Oil companies back in Iraq

The true reason behind the invasion has finally arrived!!!

The big boys are in.

After billions of dollars spent, lives lost, homes destroyed and property in shambles, the "liberation" is complete.

The US have control over the Iraqi oil fields.

What better time to do it too....when the price is USD 140++ a barrel.

The 4 companies above are now signing contracts with the Iraqi goverment which will give them control for years to come.

"Money is the route to all evil" was an old saying but we are now taking it to levels that may even scare the Devil himself!!

Obama is screaming for change, Anuar is screaming for change, Al Gore is screaming for change.

Osama is also screaming for change.

What do we change into? Lets look at that....

Jesus said, " Love everyone the way I love you."....we surely don't!!!

Jesus said, " Thou shall not lie."....Hahahaha...that's a laugh with the amount of lawyers out there.

Mohammed asked all muslims to give a percentage of the income to the poor. To our friendly politicians, this means their "taxable" income.

The Hindus and Buddist don't believe in material wealth......yeah..right!!!

So....back to the hippies 70's question....Is GOD dead??

I'll let you guys ponder on that age old question while you keep one eye on CNN and BBC......

The death of humanity

As I keep one eye on the news and one eye on the things happening around me, I feel a shiver....

We talk of rising fuel cost and how we are "suffering". Yet we have a roof over our head, meals on our tables, electricity and water like "magic" as we hit buttons on the walls.

While trying hard to save the turtles, sharks and other indangered species, it made me think of one species that may really need help too!!

OURS!

What have we, as a society, done for the victims of the Tsunami? Hurricane Katrina? Earthquakes and floods in india and China? Starving kids in the middle east and Africa?

They collected donations from large nations that amounted to what????...a few million dollars???

Yet we spend billions in sports and entertainment. Billions on space exploration and weapons programmes.

It's scary to watch MTV or other stuff that have the richest people in the world "throwing" money on luxury homes and yatchs while half of the world have there homes destroyed by wars and adverse weather.

For me, it has become so easy to switch channels and watch football once the CNN coverage of earthquakes and its victims becomes too sad to view.

If I don't see it, it didn't happen? Is this what I'm doing?? I don't know.

With a family, a house, a car and bills to pay, I still owe more than I own. Is this just what I say to convince myself that I'm a victim too??? So I don't need to help??? Do I reduce a couple of pints? Do I buy a cheaper carpet? car?

Or wait for the richest people of the planet to do something? Bono? I don't know..

If we look deep inside ourselves, I'm sure we all wanna help.

How, ...is the question......

SAY NO TO SHARK FINS!!!!!

The above photo shows a whale shark, the largest fish in the sea. A gentle giant that eats plankton and krill. (A small sea organism.)

To see it gracefully moving through the water was a sight I'll treasure for the rest of my life. The photo is from my own collection.

The leopard shark above is another harmless creature that is rarely sighted in Malaysian waters. (Don't even ask about the earlier whale shark.) I took this photo off the Similan Islands in Thailand.

I'm sorry I don't have any photos of the white tip or black tip sharks.

Why???

Those fishes are so terrified of humans that the very moment their senses detect a diver/human, they're gone!!

It's these smaller sharks that fall prey to "sick" individuals still killing them for their fins.

This a link for those who have a heart : http://www.savingsharks.com/

Hopefully you'll also find the facts below worth considering:

• Sharks have been around for more than 400 million years
• There are 375 shark species
• Sharks are intelligent and can be trained
• 100 million sharks are killed each year for their fins
• The largest shark is the Whale shark, averaging 9 metres (30 feet) in length—the size of a large bus
• Whale sharks are not aggressive. They eat zooplankton, small fish and squid
• When a shark loses a tooth, a new one grows in its place
• Mako and Blue sharks are the fastest swimming sharks
• Sharks can take hours or even days to die after being finned
• Sharks are a critical part of marine ecosystems

So please don't support the consumption of this "sick" soup of cruelty.

BIRYANI







This, I feel this has to accompany the last 2 recipes, right?? and if you're wondering how I'm generating these recipes so quickly, I actually have a little folder with "originally" written recipes that I'm now transfering to this blog!! (No cut and paste or downloading from the internet!!! All recipes are my mum's!!!)


This is just the recipe for the rice....without any meat in it. Serve this with the Rendang and Tomato Chutney and you'll see what a Malaysian Biryani experience is about. (German cloudy beer helps too!!!)


So here goes...


