A plea to Datuk Najib

I was lying on bed in this house in Kuantan, feeling rather sickly, when the phone rang just now.

It's a call from a friend in Johor.

After the usual greetings and enquiries of each others' health, the guy asked me what do I think of the Umno general assembly last week.

Boring, was my answer.

Really, there was nothing memorable at all about the whole event. Except for the massive flood which happened at the same time as it.

Then my friend, who is an Umno member said he was so upset with PM DS Najib Razak for praising his wife DS Rosmah Mansor in his closing speech at the assembly.

Well, I told my friend that in my opinion, Najib is acting as a good husband. People are whacking his wife, so, it is only natural that he has to stand up and defend her.

What do you expect the man to do anyway?

Whatever it is, Najib defending his wife was not the worst at the general assembly.

For me, what was the most nauseating was Shahrizat's speech that day. Her apple polishing, self-glorification etc was beyond my level of tolerance. Doesn't she realized how ugly Umno is in the eyes of so many because of her?

My friend agreed with me on that one.

He sounded sad though.

He is after all a hardcore Umno member and had been attending the Umno general assembly for many years. This year he can't attend it because he is no longer in the Johor Umno list of delegates.

My friend said he was frustrated with how Najib now handles the party and the government.

He pointed out the excesses which were happening in Johor which I had highlighted in my past postings as well as several appointments by Najib which we feel was not made wisely.

We also talked about Najib's highly paid bungling advisors. You can read the latest on that here : PM's Advisors Insult Mandela, Keep Bungling Along

"Can't Najib do anything about it?" my friend asked.

"If things continue like this, I may not even vote for BN in the next general election. I will never vote for the opposition, but I don't have the heart to support the current leadership anymore," he added.

It's not the first time I heard this from a BN supporter.

The difference was that, this friend of mine is a true member of Umno.

The others I know who said they had given up on BN leadership were just pro-establishment neutrals like myself.

I'm doing this posting in the hope that someone may forward it to Najib and make him realize that if things doesn't change, he will lose even more support on the ground.

Sorry, but I need to say this,

Datuk Najib, you need to realize that more are getting disillusioned with the establishment. Please do something about it.

Thank you.

Flood stories from Kuantan

Arrived in Kuantan about 3pm yesterday.

Some stretches of the East Coast Highway between Maran and Kuantan were a bit damaged with some potholes caused by water.

I exited the highway at the Kuantan toll and realized that the flood had to a large extent subsided but the damage caused by it could be seen such as broken surface and pot holes on the road, fallen trees and garbage everywhere.

Reached the house of the lady I'm staying with at Astana Permai to find her busy packing whatever extra clothing items, blankets and mattresses she could spare for the flood victims.

We then went for a drive to some of the affected areas in Bukit Rangin and Tanah Puteh.

Some of the residents were just back from flood relief centers and busy cleaning up their homes.

A lot of them had lost most of their belongings.

One of those I talked to in Bukit Rangin said the flood happened so fast because the rain was so heavy that the bund wall built along Sungai Isap to prevent a flood had broke.

The Drainage and Irrigation Department had built the bund wall as part of its flood mitigation project at a cost of RM7 million in 2005. It managed to prevent the area from being flooded during the massive flood the next year.

The rain fall on the first day of the flood was estimated to be 15 times heavier than normal for a single day. It could had caused the river to swell so fast that even the bund wall could not contain the water.

It looks like the government need to do more to anticipate such occurrences and improve their flood mitigation projects.

I think they can do it.

In the massive flood in 2006, the worst affected area was Pekan largely due to the siltation of Kuala Sungai Pahang. The government spend a lot to deepen the river estuary and till now flooding at Pekan and along Sungai Pahang had been rather mild, if ever.

It's the same thing that the government did for the rivers at Kota Baru and Kuala Terengganu. Flooding there had been manageable of late.

Other than deepening the river estuaries, I think the Pahang state government need to also check on the rapid development projects carried out on the fringes of Kuantan which caused a lot of areas being cleared off vegetation.

This may had caused the water to flow faster to the rivers as lesser trees and vegetations meant there would be nothing to hold it back.

I also think the Majlis Keselamatan Negara people had not done their job well. They should had thought out a proper plan in such circumstances.

They could had anticipate the impact of the heavier rainfall than usual which the Meteorological Department had forecasted and then deploy rescuers and relief workers, even from non-flood affected states. This will ensure faster assistance being rendered for the flood victims.

