Drop a comment

Links

Previous Posts

Archives

           Web design sadly done by Zed.

Tujuh

Raptor Force: Holy Fire
(Bill Yenne, Berkley Ltd.: 2007)

This is another interesting book I picked up last year. The cover shows 3 US combat helicopters over San Francisco's Golden Gates. Here's the description:

The war on terror is heating up.

The fanatical new Sultan of Brunei decides to make his presence felt on an international scale-with a nightmarish biological attack on San Francisco. Now it's time for Raptor Force to extinguish the Holy Fire...with the Sultan's blood.

Again interesting, albeit farfethced. The scenario we find here is that Brunei has successfully managed to inject lethal poison into San Fran's water supply and people there are slowly dying. Why we did that? Money. One interesting bit is that the evil Sultan wanted to reclaim Sarawak back as part of Brunei. Territory is certainly a touchy subject when it comes to our region, and it can only be explored in fiction I suppose.

Bill Yenne, 59, has authored more than 70 books. Not suprisingly he comes from San Franscisco. Holy Fire is the 2nd book of the Raptor Force series which include Raptor Force(2006) and Corksrew (2007), all published by Berkley. One of his more notable books would be A Damned Fine War (2004) which I had a chance to read back in Brunei.

Next post: Green Days in Brunei (Bruce Sterling, Ace Books: 1989)

posted by Zed Peace on 14 March 2008  1 Comments

Enam

Military Aircrafts of Brunei
13/3/2008
by Zed Peace

Firstly, if you're interested in military novels, be sure to check out Dale Brown's Dreamland: Armageddon. It depicts the Brunei government purchasing several jet fighters (almost out of the blue) from US and Russian companies. Basically the story is about what happens when we get into a military confrontation with our neighbours once we have the weapons and aircrafts to defend ourselves. Predictably the Americans intervene and saves the day. It is fiction, and to my knowledge Brunei doesn't really have jet fighters. We do have combat aircrafts, and often neighbouring countries park their jet fighters in our lands, but thats about it.

Brunei's Blackhawk

Here's an interesting table I found of Armed Forces statistics amongst East Asian Countries. China ranks in at number 1 with figures that blow away its South East Asian counterparts. Brunei ranks in at a modest 17 out of 19, Singapore at 10, Indonesia at 7 and Fiji takes bottom place. I'd like to concentrate on the Aircraft Combat column. Picture this, China, according to the table has 3300 combat aircrafts. That is larger than the combat aircrafts of South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, New Zealand, Laos, Mongolia and Brunei put together! In other words, none of us would want to get into China's bad side.

Brunei, according to the table has 5 combat aircrafts. I would assume this to be an underestimated figure. Out of the Malay speaking world however, Singapore has the most at 170, followed by Indonesia which has 120 and Malaysia having 70. The closest we have to a decent jet fighter would be the British-made Hawk although I can't seem to confirm if we've bought them at all.

British Aerospace Hawk

Other than that, we have a fleet of combat helicopters, trainer aircrafts and military transport aviation. You can see the exact inventory list on the Royal Brunei Air Force website here. Nothing too threatening I suppose. On the other hand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, all have US-made F-16's, Russian MiG's, British Hawks and numerous other jet fighters from Israel, Iran and Japan. All this information can be found here. Despite what people say, there is an obvious competition going on where these countries are essentially playing "who has the most jet fighters wins".

F-16 Fighting Falcon

The ASEAN region is a big purchaser of foreign aircrafts, however collectively we (I incorporate ASEAN as a unified body now) are no where near our continental friends in the field of building and designing fighter aircrafts. We are however very much in tune with our maritime capabilities as we should be having lived much of our ancestral history out at sea as pirates and nomads. Our fixation with the skies perhaps is a foreign idea as we have always felt vulnerable when it comes to air invasions. Should we have collective military security perhaps since individually we are just about capable, but together we would definetly be a force to reckon with.

The controversial Brunei Nakhoda Ragham

This article seeks to explore Brunei's military capabilities in her regional context. In the book I mentioned earlier, it certainly raises powerful questions of what happens if Brunei were to go to war however unlikely. Our army is certainly prepared for natural disasters, but what about human ones? If a retired US Air Force pilot can think of a scenario such as the one found in the book, where does that leave us and our military ambitions? Peace as they say can't be maintained forever. Here are pictures of other aircrafts of the Royal Brunei Air Force pictures courtesy of http://www.airline.net/.

