difficult to believe they had not met.

It is also difficult to believe, given the wealth of published reports, plus the fact that Azilah Hadri, and Sirul Azhar Umar, were members of Najib's own bodyguard unit, that neither has been questioned about how the bodyguards came to be involved in allegations of Altantuya's murder.

READ THE REST HERE.

NEWSFLASH! THIS APPEARED IN THE STAR 23 JUNE 2008...

KUALA LUMPUR: Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) has submitted a notice calling for an emergency motion to discuss allegations by online news portal Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamaruddin over the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case.

In his notice, Lim said the credibility and legitimacy of the Government would suffer a mortal blow if the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and those named in the allegations remained silent on the matter.

Copies of the notice were distributed to reporters in the Parliament Lobby.

Lim repeated the statutory declaration by Raja Petra who claimed that he was reliably informed that three people were present at the scene when Altantuya's body was blown up.

"He (Raja Petra) said these three people have thus far not been implicated in the murder nor called as witnesses by the prosecution in the ongoing trial at the Shah Alam High Court.

"He was aware that it is a crime not to reveal evidence that may help the police in its investigation of the crime,” Lim said.

- The Star

Where on earth is Saiful Bukhari Azlan (Malaysia's infamous anus)?

Actually, I don't have a clue. 

And, frankly, I don't give a fuck.

This photo of Saiful Bukhari Azlan on pilgrimage to the Ka'aba is undated.

Let's hope the same applies to Saiful.

What a twisted little Saicopath!

Rafizi Ramli ~ A shining star in the fast-changing firmament of Malaysian politics

I don't particularly like attending weddings and funerals, even though I appreciate that these are significant rites of passage for most humans. All non-human life-forms generally mate and expire without undue ceremony - and I prefer to align myself with non-human life-forms, simply because I don't detect too much hypocrisy and pretense among them.

Some wedding invitations I cannot refuse, for various reasons - and there are times when one is compelled to formally send off a beloved friend or relative on his or her further adventures. Well, one of the rare weddings I did attend last October was when my dear friend Fi-Sha married Rafizi Ramli.

I had met Fi-Sha during the Hulu Selangor by-election in April 2010 when she came to KKB to observe the proceedings. It was an instant soul connection between us. I found her beautiful and honest beyond words and completely uncontaminated in essence. We chatted often via email, SMS and facebook, and enjoyed a long chat over tea after an evening at the theatre. Her openness, empathy and vulnerability were not only endearing but made me feel very protective towards her. So when she announced that she was engaged, I felt compelled to run a check on her future mate.

PKR director of strategy Rafizi Ramli

One look at Rafizi Ramli's face was all it took to convince me that theirs was destined to be a very auspicious union - one that would ultimately influence the future of Malaysia in a truly positive way. My instincts were confirmed when I finally met Rafizi Ramli on his wedding day and congratulated him on his exquisite taste in women. I also met members of both families and found them perfectly charming and befriendable - the sort of authentic, uncorrupted Malaysians with core values intact who would do their country proud simply by being themselves.

Fi-Sha and Fizi (as she calls him) looked absolutely resplendent at the wedding reception - a very homely and modest affair attended by close friends and family. I whispered to Fi-Sha: "Now you're in for it. One of these days your hubby will be a key figure in the new government, and you'll have your work cut out keeping him grounded, sane and on track."

Disgraced Wanita Umno Chief
Shahrizat Abdul Jalil

It didn't take long for Rafizi Ramli to hit the headlines. His spectacular exposé of the grotesque and almost comical RM250 million National Feedlot Corporation fiasco involving Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil and her immediate family gripped the attention of the entire country - and Rafizi's calm and lucid revelations presented over a series of well-attended media conferences lent his shocking accusations irrefutable credibility.

Malaysians have almost become unshockable when it comes to political scandals. What gave an incisive edge to Rafizi's investigation into the NFC scam was the thoroughness and detail of his probe. Of course, a whistleblower or two was involved - otherwise it would have been well-nigh impossible to produce incontrovertible documentary evidence of such shameless financial wrongdoing.

