I hope you will take time to look at this video. Notice the squirrels right at the beginning. Now don’t you agree that the world would be a better place if you humans would just return it to squirrel rule?
If you are ready to discuss the terms of your surrender to the Squirrel World Domination Army, please leave a note in the comment section of this post.
Nat King Cole had a song called “Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer”. Do you remember? Well, these days Malaysia is certainly experiencing the Hazy and the Crazy and some might even say the Lazy and all not in a good way.
The search for missing flight MH370 with 239 souls on board, now entering the 9th day, has been gripping the nation’s attention and that of most of the world too. It has been a grueling 9 days for the families awaiting word about their loved ones on board as well as for all the investigators and searchers involved.
However, the whole thing has also evolved into a crazy circus; from the way the Malaysian authorities have managed the press conferences and briefings for the relatives with the frequent dearth of actual information or worse peppered with contradictory statements, denials and false leads, to the ever expanding search area which grew from the relatively small area of sea between Malaysia and Vietnam where the plane disappeared from the ATC radar to the now wide swath of both land and sea ranging from the borders of Kazakhstan in Central Asia to the Indian Ocean near Australia. The search area now encompasses an unbelievable 10 % of the world surface and includes the world’s highest mountain ranges to some of the deepest stretches of oceans. Up to now 25 nations have become involved in the search.
Then there is also the craziness of the bomoh (or Malay shaman) and his followers carrying out rituals at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport which involved coconuts, a magical bamboo binoculars and a mystical flying carpet for the stated purpose of removing the influences of evil spirits which were hiding the plane and hampering search efforts.
His self proclaimed title is Raja Bomoh Sedunia Nujum VIP which translates to “The Very Important Person, Clairvoyant King of all the world’s Shamans”. It is reported that he claimed at the end of his first session a few days ago that the spirit realm had told him that “the plane was still in the air or that it had crashed in the sea”. Despite what Dogbert would call the “Gross Prophet Margin”, he might still be wrong if it turns out the plane has landed somewhere in Central Asia.
Still more criticism has been aimed at the perceived slow (lazy?) pace of the investigations led by the Malaysian authorities. For example, many query why investigators did not go to the homes of the pilots sooner especially to examine a flight simulator at one of the pilot’s home until just two days ago.
The only distraction to all of this for Malaysians is the ongoing drought and water shortages affecting 2.5 million Malaysians as well as our food crop and palm oil crop. Water rationing has been going on for about three weeks now. The dry weather has also caused bush and forest fires with extremely bad air pollution and haze as a result. Yesterday I woke up in the early hours of the morning smelling smoke and thinking there was a fire but then realising that the haze was particularly bad.
And so, pity Malaysia as we seem stricken by a trifecta of ills – lazy, hazy and crazy days are here.
The Lone Grey Squirrel’s secret hideout is located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I know I’ve kind of just given away the secret location but hey, it’s still not as if you will find the hideout on Google Map.
Now what you should know about Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia is that it is an equatorial country with a vast equatorial rainforest. According to all geography text books, encyclopedias and even Wikipedia, this means that the place is hot and wet. Equatorial = hot and rainforest = wet.
Well it looks like all those books and websites are defunct.
We are supposed to get about 2360 mm of wet, refreshing rain every year with February being one of the dryer months still getting 145 mm. Most of the time in February, we can expect it to rain on 53% of the days.
So why is it that this year there has been almost no rain at all? Many places in Malaysia have not had rain for at least 20 days and a few areas have not had rainfall for a month. In Kuala Lumpur, we finally got a small splattering of rain these last two days.; not a lot but just enough to make the accumulated dust on my car turn into caked mud!
So now in Kuala Lumpur and the state of Selangor, we are faced with water rationing as our water reserves drop to critical levels. I once attended an experts’ meeting on water resources about 10 years ago in which the issue of future water shortages and climate change was raised. Despite the scientific paper presented by one of the speakers on the topic, it was clear that many of the government officials did not take it seriously. When I spoke to some of them, they merely felt that whatever challenges would arise in the future, they would be able to use technology or engineering to resolve it. “Just build more dams.” they said.
Well, now we are facing water rationing in what should be a water rich country. Taps are running dry, crops are failing and the air is thick with haze from the record 7,000 forest and bush fires last month. Currently, some 2.5 million Malaysians will receive water for two days followed by two days without water. Some really unfortunate households only get two pails of water delivered to them each day by water tankers. This is expected to go on for at least till the end of March when it is hoped that some rain will come.
