Bahasa Mělayu - a letter to Yang Běrhormat

Dodgee Con-Sultan e-Solutions
12, Jalan Bodek
Taman Kamunting
Pulau Pinang

Kepada:
Yang Berhormat
Datuk Encik Loh Gwo Burne

My dear dear Yang Sangat Berhormat Mr Loh,

Congratulations on your most worthy victory in the recent general election. My cousin (from my mother’s side) who voted for you in Kelana Jaya has been ecstatic with sheer joy and honour at the privilege of having you as his parliamentary representative.

However, he and I have been extremely incensed by the outrageous and undoubtedly jealous rumour that your most honourable father paid for your seat. This is plain ridiculous when you are a PKR member, no doubt only for one week just prior to the election as you had mentioned in an interview with Malaysiakini, but nonetheless incontrovertible proof of your rightful and deserving eligibility to be nominated by the party.

I attribute this malicious rumour-mongering as typical insidious BN lies, no doubt spread by now-unemployed female liars who constitute 80% of the notorious cybertroopers.

Indeed, how dare Malaysiakini even raised that question when they should know better than to question anything about your pristinely perfect party, with your famed fantastic and fabulous reformasi leader, who had personally invited you to contest in Kelana Jaya, on recognizing your talents, potentials and assets (as a politician of course).

But if Malaysiakini is good for anything, it has at least published your comments as follows:

But when I met Anwar he asked why don’t I join the (party and contest in the) election? That became something more substantial as opposed to going back home and hide under my shell. I told Anwar that if you think we can contribute, then I am at your service. He said, "I think you can" so the next was to look at our areas and he asked, "Why don’t you go to Kelana Jaya?" Then I thought yeah, we can do this.

A good worthy quote – though spoilt somewhat by Malaysiakini’s grammatical error in not using the continuous tense of ‘hide’ to ensure consistency of grammatical employment. Anyway, as we can analyze from that quote, there was a whole lot of ‘thinking’ by both Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and you in your selection and gracious acceptance.

I have been so impressed by your frank confession that you have problems with Bahasa Malaysia, and that you intend to quickly bring your Bahasa up to speed in order to be able to contribute meaningfully to parliamentary debate.

Yang Berhormat, do not fret over such an easily manageable issue; if you may permit, I like to add a word of encouragement. Please remember Yang Berhormat, despite your (temporary only, of course) lack of Bahasa proficiency to deliver speeches in parliament or to debate issues in that hallowed house, you were personally chosen by none other than Datuk Seri to be the party’s representative for Kelana Jaya.

His confidence in you is the sole important factor. And indeed, such must be his confidence that he personally persuaded you to enroll as a member in his party just a week prior to the elections, when you were then nominated to stand for that federal seat. Many have been envious of that, which in a way could explain those nonsensical rumours of your father paying for your selection as the party’s parliamentary candidate for Kelana Jaya.

I salute your proactive intention to bring your Bahasa A.S.A.P up to speed. Let me assure you that some parliamentarians have been known not to be even able to say what you already can, like, as Malaysiakini reported, “… go the stall and buy stuff, order food in a mamak …”.

By the way, may I just say you made such an endearing confession that I would advise you not to hesitate reusing those words, to disarm and win people over.

Now, to the purpose of my letter - It just so happens that I can offer you some support in the matter of the Bahasa. I propose to do this as a two pronged strategy. This brief is only exploratory. Please do consider whether my plan can be of some help to you. If so, we can subsequently discuss our collaboration in greater details.

Firstly, we must enable you to get several of those ‘Master this or that language in 24 hours’ programs. Virtually everyone knows that with modern technology all sorts of languages can be mastered in a mere 24 hours. If one does not manage that, namely, master a language within 24 hours, the fault usually lies with the technology rather than the difficulties of a language. The obvious remedy is to take another 24 hours, etcetera. A catalogue of language software programs from my Dodgee Bookstores outlet (with its generous discount offer to Parliamentarians) is already in the mail to you.

If I may digress slightly to provide more encouragement to you, I am planning to make, through my Dodgee Documentary DVD Department, a series of motivational documentaries on fast track achievements. In today’s world where everyone is fascinated with, and wants to fast track everything (even in corruption), there is a market for quickie glories such as “Lose 10 kilograms in 3 days” or “Be a Kungfu Master in 7 days” or “Be a millionaire in 3 months” or "Speed Reading", etc. Thus fast learning a language is not un-do-able.

Perhaps later, once you have settled down in your lawmaking duties, we could make an inspiring documentary on you, with the catchy title of “14 minutes from photographer to parliamentarian.” If you do not like that tentative title, we can discuss.

Continuing with my proposal, in the second prong of my visualized strategy for you, my team at Dodgee Con-Sultan e-Solutions will develop a special package. This will be for you to raise as an opposition motion in the Dewan Rakyat.

Not meaning to trumpet, the brilliance of this strategy is so staggering that you will be the envy of your colleagues including Datuk Seri. They will wonder why they have not thought of it.

We will have you passing a motion to re-introduce the e-tanda back into our Bahasa Malaysia, or better, we will also have you at the same time escalating a demand that our national language be reverted to its proper title of Bahasa Melayu.

In one fell swoop, you will (1) put the UMNO (and other) nationalistic conservatives on the defensive with such patriotic issues (where we will ensure your speech is nicely spiced up with lots of bangsa and negara), (2) camouflage your current (just temporary, of course) lack of Bahasa proficiency with the nationalistic fervour you will undoubtedly raise even though you will only be reading (emotionally) from a prepared statement (we will write this for you), and (3) exploit the e-tanda as if it is a modern Internet compatible terminology like the vogue e-commerce, e-business and of course e-solution - this will catch the imagination of the younger voters.

Then our plan continues to unfold as such: Once you have flung that e-bone into the parliamentary arena, you retreat gracefully to high patriotic grounds, sit back quietly and let the language hounds tear themselves silly to shreds over ridiculous linguistic pedantry. And that should see you nicely through until the next parliamentary session, where by then Dodgee Con-Sultan e-Solutions will have develop another special package for you to raise again in the Dewan Rakyat.

Our Dodgee Con-Sultan e-Solutions e-strategy is to keep our client e-xquisitely, e-fficently and e-lusively one step ahead of the ordinary pack.

Now, you may ask what is the e-tanda? Well, it was an additional grapheme in Romanized Bahasa Malaysia Melayu. Malaysia's noted linguistic expert Dr Asmah Hj Omar informed us through one of her academic papers that the e-tanda was introduced by Za'aba, the renown Malay grammarian, in the 1930’s.

The e-tanda was written as ě, that is right, basically an e with a diacritic mark. Dr Asmah said that with this ě plus a couple of other linguistic innovations, the Za'aba system provided greater facilitation in reading texts compared to the Wilkinson system.

Personally, though not a linguist, I can see the importance of the e-tanda because without it, as an example, the word ‘Bersih’ if read by a Penangite with a horrible accent like that terrible blogger kaytee, could sound like ‘Beh-sih’ (pronounced ‘Bay say’) which means ‘cannot be cleaned’, totally deforming the very meaning of the word.

There is no mistakening how 'Běrsih' should be pronounced. Such is the importance of the e-tanda.

Alas, it was disgracefully done away with by BN bureacrats in the 1972 Bahasa spelling reforms.

With Dodgee Con-Sultan e-Solutions’ strategy for you to reintroduce the e-tanda as your debut parliamentary motion, you will become an instant national hero.

As nationalistic rational, we will arrange appropriate material for you to argue that the French still have their l’accents aigu (é), grave (è) and circonflexe (ê), la cédille (ç) and le tréma (ë), and likewise the Germans, Vietnamese, Arabs and numerous other nationalities continue to have their linguistic diacritical marks in their written languages.

You will put BN people like Rais Yatim and Hishamuddin Hussein to shame when you (pretend to, of course) rail against BN cultural cringe for accepting the removal of the glorious e-tanda grapheme from our beautiful Bahasa Melayu. In fact I dare say you should be the Shadow Education Minister, one who waves the e-tanda instead of the kěris.

