Batman Returns (1992)

Nothing else interesting on TV so i caught the above.

"Batman : Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it.

Catwoman : : A kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it."

How true.

Talking Cock in Parliament 2006

Couldn't make it but luckily some kind soul took video of the whole event and post it on youtube. Damn funny, laugh until tears man... Must try to make it next time. Click this link or the one in front to experience the talk cock session. hee hee... A good review of the event can be found at IndigNation.

Damn funny.

Shameful China Human Right Abuses

From Yahoo by AFP:

Thursday August 24, 11:46 PM

China jails activist who exposed birth control abuses

China sentenced a blind activist who exposed forced abortions and other abuses of the nation's one-child policy to over four years in jail, prompting outrage from his wife and supporters.

A court in east China's Shandong province sentenced Chen Guangcheng, 34, to four years and three months on charges of "wilfully damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic," the Xinhua news agency said.

A court employee confirmed the sentence when contacted by AFP.

"This is completely unreasonable and against the law," said Chen's chief lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who was barred from attending the half-day trial on Friday last week.

"This definitely affects China's image and its claims as a country ruled by law."

Chen ran into trouble with authorities in Shandong's Linyi city last year after accusing them of forcing many women to be sterilized and have abortions as late as eight months into their pregnancy.

China's controversial population control policy that has been in place for the past 25 years is aimed at restricting urban couples to having one child and rural parents to two.

The central government officially condones only economic sanctions against violators of the policy but human rights groups have long complained that much harsher penalties are regularly carried out.

China's national family planning agency said after Chen's expose that Linyi authorities had indeed carried out some extreme measures and promised disciplinary action, but no punishments have been made public.

Instead Chen, a self-taught lawyer, was formally charged in June this year after villagers protesting police abuse of him clashed with authorities in February and March.

Chinese activists and human rights groups have repeatedly said the charges were laid against Chen to silence and punish him for exposing the violations of the one-child policy.

Chen's lawyer and family said on Thursday that Chen's trial should have been cancelled when he rejected the court-appointed lawyers.

They maintained the verdict, which they only learned about from foreign journalists, was a gross violation of China's laws.

Six villagers arrested with Chen on the same charges have all been released, including three who were sent home Thursday, a clear sign that the authorities wanted to target Chen for his boldness, his wife, Yuan Weijing, said.

"This shows they justed wanted to seek revenge against Chen Guangcheng because he spoke out against the savagery of the family planning officials," Yuan said.

"I want to tell the world Guangcheng is innocent. He carried out a lot of investigations and he reported what happened to the victims, some of whom are our relatives. I will continue to stand by him."

She said his family would appeal the sentence.

The three villagers released Thursday each received a seven-month sentence suspended for a year. They had already been jailed for half a year, Yuan said.

They told her that while in jail they were beaten and forced to sign statements accusing Chen of inciting them to smash the windows of police vehicles during the February scuffle.

Chen's plight has received international attention for revealing the continuing abuses of China's one-child policy, as well as Beijing's lack of tolerance for rights defenders.

Time magazine this year named Chen one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Human rights experts said Chen's case appeared to be part of a government-ordered crackdown against a growing number of lawyers and rights defenders who are speaking out against injustices.

"The purpose of this is also to send a message that the state does not accept legal constraints, legal challenges to its actions," said Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Well-known human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was also arrested this month. He had demanded Chinese leaders stop persecuting members of the banned Falungong spiritual movement. - AFP

Hard Gay is married !

Foooooo!!!




My fav japanese got married to his chio girlfriend on 8th August 2006. Kudos to my friend for telling me. hee hee

Copying from a website :

"Japanese comedian Masaki Sumitani, who rocketed into the spotlight in Japan in 2005 by playing the goofy character Razor Ramon HG (Hard Gay), surprised his fans by marrying 23 year old model Suzuki Anna on August 8th.

Contrary to his funny, hip-thrusting screen image, Masaki is in real life a really quiet guy. According to his new mother-in-law, when the hunky guy asked for her daughter's hand, "he spoke so quietly that he had to repeat himself three times before I could hear him.". It was reported that Masaki tries hard to keep his life separate with his TV character, but whenever his fans have a request, the good-natured person would go back into his dressing room and come back out as HG for them."

Can't find any picture of the newly-weds... butthis is her :

Anna Suzuki

My friend asked me to get my japanese colleagues to get some of his merchandise like his key chain or the infamous Tomy toy. Hopefully some of them are going back home soon. hee hee...



Hard Gay Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu












Hard Gay Thrusting Key Chain








But started to "hear" his popularity being affected. maybe he could market himself as bisexual ? Anyway his act is likely only a one time fad and he's probably smart enough to 见好就收. If you ask me, he has probably gained more with this marriage than what he may had lost over it.

Foo~~~~~!!!

我也爱金三顺

Channel U reported that this South Korean drama 我叫金三顺 gathered more viewers than 大长今 back in South Korean.

Five episodes later, there is no dispute. Damn Funny. One of the better korean dramas i have seen. Hopefully it dun get too draggy near the end. Apparently this drama is credited with helping to bring about a social revolution for Korean women. Let hope this lasts.










