The House of Cards in KL

Some people within UMNO think that Najib is weak and incapable of running the election war room. As the result, they had to bring in the casino owner by the name of Mahathir Mohamad to run the show. The election intelligence reports sounds grim that they need to use tricks to shore more Malay votes for the party to remain running the government.

The billion dollar casino in downtown KL had to invest at least $730 million up to the maximum of $1.7 billion as I was told a year ago in the upcoming general elections and handout monies to appease people - ranging from fence sitters to old rural folks and those first-time voters. From my observation of the recent UM survey about BN still having a 5% advantage, it looks likely that the ruling party is taking advantage of the fence and first timers naivetivity over the present and masked developments in this nation to shore up support.

Many are still not aware that the short term measures will not last that long and many are still unaware of more dangers lying ahead from the so called white collar thirds that have been running the state for the last 55 years and counting. The survey from UM points out that most of the Malays surveyed still are concerned over the race and religion issues that has been embedded in their minds compared to their other Malaysian counterparts who are worried over corruption and lack of economical progress.

Running along the race and religion cards that the casino and it's subsidiary agency Perkasa, the owner is concerned that if they lose a lot of money in their card game in the next two to three months, the casino would go bust as well as it's junkies who are associated with that turf. Plus the owner's plan to put his young son on the road to replace him would end in tatters. Sadly many do not know of the real plan apart from constantly fingering and cussing Anwar Ibrahim all day long.

I have read some negative commentary about changing government by mostly the naive and the conservative Malay folks everywhere and even if I decided not to reply to anything, they have shown to me the exact traits of a lazy native - complacent, slack, always faulting others sans themselves and admitting defeat before the start of a match / battle. Seems to me that they never bothered about the real costs apart from being busy bodies. Maybe I would write a sales letter style post next round.

The worst case scenario for that casino is to lose as high as 1.1 billion dollars in bets if the results style is the complete reverse of what happened in 2008. The base scenario would be that would lose half of the investment money but yet see a chance to make trouble in a thin majority PR led govt.

Some people said that the owner had gone senile lately based on the comments at the RCI Sabah... could it be that the signs of death are knocking on his door then?

The Chinese have already made it clear that they are going to make the casino bleed. Indian take is still fluid while the Malay cash still at 50/50. In anyways, the house of cards in KL is going to be a place whether people want to cash out or cash in at the price of their dignity.

Again, Bernama Should Reveal Reporter Names!

I do not how Bernama reporters or people from government count the numbers of people who were in the anti-Lynas walk to Merdeka Square last night. They claim to say only 2000.

But apparently, the numbers speak for themselves. At first it was around 5000, but around the evening, the numbers swelled to around 10 times Bernama claims to be.

Maybe one picture alone seems to say that the news agency lied.

To cover the shade of the government who is getting embarrassed by this demonstration, complaints by those who disagreed have been amplified and exaggerated.

In the last few months, I have been proposing that we should push for the agency to start revealing names of reporters who have been writing the material. The main reason is to also put them to show responsibility of their writings just as what these other ministers and political rats have been hounding at us to take responsibly on our writings.

Associated Press have already done so by putting (for example): Reporting by..."reporter A, reporter B..." Additional editing by "editor A, editor B". Why can't they be doing it? Are they doing it in secrecy?

Yes, Keep on Slugging Tony and Tee Yong!

A week ago, the DAP's UBAH truck made its appearance in the PJ Civic Hall, with Tony Pua being the last speaker. The reason I went there was to see how many times Tony would whack that boy by the name of Chua Tee Yong.

To ensure that I can accurately reproduce what Tony tried to say on that night, I recorded the entire 43 minute speech onto my phone. Later on, a video recorded by Mediarakyat also matched my recording as well. At that time, the announcement by the state government to reveal the white paper on Talam seems to increased my enthusiasm on seeing a throwing tantrum kind of reaction by the spoiled kid by the name of Chua Tee Yong.

