China's Paradox

China have recently flexing their muscle and strength by upstaging an amazing Olympic 2008 and sending three astronauts to the space. That would exert both their financial capabilities and technological advancements to the admiration of the world.

But how could they allow the contamination of melamine becomes so widespread until it kills 4 infants and causing mass terror among millions of parents in China who feed their children with contaminated milk. This is not the first catastrophe, remember the Sichuan earthquake not too long ago which claimed thousands of young lives merely due to substandard construction work especially the schools. Too bad that all these corrupted acts of certain people only surface when a disaster struck and many lives scarified. Remember the outbreak of bird flu many years ago which whacked havoc not only in China but also horrifying air travellers around the world?

Can you see the paradox? On one hand, they are busy showcasing brilliant ideas and technological advancements to the world, on the other hand, poor enforcement of local authorities and improper handling on critical issues such as Melamine contamination, bird flu etc resulting in ten of thousands of its people suffering, what an irony.

Night Race-A thumb-up to Singapore

What a wonderful night race held by Singapore on the last weekend. A dramatic race eventually won by Fernando Alonso after so many twists and turns , clashes and collisions, satefy cars in and out and one after another pitstop blunders. Many who suspected the ability of Singapore to host the first ever night race in the history of F1 would now be admiring their ability to put up so many floodlights to lit the Marina Bay in such a eye-catching way. Ron Dennis gave his thumps-up unreservedly, so did other F1 drivers and team principles.

The world have witnessed how Singapore, a small city state with little natural resources put up such an extraordinary race agaisnt all odds, in the way spending much lesser money as compared to Sepang or Shanghai as they do not even need to built a race track. It is indeed the human capital of Singapore that make the different. How they think outside the box is the way they survive in this ever challenging world.

Dog Food

MP Teresa Kok claimed that she was served with meals as good as "dog food" during her detention under ISA. Now, deputy minister in the PM's Department wants to investigate whether it is true that only RM5.80 per day was allocated for each detainee for their whole day meals. I suppose RM5.80 can buy you a reasonably good plate of nasi campur in KL, but certainly not enough for breakfast and dinner. My mother in law's dog is fed every day with dog meal much more than RM5.80 a day. I pity what Teresa Kok had to go thru during her detention under ISA. She was not a prisoner, she is a Member of Parliament arrested under ISA that deserves a better treatment than a prisoner.

No body expects the government to provide luxurious meals to the prisoners or other detainees. At least don't humiliate them by providing sub-standard or poor meals. While government servants, the ministers can go on the extravagance trips overseas spending millions of tax payers' money, I suppose it would not cost a bomb to provide a decent meal to those behind the bars.

KLCI at two-year low

What a disaster? KLCI dropped almost 40 points at noon, what a roller coaster ride from historical high of 1500 points just at beginning of the year to such a dismal stage now. I lost almost 70% of my investment which I initiated about a year ago. Such is the way of life I suppose, expectation and result seem never agree with each other.

Last night I re-read a bit of Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, a book that I bought quite sometime ago. Although the book was written many decades ago, the principles are still very relevant. As Graham said, investment is not only buying stocks and expects it to raise fast. Investment should involve very detailed analysis to find out the stocks that are cheaper than their intrinsic values to give a comfortable margin of safety. Buying good stocks and keep them for long terms and disregarding their fluctuations in prices should be the proper way of investment.

I guess I have to wait for a long long time before I can recover my initial capital.

September 16 an Anticlimax

As many could have predicted, September 16 is an anti-climax, a dramatic start but nothing happens at the end. DSAI still insists that Pakatan Rakyat have more than 31 MPs to crossover from BN so that they could form a new government. But Pak Lah just said it was a bluff. Whatever it is, Malaysian at large have to continue their life with this sort of politicking maybe until the next general election. Or the government will arrest DSAI under ISA so as to keep his mouth shut so that BN will have a smooth sailing until the next election.

Pakatan Rakyat on the other hand should enhance their administration on the 5 states under their control. If they can better BN, I would say more people will support them in the coming general election. If Pakatan Rakyat continue with the current strategies of overthrowing the government by pinching the BN's MPs, that will exhaust their resources and thus they would not be able to focus on improving the livelihood of the people.

As it is now, there seems to be a global economic turbulent on the way due to the economic crisis in US. Why not we join hands in strengthening our economy and ensuring the people are more resilient in facing economic crisis should it really happen.

Prisoner of Conscience

Sin Chew reporter was released after 18 hours of detention, what a relief. But RPK and Teresa Kok were still imprisoned under ISA. There are increasing voices to call for the release of RPK and Teresa Kok, civilians and those in the government alike. The de facto minister of law has since tendered his resignation as he was also in disagreement with the government misusing ISA for detention not related to terrorism. Can Prime Minister turn a deaf ear to the people?

