Revisiting Fame

So, we have had Tan Sri Muhammad Muhd Taib indicating a further riot may happen if patience is continually tested, and tensions continue being fueled. So now, UMNO VP Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is saying this.

'Amend Laws To Enable Action Against Bloggers'
August 13, NSTP

PETALING JAYA: Laws should be amended so that action can be taken against webmasters and bloggers who post lies and other statements which could have serious repercussions.

Umno vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the Internet was good in the sense that a person had the freedom to think and decide, but there were those who posted lies and tried to incite feelings of ill will among the different communities in Malaysia.

This, he said, could lead to more serious repercussions.

"Propaganda posted on websites and blogs are widely read and many readers tend to believe the lies," he said after opening the Kelana Jaya Umno divisional meeting yesterday.

Continue reading here.

All I could do after this was shake my head profusely. Is this implicitly saying that since the party (who has reacted most aggressively about this blogger issue) can not control the content on the net, and cannot find bloggers at fault (YES, the net and blogs are under LKY's jurisdiction not anyone elses), that they have to resort to amending laws, revoking citizenships, and indirectly implying that bloggers who disrespect the country are traitors (and probably might even charge them with treason for all you know)?

Note: Newspapers have been quoting the ministers as UMNO position holders not as ministers of the BN government. Note that carefully. Only some ministries have been quoted namely Information, Internal Security, and Water, Energy and Communications.

Scarynya..

Now on to some old news. This was on May 14,2007.

Umno Information chief Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib said people shouldn't base their beliefs solely on articles written in weblogs or blogs.

He claimed there were some bloggers who wrote with a slant that tended to side with Opposition views.

(...)

"The Internet reports are mischievious with the intention to cause panic in Umno and Barisan Nasional, and it can create a negative situation in the country.

"The people should check their facts first and not believe everything they read on the Internet," he told reporters at the Parliament lobby on Monday.

I shall speak on why am I writing criticisms and stirring up debate soon. For now, I'll just let this quote speak on my behalf.

They have become media watchdogs, and an undeniable instrument of social and political pressure. They are that breath of fresh air in a discourse that has long gone stale. They are everyone’s favourite whipping boy, and if the negative publicity is to be believed, then the whole lot of them are nothing more than the merchants of misinformation and the purveyors of doom.

But sweeping generalisations are usually an exercise in ignorance.

The blogosphere is after all, simply the mainstream in microcosm. Much like their accepted brethren, there are those blogs that are reliable sources of information, there are those that aren’t, and there are those that just don’t care to be.

We should by no means hold them to a lower standard, but we shouldn’t have to hold them to a higher one either. We should consider any and all information in the same way, regardless of its source, with pause and contemplation.

We then embrace the credible and reject the incredible. We accept all that is accurate and evidenced, adding it to that which we consider knowledge, and we regard the far-fetched the same way we would an epidemic of aliens fathering babies in the American southwest.

But why are an increasing number of Malaysians turning their backs on the mainstream press and looking to blogs as a source of news and information? Sure they appeal to our darker desires, our voyeuristic nature, and our love of gossip and conspiracy theories, but all of those reasons display an overwhelming superficiality.

I’d like to believe that to seek out an alternative view is for its own sake; that more information allows us to make even better, and more informed decisions.

//THE LOCAL WEATHER by UMAPAGAN AMPIKAIPAKAN

With international media claiming that it's UMNO vs The Bloggers, shouldn't it be high time you know who's who and what's really going on? I ain't saying that any one party is right, but as long as you understand what I'm trying to get to you, then that's fine (psst.. clamping down on alternative sources of news?).

Diabolical Abuse of Power

Screw Photobucket for constantly timing out my connection. I've been spending the last 30minutes or so pressing F5.

Today's The Sun printed an article with the ex-MB of Selangor Tan Sri Mohammad Muhb Taib as UMNO Kelana Jaya branch division chief clearly exercising his recent rise to infamy fame by making another press statement.

