Jed Yoong

Erm. Since reporting politicians’ statements will become rather redundant, why will people buy papers anymore?

Hmmmmmm. And since we can ask questions directly on the blogs, what will be news?

Ha ha ha ha. By talking to them, PKR, PAS and DAP give them credibility. It’s either you accept what they write about you good or bad, or you reject them.

All this while The Sun and Edge have been steadily giving more impartial coverage and hence includes the three parties. It’s time these two papers are rewarded with some exclusive interviews and “journalists”, like Wong Chun Wai, are ignored when they call for interviews.

Look, the DAP, PKR and PAS don’t need the MSM. They won without the latter despite all the one-sided reports, and some bordering on libel, in the papers and TV stations.

The fact is people are keen to read anything about the three parties. If you sell A4 black-and-white flyers of information on the three parties, I’m sure people will part with 30 cents for a single sheet of double-sided printed material.

The MSM is only “powerful” if people believe the articles that they carry. Otherwise, they are about as influential as the boy who likes to cry “wolf”….

More @ harismibrahim.wordpress.com

An editor from a local English-language tabloid specialising in classifieds and advertisements wrote today that the “denial syndrome has to stop” in the MSM.

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Looks like Chinese-majority Penang is quite happy the way things are.

At the kopitiam where I had breakfast, inter-racial relations looked jolly too. Some Malays and Indians were chatting and eating together with Chinese in a non-halal kopitiam. While the Muslims ate nasi kandar, non-Muslims ate char siew (barbecued pork) wan tan (pork and shrimp dumplings) noodles.

Almost everyone was smiling.

Earlier the Malays I met were at some Malay enclave of low-cost high rises. I guess dissatisfaction may be higher there. In the city centre, life went on as usual.

Maybe we have dismantled the NEP in Penang.

Anyway, to DAP, it’s just the grassroots that’s important? And BOY, do they have grassroots support here.

Me and my phobias. But really, I felt safest in Kelantan and Terengganu. It was just a different feeling. No, not on happy pills. Ha ha ha.

Some photos much later tonite.

Heard over the radio…Penang is the “Opposition-led state”…..XXX has fell to the Opposition. Yo BROS, no longer the Opposition.

Get it out of your brains, BN. BN does not equal government. In some states, BN is no longer the “parti pemerintah“. The BN is the Opposition in some states. And maybe soon at the federal level too.

A letter to Star from Ooi Ee Ling but unpublished to date. She sent a copy to me.

Dear Editor (of Star),

I am writing to you as a very irate reader. For the past week, there has been a lot of coverage on the upcoming general election. That is expected because the general election is certainly of national interest. However, the coverage is heavily one-sided (read: pro-Barisan Nasional). The Star is filled with propagandistic reports and articles with no substance to say the least. Before you jump into any conclusion, let me clarify that I am not a staunch supporter of any political party. I am writing to you simply because I feel insulted as a reader.

I am especially irritated by the recent articles by V.K. Chin. His views are heavily biased and nonsensical. He does not provide any supporting evidence for his pro-Barisan arguments. As a senior editor (his actual title is “Senior Group Editorial Adviser”) of a major newspaper in this country, he disappoints me. He makes broad, sweeping statements without any attempt to support his claims.

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Don’t need Opposition MPs to highlight issues
Star
THU - Mar 6, 2008

COMMENT
By V.K. CHIN

ONE argument put forward in the 2008 general election by the Opposition is that there must be more representatives in Parliament to speak up on issues after the nation has voted.

The only way to do this is to support Opposition candidates. This of course is a naive way of hoodwinking voters to change sides.

If the only purpose of being an MP is to raise issues in Parliament, then those making those proposals do not know how the august House works.

It will be a sad day if the only function of an MP is to raise issues of public interest and to ignore the welfare of their constituents.

Parliament sits only about a dozen times a year and with some 200 members, it is impossible for everyone to have a chance to speak at each session.

In fact, there are many Opposition MPs who hardly spoke though they might have been members of this honourable House for several terms.

Apart from raising a few issues during question time, their sole function appears to be walking out of the House in protest over a decision by the Speaker.

However, there are no new issues cropping up that the media will not have covered. The mass media highlights issues of public interest on a daily basis.

All the issues raised by MPs in Parliament are old news anyway. If their intention is to talk about current issues, there is no necessity for so many Opposition members, just a few will do.

Still, people are taken in by such a ruse, giving the impression that the Government backbenchers have been keeping quiet at each sitting, and just make up the numbers.

This of course is not the case, as the Government members are just as vocal on current issues and in bringing up topics concerning their constituencies and the public at large at every meeting.

It is therefore important that people should be careful when casting their votes and not fall prey to simplistic views of the role of an MP.

If people have any complaints, they can always call a press conference or send letters to the editor. It is a newspaper’s duty to publish such complaints so long as they conform to the law and no third party is defamed.

And this “letter” on the same day….

Who will be the loser?

AS the 12th General Election campaign intensifies leading to polling day on March 8, the public are speculating that the Opposition is going to win more urban parliamentary and state seats. The pro-Opposition trend seems to be gathering momentum.

As an urban voter myself, I am inclined to ask, if it is true that the Opposition is heading to win more seats in the urban areas this time, at who’s expense will it be?

Obviously it would be at the expense of the MCA and to a certain extent the Gerakan.

What does this mean to the Malaysian voters and the Malaysian political landscape? The answer is simple, and that is there will be less Chinese representation in the Umno-led Government.

This is certainly undesirable as less Chinese representation in the Government will only result in a weaker voice for the Chinese in the Government and the Cabinet.

A weaker voice in the Government and the Cabinet will only weaken Chinese representation and this will render it difficult for MCA to negotiate for the Chinese community in the Government.