We will prepare stirring phrases for you to fling around in the Dewan Rakyat, like “Sěmangat Za’aba masih hidup”, “Kěunggulan Bahasa Mělayu harus těrjamin”, “e-tanda enak dulu, sěkarang dan esok”, so on so forth – phrases to warm the cockles of the heartland.

And as a contingency plan, when you sense any lukewarm or faltering reception to your stirring phrases mentioned above, you throw in the secret weapon we will prepare, which will be ‘Něgara, Bangsa dan Grammar’.

That will surely shake those complacent BN neocons who have thus far foolishly imagined they have a monopoly on issues of nationalism.

Yes sir, your Kelana Jaya predecessor and ch’in lang Loh Kok Seng might have been a hero only on one side of the ‘divide’ for demanding historic correction, but you will be a hero on both sides for displaying histrionic correctness.

I anxiously and eagerly await Yang Berhormat’s indulgence in considering Dodgee Con-Sultan e-Solutions’ proposed enrichment program for your parliamentary career.

Tuliskanlah Bahasa Mělayu yang děngan bětul.

Yang běnar,
Dodgee Dimsum

p/s apart from my Dodgee Con-Sultan e-Solutions, my other company Dodgee Electronics carries an impressive range of items that can be useful to your needs, such as GPS, iPODS, Camrecorder, etc – all available with the usual concession to Parliamentarians.

********

The Yum-Cha Chronicles:(1) Apology - A letter to the minister
(2) Bloggers - A letter to the ministry
(3) Drama queens & kings wanted
(4) May 13 Book - a letter to the minister
(5) Appreciation - a letter to the minister
(6) Goblok to Golek - a letter to the minister
(7) MGR-ish makeover - a letter to a minister

The dark genes of UMNO

Based on a Malaysiakini report on the former Selangor MB challenging the current MB, Khalid Ibrahim, to instruct his exco to declare their assets.

Comments a la pre-emptive strike in my post Khir Toyo taunted Khalid Ibrahim on my voiced plan to blog on Khalid Ibrahim’s zero-squatter policy:

Now, do I follow your blog that thrives in innuendos and self delusion or the blog of the man who is in charge of squatters, local govt and etc in Selangor? Do I need to take your slanted explanation of prejudice or take the position of the REAL man in charge?

This is what Ronnie Liu tells me in his blog

"The zero squatter policy of the Selangor Barisan Rakyat govt would never be the same as the one implemented by the BN govt. The interest of urban pioneers will always be taken care of by the new state govt. That’s a promise. - Anon

… I think the "anon"`person who has posted the Local Govt Selangor Exco simply wanted to show that he follows the story from the man who is responsible for all that stuff rather than you who has no inkling of how he intends to do his work. I think that's right. I too should know more about Exco Ronnie and his steps, after all, he is the one. Giving Ronnie advise on how intends to solve that issue is different from preceding his actions and what he intends to do as if you know anything. Like someone said, your anti (...) shouldn't make you overreach yourself. - Cindy


;-) and I have yet to post my proposed piece.

Typically but growing ever more vigorously is the intolerance from a certain political party, and it’s not UMNO, ... yet born of UMNO, for where else could it have inherited this intolerance.

Their behaviour? None must question nor criticize not comment on its leaders, policies, conduct or actions. Not especially any member of the public!

Its acolytes haven’t even the patience, decency and etiquette to see what I would actually be writing. But they have already launched their pre-emptive strikes, assuming my comments to be bad and anti Khalid.

How sad! Is this what we have exchanged the arrogant non accountable non transparent BN for?

Intolerance is a sign of aggressive under-confidence and an inability to deal intelligently with criticisms.

Could it be that they themselves feel or know they have done something wrong?

Just like UMNO! Very soon they will be taking to the streets ... wait, they have already in 1998.

But then, what can you expect from a party which has as its very genesis the very party it condemns but now imitates, UMNO!

Go congratulate Marina Mahathir

Sweetie Marina Mahathir of RantingsbyMM recorded her millionth hit yesterday. Awesome!

She started blogging just slightly more than 1 year ago. Actually she would have reached that fantastic milestone earlier as she set up her sitemeter 4 months after she started blogging.

Congratulations to an admirable lady, Datuk Paduka Marina Mahathir - mind you, naughty kaytee thinks of her as a 'sweetie' ;-) kekeke, but one I hold in my heart with respect, and most of all, with dear affection of sincere friendship.

Syabas, Datuk Paduka Marina, and many more hits to come in yet years of happy blogging.

Khir Toyo taunted Khalid Ibrahim

Poor Khalid Ibrahim is not having a good introductory run as the MB of Selangor.

Remember that Selangor is virtually the premier state in Malaysia by virtue of its located, political and administrative centrality, its history, host to the FT, industries, major airports, port, etc. It was where, and indeed because of it, May 13 occurred.

It’s a damn rich state and for obvious reasons every political party wants this luscious lucrative lolly, which means every UMNO bloke, chief of all Khir Toyo will be gunning for Khalid.

Khalid has, since becoming MB, not come across well on a number of issues the PKR had boasted about. My blogging mate Susan Loone has already blasted him for proposing to levy a RM9 fee per foreign worker on companies employing them – read her damn good post on this issue Selangor wants to exploit migrant workers?

Susan believes that the pathetic pissed poor policy will result in the poor worker suffering the loss of that RM9, and not those fat cats.

I do wonder whether Khalid as a former high riding CEO of a huge conglomerate actually understands the issues confronting poor workers or plantation workers? I recall in the Ijok by-election, the PSM was reluctant to endorse his candidature because the socialist party had perceived him as a CEO who had been less than friendly to workers.

Two other examples of Khalid's shaky start would be (1) the now-embarrassing topic of some State exco members not wanting to declare their assets and (2) the zero squatter policy.

Malaysiakini reported in Khir to MB, exco: Declare assets that former Selangor MB Khir Toyo has a field day in taunting Khalid.

Naturally Khir challenged Khalid and his state exco to declare their assets when he learnt that Khalid had voiced his having second thoughts on doing so.

I am not sure why, that after all the pre election boasts about transparency and accountability, Khalid revealed some exco members are having reservations on the matter. I am disappointed by Khalid's poor explanation and poor PR handling. He should have ordered those recalcitrant exco members to declare or resign.

Khir sniggered (well, if he didn’t he was certainly entitled to): "Before the elections, they (opposition parties) promised that they would declare their assets. I want them to declare now... if they cannot, that would be very unfortunate for the people of Selangor."

But when pushed against the wall, Khalid made a very wishy washy ‘would most likely compel ... exco members to declare their assets publicly’.

'Most likely ...' only? WTF!

… which of course led Khir Toyo into unbearable boasting, that he and his exco members had to declare their assets to the Chief Secretary to the Government once every two years.

He demanded: "All these opposition leaders should declare their assets and their debts. If they have settled their debts, tell us where the money came from."

Debts? Settled? Should it be something we ought to know?

Khir in fact targeted two particular blokes, Khalid Ibrahim and exco member Dr Hassan Ali.

I must ask Khalid to be more firm and instruct his exco members to declare their assets without fail, or get rid of them. He must do that to stop Khir Toyo from seizing the high moral grounds, which of course Khir Toyo has no right to be on, and wouldn’t have if Khalid has been more consistent and firm on his promise of transparency and accountability.

To be continued (squatter issue) …

Malaysian mainstream media - missing professionalism

Dean Johns, my favourite Malaysiakini columnist wrote an interesting article in Boycott the media, or buy them where he too lambasted the mainstream media (MSM). The MSM had earned the dubious reputation notoriety of being nothing more than mouthpieces of the Barisan Nasional (BN).

But this is not in itself unique to Malaysia, because in the Western democracies too, the media do have favourites, and have at times spinned furiously for their sides.