In the following weeks and months it appeared that Rafizi Ramli was on a roll and rapidly warming to his new-found role as Umno's can (of worms) opener. Even as BN was forced to make a big show of arresting and charging Shahrizat's husband Mohamad Salleh Ismail with multiple counts of CBT and misappropriation of funds, Rafizi launched a full-frontal assault on the biggest target of all - crime minister Najib Razak himself who, doubling as finance minister, was shown to have personally manipulated the outcome of an "open tender" exercise in favor of a golfing crony's bid.

Needless to say, BN's knee-jerk reaction was to order Rafizi Ramli arrested on a spurious charge of breaking some banking secrecy law. This is akin to arresting a kid for unlawfully peeping through a keyhole (and infringing on some minister's privacy) when he reports a brutal murder in the bedroom. In this instance, a murder was committed, for sure - the cold-blooded murder of the public's confidence in the BN regime.

Umno crime minister & finance minister(!)
Najib Abdul Razak

By heavy-handedly tampering with routine administrative procedures to ensure that public projects are competently, effiiciently, cost-effectively and - most importantly, safely - implemented, Najib Razak and his cohorts in crime are not only committing massive fraud, they are also endangering the lives of commuters by allowing a dishonest and inexperienced operator to engineer and construct a railway extension at grotesquely inflated cost.

Almost overnight, Rafizi Ramli has joined the ranks of the most electable young candidates in Malaysian politics. My heartiest congratulations and thanks, Fizi!

Once more with feeling... ABU!

Goodbye, Gore! What a colorful, intense, brilliant and vibrant life yours was...

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (3 October 1925 – 31 July 2012) was a liberal American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. He also ran for political office twice and was a longtime political critic. [Source: Wikipedia]

"We are all bisexual to begin with. That is a fact of our condition. And we are all responsive to sexual stimuli from our own as well as from the opposite sex. Certain societies at certain times, usually in the interest of maintaining the baby supply, have discouraged homosexuality. Other societies, particularly militaristic ones, have exalted it. But regardless of tribal taboos, homosexuality is a constant fact of the human condition and it is not a sickness, not a sin, not a crime... despite the best efforts of our puritan tribe to make it all three. Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality. Notice I use the word 'natural,' not normal." ~ Gore Vidal

A SUDDEN OUTBURST ~ short poem by Antares

A sudden outburst of outrage

Brought on by gasps of indignation

Cataracts of complaints

Cascading down adrenal gutters -

Innocent bystanders are in for a soaking!

There must be better things to talk about

Than private outcry against public obscenity.

There must be better ways to get it off

Than to do it up in everybody's face.

Mr God didn't expect to stay for the speeches;

He thought it was going to be all fun & games.

On top of that the chocolate chip cookies

Were stolen by crooks from the casino.

More music is what the government should listen to.

And it's never just a question of taste:

Music is everything that makes sense and rhythm

Out of the contrapuntal harmony of Chaos.

By this time most humans have realized,

Being sapient has nothing to do with homogeneity.

In fact the truth has been cleverly disguised

In strange forms of fiction authored by deity.

Next you'll be asking for a bibliography

Of every book you feel you ought to lay your hands on;

The trick is not to fondle the folios

But to caress the ideas within with your soul naked.

You're probably wondering where the thread runs

That connects the first verse with the last.

Who said anything about last or first?

And what do you mean by verse?

[Written in 1975, first published in Moth Balls, Magick River 1994]

Do you still want your kid to study accountancy and become a big banker?

[Brought to my attention by Olivia de Haulleville]

Megaprojects like Bakun Dam are doomed to abysmal failure in Malaysia...

Malaysian Robber Barons Mahathir Mohamad & Taib Mahmud (Azlan Zamhari/Malaysiakini)

Umno mafia boss & ex-finance minister
Daim Zainuddin

More than 8 years have elapsed since the following information came into my hands, but very little has changed in Malaysia.

Robber barons continue to misrule and ruin the landscape with their grandiose multibillion-ringgit megaprojects (mostly unnecessary, extravagant and purely decorative) - impoverishing humble folk, exposing them to unknown hazards, and leaving them landless and desperate.

Bakun Dam - the ultimate monument to hubris, megalomania and terminal myopia - was first approved by the Malaysian government in 1986. It was shelved in 1990 after the recession of 1985 led to a drastic decrease in electricity demand.

