Tag: Selangor

It has been more than 2 months down the line, the pain in the neck (or rather my arm) have reduced drastically. It has been improving on daily basis after I had started the cervical traction treatment, sleeping without pillows and DIY neck exercise. It has not gone completely but at least now, I don’t have that pain whenever I drive which is great and is a big relief.

Anyway folks, by now, they say when the election is around the corner, strange things will happen. The sky will turn sweet pink and you will see politicians coming down from their place in the sky down to earth and share the way of life and hardships of the people.

(One publicity that back-fired. Image source: World of Buzz)

The often seen publicity stunt when election is around the corner would be politicians living and doing things that the normal citizens would do. One fine example was this cycling stunt with complete police escort and an ambulance. Just wonder who in the right mind would be riding around on a bicycle wearing office attire and causing massive traffic jam in the wake.

Please do expect more publicity stunts in the future as such leaders taking & sweating out in public transports, kissing the babies, visiting the old folks in kampong, helping the villagers to repair damaged houses, bridges, eating by the road side with the village folks, working in plantations & paddy fields, etc.

All the sudden you will also notice other changes – the same politicians did nothing for national unity, fight against corruption & abuse of taxpayers money will don a new skin and talk about fairness, unity, fight against corruption and other ideals that all other Malaysians have talking about and desidered for ages.

INPUT from some 20 series of dialogues revealed young Malaysians prefer to be known as “Bangsa Malaysia” in the next 30 years, Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said yesterday.

Of course, and not just young Malaysians.

Most, if not all, Malaysians want to be known as Malaysians or Bangsa Malaysia rather than by their racial or ethnic origins.

So if the new generation of Malaysians want to be known as Malaysians or Bangsa Malaysia rather than by their racial or ethnic origins, then why the Government still insist on policies and decisions based on racial origins? Why until today, we still need to indicate our racial or ethnic origins on application forms despite being a blue true Malaysians? Even after 60 years of independance, the coming of the information age and a larger role played by Generation Z, the nation is still tightly governed by segregations based on race and religion and causes sensitive issues that threaten to tore this nation apart.

Then we have the must have buzz word – transformation (the “other” buzz word is “you help me, I help you”).

After four decades, a fresh federal initiative is set to be launched to champion the cause of the Indian community.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak will chart the path ahead for the estimated 1.7 million Indians in the country with a national blueprint for them.

The last comprehensive economic masterplan for the community, prepared by the MIC in 1974, failed as it was considered to be “too vague”.

The new 10-year blueprint has specific targets and policies set in place to address the plight of Indians.

But look at the statement again – “After four decades, a fresh federal initiative is set to be launched to champion the cause of the Indian community” – only a politician can pull that off with a straight face.

Four decades??

That is 40 years if you don’t know what is a decade means. So for 40 years, nothing fancy happens (no revisions of whatsoever of whatever masterplan that MIC came out in 1974) but now all the sudden they seemed have woken up and now wanted to do something serious about it.

Interestingly no where it was mentioned of another transformation blueprint that was endorsed back in 2013:-

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak today pledged that a special unit will be set up under the Prime Minister’s Office to ensure all promises made to the Indian poor are delivered.

Fast forward to 2017 and even Hindraf is singing a different tune now:-

Indian rights NGO Hindraf has dismissed Prime Minister Najib Razak’s announcement in Chennai of a new blueprint to benefit the Indian community as an “April fool’s trick.”

Its chairman P Waythamoorthy said Najib had failed to fulfil a memorandum of understanding for the betterment of the community that Barisan Nasional (BN) had made with Hindraf, despite the document being publicly signed before “millions of Malaysians” through the media in April 2013.

“This is another attempt by Najib to dupe and give false hope and promises to the marginalised Malaysian Indian community,” he said in a statement today.

We also have this nonsense some months ago and this is not the first time, we are getting this kind of cheap stab on the back from the ruling politician – read here for another incident that happened back in 2009.

The Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry (KPKT) has scrapped approvals for local council projects in non-Barisan Nasional (BN) parliamentary constituencies.

This is according to a leaked letter that was issued and signed by the Local Government Department director-general Abu Bakar Johar dated March 17.

According to the letter, the directive applied to all BP.1 projects, categorised as small scale people-centric projects in the respective local councils, including the building and repairing of roads, drains, public toilets, multi-purpose halls, and business premises.

Abu Bakar, in the letter, said the directive was given by the minister Tan Sri Noh Omar during a BP.1 project allocation coordination meeting on March 6 and later in a meeting session with local council mayors on March 9.

Is this another attempt to “slow things down” in the opposition led constituencies?

Can a Federal Minister be so selective in the providing the service and allocations?

What they think this will achieve? That people get angry of the lack of development and vote back BN in those constituencies? It is no big secret that Noh Omar had always wanted to wrestle back the state of Selangor ever since it fell into Pakatan’s hands but to be selective in providing services and allocations based on BN / non BN led parliamentary constituencies is akin to hitting one below the belt. It is understandable if he is doing it within his capacity of a BN politician but it should not be in his capacity of a Federal Minister.

And recently there were further disturbances in the Force and we are seeing more of the Dark Side.

It was kind of expected considering the election will be here soon and those states under the Oppositions are doing pretty good and without any major dispute to their administrations.

PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar wants the Election Commission (EC) to explain how 28,416 servicemen and their family members could have their names on the EC’s list of demands.

She expressed fears that these additional “postal voters” could help sway the results in GE14 in favour of the Barisan Nasional in some seats.

Nurul said what was an even bigger “mystery” was how all 28,416 voters had gone through the demand process at the EC’s office in Putrajaya.

She said what made it even more apparent that foul play could be involved was the fact that the EC had rejected 8,286 new voter applicants in 2016.

“What reason does the EC have to reject these names? For your information, 88.1% of these rejected applicants were from Selangor.”

Perhaps Opposition run states are just too attractive and well managed for others from other states that 28,000 of them decided to move to the Klang Valley? Maybe but questions have been raised, let’s see if the Election Commission is able to explain the “mystery”.

Didn’t I mention that election is around the corner, strange things will happen?

(Some of the quick steps taken the State Government when the state faced with serious water contamination and people’s anger over the matter got worse on daily basis. Image source: YB Hannah Yeoh)

Couple months ago (and the month before as well), a good number of households (including yours truly) in the good state of Selangor was hit by prolonged water supply disruption. The culprit was water contamination – earlier from a source in Selangor (which the state government took swift actions) and later from sources from other states. The disruption of water supply created havoc to our daily routine and we had to be on our toes when the SYABAS water tanker comes to the residential area. Thankfully to the quick work by the hard working people at SYABAS and other agencies related to water supply, the taps was running high again by afternoon of Deepavali and remained uninterrupted since then.