But there really is no guarantee that the rain will come. The authorities tried to do cloud seeding but the most we got was that little bit that was absorbed by the dust on my car.
I think they are now resorting to more traditional ways. The bomoh. The Malay version of a witch doctor, the bomoh is believed to be able to cast spells and influence the weather. Bomohs are often used to help teams win soccer games but judging from Malaysia’s FIFA world soccer ranking of 150 (out of 207), doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence in their abilities!
So my friends, beware of climate change and human arrogance. A very parched and smelly un-showered squirrel signing off. Have to go store water instead of nuts.
Once again, the Lone Grey Squirrel has scoured the world for more ideas to help promote war between humans. After you have killed each other off, then us squirrels will take over the world. And boy, have I found a gem.
It was President Reagan who gave the world the “Neutron Bomb”. This is a thermonuclear weapon similar to an atomic bomb except that it is designed such that most of the energy released is in the form of neutron radiation rather than explosive energy. This means less of a boom but more killer radiation. Hence, it has been called the “capitalist bomb” because it was designed to kill people while preserving property.
Thankfully, some scientists influenced by the “Flower Power” ideals of the sixties or perhaps while under the influence of smoking weed power, have been developing the ultimate “anti-capitalist” or “green” bomb. “What’s a green bomb?” you ask. It still kills people but it is more environmentally friendly cause it has less toxic byproducts which is good for us squirrels when we take over.
Sweden has always been schizophrenic about war and peace. For example, Swedish inventor and industrialist, Alfred Nobel, set up the Nobel Prizes to recognize individuals who contributed the most each year to scientific and cultural advances of mankind. One of the prizes is the famous Nobel Peace Prize which is awarded to those who have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” But wait! Alfred was also the inventor of dynamite and owned the Bofors company which is a major manufacturer of artillery and armaments. War and Peace?
So perhaps it is not surprising to learn that the Swedish Army uses green bullets. These bullets kill as efficiently and devastatingly like any other bullets but ….. wait for it……wait for it…….. it is lead free and releases less toxic gases when fired! In fact, the company that manufactures these wonderful bullets claim that each green round is designed to “minimise the impact on users’ health” and on the environment while demonstrating “improved lethality”. So you get to kill more enemy, improve your health and feel good about helping the environment. What more can you ask?
Isn’t science wonderful?
On behalf of the other living creatures of the world, we thank you humans for finding new ways to kill each other while helping the environment. A request please. Could you perhaps design your land mines to be bio-degradable and have the explosives degrade to useful fertilisers for plants and trees? Thanks.
I was working on something while having the TV on in the background. It happened to be on CNN and my alert squirrel ears picked up something that seemed odd and just a little bit funny. The announcer was saying that the temperatures in southern USA was about 6-7 degrees Celsius colder than Canada. Colder than Canada?
Now you have to admit that this is just not the natural order of things when Texas is colder than Canada.
This unusually cold weather and heavy snowfall also hit most of northern Europe disrupting air, rail, and road travel around year’s end for the second year in a row. Should we expect regular yearly massive disruption of airport and rail schedules by extremely bad weather from now on?
In India, the winter has also been colder than they have been used to , resulting in deaths and NGO’s giving out thin sheets of bubble wrap to help the homeless fight off the cold. Meanwhile, Northern Australia is suffering terrible flooding which may have killed many already and in many places, the floods come on the heels of severe drought.
The last 14 years including 2010 all fall within the 15 hottest years on record. 2010 was the third wettest year on record for Australia. For the UK, December 2010 was the coldest in 100 years and in Northern Ireland burst frozen pipes left large sections of the population without water and resulted in senior water officials having to resign.
The climate change theory predicts for such extreme weather events. Are there still those who doubt?
If the above data isn’t enough for the nay-sayers, perhaps the following research by observant squirrels will supply the final proof.
There are three posts in one.
Post No:1 Sensational Blogging
The Lone Grey Squirrel has succumbed to blatant sensationalism to attract more readers by pandering to the blogging demographics (overwhelmingly women) and has basically resorted to give them what they want………….HOT, SWEATY MEN.
It is a pity that cute, furry squirrels have not proved to be sufficient.
Anyway, all these pictures and the short video at the end were taken by the Lone Grey Squirrel for your viewing pleasure, ladies. The are all about a performance during an Earth Hour Event at a mall last Saturday night.
