Looks like an interesting bitchfight shaping up here.

Hey Mister! - Journal by The Lightbeamers, MD.: “Hey Mister! I think your wife is a bitch.
Because she has been bitching in my blog and maybe in everyone else’s too.
As I am never been married, I really cannot understand the pain she is going through and why she lacks wisdom and happiness in her life. This is none of my business and I assume you’ll understand about this more. Perhaps she is being who she is because you treat her like shit.
I suggest you make her stop before she is making a bitch out of every other person she cannot be in life.
This is the first warning for me. Because some people is going to bash her blog in return if she still behaves the way she behaves, regardless you and your children.
Regards,
Marisa Duma”

(Via .)

Chun Wai seems to have a worthwhile idea to consider. Just imagine what a big noise bloggers could do if they collectively flexed the muscles for the next 24 hours and told the politicians to go where the sun don’t shine? Perhaps someone should design a banner or button for bloggers to express their solidarity at the idiocy in high offices?

New Malaysia: Sick, tired and fed up: “Sick, tired and fed up
I think the majority of us are pretty sick and tired over the events of the past few days. There is only so much lies one can take. We should not let ourselves to be used, or led to believe to anything, by these power crazy politicians. It doesn’t matter whether they want to grab power or stay in power, the bottom line is that we all have lives to lead. Not lies to lead. There are more urgent matters that require our attention. At least for the next 24 hours, let’s spend our day well without any discussion about anal sex and that unbelievable P.Balasubramaniam, forget the politicians who only use us to fulfill their selfish ambitions. We have been taken in by all these allegations and counter allegations of sodomy, I think we have lost sight of what we are as Malaysians. Marina Mahathir share the same thoughts. Fellow bloggers are marking the 100th day of the March 8 elections with a gathering. I urge them to post their disgust at our politicians and ignore all these press statements, press conferences and their lies, excuses and explanations for the next 24 hours. Readers, share your feelings at the state of our politics in solidarity.”

(Via .)

Something not very right here.

The pertinent question to ask is who is Saiful in the normal heirachy of things that he can have access to the DPM? There must be thousands of people each day who want to see the DPM for this or that matter but they are turned away - unless they are someone within the Umno or Government hierarchy or have some well connected friends in the right places.

So what makes Saiful so special to be granted an audience with the DPM, at his residence no less. Unspun doubts that if he showed up at Najib’s house he would be given even an audience with the houseboy, unless Malaysian ministers have suddenly become kinder, gentler creatures overnight.

For a similar but eloquent view see here

Tok Mommy: Najib admits meeting with Saiful: “Najib admits meeting with Saiful
Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak today admitted that Saiful Bukhari Azlan met him a few days before the latter lodged the police report against Parti Keadilan Rakyat de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for alleged sodomy, according to a Malaysiakini report (Najib mengaku jumpa Saiful & DPM admits meeting sodomy complainant)
Menurutnya, Saiful menemuinya beberapa hari sebelum membuat laporan polis tersebut, bercerita mendakwa dia telah diliwat oleh Anwar.

‘Saya mula-mula tidak berapa yakin dengan ceritanya. Saya menerima kedatangannya atas sifat saya seorang pemimpin.

‘Dia datang beberapa hari lalu, sebelum laporan polis dibuat. Dia datang kerana mahu pertolongan dari saya,’ katanya sambil menambah, Saiful kenal salah seorang pegawainya.

Translation

(According to him, Saiful met him a few days before lodging the police report, claiming that he had been sodomised by Anwar.
‘Initially I was not quite convinced of his story. I accepted the meeting in my capacity as a leader.

‘He came a few days ago, before the police report was lodged. He came because he wanted me to help him,’ he said adding that Saiful knew one of his officers.)

Now, why did the DPM withhold this piece of information? This question was posed by Rockybru on his blog .”

(Via .)

Now all we need is some enterprising marketers to use this information to market Indonesian coffee. But come to think of it with the kind of quality Indonesia has, why have not the coffee growers and the government marketed Indonesian coffee better?

Why is Indonesia almost never associated with its great coffees in any promotional and tourism publicit?

Coffee could help beat multiple sclerosis | The Jakarta Post: “Coffee could help beat multiple sclerosis

The Associated Press ,  Beijing   |  Thu, 07/03/2008 3:32 PM  |  Health

A strong cup of coffee may do more than just wake you up in the mornings, it could also prevent your from multiple sclerosis (MS), media quoted U.S. researchers as saying Wednesday.

Researchers in Oklahoma found that mice appeared to be protected from MS-like condition by drinking six to eight cups of coffee a day.

‘This is an exciting and unexpected finding, and I think it could be important for the study of MS and other diseases,’ said Linda Thompson, from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

Caffeine prevented adenosine, one of the four building blocks in DNA, from mixing with its receptor in mice. Adenosine is common molecule in humans and plays a large role in helping to control the biochemical processes for sleep and suppressing arousal.

