Arnie says marijuana 'not a drug'

Arnie says marijuana 'not a drug'

The governor of California says marijuana is not a drug, a British magazine reported today.
Arnold Schwarzenegger told the British edition of GQ magazine that he had not taken drugs.
The former bodybuilder and Hollywood star has acknowledged using marijuana in the 1970s and was shown smoking a joint in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron.
"That is not a drug. It's a leaf," Schwarzenegger told GQ.
"My drug was pumping iron, trust me," he added.
In an interview for the magazine's December issue, Schwarzenegger refused to condemn politicians who declined to answer questions about drug use.
"What would you rather have? A politician taking stuff and not saying, but making the best decisions and improving things? Or a politician who names all the drugs he or she has taken but makes lousy decisions for the country?" Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying.
"A politician's job is to do what's best for the people and to improve the country, the economy, the environment. Why should I care if a politician takes sleeping pills every night so long as he can do his job?"
In the same interview, Schwarzenegger listed former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who left office in June, as one of the greatest leaders in history, alongside former South African President Nelson Mandela, US Presidents John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Asked if he would include US President George W Bush on the list, Schwarzenegger - a Republican - said: "I would say that I was ... very fond of his father. I worked for President Bush Senior and he was a great man."
"I think his son does some great things and there are some other things I don't agree with."
AP

Eventful Birthday

This birthday was rather eventful.

Though the day was a usual working day, it started off with an emergency evacuation and fire drill which involved all occupants of Menaraa MAA. It also witnessed the participation of the police, ambulance as well as the fire and rescue department.So for about 45 minutes today, hundreds of us had to leave our workstation and stand at the open air car park which by the way, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is smack next to the cemetery.So there we were, standing in the hot sun, chatting away and disturbing of course, our handsome and sweet as ever, floor fire marshall.

Now you see him without the specs...

and now you see him with it!

Aww, isn't he so sweet?

If you are on level P1 of Menara MAA, make sure you remember this cute guy as he's the one you'll need to follow and check your attendance with during emergency evacuations.

And I'm not kidding you when I say he takes his 'fire marshall' duty of P1 seriously, he called all our names loud and clear to ensure we are all safe and sound. Such is the amazing commitment of Calvin whenever you assign him to do something.

Back home on my birthday, my husband decided to have a quiet celebration like this:

The cake was small and simple but like I told my husband, the small cake meant the world to me :-)

And the above cute teddy and card came from my mother and father-in-law. Cute ain't it?

Roachy Scare

Yikes! Can someone please take to task, whoever is responsible, for this dead-roach-in-bread incident?

A surprise in his loaf of bread
By Rizalman Hammim
Source: www.nst.com.my

SEREMBAN: A construction supervisor and his wife nearly had a little “extra protein” in their sandwiches on Thursday.
Mohd Rafi Mohd Kamal found a dead cockroach in a loaf of bread he bought from a grocery shop near his Seremban 2 home.
“I didn’t notice anything wrong with the bread until I got to the last few slices. I found a dead cockroach sandwiched between them,” said the 31-year-old.
He says his wife Shukrina Abdullah fell ill after eating a few slices from the same end of the loaf where the cockroach was found.
“She was vomiting and had diarrhoea. The doctor said it might have been caused by the contaminated bread,” said Rafi, adding that he noticed a few spots of mould on the bread even though the expiry date on the label was Oct 6.
Shukrina lodged a police report on the same day but Rafi said when he contacted the manufacturer, the company tried to brush off his complaint.
“They asked me to send the bread to them so they could conduct tests and investigate the matter.
“I declined because I want the tests to be done by a neutral body,” he said.
He lodged a report and submitted the bread to the Negri Sembilan health department for testing yesterday.
“My next move depends on the test results,” he said.
The manufacturer’s Nilai facility was temporarily closed down last year because it was unhygienic, and the company was employing illegal workers as well as using cooking oil without a halal certification.