A quote :

“Dance like no one's watching.
Sing like no one's listening.
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt before.
Live like there's no tomorrow.”

Scientology Vs South Park.

Yahoo News ran a report by Reuters annoucing that South Park lost out to The Simpsons on an Emmy because Emmy voters, apparently, shied away from giving the prize to "South Park" for an episode lampooning Scientology and Tom Cruise.

According to Wikipedia, which has a article on Scientology , Scientolgy has the "Hidden Truth" about the nature of the universe which is taught to only the most advanced Scientologists. If i'm not wrong, South Park actually gave out this "secret knowledge" in the episode titled "Trapped in the Closet". You can view the this episode at Youtube (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

Personally, i love both South Park and Simpsons so it doesn't really matter to me who got that Emmy. What i'm amused is the alleged reason reported.

Is Scientology becoming that strong in USA or is this just an isolated case ? Only time will tell...

The only sad thing that is that The Simpsons's "The Seemingly Neverending Story" din even got featured on Youtube as the controversy took over the Emmy Award.

All is One, All is not One.

While Rikkõ, a high government official of the T'ang dynasty, had a talk with his Zen master, Nansen, the official quoted a saying of Sõjõ, a noted monk scholar of an earlier dynasty:

"Heaven and earth and I are of the same root (天地与我同根),
The ten-thousand things and I are of one substance (万物与我为一)."

and continued, 'Is not this a most remarkable statement?'

Nansen called the attention of the visitor to the flowering plant in the garden and said,

"People of the world look at these flowers as if they were in a dream （凡人见此花如在春梦）. "

What did Porky Pig do wrong ?

In Yahoo News and today’s Today, I read about this Malay lady over the bridge that wanted her gov’t to officially document her conversion from Islam to Christianity by changing her identity card (story is reproduced below, courtesy of Yahoo & Reuters). If this lady is in Afghanistan, her fate might not be the same as her lucky Afghan compatriot, Abdul Rahman, who is now safely practicing his religion while eating pizzas.

Her gov’t is supposedly answering to her lawyer today. At this sensitive time and age, such matters are not altogether unheard of; except that its usually very hush-hush; that is until now. Coz according to today’s Today, the ruling should be out today.

This case will be a litmus test and a significant milestone in Islam and to the world as Malaysia is a "secular" country with a largely Muslim population that professes to taking up a moderate Islamic stance, in spite evidence of growing trends, reviving interest in Islam, suggesting a move towards an Islamic State.

Let’s wait and see.

While chatting about the above with my moderate muslim colleague, I brought up the topic of pork and Islam. Being a moderate muslim, her view was that this issue was a health issue provided for in the Quran for muslim to follow as expounded in the following links :

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20060614131638AANi5dv
http://www.webziner.com/islam/whypork.htm
http://www.brain.net.pk/~medimind/unlawful_edibles_in_islam.htm
http://www.islamicaweb.com/archive/t-36107
http://www.whyislam.org/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3300
http://www.beautifulislam.net/health/pork_forbidden.htm

Amusingly in the Christian Bible and Jewish Torah, pork is also mentioned as a forbidden food source. So what happened to Christians and these Lost People ?

If you read all the above links, there is another view that pork or alcohol or gambling are prohibited just only because the Koran / Muslim God / Prophet says so and the reasons behind this ban does not matter. It is simply the Muslim God’s view….. Interesting example of blind faith... but hopefully not that wide spread else where.

Doubt that I will give up meat anytime soon though.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday August 13, 8:43 AM

Malaysia braces for ruling on Islam conversion

By Jalil Hamid and Liau Y-Sing

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Malaysia is expecting a court ruling any day now that could shake society to its foundations: does a Muslim have the right to convert to another faith?

A Muslim by birth, Lina Joy decided to become a Christian, marry and raise a family. But in Malaysia, where Islam is the official religion, this is an affair of state, not conscience.

The 42-year-old has asked the Federal Court, the country's highest civil judicial authority, to acknowledge her decision to convert to Christianity and is now awaiting a verdict.

Whatever the outcome, the decision could pose a headache for a government that is trying to meet the demands of the majority Muslim population and the sizeable minority of non-Muslims.

"The fundamental question in Lina's case is whether Muslims in this country can convert?" said political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda.

It's a tricky legal question in multiracial, multi-religious Malaysia. Ethnic Malays, who make up just over half of Malaysia's 26 million people, are deemed Muslims from birth.
Azlina Jailani was one of them. She was brought up as a Muslim but at the age of 26 she decided to become a Christian.

In 1999, the National Registration Department allowed her to change the name in her identity card to Lina Joy but the ID entry for her religion remained as "Islam".

Until the entry is deleted, she cannot legally marry outside the Muslim faith. The legal wrangling began when she took the department to court over the anomaly.

Joy could not be reached for comment.

Constitutionally, freedom of religion is guaranteed. But in reality, conversion out of Islam comes under the ambit of sharia or Islamic courts. And under sharia law, renouncing the Islamic faith is punishable by fines or jail. It isn't an option.

