Blair steps down

Just watched on TV, Tony Blair step down as UK prime minister after a decade. When he became the Prime Minister in 1997, he was the youngest prime minister in nearly 200 years. He won an unprecedented three elections in a row for the Labour party.

He was instrumental in ending the conflict in Northern Ireland and getting the opposing sides to sign a peace treaty. He also helped end the genocide in the Balkans. Domestically, he is attributed with bringing the crime rate down. However, in the end he spoilt it all by supporting Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

Though he offered condolences to the families of fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was not apologetic about his actions:

I know some may think that they face these dangers in vain; I don't and I never will. I believe they are fighting for the security of this country and the wider world against people who would destroy our way of life.

However, Military Families Against the War said:

He will not be allowed to forget the suffering he has caused

Blair - you are a failure!

Blair will now take over in his new role as envoy to the Mideast peace mediators.

The former Chancellor and Gordon Brown has now moved into 10 Downing Street. As soon as he arrived there he announced:

This will be a new government with new priorities, meeting the concerns and aspirations of the whole country. Let the work of change begin

Janna ripped to shreds

I am not going to do one but two blog reviews today - both owned by Blogger Janna. She says:

I’ve told him to go ahead and rip me to shreds

Well Janna, here goes.

First, Jantics I guess the title is a combination of Janna and antics or is it lunatics. ;-)

I am a fan of clean and minimal blog templates and this happens to be one of them. The first thing that caught my eye was the beautiful banner. It's lovely. Maybe I am biased because I used to be a forester. I also like the "25 Things About Me"

The blog has a lot of short and interesting posts. But as I said in my last post, interesting and longer posts do get more linkbacks and comments. It's also nice to see a blog without any ads on the sidebar for a change. Some pics to accompany the posts would be nice.

Nothing much to criticize about apart from one small thing - I am not sure what that "www.yoursite.com" is doing up there.

Now for The Jannaverse - from Janna + Universe? It's a PR 4 blog - Impressive for a young blog. It took me more than 4 years to get my PR 4.

Again a clean, tidy layout. Some really interesting expressions:

It's not a pretty sight, me, rolling naked on the floor while foaming at the mouth and ripping my hair out, screaming curses at the dead ancestors of my ISP provider.

FYI, this blog is not an adult site. Read "What on earth do they think I WRITE???"

Yes! She's a great writer. I am only concerned that some old people with poor eyesight may find the text size a bit hard to read.

Both blogs seems to quite similar - general without any particular theme - much like my own blog here. I feel that Janna should choose a particular theme or segment for 'Janatics' while keeping 'The Jannaverse<' for personal rants and thoughts. Just a suggestion.

Lisa's ramblings

Following my offer to do Free blog reviews, I have had quite a few people taking it up. This is the first review.

My thoughts, ideas and ramblings is the personal blog of Lisa, a work at home mom from Illinois. Though she just started blogging in April last year, the blog has an impressive Google PR 4.

Most of her posts are short and easy to read. It is a matter of preference. The debate about the merits and demerits of long posts is still on. However, I have noticed that longer posts generate more linkbacks as well as comments.

What would I like to change on here blog? Nothing much except that I would definitely like to see more pictures Talking about pictures, the blog banner could do with a redesign with sharper images. That would definitely make the blog more attractive.

As indicated by the "U comment, I follow" badge, she has turned off the nofollow in her comments. Go visit her blog and leave comments.

Business coaching site

I subscribe to the idea of lifelong learning. Education doesn't have to end with school or after a degree. Actually I have realized that besides renewing what I already know, I need to take classes to keep myself up to date with the new skills and knowledge to enable me to achieve my personal goals.

I recall that I was in awe of a friend during my MBA. He was a medical doctor who joined the corporate sector and had become the managing director of a group of companies and I wondered why he needed to get an MBA. Later during one of our courses, I learnt of Maslow's 'Hierarchy of needs' and how we move towards self-actualization after we have satisfied our other needs starting with the physiological needs.

There are various educations institutions providing executive-level coaching for individuals and one of the leaders is Prosper, Inc. Started by owners, Ethan Willis and Randy Garn, Prosper, Inc. is a global leader of coaching and distance training and provides mentoring in Real Estate Investing, Stock Market Investing, Business Marketing, E-commerce and Personal Finance.

Here is the LinkedIn profile of prosper learning.

I was quite impressed with the real success stories in the testimonials from former students. I guess this is the reason that they were named as 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

However, it should be noted that membership is by invitation only so if you are interested, contact a Prosper consultant now to find out if you are eligible.

Get reviewed for free

Like a lot of other bloggers, I do get paid to do reviews of websites, blogs or products. However, from today till end of July, I will review your blog (minimum of 50 words)totally FREE of charge.

I will not dish your site but try to give constructive criticisms if there is something I don't like about your site.

It's totally optional but I would really appreciate it if you could put up a link to either this blog (http://ok-lah.blogspot.com) or the SEO Expert blog (http://www.adamok.net).

So are you ready for a totally honest review?

Just leave me a comment with the url of your blog.



updated: 7 - 7 - 07

Reputed international logistics company

Due to the advances of transportation, the World has indeed become a much smaller place. More and more people are leaving their home countries to seek their fortune or destiny in other countries. An overseas posting is also seen as a prerequisite for moving up the corporate ladder now in MNCs. However, packing up and moving home can be an harrowing experience. I had to face that when we moved to the UK from Malaysia last year.

Anyway, when shipping your stuff (you can't take everything in your air luggage) you need to be extremely careful in choosing a reputable international shipping company. Schumacher Cargo Logistics is apparently one of the best. They have been specializing in international cargo shipping since 1977. They ship almost anything including automobiles, household goods, and cargo to overseas destinations.

Talking about automobile shipping, it was interesting to note that Schumacher Cargo Logistics, moves over 10,000 vehicles annually. This includes cars, motorcycles, RV's, and even boats.

In the US, the company operates warehouses in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Miami and New York. In Europe, Schumacher Cargo Logistics own and operate their own companies in the UK, The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, while all other worldwide destinations are covered by affiliated organization member companies.

Their website stresses that besides transportation, they take the utmost care to secure vehicles during transit by utilizing insured, secured and bonded facilities. One indication of their high standard of quality is their safety records for cargo shipment delivery that has exceeded all industry standards. Thus, we can rest assured that our stuff will reach the destination safe and sound.

And that's not all, their shipping rates are extremely competitive. Contact them for a free quote today.

Imposter using my name and email

Early in the morning today, blogger Chan Lilian also better known as 5xMom, left a comment on my previous post telling me that a spammer had left a political sensitive comment on her blog, using my name and email address. Lilian has already deleted it but according to her, it was a very long comment on why the guy supports the opposition, about various political parties, and why Malaysia has no future and blah blah blah.

I was really pissed off. This may be one reason that my e-mail address has been flagged as spam e-mail on more than once occasion. This includes a few times when I tried to leave comments on other people's blogs including LiewCF.

Who would do such a thing?

I suspect that this is the work of one guy who had left similar comments on my blog a few times and on occasion leaving as many as 7 comments on one post (with a totally unrelated topic). He/ she used different names but I saw that they were all from one IP address and had the same writing style. The last time he did that, I deleted all the posts and told him off. Maybe this pissed this guy off and he's doing this as revenge.

The spammer's IP address is 60.50.121.0 as recorded on Lilian's web site. My initial investigation shows that the person is from Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.

Can anyone help me expose this sneaky, little racist ba$#@^d?

I say racist because even though he claims he is being discriminated against, he goes around making disparaging remarks against another race.

If I ever catch him, I am going kick his fat butt.