But what distinguishes the Malaysian MSM has been its (collective) ‘creativity’ in, just as a rotten example, reporting the Bersih rally was only 4000 strong - there was some serious basic counting problem there. I needn’t go into what it had reported on the other more significant rally by Hindraf. Where's the professionalism?

What do we do with the MSM then?

Johns said: “The first, easiest and most obvious, of course, is a massive boycott as advocated by Haris Ibrahim, Helen Ang and others, thus weakening and even ultimately destroying them commercially.”

But he added, obviously favouring his second suggestion: “A second alternative (Dean, ;-) would this be a tautology?), however fanciful it might seem at first glance, is to buy them. Star Publications and Media Prima, are, as they proudly boast, both listed on the KLSE.”

Johns suggested that opposition supporters (around five million of them) should consider throwing in around RM400 each, an amount they spent on newspapers annually anyway, to invest in MSM shares. Then the public could control these companies or own them outright. He termed such a move ‘shareholder activism’.

Would that guarantee an independent sector of the press? Who knows, but we may be sure of one thing, it’ll most likely be a lot better than what it is today, very unprofessional.

As another example of its non-professionalism, I found a Penang-originated paper not doing its public duty when it failed miserably to update the election results on that fateful Saturday, as the people's verdict became known. Thank goodness I was able to rely on Malaysiakini to find out what the heck was happening.

But like all surfers, I would have enjoyed a variety of feedback, and as a Penangite, I naturally turned towards an old (though no longer a) favourite.

Alas, that was not to be. God knows how many of its editors then went AWOL from their election night duties, probably clutching strips of panadol capsules as they bunkered down in shock, whilst their public audience wondered whether they had suffered a nuclear storm, knocking all electronic transmissions and receptions off. As they realized they couldn't spin anymore they must have abdicated that duty to the office spiders which then spun webs across their idle screens.

In a recent conversation with one of my uncles (yes, sweetie, I have many) he contrasted the newspaper’s performance with that of RTM in 1969. Uncle told me the following true story.

On the night of the 1969 general election, there was huge billboard at the Selangor Club padang (sports field), where election results throughout Malaysia were posted as they flowed in by phone calls. But notwithstanding the festive mood there that night, where the audience still sitting on their ubiquitious Honda Cups surrounded the padang, with each opposition party’s victory being greeted by loud roars of approval, and the teh tarik and sop kambing people doing a rip-roaring trade behind the General Post Office, the star of that night was RTM.

For the first time, RTM broadcasted beyond midnight and in fact (according to Unc’s recollection) into breakfast time.

The counting in those days were slower but by midnight, the Perikatan (Tunku’s Alliance) was already reeling as Gerakan, DAP, PPP and PAS made mincemeat out of the ruling party.

Unc remembered the RTM panel of announcers-analysers-guest speakers from all parties-etc, including an UMNO man on the panel who was very knowledgeable on political personalities, nature and composition of each constituencies (both Parliament and States) and political trivia etc.

He kept the broadcast really interesting but when he saw the Perikatan being chopped off at the knees, especially in Penang, Perak and Selangor, he became demoralised. He was more than ready to sign off by the scheduled time of midnight, when a man approached him from behind (seen on the screen), whispered in his ears, whence he turned to announced, words to the effect, “I have been instructed to continue broadcasting until further notice”.

That was the professionalism of the media in those days of Tunku. The audience was waiting, and the show must go on!

By contrast, that Saturday night of 08 March 2008, that particular newspaper virtually stopped updating its promised election results by around 9 pm (perhaps even earlier).

OK, so the BN lost badly, but where was the journalistic professionalism to keep the public informed?

Newspapers have a duty like the postman, where it must deliver come rain or shine. But one particular Malaysian MSM online news failed badly on the night of 08 March 2008.

The lion kissed the moon!

Hey, diddle, diddle!
The cat and the fiddle,
The lion kissed the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

- with apologies to a Mother Goose nursery rhyme

It’s a truly new Malaysian world when the Lion of Gelugor defended a PAS man.

Malaysiakini reported in Karpal: Consider it a form of amnesty that “Karpal Singh has defended the decision of the new Perak and Penang governments to waive summonses for hawking and parking offences.”

It was stated that Karpal shot down detractors, including some lawyers, for criticising Lim and Nizar unfairly.

Don’t worry how he defended them, but yahoo, Karpal Singh has unbelievably defended a PAS man.

Either Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin, MB of Perak, is a very special person or Karpal has mellowed - ke ke ke!

Now who says the Sun doesn’t rise in the West, when the lion could kiss the moon?

Bloggers' representative - an oxymoron!

Once upon a time two bloggers got into deep sh*t – the reasons don’t matter now, but then, most bloggers marshalled around them to lend support in their hours of need.

So from this brotherhood … oops … and sisterhood too ;-), there grew an informal mob of bloggers. Yes man, stir a bowl of water and centripetal forces will move the solid material ‘together’ towards the centre.

Instead of just maintaining that fraternity as an informal congenial social group, some thought it may be a good idea to have a formal group of bloggers, an organization so to speak, to look after bloggers’ interests at a time when the authorities were beginning to frown on them, and even to promote the activity/hobby of blogging.

As bloggers were from all walks of life and political affiliation, the approach and character of the proposed organization by commonsense and necessity had to be apolitical.

So the 'son' (or 'daughter') of that informal (very loose) mob of bloggers came into this world, though without a Kad Pengenalan for it was still an infant.

But alas, apolitical it wasn’t. For reasons unexplained till today, a small coterie of bloggers, purportedly the pro-tem committee of the proposed organization, took it upon themselves to showcase their introductory venture into public eye by visiting Malaysia’s most controversial (opposition) politician.

I don’t blame the politician for he was the one called upon, nor do I his ardent supporters who were in that committee, for it was only natural they wanted to promote their idol.

But the others, the leaders …?

Many were gobsmacked as I was. We wondered, if a politician had to be visited at all by a bloggers’ association for bloggers' interests, why wasn’t that person the Minister of Information or Communication, as surely the interests of the bloggers deserved lobbying with formal authorities.

From apolitical to very very controversially political. Why? What was the secret agenda? Don’t blame us for considering that the motive behind that visit stank to high heavens. I blogged on that in Embracing bloggers - Disgracing bloggers.

Additionally why should I register myself as the proposed organization had mooted for members? For the government to trace us?

Meanwhile, the original informal mob decided to have a social get-together. It was called BUM night. It was well organised and brought many bloggers together for the first time. I wish I could have been there but alas, …..… I missed the opportunity to meet many good mates who were also in that committee for the social function.

Unfortunately personalities in the BUM committee clashed just prior to BUM night because of post Ijok blues. Who was right or wrong also doesn’t matter. Due to high emotions, some accusations and insinuations were flung about. The dust eventually settled.

Time passed by and the GE happened with tsunamic shaking magnitude. The government decided that they had underestimated the bloggers’ impact. I must confess I too didn’t expect the bloggers to have such a significant influence. I believe the most influential blogger who made a difference surely has to be Raja Petra Kamarudin of Malaysia-Today.

Anyway, Malaysiakini told us that the BN government now wants to talk to bloggers, yes, including those 80% of them, who have been described by a former Minister (I like the word 'former' as applied to him ha ha ha!) as 'lying unemployed females'. Phew, guess that fortunately places me in the other 20% fully employed, truthful, sincere, innocent, wonderful male bloggers.

Anyway, someone saw an opportunity to resurrect the proposed bloggers’ organization, which I believe had been rendered moribund and in a state of severe comatose due to lack of support, and certainly not helped by suspicions of its motive.

He suggested the new Minister see a certain blogger, as if this blogger represents the interests or views of Malaysian bloggers. Maybe he did it out of loyalty to a compatriot. Well whatever, let me say this in no uncertain term, and it’s not personal, I don’t want to have that person or so-called organization represent me or my interests.

