In Malaysia, it's been roughly 50 minutes into April 1st. So, don't believe everything that you, especially in the blogosphere. If things appears too good to be true, too surprising, too abrupt, too unbelievable, chances are, they are.

Oh yeah, I'm getting married. Oh, lucky me...

p/s - Lowyat.net officially adopt Flying Spaghetti Monsterism as its official religion. This also renders part of their forum inaccessible, annoyingly.

Wikipedia itself has plans for April Fool's though it won't make it to the front page until eastern standard time's midnight. Don't forget to check Wikipedia soon.

pp/s - just found out that Dell is acquiring Alienware.

Dell has agreed to purchase gaming PC maker Alienware, in a rare acquisition designed to improve Alienware's supply chain and boost Dell's standing among PC enthusiasts.

That sucks. I've always hated Dell but admire Alienware.

Yes, she is. I saw a report on Bloomberg just now and Bloomberg says Al-Jazeera and Reuters have confirmed the news. I however have yet to see an online report. Should be up soon, I presume. She's from Ann Arbor and would probably be on her way to Ann Arbor soon.

Jill Carroll was kidnapped sometimes ago in Iraq and was feared dead earlier.

p/s - remember my post entitled [754] Of the strengthening role of religion within the government?

Well, in that entry, I wrote in jest that "through extrapolation, maybe, the government would send Muslims to jail for missing prayers in the future." I didn't quite believe it was possible. Apparently, I was wrong.

There is already such provision in Kelantan. It's Section 101 of the Kelantan Islamic Council and Malay Customs Enactment 1986 (Amendment 1994). More:

In a rare case, a 68-year-old man was fined RM300 or one month’s jail for not attending Friday prayers in his mukim (sub-district).

Mohamad Taib, from Kedepal here, pleaded guilty to not attending Friday prayers at a mosque in his area three consecutive times, an offence which in Kelantan carries a maximum RM1,000 fine or a six-month jail term.

Religious prosecution is not all. Civil liberty was also threatened; privacy intruded:

The labourer was caught by Pasir Mas Religious Affairs Department officers after two months of surveillance at the mosque.

Pasir Mas Lower Syariah Court prosecutor Rohani Kadir said the officers and mosque officials found that Mohamad had not attended Friday prayers at the mosque between June and July last year.

And I thought the presence of CCTVs in Kuala Lumpur is already bad. Thank goodness, Kelantan is not my home. In a way, I'm grateful that Malaysia is a federation. If it were a unitary state, it would get really ugly to have such law.

If there a similar federal clause on that, those green cards would start to be overly attractive. Imagine the reason to emigrate: escaping religious prosecution. LOL!

Or maybe, it's not so funny after all.

pp/s - two hours to the tabling of the Ninth Malaysian Plan and what am I doing? Trying to convince my mom into buying equities of major Malaysian construction-based firms. Well, correction - a buying frenzy.

ppp/s - alright. Not A2 but Boston.

On New Straits Times' front page today: Analysis reveals tap water in Klang Valley safe to drink.


I think it's safe too. Nobody has died so far.

· · - -   · -   · · - -   · -   ·   · -   · - ·   -   · · · ·

(di-di-dah-dah di-dah di-di-dah-dah di-dah dit di-dah di-dah-dit dah di-di-di-dit)

I read a disturbing article in Utusan Malaysia (in Malay) earlier this week. A bill known as Enakment Zakat (literally, Tithe Enactment) is set for enforcement next year at the latest in Selangor. The bill will enable the state's Islamic religious authority to imprison any person that failed to pay alms or zakat; zakat is obligatory alms on Muslims and part of five pillars of Islam. The troubling part here is the power the state government has to enforce religious tenets on its citizens. The state is enroaching on private citizens' life in the name of religion.

The past few years have seen the strengthening of role of religion, specifically Islam, within the Malaysian government. Not too many months ago, we saw how certain religious authority had the audacity to form moral police squads despite public disapproval. It took several hard no's to convince that religious authority to abandon that idea. More recently, policewomen had been ordered to wear headscarf at an official function regardless of belief. The police stated that it was for the sake of uniformity but I suspect something more sinister going on. Though this enactment is only effective at state level, it may well be another step taken to further erode secularism in Malaysia.

This trend is definitely the effect of intense UMNO-PAS rivalry that started in 1999. PAS managed a stunning win in the year's general election. In effort to counter PAS, UMNO tried to be more Islamic than PAS, enticing conservatives that would normally vote for PAS. It worked and in the 2004 general election, UMNO gave PAS a severe beating.