The government linked companies should had also played their role better. Petronas, for instance have at least 10 helicopters which they could contribute in rescue and relief efforts. At the height of the flood, rescuers had to depend solely on RMAF (Royal Malaysian Air Force) helicopters to winch out flood victims and send supplies to areas cut off by the flood.

I just helped the lady I'm staying with, with the distribution of mattress, blankets and pillows to a family whose house near Sungai Isap was totally inundated with flood water. They had lost all household belongings and needed all the help they can get to get back on their feet.

Now, I'm not feeling so well. I'm having sore throat and headache. It makes me feel quite useless. Just help a bit, already feeling tired and getting sick.

I think I better rest now. Anything, I will write some more, later.

P.S I wonder whether political parties on both side of the political divide are planing to do anything more to help. So far, I had only read about relief efforts by Umno and a bit by Pas.

On the road to Kuantan

On my way to Kuantan.

Stopping at a Petronas station just before the toll into the Karak Highway. There is a Starbucks joint here. I'm having a Redbull to suppliment my energy for the drive.

I am writing this using my phone
Trying to get used to it. Very difficult leh.

Anyway, I had worried the past few days about the flood situation in Kuantan but can't do anything as I was tied up with works.

No, I'm not like the PKR's Fuziah who got to showcase herself in Parliament  at a time when her flood wrecked constituency needed her. I need to work to earn my keep.

Now I got some time off, I'm going to see what little bit I can do to help in Kuantan. See lah how.

Okay, need to continue my driving now. Cheers everyone.

A good ordinary Umno member

The Umno general assembly this year is totally overshadowed by the massive flood in Pahang, Terengganu, Johor and Kelantan.

It's heartening that Umno delegates, especially from Pahang, had rushed back home from PWTC to assist in flood relief efforts.

I read in the NST yesterday that one of those who was first to get back to badly affected Kuantan was former Umno Youth exco member Datuk Mohammed Suffian Awang.

He was interviewed while busy on the ground helping the evacuees near his home  in Tanjong Lumpur and other part of Kuantan.

Suffian is the BN candidate for Kuantan who was defeated by PKR's Fuziah Salleh in GE13.

Fuziah had on the same day busy in Parliament making rhetorical statements about the flood in her constituency and having a verbal fight with Bung Mokhtar who had told her to just shut up and go back to help her constituents.

The irony of the whole thing is that, Fuziah is now a big shot in PKR, a member of parliament, and known by her admirers as an environmentalist and expert on Lynas  rare earth radioactivity.

Suffian on the other hand is now just an ordinary Umno member whose political career is probably at a dead end after the people of Kuantan choose Fuziah over him as their MP. He didn't even contest for any divisional post in the party election in October.

But still, Suffian is the one who was first on the ground helping the flood victims of Kuantan.

You can read the NST report here

Rushing back to help flood victims

Knowing the guy a bit, I think Suffian may just shrug it off and say "Tak apa, tolong orang ni dah memang kerja saya."

I had wrote about Suffian before the GE13. You can read it here at A good young Umno leader

Well, good work Pian. All the best.

p.s For those who have never had a conversation with Fuziah, do try to do so for about 30 minutes. You may have the same conclusion as mine - SHALLOW

A bit more about Regina and saving Johor

Today is the start of Umno's general assembly proper.

The party's wings meetings ended last night.

I think they ended with a whimper.

Shahrizat got no other thing to say except demanding more recognition for Wanita as being the tulang belakang (spine) of Umno. Berapa kali mau cakap itu rhetoric la makcik. May as well demand Wanita to be the sirloin steak of Umno. Lagi best.

The new Puteri chief whose name I can't really remember demanded that the movement not to be treated as cheerleaders or decorative item anymore. Mas...whatever...don't really have to say that, I think. Act mature and people will treat you accordingly. You don't demand respect. You earn it, okay.

Khairy's speeches were rather dull this time, except for his pantun about Siti Nurhaliza and when he whacked TNB for the electricity tariff hike. The only real excitement of the day was actually when his press secretary lashed out on twitter at The Malaysian Insider for writing a garbage article about her boss, or something like that.

GO REGINA!!

The once darling journalist of DAP's handsomest boy Lim Guan Eng is at the moment the brightest spark at the Umno general assembly. Not bad at all.

Maybe Umno should hire an entire DAP's cybertrooper battalion to spear head its cyber war effort...led by Regina, of course.

The present ones, whoever they are, were quite useless. They can't even get their wi-fi connections right.

Ok, on to more serious stuff.

