the lynching of the klan has started

The Americans have had enough of the Klan in the White House and Pentagon. The first high priest to go is Rumsfeld. Several retired generals have spoken openly for his removal for causing the fiasco in Iraq. Who's next, Cheney, Bush or Rice? The bleeding of American boys' blood in the barren desert is getting to be too painful. And the saddest thing is that, it was all because of a bluff. American boys dying for a lie, not a national cause. How stupid can the americans be?

other views on the crooked bridge

Bad boy (Singapore) PM Abdullah decides the causeway will not go. With this simple decision, he has removed three issues that plagued relationship between Malaysia and Singapore. There is now no need to fight over the supply of sand, the use of airspace over Johore, the building of a bridge at JB. Malaysia saved over M$500M, maintained sovereignty over its airspace and will not fear the enlargement of the island of Singapore. Now, it has only to deal with the issue of water supply to Singapore. Malaysia holds all the aces as Singapore need to buy water from Malaysia. media_junkie (Malaysian) Pucat in the face! Muka kena sapu arang! What kind of a PM is this? How to take him seriously on anything. He calls you to take arms against an enemy and you do it, half way through pulling the trigger he will say pull back. You think your enemy going to listen to him? Mati la kita? Gozie Trust me, end of the day we will sell our air space and sand to Singapore! First we lose our demand to increase water price, we lose on mycard, we lose on the bridge, we lose everything, dude the above are just some views i extracted from littlespeck.com. the comments were anything but the economic benefits of building the bridge. it is all about tic for tac, winning and losing, national pride and historical animosities. why would selling sand be seen as a losing proposition? isn't sand a commodity like oil? if malaysia or any country can sell oil, why is selling sand so disturbing? malaysia will be paid for the market value of the sand. and other countries are also selling sand. it is commerce and trade. one point raised concerning selling sand is not to see singapore growing bigger geographically. now that is a very naive way of looking at things. sand is not a rare commodity that only malaysia possesses. if the price is right, singapore will get the sand from wherever and whoever. singapore is trying to buy sand from malaysia and indonesia as it is only economically sound to do so. why can't the malaysians see it from another angle, that singapore is willing to spend its money buying malaysian sand and malaysia also earns foreign exchange? it is so idiotic. pardon my expression. the other key issue is that malaysia and badawi are seen as weak and giving in to singapore and singapore won! why don't they say, hey, malaysia is blessed to have a professional and rational leader who can make tough decisions based on facts and not on emotions? and singapore will see in badawi a wise and reasonable man and will do its best to support badawi and may even feel that they owe one to badawi. the latter may seen singapore bending backwards to accommodate badawi in the next round of negotiation on other issues. why must the relationship be always so contentious and one upmanship?

lim eng guan's questions on the crooked bridge

Johor's Bridge fiasco by Lim Guan Eng, Secretary-General of opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) Apr 14, 2006 Media Statement Petaling Jaya - The cancellation of the scenic bridge is an expensive billion ringgit lesson for the BN government not to engage in reckless commercial adventurism that is contrary to professional and comprehensive planning and costing.... Finally Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had no choice but to back down and cancel the scenic bridge due to legal complications and implications as well as negative response of Malaysians towards the trade-off in sand and air-space concessions demanded by Singapore to agree to the construction of the bridge. The question on every Malaysian’s mind is why were these legal complications and implications not considered before the government undertook construction of the CIQ for nearly M$1.3B. As the New Straits Times reported that even if Malaysia were to build the crooked bridge on our side, we would have to get Singapore’s consent before we even touch one brick of the Causeway to link it to the bridge. What is the use of paying so much money to appoint legal experts if they fail to give the proper legal advice?... However there should be proper planning, discussions and costing. Amongst the main objections, were that the Singapore government that upholds transparency did not know the cost of the bridge nor comfortable with the opaque nature of the contract that is estimated at billions of Singapore dollars. The above quote is only a small part of Lim Eng Guan's question on the crooked bridge saga. His first point about wasting expensive legal fees for poor legal advice is valid but looking for answers to a commonsensical problem that do not even need legal advice. Any layman would be able to tell him that if you want to build a bridge into another person's land, you will need his persmission. A bridge has two ends, not one end hanging in the air. His other criticism about Singapore not knowing the actual cost of the bridge is a little naive. If I have no need for a bridge and no intention to build it, why would I spend millions of dollars asking for quotes and paying engineering and professional fees? All Singapore needs is a ballpark figure just for discussion. This is the key difference between the Malaysian and Singaporean approach to an objective issues. Singaporeans plan first and do later. And also pay later. The Malaysians in this case chose to do first and pay first, then think later.

ge round 30: too many tigers in parliament

The whole slate of new PAP candidates have been put up for display. The line up is indeed formidable. Some of the best men and women available in the island. Who would dare say we need foreign talents? When we are prepared to look among ourselves, there are many diamonds to be found. But all it needs is for someone influential to say that they are not up to mark, and people would panic and run in circles looking for foreign talents to replace them. If we do not give our locals a chance, they will never stand out to show their best. This is best manifested in our tv and media circles. If all our artistes and media people were not given a chance, then people may ask, who is Zoe Tay or who is Sun Yanzi? The most impressive of yesterday's product is Tan Chin Siong. He recalled the racial riots when he was only 5. His memory is first class. No wonder LKY said the opposition is not up to mark. It all depends on what LKY was expecting. Is he thinking that one of the opposition candidates would be a PM and use himself as the yardstick? If that is the case, none of the opposition will be up to mark. Also, none of the PAP candidates, including Choktong and Hsienloong is up to mark. His shoes are too big for anyone. No country is blessed with such a leader in succession. Even when we compared the academic brilliance and personal achievements of the candidates, the opposition is still lagging quite far behind except for a few. But to parade such a pristine list of candidates has its own problems. As I have mentioned earlier, these people are not multi millionaires yet, not at the peak of their career, and still quite hungry. Pushing them into politics would mean either they will lose out making the millions and honing their professional skills, or they must be fed the millions to satisfy their hunger. It is costly to them, to the system and to the nation. You really can't pay these people peanuts. Oops! We have to assume that they are all humans and want to have all the good things in life, including the multi million dollar bank accounts. They can't be serving the people for free or for too little. And many of them are ministerial material. The other issue is the competition for a few high positions by a large group of equally good candidates and some must be left behind. This is not good for morale of the candidates. The next question is that if some of them are to be MPs only, do we need so high calibre material to serve just as MPs? At the MP level, many of them will be over qualified. And many of the opposition candidates will be good enough. The Chinese saying, you can't have two tigers in a mountain. Now we have several dozens, including existing ones in a small parliament house.

crooked bridge and straightens thoughts

The Malaysians have finally come to terms with their arguments for the bridge. They have eventually accepted that it was started based on wrong premises and unsound facts and cannot continue further without causing more harm to themselves and their own people and economy. What is important is the signalling by Badawi that the period of excesses and extravagance of mega projects of Mahathir is finally over. The bridge over trouble water is the last vestige of an era of wasteful policies. The scrapping of the bridge would probably strengthen Badawi's position and mark an end to all the crony companies and their projects to fleece the people and nation of their limited resources. It is good that all the shit on the table is wiped away together with the crooked bridge.