Thursday 29 April 2010

Porky Pork

Got this news from the Star Malaysia.
It tickles my funny bones after I've been left dried with uninteresting news and news about crimes and social ills.
This certainly made my day!

Here.
Read also my opinion....ha ha ha
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Pork prices to go up if no new farms .

JOHOR BARU: The price of pork will continue to increase if the government does not allow more pig farms to be opened soon, said the Malaysia Pork Sellers’ Association.

Its chairman Goh Chui Lai said the price of the meat in Malaysia was now 30% higher than in Thailand, Vietnam, China and the Philippines.

“In fact since January, the price has increased from RM7.60 to RM7.90 per kg,” he said, adding that the government’s move to import pork from Canada and Europe did not help to bring down the price.

Speaking at a press conference here yesterday, Goh said pork in Thailand was sold at RM600 per 100kg, and about RM550 per 100kg in Vietnam and China.

“The government should give more permits for pig farms,” he said, adding that price increase for pork would burden the people.

Johor Baru Small Business Association president Chin Yoke Weng said if price for the meat continued to increase, consumers might find other alternatives.

“Then hawkers will have to stop selling pork,” he said.

Chin hoped the government would look into the matter before the Duan Wu Festival next month as then there would be a huge demand for the meat to make dumplings.


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How could they asked for more pork farm?
And I doubt this is for own consumption. Must be some motives of hiding pork meat ~ just like hiding of flour and sugar ~ habits of Malaysia middlemen or productions line in order to get their motives materialised.

Maybe, what they meant was not enough for export to Singapore. Everybody know the tiny republic is keeping their environment clean and import porky pork from Malaysia.

And I do not think the price is high at all.
Whenever Im back home and want to do some cooking, I'd pay RM8.00++ per kg for my kampung chicken ...so what is RM7.90 for a kg of that meat.

Why by increasing the permit would help consumer, when, all you need to do is buy and eat less of that meat. As we all know, pork meat contains all sort of bacteria / germ that can't be eliminated even by cooking at the highest degree of heat.

Pig is also filthy and smell like hell and eat on filthy feeds.
Obviously it is not good for consumption.
I mean like, we have beef, chicken, lamb and all other sort of meat available.
Decreasing in eating that meat won't hurt.
All pork eaters should do is, get use to eating other kind of meat....just like now, there are more people eating organics, becoming vegans, and more selective of their meat intake.

And prawns combine with chicken goes nicely in any dumplings....

Monday 26 April 2010

C'est la vie...

C'est la vie....the familiar sentence we so often heard or mention when we don't have anymore answer or clue to what is happening and being done the way they were.

Something that I think also goes along the line of things that we can't dwell too much, in this case, about our existence from Adam and Eve to who knows who the last baby(s) that was being born at today's stroke of midnight...(and i wonder how many more would that be).
Around the world.
Rural and urban.
Registered or otherwise.

All I know from my sparse knowledge, we human were created to run on the face of earth as His obedient servant to carry on managing the world rightfully and when the time comes, we will definitely will be called back to Him.

Even though, how better we think we are, we human will always be the destructive lot.
We are the creator of our own variety of stigma. We are never-ending chasing for glory in our own way. Chasing for power and accomplishments. We are envious. We are materialistic. Selfishly inconsiderate and just name it ~ we have it all in us. Little or more.

C'est la vie my friend...

I must say, it is quite a frustrating journey sitting on my couch reading and watching the news on whatever is happening near and far. From the act of God to inhumane act of human.
From suicide bombings to state one's idiocy, to missiles firing at each another and dumping of newborn babies by person who call themselves human.

I have read about endless stories about dead babies found in a dumpster.
Some hoards by ants or found scavenging by dogs or cats.
How many young child as young as seven years of age found raped and sodomised and killed by animals in disguise?

I'm perplexed at why with advancement in life, human won't be able to human anymore.
Perhaps, this is what God have promised for the human race and those whom allows sickness, greed and lust shrouding their life.

Living somewhere far with a slow steady life somewhere at the fringe of town where my skies were blanketed by the tree tops and my grounds are covered with greens away from destructive human race ~ both emotionally and mentally is indeed my ultimate hope in life....c'est la vie.

Thursday 22 April 2010

Techie Mystery: Why Did Israel Ban the iPad?

This is very interesting indeed.
Wonder what is behind all this hoohaas....
Anyway, talking about technology, I just had conversation with a friend regarding all this gadgets which mushrooming as the technology grows and remember sharing some story about my own 'gadget thing' during my fastlane time late 90s -- the PDA.