Inconvenience to the end users no doubt but then again, it is a wake call for the authorities & the state government to take notice and make plans for the future.

NST reported this at the start of the water supply crisis:-

Centre for Environment, Technology and Development chairman Gurmit Singh describes the water management system in the country as “fragmented”. “We are in this situation because we have badly managed our surface water resources. On top of that, we have the dichotomy between the federal and state governments.

“Most state governments have failed to protect and maintain their water catchment areas. This compromises and adversely affects our reservoirs and water supply. We rely on surface water, but much of it is being wasted through badly maintained and burst pipes.”

But, he says Malaysia has not reached the stage where it needs to resort to underground water sources. Gurmit calls for more efficient irrigation practices, as this will mean more water for consumers. He also suggests that industries be supplied with raw, not treated water. “They do not need high-quality water because they mainly use it for cooling purposes.”

(This was back in 2007 – do we have enough water catchment area protected and enforced in 2016 and beyond? The fact the water treatment closed down more often than usual due to water pollution seems to suggest that we are lacking the means to protect our natural resources. Image source: Google)

The Semenyih water treatment plant was shut down for numerous times this year despite the abundance supply of raw water (unlike 2 years, we were struggling to get raw water due to prolong hot season). Thus far, contamination of raw water have blamed and it had come to a point where the state government even began to get suspicious – is someone sabotaging the state government with the water issue?

Well, whether the suspicion turns out to be true or not, at the end of the day, it boils down to enforcement, enforcement and enforcement. Water contamination will not go away in the near future but addressing them before it gets worse and forces the shutdown of the water treatment systems is the key step here and it had to be done so consistently.

Back home, we had been prepping for water shortage and water rations way before 2014 when the level of water in the dams was dangerously low. What have changed in the years thereafter is information channels and the community coming together to assist each other in time of crisis.

The residents at my residential area belongs to the resident association who in turn created a group chat room. So one get the news of water disruption, this valuable information is quickly shared among the rest of the residents. Often it takes couple of hours from the time the water treatment plant shuts down and to the time the taps at home goes dry. So if one gets the information as early as possible, there is more than enough time to quickly save up water. That means the house water tank to be full to top as well as the 3 huge water buckets (one is kept at the porch for ease of filling up water from SYABAS water tankers). Then there is several smaller buckets and in addition to that several containers of clean water for drinking & cooking.

And as an additional measure, couple of cartons of 1.5 liter drinking bottles also kept in the “doomsday store room” – 12 bottles cost less than RM10 per carton (which is a good deal). The trick is to buy them upfront & store before the news gets leaked on the water disruption and there is a mad rush to buy drinking water. At one point, I even had to drive out to places where there is not water disruption to buy drinking water as the ones near my house had fully sold out (including those expense ones).

And we have been keeping sharp eyes on water leaks to ensure that in time of crisis and when water becomes precious, we don’t have hidden leaks that reduces our water storage. And in the past, major leaks had come from broken water tank and in the end, we had to make a whole water tank replacement (after several attempts to patch the holes in the old water tank). That replacement costed us almost RM1000 but it was worth it in the long run.

Keeping the water at the water tank aside, we set priority on which of the water containers we will use first so that when the water authorities sends their water tankers, we can get ready the empty containers and pots to be replenished fast. And there is a good reason for that. The water tankers do not come at scheduled time and sometimes by the time they passes by the road in front of the house, the water level in the tanker is very low (they will send another tanker full of water later but we won’t know when). There were once the water tanker came in the early mornings when it was raining heavily and everyone was fast asleep – at times, timing just sucks.

And big containers are not feasible to use when the water tankers come because it does not fit the hose of the tanker and when it is full, it will be difficult to carry them. So we empty the smaller containers into the bigger containers as and when the level of water comes down. We then arrange these smaller containers, buckets and pots nearer to the main door so that we don’t have to search for them later when the water tanker comes. And everyone in the family chips on the effort of collecting the water from water tankers and this includes the kids who can carry the smaller containers. And like a well oiled machine, we keep doing it until the big containers are full and thereafter the smaller containers as well (thanks to the SYABAS guys who wait patiently for the residents to get their supply of water)

In addition to the off-beat water tanker timing, we also did not forget about the natural source of water – the rainwater which we can use for dish washing and for the toilets. Thankfully it rains often in the evenings so there is no lack of opportunities. There is no high tech rainwater harvesting system in place yet but a rough, low tech system consisting of simple buckets and roof gutters does the job just effectively. But a proper rainwater harvesting system is still in the pipeline in the future.

In end, a good mix of quick information, plenty of upfront storage of water to last the whole family for couple of days, prioritizing the usage of water and ensuring ways to replenish the supply of water kept us in the “cool” until the water contamination issue resolved and the supply is back to normal. There are many people in this country still don’t have access to clean water for their daily use so it is important we manage the water resources effectively and conserve water as much as possible. Our water resources already under tremendous constraint to meet the ever growing population and industrial needs, so faster we act, the better we can manage in the future.

(Kajang is very famous for its satay – we used to drive into the town just for this but in recent weeks, the town of Kajang has been in the focus for a different type of food on the dish – Pakatan’s rather childish games with the voters in Kajang. Image source: http://sumptuousblog.wordpress.com)

If you have read enough posts in this blog, you will know that this blogger leans more towards Pakatan rather favorably. It is not because they are best one around but rather because we had enough of the nonsense, corruption, wastage of taxpayers money, lack of transparency & accountability, selective prosecution and seeds of disunity that Barisan politicians spews or cordons on a regular basis and we only have very limited choice for alternatives. Between the two, Pakatan somehow edges more positively (yes, screw the independents – they have screwed things for the wrong reasons in the last general election).

Anyway a total overhaul from top to bottom is long overdue. But that does not mean we can blindly accept whatever Pakatan fellows say and do – they are after all just politicians with a different clothes & purpose and they can also resort to the same cheap politics to score their own politician mileage. They must not forget that the high expectations and ideals that we expect of any elected politician applies the same to Pakatan politicians.

Recently we had this:-

Kajang assemblyman Lee Chin Cheh has resigned as an assemblyman, Selangor state speaker Hannah Yeoh announced today. With the resignation, she officially declared the N25 seat vacant.

When asked on Lee’s reason for resigning, Yeoh declined to answer on his behalf and requested reporters to ask Lee directly instead. Yeoh admitted that she was surprised by the move.

Of course, the question on everyone’s mind why should Lee resign when there is no real reason for anyone to resign. Even Lee himself could not come up with a good excuse than this:-

PKR’s former Kajang assemblyman Lee Chin Cheh finally broke the silence over his surprise resignation today, but left those awaiting clarification without the satisfaction of a clear answer.