Prime minister Mahathir Mohamad decided to revive the Bakun Dam project in September 1993; and in January 1994, a privatized contract was awarded to Ekran Berhad - a construction company owned by Sarawak timber tycoon Ting Pek Khiing, whose main expertise was fast-tracking resort hotels.

Sarawak timber tycoon
Ting Pek Khiing

The Bakun Dam swiftly turned into a financial nightmare - except for Ting Pek Khiing who received RM1.1 billion compensation on top of free access to all the precious timber found within 10 square kilometers of the site. It was a colossal white elephant that should never have been attempted - because it was patently unnecessary and massively destructive of the primordial rainforest and its diverse flora and fauna - including indigenous human tribes who have inhabited the region for countless generations.

Alas, all robber barons are driven by their inflamed egos that tend to see serious obstacles as mere challenges. They also have a nasty habit of being obnoxiously arrogant and insatiably greedy.

The accursed Bakun Dam (image courtesy of Sarawak Report)

I received a copy of the following email on 14 April 2004 from Susanne Wong of International Rivers, a global NGO dedicated to saving free-flowing river systems from being dammed in the spurious name of "development":

From: Susanne Wong
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Subject: Leaked information on Bakun


We recently received emails from a former cost controller for Bakun who quit because of frustration over construction delays and cost overruns. He leaked the attached documents to us which contain information on costs and the plan to get the project back on schedule.


Obviously this information and the contact's identity must be treated very sensitively. We're not sure what we can do with this information and thought you could best use it in Malaysia for some media exposes of the project or whatever you see fit. I've included the email exchange between us below.


Hope you can use this. This disastrous project just seems to be getting worse.


Best wishes,
Susanne

On top of massive environmental and social ruin, shoddy construction and low-grade cement (Sarawak Report)

From: "Whistle Blower"
To: Susanne Wong
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004
Subject: Re: BAKUN HYDROELECTRIC


     Ms. Susanne,
It's my pleasure to assist you. The construction is behind schedule due to the inexperience of the contractor (Sime Engineering) who has undertaken this project. For your information, Sime Engineering does not have the capacity and expertise to handle big civil projects. They have only done several oil and gas projects such as building and fabricating oil rigs. The 'screw up' is mainly due to late approval of the design and delays in awarding the sub-contractor package. 
     The cost overruns incurred are mainly due to the lack of proper ground surveys. For the entire 10 square km area, only l8 boreholes were done. The contractors made their first mistake by excavating the wrong area. They excavated approximately 600,000 cubic meters of overburden and still could not find enough rock for the dam fill. After the extra survey was done, they found out that they would need to excavate approximately 2,000,000 cubic meters to find rock. Sime Engineering is unable to decide if they should continue excavating that area or start all over again elsewhere. The cost overrun to date is already around USD52 million.
     The project is one year behind schedule now. The 6-month recovery plan has yet to be approved by the Ministry of Finance. Original cost estimates only focused on construction but did not include design, procurement, and so on. Many details are still kept secret by the ministry.
     Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd (SHSB) are facing financial problems. They have voiced their intention to issue a bond for this project but the 2nd Minister of Finance (Nor Mohamed Yakcop) said there is no hurry to issue bonds for Bakun. I bet you know the reason why.
     Actually, this project is not bankable, since the return of investment takes a long period and there is an oversupply of power (especially after the Aluminium Smelting Project by GIIG was shelved).
     Lastly, think about passing the information to your Malaysian counterparts, e.g., Sahabat Alam Malaysia and Suaram. I think we have to play it smart. In Malaysia we have an act called the Official Secrets Act (OSA). Since this information can be regarded as government secrets, I trust you will handle it professionally. This is not the US, where people can speak freely.
     Regarding the photos, I will have them burned on a CD and mailed to you if you provide me the address.

Aerial view of Bakun Dam

From: Susanne Wong
Date: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 
Subject: Re: BAKUN HYDROELECTRIC


Dear Mr. Whistle Blower,


Thank you for sending the recovery plan and spreadsheet. It is extremely useful information.


