Like That, So How?

Hypocrisy. Hamas, Boka Haram, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Taliban, what's the difference? Their use of human shields is nothing compared to their false use of Islam as a shield. It is Islam just because they are Muslim?

Watch this joint press conference yesterday by UN SecGen Ban Ki Moon and Netanyahu.

More Than Meets The Eye...

Why Palestinians want this video removed from You Tube?

This Makes Sense...

So...take action!!!

The Voice

Just listen and know you have a voice...




The Voice - John Farnham

We have 
The chance to turn the pages over
We can write what we want to write
We gotta make ends meet, before we get much older

We're all someone's daughter
We're all someone's son
How long can we look at each other
Down the barrel of a gun?

Chorus:
You're the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear
Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!
We're not gonna sit in silence
We're not gonna live with fear
Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!

This time
We know we all stand together
With the power to be powerful
Believing, we can make it better

Oooooooh, 
We're all someone's daughter
We're all someone's son
How long can we look at each other
Down the barrel of a gun?...

You're the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear
Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!
We're not gonna sit in silence
We're not gonna live with fear
Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!

{Instrumental[Bag Pipes(Tin Whistle)]}

Ooooooh 
We're all someone's daughter
We're all someone's son
How long can we look at each other
Down the barrel of a gun?...

You're the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear
Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!
We're not gonna sit in silence
We're not gonna live with fear
Oh-o-o-o, whoa-o-o-o!
(repeat until end of song)

IPP Owners Need Not Defend Their Contracts. The Government Is Doing All The Talking. Ever Wonder Why?

Ex-Government Appointees coming out of the woodwork? This Ani Arope would know what he is talking about, wouldn't he? The IPPs are basically Mahathir's babies and legacy. I am sure he will not let this go unanswered; the question is, what will he say. What can he say? We wonder why the IPP owners are not defending themselves but it's the government doing all the fire-fighting. Ani Arope's term "Economic Plundering Unit" will stick and one wonders who the EPU plunders for. This is in the Malaysian Insider:

Ani Arope blames high power tariffs on ‘Economic Plundering Unit’

By Debra Chong

June 03, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 — Former Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) chief executive Tan Sri Ani Arope is blaming the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) for rising electricity tariffs, saying the powerful agency forced the national power company to sign lopsided purchase deals nearly 20 years ago.

Ani said EPU, which he sarcastically dubbed "Economic Plundering Unit", forced Tenaga to buy electricity from an independent power producer (IPP), believed to be Genting Sanyen, at 14 sen per kilowatt hour (kWh) despite an existing offer of 12 sen/kWh then; other IPPs then were charging 16 sen/kWh.

Genting Sanyen became the first IPP to transfer 15 million watts (MW) in electricity to TNB’s national grid on April 15 and is scheduled to complete a RM1.8 billion upgrade on its existing gas-fired plant with a capacity for 720 MW by June next year.

“You don’t need to go to a fanciful business school to figure out why we need a tariff hike — just revisit the terms given to some IPPs,” Ani, who helmed the utility company between 1990 and 1996, said in his last Facebook posting three days ago.

“With the take-or-pay clause and with the 40 per cent excess reserve that we have today, one only has to produce half of one’s capacity and be paid 80 per cent of the agreed capacity. Well done the then-EPU — Economic Plundering Unit,” he added, mocking the economic unit under the Prime Minister’s Department.

Ani called for a review of the original terms with the IPPs as the storm over energy price deals continues to build up.

DAP publicity chief Tony Pua cited today Ani’s 2006 interview with English daily, The Star, to increase pressure on the federal government to declassify the power purchase agreements (PPAs) inked between TNB and the IPPs.

Ani caused a stir 15 years ago when he chose to resign from his executive chairman post rather than sign the imbalanced deals, which saw the first generation of IPPs created, such as YTL Power Services, Powertek and Malakoff during the Mahathir administration.

“TNB is the whipping boy. TNB has no control of the price it has to pay to the IPPs. Get to the source of the problem,” said the Penang-born who turned 79 on May 17.

The Najib administration has been savaged for allegedly protecting the interests of IPPs rather than the public.