ISA is against peace and democracy. We can see that it is so conveniently used to detain someone that in the view of government had threatened national security. Are those people really terrorists? Or are they prisoner of conscience. Why ISA? IS the government incapable of acting against the lawbreakers with the laws that we are having now? Or, simply, the ISA is being used as it is so convenient? Can't our law enforcers find enough evidence to charge the ISA detainees in open court?

Unjust arrest of Sin Chew reporter

The credibility of Home Ministry is again in doubt with the arrests of Raja Petra, Teresa Kok and Sin Chew reporter Tan Hoon Cheng under ISA. I wonder press freedom is alive in this country. Are these people really a threats to the country or ISA is conveniently used to solve the problems faced by the home ministry.

This is a trick so often played by the government. OK, you people are angry with Ahmad Ismail, actions have been taken against him. Now is the time to go for the rest who are also involving in spicing out the issue. So, don't you people complain, it is fair to everybody.

This is democracy in this country; the person who allegedly given racist remarks was suspended for 3 years from all his party posts and still acts like a big hero, the person who reported the issue was arrested and investigated under ISA.

2 Days 1 Night in Penang

My wife and I went to Penang for vacation over the past weekend. It has been many years since the last time we visited Penang. It was quite fortunate for us as we managed to cover a few interesting places even though the weather was not promising. It was pouring while we were driving from Sitiawan to Penang. We went to Bukit Bendera but the train service was suspended due to maintenance. We then went to Kek Lok Si Temple and it started to rain again upon reaching there. After the rains stopped, we went to Botanical Garden just quick enough to have some brief walks and it was drizzling again. The cannon ball trees planted along the path way at the main entrance were beautiful.

We put up a night at Tanjung Bungah Beach Hotel. It was the cheapest 3-star hotel I can find near Batu Ferringhi. I prefer the sea view but my wife wanted to save some money therefore we opted for hill view. It ended up street view as all you can see from the room was busy streets but for about RM128 per night, it is still value for money. That night we went to the famous night market at Batu Ferringhi. There were not many stalls opened probably due to rainy weather. So we went to Gurney Drive for shopping.

The next day we managed to visit Butterfly Farm before the heavy showers started at around noon causing massive jam on our way out to Penang bridge. I was swearing all the way until coming out from the Penang bridge when the traffic eased slightly. In Malaysia, every where you go is the same. When it rains heavily, some low lying places sure get flooded. What happen to the millions of ringgit spent on flood mitigation? When it comes to monsoon periods, the kampung folks in the northern states like Kedah and Perlis sure suffer. Padi fields damage, houses flooded, unfortunate life casualties again and again. Those big shots living comfortably in big bungalows in Putra Jaya sure can not understand the pains the people suffered due to floods. Malaysia is blessed as there are far lesser natural disasters as compared with our neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. Even then, some quarters can just blame the mother nature for causing the havoc but not themselves for not putting in sufficient efforts to mitigate floods.

Arrogant Racist

Deputy Prime Minister had apologized on behalf of UMNO on the seditious remark made by Ahmad Ismail on calling Chinese as immigrant. Prime minister had also felt sorry for the incident and warned all BN component parties to be more sensitive on race issues. But this guy Ahmad Ismail is too proud and arrogant to deny that he had conducted any wrong doings and thus, no need to apologize to anybody. He was basically implied that what he had said is a fact, Chinese and Indian in this country are all immigrants thus do not deserve equal rights as what entitle for bumiputera.

This is a typical low class politician, running out of ideas on how to improve the livelihood of the people thus sensationalising race issue to get support from his own race. Or try to become a hero, like someone many years ago repeatedly kissed the Kris as though he wants to slaughter enemies in a battlefield. Where are we heading to if we have this kind of people to become our leaders?

Racism - No 1 Enemy to National Unity

As Malaysia is celebrating the 51st Merdeka, there are still racist everywhere cooking up seditious remarks for their own political agenda. Bukit Bendera UMNO division chief Ahmad Ismail is one such example. He had allegedly called Chinese pendatang (immigrant) at a ceramah in front of his number 2 boss Najib Razak. Well, Chinese community surely can not take it. After 51 years achieving independent, there is this moron labelling them as immigrant and literally questioning the genuineness of their citizenship.

Chinese politicians naturally condemning such irresponsible act of their counterpart in Barisan National. Demanding apology and some even ask this guy to be sacked by UMNO. Of course the PM will always play his Tai-chi, explaining that that chap didn't mean what he had said. Never mind, we know there is always double standards. If someone else not from UMNO giving such controversial remarks, they will surely be arrested under ISA.

So MCA and Gerakan, let's see the so called politics of consultation work or not. We will find out very soon should any disciplinary actions be taken on this chap.