The Duke & Duchess of Cambridge To Visit Sabah!

My fellow countrymen and countrywomen, especially the Sabah folks!  There's an exciting news coming to town this September!

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Image courtesy of www.unicef.org.uk

The Royal Couple's visit to Sabah is being drafted in conjunction with Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee! I was, of course in a "hah?" mode when several of my friends posted and tweeted about this oncoming visit on Facebook and Twitter! However, I have since believed it as I got to read  and saw the screen shot about this Royal Couple's impending visit via local paper and Malaysia's very own News Straits Time. It was announced by the St. James Palace and tweeted by Nikesh Mehta, Caunsellor (Foreign Policy & Security) at the British High Commission in KL.

Excerpts from NST online:

The St James Palace announced that Prince William and Duchess Kate will arrive in Singapore on Sept 11, moving on to here and Sabah, before flying to the Solomon Islands.

According to a Twitter post by Nikesh Mehta, Counsellor (Foreign Policy and Security) at the British High Commission here, the couple are expected to have an audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as well as meet Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and paying a visit to a local charity.

Read more: William and Kate to visit Malaysia - General - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/william-and-kate-to-visit-malaysia-1.119267#ixzz23OBGwuSH

from Bernama:

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 (Bernama) -- The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are scheduled to make an official visit to Malaysia in 2012.

The British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur in a statement Thursday said that Prince William and Duchess Kate's visit would be part of a series of overseas visits by members of the British royal family throughout the Diamond Jubilee year, marking 60 years of the Queens's reign.

Futher details of the visit will be announced in due course.

-- BERNAMA

They are expected to visit Sabah from 13th to 15th September 2012.  Just curious, will there be any parade in town? I said: WOWZER!

P/S: To those trolls in FB who are busy lambasting and labeling Sabah as backward, hick and hillbilly, well, take this! Okay, we don't have LRT nor highway tolls but yes, we do travel via cars and planes. And yes, we have baldi, malls, McDonald's, KFCs, Pizza Huts, Starbucks, Coffee Beans, GSCs, and all those normal things that you can find in KL. We're not treetops people either. Come to Sabah and see for yourself, ok? Only then you can pass judgement. Peace and yes, start learning your own country. Meantime, we, the people of Sabah, are eagerly waiting and anticipating Your Royal Highness, Duke & Duchess of Cambridge's visit.  Welcome and selamat datang...

PIKOM PC Fair 2011

..is coming to KK and I'm excited.  Although I'm not a techie geek, I still want to go look see. It's of course a heaven for techie lovers out there. So, KKians, this is your opportunity to check out what's in store for you. Sounds like a great plan for a weekend, no?

Oh, I am going myself.  I need to get me a new modem stick (or was it stick modem?) for my broadband. The old one died on me. The lifespan of that shitty modem was only less than six month! Apparently, if you buy a new one, it will cost you about RM180! I'm talking about RM180 for a junk! The salesperson of my broadband service provider informed me that I could get a cheaper bargain during this fair!  Come on, cheap bargain. Save me from ripping my wallet for a junk! Ha..

Brief details:

Date: March 11th - 13th, 2011

Venue: LG Carpark Exhibition Hall, 1Borneo Hypemall, Kota Kinabalu

More info @ PIKOM PC Fair 2011

We're looking forward for a nice weekend ahead, no?


Ah, I'm not paid for this announcement.  I'm merely sharing the news of what's happening around the city :)

Inky Piggy..

After the outrage over  magician's synchronised fish TV Show  in China, now comes the inky piggy controversy! Man, the Chinese really know how to put their country on the map. Take this news for instance: A farm in China took  it to this great length of decorating their pigs in tattoo! This, of course has risen the hackles of animal rights activists! I mean, heck..it's a common practice for farmers to brand their livestock but tattoo?  This is pushing it too far..

Inky piggies pics:

 

Images courtesy of:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk 

I'm of course a human carnivore but poor piggies..tattooed, then  slaughter house...

Dear Lord, Have Mercy On Us...

