Ku Li Calon Galas

By Syed Akbar Ali

"Kota Baru: Deputy Umno president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah will head the Barisan Nasional election machinery for the Galas state seat by-election. . . He added Tengku Razaleigh will be assisted by Kelantan Umno liaison chairman Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed. . . “i’ve contacted Tengku Razaleigh, and he has agreed to the appointment,” Muhyiddin said yesterday.

Tan Sri Muhyuddin Yassin has also said that the candidate should be from the area. Well Galas is part of Gua Musang, where Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has been the MP and wakil rakyat for decades. An important section of the vote here belongs to the Orang Asli community, with whom Ku Li does have a special relationship.

One suggestion is that BN pick Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah as the candidate for Galas. In this way he can be both the campaign director as well as the candidate. Or someone else can take over as campaign boss and ku li just focus on the candidacy.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah would make an ideal candidate in this 11th by election since the march 2008 general elections. There need not be any tug of war to be chosen as candidate. It would also reduce trhe risk of sabotage from within the party.

The fact that Ku Li has agreed to act as advisor to PAS over the Kelantan oil royalty issue has little consequence. This is still Kelantan. This is just thinking out loud.

Moonshots

By Syed Akbar Ali

Here are some conspiracies and theories. Here is a bit of interesting news. "They" found new video footage, that is the clearest of all the video footage, about Neil Armstrong's famous landing on the moon. The new video footage was found in Australia.

Here is the news:

• SYDNEY (AFP) – Long-lost footage of Neil Armstrong descending the ladder of the Apollo 11 will be screened for the first time in Sydney .
• the film was lost in archives for many years and was badly damaged when found . . .
• Telescopes in remote Australia played a key role in the Apollo 11 mission, including provision of the television signal, after Armstrong decided to attempt the moonwalk early, putting the United States just beyond the horizon
• NASA were using the Goldstone (California) station signal, which had its settings wrong,
• a "long detective story" involved in the search for the footage, painstaking frame by frame work to digitial format. . .
• It was very damaged tape as well, that segment of Armstrong at the beginning

Conspiracy theorists have long held that the entire Ameican moon landing was a hoax. They say it was a huge conspiracy to spend billions of US Dollars elsewhere. President John F Kennedy had also made a commitment that by 1970 America would send a man to the moon and bring him back safely to Earth. So they had a deadline to keep. This is what they say. The world is not without conspiracies, even major ones. The bigger the lie, the more people may believe it - so the saying goes.

Some walkabout. In school we read "The Diary of Anne Frank". Then people started saying that the "Diary of Anne Frank" was a hoax (just search "Anne Frank Hoax"). Some years after that, "they" discovered another "diary" belonging to Anne Frank. This was to give more credibility to the Anne Frank story. There are now revisionist historians who have started questioning if the Jewish Holocaust did happen to the huge scale painted by the Jewish people, especially Israel.

A few years after that, they found letters written by Anne Frank to her father (or vice versa, cant recall exactly). Anne Frank was (and still is) a whipping post to keep up the support for the Jewish Holocaust. Stuff like Anne Frank's diaries, letters to her father etc lend legitimacy to these claims. More material keeps appearing to back up the story of Anne Frank.

When I was about 12 years old (1972) the Americans launched a ship called the Glomar Explorer. The purpose of the ship was to "search for deep sea manganese nodules strewn about the ocean floor", thousands of feet below the surface. This incredible story was written in The Straits Times which I used to read at that time.

Then just last year, National Geographic (or Discovery) showed a film about the Glomar Explorer. It was actually a special spy ship, built by American billionaire Howard Hughes for the CIA, complete with a huge empty chamber inside (called the Moon Pool) and massive doors at the bottom of the ship that opened to the sea. The purpose of the Glomar Explorer was to fish for a Russian nuclear sub that had sunk complete with its nuclear missiles. Typical James Bond stuff. You can see and read more about the CIA's Glomar Explorer here.

The whole story about the Glomar Explorer "looking for manganese nodules strewn about the deep ocean floor" was an incredible cover story to fool people - including 12 year olds like me.

Before that there was also the assasination of President John F Kennedy. At that time there was an incredible story that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone assassin, with no conspiracy behind the assassination. Few people believe this to be true. At that time (circa 1962) "they" found a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald standing in his backyard holding the Mannlicher rifle that was used to shoot Kennedy. In the picture, "Oswald" is also seen holding some incriminating pamphlets in his right hand. The only thing missing is smoke from the rifle he is holding. Here is the famous picture.

Later it was argued that this photograph was faked. Critics said Oswald's head was cut and pasted on the photo of another man. You can also see that gravitational pull was weak in Texas at that time. "Oswald" is leaning over.

