Saturday 28 November 2020

How to avoid being drunk and racist

 Well, as I thought, nothing actually happen with the budget voting.

Just lots of hot air as usual.

Wasting time only paying attention to it.

So, I'm not going to waste my effort on that one anymore.

For this posting, I just want to comment a bit about this piece of nonsense which my friend forwarded to me just now;

NST Blasted By Netizens For Racial Stereotyping

excerpts;

A few hours ago New Straits Times (NST) had headlined an article titled, ‘Help Minimise Threat To Society’  which referred to a study by the National Health and Morbidity Survey 2019 that stated alcohol drinkers in Malaysia made up 11.8% of the population and 45.8% drank excessively. This content had an image of an Indian middle-aged man as its feature image.

Hmmm...I saw the picture and I wonder why they put it there. The guy was not even drinking.

Must be a slip up of some sort.

NST being racist towards the Indians? I don't think so. There are lots of Indians working and holding senior posts in that newspaper.

Anyway, NST has already replaced that picture and apologised to those offended, saying it didn't intend to insult anyone.

Ok, I'm fine with that, but for its next story, I think NST should do a racial breakdown of the drinkers so it could dispel the perception that Indians have a drinking problem.

Break the racial stereotype, kind of.

Hopefully the frogs will not get offended. It's just Kermit being drunk, not a frog being drunk, okay. 

Well, the whole point of the story was that we need to tackle the drinking problem in our society.

Don't drink too much lah, okay.

I'm not one of those who demand for the ban on sale of alcoholic beverages, but I prefer people who drink them not to do so just to get piss drunk.

Just drink to have fun is okay but not until you lose your senses and do stupid things. And of course, those whose religion forbid them from consuming intoxicating drinks shouldn't drink at all.

There are so many cases of people getting drunk and went driving, causing fatal accidents.

Yeah, there was even the case of a man who got drunk and drove through a police roadblock during the MCO, killing one of the cops.

That's terrible and for that, I'm totally fine with the recent decision to impose heavier penalty on drunk drivers.

Eh, you drunk already, call Grab la. Save yourself and others lots of trouble.

Then there was also once the extreme case of a bunch of people getting drunk and went rioting and beating up a fireman to death.

Maybe we should increase the penalty on beating up a fireman to death too. Or at least take some sort of action against the drunk bastards. Last time they did that, no one got punished, okay.

See, that's why there's a need to educate people not to get drunk.

People should know their limit when drinking.

Don't try to be macho and drink more than you should.

If two cans of beer can make you get drunk, drink only one. Or better still, don't drink at all. 

It's really pathetic actually to see a man trying to be macho and getting drunk after just two cans of beer.

Oh, and they talk so much shit some more. And loudly at that.

Really irritating.

It's one of the reasons why I don't really like going to the clubs where that sort of drunks hang out.

If you want to get drunk, please make sure you don't disturb others like that, okay.

The best way to to do so is by drinking at home.

Do drink all you want at home until you pass out. I'm fine with that.

But of course don't go beating your wife and children after you got drunk.

Maybe the wife should chain you to something before you start your drinking binge to make sure you don't get violent once you lose your mind to the alcohol.

Well, that's my take on the issue.

Happy weekend guys. Cheers.

Saturday 21 November 2020

Budget 2021 voting wouldn't really matter as life will go on

I have to admit that I don't really care much about anything these days except to survive this Covid-19 pandemic.

Especially not politics.

I'm hardly excited anymore about anything when it comes to politics. 

That's why I'm not writing much these days.

I find it hard nowadays to differentiate between being ruled by BN, PH, PN or even probably MN.

Yesterday, I even told a colleague, who is a BN supporter in Segambut to vote for Hannah Yeoh if she honestly thinks the DAP MP has been doing good for her constituency.

No point in voting for a PN or even BN candidate against her if that person is not good.

Same to DAP supporters - don't vote for DAP if it fields a lousy candidate.

Main thing is; vote for the candidate, not his/her party.

Well, at least that's my opinion at the moment.

The voting for the Budget 2021 is coming up soon.

It looks more and more that there would be an attempt to reject it in parliament.

Honestly, I don't really care about it either.

Either way, my life will go on.

If the budget is defeated, then most likely Muhyiddin has to step down and Anwar will eventually become PM.

I will have to endure that and continue on survival mode.

But if it goes through, I don't mind it too. I believe it would still be the same and I have to continue with my need to weather the Covid-19 hardship.

Yeah, there will be more political mess, but it's already a mess as it is now. How much worse could it be, right.

For all I know, if Anwar indeed is to take over, the new government wouldn't lasts too long anyway.

