In brief...

I read this in the NST today:

He doesn’t like to be ‘boss’ "YES, boss" or simply "boss" has found its way into the local vocabulary and most people have come to accept this form of address.
Not so Datuk Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, BN MP for Santubong. "If I see something I really want to buy and someone calls me boss, I won’t buy it," he said during question time yesterday."When I was at a hotel yesterday, the chef asked me, ‘Boss, what do you want?’ I said to him: ‘Thank you, I don’t want anything’."
Dr Wan regretted that the word "boss", which was used by Americans during their gangster era, had taken hold in Malaysia.He wanted to know why a "useless and bad" word like "boss" had become a "culture" in the country.
Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said the use of such words was the result of accepting words from other languages into Bahasa Malaysia.Rais said a committee consisting of representatives from his ministry and the Education Ministry was looking into the matter.
(They should discover that the word "boss" is from the Dutch "baas", meaning "master", and was used to mean that long before the "gangster era" in the US.)

Er… don’t you think our MPs would have more important things to worry about? Granted ‘boss’ may not be a ‘good’ word but to worry about such things and actually discuss it when there are so much more high priority issues at hand…. I’m at a loss for words…

Another funny comment by one of our esteemed MPs:

‘Overeating cause of failure among athletes’ IS overeating a reason for the poor showing of Malaysian athletes in international competitions? Hasni Mohamad (BN-Pontian) suggested that athletes from Africa succeeded because they did not have enough to eat.
"But our athletes and officials eat too much which causes them to fail at international meets." Hasni was responding to comments by Datuk Razali Ismail (BN-Kuala Terengganu) during the debate on the 9MP yesterday.

Only in Malaysia, can we have someone saying food shortage and starvation is a good thing. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why our local athletes aren’t doing well but I don’t think making them starve will motivate them any further to excel. Again… at a loss for words…

We should take note of Thailand:
(from Bernama)

… the whole episode was a learning process for the Thai people who have learned about democracy and how it could be made to work the way it was intended.
"People learned that they can take their fight to the streets against a government that has lost its legitimacy to rule, and they can also take their fight to the ballot box. The avalanche of abstention votes cast by democratic-loving citizens was a resounding rejection of Thaksin, his Thai Rak Thai Party and the culture of deceit and corruption that they stand for," the Nation said.
The paper said the most remarkable thing was that the titanic struggle between Thaksin, a seriously-flawed, but democratically-elected leader, and the people who had taken to the streets to oppose him was played out over two volatile months without violence.

How about that? If our dear neighbour can make a change, why not us as well? We just need to get more people to be more aware of what’s happening and for people to believe that we CAN make a change. Most of the time, we just think “Complain also no use… nothing will change….” Yeah… so, c’mon people… be aware of what’s happening and be aware that we CAN make a change.

And looks like our govt is establishing yet another body to oversee the implementation of projects in the 9MP. Another body. Another plan. I wonder when they will realise that a plan is only good if (1) there is actual implementation, (2) the implementation of course has to be done well (ie cost efficient etc) and (3) the body overseeing this implementation has to be free from corruption and crony-ism to make the plan work.

To quote our PM:

"For example, we also do not want a situation where there are no doctors once a hospital has been completed. The people get angry with the government when we do not build a hospital and when the hospital is ready the people again find fault with the government because there are no doctors," he said."Other matters include water, electricity and roads. For example, we do not want to have a completed project without an access road," he said.

So they want proper planning to be done BEFORE projects are actually implemented. Let’s hope it works. I think all of us are too familiar with situations where projects are completed only to realise… Oops, no telephone line. Oops, forgot to build road. Oops, got university but no students and lecturers. Never mind, dump in poor students who can’t afford to fund their own studies. Who cares about shitty lecturers and poor quality of education? Oops, oops oops. Sounds like a Britney Spears song… I’m wondering who will be in this new body. I’m interested to see how things work out.

And apparently, we can be jailed / fined for kissing and hugging in public.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/49310

Now I’m no advocate for issues on morality but I just don’t like it when people throw out the words ‘Asian morality’. And I don’t like it when people compare Western value to Asian values. True, just because kissing and hugging are widely accepted in the Western world doesn’t mean we can emulate it too. But doesn’t it all come down to moderation? Yes, we Asians, are supposed to be more conservative when it comes to these kind of things but c’mon, we’re now in the 21st century and more and more people are being more open. Now, if there kids who were in the park were just in the act of smooching (no tongue!) and hugging, I guess that would be alrite. But if it was more like the act of second base, then I’d say “Get a room!” There’s always a limit to everything and this is just one of those things. Anyway, does ‘public’ constitute clubs as well? If so, then the govt will have a field day charging people! Myself included!

I was watching CNN last night and during one of the commercial breaks, an advertisement for Malaysian Tourism came on. Looking at the wonderful pictures shown during the ad, I was never happier to be a Malaysian. But when our PM came on the picture to utter some words of welcome wearing a batik shirt (hehe… how typical), my only thought was “What did he say?” I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t understand what he said coz the pronunciation wasn’t quite there. Heh…

Taking a short break tomorrow onwards. London here I come!