Yawn 37

May 8 - June 2

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All the shock and outrage around foul play by one party only tell me this: the other party was insufficiently rigorous in its simulation of warfare, and in the education of its stakeholders with regards to the realities of war. I hesitate to say that this means that either party deserves to win or lose - as that would be an empty statement. But I think, generally, outrage is a strong sign of unpreparedness.

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Current Plan:
Eat. Sleep for 12 hours. Back to the trenches.

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Without deep reflection (while convalescing in bed), I wondered about laypersons' terms to describe my political affiliations, and decided that I must be a #facist. I mean you could call me a libertarian, but there are specific issues I am concerned about sufficiently that given an opportunity, I would wipe them out of the human race: such as conscionable moral outrage - those unmeasured reactions to this or that in general. I find such traits subhuman, in the sense that I wish we could painlessly cull off a worst-performing fraction of the species at every generation. Gene therapy is unlikely to fix this within my lifetime. We don't even know if the target traits can be achieved with rearchitecturing that can be administered via gene therapy on organisms of the existing genome, or if we have to architecture a drastically different genome and create a new species entirely. Oh well. Forgive me for not finding the politics of our local societies sufficiently engaging. I must attend to the objects of my devotion. Each to their own, and may all coercers pay via natural selection.

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May 08, 2018 10:55pm

11th hour speeches: PM is talking himself into a hole. It's strategies like this with ill-timed tactical deployment which will be the downfall of BN's simple majority. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not, but BN needs to get smarter by GE15. It just sounds like they make more efforts to burn themselves with every passing election.

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All economic activity is pointless. The point is to engage stakeholders in trade.

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Nationalists give me a headache. Activism towards apathy is a difficult life today!

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Standing by for massive, massive outrage. Why? Because you're so hopeful. The foul plays are still on the way...

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Everyone who disses the 26yo-tax-break is missing the point. Of course it's a weak pitch to voters to flip at the eleventh hour. But if enacted, it will raise employment rates for low-skilled youth across the nation. Haven't you seen this pattern before? (Well I'm not sure what that implies... hahaha...)

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Did someone say spiking oil prices? #malaysiamasihboleh #electionsmelection

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Silver nitrate: You can wash it off with ammonia, among other weirder chemicals. But you must do so before it is absorbed through the membranes.

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The one thing that's really bothering me now is that fridge I have to fix tomorrow. Thanks for the screensavers, meanwhile. #ge14

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By some popular accounts, chicken is trending.

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It ain't over till the fat lady sings.
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Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

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Make a Hitler Reacts Video - It's that time again... come on, I know you clever arseholes like it...

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Expecting great rise in number of babies named Kalilah. Also, back to the office already. Whee.
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Update: what is this euphoria. I still see no official news..
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Oh BBC.

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My wish for Malaysia: stop flooding my wall with your poetic excitement, and just go back to work already. Thanks.

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My dad seems quite happy that M locked up the banks and stock market for a week to block capital flight.

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(bets won) unless the foul play gets er, fouler... debt collection will not be necessary. Just spend the money at that place near my house which means you know where. :) kthx

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Standby. The YDPA can still select an alternative PM.

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So here's my current (narrow) hypothesis: the network of royals has a collective thing against M's legacy for reducing their powers. They will appoint the first female prime minister. (Broad hypothesis: whatever man, where's my war... I know, I know, we don't need one. I agree.)

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Come on, Mr. Agung. Make an entry here.
List of female Muslim heads of Government and State - Wikipedia

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6pm. Just finished lunch. Plan for the day: nap. 2.5 hours. Get back to work by 9pm. Exit office by 3am. Nap. Back in office 6am. Exit office 9am.

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On M's announcement:

This is a M-ass-ive cock-up. You can't suspend the Constitution like that. The C legitimises the role of the CoR and other Laws, the L legitimises the government, the caretaker government, and the concept of parliament.
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“... delay will mean that we have no government. When we have no government we have no constitution, and no laws,” Mahathir said.
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You will only have no caretaker if the caretaker is shot. Maybe that's what he really wants... -_+

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Bugger. 15 minutes till a 12 hour manual shift and my legs are starting to cramp up. Like hell I care if Najib makes a come back :p . See, that's the benefit of assigning all your cognition to tasks ahead of time. You don't get distracted by other people. They can still say this is foolish, but the key takeaway is, you don't get distracted by what you don't want on your plate. 🙃

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Suiting up. Hope electrolyte levels remain stable enough to avert random shiznit like heart failure. Lol.
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Short term memory buffer is really tight. Going to need a lot of that for customer service. A brief, active, deletion. Revision of all today's activities. Check that important tasks have been documented already. Shred everything else. People, events, tastes, sights, sounds, smells, feelings... more resources acquired, hopefully just enough to run optimally till 3am.
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Coffee should help. Maybe food. God, I hate eating.

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Crash course for a kid on learning to manage people. Had to tap this out in Whatsapp, so just copypasting here for logs.

"Say your goal is to manage deliveries of things from people.

The way to do is to pretend that you are a delivery man and you get $ for every missed delivery.