RBAF's DB-501 Troop Lift

RBAF's Pilatus Pc-7 reconnaissance plane

RBAF's Blackhawk S-70A-14 Attack Helicopter


I remember following my friend fly a trainer plane with his flight instructor one time. Sitting quietly in the backseat wearing an aviation headset I felt nauseous every time we went through an air pocket experiencing mild turbulence. But the skies were certainly beautiful that day, and I can only imagine why people would wage war there.

posted by Zed Peace on 13 March 2008  0 Comments

Lima

Cargo's Equipment

This week I've ordered in a few things for Cargo's new studio. Since he'll only be doing vocal tracking and not much live recording, ideally the only thing he really needs is a good mic.

AT2020
£59

The At2020 is a superb condensor microphone, definetly a must have for the novice studio. What sets it apart from its competitors is the amazing price tag being in the £50-60 range, and certainly no other mic in that price range comes close to the quality found with the At2020. This is my first time trying it and I am glad to say I definetly would recommend this to anyone.

I tried the At2020 with my outdated USB preamp, and suprisingly it matches the quality of the mic I've been using all this while, the Rode Nt1A, or dare I say it even better. Certainly if I had known this, I would've never bought the Rode mic which is twice as expensive as the At2020. So good job Cargo you'll have the perfect mic to work with! Here's a little quality test on the top track:



Bear in mind I did absolutely NO mixing at all for once. And the quality is suprsingly good. Imagine what compressing and eqing the vocals would make it sound like.

Behringer Ultragain Mic100
£33

Another item thats easy on the pocket. This here is a tube preamp. I've never actually tried these since I've only ever used USB preamps. But essentially they do the same thing, warm up the condensor mic so it gives a decent enough signal. It has an output socket at the back, which I'm guessing is for an XLR to 1/4 jack cable, so it can hook up to the mic line in. So Cargo try to find that. And an XLR to XLR as well for the input. I can't try this now since I only have one XLR cable.

E-mu 0404 PCI soundcard
£58
And for the piesta resistance, the E-mu 0404 soundcard. Not to be confused with my E-mu 0404 USB interface. This item I've always wanted to get but since I'm using a laptop its not much use. Using a laptop forces you to rely on USB equipment which generally speaking allows for much quality loss since it turns everything digital. The tube preamp for example, will produce a nice analog sound, and you wouldn't want to force that through a USB cable. Firewire maybe, but not a USB. Cargo on the other hand won't have to worry about that since this Pci soundcard uses RCA cables, which is better than the normal Mic line-in you find on normal soundcards. It also has midi ins and outs which would be ideal for instruments as I use for my Akai MPK49 keyboard.

So there you have it. Good and affordable equipment all around. Next investments should include studio headphones, monitors, and/or eq/compressors. And you'd be on your way to making tracks such as Youth in Brunei, Kampong Ayer blues, and Legco Smedgeco! On another note today I had cereal and spoilt milk which isn't that bad, it tastes like yoghurt.

Salam.

posted by Zed Peace  0 Comments

Empat

Friendly Dictators : 36 of America's Most Embarrassing Allies
(Eclipse Enterprises 1990)

In 1990 Dennis Bernstein and Laura Sydell created the Friendly Dictators trading cards. The cards depict a number of international dictators cleverly illustrated by the famous DC and Marvel comic artist Bill Sienkiewicz. On the back of each card is a summary of political mishaps of the leaders and how they become associated with the American government. The company, Eclipse Enterprises, however went bankrupt a year later and cards such as these are no longer around. I managed to buy a copy of Friendly Dictators online and they are certainly very interesting. Out of the 36 countries, 4 are from South East Asia. Here are the caricatures and the descriptions they give. I'd like to note that these are simply for entertainment purposes.

# 18 NGO DINH DIEM

President of South Vietnam

Ngo Dinh Diem oppressed the Vietnamese people so badly that many of them turned to the communists for protection from his ruthless rule. Even President Eisenhower admitted that "had elections been held, possibly 80% of the population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader". Yet Diem, who had once lived in the US, had connections, in Washington, who liked his anti-communism. He founded the Can Lao Party (CLP), a secret police force overseen by his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu. The three were notorious for their ineptitude and cruelty. The CLP was not even their idea, it was originally promoted by the US State Department to rid the country of communists.

Diem alienated urban professionals by suppressing all opposition to his regime. He alienated peasants by canceling their age-old local elections, forcing them off their land, and moving them into "agrovilles" surrounded by barbed wire, which even US officials conceded bore a striking resemblance to concentration camps. Ultimately, he angered his own military officers because he promoted on the basis of loyalty, not merit. In an effort to keep Diem in power, the US tried to persuade him to make political reforms. He refused, so they persuaded him to make military reforms. But when Diem was finally overthrown and assassinated in 1963, none of his generals rose to defend him. Nor did the US, which, after 8 years, had finally realized that Diem wasn't popular.

