once a president

it always baffles me to watch saddam hussein on tv, as a prisoner. how on earth can a foreign soldier invade your country and put your president or prime minister behind bars and then present to the people as a prisoner? is this acceptable international law, international code of practice? who is the next president or prime minister to be turned a prisoner? can another country do it instead of the usa and be acceptable to the world community, or will the world community just squeeze their own balls and keep quiet, can't do anything about it? hey, our capital punishment is seen as barbaric by some nations. can they use that as an excuse to invade us and put our prime minister behind bars too? why are the iraqis happily going about trying their own president because a foreign power tells them to do so?

when did selangor have a japanese mentri besar

i remember the name khir johari. but khir toyo, mohd khir toyo, is the mentri besar of selangor. is he japanese? definitely not. only bumis can be a mentri besar. but never heard of a malay name like toyo before. toyo is definitely japanese, or at least sounds like toyota. a name can be misleading. or is there a misprint?

dr lee wai leng, the other side of...

everybody knows who lee wai leng is. i hope so. and many only see one side of her, the daughter of lky, a president scholar and a prominent doctor who pulled the plug on the malpractice of a foreign talent. not many know the other side of lee wai leng, the human side. she shares her view in a pretty long article today in the straits time forum on the choice of top schools. what came out from the article, apart from some sensible advices, is a very human and down to earth person, and it came out very genuine and sincere. in the same article we got to know an unknown lee wai leng, her thoughts and views and how she made some tough decisions as a young student. let me just quote a small paragraph of what she wrote. 'i learnt more valuable lessons such as empathy for the less academicaly inclined, that there were other aspects of the human mind such as integrity, honesty, courage, generosity and compassion that are just as if not more important than academic ability.'

people in high office must be thick skinned

this is the advice king bhumibol gave to thaksin. thaksin has been under intense criticism from another media tycoon, and his authority and integrity are being challenged. there are many ways to respond to such an attack. but thaksin chose to sue his opponents. wonder where he learnt such a tactic to hit back at his opponents? must be his training in the usa i supposed. the king also modestly told him that to err is human and that the king himself had erred in many occasions when he was young. the king also corrected the misconception that the king can do no wrong. and he finally told thaksin to drop his lawsuits against his opponent. this is the price to be paid for being in political office. there will be many criticisms. it is part of the job. some will take criticism as a motivation to come up on top of it, to prove that the criticism was unjustified. some may runaway from criticism. and of course, some will sue.

a dog park at east coast park

well, with $160 million to be spent, great ideas are aplenty. a letter to the today's forum from jessica chan asked for a big dog park with facilities like dog cafe, pet shops, place for dog shows, place for dog obedient classes etc. shoo, shoo, we need more space for dogs. excuse me?