..no words can express the way i'm feeling right now.  where have all the 1Malaysia spirits gone now? i guess it's merely a political manifestations. a political decorations?  deep down, i still think that it's kind of difficult to achieve a fully 1Malaysia concept. racial barriers are still deep-rooted among the people, doubts and distrusts are still in evidence.  take this current 'wildfires' for instance. All because of one word, the nation is literally in uproar! Arsonists have been making rounds burning several churches in KL, as a sign of protest and attempts to overturn the highcourt ruling over the usage of the word 'ALLAH' by non-muslims in this country.

what saddens me the most is, how could a person who believes in God/Allah go and burn other people's place of worships? staging demonstrations is one thing, burning those churches? those are sacred places for the Christians. how would you feel if a non-muslim goes around torching the masjids?

on the other hand, reading the reports on the newspapers today, i couldn't help but felt a bit of a resentment towards all the 'authorities' and 'politicians' lending their faces and voicing their 'supposed concerns' regarding the incidents.  it kind of disgusts me. there's always a hidden agenda(s) somewhere, that i'm sure of.

somehow, i can't seem to shut out these words out of my mind "DIVIDE AND CONQUER". it keeps on nagging me.

anyhow, i hope my fellow malaysian christians won't retaliate against the muslims.  whatever grain of justice we could attain  from these incidents,  we shall leave it to the authorities (even if it's only a little grain). we shall remain calm and pray for peace. may our faiths not be shaken, be humble, forgive those who have wronged us because they do not know what they are doing. Amen..

The exclusivity of a word..Allah

Disclaimer:

This is a sole and private opinion of the owner of this blog. This posting is not influenced nor affiliated with any other movements whatsoever. No malicious and slandering intended. World Peace?

A local daily yesterday, The Sun, reported that a Melanau woman has submitted an application on Jan 12th this year to challenge the Home Ministry for confiscating eight CDs of Christian religious teaching containing the word “Allah” while she was disembarking at the LCCT in Sepang last year. The woman, Jill Ireland Lawrence Bill, 27, brought the CDs with titles such as “Cara Menggunakan Kunci Kerajaan Allah, Cara Hidup Dalam Kerajaan Allah and Ibadah Yang Benar Dalam Kerajaan Allah “ from Indonesia. Now, following the "hijacking" of her CDs, she then received a letter on July last year from the ministry claiming that the reasons for the confiscation were:

1. It was a threat to security

2. It was using the prohibited words. Therefore, it was a breach of Jakim guidelines

A threat to  security? How in the world is that possible?  What security? Is the word “Allah”  reserved exclusively only to Muslims? As far as I'm concerned, Allah is an Arabic word for God. 

According to Wikipedia: Allah is the standard arabic word for GOD. While the term is best known in the west for its use by muslims as a reference to God, it is used by Arabic-speakers of all abrahamic faiths, including christians and jews, in reference to "God". The term was also used by pagan meccans as a reference to the creator-god, possibly the supreme deity in pre-islamic arabia.

The concepts associated with the term Allah (as a deity) differ among the traditions. In pre-Islamic Arabia amongst pagan Arabs, Allah was not considered the sole divinity, having associates and companions, sons and daughters - a concept which Islam thoroughly and resolutely abrogated. In Islam, the name Allah is the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name. All other divine names are believed to refer back to Allah. Allah is unique, the only Deity, creator of the universe and omnipotent. Arab Christians today use terms such as Allah al-ab ( "God the Father") to distinguish their usage from Muslim usage. There are both similarities and differences between the concept of God as portrayed in the Qur'an and the Hebrew Bible.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, Allah was used by Meccans as a reference to the creator-god, possibly the supreme deity.

Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah" to mean "God". The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for 'God' than 'Allah'. (Even the Arabic-descended maltese language of malta, whose population is almost entirely roman catholic, uses Alla for 'God'.) Arab Christians for example use terms Allāh al-ʼab  meaning god of father, Allāh al-ibn  mean God the son, and Allāh al-rūḥ al-quds  meaning God the holly spirit.

arab christians have used two forms of invocations that were affixed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslim basm-Allah, and also created their own Trinitized basm-Allah as early as the eight century CE. The Muslim basm-Allah reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized basm-Allah reads: "In the name of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God." The syriac, latin and greek invocations do not have the words "One God" at the end. This addition was made to emphasize the monotheistic aspect of Trinitian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims. 

another article findings: GODALLAH.COM 

The word "Allah" is the perfect description of the "One God" of monotheism for Jews, Christians and Muslims!

Is "Allah" only for Islam and Muslims?

[No! It is for All Three Abrahamic Faiths.]

"Allah" is the same word used by Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs in their Bible, centuries before Islam came.

On page one [1] of Genesis in the Old Testament, we find the word "Allah" seventeen [17] times

"For God so loved the world..."

- and the word the translators used in Arabic for "God" is the very same word used by Muslims around the planet, "Allah."

Where Does the word "Allah" Come From?

