Lordy Wannabe

Morning drives have become more pleasurable of late thanks to newcomer BFM radio station.

Anyone fed up as I am with the never ending Man from Mars Women from Venus slant of certain stations can tune to the business talk by the BFM trio.

No more gossips, no “he doesn’t understand me”, or “she talks and never listens”, just pure business.

Great music too. Sometimes.

The BFM trio was running through the headlines when Malaysia’s foray into F1 came up, and they began to chat about the cost of running a team.

Someone bandied RM1 billion as possible figure; and afterwards they joked on the “Malaysian made, Malaysian build” aspect, hoping that it don’t go the much talked of Proton’s power window way.

To many, RM1 billion (nine zeroes) is A LOT of money, but going by the current standard, it’s hefty but not that much.

Maybank recorded a RM1.97 billion in loss and no one bats an eyelash.

Tenaga’s RM944 million loss is not yet a billion.

PKFZ cost is bandied as going upwards from between RM4.6 billion to RM12.5 billion, and while there is much furore there, the pace of stopping this leakage is quite miserly.

Malacca is looking at a RM40 billion bridge to Sumatra to bring in the tourists.

(What were they thinking?)

Really, RM1 billion spread to a year is thus no big a deal.

Just recently a former MB was quoted as stating a RM3.5 million price tag for a property as “cheap”.

Yup. It’s cheap all right.

Going by the good politician’s standards, the Ipoh house we are trying to sell would be like super duper, downright criminally, dirt cheap.

Sigh…

My buyers have had to apply for personal loans to pay the deposit and one just sneaked ahead of the other by placing a token payment whilst waiting for his to be approved.

I wonder thus how many Malaysians fall into the “RM3.5 million is cheap” category.

A huge income disparity is, after all, never good for any country.

Then you would have something medieval a society in the have not (comprising the have only a bit, have just enough and have a bit more) and the really have.

When I use to stay overnight at a friend’s condo in Bangsar all those years ago, we have this habit of watching office goers scurrying to work from the balcony.

We’d imagined ourselves as Castle lords looking down on the ordinary folk trying to eke a living.

Only the truly rich can do this, we’d say often with a make-believe rich folk laughter.

How stereotypical, eh?

Is it far from the truth, though?

Wah Lau Snips

I wonder who wrote this gem of a lead paragraph in today’s NST online:

“Makkal Sakthi (People Power), which was instrumental in turning the tide against Barisan Nasional in Perak in last year's elections, has suddenly come out in support of the BN state government.”

Whoever it was managed to capture my attention enough to continue scrolling down the “news” piece to see exactly the justification for such findings.

Turned out this "Makkal Sakthi" refers to two blokes and some odd 30 people who profess their support to the controversially installed BN Perak State government.

Ahh…

Unbelievable that NST’s news editors let this one go.

The headline ("Makkal Sakhti" speaks up for BN) and its subsequent lead suggests image of thousands turning out in public wearing tee-shirts with Dr Zambry’s mug and carrying banners shouting “Long live Barisan!”.

Or some shit likewise.

Not 30-odd people at the plush confines of the Menteri Besar office.

(Of course, unlike the Makkal Sakhti showcase of old this bunch would NOT have to face a brace of baton-carrying anti riot troopers and water cannons.)

Perhaps it was a really dry day* for Perak for this piece to have seen “online” print.

Or perhaps it was a tongue-in-cheek news to lightens up NST readers?

There are, after all, apostrophe signs in the headlined "Makkal Sakhti" and there is also these cute verbatim quotes:

"We were not paid to do so. We did it freely. The report on a blog which said we were paid between RM10 and RM50 and provided with T-shirts to show our support to BN is untrue.

"We are businessmen and we pay our workers RM70 a day."

Huh???

Makkal Sakhti was the battle cry for a community which felt itself long marginalized.

Yes it is true that there is (or more correctly, will be) a political entity going by the same name, but to equate the two as one is quite incredulous.

On hindsight, I shouldn’t have bothered with the “news” after all.

Now, that would be Makkal Sakhti.

* Dry days: Days without any worthy printable story. No accident, no crime, no politicans trying to make some headlines, no NGO PCs. No jack-shit dry days provide real tests of patience for newsmen, especially those in the state with the Editor's Desk due to call sometime during lunch for a synopsis of non-existant news. A bummer of day.

Dweebos

The residents lodged a general report to say the parade of a cow's head was not meant to insult Hindus.

The report stated that the cow's head was meant to be a symbol of the "stupidity of the state government" and it was not intended as a religious insult, he said.

He here refers to Shah Alam district police chief Assistant Commissioner Noor Azam Jamaludin.

And that supposedly makes it all better?

They spat, stomp and kick at a poor animal’s head (carcass) and that’s it?

These AHs risk racial/religious flare-up and that’s it?

That’s (blipping) it?

Please don’t bring up arguments in the spirit of Ramadhan and forgiveness.

These AHs insulted this revered month by bringing disrepute to Islam by doing something that has only receive condemnations and brickbats (with some notable exceptions; of course from the usual suspects).

Just because it’s against the PR state government shouldn’t matter.

The AHs could have applied more brain power to their protest and not the stupid route that they end up taking.

(Mengata Dulang Paku Serpih. Mengata Orang Dia Yang Lebih.)

Some of the “What Ifs” scenarios that can be imagined from this episode is disturbing and others downright horrific.

We don’t want that.

So cut the crap, please.

Someone thought up the “cow-head” insult.

That someone should now have also the guts and balls to face the law.

It is not healthy for this country to continue going its two standards in “Us” and “Them”.

Pleaselah.

It’s not a route we wish for the next 52 years or more.

Dense Macabre (With apologies to Stephen King)

“I know the blogs have been quite confused about it. My response is that I am the CEO of Pemandu and report in the capacity as CEO to the minister Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon (Pemandu Chairman),” he clarified.

Jala added that as CEO of Pemandu, his first task was to find out what has been done by the organisation to date and would be working closely with Koh and the Pemandu board to chart out the way forward.

Is it only me, but did anyone else reading the above arrived (pun intended) with a smile?

That’s sure a whole lot of “pemandu”s.

Idris Jala seems stuck in his CEO mode to not realize that he is now a Minister instead.

There will be less of a chance for anyone driving anything anywhere when they become Ministers, especially one without any portfolio.

But never mind Mr Jala.

For such a serious news organization, the above paragraph came out very much tongue in cheek.

Not sure if it’s deliberate, though, but if it was, I hope the author had as much fun typing them out as I did reading them.

We sure need all the humorous distractions to dilute the bitter taste from the utterly moronic antics of those in the “cow-head” incident.

I mean, what gives Dudes?

Surely there are some even more creatively ironic ways you can push your cause than to stomp peoples’ toes (and much worse) isn’t there?

There was evidently a good measure of rabble-rousing hatred within the group for the poor dead animal’s head to end up a sick object of derision.

The question must thus be: hatred against who, or what?

The PR state government? The Hindu temple that is yet to be built? Khalid Samad? Khir Toyo?

Wonder who thought up the sick idea. Took some preparation for it to be a-spur-of-the-moment kinda thing.

Sadly, it could have easily be done in a cheeky way that would have made much “healthier” headlines.

As it is, Islam is again dragged into the limelight for all the wrong reasons.

Nicely done, Dumb Asses.

Driving Miss Daisy (1989)