QZ8501: A Tragic End

Quebec Zulu Eight Five Zero One. Rest in Peace.

Search teams have begun locating floating bodies and debris in the Java Sea, 100-200 kilometers (60-120 miles) from the plane’s last detected position.  On Tuesday. The plane has yet to be found but it is believed to be lying 50 meters underwater on the sea floor.

Where AirAsia flight 8501 got lost and then found:

Image credit: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/28/world/asia/airasia-flight-qz8501-map.html

As Year 2014 draws to a close – on a personal note, I found Toastmasters very fulfilling:

And what's even better is the fact that I am still very passionate about Toastmasters!

BTW, I have decided to give up making resolutions. I just want to keep things simple:

A Shiny New Year

On December 19, 2014, I had blogged about Kim Kardashian’s bottom (Check it out at this link http://helpvictor.blogspot.com/2014/12/im-not-fan-of-reality-star-kim.html).

And now Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi – they celebrated their ten year anniversary together on December 01 – they are taking the Mickey out of Kardashian with the cheeky holiday card they have created:

 

 

 

That’s because it is based on a riff on Paper magazine's "Break the Internet" campaign that featured a nude Kardashian on the cover.

 

DeGeneres and de Rossi's card reads "Happy Holidays and a Shiny New Year," and shows their heads Photoshopped onto Kardashian's baby-oiled body.

 

[Note: DeGeneres's holiday cards are part of a partnership with Shutterfly to donate money to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Humane Society].

 

I don't know why but I just love bottoms!

 

On Tuesday, I was in Lorong 8/1D in Petaling Jaya to attend the joint meeting of Money Mastery and Money & You Toastmasters Clubs, both from Division G. I was the Evaluator for Hj Hashim Adnan’s Advanced speech. He really knows how to give the speech a 360 degree twist and therefore, making my life challenging! 

The meeting started on time but finished forty-four minutes behind schedule. Tsk, tsk! This shouldn’t happen! Anyway, my score for this meeting is a 3.5 over 10.

Bomohs Ready to Offer Help

Indonesia is not very much different from Malaysia. The hunt for the missing QZ8501 is ongoing – and bomohs (shamans) have come to the fore and offering their assistance – even claiming that they have managed to track down the AirAsia plane’s location in the “supernatural” waters of Belitung.

 

For those of you who do not know – Belitung (coordinates 2°50′S 107°55′E) is the Indonesian island off the coast of Sumatra where the missing plane was speculated to have crashed – supposedly somewhere in the vicinity of the East Belitung waters.

 

Indonesia’s Tempo reported that Basarnas (National Search and Rescue Agency) communications director Sutono had confirmed he received the offer for help, but said that that was not the standard method used by the search team.

 

At least, the Indonesians have better common sense than Malaysians.

 

I am sure you can recall the Malaysian bomoh, Ibrahim Mat Zin who thrust himself into the limelight by performing strange rituals involving coconuts and other paraphernalia. Of course, he didn’t manage to find the missing MH370.

 

Anyway, let’s keep our hopes up for QZ8501.

 

  

Liverpool moved to within five points of the top four as they earned an emphatic 4-1 victory over Swansea at Anfield. Alberto Moreno's close-range finish in the thirty-third minute put the Reds ahead. Adam Lallana produced the second goal in the fifty-first minute before Swansea’s Gylfi Sigurdsson hit back a minute later. Lallana struck again with a low finish in the sixty-first minute and Jonjo Shelvey's headed own goal (69) sealed the rout.

 

The Monday game was Liverpool’s biggest home win of the season. Sure, Liverpool ended 2014 with a bang but what is important is getting back to performing well on a regular basis!

Peshawar School Massacre

AP

Mohammad Sajjad-AP

Image credit: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/150917/world-leaders-condemn-pakistan-school-massacre

AP Photo

                       

Image credit: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/uDWcJiHUCCQ/0.jpg

Image credit: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NXrafMAPOBM/0.jpg

Image credit: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/peshawar-school-attack-massacre-5-facts-eye-witness/1/407334.html

Fayaz Aziz-Reuters

Image credit: http://www.afghanistan-today.org/media/photos/Peshawar1.jpg

A  Majeed (AFP/File)

Image credit: http://media4.s-nbcnews.com/i/newscms/2014_51/815571/del6379886_a90740e4569ee6cab72e952a42a956dc.jpg













Image credit: http://wgbhnews.org/post/survivor-pakistans-school-massacre-tells-how-his-teacher-saved-his-life

Image credit: http://www.lhrtimes.com/2014/12/19/opf-expresses-condolences-victims-peshawar-school-massacre-234234/

Image credit: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2014/Dec/19/images/news_19_12_2014_14.jpg






 




AP Photo

Image credit: http://www.demotix.com/news/6499958/nsf-protests-against-massacre-children-army-school-peshawar#media-6499941

Certainly, it is a cliché to talk about an act of terrorism as a massacre of innocents, but the blood spilled in a school in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar more than fits that description. In fact, it is a vile act beyond comprehension.

On December 16, 2014, at least seven gunmen belonging to the Tehrik-E-Taliban went on a bloody rampage at the Army Public School, located in an area where many military families live, in the northwestern city of Peshawar, Pakistan and slaughtered 132 students between ages 12 and 16 – and another 121 were wounded. Nine staff members were also murdered in cold blood. 

