There’s so much interesting news popping out all over and so much to talk about, but it seems this blog is destined for a bi-monthly or at best, weekly posting schedule.

Basically, I guess it comes down to value-addedness. I’m just not value-adding much to some of the “quick-release” content I’m “aggregating” here.

So, I’ll be giving myself more time to write longer and more solid posts. But whether the posts come out right, well… you’re the judge (and jury in fact).

Wow. I’m sure male high school students all around the world would scream for pornography as “punishment” for not completing homework. So, it’s surprising that the 13-year old students forced to endure this “punishment” informed their parents about it (yes, I’m only joking, sheesh!).

Anyway, enough of the bad jokes and back to the facts. It seems that recently, a government school teacher forced his students to watch a pornographic movie as punishment for not completing their homework. Both his male and female students were herded into an audio-visual room for this “punishment”.

At this point in time, I’m not sure whether the teacher is a sex maniac, or merely imbecilic. Porn as “punishment”? Did he think he wouldn’t be reported? What happened to the rod, the water bucket, or running around the track as punishment? Whatever it is, I really doubt I would even want to know.

Incest and rape come in many forms, some more extreme than others - though all absolutely heinous and unjustifiable. But few would have imagined the recent case of a father - having four wives - raping his 12 to 15-year old daughters.

But, we’ve heard such cases before. So, what makes this man particularly evil is that he used religion to convince his wives that he “owned” his children, thus giving him the right to have sex with them. At this point, I won’t blame his wives that were (for some reason or another) gullible enough to convince their children to have sex with him. According to The Star, the daughters were actually prepped by their mothers, with various reasons given to justify the act of incest.

In any case, I’m sure that those of us out here are relieved that the eldest daughter finally reported their father to the police, and can only hope that this man is given the harshest possible sentence in the book.

P.S.: I rarely throw around highly subjective words like “evil” in my articles or essays. Please tolerate just this instance.

While the final eight astronaut candidates were revealed for the last leg of screenings last month, it seems that we now have only four left to choose from. The only woman candidate among the eight, engineer S. Vanajah, remains among the final four, fueling speculation that the first Malaysian astronaut could very well be a woman.

The final eight candidates underwent a seven-stage screening before four were eliminated, and were initially chosen from a pool of 11,000 applicants since our National Space Agency started the screening campaign in 2003. According to the press release, the final four will undergo “stringent training” in Moscow, Russia, after which the final two candidates will be selected.

One among the two will be eliminated through a further 18-month training stint in Moscow, after which the final candidate will follow the expedition to the International Space Station (ISS) scheduled for October next year.

Although there shouldn’t be any need for West Malaysians to fear the Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD), it is still saddening to see the recent spate of deaths from the disease in Sarawak. So far, the death toll is already at 6 (up from 5 before), and the approximate total number of children infected in Sarawak alone is at 3,984.

488 primary schools and kindergartens have been directed to shut down temporarily to prevent the disease from spreading further, but it seems there are some that refuse to obey the directive.

The primary reason why the death toll is such a small proportion of those infected is that getting HFMD does not necessarily mean death. There are two main variants of HFMD - the usually non-fatal Coxsackie A16 virus and the highly dangerous Enterovirus 71. Catching the Coxsackie A16 is normally a one-week affair (as long as treatment is conducted), while most deaths are caused by the Enterovirus 71.

In my opinion, this makes the current death toll all the more serious as there should only be a relatively small chance of children dying from the disease. Hopefully, both the authorities and administrators of public areas (like kindergartens) will take this to heart and ensure that containment and treatment are successful.

Well, with Malaysia recently lifting its import ban on American beef, rumours that the United States will soon start free trade talks with Malaysia are easy to believe, and should indeed happen given that news reports already point towards International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz arriving in the US.

But while free trade between the US and Malaysia should be wholly welcomed by any Malaysian at all, we can see easily that free trade today isn’t exactly “free” - especially when it comes to Malaysia, and its past history with the United States. It shouldn’t be too difficult to recall that our ex-Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir was always a sharp critic of the United States.

In any case, I, and probably any other Malaysian, would love to see a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the US and Malaysia in the near future. If these talks somehow work out, Malaysia will be the second ASEAN country with a FTA with the United States (after Singapore).