I can now talk about the incident that happened at the beginning of the month, to make me think that people are essentially selfish beings. I was involved in an automobile accident. As a result, I had to go through the hassle of making a police report, assisting in the investigation and making insurance claims. Therefore, I got to experience the process.

Due to the constant interaction that I had with the traffic police, it brought some random thoughts into my head. One question that I asked was – how could we reduce corruption in the police force. Then, the idea that came into my head was to separate the money from the authority. People with authority should not deal with the money and people who deal with money should not have any authority.

You see, when we commit a traffic offense in Malaysia, the police are the ones who will issue the fine and we pay the fine at the police station. We can choose to pay the fine at any other police station in the country. However, if we pay at the station that issued the fine, we may be able to talk to the officer in charge to reduce the fine.

This is just a recipe for disaster. We have just given the people with authority, the power to deal with the money.

It would be better if we had a system where the police issued the fine, but payment was made to a totally separate body like the banks or post-office or some thing else. The whole idea is to have some sort of power separation. So, there will be no incentive for us to bargain for a reduction. There is also no room for the people collecting the payment to give us any discount.

We should not just stop at the police. In fact, the principle of power separation is something that is supposed to be practiced. However, things are not always the case with us in Malaysia. Anyway, I’m presently trying to draft up a rather long article about technological steps to reduce corruption. It’s taken a while to put things down. So, I’ll only publish it when I am satisfied with it.

I have recently found out that in order to register a new born child with our National Registration Department (JPN), a number of documents need to be submitted, including a marriage certificate. I was told, on authority, that without a marriage cert, it may not be possible for the father to have his name listed as the father of the child. I was also told that this policy is something recent and things were not like this in the past.

Mater semper certa; pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant.
Mother is always certain; the father is whom the marriage shows

To me, that just does not quite make sense. It may have been true in the past, when proof of biological parentage was difficult to obtain. However, DNA tests have changed all that. It is fairly simple to prove that someone is a biological father of a child. Therefore, it does not make sense to me, that such a policy is now in place when it was not in the past.

So, the fact that a man is the biological father of a child is less important than he being married to the mother of the child. It does not matter if the child is carrying your genes or otherwise, as long as you are legally bound to the mother. If any sort of statistics are to be trusted, many men are not biological fathers of their own children anyway.

If our government denies the biological father the right to list himself down as the legal father of the child on the birth cert, is our government denying him some form of fundamental right? I’m too naive on issues of human rights and such. Therefore, I don’t really know so much about these things. But somehow, I just think that something does not smell quite right.

I can imagine one very sad scenario, where a new born child of a single mother who died at childbirth is considered an orphan because the father was not married to the mother. It doesn’t matter if the father was present and loves him very much. But because the father failed to get himself legally married, the child is now considered an orphan. This just sounds a bit screwy to me.

Anyway, I was just ranting off. I have a feeling that this is a bubble waiting to burst. As far as I understand it, there are many people who are not ‘legally’ married in Malaysia. Of course, everyone should get their marriages registered. However, this does not stop them from happily procreating. There may be some problems, particularly if the mother was a foreigner, with citizenship issues.

And if this is not something that is written in Law, and turns out to be the workings of some little Napolean in the government, then it is even worse. If JPN wants to insist on some sort of proof of being the father, I suggest that they insist on giving everyone a DNA check. Unfortunately, that opens up a whole other can of worms.

Someone asked me the other day, why it seemed like I was blogging less, particularly about politics. It has entirely got to do with the fact that I am back home. Part of it is because I have to be careful about what I say, while the rest of it has to do with the sandiwara saturation that I am experiencing back home. After being saturated with all the antics on both sides of the political fence, I just feel like saying: “I give up!”

Seriously.

Just look at the way that things are going. Not a day goes by without political news making the front page. Not a week goes by without some new scandal getting uncovered. Hardly any month goes by without another bye-election. You know what? I am sick of it all. When the hell are the political parties going to get down to the actual work of governance.

Reading my blog post here on the day of GE12, I am reminded by the fact that none of the promises have been delivered. It has been more than a year since then and the opposition has proven itself to be no better a mess than the present government. I still do not understand why they are such retards. They can just ignore everything jibe that the government throws at them and just get down to doing the actual work.