Minister, if you are reading this, believe me, many of us bloggers don’t support nor have faith in the so-called blogging association. And don’t believe anyone who claims he or she represents me in matters on blogging – please see my blogging mate Susan loone’s post Come on, kiss my blogger a.s.s where she wrote:

“…some blogger(s) is (are) already jerking off, hearing all this [the Minister’s voiced intention to meet up with bloggers]. One has even recommended the minister go and meet his buddy - thinking that he is the taiko of all bloggers. Puhleez lah.”

One suggestion to the Minister for a start – drop the PPPA. Yes, can you imagine trusting anyone, especially a blogger, who supports the PPPA? Sheeesh!

Also, leave us free spirited independent bloggers alone – we can and will act responsibly.

Unfortunately, associated with the attempted resurrection of the so-called blogger association, an old nasty bone was dug up, and poor Jed Yoong was attacked again, all because she had dared to question the legitimacy of that organization to represent bloggers.

Shamefully, in that particular mob’s well known modus operandi she was attacked ad hominen, like she had been post Ijok. This time there were even fabricated insinuations that she absconded with the BUM night’s collection.

So, was a police report made? Why not? because for the simple fact that the insinuation had been a false fabricated fib. Of course we know that in Malaysia, facts shouldn't be allowed to stand in the way of a good 'story'.

The sad poverty of a certain sector in the blogging community is its pathetic inability to handle intelligent debates, so their members are wont to resorting to argumentum ad hominen. I know, I have been called an UMNO lapdog, a MCA cybertrooper, etc ;-). As an example, the litmus test of the anwaristas' desperation showed a different colour when the normally civil kittykat 46 even alluded to kaytee being that - ha ha ha!

Regarding the vicious insinuations against Jed Yoong, my blogging mate Lucia Lai of Mental Jog, who was in the BUM committee, should be able to provide insider information on the shameless bankruptcy of those comments.

But alas, even far more shameful than those insinuations, had been the fact that they were allowed to be posted in a blog. I needed a bath after seeing those.

DAP shot down party hoppers.

Thank goodness the DAP has principles.

On the subject of the reprehensible party hopping, which Malaysiakini has published in PKR Youth: 16 BN MPs ready to jump ship (all from Sabah and Sarawak – also heard on grapevine the price has gone up from RM3 Mil to 10 mil – wow!), apparently the High Court had ruled in 1992 that an anti-hop law would be unconstitutional as it contravened the freedom of association provision enshrined in the Federal Constitution.

The Court was of course looking at the letter of the law rather than the morality of voters being deceived by slimy frogs which presented themselves as Party A candidates, but after being voted on those credentials, would leap across to join Party B.

However, a constitutional amendment, which of course requires the support of at least two-thirds of the Dewan Rakyat, could pass such a law.

When the BN was exploiting such grubby unconscionable conduct (of party hopping), they were criticized, cursed and condemned. I am just amazed that the very people who lambasted the BN for those unscrupulous cheating of political powers are the very ones now claiming it’s OK because “the bigger picture is to dethrone the BN”.

What brains baffling bullsh*t because the “bigger picture” is to have a transparent, accountable, clean and truly democratic process for Malaysia.

But regrettably those blind-by-faith acolytes saw it now fit to rationalize, justify, and even promote the treacherous betrayal of voters by unscrupulous party hoppers.

In Malaysia many voters go for a political party rather than a candidate, and this is never more obvious than the recent election. It may be worthwhile considering what a (Chinese) sweetie in Alor Setar told me, that her grandmother and other relatives were advised by her uncle to vote for ANYONE or ANYTHING except the ‘ch’in’. I know, because my mum had that same advice.

‘Ch’in’ is a word in Hokkien (a Chinese dialect prevalent in Northern Malaysia - Penang, Kedah, Perlis right down to Taiping) meaning ‘dacing’ or the weighing scales, the symbol of the BN. That’s how a large number of Chinese have voted for PAS (yes, sweetie's granny voted for PAS) or PKR because their aim had been to vote out the BN.

Imagine how would they feel if the PAS and PKR MPs walk across to the BN? Wouldn’t that be a betrayal of their democratic choice?

Likewise, a BN voter would feel ultimately betrayed if their elected rep like a katak would lompat across to join PKR.

Yes, shamelessly, the common cry among those ‘lost’ souls (and I mean they have lost their souls) is “why was it no one complained when the BN did it” implying they now have the right to respond in tit for tat fashion, but forgetting they have been exclaiming, proclaiming and acclaiming their recent victory as a win for a ‘change for the better’.

May I ask how can a ‘BN Version II’ be a change for the better? Yes, if the BN ate sh*t, would they eat sh*t as well? If the BN was corrupt, would it be OK to be corrupt too? With such an attitude of 'whatever it takes to gain power post election', the so-called Barisan Rakyat could well be degenerating into a BN Version II - and I won't be in the least surprised.

I am glad that Karpal Singh has spoken out against such a sleazy avenue of gaining political power.

Karpal Singh, the Lion of Gelugor, stated in no uncertain terms that the DAP will support the BN anti-hop law proposal if it is tabled in Parliament.

Karpal effectively put a spanner in a de facto machination machine by saying: “Barisan just needs the support of eight more MPs to pass the proposal. We have 28 MPs.”

In that simple stark statement “We have 28 MPs”, Karpal has implied, to hell with those disgraceful disgusting de facto dealings. He has effectively distanced the DAP from the neo-UMNO Machiavellian manoeuvring mischief. He has also neutralised any necessity for BN to conduct covert horse trading to get the law passed.

Indeed, Karpal is basically stating in no uncertain terms, (my words of course) ‘let’s conduct our politics with some decent democratic de jure principles’.

Karpal Singh sneered (his actual words): “We also don’t welcome renegades defecting to DAP”, indirectly and morally shooting down another party.

He said (what should supposedly be upheld in the current ‘change for the better’ political situation): “The trust of the voters is sacred. There must be honour among the representatives who won under the Barisan ticket.”

Indeed, and he said in my hometown of Ayer Itam that those party-hopping should be outlawed as a criminal act as it was tantamount to cheating and deception.

Karpal was responding in bipartisan spirit to new minister Zaid Ibrahim’s proposal to introduce an anti-hopping law, after the PKR adviser claimed some BN MPs might cross over to the Opposition. Surely we don't want such grubs.

Meanwhile in Alor Setar, Anwar Ibrahim defiantly said the proposal showed that the BN government was scared its elected representatives would cross over to the Opposition. But what has he to comment on Karpal’s disdainful reaction to a political unacceptability which is so sleazy, slimy and stinking that any decent bloke or lassie wouldn’t touch it with a 3-metre long pole?

Anwar even has the audacity to advise: “A person who wants to cross over will not wait for the law to be passed. Is there anyone who wants to cross over?”

Reformasi? Do those who mouth this word regularly like a sacred mantra really know what ‘political reforms’ mean? Or has this word been aired meaninglessly and uselessly?

Reformasi, ha ha ha, surely the most perverted word currently in Malaysia!

Khalid Ibrahim failed to show resolute leadership?

Power sharing in a coalition government has always, throughout the world, been based on the contribution of each party in terms of the number of elected representatives.

In the recent Selangor State, the seats won by PKR, DAP and PAS have been respectively 15, 13 and 8. This means that the power sharing should be respectively 41.6%, 36.1% and 22.2%.

If we were to divvy up the ten exco seats (not including the MB), using mathematical rules of rounding out (where 0.5 and above is rounded up, whilst less than 0.5 is rounded down) , that should ideally worked out as a respective share of 4, 4 and 2 seats.

Considering that PKR grabs the MB position, on fairness, PKR could surrender one of its seats to PAS to make the spread MB + 3, 4 and 3 respectively.

Instead what we learnt today about the swearing in of the Selangor state exco members is that:

PKR gets MB plus 4 (equivalent to more than 5)
DAP gets 3
PAS gets 3

I see it as DAP losing out to a very greedy and race-conscious PKR.

Malaysiakini informs us that, in a move that’s akin to adding insult to injury to the DAP, MB Khalid Ibrahim, has obviously refused to appoint Teresa Kok as the deputy MB.

