Oh No! Our Corruption index Score Down The Chute?

When Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over the helm of the Malaysian Government, one of his mission is to fight graft. However to the perception of the people, he failed even though the agency responsible has been re branded and given a new name. The new MACC seems not speeding ahead at the expected pace and the late Teo Beng Hock case has been plagueing the Commission's name. Free Malaysia Today Online newspaper reported on the home page Corruption index Score down the chute by Stephanie Sta Maria who reported;

KUALA LUMPUR: Transparency International (TI) has slapped Malaysia with a historically low Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score of 4.4 for 2010.

The CPI score indicates the perceived level of corruption in a country Its scale is set from 0 to 10, with 0 being the most corrupt and 10 being the least.

Malaysia's CPI score plummeted to 4.5 last year from 5.1 in 2008. Its 2010 score has maintained its current ranking at 56 out of 176 countries. Read more.......

Transparency International release the index today by secretary-general Ngooi Chiu-Ing and listed a number of reasons that TI-Malaysia believed earned Malaysia its 2010 score.

• the perception of little progress in combating corruption
• the lack of political will in implementing anti-corruption measures and the perennial example here is no 'big fish' being brought to book.
• poor progress in the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) fiasco, no further action by the attorney-general in judicial appointment tampering, the practice of awarding mega projects and contracts without open tenders and no integrity pacts implemented to date.

Under Najib “Integrity is one of the National Key Results Areas (NKRA) with the target of improvement of the CPI score as a KPI.

“But overall the government must show stronger political will in fighting corruption and walk the talk,” Ngooi added.

Go HERE  and HERE for the 2010 Corruption Perceptions index 2010 results of the world.

Now that the Galas election has been flagged off, among the voters in the constituencies are the Orang asli has 1,889 voters.  Is it a coincidence that the Orang Asli voice out their frustrations and reported on the day of Galas by election nomination day this has to be published  Orang Asli seething at uncaring government and definitely NOT in the mainstream media. Will the Orang asli in Galas be able to read this?

Najib must kill graft to keep his goal alive. 

Changes On My Advertisement Banners

I joined a Advertlets, a blog advertising community  since 9th July 2007 at about the same time I registered with another company, Nuffnang. Between these two it seems the latter is more aggressive and  actively organise events for members and is usually open for all. The former too did the same but I see that many of their events cater to close friends and only a few open to other bloggers.  

Being business rivals, these companies categorize their members into normal members and premium members. Premium members earn more from advertisement posted on their blogs. 

At first I pasted both company's advertisement space on my blog but after sometimes it seems that only one of them actively posted ads on my blog and that made me pull down the other company's banner, even though I did make some money but not eligible to cash out. I really felt left out by the company and that being one of the reason I pulled down their banner but kept my membership intact. 

My reaction upgrade my status on the other company from a normal member to Gliteratti member with better perks. However it did not last long enough and I lost the status after I place another advertising banner which seems very slow in generating income (I might pull down the banner one day, maybe if it just does not give me the edge) and then I lost my Gliteratti status. It happen at a wrong timing because I lost the status (and did not realise it) just before I requested my payout and it took me two month before my check is processed instead of 30 days for Gliteratti member. After all I had already received my cheque. 

After losing my status, I though what the heck now. So why not put up the first advertisement banner again with all the hope I will get advertisement to balance up. Everything is trial and error. If it is not successful, then why not make more changes. After all, I am paying nothing for all that. So now you can find three banners on my blogs.

Why Not Some Signal At Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam

For two days, 20 and 21 October 2010, I was at Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam to attend the Sports Tourism Outdoor Pursuit and Event Management Training organised by Paximej and Malaysia Sports Tourism Council. 

The two days seminar was held at the Perkampungan Budaya's Dewan Sri Pekan. This is the first time after 14 years visiting this Agricultural Park owned by Ministry of Agriculture Malaysia. Lots of development had been done with more venues for activities to cater for outdoor needs of individual. It is located just next to development, that is City of Shah Alam.  

The Perkampungan Budaya has a very beautiful surrounding and setup imitating Malaysians rural Malay village with the main building and other smaller buildings scattered within the same location. I am not sure whether it can be a getaway destination for some reason. Firstly it is about 2.7 km from the main gate. Gate closed at 4.30pm. Rental per house is RM200. It might be nobody else staying in other houses. You can be very lonely. However that depends on individual preferences. 

During the two days one of my personal setback is without phone or internet line. These are the two daily essentials for people of this era. Staying alone in the heart of the jungle can be very lonely and communication with the outside world can be considered lost. If there is the basic necessities besides water and electricity, this place can be a very conducive venue for seminars, meetings or gatherings. These activities needs the basic  communication facilities. The nearest celltower was(I think, based on my signal) is from Bukit Jelutong and the signal is very weak from one or two bars to zero and most of the time only on SOS signals. 