We can do this musical chairs thing as much as we want till GE15. I wouldn't care.

Hopefully, comes GE15, things would be clearer for us to choose the less worse among them.

For now, I think we Rakyat simply have to endure, work the best that we can, and try not to suffer too much. Take care of ourselves rather than let ourselves be made fools by those politicians.

Myself, I'll work and try to have a bit of fun, if I could. No matter what, I don't want to let everything to be all doom and gloom.

This weekend, I'll be stuck in the room again, same as it has been since this CMCO started.

I'll do the usual - watch Korean dramas or movies. 

I miss the East Coast. Hopefully when the CMCO has been lifted, I can go there again.

Okay, that's all. Here's a beautiful song to cure my Saturday blues,


Cheers.

Monday 16 November 2020

Chinese for Chinese, something else for others

A friend got irritated yesterday after reading a Malaysiakini report about a DAP leader telling the Chinese community about the failure of MCA to complain about Budget 2021 which supposedly does not provide much for them.

The DAP leader could either be Lim Guan Eng or his father Kit Siang, as my friend only gave me an excerpt of the report which states that he is a "Lim". I don't subscribe to Malaysiakini, so I can't read the full report. 

Anyway, what really pissed  off my friend was that the statement as reported by Malaysiakini was supposedly issued by DAP only in Chinese.

"Why can't they issue the statement in Bahasa and English too?" he asked.

Then my friend in a way answered his own question when he forwarded this screenshot of a tweet by someone I believe to be from Malaysiukini,


Well, it's actually standard DAP practice lah.

To everyone else, they said its Malaysia for Malaysians but to their own respective ethnic groups, they make it as if they are the champion of that particular race.

And it's not being practiced by just the Chinese leaders of the party.

Here is an Indian DAP leader during the Rantau by-election last year,



That's why I always insist in this blog that those who are so fond of accusing others of being racists are the actual racists themselves.

They accused others of being racist because they want to score political points and that's just about it.

As for the supposedly race-based entities of this country, at least they are honest about what they are and they exist within the confines of the country's constitution.

Last week, there was this story,

The statement by Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall was also issued only in Chinese.

It's an extremely embarrassing announcement for them, I think.

Ya lah, their president, who is a prominent Chinese community leader being charged with polluting river and causing million of people in Klang Valley to suffer from water cuts.

Someone suggested to me that they only issued the statement in Chinese because they were trying to hide the news from the other communities.

After all, a Chinese community leader was supposed to be an upright and principled person and does not go around polluting rivers to cut corners for profit.

Maybe that's the case, but my past experience of working with Chinese guilds made me believe that they only issued the statement in Chinese because they simply don't have anyone with proper English or Bahasa Malaysia skills working for them to do the statement in those languages.

Really, I have seen it many times. They ended up just issuing a statement in Chinese hoping for the Chinese reporters to translate it for their other fellow journalists.

I know, they should have at least someone who knows the national language to do the statement, but that's just how it is. Those working for Chinese associations are mostly Chinese educated and they tend to be not confident enough to draft such an important statement in other languages.

But that's how I see it. Maybe I'm a bit bias on this because of my mother who is Chinese educated.

Anyway, does it really matter that the guy who allegedly polluted the river is a Chinese community leader?

I, honestly, don't like to see it that way. The same if the alleged polluter is a Malay community leader. The community that the person represents shouldn't be blame for what he/she allegedly did.

Monday 9 November 2020

2021 Budget is okay, forget about no-confidence vote

 I think the 2021 Budget tabled that day was okay.

Well, except for that huge allocation for the revived Jasa, I don't have much complaint about it.

Maybe that Jasa thing is because they need to rehire people and such. If so, good lah that more people get to have jobs. 

Just don't turn it into a stupid propaganda tool like it used to be. And please don't put useless people to run it. There's one such guy who has been making so much noise the past few days, probably lobbying for the job.

Other than that, everyone seemed to be getting something.

I think, overall,  Tengku Zafrul did okay.

Of course some people bitched about the budget, but that's normal. People bitch, that's just how they are.

Some even claimed that the budget only care for the Malays and bumiputra while ignoring the needs of other races.

Really?

I don't know how they came to such a conclusion, but I doubt that the government have that in mind when they drafted the budget.

Never mind. Racists always think that others are racists like themselves.

Yeah, I hope the parliament will pass this budget without much hassle.

We need to continue the Covid-19 war, after all.

Forget about the no-confidence vote against Muhyiddin using the budget.

It's pointless now.

Especially for Umno, which has clearly demonstrated that it has yet the ability to fix itself, let alone lead a new government.

