The Dream is Failing

I have had a long suspicion that Lim Kit Siang, one of our most prominent opposition leaders for the last few decades, has gone senile. Now, I believe that I have confirmation that he really has. I'd like to dedicate this open letter to him:

Dear Uncle Kit,

I know that I do not have any authority to speak on this matter but I thought that I should just let you know what I think about what's happening in Perak. I can assure you that I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Obviously I'm not privy to the matters behind the scenes but I'd like to raise your attention to the harm that's potentially being done there.

I read with consternation a MalaysiaKini report that you are asking Perak DAP to boycott the Menteri Besar swearing in ceremony. I think that this action will cause more harm than good for everyone in the long run.

The Perak Regent had selected whom he felt would be best suited as the MB. From what I have read from the report, the person seems to be well educated, a professional and a businessman. At face value, the credentials seem to put him in good stead to run the state. PAS obviously knows that they cannot go overboard in Perak simply because DAP gets the bulk of the state seats.

Before the decision, all sides had said that they would respect the Regent's decision and work together on common ground. But now that the decision has been made, you comes out to make harmful statements like this. This calculated boycott does not only make DAP look like sore losers but also disrespectful children. It seems like you are giving the Regent "the finger" and I doubt that it will go down well considering that many people like the Regent and think of him as a well educated, moderate and sane person. You want to have that man on your side.

DAP is probably trying to show that you are not in bed with PAS but it doesn't work because it is obvious to everyone that you need to work with PAS in order to run the state as you do not hold enough seats in the assembly. And it won't work with any voters older than 25 who still remember 1999 when you openly worked together. So, I don't really know who you are trying to send the message, of distancing yourself from PAS, to. If you are worrying that the MCA will make an issue out of it, don't. Don't let them pull your strings.

By doing things like this, you will make it seem like the Perak state government is weak and divided and that the opposition parties cannot work together. Perak should serve as a model of how racial politics isn't an issue, but it's turning into a disaster. It should be evidently clear by now that the average Malaysian voter is not entirely stupid. This simple act of sabotage may come back to bite all of you later.

I hope this makes sense. Please do not ruin this beautiful opportunity given to you by the rakyat.

with metta,
Shawn Tan.

Perak was supposed to serve as a shining beacon of what Malaysia could be. The state has a sane and well educated royal family whom everyone loves. There is a good mix of the major races in the state and the political parties are not able to monopolise the government. Please do not shatter this dream.

Super Stressed WTF Day

Wow, today was a day unlike any other. I guess that a number of factors had conspired to make this day an ultra stressed one, but the C++ students were the thing that almost pushed me over. Today was their final C++ lab. So, they had to complete a tougher exercise than before. And as usual, they were too stupid and lazy to do any work beforehand.

One of the chief failings of the way that they teach programming here is the cut-n-paste culture. Throughout their time here, the students are given skeletons and snippets of code that they are merely supposed to cut-n-paste into the proper places. As a result, many of them have not the slightest idea on how to write a simple C++ programme.

For their task today, they had to write a small programme to simulate the orbits of 3 objects around a single point. But unlike their previous tasks, they were not given a skeleton. They were still given bits that they could use, but not the overall skeleton. Most of them did not even know where to start and did not know how to even write the main() function.

So, I spent the first half hour drafting their programme for them on paper. I gave them the overall structure and showed them which bits to copy and paste in, which bits to translate from formula and what nots. Essentially, I gave them everything short of the actual code itself. But still they faltered. Some were just so bad that they could not even get simple assignments correct.

It got so bad at one point that I almost passed out. I started to feel woozy and excused myself from the lab, three times, in order to get some fresh air to calm myself down. It wasn't that I was angry. I wasn't. It was the feeling of despair that these students could not even write a simple Hello World programme. There was no hope in them finishing the task at all. That was extremely depressing.

So, instead of giving myself a heart attack, I ended up just writing much of the programme for them. Each time that they asked me a stupid question, I refused to answer them verbally but only pointed to the appropriate bit in the problem sheet. Then, they would go: oh! I felt like strangling them, but I could not even say duh to them, which further contributed to the stress.

I almost lost it with this bunch. If you know that you are not good at C++, at least read up the problem sheet and understand the problem before hand. Also, there is no excuse for them to not be able to even write a simple basic programme structure given that it's already the last week of term. I just do not understand some of these idiots morons imbeciles students here.

I am glad that it is over and I would not need to do any of these anymore!

PS: Just so to make this clear, not everyone here is retarded. There are some gems but they are in the distinct minority.

Reflection

The shock waves are still coursing throughout the world (France24, BBC, FT, Reuters, TIME, WP, NYT) today. Yes, we can. Change is within our grasp. We have shown our rejection for politics of the old to both our ruling and opposition coalition. However, at this point, I shall quote another line from Lord of The Rings:

The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true.