A New Heart & A Broken Heart

I felt extremely humbled after reading the words spoken by the late heart donor's father when describing why he chose to donate his son's heart to Tee Hui Yi.

It goes to show only one thing - however much we try to differentiate ourselves based on race, religion, age and status in life, when it comes down to the issue of life and death, we stand united as one human race.

Hui Yee gets a new heart
By LOH FOON FONG

Source: www.thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: Mechanical heart girl Tee Hui Yi successfully underwent a heart transplant yesterday after receiving the organ from an accident patient who died in Ipoh on Wednesday.
Several of the 15-year-old donor's organs were donated.
Hui Yi, 14, was wheeled into the National Heart Institute (IJN) operating theatre at 10.45pm on Wednesday and surgery for heart-donor implantation started at 1.30am, according to a statement issued by IJN.
The boy's heart and lungs were flown into Subang Airport from Ipoh Hospital through the Royal Malaysian Air Force mercy flight.
The IJN transplant team, headed by chief cardiothoracic surgeon Datuk Dr Mohd Azhari Yakub and Heart and Lung Transplant clinical director Dr Mohamed Ezani Md Taib performed the surgery simultaneously with another double lung transplant on a 39-year-old man suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (lung failure).
Six cardiothoracic surgeons, six anaesthetists, one physician from the Respiratory Research Institute and 30 paramedics were involved in the surgeries.
The whole surgery process lasted more than 10 hours and the recipients were wheeled out of the operation theatre to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at 9.05am yesterday.
Both recipients remain in critical condition.
Hui Yi currently requires temporary mechanical support for the new heart to stabilise.
She has been carrying a mechanical heart assist device and has waited for a donor heart for more than a year. Her mother Dina Bato Sam Bua, 46, has been steadfastly by her side since she was warded at IJN.
Asked how long Hui Yi will be at the ICU, IJN CEO Mohd Radzif Mohd Yunus said it would depend on her condition.
“Let’s all pray for her recovery,” he said.
Dina and her husband Tee Ah Soon, 51, were not ready for comments, he said.
No further information was available about the 39-year-old man except that he had waited for lung transplant for eight months.
To date, IJN has performed 18 heart transplants since 1997 and three lung transplants since 2005. There are 13 more patients needing heart and lung transplants on the waiting list.
In Ipoh, the father of the donor said he might have lost his son but he felt that he had gained a foster daughter, HAH FOONG LIAN reports.
The man, who wants to remain anonymous, said he felt happy when he received a telephone call from a doctor telling him that his son’s heart had been successfully transplanted to Hui Yi.
“Although I have lost a son, I now feel like I have a foster daughter,” he said.
The donor’s father also expressed surprised that the press knew the family’s whereabouts.
He said the family did not ask for money or any word of thanks.
The only condition he had asked of the hospital was to not reveal the identity of his son.
On why he agreed for his son to be an organ donor, he said: “My son was God’s gift to me. Now, it is time to return the gift to God.”

While I felt really good inside after reading the above piece, I came across this:

'RM3.5m' wedding couple split up

Source: www.nst.com.my

KUANTAN: Datin Puteri Shahanaz Hazlin Hamdan yesterday filed for divorce from her husband, businessman Datuk Roslan Hashim.
Puteri Shahanaz, 25, a part-time model, and Roslan, 51, were married a year ago. Puteri Shahanaz, who is the grandniece of Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang, turned up at the Syariah High Court here in a purple baju kurung and pink headscarf.

Her lawyer, Dzulkarnain Mohamad, told the court that efforts to hand the notice of the divorce to Roslan were unsuccessful as he was no longer living at his last known address in Shah Alam.

He applied to the court for more time as Roslan is believed to be living in Pendang, Kedah.
Syariah High Court judge Datuk Abdul Rahman Yunus, in allowing the application, fixed Oct 10 for re-mention.

The couple were married on Sept 9 last year.