Now you start looking for every opportunity to deliver at the wrong time.

So now you have a list of concerns. L.

Then you stop pretending to be a delivery man.

You take L, and with any order of goods, you would want to go through the whole list to ensure timely delivery.

Ensure that the people you are supposed to be managing do what you want them to do. So tell them, from L.

- do this
- don't do this
- do this
- don't do this

Then if they STILL manage to outsmart you and miss a delivery, you just add the new concern to L. Now you have a new list, L2.

Next time you place any order, consider L2.

Then you do this again until you find L stops growing, and you only get deliveries on time.

It is the same with learning anything..."

Why don't I teach a friendlier algorithm? Because I'm trying to weed the friendly out of all my direct reports. Duh.

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Anwar Ibrahim now deserves a Nobel peace prize nomination. Despite M's pivotal role in flipping the BN monopoly, and AI's creation of the party that would insert M into that pivotal role, neither of these on their own warrants any mention with regards to an NPP. The core reason for nominating AI would be:
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- AI forgave (or at least superficially forged an alliance with) M who was both his persecutor [various non-trivial grievances suffered], and the leader of the establishment which AI had targeted for reform [having done non-trivial time working within it].
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That put the silver bullet in the barrel, and set into motion the eventual achievements of GE14 (which set political precedent for a country, and in various senses for a certain type of country); to say nothing of how all the happy wee children of said country felt about and worked towards it before, during, and afterwards, daww. Ok, legitimately, this would need another year or two to fully justify.
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Haha. And given the situation above, M does not, unfortunately, deserve a prize for peace. The net output of his roles has been zero (on the axis of peace). Maybe they can nominate him for Literature instead. :P

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No free coffee here.
Free ink for your finger.
Now you can get many things for free from other people.
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If only I had a venue to deploy this at...

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Censors are off!

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Who cares what you call the damn tax, save the resource burn on bureaucratic flipflop...

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10 hours of rest: complete muscle failure mitigated for a little while... :)

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Voter turnout, GE14: The number falls to 70.32% if you take into account citizens of eligible age who were not registered due to apathy, bureauracy, or other factors. (Estimated: 3 million)

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Malaysian politics is like Malaysian food. Primitive, distorted by decades of subsidies, and unlikely to change without a few more decades. Hopefully we'll see a complete overhaul of both.

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People who mess up their partners' IG feeds.

Who dates these emo freaks?

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Execellent time to join BN. But already busy. 👉👈

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The "human race," is a bland, fractious, overly delicate delicate, and often overassuming entity... too much as such to be excited about. But sure, encourage the strawman of "humanity is a concept for celebration," if it helps to train more abstract thought. I can get behind the latter.

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Bored non-voter: I will put money on BN losing. It has to happen eventually.
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Passionate voters for PH: OMG KENOT BELIEVE. IMPOSSIBRU. Never thought I would see this in 10/20/30 years!
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Why do you do things if you don't believe they will take effect? Tamper tantrums? I hate these people. (That probably means this account can be banned. Lol.)

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Re: public condemnation of Media Prima

Most Malaysian voices are in fact not better than this. Which is why we have petulant elections. Hopefully this gets more reasoned over time. 4-12 years sounds about right...

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"Malaysia-Singapore Union Flickers Back to Life
bloomberg.com"

Sultans will flip their shit.

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Legality of UMNO as an organisation, due to not holding its EGM or something:

Infinity Wars: Mahathir Edition... he "could" literally have the slate wiped clean. But that would probably leave a bit of emotional duress behind and cause unnecessary enmity. But that's not stopped him on multiple previous occasions... Lol

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Council of Elders appears to be lacking a technologist. And maybe an arts historian also. Thoughts?


(Oh, it's for economic outlook management only - right.)

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It is a FACT that the appointments are not final. They are not even going to be sworn in (officially BEGIN) as ministers UNTIL the whole cab is nominated. Only after that, does the prime minister submit the slate of names to the YDPA.
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Cabinet members may be nominated from among the MPs (dRakyat) or Senators (dNegara). M was incorrect in stating during a recent press conference that AI needs to go through the dRakyat, unless I've missed something.

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Re: kataks

banzai,bitches! #万岁

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Voter registration should be mandatory, electronic. Voting... well, it depends on who's in charge lol

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Who in their right mind would appoint a noob to run MoF when someone with a track record of running states was available?!

I'm not keen on believing that PKR is that stupid, and it may be the case that there are narrative efforts being made to play them up as being more foolish than they really are.

We shall see.

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The price of oil is what made the last few years look bad, and they are what will make the next few years look good if the trend persists. Najib's bad luck. Harapan's good luck, I hope... not because I like one of them much more than the other, but because the important fucking thing is that oil stays expensive.

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Re: A Stanford psychologist on the art of avoiding assholes

Do not, negotiate, with terrorists.

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Not healing fast enough.

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Re: Man in contest to prove that he is not an AI

One day, existentially dissatisfied dipshits like this, are going to find that they can't win. Until then, keep feeling special.

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May 14, 2018 8:35am
Barring some ill-timed comment, trading will be up allll day...