These are interesting, unpredictable times that we live in. After the euphoria settles, everyone will need to get down to work. The rakyat have spoken and we will now be keeping score. The playing field has never been as level as it is now. And nobody really knows what it means.

I don't really care what it means at the moment. I just want to blog about how I feel at the moment. Yes, it's precarious times and if we are not careful, we will shoot ourselves in the foot. Sectarian politics seems to have been rejected, but the results could be further division. However, I am sure that hope remains, because the rakyat have spoken true.



As the report says, the dynamics of local politics has changed. I am happy that the people are more than just aware, but are capable of taking their awareness to the next level, and bring about change. Talk about the silent majority. You never hear a peep from these people until the time comes to cast their ballot. I don't think that we can ever assume that silence means consent any more. We are silent only because we do not wish to stir up any trouble.

Regardless of the political results, it is now time for us to come together as a nation and work together to fix the problems of the past. We need to focus on improving the welfare for everyone, and not just a small political elite. I am a strong supporter of accountability and transparency. I want the government that has efficacy and efficiency. No more sleeping heads and misinformation, please.

Now for an announcement from our dearest Pak Lah. Note the lacklustre cheering. I know that you are dejected, but do not be depressed. Take this as a kick in the behind that you all sorely needed.



PS: I find it rather cute that our former PM has already apologised for selecting a noob as his successor and our current PM is still in denial over what has been a rout. Let's just hope that the internal UMNO power struggles do not spill into the streets. Let's keep it all nice and civil, yar!

The Whining Weak

For some reason, this was a whining week for me. Maybe it's because it's the second last week of term and everything has culminated in people being extra whiny. But the nerve of some of these students just makes me wonder how they're going to survive in life later. I shall explain what I mean by this.

Yesterday, I decided to be generous and help a couple of students. They had some trouble with a C++ programme that was supposed to be finished by 11am. I agreed to stay back after lunch to mark them up. One of the students actually had the nerve to ask me to mark her off even though she couldn't complete the task. Incidentally, this was for standard credit, meaning that they get a fixed mark as long as they complete their work, regardless of quality. So, most students tend to assume that they deserve credit just for turning up.

Instead, I gave her two options: as long as she finishes the task, I don't mind marking her up at another time, or she could get no marks. I was fully expecting her to either spend more time or study the work of a friend. Instead, she told me that she was not interested in spending any more time on the work as she had already spent enough time on it. She asked me if there was someone else (higher up) that she could speak to. So, I gave her the course leader's email.

Today, I had another student come up to me to ask for additional marks on his 3rd year lab report. He said that he understands that I am a very proficient marker but he feels that he deserves a higher mark. That was euphemism for being a strict marker. But, I had a second look at it and decided that although there was nothing wrong with his report, there was nothing special about it either. That is why I gave him a square 2.I for his report. He kept harping about how well the report was presented, with neat diagrams and colours. The trouble is that I actually care about content. So, I stayed with my original decision.

It's not like I give the students random marks. But earlier in the week, somebody decided to take his/her failure to secure high marks to the authorities with regards to a 3rd year lab report. So, I was asked to list down my marking criteria. Except for the extra paper work, it wasn't a problem. In fact, the other marker and I had agreed upon the specific criteria (on paper) at the beginning of term, in order to make our marking fair. So, it was just a matter of reproducing the criteria list.

Coincidentally, at about the same time last year, I had a marking review of 2nd year lab reports because some students had complained. I am probably the only marker who makes students redo the entire lab reports when their reports are crap. In fact, I usually give every such student the choice of either failing or rewriting their reports. And just like last year, they did some statistical analysis to find that the spread of marks was proper. So, I am twice vindicated now. In fact, my manager tells me that he doesn't expect to hear any more of it.

Over the years, I have built a reputation in the department as a proficient marker. That might be why I'm always asked to do marking. But it also gives me a lighter work load. The other marker gets more than double the marking workload than me because the silly students are under the misconception that he is less proficient than I and they all flock to his marking session. Unfortunately, they soon find out that we're both equally proficient in marking.

I am not an evil bastard who is out to fail undergrads to compensate for my own failings. I am merely someone who does not compromise on basic standards. The students merely need to get their act together to score. I reward people with high marks when they do well. It isn't too difficult to do when all the necessary answers are already provided to them in their hand outs.

Headless Prawn

I am even more blur than a big headed prawn. I was a totally headless prawn today. I did something quite unlike myself. I missed a lab mark-up session. I hope that it did not cause too much of a stir.

I think that the chief technician in charge of the lab was probably a little surprised. I came in very early in the morning today, before classes started, to hand in a small deck of reports that I had just finished marking last night. I met the chief technician and passed it to him. Then, I went to the next building to work on the 3rd year VLSI project.