Putrajaya announced the 7.12 per cent hike in electricity rates in an effort to trim a subsidy bill that would otherwise double to RM21 billion this year and promised the hike will not affect 75 per cent of domestic consumers.

But power prices will now rise by as much as 2.3 sen per kWh in areas taking TNB’s electricity supply, a potential source of public anger just ahead of a general election expected within the year.

The Star daily reported today the government was close to inking a deal for a 1,000 MW coal-fired plant in Manjung which will charge 25 sen/kWh.

New Online Movie Creation Tool

JJ has been involved in some movie shoot these past few weeks; coming and going at all unearthly hours. He is almost always bombed out when he returns home! 

Basically, movie-making is about telling a story so behold this new online tool by Xtranormal! I made the following movie in 10 minutes without using a video camera! And just the same, the story is told.



And my friend Albert made this:

The Interlok Issue: Spare 13.5 Minutes To Find Out Why

The book "Interlok" has been controversially included in the Form 5 syllabus to be read by Malaysian kids as part of the Bahasa Malaysia language subject (not Literature as a subject).

Many Malaysians (especially Indians) are against this and yet, many more like me were not bothered to know more. But that was until I heard this short interview of Dr Farish Noor on BFM 89.9 yesterday.

So now I too know...and so must you. Please take the time (only 13.50 minutes) to listen and share it with friends.

After 2008; Where Are We Now? Where Can We Go? Where Do We Want To Go?

Raja Petra's talk in Canberra on 2nd March 2011. This is a "must view" for every Malaysian regardless of whether pro-government or opposition. Please circulate.

An Open Secret...

You've seen or heard this at least once before...it was not a secret then, it's still not a secret now. That's why it is so strange.

Talking Of Speaking Writes (Rights?); A Commentary On Comment

This is an interesting and apt blogpost by onGOHing. The banner picture on his blog appears to have been taken at the Taiping Lake Gardens which makes me wonder whether the writer is Tepin mali. He uses an analogy from my favorite sport, rugby too...maybe he is from KEVII!!!

Please read:

The thing about viewpoints

Goh Keat Peng

As I read a sports commentary on England vs NZ All-Blacks, it becomes quite clear how the view from an onlooker looking down from his seat in the terraces of Twickenham Stadium and that of a player on the field is really very different.

“…a fast flat pass left from Youngs then put Mike Tindall in space on the Kiwi 22, the old battering-ram hesitated, dawdled inside and then threw a change-of-heart pass behind Lewis Moody on the outside. Chances made, chances lost,” writes Tom Fordyce, the famous sports commentator featured on the BBC website.

This to me sums up quite well the difference in viewpoints within the same arena. Both commentator and player were in the same stadium at the same time engrossed in the same game. But one was up there on the terrace able to see at once the entire field and all the 30 men plus three match officials; the other was on the field where the match is in ongoing progress. The two men literally have two very different points of view, not just in terms of sight but also insight. Understandably so.

Almost at once as I read Tom Fordyce’s insightful commentary on a rugby test match between two giant teams, I am brought back from faraway Twickenham to the present-day realities of Malaysian politics. It becomes for me like a parable as to how we view the going-ons of the national political scene. Depending on which side we are rooting for, we are filled with a mixture of emotions- hope? foreboding? glee? despair? humour? disgust? Just like the team you support in the Premiership, or Super Bowl, or Tri-Nations. Real matches and games are being played out before us (on television) the outcomes of which may send us into ecstasy or embarassment or, as in politics, sedition charges!

In recent months, chiefly because of much news about a certain political party’s internal elections of office-bearers as well as a series of by-elections, comments have been prolific. (Even this writer could not resist to say his piece as evidenced in his IS WAYNE ROONEY NOW PLAYING IN PKR?)

In saying our piece, though, we “commentators” must be somewhat circumscribe and try to be a little reasonable. I often catch myself in a “this one can do no wrong and that one can do no right” mode. Rather like in those chauvinistic cowboy movies where the “only good red indian is a dead one” kind of thing. Fortunately, the truth is not to be found in such one-sided viewpoints.