I was thinking why not the Ministry concern just allocate a free plot of land for a celltower and shared with all the service provider within the park. People who come are not all team building groups (who might ban mobile phones) but including casual visitors.  

Holes in Najib's 2011 budget

Liew does the math and finds holes in Najib's budget

This was taken from Harakahdaily.

the figures were not consistent with the Federal expense estimate for 2010 which states a total allocation of RM191 billion (RM191,498,805,000) including an operating budget of RM138 billion (RM 138,279,148,000).

“If these figures were correct, this would mean there exists a RM30 billion hole and a 16 percent overspend,”

“For 2011, RM2 billion is allocated for that purpose which the Finance Minister is attempting to hide from the public. The actual total is RM213,987,217,000 or RM 214 billion,” he said, adding that the RM214 billion budget saw an increase of 12 per cent from the RM191 billion originally allocated for 2010.

Proton Inspira - The New Waja

Go HERE for more

Know Your Phone IMEI Function

IMEI stands for International Mobile Equiptment Identity. It is not just numbers but have some functions.

In India, India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had implement the if the IMEI for verification that the phone is genuine. Phones without the IMEI will be disconnected. The Indian initiative was due to the many low cost Chinese products and other unbranded phones that has been used in terrorists activities. 

 IMEI is a unique 15 digit number found usually in the battery compartment and is automatically transmitted if asked by the network. If you have a genuine mobile phone you can check by pressing *#06# and then the 15 digit number (e.g. 316725.10.4690216) will appear on your screen. This is the IMEI. Another option is to remove the back cover and battery and the number can be seen on the sticker together with the barcode. 

You can check your number online by going HERE and you can check all known information regarding manufacturer, model type, and country of approval of a handset.

What prompted me to write this post is because I received a BBM message about checking the validity of Blackberry Phones. Information regarding where the BB was manufactured can be checked using the seventh and eigth digit as follows:

10 - produced in Finland with best quality

02 or 20 - Asia with poor quality

08 0r 80 - produced in Germany with best quality

03 - Produce either in France or Canada with good quality

04 - Limited Edition produce specially for Canada with best quality in the world.

Therefore if your Blackberry do not have the above mentioned digits it might mean that you are having imitation BBs.


Your IMEI can also be used to block your phone in case the set is lost or being stolen by contacting your network mobile provider requesting them to block the IMEI number. The lost orc stolen phone will be not usable even the sim card has been changed because the new SIM card will request for the service with the IMEI and the blocked IMEI will ignore the request.  


I am not sure whether Malaysia's network provider had implemented this safety procedures.  

Its Ten Ten Ten

Today is 10th of October 2010 or 10.10.10. Many people is waiting for this date that comes only after a century. The next triple 10 will be on 10th October 2110, which nobody alive today will be able to reach. 

Many people has planned something on this date due to its exclusiveness.  I have nothing planned for this date and therefore I write this post and upload on the date. 

October this year is special too and this email I receive might be a testimony that shows the another exclusiveness of 10.10.10. It reads that October this year has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays all in one month. This happens once in 823 years. These are moneybags. Pass them to 8 good people and money will appear in 4 days. That is based on Chinese Fung Shui. 

  

You Love Chicken Nugget?

So you love chicken nugget a lot? We fry it for afternoon tea, cook it for lunch or dinner. We take it as snacks. But what I read on a website Singapore's Straits Times STOMP, is a bit sickening. I copy and post as what appeared in the STOMP. Whether you believe it or not is another matter.  

 STOMPer Chikken felt his stomach turn when he found this picture of mechanically-separated chicken meat in an email. Apparently, this meat product is what chicken patties and nuggets are made of.

The STOMPer wrote:

"This is just... sickening.

"Apparently this squishy pink goo is what our chicken nuggets and chicken burgers are made of... And I thought it was soft strawberry ice-cream at first!

"According to an email I received from a friend, chickens are forced through a sieve, guts, bones, eyes and all, to separate meat from the bones.

"The 'meat' is then soaked in poisonous ammonia to kill all the bacteria, before it is reflavoured to taste like chicken again.

"The worst part is how the 'meat' comes out a weird pink colour. Apparently it has to be dyed to resemble chicken meat once more as well.

"I'll never look at my beloved nuggets the same way again."

UPDATED
Its just coincidence I found this webpage about the above article and more is revealed. It was published on the Huffington Post.

Someone figured out in the 1960s that meat processors can eek out a few more percent of profit from chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows by scraping the bones 100% clean of meat. This is done by machines, not humans, by passing bones leftover after the initial cutting through a high pressure sieve. The paste you see in the picture above is the result.