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Re: fear of apathy

We're scary? Sorry. Deal with it. You're a bit daft about the first statement though. :)

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Do yOU KnoW wHy I am TalkIng iN a Sing soNg voIce? It-is-because-when-talk-in-a-monotone, the-subject's-cognitive-apparatus-is-insufficiently-stimulated-to-convert-morphemes-to-semantics.

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Re: calls to elect a religious person to the council of eminent people

Do you suppose they'll support a unitarian?

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Super tired. Chip away...

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Bar moots Ambiga for AG: This is storific. But I'll leave it to professionals to judge relevance of her skillset.


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After 15 years of no-questions at PCs, maybe they need some practice. 😂

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Fixed at the office

Re: women's experiences in offices designed by men

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I volunteer as tribute!!! But to do what? And why would anyone in politics partner with me?

Re: Zahid says UMNO open to new alliances

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"KJ says UMNO may be open to all"

Good, then I don't have to implement that silly plan I had of converting to Islam and forming UMNO3:p

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Re: LGE's Malaysian > Chinese comment

I would have all the safe answers prepared of course. But I don't actually care much about being Malaysian or Chinese. I'm primarily a nerd...

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I think this is the time in a while I don't have pressing work to do on my day off. Also only about 12 hours left, and I just woke. I wonder if I'm sufficiently recovered from illness to enforce a strenuous workout. I hope so.

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So exciting. Wish I had time to join MoF.

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Someone's using their human rights NGO as a mouthpiece to rant against financial scandals. 😂😂

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Actually what I'm interested in seeing is a break down of #pulangmengundi votes by constituency, as a the %-share-of-winning/losing-margin, and the RM price on these figures. :D

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US: Walks out on Palestinian envoy. Vetoes UNSC investigation. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem is a not a problem; this, is the problem.

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May 16

I've been asking myself, given the relatively low share of voice around this genre of scandal post election, if this is not the right time to refocus urgency on a number of missing persons cases...

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Council to meet Irwan:

"Did you do it."
"I'm not saying I did it."
"Come on, we know you did it."
"We don't even know what I did."
"You know why we're here."
"You need a fall guy."
*Council looks at each other; looks back at subject*
"So did you do it?"
"Everything I did, I did as a matter of national interest, and I'll continue to do it, it's just that the boss is a different guy. If you're looking for a fall guy, go after the N, it wasn't me. Now tell me what I can do to help you clean this mess up."

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While there are criticisms leveled at the M admin for doing midnight arrests, I'm not sure that there's a due process which requires daylight, and will have to read up on it. As far as being polite and all that is concerned, if it's not a law, who cares?

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Day seven of #theatunment or is it #thetunaround... what the fuck are they going to do today...

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Now it is timely to reiterate a point I have enjoyed raising, since prior to GE12: all parties competing against Barisan Nasional need to pay attention to the translation of Anglosphere news into the Malay language. Blog posts, op-eds, news, the works. This is because what goes on in the Melayuphone (?) World remains divided from the Anglophone World by a pretty big netsplit in cognitive terms. (You have to take the embedded libraries seriously.)
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Aside, from my own little poking around Malay texts post-GE13: throwback (!) to an address to UMNO members by Muhyiddin Yassin, then a party lynchpin (and Deputy Prime Minister), now playing a similar role in PPBM, and now also our Minister of Home Affairs.

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M to be education minister: Just put Jomo in via the senate, clown. Another day, another badut.

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I wonder how many (of their own) tactical errors Harapan will auto-correct by day 100.

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BN Senators refusing to resign:

"Mahathir sighs. Puts on his hat. "Ah Chong, take me to the Palace. Again."

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Someone get Harapan to backcronym a program or agency for "1MAO". Quick, before it gets stale...

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Very amused by how (many citizens) are deploying a rhetoric of "if only luxury good was spent on (education program), or (welfare program) think of all the good has been forfeited." This is plebeian rubbish of the basest order.
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A few million Ringgit pales in comparison with the multi-billion Ringgit portfolios at the Ministry of E, and the graft that has moved through those over the years. Nevermind the systematic leakage and disbursement of funds through its contractor and consultant network.
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Also, somehow people like to think that the discretionary income of others is more judgeable than their own. If you want someone to give up a hand bag, how about you start by listing down the things you gave up yesterday to feed some poor fucker yesterday?
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I mean, let's have free and fair flows of information... please. :D Otherwise we just have these gobs and gobs of moralising commentary that really amount to masturbation. As demonstrated by this post also ;)

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Commentary:(sorry for delayed response, I keep getting interrupted by real work) lol

I was writing a response to this before the other comments and have momentarily lost my train of thought.
Manage

OK - I think I remember the talking point now... if we're criticising the origin of money, and talking about how it has become disoriented in its purpose, then it certainly stands to bear in mind that the original allocation of the 1MDB fund (screencap below) - it goes to economic development, sure but - has little to do with with providing basic welfare or education.
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If I remember correctly (and given the haste in which this was hammered out, I may not), the first half of my complaint regards the issue: the luxuries of R (luxR) are SMALL in comparison to graft in other parts of government... it just happens to be popular to bitch about the R (I don't want to call her a bitch, though it would provide some rhythmic flavour to the sentence). In fact, given that people like to talk about the opportunity cost to EDUCATION, we must consider that OTHER PARTIES ARE GREATER THIEVES OF OUR NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR EDUCATION.
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Well then the second part. It stands without consideration at all for where the money comes from. People just like to moralise about how money is spent. I was just being hyperbolically annoyed that people bother to question how other people spend money, regardless of where it comes from. :P

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Re: Tawfik Ismail's fearing a return of M-AI- religion-in-politics

Standing by for the return of "Islamofascism." Wait, did it never leave? Does it get worse? Better? I guess it depends on your point of view!

