Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Eight Blunders of the World


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Seven Blunders of the World is a list that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi gave to his grandson Arun Gandhi, written on a piece of paper, on their final day together, not too long before his assassination. The seven blunders are:

  • Wealth without work
  • Pleasure without conscience
  • Knowledge without character
  • Commerce without morality
  • Science without humanity
  • Worship without sacrifice
  • Politics without principle

This list grew from Gandhi's search for the roots of violence. He called these acts of passive violence. Preventing these is the best way to prevent oneself or one's society from reaching a point of violence.

To this list, Arun Gandhi added an eighth blunder: Rights without responsibilities.

JESUS IS OUR CHAMPION!

Exstracted from Our Journey. Written by Joe Stowell.

“ ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ ” Matthew 16:15

At some point in life we’ve all felt the frustration and fear of being up against situations that we can’t deal with and, worse yet, there seems to be no one to help. If you were to ask me to tell you about the times I have felt the twinges of hopelessness, my early recollections would be from my first year in high school.

From kindergarten through eighth grade I attended a small Christian school. My dad was a well-known pastor in the area, which meant that I was the big man on campus. Everyone knew who I was, and I had it made—until the day I graduated from that school and enrolled in the nearby public high school. Nobody knew me or my dad at the new school, and nobody cared. So, needless to say, I wasn’t a big shot anymore. What’s worse, I became the victim of Ronnie, who decided to prove his emerging manhood on me. Whenever I passed him in the hall, he would shove and taunt me. I was traumatized. Every day at school I was filled with anxiety and fear because of Ronnie. I needed somebody to help me. I pleaded with friends who knew Ronnie to ask him to stop, but they never did. I was all alone in my problem, and I needed a champion.

In Jesus’ day, the Jewish people were up against the oppressive regime of Rome. Every day they lived with the shame of being a despised minority under the tyrannical thumb of Caesar, who demanded hefty taxes and unflinching allegiance. The once- proud Israel was now a puppet servant state of a brutal and pagan empire. They desperately needed someone to champion their cause. Could it be that Jesus was the long-awaited deliverer? Hence, this on-the-spot quiz! Peter came up with the right answer when he declared Jesus as “the Christ”—the “Messiah” who would deliver them from the oppression they had endured for so long. Against the backdrop of Caesar-worship and rampant paganism in Caesarea Philippi, the disciples pinned their hopes on Jesus.

What Peter didn’t know was that Jesus would be their champion on a far more significant level than a political one: the oppression of Rome. Jesus came to overthrow the source of our problems, not the symptoms. Rome was merely the tool of Satan to defeat God’s people and tarnish God’s glory. Defeating Rome would have been a great accomplishment, but the enemy of our souls would have found another way to wage war against the people of God. So Jesus went head-to-head against Satan, engaged in battle on an old rugged cross, and after a three-day struggle with death rose victoriously from the grave to assure the final victory over the enemy of our souls.

Jesus is the ultimate champion! And when we cast our lot with Him, He assures us that the victory is already won on our behalf. The next time you find yourself in a full nelson up against the wall of despair, claim Jesus as your champion. As Paul declares, you may be “struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:9). Since He won the battle at Calvary, you are now entitled to share in the spoils of His victory. Thanks to Jesus, the word defeat is not in our vocabulary!


Thursday, March 12, 2009

Can The Judiciary Be Independent/Impartial?

Yes, JC's term extended, but questions remain

Thursday, 12 March 2009 07:22AM
©The Malaysian Insider (Used by permission)
by Debra Chong

KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 11 - Ridwan Ibrahim, whose term as a judicial commissioner (JC) in the Ipoh High Court became the subject of much public debate in the ongoing Perak constitutional crisis, has had his contract extended for another two years.

"Yes, it has been renewed. Effective 1st March," de facto Law Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz confirmed the news today.

Nazri told The Malaysian Insider that Ridwan's two-year term as a JC expired last February 28, but a renewal letter signed by the Chief Justice of Malaya, Tan Sri Zaki Azmi, has effectively extended the controversial judge's term. He explained the renewal of a JC does not require the involvement of the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), the newly-minted body regulating the appointment of judges.

Asked when the letter was sent out, Nazri said he could not remember, but added it did not matter because the renewal can be backdated.

Ridwan recently made several controversial rulings in the Ipoh High Court, the most notable being an order stopping Perak Assembly Speaker V. Sivakumar from holding "any unlawful assembly." He also ordered Sivakumar to only use the services of State Legal Advisor (SLA), Datuk Ahmad Kamal Md Shahid, to represent him in another case where three elected representatives are suing him for declaring their state seats vacant.

But the constitutional wrangle has become more muddled with Sivakumar suing the SLA in a separate suit filed in the KL High Court yesterday. For federal lawmaker M. Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh-Barat), the real question to be answered concerns the accountability of a JC compared to a judge with full tenure.