Instead, we keep hearing of the number of non Malays not exceeding the Malay members in the exco.

So is this race-conscious PKR practising its so-called new ‘change for the better’ brand of politics?

Khalid Ibrahim needs to answer some questions:

(i) Why is the power sharing not in accordance to power contribution?

(ii) Why is PAS with only 8 seats having 3 exco members, the same as a DAP with 50% more seats at 13?

(iii) Why is PKR grabbing a disproportionate lion’s share of MB plus 4?

(iv) Why hasn't Teresa Kok been appointed deputy MB when in Perak and Penang, we have exemplary examples of cooperative power sharing?

(v) Why has the ratio of Malays exco members to non Malay members been so important in Khalid's formation of his exco, in direct contradiction to PKR’s self-acclaimed multiethnic race-less approach?

Anyway, Selangor, your exco members are:

PKR
Khalid Ibrahim (MB)
Yaakob Sapari
Rodziah Ismail
Dr Xavier Jayakumar
Elizabeth Wong

DAP
Teresa Kok
Ronnie Liu
Ean Yong Hian Wah

PAS
Dr Hassan Ali
Dr Halimah Ali
Iskandar Abdul Samad

Biased USA a Middle East umpire?

Extracts from an al Jazeera report titled Cheney: US will not pressure Israel:

Dick Cheney, the US vice president, has said that Washington will not pressure Israel to take steps that will threaten its security and expressed hope for a new beginning for the Palestinian people in their own state.

Cheney, who is on a 10-day trip to the Middle East, arrived in Jerusalem on Saturday after spending two days in Saudi Arabia.

"America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakable, as is our commitment to Israel's right to defend itself always against terrorism, rocket attacks and other forces dedicated to Israel's destruction,'' Cheney told reporters shortly after arriving in Jerusalem.

I believe him.

Then:

In Jerusalem on Saturday, Cheney reaffirmed Washington's commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

He assured Palestinian leaders that "they, too, can be certain of America's goodwill'' as it tries to help Israelis and Palestinians reach an accord.

"We want to see a resolution to the conflict, an end to the terrorism that has caused so much grief to Israelis, and a new beginning for the Palestinian people," Cheney said.

I don’t believe him.

BTW, just in case you aren't aware, Dick Cheney was on the Board of Advisors for JINSA which stands for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Two days after 9/11, without any proof whatsoever of Saddam Hussein’s involvement in the attacks on Twin Towers, JINSA Propose(d) Iraq War on 9/13. The rest is history (inclusive of the American brief sojourn in Afghanistan).

Read my post Lies & power behind US invasion of Iraq where I wrote (extracts):

The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly political magazine in the US, alleged that JINSA are underwritten by far-right American Zionists who believed strongly that 'regime change' by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative.

* all underlining are mine

Anyone who dissents -- be it Colin Powell's State Department, the CIA or career military officers -- is committing heresy against articles of faith that effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East.

According to Karen DeYoung's 2006 biography of Colin Powell, Powell stated that "JINSA had influenced Vice President Richard Cheney and others in the Bush administration to rid Israel of Palestine's supporters and protect Israel's security by neutralizing Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Libya by invading and changing those regimes to democracies."

… into democracies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia?

Read my following posts as well:
(1) The 'O' in SWOT regarding the 3 'I'-s in the ME
(2) Bush's lies about Iran - déjà vu denied?

Additionally, political-military analysts said the recent and rather abrupt resignation of Admiral William Fallon, the top US commander in the Middle East, has been an indication that President Bush is insistent on launching an attack against Iran.

The Esquire magazine revealed that the Admiral quitted after he failed to persuade President Bush to avoid war with Tehran.

Bush madness has been and will be all for Israel, of course. What a goy-ish idiot!

Related:
(1) George Bush's farewell gift to Israel?
(2) Will Bush parcel out Iran toward the four winds of heaven?
(3) Anything for dear old Israel
(4) Why President Bush is so against Iran

Putrajaya 2, Terengganu 1

Could it be possible that AAB has finally shown some backbone?

Post election he has been perceived by some royalty as weak, indecisive and even apathetic. So, maybe they thought they might just claw back some of their royal prerogatives lost during the Mahathir days. Can you imagine them doing this when Mahathir was around?

Now the Perlis situation was masked by the fact of an unpopular Shahidan Kassim who was already slated for the ‘outer’ even prior to the election. Because of UMNO HQ's lack of enthusiastic support for Shahidan, with the Perlis royal prerogative ruling the day, it might have lent an incorrect impression that royalty would win in any tussle with an UMNO President still bleeding from and licking his election wounds.

We need to remember that AAB's promise to Shahidan of the MB position was a last minute pre-election compromise worked out hastily to avoid intra party factional fighting from distracting from the election. Now that the election has been completed, I suppose AAB was hardly likely to put in much effort to rescue him from local UMNO manoeuvres. Hmmm, maybe there were even the wink, wink, nudge, nudge from UMNO HQ. I won't put this beyond the Machiavellian politics of UMNO.

But it’s a different story with the Terengganu MB saga. When the Terengganu palace went for broke with the MB issue, opting for Kijal assemblyperson Ahmad Said against an UMNO selected Jusoh, the 23 BN state representatives (ADUNs) voiced their intentions to boycott the ceremony.

The palace decided to take the deadlock to the edge by officially issuing an appointment letter to Ahmad Said. But none of the 23 UMNO state reps was present at the ceremony, sticking to their earlier declarations.

Then, to thumb their ordinary noses at the royal person, Malaysiakini tells us that the state’s party leadership (sure AAB not involved?) sacked Ahmad from UMNO in a meeting last night – I take it poor Ahmad Said didn’t attend the meeting.

Their reason was that he ignored the party leadership’s directive not to take up the MB post.

However Malaysiakini reported in Crisis deepens in Terengganu that Ahmad Said has the support of the seven out of eight Terengganu UMNO divisions grassroots UMNO leaders and members.

Can that be so, when all 23 ADUNs do not support him, and indeed have sacked him a la Anwar Ibrahim? One question from kaytee, aren’t most of the UMNO State ADUNs divisional or branch leaders themselves?

I want to see what happens next because we are now in uncharted territory ;-)

But quick, I spied a golden opportunity for the de facto leader. Please let him know that there is now a chance for him to recruit Ahmad Said, possibly together with seven out of the eight Terengganu UMNO divisions. It will be an achievement that will make Gurun green with envy ;-).

And best of all, with Ahmad Said, it won't be a grubby defection because that bloke is now an independent ADUN. Yes, I know he's not of much use to Anwar in a federal situation but hey, great fortunes have been, are and will be built on the philosophy of "Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land (of the PKR)" - with apologies to J Carney.


Related:
Royalty threatens constitutional crisis?

Can defections & deceit be sincere?

Related: Malaysiakini article Dr Tiki: I am a BN loyalist:

********

Anwar Ibrahim boasted in Star Online article Barisan MPs want to defect that he had been making good progress in talks with BN MPs from Peninsular Malaysia as well as those from Sabah and Sarawak, but he was in no hurry to form the Government.

‘No hurry to form government’?

Being Easter, may I ask, “Is the Pope Catholic?” Ha ha ha, it’s so vintage Anwar.

As I blogged in PAS's unease as Anwar Ibrahim looks for 30 crossover MPs? many supporters of PKR-PAS-DAP have been less than impressed by the news of Anwar and BN MPs discussing the latters' possible defections.

The loose coalition of PKR-PAS-DAP, or as some dream of titling it, Barisan Rakyat, has just been informally allied on the supposed democratic foundations of idealism, transparency and integrity, and just on those grounds, would hardly have any room for grubby deceitful and treacherous political defections.

The BR is supposed to be everything the BN isn’t, but will it stay the correct course? But it looks like it's already about to make an UMNO-ish meandering manoeuvre.

Unless an election candidate stands as an independent candidate, he is elected on a party’s ticket to represent the voters in his constituency. A defection is a deceitful betrayal of the constituency's trust and belief, where on defection, the MP no longer represents the aspirations and views of his constituency but rather his/her own personal interests/profits.