It is vital that there must be strong Chinese representation to ensure that the interests of the Chinese are looked after.

MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting has proven that he is capable of speaking up for the Chinese community in the Government and the Cabinet on matters pertaining to Chinese representation in the civil service, mother-tongue education etc.

More Opposition representation in Parliament does not mean anything other than making more noise in Parliament.

We may need some good opposition MPs in Parliament to provide the checks and balances. But we certainly do not need too many of them who will be singing the same song in their anti-establishment stance.

On the contrary we can’t afford less Chinese representation in the Government and the Cabinet which are tasked to administer the nation.

The point I really want to make here is that a big win for the Opposition, especially the DAP, will be a loss for the Chinese community in terms of Chinese representation in the Government.

My advice to the urban electorate is to think very carefully about the consequences for the Chinese community if the DAP is to win more seats at the expense of the MCA.

This is not the time to talk of change for the sake of change. We have to ponder over very carefully about the importance of Chinese representation in the Umno-led Government.

URBAN VOTER,
Cheras.

JY: Is Star writing its “letters” to itself these days? The “letter” sounds like V K or WCW…you know, MCA “house style”…. When has OKT spoken up REALLY for the Chinese? The MCA has done nothing, remember to kick them out ‘cos all they care about are prob those lucrative government contracts, development deals, etc……DID MCA do anything about the body snatching cases? HOW COME after so many years of Michael Chong, loan sharks are still around?

Graphic from Sheep or Sleep Society

Children at a 7-11 store

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He wrote: “We must keep our liberal way of life. This is Malaysia, not the Middle East.”

HA HA HA HA HA HA. Yeah. Our government is so “liberal”. HA HA HA HA HA. That’s why they have racist policies. HA HA HA HA HA. Check out our “liberal” press too.

More…

1. “Incredibly, there are non-Muslims who are shamelessly contesting as members of the so-called PAS Supporters Club, not realising they have joined in to advocate the orthodox Islamic system being pursued by PAS.”

Also, UMNO, MCA and MIC are all RACE-BASED parties. So, shouldn’t complain about PAS. That’s their belief, they set up PAS based on Islam.

2. “That would mean more gender segregation in supermarket checkout lines, concerts and, of course, at swimming pools.Yes, that would also mean watching movies with the lights on. If that is fine with you, then go ahead and vote for PAS.”

I think this is a SMALL problem if we can walk safely on the streets. Crime rate is up 40 per cent. And it doesn’t feel safe anymore. What’s the point?

This is the kind of SHALLOW reasoning by Wong Chun Wai or BN types. Please, watching movies is not such a big deal these days. We have DVDs!!! And what’s so difficult about segregated check-out lines to protect the women. With the number of raba cases on our buses and LRT, we should have segregated buses and LRT trains.

Wong is so worried that he won’t be able to check out girls, as he wrote in his earlier articles about PAS’s views.

Is Wong the kind of shining light to lead the paper and the nation forward? People like him should be barred from writing his narrow views.

I’m not surprised Hadi called you an “infidel” and “anti-Islam”. I am wondering if the NECF will advise you to STOP leading a Christian cell group.

We are sick of corruption, of BN, of crime, of cronies, of the repression, the racism, and the rubbish churned out by the mainstream media.

OK I’ve tackled May 13. Basically, it’s unacceptable to threaten to slaughter us if we don’t vote BN.

PAS. The biggest fear among non-Malays?

A family friend in his early 60s has never voted in his life. The ethnic Chinese who is born and bred in Kuala Lumpur is a businessman from an affluent background. I said that BN would always be in power because the Chinese won’t vote for PAS. He replied: “Just wait and see.” He will be voting for the first time in this general election.

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Incumbent Seputeh Member of Parliament Teresa Kok (DAP) confirmed today that there is no “DAP-PKR-PAS Opposition Pact”, in the sense that the parties are co-operating on a united front. They have agreed on seat allocations but “even then at some places, there are already three-way fights”.

From Aliran:

Over the past three decades, it was Umno’s cultivation of the Malay-Muslim community, couched in terms of a protectionist politics of patronage, that crippled the Malays and kept the Malay intellectual community bound to its patronage machinery. Yet despite the opportunities given to them, the Umno leadership has never really tried to use this as a means of opening up the minds of the Malays, to challenge them intellectually and to present the Malays with an alternative (and genuinely progressive) understanding of Islam: Progressive Muslim authors have been banned by the government, their books taken off the shelves, debates on issues like religious pluralism and inter-faith dialogue scuttled.

The real result of five decades of Umno-led rule is the creation of a more narrowly-defined, racialised society where inter-racial and inter-religious dialogue has dwindled. To expect ‘Islam Hadari’ to correct the mistakes of Umno’s ethnocentric communitarian politics is a contradiction in terms, writes Farish Noor.

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WOW. Huge ad today in The Star. It said:

2,300 non-bumiputera students obtained full JPA scholarships to study overseas between 2000 and 2007. A marked increase compared to only 100 students before the the year 2000.

While the Opposition put on a show, MCA worked.

1. Between 2000 to 2007. Does that include 2000 and 2007 which makes it 8 years and 287.5 per year? If not, it will be 6 years and 383.3 per year. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Is the MCA taking the piss? Are they PROUD of this?

2. Only 100 students before the year 2000. Is that 100 a year? Or since Merdeka? Since the NEP? Apa-lah..

3. Non-bumiputera. So how many Chinese, Indians and etc? Come on.

The tagline: Working Quietly. Effectively. For Results.

Does the MCA mean working quietly and effectively for themselves, their families and cronies for results? So sorry but this counter spin for their general spinelessness to protect their contracts is lame.

I think this is hardly an achievement. Is the MCA sabo-ing themselves? Did some rival faction put this ad out?