Can you provide more information on the financial problems with SHSB? I would like to send the information to my colleagues in Malaysia but wanted to check with you first to make sure this is okay. I'm sure our colleagues at Sahabat Alam Malaysia and Suaram would be very interested in using these documents to expose the problems with Bakun. Would it be acceptable if I forward them this information and put them in direct contact with you? If you prefer, IRN can act as an intermediary and pass the information on to our friends in Malaysia and we can keep your name confidential. Please advise.


Regards,
Susanne

At 01:11 AM 4/9/2004, you wrote:


Ms. Susanne Wong,

Herewith something for you to read, it is the Recovery Plan for Bakun Hydroelectric. It was drafted last November, 2003. Until today it has yet to be approved by the Ministry of Finance.

Bakun Dam ‘Unsafe’ ~ Exclusive Evidence on Corner-Cutting and Sloppy Construction Practices

David Wilcock on Financial Tyranny & The Biggest Scandal in History

The Department of Justice - home of the US Marshals - has now blown the lid off of the biggest financial scandal in human history... after a highly covert three-year investigation. The LIBOR scandal has started the Great Revealing of Financial Tyranny. Mass arrests must begin with mass charges, and mass court cases - and that has now arrived. Disclosure of many great hidden truths will follow...

THE TIME HAS COME
By David Wilcock

Every person on Earth is increasingly aware that our world is ruled by corrupt forces - to an almost Biblical degree. The astonishing events that have unfolded since June 27, 2012 have made that much more obvious - even for those who have been in the greatest denial. This process has been fascinating to watch - not to mention remarkably rewarding.

After many years of hard work to expose the truth, we are finally seeing results - on a worldwide level. The knowledge will spread much, much more with each passing day. Critical information was leaked to us from highly classified insider sources, working for the good of humanity. Current events have proven that their plan is still very much in effect.

THE FINANCIAL TYRANNY SERIES: A FULL BOOK-LENGTH INVESTIGATION

Every word of this investigation has been released for free. The bulk of our original findings are in the Financial Tyranny series. The first and largest portion of our extensive investigation was released on Friday, January 13th, 2012. The remaining elements took almost another month to finish, and were published on Thursday, February 9th. You can begin by reading Sections One through Seven of Financial Tyranny here. Then go here to complete Sections Eight through Ten.

This truth is admittedly painful to accept. You will probably have to go through a grief process once you understand the full scope of what is going on. Nonetheless, it is absolutely essential for everyone, as a planet, to end the denial and face the truth of our world - as it actually exists today.

THE MEDIA IS ALSO IMPLICATED

The Great Revealing has not yet become the one thing everyone is talking about. The arrests and resignations have only just begun - and the mainstream Western media is equally as culpable as those controlling the financial system. After all, it's the same people.

This is one of many popular notions that are proven in Financial Tyranny. It is no longer a "conspiracy theory." Vast psyops have been used - including tens of thousands of professional online hit-men, paid to look like normal people sharing their opinion. Shame has been a very powerful weapon to stop people from learning the truth. No one wants to be "crazy" or hated for their beliefs.

You are about to see a variety of article links where the writers express surprise that the American media isn't covering this story yet. As you are well aware, this has nothing to do with the press being "shy." They are simply staring into the face of their own destruction.

THE COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION - WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

On June 27, 2012, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, filed a surprise legal order against Barclays Bank - in a move that has shocked the world. A wealth of emails were presented, giving irrefutable evidence that Barclays was manipulating their own credit score - to generate almost unthinkably vast profits.

Here is the link where you can download the legal order yourself - and a photograph of the top page of this historic document.

This may not seem like a big deal at first - but in order for Barclays to have rigged their own credit score, they had to be conspiring with all the other biggest banks in the world. These are the banks they are supposedly in competition with.

This story has taken off with unprecedented, explosive force in the UK - but is almost non-existent in the US, except on Huffington Post and alternative news sites.

This legal action required extraordinary secrecy to perform. Had the Cabal gotten wind of it, they would have killed everyone involved.

ALL THE BIGGEST BANKS ARE IN BED TOGETHER

Indeed, the world just found out that all the biggest banks are in bed together. They are all implicated in a vast conspiracy to lie to the public, and create artificial investor confidence that benefits no one but themselves.