This has been why many supporters of the so-called Barisan Rakyat have been worried about the scuttling of moral values by a few of their elected representatives and in particular, one non-elected representative. Only hardcore devotees blinded by faith in an icon have the unmitigated nerve to claim that accepting BN defectors would be justified.

Justified for whom?

Sadly, PAS Abdul Hadi Awang, in defending its partner PKR or rather Anwar Ibrahim who has been touting about the possible defections from the BN, said he would welcome BN MPs if they want to cross over to join the alternative front. But they should do so out of sincerity and not because they are enticed with money.

How can a defector who presented him/herself to the voters during the election as a BN candidate be ever remotely sincere when he/she defects to the other side? Maybe Hadi Awang cares to explain his bizarre qualification in Islamic terms.

Hadi also revealed that some UMNO members and (Malay) NGOs had been trying to entice PAS to hold discussions with UMNO on ways to strengthen the position of Malays and Islam.

Now that’s more like it, and in fact to be expected. I would be most surprised if such entreaties were not made. And we may bet that UMNO has not just approached PAS but PKR also, even Anwar Ibrahim.

No doubt the covert conciliatory communication will be talking principally about the ‘common’ values of the position of Malays and Islam.

However Kelantan MB Nik Aziz Nik Mat, who was also present, said the UMNO leaders are using the divide and rule policy practised by the British.

But that doesn’t mean former UMNO people aren’t receptive to an invitation for a joyous home-coming for a Prodigal Son.

No doubt many anwaristas will rage and rant about my post. Such is their attitude of intolerance that they fail to realise by doing so (yelling at kaytee and other like-minded bloggers to shut up), they have adopted the attitude of U.M.N.O where U Must Not Object.

Yes, they fail to, or ignore the fact that they have become like the intolerant UMNO in dismissing or shouting down people like me. Worse, they would bury their heads in the sand. Or worst, they rationalise why Anwar Ibrahim is doing the right thing ;-)

As I said, the so-called Barisan Rakyat is supposed to be everything the BN isn’t, but will it stay on the true course?

This morning I posted Product of the System’s POTS talking about PKR hegemony. Its blogger is like me, querying WTF is going on with such grubby manoeuvres like discussing defections.

It’s people like us whose queries will keep the Barisan Rakyat ship on course. If you anwaristas continue to close your ears and minds, stick your heads into the sand and deny us the rights to question the inconsistent, incongruous and iffy actions of people like Anwar Ibrahim and other PKR leaders, then you can bet the BR ship will stray off course and become another pirate ship just like UMNO, eventually mired in its own cesspool.

POTS talking about PKR hegemony

I came across this blog called ‘Product of the System’ (POTS) which posted From UMNO to PKR hegemony?

Bloke (or lassie?) wrote: “I’m made it clear from the start that I have more distrust for Keadilan than I do for PAS.”

Wow!

Continuing: “Recent events vindicate me to a certain extent. When Lim Kit Siang first made a statement announcing a boycott for the swearing-in of the Perak Menteri Besar, bloggers and commentators sounded the battle cry and bashed him with no mercy. The comments on Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s Malaysia-today are proof of it all. Lim Kit Siang apologized publicly soon after, in the most humble and sincere manner from a Malaysian politician to date.”

Well, I see RPK bashing DAP as part of a greater strategy – ‘strategy’ meaning a long term plan with an eventual (not easily detectable) higher objective – will blog on this soon.

Blogger POTS went on: “Not too subtly, similar announcements were coming from the PKR’s camp. Syed Husin Ali threatened abandonment of the coalition government if PKR’s demands for representation in the Perak exco were not met. Over in Selangor, the finalization of the state government’s exco list has apparently hit an impasse as a result of PKR’s refusal to grant DAP their fair share of excos, citing racial imbalance and insufficient Malay representation. Surprisingly, there have been little murmurs, if at all over PKR’s growing arrogance and refusal to compromise the way DAP did in the Perak state government.”

I have already blogged on this (see posts yesterday and before), but truly with a sincere hope my worries may be unfounded. I want to be proven incorrect.

There’s more in his post (URL above) but I won’t extract everything, but just the bits that interests me, such as:

“Well, Anwar Ibrahim will indeed make a great opposition leader. Just one problem though, ..... he too is not interested to be opposition leader. He wants to be Prime Minister, which is why he is currently obsessed luring disgruntled BN MPs to cross over to Keadilan, at no cost apparently.”

My late father taught one thing if I have learnt anything ;-) ‘Nothing is free in this world’.

POTS continued: “This brings me to my next provoking thought. Isn’t vote-buying and party-hopping more of an UMNO/BN culture?”

Yes … er … it’s an UMNO culture alright … er …

POTS: “When one is unable to form a government by legitimate means, one has to resort to back door techniques. That, my friend, is exactly what Anwar Ibrahim is trying to accomplish now. Vehemently, he declares that Keadilan would have formed the next government if not for election frauds and rampant vote-buying, but here he is, trying something similar by luring discontented BN warlords and position-obsessed MPs to join his camp.”

Quod Erat Demonstrandum!

POTS then criticized PKR’s selfish tussle with DAP over the Sabah seats … so on so forth ...

He concluded frighteningly: “More and more every day, PKR is resembling UMNO in more aspects than one.”

Habit dies hard lah! But to be fair, as some have already said, there are two PKRs - you work it out which is which!

POTS: “I still believe in the possibility of a stable and progressive DAP/PKR/PAS coalition government. If Keadilan continues its unjustified arrogance and unreasonable reasoning however, Malaysia will finally witness real change – a shift from UMNO political hegemony to PKR hegemony.”

“Some might ask, what can be worse than UMNO? My answer: two UMNOs.”

I think there’ll be only one UMNO … yes ... if you catch my drift ;-)

croak croak croak No 2?

From Malaysiakini - Another BN MP ready to jump ship?

It seems BN-SPDP's Mas Gading MP Dr Tiki Lafe, dropped from his deputy minister’s post (kesian only), has neither denied nor confirmed speculations that he is quitting his party to join the opposition when contacted today.

... neither denied nor confirmed speculations ... means there's still time to entice him back ;-)

… ribbit ribbit ribbit …

Boycotts

Now we all know sweetie Helen Ang of Malaysiakini had posted an article on hartal, a call to boycott the mainstream media (MSM) for not only being the BN mouthpieces but also for their extraordinary creativity with facts.

For example, with a stroke of a pen, a crowd of 40,000 could be reported with a missing digit, reducing the staggering movement to only one-tenth of its actual size, implying the rally had been less significant and probably by a ‘lunatic fringe’ group.

Then, decent Hindraf activists could be portrayed as marauding Tamil Tigers from Trincomalee.

Did I heed the sweetie’s call to boycott the MSM? No, I didn’t ;-) not that I don't love her but because knowing what the MSM are, I can confidently factorise their bovine poo into some useable form of garden manure for my mother’s gerbera, gladioli and guava, while enjoying the international news and entertainment pieces.

Besides, it’ll be cruel to punish a host of economic dependents including paper boys (once a million years ago I was one selling the Star) who survive on the sales of the MSM.

While the word hartal is of Hindi origin, the English equivalent boycott originated from Ireland in 1880 – read here for more on boycott.

My uncle told me of the Chinese boycott of Malay goods shortly after the May 13 incident – stuff such as Malay food like fruits, durians, satay, herbs and even the wearing of sarong kebaya. Unfortunately they were hurting innocent traders, with the inevitable resentment growing against what was perceived as Chinese meanness. It was a lose-lose situation.

Another uncle - told a sweetie I have many ;-) – related the story of the mandarin orange boycott.

Many years ago a particular greedy person thought he would exploit the Chinese New Year spending binge on mandarin oranges, so he obtained (through his powerful connections) an import licence giving him sole rights to import the much desired citrus fruits from China and Taiwan.

