Monday, August 11, 2008

This is so true. I have copied this in to remind us that there are things in life that we need to stand up to. This is also a reminder that if we are not brave enough to stand up to be counted, we are contributory to 'toxic leadership'.

Why The Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” - Edmund Burke
Paul E. Marek is a second-generation Canadian, whose grandparents fled Czechoslovakia just prior to the Nazi takeover.

Why The Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant - By Paul E. Marek, February 2006
I used to know a man whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War Two. They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.
“Very few people were true Nazis” he said, “but, many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”

We are told again and again by “experts” and “talking heads” that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unquantified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is, that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march.

It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars world wide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is, that the “peaceful majority” is the “silent majority” and it is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The Average Japanese individual prior to World War 2 was not a war mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of Killing that included the systematic killing of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were “peace loving”.
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by the fanatics. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Bosnians, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others, have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Monday, August 4, 2008

tarty shoes

first written: May 29, 2007

Okay, read this. The language used in the research below, ‘surge of excitement’ sounds like it could well replace a woman’s need for a man or orgasm! Well, now I know why I need to wear those ‘tarty’ shoes!! It is good for the heart!

THE HEART AND SOLE
EXCLUSIVE: How women’s pulses race when they spot a nice pair of shoes
By Ruki Sayid 29/05/2007 - mirror.co.uk
BUYING a pair of killer heels is good for women’s health, sending the heart racing to 120 beats per minute - the equivalent of a gruelling workout.A study by TV psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos found when a girl spots must-have strappy sandals her pulse nearly doubles, leaving her breathless. And it happens each time she tries on her dream footwearAccording to the study of 35 women for shoe chain Brantano, her shopping pals and even women around her feel the same surge of excitement. Linda said: “Shoes have a particular draw to women as they are emotionally evocative items to them and they bring out women’s socialising and nurturing instincts.”

Pepper Spray

This was written on Nov 21st 2006. Anyway, I am ‘publishing’ this BECAUSE the two-star officer told me I must tell my friends not to carry any pepper spray when they are next going to Hong Kong. Here goes:-
Now that I have ‘recovered’: you may like to know, I now have a file with the Hong Kong Police. I was stopped at the customs and my pepper spray confiscated.
Apparently, pepper spray or tear gas is considered a serious, lethal weapon. If I have been stopped in the streets of Hong Kong, I would be taken in, spend a night at the police station and taken to a criminal court.
I was, of course, taken to a corner. I was ‘interviewed’ by not just the Hong Kong Customs officers. Got the ‘third degree’ treatment from an obnoxious young chinese police; with even a two-star white-man police who came to see who is this ‘criminal’ carrying a ‘tear-gas’!
So imagine this: there was this cacophony of Cantonese going on within the 3 customs and 3 police as to what ‘weapon’ it is; and the white man and me, in English - trying to explain how my DAD bought for all the females in my family; and we all carried one now. This is after my sister-in-law was mugged and needed five stitches and how my maid was similarly mugged with a long blade knife; “you know the type that we see Hong Kong movie gangsters carry (our Malaysian parang)”. Of course, one of the Chinese police was trying to explain that it (the tear gas) could be used to rob banks and people. So of course, I have to say that that is the reason why I am carrying it, for protection and how pepper sprays are sold openly in DIY shops in Malaysia. Meanwhile there is this woman – shouting from one end of the customs to the corner where I was ‘held’; as they have to inform ‘my’ airline about ‘me’.
Well, I was ‘released’ after I signed a form of sorts. I was not required to do the mug-shots and stuff as I was leaving the country. Forgot to ask, whether I will be entering Hong Kong again as a criminal when I next go!
Although I was allowed to ‘go into the airport unescorted’, I am quite sure I was ‘followed’. Why? For the first time, I noticed a police man (because he was in a proper uniform and another white man). When I went to purchase a coffee at Starbuck, this police, joined the queue but never actually bought a drink. Then when I went to sit near the Gate, wait to board, there was an another Chinese in dark blue uniform with all sorts of walkie-talkie crackling, facing and sitting two row opposite me. He went off only when I went into the Gate. I actually stopped to watch/confirm my suspicion!
Please note the following:-
a. pepper spray is considered as ‘tear-gas’ in Hong Kong law – so it is considered as lethal weapon.
b. Pepper spray with a key chain and a brand name called ‘bodyguard’ is viewed more as a protection for individuals (however, still not legal in Hong Kong).
c. If you carry any aerosol – whether sun tan lotion or hair spray, it is merely confiscated; cause it will explode under cabin pressure but not a lethal weapon.
d. Incidentally there are many other similar cases of ‘females’ who are ‘caught’ carrying pepper spray when they left Hong Kong and they are all from Philippines and Thailand. I made it to being the first Malaysian in their file. No prizes for guessing, as to why all these females carry pepper spray!
e. Last but not least – carry your pepper spray, but leave it at home when you leave the country! Police are all alike – they consider you guilty and give you the third degree before proven innocent!
Hope you enjoy the reading the above. Like one of my girlfriend said ‘Why do I attract the police and not hunks!” Sigh, story of my life! But then again – like my sister-in-law, speaking from real personal experience, said it is better to be stopped by the police then a mugger! That is a real violation!

would you kill a snatch thief

This is written by my brother. Well thought out. Published by Malaysiakini. Brings up traumised memories and periods, when feelings of vengance arise. Would i be more prepared if it happens again? I think not. Reason is as simple as - we are not trained or moulded by the society we move around in, to physically fight back.