With speculation going into overdrive that his departure was to pave way for Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to get into the Selangor mentri besar’s seat, Lee chose only to add to the mystery with a cryptic reason for his resignation.

“My decision to vacate the N25 Kajang seat is for the greater good and to reinforce the ability of (Pakatan Rakyat) to serve the people of Selangor,” Lee said in a three-paragraph statement tonight. He also thanked the voters of the constituency for their trust and co-operation.

And now Anwar is more or less confirmed to run for the seat and the funny part is that Pakatan actually think they will win the seat without a sweat. They even had asked BN not to contest to “save” taxpayers money for the by-election – it seemed that BN is destined to lose in Kajang so why bother, right? It is simply morally wrong too and it does not make any sense and here’s why Pakatan should not have an easy ride in Kajang:-

1

There is no real need for a vacant state seat in the first place. It is not like Lee Chin Cheh had (sorry to say this) died (like in most cases for by-elections in the past)some incurable sickness and is going to die anytime soon. Or he had been caught red handed on something that is legally or morally wrong (of course no politician in this country had never took responsibility for their actions and had resigned as a gesture of accountability. Most instead get promoted with a fat salary and assigned with special duties. So why Lee Chin Cheh should anyway be different?)

2

The very excuse to vacant the seat – “for the greater good and to reinforce the ability of (Pakatan Rakyat) to serve the people of Selangor” is demeaning and downright insulting. We all know that this is not the real reason for it – why reinforce something that you already have? The very same mistake a BN politicians often do – take the voters for ride. Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan had said that PKR must show an “overwhelmingly good reason” for this unexpected by-election in Kajang and we are still waiting for this reason.

Lately there have been another excuse in circulation and this time it is from Rafizi Ramli – that Anwar Ibrahim is needed in Selangor to prevent the federal government suspending the state legislature by invoking emergency laws (source). He went to say that Anwar needed political legitimacy in the state.

That unfortunately does not hold water as well – firstly Anwar as the key person in PKR & Pakatan does not need a state seat for political legitimacy in the state (he already has political legitimacy by default by being the leader of opposition and the de facto leader of PKR), secondly why can’t Khalid & Azmin who already have a state seat and is deep in the administration of the state handle whatever Anwar hope to do with a sole seat in the state and finally, if BN had decided to invoke the emergency laws and proceed with suspension of state legislature, do you think that Anwar owing one state seat would make any difference (after all they hardly blinked in Perak).

3

Let’s assume Lee Chin Cheh had to resign for a very good reason but unable to tell the real reason in public, don’t tell me that out of the many people in Pakatan (or rather PKR), they unable to find a good candidate to replace Lee and had to resort to Anwar as the last resort? He is not local as far as Kajang is concerned. This simply reinforces the notion that Lee resigned just for Anwar to step in and for no other reason.

Pakatan have been making the same mistake from day 1 and it is getting tiresome for some of us. If you take a closer look at Pakatan, there are way too many people holding more than 1 seat – one at Federal level and another at State level, as if there is only so many people in Pakatan capable to run for these seats. This has to stop and Kajang would be a good place to reinforce this message to politicians in Pakatan.

Pakatan should gets its seasoned politicians to focus on national issues at Federal level whilst the young, aspiring (and very loyal) politicians should be given a chance to play their role and contribute at State level. This way, Pakatan can be assured that there will be a sense of continuity and quality when the old and seasoned politicians retires.

4

Even if we take Anwar as the next best candidate for Kajang (let’s just assume lah), can he take the dual responsibility of managing Permatang Pauh and Kajang at the same time even though it may not be the same thing (ya, one deals with Parliament, another deals with State Assembly)?

Anwar had said that he has no problem managing the 2 constituencies and he may be right in a way. After all, the real work on ground is not done by the busy elected politicians but rather by their paid minions. It is nothing new and is normal since elected politicians simply don’t have time for all the trivial issues and that is the point here with Anwar.

Anwar should be focusing more on the national issues and on keeping Pakatan in one piece. It is very likely that he will not have time for constituencies (minions are helpful but it is not the same thing as they are not elected by the people)

5

Organizing a by-election is not cheap. It is a sheer waste of taxpayers money and time. There is no reason why we need to waste another few millions just because someone had an itch at a place where the sun don’t shine. Not when we are seeing price of basic goods skyrocketing in recent months.

So why add more to the expenses by the taxpayers? There is also an issue of the people need to spend time from work & more crucial activities to assist on the campaign and to vote. Will they be compensated for the time wasted?

6

Calling for BN to stay away from the by-election to save taxpayers money is undemocratic and borders political bullying. Just because the State is ran by Pakatan and they think that they can win the seat with one eye closed, that does not mean they can ask others to buzz off. Just imagine if BN had made the same call, Pakatan head honchos would have rolled on the floor in protest. Besides, it was PKR who caused the by-election in the first place, so why they should profit from it without a sweat?

7

It sets a dangerous precedent of political parties to take the electoral to resolve their internal dirty politics. We once thought that the back door ambush of powers in Perak a few years ago was the lowest point anyone can hit with electoral but with this sudden vacant of the N25 seat for no good reason means the threshold need to be revised again. This is indeed dangerous and the people should not be dragged into the political party internal issues. Why can’t they just resolve this within themselves?

8

With Anwar coming on-board after the public spat between Azmin Ali & Khalid Ibrahim, it may spell the end of Khalid’s remarkable administration of the State. Yes, they may say now that Anwar will not be the next MB and stress to the voters that at the highest he will go is until EXCO level.

But that does not mean the situation will not change in the near future when the relationship between Khalid and Azmin gets worse? Or when Anwar turns around and say that Khalid had “agreed” to step down and he or Azmin now takes over the MB seat? That would be disastrous indeed, not when Khalid is much favored by the people of Selangor and PKR’s partners in Pakatan to helm the Mentri Besar office.

Pakatan has going to the town apologizing to people of Kajang for the by-election and had called for the voters to support Pakatan again. But then again, it is an election that should not have happened in the first place. I think Anwar & Pakatan under-estimated the public backlash when Lee announced his resignation without a good reason & Anwar jumping on aboard to run for the seat.

Coupled with the reasons mentioned above and as much as I prefer Pakatan to Barisan anytime anywhere, perhaps democracy is best served by showing Anwar & Pakatan the exit in Kajang. A point must be made that no one – whether from Barisan or Pakatan can take the voters for a ride and in the end turns around and show the middle finger.