Story went that he added insult to injury by imposing on retail traders a very high price, obviously to ramp up his expected profits – ‘twas a case of his arrogant ‘take it or leave it’, believing the Chinese just couldn't do without such a culturally vital item at the start of a new Lunar Year.

The Chinese did the unexpected and ‘left it’, forgoing its traditional ‘must have’ mandarin oranges for Chinese New Year. I am of course simplifying the story where prior to the boycott, acrimonious exchanges occurred, which were reported by a once freer press. The Chinese community by then were fairly primed up to take up the very difficult boycott of a once-a-year indispensible item. But they did it!

As the New Year approached, the bloke panicked and started to come down to earth with his price for the fruits. Still, a lesson had to be taught. The retailers continued to boycott him.

And no one bought anything even when he attempted to bypass the normal retailers by setting up his own retail stalls, presumably at some considerable costs.

He was left with thousands and thousands of crates of rapidly over-ripening kam on his by then shaking hands.

There was no relent even when he gave some away as a means of stimulating a return to the purchase of the fruits so that he could recoup his principal when he sold the remaining stock.

In the end he was left with zillions of rotting kam and a huge hole in his pocket. Mind you, those decomposing kams would have made excellent compose for my mum's gerbera, gladioli and guava.

Quite frankly I had agreed with my uncle the greedy bloke deserved being shafted for his attempt to exploit the retail traders. Unlike the unfortunate traders who lost business post May 13, this bloke earned the wrath of the consumers for subverting an open system through misuse of official connections for his avarice.

… which brings us to the current situation in Penang where the Star reported Hindraf coordinator R.S. Thanenthiran appealing to Penangites: Don’t boycott nasi kandar.

It seems that the hartal of nasi kandar came about because of the circulation of an SMS (purportedly from Hindraf) alleging that nasi kandar operators were involved in last Friday’s street protest at Komtar. The SMS even signed off with a cheeky ‘Makkal Sakti’.

Thanenthiran said the SMS was bullsh*t as Hindraf did not issue any such statement.

Unfortunately the boycott has began to bite in because business dropped by 10% to 15%.

I remember not too long ago there was another so-called boycott directed against Muslim restaurants by a Muslim body, calling for Muslims not to imbibe an American fizzy dark coloured drink ;-), because of American yadda yadda yadda. However, the boycott strangely targeted only one American drink but not another – ha ha ha!

Most people guessed it was more commercial sabotage rather than sincere boycott. Now, who‘s the naughty person responsible for the call to boycott nasi kandar? I'll be bloody annoyed if my favourite nasi kandar man in front of Mesjid Kapitan Kling has been affected.

Frogs then, Chicken now?

We used to talk about cannot-change-their-spots leopards and wily deceitful musangs – yes, we even mentioned tigers where two males couldn’t exist on the same mountain.

Then of course there is the current topic of leaping frogs.

But cluck cluck cluck, looks like Khalid Ibrahim could have chicken-ed out on the deputy MB deal.

According to the Star Online, Selangor exco will not have Deputy MB post.

What a chicken cop out, Khalid.

Mind you, it’s a Star report, so 75% off, and let’s wait until Monday to see whether Khalid Ibrahim has reverted to his 'former' natural nurtured nature.

Anyway, in the meanwhile, let’s analyse the report by the Bintang (not beer, but the newspaper that sweetie Helen Ang of Malaysiakini has urged us to boycott). It would seem that Khalid Ibrahim may NOT have a Deputy MB under a revised exco.

To add insult (to Teresa Kok) to injury (for the DAP), his power distribution formula will see DAP’s allocation reduced from four to three. Yes, perhaps he isn't allowed to have too many (non-correct) ‘Malaysians’ in his administration.

Aiyah, we may say in sympathy, be reasonable, after all Khalid is ONLY the mentri besar of the State. For those DAP pollies missing out in Selangor, my advice if that in the next election, go over to Perak.

However, as a consolation prize (the perennial lot of Chinese Malaysians, it seems, whether under UMNO or PKR) one of the three DAP exco members will be appointed senior exco member but tasked with overseeing investments.

Perhaps Teresa Kok may get it, perhaps not especially when she suffers from the Malaysian political handicap known as the terrible tormenting triple ‘C’ – Chinese, Christian and Char-bor.

Mind you, Teresa is charming, competent and clean, but alas, that won’t make an iota of difference in our ‘colour’ful, caste-conscious and conservative (&morally corrupt) politics.

I am not so much against DAP losing the 6+4 formula with the Star reported Khalid’s new (PKR/PAS/DAP respectively) distribution of 5+2+3. It's not so much the numbers of DAP members in the State exco but the upholding of principle of PKR-DAP cooperation as manifested in Teresa Kok as Deputy MB, namely, the integrity and sincerity and commitment by PKR.

We of course know why, but it’s sad because to us ordinary people, it would appear that Khalid Ibrahim lacks the courage, commitment and consistency to provide the promised brand new multiethnic politics of Bangsa Malaysia.

Go ahead and cry, curse and complain.

Selangor PKR lead singer in 'same old BN tune'?

Malaysiakini reported MCA leader: BN singing same old tune the following:

In a bold and ironic departure from his Chinese-base party lines, MCA PJ Utara division chairperson Dr Wong Sai Hou called it "amusing to see the leaders of Umno, MCA, Gerakan and MIC continue to swim in the quagmire of racial politics".

"If they continue to run their parties along the same old racial lines, playing all the emotional sensitivities it carries, five years from now BN could very well be relegated to an opposition party," he warned.

"For the first time in 51 years, we see Chinese voters casting their votes for PAS candidates and the Malay ones voting for DAP candidates.

"It is very clear that our people have achieved a high level of political maturity."

Indeed. But before we indulge in BN bashing, let’s look at the so-called Barisan Rakyat, though officially there is no such Front other than a loose coalition of the DAP, PKR and PAS.

Penang and Perak have already kow-tim (settled) their exco composition and appointments, including the deputy MB.

But what about Selangor? Is it going to be, as one blogger has grandiloquently and insensitively termed it, "Land of the PKR" in every sense of that meaning?

MB Khalid Ibrahim has been tap dancing away from appointing his deputy. DAP, the second largest component of the informal (winning) coalition in Selangor, has nominated sweetie Teresa Kok to be the deputy MB.

It’s a shame Khalid Ibrahim has not dealt courageously with the triple political whammy (to him) by immediately appointing as his deputy, a colleague who’s a woman, Chinese and a Christian (all rolled into one), whilst the neighbouring State of Perak has already shot ahead in scintillating unique precedence with a similar scenario.

What happened to the PKRs’ avowed multiethnic politics? Is it now to be a case of 'scratch the surface and one sees ........'?

Or could it be that Khalid is being subservient to the words of Muhammad Munir Bani, the Selangor sultan’s private secretary, about the palace's ‘preference’ for a Malay (and, alas, not a Malaysian) deputy MB?

But Muhammad Munir denied reports that the sultan wanted ‘a deputy from a particular race’ (meaning 'Malay'), although he added the sultan was the religious head for Islam and Malay culture, and thus the MB has the task of assisting in these duties, which would also have to handled by his deputy.

In the most unbelievable zigzag explanation, Muhammad Munir, after denying HRH wanted a Malay deputy MB, in the same breath averred that it was only proper a Malay (not a Malaysian) be the deputy MB.

Following that, Malaysiakini reported in Expert: No legal need for Malay deputy MB that Prof Abdul Aziz Bari, a constitutional expert who lectures law at the International Islamic University Malaysia, was consulted on the matter.

Prof Abdul Aziz dismissed Muhammad Munir’s claims that the deputy MB should ideally be a Malay to assist the MB in Islamic and cultural duties.

The Prof said: “The Sultan of Selangor does not need the menteri besar or the deputy menteri besar in matters pertaining to religion and Malay custom.”

According to the Prof, the sultan, as the head of Islamic matters and the Malay adat, is the person in charge of such matters in the state, and not the MB or his deputy.

