The 2009 candy bar

Budget 2009 was tabled this evening as usual, after the stock market closes.

And as expected, it was chock full of sweets that before you know it, Malaysians will be flocking to doctors for diabetes management.

Anyway, the man himself couldn’t resist taking a swipe at the Opposition, slamming them as being populist.

I don’t know, this budget is pretty populist to me. The Government is throwing money at nearly everyone!

Here are things that will affect me:

Households which incur monthly electricity bills of RM20 or less, will not have to pay for electricity, for the period from 1 October 2008 to end of 2009.

* The current tax rebate of RM350 per person be increased to RM400 for those with taxable income of RM35,000 and below.

* All interest income from savings for individuals be tax exempt.

* Reduce import duties on various consumer durables from between 10% and 60% to between 5% and 30%. These include blender, rice cooker, microwave oven and electric kettle.

Full import duty exemption on several food items, which currently attract import duties of between 2% and 20%. These include vermicelli, biscuits, fruit juices and canned sweet corn.

* Reduce the road tax on private passenger vehicles with diesel engines to be the same as those with petrol engines, effective 1 September 2008.

I WON’T HAVE TO PAY (maybe a minimum sum of RM3 lah) FOR MY ELECTRICITY USAGE as I consume < RM 20 every month. Coupled with a meagre RM4 of water, I effectively don’t need to pay for utilities. Ah…the perverse joy of living in Malaysia.

I have been planning to get a blender and microwave oven. This means that over time, probably next year, these things should get cheaper.

It’s nice to know that comfort food should be cheaper tomorrow. Ah..now I can buy Chipsmore without feeling too guilty.

Now by some perverse reasoning, I don’t want Anwar to take over!! Then I need to pay for electricity But wait, Anwar promises cheap petrol, and since I’m planning to get a car sometime next year….hmmmm

That ugly side of Malaysia…Malay special rights

It has been a long, and I mean long time since I have written anything that might land me behind bars.

This is one of them.

This morning about 8000 UiTM students marched in protest of the suggestion by Selangor Menteri Besar’s suggestion that 10 % of UiTM’s annual enrollment be opened to non-Bumiputeras and foreigners.

For some of us reading this, we would think that the MB’s suggestion is a no brainer. As a graduate of a NUS, which is anything but racially homogenous, marching against opening up the enrollment is a travesty of what higher education is. A prostitution of democratic rights if I may put it.

Mind you, I’m not against the 8000 students marching. Its their right to air their grieveinces however I may find it immature and childish. (Comparison with the way the government cracked down on HINDRAF and this march really shows what sort of government we have, a fair and just one…lol)

Unfortunately the news article from which I got wind of this is in Malay. But here is a snippet of stupidity that results from having a university that caters solely to the Bumiputeras.

Diminta mengulas mengenai pendapat yang mengatakan percampuran pelajar Bumiputera dan bukan Bumiputera akan mewujudkan satu persaingan yang sihat, beliau tidak bersetuju dengan pendapat itu.

“Saya amat tidak bersetuju kerana telah terbukti seperti apa yang berlaku di universiti-universiti lain setiap kaum tertentu hanya akan bergaul dengan kaum mereka sendiri.

“Ini bukan persaingan yang sihat. Keadaan ini lebih bahaya jika wujudnya perasaan mementingkan kaum sendiri walaupun belajar dalam satu institusi,” katanya.

Tegas beliau walaupun UiTM terdiri daripada kaum Bumiputera sahaja, tetapi para pelajarnya telah dididik untuk menghormati agama, adat dan kepercayaan kaum lain.

And the translation into English:

Asked to comment on the opinion that the mingling of Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera on campus will produce healthy competition, he disagreed with that view.

” I absolutely disagree with this view because it is proven that each race will only mingle among themselves as it is happening in other campuses.

” This is not healthy competition. This situation is more dangerous if there sentiments of racial self-preservation exists even when studying within the same institution,” he said.

He stressed that eventhough UiTM consisted only of Malays, each student is taught to respect the religion, custom and beliefs of other races.

This was quoted by the president of what we would call the Student Council.

Firstly, it’s certainly not true that students in other institutions of higher learning mingle amongst themselves alone. That’s just Malay chauvinism making that kind of assumption.

Secondly, granted that people of common ethnicity tend to group together, it is by no means a dangerous precedent or anything to be overtly worried about. Since over 90% students will be Bumiputera in UiTM (if the proposal is accepted) in any case, wouldn’t it be nice to extend a welcoming hand to the 10% others who wish to study with you too? Instead of focusing so much on the fact that we are Malay, you are Chinese, you are Indian, you are lain-lain, just being nice and welcoming will diffuse any unhealthy tensions straight away.

Thirdly, nobody is taught to how to live harmoniously in a diverse society. You’ll have to embody it and suck up to the occasional hiccups that living together brings. The fact that the so-called president in his eminent wisdom has seen fit to criticize and organize a march for nothing more that a show of juvenile immaturity shows that the lessons of living together in a multiracial country has not made an impression on him (and the rest of his ill-informed gang.)

I just find it shocking that tertiary level students still think like primary school kids. It’s little more than, “I dun wan to fren fren with you.” Which is ironic because throughout primary and secondary school, Malay, Chinese and Indian study together. Somehow upon reaching tertiary level, we feel there is a need to have schools like UiTM, which caters exclusively to one race.

A big yawn.

Anticlimatic.

That’s how I would describe today.

Some may wonder why I haven’t been blogging much about the state of affairs in Malaysia lately. Well, the reason is because when the police claim to have thwarted a ‘planned’ protest rally in anticipation of the motion of no confidence debate in parliament when none was conceived in the first place, what’s there to blog about?

