Yet another amnesty!

...only this time it is mind boggling. Keeping with my predictions in my previous posts, the Immigration Department has decide to continue its perennial malaise and conduct its annual jumble-sales- amnesty programme (like the Mammoth Malaysian Sales- everything goes, including the kitchen sink, after being constipated for so long; the sales which we know is just an eyewash). Only this time it decided that, in good measure and the spirit of neighbourliness and the fasting month of Ramadan, to go one step further - to legalize the illegal immigrants rather than giving them a free ride home as they have doing all these years.
Somehow, every Malaysian who had his drop of blood on the soil of the nation, (tanah tumpah darah ku), knows without being prompted that it is all an election ploy which should be just around the slippery corner.
This topic was the subject of discussion among my family members during our last dinner meeting. Amongst us were two foreigners who married into the family. One had to be married for over 10 years and deliver two children before she obtained her permanent residency. The other, the more frustrated one, is in his 8th year of frustrating trips to and encounter with most not-so-forthcoming clueless Immigration reception officers who are contended with clocking-in and out of office and enjoying their regular (too regular) tea and nasi lemak breaks.

In the mean time, all the illegal immigrants with no skills are populating our nation whilst the sons of the soil with many alphabets after cannot wait to plant their seed in the soils of other first world nation.

That Effing Show! #54

Thanks to the internet,  Malaysians are becoming bolder and willing to express themselves.

All Hail Anuradha Koirala!

The Vultures are out again!

A vulture waiting to feast on putrefying 

dead meat in the savanna of Africa. 

(As seen in Snows of Kilimanjaro, 1952)

I just discovered a breed of humans who only manifest in the social circle when someone is dead or when death is imminent. Repeatedly, I have seen this happening with certain individuals among my relatives, and I am sure it is not a pure coincidence. And I am not talking about the funeral parlour or undertaker!

More than once, when someone was at the tail-end of her life stricken with the big C, these people were nowhere to be seen - all the get-together and simple quality visits were insignificant and never participated. Once the heart goes into asystole, they spring into action like a bear up from hibernation or a hippopotamus re-surfacing after a long submerge underwater, saying, "So much to do, so little time!"

It takes all to make the world go around. And they would disappear until somebody else kicks the bucket!

Carter's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a vulture watching a starving child in Sudan, 1993. Photograph: Kevin Carter/Corbis Sygma 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

I love animals too, but...

Just the other day, I visited a close friend. I was shocked to see his home in a topsy turvy condition in total chaos like a hoarder's house would be. Besides the books and bags that my friend had to house in (beside his two adult kids), he was also a proud father to three dogs!

You see, his son had finished his undergraduate studies and returned home for good (or bad). Besides acquiring his credits for his coursework and a girlfriend along the way, being an animal lover that he is, he started rearing dogs. The headache has now been passed over to my friend. (The feeding, cleaning and the irrational bark for no apparent reason - maybe it saw some apparition, must be his evil neighbour who died recently!)

There are amongst us who claim to be animal lovers. Just like vegans who choose to be so to minimize sufferings endured by a slaughtered but have no qualms about kicking a dog off his lawn, an animal lover who parades for equality and kindness for animals sometimes find it cumbersome to relate to a fellow being! They find it easier to relate to animals. In fact, psychiatry has identified this trait as a pre-morbid personality disorder and a precursor to schizophrenia!

On one hand we have people from PETA who lobby for total ban of hunting of all kinds of animals for fur and another group may find solace in propagating the number of Bengal tigers in the wilderness. I once had a room-mate who had a fetish for tigers. He plastered the whole room wall with posters of tigers. I suppose he was just suppressing his inner tiger-like appetite for companionship. He later pranced on many potential mates but sadly is now living as a lonely but majestic narcissistic He-tiger!

These lobbyists should take a trip down to Sandarbans Plains in the Bay of Bengal. Almost every family from this area have a gruesome tale to tell about one of their family members being attacked or eaten alive by a so-called endangered species which need to be preserved for the next generation beast called the deadly Bengal tiger!

Who are we to tell them, 'Save the Tigers!'?
I too love animals. So much so that I decided never to be a vegetarian.
I love animals so much that I eat them.... (but I am an omnivour).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_attacks_in_the_Sundarbans

Human sapien weaklingus vulgaris

Papa Roach!