All the while, I felt like something was amiss (you know, the kind of feeling you get that you cannot even sit properly). But I didn't know what was wrong. Then, it occurred to me that my mark-up day was today. But by then, it was already 10.45am. So, I checked my schedule and realised that I had missed the entire mark-up session! And I got an email at 11.15am from the chief technician telling me that I had missed this morning's mark-up session. Sigh...

Blur case. I really have no excuse. But it was an honest mistake. It wasn't like I was still asleep in bed. I had just forgotten about the session. The chief technician must be wondering where I was, since he saw me come in this morning.

I am really getting dumber and dumberer.

A WTF Day.

I think that instead of calling it a We are All Doomed (WaaD) Day, I'm going to start calling these days a What the Frak (WTF) Day. I had to do another 4 hours of C++ demonstration today. Needless to say, it was supremely fruitless even though everyone managed to finish their work before time. Once again, their task consisted of writing just under 10 lines of code in 2 hours. Of the many ways to do it, this is the simplest:

if ((C <> 7)) return 0; // Case 1
if (X < coins[C]) return ways(X, C-1); // Case 2
if (X == coins[C]) return 1 + ways(X, C-1); // Case 3
if (X > coins[C]) return ways(X,C-1) + ways(X - coins[C], C); // Case 4

However, since I had already the experience last week, I was well prepared for the same group of people this week. My normal policy when demonstrating C++ is to not touch the keyboard so that I don't end up doing it for them. I tend to drop hints and reason things out with them. But today, in order to reduce stress levels, I helped about half of them complete the task.

As for the other half, I gave them a good way of attacking the problem, one case at a time. I told them to write and test one additional case at a time, starting with case 3 that was already given. This half were sufficiently capable of completing the task without much ado, and some of them even volunteered to coach their friends after finishing their own work. I have no problems with friends helping each other.

I've seen some of the solutions for tasks that they'll need to attempt over the next fortnight. The task next week is to perform a popular fractal calculation and output a Mandelbrot. The final task will be to write an orbital simulation between a number of astral bodies. Needless to say, I think that I'll have to touch the keyboard even more.

One of the students today, actually asked me if I thought their task was too easy, and I told him without hesitation: Yes! Then, he asked me how long it would take me to finish it, and I told him: 30 seconds. Then, he gave me the you must be kidding look. But when he finished his work, he was extremely surprised at how short the programme actually was, which was about 10 lines.

I can understand it if they are unable to wrap their heads around the logic flow of the problem. I can believe it if they are unable to translate the step-by-step solutions given, from raw English into code. I can even accept it when they cut-and-paste pseudo-code without realising the meaning of the word pseudo. But I cannot accept it if they are not even able to produce a single line of syntactically correct code. It would be like an attempting to write an essay without a single grammatically correct sentence.

Some of my friends have asked me if I'm just being a little too harsh. Personally, I don't think that I'm being harsh at all. When you have a situation where teenagers are capable of producing complex software systems out of their bedrooms, there really is no excuse for an engineering undergraduate here to not be able to write a syntactically correct IF statement unless they are dumb and lazy when all necessary resources are available to them.

The only thing that ticked me off slightly was when I got told off for leaving the lab, on time, last week. The head demonstrator told me to never do that again. He says that it's our job to make sure that everyone finishes their task. I feel that it's the students' duty to finish their own work. My job is to help them solve problems. I'm not being paid to teach people who are not interested in learning anything. It's also not my job to cover his ass for over-estimating the capabilities of the engineering undergraduates when he prepared the tasks.

So, Happy WTF Day.

Malaysian General Elections - Nomination Day

With nomination day just around the corner, I felt like saying something about my thoughts on the utterly non-democratic nature of our candidate nominations. I shall begin by quoting our Election's Commission Chairman:

"In an election you have to produce what is called an informed choice. That's the principle."

Now, let's see how we have failed utterly in this respect. Let us start with the picture at the top.

At the national level, the National Front (BN) candidates are all going to face a one-to-one run off against the opposition candidates. I cannot imagine the amount of back-room dealings that had to have occurred in order for this to happen. This reduces the choice that the voters have. Try to imagine a similar situation, where a number of companies decided to split the market by offering only one-to-one choices of their wares. The key thing is to reduce competition by coming to an agreement on only selling the products of two companies in a market. In the real world, this would be an illegal conspiracy. Companies behaving like this would have heavy fines levied on them or worse. But for some reason, this is perfectly acceptable in politics.

Both DAP and PAS handed over a few constituencies over to PKR in order to help them grow into a stronger party. But I question the wisdom of this decision. It is important for PKR to grow as it purportedly represents the hope of centrist, middle-class urban voters. However, helping it to grow by giving hand-outs just stinks of the crutch culture that is endemic in our social system. There is no democracy in this decision. If they are to become a bona-fide opposition party, they should have to put in the hard work with the people and wrest the support away from everyone else (including other opposition parties).

