New Entrant For Oxymoron MSM Headline Of The Year

I had thought that the headline "PM: I work hard to fulfil duties" on the Feb 8 edition of the STAR reporting Pak Lah's proclamation that,"I work very hard. I really mean it and you know it." would be an early winner of the 'Oxymoron MSM Headline Of The Year Award' for 2008.

Considering his strong lead when winning the 2007 Oxymoron MSM Headline with "I won't dissapoint the people" despite it being a late entry, many people expected Pak Lah to be yet again the strong contender for the source of such oxymoronic headlines.

However, a new front-runner emerged in today's copy of the New Strait Times (NST), which reads Anwar wants stop to probe. Not only is the quality of the oxymoron non-controversial in this case, with the criminal suspect urging the police to discontinue investigations, but with the 16th September date looming, a winner that involves Anwar may be a popular choice this year.

Many involved in last year's award remembered the controversy that arose from the selection of Pak Lah's "I won't dissapoint the people" as the winner, especially as the Headline may be seen as moronic rather than oxymoronic. The controversy took a nasty turn when accusations of pandering or 'mengampu' were hurled about, until it was pointed out that such accusations were also oxymoronic by nature. Anwar's headline however would avoid such a dispute.

With Anwar's 16th September 'take-over' date and the MCA and UMNO elections still to come over the remaining months of this year, there is still much room for new contenders to present themselves. It remains to be seen however if any true competitor will arise to challenge the sheer quality and quantity of oxymoron generated by the 4th floor of Pak Lah's office... other than Anwar's...

Blogging Is Global In Nature, Hence Is Its Litigation Global In Nature?

They say a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, so as I have no real formal knowledge of the law, any views I espouse probably would be ...

It's getting to be a little too much fun taking Tangents of the NST vs. Blogger (Jeff and Rocky) civil action. My earlier post pondered the risks of Pak Lah being partisan on this case. I now wonder if maybe Uncle Kali and co may have begun something that isn't quite within the realm of their 'control'.

Consider this. Blogging is global by nature. The audience is global, as witnessed by the global outpouring of support in addition to the international reporting of this case, cited even as a 'landmark' case by the over-exuberant. However, there are legalistically global implications also to the suing of Rocky and Jeff, in that:

1. Their blogs, whilst by and large Malaysian by content, are hosted in servers abroad, potentially making them 'resident' within a foreign legal jurisdiction.
2. Any income they derive from the blogs, either directly through advertising, or indirectly by incidentals, opportunities, etc, would also not only be from Malaysian sources, but from an international base and would typically be via off-shore facilitation (adsense, etc).
3. The reputation held by these blogs are also international in nature, evident from the global awareness and commentary of the case, hence the owners risk critical cross-border defamation and all that that entails, whatever the outcome of this case.

So, is it too far a Tangent to imagine that whatever the outcome of this battle in the Malaysian courts, Jeff and Rocky may be able to seek legal recourse of some sort from a foreign court of law, almost of their choice?

So, could Jeff and Rocky even from now on lay a counter-claim of libel, defamation and loss of income through restriction in blogging activity in a US court due to their blogs being hosted and the income from advertising being facilitated by US entities?

And lets assume say a link is made between the case and happenings in Turkey, just an example mind you, could they take action in a Turkish court specific to the element of the case being cited?

Wow... this is great kung fu for us wee bloggers if it proves to be true...

Can Pak Lah Afford To Be Partisan Against Us Wee Bloggers?

I'm taking a Tangent here of course on the matter of the bloggers (Jeff and Rocky) vs NSTP case which is running rabid on the Malaysian blogosphere and apparently infecting much of the world's on-line and traditional media.

The Tangent I'm taking is actually on this:

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/1/24/nation/16663444&sec=nation

Am I reading this right? Is Pak Lah really taking sides here, against Jeff and Rocky, in what is really a civil suit? I mean I know-lah that NST is an UMNO paper and that Kalimullah is Pak Lah's chum (due to Pak Lah mistakenly thinking that Kalimullah helped him secure the DPM-ship - uncle Kali you sly old manipulator you...) as well as his son-in-law Khairy's boss and once(?) business partner, but isn't this going a little too far?

It would be far fairer of Pak Lah if he also added a comment in the lines of,"Traditional media also should take responsibility of their reporting, and responsible blogs then do have a role to play to check the excesses of such media, especially those with links to the establishment like the NST. Indeed traditional media like NSTP's publications that are linked to the ruling party must set the standard in responsible reporting ahead of blogs as any poor reporting risks embarassing the government."

The above line is not just more creditable for a leader gagging for world recognition (since local recognition is tough in the days of floods, boats, inflation and toll hikes), it is also good politics as:

1. Bloggers are voters too


2. Uncle Kali and gang are not really the most popular people in Malaysia at the moment


3. In Acheh recently, the winner of the race for Govenor was a surprise dark-horse ex-rebel/freedom fighter ex-con. The reason he and his block of the Acheh Liberation Movement (GAM) won? They printed out and distrubuted the 'best off' news about their block that was published in the net and blogs!

By the way, there may also be legal reasons why Pak Lah should refrain from commenting on this matter as the recent thorn in Dato' Rafidah's side, Michael Backman (http://www.michaelbackman.com/) once commented in his book...

...that (in his view) Malaysian courts are actually quite independent (contrary to popular opinion), but have this annoying habit of typically passing judgement in favour of or in line with what they percieve are the government's desires; the flip-flop on Anwar Ibrahim's conviction and subsequent release on appeal being the case in point.

Could Pak Lah be setting up grounds for an appeal for this case should the NST-fellows win? Pak Lah... I thought uncle Kali was your friend?