Mana Boleh - Where Can??

I read in dismay today that the Malaysian government (read BN government), instead of tackling the issue of fuel subsidy has decided to close part of the fuel market to foreigners.

And how much stupider can they get?

Their ruling is that the gas stations sited within 50 km of the border of Thailand and Singapore will not be allowed to sell gas to foreigners.

Now I am deeply troubled because I am planning to head north to Penang for the holidays, to be with my in-laws. While going up is not the issue, my beef is with the journey back.

When will I need to fill up before I get into the 50 km ruling? And how is it counted? 50 km radius or via the roads? Technically, it seems quite impossible to monitor this and worst of all the only people to suffer from this is the gas stations adjacent to the highway both in JB (Woodlands and Second Link) and also in the north of Kedah, Kelantan, Perak and Perlis.

I recall in the Second Link, direction towards Singapore, there was a Shell gas station that just opened perhaps a year ago. I pity them because they will most likely take a long time to recoup their investment because hardly any Malaysian cars use the Second Link (mostly Singapore based cars).

It would be interesting to see how long this effort will last before they figure out money speaks louder than words.

The best solution to this is to remove the subsidies, or find a way to channel the subsidies back into the pockets of the poor. The middle and upper class can surely "tahan" the raise in fuel prices.

In the mean time, all I can say is..... THIS SUCKS!

Racial politics and roadblocks to reality in malaysia

I read in the papers about Mahathir's latest outburst about IDR (or whatever its called now) and Singapore's investment there and how the Malays will loose their birth right if all this noise made by non-Malays continue.

frankly I am getting a bit sick of all this paranoia pandering. So far i have not heard of any one or party asking for the malay special privileges to be removed. What the PR states and officials are asking for is for a transparent way of doing things, which can still abide with the NEP.

right now, so many things are done with no transparency that the rakyat does not know how much exactly of the nations coffers have leaked out to areas where it is not supposed to.

like how can state assemblymen use up 2 million of their allocation in 2 months. I find it had to fathom such things.

BN for all intent and purpose has made Malaysia into their own cash cow, using up its resources for their own benefit. I'd say that they are only slightly better than the British colonials as the colonials took the money back to the UK, whereas, there are actual work being done here, but as we have seen in szechuan this past week, if a malapetaka were to happen, how many of these buildings are built to standard?

but i guess things are getting desperate for certain quarters who have made it their life work to harp of the racial divide, unfortunately i think their efforts would have been put to more use if they had used all that energy to heal the racial divide rather to make it more jarring.


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In memorium

Over the past 2 days, I have had bad news delivered to me about close friends passing on.

Lee Hertzberg

I got to know Lee, or Pops, as we all fondly called him about 15 or so years back when I was a student in the US. He was my foster-dad's dad, so in essence my Grandpa when I was in the US.

He was an electrical engineer and was on the forefront of many things. He also belonged to what is termed at the "Greatest Generation". His contribution to the Great War (WWII) was his expertise in radar technology, which was in its infancy then.

He and his late wife, Viola or Lala told us how they had to study under armed guard because all the textbooks and reading material was then classified as top secret.

I also fondly recall that he told us the story about Christmas or Thanksgiving during the Korean War when he was deployed at a radar station. There was a storm, and there was supposed to be a delivery of turkey for the troops, except with the storm, the plane could not land. So the flight crew just chucked the turkey out of the planes, determined that the men on the ground would not have to spend the holidays without their traditional turkey. Except that one turkey crashed through the roof of the radar station, and luckily no one was injured.

After many years (and Lala's death) I finally got a chance to go to San Francisco about 2 years back and made a trip to see my foster Dad and mom, Lanny and Jane. Together we journeyed to see Pops, who was still fit as a fiddle at 91. Driving himself around town and to the air force base where he got his medical treatment.

2 days ago I received a sad email from Lanny saying that Pops had passed away from a major stroke. I was in shock, but upon reflection, I do know I have that last photo I took of us from 2 years back and the stories he told. 

Cheryl,

An ex-colleague from my workplace just passed away from Cancer. She was younger than me, lived life to the fullest and had so much potential still to be fulfilled.

Even though she was sick, she didn't kick up a fuss about it. She did her job and she did well, and more importantly, she took my jokes and character in her stride, which many of a good people couldn't.

I guess there's so much more to write, but we only worked together for a short while, and didn't get much more time to interact outside of the office.

To Lee and Cheryl, Rest in Peace!

Is malaysia regressing

I read with great interest (and with incredule) the proposa put forward by dr ras yatim where women traveller, if travelling alone, would require a letter from their respective families or company attesting to the natureof ter travel overseas.

i really find it hard to believe a seasoned politician and respected member of the community could put forwad such a proposal. His proposal was based on some statistics where malaysian ladies were caught smuggling drugs into other countries, ie used a drug mules. If i recall the news article, he said, no insinuated that a large percentage of ladies were being used as mules.

i used stats can be used to argue both sides of the same arguement, and this the perfect case. If you had wanted to push for the legislature, of course, you'd dig up some silly stats. But the reality is that those who got caught or even engaged in illegal stuff is a small small percentage over the larger number of legitimate women travellers.

also it reeks of chauvinistic values, ie the women are dumb and like frog in the well. Chances are, those who engage in this illegal activity know full well what they are doing, and this include males as well. They do it because of some reason that they only know. Feigning ignorance is a sure way of claiming innocence.

who knows, perhaps the next step would be to disqualify single female malaysians from holding a passport, or better yet, why not stop them from going to school altogether.

i always malaysian politics is interesting, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.

out!


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