At the local level, the voters are all screwed. The decisions to field candidates in an election are decided from the top, and once again, the people have no choice in the matter and are told to tow the party line. In an actual democracy, the lower party members should be the ones who decide whom they would like to field in their constituency. Such a decision should never have to get the approval of anyone in the central committee. Instead, what we have now are elected officials who are beholden to the will of the central power structure and couldn't care less about what their constituents think.

Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people --- Abe Lincoln

So there, I give you, we are not even a paper democracy on nomination day.

This is ROFLOL!

I love PhDComics. I recommend anyone planning on entering graduate school to read it. It's friggin' hilarious! Today's comic made me laugh so hard. Alright, it might be a tad geeky for normal people to understand, but it's soooo funny. To the engineers among you, I hope that you enjoy the joke (unless of course you are an undergrad, in which case the joke's on you!).

*** image from phdcomics.com .. used without permission but i assume that it should be okay, as the author allows sharing the comics through other services. ***

Us vs US

The DAP just released a campaign video. I watched it and felt kind of let down by the quality (rather, the lack of).

1. The voice over was weak. Granted, it's Uncle Kit's voice but his voice is not suitable for ads. It's probably gone hoarse from shouting too much in parliament. They should really have just done away with it entirely if they couldn't get professional voice work done.
2. The use of the "swoosh" is questionable. I doubt that Nike would throw a fuss about this. But still I'm pretty sure that it's a trademark. They really shouldn't blatantly steal a logo and modify it's slogan. It smacks of childishness. Use the rocket, it's a good logo.
   
3. The (mis)use of old fat ladies running a relay race through the street. If you're going to make someone run on camera, at least find someone fit enough for the job. I'm not sure I'd trust these old ladies enough to pass them my baton.
4. Using a kid to run the last leg of the race. Obviously, this was meant to symbolise hope for the future. However, it's a cheap sell.
   
5. Oops! Uncle Kit gave us the finger when he accepted the baton. I guess that he didn't learn how to receive a baton correctly in school. The cameraman should have caught onto that. It's so glaring.
   

The video was obviously a budget production. Now, contrast it with this campaign video from the other side of the world. A world of difference.



PS: I know that sticking up the video here is just helping the DAP spread their video. But I just felt that I needed to comment on it. Commenting on the video without context isn't quite right.

Anti-Lies

Any sane person will know that the Internet is filled with lies. I used to tell people that they should not believe 9 out of 10 things that they read on the Internet, and they should know that 9 out of the 10 things that they believe, will turn out to be lies. So, be very careful of what you read on the Internet.

People tend to believe anything that is in print. That is why newspapers have always had such a sway on public opinion. If a newspaper claims that a scientist had discovered a way to make pigs fly, most people will believe it without question. Hence, journalists have had to maintain a certain level of integrity, in order to protect the public trust. The Internet has changed all that though.

This new age is filled with strange new words like blogs and wikipedia. Some have dubbed the Internet as the new or alternative media as opposed to legacy and mainstream media. This is a reflection of how people have come to consume media. We are increasingly looking to the Internet as an authoritative source on everything, especially that which the regular media chooses not to report.

As a result, we turn to citizen journalists, who are really just a bunch of regular people like you and me, for the truth. How these people could possibly discern the truth from the spiel that gets spewed out by the establishment, really boggles the mind. In reality, most bloggers just end up writing biased views on what is perceived truth. This concerns me because bloggers have strength in numbers. When a lie gets repeated oft enough, it starts to sound awfully like the truth.

Therefore, I have always been troubled by one simple fact: that the Internet is filled with opposition blogs and anti establishment news sites. I would prefer a more balanced Internet, where I could read views and opinions from both sides of the fence and draw my own conclusions. I have previously suggested that bloggers are fallible. Sadly, the pro-establishment writers don't seem to have a strong presence. They are probably too busy just trying to keep on top of their own biases in print.

So, I applaud our Minister of Energy, Water and Communications, Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, who has called for the setting up of websites to counter these counter establishment lies. I would go further and even suggest that he start the ball rolling by setting up his own personal blog. He is the Minister of Communications. It doesn't take 15 minutes to set up a blog. He can choose to use any one of the many public and free online services. If he is confused, he should just ask his fellow opposition politicians about which service to use. They have got a wealth of experience in this area.

Personally, I really look forward to reading the anti-lies from our ruling coalition. With some of the jokers that we have in parliament, I'm sure that it will make excellent reading for a dull afternoon.

An anti-lie is the opposite of a lie. It should not be mistaken for, an entirely different creature, truth, which is alien to politics, the progenitor to both lie and anti-lie, where spin is it's highest form.

PS: Maybe our ruling politicians are just afraid of what they may end up saying. They cannot really blame their own blog for misrepresenting what they say or mean, especially when they don't really know what they actually mean to say.