The killers moved from classroom to classroom shooting their victims in the Pakistani Taliban’s deadliest attack yet. In one room, the beasts burned a teacher alive in front of her terrified pupils, witnesses said. In the auditorium, they shot cowering students in the head.

Books, ties, sweaters, notepads, spectacles – the normal trappings of a day at school – lay scattered, drenched in the blood of children who will never use them again, never go to school again, never laugh or cry again. 

And when the murderous militants were finally cornered by Pakistani commandos after an eight-hour siege, they blew themselves up rather than surrender. 

This was the same group that shot Pakistani schoolgirl and now Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai in 2012, purportedly because women do not need education in an Islamic caliphate. 

US President Barack Obama described the massacre as an act of "depravity". 

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared three days of mourning and an end to the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism cases. 

As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “Going to school should not have to be an act of bravery”. 

The world is seeing senseless bloodshed on a scale that is frightening! And whether you care to believe it or not, this mad violence is spreading! Trust me when I say that no country on this planet is immune from it! 

This is the evil that men do! Sorry – these are not men but monsters wrapped in human skins! Therefore, they should be culled without mercy. 

As the specter of IS and their likes defile the world we live in – can we be really safe? Is there a safe haven for the innocents? Or shall we bear witness to killings and more killings?

AirAsia's QZ8501 Goes Missing

 

On Sunday, AirAsia’s QZ8501, flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, lost contact with air traffic control at approximately 6:17 AM Indonesian time (07:17 AM Malaysian time) – about halfway through the flight and just after the pilot requested a change in course to avoid bad weather.

 

One hundred and fifty-five Indonesians are on board the plane, along with three people from South Korea, and one from Singapore, Malaysia, Britain, and France.

 

Indonesian officials have said the missing plane, an Airbus A320-200 made no distress call.

 

A major search operation is already underway.

 

Indonesia AirAsia is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia, with local investors holding the rest. Indonesian laws disallow majority foreign ownership on domestic civil aviation operations.

Floods Continue to Ravage Malaysia

AFP pic, December 27, 2014

Azhar Rahim-EPA, December 28, 2014

Image credit: http://hype.my/newsdesk/prayforpantaitimur-negeri-sembilan-hit-by-floods-evacuees-at-160000/

Image credit: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/283982

Image credit: http://www.nst.com.my/node/65377

As at 05:00 PM on December 28, 2014, the number of flood victims have reached 203,023 across five states, i.e. Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Perak and Johore. The death toll from the floods is now ten: five in Kelantan, three in Pahang, and two in Terengganu.

 

On Saturday, in the Scottish Premiership, Ross County did well when they put the shackles on Celtic as they held the champions to a scoreless draw.

A Dress that Flirts

Here’s a piece of advice: If you’re planning to play it cool on a date, don’t wear this dress – it is bound to give you away.

 

The Daan Roosegaarde designed dress, named ‘Intimacy 2.0,’ is made out of an opaque fabric that becomes transparent when the wearer gets aroused. When your heartbeat quickens, the opaque fabric gets electrified by it and responds by becoming clear.

 

The award-winning Dutch designer used leather, smart opaque e-foils, electronics, LEDs, and copper among other technologies to create this style of fashion that he calls “techno-poetry”. Tiny sensors detect changes in the wearer’s body temperature and heart rate. So, for example, when the wearer’s heart rate goes up, the e-foils change colour and turn into clear plastic. This means that it is not just arousal, but also excitement, fear and anxiety can achieve the same effect.

 

The original version of the dress, Intimacy, was made up of nearly all e-foils meaning that the entire dress could turn invisible. However, the 2.0 version is only transparent around the bust because strips embedded with electronic-foils only cover the dress' bust area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this outfit is not just a one-off. Roosegaarde fully expects his concept dress, or a version of it, to eventually be worn by the public.

 

Now, who would want to wear a see-through dress? In any case, for now, there need not be a decision. Roodegaarde says it is only a prototype and is not yet available for sale in stores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a Boxing Day game, Liverpool were on the back foot in the first half against Burnley but the Reds found the winner with Raheem Sterling's well-taken goal in the sixty-second minute. Liverpool moved up to ninth in the EPL table.

Allah's Wrath

Photo in Malaysia Chronicle, December 25, 2014

Image credit: http://www.thesundaily.my/news/1272983

Image credit: http://www.kualalumpurpost.net/flood-2-more-deaths-in-kelantan/

Image credit: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/crops-worth-rm4.7m-damaged-in-terengganu-floods-says-agriculture-department

Image credit: http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/12/25/Number-of-flood-evacuees-soars-Situation-continues-to-worsen-in-badlyhit-Kelantan-and-Terengganu/

Bernama pic, December 20, 2014

Bernama pic, December 25, 2014

In Malaysia, the floods have worsened. As at 03:00 PM today, a total of 118,896 people have been displaced. This has even surpassed the previous record of 100,000 people evacuated during the 2008 floods, at least according to one report I read. Another report mentioned that this is the worst floods since 1972!

 

Of course, in badly-hit Kelantan, Pasir Mas MP Nik Mohamad Abduh was quick to point out that the calamity is a sign of “Allah’s wrath” and that the state government must persevere to enforce hudud even amid strong opposition.

 

This PAS fella prefers to pin the blame on God!