Category: Idiot Overlords

Lynas Fiasco

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am no eco-mentalist. I have some serious reservations about environmental issues. However, I do opinions about this whole Lynas issue after today’s rally has shown that there are a lot of noisy Malaysians who want the plant out of the country.

Personally, I think that this issue is being handled very badly by both the government and also Lynas. For one, Lynas must understand that the problem isn’t a technical one. So, no amount of scientific and technical facts are going to persuade the people of the plant’s safety.

Even if the government parades a string of experts and Lynas lines up a host of international endorsements, it is not going to work. The Lynas PR people must understand that the problem is that our government has lost the trust of these people. Unless you can get the Pope to endorse you, you’re not going to win this.

This is the crisis that our country is slowly falling into today – large swaths of our people have lost trust in the government. I cannot blame them though, since our senior government officials and cabinet members have been caught in lies far too often. With each lie, they lose credibility.

That is why I think that our government needs to hold an election soon – to prove that they’ve got the mandate to rule. However, before they do that, they need to learn to manage the issues better and to stop small issues from ballooning into fiascos of national proportions.

While we can argue over the size of the protest groups today, one thing is clear. The groups that oppose the issue are certainly larger than the best that those supporting the issue could muster. Therein lies the problem. The ruling elite have lost the mob. The people are slowly taking to the streets.

They must do something to get back the mob.

Handing out cash no longer works. Giving students RM200, poor RM500, bonuses etc may have worked in the past but the trick loses effectiveness after being used too often. These people need to learn some new tricks but I doubt that they have the capacity to. Malaysians are sick of reruns.

I will venture that the people are not going to give up the fight. However, the government isn’t about to give in either after investing so much money in it already. Lynas isn’t going to go away soon either as it has sunk too much into this project as well.

So, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Something has got to give.

Under normal circumstances, I would say that the people do not stand a chance of winning against the combined might of a multi-national corporation and the government. However, it’s election year and anything is possible. Wishes can get granted this year, though temporarily.

If this rare earth plant can generate so much resistance, I wonder how would a nuclear plant fare. I can guarantee you of this – nuclear power is coming to Malaysia. It’s inevitable. Our hydrocarbons will run out. Power demands will grow. Nuclear is our clear and best answer to the energy problem currently.

The people know that nuclear energy is safe. What they do not trust are the people running the plant.

Our society is damaged if we can’t even trust ourselves.

Sigh.

Time to sleep.

Siamese Bumiputera

What a pack of lies and if any Siamese in Malaysia thinks it is true, I’d really like to know what they’ve been smokin’.

According to Bernama, our PM said that, “the government has recognised the Siamese community as a bumiputera group in the country and will ensure the community is accorded the same privileges enjoyed by their other bumiputera counterparts.”

What a load of crock!

Unless I am sorely misinformed, there has not been any amendments to our Consti to enlarge the definition of Bumiputera in Malaysia, which is defined in Article 161 of our Consti. In fact, our PM doesn’t claim that there has been any amendments to the Consti either in the article.

Our PM is either misinformed, lying or delusional. I don’t know which is better, or worse.

I hope that the Siamese community are not fooled by this. Whether or not they have a claim for Bumiputera rights is not my issue here. My issue is that unless and until our Consti is amended to expand the definition of Bumiputera, the Siamese community still do not have any claim to being ‘sons of the soil’.

Our PM does not have the power to include more people into the Bumiputera family, regardless of how he feels about it. If he is truly sincere in doing this for the Siamese community, he should table an amendment of the Consti to expand the definitions for Bumiputera.

I’m sorry. You’ve been had.

PS: Plus I think that we’re still in a state of emergency, regardless of what the PM says. I don’t think that the bill has passed the Senate yet.

Media: Postal Voters?

I just read the article in TheStar, which inter alia said that the Election Commission (EC) has agreed to allow media personnel to register as postal voters and that there were provisions in the law that allowed media practitioners to be postal voters.

What provisions?

Unless the election regulations had been amended recently to include media personnel, they are most certainly not covered by the regulations. In fact, while I was clearly covered under the regulations, I was still denied my democratic right to vote, as I had evidenced to the PSC last year.

Is this a case of the EC acting ultra vires and doing whatever it pleases? It wouldn’t surprise me the least if they did because they are denying hard-working Malaysians overseas their constitutional right to vote.

Opening the polling station earlier so that emergency personnel can vote early is one thing. Giving people the right to postal vote when they are not mentioned in the law, and denying others the right to do the same because they are not mentioned in the law, is just illegal.

I honestly don’t know what to say about this.

Agreeing on principle to allow media personnel to become postal voters is one thing. Being legally allowed to do so is quite another. Like I said, unless the specific rules had been amended to include media personnel, the EC is possibly acting ultra vires beyond their powers and authority.

Something is screwed up.

F**k You TM!

Telekom Malaysia physically disconnected my phone line on the 21/Nov/2011. As my office is in a high-rise building, the standard installation for Unifi is using VDSL, which meant that TM would have had to physically disconnect my old line to install the Unifi line.

I diligently went to TMPoint on 23/Nov/2011 to inform TM of the upgrade from Streamyx/BizLine (D94501-606-0109) to Unifi (1004255475). Don’t ask me why it is that I have to do this since both systems are within the control of TM. Thank goodness I still have a yellow copy of the date-stamped form (SN: 101175) with me.

Unfortunately, TM decided to continue to bill me RM187 for Dec/2011 and another RM13 for Jan/2012. Don’t ask me where they invented these numbers from. I also don’t understand how they can issue two ‘final’ bills. As a result of these charges, my RM400 deposit got reduced to RM200.

I made two complaints for the two months (1-2255081038, 1-2466161140), and today, they informed me that management has approved an adjustment of RM90.

WTF??!!