Like this,

Latest suicide attempt by Umno

Maybe they can fix things after the party election next year.

Otherwise, forget about it for now and just bear with being bullied by Pribumi Bersatu for the time being.

Whether Umno people want to fix their party or not, that's up to them.

If they want to retain stupid people as their leaders, then they deserve what they are going to get under the present circumstances.

It's as simple as that.

Friday 6 November 2020

Supporting Celcom to fix its problems

I have been with Celcom since I got my first handphone many many years ago.

It was a birthday gift - a secondhand Ericsson - which I registered at a Celcom branch in PJ.

I'm still using the same number.

I have no problem with Celcom until several years ago when their services suddenly turned bad and I complained about it in this blog.

I wrote these,

Celcom, please fix the line

Celcom, you really suck

and even this,

Finally giving up on Celcom

Then Celcom actually got in touch with me,

Celcom and me

Well, things seemed to get better with Celcom after that.

Really, their services were actually quite good after that.

I even bought my last smartphone - a Samsung Note - from their Blue Cube outlet in TTDI. 

Everything seemed okay until its recent network problems.

There were lots of complaint which were picked up by the mainstream media.

Celcom did whatever it could to contain the damage but I think they need to do something about their technical team.

It was obviously a technical problem. From what I understand, it's because of the transition to 5G. 

They simply need to work faster to stabilise the system.

Yesterday, there was another system disruption which again was quickly picked up by some media outlets.

Sometimes, I wonder why those media were very enthusiastic about it. I mean, other telcos have their problems too but I don't see them as being so enthusiastically reported.

Maybe Celcom should buy more advertisement space from them.

Anyway, a friend in Celcom told me that yesterday's problem was just an isolated case in the morning.

Maybe, it's true as I didn't experience it.

Whatever it is Celcom really need to fix its technical team. 

They simply need to do better.

I feel that its other teams have been doing good but the technical problems are dragging them down.

Hopefully Celcom could pull itself out of this.

It would be a shame if the company is to suffer an image problem because of something that I believe could be fixed.

So many jobs at stake here, okay.

Ever since Covid-19, that's my priority when it comes to issues such as this.

I support any organisation which creates, provides or sustains jobs. The people need them in this time of crisis.

Yup, I'm still giving Celcom a chance on this and will stay with it....unless it really fails to fix its problems and closes shop.

Thursday 5 November 2020

Latest suicide attempt by Umno

 I've changed my mind.

Muhyiddin should be given the emergency power to avoid parliament or even GE15 as long as he wants.

That's because Umno is going to lose and die one way or another the way it is now.

Dr Mahathir is right, Umno is killing itself.

This is the latest stupidity by its party president,

Tajuddin appointed as UMNO Election Director for GE15

excerpts;

The President of UMNO, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi delivered the decision through an official appointment letter issued by the UMNO office today.

“I wish to inform that Datuk Seri (Tajuddin) has been appointed as the Director of General Election (GE15) of UMNO effective from 4 November 2020,” he said, quoting the content of the letter.


That's one of the worst Umno leaders.

What's wrong with you Zahid? 

Isn't that the job of the deputy president?

Are you trying to kill off Mat Hassan?

Stupid or what?

Mat Hassan was the election director who did the real works at all those by-election victories.

And now you are putting that sort of shit in his place?

You really think Umno is back being strong again to put some assholes to lead the party?

Or is this for you to remain as Umno president because of the party election next year?

What's next? Appoint Puad Zarkashi as your war room director?

Die la.

Really, just looking at this one stupid move by Zahid, I'm convinced now that Umno is really fucked at the moment.

I'm really tired of this.

Hey Umno people, you all okay with these sort of shit?

If you all do, then you all can go fly kites with Zahid and his stupid gang.

Sigh.

Wednesday 4 November 2020

Say no to illegal farming, the Musang King issue

By Red Fox

GUEST BLOGGER

I am in disbelief observing the sudden turn of events over the “disputed” land where our reputed Musang King durians are produced in Raub, Pahang.

 

I feel that the Kuantan High Court's decision on Oct 28 to allow a stay of an eviction order until Dec 9 is not doing anyone any good, be it for the farmers, the middlemen or the government. 

ILLEGAL MEANS ILLEGAL. ILLEGALITY BREEDS CONTEMPT. 

A simple concept, yet many turn a blind eye for selfish reasons. 

An act of compassion by the Pahang government to enable the farmers sustainable living (although they have encroached into forest reserve lands illegally) by turning them into legal farmers and to guide them using sustainable cultivation best practices and price stability has turned into a chaotic situation.

I believe that the state government, if given a choice, would not want to evict the farmers. 

