Najib Parayian of liberalism is going to set in an even more harsh regime?

Najib caught red-handed just like Rosmah with her $24m diamond. Are we governed by lawless people?

PRIME MINISTER I NAIJIB

Is this the man?
The custodian of the dying ember?
The man who generations to come will remember as the last man standing, before the new dawn set in?
OR
Is this the man who is going to set in an even more harsh regime?
To ensure he and his team will have a long run on the nation?
Driven by chauvinism, and detested by the international as well as the domestic society?
Is this the start of a dynasty in the Malaysian Public Life?
Does this mean that we Malaysians are so incapable that we need a select few families to tell us how to live our lives?
Are we so dependent that all aspects of our lives need to be controlled?
Are we so handicapped that we need these political dynasties to teach how to interact with each other?
CAN WE THE MALAYSIAN PEOPLE RISE TO THE OCCASSION WHEN THE NATION NEEDS US?
CAN MALAYSIA DEPEND ON US? 

That shameless Chua Jr has nothing to say? That's what MCA is all about. Useless!There are questionable contracts as there are questionable men who dish them out.YB Pua, you are addressing to bunch of guys headed by Najib who have no god fearing and shame. In any country such a project would be dealt with much transparency. DAP today challenged Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to provide documentary proof that pipes and meters manufacturer George Kent is the prudent choice to build the LRT line extension over other companies with complete track records in rail projects.Only in Malaysia can a company that failed in all aspects become the winner in a multi-billion tender. Yes, you heard me right.Prasarana is never going to decalssify anything on the usual repeated excuse that it is a case of national security. Declassification will open up a can of smelly worms that even PM cannot put the lid back on. Comprende! Multi billion because I'm sure the costs will escalate inevitably as proven in the past when contracts were given to BN/UMNO cronies. This scandal just makes us more determined to oust BN from Putrajaya.  Knowledge of basic bookkeeping and common sense will tell us that George Kent is not financially capable. For its year ending 31 Jan, 2012, it made profits of only RM19.3 million. Let's be generous and assume that its margin was 10%. (The real margin would be higher.) That means its gross revenue was RM193 million. When you gross around RM200 million a year, the stature of your company isn't high enough to take on a billion-ringgit project, full-stop. And what has it touted as its big achievements?—a RM100 million hospital and a RM318 million inter-state raw water transfer project. Not quite awe-inspiring, are they? We shall assume that it designed-built the hospital, but what exactly did it design-build for the water project? Laying pipes, installing meters/remote sensing equipment and control panels? We also don't have to be engineers to tell that designing and building fixed structures is quite different from doing the same for a project involving heavy, moving objects.It has had to allow such motivation in order that pilferage and extraction of some percentage of the contract's worth would happen when someone with authority could issue an instruction to approve it. MACC to investigate?  MACC stands more for Malaysian Association of Clown and Comedian than an outfit fighting against corruption. It confirms that the Finance Ministry under Najib has breached government procurement and tender procedures This is a corrupt act and he can be charged under the law for abuse of power and corruption. Second it brings this country of ours into disrepute and only hastens Malaysia's downward slide on the corruption index. Third it places the people at risk when unqualified companies are awarded projects which carry high traffic numbers of commuters. The shameless corrupted BN government will only stop when they have been voted out of power at the forthcoming elections. BN never learn the lesson, lets teache them.Ask any rakyat on the steets ,whenever there is project ,first thing in our mind is:how much BN's crony pocketed! How can we let them continue ruling our country again if we dont trust them at all?Awarding a rail contract to a company who knows next to nuts about rail job.

  Well, Malaysia rakyat and tax payers better be prepared to pay through their nose for someone not competent to perform the job, and the cost will also skyrocketed, just see what happen to the low cost carrier airport now still under construction. God bless Malaysia.How many more revelations would it take to get the people to topple corrupt politicians (and their wives/spouses)?! Our only hope is honest and brave men like Rafizi will stay on course. Ride on, Rafizi! THE EMPEROR is not bound to answer your challenge! Being of a higher being! If he were to answer the numerous allegations he will be wearing black striped pyjamas!!! Let him wet his pants in his sleepless nites in peace!The ruling regime is so blatant that even when such high profile cases have been exposed , they are prepared to engage in corrupt practices of awarding to an overqualified vendor. It also means that they are desperate for monies and are prepared to be seen to be openly corrupt. The main losers are the people of this country, the people who will need to pay a higher price for the transport. , the people who will end up with a lower quality or defective product, , A country whose perceived corruption index continues to slide year after year. A helpless civil service where good people can only wring their hands in anguish at the corrupt intervention of a corrupted government. A country that is polarized between a decadent

Ruling class and the rest who yearn for good governance.

Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of his career was in on the secret, but given the way political society is configured in Malaysia, even PERKASA chief Ibrahim Ali can be made to seem a born-again liberal should he, with the connivance of the powers-that-be, so desire.

What more, then, the possibilities of transfiguration – from latent obscurantist to liberal poseur – for someone of Najib’s pedigree and manifest destiny?

During the penultimate stage of Najib’s ascent to the top of UMNO’s greasy pole, the Internet-accessing public were privy to covert information, courtesy of a mobile phone conversation between the then Deputy Prime Minister and a friend of his about to be charged with murder, that Malaysian politics does not just have corridors of power; it has subterranean alleyways in which various factors wage their devious battles with a talent for skullduggery that has become de rigueur of those wanting to maintain their grip on power.

With the charging of PKR strategic director Rafizi (right in photo) for disclosing information protected by banking secrecy laws – information that has led to the exposure of a multimillion ringgit scandal of the sort that could lead to the downfall of governments – the cat is out of the bag that the Najib administration is certifiably not reformist.

The next time that crapulous slogan ‘Government Transformation Programme’ trips off the tongue of a Najib administration flunkey, his or her audience ought to remind the unfortunate spokesperson that a word is not what Humpty Dumpty holds it to be – ‘Anything the speaker says it means’.

PM’s patina of liberalism

The administration began the year intent on leveraging on the unexpected acquittal of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim on a charge of sodomising an aide – a development the PM lauded as indicative of the Judiciary’s independence.

Najib managed to sustain this patina of liberalism by initially signaling a placatory stance towards polls reform advocacy group BERSIH’s bid to stage a third public demonstration in April to bolster their case for a clean-up of the electoral rolls and fairer practices during the electioneering period.

But a stance not propped up by the requisite attitude is soon revealed to be what it is: a facade.

How flaky the Najib administration’s liberal facade was became evident in its eventual response to the BERSIH demonstration, the biggest public gathering for a political cause in Malaysia in decades.

The harsh reaction of the Police and the knee-jerk responses of the government to the huge throng the BERSIH demonstration succeeded in calling out showed that the administration was keener on the rhetorical posturing rather than in the actual substance of liberalism.

This charade became even more tawdry when Anwar and two of his PKR aides were not just charged with offences in connection with their participation in the April 28 demonstration – the charges were augmented and reinforced in a second round of indictments.

This was followed by the filing of the grounds of appeal in July by the Attorney-Gneral of Anwar’s sodomy acquittal.

It takes a thief to catch a thief

Now with whistleblower extraordinary Rafizi charged with offences under BAFIA on an issue concerning misappropriation of public funds for a cattle-breeding project that has already led to the indictment for corrupt practices of personnel involved in its management, you have the farce of a ‘Government Transformation Programme’ walking on all fours.

Though Rafizi was called in by Bank Negara for questioning on purported violations of BAFIA, the prevailing sense on the matter was that someone who had called attention to crimes that had not only taken place but had led to the indictments of an array of suspects should not be impugned on the theory that it sometimes takes a thief to catch a thief.

The speculation is that when Rafizi went on to expose shenanigans that allegedly occurred in the award of the contract for extension works to the Ampang Light Rail Transit (LRT) line, his malfeasance-scouring run of recent weeks had hit a highly sensitive nerve.

There’s hell to pay for exposes of that kind, given what the speculation is about who’s really in charge where the Najib administration is concerned. Now it no longer a case of the PM being out-ed as a phony liberal; it’s a case of whether he was any kind of liberal at all.

On 11th October, Malaysia Today carried a post entitled ‘Abuse of power by the Deputy Prime Minister’ that laid out a series of sms’es alleged to have passed between Najib and senior lawyer Shafee Abdullah in relation to Razak Baginda’s arrest and remand in the days before Baginda was charged.