He said: “Matters cited by the palace are entirely within the sultan's jurisdiction. As the sultan may act on his own discretion on these matters, the constitution provides that a council may be appointed to assist him. This is what is commonly known as religious councils or majlis agama, which looks after the religious department or the jabatan agama. In the other four states and federal territories, the Agong will have the same establishment.”

Prof Abdul Aziz said that a prolonged delay in the appointment of a deputy MB was unnecessary and might even be unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, Khalid Ibrahim has finally announced that his exco would be sworn in on the coming Monday.

However, the Star Online said that Khalid has refused to divulge names of assemblyman picked for the state Exco or how many people were picked from each of the three parties forming the present DAP-PKR-PAS coalition government.

He also declined to comment on whether the exco would be made up of six Malays and four non-Malay councillors. There have been rumours that the palace had disagreed with a proposal for five Malay and five non-Malay councillors formula proposed by the new coalition forming the new state government.

If that has been true, it’s a lamentable harkening back to an old ethnic-divisive policy mentioned by MCA Dr Wong Sai Hou in BN singing same old tune.

And it’s doubly lamenting because it implies the palace (though not necessarily the Sultan himself) is interfering with the political process of democracy.

When asked whether the appointment of a Deputy MB had been postponed or scrapped altogether, Khalid side-stepped the issue by stating the need to explain the matter (what?) properly to the people (who?), and that he would do this after the executive councillors had been sworn-in (why?).

Not an encouraging start to a so-called multiethnic transparent coalition. It woudl seem that the colour of one's skin continues to be significant in the "Land of the PKR".

croak croak croak No 1?

From Malaysiakini - Serian MP quits Supp, may join PKR!



... ribbit ribbit ribbit ...



Related:

(1) RM 90 million leap to a dream ... feast?
(2) PAS's unease as Anwar Ibrahim looks for 30 crossover MPs?

Not related but a frog story too:

A Malaysian Fairy Tale - Princess & The Frog

Not related nor a frog story but there's a toad: ;-)

A Malaysian Fairy Tale (2) - Rumpelstiltskin

America's murderous lies

al Jazeera article Lies led us to Iraq by Linda S. Heard, a syndicated columnist specialising in Middle East affairs based in Cairo.

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Let's face it - we were conned. Iraq had no WMDs and no links to Al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein never tried to purchase uranium from Niger or steel rods for centrifuges.

There was no threat - and the Bush administration and its allies knew it. They were clever, though. In the months preceding the invasion, we were drenched with drip-drip propaganda from the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon.

They played us like a symphony. They threatened, bribed and browbeat the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into playing the same tune, accompanied by Number Ten's dodgy documents and Tony Blair's convincing boyish grin.

At least former Secretary of State Colin Powell has the decency to be ashamed of his part in the con. Once the most respected member of the administration, he spun an elaborate fairy tale for the UN, antics he would later describe as "a blot" on his record.

Everyone forgot that prior to their campaign, the IAEA was poised to give Iraq a clean bill of health and many UN members were pushing to lift the crippling sanctions that had cut short the lives of up to 500,000 Iraqi children.

Changing the story

Make no mistake. This was a belligerent war of choice, planned long before the former Texas governor and his neoconservative coterie moved in to the White House. It was a scheduled step towards their hoped-for New American Century and New (marionette-managed) Middle East.

After the shredding of the Iron Curtain, they saw a chance to use their power to rid Israel of a foe and ensure America's strategic rivals would never get their hands on Iraq's sea of oil.

Donald Rumsfeld, US defense secretary until the Iraq quagmire prompted his resignation last November, would call this assertion "utter nonsense". In fact, he already has. "We don't take our forces, go round the world and try to take other people's real estate or other people's resources, their oil," he once said. But that’s exactly what's happened.

Even after troop reductions, Iraq will inherit five or more permanent US bases and the largest American embassy in the world. Moreover, Washington is pressuring Iraq's government to pass an oil law permitting foreign oil companies to seal lucrative deals for decades to come.

As Alan Greenspan, retired US Federal Reserve chief, rightly pointed out, "It is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq War is largely about oil."

When they could no longer hide the truth – no thanks to a supine media - they switched their story. Iraq was bombed, invaded and occupied to bring love, light, freedom and democracy to a long-suffering people.

'Pentagon Productions'

We were groomed to believe the end justified the means even as we watched "Shock and Awe" first light up Baghdad's night sky in March five years ago, as well as the scorched and limbless corpses left in its wake.

They conned us again on April 9 by bussing in poor disgruntled Shias from what was then Saddam City to throw shoes at the statue of Saddam in Baghdad’s Firdous Square under the pretence that they were passers-by.

We were told that the statue's destruction was a spontaneous act carried out by a grateful populace even as a US marine dragged it to the floor – but not before one of America's finest climbed up to cover the dictator's face with an American flag that "coincidently" had been flying over the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Then there was the story of Jessica Lynch, exclusively concocted by Pentagon Productions. With the aid of sycophants in the media, they told us a tearjerker about Lynch, a photogenic young private who had been ready to fight to the death before she was captured by the enemy.

Remember the grainy footage of her "rescue" straight out of a Hollywood action movie? The commandos landed without an Iraqi soldier in sight. They kicked in the unlocked doors of the hospital where she was being treated for injuries suffered during a vehicle accident and whisked her off to safety.

"Our brave heroes," sobbed patriotic grannies from Vermont to California. There was just one problem - Jessica turned out to be a reluctant heroine. She spilled the beans. The Iraqi doctors and nurses had been kind to her and had been trying to find a way to hand her back to the Americans. And what's more, she hadn't been raped or beaten, as insinuated by the Pentagon.

Iraqis suffer

But those who have been conned the worst are the Iraqi people. They were told to expect a better life without fear of a knock on the door at 4am or the threat of being dragged off to a torture chamber.

Those of us who remember Haditha, Fallujah and Abu Ghraib know how hollow those promises ring today.

Since 2003, up to one million Iraqis have been killed either by the Coalition, at the hands of government-backed militias or by insurgents' bombs. Four million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes. One million - the brightest and the best - have emigrated, leaving hospitals without doctors and universities sans professors.

Millions of Iraqis are struggling with poverty due to unemployment and rampant inflation. Oxfam International, a conglomerate of aid groups, says four million Iraqis are going hungry and require humanitarian assistance.

The Baghdad-based Women's Rights Association (WRA), which has surveyed 12 Iraqi provinces, found that an increasing number women and children are scavenging for food in garbage bins.

During the same period, 43,000 Iraqis have been detained in US facilities; only 1.5 percent of them have ever been charged with a crime. Those are the ones we know about. Thousands more have simply disappeared.

The availability of electricity, drinking water and proper sewage disposal is below pre-war levels. Almost $9 billion earmarked for reconstruction is still unaccounted for, while many reconstruction projects were never started or remain half-finished.

The American people were conned too. On March 16, 2003, Dick Cheney told Meet the Press that the Americans "will be greeted as liberators". Someone should tell Cheney, the US vice president, that almost 4,000 of Iraq's "liberators" have died in his war.

Iran wins

In December 2002, George Bush's top budget official Mitchell Daniels estimated the cost of war would run $60 million at most. In March 2003, that estimate jumped to $2 billion. To date, the war has cost the US Treasury more than $845 billion.

Some economists blame the war for triggering rising oil prices and for a US recession whose repercussions are being felt around the globe.

Perhaps the con-merchants weren't so clever after all. Their debacle in Iraq has encouraged a more polarised world and destroyed the US's credibility as a force for good in the Middle East.

The only real winner to date has been Tehran. The US not only disposed of its arch-enemy Saddam, but is backing an Iraqi government stuffed with Iran's ideological brothers.

No one knows Iraq's future. Will Iraqis join together in a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation? Will the Americans and their allies ever hand over real sovereignty to the Iraqi people rather than a meaningless scrap of paper? Will a shiny new Iraq ever rise from the ashes and become the envy of the region?

And most importantly - will we ever allow ourselves to be conned like this again?