His previous wife Endon Mahmud died in October 2005… it’s just less than 2 years ago… and Pak Lah is already 68.

Whatever, I am speechless.

Samy Vellu and the parliament roof

Some parliament roof (or ceiling to be precise) was falling down lately despite government spending RM90mil to restore and renovate the parliament a few years ago. According to Samy, the pipes were not part of the restoration.

My old house in Ipoh was renovated about a decade ago, and the first stuff that our contractor changed for us was the pipes and the (electric) wiring. My contractor didn’t even finish his high school and he knew what the priority when restoring a building is…

I wonder what contractors did Samy hired; it was not an easy task to be those dumb contractors. Besides, if they were not changing the pipes (and perhaps wiring as well), I wondered what would cost RM90mil for restoration? Too much coffee perhaps…

Bocor MPs made public apology

The MPs (MP Mohd Said Yusof and Kinabatangan MP Bung Mokthar Radin) who made the “bocor” remarks in Parliament made a formal public apology to all women after meeting Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil Friday morning. [Thestar]

They forgot to apologize to all men as well… as a man I felt as offended by their idiotic words as well. I have mother and sisters… if anyone says that to their face I will punch their nose for sure.

Never mind… not that I really care if they apologize… because apology will not be accepted anyway.

Malaysia Datukship

Honestly… if in future I somehow did something that makes Malaysia proud and is offered a Datukship… I wonder if I should accept it or not.

At the current situation, I don’t want to. No disrespect to ‘some’ of the good Datuks, but most of those that are honored with the title are a bunch of idiots. Take the above 2 MPs for example… they are Datuk… and I don’t want to associate myself with these peeps.

Malaysia is going to become MSC

In the 18th MSC Malaysia Implementation Council Meeting on 11 August 2005, chaired by the YAB Prime Minister of Malaysia, MSC Malaysia Cybercentre status has been awarded to Perak, Melaka, Pahang, Johor and Negeri Sembilan. MSC Malaysia Cybercentre status has also been awarded to KL Sentral. [Source]

In the end the whole nation will become Multimedia Super Corridor… I wonder why they wanted to specify a region as MSC at the first place.

I remembered lots of foreign companies spending millions to move their offices into the MSC region so that they can enjoy the benefits… and now the government is making an effort to make the whole nation MSC. I wonder how will the CEOs of those companies felt for wasting their money moving their offices…

I got a recorded message from ‘high court’ that I had missed a court hearing, and that I was summoned to another court hearing a couple days later… I was given the option to contact them for details by pressing a number (xxx press 1, xxx press 2 kind of style) and was investigated by a Bukit Aman officer… that I was suspected involving in a money laundry case, that a bank statement with my details were collected as evidence from a crime scene.

The officer mentioned that my details might be stolen from somewhere and used for crime, and he would need my cooperation to clear my name.

I was then contacted by some representative from high court. The lady showed some patience in asking some matters, sort of like clearing me from the case… the ‘investigation’ sounds convincing as she even told you that the conversation was recorded. (She spoke with me in Chinese, I should have suspected something fishy earlier)

Then came the funny part… she told me that the high court would have to freeze all my accounts for investigations, and that a new bank account would be opened by the high court, and I had to transfer all my money into that new account all risked my account being suspended until further notice.

I was not sure what to do, it didn’t sound right… I asked my sister for some discussions and felt that it might be a fraud case. I then contacted Bukit Aman (phone #) and Malaysia High Court (03-8880 3500 / 3900), and was told that there are no such investigation going on, and was advised to report to nearby police station.

I am just back from making the police report and decided to post a warning here. I was stupid enough to share my IC #, but luckily didn’t share anything about my bank account and didn’t lose any money here.

So, please help spread the news as warning to the others… and if you know any reporters, tell them to issue a warning of some sort if possible. Thanks.

Well, I am a United fan for some 17 years, I would be glad if they do come. Problem is, I think they shouldn’t.

As far as I know, Malaysia signed a contract with AFC that barred Malaysia from promoting any other soccer event 10 days before the Asia Cup until 3 days after the final… Malaysia FA shouldn’t even agree on the United visit at the very beginning.

Regardless of the reasoning, a contract is a contract and should always be respected; unless AFC is giving the node, United shouldn’t come.

Imagine what would happen to the world if everyone shows no respect to contracts and promises.

Imagine your spouse make a promise to stay with your for life, and then decided to break off the relationship because he or she finds a better one.

I am just wondering if there is at least another reputable competitor for paid TV service in Malaysia, would Astro think twice before increasing their price?

