Jangan Tunjuk Gah...

This was written by A Alwi and appeared in Malaysiakini

I refer to the alarming surge in Influenza A(H1N1) deaths in the country. It is time for the government to consider declaring it a national health emergency.

All attention and resources should be geared towards stopping this deadly pathogen from spreading further.Politicians from both sides of the divide should immediately drop all their antics and join forces with the authorities to safeguard the population from falling victims to this deadly bug.

Only a national health emergency declaration will jolt people to the seriousness of the situation.The recent World Health Organisation (WHO) forecast that hundreds may die from A(H1N1) infection in the country is indeed frightening.

The number of deaths reported daily the last couple of days appears to substantiate the WHO forecast.The Ministry of Health is doing its best, but it is not enough for a situation of this nature. It must to advise the government to declare a national health emergency.

Time is of essence here. Do we need to have one hundred people dead before we declare a national health emergency?

Nak tunngu apa lagi...walaupun ada desakan dari pelbagai pihak untuk menutup sekolah lebih awal dari cuti yang telah di tetapkan, tapi pihak kementerian pendidikan, masih lagi berdegil tidak mahu dengar.

Hujung tahun terdapat cuti 12 belas minggu, bawa je lah seminggu ke cuti bulan Ogos ni..So dengan cara itu.."hari belajar" tidak terjejas.. Kalau dulu mereka boleh buat perkara sama untuk berhari raya, kenapa tidak boleh untuk perkara yang sebegini serious.

Jika ada pelajar sekolah yang meninggal kerana dijangkiti HINI dari sekolah, maka Menteri Pelajaran dan Kementerian harus di pertanggung jawabkan..

May be we should hang them for deliberately causing death.

The Other Side Of The Story

Many were baffled by the out come of Manik Urai by election result. Read the article below for alternative views.

The other side of the story by Wandering Troubadour is taken from http://wandering-troubadour.blogspot.com/

Armchair warriors who wrote comments on the Manik Urai by-election sitting comfortably from their study rooms based on information that they skimmed through the Internet at best hit the outer ring of the target if not missing hitting the board at all! It is interesting to note that many did simply just that -- write from afar basing their opinions on those who make a living on writing news.

I was there smack in the middle of the war, espionages and counter-strikes. And BN has never been dirtier.

The amount of money that changed hands with voters was simply unbelievably high that almost every household can have a one-month holiday to savour their fortune. Only the Almighty knows the extent of their guilt and no mortal soul can claim that what they did was immoral, as nobody knows who voted for whom, at least for most of us that is.

It is amazing what money can buy. Maybe RM50 per voter did not work anymore but RM500 hooked even the very hearts that loathe corruption. They reason in their heads that it was a gift and hence free from any sin whatsoever associated with it. It was a meagre sum to the haves but a windfall to the haves-not. For a household with three voters, they took home a month’s equivalent of a wage.

But in a climate of distrust alternative plans were laid in abundance. Coming from multiple sources, voters were spoilt for bounties. Some walked away with three sets of gifts each giving a person’s take-home present of RM1,500. All one had to do was to wait for the go-between to approach him or her. It was a case of supply outstripping demand.

Keeping people (read voters) at poverty level and on the brink of starvation almost always pays in the end. They can easily be bought. After all it is not often such a by-election comes their way. Opportunity comes-a-knocking, it is a gift from above.

RM500 per voter was at most RM5Million. Considering three sources each armed with RM10Million, a total of RM30Million were spent with RM15Million going directly to voters and the rest as usual fall off the gravy trains into the hands of local warlords.

The majority of the people were veiled by beauty of dough and sweet smell of the ringgit and simply cast aside wafer thin belief in favour of worldly reward. Greed and selfishness are traits of human beings that will inevitably surface when income is scarce and food is hard to come by. BN knows this very well since their very existence and struggle is about nothing but money.

