Old news

When Anwar Ibrahim’s bid to takeover the government stops being in the front page of Malaysiakini… well, lets write 16 Sept off now, shall we.

So they finally will leave

While staying in the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, is one of the three options, the other two are leaving. And with 60% of card-holding Gerakan members, presumably miffed by the lost of Penang and nice, jovial, certainly non-racist statements by an unrepentant Ahmad Ismail, preferring the other two choices, it doesn’t seem likely Gerakan would stay on for long in Barisan Nasional.

May I add, the last time Barisan Nasional lost a 2/3 majority and Selangor, Gerakan was one of the leading opposition parties. Emergency, suspended parliament and authoritarianism ensued, and Gerakan joined Barisan Nasional to reform it from inside. Notable achievements include… uhm… Wawasan Open University?

Beauty of price-fixing

It’s shocking, no economist could have predicted it. A nice price cut on petrol during a demand surge – guess what happened?

OMG, Palin has no press conference!

Andrew Sullivan: “It is now 24 days since she was announced as a potential president of the United States next January and she still hasn’t given a news conference or has any plans to hold one.”

Andrew Sullivan, member of the press, has yet to rescind his demand that Palin prove that her son Trig passed through her very own vagina. Gee, I wonder why Palin isn’t using some of her precious campaign time to talk to a hostile press.

No New Overlords

The frantic refreshing of Malaysiakini.com and The Star have abated, Anwar, Najib and Abdullah have long been banished from the front pages (and now even made their way into the World section) of Singaporean newspapers, and the only thing I look forward in mid-October is (hopefully, cross fingers) new Macbooks.

To be perfectly honest, I think Anwar Ibrahim is bluffing. Sure, there must be some defections, but perhaps not more than 31. And then again, Abdullah not daring to call on Anwar’s bluff (yeah, he won’t release names, as if the Special Branch detained a MP in the past few days or so… wait a minute).

In related news, I’ve lost most of my youthful confidence and idealism in democracy. People are stupid. Stupid people vote for slightly less, but still overwhelmingly, stupid people. Said stupid people make short-term decisions like bailing out AIG. That, and insidious PAP influence on my thinking. Maybe Malaysians needs a Lee Kuan Yew.

Beijing Must Be So Pleased

Ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, decided to send a bunch (some 78 of them, plus or minus, in fact) for a lawatan sambil belajar to Taiwan. Sure, they’re interested in how Taiwan deals with agriculture, but interestingly they picked Taiwan because China has stringent visa rules. Essentially to prevent them from defecting come 16 September (five more days!).

China regularly gets pissed at any form of political link with renegade province Taiwan, so it would be interesting how that pans out. Especially that it seems that Pakatan Rakyat’s (the opposition coalition) largest party, Anwar Ibrahim’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat, is sending four of themselves to the same, ahem, renegade province.

What surprises me is that no official statement has been made by Beijing when 78 Malaysian parliamentarians descend upon Taiwan. A territory that, under our imposed One China policy, does not exist politically (But meh, it’s not as if President Ma would use this to bring Taiwan closer to international recognition. Unfortunately).

Update: Maybe Googling will help:

Expressing China’s concern on the “agriculture study tour”, the embassy’s political affairs attaché, Chen Feng, said China has raised the matter with Malaysia as it is a big entourage and the members are all MPs.

Chen told Nanyang that the embassy was subsequently informed that the study tour was not an official mission.

“That (private tour) is what we have been told, but we hope they would visit China, Macau and Hongkong (instead). (A visit to) Taiwan is, after all, a bit sensitive,” he said.

However, he believed that no ties will be strained because of the Taiwan visit.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim confirmed that Wisma Putra has explained to the Chinese the study tour is a private mission.

How private. You would, however, be pleased to note that BN backbenchers aren’t treated like “three-year olds”. They have their mobile phones and passports at hand! Wee!

Honestly, a better idea is to visit a non-contentious country like New Zealand or Zimbabwe. Clearly not particularly well-thought off. Hope they do pick up a thing or two regarding land reforms while they’re there.

Racist Bigot Quota Restored

Ruling, Malay party, UMNO’s Bkt Bendera division chief, who himself is partially of immigrant Indian lineage while calling Malaysian Chinese as “penumpang” (squatters), was suspended from UMNO for three years. Restoring equilibrium to UMNO, Tun Dr Mahathir, former prime minister and famed anti-Semite, rejoins UMNO.

Why In-class Debates Are Pointless

Each cohort joining SMU Debating Society, the learning curve seem to be identical. Few, if any, struggle to speak for 7 minutes (experienced debaters find 7 minutes awfully limiting). They don’t make good, well-substantiated, arguments. In short, debates in the first few weeks (and in fact, often beyond) is crappy.

Yet some professors have an affinity to having in-class debates in place of presentations. Beyond the fact most (and sometimes, all) of the debaters have never practiced debating and it turns into something truly awful, often they elect to have debating formats that are… well, not particularly good debating formats. For one of my classes, it is one eight-minute speech on both sides, followed by a five-minute reply. How much engagement do you expect there, exactly?

There is always room for debating in the classroom. But formal, competitive debating has no place in a classroom. A classroom of non-debaters, at least.

Most Inappropriate Picture Contest Winner

So I was searching about Bob Barr and the allege time he pressured his second ex-wife into an abortion (Barr is a card-carrying Pro-Life Caucus member), a bunch of Google ads showed up advertising abortion services in Singapore. Nausea set it (I’m very much pro-life), and I clicked on a couple of them advertising the names of the doctors.

So this one Dr Loke Kah Leong’s website, of the Singapore Women’s Clinic, Tampines, has a banner of cute, cuddly babies with wings. Mind you, the only service that that clinic seems to offer that has anything to do with babies is abortion. Maybe a ploy to get pro-life women onboard? “Think your foetus is a person deserving of the right to life? Don’t worry! Look at post-life babies flying around in wings! Don’t you want that for your baby?”

On a related note, the recent debate, which somewhat concluded when the Health Minister of Singapore pushed for status quo, which allows abortion until the 24th week, after which the foetus magically turns into a human being. As per usual anywhere else, pro-choicers completely ignore the pro-life argument that life begins at conception and focus on the woman’s right to choose. It is fine and all if the woman wants to remove a spleen or something, but considering there is a moral debate going on regarding the humanity of foetuses before 24 weeks – closing your ears and shouting, “LALALALALA, CHOICE, CHOICE, CHOICE!” is… well, dishonest.

But I guess in a country where carrying just a little too much weed would mean mandatory hanging, pro-life arguments don’t carry any weight.