Banned!!

Marina Mahathir found more nonsense in Malaysia. Unspun added more meats on it.

The victim is now the devil-horn hair clip. (yes, hair clips for children)

This adds to the list of banned 'products' in Malaysia, which, Unspun summarized, include Inul (though she finally got to perform at the KBRI), Avril Lavigne, the sight of women's armpit on TV (what?), and more.

Well, it's not all that bad, actually. If it's an art, it seems people here are more receptive.

Like the recent Sloggi Art for Humanity in Sunway Lagoon. (photos from Bun Virus' flickr)


A bit of hypocrisy, eh? Or simply an irony? But life will be boring otherwise...

More pictures here.

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25 years too old

The Egyptians have a law that limits the age gap between spouses to 25 years.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

The Egyptian authorities have banned a 92-year-old man from marrying a 17-year-old girl, the Egyptian al-Akhbar newspaper has reported.

The ministry of justice invoked a law which says the age gap between spouses should not exceed 25 years.

That means, 17-year old girl can only be married by a man no older than 42 years.

That also means, if Rika Tolentino Kato is an Egyptian, Yusril would've not been allowed to marry her.

The same goes to Woody Allen, Billy Joel, and Rod Stewart.

While Michael Douglas - Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Harrison Ford - Calista Flockhart would be on the border.

However, as in "if there's will, there's a way", there's a catch in this law.

In special cases, the justice ministry does allow foreign men to marry Egyptian women more than 25 years their junior if they deposit a very large sum of money in the name of their wife at the Egyptian National Bank. (Didn't the Indonesian government try to implement something like this before?)

To be fair to the old man, though - if he is 92, he's only allowed to marry a 67-year old. Maybe we should let him make use the money he's earned all his life, lah...

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R-rated exhibition

Or NC-16, if there's such thing. Admission is free. No one under the age 16 is allowed. No short. No slippers. No photography.

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Race no more

The race of the future will be a composite, composed of the many different races on earth today.

"The world has a long way to go before it truly is 'globalized', if by that odd word we mean 'the same everywhere'. No doubt we are on the way. Reading biologist Edward O. Wilson, I discover that in a few dozen generations all human beings will be 'the same', in the sense that whether in London or Shanghai or Moscow or Lagos, the same racial mix would be found," wrote Tim Harford.

That would be interesting, wouldn't it?

No one will bother, or be disturbed, to comment such as this. It will be seen as pure research or study.

There will be no more racial discrimination or stereotyping.

There will be no minorities, bumiputera, or pribumi.

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Foreign workers revisited

In my previous post, I was curious whether countries that supply (low-skilled) foreign workers would benefit from these individuals. One thing for sure, the receiving countries would, by allowing the local workforce to pursue higher value activities.

Seems like a good thing.

On the contrary, however, the Malaysian government is proposing a bill that would restrict foreign workers to their work sites unless they receive special permission to leave.

Home Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said: "We are not trying to confine the foreign workers ... but it will be better to supervise them for law enforcement."

In the same article, Police Chief Musa Hassan said that foreign laborers may be restricted to their living quarters and their "activities monitored" as part of efforts to curb crime. Under the proposed legislation, foreign laborers will not be allowed to leave their homes unless they register beforehand, and their employers will be responsible their movements.

Not allowed to leave their homes?

Musa further added that about 5,000 crimes were committed by foreigners last year from a total of about 230,000 (232,620 cases, to be exact).

That's not even 3% of the total crimes committed...

Typically, people use the 80-20 rule, a general assumption that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes. Although it's highly dependent on how one stratifies the causes, but if foreigners-related crime is one of the causes, 3% is definitely too low to even spend resources for.

Unless, of course, there are other reasons.

But still, this doesn't feel right. Like a foreign construction worker said in the article: "To keep us in our beds when we have a day off is criminal."

There's gotta be a better, more effective way.

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Skin color discrimination

A recent study says that skin tone affects earnings in the U.S. The darker the skin is, the higher the chance to get paid less than the counterparts with lighter skin do. The study looks at legal immigrants to the U.S. from around the world.

Several other findings from the study:

-/ Being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education.

-/ Taller immigrants earn more than shorter ones, with an extra inch of height associated with a 1 percent increase in income.

-/ Skin tone still seemed to make a difference in earnings, although other factors that could affect wages (e.g. English-language proficiency, education, occupation, race or country of origin) are taken into consideration.

"... that means that if two similar immigrants from Bangladesh, for example, came to the United States at the same time, with the same occupation and ability to speak English, the lighter-skinned immigrant would make more money on average."

So life's better in the U.S. if your skin color is relatively lighter, or if you're tall. This is sad.

The study also confirms that many cultures show a bias toward lighter skin.

I think Asian cultures strongly show that bias. Bule in Indonesia and Mat Saleh in Malaysia clearly often get preferred treatments over the locals.

They - the foreigners, the white men - probably deserve it, though. Usually, these people are financially better than most locals (except, of course, bules in Jalan Jaksa). And the attitudes too - they typically are more confident and demanding when it comes to service, compare to most locals. They speak English, or a foreign language, for the sake of it. And... perhaps their skins are lighter too...?

Is it the Asian politeness (or dumbness)? Is it that we were colonalized for quite a long time, that we now feel inferior?

What about the Japanese, who, despite of their well-known politeness, are one of the economic and technology 'powerhouses' in the world? But they are already light-colored...

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