Where are my local council elections? When some local assemblymen in Perak wanted to trial some sort of village leader elections and got shut down by the MB. I just don’t understand the logic behind it. At the very least, they can try to run some basic trials, to identify potential problems and to get things moving in the right direction. But no, they decided to continue ‘awarding’ leadership positions like the BN.

Where is my shadow cabinet? Our opposition leader has promised, time and again, that they are going to come up with a shadow cabinet. At first, after the GE and then after Najib announces his new cabinet. Dear sir, it has been ages since then and I have yet to even smell the slightest hint of a shadow cabinet. Regardless of what the DPM has to say about it, a shadow cabinet is a good thing to have. Get your act together old man!

Where are my concrete proposals? In this respect, we require a functioning shadow cabinet to be able to push things through. At the moment, efforts are scattered and things are not moving anywhere beyond bitching and calling names. I don’t really see many people doing anything besides maybe one or two politicians in the Klang Valley. The rest of your losers should just go ahead and resign from your post as MPs and force a new General Election!

You know what, just writing up to here has already saturated my stress meter. I just feel like kicking some of our politicians ass and cekik their necks. However, I’m just a little nobody and whatever I think doesn’t really matter. This is my own little personal rant space after all. Piss off.

Most technology sites today are reporting on the news that Microsoft is starting its patent attack on Linux. According to the news, it pertains to Microsoft suing a GPS device manufacturer (TomTom) for alleged infringement on Microsoft patents on the FAT32 filesystem. Sigh. This is again FUD.

While I do agree that there are utilities in Linux that use FAT32, it is most definitely non essential. There are like a dozen file-systems that Linux can use. 99% of Linux distributions will either use Ext-FS or ReiserFS as the default file-system. In fact, the only reason that FAT32 code is available in Linux is because of compatibility with other (read – Windows) systems, which is the same reason why NTFS has not taken over Windows entirely (backwards compatibility).

However, there is a far deeper problem here. 99% of consumer electronic devices use the FAT32 file-system (think thumb-drives, digital cameras, mp3 players). While most major companies would have licensed the patent from Microsoft, I can tell you with 100% certainty that there are a lot of companies who do not license it, particularly small and medium electronic companies.

I know for certain because this question gets asked a lot on various embedded electronic forums. Designers of embedded devices are always trying to embed things like SD-cards in their devices because it is very cheap storage (2Gb@RM20). The typical answer that designers get is that Microsoft owns the patent but they are unlikely to enforce it. This case may just change that.

So, while Microsoft may want to spin this as a battle against Linux, in reality it isn’t. Life goes on in Linux without FAT32. The ones who may really end up being hurt are consumer electronic companies like TomTom and ultimately the consumer.

The simple solution to this problem is for the whole consumer electronics industry to standardise on a new file-system that everyone will recognise in their products. However, this is a pipe dream as they aren’t even able to standardise on a single media (SD, CF, XD, MS). But this case may just force people to do that. Otherwise, Microsoft will always hold a knife at our throats.

PS: As for TomTom, since they control their product ecosystem entirely, they can just remove the offending FAT32 code and use JFS/Ext2 instead.

There has been some ‘hot air’ being blown by our local politicians about the issue of insufficient non-Malays in the civil service and I thought I’d say my dua sen worth on the issue. This is just another case of political sandiwara being played. One, we have the MIC claiming a major breakthrough in the issue. Two, we have the MCA claiming a similar victory in the issue. My main issue with them is that this is a non-issue.

The fallacy in the thinking is that we need to have more non-Malays in the civil service in order to ‘take care’ of the non-Malay citizens in the country. Otherwise, the Malays will trample all over the rest of us and cause us no end in grief. This is utter nonsense.

This is the same kind of thinking that has gotten us into all kinds of trouble – Malays for Malays, Chinese for Chinese, Indians for Indians. This is a classic divide and conquer scenario. There is no rational reason why a civil servant from a particular race would be better when the civil service is so tightly wound up in rules and procedures. In my experience, everyone is screwed equally.

In addition, I find it foolish that people think that the Malays are out to get the rest of us. Their people are no different from any other people. There are good oranges and bad oranges. However, the vast majority are just interested in getting on with their lives. This irrational fear seems to be born from the events of 1969. Seriously, we need to get over our past and move on.

Personally, I don’t see why we need any non-Malays in the civil service. It’s fine and well that some of us sign up for the civil service but this whole idea of getting 8% Indians and 20% Chinese in the civil service is crazy. I say that the job market should be exactly that, a market ruled by supply and demand. I would think that the civil service is overstaffed enough as it is without having to take on extra baggage just to fulfill some silly quota.