Below is the excerpt from The Sun which I obtained. The web edition of the paper can be obtained here.

Strip Those Who Betray Country Of Citizenship
The Sun, Monday August 13th 2007

The government should strip the citizenship of Malaysians who betray the country by making comments that humiliate Islam or raise racial tension, Kelana Jaya Umno division said.

An emergency motion to discuss this was passed at its meeting yesterday. “If the offence is committed by foreigners outside the country, they should be barred from entering the country,” said the motion, tabled by Kelana Jaya Youth chief Abdul Halim Samad.“If (it is made) by foreigners in Malaysia, then legal action should be taken and those responsible should be deported and blacklisted.”

At a press conference later, Umno information chief Tan Sri Muhammad Muhd Taib, who also heads the Kelana Jaya division, warned that a riot could erupt if no action is taken against those humiliating religion or other races, and if they are allowed to continue doing it.“Do we want the situation to come to the level that it is more explosive than May 13?” he asked.

The motion came in the wake of heated debate about postings on the Internet. Last month, the police held Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s webmaster and blogger Nathaniel Tan for four days under the Official Secrets Act, for publishing comments on his blog that might have contravened the act.

On July 23, Muhammad lodged a police report against Raja Petra Kamarudin for posting articles allegedly insulted the King and Islam on his website, Malaysia-Today. Recently,a Malaysian student in Taiwan, Wee Meng Chee, came under heavy criticism by some quarters for allegedly mocking the national anthem and making offensive remarks in his rap video circulated YouTube.

As our National Day approaches, we have a convoy of ministers and people-in-power who has increasingly threatened law and action against other people outside their jurisdiction. Clearly, there is something going on?

Shouldn't the ex-MB himself be subjected to police probes just for issuing an underlying warning that riots will happen if this goes on?

The National Anthem Act 1968 punishes those who disrespect the anthem with a fine of RM100 or a maximum prison term of one month. If the basis of the outcry was the disrespect of The national anthem, why have AMNO (hereby referred to as 'AMNO' for convenience) nutheads systematically lined up to invoke the Internal Security Act, Sedition Act, or revoke Meng Chee (the video author)'s Malaysian citizenship?

The increasing message of fear that is being sent nationwide through distrusted local media has focused mostly on socio-political bloggers. It is also widely acknowledged among political analysts that the government has started a campaign against bloggers. In recent limelight since the Jeff Ooi and Rockybru incident was Nathaniel Tan and Raja Petra Kamarudin with the former being detained and the latter having to turn the tables on his interrogators at an interrogation at Dang Wangi recently.

Read here, here and here for more information.

Lastly, a few important quotes from alternative news sources.

Oriental Daily News, a Chinese vernacular daily, best described the mood when it headlined its front page Tan's arrest story as a "white terror" striking down bloggers. The daily asked, "Is the campaign against bloggers started?"

Political analysts see the "anti-blogger" campaign as an attempt to "instill fear" and also curb "unrestrained" attacks on national leaders especially on Badawi ahead of a crucial general election widely expected later this year.

Officials fear that "too many Malaysians" were being taken in by the alternative blogs and websites that offer an explosive mixture of gossip, hard opinions and few facts, capturing the imagination of millions of readers.
IPS News

-----

GMI believes these threats of using the ISA are none other than abuse of powers, as illustrated in the past, against dissidents who have exposed corruption practices within the government. Firstly, shouldn’t the government investigate the alleged corruption of civil servants and politicians involved instead of going after the whistle blowers? Secondly, shouldn’t the government investigate the author of the alleged law breaching postings in the blogs of Nathaniel Tan and Raja Petra instead of harassing the blog owners as in the case of four-day detention of Nathaniel Tan and long hour interrogation as in the case of Raja Petra? Does the government afraid that the author of these postings may well turn out to be coming from the cyber troops of UMNO as alleged by Raja Petra?
SUARAM

Yes, Raja Petra alleges that he knows who the AMNO cybertroopers headed by Aza1ina-lesbian are, and MalaysiaToday also alleges that they are the ones inciting unrest in the site.