The law of Nature as described by Charles Darwin is that the world is for the fittest. Over time, to allow the survival of the not-so-fit (the sick, handicapped and weak) and to allow them to share the wealth of Nature and co-habitat on Earth, man created the concept of God and putting the fear (of God) of a super Being watching your move and deciphering your every thought with the promise of 72 virgins in the after world and possibilities of moving up the ladder of karma with every divine deed must have been introduced.
65 million years ago, the last the roaming dinosaurs were wiped off the surface of Mother Earth probably due to adverse planet conditions or attack by giant meteors. Apparently certain die-hard never-say-die survivors survived this catastrophe and have managed to cling on to their style of living amongst us even as we speak. I am of course referring to our not so friendly home grown roaches (have been around for more than 300 million years) and members of the lizard family (200 million years). These two creatures may be the only beholden of the secrets of Mother Nature and how man can survive his own made increasingly hostile environment. It is said that the adaptive features of the cockroach is so good that they may withstand a nuclear holocaust! Of late, I have been thinking....of our offspring. Are they tough enough to face the challenges of the world- amongst its citizens and the adverse environmental conditions?
The desire for continuity of species in the animal and plant kingdoms alike is so great that under severely extreme conditions, nature had resorted to self pollination and parthenogenesis within the same generation for continuation of species!  
Many years ago, we as children, played in the rain with the sand, soil and whatever which came. Worse thing that happened was cuts and bruises which healed over time but not the memories. Fast forward to 2001. Send a teenager for National Service and the child comes back in a body bag - C.O.D. Leptospirosis due to drinking water tainted with squirrel's urine!
Are we becoming weak or what? Not to sound inconsiderate to the bereaved ones, our children are becoming weaklings, too guarded for their own good. 
Are they tough enough to face the challenges in store in their future journey? Many things that are happening in our daily lives make me think otherwise. 
From the time they are born, they are sheltered and guarded like the incarnate of the Dalai Lama! The bottles that they drink from are sterilized with sterilizing tablets and water filtered through myriad of water filtration systems, BPA is painstakingly eradicated for safety, immunizations are given in mammoth proportions, a single drop of rain cannot fall on toddlers hair, maids running around to dampen their every fall, prepare their every favourite food and clean up their mess and chores that their parents used to do in their childhood. Whilst their ancestors had to sing (work) for their supper, these nouveau riche offspring have TV to sing during all their meals. 
As they grow older, they do not have to wrestle through the early morning rush to get school but arrive neat with iron folds uncreased via their private school buses and roller school bags. They do not have to rough it out with the HSC/STPM examinations which are deemed as the toughest exam in the world but have it easy by enrolling in private colleges which pave a sure way to success!
With this type of mollycoddling and spoon feeding, will they be able to rough it out in the real world with real challenges? A point to ponder is the phenomena of peanut allergy. Whilst most Malaysian kids can easily enjoy the succulent satay with the peanut-rich gravy with no qualms when peanut allergy is a real clear and present danger which to be on the rise in the developed countries.

In Britain, Southampton University’s Dr. John Warner issued a statement: "The increase in allergy generally may be explained by better hygiene. Fetuses used to respond to parasites present in the maternal blood. Now that these have been eliminated they are reacting to other things in the blood, such as antigens." 

Surfers in Surfers' Paradise in Australia who were instrumental in the development of Billabong and its off shoots, used to say life is a beach - some days with good waves and other days with none. But FG used to say that living with a bitch is like living in midst of a tsunami everyday! 
Thesaurus
Homo sapiens - the only surviving hominid; species to which modern man belongs; bipedal primate having language and ability to make and use complex tools; brain volume at least 1400 cc;
Weaklingus - pseudo-Latin sounding word for a weakling or wimp, milksop, doormat, 98 pound weakling;
Vulgaris - common, not referring to the vulgarities that culminates from their oral orifices that seem second nature to them to add 4-letter  prefixes and suffixes to emphasize the gravidity of their massages.

Ancient Aliens

I always find the topics of conspiracy theory and alien intelligence pretty fascinating. The best one I heard is the one comparing Lord Ganesha (Elephant God) to a representation of alien as depicted by man. The large head with a crown being the head gear of a space suit, the trunk being the oxygen hose adjoining the gas chamber over the pot-bellied belly!