I was born on the prairies, where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures. [GERONIMO]
The veteran politician also thanks Pandikar Amin Mulia for his services rendered to the Dewan Rakyat.
PETALING JAYA: DAP chairman and veteran politician Karpal Singh today said he was deeply touched by Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia’s apology to him yesterday, and reciprocated with his own apology.
“I wish to reciprocate by asking for his forgiveness for the many transgressions for which an apology is due from me to him.
“I wish Tan Sri Pandikar well and thank him on behalf of the DAP for his services rendered to the Dewan Rakyat,” Karpal said in a statement today.
Yesterday, at the end of the last parliamentary session before the 13th general election, Pandikar took the opportunity to apologise to MPs if he had hurt their feelings in the course of the parliamentary sittings since 2008.
He specifically tendered his apology to Bukit Gelugor MP Karpal Singh for being insensitive over the veteran MP’s health conditions.
He explained that there was one time during the sitting when he had asked for all the MPs to raise their hands to make a decision on a Bill and had reprimanded Karpal for failing to do so.
He said it had slipped his mind that Karpal could not lift his hand as he was disabled following a bad car crash some years ago.
“I still feel bad about it till today. Although Karpal is not in the House today, I would like to say that I am very sorry. I did not mean to be so insensitive,” Pandikar said yesterday.
In an attempt to soothe the growing discontent among non-Muslims in the state, the Kelantan government will seek to hold a discussion with non-Muslim community representatives and business operators over the controversial ruling pertaining to unisex hair salons there.
According to state Information, Science Information Development and Technology Committee chairperson Dr Mohd Fadzli Hassan, the Kelantan government is prepared to hold the discussion to come up with the best and speediest solution to the matter, reported PAS' online portal Harakahdaily, which stated that the move was based on a suggestion by the PAS’ Supporters Congress.
Fadzli stressed that Kelantan government takes into account the need to care for the rights of non-Muslims in the state and assured that the meeting would be arranged at the soonest possible time.
He was further quoted as saying that prior to this, no official objections have ever reached the state government over the ruling requiring women-run hair salons to cater only to a women clientele.
The issue first came about after it was reported that a female hairdresser at a salon in a mall was summoned by the Kota Baru Municipal Council (MPKB) for cutting a male customer's hair, as unisex service is banned in the town's hair salons.
Meanwhile, according to Malay daily Utusan Malaysia, PAS Supporters Congress president Hu Pang Chaw said the state must cease enforcing rulings which affect non-Muslims in Kelantan pending further study, as this will ensure fairness to the latter’s rights.
This, Hu said, was stressed by party president Abdul Hadi Awang during the recent party muktamar, during which Abdul Hadi said the Islamic party needed the support of non-Muslims if it intended to rule.
By-laws affecting non-Muslims, such as by the MPKB, were “not in accordance with current times.
“A study is needed to seek a solution that will accord justice to all parties, let alone by-laws that had been formulated in the 1990s and which were no longer relevant,” Hu reportedly said.
Utusan also published a statement by DAP Socialist Youth chief Anthony Loke, who also urged the PAS-led state government to re-evaluate the enforcement of Islamic laws upon the non-Muslims, and said his party will be bringing the matter up in a Pakatan Rakyat meeting soon.
The Islamic morality by-laws implemented by the Kota Baru Municipal Council are not meant to be expanded and implemented on non-Muslims, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said today.
This is clear in the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Offences Enactment (II) 1993, which is not applicable to non-Muslims, Hadi said in a statement.
The party, he added, views seriously the concerns voiced by the non-Muslims.
"At the same time, Kelantan has to enforce its responsibilities after getting the mandate given by the people to ensure that the good behaviour of Muslims is safeguarded," the PAS president said.
"Hence, PAS believes that the purpose of this by-law is towards that objective."
Hadi, who is also Marang MP, was referring to the uproar over the action taken by the Kota Baru municipality against a hair salon this month after its
female hairdresser was seen cutting a male customer's hair.
The row led to MCA central committee member Loh Seng Kok calling on the DAP to quit the Pakatan coalition as it had no strength to fend off repeated provocations and oppression from PAS that impeded the dignity of the Chinese and non-Muslim voters.
Today, the PAS organ Harakahdailyquoted Kelantan Information, Development Information, Science and Technology Committee chairperson Mohd Fadzil Hassan as saying the Kelantan government would hold a discussion on the controversial ruling with non-Muslim community representatives and business operators.
Finding a solution
Hadi said the PAS central committee, too, was willing to consider proposals made by non-Muslims to find the best way to resolve the hair salon row, based on their right to practise their religion.
"Certainly, discussions and negotiations are the best way to resolve a problem. We welcome the openness adopted by the PAS-led Kelantan government in this (to hold the discussion)," he said.
"PAS is always committed to resolving issues faced through proper discussion," Hadi added.
Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia also quoted PAS Supporters Congress president Hu Pang Chaw as saying that Kelantan should cease enforcing rulings that affect non-Muslims in the state pending further study.