Some humility must be there that we commentators are after all only spectators watching a match in progress. Despite our vantage points from the terraces looking down, even we are only able to focus on the play in a certain spot at a given time (usually where the ball is) and do not always know the exact positions of all the players all of the time. On the other hand, the player we are following is not only seeing and reading the game on the ground but his vision on a flat pitch is limited too, if not more so. Who to pass the ball to is a decision he has to make at a given time and at an instant. Through the team practice and training, certain patterns of play becomes familiar to the team. But the decision who to pass the ball to on either side of him and when to pass on the ball or to run the ball himself is, on match day, the player’s alone to make. We who are onlookers in the terraces can think, say and act as we wish; even think we are absolutely right and the player, absolutely wrong. But only the players are doing all the playing, deciding and kicking. One is sitting quite comfortably watching the progress of a match; the other is running his heart out playing the match.

Commentators, spectators and players- we all need to acknowledge and appreciate one another’s viewpoints. We need to make better effort to have a healthy respect for one another’s contribution.

The players know they are, unlike God, not omniscient (all-knowing), nor omnipresent (present in all places at the same time) , nor omnipotent (all powerful). The question is whether we as onlookers know the same. (Or is it the other way round?) Players or onlookers who actually think, feel and act as though we are like God will necessarily bite the dust before long- whichever side we support. One-sided views do not make a match winner.

Here are some views of the rugby test match from those much more involved in the actual action than the commentators from the stands:

“You will always make errors – they made two or three too – but we made too many,” admitted Johnson (the England coach), pragmatic as always.

“At vital times, especially in defence, we gave the ball away too easily by trying to do too much sometimes,” said McCaw (the NZ captain). “Those are the decisions we’ve got to get right if we’re going to improve. There’s a learning we have to take out of the last two weeks. There’s time in the game when that’s the right thing to do, and there’s time when hanging on to the ball for one more phase is the right thing to do. Risk versus reward is the thing we need to get under control.”

And this is how Tom Fordyce, sports writer, sums it up:

“In a strange way, Johnson has it easier than All Blacks coach Graham Henry. No-one expects Johnson’s England side to win the World Cup – a semi-final place would be beyond most expectations. For Henry, by contrast, there’s only one outcome that will count as success. Fail to win the old gold pot on home soil (next year’s Rugby Union World Cup hosted by NZ) and this long unbeaten run in the northern hemisphere, let alone the nine wins on the trot against England, will count for nothing. Those worries are for another night. For now, the contrast is clear. England showed glimpses of what they might achieve. The All Blacks, to an outsider’s eyes at least, revealed close to the full picture.”

You see how close and alike politics is to sports?

So what is the lesson of this parable? Onlookers should stop making comments? Spectators should stop watching games? Coaches should stopped their ears and ignore the comments and stubbornly go their own path- win or lose? Players should retire from the game especially when they lose to their opponents? Clubs should change their owners?

Yes in some cases; not necessarily so in others; of course not in a few instances. In the game of politics, one match is not the end- win or lose. We all need to continue to stay with the tournament till the end. As to which player/s we should bring into the team to buttress and augment team performance, even Alex Ferguson himself had brought in, as it turned out, some lame ducks not worth the money spent to secure them. And look at the so-called non-entities he brought in who cost little but grew up in and with the club and made good. Who says that those who stay longest in the club are not making enormous contributions?

Unlike rugby or any other sport, politics affect all in the country- every single one of us. We don’t watch also the match goes on and affects my life and yours and our loved ones.

My worry reading the commentaries and comments these days is that the negativity and ridicule of the reporting puts off interest in high stake politics of the country and once more we common people may eventually throw up our hands in frustration and surrender the struggle to career politicians. Or worse still, drive away some good or promising career politicians and leave the field to the ones who never scored any goals nor keep the undesired goals out for us the people.

Professor Dr Azmi Sharom Being Crystal Clear

BFM 89.9: Dr Azmi Sharom, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University Malaya, talks about the social contract, the concept of Ketuanan Melayu and the need for more freedom of speech in public universities. He is also the President of the UM Academic Staff Union.


http://bfm.my/assets/files/MarketWatch/2010-09-14_CA_AzmiSharom.mp3

Now Do You Understand How Things Work?

This is a very interesting Seth Godin perspective: