Bradley Manning's 35-year Sentence

Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday for leaking more than 700,000 classified documents to the WikiLeaks website. US government prosecutors had sought a prison term of at least 60 years and Manning's defense had suggested a term of no more than 25 years. In any case, the sentence is the longest in history in a case over a leak to the media of secret US government documents.

Colonel Denise Lind, the military judge presiding over Manning's court martial also said Manning would be dishonorably discharged from the US military, his rank would be lowered and he would have to forfeit his pay.

Manning’s lawyer said he would petition President Barack Obama to pardon his client or commute his sentence to time served.

This afternoon, a small party of four Sunway University colleagues went to Fong Lye in Sunway Pyramid for lunch. The occasion was to celebrate Leong Ken Yien’s birthday, albeit belatedly (i.e. August 07). 

Climate Change

I had mentioned about the destructiveness of Sandy pounding New York on Sunday. In Malaysia, we have been witnessing torrential downpours almost every evening. One can attribute these to inclement weather that is normal at this time of the year. Maybe so. After all, I read in the Global Edition of The New York Times on Friday that Atlantic hurricanes in the US northeast go way back, as the catastrophic “snow hurricane” of 1804 attests. The deluges here in KL are monsoonal in nature.

But let us not ignore the fact that rising carbon emissions could make extreme weather, as we are experiencing now, more likely. I also read The New York Times reporting that three of the 10 biggest floods in lower Manhattan since 1900 have occurred in the last three years. And of the 10 warmest summers on record for the contiguous US, seven have occurred since 2000. Aren’t we also seeing severe climatic conditions in Malaysia too?

It is time governments look seriously at climate change. We need to invest in cleaner energy, impose a carbon tax or other curbs on greenhouse gases, and, more importantly, rethink how we can diminish the toll of a changing climate.

Yesterday, we concluded a successful demo meeting for UniRazak – students and staff are keen to start a Toastmasters club at their Capital Square campus in the city. I was put in charge to assemble a team of role players and I am thankful of the support extended to me by Toastmasters from ten clubs. These Toastmasters Clubs are Crystal, Deloitte Malaysia, D’Utama Advanced, MIMKL, Shah Alam, Metro, One World, Taylor’s University, Taman Indrahana and Sunway University. These role players are all featued in the photos below:

I even presented my CC speech #9 Persuade with Power and my evaluator was Joyce Hue. One more speech to go before I complete my sixth round of the CC manual.