Some Stuff in the Papers

I shall now post some random stuff to occupy my time here at the office.

Firstly, another excellent, as well as timely column by Marina Mahathir, one of my favourite columnists. I admire her a lot, for being fearless in expressing opinions contrary to the country's political norms and for her work to create HIV/AIDS awareness.

She rocks. She had a book out a few years ago, a collection of some of her Musings articles, published in The Star. Great read.

I hope she'll come out with Volume 2 soon.

Here's another fascinating story about hangmen in Malaysia.

Personally, I'm for the use of the death penalty. Some crimes are just too heinous for the guilty party to be left alive. For example, rape/murder. In my mind, it's quite simple. You rape. Your victim dies. You die. Especially if they're kids. Or maybe for that instance, a firing squad would be more appropritate.

And talking about crime, there's this story about a kid who got beaten up in school and who is now partially paralysed.

As a former victim, I feel very, very strongly about bullying in school. I'm not the right person to ask what to do about bullies. It's a hard topic to think about rationally. It fills me with quite a bit of anger and not a little hate.

I remember them, their faces, their names, the things they did. Most of them now are at the lower end of society, eking out a living. No, I don't feel sorry for them. They nearly destroyed me and any self worth that I had as a child and I still can't get over some of the damage. They deserve every ounce of pain and hardship they get now.

They had it coming.

As for the kids who beat up Afiq, suspend them, try them as juveniles and if found guilty, send them away to Henry Gurney. Or jail, since they're 17 right now. Let's see how "strong" and "macho" these bastards are. Or a salt mine somewhere.

If it were up to me, I'd sit them in the middle of the school football field, make them kneel, shoot them in the gut with a small calibre pistol and leave them to bleed to death.

I guess it's good that it's not up to me.

If it is true that the school's principal and teachers tried to cover this up, sack them.

Enough of this. I can feel myself getting pissed off.

In other news, broadband is going to be cheaper and more efficient, so says the Energy, Water and Communications Ministry. I'm not going to hold my breath. It's the government talking here. They talk a lot, but do a lot less.

However, it's great that they're going to open things up a bit and break Telekom's monopoly. Should be good for consumers, like me.

I hope it happens when they say it will. But I'm not holding my breath.

And finally, Superkumquat tagged me with a meme about DVDs. The problem is, I haven't finished doing my DVD inventory yet.

I'll do the meme as soon as I can. That should make a good post.