Puteri Shahanaz was presented with a hantaran (gift) worth RM444,444.44, a BMW car worth RM250,000, a RM150,000 jewellery set, a 20-carat diamond ring worth RM20,000, designer items and a dowry of RM22,222.22.

The wedding was dubbed by the media as the most expensive wedding of the year.

Roslan claimed to have forked out more than RM3.5 million for the wedding.

The couple’s akad nikah (solemnisation of the marriage) took place at the bride’s residence in Medan Tok Sira, while the reception was held at the Dewan Jubli Perak Sultan Ahmad Shah here.

Roslan divorced his first wife Ruslany Kassim in 1997.

So, in just a year, the RM3.5 million spent on this wedding has gone down the drain. How many heart transplants could that amount finance?
Think about it, long and hard.

Desperate Housewives Must Desperately Apologise

Desperate Housewives racial slur: Philippines wants apology
Source: Agence France-Presse - 10/3/2007 10:25 AM

The Philippine government is to seek an apology from the producers of the hit US television series "Desperate Housewives" for a racial slur against Filipino medics, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said on its web site Wednesday.
The officials cited a recent episode where actress Teri Hatcher, who plays Susan Mayer, asked whether the person attending to her during a medical consultation "can I check those diplomas because I want to make sure that they're not from some med school in the Philippines."
Asked if the government would seek an apology from the producers of the show, and ABC television network that carries it, executive secretary Eduardo Ermita said: "Yes, I think we should, on behalf of our Filipino professionals."
"On the face, we can look at it as a racial slur. We are looked down upon too much, considering the number of our medical professionals in the US," the Inquirer quoted Ermita as saying.
Ermita likewise appealed to civil society groups and other Filipino organisations in the US to "call the attention" of the show producers, and Hatcher, to the "racial slur."
Filipino consul in Los Angeles Mary Jo Bernardo Aragon wrote a letter of complaint to the ABC network saying that Filipino medical workers were in demand all over the world.
"The US recognises the students of Philippine medical and nursing schools and in general, does not require additional schooling in the US for Filipino healthcare professionals," she added.
Aragon also said many Americans go to the Philippines for medical services that they cannot afford at home, the foreign department said in a statement.

Court Allows Teen To Marry Lover

Court allows teen to marry lover
By : Brenda Lim
Source: www.nst.com.my

IPOH: After running away from home and spending a night in a police lock-up early last month, 18-year-old Rajinder Kaur will finally be able to marry the man of her choice.
The High Court on Monday granted an order which allowed Rajinder to marry 22-year-old L. Jagathiesan. From the witness stand Rajinder declared publicly that Jagathiesan, a security guard, was her husband, causing a stir among lawyers and members of the public who were present in court. When judge Datuk V.T. Singham asked how this was possible as she was still single, Rajinder said: “We've already had intimate relations. He is my husband.”

When asked about her father objecting to the “marriage", she told the court it was because they were of different races - she a Punjabi and Jagathiesan, a Tamil.
Rajinder also said that she had come to court voluntarily and was not influenced or forced by anyone to make her statements.

Jagathiesan's father, T. Logidasan, had filed a suit at the end of August seeking a court order to allow his son and Rajinder to be married.

Rajinder could not get consent from her father, which was necessary for marriages involving persons under the age of 21.

According to affidavits filed with the court, Rajinder knew Jagathiesan since she was 14 years old while she was still studying at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Bidor.

When her parents objected to the relationship, she ran away from home and lodged a police report at the Tapah police station on July 11.

In her report, she said that she was voluntarily leaving with Jagathiesan whom she loved and wanted to be with.

She also claimed that her family beat her, treated her roughly, and were making arrangements for her to marry another man.

“If I can't marry the one I love, I would rather kill myself than marry someone else,” she said in her police report, claiming that she was afraid of her family interfering and was appealing to the police for help.

On the same day, her parents lodged two police reports.