All they did was to piss of commuters and city folk.

In the end, the Speaker disallowed the motion, on a mere technicality. But of course, everyone would have anticipated it-lar.

This sandiwara is getting boring. Seriously, boring.

Doctor 007

I remember mentioning to a friend that election rallies were like carnivals.

” With party banners and clowns?” she asked.

If clowns are politicians, then yes.

And my, my does our Deputy Health Minister know how to make a clown out of himself.

Mr Abdul Latiff’s comment was made in response to a question in Parliament about the quality of the country’s medical services.

He said, ‘The doctors have a license to heal and license to kill so we (the ministry) have to ensure that our doctors are well-trained so that we can safely receive treatment from them.’

Of course I understand you lar, Latiff…tapi mengapa hendak digunakan frasa ” License to Kill” untuk merujuk kepada kecuaian sesetengah doktor?

(Why is there a need to use the phrase ” License to Kill” to refer to negligence?)

He must have watched too many Bond movies the night before. Eh, minister you know rite, Quantum of Solace, November 2008.

Or maybe, just maybe by a Freudian slip, he is actually a closet supporter of Doctor Jack Kevorkian.

But in any case, here is my advice to the (deputy) minister. APOLOGIZE!

* * *

On the other hand, it is refreshing to note the response to this incident. It seems to me that Malaysians in general still view life as something precious and worth saving, rather than something that is owed and discarded when I grow tired of it.

Oh, GGM. Facepalm…..

Credulity is stretched thin when you read news articles like this.

School uniform sexy, says group

KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian group condemned the uniform worn by girls at government schools, saying it encouraged rape and pre-marital sex.

“The white blouse is too transparent for girls and it becomes a source of attraction,” National Islamic Students Association of Malaysia vice-president Munirah Bahari said in a statement.

If they didn’t take it so seriously, I would have fallen on the floor laughing out loud. The baju kurung! and the pinafore dress…SEXY!!!??

But here’s why this isn’t something to laugh off. It wasn’t some closet pervert guy who said it, but a lady! When even women make the dubious argument

sexy clothing (please lor, school uniform is not sexy lar!)=== rape and all kinds of immorality

there something ‘else’ other than sex that’s at work here. It’s a conscious, deliberate and manipulative effort to pressure women (in general) to conform to a standard that should really just be left to personal choice and conviction.

Newton’s third law of motion

Just says that for every reaction

Abdullah Badawi wants AG to investigate 6 including former PM, Tun Mahathir implicated in the Lingam tape scandal

There is a equal and opposite reaction

Tun Mahathir quits UMNO!

That’s Wesak Day enlightenment for you

* * *

Watched Narnia: Prince Caspian yesterday. It’s quite good. I really like the ending credits song written by songwriter/singer Regina Spektor.

Pajak is illegal!!

Check out Jeffooi.com

According to him, the ‘pajak’ sistem for public transport is ILLEGAL! Well technically it’s not Jeff who said it, but the Kementrian Keusahawanan that said it.

I didn’t know that.

The bus companies here in JB have this system in place. And it does does its job. Not efficient, but hey I’m not really complaining.

The best way to put it is: Damned if you enforce it, damned if you don’t.

Social Mobility

Is Malaysia socially mobile?

I overheard the bus driver talking to a lady passenger. And one thing he said struck me

” Yang kaya, terus kaya, yang miskin, lagi miskin”

(Those who are rich, remain rich. The poor remain poor.)

Economic betterment in the 21st century is something of a silver lining. Always elusive. Its true that for the vast majority of us it is harder and harder for us to earn beyond what our parents earn nowadays. At least those parents who are still working-and I mean that in inflation adjusted terms.

Such a paradoxical situation really. Malaysia’s annual GDP growth rate is between 4-6% the past few years. But you don’t get a sense that our salaries are increasing at a 4-6% rate!!

I remember that my father said that when he first started teaching (40 years ago), his starting salary was RM 700.  And he could  get a house and support his sisters (my aunts)  to school. Now that’s REAL purchasing power.

Isn’t it strange, to where all those economic growth actually goes?

* * *

It’s the start of the summer holidays and NUS is like a museum piece diorama. Quiet and empty-which I like really. June’s wedding (ceremony; they ROMed long time ago) this Saturday, and looking forward to catch up with some old friends.

Power transition

This comes to no surprise.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Malaysia’s prime minister has accepted responsibility for his ruling coalition’s poor election results and will plan how to hand over power to his deputy after December, an official and news reports said Saturday.

Link

If this IHT report is to be believed, then allow me one last jab at Abdullah. So much for “I’m not a one term PM.”

But I am sure that the fat lady hasn’t stopped singing yet. Abdullah is yesterdays news. Now everybody is talking about who will be the next PM: Najib, Ku Li or Anwar.

All bark and no bite

See…in the end, Mukhriz got let off the hook.

KUALA LUMPUR – MALAYSIA’S ruling party says it will not punish former leader Mahathir Mohamad’s son for asking the prime minister to resign.

The United Malays National Organisation said on Tuesday it accepted Mukhriz Mahathir’s explanation that he called on Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to step down in his private capacity.

Of course they ‘accept’ his explanation lar. Anyone can tell that punishing him will just split the youth movement and damn UMNO even further. And of course Mukhriz won’t be trying anymore stunts like that right.

But moving on to more interesting news: Rafidah Aziz is out! Her previous portfolio in MITI has been taken over by Muhyiddin Yassin. One more good thing to come out this election. I’m all smiles.