Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

If the PM had only thrown away caution, not chances...

I quite agree with this analysis from the Malaysian Insider. Too bad Pak Lah's days are numbered if what I've read from some UMNO insider blogs are true. Don't think there is much he could do now. He'll probably be remembered as a very weak leader. I think most people will not blame or associate him to all the controversies during his premiership as he is merely seen as a pawn to all the warlords within his own party. His credibility has also been largely undermined by Tun Mahathir, who seem to be part of UMNO's many controversies and internal fighting since Tunku's days.

If the PM had only thrown away caution, not chances...

SEPT 20 — A couple of days after the March 8 general elections, a calm Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi sat down with some supporters and his inner circle in Sri Perdana to survey the new political landscape and weigh the prime minister’s options going forward.

Those familiar with the meeting recalled that a confetti of ideas were tossed around on how to regain the initiative from the Anwar Ibrahim-led opposition and to hold off Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and other critics within Umno baying for Abdullah’s blood.

One idea got some traction – the notion that Abdullah had to throw caution to the wind and reform the various institutions in the country.

He had to care less of what his party thought and focus solely on what Malaysians wanted. If he followed this strategy, he would be so popular with Malaysians that his party will not dare to move against him.

Even the downside was attractive – the idea that he would be remembered as a Malaysian Mikhail Gorbachev who lost his power and position doing the right thing.

That seems like sound advice which Abdullah should have followed.

Instead, after appointing Datuk Zaid Ibrahim as the de facto law minister and making some loud noises about reforms, he retreated to his usual patch, worried that he was upsetting the Umno warlords.

Every decision seemed to hang on this outcome – how would Umno react? If there was a remote chance that the party would object to a policy or decision, he postponed making it.

That is why the Judicial Appointment Commission and the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission are waiting to be rescued from limbo.

Ironically, today he is paying the price for being subservient to his party. They have their knives out for him, wanting him to step down as party president much earlier that the mid-2010 transition deadline.

And here is a double dose of irony: Their big beef with Abdullah is that he has not done much since Election 2008.

There is no cavalry of non-party members rushing to put up a human shield around him and protect him from the charge of the Umno rank-and-file.

They believe that he has been given several chances to make good his promise of changing Malaysia, and has not been able to deliver.

Worse yet, they believe that because of his unwillingness to upset Umno warlords, party officials have become more arrogant and insensitive to the feelings of non-Malays, and Malaysia has become a less inclusive country.

That is why Datuk Ahmad Ismail was recalcitrant about his description of Malaysian Chinese as immigrants and squatters.

That is why the late Datuk Zakaria Deros was willing to break every law in the book to build a huge mansion in Klang.

That is why Datuk Seri Khir Toyo was unrepentant about ordering the demolition of a Hindu temple in Selangor a week before Deepavali last year.

So today, Abdullah finds himself in an odd situation: weak inside and outside his party.

And yet it could have been so different if he had followed the strategy of throwing caution to the wind and trying to outflank his party.

In theory at least, his popularity among Malaysians would have been so strong that it would not have been easy for the likes of Dr Mahathir and Tan Sri Muhyddin Yassin to whip up hatred for him among the party rank and file.

In theory at least, he would have been remembered as a great Malaysian who put the principles of multi-racialism, justice, fairness and integrity above everything else.

But for that strategy of outflanking the party to have succeeded, the PM would have had to become a risk taker overnight, someone not afraid of going against convention and the herd.

Perhaps that was asking too much of a man who had become a prisoner to what his party thought.

Little Gordon

Came across these...

Gordon Ramsey's clips as a kid, full of the usual F-word.

Nah... Actually these are 3 advertisements clips with a young boy imitating Gordon. Very good imitation indeed. Apparently Gordon's son got upset after seeing these clips, thinking that his dad had been so rude to his granny as a little boy. Trying to imagine Gordon explaining it to his son. "Looks like me, sounds like me, but it's not me." Even he was convinced that the little boy's imitation of him is jolly good.

Having said that, I'm against profanity.

Please do not watch the clips if you will feel offended. Recommended to 18 and above only. Hmm... but the actor is a little boy!

Alternative video links could be found at http://www.littlegordon.com

ExitReality

The latest buzz on the Internet - ExitReality allows you to explore the World Wide Web in 3D, but with a lot of pain...

The plus points

It allows you to browse the World Wide Web in 3D, something like browsing the Internet in Sim City. You can see the avatars of your friends in your own customisable virtual world. Websites will be shown in a different manner, e.g. Flickr becomes some sort of gallery, Youtube is shown as a cinema. Visually it's more interesting than the 2D browsing currently.

The bad points

Even with 2GB worth of RAM on board and a 20Mbps connection, the 3D virtual world is slow to load, even with only one tab, not to mention doing multiple tab browsing. It also caused my browsers to crash (both Firefox 3 and IE7). Despite having some visual advantage, browsing becomes a painfully slow process. I may be wrong on this, but ExitReality also makes IE it's default browser. Whenever I try to exit to 2D on Firefox, it launches IE instead. I've verified that the default browser on my PC is Firefox.

It's touted as the future of the web. But before we have more RAM and bandwidth, I don't see it going anywhere.

Bail outs

The US government, being the leader of the market capitalism ideology has done the unthinkable in the last few months - bailing out big private companies. The ideology that has been used to demonised socialism is now seen as a fraud by some. When it comes to big capital, losses are absorbed by the public while profits remained private.

Despite the US government agreeing to provide a $85bn loan facility to AIG in return of 80% of its equity, a number of key Republican politicians have voiced out their disapproval over such action. In their opinion, the Congress should at least be consulted and taxpayers monies should not be used to fund failing corporate giants that put greed before responsibility. They are strongly against using tax payers dollars to bail out private companies and are furious that the US government is sending out inconsistent messages by refusing to save Lehman Brothers. They also question the discretion of which companies get rescued and which ones not.

However, those who worked out the AIG rescue package have defended their position, stating that "AIG is too big to fail" and that failure of AIG will have too serious an impact on America's financial system. Furthermore, they argued that AIG has quality assets as most of their subsidiaries are profitable and desirable. If AIG was allowed to file for Chapter 11, these profitable units within AIG would have been sold at a far lower value in the fire sale. The loan would allow AIG time to sell of some of its business units at more reasonable prices. They argued that the tax payers will benefit from the profits generated by AIG eventually.

Many signs are pointing to the failing of American capitalism and profit system. Very soon the credit-worthiness of US Treasury Bonds may come into question.

From the Wall Street Journal: Some investors are even betting they may profit from weighing the unthinkable question: "Could the US government default?"

Too much greed is bad.

Kickdefella Arrested

Sheih aka Kickdefella was arrested by police most likely because he started an online campaign to turn the Jalur Gemilang upside down as a sign that Malaysia is distress. While I don't see the benefit of doing this (upside down flag), I certainly think the police (and whoever is behind them) is over-reacting.

Having said that, I'm sure many would agree that Malaysia is indeed in distress with all the political uncertainties, high inflation, slowing economy and the police's judgement getting worse day by day. How long can we cope with the weak leadership? Titanic is going to sink no matter how you rearrange the furniture.

I hope Sheih and others who have been irrationally detained under ISA will be released soon. We need more justice in Malaysia.

Bleak Outlook in World Financial Markets

Latest: Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy - 5 hours after I started this post. At the same time, an equally shocking news - Bank of America has agreed to buy troubled investment bank Merill Lynch for $50bn.

This is quite sad to read

Lehman's dying hours

Keeping track of AIG's price
Last traded $7.12 only at 10.12AM EST

The latest news on Lehman Brothers and AIG are really worrying. Looks like the subprime mortgage crisis is going to claim a few more scalps.

Rumours have been spreading that Lehman Brothers, a 150-year old financial services firm, mainly in investment banking, has been on life support for the past few months and finally the company is not able to contain all the bad news from reaching the market. Despite putting the company up for sale, so far no companies have been willing to reach into their pockets. Looks like Lehman Brothers is going to go down the path of Bear Stearns.

Meanwhile, the holding company of my employer - AIG has also been having a bad time in recent months. It's share price has plunged from $70 around one year ago to a low of $11 as of last week. It is the only insurance company to suffer top 10 losses from the subprime crisis thus far, due to its large CDO exposure. AIG needs to shore up its balance sheet in light of the huge losses it has suffered in the last 3 quarters and is facing a possible credit downgrade by rating agencies. Any credit downgrading is likely to add on a lot more pressure to the company.