The eviction notice was given due to the farmers’ own stubbornness for not wanting to be a legal party ensuring they have the legal lease rights to continue producing durians using sustainable cultivation best practices with MyGAP certification to ensure their durians are export ready. 

Moreover, the State is preparing them to be legal exporters as China (the biggest market of Musang King to date) requires durians imported must be produced by legal farms!

The terms and conditions were discussed with the farmers since July 2019, which is A YEAR BACK! 

I was told by one legal farmer that the Legalisation Scheme was a work in progress since July 2019. 

Until today, only 120 farmers have registered out of the approximately 1,000 undocumented farmers, believed to be farming in the 5,357 acres of land currently in contention, which was leased to RPDR-PKPP on a 10+10+10 years agreement. 

The balance 880 farmers have yet to register. 

 Sounds familiar? 

This bad culture and habit of delaying (JPJ fines, income tax, rent, assessment and any other government statutory payment), hoping the government of the day will give discounts, leeway and etc, just got to STOP! 

This is akin to outright BLACKMAILING! 

Let’s call a spade a spade. 

1. Rightful owner of the “disputed” land is the Pahang government and/or its related state agencies.

2. Farmers have encroached into forest reserve lands, a very serious offence. Yet, they go to court claiming they have legal right and our Land Department being made the defendant? Outright absurdity. 

3. RPDR-PKPP, the legalization scheme company is partly owned by Perbadanan Kemajuan Pertanian Negeri Pahang (PKPP), a government state agency! The farmers ARE DEALING with a government agency! Yet, SAMKA, the so-called champion of the farmers keep blinding this fact from the undocumented farmers. PLEASE WAKE UP! 

4. Farmers must learn to comply with internationally recognized MyGAP certification guidelines and keep proper records to pay taxes. If normal citizens have to pay taxes for our hard earned money, shouldn’t they too? They have been given off the hook for so many years as they say they ploughed the land for 30 years! Let me give you a quick calculation of how big the business is in monetary sense; 

- Land size: 5,357 acres.

- One acre, est 30 trees = 5,357 acres x 30 = 160,710 trees.

- 30 trees, est a yield 45 durians per tree = 160,710 x 45 = 7,231,950 durians.

- One durian, est 1.5kg = 7,231,950 x 1.5kg = 10,847,925 kg/10,848 tonnes.

- One kg @ RM30 =10,847,925 X 30 = RM325,437,750  (RDPR-PKPP buys from farmers)

- One kg @ RM45 = 10,847,925 x 45 = RM813,594,375 (Middle men buys from farmers currently) 

- One kg @ RM100 = 10,847,925 x 100 =RM1.8 billion!!! (Potential price export to China) 

5. Illegal farming in any form is raping the natural environment as in the case of Cameron Highlands and has to be curbed. 

6. Price stability. I read that the farmers are assured of a fixed nett price of RM30/kg regardless of whether the market price goes up or down. They don’t lose as well if the price goes down, as what happened to other commodities such as palm, rubber, and more recently fruits ie pineapples, mangoes. But no one seems to think and talk about that. 

7. Government allowed them to farm back in 1974 was due to the World Food Crisis then. Food prices escalated all over the world, including Malaysia. Rancangan Buku Hijau (Green Book Programme) was then launched to encourage citizens to plant and cultivate food and produce within the confines of areas surrounding their house, for their own consumption, DON'T use the Green Book Programme as an excuse to encroach into forest reserve land, commercialized their produce and don’t pay taxes! 

Malaysia will continue to rot if we allow illegal farming to continue with no one to monitor the quality of produce and sustainable cultivation best practices are implemented. 

Politicians and cyber-troopers please stop the intimidation, the slander, the insinuations, and blinding the public on the real facts of the matter. 

STOP being selfish and compromise our country’s repute, economy and sustainable living for the farmers! 

Sunday 1 November 2020

Dr Mahathir's twisted words

 Dr Mahathir came under heavy fire from all sides the other day for his post

RESPECT OTHERS

excerpts

11. Macron is not showing that he is civilised. He is very primitive in blaming the religion of Islam and Muslims for the killing of the insulting school teacher. It is not in keeping with the teachings of Islam. But irrespective of the religion professed, angry people kill. The French in the course of their history has killed millions of people. Many were Muslims.

12. Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past. But by and large the Muslims have not applied the “eye for an eye” law. Muslims don’t. The French shouldn’t. Instead the French should teach their people to respect other people’s feelings. 