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Rosmah: Geez, I wish she wore Oscar de la Renta dresses instead. I know. None of my business. Don't tell women what to wear. But you all can talk all you want about what bags she has in her prayer room... -_-

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Re: Najib's fans saying that it's normal to have stuff at home

This is what Mahathir refers to in his anthropologies of the casual Sultan worshipper.

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Re: M dropping MoE

Didn't take that long, did it? Big win for civil soc. Now how about getting rid of a few of those senators to make way for a few non-MP ministers then?

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Maszlee's appointment:

Fiqh and usul fiqh: #gg secular humanism? On the bright side, he's a professional ethicist. On the dark: we don't have a lot of canonical information on his positions. Time to start digging! Study group, anyone? Link to materials in comments.
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Based on preliminary poking around, he already looks like a puppet. But I am hoping to be dissuaded of this perspective.
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For the record, I do not consider myself a humanist - I'm far too cynical to regard humans as an important concept. Prefer civilisational paradigms of cybernetics in general, based on information science.

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Taman Aman was picturesque today. Well done, MBPJ. Discussions on domestic politics:
- M's archetype is the asshole
- AI's archetype is the rebel
- of the two, AI is the greater narcissist; that being his greatest weakness, as a narcissistic reactionary often comes off as salesy, flakey, and opportunistic; does he actually have a forked tongue? We don't actually know. But he is full of contradictions, which are observable
- meanwhile, business as usual: we expect to see U-turns, and casual foot-stomping from each one; supporters of the old regime may find their dirty laundry unhidden from the public, as may griftors who have embedded themselves in the new regime
- much wayang; many snacks; more workouts required

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Re: Khairy Pettigrew meme

He had it coming.
What's a moment of shame for a shot at true power eh?

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Which type of person are you? {(a) You tend to do things because you are confident that they will succeed. (b) You tend to do things because you lack confidence that they will fail.} You tend to move on: — feeling lucky.

The poll ended roughly 50-50.

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Elon+Grimes: Harry and Markle got nothing on this.

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A few years of being perpetually tired and unkempt, I can deal with. It's the permanent damage from chemical and noise exposure, which get to me. 😛 Nevermind the long term effects on cognition from high stress and low sleep: I figure neuroplasticity will take care of that, eventually.

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Khairy x Najib fingerpointing in the press:

We've done it. Malaysia has officially rewritten Julius Caesar. Plus one for moderated, discursive, revisionist, backstabbing, in the press, no less.

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Re: Siti Kasim's comments on Maszlee and the petition to replace him with M:

(1) This is cock. Can we let Maszlee fuck up _before_ we crucify him?
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(2) How is Mahathir any better in theory (either pedagogically or historically)?
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He's a generalist, with no known (therefore no critique-able) empirical-research-driven framework for pedagogy at any of the layers of: developmental psychology, economic development, or the information and library sciences.
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As the education minister 1974-1977, "Wikipedia: One of his first acts [...] was to introduce greater government control over Malaysia's universities, despite strong opposition from the academic community.[citation] He also moved to limit politics on university campuses, giving his ministry the power to discipline students and academics who were politically active, and making scholarships for students conditional on the avoidance of politics.[citation] "
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As an architect/engineer of Malaysian culture over decades, he has written and implemented policies which (coherent with the constitution, mind you) emphasise racial and religious politics (and therefore polarisation), and increased inequality of a broad variety of resource allocations ostensibly in the interest of national/racial/religious identity (coherent with the constitution, and Tunku Abdul Rahman's framework of governance, mind you again).
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I mean, all that is fine, because reverse apartheid is constitutional and inherent in the definition of Malaysia. But what you cannot really demonstrate is: that Mahathir is a champion of moderate pedagogy or free will, any more than Maszlee. Come on, he appointed Maszlee. I'm wayyy more concerned that Maszlee will end up being a man of good values and weak leadership, and as operative under Mahathir's thumb. I do want to find out what Maszlee's inherent abilities are to deliver, to minister.
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Disclaimer: This note is intentionally biased, with the intention of inviting the reader to engage with history, and the beliefs of the two ministers. This note is not a well-studied critique of their extant positions - I wrote it while eating an ice cream cone (I ordered a second one, and now both are done, so I am going back to sleep).

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M: the Legend: 1981 - the Dawn Raid
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M: the Legend Continues: 2018 - the Chocolate Raid

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Sarawak Report posting all sorts of stolen instagram photos which aren't actual sources of news: Clare. Stop being stupid in public.* You're not banned anymore, and we can see you.