Testing times ahead for the financial markets...

JIM KECAM PENAHANAN AHLI POLITIK, WARTAWAN DAN PENULIS BLOG DI BAWAH AKTA KESELAMATAN DALAM NEGERI (ISA)

Well said...

KENYATAAN MEDIA
Pertubuhan Jamaah Islah Malaysia
14 September 2008

JIM KECAM PENAHANAN AHLI POLITIK, WARTAWAN DAN PENULIS BLOG DI BAWAH AKTA KESELAMATAN DALAM NEGERI (ISA)

Pertubuhan Jamaah Islah Malaysia (JIM) mengecam undang-undang tanpa bicara seperti Akta Keselamatan Dalam Negeri (ISA) dan penggunaannya ke atas Ahli Parlimen Seputeh yang juga Ahli Majlis Mesyuarat Kerajaan Negeri Selangor, Teresa Kok, wartawan akhbar Sin Chew Daily Tan Hoon Cheng dan pengendali laman blog Raja Petra Kamaruddin.

JIM ingin menegaskan bahawa prinsip keadilan amatlah penting dalam perundangan. ISA menyalahi prinsip keadilan kerana mereka yang ditahan dinafikan hak untuk “tidak bersalah sehingga disabitkan kesalahannya”, dinafikan hak bela diri, dinafikan khidmat guaman dan boleh ditahan selama-lamanya tanpa dihadapkan ke mahkamah.

Walaupun wartawan Tan Hoon Cheng kemudiannya telah dibebaskan selepas 16 jam ditahan, namun JIM mempersoalkan penahanan tersebut atas kononnya untuk melindungi beliau daripada ancaman ke atas keselamatan beliau. Ini menurut Menteri Dalam Negeri, Syed Hamid Albar dalam sidang akhbar di Ibupejabat Polis Bukit Aman pada 13 September 2008. Bukankah suatu yang amat pelik apabila seseorang ditahan di bawah ISA untuk menyelamatkan beliau daripada ancaman keselamatan sedangkan lazimnya seseorang ditahan kerana beliau dituduh memudaratkan keselamatan negara?

Apakah dengan ini wartawan tersebut perlu berterima kasih kepada Kerajaan atau sepatutnya menyaman Kerajaan kerana merampas hak kebebasan beliau sebagai warganegara dengan alasan yang tidak munasabah langsung?

Perbuatan menuduh tanpa sebarang bukti adalah perbuatan yang haram dari sudut Syariah, kerana ianya sendiri merupakan sebab utama kepada keadaan huru-hara di kalangan masayarakat yang hilangnya kepercayaan antara satu sama lain.

Firman Allah s.w.t. dalam surah Al-Hujurat ayat 6, penyebaran perkhabaran dan maklumat yang tidak sahih lagi meragukan menyebabkan berlakunya pertimbangan yang tidak adil, lantaran mengundang kepada musibah fitnah yang melanda masyarakat.

Riwayat hadith Ibnu Majah dan Abu Dawud menyebutkan bahawa kadi yang menetapkan hukuman kepada seseorang bedasarkan sumber-sumber bukti yang tidak benar akan dicampakkan ke dalam api neraka sewajarnya cukup menjadi pengajaran bagi kerajaan untuk mengutamakan prinsip keadilan Islam yang rasional berbanding dengan sentimen-sentimen perkauman yang rapuh dalam menjaga kemaslahatan masyarakat.

JIM mengesyorkan mana-mana pihak yang terkesan dengan sebaran awam yang dianggap menghina Islam supaya tampil proaktif dalam memberikan penjelasan yang bernas terhadap isu-isu yang dibahaskan. Islam tertegak di atas nas dan dalil Al-Quran dan Sunnah yang jelas. Tuntutan untuk mengemukakan hujah-hujah Islam secara berhikmah dan beradab sudah termaktub di dalam riwayat hadith-hadith yang sahih.

JIM memandang penahanan wartawan Tan Hoon Cheng seolah-olah beliau bertanggungjawab ke atas kontroversi kenyataan perkauman Ahmad Ismail sebagai tidak wajar kerana Ahmad Ismail dan pengikut beliau sendiri yang sengaja memberikan provokasi perkauman tanpa sebarang kawalan emosi di hadapan wartawan-wartawan.