There is nothing wrong with Lim’s statement, but I do wish that a person of his status could have some brighter ideas.

Frankly I don’t mind paying better price for equivalent quality, but I am getting more frustrated with Astro month by month… there are wasting money paying for rubbish channels while putting the cost on consumers, their services sucks during rainfall, and there are more and more commercial break… I felt like I am paying money to watch advertisement everyday.

The irony thing is, despite all those dissatisfaction… it’s very likely that I will continue to subscribe to Astro, just like most of the other subscribers. Do we really have much choices? (Oh we do… Jangan Tengok Astro.)

Malaysia aims to double to 100,000 from the present 50,000 the number of foreign students at local tertiary learning institutions by 2010, Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said.

He said the government would embark on a dual-pronged approach to realise the target, which he described would be a “significant increase” to achieve the government’s goal to turn the country into a centre of education excellence. [Bernama]

For me, it’s another 50,000 foreigners getting to know how poor the tertiary learning institutions are. Shouldn’t the ministry focus on improving our universities’ standards before thinking of attracting more foreign students?

I wonder what will happen at the nationwide election if this ‘fighting spirit’ is not controlled.

I doubt that the government is working on the right spot. You see, when I was in primary school, there are no racial issues in my thinking… Ali, Ah Kau and Mutu are all good friends. It applied in my real life; I made friends with all people regardless of races.

My thinking got a bit confused when I got into high school. We were required to study Tamadun Islam for one or two years. Fine, if it’s to learn other Malaysians’ culture and religion… but I always wondered why Muslims are not given the chance to learn other Malaysians’ origin as well?

If national unity comes from understanding… it should be understanding from both sides.

In more recent history, we read about James Wright, Stamford Raffles, Frank Swettenham and all those Sultans etc… but there were nothing about Yap Ah Loy or Yap Kwan Seng etc., people who largely contributed to the development of Kuala Lumpur.

If we are bold enough to recognize the significance of British colonial administration in our country history, why is the significance of other races not being emphasized? Malaysians need to know that all races have contributed in building the nation… not just in the 50 years of independence, but significantly from as early as 1800s.

Ok… these thinking were not actually made during my high school years; I was still naive back then, but the seeds of these thoughts had been planted.

The killer blow that raised the racial indifference in me happened when I got into university. I worked hard to get into a local university’s engineering faculty… many students with decent STPM results couldn’t get into engineering faculty because of the quota, but that was supposed to be a fact of life.

The defining moment came on my first day to class; our lecturer asked us why we wanted to enter the course… Chinese answered blah blah… and then a few Malays answered that they didn’t want to study at the course, but were ‘forced’ to study by the government.

That’s quite a blow really, Chinese worked hard and yet couldn’t get what they wanted… and those things that we fought hard were given to people that didn’t appreciate at all, basically for free. What an irony.

No, I am not a racist, but I know I am not a role model in practicing national unity. I still have a good bunch of Malay friends these days; the different is when I was younger, I have friends, Malaysian friends… but now, I have friends, Malay friends and non-Malay friends.

The failure wasn’t on the school administration, it’s on the whole education system, it’s on the government.

Seriously, how did this dude manage to become our deputy minister?

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The fantasy kinda shattered when I took my first train journey to Kuala Lumpur from Ipoh (or Ipoh to KL, can’t remember correctly) when I was around 9 years old… and it took around 4 hours to reach the destination, as fast as a car could be.

I am still interested in trains though, and I always believe that a good train network is an important factor to build a modern country. I was more affirmed about the idea when I visited London for the first time 5-6 years ago, when I saw how good their Underground (sort of like our LRTs) system was.

Malaysia government do realize that the railways could make a difference, they have some projects on plan but too bad it’s never on top of their list… they preferred some other more extravaganza projects (like the recent Iskandar Project in Johor) rather than the basic infrastructures.

Speaking of TGV, I had the chance to see it when I visited Europe in 2005… and oh mine, it kinda brought back a bit of my childhood fantasies. The train was really fast, it’s like the Chipsmore advertisement… now you see it, now you don’t.

Btw, they broke their own speed record…

France’s high-speed TGV train broke the record for speed on a rail Tuesday in a much publicized test.

The train reached a maximum of 574.8 kilometers an hour, or 357 miles an hour, but fell just short of the record for all types of train.

That record is held by the magnetic levitation train of Japan, whose technology means it does not touch the rail. It reached a speed of 581 kilometers per hour in 2003.

But the Japanese technology is more costly, typically runs shorter distances and is less compatible with existing rail networks. [Source]

500+kmph is their maximum speed; from what I know they normally run at 280-320kmph.