Najib fuels inflation

What is inflation? It is either a rise in prices or a decrease in the value of the currency - the net effect is still higher prices.

It is something that Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak knows about as he is tasked with battling inflation as a result of soaring global prices for commodities - be it food or fuel. So he is doing nobody any favours by cutting subsidies for the RapidKL/RapidPenang bus systems.

There are already rumblings about fare hikes, which leads us to wonder if there are ways and means to improve and mitigate the public transport system in Malaysia particularly the cities.

We think the solution is already in Malaysia and being used by our national carrier Malaysia Airlines which leases most if not all of its aircraft from state-owned Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad.

What does that mean? It means PMB takes the risk of raising bonds and loans to buy the aircraft and leases them to Malaysia Airlines at a fixed annual fee. The national carrier just have to pay for operating costs from salaries to fuel and try to make a profit.

The thing is, PMB can provide low lease rates and thus bring down a portion of MAS' fixed costs. Syarikat Prasarana Nasional Berhad, which now owns Kuala Lumpur city rail commuter network and both the RapidKL and RapidPenang bus systems, can follow PMB's model.

That is, to fund the bus fleets of various operators at a fixed cost (depending on fleet size) and letting the operators to pay for operating costs only for the various routes. And just like aircraft leases, the operators can have in engine options depending on their choice fuel.

There should also be competition along the routes as commuters will have a choice of operators depending on frequency and fleet size.

With prasarana being the Malay word for infrastructure, the government will just have to deal with the cost of infrastructure (notwithstanding its diminishing value) while the operators wage fare wars to make money.

Wouldn't that level the playing field? And provide a choice for commuters.

Unless of course the operators are just interested in profits. Public transport services is usually a volume business and profit margins are thin. State subsidies help to a certain extent but ultimately its a free market.

The alternative choice is to provide free bus services. And pass the cost to taxpayers by lowering the basic tax bracket to widen the net for more wage earners to pay tax. After all, they and their families are using the bus to go to work. 

Najib has a choice to not take us for a ride by taking the easy way out to cut subsidies without providing options.  The Siber Party of Malaysia (M) believes everyone should have a ticket to ride.


 

Dr Mahathir is a failed Lee Kuan Yew

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, you are a failed Lee Kuan Yew! Thank Heavens for that!

For many years from the 1970s until now, you have in your own way tried to be Mr Lee Kuan Yew - encouraging, directing, haranguing, ordering, telling, bullying and generally getting your own way in Malaysia as he did in Singapore.

Of course, short of measuring the distance between the trees that line the many roads in Kuala Lumpur as Harry Lee did in Singapore, if you are to believe the numerous taxi drivers plying its streets.

But you have done your darnest to be Lee Kuan Yew for the ends justify the means as Harry does truly believe, even if both of you profess to be believe in the rule of law.

And while in the past, you have professed to believe in a Bangsa Malaysia as set out in Vision 2020, just as Harry believes in Singapore for Singaporeans or Malaysia for Malaysians, you have now turned back to your racist outlook.

And in your retirement, you continued to be like Harry Lee by putting in a weaker leader so that you can continue to impose your patronising, condescending, imperious and dictatorial tone on Malaysia and Malaysians.

Well, you failed. You did not become a Minister Mentor or a Senior Minister. And your successor turned the other way and left you and your legacy in abeyance. You became a failed Lee Kuan Yew.

You might be a great Father of Modern Malaysia as Kuan Yew is Father of Modern Singapore but your children have outgrown you. We thank you for your time, leadership and vision.

But Tun, you are and have always been a man with a chip on his shoulder casting around to be indipensable to Malaysia as the man with the vision and mission to make us great.

You succeeded for 22 years, three months, two weeks and one day with your vision. But now you have cast aside that vision for short-term gains with your short-sighted vision to get rid of your succesor.

That's a vision that the Siber Party of Malaysia (M) does NOT share!

Kulliyah Malam Jumaat: Rogol dan Seks Bukanlah Kerana Warna Baju

Persatuan Kebangsaan Pelajar Islam Malaysia (PKPIM) berpendapat bahawa seragam sekolah untuk murid murid perempuan yang berwarna putih kelihatan jarang dan inilah sebabnya banyak kes-kes "pencabulan, penzinaan dan sebagainya".

Kenyataan yang dilaporkan oleh malaysiakini walaubagaimanapun tidak memberi perhatian kepada cadangan PKPIM untuk menukarkan warna seragam sekolah murid perempuan.

Sebagai Ketua Biro Dakwah SiPM, saya amat kecewa dengan sikap pandangan cetek PKPIM.

1. Kes kes rogol atau pencabulan tidak ada kena mengena dengan warna baju atau reka bentuk pakaian wanita. Pencabulan terhadap wanita adalah kerana ketaksuban kaum lelaki untuk 'menakluk' kaum wanita, kerana ingin mempamerkan kuasa terhadap kaum wanita dan memaksa kaum wanita menuruti keinginan nafsu lelaki.
   
