Quote of the day: I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
Note: A very super duper long post. I crapped this out, picking opinions from here and there, added in some of my 2 cents.
I thought Umno-led BN learnt their lessons after their catastrophic lost on 8th March 2008. Guess I am dead wrong. Just like a leopard never changes its spot, some people will never change. If we thought that an electoral blow to the ruling government (read – Umno-led BN) would serve as a wake-up call, well we do better think again. We wished that BN leaders would no longer making stupid remarks and ridiculous statements, but they are forever singing the same tune. Only the foolish and dead alone never change their opinions.
Open Tender Doesn’t Guarantee Fairness, Says PM
BUTTERWORTH, March 30 (Bernama) — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Saturday lashed out at the Penang state government for adopting a fully open tender system as it does not guarantee fairness to those who are financially weak to compete.
He said in principle the proposal by the state government to emphasise on equitability appeared to be good but this would actually result in only those who were financially strong benefiting from the system.
“The transparency, open tender and open bidding approach is certainly good and gives comfort to everyone but we have to remind them that not everything that is said to be equitable is fair. Actually, only the strong and those with financial capacity will derive benefits from it.
This guy seriously is a moron. Moron is really an understatement. Is it not getting a capable and financially sound contractor is the whole point of open tender? He should shove his head down the toilet bowl and let me do my business with his head in the bowl.
What is the moron implying? Well we know he was “speaking” for many Malay businessmen out there, fearing that the open tender will give more advantages to bigger companies mostly owned by non Malays. But, let us think for a while, are the Malay businesses so badly run that they can’t deliver good work within budget? Is he also admitting that the NEP has FAILED big time because after 40 years, Malays still have not gained the ability to do business properly? Is he further implying that the only way the Malays can do business is by inflating the costs and doing shoddy work and that only the Umno-led BN government is willing to accept this? It’s an absolute insult to Malay business people’s ability!! I hope my Malay friends in this country not to take Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s insult lying down!
Only the strong and those with financial capacity will derive benefits from open tender
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what open tender is about? We certainly want the strong capabilities and those with good financial capacity to undertake projects right? If a company does not have the financial capacity, resources and expertise to undertake a certain project, then that company should not get that particular project. Surely, we can’t expect to award a gargantuan bridge building project to an unknown two-dollar company on the basis of fairness. What our PM is implying here? This is life man, the stronger ones prevail over weaklings. That is the very rule of the universe. I am here now because I won the swimming race with billions of my comrades 26 years ago.
Open tender allows competition which leads to better quality and lower pricing. This also reduces the amount of “under table money”. This is one of the reason contributing to corruptible practices. Not allowing open tender will allow those wolves in sheep coat to abuse the privileges.
Different type of services or goods requires different approach on tenders. In some areas close tender or invitation would be ideal if it involves highly technical expertise or when security of the nation cannot be compromised. This is exception to the general rules of procurement process.
Yes, even open tender can still be manipulated. Specification can be tailored to favor certain products that only certain company has exclusive right to import, but opting for open tender for procurement process is the first and most important step to ensure this country has a good accountability and transparency delivery system.
From Bernama
“Abdullah clarified that the New Economic Policy (NEP) was not merely for the Bumiputeras as it also assisted the Chinese and Indian communities because the policy was not racially biased. He said the NEP was a national approach implemented to eliminate poverty regardless of race, enable equitable distribution to the people including enlarging the Bumiputera Commercial and Industrial Community (BCIC) and ensuring a robust economic growth to be enjoyed by all races.”
This PM must be talking to Martians. As far as I know, the NEP in Malaysia is only for one single race and that has been how it has been implemented and manipulated since 1972. He must be the PM of Mars since this is the first time I heard something like that. Either he thinks we are all stupid or he is from Mars and I am from Jupiter.
Heck, I do not think many Bumiputeras benefited from NEP. Who reaped the most benefits from NEP? Umnoputeras. Not Bumiputeras. Not Malays. But Umnoputeras, an elite class of Umno members. Aliran wrote a great piece on this issue:
Now, if one wants to know what the NEP really means to today’s Umno, Sarawak is a great place to learn about it – and the cabinet appointments only serve to underline that.
This is a state whose bumiputera – a majority non-Malay bumiputera – have seen the favoured grow rich while first the forest and now the land is literally being taken away from them. For these bumiputera, there is no NEP, instead lectures about changing their mindsets while their sources of livelihood are handed over to the well-connected, mostly apparently Chinese companies, but who knows the ultimate beneficiaries.
So, a first-term MP, son of the Chief Minister of Sarawak, is immediately given a deputy ministership, while long-serving Iban, Bidayuh and Orang Ulu MPs are left out in the cold. Now, if anyone is interested in how politics and business are intertwined in Sarawak, just look up the Annual Report of Cahaya Mata Sarawak Bhd (CMSB), a company laughingly referred to as Chief Minister & Sons Bhd.
