Why I like Dr Mahathir

Hanged out earlier this morning with someone who knows me since I was very young.

It was a very pleasant Sunday morning lepaking after breakfast.

The guy among others asked why I seem to be so fond of former PM Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad these days.

He remembers that back in college, I was more of a socialist and did not really care much for what was then called Mahathirism.

I explained that I am now more matured and see a lot of things that I missed to notice when I was younger.

I actually only realize that I like Dr Mahathir after he retires as PM.

The guy is cute, smart, witty and being now 90 years old, amazingly youthful.

But the thing I like most about the handsome old man is that he is sincere.

He sincerely wants the best for this country.

Observe him closely without prejudice and you will agree with me.

Anyway, the reason why I suddenly wanted to write on how I feel about Dr Mahathir was because the guy I was with this morning showed me this rather cute video,

I can understand why the singer suddenly forgot the lyrics when he realized who was among the crowd.

Everything is so natural with Dr Mahathir.

Attacks against Dr Mahathir and Daim may have been stopped

Received a call from a friend who is part of the PMO's media team yesterday morning.

He told me that the stupid attacks against former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin have been put to a stop.

"Those attacks were not initiated by us but by some assholes outside the PMO.

"My boss had a big fight with them over it and he won.

"That's why he managed to put a stop to it," said my friend.

I asked him to tell me who is the real mastermind behind the attacks but he declined to go into details.

I double checked with a journalist friend who works at one of the mainstream media newspapers and he too believed that the attacks had been called off.

"Just a few days ago that short PKR guy Shamsul Iskandar Akin had a press conference in Putrajaya after his statement was taken by MACC over the Daim case. My news editors were told by our big boss Datuk (censored) not to use the story," he said.

My friend's newspaper is one of the mainstream media outlets which had been highlighting statements by opposition leaders, particularly those from PKR as well as Umno hatchet men such as supreme council member Datuk Mohd Puad Zarkashi in what appeared to be a smear campaign against Dr Mahathir and Daim for being critical of PM DS Najib Razak.

I am not actually 100 per cent sure whether what my friends said were true but for now I am willing to be positive about it.

Who knows, maybe the good guys in PMO are really winning the fight there and common sense will prevail.

At least that's what my friend from the PMO think is happening.

I will wait for a while more to see what will really happen.

If the wrong people win the fight at the PMO, then I will totally pull out from supporting Najib.

I really pray that will not happen.

There is no way I am going into the fight against the opposition being led by the crooked idiots who thought attacking Dr Mahathir and Daim was a good way to shut them off.

That was really stupid as I put it here,

Umno will not survive a civil war

For now, maybe my prayers were being answered.

Alhamdullilah.

My weapon of choice...if I have to

This is the SVD Dragunov,

It is usually described as a sniper rifle, but I prefer its other description which is a marksman rifle.

Though capable of hitting targets up to 800 meters, which is further than the effective range of assault rifles, the Russian-made Dragunov falls short of having the range of most dedicated sniper rifles.

The best sniper rifle has a killing range of up to two kilometers.

The Dragunov however has several advantages over such sniper rifles.

Being semi-automatic and relatively light for a rifle of its type, it is more flexible for use in combat situation.

It was also designed to be used by a less skillful sharp shooter than a sniper specialist, thus the less need for specialize training for its user.

The rifle is also tougher and easier to maintain compared to dedicated sniper rifles, especially in battlefield condition.

Being Russian-made, it is also relatively cheap compared to Western-made sniper rifles.

There are also several other variants such as those produced in China.

The Dragunov is my weapon of choice in the event I am forced to bear arm.

In such a situation, I will find a suitable spot to defend with the rifle.

The main objective is not to let the enemy come close to harm me.

It's the best tactic for someone like me in that kind of a situation as I don't think I have the strength to run around dodging bullets with an assault rifle like normal foot soldiers.

Ya, it is better for me to sit still and wait for the enemy.

During a war situation, a Dragunov could normally be found sold at the black market.

I will buy one in that kind of a situation.

Well, why I am writing this nonsense?

Actually I can't sleep.

It is now past 3am.

Anyway, it is also more fun to write about this rifle than trying to defend the likes of Ahmad Maslan, Shahrizat, Ku Nan, Rauf and other Umno leaders like them.

Writing for fun like this could also eases my mind from worrying about the ongoing Umno rebellion.

It is also much less poisonous than writing about Anwar, Guan Eng and the Pakatan gang.

Wahid's three suggestions

Rocky quoted Minister in the PM's department Abdul Wahid Omar verbatim on the guy's thoughts following the 2015 Budget reboot here,

Revised Bajet 2015: We won't see twin deficits, says Wahid Omar

I'm actually only interested in the part where Wahid suggested three things a Malaysian like myself can do to help the country in this challenging time.

I already know about the other points that he made in the statement.

Okay, here were the three things suggested by Wahid as well as myself in the context of those suggestions.

1. Live within your means.
Optimise your expenditure. Keep spending if you can afford it.  Dont borrow if you dont have the capacity to repay.