The "I'm more a Muslim than you" policy may have accomplished what UMNO desired but they're disfranchising the more moderate Malaysians. For such reason, I hope to see UMNO's current policy to backfire in 2008 or 2009, the year the next general election is due. Such backlash would halt UMNO and indirectly, the government's march to the right. PAS suffered somewhat similar backlash during the Pengkalan Pasir by-election, or not.

Else, soon, through extrapolation, maybe, the government would send Muslims to jail for missing prayers in the future. Hey, they've already sent those that don't fast during Ramadan into a "timeout". That could happen unless we stop giving those in the right more power to impose their self-proclaimed superior moral and other religious rules on the masses.

The problem is, of course, we have a commie wannabe as an alternative to UMNO and PAS and that makes things tougher than it ought to be. In the end, it's all about the lesser devil, unfortunately. And that lesser devil is currently somewhere on the left.

Whoa! Scandal!

The results of this year's fierce Michigan Student Assembly election almost weren't released last night.

The Michigan Progressive Party, clearly the loser by the vote count, accused Students 4 Michigan of violating the election code.

People affiliated with S4M attempted to overload and shut down MPP's website Monday night as the polls opened. That night, a computer program downloaded a single file from MPP's website more than 200,000 times in an attempt to crash the website at a crucial time.

S4M admitted involvement.

This is the most interesting campus election yet!

BTW, Students 4 Michigan won. MPP was promising but too bad they didn't manage it.

It's one of those weeks again when aspiring politicians at Michigan try to get themselves elected into the Michigan Student Assembly. And that means solicitation.

Yes. To put it bluntly, spam and tons of them.

While I was a student there, I'd put a "no solicitation" sign at my door. Worked pretty well. Unfortunately, there's nothing as effective as that in the virtual world. As of right now, I've already gotten seven emails, most of them are about "vote me, vote me". Even Environmetally Justice Group, which I was part of, mailed me, asking me to vote for Michigan Progressive Party:

The Environmental Justice Group fully supports and urges everyone to vote for all candidates in the Michigan Progressive Party in the UM Student Government elections. MPP is the only party which clearly supports the Coke ban, fair trade coffee in the dorms, LEED certification for new campus buildings, and money for student group to do lobbying. Voting begins tonight at midnight. Vote MPP.

Who's MPP? I've no idea. And I bet a majority at Michigan don't give a damn about it. Whatever the outcome, chances are that the Assembly is going to be dominated by left of center candidates. In 2005, I suspect almost all representatives positioned themselves as left of center. That's probably why the Coke ban motion was passed with ease a couple of months ago.

Anyway, I can't vote anymore since I've graduated. For those who can, er, vote for MPP. Or not. But whatever you do, don't vote for Student Conservative Party (psst, they're Bush lovers) and Defend Affirmative Action Party (these guys are just annoying).

Heh. Let's see if the next representatives would waste $20,000 by inviting Ludacris back to campus all over again. But if you don't want to see that again, vote Students 4 Michigan Party out of office.

And opss... that leaves only MPP behind, doesn't it?

Just vote for MPP. Even the Daily endorses MPP. BTW, the Daily still suck.

The result is due on Thursday, eastern standard time. Michigan Daily's poll currently looks like this, if you are interested. Vote here. For candidates' statement, go to Michigan Daily.

p/s - LOL! I can still vote! Well, I'm doing EJ a favor and voting for MPP. But my guess is that, my vote would probably be discounted later.

pp/s - as I thought so. An email from ITD:

Anyone with a uniqname and password can submit ballots. Ballots are
not counted unless they are submitted by a voter registered in the
appropriate academic program for a particular election.

If your uniqname is "***", you are not currently registered,
according to our data, and any ballots you submit will not be counted.
Let us know if you believe your registration status is not accurate.

Oh well.

Today is equinoctial Earth Day (tag), otherwise, the International Earth Day. It thought it was supposed to be tomorrow on March 21 but I wasn't observant enough to realize earlier that today is equinox. Either way, I'm used to celebrating Earth Day on April 22 - that's 33 days away. Moreover, everyday is an Earth Day. =)

But for now, yeah, happy International Earth Day!

p/s - Nicol David fails to earn any kind of medal for Malaysia at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Too bad. We totally need more Malaysian supporters at Australia. On TV, there was almost nobody to give her a hug when she lost. =(

But tomorrow, Malaysian men hockey team will be up against South Africa! Malaysia currently tops its group with two games played, one win and a draw; nine goals for versus one against. Go Malaysia!

pp/s - w00t! Malaysia 2 - 1 South Africa!

ppp/s - testing backlink

One of Ann Arbor's best known personalities, owner of Hello Faz Pizza, is gone.

