Sunday, March 30, 2008

Stop Civilisation Clash & Crash

The Australian and the Malaysian have proven that the people can take control and political leaders have to listen and do what we say. Otherwise we vote you out of the office!

Go have a look at AVAAZ - the world in action.

As per Oprah - all pain is the same. Whatever an Iraqi mother feels, a USA mother feels it too. That's why I really support Sally Field (I heart Nora Walker) in her EMMY acceptance speech, "If the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place".

There's too much testosterone running world politics. It's time that a man went back to the kitchen and let him do the work for once! A man now can even be pregnant - what's next?

Religion and State should be separated - period! And we human need to be less greedy and materialistic. Remember the new 7 sins - excessive wealth is one of them (one ponders how much does the Vatican Church own though?)

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Earth Hour 2008 - Action!

It's 7.44pm and I'm getting ready to burn down the house. That's a possibility since I'm gonna lit so many candles at once. I even had a feeling that if there were many people who took action and held candle-lit parties, the Melbourne Fire Brigade might have a busy evening.

Wanted to join the group in Federation Square initially but I gave in to the rain (what a loser - people saving the Earth and you give in to the rain?!). I'd rather save energy by staying home and conserve the dinna (yummy roast chicken and vegetable) that I just had.

I haven't actually thought about what to do yet. But I think I could do some stuff in the kitchen like cutting a rock melon?

The news says that only 10% of people who take part in this activity will change to green energy. I'm gonna consider to be one of the 10%. I figure - if I pay a few dollars more a month, I'll be more diligent in making sure no electricity go to waste. So as a result, I might save more!

The candle show 2008:

collage

You can see the before and after the candles were lit. Isn't it romantic? Now I need my darling - where's my pillow?

Earth Hour 2008 024

I love this pic a lot! Thanks to Winnie who gave it to me as a birthday present. And of course - thanks to the fa-bu-lous photographer.

5 more mins to 8pm. I'm gonna shut down my computer and turn off the modem. Hmmm... It's gonna be an hour of silence because that actually saves most energy.

I hope this someone out there will be inspired and think about energy conservation and other bigger things.

Update (30/3/08): It was really not easy to live without an ounce of electricity. I was trying to cut a rock melon and boy did the lantern work! I couldn't really see much. While bending down over the bin to scoop off the seeds, I wasn't sure if I was scooping the seeds alone or with the flesh as well. I thought I would cut myself but luckily I didn't.  I wasn't just appreciating how precious electricity was but also my eye sight. Throughout the one hour, I tried not to do too much (nothing much to do anyway) to conserve energy and almost fell asleep after 30 mins, Hehe.

I also looked up Origingreen and found out some info about the extra cost associated with churning to GreenPower. If I were to switch to 100% solar power, the estimated extra cost for 1 year, based on a 5000kWh p.a. average person usage, is AUD300. I looked up my electricity bills, my individual annual usage is no more than 25kWh. Who uses 5000kWh energy a year? That person should be cast away to Timbaktu to carbon-offset whatever s/he has used. So 25 out of 5000 is just 0.5% and that translates to extra $1.5 a year?!?! If that's the case everyone should go green! $1.5 can't even buy much these days but it could buy you a greener, if energy companies are putting the money where they say they would, Earth.

However that's just my personal straightforward calculation. Who knows if green power and usage have a negative relationship: the less you use the more expensive it is. I've sent an email to Origin and hopefully they'll clarify to me asap. 5000kWh a year is pretty much! How many tonnes of CO2 does that translate into?

Friday, March 28, 2008

what a name

I like the name Darling - after watching Dirty Sexy Money.

Jeremy Darling, Karen Darling, Tish Darling, Patrick Darling, Patrick Darilng Jr, Julia Darling & Brian Darling.

Can't wait to be darling-enised...

Friday, March 21, 2008

Earth Hour

Link here.

So at 8pm March 29 2008 (Friday), the world turns off light for one hour.

Arrange your candle-light party, appreciate and more importantly, reflect how can you go green.

Make the switch - realise how often you do not switch off the power at the wall; realise how often you do not switch off unused light; realise how you can change your grocery purchase to be greener; realise how you can influence the people around you.

Think about the way we operate these days - everything is about wealth, which is the purpose of life for many many people, including myself. The way we create wealth is by torturing the earth and hence endangering the survival of innocent lives.

Life is meaningless if we don't have a future to look forward to; worse if we have a worsening future to look forward to. So start doing your part today.

Temasek Polytechnic


Umbrella - Rihanna (lip dub in High Definition) from TP CMM on Vimeo.

A bunch of (dancing & prancing) queen belt it out, lip-synching to the ella song. Initially I thought this clip was filmed by Malaysian, judging from the name of Temasek and the looks of those Chinese & Malay. Somehow I doubted that any Polytechnic in MY would have such high-tech studio and OUT students. It's actually in Singapore.

My fav part of the clip is the new caster and something that wants to come out from the TV (a bit of The Ring and The Grudge).

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

oh god - oops i did it again

The Vatican has added 7 new modern social sins - what pressures people must be living under these days... with 7 more sins - I'm sure that'll turn into higher ratings for Sunday masses and client T/O for confession staff.