Analysts are coming out with a host of reasons for PAS’s dismal performance or BN’s success in gaining more territories. Some attributed BN’s “success” to Najib’s 11 points reward to people for allowing him to remain up to 100 days in power and also his “contributions” to economic excitement. I want to simply say “Bollocks”. This is what the BN think-tank would like us the public to believe. But if they themselves believe the spin as well, it spells disaster for them comes the 13th general election. We wait patiently for that day to arrive!

PAS and PR as a whole must not buy the argument that BN is gaining ground as a whole. However, the opposition cannot simply brush it aside either. BN has the “Money” part or access to it with little effort. But in the long run, tycoons’ and “taipans’” patience are running thin and coffers are running dry. If the economy that is very much in need of tending were left to roam in the wilderness, come the 13th GE, BN rats will scuttle to hide in their holes.

The best part of this whole episode is that BN still lost despite all these brilliant manoeuvrings. Chinese people say luck is not on BN’s side. The British may call it lady luck chooses an opposing side. But Muslims say that it is an intervention from above, divine and oft-punishing.

BN simply cannot afford to continue this method in a general election or even a state election. Perak will prove to be a situation best kept as it is. By not seeking a fresh mandate BN can sit pretty at least for a little while until the 13th general election. It will bring little harm but it will not remove the bigger problem of impending defeat. A defeat it will be, albeit a delayed one.

BN desperately needs a reversal of fortunes. It is, however, proven to be very elusive. When BN refuses to accept that their way is the wrong way, their struggle is not a genuine struggle, and that the people can no longer be hoodwinked, what choice do they have but to go back to the old drawing board. Again they have to lay another plan. They plan and Allah also plans; and He is the Best of Planner!

Language-switch policy scrapped

Language switching is a very interesting topic apart from switching parties. When Mahathir first mooted the idea of teaching Maths and science in English, all the ball cariers (including suckers) jumped from trees to say it is the most brilliant idea that mankind ever thought of. Nothing can come in handier than this to change the sorry state of our grads..

At that time, the opponents of the policy are considered anti progressive. So every adun, member of parliament and their maids as well jumped in to a frenzy celebration of new language policy.

The same group now says. things that the opponents said few years ago..only that the nation is few billion ringgit poorer now due to that language switching. The lost of the nation is someones gain.. Dont ask me who?

Put that a side. Some say we can produce better grads by teaching science and maths in English. It seems they will have better command. Aiiya..people, you jokers never understand one thing, you must take in deserving undergrad to get quality grad out put. You plant cacti and expect for durians..mana boleh? Many of the deserving people are left on the streets and you take in the second and third stringers who are not suppose to be there in the first place.

Do you think this second stringers going to be world renowned scientist Or do you expect them to present papers in the gallery of intellectuals. Please...read the letter below to witness what have our education standard has come to.. So be it English or Malay, if you gonna take in only the non deserving ones.. its not going to make any difference except politically.

As a teacher, i personally think we should switch but only after we fully trained the teachers to handle the subject competently.
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4th UiTM INTERNATIONAL SPORTS FIESTA19 – 23 November 2009
FUTSAL-RUGBY 7- TENPIN BOWLING-BADMINTON

Dear Sport Friends,

Regarding about the global issue H1N1 happens around the world, sadly to be informing that our UiTM International Sports Fiesta will be postponing to 19-23 November 2009.

For all teams which have been confirm to participate in our events, we have to say sorry for this announcements and our Ministry of Higher Education and Ministry of Health also advise to us to change the date for this current situation.

By the date have been confirm incoming this November hopefully your teams still can participate in our event and don’t hesitate to contact us for further information.

And again, we would like to say sorry about the date change for the sake of our health among us.

See you in this November at UiTM Malaysia!!

Regards,
Mr. Mustaza Ahmad
Director
Sports Centre
Universiti Teknologi MARA
Malaysia

Thats the director of sports centre for you. I have tears in my eyes now.. No not that im sad, i just laughed like hell.

Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen... a preview

Its was early October 2008 when i first heard that there's gonna be a sequel to the most astonishing movie i have ever seen, "The Transformers" .(Read my preview on that). From that day on I was diligently searching in the net for images and stories about this sequel. So when the moment finally came to watch the movie, one can understand the spasmic excitement that i was going through.

Ok.. forget about the melodrama intro above and get cracking. How was the movie..? Ohhh I wish they never made this sequel..( I wanted to love this movie as much as you guys want to) but there was a dejavu feeling all round. In the first one ..the sheer magic of CGI and the histronic ability of Michael Bay, turned the whole thing into a memorable affair. But this new product.. gives nothing new. No.. not that we expect megatron and optimus prime run around a tree and sing songs like Hindi movies, it never go any where from the previous attempt.

After a while you get a feeling the actions are strecthed from the older movie and that the robots are not a convincing addition. its just like a new porch to an old house. The faulty aircond and the hot action beside me, by a young couple (how could they; in a warm cinema hall) didn't help the situation either.

After the movie ended, i walked to my car with my head hanging low, wondering what went wrong with the movie. i cant say it for definite..but something was not really right with. Watch for yourself..and tell me if I am correct.

In the last film, the Bot-Con battle was over "the cube," a metallic and encryption-based thing (excuse the technical jargon) called the All Spark that held great power and pixilated from big to small in some very cool ways. This time, the thing at the center of the conflict is "the matrix," which could lead you to think some of the hard edges of Cybertron's fighting forces might morph into smooth silvery sinews, but no such luck.

If anything, Bay, never one to bother with nuance, has packed even more wing nuts and wheels, rods and bolts, pressure plates and pilot bearings into these visually complex beings. Despite the millions it must take to construct them (even in CGI), they still have a junkyard, found-object look that has long entranced boys, filling toy boxes and Hasbro's bank accounts for years.

Though Sam's trying desperately to fade into the background of the college scene, it isn't really working out. There's that new blond Alice (Isabel Lucas) who's got him in her sights, the ominous warning from Optimus Prime in that deep, really convincing synthesized voice of his, that little mess of an unexplained "toxic spill" in Saigon that opens the movie and the massive metal carcass that's been dredged up from a thousand leagues under the sea. As is his lot in life, Sam is needed, the one person on Earth who can possibly beat the Decepticons to the matrix.

"Revenge" is strictly a man's world, really, a boom, boom, bang, bang fever dream of special effects. Yet in all this macho mayhem, it is LaBeouf's young Sam, slight of frame, sensitive and smart, who makes it all work.

Although there are female Autobots and Decepticons in the Transformer universe, they are rare and none make it into the movie, which is too bad because "Revenge" could sure use a woman's touch. The only significant female presence comes from Sam's slightly crazy mom (Julie White) and Fox, who despite wearing white skinny jeans as she stumbles across the desert and jumps through any number of crumbling buildings, manages to stay remarkably clean except for that fetching smudge on her cheek.

Machines and their machinations are clearly where the director's affections lie, leaving the emotional side of "Revenge" to flatline again and again. Still, the film, written by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, is filled with enough of the familiar to likely satisfy many "Transformer" fans. John Turturro as the now disgraced Sector 7 agent is passing his days working in the family deli and gathering data on the Decepticons in his survivalist-style basement, and Josh Duhamel's Capt. Lennox is still heading his Special Forces troops. We've got big, bad Megatron in cahoots with the towering fearsomeness of the 10-story Devastator. Meanwhile, try as he might, Optimus Prime just can't keep things civil. Neither can Bay.