#20 FERDINAND MARCOS

President of the Philippines

Ferdinand Marcos began his career with a bang. At age 21, convicted of gunning down Julio Nalundasan, his father's victorious opponent in the Philippines first national elections, he went to prison. He was later release by a Supreme Court Justice who, like Marcos and his father, was a Nazi collaborator. Despite Marcos's record as murderer, fake WWll hero and Nazi agent, he was elected Philippine President in 1965.

Under Marcos, the Philippine national debt grew from $2 billion to $30 billion, but US corporations in the Philippines prospered, perhaps explaining why the US didn't protest Marcos's imposition of martial law in 1972. The Marcoses enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle, and they salted away billions of dollars in the course of their US-backed rule between 1965 and 1986.

The Carter Administration engineered an $88 million World Bank loan to Marcos, increased military aid to him by 300%, and called him a "soft dictator". But a 1976 Amnesty International report identified 88 government torturers, and stated that alleged subversives had their heads slammed into walls, their genitals and pubic hair torched, and were beaten with clubs, fists, bottles, and rifle butts.

By 1977, the armed forces had quadrupled and over 60,000 Filipinos had been arrested for political reasons. Yet, in 1981, Vice President George Bush praised Marcos for his "adherence to democratic principals and to the democratic processes". Marcos was overthrown in 1986 by followers of Corazon Aquino, widow of an assassinated opposition leader.

Ferdinand and Imelda fled to Hawaii, only to be indicted in 1988 for fraud and tax evasion. Marcos died in 1989. Imelda returned to the Philippines in 1991 and stood unsuccessfully in the Presid#2ential elections of 1992. In 1993 she was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for criminal graft and to other long sentences for corruption. She is still free while she appeals. She was elected to Congress in May 1995. Meanwhile, in it attempts to recover the lost Marcos billions from Swiss bank accounts and other shadier locations the Philippines Government has, after paying its US lawyers, recovered the princely sum of $2,000.

#22 SIR HASSANAL BOLKIAH

The Sultan of Brunei

To illegally fund what they referred to as the "Democratic Resistance" in Nicaragua, Oliver North and Former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams solicited funds from several authoritarian regimes, including Taiwan, South Korea and the more obscure Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam. Sir Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, the world's richest monarch, was indeed generous to the Contras -- to the tune of $10 million. But, this generosity was not because of any commitment to democracy in Nicaragua or anywhere else, for Brunei is a monarchical dictatorship, under a State of Emergency since 1982. The Sultan also allows Brunei to be the ClA's ears on the explosive Malaysian-lndonesian border. His Royal Highness was also involved with the infamous Nugan Hand Bank of Australia, a 1960s-70s CIA front for South East Asian drug operations and money laundering. In fact, according to a secret 1978 memo, Nugan Hand submitted a proposal to provide His Highness the Sultan with a bank structure and depository system which he alone can control should any change of government take place.

The Sultan lives in a new palace that may have cost as much as a billion dollars, while over 90% of his subjects live in abject poverty. Those who protest such inequalities don't fare well with the authorities. According to Amnesty International, Brunei's jails hold "at least five prisoners of conscience who have spent 25 years in detention without having been convicted of any crime."

#24 GENERAL SUHARTO

President of Indonesia

Indonesia is a totalitarian state and its uncontested ruler for over 20 years, General Suharto, is one of the most brutal dictators in history. After a CIA organized coup brought him to power in 1965, Suharto, decided to purge every communist subversive from Indonesian soil. General Nasution, a close associate of Suharto, called for the extermination of three million Indonesian communist party members, and with the CIA supervised the murderous purge.

Paratroopers would arrive in a region with a list of "subversives" and provide it to local vigilante groups. Using machetes and other crude weapons, the vigilantes would hack the alleged subversives to death. Entire populations of towns and villages were herded to central locations and massacred. Children would be asked to identify communists who would then be executed on the spot. In addition to the half million people who were killed outright after the coup, another 750,000 were arrested and tortured. Ultimately, one million people died in one of the most savage mass slaughters of modern political history. The US continues to this day to train and arm the Indonesian military with the latest high-tech equipment. (Suharto resigned in 1999 after mass public protest)

Much of the information can be considered inaccurate even at the time. Other "dictators" who are illustrated include Francisco Franco of Spain, Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq of Pakistan and Manuel Noriega of Panama. Besides Brunei interestingly, none of the leaders are in power any more and most have died since then. These cards show the extent of American influence over countries around the world in the form of shady dealings and political scandals. It leads us to wonder if there are perhaps even more conspiracies we find out today about the United States government and their plight to secure their international interests.

posted by Zed Peace on 04 March 2008  0 Comments

Tiga

Islam Awareness Week review
(25th - 29th February 2007)
by Zed Peace

Last week I had the pleasure of attending 5 talks about Islam held in the university. Here is a review of the talks with some pictures taken by Mustanir.