This, Hu said, would ensure fairness to non-Muslims rights, which Hadi had also stressed during the party's muktamar earlier this month. Meanwhile, Kelantan Menteri Besar and PAS spiritual adviser Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat was quoted by The Star Online as saying that it is possible to exclude non-Muslim hairstylists in Kota Baru from attending to customers of the opposite sex.
"It is possible because they (those who object) are non-Muslims. Islam allows them to practice their culture, for as long as it is not in violation of the (Islamic) religion.
"First and foremost... we must uphold Syariah-based laws, Insyallah (God-willing),” Nik Aziz was quoted as saying, without making an official stand on the issue.
Nik Aziz said he had brought Kelantan dewan ulama chief Mohamad Daud for a discussion with five national PAS Supporters Congress members led by adviser its, Jeff Lee Weng Chun, who met him at his JKR 10 official residence, and promised that he will bring it up at the exco meeting for a decision to be confirmed.
Remember the above scene? It was UMNO's 66th anniversary celebration held at the Bukit Jalil National Sports Complex on May 11 2012. It was reported that 100,000 attended the event and my guess it was a kind of 'kiasu' gathering as well to beat BERSIH's 250,000.
Anyway, the issue here is about the calling of the 13th general election. If you follow the time meter of the video, you will notice that at :48 secs, Najib 'Gas Bag' Razak confidently told the crowd that he was so sure of winning that he felt like calling on the King to dissolve Parliament.
Er ... Najib, it is already six months todate. Why haven't you spoken to the King yet? Have you suddenly lost your confidence? The King can't be staying in the North Pole or some unreachable part of the Amazon jungle that hindered you from seeking an audience with him. So, what's up, friend?
Larry Hagman, who created one of American television's most supreme villains in the conniving, amoral oilman J.R. Ewing of "Dallas," died on Friday, the Dallas Morning News reported. He was 81.
Hagman died at a Dallas hospital of complications from his battle with throat cancer, the newspaper said, quoting a statement from his family. He had suffered from liver cancer and cirrhosis of the liver in the 1990s after decades of drinking.
Hagman's mother was stage and movie star Mary Martin and he became a star himself in 1965 on "I Dream of Jeannie," a popular television sitcom in which he played Major Anthony Nelson, an astronaut who discovers a beautiful genie in a bottle.
"Dallas," which made its premiere on the CBS network in 1978, made Hagman a superstar. The show quickly became one of the network's top-rated programs, built an international following and inspired a spin-off, imitators and a revival in 2012.
"Dallas" was the night-time soap-opera story of a Texas family, fabulously wealthy from oil and cattle, and its plot brimmed with back-stabbing, double-dealing, family feuds, violence, adultery and other bad behavior.
In the middle of it all stood Hagman's black-hearted J.R. Ewing - grinning wickedly in a broad cowboy hat and boots, plotting how to cheat his business competitors and cheat on his wife. He was the villain TV viewers loved to despise during the show's 356-episode run from 1978 to 1991.
"I really can't remember half of the people I've slept with, stabbed in the back or driven to suicide," Hagman said of his character in Time magazine.
In his autobiography, "Hello Darlin': Tall (and Absolutely True) Tales About My Life," Hagman wrote that J.R. originally was not to be the focus of "Dallas" but that changed when he began ad-libbing on the set to make his character more outrageous and compelling.
'WHO SHOT J.R.?'
To conclude its second season, the "Dallas" producers put together one of U.S. television's most memorable episodes in which Ewing was shot by an unseen assailant. That gave fans months to fret over whether J.R. would survive and who had pulled the trigger. In the show's opening the following season, it was revealed that J.R.'s sister-in-law, Kristin, with whom he had been having an affair, was behind the gun.
Hagman said an international publisher offered him $250,000 to reveal who had shot J.R. and he considered giving the wrong information and taking the money, but in the end, "I decided not to be so like J.R. in real life."
The popularity of "Dallas" made Hagman one of the best-paid actors in television and earned him a fortune that even a Ewing would have coveted. He lost some of it, however, in bad oil investments before turning to real estate.
"I have an apartment in New York, a ranch in Santa Fe, a castle in Ojai outside of L.A., a beach house in Malibu and thinking of buying a place in Santa Monica," Hagman said in a Chicago Tribune interview.
An updated "Dallas" series began in June 2012 on the TNT network with Hagman reprising his J.R. role with original cast members Linda Gray, who played J.R.'s long-suffering wife, Sue Ellen, and Patrick Duffy, who was his brother Bobby. The show was to focus on the sons of J.R. and Bobby.
Hagman had a wide eccentric streak. When he first met actress Lauren Bacall, he licked her arm because he had been told she did not like to be touched and he was known for leading parades on the Malibu beach and showing up at a grocery store in a gorilla suit. Above his Malibu home flew a flag with the credo "Vita Celebratio Est (Life Is a Celebration)" and he lived hard for many years.
In 1967, rock musician David Crosby turned him on to LSD, which Hagman said took away his fear of death, and Jack Nicholson introduced him to marijuana because Nicholson thought he was drinking too much.