Penahanan Ahli Parlimen Seputeh, Teresa Kok pula merupakan satu ketidakadilan kerana dakwaan bekas Menteri Besar Selangor keatasnya telah dinafikan sekeras-kerasnya. Malah, masjid di Damansara yang dikatakan disuruh perlahankan bunyi azannya telah memberi penjelasan bahawa azan tidak berbunyi dengan kuat kerana alat pembesar suara azannya mengalami kesulitan teknikal, bukannya kerana ditentang penduduk bukan Islam.

Penduduk bukan Islam di kawasan perumahan sekitar sebuah masjid di Puchong pula dilaporkan hanya memohon supaya diperlahankan penggunaan pembesar suara untuk majlis kuliah bacaan ayat al-Quran, bukannya azan itu sendiri.

JIM berpendirian jelas bahawa apa juga alasan yang dinyatakan kerajaan atas episod penahanan terbaru ini samada sebagai “pencetus polemik ketakutan” atau “pencetus kegawatan”, ianya seharusnya boleh ditangani dengan pelbagai akta lain yang sedia ada.

Tindakan menggertak dan menangkap blogger, wartawan, para pengkritik dasar kerajaan khususnya dari kalangan parti pembangkang tanpa hujah yang konkrit hanya akan mengundang kemusykilan rakyat terhadap motif dan keikhlasan kerajaan dalam melaksanakan perubahan pasca Pilihan raya Umum ke-12 terutamanya dalam konteks lanskap politik negara kini. Tindakan ini hanyalah mengesahkan lagi bahwa ISA digunakan untuk tujuan politik parti pemerintah.

JIM amat kesal dengan tindakan parti politik pemerintah yang sanggup memainkan isu sensitif seperti perkauman dan agama demi untuk menutup pelbagai kelemahan kepimpinan sedia ada. Sebaliknya, adalah lebih baik pihak kerajaan berusaha menyelesaikan pelbagai kemelut yang terjadi di dalam negara sekarang ini tanpa menggadaikan suasana keamanan yang sedia ada. Hentikan politik perkauman, fitnah dan tuduh menuduh tanpa bukti lagi tanpa bicara dan kembalilah kepada Syariat Islam.

JIM menggesa Kerajaan untuk membebaskan Teresa Kok, Raja Petra dan tahanan-tahanan ISA yang lain dengan serta merta atau dakwa mereka di mahkamah. Nasib tahanan yang ditahan dalam tempoh yang lama sehingga 7 tahun juga perlu dibela.

Sebagai anggota aktif gabungan Gerakan Mansuhkan ISA (GMI), JIM menyeru rakyat yang prihatin untuk turut tampil membantah ISA dan penahanan berhubungnya melalui program-program yang dianjurkan oleh GMI. Dalam tuntutan keadilan dan kebenaran, tidak ada batasan agama, kaum atau budaya.

Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh
Timbalan Presiden

中秋节快乐 Happy Mid-Autumn (Mooncake) Festival

Johanna and I visited the famous Victoria Market today as there was a small Mooncake Festival celebration over there.

It was our first time visiting the market while it is open. We were amazed by the size of the market, selling all range of goods from food to clothes, etc.

For Mooncake Festival, a small stage was set up with a few rows of stalls as well. The stalls were selling things like Chinese teapots, satay (wonder if satay is originally Chinese? Since I just found out that there is wayang kulit in Chinese culture, from the movie To Live), mooncakes and even services such as fortune telling. There was also a booth where some people were making lanterns, the standard type with 6 circles. Surprisingly, only one stall was selling mooncakes and surprise surprise it was handled by a colleague of mine Michelle Tay from Finance Department, together with her partner. We bought a box of mooncakes from them. Can't wait to taste them. Yum... Also bought some bak quah (jerky), yet another favourite of mine.

While we were there, there was wushu performance on the stage - ironically performed by a few Mat Sallehs. Later one there was also a gu zheng (chinese harp) performance by a group of ladies (see video below).