"How can a trainee judge be allowed to decide a constitutional matter of such monumental significance which concerns the public?" he asked. "By right the case should be heard by an experienced judge," added Kulasegaran, a lawyer by training. Kulasegaran explained a JC is a judge-in-training who is put on a two-year probation period, at the end of which he is usually confirmed, relieved of his duties or chooses not to continue as a judge, such as Raja Aziz Addruse, a notable lawyer who was a former Bar Council president.

He noted that JC Ridwan had added to the complexity of the issue when he made the decision barring Speaker Sivakumar from chairing "unlawful" assemblies in chambers instead of in open court where the public can follow the arguments of the lawyers from both sides.

"Justice must be seen to be done," Kulasegaran emphasised.

The Malaysian Bar
http://www.malaysianbar.org.my Powered by Joomla! Generated: 12 March, 2009, 12:11

Friday, March 6, 2009

Excuse me, are you a doctor?

Hospital: Mob tampered with Kugan's body

NST Online 5 March 2009 By : Farrah Naz Karim farrah 

PUTRAJAYA: Serdang Hospital yesterday fought back against accusations of a misleading post-mortem on police detainee A. Kugan.

Its director, Dr Mohd Norzi Ghazali, said a mob of about 50 people had barged in and tampered with the body before any post-mortem was carried out by the hospital's forensics pathologist.

Dr Norzi said his medical officers sought cover for two hours in a connecting room of the mortuary as they feared being hurt by the mob.

The post-mortem, he said, was supposed to take place at 8am the next day as police personnel had to be present during the procedure.

A report on the incident at the morgue by the hospital authorities stated that Kugan's fully-clothed body was in a body bag, which had been torn open by the mob. The medical officers also reported they were shocked to see a pool of Kugan's blood on the floor of the mortuary.

This, the report said, indicated that wounds on the body could have been inflicted after his death.

The report also stated that the 22-year-old had died of pulmonary oedema or fluid in the lungs. It also stated that there were no fractures on his body or damage to his vital organs.

However, Kugan's family lawyer, N. Surendran, said the second post-mortem conducted by University Malaya Medical Centre's pathologist Dr Prashant N. Samberkar revealed that his death was due to kidney failure caused by muscle injury that might be attributed to physical, chemical or biological factors.

Dr Norzi told the New Straits Times that both post-mortems were "weak evidence" in the case as they had been conducted after the body had been tampered with.

On claims that Kugan, a suspected car thief, had been starved for six days before he died, Dr Norzi said a person's stomach would be cleared of traces of food about four hours after his last meal.

Attorney-General Chambers' prosecution division head Tun Majid Tun Hamzah received the second post-mortem report from Surendran yesterday.

Tun Majid said comparisons would be made between the reports for a just decision. "This won't be long, hopefully within this month. The chambers will inform the public of its decision." 

Kugan died at the Subang Taipan police station while being interrogated on Jan 20, six days after he was arrested in connection with car thefts.

Kapar member of parliament S. Manikavasagam, who accompanied Surendran to the chambers, said a police report would be lodged against the Serdang pathologist either tomorrow or Saturday "over a false and misleading post-mortem".

In Kuala Lumpur, Deputy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar said police would wait for the A-G's decision before taking action against the 11 policemen involved in Kugan's death.


Terrible images of Kugan

Friday, 06 March 2009 06:56AM © Malay Mail

by Haris Hussain & Nevash Nair


ALMOST two months after A. Kugan died in the Subang Taipan police lock-up, his mother, N. Indra, still cries herself to sleep every night. Now, sleep is even more elusive after she came to know about the pain and suffering he endured before he died, five days after he was arrested on Jan 15 in connection with police investigations into a series of luxury car thefts. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees her son’s bruised, battered and burnt body.

In an interview with Malay Mail, Indra said she is still unable to accept the fact that her son is gone, so much so her husband, R. Ananthan, refused to show her the second post-mortem report prepared y the independent pathologist hired by the family. The report was released on Monday. Ananthan relented only after Indra insisted. What she saw shocked her. “I have never laid a finger on my son but these heartless policemen beat him to death. Only a mother knows how I feel. The pain is so unbearable that I wish I were dead,” she alleged of the case that the Attorney-General has reclassified as murder.

My life has changed forever. He is my first-born. The manner in which I lost him makes it even more difficult for me to deal with. I did not carry him for nine months in my womb just so that someone can torture him this way. “There were signs that he was starving before he died. He was never hungry when he was with me. I would cook him his favourite dish, fried chicken and nuggets, whenever he was hungry.” Indra said her three other children miss Kugan too but that the one hardest hit is her husband. “As a father, he always thought that Kugan would be around to provide for the family if anything were to happen to him. He loved Kugan more than anything in this world. Now, he worries

about who will take care of the family if he dies.”

The one million ringgit question: Why would anyone starve, brand and beat up the corpse of a close relative?