"Revenge" is in-your-face, ear-splitting and unrelenting. It's easy to walk away feeling like you've spent 2 1/2 hours in the mad, wild hydraulic embrace of a car compactor -- exhilarating or excruciating, depending on your point of view.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian ..a review

When was the last time you went to a museum.. you know the place where they keep "yesterday" for "tomorrow" to see. I bet on my shrunked butt that it was when you were still in primary school..(ohh..those innocent wide eyed children ?) And if you think much would have changed since then; dont worry atleast where National Museum is concerned "it is a museum piece of frozen antique itself"

Can someone who is close to the museum boys, tell them that a museum doesn't have to look like a haunted house which had been evacuavated by the devil himself. My niece and nephews almost fainted out of boredom when i took them there..and the youngest one threaten to jump out of a moving car if I ever mention the place.. again

Ohhh.. about the movie...

I dont like this movie.. Talking about bad sequels..nope Im not talking about Rosmah Mansor's sequel ( for those uninformed : Najib is Rosmah's second husband, so he is a sequel of some sort.)..ok i digress..

I loved the first one, I don't understand why directors follow up with a sequel of a great film with such mediocrity. I suppose they already have an audience hooked and intrigued so they think they dont have to try harder the second time around.

You know what. watching this movie reminds me of our Perak fiasco. The muzium ( Assembly House) is divided and on one side all the bad guys,(you know who they are as they likened themselves to Mandela and Gandhi) and the oppressed good guys are on the other side.

I felt like most of the characters were over acting and worst of all the jokes felt so predictable, obvious and forced. Punch line after punch line kept rolling and literally nobody in the theatre was laughing. (Now doesn't that wee bit too familiar).
I know the first one was great but don't waste your hard earned money on this one.

Police raid on DAP Hqrs as if DAP is a terrorist organization

(This was taken from Lim Kit Siang's Blog)

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should apologise for what five previous Prime Ministers had not done in the 43 year history of the DAP – police raid on DAP Hqrs as if the DAP is a terrorist organization like Al Maunah.

Why has Najib, who had committed himself to an open and democratic premiership only seven weeks ago, allowed the police to go on a rampage to the extent of doing things which the previous five Prime Ministers had not allowed the police to do for 43 years – a police raid on DAP Hqrs as if the DAP is a terrorist organization like Al Maunah.

The question many are asking is whether with Najib as Prime Minister and Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein as Home Minister, the cousins are taking the country quickly down the slippery slope of a police state, where the rule of law and human rights are trampled upon indiscriminately without any compunction.

My take : Police should not be overzealous in handling things like this. I hope they use their resources, time and talent to hunt down snatch thieves and mat rempits.. instead catching people for holding candles and wearing certain colours.

I Am Not Power Crazy...

"I am not power crazy " says the all powerful man.. I'm not going to mention any names here..but all of you will have a good idea,who is it after reading the rebutal piece from Rashid which appeared in Malaysia Today.

He says he is not power crazy but this is what he does for power

1. Kills a pregnant woman in the most gruesome manner in order to reach Putrajaya

2. Invents the most calumnious claims against his political opponents (DSAI's sodomy)

3. Abducts elected legislators (Perak PKR duo) using state institution (The special branch)

4. Muzzles the media over his shenanigans and unending crimes and shameful career.

5. Bribes elected leaders with millions stolen from public coffers

6. Destroys state institutions in order to retain power

7. Destroys the nation's fabric for petty ends and momentary survival

8. Destroys the Malay Royalty as he misuses it for partisan ends

9. Refuses to face the people he purports to lead (Have you ever seen such a coward?)

10. Detains poor people wearing their own choice of clothes. (fear, fear of fear)

11. Lies through his teeth and pretends that the people are as stupid as his cronies

12. The most hated political figure in the nation is how he is rewarded for being "less power crazy". Don't you like it?

13. Destroys Perak's economy to face save and run from Perakians. But he is not power crazy. Moron!

14. Appoints Lingam appointed judges to facilitate his evil, yet he claims to have less craze for power. Shame on you ......

15. Stifles the media and denies them permission on reporting on nationa matters. He thinks he owns the nation. Not power crazy?