I remember that, it was like a silent No-No to carry along your all handsome black (or mine which was strong turqouise) leather filofax or orgniser and taking out a compact handheld PDA from the tote was the In thing which would surely attract the big guys you're having meeting or discussion with those days.

Nevertheless, after less than seven months of using it, I had it kept aside and later sold to someone. The reason?
PDA or personal digital assistants will never be a replacements for paper day planners!
I remember how it was totally unreliable, when you use it too much and the battery will goes off, when you want to scribble important notes and it'll get too crowded because the page and stylus doesn't work as accordingly as how a pen work along lined-pages....
It's mere 'show-off' I'd say.
Just like all the big bulky phones like iPhone, Blackberry and whatnots that they have in the market today; which FYI all started from a PDA phone long long time ago. If none of you know ~ it was PDA cum phone and that rang like a siren.

Yup, I admit it.
I can say that I am a bit of a technology junkie and would have my hands on interesting related gadgetery, but honestly, gadgets is just a way of attracting consumer to spend and keep on spending more.
From PDA to disc walkman to recently MP3 player -- in the end all will go down in a box on top of the cabinet.

I guess, some of us will definetely just get over all gadgetery and find that the conventional way of doing certain things still is the best way of doing things.

.

Monday 19 April 2010

Mysteries and death.



Shroud of Turin
By Kayla Webley
Be it fact or fake, the Shroud of Turin, a yellowed, 14-ft.-long (4.3 m) linen some believe to be Christ's burial cloth, has drawn millions to the Italian city. While the Shroud bears an image of a crucified man with wounds similar to those endured by Jesus, carbon-dating tests in 1988 showed the cloth was made between 1260 and 1390 and therefore could not have been used to wrap Christ's body. Still, the test results have not stopped pilgrims from flocking to take their 3-to-5-minute looks at the shroud this month in its first public viewing since 2000. Some say the tests may have been skewed and should be redone.

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~The ever unknown fact of the followers~


Anyway, as I believe that the subject of life and death should be openly discussed without the feeling of 'taboo' -- because,hey, we human will die eventually; I remember my very interesting chat about life and death with a friend whom father had passed away many years back. This friend had kept the ashes in an urn and it was kept there on an altar in the house.



However, the subject of my story today was the story about cremation and what happen next.
Okay, so, this friend of mine shared with me an interesting fact about what today's people do with their loved one's cremains.


The urn keeping will definitely be noble and done but now people actually have ways of preserving the ashes in a more interestingly nice and beautiful ways.
It is by having the ashes transformed into coloured crystals and with nice designs.


The colour however will naturally emerged from the essence of the cremains which determined by the minerals in the dead body plus other factors and chemical compositions.



Interesting.
I do not know whether in Malaysia anyone had done this before, or whether they have this in existence but this form of preservation is already getting a hit in the US especially with the younger generations.
This crystals will be some sort of keepsakes and i guess would somehow make the passing of people not so hurtful as they would be 'transformed' into another form of object which will be seen or touched ~ unlike ashes.

Unfailingly, when I heard or read stories about cremation and crystals, my mind will always flew back to a once a very close friend whom I had the chance to know in my early days of working. He is (was would be rather inappropriate since I do not know his actual whereabouts now) a person who had started his life from scratch to becoming one of the board of a huge public listed company in Kuala Lumpur. A great companion who is a go getter omnivorous to a calm and composed total vegan who later put away his worldly possessions to take a soul searching trip to Tibet.

His reasons for this spiritual journey?
Fulfilling his desperation in finding the missing thing in him that not money nor people can give. This turn was taken after the death of his maternal grandmother. The interesting part about this old lady was, when they cremated her, they had found some bluish and whitish crystals among the ashes of the lifetime vegetarian woman.
And according to Buddhists, this is a show of some special things about the person. They believe that the crystals are formed as a result of spiritual realizations of the person and act as a reminder to those left behind of their own essential nature of purity that can be manifested by itself thru good deeds and all.

Of course, scientifically, there must be some reasons behind the appearance of the crystalline-liked things. Which people nowadays can create thru several process but with certain chemicals components that will take weeks to create.
On the other hand, this sort of 'revelation' happened to his family there and then after the cremation, thus there must be some explanation to it....

God has certain ways of moving His servants.

Sunday 18 April 2010

Right Wing Rejection of Same Sex Marriage Full of Fallacies.