I cannot accept the adjustment of RM90. I’m very clear about Section 64 of our Contract Act that allows for part-payment of the consideration as full settlement. I’m not going to get cheated by TM on this.

I fully expect to get back the full RM400 deposit that I have with them. I don’t understand why are they screwing up royally?

F**k you TM!

PS: Might I remind you that you were the one who disconnected my phone line physically on the 21/Nov/2011. The service was terminated on that date, which is clearly reflected in your records. Bloody hell!

PPS: I’ve since made another report about this as a follow up for my earlier reports. I’m sure that you will be able to check the report numbers on your own system. I’m also sure that you can clearly see the installation dates of Unifi and cancellation dates of my phoneline along with the various pink bills that I have received.

PPPS: If you wish to get a copy of my yellow form, feel free to contact me. I’ll email you a scan copy.

Kashgari v Malaysia

Here is our government’s conundrum – it has lost the trust of the people by its blatant abuse of power. In the most recent case of the GOM arresting and deporting Kashgari as he was on his way out of the country, fleeing Saudi authorities to New Zealand.

Our government claimed that this was a request from Interpol. Unfortunately, Interpol has vehemently denied playing any role in this sandiwara. I wanted to believe that our police were merely following international law in assisting Interpol but the speed at which things happened made me doubt it. I should’ve known better.

Our government further showed its disdain and contempt of court when an injunction issued by the High Court was ignored by the government. Lawyers for Liberty contend it was inappropriate to send him back home because they had obtained a last-minute injunction on Sunday to stop his forced return.

Both the IGP and Home Minister’s offices have claimed that they were not aware of any such injunction and faxed copies did not arrive at their offices. Honestly, I can’t take their words seriously any more as the above denials from Interpol show. They are just not very good at spinning stories.

This is further evident with the Home Minister saying that, “I will not allow Malaysia to be seen as a safe country for terrorists and those who are wanted by their countries of origin, and also be seen as a transit county.”

Sir, might I remind you that there are rules to follow and that while I agree that we must keep Malaysia safe, we must do it with due process and respect for the law. Arrest Mr Kashgari if you need to and lock him up to keep our country safe. Then, put him through the system. There are extradition rules to be adhered to and hearing processes.

He had already entered the country legally and was subject to the laws of the country just like any other traveller who enters into our country on a tourist visa – even drug traffickers. If he has committed a crime, he has to be put through the process. We don’t even do this to drug traffickers – we still put them trough the process before we hang them.

Our country is now regarded as a pariah in the world’s eyes. People now know that the GOM cannot be trusted to follow its own laws nor to speak the truth in any matter. They aren’t even very good at spin. All they are good at is abusing due process.

The one good thing that I learned from this is that there are good judges in our country who are willing to work on weekends when necessary. Kudos to HCJ Datuk Rohana Yusof who did her duty, even while at home on a weekend.

Institutionalised Racism

I had a heated argument with someone recently, on racism, which reminded me of a recent forum that I attended on institutionalised racism that was such a negative experience for me that I have lost all faith and respect for Hindraf.

Regardless, I just want to write down a few items to note here.

All these people, are complaining about being victimised and being at the receiving end of unfair treatment. In one case, they claim that their situation is the way it is because their race is too weak and make excellent soft targets. In the other case, they claim that their race is too strong, and is victimised because certain people are jealous at their success.

I find it extremely stupid that these people are be asking for fair treatment while framing everything in terms of the strength/weakness of their race.

If one claims that their race is too good, one cannot also ask for equal treatment in the same breath because the two does not reconcile except to an individual. If we think that our race is superior, then we must agree to the affirmative action policies and institutionalised racism because that helps to level the playing field. Otherwise, the superior race will end up wiping out the inferior one and genocide is generally considered a bad thing.

If one claims that their race is too weak, one cannot also ask for equal treatment because their own race would be wiped out otherwise. What they are not happy with is that the affirmative action policies are not for them but for the other group. Again, this is a stupid argument because they only oppose institutionalised racism because they are not beneficiaries but if protection was afforded to their weak race, they would need it to survive.

Seriously, I think both these arguments are equally stupid.

If you claim that your race is superior, then you’re supporting the justification for institutionalised racism. If you claim that your race is inferior, you’re also supporting the justification for institutionalised racism. The only way to do away with the justification for institutionalised racism is to do away with racist views ourselves.

PS: One person even attributed my personal success to my race. That would totally ignore the amount of hard work that I have put in and sacrifice that I have made throughout my life to get where I am today. I took it as a personal insult and told the other person off.

1Malaysia Book Vouchers

I went to pick up my 1Malaysia Book Vouchers at the university today. I was the first person to collect the voucher (talk about kiasu). These are some things that I have learned about the voucher.

  1. The RM200 comes in four vouchers worth RM50 each.
  2. Each voucher has a serial number on it, which is recorded against my name at the university register.
  3. The vouchers have my name and IC number hand-written on it by the admin staff (they are for Malaysian students only).
  4. The vouchers are non-transferable (as they have my name and IC number on it).
  5. The vouchers are good in all book-stores nationwide (I have yet to test this out).
  6. The vouchers are only valid until 31 March 2012 (Why?).

So, I guess that Kino will benefit from my visit soon. I need to spend the RM200 by March anyway. I was hoping to be able to give it as angpow to my niece and nephews but it is non-transferable. So, I’ll still need to give them cash.

However, I’m not quite sure how the book-stores are going to enforce the non-transferable policy. I guess that they would need to insist on verifying my IC with my purchase.

Also, there are a number of security features built into the voucher. One that I spotted was that the lines in the voucher are not lines per se but tiny continuous prints of the title “BAUCER BUKU 1 MALAYSIA”. The same phrase is on the bit that looks like a scratch area on the right.