Post No: 2 Sensational Nature Documentaries
There were about 300 people gathered at this shopping mall open air atrium to observe Earth Hour. I am sure most of you know about Earth Hour but in case you don’t , this event encourages people and cities around the world to switch off the lights for one hour. Switching off the lights for one hour barely makes a dent in our annual consumption of energy but the idea is to just raise awareness about the problem of climate change and our need to reduce our personal impact on the environment including our energy consumption. If those 300 people at the mall then just change their lifestyles to stop wasting energy and manage to reduce their energy consumption by even 10%, then that is what will make the difference that counts.
However, my thoughts drifted to the fact that the organisers had to organise a didgeridoo player, two clowns, one fire-eater, a whole troupe of hot sweaty men, a drum act, a band, two Malaysian celebrity singers and a choir from a children’s home to get people to come for the event. They were all great but if we didn’t have any of that, would the people have come just to sit in the darkness for one hour?
So regrettably, I note that people today need to be given eye and ear candy. It is not good enough just to support a good cause. The cause needs to also be entertaining.
I notice it is even true of once astute institutions like National Geographic or Discovery Channel. I grew up with nature and wildlife documentaries that introduced their viewers to the beauty of nature and animals while teaching a good respect for all things wild and promoting the common sense of keeping one’s distance for the mutual benefit of wildlife and human viewer. Today, it is different. There seems to be a proliferation of documentaries that take great pride on how close the presenter can get to a snake or a crocodile without getting bitten.
In one recent documentary, the presenter takes a walk in a coastal forest at night and tells the viewers that the forest is a particularly dangerous place to be at night and that you would be foolish to come there at night………….and there he is walking there at night.
I did have a chance to talk to a film producer about this once and he said that the reality is that today, channels like Discovery, see their rivals as channels like HBO. In other words, documentaries are about entertainment first and education a distant second.
This is sad. We really have to draw the line somewhere and in my opinion, documentaries must first be about education.
Post No: 3 Sensational World
If you have made it down to this final post past all the sensational hot sweaty men, thank you. I have only one thing to say, “We do have a sensational world, let’s keep it that way. Let us change our wasteful and selfish ways for Mother Earth.”
Taman Negara (LGS)Oh Ancient Mother, who watches over our very heart beats,
See, O see your children’s desperate plight
Our forest had grown dark, the light fails and retreats,
It seems like life itself had taken flight.
The land was bleeding earth into brown choked rivulets,
Oh Ancinet Guardian, protector of all living things
Hear, o hear your people’s despairing cries,
The land ails and fails to provide as once it did,
The water, the air poisoned with lies
Our bellys are empty and our children beyond comforting.
Oh Ancient of Ancients, who dwells in all we know,
Feel, O feel your spirits dire impotence,
As spirits of steel and smoke surround and grow
And care not for keeping the natural balance
Our familiars, our guides are silent and cold.
Oh Ancient One, our hope as in the rising morn,
From amongst us you arose a special son,
Your child, my child and our hope and light reborn
Born to stand in the gap of dreams and reason
To lead our people back from past beyond
Oh Ancient One, joy again brightened our face,
Aha! Aha! Aha! The sweet melody rings,
No longer do we sell the future of our race
To fill bellys and for forgetfulness drinks
With heads held high facing newly bright days
O Mother of Mothers, who comforts and dries tears,
Know that our hearts, briefly warmed have grown cold.
For the light flickered and fell before his years,
He bore his people’s hopes, the boy who was old,
O Mother of Mothers, comfort him and dry his tears.
Global warming means extreme weather throughout the world. Hundreds die in floods in Pakistan while at the same time hundreds also die of heat wave in Eastern Europe and Greece. Meanwhile floods also hit England and Oklahoma. Manitoba gets hit by multiple tornadoes on two consecutive days. This was all in the last week.
Even before this, it was noted that the sea ice in Northern Canada was forming later in the year and there was less of it. This is severely impacting the polar bears that rely on the ice to go out to sea to hunt for seals. The lack of sea ice has led to reports for the first time of large numbers of malnourished polar bears, reports of bears eating their own cubs and even for the very first time, reports of bears drowning because there was too much sea between ice packs.
Some fear that this could be a serious threat to the polar bears and could lead to their extinction. The few optimists that remain think that nature will learn to adapt.
Realm of the Lone Grey Squirrel 