Right wing psychologist Trayce Hansen is among those who oppose equal marriage rights for homosexual couples and heterosexual couples. She lends her credentials as a psychologist to give the veneer of professionalism this opinion, but then uses non-psychological arguments to support her claims.

For example, one of the rationales Hansen gives for rejecting equal marriage rights for all American couples is that allowing same-sex marriage would force the government to give recognition to other forms of marriage as well. She writes,

If society permits same-sex marriage, it also will have to allow other types of marriage. The legal logic is simple: If prohibiting same-sex marriage is discriminatory, then disallowing polygamous marriage, polyamorous marriage, or any other marital grouping will also be deemed discriminatory. The emotional and psychological ramifications of these assorted arrangements on the developing psyches and sexuality of children would be disastrous. And what happens to the children of these alternative marriages if the union dissolves and each parent then “remarries”? Those children could end up with four fathers, or two fathers and four mothers, or, you fill in the blank.

There are three parts to Trayce Hansen’s argument:

1. “If society allows same-sex marriage, it also will have to allow other types of marriage.”
2. Other types of marriage than monogamous are harmful to children.
3. Non-monogamous types of marriage can result in children having more than one father or mother.

Hansen’s first point is easy to refute. One need only remember that the same justification was made against allowing couples of different ethnicities to marry in the United States. Laws against miscegenation were dismantled over a generation ago, and yet, same-sex marriage has remained illegal. History proves that dismantling one form of discrimination does not, unfortunately, lead to the dismantling of other forms of discrimination.

Some of the sorts of marriage that Trayce Hansen worries could be made legal are already, in fact, legal. Polyamory is not against federal law, although there are some archaic, unenforced laws on the books in a few backwaters against sexual affairs outside of marriage.

Besides that, Trayce Hansen’s second point is unsupported by the facts. Are children psychologically harmed by polygamous marriages? They can be, but then again, children can also be psychologically harmed by monogamous heterosexual marriages. There is no scientific study that indicates that polygamy is inherently psychologically damaging to children. What damages children psychologically is abuse and neglect, not abstract models of family organization. That’s why it’s important to outlaw abuse and neglect, not structures of family organization that some religious or political groups claim to be unhealthy.

Finally, Trayce Hansen worries that polyamorous or polygamous marriages, when there is divorce and remarriage, could lead to children having multiple fathers or multiple mothers. That might be an argument against polyamorous or polygamous marriages, if the same thing was not true of heterosexual, monogamous marriages. Take a look at Rudolph Giuliani and the confusion his children have had to experience because of their father’s multiple marriages. He’s not a polygamist. His marriages have all been the right wing ideal – between one man and one woman.

So, the objections of right wing ideologues like Trayce Hansen don’t hold up to even simple inquiry. Their agenda is not truly in favor of the interests of family values. Instead, their agenda is against the liberty for Americans to form families that fit their values. We need to have a President of the United States who will oppose the sort of sloppy thinking that she and her colleagues promote, and support marriage equality for all, without equivocation.

(Source: DrTrayceHansen.com)


This is what we human should give a thought before committing, indulging or agreeing in that kind of relationships.

Wednesday 14 April 2010

Some money making industry....

Say What? Yes, You Heard Right – Zynga Could Be Worth $5 Billion
By Mathew Ingram

Zynga, the leading social gaming company behind Facebook hits such as Farmville and Mafia Wars, would likely be worth as much as $5 billion if it were publicly traded instead of privately held, according to SecondShares.com, a group of former equity analysts who spend their time researching the value of private online companies such as Zynga, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
SecondShares based its estimate of Zynga’s value on the number of outstanding shares, estimated revenue per user, growth rate and other metrics, and projected that by 2015 the game maker could have a theoretical market value as high as $10 billion.

Given the pent-up demand that such private companies represent, there’s a lot of interest in valuing them — since there is a chance they could go public someday — and also in trading their shares through secondary markets, although Facebook recently barred its employees from selling their stock through such vehicles.

The authors of the Zynga report — former Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs equity analyst Lou Kerner, former Sanford Bernstein research analyst Eli Halliwell and Gamers Media CEO Jay Gould — say Zynga is the leader in the social gaming market with 237 million monthly active users and six of the top seven social games.

That gives the company more than four times as many monthly active users as Playfish, which was recently bought by Electronic Arts for $400 million. China’s Tencent Holdings is the only online game company that is larger than Zynga, the report says, with 400 million monthly active users.