Fine - it's a propaganda site. Do whatever you want.

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Re: what never leaving your hometown does to your brain

Guilty. I think Malaysia is pretty trashy, but I don't actually want anything much out of life, so simply just living here does it well enough, as a matter of curiosity.

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I guess I succeed in deploying alignment with AMZN even when I don't know it. Lol

Re: AMZN training staff to leave / for other jobs

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No day off this week. Lots to do.

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Soda taxes:

New Health Minister, tolong langsungkan, terima kasih...

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MEIO:

Given all this talk of spies... I'm wondering over lunch how many I have worked/ played with. Generally my assumption is that it is not possible to know which of the people you have ever met, works for whom. Send more females please.

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Maybe I should start charging for BoyFriend Experiences.

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Private sector moving against landlords who are racist in tenant selection:

While I find this to be a commendable moral preference and jihad, I would personally prefer to lobby for changes to the law, making such discrimination illegal. Private sector activities are for maximising profit within the constraints of the law. Then again, I suppose, if you are already profitable, this can be considered a CSR component of the business model. :)

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Re: Najib paying Pahang Sultanate 2 MM MYR from 1MDB

How does this fly with Shukri complaining about his two meetings with the CoR?

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Maszlee announces the demise of AUKU:

Please remember that Mahathir did this, both as the Minister of Education, and in appointing Maszlee. Move on.
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AUKU, STEM, and English, are merely the sweets you have been promised. These fulfil the spirit, if not the letter, of campaign promises. Keep careful watch.

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Re: Muhyiddin's announcement of laws which may be repealed

I also want them to remove the laws that [make suicide illegal and punishable with a jail sentence]. Also get rid of fellatio and sodomy laws already, please.

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"real numbers aren't real"

Totally agree. It's a cognitive issue.

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re: Banning bribes for driving licenses

What do you mean "ban bribes,"? Bribes are already banned. Enforcement has failed.

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Still backlogged and tired. But physically recuperating. So, looking forward to having local society slow down to a point where I find it more irrelevant to my input again ;)

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"I want a seafood marina pizza."
"I'll go look."
"I want it small, and cheap."
{Back and forth redacted}
"Got it. 9" New York crust, tuna, crab, prawn. You get 1/3."
"How much do I owe you?"
"Do you want the MACC answer or the 1MDB answer?"

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My dream for Malaysia is, that the median citizen will be more conversant about calculus than nasi lemak... oh wait, this is a problem with humanity on earth at this point in history. Excuse me while I go back to my work.

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When I was in college, I spent the first half of my time figuring out that professors and administrators didn't have a comprehensive theory of information (knowledge is a less technical word, so let's discard it), linking resource inputs to programs, syllabi, and bureacratic structures. So I bailed and spent the second half of my time pursuing studies outside the curriculum while doing the bare minimum required for graduation. I continue to have the same perspective on pedagogical programs such as Malaysia's education system: if I look for a curator who manages perspectives of what the student substrate is, what the target state is, what the programs filling the gap do... I just don't find the curation to be technically appreciable. But of course, I am much farther removed from the Malaysian education program than my college administrators and professors. Oh well.

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"What are you going to work on?"
"Education and public policy."
"Cool. My views on that are rather boring. I already did my periodic rant over the Maszlee kerfuffle. Probably won't have anything useful to say until the next guy is up for election lol"
"Hahaha. Well no one has anything useful to say. Just get shit done."
"I think the "saying ," part just regards what needs to get done. lol. So alignment on targets is pretty much where I get off since I'm fascist and most people are not. 😛"

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What I'd like to see is political parties (as abstract CEOs of the government, represented by whomever they assign to the PM's seat) having offices of organisational development, with a published rationale for why they structure the civil service in specific ways, and why they put so-and-so in charge of such-and-such portfolio given said structure. But this is a bit beyond what the ordinary citizen wants to see, and so I don't hope to see it any time soon. Just my general preference for centralised architecture, project management, and detailed implementation.

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One day, we will achieve a civilisation where respect is not desired. Untul then, we will build policies around insecure individuals.

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As admirable as our politicians may be, their efforts will often be limited by the overhead costs required to appease the constituencies that they represent. A society limited in comprehension will often demand policies that are uninformed. A policymaker commits her career to the meandering task of negiotiating with idiots on the definitions of progress. This is why policymakers are admirable - they broker the future of civilisation for the idiots who will enjoy a brighter future. Thus we applaud our policymakers...

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Re: Emotional sensitivity training

This for junior students; senior students need to acquire the discipline of analysing components of emotions until they can create and destroy these at will, like lego.

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It really depends, if Apandi believes he has done nothing wrong, he should wait to be fired, and seek legal recourse.

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M: "we do not need intelligence agencies"

This is precisely how you draw attention away from clandestine agencies. Hi SB!

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Just skimmed the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025... and I find it to be a lugubrious, rambling, mess. Don't agree with me.

