Caught this in the news today

[source]
Malaysia donates RM3.14mil to Pakistan

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is donating US$1mil (RM3.14mil) to Pakistan to help the country which has been hit by massive floods since July 22.

Foreign Ministry in a statement said the humanitarian aid was a manifestation of Malaysia’s sympathy and empathy towards the Pakistani government and people who had suffered the loss of lives and damage to major infrastructure and property in the floods.

“We hope the humanitarian aid can help ease the pain suffered by the flood victims.

“This is the worst flood Pakistan has experienced in 80 years. It has claimed about 1,600 lives, while almost one million have lost their homes.

“The lives of about 3.5 million people in several areas including Punjab, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Kyber Pakhtunkhwa have been affected because of this disaster,” the statement said.

The money would be delivered as soon as possible to Pakistan, which was also received aid from other countries and agencies such as the United Nations.

Malaysia donates to Pakistan, after a round of subsidy cuts. While 3.14 million may not be much (I wonder how they come up with that number…), but it paints a false impression that we’re very well off to give away money like that. It’s like a manager sees his employee buy a brand new car after having heard the fella complaining about being underpaid. False impression.

Hello!? Depa ada sendiri mia nuclear weapon! What makes you think Pakistan can’t afford a measly few million bucks to aid its own people??

Caught this in the news today.

[source]
Bar Council: Police identification a standard procedure
PETALING JAYA: Police officers should identify themselves regardless of whether they are in uniform or not, said Bar Council chairman Ragunath Kesavan.

He said that showing police identity cards should be the standard operating procedure for officers when approaching suspects or members of the public.

“Police officers must produce their identity cards to show their name and badge number.”

Ragunath said this when asked to comment on the front-page article in yesterday’s Sunday Star in which police have proposed gazetting blue uniforms as the police’s so they had exclusive rights as it was difficult to tell them apart from other agencies and security guards who wore similar dark blue uniforms.

This follows complaints from the public over alleged abuse by “men in blue” who eventually turned out to be enforcement officers from local councils and other agencies or security guards in the private sector.

An informal survey had also found that most people could not tell the difference between genuine badges/paraphernalia and the fake ones, which are widely available and often misused.

Petaling Jaya OCPD Asst Comm Arjunaidi Mohamed disagreed with Ragunath saying that uniformed police officers were not required to show their identification cards as the full uniforms would show that they were genuine police officers.

He said plainclothes police officers, however, are required to show their identity cards for obvious reasons.

“Those who impersonate police officers usually do not wear uniforms,” he added.

Asked whether the public should be hesitant in requesting police officers to produce their identity cards, he said “there should not be a problem about doing so (asking for it).”

You know, it’s really sad that a ‘developing nation’ like us could go into such a quandary – arguing whether or not law enforcement officers should have their own gazetted uniform and produce identification to make an arrest.

I was thinking, who actually gives a crap?? Definitely not me. So what if the police were to wear a striped red and yellow clown suit to discern them from the others?? It’s just a SUIT! Same shit in different packaging! I say, they should spend all their energy to work on their PR skills instead. And buff up their competency which they grossly lacked. Some police officers have bigger pot belly than a whale and still type their report with 1 finger (and of course, the inability to shoot the right people). They seem to have bigger problems at hand than the self proclaimed identity crisis.

But if they insist, then maybe they can just tattoo ‘POLIS’ on their forehead (yeah, like what they did in “Inglorious Basterds”) and don’t have to worry about wearing a uniform or identifying themselves. To verify if the tattoo is genuine, we can just scrape the officer’s forehead with a piece of Scotch Brite with a little spit…

Caught this in the news today.

[source]
Malaysians consume more fuel
PETALING JAYA: Malaysians are one of the highest fuel consumers in the region where even price increases have not deterred motorists.

Since 2004, they have consumed more than 400 litres per capita annually, which is much more than Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, China and India. Singapore, which was ranked second among the list of six countries, only consumed 250 litres per capita in 2007.

India and China consumed under 50 litres per capita in 2007, according to data collated from the Finance Ministry, Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry, International Energy Agency and Global Insight.

Even with fuel prices at its highest in mid-2008, when petrol was at RM2.70 and diesel at RM2.58 per litre, consumption still grew by 8% annually and almost 20 billion litres are expected to be consumed by the end of 2010.

As Malaysia practises a blanket subsidy on fuel, data made available to the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) subsidy rationalisation lab showed that 71% of fuel subsidy was enjoyed by the middle to high-income level groups.

Some 28% of those enjoying fuel subsidy earn more than RM5,000 per month, while 43% earned between RM2,500 and RM5,000.

Abuse of liquid petroleum gas (LPG), or cooking gas, has also contributed to an inflated subsidy bill. Some RM1.71bil was spent on subsidising LPG, to which only RM397mil or 30% are used by households.

It is believed that the rest of the LPG had been misused for commercial purposes or smuggled abroad.

The same issue affects cooking oil, where 70,000 tonnes are subsidised monthly but only about 70% are consumed by households.