Based on an estimate of what Zynga likely makes in revenue from the average user, Second Shares projects that the company will pull in about $500 million in revenue this year, and could be making as much as $1.6 billion per year in five years.
The analysts say that shares of the company are currently trading in private, illiquid markets at about $9 a share, but would likely be worth almost twice as much if Zynga were to go public, and that Zynga has a number of strengths that justify a premium valuation, including the fact that it can cross-market games to users of other Zynga games, and that it’s quickly able to duplicate other successful games that competitors come up with. From the report:

As with Facebook, Twitter, and other high profile private companies, you can buy Zynga shares in the (illiquid) private market, where about $6 million worth of shares traded hands last year through marketplaces like SecondMarket.com. Only accredited investors are allowed to participate. Currently, the ask price is about $9/share, implying a market cap for Zynga of $2.8 billion. Toward the end of its research report, however, Second Shares mentions a number of potential risks for Zynga and its valuation, including:

Farmville currently accounts for an estimated 50 percent of the company’s revenue, and “appears to have peaked in terms of popularity.”
Facebook blocked applications from providing notifications in newsfeeds last month, removing “a major source of free advertising.”
Four of Zynga’s six major game hits “appear to have peaked or to be in decline.”
Zynga is dependent on Facebook, and growth at the social network could slow, or the network could harm Zynga somehow.

Online gaming is a risky, hit-driven business, and there are a lot of competitors.
In February, a research firm called Next Up estimated that Zynga was worth as much as $3 billion, in a report it did for private share-trading site SharesPost.com, where Zynga is currently valued at $2.6 billion. Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies invested $180 million in Zynga in December.

In November, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities said Zynga could be worth as much as $1 billion, given the $400 million that Electronic Arts paid for Playfish. At that point, Inside Social Games estimated that Zynga would have revenue of $210 million for 2009 and $355 million this year, and a statement from the company said that 1 million of its 200 million active monthly users were buying virtual goods.

Monday 12 April 2010

World's deepest known undersea volcanic vent found - Yahoo! News

World's deepest known undersea volcanic vent found - Yahoo! News


There are more things in the world underneath and above us that we dont know and ever will know.
God is our creator and the creator of this universe.

SEX and the Malays

KUALA TERENGGANU: Anal beads, dildos, vibrators and sex dolls – these are some of the sex gadgets said to be peddled to students of a university here.
They even have prostitutes catering exclusively for the undergraduates.

Amrie Amanah, who recently graduated with a degree in information technology at the university, alleged that these sex toys, some sold for as low as RM50, were being peddled by a group of seniors in clandestine transactions often outside the university’s compound.

“The seniors have links with other universities in the East Coast and they even arrange for sexual partners for a sum,” the 26-year-old from Kelantan told The Star here yesterday.

Amrie said the seniors sourced the gadgets from a neighbouring country and stored them at a home in Gong Badak here.

He claimed that a 28-year-old student led the group of seniors to promote the gadgets to other students, adding:
“I knew of their activities some two years ago but was not bold enough to come forward as I was still a student then. I decided to expose their wrongdoings once I graduated,” he said.

Amrie said the leader of the “syndicate” was from Perak and had been at the university for the last seven years, currently pursuing his Masters.

“They have links with other universities and I believe they even operate a prostitution ring catering exclusively for undergraduates,” he said.

He claimed that the group members at his former university were all men and had a close rapport with another university in Terengganu in which the members were entirely female.
When prompted, Amrie managed to buy a silicone penis ring dubbed the “Prince Albert ring” for RM50 on the spot from one of the seniors.

He said the seniors operated until late at night and gadgets were available on the spot. Rooms (outside the university grounds) would be made available at a sum.
“It’s a well-organised syndicate where all arrangements are made for students seeking sexual pleasure anytime,” he said.


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Now, that really make me believe that people from all these places outside big towns are very sexually-inclined lots. Correct me if im wrong.
Well, at least these university students are above 17 years of age and can have sex with whoever and 'whatever' they preferred, but what about those found having orgies in one of Kedah's remote kampung area?

This story which happened many years back were not made public but was told by a cousin who was then the head of one religious department in the northern area of Peninsular.
Those girls and boys aged as young as 15 till 19 were found in a house in some small kampung.

And the MOST interesting part is, this kind of social ills came only from one race ~ the champion ~Malays~ because the other race(s) are studying hard to get by in the country, or for the rich ones, straight away enroll themselves into overseas universities.
Gosh....it is utterly humiliating having to read about all this things, and what more when it come from my own race.