The politicians are once again trying to exploit the situation to solve a problem that does not exist. Classic!

Well, the dust hasn’t settled yet, but for the situation to even come to this stage is utterly laughable.

• The Sultan orders (by royal decree) the MB and the whole exco to resign. The MB is refusing to follow. This is just crazy. Doesn’t he realise that the Sultan has the legal authority to just banish him from the state if he feels like it? Once the Sultan makes his decision, it’s unwise to go against it.
• All sorts of people (who used to like the idea of defections) no longer like the idea of political defections. It’s nice that some people have finally had a taste of their own medicine. I’ve never been a fan of defections. I’ve always preferred the idea of re-elections.
• Senior UMNO politicians are condemning the defections. Dr M and Ku Li have openly criticised the way in which Perak was turned over to a ‘blue’ state again. Frogs like to jump. They can jump left one day, and right the next. It’s never a good idea to depend on frogs.
• There are massive public rallies planned for tonight. The PR are planning to use people power to pressure the Sultan into dissolving the state assembly and calling for fresh elections. I doubt that it would work but good luck anyway. Stay safe and don’t get hurt.
• The PR are filing legal challenges against the decision by the EC to recognise the frogs. As far as I can tell, this is too little too late. No amount of legal wrangling is going to change the fact that a royal decree has been issued. Even if the PR win the legal case, they will still need to deal with the Sultan.

Personally, I’m just kicking back and waiting to watch the show. It is darn funny.

I don’t think that anyone really knows what is happening in Perak. Personally, I don’t even want to know. I just hope that the Sultan/Regent will make the right decision and leave such decisions to the people. Although I have been down for the last few days, I have been following events as best I could.

However, I would like to quote our opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim:

BN is trying to form the state government by hook or by crook – more by crook.

He says the funniest things sometimes. I assume that he is saying this in respect to the froggie state reps who have jumped ship to the BN. Funny thing is that he croons a totally different tune when someone decides to defect over from BN to the PR side. I guess that it is just another day at the office for these politicians. Just remind me never to turn into one.

Our dearest former PM has recently suggested that Malaysians should show our disgust at the events happening in Gaza by boycotting American companies and products. I guess that he meant that we should stop doing things like buying our Frappucinos from Starbucks. This had many of our local franchisees up in arms as they feared for their businesses (never mind the fact that our dearest former PM was the one who encouraged local bumiputera businessmen to engage in franchise businesses).

The fact that our country is so small, means that any boycott that we engage in, would inadvertently only harm ourselves. If we wish to use economic power as a way to send a message to certain super powers, it needs to be coordinated internationally. Farish Noor mentioned in his recent blog, some previous examples where such tactics were successfully employed in applying economic pressure on political regimes.

In addition, the boycotts would need to be directed at very specific entities. A blanket ban on all American products is stupid as we will ultimately feel the problems ourselves. So, the boycotts should be targeted at specific companies that invest heavily in Israel and be coordinated globally to have any sort of affect on them. Now, that is the difficult bit to achieve.

As for myself, I have been doing a quick mental inventory of things that I buy. Surprisingly, I have already been avoiding many American made products, particularly those with investments in Israel. For example, I typically buy either AMD or VIA based computer systems and not Intel ones. As for software, I have avoided Microsoft products like the plague and they have investments in Israel too. So, even though I have not been actively trying to boycott US companies with investments in Israel, I have been doing it anyway.

I cannot avoid using Google though.

PS: I like the fact that our government had convened a special session of parliament to discuss the war perpetrated by a state that our country does not recognise. I wonder how does one send a message to an entity that does not exist.

There has been recent suggestions by the government that all muslims should go for mandatory pre-marital HIV screening. I would go further and actually suggest that everyone, muslim and non-muslim, go for pre-marital HIV screening. In fact, I would suggest that we do not stop at HIV screening but to screen for a whole host of diseases and genetic anomalies, anything that may cause problems in the marriage later.

These days, the local labs like PathLab, do provide various pre-marital health check packages that range from the dirt cheap to the really expensive. It all depends on the battery of tests the couple would like to do. All it takes is a trip to the local GP to extract some biological samples, which are then sent to them for analysis. However, even this good practice is not often performed by regular couples.