Najib was publicly asked to comment about these sms’es and he never denied the authenticity of the same.

Now, there’s one other exchange of sms’es, this time allegedly between Razak Baginda and Najib. I do not recall Najib himself having ever addressed or denied or admitted the correctness or otherwise of these sms’es directly, as he did with the series of sms’es referred to in the MT posting.

I am referring to the 2 sms’es mentioned at paragraphs 51 and 52 of the first statutory declaration of private investigator Balasubramaniam. Let me reproduce below both paragraphs 51 and 52 of that first statutory declaration.

51. On the day Abdul Razak Baginda was arrested, I was with him at his lawyers office at 6.30am. Abdul Razak Baginda informed us that he had sent Najib Razak an SMS the evening before as he refused to believe he was to be arrested, but had not received a response.

52. Shortly thereafter, at about 7.30am, Abdul Razak Baginda received an SMS from Najib Razak and showed, this message to both myself and his lawyer. This message read as follows: “ I am seeing IGP at 11am today …  matter will be solved … be cool”.

Like all of you, I am aware of Bala’s second statutory declaration contradicting the first, but we also have to acknowledge that the circumstances surrounding the making and public announcement of the second statutory declaration, and the subsequent disappearance of the maker of both, might make it prudent for us to defer adjudging which of the two statutory declarations narrates the truth until such time that Bala is available to fully disclose andexplain the circumstances surrounding the making of both statutory delcarations.AS THE TAXI DRIVER SAW...ALTANTUYA'S LAST HOURS.

Her last journey starts at night when she gives a slip to bala’s men watching her movements, she took her last taxi ride from hotel Malaya to bagindas house. What could have been the topic of her discussion with the taxi driver? Was he the one who took down the car registration no, which was used in a grab at bagindas house?.
What she told about own P.I WHO abandon her at the last moment, she was helpless? As the taxi stop she was grabbed and bundled into that car and driven off. If only they had waited, for the taxi go then they had grabbed her, they could have pull off the perfect encounter.
With her name erased from the immigration entries, she will be in the missing persons list. But god was on her side that day, because she had to be scarified, in order to bring to open the evil forces that are planning to rule this country. But to PAS PRESIDENT it just a murder why we have to make it an issue out of it?


The taxi driver went back to the stand at hotel Malaya to be confronted by the victim’s cousin sister to whom he gave the vital informations. The Rest is history…………………………


NOW LISTEN TO THE VOICES FROM THE JUNGLES OR THIS IS AN ACCONT OF THE PERSON WITH CONSCIENCE WHO WAS AT PLACE OF THE TORTURE CHAMBER.
‘I don't know where they are taking me. At first I thought they would take me to the police station and question me, but we seem to be going away from the city. Maybe they are taking me to the airport and throwing me out of the country. More than half an hour later the car enters a gated driveway leading to a double-story bungalow in a big garden. It's a very quiet area and I have no idea where I am. I feel very worried about the situation, but I try my best to look calm.


One of the men tells the lady something in Malay and she nods and returns to the car. The men then push me inside the house and force me to go upstairs. I am beginning to feel frightened, because this is definitely not a police station. What will they do to me?


One man opens a bedroom door and the other pushes me inside. I fear they may try to rape me as we appear to be alone in this big house. The men ask me for my handbag and they take away my watch, cellphone and jewelry. Then they push me inside a big empty wardrobe and shut the door. It is very dark and musty inside and I hear a key turning in the wardrobe door. I hear the men's voices discussing something, then they leave the room, and I am alone in the total darkness. I can hear my heart pounding very loudly. The sound of traffic from a great distance tells me we are quite far from the city.


I have no sense of time. I may have dozed off after an hour, I can't be sure. My stomach is growling, so it must be long after dinner time. I feel stiff and uncomfortable and my bladder is ready to burst. Amy must be wondering why I am not back at the hotel yet. I hope she will call Ang to enquire about me at the police station. That Razak is a coward. He dare not face me. Instead he has asked the police to kidnap me....


There are voices in the room and a key turns. The wardrobe door opens and I see several figures as my eyes adjust to the light. They are wearing black hoods and I can see only their eyes - but two of them are women. I am dragged out roughly and pushed on the floor. Now I am really scared. These people are dangerous, they are not behaving like police officers at all, more like members of a secret society.