I think I have always live like that.
I mostly use my credit cards just for filling up petrol.
I am actually quite frugal.
The only time I occassionally really spend more than I can afford is whenever I feel that I need to prove to that Chinese guy who sometimes dates me that I can pay for our dinner.
The guy always takes me to expensive places but it's nice to once in a while pay for the dinner instead of letting him do so.

However, this is actually my usual dinner at home whenever I got back late from work like last night,

- my landlady's leftover rice
- two fried eggs
- two cili padi
- half an onion
- a tomato, cut into four pieces
- kicap (soy sauce)

If my landlady doesn't leave me any rice, I usually just cook maggi.

2. Invest domestically
With the strong dollar, defer your overseas investments. In fact, this is probably a good time to bring back your monies from abroad to realise some gains. 

I don't have money to invest either here in this country or abroad.
I therefore think this one was really meant for the rich towkeys (including Malay ones).
The most I can think of in this context is for me not to go traveling overseas unless it's for work.
Anyway, I have not travelled overseas since two years ago.
Visiting my relatives in Singapore doesn't count, okay.

3. Think positive

These are challenging times. But we are clear on what we need to do to ride through this period of market volatility. Just follow through & do the right things. InsyaAllah, God willing, we will succeed. 

I am trying to think positive but at the moment it's quite hard.
Especially with all those crooks trying to kick out the good guys at PMO.
I hope the good guys win, so that I can be positive again about the country. Those few good guys at the PMO are the ones who still give me some hope about the administration of DS Najib Razak.

Other things in life

I'm taking a break for a while from writing about Malaysian politics.

As I had said, I'm fed-up with the Umno infighting and I don't want to be involved in such nonsense.

There is no point in writing about such things.

Anyway, there are other bigger things happening in the world.

I wish I can write about beauty products like Felixia here,

RARA BEAUTY REVIEW : Mask muka BERKESAN !

or traveling like Anis here,

Postcards from Southland, New Zealand

or get hooked up on other healthier passions like Ooi and her palm oil here,

Palm oil for lovely hair

I find their blogs to be livelier and not stressful to read unlike mine.

But I know nothing much of such stuff to write like them.

Okay, I did some traveling but those were mostly for work. So, I can't claim that traveling is my passion.

I don't even have a hobby or even really listen to the latest music.

To cut it short, I'm a boring person.

I read history and other nerdy stuff most of the time whenever I got nothing better to do.

I read all those stuff which don't really matter to most people.

In fact, I read things such as military subjects more than political stuff.

Show me pictures of warplanes, tanks, assault rifles, howitzers, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles etc and I think I can identify most of them or at least the country of their origin.

But my interest is confined to just reading.

I know the difference between an AK47, an AKM and an AK74 but have no interest to own or even touch them.

I can write about such things but I think the police will likely arrest me as a terror suspect if I do that.

So, what else can I write about?

Really, I am not sure myself.

Well....I will think about it.

For now I will take it easy and write only if I really feel like it.

Need to detox the politics for a while.

Okay, I have not put a music video here for quite a while. This is in remembrance of the brave Chechen syuhada,

Umno will not survive a civil war

I have not been writing the past four days as I'm quite fed up with the worsening fight between the people of DS Najib Razak and those who oppose them from among pro-establishment supporters.

I was eating at a nasi kandar restaurant earlier in the evening when I saw the TV3's report that opposition leader DS Anwar Ibrahim was offering "proof" of wrong doings allegedly committed by former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin.

I find the whole thing as being so stupid.

TV3 and other mainstream media outlets have been going on and on about this for quite a while now.

A few days ago there was even a report by Utusan Malaysia of Umno supreme council member Datuk Mohd Puad Zarkashi attacking former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

That was not only stupid, but also disgusting.

Who is Puad to attack Dr Mahathir?

I don't even want to dirty my blog by putting the link to that story here.

Anyway, Dr Mahathir had replied to the attack in his blog,

POLITIK KELUARGA

If you want to know what I think of Puad and those who use him to issue such statements, read here,

Najib's people need to be smarter

For me, these are all so time and energy wasting.

Umno will in the end tear itself apart if this continues.

I don't think the party will survive the next general election (which is just less than three years from now), if Najib, as Umno president does not step in now and ends the fight.

Umno is no longer as strong as it used to be, to survive such an internal fight.

Nonetheless, my prediction is that, if both sides decide to go all the way and fight till the bitter end, Najib's forces will eventually win due to their control of many party divisions and the warlords.

But BN will definitely lose the next general election.

Umno will lose the crucial support of middle ground Malays who previously were with the establishment.

This group, I am sure will side with Dr Mahathir's forces.

They will get so disgusted with Umno, that even their dislike of Pakatan will not make them want to vote for BN ever again.

This was the same thing which sealed the fate of the Pak Lah's administration.

I am praying it will not come to that, but all indications are pointing that way.

The latest I heard was that there will be a reshuffle of personnel at the PMO with some good and loyal Najib people, who have been serving the PM for years to be ousted.

A new set of guys was said to be coming in to take up the important posts to be vacated by the good guys.

These new guys, I was told, are the ones behind the latest attacks against Najib's critiques such as Dr Mahathir and Daim.