So first we Malaysians get harped on using too much water – which I believe we have every reason to do so. And now, apparently, we use too much fuel.

You know, it’s funny (in a moronic sense) to see how they made it sound in the article above as if we Malaysians deliberately use/burn more fuel just for the kick of it. Like, we’re trying our best to be the biggest assholes in the eyes of the world by burning more fuel.

If one can use a little bit of common sense, one would realize that the reason an average Malaysian burns more fuel is because – WE DON’T HAVE A FUCKING CHOICE! Ask yourself, how many cities in Malaysia have an efficient mass transit system (LRT, monorail, etc)? Only KL and some areas beyond it. A city with inhabitants of roughly 2 million people. That still leaves over 90% of the Malaysian population without the access to a mass transit system. Our Malaysian bus systems are basically next to being useless – so we have to use our own transport (still have to buy one even though it’s 300% overpriced like that). And to top that up, we also have crappy traffic planning (eg: OC given on apartment projects with only 1 parking space) and fucked up tax system on vehicles that makes it impossible to afford a hybrid car.

So, do we like to buy overpriced cars? No. Do we like traffic congestion (due to the crappy traffic planning)? No. Do we like to pay more and spend more on fuel? No. Do we have a fucking choice then? FUCK NO.

This is what we Chinese like to call – kong lan wa. It literally means ‘talk cock’. Give us a choice, then only you get to talk. Otherwise, shut up.

Spotted this in the news today, makes me want to cry…

[source]
Two cops commended for saying no to bribery
GEORGE TOWN: Corporal K. Irabathon, 51, and Constable M. Mathavan, 25, felt insulted after they were offered bribes while on crime prevention duties.

For refusing the bribes, the two were commended by Penang police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Wira Ayub Yaakob during a monthly police briefing at the state police contingent headquarters in Penang Road yesterday.

Kpl Irabathon said they were on duty on April 7 near a shopping mall in Bayan Baru when they spotted a suspicious-looking individual.

“We approached him in front of a bank and told him we needed to carry out a check.

“He then took out a stack of money, about RM200, and tried to push it into our hands.

“I advised him to keep the money. He was insistent in bribing us, so we arrested him.

“After checking his motorcycle, we found an iron rod and a switchblade.”

During the ceremony, eight officers from the Elite MPV Police Unit also received commendation letters for making several major arrests including crippling a drug syndicate at the Jelutong Expressway and for another drug-related case which involved a stolen car.

The officers made a grand entrance in two Mitsubishi Evo MPVs.

Another 11 police officers also received commendation letters.

Has our Malaysian police force gone to the stage where corruption is so goddamn rampant that we have to commend or thank the personnel for not accepting bribes? Isn’t this just pathetic and sad? A pat in their back for NOT COMMITTING A CRIME, whilst they SHOULD be doing the law enforcement and crime control in the country! This is as ridiculous as thanking a doctor for not killing us… or a priest for not raping our children…

Do lah something more useful. Not accepting a bribe is not something to commend on. Not in my book anyway.

Say, if you’re fat and ugly, full of pimples and blackheads, what do you reckon that you could do to uplift your self confidence and have a place in the society?
A) Strive to be knowledgeable, and be smarter than everyone else to gain respect.
B) Work on the personality, because personality goes a long way.
C) Commit suicide, because all corpses are ugly and everyone’s at the level playing field.
D) Go to a religious medium and pay him 2000 bucks to magically transform yourself into a good looking person.

Well hell, as unbelievable as it may sound, somebody actually chose D and ended up being in the news today…

[source]
Woman’s quest to look beautiful fails, cops nab medium
KUALA TERENGGANU: If something is too good to be true, it probably is.

A 33-year-old woman learnt it the hard way after a medium pro­mised to make her the prettiest woman in town in just one month through traditional treatment.

The woman from Seberang Takir, who was also on the plump side, paid a deposit of RM250 to the medium who promised her a slimmer figure.

“The victim was requested to attend several sessions of the treatment, and each time, she had to pay a fee.

“She had forked out a total of RM2,250 for his services since the beginning of last month,” said state Commercial Crime chief Superintendent Azmi Adam.

During the course of the treatment, she was not allowed to look at herself in the mirror for the “magic” formula to work.

The victim, who was self-employed, could not contain her curiosity after 31 days and decided to have a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

To her horror, she found that her face still had as many pimples and blackheads and her body had not lost any weight.

She decided to confront the medium at his house, also in Seberang Takir, to get a refund of her money and was told by neighbours that many other women had also fallen prey to him.

The victim lodged a police report the same day.

Police picked up the 34-year-old man yesterday.

She was horrified to even look at her own self, after not seeing herself in the mirror for a month – That actually had me cracked up bad. *wipes tears*

In all seriousness, if the woman really got conned and the religious medium got away with her money, I’d say she deserves it. She should be more worried about her stupidity than her looks.

She was very lucky in a way that the medium was not smart enough to be a conman, for staying around waiting to be caught. But what’s unfortunate for us is, this dumbass of a woman has 1 vote on her for the next GE, and her stupidity isn’t going to do a lot of good with that vote.