Journo Maths for Sensationalism

I was reading this news article today and it was kinda one that hinges on sensationalism that journalism sometimes portray and people drool about. And I just couldn’t figure out how the maths in this worked. Maybe this is a sign that Maldives is gearing up to combat the economic recession?

half a million (ބައި މިލިޔަން ރުފިޔާ) = fifty thousand (ފަންސާސް ހާސް ރުފިޔާ)

Maybe someone could explain it to me? Preferably in laymen terms, using less than 200 words?

Wash-your-mouth-with-soap After Reading

So I was tinkering with python while watching this movie, Burn After Reading. I was amazed at the amount of profanity that was stuffed into a movie of this length. And you know what happens when we get curious about statistics in such movies while in a coding. mind frame Used the following piece of code to get an idea of how potty mouthed this movie really was.

m@windows:~$ python -c "import re; import urllib; print '\tDuration: %s\n\t%s' % (''.join(re.findall('<div[^>]*?>[\s\S]*?Runtime\:[\s\S]*?[\s]+?(.*?)[\s]+?<\/div>', urllib.urlopen('http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887883/').read(), re.IGNORECASE)), ', '.join(['%s: %d' % (p, len(re.findall(p, ''.join(re.findall('<pre>([\s\S]*?)<\/pre>', urllib.urlopen('http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Burn-After-Reading.html').read(), re.IGNORECASE)), re.IGNORECASE))) for p in ('fuck', 'shit')]))"

    Duration: 96 min
    fuck: 68, shit: 23

That’s like being bombarded with profanity at the rate of a four letter word per minute on average - and that’s just considering only 2 such words!

Never-the-less, loved the stupid smile on Pitt’s face right before he gets shot point blank in the forehead by Clooney.

Phallic Banking

Driving along the Kuala Lumpur roads, I noticed these rather inappropriate (well, I think they are NSFW) symbologies on the roadside. Like rows and rows of it, like they own the road or something. Of course, it turned out to be an advert for a bank.

Wikipedia describes the Al-Rajhi Bank as:

the world's largest Islamic bank, and a major investor in Saudi Arabia's business world

So, what exactly is a phallus doing on the logo of such an auspicious financial institute? I wonder what the people who approved the logo were thinking! Maybe the initial plan was to develop this into a sperm bank?

And another thing - in Arabic, “al” means “the”. So, when we say “The Al-Rajhi Bank”, we are effectively saying “The The Rajhi Bank”. Perhaps if they translate that back into Arabic, it could become something like, “Al The Al-Rajhi Bank”. And so on and so forth. Hmm... foreign languages.

Censorize This!

The recent bout of censorship cleansing in order to promote freedom of expression in Maldives saw a whole bunch of sites getting banned with some bonus collateral damage on sites which had committed no offence in particular. Or did they? Hmm.. Who cares?

So anyways, I was just browsing through our friendly neighborhood immigration department website when I noticed that at its footer were some obscure links. And by links I don’t mean just helpful links to some super informative pages - they were links to porn sites. Rather absurd I thought. It seemed to be on pretty much every page of it. (Note: The following code that was found on the sites have been reduced in font size and a warning marked in large friendly letters to prevent you from seeing links and going to those sites... i.e. for your protection.)

WARNING! The code below may induce you to commit sin.

<!-- END: FOOTER -->
</div>
<a href="http://www.hashayrioglunakliyat.com.tr" title="evden eve nakliyat"><font color="#ffffff">evden eve nakliyat</a>
<a href="http://www.videocuyuz.net" title="Turk Seks"><font color="#ffffff">Turk Seks</a>
<a href="http://www.markahost.org" title="Host"><font color="#ffffff">Host</a>
<a href="http://www.tekseks.com" title="Seks"><font color="#ffffff">Seks</a>
<a href="http://www.ankarahostcu.com" title="Host"><font color="#ffffff">host</a>
<a href="http://www.zevkliadult.com" title="porno izle"><font color="#ffffff">porno izle</a>
<a href="http://www.sexporn1.com" title="sex porn"><font color="#ffffff">sex porn</a>
<a href="http://www.haymeana.net" title="Haymana"><font color="#ffffff">Haymana</a>
<a href="http://www.programariyoruz.biz" title="program"><font color="#ffffff">program</a>
<a href="http://www.gunesinoglu.net" title="Gunesin oglu"><font color="#ffffff">Gunesin oglu</a>
<a href="http://www.gencoyun.org" title="oyun oyna"><font color="#ffffff">oyun oyna</a>
<a href="http://www.bismillahtel.com" title="bismillah"><font color="#ffffff">bismillah</a>
<a href="http://www.markahost.org" title="host"><font color="#ffffff">host</a>
<a href="http://www.bacakarasi.org" title="porno izle"><font color="#ffffff">porno izle</a>
<a href="http://www.puzzletr.com" title="puzzle"><font color="#ffffff">puzzletr</a>
</body>
</html>

End of sinful code! You may continue to read the rest of this article safely.

When I consulted the oracle regarding this, it showed to me that the issue was far more wide spread than just this site. All the sites below have some variation of porno infections advertising immoral stuff.

• Maldives Standards and Meteorology
• Ministry of Transport and Communication
• I.G.M.H.
• Department of Immigration and Emigration
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Maldives Police Service
• Anti-corruption Board
• The Judiciary of Maldives
• National Disaster Management Center
• Elections Commission of Maldives

Now this seems to be rather unbelievable. Porn on Government websites no less! Maybe porn is no longer considered immoral enough to warrant a ban on the site. Or maybe it is a double standard that the common citizens may not publish their expressions while the government may flaunt its power and shove such filth in the public’s face.

Another fascinating find was that all these sites seem to be hosted on the same host with the IP 202.1.201.177. It belongs to a Dhiraagu server. A few years back there had been regrettable security incidents due to the incompetence of Dhiraagu in maintaining its servers. It this going to be yet another case of it?

So whodunnit? Horny Government officials or incompetent Dhiraagu services charging exorbitant prices? Please report this to the T.A.M. to get the above sites and/or the whole Dhiraagu banned to protect us, the innocent citizens of Maldives from these evils.

Defamation is now a Criminal Offence in Maldives

Psst, in case nobody noticed... Maldives just changed Defamation from a Civil to a Criminal Offence!

“the Prosecutor General’s office decided to take Defamation cases to be tried under Criminal code.”

Where the hell did the PG office get the authority to decide that without even the Parliament having it approved first? When did the courts get the legislative power? Do the higher officials of the Government need to be given lectures on Separation of powers?

“The Deputy, Mr. Shameem also said that although this is a criminal offence, common citizens may opt to use the civil court.”

Implications???

1. Won’t this make the justice system open to double jeopardy?
2. Once a criminal offence is committed, isn’t the State obliged to prosecute the guilty?
3. This looks like “If you say something bad about government high officials, we gonna legally kick your ass. But if some moron talks nasty about your grandma, then you can go drag your own ass around civil court.”

Defamation being a matter between two persons and if it is taken as a civil matter, the wronged party would be awarded damages to compensate the injuries suffered. However, as a criminal offence, the penalty can include harsher punishment such as imprisonment.

Wasn’t Maldives supposed to become a haven for writers and prosecuted journalists? In the words of our current beloved President, the State just “stepped on [its own areca nut]”.

Existence of criminal defamation law is charted by a freedom of expression advocacy group, ARTICLE 19.

I think it’s high time that people who have studied Law be dealing with the justice system rather than the two-bit wannabes such as those who think a small country like Maldives require a million articles in its Constitution, let alone be able to differentiate between a Constitution and a Penal Code.