Hopefully I got it wrong because if it's true, then Umno's fate is likely sealed.

Meanwhile, my suggestion for Najib to clean up the Umno headquarters as I wrote here....

Datuk Najib's next three months

....is not likely to happen.

My sources indicated that this posting by Shahbudin's blog was accurate,

Haru Betul...Bakal Setiausaha Kerja UMNO Diminta Jadi 'Protege' Terlebih Dahulu

Well, so much for all those talks about meremajakan dan membersihkan Umno.

Honestly, I am tired.

Malaysia's root cause of racial and religious problems

This is an interesting post in Another Brick in the Wall blog,

Condemn, YES but NOT Charlie! 

It's quite long but I feel it makes a good read.

The terror attack in Paris has indeed triggered a tidal wave of Islamophobia which apparently even reached our shore.

People who have all these while despise Islam suddenly became brazen and came out of the woodwork to flash their contempt for the religion.

They feel that what happened in Paris gave them the right to say anything about Islam, its adherents and anything related to the religion.

In the case of lawyer Eric Paulsen, it turned out that his outburst against Jakim's Friday sermon was not the first time that he made a disparaging remark against something related to Islam.

I received this today,

It's a list of tweets by Paulsen in the past, which touched on Islamic matters.

Please zoom in to read them.

They indicated a pattern of how the guy never really like anything related to Islam.

Since Paulsen is a Pakatan supporter, he predictably blamed Umno for the backlash from his tweet against Jakim.

He was quoted in several news reports of blaming the alleged "death threats" he received on "pro-Umno cybertroopers".

As of now, he never showed any remorse.

Other reports, however indicated that his actions were condemned by Muslims from both sides of the political divide and not just from Umno.

How did this Paulsen turned up that way?

In the run up to the last general election in 2013, the Pakatan coalition, in particular DAP, employed a strategy of sowing hate against Barisan Nasional, especially among the Chinese community.

Nothing less then hate would do at that time.

The main target is Umno, the dominant BN party made up of mostly Malay Muslims.

That's when Lim Guan Eng repeatedly told the Chinese that they were being treated as second class citizens, DAP cadres spread the belief that Chinese like Teoh Being Hock were being killed by Umno agents such as those in MACC, etc.

Knowing that it was crucial for Pakatan to win a significant number of Parliament seats in Sabah and Sarawak, Guan Eng in his Christmas message in 2012, not long before the general election, once again harped on the kalimah Allah issue.

His aim was to sow hatred among the large number of Christian bumiputera people in those states against the BN government by painting a picture of how Christians were being oppressed in this country.

The tactic worked to a large extent.

Even the Malay Muslims who supported Pakatan were taken in by the DAP's propaganda.

They really hate Umno and the BN government with all of their heart. It's nothing less than that.

Nothing coming out of Umno and BN are good and those who disagreed with them were enemies who need to be crucified.

Chinese who appeared to support BN such as actress Michelle Yeoh and badminton star Lee Chong Wei were targeted while PM DS Najib Razak tireless effort to promote 1Malaysia was ridiculed.

It resulted in the Chinese tsunami during the general election.

Even the Chinese who were members of BN component parties voted for Pakatan in large number.

The level of hatred build up, particularly against Umno by the DAP's campaign ensured that.

Words such as Asal Bukan Umno (ABU) became a battle cry.

Yes, I believe that if a Taliban or IS candidate contested against an Umno guy at that time, they would had voted the former. Anything but Umno, they said.

Hatred makes people do weird things.

That's how educated people like Paulsen turned up the way they were.

They already dislike Islam for it's a faith which general adherents were, they believe, of lower standard then themselves.

They loathed that they have to live under the government led by these Malay Muslims who they believe were "low class".

And when people such as Guan Eng whipped up racial and religious sentiments in the election campaign, the level of hatred just went up quite a few notches up.

Of course they masked it all in the political campaign by claiming that they are against Umno and not Malay Muslims.

The only saving grace was that the bumiputera Christians in Sabah and Sarawak were largely not taken in by the hate campaign led by DAP.

Here is one of them who commented in this blog just a while ago. The comment about summed up everything on the root cause of current racial and religious problems in this country.

Anonymous13 January 2015 at 22:50

actually, no, non Muslim bumi's Allah IS NOT under threat from ISMA and PERKASA. I agree that non Muslim Bumis are the poorest lot - and they are mainly in Sarawak. However - the word Allah for the Christians have always been allowed in Sarawak, always. There was no issue nor furore over the usage of this word until the Roman Catholics in West Malaysia demanded that they too use it for their Herald publication despite knowing that usage of that word isn't conducive in the West Malaysian society. That's when the whole mess started. Before this - Sarawakian Christians have been using the word without problem. Now the west malaysian dragged us all into the mess and try to pin the problems on someone else.

So no, it isn't ISMA and PERKASA who is the actual problem here. It's that freaking Catholic church that's so belligerent and stubborn that they couldn't even compromise and use a perfectly legible word (TUHAN, anyone??) for their BM publication and dare to bring Sarawak's Christian Bumis into the equation to push their cause. Talk about political opportunists!