Prominent blogger Jeff Ooi has joined DAP, officially.
I respect Jeff Ooi for pioneering the socio-political blogging in Malaysia, but frankly I am not a big fan of him… I have doubts about his character and political correctness sometimes.
Politics101 has branded Jeff’s joining as “probably the biggest catch in living memory’ for DAP, and that it is ‘is a historic day for the country”… I don’t think so.
Jeff Ooi might be famous to bloggers, but for those who don’t blog or rarely read news online… they don’t know Jeff Ooi. If I ask my friends about Jeff Ooi, chances are 9 out of 10 won’t know who the heck he is.
You may argue that those friends of mine have been living in caves, but fact is there are lots and lots of Malaysians like them that never bother much about happenings online.
Besides, the high profile ‘welcoming’ of Jeff Ooi is set to backfire in certain way… I have friends that work for DAP for years and I don’t think they ever received the attention that Jeff Ooi is having at the moment… I am not sure if everyone in DAP would be that generous and welcome Jeff with open arms like Lim Kit Siang did.
If Jeff Ooi wants to become a successful politician, he needs to jump out of the NET and do more ground work to spread his ideology. He needs to expand his circle of influence… and starting a new blog won’t help much, as it would be the same group of people from his current blog that are going to read it.
The Malaysia International Aerospace Adventure 2007 (MIA 2007) has been postponed until further notice (original schedule: July 28 until September 30, 2007)
I have thought of going to the event, and was surprise by the amateurish standard of MIA’s website (the website is completely gone as of Feb 2, 2008) when I first visited it a couple of weeks ago. I have a bad feeling that the show is not going to meet its expectation and have given up my thought of visiting the show… but seems like the situation is worse than what I anticipated.
I pity those foreigners that have make the arrangement to visit Malaysia and the event at this period… hope that they are not too disappointed and can still find something interesting in Kuala Lumpur without the show.
Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail has ordered the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to close 3 high-profile cases (former ACA chief Zulkifli Mat Noor, Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan and Deputy Internal Security Minister Johari Baharum).
I have no clue if these people are corrupted or not, but I just felt that ACA could do better with their investigation methods.
According to reports ACA has done some investigations in those 3 cases by questioning the alleged parties and checking their bank statements and assets etc… nothing wrong with that; but do you think people will ever admitted to give or accept bribe? Do you think people will use direct banking to transfer money in bribery? Do you think people who accept bribe will put the assets they bought (with those money) under their own name?
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Malaysia-today.net is blocked by Malaysia government???
After a controversial police report by Mat Taib against Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK), the webmaster of Malaysia Today (MT) on July 23, it seems like the government has up their ante in the battle against MT by blocking the accessibility of the website from Malaysian IPs.
I couldn’t access the website earlier on, and I thought that the website might be overloaded server or something… but I just realized that MT might be blocked by Malaysia ISP instead (Hat tip to Shadowfox and Kai).
I tried accessing MT from an anonymizer, and the site is working just fine. You can access MT using proxies – find one from this link.
The censoring is not 100% proven yet, as some people are not able to access MT with proxy as well [Hafiz]… but it is likely that the ban is on.
I am not a regular reader of MT so I guess I won’t be much affected, but I will be really disappointed if the government decided to impose internet censorship against their critics. It will be another blow to MSC’s Bill of Guarantees for ensuring no Internet censorship, and more importantly… it shows that Malaysia government is not ready to handle criticism.
Besides, it is easy to find another route to access the website; does government really think they can just shut down a website like that? This kind of cheap act will likely to create more retaliation against them instead… not the smartest move.
Update – MT is back online on 11pm… I guess I was a bit paranoia. I am not sure what was happening; I am guessing that RPK was migrating MT to a new server, and the DNS was resolved in a different pace with various ISP.
My apology regardless.
Update July 29 – MT’s explanation on the downtime
The Court of Appeal has ordered the release of the 17-year-old boy convicted of murdering his tuition teacher’s 11-year-old daughter five years ago. [Thestar]
Here is my simple understanding about the situation…
1. The mandatory punishment for conviction for murder in Malaysia is a death penalty…
2. Minors cannot be hanged in Malaysia…
3. There are no specific laws on how to punish a minor convicted for murder in Malaysia (there were some laws but deemed unconstitutional on July 12)…
4. A convicted young murderer who stabbed a girl 20 times is released.
The scariest part is… all minors can kill anyone they like from now on until our lawmakers could come out with something constitutional? (Correct me if I am wrong… I am not a law expert)
Update Oct 24 – teenage murderer went back to jail
Global changes in the weather pattern that resulted in heavier rain is to be blamed for the recent leaks at the Parliament building, said Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu. [Bernama]
“Rain is really heavy nowadays, not only here, but throughout the world.
“Like in England, streets are filled with five feet (deep) of water, in (the United States of) America there’s also flood.”
Thing is, if my 30-year-old house in Ipoh can survive the ‘global changes in weather pattern’… what makes the Parliament building so vulnerable to heavy rains? Luckily we don’t have a typhoon or something, or else the members of parliaments will have to hold their meetings in some mamak stalls.
Besides, what does the flood in the West have to do with the leaks in our Parliament?
From Malaysiakini…
Umno has filed a police report against political website Malaysia Today for allegedly publishing disparaging remarks against the King and Islam.
From Thestar…
Umno has lodged a police report against MalaysiaToday for carrying a series of comments and remarks that it deemed as insulting the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, degrading Islam and as inciting hatred and violence in Malaysia’s multi-racial society.
Party information chief Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib lodged the report at 12.57pm at Tun H.S. Lee police station here Monday. He said the comments and remarks, consisting of criminal elements and inciting religious and racial sentiments which could affect the country’s security, were carried by the blog on July 11.
The report was lodged under Section 121 (B) and Section 123 of the Penal Code, Section 4 of the Sedition Act 1948 and Section 263 and Section 266 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
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Excerpts from TheStar (July 17, 2007)…
UMNO will continue to struggle and discuss the need to keep the New Economic Policy (NEP) to ensure the interests of the Malays are protected, Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamed Khir Toyo said.
The Umno supreme council member said the party could only remain relevant in the future if this was among its priorities.
He said, without such a thrust, the Malays could switch their support to religion-based parties such as PAS or other opposition parties including Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).
It is no hiding secret that NEP has become a weapon for UMNO’s political agenda… I am kinda surprise though, to see an UMNO leader stating the fact so blatantly.
I actually think that the concept of NEP is not all that bad… the problems however, lies within the implementation of the policy. It is pretty obvious that only a small number of Bumiputras are reaping the rewards of NEP while most of the poor are being neglected or manipulated.
Besides, it is worse enough to have a racial bias government policy, it is even worse when it is being used for the benefits of a specific political party… even the Malays themselves are being discriminated (UMNO vs not UMNO members).