Would you kill a snatch thief?
Ir Hew YL Aug 1, 08 4:05pm
Recently, I almost caught a snatch thief. I was walking along Jalan Telawi Lima, Bangsar Baru in Kuala Lumpur where Maybank, MacDonald’s and the Rocky Restaurant are situated, at 3pm on a bright Saturday afternoon. Whilst walking I was reading a SMS on my handphone. Suddenly, the handphone was taken off my hand by a guy on a motorbike and he proceeded to ride off with the phone in his mouth.
Unfortunately for him, he was on the road shoulder and the obstacles there did not allow him to speed up. I ran alongside him and pushed him off-balance. His bike ramped over water-meters and he crashed into a clinic's shop front.
I retrieved my handphone which fell off in the crash. I looked at the guy, thinking that he’s now an accident victim and may need help. He got up, glared at me and retorted "Apa u mau?" I gestured with my hands thinking 'What's happening man'.
After all, he looks like any other guy on a bike, just like the ones I would hire to work as office staff, or the ones I played football with, years ago.
Suddenly he revved off on his bike. I realised again he was a thief and ought to be treated as one. I managed to kick him below his ribs, but I doubt he was hurt. I chased but he went through two rows of tables along the five foot way, up a six-inch step, and down another two steps on his noisy ‘scrambler’ motorbike, speeding past the trendy restaurants.
By now there was quite an audience starring in disbelief that a snatch theft case was going on right in the middle of a busy street in classy Bangsar. The crowd was the usual middle to upper class English-speaking people of Bangsar. My wife witnessed the whole incident as she waited for me in our car waiting to pick me up after an errand.
For your information, in my family of five adults living in Bangsar, we have now been victims of five snatch thefts and car break-ins in the last two years. We all wonder why the rich residents of Bangsar cannot get together to protect ourselves.
The saying that we have a First World infrastructure with Third World mentality rings true again. Here was an area with Starbucks, MacDonald’s, Western pubs, and foreign-trained professionals and so on. But here is also where the Mat Rempit come to pick on easy victims, like my wife (twice) and my 80-year-old mother and friend.
What is the difference between Bangsar and South Africa now? The crime rate looks like it is just as bad. The difference is that in South Africa, apartheid is back, in the form of gated communities, gated shopping areas, gated office and commercial areas.
Private guards are everywhere in South Africa expecting trouble and armed to protect themselves and their employers. In Bangsar, we still think we are in a nice, safe area and that the police are nearby. Our five resident associations still can't get private security in place.
But coming back to the snatch thief. In hindsight, for about three seconds, I could have caught him and beaten him up. It was just like starring at a cornered rat in the house, just before you kill it with a stick and watch it die, twitching away before going still.
People I spoke to said they would have killed him, and asked why I didn’t kill him. Certainly, incidences like this have happened before and the unlucky thief was actually beaten up and killed in a public show of anger and revenge for past incidents.
When I remember that my wife was traumatised by snatch theft incidences twice in six months and both times in Bangsar, and my 80-year-old mother who was sent to hospital and is right now still suffering from a bad back due to a snatch theft in Bangsar, yes, I think I could have killed him.
Many said to me the police would not do anything even though we have his bike number plate (which fell off) so we better just kill him on the spot.
Then again, this is the year where political awareness is almost at an all time high. I tend to think that this Mat Rempit may be one of those who suffered years of mismanagement and mismatched expectations.
In the last many years, I have worked and played alongside with my fellow Malaysians. This year at work, I saw with my own eyes my Malay colleagues openly supporting DAP candidates while my Chinese and Christian colleagues openly voted for Malay and Muslim candidates. Malaysian citizens have not felt so united for a long time.
This snatch thief is another fellow Malaysian citizen somehow misguided and lost in the world. We make excuses and say they are probably addicts, foreigners, etc. Let's face it, they are our own Mat Rempit, out there in the hundreds, crowding out the prisons, snatching as they like, not just in Snatch-Theft-Center-Bangsar, but also in Kepong, Seremban, Johor Baru, Klang, Kajang, anywhere.
Are there a few hardcore snatch thieves? Or are there populations of Mat Rempit going around just snatching when they feel like it? With so many incidents, it is obvious that there are hordes of them. With an impending recession and the political situation in disarray, expect more snatch thefts. My 83-year-old father has not been ‘snatched from’ yet. No bets on whether he'll be a victim within the next one year in Bangsar.
So think about it. If you are ready to kill a snatch thief, please be ready to kill the rest of the hundreds of Mat Rempit. I still think I can't kill a thief, much as I think of him as a rat of a person.