While one of the hooded men lifts me off the floor, the large woman is shouting angrily at me, calling me all kinds of names. Suddenly she steps forward and slaps me very hard across the face - again and again and again - while my arms are held tight by the men. Tears sting my raw cheeks and totally crazy, like a demon. Sometimes she shouts at me in English and then she says something in Malay. The other woman steps forward and tears the front of my dress with great force. She pulls off my bra and gags me with it, and then she yanks down my panties, so they are around my ankles.


The men push me to the floor and take turns raping me. One tries to sodomize me but gives up and forces himself into my mouth instead. I bite him and he screams in pain and hits my head very hard, till I almost lose consciousness. This is a horrible nightmare. It can't be happening to me! Who are these insane people? They can't be policemen! They are monsters! I can hear the large woman laughing like a witch...


Suddenly I am looking at the scene from somewhere above. My body is badly bruised and almost numb with shock. It's a strange feeling, to feel so detached from my body. I feel no anger. Only sadness and pity for my attackers who are so depraved they are no longer human. I know I will never see my family and friends again, because these people intend to kill me.


I am back in my body and it hurts all over. The woman is mercilessly beating me with a cane and kicking me while the others stand back. She keeps whacking my genitals until I feel nothing... then I am thankfully out of my body again.


I watch my unconscious body being carried downstairs. They tape my mouth shut and tie my hands and feet tight with plastic rope. Then they throw me into the back of a 4-wheel-drive and slam the door shut. The vehicle drives off, followed by two other cars.


After a long time the 4-wheel-drive stops and a few people climb into it. The road is very bad and bumpy but I am hovering close to my body, observing everything that happens. There is no more sound of traffic. We must be in the jungle somewhere because all I can hear are insects chirping loudly, and heavy breathing as my body is placed on a stretcher and carried by two men along a jungle path.


When they finally stop and put down the stretcher I hear the woman's voice again. Cold water is thrown on my face and I return to my body with a jerk. Slowly I try to open my eyes but I can't focus on anything because it is very dark, except for the flashlights carried by a few of my abductors. The woman's voice is very close to my ear as she hisses: "So long, Aminah. Lovely to meet you at last. Have a pleasant journey." She laughs grotesquely and rips off the tape covering my mouth. "I want to hear you scream. Do you have any last words... dear Aminah?" She has removed her hood so I can see her face. It's a very cruel face indeed. The others are not wearing hoods but I don't know who they are, but the large woman is obviously their boss.


Out of the corner of my eye I catch the metallic gleam of a gun near my face and I know this is the end of my story. I gather my strength and say as calmly and clearly as possible, so they will hear every word: "You are evil people. I curse you forever. You will never know peace again." I feel myself transforming into a mother wolf, ready to pounce in defence of her cubs...


Then I hear a click and there is blinding flash. I am floating ten feet above my twitching body. After a while I see someone attaching something to my now lifeless body. I cannot believe they intend to blow up my corpse with explosives, so nobody will ever find my bones!’




<>
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BUT WHO ORDERED THIS?
:
Anonymous said...
The last words from her grave. Spoken ferociously with a firm intent and purpose. The conspiracy revealed. Common intention with the sole pupose of committing a cruel cold-blooded murder. And raping her before the ultimate crime. The soul of justice would pervade in the corridors of Bukit Aman and Putrajaya. And pollute the AG Chambers. Criminal conspiracy. Concealing the truth with such deliberateness and a political agenda. Millions of $ at stake. Corruption and abuses of power at its absolute core. Malaysia shall pay a heavy price for this injustice. Because the corrupt politicians dictate the course. The rakyat is like the sacrificed lamb. All else is dispensable. The position of the PM must never be compromised. UMNO must remain the dominant force in this country. At all costs. At whatever costs. Nothing else matters. The Almighty had since given His blessing for these corrupt devils to be the supreme rulers. Not what is stated in my version of the Bible. Who cares?
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THE EDITOR , NOW THEY ADMIT THAT THE SMS WAS IN NEED SENT BY THEM BUT IS A PRIVATE MATTER.WHY WILL SOMEONE ENROUTE TO PUTRJAYA WILL WANT TO GET INVOLVE IN THIS EPISODE . HOW CAN THEY SAY THAT HE DID NOT ABUSE THE POWER?
WHY THE P.M HAS TO GO ALONG HIS WAY ? WHERE IS HIS PROMISE TO THE RAAYAT THAT
HE WILL FIGHT THE ABUSE OF POWER?


