April 17, 2007 |
A gunman killed 32 people in Virginia Tech before killing himself on Monday morning (April 16); it’s the deadliest mass shooting in US history ever.
I will never understand why US has taken no action against their gun law since Columbine years ago; how many school massacre would need to happen before their leaders are convinced to take some actions.
School is supposed to be one of the safest place; you won’t know what places are safe when the schools aren’t… it’s pure tragic.
My condolences to the victims’ family.
Read the news here and here.
April 11, 2007 |
Underlining its seriousness in wanting greater unity, the government yesterday ordered school administrators to speed-up integration-related programmes. [NST]
I doubt that the government is working on the right spot. You see, when I was in primary school, there are no racial issues in my thinking… Ali, Ah Kau and Mutu are all good friends. It applied in my real life; I made friends with all people regardless of races.
My thinking got a bit confused when I got into high school. We were required to study Tamadun Islam for one or two years. Fine, if it’s to learn other Malaysians’ culture and religion… but I always wondered why Muslims are not given the chance to learn other Malaysians’ origin as well?
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April 5, 2007 |
When I was a kid, I had some fantasy about high speed trains… like the French TGV and Japan bullet trains; I actually thought that those trains could reach a destination faster than an aeroplane.
The fantasy kinda shattered when I took my first train journey to Kuala Lumpur from Ipoh (or Ipoh to KL, can’t remember correctly) when I was around 9 years old… and it took around 4 hours to reach the destination, as fast as a car could be.
I am still interested in trains though, and I always believe that a good train network is an important factor to build a modern country. I was more affirmed about the idea when I visited London for the first time 5-6 years ago, when I saw how good their Underground (sort of like our LRTs) system was.
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March 18, 2007 |
Advertlets and Nuffnang are 2 Malaysian blog advertising networks that launched in beta recently.
James Yeang has an interview with both of the founders, pretty good read, kudos to James.
After visiting their websites, I found some questions and ideas about the 2 networks; here is my review for both projects. (I don’t know both of the founder in person, thus no bias intended)
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March 15, 2007 |
Watched “Hotel Rwanda,” an inspiring (or rather disturbing) movie about the Rwanda Genocide in 1994. It makes me wonder… what it took for a person to take the other life; what could trigger a massacre; what can you do to prevent something bad even if you saw it coming…
It reminded me that despite lots of unfairness and stupid stuff in Malaysia… we are still a lucky bunch of people to be born on this land. It’s a pretty rare occasion that I felt really good to be in Malaysia, or to be a Malaysian… lots of the other time I was rather pessimist about our future, couldn’t help it.
Btw, I watched the movie in a hospital… any other weirder places to watch a movie?
March 13, 2007 |
Why isn’t Malaysia enforcing safety belt wearing at back seats?
I lost a friend who died in a car accident a couple of years ago. He was thrown out of the car while seating at the back seat. The driver and passenger at the front only suffered minor injuries, thanks to the safety belt. Safety belt does save life.
This law of wearing safety belt at rare seats is pretty common overseas. If I remember correctly Singapore, Australia and UK has enforced the law. Last time when I travelled to Europe, some countries even enforced wearing seat belts on buses.
Malaysia have a high traffic accident (and fatality rate), some of the fatality could have been prevented with some extra precautions and better laws (and enforcement).
Enforcing safety belt wearing at back seats might be one of the helpful ideas.