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PDRM patut mengawal sebarang kegiatan yang mengharapkan kematian rakyat. Where's the social extremism wing of the Special Branch now? I know I should be picked up too - but it's a small price to pay to get death threats off the street. For reference, the demographic which I recently wished was dead was the emo people - like all of them, but you know, only if we can do it for the global population painlessly at the press of a button. :P

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Maszlee press conferences: Bad questions beget bad answers. Ask better questions. See the comments.

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Exhausting week for community service. I can no longer remember whom I've pissed off or why they've blocked me. I just rediscover it while trying to comment on their posts. Lol. The human spirit is an unstudied fiction, which promotes lazy thought, and crude appraisals of self. Whenever I have spare time, I suppose, I will work to rid the world of this encumberance.

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"Religion is regarded by: the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."

— Seneca (ca. 4 BC – 65 A

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re: People using brands to describe women:

Samsung cannot be pleased about this... not sure about Honda either...

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Declared 12 months taxable income on 7 months wages. smh :)

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This is pretty much where I stand on social media commentary. If someone makes a public statement, it should be illegal to block someone from making a public response in the same space. This is where it gets iffy: is your wall private property, or a commons? Technically it is private property belonging to (Facebook / Twitter / etc.) and so they can give you whatever rights that they want to on their property. But this brings me back to a position I have held for years: social media should be regulated as infrastructure, and social media companies as infrastructure providers, and the infrastructure itself nationalised and treated as a commons. But I don't think it is necessary - it simply remains an interesting option meriting further study.

//

Given the quantity of fake news, people are asking: if FNA should be abolished or not. It should be abolished. The way to deal with fake publications is to use standard libel laws for prosecution of identified liars. For debunking fake news with no identifiable source, we need a clone of Snopes that serves only Malaysia. Or just use Snopes. (Update: found it! It's https://sebenarnya.my via (friend).)

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All these people in disbelief that XYX media is publishing pro-Harapan content: please, learn to recognise a mirror chamber, it is different from a chamber of snakes, and those are different from a chamber of learnt people. Membership in the groups may overlap, but you must see the difference between actors, and the multiple roles they play.

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As much as I don't like taxes, I've heard the SST is inferior.

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KLCI straight down for days:

May 25, 2018 3:35am
I'm calling it a buy signal, on fear rhetoric. With regards to the communications policies of the new MoF, I applaud the hammer approach, and its destablising effects on the market. This is a short-term correction. It is generally better to under-promise; when caught in a dilemma about whether to under- or over-promise, a pessimistic approach puts the maker of statements back in control, because the counterparties are reacting to you, and you can guess pretty much which way they are going to go before they go there.

//

Bear in mind that Malaysia's single-citizenship clause was written into the constitution due to racial tensions, and economic insecurity. It is there for the same reason that we have a reverse apartheid policy.

If one is serious about addressing either of these two policies, first one must eradicate systematic poverty in Malaysia, with particular focus in A153 groups. Don't use the official definition of poverty - instead consider any aspect of daily economics which makes a citizen fearful or insecure to be poverty by definition.

:p

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Whoops, bad news today. I've been filling in the wrong form for personal taxes since 2007 or thereabouts when I started freelancing - and I haven't claimed any expenses, for the most part, so generally I've been overpaying tax. On the up-side, I've successfully tracked my target of living in the present and being ready to expire on a moment's notice. LOL.

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Don't know about you, whenever I've been outside Malaysia since 2001, I tell people Malaysia's a silicone banana republic...

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" you want to maintain a healthy relationship, and because you feel pressure to be caring" - Sorry, mates, friends are expensive. That is why I don't invest in friends. I'll take them as they come and go! I'll spend my pleasantries on business and intimate partners, tqvm.

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Uber crash: If the article is correct, how in character is that? Uber supposedly programmed the car to (1) shut up if it sees a problem (2) turn off any impulse to brake.

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Capital: let it flow... 😘. Let margin traders eat cake. This is the first policy of Guan Eng I have ever had an opinion on, and since it mirrors my own approach to managing public relations, I will support it. Lol.

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Apparently all the ingredients for e-cigarette liquid are available in baking shops. Who wants to be a guinea pig? (Because I don't smoke.) Sorry, nicotine not included.

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The comments from both sides of the fence are insightful. Not because we need affirmation of objective facts, but because we need reminders about the distribution of subjective experience.

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Re: M says it's harder this time

The lesson we can all learn from this is... you can spend 30 years FUCKING UP, but you may, eventually, get a shot at putting that experience to good use.

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Re: Callgate

I look forward to the day when Malaysia can entertain a female prime minister, moonlighting as a nude model, on national television, without having any pathetic untamed animal spirits arousing religious tensions. God made those tits for watching, son. Lean back, relax, and make right with your heavenly father...

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PDRM: lu mari sini, skarang
Jamal Yunos: sakit bos, mintak MC

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You don't give a peace prize to a grandmaster who teaches students to fight dirty, and then repents and breaks them up when they start maiming each other. At best you can remove the grandmaster from the list of most destructive legacies in history. I don't feel strongly about this, tbh, but it is a fun discussion. Maybe M will deserve a peace prize after a few more years of work.