(“Chinese Tsunami” – would it be Najib’s new “unity” motto for the next 5 years? Why call for national reconciliation when at the same whack one community for your failures at the polls? What else the Chinese want, you ask? How about an all out fight against corruption, fair treatment for all Malaysians and wastage of public funds & resources? Image source: http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com)

GE13 polling has officially ended but not the subsequent implications. It will take probably weeks and even months before things get settled down. Anwar have indicated that Pakatan will not accept the outcome of the elections until EC explains on some of the glaring irregularities – they just had a large public rally on this which in turned caused a massive traffic jam (Raja Petra however raised concern of something more sinister) and surely there will be legal suits flying around. And there are quite number of states and seats won on slim margin – so one needs to wonder if there will be another round of frogs jumping ships as what we saw back in 2008? And trouble is brewing in Selangor as to who will get the Menteri Besar seat – I just hope the PKR fellows do not screw things up big time – pro-BN bloggers already having a field day on this.

The Results

All in all, it is a good election for Pakatan Rakyat. Racial bigots of Ibrahim Ali and Zulkfli Noordin were promptly shown the exit by multi racial voters but rest assured they will be around to cause the usual trouble. Nurul Izzah won the closely contested Lembah Pantai seat and a big thanks to the extra vigilant supporters, had managed to ensure the fight was fair and square and won it accordingly. Dr M got a good slap when Lim Kit Siang won the Gelang Patah seat with a good majority of 14,000 plus votes – still remember this old-man asking people to bury Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah and then recklessly said that there will be racial confrontation if Lim wins? Thankfully the voters thought otherwise and handed Uncle Lim a good margin to win.

On a bigger scale, despite failing to capture Putrajaya (which many of us were hoping for), Pakatan improved their number of seats in both parliamentary and state level. They kept Penang and Selangor with a higher majority and came close to regaining Perak and Terengganu. The popular votes also went to Pakatan – with 51% of the votes going to them (BN got 47% of the votes). The Kedah was a different story altogether – the votes in Kedah shifted to BN in a big way not because BN was better than Pakatan but rather it was because PAS screwed things up after they won it in 2008. Still remember them going over the board with their extreme Islamic way of governance even on non Muslims? We would have been dumb to still think that PAS would be able to keep Kedah. Its fall was predicted from day 1 and it did. Terengganu was a 50-50 thing.

However the biggest disappointment that Perak did not go to Pakatan – especially after they were robbed of the state by 3 frogs that jumped to BN last time around. Was it because Perakians had forgotten about this incident? Or it was rigged in a way that BN were meant to win – after all it was a very close fight with BN’s 31 seats against Pakatan’s 28 seats. Some of the stories reported do raise some red flags:-

“At that point the results for the Perak state seats were 29 for BN and 28 for Pakatan. I insisted on the recount because the results from these two seats would be the deciding factor in the formation of the next Perak government. “When I insisted that these documents be produced before the announcement of the results, the returning officer instructed the police to push my polling agents and me out of the hall.”

At this juncture, Vasantha Kumar said, “Saravanan threw a chair at me while I was being pushed out.” “I was shocked when the police manhandled me, pushing me 50m out of the centre, while Saravanan and his assistant tried to attack me. However, the police stopped them.” Vasantha Kumar claimed that he and his counting agents were pushed out by the police all the way to the main road outside the hall.

It was also disappointing to note that a number of spilt votes screwed up some of the seats for Pakatan. Independents (all whom been wiped out for good reasons) screwed up the chance for Pakatan in Cameron Highlands big time – MIC’s G Palanivel got more votes against him and yet he won with slim margin, no thanks to almost 1,200 votes going to independents. The Pakatan’s screw up in Kota Damansara and Semenyih however is not excusable. Two good state seats were lost because of the stupid in-fighting within Pakatan for the same seats. Thankfully Pakatan had garnered enough seats to form the State Government otherwise Pakatan fellows would have kicked themselves for the major screw-up.

Hopefully this would be the last time Pakatan make a fool of themselves and have overlapping claim for the same seat. Every win counts (especially in situation like in Perak now) and the last thing they need to give away the seat on a platter with split votes. That would be really dumb.

(Still remember the various promises before the election? Come on lah, Malaysians are not stupid – if the Government had wanted to, as a responsible government, they could have carried up the various promises way before the election. Instead it was back to the usual “you help me, I help you” nonsense from Najib’s administration. A clear breach of election laws but one that EC did nothing to curtail or punish the offenders. Image source: theSun)

Interestingly despite the claims of the success of NKRA especially in area of crime fighting, BRIM 1.0 & 2.0 give-outs, lavish dinners & live concerts (including one by Psy) and over the board “be grateful” propagandas, “you help me, I help you” rallies and advertisements in the media, Najib still fared worst than the sleepy Pak Lah by winning less parliamentary (and state) seats compared to 2008. Although some of these pre-election money, gifts and promises had influenced some of the voters to vote for BN especially in the rural areas and helped them to starve off the Pakatan onslaught for Putrajaya, a majority of them (especially in Penang and Selangor) did not buy them in exchange for their votes:-

No one asked you to give free dinners, RM500, lucky draw, etc. You syok sendiri. The Chinese did not cheat you. But I must congratulate the Penangites. They had two weeks of free food (no need to cook), a lot of free entertainment, money, and 2 weeks later, they get a good government in place! You have got the best of both world!

He also failed to wrestle back Selangor despite leading the BN’s well oiled election machinery and with defeat of some of the BN Chairman in other states which included Malacca, Penang and Johore, the Fat Momma’s expensive overseas trip in coming months may be short lived. And the consequences would have been worse for him in the coming months if the allegations of phantom voters and other irregularities are proven to be true.

The Chinese Tsunami?

Najib after been declared as the winner as far as BN and the federal government is concerned started on the wrong footing by blaming the defeat wholly on the Chinese and then half sincerely turns around and calls for national reconciliation (it seems nothing changed for BN and nothing will in the future). It did not take long for UMNO-run Utusan Malaysia and Dr M to rub it in and provide the fuel to the fire:-

Mahathir repeated his stance that the DAP’s campaign was to make the Chinese community hate the Malay community. “I have said this several times in my campaign, even in Johor. Lim Kit Siang brought about the concept of Malaysian Malaysia, with the intention of making the Chinese hate the Malays,” he said. “As a result, many Chinese rejected the Malay hand of friendship.”

At the end of the day, it has nothing to do with the Chinese, Malay or even the Indian tsunami. Yes the number of Chinese turning up and voting for Pakatan was higher than before. Are you going to blame them for that? Where it says that the Chinese (or any Malaysians for argument sake) have to vote for BN only? What a bunch of sore losers! It’s a fact that Pakatan could not have gained more votes using Chinese votes alone.