Go along most major roads in Sarawak and you’ll see signs proudly announcing that the road maintenance is under CMSB. The proposed USD2 billion aluminium smelter is a joint venture with CMSB – and we can guess why Rio Tinto picked CMSB as a partner. The concrete and cement and steel for Bakun is from CMSB. CMSB’s tiny Bank Utama was allowed to do a reverse take-over of much larger RHB Bank – but unable to turn a profit out of it, it’s now sold to EPF. CMSB owns the former JKR construction arm. And so on – to the tune of doing business amounting to 10 per cent of Sarawak’s GDP. One company, owned by the Chief Minister’s family – and our Mr Clean had no problems appointing the first-term MP son to the cabinet.
Well, it should be interesting to see Suleiman Taib Mahmud’s asset declarations. But if the government means what it says – who believes that anymore – then it should insist on asset declarations covering the extended family of parents, siblings and nephews and nieces.
But it gets worse. The new environment minister is from Sarawak, as is the plantations minister. Guess which state has done more deforestation in the past ten years? Right, Sarawak. And for what purpose? Right, for plantations. Check and balance? Or, green light to go ahead and further dispossess the bumiputera of Sarawak, handing over the degraded forest to the same people who degraded it with terrible logging practices, so that they can plant acacia and oil palm? Look at the timber companies. Now look at the ones in plantation. They are the same – the Big Five – they call them. And the economy of Sarawak is being handed over to them: forests, plantations, shipping, hyper-malls, hotels, real estate, etc.
Rafidah Aziz deserved to go. But by all accounts she was a competent international trade and industry minister – she deserved to go not because she couldn’t do that job, but because she got too good at some other jobs.
Whover has replaced her, it should be fun. But even more of a joke is the deputy minister, a long-serving Orang Ulu MP, also from the CM’s party, whose only knowledge of international trade and industry is staring at oil palm and acacia plantations coming up all over the Baram. Now this is a man who dare not even talk with his constituents when they want to talk about the land issue. And he is going to represent us in those international forums facing the sharks?
Let me tell you, many villages in Sabah and Sarawak do not even have proper basic amenities like water, electricity and proper road access or even clinics with proper Medical Officer and yet Umno-led BN can proudly bullshit in the MSM about how much development they have brought to the people of Malaysia. You’ll be surprised to see the MP of these areas are all from BN, who so call talk cocks and scare the locals that only they can bring development and prosperity, peacefulness and stability (whatever that dumb BN election motto). The question is, where are the results though millions was said to have been allocated for the rural development of Sabah and Sarawak? Out of naïve-ness perhaps, the locals have been voting this BN scumbags into power, without realising that they are voting for them to give them license to cheat them under their own noses.
One can never deny the level of poverty here is quite bad and go visit yourself to the villages here and see their living conditions. The program “Bersamamu’ in TV3 highlights about the cases of hard core poor in Peninsular mostly but some of the cases highlighted in the program is just ‘chicken-feet’ if compared to the living condition in some of the rural villages in Sabah/Sarawak. But all these have not been highlighted by the TV program or even in the MSM. Why???
Another pertinent factor to ponder is on the NEP as mentioned above, and also regarding Bumiputera status. This NEP thing is supposed to help the local Bumiputeras, everyone knows that but why still many in Sabah and Sarawak still living under the poverty line? Most Sabahan and Sarawakians are Bumiputeras in fact but how come then the NEP does not have any effect on them?
Meanwhile, Higher Education Minister Khaled said he would bring the issue about bloggers to the Cabinet although he was not the minister responsible.
Bloggers, he said, seemed to have become a big problem to the government as they deliberately covered up the truth about the government and because of their influence, people often took their views as news.
His concern was when the mind of the people became deviated after reading the blogs and the irresponsible attitude of bloggers who thrashed out responses in favour of the government.
“We are aware of the influence of blogs in the last election compared to newspapers. The government has tried to answer to their views in the blogs but they then erase the response. (ROTFLMAO!!!)
“Some views, I see, invite response in the blog but some don’t, and there are responses that have been erased by the blogger. After four years being fed by with absurd stories showing as though the government is bad, surely it brings problems to the government.”
This Khaled Nordin sure sounds very dumb to be a higher education minister. No wonder or education standard is going to the drain. Bloggers telling lies? Come on, Malaysians are smart enough to know the truth now. Many socio-political bloggers know their stuffs well, at least better than this Khaled Nordin. Oh, I wonder why suddenly the government is making bloggers as they were the giant killers in the previous election. I thought most bloggers are uneducated housewives no? And how dare this nincompoop to imply Malaysians who did not vote for BN are stupid and easily deceived by bloggers!!