1. Defence would say it's all in the evidence. Let the laws take their course.
2. The Judiciary would say they are above Board and cannot make public comments.
3. The rakyat says it's all politics and a big farce.
4. The Mongolians would say there's no justice in Malaysia.
5. The 2 other co-accused would say they take the rap for someone else?
6. The incoming First Lady would enjoy more of her shopping with delight.
7. The incoming PM would continue to have nightmares and sleep uneasy.
8. RPK would probably have an updated write-up sooner than later.
9. Ian Chin has no comment because he's resigning.
10.And the former loud-mouth PM? Yes, he never play any active role.
These are all the salients points of 'Justice At Work' in Malaysia.
malsia1206vote upI am not a defeatist by nature and I will stand my ground tremain stubborn and even obstinate in my fight for justice. However, I have of late been battling with a voice within me coercing me softly that our obstacles are just becoming too insurmountable. The boundaries and constrains that limit our investigations into alleged crimes of the government or individuals within the ruling party have resulted in all our painstaking efforts being dessimated by them. 

Without a fair and honest judiciary system in place, it would be foolhardy to think that justice will be served to the perperators of these crimes. We must realise that the whole government machinery is totally at their mercy to manipulate at their whims and fancy. It is a bitter pill to swallow; heck, a damned bitter pill at that.
Nonetheless, we shall remain united in our fight for justice with one heart, one mind, one soul. One day soon, I know the truth shall prevail through the power of  PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE

vote down

It is true, Razak did NOT murder Altantuya.


However, Razak did call on Najib's 'men' to assist him,
he should have known the worst case scenario - knocking off Altantuya!


In any case, getting 'Najib's men' to forcefully remove or threaten a lady is certainly a crime, if one was to look at it from a civil right point of view.


He should have known the consequences of his action in employing 'strong arm tactics' to remove a defenseless women, who was demanding to see him. This is what lead to the death of the defenseless lady and for that alone, he MUST NOT ...i agree with you. He's just the 'caretaker' who makes a lot of dough along the way. He didn't kill her!!! 

I bet, at some point, he probably regretted being the reluctant caretaker at the 1st place n was willing to trade all the dough back for his freedom. But it's not that simple, when power players is in play behind. There're consequences judging from the background of that power player. Come to think of it, i personally don't even know anyone who is capable of ordering the killing and was actually THERE to watch her blown to pieces...well, it bring chills down my spine. I don't even have the stomach for that!!!

I'm of opinion, just let ARB of the hook. If we pursue to focus on him too much, then we might put his family in danger, then the real perpetrator might want him to swim with the fish at the bottom of the ocean.

ARB, my advice to you. Disassociate yourself with them. Donate all your ill gotten wealth to charity and consider yourself reborn n lead a simple life with your family. It's always not too late to do the right thing. Maybe someday, when circumstances allow, you might want to tell us the truth of what really happen. I understand that the safety of your family comes 1st at this point .

Sixteen years ago, in 1996, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) organized a conference on an unusual (it would seem from their point of view) subject. It was on electoral reforms and the conference had Pranab Mukherjee (representing the Congress), his opponent in the recent Presidential election, Purno Sangma (as speaker of Lok Sabha), Indrajit Gupta (the then home minister) and Jaswant Singh (representing the BJP) as speakers. The question posed to them was: five years hence in 2001, the number of Lok Sabha seats that had been frozen for thirty years since 1971 would be unfrozen. This would lead to merry chaos because the new delimitation would have to take into account the population increase of thirty years all of a sudden. What is worse, it would have to take into account the uneven increases in population across states: some states where population had increased more would get more seats as a result of the exercise that gave seats as per the population of state. Contrary-wise states where population increases were modest would lose out in the game. How would they deal with the situation say with balance of power (say shifting towards Uttar Pradesh and away from Tamil Nadu).