He told people to come when they had money, but especially to come when they didn't. He was a local icon, a businessman who said his job was not to make money but to feed people.

Faz Husain, owner of Ann Arbor's Hello Faz Pizza, died of pulmonary fibrosis Thursday. He was 54.

Husain had been diagnosed with idiopathic lung disease several months ago. He is survived by a wife and three children.

Although he no will longer stand behind the counter of his shop at the corner of West Liberty Street and Stadium Boulevard, friends and family said the cheerful pizza man will remain in their memories.

He will remain in mine too. Though I may not know him too well, I recognize his face and enjoyed his pizzas while I was in Ann Arbor.

May God bless his soul.

p/s - testing backlinks.

pp/s - a person mailed me, asking me to let people know that a memorial service for Faz will take place at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School on Thursday the 23rd at 7pm. There's also a website dedicated to Faz.

It's been hard and frustrating to update this blog for the past several days. I've contacted my host and they said that TMNet's data center has issues with bandwidth limit. Worse thing is, TMNet expects to only resolve the problem by the end of March. That's like half a freaking month!

The site feed is also in bad shape, thanks to TMNet.

Bah. I want compensation.

I'm not sure how to react to the announcement that Malaysia and Singapore have agreed in principle to build a straight bridge in order to replace the Causeway. Reason is, Malaysia relented on two points: airspace and sand supply.

In return of Singaporean cooperation for a straight bridge, Singapore wants to use Malaysian airspace to train its air force and a guaranteed sand supply to continue its reclamation projects. Without going too deep into the issue, I'd say this as highly unreasonable; I feel it's impossible to meet. That impossible demands and the need to fuel economic growth in southern Malaysia are the reasons why I support a construction of a bridge to replace the Causeway, without Singaporean cooperation.

Concerning air space, I simply don't trust the Singaporean government and their military even less. Hell, I don't trust my own government. Singapore says it wants to use Malaysian airspace for training purposes. However, it isn't too hard for Singapore or anybody for that matter to turn this little maneuver into some sort of espionage missions. I don't know what high value targets are there in Johor but I bet Singapore would know if Malaysia is to allow Singapore to conduct "training" in Malaysian Johor airspace.

More interesting is sand supply. Singapore has been aggressive in reclaiming lands from the sea; the reclamation projects have attracted Malaysian and Indonesian attention. Both have expressed concerned about the projects but Singapore ignored it. Malaysia was especially concerned with Singaporean reclamation at Tuas in the west and at Pulau Tekong in the east; both border Malaysian state of Johor. In 2003, both countries went to the International Court of Justice to resolve the issue once and for all. The ICJ in turn sided with Singapore with reservations.

Regardless of the result, it doesn't matter because Singapore had to stop its reclamation effort, thanks to Indonesia. Previously, Indonesia provided the raw materials Singapore needed for its reclamation project. Like Malaysia, Indonesia was suspicious of the Singaporean effort. In the end, Indonesia cut off the supply, fearing Singapore redrawing the Singaporean-Indonesian border. The projects are still on hold. Now, Singapore needs to find a new source of sand. And guess who Singapore is turning to now?

If Malaysia agrees to supply Singapore the sand, it would be an odd thing to do. Malaysia is against Singaporean reclamation project. For Malaysia to supply the sand and enable Singapore to continue a project that Malaysia is so vehemently disagree of, is, again, odd. It defies logic.

Perhaps, this is because Malaysia knows that Singapore could get the sand that its need from somewhere else. We know how Singapore managed to buy a company of strategic importance in Thailand. Given that, it wouldn't be hard for Singapore to get some sand from Thailand. Maybe here's is just Malaysia doing a "hey, why not make some money out of it?" act.

Unless Singapore could sweeten the pot - like allowing Malaysians that work in Singapore to withdraw money that the Singaporean government has been withholding - I definitely believe a crooked bridge is a better deal. Of course, a straight bridge is good but circumstances make it not too favorable.

With the bent bridge, Malaysia gets a little less of what it wants without giving Singapore anything. If Malaysia accedes to Singaporean demands, Malaysia would get what it wants by giving too much to Singapore.

If a person plans to take side on an issue, it's extremely wise to comprehend the situation first. Failure will bring ridicule and signals ignorance. Here, I wish to highlight a surprisingly ignorant reason why some people are opposing the crooked, scenic Malaysian half-bridge. These people are opposing the bridge because they think the bridge will end in the middle of the Tebrau Strait. In truth, the bridge will be connected to the Causeway and it's not a multimillion culdesac.