There are news about students selling dope, offering free sex for drugs and now this...
Perhaps it is true that all these sickness and horny affect in the younger generations was due to too much of hormonoes intake via cultivated foodstuff such as chicken etc...

Sunday 11 April 2010

Ancient Egypt...

I just came back from my holiday.
Although I initially don't feel like going anywhere, my the other half suggested that we take a break out of the country, and we decided to go to our most preferred country ~ Egypt.
But this time we got the travel agent to planned for us a cruise along the Nile.

Although having going there many time before, the Nile cruise was a very relaxing holiday. Sailing from Luxor to Aswan and across the Essna Lock, visits to all the ancient temples around the area are more educational than that off Cairo and Giza. The period are different because of the Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt monarchy. And there are more things to learn about the ancient Egypt.
But our additional visit to Abu Simble was the ultimate one especially for me; because it has been my childhood dream of visiting the Temple of Abu Simble, the magnificently huge stone carving facing the sun across the huge Lake Nasser - the picturistic scene we always see when it comes to depicting Egypt and it's historical sites.

Sailing along the Nile and watching remote countryside really gave that tranquility feeling in me. Watching them having fun by just swimming and watching huge cruises passing their waters make me thinking how people that don't have much in life can make their life happy and simple ~ so easily.
Of course, unlike people like us, who never stop competing with each another, that is.

Visiting the ancients ritual sites, and touching the engraving made thousands and thousands of years ago had never failed to give me that feeling of inspiring mysteries and wonders.
I had many years ago, crawled into one of the tomb at Giza Pyramids but it cannot equal the surreal feeling and atmosphere I attained at one of the tombs in Alexandria.
The smell of something very hard to figure out was overwhelming and I was at that moment alone in the tomb which were used to buried sorcerers and all.
Perhaps it was the smell of ancients.

Unlike this visit, my first visit to Alexandria nine years ago, were more relaxing as it weren't as crowded as what I experience during Luxor and Aswan visits.

Nevertheless, Egyptology always fascinates me.
I vividly remember cutting an Isis symbol as according to the cartoon I watched on TV when I was nine or 10. I would later stick the coloured piece to my forehead and pretend to be the God Isis. It was blue...if I can recall it well.
And the first time I know I'm into Egyptology was when I found myself reading books about Ramses and Pharoas and Mummies.

It is an astonishing experience one person should have once during their lifetime, at least. And I know I will be coming back again after they'd found new sites, which, will be an endless effort, obviously.

Despite being a country that tourism is one of the highest income, a lot need to be taken care off especially when it come to the overcharging tourist part. This is not just about souvenirs, but a simple pack of Lays were sold at 20EGP per pack and that is about QR15. We paid a small box of apple juice for 10EGP.
The other thing about these people is they depend on tippings - a lot. Although it is understood that tipping is a must here in Egypt, we somehow got ourselves into some unwanted situation such as having to pay a different price than agreed earlier.

Somehow, after coming to the country many times and experiencing Egypt and their people, one will learnt way in and out of bargaining, and of course it is always better to expect the unexpected.

This is a story from our tourist guide Imad.
According to him, there was a Libyan family who flew down from Cairo to visit Luxor and Aswan.
During their free time, they went out and later got themselves on the horse carriage after being solicited by the driver telling them that he is charging a minimal 10EGP per town ride.
Similar to our own experience, he later took them to few shops selling papyrus paintings and perfume house.
The only different is, we know their intentions, and we refused.
But the Libyan family, found one papyrus that he liked so much that cost him 5000EGP, and bought it from that shop. Upon reaching the hotel, and when about to pay, the driver told the Libyan guy that it is his pleasure bringing him around town and 5EGP would be enough. Of course the guy was elated with the driver's generosity.

The next day, he told Imad of his trips and showed him the painting after the guide smelled something fishy. It turn out that the painting would only cost him mere 800EGP and later asked the man to go back to the shop.
He did get back his 2000EGP. And the other 3000EGP he asked the Libyan to go and get it back from the carriage driver!
Imagine how much an introducer can make in this land.
And as usual we were always adviced to ask for 50% discount to all our street and souk purchases.
It depends on our luck, the aggresiveness of the seller and our bargaining power.
Another thing to watch out for is, when a price is agreed in EGP, take out the money before taking the items in your hand, because believe me, an Egyptian Pound can suddenly become English Pound or US Dollar...

Besides that, Egypt can offer you very nice of local food and cheap fresh sesonal fruits.