The netas hemmed and hawed and said they would figure out a way (meaning that they would devise a way to beat the system). But one man was forthright in castigating the organizers of the debate and the author of the background paper written for the occasion which pointed to all the problems that would arise (yours truly).  This was none other than Pranab Mukherjee.  “Dr Nag, he said offering me with a “honorific’ that I was not qualified for, does not have much political sense. When the time comes for de-freezing, what stops Parliament from extending the freeze for another thirty years’, he asked. In the event, that’s what happened. In 2001, Lok Sabha extended the freeze till the results of the first census after 2026 became available ( 2031) before working on increasing the number of Lok Sabha seats that have remained frozen at 543 since 1971.

The result: the sharp increase in the number of voters in each constituency. Growing up in Delhi I remember that a seat like New Delhi hardly had one lakh voters circa 1971. But today some seats have some 20 lakh voters and by 2031 possibly they will have upwards of 25 lakh voters. Result: more and more money required by candidates to cultivate their bourgeoning voters. And how will the candidates get the money? Through whatever means including extortion, borrowing and corrupt practices. The bigger the amount that they will spend, the more they will want to earn once they are in power. After all like business they have to at least break even, even if generating investible surplus (to fund future electoral battles) is not their aim. (You and I would do the same thing if we were in politics. Nobody would give us money in charity to win elections after all. The system makes the man.)

That is why I feel sad that Anna’s movement has failed. And in his lack of political wisdom the not so wise man who thought he could fill Mahatma Gandhi’s shoes has decided to form a political party to fight election. The political class is gloating and is apparent from Ambika Soni’s statement: “It’s best they come out and be part of the same system that they abuse”. Though I was personally always suspicious of some of the elements backing Anna’s movement it captured the imagination of the nation (albeit for a short-while) because it focused on the issue that concerns us and moves us all: corruption.

But corruption which is gnawing at the vitals of the nation (I know it sounds like a cliché but look around the number of thugs and criminals who are holding political offices and you will know what I am saying) and the electoral system that we have does not ‘consider’ corruption as an issue. Why? Because the voter does not believe that any politician is honest. He takes it as a given and has become fatalist in his approach (so Indian!). So if all politicians are corrupt, the elector casts his vote for a neta who gives them the most (earlier it was who promises them the most). So there is a competition between political parties to up the goodies that they offer to voters – whether it is free color TVs, free power, free medical aid or cheap rise or even thinly disguised cash transfer schemes. With each successive election the battle for offering freebies is becoming more intense. In my opinion elections should be renamed as ‘game of freebies.’ The poor dumb also greedy voter (as all of us are) are taken in by this opium offered to us forgetting in the process that there is nothing known as a ‘free lunch’. Somebody has to fund the cost of the freebies and it is the tax payer (that is you and me that is doing it). Mind you it is not only the income tax payers who are paying for this free lunch but also the poor because there is something known as indirect taxes that you pay while buying any goods/services in the market. And we pay for this in innumerable other ways as well – like the grid collapse in north and east India the other day.  So we are all participants ( wily-nily) in this game of freebies that is actually subverting the process of elections and striking at the heart of democracy.

Who knows all this better than Pranab Mukherjee, a politician with nearly fifty years of experience? He surely is witness to the subversion of the process, of which I am afraid, he was part of till recently. But now destiny has placed him as the President of India –and at a crucial time. The popular belief is that the 2014 elections will throw up a fractured mandate- throwing the nation into another round of political convulsion (as if the convulsions witnessed in the last two decades were not enough). Political competition will intensify and along with it money and muscle play. It is time for Pranab to act as a statesman and unleash the thought process for political and electoral reforms that can lead to cleaner governments elected in a real democratic fashion. 543 men and women elected though money and muscle power and network of castes and kin can hardly qualify to be the representatives of the people. So will Pranab babu bell the cat? Or will he be as nondescript as Pratibha Patil? Time alone will show. 

According to Dr. Igor Vishev (b. 1933), a distinguished Russian scientist and philosopher, it is likely that there are people alive today who will never die. Just stop for a moment and think about that. Alive today. Never die.

