Aah, very tiring!

A very interesting letter I read in Youth2 section of theStar.

Excerpts,

[...]

My main question is why do I feel that being a man is not easy, and it is hard to understand women because they are so complex. If a man tries to woo a girl in general, it means that HE needs to really understand everything about her to successfully win her heart. But for women, it all boils down to two words: yes or no.  

I feel like being with the opposite sex is very tiring. We do all the work and try to make a good impression.

[...]

Well I certainly can identify with his grouses. But that’s life I guess. So what say you?

Seriously out of hand

What the hell’s wrong with us?

(Source: The Electric New Paper, Singapore)

It is alleged that the incident took place in front of the school children that the bus drivers were picking up too.

Something is seriously wrong when a mother begins to contemplate revenge in this sort of way just because of a rude remark. We may not know exactly what happened, but getting 8 gangsters to to whack up two defenseless bus drivers is over the top and almost criminal, especially when done in front of children.

Truly hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn.

Can’t tell the difference between bikini’s and hot pants??

Apparently, MPs in Parliament has so much time as to debate the difference between a bikini and hot pants.

Picture credit: TVSmith.  

One of them, Datuk Hasni Mohamad (BN-Pontian), who had submitted a question on the matter in the Dewan Rakyat, asked how the ministry could have overlooked such a thing.

“How can such a thing be overlooked by the ministry because these girls were paraded not only in Kuala Lumpur but also nationwide?” he said when raising a supplementary question.

And another

The other backbencher, Datuk Mohamad Aziz (BN-Sri Gading), asked why no action was taken in the matter when the country had pertinent legislation.

“We have the legislation and we say there will be enforcement but when someone violates the law we do not act, more so when the offender is a foreigner,” he said, adding that the authorities were either afraid or embarrassed to be candid with offenders and thus remain silent.

To which the reply from the Sports Ministry was:

Parliamentary Secretary to the Youth and Sports Ministry S. Vigneswaran, when replying to the questions, said the models did not wear swim suits but were attired in hot pants.

First of all, Mr. Vigneswaran can’t tell the difference between a bikini and hot pants. These are hot pants:

So Mr. Parliamentary Secretary sir, the GT ladies are wearing bikinis okay.

And to the two BN MPs, stop looking okay-if you can’t prevent yourself from getting a nosebleed. Instead of wasting time debating about these trivial matters-why not turn your attention to more pertinent issues?

What if cohabitating couples were extended legal status in Malaysia?

There is an interesting article in the TimesOnline, (that is a British newspaper). It is a comment on the UK government’s proposal to come up with laws to offer legal redress and protection for parties involved in a cohabitational arrangement.

An excerpt:

And whereas divorce law entails a panoply of arrangements to protect children, recompense those who sacrificed careers and determine alimony, when cohabiting couples split up there are few enforceable rights for either party.

…

The Government (UK) is therefore now proposing to look again at the implications of cohabitation, and especially at legal protection for those who suffer financially – almost always women – when the relationship ends.

I was thinking about a possible situation and applications in Malaysia.

Obviously we can’t have a law like that in Malaysia, since the situation does not apply. By far and large couples in Malaysia do get married. And it is a waste of parliament time to debate laws that affect only a minority of the population-and who do not even have kids.

But what struck me was the thinking and motivation behind introducing such laws. It is rather clear that such a proposal would be extremely controversial in Malaysia, would not be quite so in the UK, even among conservatives who value marriage and family.

It begs the question why the controversy in Malaysia? Cynical-minded me would think that we are more concerned about labels and reputation and religiosity and some abstract notion of “Asian values”. Too blind perhaps to see the positive side of such laws, which would offer protection to children born out of wedlock and unmarried women at the losing end of a broken relationship.

Incidentally, in the US, it is found that incidences of single parenthood and divorce are higher among those who are at the lower end of the wage and education scale. I have a nagging suspicion that this will be so in Malaysia, if not already.

Debates of this nature are like debates concerning AIDS prevention. In a country like Malaysia, do you promote the condom or promote abstinence? It would be a tragedy if all we did was to confine discussions to the level of “social debate” and the average Pengajian Am karangan. Real people are involved.

Silly Paris Hilton MTV. Absolutely funny…

Do you love to hate Paris Hilton, or hate to love her?

Hold your breath, cause it almost made me puke.

Women in Art

Check out this cool video:

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

By: eggman913

Kinda interesting to note that the depiction of femininity doesn’t seem to change that much at all from the past to the near present.

Lina Joy’s conversion not recognized…

It’s official, the Federal Court has ruled that Lina Joy has to go through the Sharia Court to remove the word ‘Islam’ from her identity card. This is tantamount to saying that she is NOT recognized as a non-Muslim despite her baptism.

News links: Reuters, The Australian, BBC. 

I’ll post my thoughts later. But in the mean time, opinions anyone?

Photoshop feat: Instant weight loss

Check out this video. What Photoshop can do is reallly incredible. Wonder what’s next, can you retouch a man to become a woman with the same?

Video credit:From invincibleminerva. Makeover of a big lady. Just to show … Makeover of a big lady. Just to show the power of Photoshop. The photo is from Homicidal_Dream found in DeviantART, thanks so much to the photographer.

MCP’s in the Lower House

Got this of Lim Kit Siang’s blog. (The Malaysian Opposition Leader blogs, what then of Singaporean politicians, do they blog?)

As usual, a din in the whole place. So it’s no surprise the DAP overlooked it.

Mind you this is no isolated incident, this Kinabatangan joker has always been making trouble-just review the other youtube videos of past Parliament sittings.

You wonder sometimes, how some of these BN MPs treat their wives, outside of the public eye.

**There is a kind of immunity in Parliament, thus why MPs can act with a certain kind of impunity. To prevent this, there is a Privilege Committees that acts like a disciplinary committee of sorts. However, over the past years, almost no BN MP has been able to be referred to this committee for bad behavior. Not because they have done nothing wrong, but because the 91% majority in the Lower House speaks louder**

The extreme logic of moral pluralism

This is an excerpt from the longer article you can access by clicking on the paragraph. It is written by Johann Hari of the Independant.

Indeed, in the name of this warm, welcoming multiculturalism, the German courts have explicitly compared Muslim women to the brain-damaged. The highest administrative court in North Rhine-Westphalia has agreed that Muslim parents have the “right” to forbid their daughter from going on a school trip unless she was accompanied by a male family member at all times. The judges said the girl was like “a partially mentally impaired person who, because of her disability, can only travel with a companion”.

As the Iranian author Azar Nafisi puts it: “I very much resent it when people – maybe with good intentions or from a progressive point of view – keep telling me, ‘It’s their culture’ … It’s like saying the culture of Massachusetts is burning witches.” She is horrified by the moves in Canada to introduce shariah courts to enforce family law for Muslims

What this journalist is writing about in Germany is horrific. But what I highlight the boldtext should be familiar to any Malaysian reader.

We are so used to the dual court system in Malaysia that we forget what an abberation it is, even to Muslims living abroad. And we forget how barbaric the true application of Sharia law can actually be.

Well, to those who still believe in relative morality, this is how brutal people will take advantage of this philosophy.