Fellow Bloggers, Let's Play Hyde&Sick!

When I was small
and papay trees were tall
We used to love
while others used to play
.......
(Deer leaders, I'm sure you lemember this one by the BeeGees?)

TEACHER: Now boys and girls, what game do you want to play today?Desi: Teacher, teacher -- let's pray Brindman's bruff!
Mimi: Hey, YL, it's Blind man's Bluff-lah!
Zorro: Teacher, teacher -- I want to play Hide and Seek!
CathyZ: Yes, I want to be Hyde, and Bernie, you are my Sith!

Government to target blogosphere next
http://m.themalaysianinsider.com.my/articles.php?id=8174

By The Malaysian Insider

August 26, 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 26 Next up: a crackdown on bloggers. This possibility looms large after the government reached a sober assessment that it could all end in tears for the Barisan Nasional at the next general election if tough action is not taken to counter allegations on the Net and hold owners of blogs accountable.

This conclusion was reached during a meeting last week involving several Cabinet ministers and senior government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Government officials noted that some 400,000 new voters are registered each year. Assuming that the next polls are in five years, there would be two million new voters the next time the BN seeks a fresh mandate. A large chunk of these two million voters are likely to obtain their news and information from websites and blogs, and not from the mainstream media.

Several ministers noted that if the government followed its current policy of allowing allegations by bloggers to go unchallenged, this would create the perception that the information being posted is accurate.

"There is a growing consensus in government that those who run websites and blogs should be held accountable and this means that laws should be used to take action against those who defame and spread disinformation.

"If not, we are going to have a situation where everyone will be free to make all sorts of allegations with no downside at all. There is a fear that the trust level with BN would be very low if nothing is done, '' said a senior government official familiar with details of the meeting.

The prevailing mood in the government against the alternative media is one of frustration. After decades of being able to control newspapers and television stations through a raft of legislation, government officials and politicians are finding that their tools are useless in setting boundaries for new media.

At last week's meeting, an official of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) explained that the authorities have not come down hard on websites and bloggers because Section 3 of the Communications and Multimedia Act prohibits any form of censorship.

But government officials corrected him and said that the guarantee that the Internet would not be censored did not preclude legal action from being taken against bloggers for defamation and sedition.

They pointed out that the Singapore government had hauled several bloggers to court for a series of offences and suggested that the Malaysian government should follow suit. In the aftermath of Election 2008, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that the government paid a heavy price by allowing accusations and reports on the Internet to go unchallenged.

He said that the BN underestimated the power of the Internet and committed a serious misjudgment by relying on the mainstream media in the run-up to the general election. His comments resulted in the Information Ministry reaching out to some prominent bloggers and giving them some air-time on television but by and large the relationship between the alternative media and the government has remained testy.

In recent months, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the country's best-known political blogger, has had a running battle with Najib and his wife, implicating both of them in the October 2006 murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shariibuu. The DPM has also been on the receiving end of other damaging allegations.

His supporters in Umno have been pushing for a more hardnosed approach in dealing with bloggers and operators of news portals, arguing that the softer touch by the Abdullah administration has resulted in daily attacks on ministers and BN politicians.

Critics of the government said that instead of focusing on bloggers and the alternative media, they should strive for more accountability and transparency, and remove the shackles on the mainstream media.


DESIDERATA:

Yes, I was recalling the FIRSTofMAY when Bloggers gathered at the Lake View Club to mark World Press Freedom Day.
After Yesterday's result -- resounding eh! "CONgrats" to DSAI and no less the Bloggers team headed by RPK!:) -- of Permatang Pauh, IF THE GOVERNMENT PLANNED TO DO AS WHAT IT WAS REPORTED TO BE IN THE PIPELINE as reported by The Malaysian Insider,
then I'm afraid it has not learnt the Lessons of March 8, 2008 and August 26, 2008.

Then the g.ds/Devil must send them to ...ah, well, swell, to .ell!
I:
S:
A:...

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As Desi would soon be On The Move -- no, not On The Beat, that's for double latuk GEISi! -- hear's a Cut&Paste from one of Desi's fave blogs: resident Walski of an asylum who often leaps, today takes a Baby Step for NegaraKu:)

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
One Small Step...
Technorati tags: Politics, Permatang Pauh, Anwar Ibrahim, Hope



Flashback, July 21st, 1969. On that day, history was made. Man, for the very first time, set foot on the surface of an extra-terrestial body - the Moon.

It was also on that day, a cliché was born:

"That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind"
Neil Armstrong (via Quotations Book)
Flash-forward 39 years later, give or take.

You could also say that August 26th, 2008 was "one small step"... Maybe not for mankind, per se. But definitely for this nation we love called Malaysia.

(courtesy of Mob1900)

Congratulations, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
(baby steps towards a better Malaysia, and more, in the full post)

And what's significant about the one small step on August 26th?

Well, for one thing, it reinforces Walski's belief that communitarian politics is a dying paradigm. At least, race-communitarian politics. As for the demise of religious-communitarian politics, we still got some baby steps to overcome yet. But Walski's confident we'll get there at some point.

Another thing is the credibility of Barisan Nasional that's eroding faster than what global warming is doing to Antartica. Even the appearance of The Father, Son-in-Law, and possibly whole-y busloads of ghostly voters, couldn't save the day for BN. Okay, perhaps that was pretty bad, cliché-wise. For which, however, Walski offers no apologies.

And finally, no amount of swearing, underhanded dirty election tricks, or subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) monetary enducements could deter the voice of the people.

On a slightly lighter note, the Mrs forwarded this humorous SMS to Walski earlier in the day:

The future of Japan is in its technology

The future of China is in its economy

The future of Malaysia is in Saiful's ass...
Well, Walski would beg to differ. The future is in our own asses hands. And what the pivotal hands of Permatang Pauh collectively did on August 26th, may just have tilted our nation towards a better future. Saiful's ass notwithstanding.

But the journey is far from over. We now wait to see where that one small step leads us to...

Ah well... for all it's worth, at least there's something positive for Walski to feel about come August 31st... them flags may yet find the inspiration to right-side-up themselves...