Party president DS Najib Razak will present his presidential address this morning and then the debates begin.

It will be bla bla bla again.

I think there will be a lot of fiery speeches about Melayu and Islam.

Those were the most popular at the moment after the Chinese tsunami of GE13.

Everyone would like to be a bit like Zahid Hamidi, who rode on those vehicles to become the most popular Umno vice president at the moment.

Well, that's up to them. After all, everyone want to be popular.

 I just hope that the one or two speakers could instead speak about doing something substantive like saving the Umno's tiang seri - JOHOR.

Honestly, at the current rate, I think Johor will be lost in GE14, four years from now.

That is, if Pakatan doesn't implode first.

I think even Najib knows this and worries about it.

My suggestion is for an independent audit team to be send to check on the running of the Umno-led STATE GOVERNMENT itself, in order to curb all the excesses which will piss off the rakyat.

For instance, check why the menteri besar got so many special officers (10 or is it 12?) and why their salary is more than double than that of the state assemblymen.

And while the audit team are at it, maybe they can check if any of those guys had ever demanded direct negotiation contracts from agencies such as Iskandar Regional Development Authority (Irda). That would be interesting.

Also, the independent audit should also be done on Irda itself. I'm sure the people want to know about big stuff such as sale of land to foreigners by the billions of ringgit to the small stuff such as how Irda finance golfing trips (disguised as corporate visits) to Indonesia among others.

Well, I'm not really counting on it, but, it would be nice if the Umno people could once in a while talk about real issues like that instead of just talk with the intention to be popular at the party assembly.

Umno's clunky cyber war machinery

This is going to be a rather short one.

I am now at PWTC, dropping by to check a bit on the Umno assembly.

Met some friends and talked about some issues.

The main concern was tbe major flood in Johor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan.

The worst appeared in Pahang, especially Kuantan.

Pahang Umno chief DS Adnan Yaakob had even ordered Pahang delegates whose areas were affected to return home to assist the relief efforts.

Congrats Tok Nan. Thats what Umno needs. More works less talk.

I have wanted to write more on this but when I opened my laptop, it simply can't connect with the Internet.

The wi-fi connectivity  here is so lousy.

I tried using my broadband device, and again it's flowing like mud.

I gave up after awhile.

I'm writing this using my phone. Can't write too long as I'm not use to writing long pieces using my phone. In fact this is my first posting using my phone.

Umno really need to address issues such as this.  How are they to fight the cyber war if they can't even have proper wi-fi connection at theiy general assembly?

Just yesterday Umno president DS Najib Razak insisted for party members to master the social media. I even saw picture of him waving his smart phone at the delegates to stress the importance of mastering the ICT in order to win over the younger generation who will make up the bulk of six million new voters in the next general election.

Personally, I think Umno and its BN allies will be thrashed in GE14 if they don't fix their cyber war machinery.

Okay, I better stop now. My eyes and fingers sudah letih....

Differentiating the good, the bad and the ugly

Hypocrites are the worst.

Second were the arrogant bastards.

And third were the shallow people.

These are the top three types of people I dislike most.

Hypocrites are such as those claiming to be champions of democracy but running their party like the communist party of North Korea, or claim to be good Muslims but enjoy cursing fellow Muslims or claim to be of high moral but went around having too much sex with girls...and boys.

Arrogant bastards are those who think they can get away with anything. These are of the types who demands these and that because they think it's their God given birth rights. These type of people are also known as selfish bastard.

The above two types are of the evil variety.

Shallow people on the other hand are of the annoying variety. These are innocent gullible types normally used and abused by the two types above.

They are not evil, but just plain too shallow that they can't even tell that they were being used by people of the other two categories. Example : Malay members of DAP, and Malays who took part in Bersih rally (including that silly shallow silver spoon fed old girl Marina Mahathir).

There are other types of people whom I dislike, but these three I mentioned above were the ones I encounter most on day to day basis.

Why I'm making noises about them today?

Well, it's because Umno general assembly starts today.

There are many among those of the three categories who will talk all sorts of things at the assembly, trying to look good in front of everyone.

We need to separate them from the other good Umno people.

If we listen carefully to the speeches this one week, we can tell who are the good, the bad and the ugly in Umno.

The good actually are in the majority. Unfortunately the bad ones who are always getting the highlights.

Bear in mind, Umno got over 3 million members. Most are decent people who sincerely believe in the perjuangan untuk agama, bangsa dan negara.

Selamat bersidang.