Hacktivism

The Internet is a truly amazing piece of technology. It constantly surprises me on the kinds of uses people come up with it. For the modern activist, the Internet would prove to be a very useful tool in bringing people together for a common cause. In the past, people have generally used it as a tool to disseminate information. But most recently, it is being used as a tool for attack.

If you're not familiar with Scientology, it's probably about time you found out about them. Wikipedia is a good place to start. If you prefer to watch a video instead, BBC Panorama did an expose on them a while back. You can find the video here. Watch it.

Anyway, this blog post isn't about them. It's about the interesting phenomenon of online activism, dubbed hacktivism. A group of online activists, calling themselves Anonymous, have come together and declared an online war on the church. This alone, is interesting to observe as they use various methods to attack the church.

1. Declaration of War
   They released an online video declaration on YouTube. If you find the voice-over funny, it's because it was done using a Text-to-Speech translation software. This prevents voice identification and allows the group members to remain anonymous. Also, it gives the group a single voice, regardless of who is speaking. The latter reason would be important, to project a single consistent image in their campaign.
   
2. Information Campaign
   They released a bunch of documents that were claimed to be secret documents. As mentioned in their declaration, their core tactic for taking down the church is to expose the truth. They have also released another video, challenging the main stream media to report the truth. Just like any other war, information is crucial to winning it.
   
3. First Blood
   They drew first blood by launching a series of crippling DDoS attacks on servers of the church. This kind of attack is a typical front-line assault on any online system. It's fairly simple to orchestrate and is particularly effective at taking down web servers. In some countries, this is illegal. However, due to the distributed nature of the attack, it is particularly difficult to police. Some parties have decried this tactic as it isn't very gentlemanly. However, as they have already declared in their video, they will use any tactic that the church has used before. So, it's quid-pro-quo, I guess.
   
4. Base Assault
   This takes the campaign to a whole other level. Know that a purely online campaign would not cripple the church, they are gathering in front of the London branch of the church in a fortnight's time as a show of force. This will be a serious test on the strength of their campaign. I'm tempted to pop down to London with my camera to record this historic event.
   

I'm excited just thinking about what they're going to do next. This is particularly interesting to me as it's the first coordinated hacktivist activity that I've been able to observe. Other activists who wish to take their campaign online, might even learn a thing or two from this campaign. I just hope that they don't turn out to be a bunch of crazies.

UPDATE: Just as I finished writing this blog, I read this: Tom Cruise today announced that the Church of Scientology would be pursuing all means, legal and otherwise, to shut down the Internet group referring to themselves as simply "Anonymous". I guess that the gloves have come off now.

Parti Mahasiswa Negara

There's been an interesting development in local Malaysian politics today. TheStar is reporting that a bunch of young graduates have come together to form a new political party, called: Parti Mahasiswa Negara. According to the article:

Its pro tem president Azlan Zainal said the multiracial party, comprising young graduates, would not join any existing party but its candidates would stand as independents. Matters like funding and the areas we will be contesting will be looked into later.

So, I asked myself, who were these people and what did they want. It all sounds good on paper, but I have never trusted any politician, not even naive, aspiring ones. So, I sat down to think about this thing a little. After a while, I decided that this blade could cut both sides. Regardless, it would be interesting to see how things pan out in the coming GE.

On one hand, I can see how this is a good thing. If you've been reading Opposition blogs, you will see that they have all had a common slogan that they like to chant i.e. Vote for Change, Vote for Opposition. The trouble with this is that if Malaysians really want to see true change, they shouldn't vote for the Opposition. There are other alternatives.

The trouble with the various Opposition parties in Malaysia is that they are the same creature as the ruling Government. They are all cut from the same cloth. They're all being led by people from the same generation who have the same outmoded ideas of national unity. Voting for the Opposition will just give us the same problems, from the opposite side. The reason that I say this is because they all bank on race/religion as their main platform.

Centrist and logical Malaysians would be totally fed up with both sides of the fence. If you vote for the ruling coalition, we will continue to have the same old divisive politics in place. They will carve us up by race/religion and rule each sub group that way. If you vote for the Opposition, they would still carve us up by race/religion and rule each sub group that way. Hence, if you truly want change, you cannot vote for either of them.

So, maybe this new political party was made up of just that, people who are fed up with existing political parties and want some real change in Malaysia. However, seeing that they have not made any policy decisions and such, I am hesitant to speculate on their intentions. But, this could be the start of a new chapter. Voters who want to vote for change, may actually vote for independents.

On the other hand, there is also a darker possible side to this new group. They could be planted there to disrupt the Opposition's support. The ruling coalition may have sensed the shift of support away from them. So, in order to prevent an Opposition victory, I wouldn't put it past them to plant independents in order to split the votes. One could easily see how independents can severely disrupt the situation in tightly fought constituencies.

So, maybe this new political party is a red herring, designed to distract people from the primary focus. The fact that they had only suddenly appeared at the 11th hour is very mysterious. That the main stream media covered their formation, is also suspicious. But then, a coin always has three sides, doesn't it.