Following all those criticisms, Dr Mahathir followed up that post with this one, 

MISREPRESENTED CONTEXT

excerpts

8. But that is what freedom of speech is to them. On the one hand, they defended those who chose to display offending caricatures of Prophet Muhammad S.A.W. and expect all Muslims to swallow it in the name of freedom of speech and expression. On the other, they deleted deliberately that Muslims had never sought revenge for the injustice against them in the past.

9. Even my appeal that the French should explain the need to advise their people to be sensitive and respect the beliefs of other people is left out.

 

I have to admit that I'm on Dr Mahathir's side on this one.

His words were indeed twisted.

Really. Just read them properly, okay.

But of course, people have judged Dr Mahathir that way and there's nothing that could be done.

After all, people tend to think of the French aa nice, romantic and civilised.

They have Paris, the city of love and a beautiful language too.

How can Dr Mahathir said all those outrageous things about them, right?

Never mind.

Anyway, maybe if you  have the time, you can read the following article I picked up at https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/frances-colonial-era-crimes-unforgotten-in-algeria/1635943

Algerians still remember France's colonial- era crimes, despite the passage of 65 years since the outbreak of their revolution against the French colonial rule. 

Every year, voices raise in Algeria demanding France to acknowledge and apologize for its colonial past in the North African country. 

Algerians accuse Paris of obliterating the Algerian identity, looting, torture, murder and carrying out nuclear tests during the colonial rule. 

France occupied Algeria for 132 years, from July 5, 1830, until July 5, 1962, when the country declared its independence from colonial rule. 

During the course of the struggle for independence, over 1.5 million Algerians were martyred, while hundreds of thousands more were injured, went missing or were forced from their homes. 

"France must acknowledge its genocide crimes against the Algerians since 1830," Algerian historian Mohammed al-Ameen Balghaith told Anadolu Agency. 

This year's independence anniversary comes amid popular protests that forced long-serving President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down in April. 

During the protests, demonstrators call for breaking with France at cultural and political levels and cancelling the use of the French language in state institutions, schools and universities. Protesters also blame Paris for the current political and economic situation in Algeria. 

Identity obliteration 

Algerians accuse France of erasing the Algerian identity and launching war against mosques and religious schools. 

In 1836, France opened the first Catholic missionary school in Algeria. 

Paris also enacted discriminatory laws against Algerians, in a move that allowed colonizers to usurp their lands. 

Skulls of fighters 

The French colonial rule has been faced with a fierce resistance from Algerians, which was met with a brutal crackdown by colonizers. 

In 1880 –1881, France took the skulls of 37 resistance fighters. The skulls are currently stored at the Museum of Mankind in Paris. 

Algeria has been demanding to return the skills since 2011, a demand rejected by Paris. 

May 8 massacre 

On May 8, 1945, thousands of Algerians took to the streets to celebrate the allied victory over Nazi Germany and end of World War II (1939–1945) and to demand independence from France. 

The celebrations, however, turned bloody when French forces opened fire on protesters, with estimates putting the death toll at around 45,000. 

1.5 million martyrs 

More than 1.5 million Algerians were martyred during the course of the Algerian struggle for independence from the French rule. 

Algerians accuse France of using civilians as human shield during their fight against the National Liberation Army (ALN). 

Other estimates put the Algerian death toll during the French colonial rule at over 10 million. 

In 2017, the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, an NGO, estimated that the victims of the French colonial rule at over 10 million. 

The Seine Massacre 

On October 17, 1961, tens of thousands of Algerians demonstrated in Paris against the French occupation of their country. French police opened fire on protesters, killing around 345. 

Nuclear tests 

According to French officials, the colonial authorities carried out 17 nuclear experiments in the Algerian desert in the period between 1960 and 1966. Algerian historians, however, put the number at 57. 

On 13 February 1960, France conducted its first nuclear test, code-named “Gerboise Bleue” (Blue Desert Rat) in the Sahara Desert, southwest of Algeria. 

The French nuclear experiments have caused the death of around 42,000 Algerians and thousands injured due to nuclear radioactivity, in addition to the extensive damage against the environment. 

Genocide 

The colonialist French authorities have committed abuses and torture against Algerian civilians, according to Algerian historians and victims. 

Electric shocks and the use of water wells as prisons were among the methods used by the colonialist authorities against prisoners in Algeria. 

The Algerian archive is another thorny issue between the two countries, with Algerians demanding France return thousands of artifacts, books and maps, a demand rejected by Paris. 

Yup millions died in that country when it was under French colonial rule.

If you have even more time, do try to check on the whole track record of French colonial rule in other parts of the world such as Indochina and see whether they are truly nice, romantic and gave the people they colonised freedom of speech.

What? Those were long ago?

Not really actually. And they don't even really apologise.

Also, they only left the colonised land because they were kicked out of them.