Let me show you.

People think the bridge would be like this:



People who have this picture in their mind will always say with scorn that we would need to swin to Singapore once we reached the end of the bridge.

In reality, the bridge will look like this:



Image taken from Google Maps. I hope it qualifies as fair use.

As you can see, it's a half bridge because it's half a bridge and another half a causeway. Not one part bridge and the rest, water. There's no need to swim and suffer being wet to get across the strait unless you really love swimming.

Don't believe me? What? Me? A liar? What? Me, a BN lover?

No, I'm being pragmatic. There's no need to be a rebel without a cause; a rebel that protests to everything for the mere sake of rebelling - that's an insincere protest. It's immature and stupid. Much like those in the price hike protest. In the Star last Friday, there was an article about the bridge. The writeup has a picture of the bridge plan and here's the picture:



Observe the rightmost diagram. See it?

As to why it's crooked, well, it's the only way to gain a required height - in this case, 25 m (25 m is also the air draught for the Second Link to the west) - given the length constraint due to Singaporean refusal to demolish their half of the Causeway. If Singapore had agreed to a bridge and demolish their part of the Causeway, the bridge wouldn't need to be crooked in order to obtain that 25 m. Once the bridge is completed, Malaysian half of the Causeway will be demolished and the bridge will be linked up to Singaporean half.

I hope this will clear things up for all those ignoramuses out there, particularly those at Lowyat.net's Real World Issues forum.

Heh, the ignoramuses have already zipped their mouth by the time they found out that the bridge won't end in the middle of nowhere. If it did end in the middle of nowhere, even I would vehemently disagree to it. But it is not and I fully support the Malaysian initiative.

Next time, really, learn the issue first. This includes the price hike but that's another story I'll chance another time.

Did you read Saturday's New Straits Times? The government just launched a "public opinion poll system". More at NST:

The Government launched its public opinion poll system today, making Malaysia one of the few countries in the world where opinion polls are conducted by the public sector.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi launched the system, which uses the short messaging service (SMS) and the Internet, and said it was a professional and efficient way of obtaining public feedback.

The Public Complaints Bureau (PCB) is managing the polling system with the co-operation of telecommunications companies.

Using SMS, the public can submit their opinions on a given topic by keying in (for Biro Pengaduan Awam) and sending it to 36367.

They will receive a message which contains a question on the poll topic and multiple choice answers marked according to alphabets. They have to select the alphabet according to the answer of their choice and send it back to 36367.

A good effort but whatever it is, it needs to be sincere. Without sincerity, it will turn out like this:



To Singaporeans, happy voting and yeah, within this strip's context of course.

p/s - Tried to follow Ajax-PSV match on www.tvants.com but the lag was unbearable. The match turned out to be 0-0. Many Ajacied expected a win but bah. Even those that watched the match think Ajax could have won. Still, next is Inter Milan.

Latest reports impress that both Malaysia and the United States are eager to seal a free trade agreement (tag) as soon as possible. On Tuesday, both parties announced a talk on a possible FTA. On Wednesday after the talk, they announced it will be fast-tracked. While I fear the US might be applying its muscle during negotiation, it appears that Malaysia might have a huge leverage against the US. That leverage is time.

As mentioned in various articles, including Financial Times article, the White House's expedited power will expires in July 2007:

Trade promotion auth�ority, which allows the administration to submit trade deals to Congress for an up or down vote with no amendments, expires in the middle of next year.

At the same time, the US seems extremely eager to strike a deal with Malaysia. If the deal goes through, Malaysia would be the second country in ASEAN to sign a FTA with the US. The US is in talks with Thailand but that talk doesn't seem to be moving at the right pace by any respectable standard, especially when Thailand is in a major political crisis. The Philippines, another candidate for a FTA, doesn't look too well either. So, Malaysian FTA might be the only deal the US could get this year.

Apart from that, some in the US consider a possibility of FTA as a way to counter terrorism. They insist that Malaysia is a moderate and the most progressive Islamic country, blah, blah, blah - you know the drill. I don't care what they think but all these factors give Malaysia advantages to bring into the negotiating table.

Given the circumstances, Malaysia must utilize these advantages to the fullest extent. If Malaysia doesn't, the United States will. Already the US ambassador to Malaysia was reported as saying that he expects an easy negotiation. Easy is a loaded word and it scares me to hear that. It is as if US expected Malaysia to acquiescent easily at the table.

Regardless what the general sentiment is in the US, Malaysia must not give too much ground without gaining substantial returns. Above all, Malaysia needs to be mindful of the recent US-Colombia FTA. In that FTA, Colombian tariffs on many US agricultural goods are torn down to zero while US quotas on Colombian export are not eliminated. Instead, it was merely increased. I don't know how the Colombians feel about it but to me, that's unfair.