Then we have the famous 9-11 attack in New York. There are many incredible things about the 9-11 attack. People on the ground say that they received cell phone calls from the people on the hijacked planes. This is simply not possible.

Then they found hijacker Mohamed Atta's passport, intact and undamaged, lying on the street near the WTC site. This is incredibly beyond imagination, considering that the rest of the planes vaporised inside the WTC. Here is just one website that talks about Mohamed Atta's miraculous passport :

"You may remember that after the planes hit the World Trade Center towers--an epic disaster that melted structural steel designed to withstand a Hellish temperature of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, incinerated both planes’ cockpit recorders and black-box recorders, and vaporized the flesh and bones of nearly 3,000 human beings--the passport of suspected hijacker Mohammed Atta was found intact, in pristine condition, lying on the sidewalk below"

Here are some pictures about Neil Armstrong's moonwalk. Are these pictures real or fake? In the picture note that the moon's horizon can be seen sloping down from right to left. The moon's horizon looks very nearby - as though if the astronaut took a few steps back, he would fall off the moon. The moon's diameter is one quarter of the Earth's (so they say), making the Moon one quarter the size. Still the moon has a diameter of about 3000 km.

Here is another picture of the astronauts on the moon. Again the horizon looks very close and you can see the curvature of the moon's horizon even though this is a close up photo of the astronaut. The curvature of planets and moons is more visible from a distance.

Here is the picture of the famous fluttering flag. There is no wind on the moon, so how can the flag be 'waving' in the wind? One answer is that the "flag pole" was deliberately designed to make the flag wave.

Here is a picture of a desert horizon. You cannot see the curvature of the Earth, unlike the pictures of the moon above.

The same with the horizon of the sea. Its almost a straight, flat line. Little or no curvature.

Here is a picture of the Earth rising over the moon (possibly taken from a Space Shuttle orbitting the moon). You can see the moon's horizon here is almost straight and flat. There is some curvature at the edges of the photo. It is less pronounced.

Commonwealth Games Disaster : Malaysia Boleh, India Tak Boleh

By Syed Akbar Ali

I have taken this news report from the New Straits Times and rejigged it. You can read the original item here.

The reports are coming in fast and furious, not just in the NST but elsewhere too. The management of the Commonwealth Games in India has so far been a shambles. To all the people who say that ‘India is a great power’ I have asked before ‘great power in what?’

We do not gloat at other people’s misfortunes. But there are lessons to be learnt from India – it is just one simple lesson. Do read on till the end of this post.

The modern Commonwealth Games have been held primarily in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The only exception was when the games were held in Kuala Lumpur in 1998. I recall the Kuala Lumpur Games were billed the best Commonwealth Games ever held up to that time.

In India a disaster is looming at the Commonwealth Games. John Coates, the Australian Olympic Committee president, has said that the games should have never gone to Delhi. Some news about the Indian state of unpreparedness for the Commonwealth Games, which begins in just a few days.

• road to the 2010 Commonwealth Games an unmitigated disaster
• · chaos, public relations nightmare.
• · corruption and poor planning
• · top athletes like Phillips Idowu and Dani Samuels pulling out of the games
• · Canada, New Zealand, Australia, England delaying arrival of their athletes
• · authorities aren't helping matters
• · living quarters in games' village uninhabitable
• · piles of building debris everywhere, flooding
• · human waste in sinks
• · secretary-general, Lalit Bhanot : Everyone has a different standard of cleanliness
• · footbridge collapsed injuring 27 people, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit : accident was "not as big as it has been made out to be"
• · ceiling near weightlifting stage collapsed two days later
• · cost over runs (at almost 17 times the original estimates)
• · outbreak of dengue fever
• · child labour accusations
• · fear of terrorist attacks

In Masjid India we meet many Indian nationals who come as tourists and visitors. There are also many Indian nationals who work here. Having met them, I am not surprised that the Commonwealth Games in India is facing a disaster.

I find Indians from India very loud, argumentative and they don’t get things done. A lot of time is wasted pursuing useless argument. Yes I am generalizing but I am just reporting what I see, every day, without end.

As individuals, Indians can outshine the entire human race. Countless Indians have become corporate billionaires (who rule their domain like dictators), international business tycoons (outside India), NASA scientists, computer geniuses, doctors, Nobel Prize winners, TV personalities, prize winning writers and much more.

But as a people or as a community, they cannot organize themselves as well and move forward together. The reason is simple : they do not seem to have much respect for their fellow human being. This seems to be the national characteristic in India. They don’t care for others. So they cannot cooperate too.