Meanwhile, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng lambasted the move to turn the Chinese as “scapegoats” and shape the election results as a “Chinese-versus-Malay” vote. “Many analysts have disputed this as a gross distortion of data, as this was more a urban-rural divide between Pakatan Rakyat and BN,” Lim said in a statement today. “How can this be a Chinese tsunami in states like Terengganu when PAS won 15 state seats as compared to Umno’s 17, when more than 95 percent of Terengganu voters are Malays?”

And the same was reflected by PAS:-

PAS has expressed gratitude to Chinese voters who backed Malay Pakatan Rakyat candidates in the recently concluded general election, even if it meant having to vote against a fellow Chinese. PAS information chief Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said the action of these voters proved the claim by Umno that the Chinese had rejected the Malays to be slander.

“There are tens of Parliament and state assembly seats that were contested by Malay candidates against candidates from the Tiong Hua (Chinese), in mixed constituencies, which were won by the Malays, proving that Chinese voters were willing to reject candidates of their own race,” Tuan Ibrahim said in a statement today.

(Pakatan had won the popular votes but was it due to an overwhelming swing by the Chinese Malaysians or was it due to Malaysians from all races in the country who just fed up on the blatant corruption, wastage and unfair treatment? Image source: Malaysiakini)

Well, to those who keeping harping on the Chinese tsunami and how the Malays will be left out in the country, it is not about the race, and here’s why. It’s a fact that Najib did miserably when it comes to fighting corruption and national unity.

He did nothing on instances of sheer corruption just because those implicated were from his own political party and he needed them for his own political survival. It took two independent journalists to break the story on PKFZ, a young politician from Pakatan to prove the abuse of taxpayers money dubbed “The Cowgate” (Najib even did not have the balls to sack the Minister) and some foreigners going undercover to show that there indeed a shadow state in the country. Despite the urgency and the need for an independent and robust corruption busting agency, Najib did nothing to strengthen the MACC – it remained lame duck. He promised to do something about it but that promise came with a condition that BN must win the election. Now he had won, will Najib keep up his promise?

On the national unity, it seemed a joke for Najib to call for national reconciliation. By blaming the Chinese for his own losses, he had started his administration by pitting the Chinese against the Malays. The king-makers Indians who were the darling of politicians before the election are now nowhere to be seen. Tough luck for Hindraf and their MOU with Najib – let’s see how sincere Najib will be now that he blaming it on the Chinese. He started the notion of 1Malaysia which seemed to be a good thing as we head towards the year 2020 but did nothing to curtail racial statements from his own party controlled mainstream medias and the UMNO friendly Perkasa extremists who even at one point threatened to burn Bibles. Where was the tough action back then? Najib justify the remarks in Utusan by saying that the Chinese media does the same. Once again, where the tough action against the Chinese papers if they been doing the same?

Is this how a Prime Minister of a multi-racial country speaks when it comes to curtailing racial incitements?

So What’s Next?

At end of the day, there must be a proper closure – both to the acceptance on the outcome of the GE13 and incorrect blame of the losses on the fellow Malaysian Chinese.

Yes we must protest against unfair election process and bring forward any irregularities to be rectified but then again, we should go on with our life – after all, there is a government to be run here. It is almost sure every political party (in addition to the various blogs, political analyst, media, etc) out there would be making their own assessment on the outcome of the elections, see where they have made mistakes and how they can improve on it for the greater benefit of the people and country (not for themselves and the political party).

Pakatan must improve their standing in the next general elections if we want to see a real change at federal level and hence improvement in competency, accountability and transparency. Unlike some politicians from the other side, Pakatan politicians need to ensure that their service centre are still operating and still providing the best service especially in areas where they had lost. Losing does not mean doing nothing and blaming others. Losing means an opportunity to improve on their standard of service and engage the people on the real issues facing them. The sooner the politicians do this, the sooner the country can get back on its feet.

(It does not matter if they are from BN or from PR – whoever is corrupted to the core, wasteful and lives on the culture of fear and unreasonableness should not be rewarded but instead to be shown the exit from public office. Image source: Lim Kit Siang)

Despite the well known tragedy of William Yau, we still have dumb-ass buffaloes masquerading as parents and putting their innocent young children at great danger.

Please read this first:-

A mother watched in horror as a stranger got into the family car and drove off with her six-year-old daughter sleeping in the back seat, near here. She and her husband had earlier got out of the car, leaving the engine still running, to fetch their younger daughter at a daycare centre at Taman Kosas in Ampang at around 11.30pm on Saturday.

The stolen car and the young girl were found abandoned hours later at a restaurant in Setapak, about 10km away. The girl was unhurt.

After a numerous incidents of missing children, all hell broke loose with the disappearance of the young William Yau who later was found dead. No one knows how he died. No amount of regrets and apologies by his parents can ever bring him back. And after this tragic incident that shook the whole nation, we had expected parents to be extra careful with their children. These 2 buffaloes however proved all of us dead wrong. All the necessary recipe for another tragedy were all there:-

Both parents out of the car – they must be one heck of dumb ass to have 2 of them to fetch one young kid and why so late at 11.30 pm on a Saturday night (The parents were out busy partying?)

This could have easily turned to tragic by the seconds. What happens if the carjacker had decided to kidnap the girl and sold her to child trafficking syndicate? Or decided to kill the kid off as how it happened in China? It is sad that some idiots never learn from other’s mistakes and if things goes dreadfully wrong; they ought to be held up for gross criminal negligence and their kids taken away for their own safety. The nation cannot afford to have another William Yau tragedy.

Ok, let’s leave that for a moment – I just wanted to get that out in the open and hope all parents out there will be more careful on the aspect of safety of their kids. Don’t be like the above 2 dumb buffaloes who almost lost their kid to a stranger.

General elections are around the corner – there has been an increased obsession with Anwar’s so-called videos tying him on unnatural relationships with girls and boys. Before this, other than Sodomy 2, they had nothing much to gain on to paint the oppositions in bad light other than the loose alliance between DAP-PKR-PAS (you just need one clown to be unhappy and make statements on the mainstream media and immediately the rest of them jumps to a conclusion that Pakatan Rakyat is breaking away, unstable and will be a great danger to stability of the country if they were voted in). Now they are back on the alleged Anwar’s interest in another’s butt – with new videos and indirect assumptions (even the lovely Nurul Izzah was not spared). More is expected, of course.

But then if sex is the only overriding criteria to kick unworthy politicians from running for office in the coming elections, then what about this, this, this and this? Didn’t we were able to move over this rather sensitive issue and looked at politicians (so we think) who can get the job done in the past? If BN insists on this issue, then shouldn’t the same politicians (who now hold prominent positions) implicated in the past, should not be left to run for or hold any position to this date?

