Profile: The `Stupid, stupid, stupid!’ Minister
by Martin Jalleh

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s (PM’s) Department, Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, is living proof that it does not require much intelligence to be a Minister in Bolehland. Before one can be a Cabinet Minister one has to be a Member of Parliament (MP) of a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN) – and this too is peanuts (nothing to do with monkeys, surely). One only needs to be spineless, silly, sexist and of course `stupid’.

is NCER going to become the in word nowadays? especially in the north of course. well, NCER stands for ‘northern corridor economic region’ -  a government initiative to speed up economic growth and elevate income levels in perlis, kedah, penang and northern perak.

i hardly blog on the economy at all as it is not my cup of tea. as you know, mostly i blog on the socio political matters, the government and especially to bash UMNO! haha. since NCER involve penang, my beloved hometown (despite all the criticisms people hurl at it), i just thought i will blog a little on the NCER.

UPDATED:
from bob’s comments here, i find out ‘goblok’ means ‘bodoh’ (stupid) in indonesia (slang). well bernama news yesterday did not mentioned it. today’s star did mentioned it. (i mean mentioned that it is an indonesian slang for ‘bodoh’.

notice that at wikepedia’s definition, the last part it state something like this word is usually uttered by someone who can’t control his emotion. haha! that is certainly the zam zam guy!

well, so my original post 2nd line instead of  "… had coined a new word to describe socio political bloggers.", i would have to put it this way then "…had used a new word to describe socio poliitcal bloggers." (and remember the son-in-law use the common word ‘monkey’. *sigh* what else coming, i wonder.

whoa!! have you noticed in one week, 4 warnings (maybe there are more that i not aware of) from our dear ministers (and one son in law - well ALL umnoputra).

24 july - nazri, minister in the PM dept.
govt warns of tough action against bloggers who disparage

27 july - muhyiddin yassin, UMNO vice president
bloggers warned of price to be pay

28 july - khairy, UMNO youth deputy
bloggers who slander must be brought to court - KJ, UMNO deputy

29 july - badawi, the prime minister!
watch your blog, warns PM

wel, well, as malaysiakini summed up, it’s a fresh round of government attack on bloggers
AFP news too highlighted about it.

and of course we have many bloggers talking about it to.(maybe will highlight some later)

i would like to highlight on what the SIL, KJ boy said.

"There are no laws in the cyberworld except for the law of the jungle. As such, action must be taken so that the "monkeys" behave,"

law of the jungle in cyberworld?

uh oh… so now we bloggers are monkeys!

well, i’d rather be a monkey than a UMNOputra!!

here you go! and it’s life-sized!

this statue, among many others, big and small, and also plaques, was found at the church of st anne when i was there for its annual st anne’s feast day celebration on 26 july, thursday.

yes, i was at the st anne’s church for the annual feast of st anne’s celebration. this year the celebration started on 20 july (and it will and this sunday, 29 july).

received this from nat on thursday, blog it on friday… or though i did but…

oh gosh, i thought i had posted this yesterday. strange. i know i did but i was puzzled to see it not appearing. maybe when i click on publish screamyx decided to act up. dunno lah. anyway, as this is kind of late already, not going to post the whole thing anymore (like what i did yesterday… or thought i did!) but just mention the important details, i.e. date and venue. for the whole detailed post, go to nathaniel tan’s blog to read.

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Forum:  Facing & Surviving the Internet Clampdown: Our Liabilities, Rights and Responsibilities

Venue:       Kuala Lumpur & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall

Date/time:  Saturday, 28th July 2007 / 3.00pm

Tea will be served!

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one of the speakers there is activist arutchelvan, who will speak on what the police can and cannot do to people under custody.

i remember arutchelvan at a ‘know your rights’ workshop organised by suaram penang in may last year. (think arutchelvan is a member… or hold office?… of suaram KL). he was also talking about police - what are our rights if a police stop us, and also when in custody. it  was an interesting and informative talk indeed. he can talk well. he even had some short role play (with audience participation) in his talk to illustrate some points.

you can read about me blogging on it here (hope the permalink works - been having problems with permalinks and archives!). if it doesn’t go straight to mentaljog extra to read about your rights when a police stop you…. it was taken from sun2surf but it was exactly same as what arutchelvan spoke on at the workshop.

as i am still besieged with problems of commenting and spam, my head is in a muddled, can’t think straight to post so will just CnP this old news from bernama with my short comments in italic.