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today said his “biggest mistake” in disastrous elections was to ignore cyber-campaigning on the Internet which was seized by the opposition.
The powerful Barisan Nasional coalition suffered its worst-ever results in March 8 polls that left five states and a third of parliamentary seats in opposition hands.
The opposition, which was largely ignored by government-linked mainstream media, instead waged an enormously successful online campaign using blogs, news websites and SMS text messages.
“We certainly lost the Internet war, the cyber-war,” Abdullah said in in a speech to an investment conference.
“It was a serious misjudgement. We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important,” he said.
“We thought that the newspapers, the print media, the television was supposed to be important, but the young people were looking at SMS and blogs.”
The comments are a major about-face for the government, which had vilified bloggers, calling them liars and threatening them with detention without trial under draconian internal security laws.
In line with promises to reform after the humiliating election results, Abdullah said the government would “respond effectively” and move to empower young Malaysians.
“It was painful … but it came at the right time, not too late,” he said.
Wahai BN, especially Pak Lah and the gang, you guys are missing the point. It was not the cyber-campaign by bloggers or what cybertroppers, facebook groups blab la bla that led to BN’s disastrous results in the recent elections. It was not the cyber-campaign that led to BN’s disastrous results as the Internet only gave an avenue for the rakyat to release some tension and to vent their frustrations. Cyberspace helped each Malaysian realise that they were not the only ones who felt distressed but there were others who were equally frustrated.
Even if BN has campaigned in cyberspace it would still lose many seats because the people are fed-up with the lies and corruption they hear. The Internet just made it easier for people to get information that mainstream media had suppressed all these years. Even if they had put up a strong cyber campaign, similar in line with their print media, tv and radio, the result of the election would still have been the same.
BN lost because of their arrogance and blatant unfairness – not because they did not engage in cyber campaigning. The young people are looking at both the print media and the alternative media.
Rest assured that truth prevailed over lies or mere propaganda and threats. BN could have used the Internet and cyber-network to the maximum and would still have performed disastrously.
Please give credit to the rakyat who can differentiate right from wrong and truth from lies. Whilst the Internet and cyber-network did not really topple the government of the day, they certainly aided the opposition to uncover and expose the blatant lies and scandals which were the main reasons BN performed badly.
It was not the cyber-campaign that turned the tide. Rather it was the lack of truth and accountability that did.
“It was painful … but it came at the right time, not too late,” he said.
I think it is too late, Pak Lah. Bloggers are very generous people, so instead for you to scratch your head coming up with post mortems why Umno-led BN performed so badly in March 8th poll with your limited brain matter, we did it for you. From Malaysia-Today:
A “ Medical” Perspective on Why the BN Lost in the Recent Elections
Posted by labisman
Saturday, 29 March 2008
With the thrashing that they got in the 12th.GE, the BN is now in ICU and they are doing a post mortem to find out what happened.
To help BN with this task, the following medical report has been prepared to identify the diseases / illnesses that have been plaguing it and how these ailments have caused this sickening organization to become so sick that major surgery is now being considered.
Diagnosis
Overeating – gorged themselves and ate too much of the people’s money
Heart failure – did not have a heart to really care about the rakyat
Rectal cancer and constipation – did not expel all the shit from the system
Diabetes – fondness for sweet things, i.e. saying sweet things to try and con the rakyat ( in plain English, lying )
Stroke – stroked too much of their own ego and became too arrogant
Overworking – too busy running here and there cutting deals for own benefit
Alzheimer’s – forgot to play the proper role of an elected representative
Obsessive-compulsive neurosis – obsession with cleaning, especially sweeping things under the carpet
HP6 – a mutation of the deadly H5N1 ( bird flu) virus which manifests itself in the form of idiocy or semi-idiocy, thus the descriptor “ half past six ( HP6)”. Many members of the BN are infected.
VD – Very Deaf. Did not listen to the grievances of the rakyat and did not heed the healthy advice and feedback from bloggers.
Color Bind – a form of visual impairment which is directly the opposite of being color blind. There is a fixation on color and everything must always be discussed in terms of “color” – Malay, Chinese, Indian etc.
Liver problems – failure to de-Liver on promises
“Inverted Cerebranus “ – a new form of disease where the cerebrum and anus are transposed causing highly irrational and objectionable behaviour, like brandishing ancient weapons and ranting racial slurs and threats
Prognosis
Not good and definitely a terminal case.
Chances of recovery are 1 in a gadzillion, about the same odds as Osama converting to the Jewish faith and becoming a messenger of world peace.
Cure
No known cure. Euthanasia recommended.
Suggest to drink lacquer – at least it will ensure a beautiful finish.
By Political doctor
That is all for today.Happy reading!!