Mass criminal charges are already being prepared - by labor unions, local banks, local governments, state governments and federal governments - as a result of this move by the Department of Justice.

All the evidence is now freely available, as we will see - and the story is nearly moving faster than we can keep up with at this point, with new developments on a day-by-day basis.

SOME PEOPLE PROMOTE A GENOCIDAL BELIEF SYSTEM

Some people are so war-weary that they refuse to believe anyone in government, military, finance, intelligence or the judiciary could be a trustworthy human being - or want to do the right thing. As I have said before, this is ultimately a genocidal belief system that seeks to paint the world in black and white, reinforce victim consciousness, and create an "us" versus "them."

The reality is that humans are complex creatures. No one is "all good" or "all bad." Each person is quite capable of thinking for themselves - regardless of where they work. Plenty of people now realize that the goals and aspirations of this cabal could literally destroy our entire planet. We cannot simply stand back and watch it happen. Actions must be taken.

THE NUMBER OF "GOOD GUYS" IS NOW AS HIGH AS 75 PERCENT

Between 70 to 75 percent of the United States military community is now aligned against the cabal as of this past week. This is according to top Pentagon sources I am in contact with, by one degree of separation - as a result of years of building up insider contacts as a public investigator.

Critical steps have been taken to remove powerful opposing forces that were loyal to the cabal - who would have sabotaged this planetary healing process. Many brave men and women have put their lives on the line to uphold their Oath of Enlistment - and defend our freedom. They deserve our respect and support.

There is nothing more dangerous on Earth than to take on the ruling cabal. This also makes it a uniquely powerful act of valor. As a result of these heroic efforts - including criminal investigations - we are now seeing a Point of No Return for the global bankers.

If you don't grasp that yet, the wealth of excerpts you are about to read may well change your mind.

THEY HAVE BEEN WEAKER THAN WE REALIZED ALL ALONG

In truth, these financial institutions have been much weaker than they led us to believe for years now - since at least 2007. They have played around with their own credit reports to convince everyone that they are still a worthwhile investment. If they had told us the truth about how much trouble they were in, they would probably have already been exposed and defeated.

A vast international alliance has been financially choking off the Cabal for years now - knowing that their collapse is inevitable. They are still too powerful to be exposed until a collapse becomes visible to all. Their fraud is so vast that it encompasses every single type of financial investment there is - stocks, bonds, commodities, currency, mutual funds, derivatives, mortgages, loans, you name it.

All the money there is in the world - either real money or fake numbers in a computer - has been manipulated to create the largest financial fraud in recorded history... so far. Many experts now estimate the amount of investments that are affected could be as much as 800 trillion dollars.


[Source: Divine Cosmos]

Juan Enriquez on Homo evolutis ~ can we trust the evolutionary process?

Plenty of food for thought in this inspired TED talk by Juan Enriquez, chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy. Humanity has no choice but to attain spiritual maturity pretty damn quickly - or the biotech at our disposal could turn us into an entirely hideous and utterly destructive species.

[Brought to my attention by Christy Tice]

In loving memory of the laminated sign on the Bamboo Palace loo...

INSTRUCTIONS

ON THE USE OF THE

“MALAYSIA BOLEH”

OR ZEN TOILET

There is a special technique for

getting optimum performance

from this 100% plastic, BN-approved cistern:

GENTLENESS & FOCUSED AWARENESS!

Try a firm, confident, resolute,

conscious but very gentle push…

then quickly release the lever

and wait till the water stops

flowing into the bowl.

An indecisive lever action

will keep the water running into

the bowl incessantly.

(Our water bill once totalled RM111

before the problem was identified)

TURN OFF THE SUPPLY TAP

AT THE METER BESIDE THE MAIN HOUSE 

IF WATER DOESN’T STOP FLOWING.

TURN ON AGAIN AFTER 10 MINUTES.

HAVE A BLESSED PEE & AN INSPIRED POO

(AND NEVER AGAIN VOTE BN!)

How the Moon Tricked the Sun and Won the Night ~ A Temuan Tale Retold

THE SUN AND THE MOON were colleagues and rivals in heaven. The Sun was excitable, showy and hotheaded while the Moon was cool and calm and fairly compassionate. They both had lots of children who cluttered the sky with a great clamor.
     