2. Ini menunjukan bahawa kebanyakan lelaki yang mencabul wanita mempunyai pandangan psikologi yang membimbangkan terhadap kaum wanita!
3. Di Arab Saudi, walaupun kaum wanita disana berselubung dalam hitam, mereka masih menghadapi masalah pencabulan terhadap wanita dan terpaksa membuka klinik klinik untuk membantu mangsa rogol.
4. Kami menyokong segala tindakan mencegah pencabulan terhadap wanita tetapi PKPIM perlu menyemak semula sebab sebab kenapa berlakunya pencabulan terhadap kaum wanita.
5. Tanggapan PKPIM yang menyatakan bahawa baju putih jarang tersebut adalah satu penyebabnya murid murid sekolah kita berzina atau membuat parti orgi adalah tidak tepat sekali. Di University of Texas di Austin telah membuat kajian "237 sebab mengapa kita bersenggama" dan kajian tersebut tidak mencatitkan sebarang kesan baju putih jarang terhadap keinginan untuk bersenggama. Mungkin baju putih jarang ialah terlalu spesifik untuk kajian tersebut, tetapi saya percaya walaupun murid murid perempuan memakai tudung, baju dalam dan uniform berwarna hitam, tetapi kalau dah nak bersenggama, bersenggamalah dia.

Dan saya juga percaya, selepas menonton video klip dibawah, statistik kes rogol dan zina tidak langsung akan meningkat. Cuma statistik gelak ketawa. ;)



Update: Kenyataan ini telah disampaikan oleh Cik Munirah Bahari, naib presiden hal ehwal wanita PKPIM. Beliau menulis di blognya yang bernama Tasneem.

Recalcitrant

Recalcitrant, that's what Paul Keating described Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad way back in 1993. We would like to add petulant as a sobriquet to the Grand Old Man of brinkmanship politics.

Although its UMNO's internal politics and the party has splintered over the years with retired party presidents fighting with successors, Che Det's resignation from the party he founded is nothing more than the selfish act of a man who wants his way no matter the consequences.

Its his way or the highway!

The Siber Party of Malaysia (M) expresses its commiserations for the Melayu Baruah. May it prosper in the absence of its Member No. 00000001. For nothing will ever grow under the shadow of the banyan tree that Mahathir was.

Its time to go past the divisive and racial politics of Mahathir and former protege Anwar Ibrahim - both of whom speak of what the audience want to hear but whose policies are found wanting. We don't need them to patronise us with their presence for what we need is to progress as a nation united under the Malaysian sun.

Frankly, we don't need an UMNO or any other parties that talk about racial supremacy. The Federal Constitution is flawed but it has provided for us in the last 50 years notwithstanding amendments that have curtailed our basic rights.

We need to look after our poor and underprivileged no matter their race, creed or origins.

We want equal opportunities and help for those who don't have such opportunities. We want justice, we want equality, we want respect, we want pay that commensurates with work done, we want the country's riches shared among all, we want a government that governs, a bureaucracy that works with less people but are amply rewarded, a defence system that preserves our way of life.

We don't need selfish politicians with vested interests. We don't need leaders who have outlived their time. We will remember them for their good and bad points. We don't want the petty and personal feuds played out in the open.

The Siber Party of Malaysia (M) wants it the Malaysian way!

Justice at home

It started with a video that proved that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark, to paraphrase Justice NH Chan's words about the courts in the then Wisma Denmark in Kuala Lumpur

Today, de facto law minister Zaid Ibrahim has directed the Attorney-General to investigate the allegations against certain individuals contained in the Lingam Tape Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Apparently the commission's report will be made public too. Of course at a princely cost of RM545.

But we wonder who those individuals are. Time will tell, if not the government first.

The Siber Party of Malaysia (M) believes that justice not only has to be done but has to be seen to be done. No matter how high or low that person's standing is in society. We all make up Malaysia and any dirty deeds soil all of us.

So time to clean the Stygian stables and remove the dirt under the carpet that is now tripping us.

Time to come clean. Here in my home, which is incidentally a "We-Are-The-World"-type effort by a group calling themselves Malaysian Artistes for Unity.

We support-lah.

Meanwhile in Myanmar

So, Raja Petra Kamarudin is free. Good for him. Meanwhile, in Myanmar, the situation is still dire.

The junta is refusing all help except material aid and aid workers are left scrambling to get visas which are hard to come by. In several airports across Asia, Myanmar military attaches vet those going aboard aid flights to weed out the media and other undesirable elements.