Vishev is convinced that medical technology is advancing so rapidly that sometime later in this century, Homo sapiens will become Homo immortalis. He believes that our current lifespan of up to 90 or, in extreme instances, slightly over 100 years, is not cast in stone or fixed in nature but an evolutionary stage out of which we are now emerging. Genetic engineering, replacement of natural organs with artificial instruments, nanotechnology, and other developing technologies could now extend our lives well beyond today's assumed limits. He proposes that a 200-year-old person is a present possibility, and a person who could live at least as long as a 2,000-year-old redwood tree is certainly imaginable. Such longevity will be self-propelling. New discoveries during the 200-year (or 2,000-year) lifespan would make what Vishev calls "practical immortality" a fairly safe bet. By "practical" he means "realizable" but not absolute. People could still die, accidentally or otherwise, but eventually techniques of "practical resurrection," toward which today's cloning is a primitive first step, would be able to restore life to those who somehow lose it. Vishev's philosophy, which he calls "practical immortology," is an attempt to shift our entire culture and worldview from one based on the certainty of human mortality to one based on the prospect of human immortality. This shift requires radical new directions not only in science and technology but in economics, politics, morality, ecology, art -- everything. Not easy, of course, but he thinks it's possible.

Vishev's line of thought is a 21st-century variation of Russian cosmism, a philosophical tendency that started with the eccentric 19th-century librarian and thinker Nikolai Fedorov (1829-1903) and continued through the 20th century in the works of religious thinkers such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Pavel Florensky, and Sergei Bulgakov and speculative scientists such as the rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the definer of the "noosphere" Vladimir Vernadsky, and the heliobiologist Alexander Chizhevsky. Intellectually diverse and not considering themselves members of any philosophical "school," the Russian cosmists shared a sense that man is a creature not of Earth alone, that in both a spiritual and scientific sense we should regard ourselves as simultaneously Earth citizens and "heaven dwellers." We are, in the cosmist view, active agents of our own evolution, capable of rationally directing -- or misdirecting -- our human and planetary future. Unfortunately, we currently choose to ignore our managerial abilities -- our naturally or divinely assigned task to regulate ourselves and our environment -- and are allowing ourselves to devolve into subhuman beings in a man-made hell. But, generally optimistic, the cosmists emphasize the spiritual and scientific advances that can set us and our world on the right path. Some of their proposals include exploration and colonization of the universe beyond Earth; active recognition of universal kinship; radical psychological, social, and cultural reorientation ("mind upgrade," as the recent cosmist writer Danila Medvedev put it); and, the proposal least attractive to some of us, reengineering our bodies to eventually allow an autotrophic diet in which we feed on sunlight and air instead of on plants and animals.

But from Fedorov on, a main cosmist idea has been to overcome death. For Fedorov individual immortality was not sufficient; our ultimate task was to bring back to life all humans who had ever lived. A devout if eccentric Christian, Fedorov viewed the resurrection as a human task, the Christ-like duty of the sons and daughters of humanity to restore life to those from whom it had been taken. Children would use future scientific technology to resurrect their parents, who in turn would resurrect theirs, all the way back to Adam and Eve.

As fantastic as Fedorov's idea seemed to his contemporaries, and as parts of it still seem to us, thinkers today, like Igor Vishev, have devoted very serious attention to the prospects and consequences of practical immortality. And Vishev knows something about overcoming apparent difficulties. Totally blind since age 14, due to a chemical accident, he has enjoyed a full academic career, addresses international conferences, works on a computer in several languages, plays chess, skis, and skates with his grandchildren.

The important question now may not be whether remaking ourselves and our universe to eliminate limits to present life is possible, but whether it is desirable. For centuries poets have intuited profound value in the mystery of death. As Shakespeare tells us in Sonnet 73, death gives life meaning, and love grows more strong for that "which thou must leave ere long." Or, as Wallace Stevens wrote in "Sunday Morning," "Death is the mother of beauty." Could many of our best intangibles be lost in the transition from human to "transhuman"?

And maybe we don't even need to fight death. Many traditions of religious and spiritual thought tell us that we are already immortal in part or in potential, that what we call death is simply a transition from one state of existence to another, worm to butterfly. And Socrates argued that because we don't know what death is, to fear it is hubris, pretending to know, and know well enough to fear, what we do not know. As he prepared to drink the hemlock, he famously told his friends that now was the time of parting, they to live and he to die, and which was better only the gods knew.

The question of what death is and how or whether we should attempt to eliminate it won't be settled here, or anywhere, anytime soon. But if Igor Vishev is right, someone alive today -- certainly not the one writing these words, but maybe someone reading them -- may be around long enough to know the answer.