A few more postings to come up pretty soon. I've delayed my dinner by 2 hours already, boy I'm hungry.

One Reason Why This Is Unreliable

Info Minister Zam (since information is directly under his jurisdiction) has recently as in last week, created another media blackout when the Conference of Rulers rejected a candidate for the chief judge position in Malaya, which was submitted by the PM. This was reported in Singapore's Straits Times, and picked up by Malaysiakini. The Star only reported the issue last Friday, with the Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim invoking the Official Secrets Act, and declining to comment that the Conference of Rulers had indeed rejected the PM's nominee who supposedly isn't one of the more senior judges but one of the junior ones.

So, why the media blackout? Why has the Chief Justice invoked the OSA? Shouldn't the nominee of such an important judiciary post be subjected to public scrutiny? Then again, why has the Conference of Rulers fallen out with the PM? Is it necessary for the Chief Justice to hold two posts in the judiciary?

Are We Getting Enough Broadband?

Check this out! Came across this website a few hours ago.

The National Broadband Plan aims for

1. 25% Household Penetration Rate by 2006
2. 50% Household Penetration Rate by 2008
3. 75% Household Penetration Rate by 2010

Now, doesn't the figures make you snicker in disbelieve?
We apparently failed in the 1st category. Yea, no kidding. And let's say optimistically speaking we are at a 5% Penetration rate as of June 2007. This gives us 1½ years to raise broadband subscriptions by 45%, and after that I think objective 3 is a joke. What do they think this is? Some small size company uphauling? We're talking about 27mil Malaysians, and assuming an average Malaysian household has 4 people, that roughs it up to 6mil households. So by 2010, the government is expecting 20mil Malaysians to use broadband. Is that even possible? Well probably if we're the size of China, or India, then yea that's realistic.

So, Redesign Malaysia has come up with a solution of what we all can do.

1. Give up hope and go back to farming.
2. Subscribe to more broadband accounts than we need to create an artificial increase. If each person subscribes to 9 additional accounts…
3. Compulsory broadband subscriptions, with the death penalty applied for those who don’t use broadband.
4. Design, engineer and implant miniature wi-fi devices into each and every Malaysian’s brain to create a nationwide wireless “neural” network.

That's just a joke. But, seriously, to attain South Korea's broadband penetration rate will already be a major breakthrough in the history of Southeast Asia! What's South Korea good for thus far besides Hyundai, Samsung and all those kahootz? Online games. Everyone knows it's the Korean gamers and game programmers that take up a considerable chunk of their household subscription. So, I propose that in order to at least fulfill 25% of the Broadband Plan's 2nd objective, that the Ministry of Education implements the introduction of gaming lessons and theories in all schools. Probably small kids could be taught to play Maple and older ones might be DotA-ing or WoW-ing, wtf I don't care.

I'm just screwing you around but the news is true. I kid you not.

This is rather old news, but heck.. I thought it'd be interesting to raise it back from the ashes! Hailing as Nuffnang's rival, Advertlets founder Josh Lim has also created this website Redesign Malaysia, a site dedicated entirely to promoting and creating awareness on the state of Malaysian broadband, as well as pushing for improvement. Drop by the website if you're bored!

Pause and Reset

Come this few weeks, I'll be going socio-political temporarily to highlight and pinpoint the critical issues that have befelled this beloved nation, in lieu of the oncoming elections. I'm just playing my part in spreading the word of truth, even though numerous jokers in government have labelled bloggers as monkeys, liars, fat bored housewives, goblok and whatnot. The first post will be due in tonight.

One site I'd really really recommend you to read, is Malaysia Today, as well as the links under Relatively Political Blogs.