Click HERE to read the article on Huffington Post. 

The Storm Came

Malaysia had landed the Curve 3G in about the same time as the launch of iPhone4 phones. Now another storm had landed on Malaysian shores. 

Reported in The Star's Tech Central  in conjunction with appointment of another distributor for Malaysia.

By ZAM KARIM
intech@thestar.com.my

" The Torch 9800 is a slider model that RIM said combines the best of two worlds - touchscreen functionality and a physical Qwerty keyboard - in one device.

More precisely, it looks as if RIM has slapped together two of its high-end models, the Storm and Bold, to produce another the Torch.

Measuring 148 x 62 x 14.6mm and weighing 162g, the Torch's 3.2in capacitive TFT touchscreen slides up to reveal a traditional BlackBerry Qwerty keyboard down below.

RIM's SurePress technology, which provides users with tactile feedback when the touchscreen is pressed , is missing from the Torch but the optical trackpad makes the cut.

The phone comes with 4GB of built-in memory that be expanded by up to 32GB via a microSD slot. A 4GB card comes bundled with the package.

Other notable features include a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, continuous autofocus, 11 scene modes, geotagging as well as VGA video capture with image stabilisation.

As one would expect, there's also WiFi along with Bluetooth connectivity, as well as an A-GPS chip for navigation.

First to get OS 6

The Torch 9800 is also the first BlackBerry device to come with the BlackBerry 6 operating system. The OS is billed as a true hybrid system, where users can do almost anything through touch, on the keypad or using the trackpad in between them.

RIM is expected to make the OS available on the Bold 9700 and 9650, the Curve 3G as well as Pearl 3G.

Some of the major enhancements in BlackBerry 6 include a new browser, which uses the same WebKit engine as the Apple iOS and Google Android browsers.

The new OS also offers a myriad of new media features such as a podcast application, enhanced music and video player, WiFi music synching to the PC on home network and synchronisation with Windows Media Player.

Also available is the Web Video Search app, which is a high-level browser for multiple online video sites, including YouTube, Dailymotion, ifilm, MobiTV, MSN and others.

BlackBerry 6 also features the universal search function where users are able to find just about any piece of content on the phone simply by typing in their query into the search field.

No official prices and availability were announched but interested users can start to pre-order the device now from their respective telcos.

Links 

blackberry

brightstar

@ BlogFest.Asia 2010 -

It was a fruitful weekend for me at the 2nd BlogFest.Asia 2010 held at Wawasan Open University (WOU), Penang. The Fest organised by dotasia.org and mybloggercon.com. The two days at the conference, I learn some new things although some of it is a bit too technical for me as I consider myself not a tech geek. It was all about the new media and empowering it into the limelight as it is the future of communication, to me. The young generation or I am labeling them as cyber generation is slowly overtaking the IT generation. 

I was born before Malaysians knew nothing about computers and was exposed to the my first 386 computer in 1983 when I bought a desktop for RM 3,800. It was considered luxury then. Since then I never look back and today into my second half century of living, I consider myself a computer addict but an end user only. I have been blogging since 2006 after reading about the tsunami on jeffooi's screenshot.  

I was wondering at first whether I am fit to join the Fest since I am a Malay and the organiser is a Mandarin based blogging community and catering to the bloggers who writes in Mandarin . Another lingering question as to my participation is will I fit in the younger generation due to my age. However, I made a bold move to go ahead.  The first morning I walk from Continental Hotel on Penang road to WOU for two reason. First to take some shots for the Blog Penang contest that I intend to take part and secondly maybe I can get to see the secretariat and take my participant name tag. When I reached the security guard and inquired whether there is the secretariat at the Uni and he said, “Depa baru saja belah.” It might sound rude to first timer who hear the word belah that literally meant had went off but for me being a Kedahan, it is just a normal thing. However after staying in Kuala Lumpur for some years, it was a bit of a “culture shock”. So, my mission on the first day morning failed.

I attended the first day welcome dinner hosted by Ministry of Tourism Malaysia  at QE II. Before landing in the island, I was thinking QEII is some posh restaurant by the seaside somewhere near the Esplanade. I knew that there’s a restaurant there. It was all wrong because QEII is a restaurant that serves Western cuisine located at Tanjung City Marina, Church’s Street Pier. Its a place for fine dining and chilling down while being caressed by the cool sea breeze.

The dinner was hosted by Tourism Malaysia and of course I felt lost because I did not know anyone and being sitting alone just enjoying the food and fill after fill of juice. I don’t drink of course. Being a participant I obliged to the  host and I felt a bit relieve when I saw a few Malay participants in the crowd even though I did not make any  advancement to get to know them.

The second day start with a keynote address by Peter Herford from Chung Kong School of Journalism and Communication who do open up our mind about changes…….