There is always the faint possibility that they're a bunch of political optimists, who believe that they can fast track their way into politics by exploiting the volatile political climate present. Malaysian voters aren't known to be particularly logical people. Otherwise, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. So, maybe they will succeed, maybe they won't.

The only way to tell is to see how well the perform in the up coming GE.

PS: You can read their press statement on what's supposed to be their official blog.

Walk Hard, the MCA way!

I just read about this from a couple of different blogs. Regardless of the authenticity, it is obviously very interesting. According to these blogs, our momentary Health Minister had sent the following email to all the Malaysian JPA scholars of Chinese ethnicity studying overseas.

Greetings to all JPA students all over the world! Its certainly a privilege to be a star student, standing tall as young Malaysians living overseas. I am sure you do your family proud, and I hope you will cherish this moment for the rest of your life, especially at this time of the year when the cheerful holiday mood is abound.

2007 has been a year of many lessons learnt for many nations. As other cities burn in turmoil, violence and disruption, Malaysia has thankfully weathered our difficulties in a peaceful manner to ensure that we have continued harmony and unity among the races. Amidst some tough economic times ahead, with worries of escalating global oil prices, every day living will increasingly be challenged. Similarly, Malaysia will also need to brace itself for such a period by remaining economically relevant and globally competitive.

[1] The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) has worked hard over the last eight years to ensure that the community's best and most talented receive top class education for deserving people such as yourself. While it is understandable that the world over is also vying for the best that it can attract into their labour force, it also our hope that our own students and graduates return to their homeland to serve their country.

[2] MCA is also actively playing a role to help returning graduates and local talents who have a special interest in serving in the government. Civil service diversity is critical to address moderation, fairness and balance in the implementation and enforcement of our nation's laws and regulations at all levels. So important is this point that MCA has set up a secretariat/service centre to handle first hand the enquiries and issues pertaining to application, entry and even promotion in the Malaysian civil service.

MCA hopes that our efforts to build the nation and community can be realized with your appreciation as well as your service so that you, your family as well as your friends can enjoy the fruits of our peaceful nation forever.

MCA wishes you a good year ahead! And Happy New Year!

Ong Ka Ting

President, MCA

Now, let's see what issues I have with the bold sentences above.

1. In that single sentence, he has just insulted every one of the scholars. He implies that without the hard work of the MCA, they would not have been able to receive their top class education even though these scholars deserved it. I guess, the fact that the scholars probably put in some real work does not count. I'd really like to know what kind of hard work any MCA man had put into helping the JPA scholars: (a) gain entry into the top class universities, (b) get a scholarship.
2. With this single sentence, he stresses that the MCA is helping more Malaysian Chinese to secure civil service jobs. Considering our government's racially blind recruitment policy mentioned by our Chief Secretary to the Government today, I'm not sure how much the MCA can help anybody. Also, he has openly condemned our civil service for being immoderate, unfair and imbalanced. Touche!
   

Regardless, he must not be interested in the scholars here. I've asked some of my friends and they did not get the email. So, I guess that the MCA isn't interested in helping anyone here get a civil service job. Or more likely, he did not dare tell anyone here that they owed their present privileges to the MCA. Anyway, I'd recommend everyone to go watch the real "Walk Hard" in cinemas. It's strangely funny!

UPDATE@18/01: One friend informed me that he has actually received the email and there are like 700+ emails listed in it because our MCA president did not BCC them. Must've been very hard work to type in those 700+ email addresses. That must be what he meant by the hard work that MCA had put in for them.

Beware the Facebook!

I have regularly been asked why I refuse to sign up for facebook. When I first found out about Facebook ages ago, it set off many red flags in my head, and it smelled funny. That was the main reason why I have, since, refused to sign up to facebook and I never will. It was never due to the lack of invites.

There is an article in The Guardian, today, entitled "With Friends Like These...". It's much better researched than my simple gut feeling. So, I'd recommend everyone to give it a read. Actually, please give the entire article a read. It's a fairly long article simply because there are so many reasons on why Facebook is evil and people should avoid it like the plague.

It's now good to know that there are more others like me, out there.

In my book, Facebook is evil.

A Coin has THREE Sides!

Most people in the world live with the idea that there are two sides to a coin. Many are even taught this in school. Unfortunately, this is patently untrue. Believing in such lies will only get one into trouble. There are at least three sides to a coin: look to the picture on the right for the truth.

With recent events, we have seen the shadow of growing Islamisation, enveloping our nation. There are plenty of such examples, like the recent intellectual property claim on the word Allah by some idiots in our Government. But this problem isn't only happening at home. For some unknown reason, there is a gradual creep of increased religious piety worldwide. For example, Christian extremists in the USA are challenging evolution with intelligent design and believe that they are a Christian nation. Sigh, where are the centrists?