INGREDIENTS:


4 large onions sliced thin
4 cloves of garlic
2" ginger
1/2 cup almonds
6 tbsps ghee
1" stick of cinnamon
5 cloves
3 pods cardamom
8 peppercorns
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 cup yoghurt
Juice of 1 lime
2 tbsps finely chopped coriander leaves
2 tbsps finely chopped mint leaves
1/4 cup roasted almonds
1/4 cup raisins
Salt to taste
2 cups Basmati rice


Method:

1. Blend almonds, garlic and ginger.
2. Heat the Ghee in a pan and add the whole spices - cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, peppercorns.
3. Fry the spices and 2 onions till your kitchen smells like little India!!
4. Add the ginger-garlic-almond paste and spice powders and fry for another 2-3 minutes. (By now...you'll also smell like an Indian cook!! )
5. Now add the rice (wash the rice first la....) and stir for a minute or two.
6. Kill the fire!! (Yup!! Switch the heat off!! and if you're hot and sweating, now's the best time to grab that German beer!! hehehehe!!)
7. Dump all the stuff from your pan into a rice cooker.
8. Add the yogurt and lime juice and water to cover the rice by about an inch or two. (depending on your rice cooker.)
9. Add salt to taste.
10. Let the whole thing cook as you would with normal rice.
11. As a garnish, add fried onions (Remaining from the initial 4 that you had chopped earlier) , finely chopped coriander and mint leaves, roasted almonds and raisins before serving.

Tomato chutney

Now this is an original recipe from my mum. It's really nice to serve with Biryani rice and rendang/curry/kurma as a side "dip" kind of thinggi.

Ingredients:

6 large ripe tomatoes

2'' young ginger (shredded into fine strips)

50g raisins

2 teaspoons of chilli powder

1 cinnamon stick

2-3 cloves

1 star anis

2 tablespoon of brown sugar

3 tablespoon of butter/ghee
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Boil the tomatoes (halved) in water for 10 minutes. Then remove the skin. Leave to cool.

2. Using a large frying pan, heat butter/ghee.

3. Once hot, fry the cinnamon stick, cloves, star anis, ginger and raisins.
4. Reduce to low heat and add the chilli powder and stir well. Add a little water (if required) to prevent chilli powder from burning.

5. This should start smelling great!!

6. Add the tomatoes.

7. Stir this whole mix well.

8. Add the sugar and salt.

9. Still on low heat, keep stirring until mixture thickens to a paste like consistency.
10. Remove and serve once cool.

The amount of sugar and chilli can be varied to create your own taste.

CORRUPTION INDEX



Since I mentioned press freedom, might as well look at the corruption index too, right?


It's interesting to see how Malaysia stacks up here!! Singapore is way up there but was really low on the press freedom index so I don't really think I'd like adopting their system very much.


What is really nice to see is that the Scandinavian countries seem to be up there on both counts. (And so is Ireland!!) I'll find out more on how they do things and will post that soon.

Until then........make your own judgement on the list below:


The ranking list (Again summarized to the relevant & interesting countries.)


1 Denmark, Finland, New Zealand
4 Singapore - This is where they differ greatly from the Taliban!!!
5 Sweden
6 Iceland
7 Netherlands, Switzerland
11 Australia
12 United Kingdom
14 Hong Kong
17 Ireland - and here is Ireland again!!
18 Japan
20 USA
32 Qatar - the top middle eastern country.
34 Taiwan
34 United Arab Emirates
43 Malaysia - Good to see we're not too bad here.
72 China, India
84 Thailand
94 Sri Lanka
123 Viet Nam
131 Iran, Nepal, Philippines
138 Pakistan
143 Indonesia, Russia
162 Bangladesh
172 Afghanistan
178 Iraq
179 Myanmar

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

Lately Malaysian journalist, writers and blogger have been asking the goverment to change laws that have been suppressing freedom of the press and media for ages.

I decided to check how we rank as compared with other countries on the Press Freedom Index 2007. The whole list is pretty extensive so I've just listed the countries that have some relevance...

The ranking list

The top ten

1 Iceland, Norway
3 Estonia, Slovakia
5 Belgium, Finland, Sweden
8 Denmark, Ireland, Portugal

Yup!! Ireland is in the top 10!!

24 United Kingdom
28 Australia
32 Taiwan - Seems to be the highest asian country.
37 Japan
48 United States of America - Hmmm.....They don't rank too high, do they?
61 Hong-Kong
63 Kuwait - The highest middle eastern country.
65 United Arab Emirates
91 Angola
98 Lebanon

Where Malaysia la......coming soon...hopefully...


100 Indonesia - Hey....at least they made the top 100!!
103 Israel (extra-territorial)
120 India - O.k. la...

AHHHH... here we are...

124 Malaysia

Then come reporting with the likes of BORAT....hehehehe..

125 Kazakhstan
128 Philippines
134 Bangladesh
135 Thailand - Our closest neighbour....

What about the other neighbour...singapore???? Hmmm....

137 Nepal - I think the Chinese have something to do with this!!
141 Singapore - Howdy neighbour!!
142 Afghanistan - Good to know that the S'pore media is as controlled as the Taliban!!!
144 Russia
148 Saudi Arabia
152 Pakistan
156 Sri Lanka - I'm sure this is the work of the Tamil Tigers!!
157 Iraq
158 Palestinian Territories
162 Vietnam
163 China
164 Burma
166 Iran
168 North Korea

Please go to www.reach.com.my/memo to endorse the memorandum for free press in Malaysia!!

Hope to hear comments on any of the countries listed. Especially on how Ireland is in the top ten!!