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Govt Warns Of Tough Action Against Bloggers Who Disparage
July 24, 2007 22:00 PM

KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 (Bernama) — The government today warned of tough action against web bloggers who write on sensitive issues which include insulting the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and Islam.

what about insulting christianity, buddhism, hindusism?

any of you have problems commenting these days? uh oh if you have, you can’t tell me via comments here. well then, do you mind contacting me via the feedback form here? let me know if you have problems and what problems.

you see, i think the problem started when i try to use various spam er… what you call… spam fighter plugin. i used to receive lots of spams that went to my moderation box, and these spams comments were posted in all over the various posts, some to my posts as far back as a year or 2 years!! one day i will receive about 10 or so… once even received about 50 in a day!! all along i have been using akismet. so i was beginning to wonder i still receiving so many spams, is akismet working any good.

i was recommended 2 other spam plugin. first i used the ‘did you pass maths’ plugin where you have to add a simple sum as the security code for comments to go through. then i realise this is not so noticeable so i used the ‘anti spam image‘ spam plugin, where you’ll have to type some words or letters and these are in colours so it’ll be more noticeable.

however the main problem with both of these is that once you forgotten to enter the security code and asked to click on back button on your browser to go back to comments, you will lose all your typed comments! this is no good esp. for people who type some long comments.

so i think now i’m going to disable security code all together and use a better (as a friend recommended) spam plugin - spam karma. hopefully this will solve my problems of no spams coming in and thus i don’t have to let commenter enter some security codes ("mai fun" lah, likedat!).

anyway i’m only starting to use spam karma so i’m afraid that there might be some teething problems here and there. if you don’t see your comments going through, don’t fret ah, it is somewhere around… i’ll release it (unless it is spam!).  spam karma is said to be powerful but sometimes too powerful will scare a non IT savvy person like me! like maybe i don’t know how to do the configuration or what… like some legitimate comments might be consider spam too! anywhere i’m keeping my fingers crossed this won’t happen.

oh yeah i hope some of you if you had ‘eat full nothing to do’ (that is extremely NOT going to bother you) can help me out with feedback… try commenting and let me know what happens. arigato!!

MT - that is malaysia today, the popular website and blog by raja petra kamaruddin, or more commonly known as RPK (picture left, taken from malaysiakini).

the star carried only a short news about it, while malaysiakini (or at mentaljog extra) had more news.

the report was filed by UMNO information chief muhammad muhammad taib.

According to him, comments posted on the blogsite also incited hate between the various races and could affect unity and national security.

"incited hate between the various races…" now ain’t that familiar or what. who was it who waved a keris about inciting hate? who was it who declared malaysia is an islamic state?

“The reports contain criminal elements which could incite anyone and cause fear. Maybe these people (bloggers) had forgotten that Malaysia is a country with many sensitivities,” he said.

look who’s speaking! sensitivities, my foot! sensitivities to them is always one way street.  susan loone too was pretty irked by this sensitivity reason and asked:

What does Umno know about sensitivities? The abuse of NEP is not sensitive to others? Threatening to bathe the keris in Chinese blood is not sensitive to others? Waving the keris and uttering threats is not sensitive? Tearing down of Hindu temples is not sensitive? In my view, these seem to be more disrespectful to the King and Islam than mere articles and comments. If the non-Umno’s were not as tolerant, what Umno did and continues to do can create unrest.

It’s amazing that Umno can still talk about “sensitivities”. Bullshit, really. Don’t their actions influence the younger generation too? Especially when some of them are shown on national TV!

i don’t like the part where this man with two muhammad in his name said that
such postings and articles of RPK could have a negative influence on the younger generation and urged for the police to take swift action.

as i commented in susan’s post:

what do they mean by “the articles could have a negative effect on the younger generation.”. how do they know? who are they to be guardian of the younger generation? who are they to say what is good/bad for the public? they always sing this same song, like when they ban movies and books - singing they are not appropriate for the public to watch/read as they might get influenced blah blah blah. so fedup oledi!!!

further reading:
jeff ooi and lim kit siang

i actually don’t want to blog about this but then i cannot tahan already so have to speak up.

first when samseng kerismuddin (alias hishamuddin, the no. 1 UMNO youth man, for the uninitiated) issued a warning to MCA, i can still tahan a little. (notice the ‘warning’ picture here, taken from mob’s crib of course, who else).