There are a host of genetic incompatibilities that can be detected through some of these tests. The couple can then be told of their chances in having children who may end up developing certain illnesses. However, all this information should be presented to the couple and the final decision on whether or not they should wed is still up to the couple. I personally believe that this should be the right thing to do.

However, our Perak MB believes that people with HIV should not marry. He thinks that it is a gross error to allow someone very sick like this to marry. I think that he must have mush for brains. Personally, I wonder what sort of medical pre-conditions he might actually suffer from considering that most of us suffer from some sort of ailment that may one day kill us.

Furthermore, he suggests that a HIV couple will definitely copulate and have HIV infected babies, he is grossly misinformed. First of all, it is perfectly possible for people to engage in sexual intercourse without having babies. You know, there is something called contraception. It is kind of sad that the MB is probably ignorant about their use. Secondly, even if the parents were HIV positive, the baby need not necessarily be infected. According to wikipedia, perinatal transmission of HIV is 25% in the absence of treatment and 1% with the right treatment and tools in place.

Then, he goes even further and to suggest that HIV carriers should be quarantined away and everything should be done to treat them. I think that he deserves to receive the ‘straight-jacket award’ for making this particular nutty statement. One really needs to wonder what kind of gestapo-esque MB did the Perak people end up with. It seems that our local politicians lack certain quality, regardless of which side of the house they come from.

Dude, you really need to do your homework before mouthing off and exposing the ignorant facist that you are.

PS: Of course, all this assumes that the news reporting has been accurate. For some unfathomable reason, our politicians are so often misquoted by the press.

This article in TheStar made the most interesting reading today. It is about the final round-table meeting that was held yesterday concerning the use of English in teaching Science and Math in schools. I am actually really curious to find out what language the meeting was conducted in. Regardless, the most revealing information provided by the article were the statistics (I abhor statistics).

From an earlier article, the number of students that opted to answer the papers in English were 159,234 (Science – 31%) and 238,153 (Math – 64%). This is a marked increase compared to last year, which had 1,324 (Science) and 1,075 (Math). At the very least, we can be assured that a very large number of students are comfortable with answering things in English. However, it would have been more interesting to find out the urban/rural breakdown of these numbers.

Yesterday, more statistics were revealed, with the overall results in both urban and rural schools averaging upwards and that the performance of English has gone up by a significant 4.4% while BM remained stable. So, these results show that the students can cope with the subjects in English and it may have had a positive effect on English as a whole. Okay, I am taking some liberties with causality here but it is at least a positive sign, if not a cause.

However, the most telling statistics were those that were released for the SJK schools. In SJKT schools, 62.8% and 89.1% answered the Science and Math papers in English, in contrast with SJKC schools where only 2.9% and 1.3% answered the papers in English. Now, this is very surprising and statistically significant.

Personally, I don’t understand the resistance in SJKC schools. I guess that the teaching quality there must not be as good, with students fearing to take the subjects in English. Alternatively, they was instruction for them to avoid the English papers, which would not surprise me one bit. Otherwise, there is no statistical reason why these SJKC students should buck the national trend of a marked increase in adoption of English as the Science/Math language. To me, this has been to their detriment as we do not have any significant data on how well the SJKC students coped with the subject.

The round-table meeting resulted in 7 potential proposals:

• Stick to Mathematics and Science in English;
• Revert to Bahasa Malaysia;
• Let primary schools teach both subjects in the mother tongue and secondary schools use English;
• Let primary schools decide for themselves;
• Mathematics and Science be taught in Bahasa Malaysia and mother tongue for Years One to Three and in English from Year Four onwards;
• A combination of mother tongue in the first three years and a choice of mother tongue or English after that; and
• The two subjects will not be taught in Years One to Three and instead be integrated into other subjects.

I would like to add an 8th proposal. Personally, I think that the solution is clear. Science and Mathematics should continue to be taught in English for all schools except SJKC schools where there is an apparent resistance. There has even been alleged threats of protests from the Dong Jiao Zong. So, SJKC schools should be allowed to teach these subjects in Mandarin if they so wish to. This will doubly ensure their slow but timely death as their brethren experienced in Singapore. No sane parent would enroll their kids in SJKC schools if they are the only ones resisting this positive move.

To me, this is a win-win-win situation for everyone involved. I’m surprised that nobody came up with this suggestion. They must be quite daft for failing to see the obvious.

** Pic from TheStar article. Not mine.