It is very difficult for a people to get organized and move on in life when they cannot see their weaknesses or when they see good in what is not good. For example concerning the reports that there was ‘human waste in sinks’ at the Games Village their secretary general of the Commonwealth Games has said “Everyone has a different standard of cleanliness”.

When a footbridge collapsed at the Games Venue, injuring 27 people, including five seriously, the Chief Minister of Delhi said it was ’not as big as it has been made out to be.’

As I said : there is little care or concern for the human being in Indian society. Despite India being an old civilization, being a land of sages and stuff, they really don’t care too much about human beings.

In their country, over 600 million people do not have access to toilets inside their homes. (The number could be larger). Of the remaining 500 million people, they may have access to the type of toilets that were featured in the movie ‘The Slumdog Millionaire’. Very few Indians have access to proper plumbing and flush toilets anywhere.

Tens of millions of Indians still sleep out in the streets at night. No one cares for them. India is a democratic and free country – so their people have the freedom to sleep in the streets. I really cannot understand how their Prime Ministers, their leaders and Cabinet Ministers can go to work, driving past the millions of Indians who have to sleep in the streets. To them it is not a priority to make sure that every Indian has a basic home and has access to basic plumbing and hygiene.

They have bought aircraft carriers, built nuclear submarines and made atom bombs. The Indians have also built and launched rockets into outer space. Their latest achievement is that they landed a space probe on the moon. All these things cost billions of US Dollars, which they could hav spent to build a nationwide plumbing and sewerage system. But they did not. Obviously the basic human needs of a vast majority of their people is NOT a priority.

China suffered a huge number of poor people. But the Chinese have placed the welfare of their people at the fore front. The Chinese people now enjoy a very modern and relatively high standard of living. Only now China is spending money to design and build their first aircraft carrier. And it is going to be a supercarrier, perhaps more advanced than anything possessed by the US and the West.

We cannot entirely blame the Indian Prime Minister or the Indian leadership because India is as true a democracy as you can find on the surface of this earth. India is really a ‘Government of the people, by the people and for the people’. Their leaders really represent the will of the Indian people. It is the will of the Indian people that they really do not care too much for the welfare of human beings.

Why is that so? Indians are broken into countless sects, castes, language groups, ethnicities, religions and geographical regions – almost none of whom can get along with each other. They like to amplify their man made differences. A guy tying his turban clockwise may feel superior to a guy tying his turban counter clockwise and vice versa. A guy who eats his rice with ghee will feel superior to a guy who does not, and vice versa.

There is a danger that we in this country may go down this path. If we do not care for the human being, we will end up becoming less human. We may become inhumane. When that happens, society does not function as well.

Above all else the duty of care for our fellow human being is paramount.

Perkasa

By Syed Akbar Ali

Perkasa is nowhere near ‘Malay supremacy’, ‘Malay dominance’ and the other racist crap that has been played up by the Opposition as well as the MCA. Perkasa is UMNO, more importantly Perkasa is Melayu.

After the 2008 debacle, the Malays are naturally afraid of the possibility that their political power will dwindle. It is a reaction. The fear is that nothing is being done to reverse this possibility. Hence Perkasa. It is not about taking other’s rights but rather preserving one’s own.

Even the ex ABIM President has spoken in favour of Perkasa. How do we explain the fact that there is even a pro UMNO faction now in PAS? PAS realize now that all these years they have actually taken for granted (and they also have been quite comfortable) that there is a Malay Muslim Government in Putrajaya. They merely wanted to replace the UMNO led Malay Muslim Government with their own PAS led Malay Muslim Government.

But with PAS not anywhere being able to form the Government and the existing UMNO led Malay Muslim Government in danger of losing its position, there are now many folks in PAS who don’t mind reaching out to UMNO to preserve the Malay Muslim status quo in Government. Its as simple as that. This is the reason for all the suggestions of unity talks between PAS and UMNO. No rocket science here.

I think folks like the MCA are taking the wrong attitude towards Perkasa. Instead of reassuring Perkasa (read as orang Melayu lah) that Malays will not be eclipsed in this country, the MCA’s confrontational attitude has only fueled even more worry in the psychology that fuels Perkasa. It is not about Malay dominance or Malay supremacy but about self preservation of the Malays. If the MCA cannot see through this, they are dumber than I thought.

Another example of being political silly. I read somewhere - a suggestion to remove Malay Reserve Land. Malay Reserve Land is not an issue. The Chinese and Indians are not complaining that they don’t have enough land in Malaysia. There are millions of acres of land in the country, still occupied by trees and squirrels. Malay Reserve Land was put in correctly by the British to prevent the Malays from being chased into the sea altogether. The Malays had lost so much land to the British and the immigrants. Saying now that Malay Reserve Land must be abolished does not add any value to the Chinese or Indian cause but it will only increase the fears of the Malays that they are being disenfranchised in their own Tanah Melayu. So please stop talking like this. It is wasting time and just aggravating the situation.

