Koleksi SMS Raya Saya

(Koleksi SMS Raya yang saya hantar tahun ini. Setiap SMS dihantar kepada orang yang berlainan)

Kalau gelang biar emas,
Hiasan lengan tuan puteri,
Dari Kajang ke Pasir Mas,
Berangkat pulang saya bercuti.

(dihantar kepada seorang yang dikurniakan rezeki yang lebih)
Hisap rokok di pagi raya,
Rokok dibawa dari China,
Pohon maaf terkeji terkata,
Duit raya aku mana?

Kalau gelang biar emas,
Hiasan lengan tuan puteri,
Puteri jelita muda belia,
Dari Kajang ke Pasir Mas,
Berangkat pulang saya bercuti,
Cuti raya sama keluarga.

(dihantar kepada seorang kawan yang bergelar Doktor)
Sakit hati jumpa dukun,
Sakit jantung jumpa doktor,
Sepuluh jari amba susun,
Mohon ampun jika terlanjur.

(dihantar kepada seorang kawan penganut Hindu)
Makan roti sapu kaya,
Makan tosai kuah kari,
Kami sini sambut raya,
I wish you all happy Deepavali.

Dini hari pergi dusun,
Lepas sahur padam pelita,
Sepuluh jari kami susun,
Tangan dihulur duit diminta!

Makan ketupat daun palas,
Enak dimakan bersama-sama,
Ana beraya di Pasir Mas,
Anta pula beraya di mana?

Anyam ketupat tepi sungai,
Daun palas digulung-gulung,
Kalau mandu jangan cuai,
Ingat nahas tidak beruntung.

(dihantar kepada seorang yang bernama Fitri)
Anak kecil makan megi,
Puasa yang yok makan sembunyi,
Berkat mulia aidil fitri,
Semoga Fitri selalu diberkati.

(dihantar kepada seorang yang beraya di Shah Alam)
Tasik Chini banyak garam,
Tapi lautan lagi masin,
Tahun ini raya Shah Alam,
Tahun depan raya di Aberdeen?

(dihantar kepada seorang yang berasal dari Batu Pahat)
Pergi kedai beli gamat,
Beli gamat di kedai pak man,
Tahun ini raya di Batu Pahat,
Tahun depan raya di Oman?

Syawal 1427.

Singapore vs Malaysia

(in response to Malaysia being highly rated as compared to Singapore by their ASEAN neighbours as reported by a survey)

Singapore is just like Israel...always has siege mentality...always thinks highly of themselves, surrounded by hostile neighbours...close relation with the US...and militarily strong...I am not surprised if one day they secretly develop nuclear weapons too.

But in many ways we should emulate them. Their universities are among the best in the world (NUS is top 25 in the world) while our best can only be no.192nd? On this I think our Government should allow at least one university to be truly based on Meritocracy. Let them choose their own VC, take in students based on merits (regardless of race), practise true democracy in student elections, promote professors based on academic excellence and do away with bumiputera quota just for this one university. Let's see this university can be as good as NUS. The outcome will prove whether or not our poor ranking is due to absence of Meritocracy and lack of freedom due to Univ & Univ Colleges Act. If the ranking improves then we know the real reason why we are rated so low on the world ranking.

Other things that Malaysia would do well to emulate are their achievements in biotechnology. In fact, the have created Biopolis, something like our MSC but forbiotech where they attract famous professors/researchers from US and Europe to do groundbreaking research in biotechnology. Some years ago Malaysia also has a scheme to attract Malaysian professionals working abroad to return and contribute to development of this country. But I hardly see any "brain gain" coming our way. What I see is the reverse - "brain drain". I can testify to the fact that some of my Malaysian friends and many others who are now in Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia etc.?

On world ranking for corruption perception they also do better than us. While we claim we are true Muslims (model for the Muslim world), we don't do well on the corruption index either.
And, by the way, two other muslim countries have won the Nobel Prize for this year: Turkey for Literature and Bangladesh for Peace. What happened to this model Muslim country of ours?