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If you must use #starwars analogies for #ge14, please recognise that M is Vader. You just lived through the Return of the Jedi, not a New Hope. Morons.

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"I think the blueprint is shit. (I was going to say, not because it is a bad blueprint, but because blueprints have no place in operations... but I realised the correct wording is:) The blueprint is overly broad, and thus unwieldy, it cannot be easily implemented because it does not prioritise small, structural, foundations (its proponents may think it does, but then we just differ on judgments about how small is too small :) )."

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Jamal's escape and his many-mirrored social media accounts have got to be BN's highest ROI distraction this week. Azrul's the highest negative ROI. #manaazrul #manajamal

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Re:MOF on Najib's FB posts

Why does this read like T/KM wrote it. Lol. Anyway... wish I had time to edit and graph it into a more readable form. Maybe.

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Sewers reset. Woohoo.

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Moral outrage is a key component of human suffering. Moral outrage must be extinguished.

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"25. (1) The Federal Government may by order deprive of his
citizenship any person who is a citizen by registration under
Article 16a or 17** or a citizen by naturalization if satisfied—
(a) that he has shown himself by act or speech to be disloyal
or disaffected towards the Federation;" - I wonder, will they thus take away my citizenship, some day?

//

I wonder how long it'll take me to memorise the constitution. Probably sets a trigger to run for office.

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What is the rationale for X tribe to have Y type of access to Z resource?
.
"All racial identities are fictions based on arbitrary assignments of value to things in the world, and arbitrary delineations of where to draw the line between those who belong and those who do not belong to a specific tribe. We call these racial narratives. Our nation is founded on a racial narrative that associates specific geographical boundaries with specific rulers, and the subjects of these rulers, via the notion of property rights.

In Malaysia, it is EXPLICIT in the very definition of the nation, the constitution, that there are unequal rights to all the resources of this nation, based on what tribe you belong to. It is IMPLICIT in the constitution that the special groups have a FIRST CLAIM, to all resources. (This narrative is made EXPLICIT in other texts.)

That is where you have to begin when discovering the rationale for any segregationist policy along special/not-special people in Malaysia.

The thinking is that the special people have a FIRST CLAIM to any resources, and therefore, they only grant access to others out of generosity.

It is possible to undo all these narratives. And there are probably various ways to do this. But I think the simplest approach is still to attack endemic poverty in Malaysia. "

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If you're wondering why the intellectuals in Malaysia have been very loud/noisy for two weeks: it is simply because we currently have a moratorium on the prosecution of speech that has spread throughout Malaysia's style of government since the 70s. [Looking squarely at TunM for leading the government in that direction; hopefully he doesn't do it again.] So look, you currently have freedom of speech, and you have a captive audience that is still excited about political reform. Now you strike while the iron is hot, and attempt to re-educate as many members of the plebiean masses about the laws and algorithms of our nation, before they crack down on freedoms of speech again. You don't know if it will be two days or twenty years, but you should certainly presume that freedoms do not last forever. So get out there, and brainwash a few stupid people. Hopefully for the better. (PS, of course, if they do crack down on speech freedoms later, you may have to go to jail for this, but that's all implied in the game...)

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"The drama of providing a sense that you have emotional vulnerability to your counterparties elicits in them a sense of compassion. It is a common device in building societies."

//

"What do you think are the immediate challenges that face the new government or actually what do you feel they should focus on first?"

"I have very minimalist tendencies. My own preference is likely to be regarded as relatively academic in comparison to the average operator's.
But assuming that we're talking about the brains in power and the brains in the street... then let's just say that maintaining coherent rhetoric on freedoms of speech will probably take care of everything else."

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An ENFP thing:
Bye bye, baby. Thanks for reaching out. Back to swiping. Doop dee doo...

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Insufficiently relaxed. Off to study that problem. It's getting in the way of work.

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Sorry, lady. If I really didn't like you, I could in good faith turn on the charm, and sell the shit out of the flavour of the week - as that is the business of business. But I do, really like you, so I'm going to act disinterested, because I don't have the energy to deal with the charge of being a creep in the office. If you really want to talk to me, and not the business, get us out of my office. Back to work.

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Current hypothesis:
- yell bad things => weaken the Ringgit
- pay off MYR denominated debt using FX reserves
- yell good things => strengthen the Ringgit
😂😂
WTF do I know...

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Good morning,
confused nation!

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I guess it's politically incorrect to call a blueberry blondie an "aryan,"...

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Sometimes, I regret bothering to figure out the structure of consciousness. Without existential questions, or concerns, I generally find myself a curious spectator of the concerns of people chasing dreams and fancies. I don't want aspirations. I just want more people on my side of the fence. :P #teamapathy #amuseathon #changetheworld
.
Some people work hard because they desire to achieve a goal. If I work hard, and it is not certain that I do, then it is because I desire to achieve irony - the act of working hard without an ulterior motive is a joke, in and of itself. It is, funny. And that's what makes it worthwhile.
.
Ah, life. Live a little, learn a little.