"Allah" comes from the Arabic word "elah"a god' or something worshiped. - (Arabic) means '

so, Jakim is declaring that the use of the word Allah by non-muslim is prohibited and it's a breach of Jakim guidelines? funny, why the Muslim/Christian Arab communities use the same word in their faith exercise then? guess, only in malaysia eh? wow...

This Ms. Ireland hit it right when she demanded the return of her CDs and a declaration that she has the legitimate expectation to exercise her right to possess, use and import publications containing the word "Allah"

i am still puzzled with that "a threat to security"  part!  bravo...cheer to malaysian made 'exclusive rights' by..... i leave it at that!

it appears that Malaysia is more Arabic than the Arab nations themselves. another cheer to to that.

i better stop here before i get hauled up to jail for malicious intent and slandering charge!

Poster for political campaign in Poland

Yep, below is the controversial poster (political campaign) for the Women's Party in Poland.

Excerpt from http://www.polandbusinessnetwork.pl/

A new Polish women's political party risks shocking the majority Catholic country by plastering nude posters of their female candidates for the upcoming October 21 parliamentary election.
Seven women, including Women's Party (Partia Kobiet, PK) founder and president, writer Manuela Gretkowska, have launched their campaign with nude posters of themselves with the logo "The Party of Women. Poland is a Woman" masking their private parts.

The poster also incorporates their electoral slogan: "Everything for the future... and nothing to hide.""This poster is intended to shatter stereotypes in the anachronistic world of politics, which is more often dominated by uncommunicative men with their black tie outfits.," said Gretkowska

"We are beautiful, nude, proud. We are true and sincere, body and soul. This is not pornography, there is nothing to see in terms of sex, our faces are intelligent, concerned, proud. We do not have our mouths open nor our eyes closed," she said. "All that interests us is the future, the position of women in society. We will open the archives of the former secret communist agents, we will make known their corrupt affairs," said Gretkowska.

Cigarette-smoking Jesus caricature raises uproar

Now, I'm not a cult when it comes to my religion, that's Christian so to speak but I find this
a bit difficult to comprehend. I mean, how in earth they allowed this sort of thing happened?

Yes, I'm talking about that cigarette-smoking Jesus caricature (which was published in the local Tamil newspaper).

Excerpt from Malaysia Today:

THE publication of a caricature of Jesus Christ in a Tamil newspaper, with a cigarette in one hand and what looks like a beer can in another, has caused an uproar.Malaysia's Makkal Osai daily printed the picture on the front page of its Tuesday edition.

The caption quoting the figure said: 'If someone repents for his mistakes, then heaven awaits them.' The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism wants the authorities to investigate the matter. 'Firstly, I'm surprised as to how they could make that mistake... it is a grave mistake,' said the council's president, Datuk A. Vaithilingam. 'Newspapers should avoid publishing this kind of pictures as it causes hurt to people of that religion,' he said.

The daily yesterday published an apology. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Malaysia called for a ban on Makkal Osai, referring to a recent precedent. 'When two newspapers published a caricature of Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban early last year, the government took immediate action banning the two newspapers. It was a right decision. 'Now we have this and they too should be served the same punishment as a lesson to others,' Bishop Julious Paul said.

The Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Datuk Murphy Pakiam, said: 'This caricature of the picture of Jesus, holding a cigarette in one hand and apparently a beer can in the other hand, is a desecration and therefore hurtful to the religious sentiments of Catholics. 'It is certainly in bad taste for the editor of Makkal Osai to publish such a picture, although the message in the accompanying words is an attempt to call repentant sinners to hope and salvation.'

Contacted by Malaysiakini news portal, Makkal Osai news editor B. R. Rajen said the person responsible for allowing the image to be published has been suspended indefinitely. He said the publication of the caricature was not motivated by malicious intent. The paper's apology, carried prominently on the second page, stated: 'The leaders and philosophers with their respective message to the society are meant as food for the brain.'

The paper said the caricature was taken from the Internet. - BERNAMA

So, okay. It's taken from the Internet. We can accept that. There are so many lunactics out there, spewing nonsense, generating hateful propagandas and abusing the internet in the name of Freedom of Speech. I'm not trying to be a NAYSAYER here and please spare me some "get real, little girl! it's mad mad world out there" rebuttal. Heck, I think common sense can be applied, no? Malaysia is a multi-racial country and may I add, the public is kind of 'sensitive' when it comes to religion. Yes, people are vulnerable when it comes to 'delicate' issue and I couldn't blame them.

Well, it's a good thing that the Editor of the newspaper has greatly apologized, I hope.

I hope those political vultures won't make this screw-up as their "Ticket To Mytardom"

Yeah, like, you can kiss my perky ass?