The Malays have a real fear of ‘ketuanan bukan Melayu’ or the dominance and supremacy of the non Malays. This is what folks like Ibrahim Ali fear. This fear is very legitimate. Singapore has been lost and the Malays in Penang are perhaps worse off than the Malays in Singapore.

In the next elections, the Indian vote is of little consequence. Post 2008, only 10% or 20% of Chinese votes are expected to accrue to the BN, no matter how much money Najib is giving to the Chinese schools. Therefore the Chinese vote has to be fully discounted. To survive, UMNO (and the BN) have no choice but to fall back on the Malay vote alone. One naughty theory is that Najib giving all that money to the Chinese schools is meant to aggravate the Malays and provoke them to close ranks. Maybe he is doing it unwittingly. I think it is working. Never pick a fight with the Vietnamese. Never play politics with the Malays.

So the maths is very simple, since the Chinese vote is almost completely pro Opposition, the Pakatan will do best if the Malay vote is split. UMNO and the BN will do best if the Malay vote unites to their side. The suggestion “Melayu Undi Melayu” is now going the rounds too. Meaning, if it is not a Malay BN candidate, Malays should still vote for any Malay candidate, no matter what party they represent. They will not vote for non Malays.

If this sentiment picks up steam, there will be an impact on the MCA MPs, especially those from Johor who depend on the Malay vote to win. They are going to be routed. They are not going to get the Malay vote. The next election will likely see the political demise of the MCA and possibly the Gerakan too. If they pull out of the BN, it will hasten their demise even quicker. Hence also the suspicion that the DAP (maybe more savvy) will be fielding more Malay candidates in the next elections.

Will Perkasa field its own candidates in the next elections? They have collected 326,000 membership forms already. By one estimate Perkasa has sufficient clout to field candidates in at least 20 Parliamentary constituencies. This is not an impossible scenario. UMNO boleh ‘terduduk’. It is more likely however that Perkasa will play the role of a ‘voting lobby’ or ‘voting bloc’ pressure group. Like in the US, where the unions and lobby groups endorse certain candidates, Perkasa too may ask its members to support or not support certain candidates.

Nazri Aziz, Khairy Jamaluddin and Tengku Adnan are just some of the people who may not be getting any endorsement from Perkasa. I think we will not (or should not) be seeing anymore of these guys at the next elections and thereafter. Nazri and Khairy may even find friends ready to welcome them on the other side.

So Perkasa is going to have an impact on the Malay vote. This is a certainty. And then what? It will give them clout to “negotiate”.

Notwithstanding Perkasa, UMNO faces serious credibility issues if it fields some Ministers who have lost the support of not just many UMNO members but of Malaysians in general. Talk is a Cabinet reshuffle is “imminent” again in November. But this is only talk. Najib cannot be seriously thinking of going into the next general election with the present set of Cabinet Ministers in his team.

The unpopularity of Ministers like Nazri Aziz, Nor Mohd Yakcop, Zahid Hamidi, Noh Omar, Khaled Noordin, Hishamuddin Hussein and Shahrizat Abdul Jalil is increasing. The UMNO Youth Chief is detested by not just the rank and file but also by the leadership of Pemuda UMNO. I met with some of them not too long ago. It will be quite suicidal for Najib to field these folks in the next elections. On a national level, these names will be serious liabilities. It will become worse if Perkasa does NOT endorse them or speaks against them.

There is also another huge fish lurking just under the surface that can cause serious difficulty for Najib. This is Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad. The UMNO leaders should not be so “pelupa” to forget that Kedah was lost because of the disrespect shown to Dr Mahathir by the corrupt Slumberjack and his SIL plus also Mahdzir Khaled the Menteri Besar of Kedah at that time. One “bejana” of wisdom has gone so far to say that the next General Elections will be determined by whether Dr Mahathir campaigns for BN or not. If Dr Mahathir does not “turun padang” that may be sufficient to lose votes that may otherwise accrue to the BN. Dr Mahathir will never campaign against the BN but what if he goes off on holiday to the Mediterranean or horse riding in Argentina?

I can make a safe assumption that if Najib goes to the polls with the existing team, he will certainly not get the support of the UMNO Bloggers. Please do not discount the Bloggers. Don’t make the same mistake twice. Who do you think created names like Down’s Syndrome, Si Kitol, Menteri Amaran Keras and so on? These are now designer brands.

There are no two ways about this. If Najib wants to save the party (and his behind) and save the country as well, just drop these folks. That will be a start. And matchmakers may not get calls either.