Paradise contracts terminal illness

Not possible? Paradise is like a rich fat man, well fed, overdosed of too much goodness, and full of bad cholesterol and high blood pressure, and contracting a terminal illness like what some rich man could. Given proper treatment, its life can be extended for quite sometime, or at worst hooked onto some tubes. What kind of treatment is paradise receiving? In most instances what paradise is getting is morphine jab. Not enough workers, inject foreign workers. Roads jammed, erect ERPs. Rising cost of living, throw them some money. Lack of talent, throw them some money. Taxi problems, raised fare. Public transport problems, raised fares. Education standard not high enough, raised fees. Feed the service providers and all will be well. And if morphine does not work, which it often the case as the effect is temporary, try chemotherapy. Chemo will work. But if the illness does not kill the patient, chemo will, or the many side effects will. Paradise cannot survive on morphine and chemo alone. We need more brilliant solutions. If a couple of millions would not do, then go for 10 or 20 million solutions, or a hundred million dollar solutions if there is such a thing. Actually a 2 million or 10 million or hundred million solution may be the same solution. We may be paying for the hype.

A creepy silence

Two days have passed without any incidents. The silence of Khairy and Hishammuddin and their likes is quiet creepy. Let's hope they take the decision of the people in their stride and reflect on why UMNO lost. They have contributed a great part to this debacle. They got corrupted with power in their head. Mahathir is happily blaming Abdullah for his ineffectiveness. Actually the person that needs to be blamed, the one who seeded all the nonsense in Malaysian politics is Mahathir himself. He orchestrated everything and set the tone for what was Malaysian politics during his reign. He allowed all kinds of excesses to run wild, and this is the result of his bad management. The politicians have had a ball of a time lining their pockets. The judiciary was in his pocket and beholden to him. The whole govt machinery were run by UMNO for the interests of the politicians. Corruption was rampant but accepted as the way of things. The irony now is that the stone he cast away, will now be seen as the possible saviour of Malaysia. In Anwar Ibrahim there is hope that there will be a new Malaysia for all Malaysians. No, it was not Abdullah's fault. He inherited the mess and all the cronies. UMNO is doomed and need to be cut down to size, minus the opportunists of course. Are we going to see a run on UMNO, MIC, MCA and Gerakan? Will the defection becomes a runaway avalanche? The party is over for UMNO.

The Bigger Test

Mas Selamat is a good test of our security system and Total Defence. Every element of the govt machinery and people were put into action without a hitch. They forgot to test the island wide siren though. But that might not be necessary by the nature of things. The bigger test is the test of leadership, or absence of leadership. We were, to borrow the analogy of an orchestra, without a conductor, without the lead violinist and without the manager. The orchestra kept on playing for 12 days with perfect coordination. The same score was played over and over again in different venues to the approval of the spectators. After 12 gruelling days, the tune sounded a bit jaded. But it was a good score and approval was given for the orchestra to continue playing. And we passed the bigger test, that we can continue to function normally in the absence of leadership. We were on auto pilot for 12 crisis days and everything went on smoothly. That is what we called an effective system managed by an effective team. With or without leadership, the system keeps on grinding. We survive the test.

Why so many charities and help schemes?

We are doing very very well economically. Full employment, huge national reserves, money pasting everywhere, money throwing everywhere, our banks have so much money that they have problems lending them out. Then our favourite past time is charity, setting up charitable organisations, organising charity events to raise funds, begging on the streets, setting up public help shemes and schemes and organisations. And officially hundreds of millions are spent to help the poor, if there is any, and unofficially millions and millions were collected from the public, also to help the poor. Why should a super rich little island with only 3 million citizens so obsessed about helping the poor? It is a strange phenomenon indeed. Where are the poor, 3,000 of them I heard, or where are the money? Oops, better clarify on this point. Are the money reaching the poor? Or if there are so few poor, why the need for so much money? Really what is causing the hardship to those who are struggling?

Selamat fooled his captors?

Did Selamat fool his captors? Or are his captors so easily fooled? Under normal circumstances we can laugh it off as another kopitiam talk. If our people in authority are so easily fooled, my god, what else can happen? Come to think of it, this is nothing new in the little red dot. Are the people being fooled everyday, I mean look at the money they have been giving away to hot shot charities? A little gimmicks here and there, a little promotion, a few luminaries sit in the board of directors or acting as chairpersons, and all the guards becomes non existence. We are easily fooled, that is a fact.