During the breakout session I join the Multimedia blogging and its future by Podcaster John Ong and moderated by Willy Wah. Even though I have heard about podcast before but the session that I attended gives me a clearer picture what podcasting all about. It was a video conferencing session between Willy, the participants and John Ong who is in the United States. Note: I am listening to Ongline podcast Ongline #369 Politics to Diet with Vertitable Vergo. Now I am clear what podcast is all about and my conclusion, one need some studio skills, fluent in your podcasting medium , adequate knowledge in the area discussed, good communication skills and a pleasant voice to be a DJ online.  This is the differences between podcasters and bloggers.

The next session was by Ms Masjaliza Hamzah, ED of CIJ Malaysia ; Journalistic Values For Documenting Events via your blogs and followed by Use of New Media in Education by Wawasan Open University and Shantou University lecturer Mr Jeremiah Foo.

I do not know whether there is a shuttle bus from WOU or I missed the bus.  I did not get any message from the secretariat actually. I think the secretariat has to look into this area of communication for future meetings. Since I already missed the bus, I was forced to wait for dinner hosted by Penang State Government in conjunction with Mybloggercon Awards and Asia Blogger Choice Award.

Third Day starts with presentation by representatives from participating countries. The session do give some information about internet and the new media of these countries and followed by an interesting forum discussed by a panel that hail from the two different divide of political parties in Malaysia. I can’t quite remember the names of both panels but one is an MP for Bukit Bendera while the other from MCA.

Three workshops followed. The first that I attended was Wordpress Multisite . However I left early for another workshop since it did not suit my needs and join another concurrent workshop about organising people in the cyber and real world. 

Photography and Travelogue through blogs ends the workshop sessions. There was a good discussion about  the topic since photo of one of the ingredient of an interesting blog post. However I did not learn much eventhough I am very interested in the topic and from my opinion the secretariat should have invited more successful photo bloggers to share their experiences and expertise.

My suggestion: Since mybloggercon uses the '”my” that represent Malaysia, I think such activities should be open up to all bloggers irrespective of language in their blog postings so that it will reflect the true identity of Malaysia as a multiracial country. Let us show to the world how blogging and the new media as an example and tools of unity irrespective of race, religion and creed and fight for the common cause.

There are still many more local blog celebrities (not celebrity blogger) from Malaysia who has been successful such as Kennysia, Nicole Cocokiss, Redmummy, BeautifulNara, as an example to come and share their experiences in punning traffic and making a living from blogging.

Maybe next time can invite Timothy Thiah too from Nuffnang and share out how Nuffnang can help bloggers earn part time as bloggers. We have to move on from blogging as a hobby to blogging for a living.

Liason, Please in future do not leave out “foreign locals” in future as we need your help too.

Conclusion: I lift my hat to the whole member of secretariat for doing a good job making this Fest a success. You have made Malaysia proud with your effort since this is an International event. 

Note: I am the one in the centre wearing the berretta cap. Picture credit to John Shen Lee.

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Cruelty To Animal - A Shame To Denmark!

Denmark has been in the running in news since one of her cartoonist published a caricature of Muhammad (PBUH) that spark anger from Muslims all over the world that lead to boycott of Danish products especially by Muslim countries. Then it arouse anger again when pictures showing utter disrespect to the holy book of the Quran . 

I received an email from a friend and again it refers to Denmark. This message is about practice of animal cruelty in Denmark towards dolphins.

This is the hypocrisy of the West. 

They go on about the Japanese killing the whales. 

What about this? 

Is this okay?? 

We don't hear about this in the news at all. 

Please keep this email going around the world.

Denmark is a big shame. 

 

Look at the sea and how it was stained in red and this is not about climate effects on nature, as you can see clearly. It's because of the cruelty of the human beings (so called civilised humans) who kills hundreds of the famous and intelligent Calderon dolphins. 

This activity happens every year in Feroe Island, Denmark. Main participants taking part in the slaughter are young teens. Why? It's a celebration to show that they are adults and matured.

 

In this big celebration, nothing is missing for the fun. everyone is participating in one way or another, killing or looking at the cruelty by supporting like a spectator. 

Is it necessary to mention that the dolphin Calderon, like all the other species of dolphins, it's near extinction and they get near men to play and interact. in a way of pure friendship.

They don't die instantly: they are cut 1,2 or 3 times with thick hooks and during that time the dolphins produce a grim cry like that of a new born child.

But he suffers and there's no compassion while this magnificent creature dies a slow death in its own blood.

  

Its enough! Let us all send this information until this goes around the world and many more people will know about this shameful Danish acts. 

SIGN PETITION HERE

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I Wuz In Penang For BlogFest Asia

This blog has been moved to HERE.