'POLITICAL DYNAMITE'

Muslims who leave Islam end up in legal limbo, unable to register their new religious affiliations or to legally marry non-Muslims. Many keep quiet about their choice or emigrate.

A court victory for Joy could be explosive.

"It's political dynamite. It will create instability," Abdul Razak said. "For decades, the position of Malays and Muslims have been guaranteed.

"It will open the floodgates. Now you see Malays are going to convert and the government sanctions that. Definitely there will be a huge backlash and PAS is going to town with it."

Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), the country's biggest Islamic opposition party, agrees.
"It will be a bad precedent," PAS deputy chief Nasharuddin Mat Isa told Reuters. "It will create some uneasiness in the Malay community. It could lead to demonstrations."

The influential Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia, the Muslim youth group once led by former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, wrote a letter asking the Federal Court to dismiss the appeal.

"Allowing Malays to leave Islam automatically will erode the status, the rights and the privileges of Malays," it said.

But a ruling against Joy could also inflame opinion among non-Muslims, who are already aggrieved over what they see as the gradual encroachment of Islamic law into civil society.

"If they rule against Lina Joy, the whole question of religious liberty -- the freedom of conscience, choice, expression and thought of an individual -- will be greatly affected," said Wong Kim Kong, secretary-general of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship Malaysia, which represents about two-thirds of Malaysia's roughly 4,000 churches.

But he agreed that a court victory for Joy could spark a Muslim backlash. "This group may sow discord or even create public disorder that will result in greater polarisation of the races and religion in the country," Wong said.

For Islamic scholars, Joy cannot win.

"If Islam were to grant permission for Muslims to change religion at will, it would imply it has no dignity, no self-esteem," said Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad, senior fellow at Malaysia's Institute of Islamic Understanding. "

And people may then question its completeness, truthfulness and perfection."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An afterthought.

With the world as it is today, Islam is wrongfully stained from inhumane acts by Religious Fundamentalists who misuse their religion for one reason or another. Compound with the fact that Islam is some sort of a closed culture, many misperceptions and mis-understandings will be propagated among non-Muslims and Muslins themselves until it is too late for any reconciliation.

As much as it is for non-Muslim to use their brains to think through falsehood, Muslims should take actions to educate others about their faith before all Muslims are viewed as fundamentalist and actually turn out as one.

Essentially, this is a clash of Ideologies. Whilst there is no magical pill to solve all human to human problems, in my humble opinion, since the Cold War can actually end, there is no reason this couldn’t. That is unless the reconciliation takes too long and the whole world is already ravaged by war then. Hee Hee…

Reality of a Marriage

Found this blog from Tomorrow. This blogger's entry regarding his current decision against getting married in the future actually deserves a read coz it brings up some interesting points to ponder upon when the time comes for any guy.

Hair for Hope 2006 Postmortem

The Result - $ 300. Yes, exact.

Could have gotten more though. Apparently among the sample group, i.e most of my friends, do not trust electronic transactions due perceptions of it being unsecured and too troublesome. All wanted to donate but could not hammer down a time to meet up. As a positive thinker with pessimistic streak, I like to think positively that these friends are all internet savvy but are just not confident of conducting electronic transaction due to the gov’t’s lousy effort in promoting it; even if they are always booking air tickets online.

Better than thinking otherwise, I say. Ha ha ha ;)

How much is your freedom worth ?

Premiering last night past midnight on our local shore is the new reality programme by Fox titled “Unan1mous”.

9 contestants are locked in bunker with no sunlight, no outside contact, and not being able to know what time it is (i.e like in jail except the facilities are larger with beds, showers, hall etc). Under these conditions they have to all decide unanimously who will get $1.5 million, but as they fail to make a unanimous decision the money goes down $1 every second and many twists and turns are thrown at them.

This show ended with 8 persons after 8 episodes. Not really sure how long whole thing took before everyone couldn’t stand each other and wanted to get out. Ha ha

The concept is fairly good except that the execution of the programme is lousy, i.e looks fake and frictional.

Anyway, this show brought about a discussion between my father and I. Can anyone survive in a prison environment for 2 million dollars for a period of…. say 2 years ? We all hear of people going to jail for money for whatever reasons, but if given a choice, would these people give up the money for their freedom?

To put it more concretely, for 2 years (2 x 365 days) and 2 million Singaporean dollars, the participant would be not be allowed outside a enclosed prison cell of say 25 sq m with artificial lighting (no sunlight), toilet and shower facilities, and also 3 meals a days (Water is available through a tap and food is introduced through a slot on the door.); but no external contact, no knowledge of time, and no reading materials will be given. Also no camera will be installed in the ceil so that the participant is truly by himself. The door to this ceil will only open for 2 occasions. One would be upon 2 years where the participant is allowed to leave with his 2 million dollars; the other would be when the participant gives up at any point of time and forfeit the money for his freedom within the 2 years.

The crux of this theoretical exercise is simply : How much is your freedom worth even if you are greedy?

In such circumstances, will anyone get the 2 million dollars and be sane enough to spend it?

Week 1

1 mm perhaps ? hee hee...