On a state level, they had tried hard with the water issue in Selangor but it did not really work there, not after it was proven that the cause of the water problem was due to maintenance and not lack of treated water (earlier they were so bent on the lack of raw water in the state which in the end was proven to be untrue) and after the Selangor Government made the offer to buy off the water concessions & their debts. And now the attack has focused against the proposed underground tunnel in Penang (read the Open Letter from Lim Guan Eng here and CAP’s reply here who seems to be whacking BN more than PR). Don’t tell me that no one in the world had done a similar underground tunnel but got screwed left, right and centre? Then what about the SMART tunnel?

That’s fine – we had already expected that the events leading to the general elections will be as tense as possible. And blaming each other on problems, mismanagement and abuse is nothing new of course – Pakatan fellows are doing the same, fair and square. At the end of the day, what is more important is not whether the leaders are involved in some abnormal relationships but rather whether they are smart, unbiased, not corrupted & hard-working enough to bring this country up to developed & corruption-free country status.

But then on the other side of the spectrum, just make sure that you are not losing sight of other main issues in the midst of general election campaigns, propagandas and stories in the mainstream media – there has been only silence on the rather uncontrolled and mismanagement of public funds in form of BRIM (1.0 & 2.0 & more coming up soon), pay increases to civil servants and one-off gifts such as this:-

Putrajaya awarded 1,000 individual permits to taxi drivers today and promised more soon with Datuk Seri Najib Razak saying it was proof that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government fulfills its promises. The announcement comes as part of the administration’s move to ward off potential voter backlash from some 80,000 registered taxi drivers nationwide, who have been angered by delayed reforms in the industry.

“What did I promise? I had promised individual permits to taxi drivers. Even though there are many companies that gave jobs to you, some had exploited tantamount to a slavery system of the past. “Ini satu lagi janji ditepati kerajaan (This is one more of the promises fulfilled by the government),” Najib told some 5,000 taxi drivers at the permit distribution event held at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre here.

They must have been paid good money for the taxi-drivers to show up for the event. After all these years of ignoring the taxi-drivers’ pleas for individual permits, there is no secret why Najib decides to give them now not without a catch to this deal of course – it is only available for a specific Proton model which may not be cost effective to some struggling taxi drivers and apparently 1,000 permits given away is actually owned by taxi companies, which are “giving up them as part of their corporate social responsibility”.

One has to wonder how much of arm twisting and carrots were dangled for these taxi companies to “give up” the profitable permits. Or perhaps 1.000 taxi permits were nothing but chicken feed to this people – so giving up would not be nothing big. In the end the problem is still there but apparently the long term solution will only come in if the taxi drivers are “grateful” to the government:-

Najib made this clear when he said today the decision to award the direct licences reflected the ruling coalition’s seriousness in safeguarding the welfare of taxi drivers.

“Let’s create this bai’ah (co-operation) among us. We can give more licences apart from this one. You have to bai’ah with the government. “Do not forget the government’s goodwill,” he said.

Another case of you scratch my back, I will scratch yours?

If you have missed reading in between the lines, whatever money being dished out by Najib to keep the voters happy (and ask them to be grateful) actually comes from tax-payers. It is a matter of taking out from the right pocket and putting it in the left pocket. So why should we be grateful? Does this is part and parcel of the Government’s job to collect taxes and distribute accordingly?

To keep throwing money just because the election is around the corner does not really help the country in the long run and asking the people to be grateful for the money they received is nothing but a salt rub on a wound with a smile. But other than the opposition, no one else seemed to be bothered to ask the Government on how they managing the sudden influx of money and where it is being scrapped from? The question that everyone should be asking is whether Malaysia is really flushing with money?

Yes, everyone’s agrees that Taib is not in the video (one that the pro-BN blogs is arguing to compare to Anwar’s so-called sex videos). Then again, those who were videoed and admitted to acts of corruption, tax-evasion and crony-ism are not ordinary people. They are not the road side char keow teow seller or the man in sarong manning the small mamak stall. They are tightly tied to Taib and the circles of power and business magnates in Sarawak. Two of them are even well-known lawyers. And their admission of wrongdoing on camera should have been more than enough to slam them with criminal charges. So much so Taib need not be in the video to be implicated with serious accusations.

But then it seems like no one seemed to be interested on this case – not the PM (he is too busy giving away gifts to voters and pacifying the security forces in Sabah with pay rise and motivation talks). In times of general elections, understandably he may not want to mess up his “fixed deposit” in Sarawak. But he loses even more by keeping silent and passing the buck to the MACC. By now, everyone knows how MACC have limited powers and how they have operated in the past and many does not have confidence that MACC will get to the bottom of things.

MACC todate have only mentioned that they are “looking” into it and will “act accordingly” (of course, it does not strike anyone as being serious, not when there has been earlier reports and nothing had happened). But not all is lost – at least the Advocates Association of Sarawak (AAS) will be referring the two Sarawak lawyers implicated in the video to the Advocates Inquiry Committee, an independent disciplinary body separate from the AAS, to conduct its inquiry into possible instances of professional misconduct under laws and regulations governing the legal profession in Sarawak. But then again, it is a matter of going after the small fish whilst the bigger predators are still free to suck dry the wealth of the country.

There has been just plain denial from the Chief Minister implicated in the said video and any damage control from pro-BN sites came in this form:-

But was it really a sting operation? Could it be a well crafted conspiracy against Taib by his own kin who have the coveted Chief Minister’s seat at sight? I’m sure those who know what happened during Ming Court 1987 won’t be surprised with Norlia & Fatimah’s latest tune, would they?

A source has revealed to The Mole that Global Witness, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) responsible for the recent video that allegedly incriminates Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud in questionable land deals, has received funding from an organisation founded by currency speculator George Soros.

Ok fine, but why Taib have not sued those who implicated him in the video for criminal defamation? Why he has not called for a press conference and had set the records right on the accusations. Why the denial in the passing? After all, the accusations and admissions on video are very serious in nature where in some countries like China, if they are found guilty, faces the firing squad! If there is a so-called conspiracy against him, what more a better way to put away the competition / conspirators with defamation law suits and injunctions and help Najib with good PR along the way?

After all anyone can deny wrongdoing – it is a matter of one man’s say against another (yes, even if you are a Chief Minister) but if there is hard evidence that suggest otherwise, a mere denial is simply not enough. Those pro-BN sites should know better – they been whacking Anwar the same despite the numerous denials and multi-million ringgit lawsuits by Anwar. And they have always insisted that even very blurry video evidence is the hard proof of wrong-doing. The same should apply to Taib even though he is not in the video. And who really cares who funds Global Witness, what is more important is what was investigated and brought to the attention of common public – something that will never see the light of the day in BN funded media.