Here are the instances where the spoiled kid was referred to in Tony Pua's talk in Petaling Jaya last week.

1. This has been verified after that boy keep making noise (13:40)

2. So there is no need for that Tan Sri....err Datuk Chua Tee Yong to debate (14:09)

3. (14:17) I want to ask in return, comparing to Barisan Nasional, Datuk Chua Tee Yong himself. He's the deputy minister of agriculture. Agriculture look after what? Look after cows everyone know.

4. (14.33) I want to ask this deputy minister who took so much time visiting hills and lakes of Selangor to criticize this transaction with Talam. Has he ever been to the NFC farm to count the cows there int that farm? He never responded because I know he has never been into that farm.

5. (15:07) I want to ask Datuk Chua Tee Yong who has been critical in that debt collection in Selangor whether he is able to give the people of Malaysia the assurance that he would be able to collect every single cents of the 250 million soft loan extended to Sharizat's family so that the people will not lose a single cents. Can he? Up to today satu suara pun tak ada.

Of course I am not surprised by it. Selangor chief minister Khalid Ibrahim disclosed the details of the white paper at the state assembly yesterday, and declared the issue not closed. And then Free Malaysia Today, like I predicted, reported that Tee Yong refused to accept the entire case is closed and still wants to keep slugging on with the Talam case.

Quoting from Free Malaysia Today:

“But I will first wait for him [Khalid] to finish what he says. It’s not fair that I criticise now, because then he will suddenly add additional information to the White Paper to rebut my points,” he said.

“If the White Paper is for all the people to understand the Talam Corp issue, then it would be complete with all the points.

“Yet there are still questions, so let him reveal all the remaining information on Talam Corp before I make further criticism,” he added.

“This MB is always flip-flopping. Before, he said he would respond in the Dewan Rakyat, but he never did.

“He also once said he would never entertain or respond to MCA. But then they had a roadshow to explain Talam.

“So considering he always changes his mind, I will allow him to finish what he says first before I raise more questions,” said Chua.

Over to you Tony, I would really like you to keep slugging out with that "boy who make noise" as you called. 

It's Just Between Yourself and God

The religion issue is a topic and subject that I often refused to talk as it made me feel uncomfortable. However, the recent apostasy matter that was brought up following Nurul Izzah's comments has got me wanted to say this for the last time, and hopefully I would not want to talk about it down the road again ever.

Until today, my observation is that many of those who scream apostasy never even bothered to answer the two main questions:

1. What really make people decide to leave their faiths behind? 

2. What is the desired punishment that these people want if a person is found to leaving their faith?

Ibrahim, Zul, Hasan and even the clerics in the UMNO organization has never even bothered to answer Question 2 but simply waving threats all around. 

As for Question 1, there answers are mostly found through self-discovery and emotional perception. It cannot be answered by others except themselves. It is somewhat a cliche to by some people to accuse Western influence as the reason behind it. That, I do not think so.

There are some people who may realized or witnessed how a religion is being misused for the purposes of a select few that many repeated deny that it is a lie whereas there are tons of evidence to support that. There are some who have felt that the limitation of tenets imposed (though irrelevant at the modern age) has given the restriction for them to think and act, but want to do things while still remain in the boundaries of what is defined as good conduct and behavior that each religion would demand of. There are also some people who claimed to say that they have experienced a calling and epiphany to move from one faith to another for a better good.

There have been fictional material that illustrates a man's transition as the result of experience and epiphany. As an example, one of literature's famous swords and sorcery fictional characters, Drizzt Do'urden's decision to leave a faith and religion was the result of the emotional trauma experienced first hand and self-realization that the religion that he was in his formative years was more or less of committing atrocities for lust and chaos. As the result, he pursued - the Melikki - and in the centuries after the events, he admitted that he has felt the unusual peace and enlightenment that has never felt otherwise - without compulsion, but with curiosity and the desire to get out of the evil that could consume him.