Monday: Today's Science and Evolution Theory

2 members of the Harun Yahya team came all the way from Turkey to give this talk, challenging the theory of evolution and in turn supporting the Quranic account of Creationism. The arguments were formatted in a logical manner backed up by scientific evidence and passages from the Quran. They attempted to disprove that humans have existed through a gradual process of natural selection as evolutionists claim by looking at the many gaps within the theory. Life, they say, is not a product of probability and chance but, evident from the intricate beauty and order we find in nature that there is an Omnipotent power which created everything that exists and that is Allah.

I first came across Harun Yahya's literature when I read one of his books translated to Malay. It talked about how life is a mere world of perception and that we have no real way of knowing what exists beyond our senses. I was fascinated by this, to know that if you are in a room, you are not 'in' the room, but rather the room is projected inside your brain and you are simply experiencing that process. I don't want to dwell on this too much now, but essentially this is what his writings are about, the importance of our spiritual existence as oppose to our existence in the temporary material world. The talk from the Harun Yahya team although were reasonably sound, left me with more questions and I remain empathetic to evolution theory.

Tuesday: Islam and Terrorism


This talk was delivered by Abu Muntasir from the UK. If Monday's talk focused on the scientific, then Tuesday's was essentially political. Terrorism and suicide-bombings can and never will be justified by Islamic teachings. Instead, they are the result of the anger and unrest that exists within certain Islamic groups. The speaker is also a prominent IT specialist and although a UK citizen has been denied entry to the British civil service by the MI-5 because of his active Muslim background in certain countries during the early 80's. He is a combatant and believes only in an event of a just war where there is a clear enemy can proper fighting be carried out.

Muntasir in any case is a staunch opposer of suicide bombings and radical thinking. He tells the audience the answer to the political problems of the Muslim world may be solved through the unpopular yet necessary process of patience and negotiation, and not the route taken by Jihadist extremists who only worsen the problems. Towards the end of his talk, he engages in emotional words on how futile and cowardly terrorist thinking can be especially if they involve innocent Muslim youth, and that they are nothing like the Mujahideen of 1980 Afghanistan to which he knew a lot about. The role of Islam in political struggles has always stirred my interest, and Muntasir presented a good talk on how Muslim terrorists have failed their religion.

Wednesday: Love, Marriage and Women in Islam


Wednesday's talk was by Abdur Raheem Green, a British convert. Despite being caught up in traffic and coming to the university an hour late, his talk was well worth the wait. Tall, with aging hair and sporting a Muslim beard, his warm personality quickly engages the audience. He delivered his impromptu talk with lots of humour and stories yet manages to deliver the points relating to Islam and issues of women and love.

His journey to Islam was an inspiring one and he ties it up to the teachings he has learnt and the peace he found after his conversion. Asked about what part of Islam he found hardest to accept and lifestyles he had to let go, he answered it was letting go of the feeling that he was better than everyone because of his western culture and it took faith to realise the flaws of it all. Islam tells its men to treat love, women and marriage with utmost respect since they are sacred.

Thursday: Why did I become a Muslim?


Umar Abdullar, formerly known as Tobias Tait, gave this talk. Umar is a big black British boxer who likes to give Da'wah and has presented his talks around the UK. As intimidating as he may he look and sound, he is as friendly as can be, at the end of the talk giving everyone one of his Da'wah CD's for free. His troubled childhood growing up as a juvenile with no parents to take care of him made his journey to Islam all the more inspiring. Here was a criminal youth, in and out of jail, a former drug-dealer who almost killed a police officer, yet in the end turned to be the humble person we saw that day in the lecture room.

He reminds everyone never to leave our Salat no matter what. He questions why Muslim youth who's lucky enough to be born into a Muslim family sometimes choose to abandon their worship. He continues that Muslims shouldn't practice blind faith and at one point should make a conscious choice to learn more about Islam as not to let go of their worship and get too caught up with the world.

Friday: "Ask a Muslim"

The final presentation was on Friday, the format being an open discussion about any questions people might have about Islam. The guest that day was Daud R. Matthews, another British convert. Lots of questions were asked by non-Muslims to understand more about the religion. The speaker was an old man who converted from Catholicism and was very knowledgeable about Islam and questions of Syari'ah. One question asked was 'what's inside the cube' referring to the Kabaah. The speaker although having been inside politely mentions that there's not a lot of stuff inside however he didn't get into detail which I'm sure left people's curiosities intact.