I tried to do my bit recently, on the blog of our opposition leader. A parent had written to him, to ask for advice, and he decided to politicise the issue for no good reason. I found that fairly irresponsible. The issue was about the school principal madating the prefects to wear a songkok as part of their uniform. As a Chinese Christian family, the parent felt that this was an attack on their race/religion. From many of the comments, you can tell that most people see it in the same way.

I tried to point out the fact that it was not a race/religion issue, but an issue of personal freedom. I asked one comment, how wearing a songkok is against the 10 commandments as none of them mention attire, and got called an agnostic. I asked another, if the male prefects had been mandated to wear skirts to school instead, would it be a gender issue, and got called illogical. I find this fairly comical as I've also been called the exact opposite. Seems like I must have hit a nerve.

The thing that I find sad is that most Malaysians will see this issue as a race/religion issue. I cannot blame them as we have been conditioned from young to see everything through the lens of race/religion. As a result, politics in Malaysia will not change. Our National Front (BN) will continue to rule by divide-and-conquer and our Opposition will exploit exactly the same thing. On the surface, it does involve race/religion as the songkok is a Malay traditional head wear and Malays are, by definition, muslims. But dig deeper, and you'll see that it's a crime of stupidity, not hate.

I have always hoped that our Opposition will grow up and handle real issues. I have blogged about this many times before. The problem with Malaysia is that, through the many decades of conditioning, our fellow countrymen have become mostly bigots. The centre is growing thin and crumbling. When the centre becomes too thin, the coin falls over.

When that happens, as a nation, we are so screwed.

Gizmodo are the Meanies

Oh man, this is the meanest thing that people could do at a public expo. Reporters from Gizmodo, went to CES with a sponsored device that is essentially a universal remote that can turn off any TV display. Mayhem ensues as there were more than enough screens to go around at CES, wall after wall of displays.

I personally found the act extremely irresponsible and childish. However, I had a good laugh nonetheless. I'm fairly certain that they'll have their press passes revoked, at least for a while. I hope that none of the sales people lost their jobs because of this stunt.

Note to self: Always tape over the IR port with duct tape. You never know when someone (maybe a competitor) in the audience might have a universal remote and the will to use it to spoil your presentation. This would be a bigger problem with RF devices. Just go full manual, then.

International Idiot University (IIU)

There's this article in the Beebs today, that involves a Malaysian running an Irish University. It's a scandal. As I cannot possibly write it better than them, I recommend that you give the original article a good read. If nothing else, it's worth a laugh. I would like to put in my dua sen though.

If an institution charges a group of people some money, gives them some coursework and awards them a certificate at the end (along with the necessary gown and ceremony), is anyone a victim? If this certificate results in better employment opportunities, is anyone a victim? What would you call this kind of institution?

When I look at this situation from an abstract point of view, I see a fairly disturbing scenario. In fact, this scenario can aptly describe what many people go through, these days. You go to an institution (let's say Cambridge), you pay them a good amount of money, do some work, and get a certificate at the end, which says that you were awarded a degree. With this degree, you manage to secure a good job.

Where are the victims?

As for the students of IIU, they paid money, and got something out of it. If they were looking for an accredited qualification, then, they should have looked just a little harder. The IIU is clearly listed as an unaccredited institution on Wikipedia. There really isn't an excuse for them to say that they had been cheated/conned. So, the students may be a bit daft, but they aren't victims per se.

Some people might argue that the employer had been cheated because the degree isn't legitimate. My argument is that, an employer hires a person, not a piece of paper. If the person has the necessary knowledge and skills, then, they were right for the job. So, no victim. If that person doesn't have them, then, the employer shouldn't have hired them in the first place. If the employer was hiring a piece of paper, then, they are victims of their own stupidity. So, the employer isn't a victim either.

Who should we hold accountable?

If we assume that someone was indeed victimised, who should be held accountable? I say that the only party responsible for this whole debacle is society. For some unfathomable reason (at least to me), there is a lot of value placed on a sheet of paper. It serves as a conduit for a person to gain higher social status only because society chooses to recognise it's value.

I've always felt that we should value a person for the person's skills and abilities, not their degree. For as long as we value their degree more than themselves, universities like the IIU will exist.

PS: As far as scams go, this one is fairly benign and can actually bring benefit to it's 'victim'. So, I'm not even sure if it can qualify as a scam.

*** image credit - the IIU ***

Our government needs You!

When I read this, I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry! According to the article, "parents who have already paid non-mandatory fees to school should treat the payment as a kind of contribution to the institution instead of seeking a refund." To get a better perspective, let's look at the story from a couple of months ago.

In early November, our Education Minister announced that the government was, "prepared to forego RM160mil next year (RM130mil to provide free textbooks and RM30mil for abolishing school fees) as the quality of education cannot be compromised." Presumably, this great selfless act was as a result of the government's great love for the rakyat. In the next breath, "Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said the ministry would source for alternative revenue."