The European history of how religion has been successfully been separated out of secular law is the reason why I would write to answer this problem in Malaysia. You've got to acknowledge that when England's Act of Supremacy was introduced in 1534, England has already successfully kept the religion factor out whenever laws are implemented. Europe will only wake up in another 265-270 years later during the Napoleonic Wars. In short, socially speaking we are 200 years behind Europe in society progress that even Pak Lah admitted before, first world facilities third world mentality.

I often held high regard to people like Henry II and Kemal Ataturk simply because they are in believe that religious interference into the administration of law of their respective countries would make the national progress (economical and social aspect) mundane just because mixing that odd aspect into it. The U.S law doesn't contain any religious aspects included in its laws. Some viewed that Ataturk, branded an apostate by many narrow-minded Muslims, eventually succeeded to the point that those who screamed suddenly went quiet over it. Ultimately, who's in the wrong anyway?

Say if I am asked to become the interim Prime Minister of Malaysia due to some unusual circumstance, I would definitely would put a stop on religious interference once and for all with a stroke of the pen. Of course, there are people including those right-wingers would definitely say, "Ini orang cina ini tak hormat Islam...bla bla bla.." I mean come on, you are impeding people's potential to progress, you are walking one step backwards, you don't want people to be smart, but then despite religious interference, there's still plenty of untackled social problems. Hey...the constitution is silent on who can be PM, right? Perlembagaan tak ada kata siapa mesti jadi PM kan - only who commands the confidence of the majority of the MPs, betul? Everyday we see those who scream all this murtad thing riding on a big limo like a rich man - isn't this contrasting to your own statement indicating that the person is holier than thou? If that is the case, may I suggest that you migrate to those countries like Saudi Arabia if you think you are great? Didn't someone said before that Western countries though they are not Muslim majority but yet do things that are Islamic? If a man steals bread to feed his daughter and both of them are poor shouldn't we be helping them?

In this topic, my main argument is from the perspective of secular view and being a person who doesn't put stock into religion like other people do. Who knows, I might do better than Najib or Pak Lah combined supposed if I am PM. The gist of what I am saying is, too much inteference tends to make things very very messy and as a person who thinks that religious freedom is for all, a person's self-identity and his / her believes is between themselves and God with nobody having the right to force or interfere, Hotel California style.

Happy Diwali

Just to wish all my Indian friends and mostly ex-colleagues a Happy Diwali day.

Bites From Obama vs Romney, Murphy vs McMahon

I always wanted and was certain from the beginning that Barack Obama would win the recently concluded elections simply because of a few main reasons: he fights for the middle-class Americans and even pushes for the healthcare reform bill. There's a certain understanding from the people that a Democrat party-originated president will have a hard time to reverse the policies undertaken by the Republican Bush administration. Secondly, with the narrow aversion of the Senate and House's deadlock over the national debt matter last year, many people would not want to have someone like Romney that would make people suffer while reducing the tax for the wealthy.

Some people, even Warren Buffett thinks that people amass too much wealth but yet don't contribute much back to the nation in the period where things are so tough economically is somewhat greedy - an opinion that Obama doesn't hide by pointing to the elite at Wall Street as "the fat cat bankers". Many don't take kindly to him because he signed the Dodd-Frank Act. Add in the Massachusetts' Elizabeth Warren (who pushed for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) - the rich end of the people layer will be very much angry, while those in the lower and middle would say at least it's better.

Many including overseas partners rather prefer Obama in dealing the foreign policy. In the final round of debate between Romney and him, Obama's way of addressing the matter was very much more careful -  even if there's rivalry with other nations compared to what Romney would do - more hawkish stance, given of his Mormon background. This of course is what Netahanyu would want - given of Israel itching to start a war with Iran over oil and nukes. The kind of thought by Romney nerved a lot of people. Any person would imagine how Romney would deal with the Chinese in a slam bang manner.

Facing the fiscal cliff due in January, there is a necessity of the U.S to cut expenditure on defense and the timetable of withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan needs to be accelerated, for a daily upkeep is around to the tune of $1 billion. Romney is not very keen on upscale cuts on that matter and this would put more trouble in addition to the $600 billion automatic cuts in January 2013. The contest is also seen as perceiving who is digging the bigger hole and sinking faster.