The U.S. is considering dropping aid directly to the Myanmarese, or Burmese if you prefer, as the junta has yet to give its nod for American aid flights. Why? To preserve power ahead of a national referendum on a new constitution still planned for May 10.

The Siber Party of Malayisa (M) believes the junta needs a kick in the pants and more. It needs to be booted out for all that it has done, and not done, since taking over power nearly 20 years ago despite elections that brought in a new democratic government.

Obviously the lessons of 8.8.88 has yet to be learnt.

Obviously the junta believes that keeping Myanmar in its iron grip despite the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis and its thousands of deaths is better than opening up to aid from the world.

Obviously they are afraid they will fall to the possibility of democracy.

Despite the stubborn junta, the world has to help the Myanmarese people. Now in the aftermath of the disaster and after that to ensure the junta does not isolate the nation from the rest of the world.

Cyclone Nargis might have killed thousands, thanks to the incompetence of the junta, but might it also herald the end of the junta and bring about change for the better, not unlike the Sedition Act and Raja Petra Kamarudin.

Only from chaos can order come. And perhaps democracy.

Sedating the Seditious

Raja Petra Kamarudin. Citizen. Cyclist. Campaigner.Writer. Blogger. Jailbird.

Everyone wants a piece of him. The bloggers. The government. The party. The family. They all got him now. Hero, conscience and prisoner in one fell swoop when he refused to pay bail for his freedom to face trial in October.

A lot has been said and the so-called blogosphere is buzzing. Fact is, he used the medium of the Internet to publicise his conspiracy theories, allegations and innuendoes about the Mongolian model murder without much facts. He says he has the facts.

The court would be the best place to sort out the fact from fiction. But the Sedition Act 1948 is the wrong method of bringing him to account for his story. Those at the wrong end of the stick should have gone to court and sued him for defamation, libel and being brought to public odium and contempt.

That the police have to step in and get the prosecutors to charge him in a criminal court will only enhance him among his supporters and readers. This is a purely civil case similar to the Universiti Utara Malaysia's case against Raja Petra.

It would not be about the payment. It would be about name and honour. Right and wrong.

The MP for Pulai put it well. Charging Raja Petra under the Sedition Act will not sedate the seditious nor a cheap way of deleting the allegations.

The Siber Party of Malaysia (M) believes it does not take a hammer to swat a fly for the cracks are far-reaching. This is not a matter for the state but the people involved to do the deed themselves.

Raja Petra. Hero. Malaysia. Zero.

Live Aid

At a time when food security, minimum wage, global oil prices are issues that dominate the news and our thougts, we have parliamentarians who want to spend money to see themselves on the idiot box.

While we come the live broadcasts of Question Time, and to see ourselves act like never before, we are wondering whether the benefits is worth the cost?

Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek mentioned a monthly cost of RM3 million apart from the RM9 million paid to Telekom Malaysia for the line. RTM also spent RM1 million for three cameras in the Dewan Rakyat to cover the live proceedings.

Dudes, dudettes, there is something fishy about the cost. Especially at a time when every sen saved can go towards ameliorating the cost of staple items for the rakyat especially when it IS the rakyat's money.

Since I wasn't in Parliament - the Siber Party of Malaysia (M) is sending its lawmakers for etiquette courses on how to wave the Standing Orders Book (a little blue book not quite unlike the little blue pill called Viagra - makes you stand long long time), I have yet to read the written answer.

But this is what I think. There is only 16 days of Dewan Rakyat this session which ends May 27, so why is the production cost phenomenal?

The three cameras have already been costed, the staff cost is the normal wage cost, there is no need for additional lighting, and transmision cost is not that expensive especially when Parliament House has a 10MB internet pipeline connected by Telekom Malaysia.

Even if one has to use the huge outdoor broadcasting (OB) trucks, the transmission cost cannot be more than RM2,000 for each 10 minute block and RTM does get preferential treatment being a state broadcaster. And there is always Celcom Broadcast which has been known to provide discounts.

Therefore, apart from the King's Royal Address and the Swearing-In ceremony on the first day (did you see us? did you see us?), a 30 minute transmission of Question Time would only cost about RM6,000 or maybe slightly higher if RTM decided to use 40 minutes of time as a precaution.

Therefore, for 16 days or so, it should come to about RM100,000. And if one was to include electricity costs and maybe some miscellenous costs including tea breaks and the crappy parliament food, it still wont come to RM1 million a month.

We call upon the Minister to come clean and give us a breakdown of costs. If the transmission costs is prohibitive, the money can be used elsewhere for the good of the people or defrayed through advertising breaks.

The amount mentioned is obscene. We cannot live just by entertainment seeing our elected representatives crack absurd jokes or perform awfully on screen. Let's use the money for something better.

Therefore, in our efforts to save money for something better, the Siber Party of Malaysia (M) will not add a video to this post. Go entertain yourself with someting better ;)