The Moon noticed that the Sun’s offspring were fiery and hotheaded like their father. They caused the Earth to be so hot and troubled that no crops would grow, and Manusia (humanity) was in serious danger of starvation. The Moon went into meditation and devised an ingenious plan: She hid all her children on her dark side and began to bulge visibly. The Sun came along and was amazed.
    
 “Hey, where’s your brood?” the Sun asked. “And how come you’re all alone?”
   
The Moon burped and answered with a broad grin: “I ate them and they were absolutely delicious!”
     
The Sun, not to be outdone, immediately followed suit and devoured his children, every last one of them, until he too shone alone in the sky. Whereupon the Moon laughed and brought her little ones out from hiding and sent them out to play all over the night sky, where they turned into Stars. 

The Sun was furious but it was too late. He was all alone now and incapable of burning up the Earth with his hot temper.

And every Night, the Earth would cool down enough for crops to grow and Manusia flourished from then on, thanks to the Moon’s cleverness and kindness.

[From Tanah Tujuh ~ Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos, Silverfishbooks 2007]

DINOSAUR DYNASTIES & THE DINOSAUR TECHNOLOGIES THEY FOIST ON US (3rd time I'm posting this, that's how impenetrable their reptilian hides & skulls are!)

I read this letter in Malaysiakini from "Malaysian with Children" with profound disgust and outrage at the way Barisan Nasional is leading the nation straight to hell with their myopic, greed-driven, environmentally and morally ruinous schemes...

MALAYSIA GOING NUCLEAR FRAUGHT WITH DANGER
Malaysian with Children
Aug 24, 2009 3:31pm

The sun has been the main energy source for all life on the planet for billions of years. In Malaysia, we are blessed with a bounty of sunlight.

Yet, our Malaysian government is pushing for nuclear energy as though it is the best and only option for Malaysia's future energy needs.

The government seems to be brushing aside the dangers relating to nuclear power plants, as if they  were issues that didn't exist or could easily be remedied in the near future.

Developed countries are having serious difficulties with their own nuclear programmes. In the US, there are problems disposing of nuclear reactor waste.

In Finland, construction of nuclear power plants have been delayed and gone way over cost due to shoddy work on the concrete foundations.

What more of the situation in Malaysia, where we tend to have even less oversight in commercial dealings? Where is the safety or economic sense in all that?

From what I have seen, there is no detailed information available to the public on Malaysia's nuclear plans. Where will the reactor be located - maybe in Ipoh, or maybe Putrajaya?

What type of reactor will it be? Who will we buy the uranium to run the reactor from? How much will it all cost and who is paying for it?

If those weren't enough questions, what about the waste generated from our nuclear power plant - where and how Malaysia will be dealing with its own nuclear reactor waste - waste that remains highly radioactive for thousands of years?

Will we dump it in deep geological recesses off our coasts? Will we bury it in the jungles of Sarawak, Sabah or Pahang? Will we be reprocessing it in factories in Miri or in Kota Baru?

The world got into the mess of climate change and global warming because we went the quick, easy and convenient way.

We did not look at the long-term consequences of burning fossil fuels, perhaps because in the beginning, we didn't really know the consequences.

Our oceans and rivers are now choking on plastic pollution, because we needed cheap and lightweight material for packaging.

But we do know, right now, that nuclear energy will produce highly radioactive waste, even if it is in small amounts, every day a nuclear plant is open.

We do know, right now, that this highly radioactive waste must be disposed of somewhere on our finite planet. We do know, right now, that we have no technology to make this waste safe.

And as more countries build nuclear power plants, more of this waste is dumped into our Earth, the planet that sustains our lives.

It is unforgivable that we, as governments and responsible adults, knowingly create such dangerous waste without a concern for tomorrow.

We are already leaving our children with our legacy of global warming, and choking pollution.

And now we wish to leave this massive mess of nuclear waste and closed reactor sites to our grandchildren, leaving them with the burden of trying to figure out how to solve the problem that we ourselves have no idea how to solve.

I know I'm afraid, very afraid.


Here's an eminently sensible letter in response...