17-10-2006

Book Review: “The Diarist” by (Tan Sri) Abdullah Ahmad

Another book that is in my travelling bag these days is a political diary by Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad “The Diarist”. He is a veteran journalist and was Editor-in-Chief of NST before he was sacked in November 2003. His book is slim (120 pages) but packed with anecdotes and witty comments about Malaysian politicians and politics in general. He is very secular and very much anti-American as he is anti-Pas. I sometimes wonder how he can reconcile both extremes. As a politician he has tasted the sweetness of power as an UMNO Supreme Council member as well as the bitterness of the lack of it after five years under ISA detention in Kamunting from 1976 to 1981. He is a Cambridge-Harvard educated “old guard” of post-Merdeka Malaysian politics who served under three PMs.

His job as NST Editor-in-Chief took him to various places interviewing prominent politicians, covering VIP visits or simply playing golf with his golfer buddies. He was MP for Kok Lanas, Kelantan and a Deputy Minister at one time. But, alas, in Malaysian politics and business, what another former Editor-in-Chief of a Malaysian daily (Datuk Johan Jaafar) once said prove to be right. Speaking from his own experience after he was axed following the sacking of Anwar, JJ observed that in Malaysia one whole generation of Malay businessmen would be replaced when a new UMNO leader came to power. The NST diarist was unceremoniously dismissed from his paper in 2003 soon after Pak Lah was made PM. Obviously, he was not one of Pak Lah’s favourite editors. Without a full time job, perhaps he can concentrate on writing his memoir. I notice, unlike politicians in the UK or US, not many of our retired politicians engage in writing about their experiences for future generation of leaders to learn. It would be a waste if their wealth of experience followed them to the grave.

p/s: Have yet to read LKY’s “The Singapore Story” and still waiting for our Tun Dr M to sit at home and write his memoir rather than trading insults with the current PM.

Kajang
7-10-2006

Book Review: Goerge Soros - "The bubble of American Supremacy ..."

I bought this book at a discount price on a business trip to the City of Miri, Sarawak (actually I don’t think this place qualifies as a city at all, but that’s another story).

Goerge Soros is a student of Karl Popper, the famous philosopher of Science, so his writing is very much philosophical as it is political. He made a lot of money from currency speculation (once he speculated on the British pound and made 1 billion pound profits in one day! He's eventually known as the man who broke the Bank of England). He sees opportunities in movement of currency exchange and deals with it to gain profits. Some would say he is a modern day robber – may be a Robin Hood in reverse, as in the case of Asian monetary crisis he robbed from the poor (us) and gave it to the rich (them). But he's not regarded as a criminal because, I guess, he's not gone against any international law.

He wrote "the bubble of American Supremacy ..." just before the 2004 American election in order to persuade American people not to vote for Bush. He's very much anti-Bush, anti-neo-cons and anti-War. He supports the Democrats. He says in his book that the Iraq war had been planned by the neo-cons since 1997 when a group of neo-cons urged the then President Clinton to increase American military spending. In effect, these neo-conswere pushing for the president to exercise American military might to maintain American Supremacy ("Project for New American Century"). He's saying if these neo-cons are able to control America and the world by influencing Mr Bush's decision, American image to the world will be hurt. He agrees that the US should exercise leadership in the world but that it should not adopt a heavy-handed approach. America will be more respected by showing leadership through diplomacy than military action. Unfortunately, as we all know, Mr Bush got re-elected and he's going to carry out the neo-cons plans to attack Muslim contries with huge oil resources whose leaders are not yet undertheir control. Only history will tell whether the American Empire, based upon coercion and military force will rule the world, or like empires before it, will crumble into the dustbin of history.

So that's the gist of it. I am sure many have heard/read about this before. The Malaysian press is not really fond of him after he broke the Bank Negara in 1997 sending this country and the region into a regional financial, and later political crisis. Mahathir wrote a very fiery book on the 1997 crisis and hurled a lot of bad accusations against him.Surprisingly, he only had one sentence reference to the man who had called him a moron. He called him a repressive ruler.

23/9/2004