Monday, March 19, 2007

Blogging Kills Everybody

Chris, my Kuala Lumpur correspondent, sends me a troubling e-cutting. Tunku Adnan, Malaysia's tourism minister, told a media conference, 'All bloggers are liars, they cheat people using all kinds of methods. From my understanding, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.' Bloggers, said Adnan, spread rumours, disrupt social harmony and 'many bloggers are slanderous and are cheating people with their blogs.' If this goes on, says the minister, 'there will be civil war, the Malays will kill the Chinese, the Chinese will take revenge and kill the Malays, and the Indian will kill everyone.' But why will nobody kill the Indians? Perhaps they'll kill each other, in which case blogging is now threatening to produce a Malaysia populated by one technically gifted but morally questionable Indian killer. It could happen here. My own bet is the last man standing will be one of those Peruvian pipers. They have inner resources.

5 comments:

  1. Clearly, Bryan, you're not doing your job properly. Britain remains a hotbed of social rest. Perhaps you should toss a few whoppers into the mix now and then, add a sprinkling of slander and cheat at bridge occasionally. Go on - just to see what happens. You might start a revolution.

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  2. I fear for my safety, Neil. Peruvian pipers have always worried me.

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  3. I think it would be really cool if Tunku Adnan had a blog.

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  4. Ah, yes, it all makes sense now.

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  5. ""Bloggers," said Adnan, "spread rumours, disrupt social harmony"

    Well, yeah, that is pretty much the whole point of blogging, at least to me. Using the internet to encourage hatred towards the political class (pretty much everywhere as I am nothing if not a supporter of globalization), is what gets me out of bed every day.

    Of course like most collectivists, when Adnan uses the word "social" he does not mean social at all but rather "political" (i.e. the processes of state). I am all for *social* harmony (social meaning the several interaction of individuals), it is political discord I am seeking to spread :-)

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