Wall Street on Wednesday took a big dip, and then it continued on Thursday only to parred its losses on Friday. The real pain is that Wall Street bet on the wrong horse - obviously as part of the extreme capitalist agenda and lost painfully - the Dow and S&P 500 drop between 300-400 points respectively.

The other interesting thing about that day was the Senate seat contest in Connecticut between Democrat's Chris Murphy against former WWE chairman Linda McMahon (Republic). Linda spent about $50 million of her fortune to campaign and win a ticket to the Senate - 5 times more than the amount of Murphy's expenditure. $100 million in two campaigns for McMahon but yet lost on both occasions. Arguably, the main reason why Murphy won against her was because of insights of those who worked under her describing her behavior in running the company. This senatorial seat contest was interesting because it points out that not even the amount of money can guarantee a politician a ticket to the Senate.

The closing speech by Murphy was also a turning point:

"I've spent my life running to people to help them and Linda McMahon has spent her life running over people to help herself, that's the contrast in this election. And so, whether it is the difference on taxes or Medicare or social security, whether it is the difference on fighting for manufacturers, standing up for women's health, whether it's the difference in terms of how Linda McMahon and I have prioritised the time we've spent on this Earth, we've got a story to tell over the next day.... We will prove over the course of the next thirty hours that Connecticut is not for sale."

Many have expressed contempt and disappointment over McMahon's answers and statements.

The re-election campaign would definitely provide some allegories to the Malaysian political context. Just like Obama's win, when Barisan lost more than they thought, the KLSE plunged 10% and trading got suspended on 9 March 2008. Quite similar of betting that the customary 2/3rds are there, but this time round, it didn't happen. Many are uncertain whether a change or government or a setback would affect the 5-year term policy making which they are used to.

As an allegory to the Murphy vs McMahon campaign, Barisan's war chest is estimated to amount to approximately RM 1.7 billion - no doubt from collective contributions by top national conglomerates and GLCs. If you visit a place where ceramahs by the non-Barisan parties, people would give donations with amounts more or less a fragment of the total money.

Let's say we use the maximum tune of RM 1.7 billion:

222 Parliament Seats X $200K campaign per seat = $44.4 million

505 State Seats X $100K campaign per seat = $50.5 million

The actual cost of campaigning for each coalition in total for any GE is actually close to $100 million. By spending $1.7 billion in total, even Barisan can't even stand and abide by their own election terms and regulations set by their unofficial component party, the Election Commission. So the remaining $1.6 billion is more or less used as "instant noodle" projects such as the road-tarring to Kuala Sepetang during the Bukit Gantang by-election (yes, I went ahead before the Special Bunch camped there in 2009.)

There is a different feeling when forking out the money vs big corporation contribution in donating to the election fund for a coalition to contest in an election. 

If we look at the map indicating states where Obama and Romney won, the parts that Romney win (in the early run of the count) would be those in the almost middle part of America including Alaska. When examining each of the state that are under the Romney count, you would notice that the pattern is somewhat similar to our rural area count (e.g Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma). However it is important to note that the voter mindset of the voter there is not the same as Malaysia and the voting system is not the same, so it can't be taken entirely to say what happens in America is the same as in Malaysia. The gist from the two things above is that

a) those who are savvy will not want to have a government that keeps spending bottomless.
b) if you are a tax payer person, you feel the real pinch compared to those who are excluded (i.e those earning under RM 2500, the elderly, the retirees)
c) no matter how much you splash out to people, it doesn't guarantee you to be a MP or an ADUN.

In spite of those things many say that the GE 13 is the proper contest atmosphere it would be - a very tense thing on the national scale that is equivalent to a final of a football contest. The exception is that one side will attempt to rig the game to the favor, while the other tries to show that they can do the job in a very proper manner - if they are given the mandate to do so.