Hagman had started drinking as a teenager and said he did not stop until the moment in 1992 when his doctor told him he had cirrhosis of the liver and could die within six months. Hagman wrote that for the past 15 years he had been drinking about four bottles of champagne a day, including while on the "Dallas" set.
LIVER TRANSPLANT
In July 1995, he was diagnosed with liver cancer, which led him to quit smoking, and a month later he underwent a liver transplant.
After giving up his vices, Hagman said he did not lose his zest for life.
"It's the same old Larry Hagman," he told a reporter. "He's just a littler sober-er."
Hagman was born on September 21, 1931, in Weatherford, Texas, and his father was a lawyer who dealt with the Texas oil barons Hagman would later come to portray. He was still a boy when his parents divorced and he went to Los Angeles with Martin, who would become a Broadway and Hollywood musical star.
Hagman eventually landed in New York to pursue acting, making his stage debut there in "The Taming of the Shrew." In New York, he married Maj Axelsson in 1954 while they were in a production of "South Pacific. The marriage produced two children, Heidi and Preston.
Hagman served in the Air Force, spending five years in Europe as the director of USO shows, and on his return to New York he took a starring role in the daytime soap "The Edge of Night." His breakthrough came in 1965 when he landed the "I Dream of Jeannie" role opposite Barbara Eden.
In his later years, Hagman became an advocate for organ transplants and an anti-smoking campaigner. He also was devoted to solar energy, telling the New York Times he had a $750,000 solar panel system at his Ojai estate, and made a commercial in which he portrayed a J.R. Ewing who had forsaken oil for solar power. He was a longtime member of the Peace and Freedom Party, a minor leftist organization in California.
Hagman told the Times that after death he wanted his remains to be "spread over a field and have marijuana and wheat planted and harvest it in a couple of years and then have a big marijuana cake, enough for 200 to 300 people. People would eat a little of Larry."
(Writing by Bill Trott in Washington; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuszinkis in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney)
My birthday falls on December 23 and when I read the following news report by AFP, I couldn't help but heaved a sigh of relief, .... heh heh heh. The world is coming to an end? Nah, not in another 1 million years and we would have been reincarnated a few thousand times to walk on this planet earth over and over again.
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Relax doomsayers, the Maya people did not really mark their calendar for the end
of the world on December 21, 2012.
As tourists book hotel rooms in Mexico's Maya Riviera and Guatemalan resorts
ahead of next month's fateful date, experts are busy debunking the doomsday
myth.
The apocalyptic prophecy that has inspired authors and filmmakers never
appears in the tall T-shaped stone calendar that was carved by the Maya around
the year 669 in southeastern Mexico.
In reality, the stone recounts the life and battles of a ruler from that era,
experts say. Plus, the last date on the calendar is actually December 23, 2012,
not the 21st, and it merely marks the end of a cycle.
So no need to build giant arks, because the terrible floods, earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions depicted in the Hollywood blockbuster "2012" were not
prophesied by the Mayas.
"The Mayas had a cyclical idea of time. They were not preoccupied with the
end of the world," Mexican archeologist Jose Romero told AFP.
The stone, known as Monument 6, was located in El Tortuguero, an
archeological site that was discovered in 1915.
Broken in six pieces, the different fragments are exhibited in US and Mexican
museums, including Tabasco's Carlos Pellicer Camara Anthropology Museum and New
York's Metropolitan Museum.
The first study on the stone was published by a German researcher in 1978.
Since then, various archeologists have examined its significance and agree that
it refers to the December 23 date.
"The last inscription refers to December 23, 2012, but the central theme of
Monument 6 is not the date, it's not the prophecies or the end of the world.
It's the story of (then-ruler) Bahlam Ajaw," Romero said.
The final date represents the end of a cycle in the Mayan long count calendar
that began in the year 3114 before Christ. It is the completion of 13 baak
t'uunes, a unit of time equivalent to 144,000 days.
"It is not the end of the Mayan long count calendar, which is endless. It's
the beginning of a new cycle, that's all," said Mexican historian Erick
Velasquez.
Though the Maya made prophecies, they looked at events in the near future and
were related to day-to-day concerns like rain, droughts, or harvests.
The belief that the calendar foresees the end of the world comes from
Judeo-Christian interpretations, the experts said.
Velasquez warned against giving too much weight to Monument 6, noting that it
is just one of more than 5,000 stones from the Mayan culture that have been
studied.
The Earth still has a few years left, even in eyes of the ancient Maya: Some
stones refer to the year 7000.
The issue first came about after it was reported that a female hairdresser at a salon in a mall was summoned by the Kota Baru Municipal Council (MPKB) for 
"At the same time, Kelantan has to enforce its responsibilities after getting the mandate given by the people to ensure that the good behaviour of Muslims is safeguarded," the PAS president said.
Meanwhile, Kelantan Menteri Besar and PAS spiritual adviser Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat was quoted by The Star Online as saying that it is possible to exclude non-Muslim hairstylists in Kota Baru from attending to customers of the opposite sex.