Saturday, August 05, 2006

I Couldn't Resist...

Yesterday, I wrote a lengthy, rambling post about the government's recent announcement that blogs will be monitored for "seditious" and "slanderous" content with immediate effect.

I reread it and I decided not to post it. It was way too angry and ended up being a tirade about the insecurities and flaws of the conservative generation and how chicken shit they are taking the easy way out of uncomfortable situations. Banning is easy. Countering misinformation with truth is not. Answering difficult questions asked by your own citizens is even harder, apparently. Threats and bans are easier.

Anyway, it's a current issue and I did promise myself not to get too involved with it.

The Malaysian government is very funny. It's essentially democratic yet it can be so totalitarian. It's as if we're still not sure about what we are.

Our country is still young and all this infuriating censorship and lack of confidence in our own citizens ability to reason is part of the country's birth pains. Yes, birth pains. We're still a young nation and very much a work in progress. 1963 seems like a long, long time ago but big picture-wise, it's really not.

I most certainly hope that the quiet majority do enough to keep ultras, racists, religious zealots and idiots from getting too powerful.

With regard to this blog monitoring business, I do hope the powers that be spell out what they consider to be "seditious" and "slanderous". Without definiton, these terms can be turned and twisted to put anyone behind bars. I have a nagging feeling that some politicians want these ambiguity to stand. That way they can squelch and kill any and all inconvenient arguments that go against their interests.

Or rather, the "rakyat's" interest as they are so fond of saying.

Once again I do declare, politics is full of shit and I'm never, ever getting involved. Ever.

That's enough about that.

In other news, I've been having the worse latency at home over the last week. I ping Yahoo and half the time, I get time outs. I get 2 second lags in WoW. It sometimes takes me 10 minutes to download a lousy 6Mb file.

It only seems to happen at night. Early in the morning, it's fine. I'm monitoring this and I hope it clears up soon. I really,really don't want to call TM Helpdesk.

There's a PC fair next weekend and I hope to go. Unfortunately, I'm working next weekend so I hope I can get a replacement so I can take leave.

Finally, some aviation news I would like to share.

A US company is building several brand new Me262, with consent from the Messerchmitt Foundation! Brand new Me62s! This is quite exciting for any classic aircraft enthusiast. A video of a newly 262 can be seen here. These new jets actually have better performance than the original 1945 models by virtue of a new powerplant (apparently the old Junkers Jumo engines are kind of hard to find these days...), the General Electric J-85 which generate twice the thrust!

Plus, the new jets have safety features like new airbrakes and stronger undercarriage. Adolf Galland would've approved.

This is very exciting news for me, considering that the Me 262 was the world's first operational jet fighter. Not so for some of you guys I bet.. But still, the Me-262 flies again!

Another classic warbird that's being rebuilt new is the classic FW-190! A German company is building new ones! This is excellent.

I'm suddenly wondering how many other classic WW2 aircraft are being reborn. I know that it is possible to get new Spitfires and P-51s. I wonder if any others are being built new again.

If I had a pilot's license (and money...), I'd seriously consider getting me a newly built classic warbird. I think a Spit would look really nice parked at the Kuching airport!

Starting tomorrow, I have a long break. Hopefully, my connection clears up and hopefully, I can think of something to write.

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