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Awake. Back to work. Still not sure if my work became me, or if I became my work. It's supposed to be the latter ok? #marriedtowork #cheatingwithyou

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"There are three things we don't talk about in Europe. They are sensitive: religion, politics, and (something I can't remember)." - some Romanian colleague circa 2002
.
" But if it's a sensitive issue, that's a GREAT reason to talk about it, until the population becomes desensitised 😁😁" #teamapathy #stoptherot #nosnowflakes
.
Or we die trying, I suppose.

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Is there already an act of law, that bans political party (or any registered society) marques in government (small g) offices? If not, can we put such a ban through parliament?

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Someone please tell the Harapan comms office to use words like, "postponed due to fiscal reform, until DATE" "on-hold, pending further review by DATE," instead of, "cancelled," lol? Maybe (mp) can get a word in?

Official Languages of the Law, in Malaysia

Anthropological note on Malaysia.
.
I may have located a flaw in our implementation of constitutional law and our education system's syllabus for language.
.
The country of Malaysia is defined by a Constitution, co-written by colonial powers, in the English language. All laws of the country, follow from this English language constitution.
.
By contrast, the convention has been to treat Malay as the official language of the nation. The disconnect is thus: every time a member of this officially Malay speaking country has to do a fundamental study of law, he or she ends up referring to an English language document.
.
Hypothesis*: we should decisively pick ONE official language, it should probably be Bahasa Malaysia/Melayu, we should translate all documents to that language WITH COPIOUS HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC FOOTNOTES, and the YDPA should sign off on the Malay versions as authoritative, and we should just bin the English versions of all laws (to the bin of lower authority).
.
* I'm quite aware that this accelerates a can of worms being potential constitutional crises in the future.
.
** For reference, some screencaps from the National Language Act of Malaysia.

Libraries and Hegemony

"There's no need for better libraries, Malaysian don't read."
"There isn't a private library in the world that's demand-driven. Libraries are perpetuators of hegemony. They're top-down infrastructure, investments driven by values ("policy targets")."
.
The definition of objective value, or 'what is good,' is based on subjective value: if you value the ability of individuals to act according to their whims, then you are said to be on the left, and if you value the ability of one party to enforce discipline over other parties, then you are said to be on the right. These are arbitrary preferences. Each society determines a practical consensus, which may be more right- or left-leaning, then proceeds to brainwash the next generation of its population accordingly. This is just biology.
.
I grew up in a conservative ("right-leaning") society, and therefore had rather liberal ("left-leaning") tendencies as a child. Since the age of twenty, by which time I had completed many of the fundamentals of studies which interested me as a child, I find myself more of a centrist. This is in light of my background as a technician. I strive to be the person who knows the price of everything, and to associate myself with the value of nothing. I wonder if this where technocrats come from.

My (late) submission to the Committee for Institutional Reforms

COMMENTS:

Citizenships should be able to access the law easily, in order to determine how to comply with it. The Committee for Institutional Reforms must review how citizens have been hindered, or passively not-enabled, from accessing and interacting with the laws of the nation. Two comments follow, below. Recommendations are in the next form field.

# ONE

Initially written on 20 May. [redacted text from: https://www.facebook.com/jerngatwork/posts/950916425089065 / link ]

# TWO

This next comment is anecdotal, and supplementary to the comments above.

As a small business owner, I have at time been to my local city council to determine the current state of by-laws, only to be told that the city council may enforce, but not disseminate the letter of the law. In order to obtain the letter of the law, I have been redirected to third-parties officially granted the agency of publishing hard-copies of the latest version of Malaysian laws. This is frankly, absurd.

In running a business as simple as a cafe, I have to interact with legislation of over a dozen agencies, including the Energy Commission on gas piping, and the Inland Revenue Board on withholding taxes on fees for Internet Advertising. There is no simple way to access all of these laws at once, and in a short amount of time. This is not a necessary state of affairs. Based on my conversations with other small business owners, in many cases they do not even bother to look up these laws.

###
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS:
###

A core problem is that many citizens have a weak ability to interact with their local laws, particularly those laws which enable them to affect public policy via the Dewan Rakyat (parliament).

RECOMMENDATIONS:

(8.) Reintroduce via the Dewan Negara (senate) a formal review of what "effective citizenship" looks like - the fundamental requirements for individual citizens.

(9.) Extend this discussion with the Ministry of Education. Then review the 2013-2025 education blueprint in light of the findings from this discussion.

(10.) Extend this discussion with the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia. Then review the ability of any citizen to access within five (5) minutes, and update their knowledge to the current state of any item in Malaysia's official law, from the Constitution, all the way down to local council by-laws.

(11.) Extend this discussion with the Ministry of Home Affairs. Then review the portfolios of the (ministry of home affairs) which are concerned with information dissemination and public education - and discuss the practicality of moving these portfolios to the (ministry of communications and multimedia). Thereafter, extend the discussion to determine a clear and transparent framework for effective interaction between the two ministries, in order to address the core issue raised above. Furtheronto the (ministry of home affairs) should review programs and funding for adult citizens (older than 21 years of age) to continuously review the state of the law, in their daily activities. References to the law must be encoded into the algorithm of public life - it must not be allowed to remain optional.