Okay, that should have set off a whole bunch of alarm bells. But, we were all too happy with the whole idea of free education that nobody really understood what our humble minister meant, when he said that. Now, things are becoming all too clear, how the whole scheme is supposed to play out. Just like a casino, our government holds all the cards and so, they'll always win.

Parents, nationwide, were treated to a rude shock at the beginning of this school year by an unexpected hike in the cost of education. "Parents ended up paying extra charges on the first day of school although the Government has waived school fees this year. Many parents complained they had to pay up to almost RM200 just for extra charges, which were well over the Education Ministry’s regulated ceiling charges."

As a result of the great generosity of our government, they expected the rakyat to be equally as generous. Therefore, people like this single mum "in Alor Star had to send her four children a day later to school because she had to go around asking for donations to pay more than RM750 charged by the schools." According to her, "donations payable for her two secondary school children came to more than RM150.For her two primary school children she had to fork out a total of RM192.50 while for her two secondary school children, she had to come up with more than RM560."

I don't know whether to laugh at the exceptional scam scheme or to cry at the plight of the poor.

Imagine what you would do, if you were told by the government that income tax is now abolished. But when you go to collect your pay check, you find that 50% of your pay had been deducted as a personal contribution. In your anger, you demand for an explanation, only to be told to see this as a donation, that will be used as alternative funding towards nation building.

From the article, "Hishammuddin said that the ministry had no plans to streamline the payment of these additional fees because there were some parents who actually wished to contribute to the schools. Some of them may be millionaires and can afford to give the sum or in fact, more than what the schools ask for. We don't want to hinder them." I truly wonder how many millionaires send their kids to government schools instead of private ones.

With the rising cost of oil subsidies, falling corporate taxes and giga-project scandals, maybe our government is running out of funds. Therefore, it has to find alternative sources of funding, i.e. personal donations by the rakyat. This is like an IPO, just without any shares issued. Looks like the investors are planning to exit.

We are so screwed.

Where's our Barrack Obama?

I mean, please watch this video and tell me, where is our Barrack Obama? Let's not even talk about anything else but the single most important quality that a leader needs, unity. We need a unifying leader, not more divisive ones.

PS: Watch this one too. Very funny!!

Goodbye, virile old man!

Seems like my preliminary analysis of the situation was right. Our Health Minister, has been completely ousted, not just from his government position, but also his political seat and all his party posts within the MCA. All this, within 24 hours after he publicly declared that he was the man caught in the recent sex DVD scandal in Malaysia.

According to our opposition leader, in his blog:

The first betrayal was the very orchestrated and professional manner in the surfacing of the video DVD. Who was behind it? All fingers point to his political enemies from within the MCA.

The second betrayal was whether he had been misled into believing that his admission in his Labis statement would suffice, and he could continue to keep his government and party posts, when in fact, his Labis statement would be the basis to force him to relinquish his government and party posts – as has now happened.

As I had inferred earlier, this was internal party politics, being dragged into the open. It became fairly obvious, once you consider the source and distribution methodology involved. Somebody wanted him out, and devised this strategy to get him out. It's only sad that the only political scandal in Malaysia, worthy of publication, had come to such a quick and painless end. Or has it? Regardless of all this speculation, it's unfortunate that he was forcibly removed.

Firstly, I think that it's undemocratic, to remove him from his position as MP. It makes a mockery of the whole democratic process. He was a democratically elected leader and by that virtue, he should only lose the position through democratic means. He is there because the electorate put him there, not his party. So, if the people still want him, regardless of his infidelity, he should be kept in his seat. If they want him out, the people can kick him out.

Secondly, I think it's unprofessional to have him resign as Health Minister. A person should only be judged professionally, based on their job performance. I can certainly think of several incompetent ministers, who should be dragged out and burnt at the stake. For some reason, our Health Minister isn't on the list. He's probably one of the very few ministers we have, who actually knows something about his job.According to the IHT, "Chua had been praised for cutting bureaucratic delays in medical services and working to combat AIDS, smoking and junk food consumption."

Thirdly, I think that it's kind of sad when other dirtier politicians, are still behind the reigns of power, while he got caught with his pants down, literally. Seriously, if the worst thing they could hit him with was infidelity, he's probably one of the cleaner politicians in government. It's sad when politicians who're caught having sex are forcibly removed, while corrupt and incompetent ones are kept on. It seems that, "some Malaysians have a holier-than-thou attitude."

So, we should just sit back, and watch the rest of the show. The best way to figure out who the dalang is, is to observe the food chain and see who benefits. Nobody goes through all this trouble for nothing.

PS: Maybe now, he can consider going over and working for Pfizer or Bayer!

After reading this interview, now I'm really sad that he has to go. He's very tajam in his answers. He's obviously seething. We're so screwed.