At end of the day, it does not matter if one supports BN or PR but if there is serious wrong-doings and whoever stands for public office is immoral, wasteful, corrupt, lazy, biased, and fully against a united Malaysia, they do not need our support and certainly our precious votes. They should be made answerable for all the things that they have done. So keep on top of the fairy tales, grandfather stories, grand fiction that are flying from both camps (trust me it will get a lot more worse and weird as we near the voting date) and vote wisely.

(Still remember this ‘enemy of the state’ from Australia. Thanks to the armed intruders in Lahad Datu, Malaysian Government is made a laughing stock when they immediately arrested and deported this ‘enemy of the state’ at the entry point but missed the 200 odd intruders from Sulu and gave 23 days of grace for these intruders to claim a part of Malaysia)

Read these first:-

PKR vice-president Chua Tian Chang has been charged with sedition in a Sessions Court here for making statements linking the Government to the Lahad Datu shootings.

He was charged with making the statements claiming the shootings in Lahad Datu was a planned conspiracy by Umno to divert attention and frighten the people. He also said it was a “drama” by the Government to scare the people and divert their attention in Sabah, particularly away from the RCI into the state’s immigrants issue.

Tian Chua said from the dock: “This is a political allegation. I will answer this defamation to clear my name”.

In the last stretch before GE13, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad dropped all pretense for a Bangsa Malaysia and has gone for the Malay vote and slammed the Opposition for listening and accommodating the views and needs of the non-Malays.

State news agency Bernama quoted the country’s longest-serving prime minister as saying that Selangor must be saved from the opposition to ensure the rights and position of the Malays and Bumiputras are maintained in the state.

Dr Mahathir said the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) had taken over Selangor’s economy and now had great ambition to control politics in the state.

Police have busted a Nigerian drug trafficking syndicate, using women’s shoes, to ship drugs. The ‘unique’ modus operandi is the first of its kind, catering to customers overseas but the packing of the drugs is done in Gombak, said Selangor Narcotics chief Asst Comm Nordin Kadir on Thursday.

Three Nigerian men, who are students of private colleges were detained on Tuesday, along with the seizure of more than RM380,000 worth of heroin. The syndicate has been active for six months, gaining entry to the country using student passes.

The intrusion in Sabah in one way or another have forced us to relook into how we enforce the security of our national borders and how things have been taken for granted when it comes to foreigners in the country. It is a good thing. We cannot to keep things at status quo if we do not want another armed intrusion at our borders and our security forces suffering unnecessary causalities.

In that sense, let’s look at Tian Chua’s case. He questioned the Government’s inaction against the armed intruders and may have said 1-2 things more about this but it did not take long for a number of police reports to be made against him – some claiming that he belittled the integrity of the armed forces dealing with the intrusion in Sabah. But then again, did he intend to do so? In the initial massive confusion of the whole intrusion, I believe Tian Chua was not alone in questioning the passive action by the Government in dealing with the armed intruder for 23 days before the first shot was fired.

So much so, Mariam Mokhtar writes:-

The rakyat has every right to question our leaders for spending billions of ringgit on armaments, which appear to be overpriced and ineffective. We certainly must question our leaders when it appears that the purchase price includes a heavy commission. A sum of RM1 billion was allegedly paid to the Defence Minister who purchased the Scorpene submarines.

We have a right to criticise our leaders for neglecting the Suluk threat and waiting 23 days before taking action. We condemn our leaders for depriving us of news when family and friends live and work in the area. We condemn Najib’s tactic of locking up opposition politicians who ask questions on our behalf. When we criticise the failure of our leaders to handle the Suluk threat, we are not questioning the bravery of the security forces. A prime minister who resorts to silencing the rakyat with lies and obfuscation, does not deserve our vote.

Can you imagine if armed men had rushed into the Petronas Twin Towers, held no hostages and claim that the building belongs to them? Would they be allowed 23 days to evacuate the building? At the most, they would have given a couple of hours before they would have been flushed out one way or another by the police commandos. Same case in Lahad Datu and given the sensitivity of the place, a longer extension of 1-2 days may have been given but certainly not up to 23 days and after final deadlines went unheeded. If you want to find faults with politicians like Tian Chua, he probably is guilty in picking the wrong choice of words and the wrong expression in addressing this concern but certainly not guilty of questioning the integrity of our armed forces. However since he has been charged in the courts, let’s wait for the trial for the final outcome.

And then we have aged politicians like Dr M who claim that a rule under the oppositions means eradication of the rights and privileges of the Malays. Apparently the state of Selangor is in “great danger” due to the accessions to the Non-Malays and must be saved at all cost. This is despite the fact that both the Malays and Non-Malays are Malaysians at the end of the day and the rights and privileges of the Malays are entrenched in the constitution. At this point, one need to wonder what this is so different with the Sulu bandits in Sabah threatening the security of the country? Why there are no barrage of police reports made then? After all, such irresponsible statements (despite coming from a retired old man) are grossly untrue and can cause unnecessary animosity between the various races in the country. Doesn’t a threat to national unity is a threat to the national security? Doesn’t this borders the same Sedition Act that Tian Chua is facing now?

We can understand and tolerate to an extent, the dirty politics and personal attacks on certain individuals or political parties – we had already expected it, from the various instances of Pakatan claiming that BN is corrupt and wasteful with tax-payers money and BN claiming undesirable needs of an Opposition Leader and some opposition politics corrupt as well. If there is proof, we highly welcome it – it will allow us to make an informed decision on who to vote for in the coming general elections. But causing hatred on the basis of Malays are loosing out to the Non-Malays just because BN is not ruling the State should not be tolerated and entertained at all. It should not be allowed to continue as well. Dr M may have done things in the past that gained some respect from Malaysians but at this point of time, he is nowhere at that level. Not when he continues to make statements that only causes disunity between Malaysians.

And whilst we seem to have defined the threat to national security in the wrong way in the past, we seem to be heading at the right direction by looking at the existence of 800,000 Filipinos in Sabah and re-looking at the tightening of the border security. It is a good start but we still have foreigners in this country and some of them determined to be a menace and threatens the good name and the security of the country. We still have Nigerians “students” caught for drug related crimes on a regular basis when we have seen and experienced the same in the past. So why we are still allowing student visas for these Nigerians and how well we did the background check and verifications before we granted them access into this country? We have South Americans doing ATM robbery jobs (I don’t think they have been caught) and Iranians, Indians, Pakistanis and others caught for drug related crimes.

We have a sizeable number of foreigners in this country and we need them for the growth of the nation. We appreciate their hard work, investment and participation but at the same time, the Government should be very mindful on who comes in and out of the country. The Lahad Datu armed intrusion could just be a rare incident and we may not see any further escalation once the on-going clean-up by our security forces ends but then again, it also happened because we took things for granted and swept the issue of foreigners in Sabah under the carpet for far too long. Malaysia is a peaceful country but we should not sit on our laurels – we need to be mindful on who are the real enemy of the state.