Satay (not as nice as the authentic Malaysian one)


Lantern making - very few people left as it was near the end of the celebration


Some of the stalls

ISA: MCA should stand for justice

If the press reports were true, I'm very disappointed with MCA, even though I do not support the party. By only helping to secure the release of reporter Tan Hoon Cheng and not raising anything on Teresa Kok and Raja Petra Kamaruddin's ISA detention, MCA has shown that it is not capable to standing up for justice for all Malaysians. It certainly will not earn them brownie points from most of the rakyat. Teresa Kok is clearly innocent from all the information we could gather from press, Internet, etc. It is the usual culprit - Utusan Malaysia that is inciting racial tension and seem to get away with it over and over again. RPK's case may be more complicated, but Malaysia has its own legal system and we should use our own legal system to determine his fate rather than resorting to an unreasonable detention, unless the government is worried about him revealing all their skeletons in the closet.

The original ISA is never meant for cases like this. If it's used against terrorists or communists, then it could be justified as they may pose immediate threat to the country and we can't afford to wait for legal judgements to be made.

Whatever lame excuses Syed Hamid Albar is using to defend the government - blaming the police for the detention, claiming the reporter incited racial tension, majority of rakyat is mature enough to see through all the lies and deceit. Instructions to use ISA needs to come from above and is not within the police's powers. The lame excuses only makes the government and Malaysia looks extremely and increasingly stupid in the eyes of the world.

As for stoking racial tension, I can only see Ahmad Ismail and Khir Toyo doing it. UMNO is only trying to scare honest people into reporting their misdeeds. What a shame!

Q&A with Syed Hamid Albar
(don't know whether to laugh or cry)

Q: Is Ahmad Ismail above the law?

A: He has been punished so far as the party as concerned. At the same time there is a report against Ahmad Ismail and we are investigating it. I don’t think we treat politicians differently. We have taken action. That politician has been suspended three years by the party. He lose all his position. At the same time there is a report of sedition.

Why arrest the reporter when you can call her up for questioning?

Whatever action that we take, there will be questions asked. The whole thing was started by her, it is best that we talk to her. If she is a threat, she would be brought in under Section 73 for 60 days. She would be held. When we have questioned her and we are satisfied with her answers, we just release her. I don’t think we are being unfair nor have we mistreated her.

What do you mean by ‘she started the whole thing’?

If you are going to analyse (what I say), I’d be appearing before a defence counsel. Let me say that the (news) report was made by her. Therefore just now when I introduced the subject, I said that we don’t want hearsay information. That information is from her and it was published. (Since) it was published, it is best that we get to the bottom of it by getting the information from her.

In the whole context, it was the overall incident and the subsequent follow up debates on the matter that started the polemic and created fear (among the public). I think we had acted professionally and after one day we had released her. I think that is a very good cause of action.

Why couldn’t the police just ask her to come in for questioning?

When the police feel it is best to bring the person in under the ISA, they will do so. The most important thing is not to exercise unfairness. When they find what they wanted and realise that she is not a security threat and she is not disturbing public order, they release her immediately.

That is why it is not an exercise on the part of the minister to hold the person under Section 8 which is two years (detention) straight away. The police feel that they should handle it and avoid any misunderstanding.

Do you as a minister feel that the ISA arrests were justified?

I’m a minister and politician. If I start to interfere, people will say I have a political motive. I cannot interfere with the police.

Would there be more arrests? People are saying that this is a mini-Operasi Lalang.

Really? Let me know if there are more (arrests). You shouldn’t ask me. We have done the arrests and so far there is no other arrests.

Is this part of a crackdown to stop Anwar Ibrahim from taking power?

If you look at the whole thing, there is no logic at all for it (ISA arrests) to be related to Sept 16. Sept 16 is a political move. They (PKR) have sent people to Taiwan. If they are successful, they can replace the government, then go ahead. It has nothing to do with the arrests which has to do with public order.

No to Abuse of ISA!

The latest ISA Detention of Sin Chew journalist, Tan Hoon Cheng, MP Teresa Kok and popular blogger, Raja Petra Kamaruddin is really over the board. ISA is now a tool to silence political opponents and innocent people who speak of the truth while the people who should really be punished are only given a slap on the wrist or left to roam free.

Any sane and rationale Malaysian will weep for our free-falling country.

Is the government going to crackdown on the freedom of speech to the extent that we have to communicate secretly using mooncakes?

It's embarrassing that we need to involve foreigners to restore justice in our country.

Read what Wong Chun Wai has to say about the foreigners' views of Malaysia in the Forbes Global CEO Conference.