SOLAR ENERGY A BETTER ALTERNATIVE

Hai Hiung
Aug 26, 2009 4:03pm

I'm writing in regards to the following letter: "Malaysia going nuclear fraught with danger." I agree with the author, Malaysian with Children.

For reasons unbeknownst to most of us ordinary folk, TNB is pushing hard for the use of nuclear energy for generating electricity. The studies they used to justify going nuclear is biased.

First, they used South Korea as their case in point. South Korea is nothing like Malaysia in terms of the availability of solar energy.

In a year, South Korea would probably enjoy less than six months of effective sunlight for solar energy generation, compared to Malaysia's year-round sunshine.

Secondly, the cost cited by nuclear experts is inaccurate at best. In my opinion, TNB has been ill-advised on the cost of security.

The cost of guarding the nuclear plant itself could easily outweigh the cost of operation and the cost of nuclear waste disposal.

Even though Malaysia is relatively safe from terror attacks, there is no guarantee that terrorists would not target Malaysia in the future.

Having a nuclear plant sitting on Malaysian soil makes us that much more vulnerable to terrorism.

Third, the justification that by the time the plant is opened, we should have proper maintainance procedures in place.

We still don't have a good track record where that is concerned if you see how TNB and our public trains are concerned.

Fourth, First Solar recently opened a RM2bil plant in Kulim. So, we actually have a solar panel manufacturer here on our shore.

Yet, it never occurred to TNB to approach First Solar to setup a solar power plant.

If France, a Mediterranean country, finds using solar energy good enough to be part of its energy-generation needs, then we must ask TNB - why can't Malaysia do the same?

MY COMMENT: Ask TNB? Ha ha ha. The world is plagued with dinosaur technologies because it is secretly run by dinosaur dynasties. Whether the family name happens to be Rameses, Thutmose, Amunhotep, Ming, Han, Sung, Borgia, Medici, Hapsburg, Plantagenet, Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, Bush, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Windsor, Razak, Taib or Mahathir... we're dealing with powerful bloodlines that absolutely believe they are entitled to ownership and exploitation of the Earth and all her inhabitants.

These are the so-called Master Bloodlines that have utterly misunderstood the meaning of Mastery. They measure the power of a Master by the number of Slaves at his command. Little do they realize that a TRUE MASTER is master only of his own destiny and the way he responds to his environment.

Because they are so reliant on other people's weakness for their own sense of power, they are terrified of technologies that liberate rather than enslave. That's why they are invariably drawn to colossal and expensive methods - especially capital-intensive schemes that can further enslave the human race and ensure that traditional power hierarchies are perpetuated ad infinitum.

The Serbian supergenius, Nikola Tesla, produced a host of breakthrough inventions that might have freed humanity from drudgery and enslavement and enabled real wealth to spread throughout the social spectrum. Of course, he was thwarted at every turn by avaricious and cynical capitalist elites who understood and cared for nothing but profits, profits, and always fatter profits.

We have to stop these desperate dinosaur bloodlines from foisting their destructive technologies on an ignorant and unsuspecting population. Educate yourself now... before it's too late!

[Originally published in this blog on 27 August 2009]

Nuke plant jolts environmentalists

So you're having your first nuclear power plant...

"HAIR" REVISITED (featuring songs from the 1979 movie by Milos Forman)

Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement.

The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy. The musical broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of "rock musical", using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a "Be-In" finale.

Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the "Age of Aquarius" living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to succumb to the pressures of his parents (and conservative America) to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifistic principles and risking his life.

After an Off-Broadway debut in October 1967 at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and a subsequent run in a midtown discothèque space, the show opened on Broadway in April 1968 and ran for 1,750 performances. Simultaneous productions in cities across the United States and Europe followed shortly thereafter, including a successful London production that ran for 1,997 performances. Since then, numerous productions have been staged around the world, spawning dozens of recordings of the musical, including the 3 million-selling original Broadway cast recording.

Some of the songs from its score became Top 10 hits, and a feature film adaptation [directed by Miloš Forman] was released in 1979. A Broadway revival opened on March 31, 2009, earning strong reviews and winning the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for best revival of a musical. In 2008, Time magazine wrote, "Today Hair seems, if anything, more daring than ever."

[Source: Wikipedia]