The findings could have important implications for other auto-immune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the researcher said.

However, there was still a lot more work to be done in the further research since a mouse is not a human being, so it may not be quite sure whether caffeine will have the same effect on people prone to develop MS without much more testing.

Some 2.5 million people worldwide are thought to suffer from MS, a disorder of the central nervous system, which leads to loss of muscle coordination.”

(Via .)

What can you say, why seek a divorce when you’re not registered in the first place?

Want a divorce? Get married properly first, Malaysian court tells woman | The Jakarta Post: “Want a divorce? Get married properly first, Malaysian court tells woman

The Associated Press ,  Kuala Lumpur   |  Thu, 07/03/2008 4:25 PM  |  World

A Malaysian court has ordered a woman to register her marriage properly before seeking a divorce,
her lawyer said Thursday.

An Islamic court in northern Kelantan state dismissed the divorce application of Siti Aishah Chou Abdullah Wednesday because there was no record of her marriage, her lawyer Mohamad Sibri Ismail said.

Siti Aishah, a 24-year-old Cambodian, married state assemblyman Wan Ismail Wan Jusoh in Kuala Lumpur in 2003, but the court now deemed her marriage certificate invalid on grounds of
possible fraud, Mohamad Sibri said.

He said the registration was ‘a formality,’ and Siti Aishah, who is Wan Ismail’s second wife, is expected to file for divorce again next week.

Mohamad Sibri said the relationship of the couple, who have two children, began to erode when Wan Ismail decided he wanted to take a third wife. Muslim men are allowed to take up to four
wives in Malaysia.”

(Via .)

Whatever happened to the theory that people in poorer, simpler cultures are the happiest people on Earth? Maybe it’s the Carlberg that makes the Danes happy.

Or is it, as the reports said, that the world is becoming a happier place and that the danes are just ahead?

Survey finds Denmark world’s happiest country | Top News | Reuters: “Survey finds Denmark world’s happiest country
Tue Jul 1, 2008 6:10am BST  Email | Print | Share | Single Page| Recommend (0) [-] Text [+]

1 of 1Full Size
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Denmark, with its democracy, social equality and peaceful atmosphere, is the happiest country in the world, researchers said on Monday.

Zimbabwe, torn by political and social strife, is the least happy, while the world’s richest nation, the United States, ranks 16th.

Overall, the world is getting happier, according to the U.S. government-funded World Values Survey, done regularly by a global network of social scientists.

It found increased happiness from 1981 to 2007 in 45 of 52 countries analyzed.

‘I strongly suspect that there is a strong correlation between peace and happiness,’ said Ronald Inglehart, a political scientist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, who directed the study.

And, said Ingelhart, there is a strong correlation between happiness and democracy.”

(Via .)

Maverick, where Unspun pretends to work at, held its annual gathering for the media last Thursday. It’s a fun and sometimes silly thing we do but every year, for one day, we all dress up in strange costumes according to a theme for the day. This year’s theme was the &)s, that era of free love, bad, unruly haircuts, stuff to inhale and ingest and some groovy music.

Some journalists and top executives of the local papers turned up. Below is a photo of one of them. Guess who he/she was (hint: not Barbara Streisand):

A few representatives of the journalist-blogging community were there too:

And there was even an Austin Powers look alike too. The poseur:

Malaysia is now abuzz with speculation whether the man who filed a police report alleging sodomy charges against Anwar Ibrahim was a plant from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office.

“Proof” of this connection comes in the form of photos of the accuser, Saiful Bukhari Azlan, posing for a photo with an official from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office. There are also testimonies from Umno members that Saiful, was by their accounts nothing more than a coffee boy or OB, that they suspected that he was s spy planted in their midst, from “the other side.”

Some things do not make sense though. Given Anwar’s ambition, even if he was so inclined, would he have taken the risk of sodomizing someone? Especially after he had been accused of the same by Mahathir some years ago?

If not then what does all of this say about politics in Malaysia? It used to be a matter of pride in Malaysia that politics there was more or less civilized. The most extreme measure was the ISA.You got slammed into Kemunting detention center but everyone knew it was for political reasons and there was no stigma to it. Now the game seems to be dirtier, darker and the stakes higher.

No wonder Unspun’s friends, a wonderful family who’s been in jakarta for the past tw years or so, are dreading to return to Malaysia.

rocky’s bru: Coffee Boy, engaged and in blue: “Coffee Boy, engaged and in blue

Saiful Bukhary (left, in blue), who lodged a police report against Anwar, has been to the DPM’s office and is pictured here with a friend who works at the DPM’s office. Read some very colorful comments in RPK’s Malaysia Today here.

Mr Manager alerted me to this pic and another of Saiful and his tunang. They were engaged last month. Click here for Vernon the Mr Manager’s take on the ‘coffee boy’.”

(Via .)