  • Environmental pollution - this is, strangely, one thing the Church and I agree on. I have become more environmentally aware these days, after living in harsh harsh Australia. Back home in Malaysia, there's usually no worries on water supply. However, here in Aus, dry is the only word you can use to describe. The small things like turning off switches that aren't in use and recycling water are what I do most these days. If there's one thing I can add in the bible it would be "you have no rights to drill the earth, to chop a tree, to suck out crude oil etc". These are all god's creation according to them - but why are we destroying all of them? I would think this is more deserving for a place in hell than homosexuality. Men having sex with men or women having sex with women doesn't destroy anything except it might tempt some fathers into joining them.
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  • Genetic manipulation - I'm not sure how the Vatican looks at GM food. Honestly, producing the next generations, be it animals (I'd like to think of human as mutated animals) or plants or micro-organisms, is a kind of manipulation of genetic don't you think? Genes combine and split and form new genes. If I'm not mistaken the Church takes a disapproving approach on cloning. I'm, in fact, not against IVF babies or genetic manipulation. I just think that if the Church thinks babies are god's gifts, they should by all means advocate the banning of IVF babies. Childless couples around the world spending big bucks (go doctors!) on creating a child. So they try and try and try with petri dishes and needles and swimmers and eggs - you're creating a life and are not given a life! Albeit they will argue that because you try hard enough, god finally gifts you with a god-send. You say po-ta-to I say po-tay-to. The greatest sin should be bigotory and the 8th sin should have been deceptiveness or undisclosing the means for truths and truths themselves.
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  • Accumulating excessive wealth - human greed, can I say anymore? I must be one step closer to the Pope because we just found another common ground! Yes it's free will and human rights (Is it just because we are human, we have the rights to drill the earth a million miles into the core for petroleum?) - but lately I'd like to attribute much of the environmental pollution to those in high-tax brackets. How could I not? I love Madonna and Oprah. But the way they live their lives - flying charter/private planes all over the world and living luxurious lives that demands for imported purified water from Israel for Madonna or having stainless steel rims on china for Oprah. And they preach about saving Africa. When Africa is brought up to catching up with the world, what have they got left? More than 500 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere (contributed by the lighting in M&O's mansions), no ice poles left, prolonged drought and erratic weather. By teaching the orphans in Africa the way of so-called modern life and the means of accumulating wealth for themselves - can't anyone see that we're going in a no-return direction? Another comrades of theirs, Bono from U2 - How much pollution do you think all his sunglasses have caused?
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    Everything we have is taken from the earth without having to pay 1 cheapest-currency-on-the-earth-cent. We all pay each other to see how much we're worth. You think you pay $1.50 for a litre of petroleum? No, you pay $1.50 for the oil diggers, office staff of the drilling company, delivery drivers - all of those are human. We're ripping off the earth for ourselves. There's no opportunity cost whatsoever but how far one is willing to accumulate excessive wealth. The wealthiest person on earth is the greediest person of all and the one indebted to god the most. Virgin Airlines has this green ticket going on where you can offset greenhouse gas emission. But what does that translate to? More zeros in Richard Branson's Swiss bank account.

     

  • Inflicting poverty - I haven't got much to say about this one. The greatest inevitable consequence our thinking ability has brought us - capitalism. Poor means less capital and rich means more capital. I don't agree with the Pope in saying that inflicting poverty is a sin. If anything, poverty should be the most natural way, and hence shouldn't be eradicated, of wiping out a part of population on earth. Helping Africa? If I believed in god, if god loved the people in Africa, would s/he have put so much sand and harsh weather in that area? But human is wired in the way that we'd feel sorry for people who are worse off than we are. Do you think it could be because of guilt and sorry that you want to help people? I mean, it is quite predictable when one's sinned much by abusing the properties of the earth and now tries to de-sin through "charity".
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  • Drug trafficking and consumption - oh well - human free will and human rights. What can you say? If people want to use drugs and be ignorant about their effects, can you really stop them?
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  • Morally debatable experiments - if we say that cloning is morally debatable, why is organ transplant not? Church should at least ban plastic surgery. If god loves you so much, you shouldn't up your bust, tuck the tummy or do a gastro by-pass. How dare we deny what is natural to us? How dare we change what is given to us by god? If god wants us to die by giving us some diseases, who are we to defy that by spending so much for a cure?
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  • Violation of fundamental rights of human nature - if anything, god teaches us to discriminate and use differences as a weapon to attack others. I don't really understand what I am saying here and more certainly I don't get "violation of fundamental rights of human nature". If human nature is the natural behaviour of homo sapiens, why is there fundamental or non-fundamental? If a part of our gene is wired in such a way that we would kill other living beings, should we or should we not go to jail/hell? That's why I said, the greatest sin is bigotry. And hell, I think that's part of our natural selves too!
  • Tuesday, March 11, 2008

    50 most powerful blogs in the world

    Link here.

    I only read PerezHilton, who's at number 6. You go bitch!

    Saturday, March 08, 2008

    Tel Aviv - checked!

    Tel Aviv is a place that I had never been to. Until last night or this morning.

    So I was on, apparently, The Fantasy-Amazing Race with my good friends Sherly, PKH & LSS. We were using a map to get around Tel Aviv in a SUV. Once we found where we were supposed to get to, we just got out of the car and ran! When we finished our task, there were 2 policemen standing next to our SUV as it was illegally parked. But then we all tried to be nice and innocent and they let us go!

    We got back into the car and followed the map to get out of Tel Aviv. When we were on a very large highway, I realised that we were actually flying on a carpet! I was the pilot! We then moved on flying above a gigantic bridge-like structure and the view was just breathtaking. If this isn't strange enough, there's actually a portrait of some bearded man on the mountain. Next we stopped on top of the bridge and checked into a hotel...

    Bizarre.... I know.... So I now have been to Tel Aviv, or so I think in my dreams.

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