(The overloaded book cabinet that is long due to get a “partner” – the sign was obvious when we started to see books all over the place. And we have targeted this year to get one and reorganise the area into a mini-library )

Happy New Year to all and welcome! So, what’s I am expecting in 2013?

We will have the big Boss’ 1st year birthday to celebrate this year and compared to the one we did for our son (the other Boss) many years ago (although we made it up for his 2nd birthday), we were thinking of doing it on a larger scale with friends and family and probably save the trouble of cooking for all by just engaging a proper caterer. The problem is to find the right place to have this celebrations – doing it in the house is the obvious option for now but it may not be enough to accommodate all if we are going to “formally” do this one (parking would be chaos too). And if we are going to do one for new Big Boss, we also need to do a similar one for the other big Boss, just to be fair (we might combine the two celebrations to cut cost & time and make it a lot easier for guests too). Anyway we still have a couple of months to decide and plan for this birthday bash – we just need to pull our resources to finalise them. I am sure we will get plenty of suggestions. And we can’t wait to share the new Boss’ experience of growing up in the same manner we had with our son (we still do and we are loving every moment of it).

My son has moved up into the “first class” this year and we are all well aware of the intense competition and high expectations (from the teachers) in that class for the top places. We are also well aware of the fact that if he did not do well this year, he will be moved out from the “first class” to other “lower class” next year. Actually we are not very concern with this “first class” – “lower class” issue. Education can come in all forms and manners and the status of class means nothing to any students who are hard-working, all rounders and well understands the subject matters. And we are more than happy if son gets good marks (to go to college) and the education that will be useful in his future. And we know that he can keep up with his friends in the same class if he wants to if he spends more on school books than on his comic books & games. So this year, a small change of strategy needed in making sure he spends more time on his writing, school books and homework and us spending more time to check on his school work and tutor him if we find any weaknesses.

For this year, we are also intending to add another book cabinet before end of the year and turn the small family area upstairs into a mini library (we already calling the existing book cabinet “the library” but it would be better if we can get the books more organised). My son has been stacking up more books in his room and because we don’t have enough space in our current book cabinet, it is taking up precious space at his cabinet where he is also keeping his school books. And it has come to a stage where we are now stacking up books in 2 rows and on top of each other in the book cabinet. So another book cabinet is a must before we have the 2013 Big Bad Wolf Book sales starts at end of the year (another event to look out for in 2013), otherwise my wife is going to see more books lying all over the place and I know how much she hates me making the house “dirty”. Creation of a mini library would also mean that we need to rearrange the prayer altar for the book cabinets & maybe a couple of soft sofas and work on better lighting to make the reading more pleasurable (to make it an ideal corner for reading).

(2012 may been the Mayan’s end of the calendar year which thankfully did not happen but hopefully this 2013 would be prepper’s year to be one notch better than last year. Picking up from the news report on last year’s doomsday excitement, it should not be the end of prepping and getting ready for disasters in the future)

2013 would also be my target year to be a complete prepper where I hoped that we will be self-sustaining on food, water and others (maybe with improvements on security as well) for at least couple of months. Think about it – we barely into 2013 and we already facing a serious disruption of water supply – a basic need for all living things and despite it has been raining cats & dogs for some of the days, there seems to be plenty of finger-pointing as to who to take the blame (in this case, the contention that Syabas should take the complete blame for poor maintenance of the pumps makes a lot of sense). I have a colleague who did not have running water in his housing area for the last 2 weeks and he has 2 school-going children to take care and things are not getting any better even now (the latest news reports states that this situation is going to last way in February – imagine the havoc on Chinese New Year celebrations and then we had warnings of typhoon Sonamu hitting the East Coast states with a possible spill-over to West Coast (so, another round of flash floods?). Anyone recall when was the last time we had major warning on the some tropical storms hitting our shores? And I am not talking about the yearly “musim tengkujuh” warning. Is it going to be sign of things to come? Would prepping be part and parcel of our normal routine in the coming months? With a constant threat of water disruption (and now the weather), perhaps we should start with prepping of water for a longer time period and that is what I am targeting for this year.

Oh yes, we will likely to see the general elections to be held this year and it will be interesting to see on whether Pakatan can still to hold on to the states of Selangor and Penang which BN lost back in 2008. After all, they have been pretty “busy” for the past years since 2008 campaigning Pakatan as a bad choice for Selangor instead working themselves to be better choice for the people. It will also be interesting to see whether BN can regain the lost two-third in the Parliament (a place where they have been kept on their toe by the increased and well coordinated oppositions). However the fact that the Selangor State Government resisted the implementation of AES in the state (with dumb politicians failing to see the bigger picture) is more than enough for me to turn to the dark side and vote for BN. The Pakatan fellows may have their merits in resisting the AES implementation but the longer they resist without a solution in sight meant lawlessness on Malaysian roads will continue with dire results. Whatever it is, we need to be prepared for face dirty politics as part of our daily life until and perhaps after the dust had settled after the general election (we saw the same thing in 2008 – remember the Perak fiasco? I hope you still remember it – it was a case of law of the jungle at the highest order).

One thing is certain at this point of time in 2013 – we will not be a developed country by 2020, not in the next short 7 years that we have (there are too many things to be undone and done and I don’t see the political will-power to take drastic actions), not when we don’t have broad minded politicians who can see the bigger picture (some still living in the Stone Age and insist on others to follow them too), not when we are still lack in areas of enforcement & management of resources and certainly not when we continue to segregate the people by race and religion (unless something drastic happens in this year). The ex-PM, Tun Dr M can go to his grave knowing that his vision 2020 remained as a vision and nothing more.

Counting down into the 8th year of blogging, it has been one a good way for me to relieve stress and provide a good mental exercise (another has been reading a good book). And speaking of stress, 2013 seems to be a good year to relook into the topic of health and well-being. It is something I started at the end of last year – eating less outside and bringing food from home. Since the birth of the baby and until the time is right for my wife to go back to work, (since she had to wake up in morning to make milk for the baby) she decided to prepare food for my daily lunch. Nothing special or difficult – last night leftovers and something simple & hot in the morning and with less oil, salt and carbohydrate and more protein. Money saved from daily lunch (and breakfast) is re-used to buy fresh vegetables and fish (which is not getting cheaper by the way), so in a way I am getting a bigger boost for health from the same amount of money. It is not about me going for dieting (it will not work) but rather eating more balanced, healthy food, something that sometimes is difficult to get in your local mamak stall. The other aspect of getting healthy is exercise and that is something I have not really planned on anything specific other than take up more time to play badminton with my son in the evening on weekends and do more housework (cleaning & painting the house).