Overall the Islam Awareness Week was a success. I found all the talks enjoyable and informative and will be looking to attending them again next year, Inshallah.

posted by Zed Peace on 03 March 2008  0 Comments

Dua

Books about the 1962 Brunei Rebellion
by Zed Peace
01/03/08

2 Books were published about the Brunei rebellion in 2007; Rebellion in Brunei by Harun Abdul Majid (I.B Tauris & Co. Ltd) and Remember, remember...the 8th of December by Prince Mohamed Bolkiah (Brunei Press Sdn. Bhd.). I had a chance to read both books recently and both give great insight towards what we can describe as contemporary Brunei history, and about the 1962 rebellion in particular.


Rebellion in Brunei by Harun Majid

Remember, remember... The 8th of December by Prince Mohamed Bolkiah

Rebellion in Brunei, its full title continues with 'The 1962 Revolt, Imperialism, Confrontation and Oil', is an academic study by the renowned Bruneian historian Harun Majid. It's filled with an analysis of events leading up to the rebellion, the rebellion itself, and events which follow. It puts the whole story in context of the political and economic situation of the time, focusing on the range of influences surrounding the then Sultan and his people. Interesting personal accounts of people and certainly of the author himself are also included, such as the incident of the RTB worker who was accidentally shot dead by a military personnel for being out during the emergency curfew. Another was of the British family who were held captive in their own house by the insurgents who were apparently very friendly, almost like guests even!

I was quite surprised to read about how the revolt was practically over before it took place. I've always assumed there was a chance it could have succeeded, but this appears not to be the case. Majid talks about the lack of preparation (and confidence for that matter) of the perpetraitors, the lack of leadership on the parts of the Party leaders (who conveniently were out of the country), the internal weakness of the military wing of the Party itself and a host of other problems. Overall the book was not only enjoyable in the sense that it tells us about things we don't know at the time, it also dismisses many wrong assumptions we might had have about the people involved in the rebellion.

On the other hand, similar themes and issues about the 1962 rebellion are tackled in the second book, albeit in a different fashion. Prince Mohamed Bolkiah's Remember, Remember...the 8th of December is as well a useful account of the rebellion through the Prince's perspective. The approach of Remember, Remember is journalistic, resembling a written documentary, with lots of pictures and excerpts which would appeal to a wider audience. We get a glimpse of his own thoughts and views at the time alongside the historical narrative, and he certainly dicusses a wide range of controversies surrounding the rebellion on 8th December 1962.

As I mentiond earlier, both books cover similar themes regarding the rebellion, including inevitable failure, cause and consequence, change and continuity and others. Prince Mohamed places strong emphasis on the dangers of fierce ideology such as the nationalistic feeling the Bruneians had during the 60's, and certainly around the region as well. He ends his book on a positive note and encourages further co-operation to take place within the South East Asian region to ensure peace and stability amongst the ASEAN communities.

I remember of a further 2 books which talk about the rebellion, titles both of which escape me now, written in Malay. The 1962 rebellion, uprising, revolt, conflict or whatever you may call it was certainly a curious incident. It's a tale of political struggle, ideology, incompetence and mistakes which surrounds all the actors, Bruneian and Non-Bruneian alike. These two books provide useful details that anyone interested in history should look at.

posted by Zed Peace on 01 March 2008  0 Comments

Satu.

Minor updates are being made to http://www.microbandits.com/. The idea is that microbandits.com, or mb.com as people like to call it will be the main library, where we upload music, videos and other goodies, and at the same time we have our own individual blog space. Now that thats out of the way, just wanna give a quick shout out to mb.com's designer Yazid for his love and support lol. You'll reach the stars someday bwoi.

In the mean time, i've just finished making a beat, sampled from Story of the Year - Silent Murder. Depressingly emo song reflecting the emo times we go through. The beat turned out alright since the song itself has no percussions, making it easier to slap a beat onto it. Well i suppose if there was a beat it would be much easier since you'd just have to follow the tempo. Either or, sampling is generally frowned upon but hey if it makes good music so be it. The track i named 2 Minutes to bliss and can be found in mb.com. Not here. microbandits.com. 'Ats right.

On the blogging tip, i'm really sad cuz i've ordered a Stanton C314 CD turntable few days ago from the US. And it came yesterday, but i was out of the house, so the mail people left a note saying they were there, but i wasn't. And now its the weekend and mail doesn't arrive on weekends. So it says there gonna send it again next week, and i damn well better be there or they won't bother. Well, more reason to skip class.

posted by Zed Peace  0 Comments