This FTA is important to Malaysia because our country is a small open economy. Trade is our lifeline. However, no trade is better than a lop-sided trade. Bottom line is, I hate to see Malaysia be in the same spot as Colombia. More crudely, I don't want to see Malaysia gets screwed.

p/s - w00t! The Simpsons is now live!

pp/s - Sirotablog is the first blog standing against Malaysia-US FTA that I know off. The blogger sounds like a protectionist. So, leftist Democrat, I think. A anti-globalization blogger for certain. Anyway, the way he describes Malaysian labor market is outrageous. He says Malaysian labors are oppressed because there is no minimum wage. Funny think is, Malaysians don't think so. Do they?

United States and Malaysia are planning for a free trade deal (tag). According to Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Malaysia will announce plans on Wednesday to negotiate a free trade agreement, industry and congressional sources familiar with the decision said.

U.S. trade officials have previously said they were very close to launching talks with Malaysia, the United States' 10th-largest goods trading partner.

U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman and Malaysian International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz are expected to announce plans to begin negotiations at a joint news conference with U.S. lawmakers, one source said.

I wonder how the FTA would affect Malaysian automotive industry. And rivalry between palm and soybean oil industries would probably flare up during negotiation.

It wouldn't be too far off if I suspect some sort of bullying by the United States' representatives to occur. From what I read, the US trade representatives are notorious of that. Stiglitz made that even more vivid. Moreover, when US-Singapore FTA was discussed a number of years back, the United States representatives managed to convince the Singaporean government to legalize chewing gum - we all know about how much the Singaporean government hates chewing gum! Well, partly anyway - Singapore dragged its feet.

I support free trade. I even go farther and support free flow of trade and labor. Not in totality of course since sometimes, things need to be done on case by case basis but in general, I'm for free trade. However, most free trade agreements are only free in name and hardly fair at all. For instance, remember India's offer last year? Thank goodness that has been flatly rejected.

For this very reason, it's good to know that Rafidah Aziz will lead Malaysian team to the table. She might be unpopular but she has the experience to withstand or even counter United States' pressure. I've problem imagining of whom would be more suitable for the job. Syed Hamid Albar? Maybe but Abdullah Ahmad Bawadi certainly can't do.

p/s - oh, yea. Ajax 6 - 0 Sparta. PSV is next.

I was about to blog something about microeconomics (tag) but ended up emailing my undergrad economics professor instead. Meanwhile, I dug up a pile of shit and found this written in one of my economics coursepacks:



It was taken from the coursepack itself. The full version is this - "Remember, economics defines rationality in terms of whether an individual acts sensibly given his or her preferences, not whether the preferences themselves are sensible."

How true. That's positive economics.

Youth division of Parti Keadilan Rakyat declares Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as the weakest of all five Malaysian leaders. Malaysiakini has a writeup on it. But, here's how I see it:


Keadilan is going over its head. This one is a bluff - just like the party itself.

Malaysian blogosphere is refreshing. Despite having little knowledge on a subject, suddenly, everybody's an expert. When Public Works Department produces flawed bridge, everybody's an engineer. When there's inflation, everybody's an economist. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

One important thing - opinion is not necessarily based on fact. Especially when it comes from false authorities.

Anyway, I heard there will be a protest over the recent price hike. These protesters must have a short attention span, given their inability to appreciate how prolonged subsidy is bad for Malaysia. Funny actually. People demand efficiency but when efficiency is introduced, some vehemently denounce that efficiency.

One frequent argument against price hike is this: public transportation in Malaysia needs serious upgrading before partial or complete removal of gas subsidy.

Well, question: where do you think the cash gonna come from? Answer: Resources from reduction of subsidy.

What? Surprised? Did you actually think money grow on trees? Do you actually think, we face unlimited resources? Wake up and smell the roses.

As you can see, I'm quite bored. (tag)


I wonder who launched the attack, if it was an attack...

p/s - hurrah for Prof. Johnson. LOL! At Econ:

Professor George Johnson received the Teacher of the Year Award from the Undergraduate Program Committee which bestowed the honor �by acclaim and unanimously.� Johnson received his award from Professor Jim Adams, director of Undergraduate Studies, during a surprise presentation at the end of his final Econ 102 lecture during the Fall term.

Yup. He played golf in lecture.

pp/s - as a supplement to [731] Of the great flood of Pasir Kumpal, read Pelf's The great flood entry. Great pics.