My sis has got her uni offer about 2 days ago. She got into the course that she had wanted. Congrats to her!
Savings made by my dad so far in tertiary educational expenses by becoming a PR:
*The first figure represents the fees that a Malaysian student would have to pay to do a course in Australia, and the figure on the right is the govt-subsidised fee that a local/permanent resident student would have to pay. The difference between them represent the savings. All figures in Australian dollars
Dad must be happy. He has saved $78,000 between the two of us. That’s approximately RM210,600! And that hasn’t included my bro’s future fees Dad often jokes that this is almost like he has won the lottery
Anyways, congrats to my sis! And thanks to the Australian govt
When the Opposition Democrats boycotted the Thai elections last year, I disagreed with their choice of action. So I guess to be consistent with my stance, I must say that I disagree with PAS’s decision to boycott the by-election to protest about the performance of the Electoral Comission as well then.
Similar with not voting as a form of protest, I don’t see how giving the ‘enemy’ a free seat in parliament, however hollow it may be, is a good way of giving BN the middle finger. Even though the Electoral Commission is not exactly neutral, it has been proven that it is possble for Opposition parties in Malaysia to win seats there. In fact, what’s PAS complaining about when compared to DAP? Being a Malay-majority party, it can still theoretically win many of UMNO’s stronghold semi-rural Malay-majority seats such as this Batu Talam one. Thanks to gerrymandering, DAP has only a handful of urban seats left where it can realistically win. Some of DAP’s traditional stronghold seats can have constituency sizes of up to 4 times more than some UMNO stronghold seats.
Anyway, it would be a monumental mistake for the Opposition, especially PKR and DAP to boycott the coming General Elections, since they have never had a better chance of winning big in it since 1999. DAP has wisely stated that they would be calling their own shots in it, so I’m kinda only concerned about PKR. I really hope Mr Anwar will instruct PKR to contest vigorously in as many seats as it can afford in that GE instead.
Don’t worry. I’m not a communist or a Marxist As an atheist Buddhist, I just liked the sound of this quote when I first saw it. To the more religious readers here, apologies if it offended you, but hey, free country right?
As far as I understand the quote, Marx sees religions as illusions conjured by the suffering masses in order to help them alleviate their suffering.
Anyway, cheers for now then!
P.S: Will have less updates for next week, as I’ve just moved house and my broadband’s down for now. Using crappy 56kbps modem back-up at the moment.
Is it just me, or can everyone else sense a gentle breeze of change blowing in terms of Malaysia’s political landscape these days?
I’ve just read in Malaysiakini that an anti-toll hike jointly organised by DAP, Keadilan, PAS and various NGOs in front of Sunway Pyramid, KL, was well attended (by politically-apathetic Malaysian standards), attracting more than a thousand protesters.
However, there are differing accounts of the crowd size. According to The Sun, there were only 300+ protesters. This can probably be explained if The Sun only counted those ‘core’ party member protesters while excluding the more casual protesters who joined them intermittently, or due to the heavy pro-govt media censorship in Malaysia.
Here are some good photos of the protest in Jeff Ooi’s blog. There are also short YouTube videos of it here:
Whatever it is, the respectable size of this protest, coupled with the turnouts of the other earlier protests against the fuel and electricity-hike, can be taken as an indicator that for the first time in Malaysia, there is widespread dissatisfaction by Malaysians of all races towards the performance of the BN government. Racially-united protests like these has never happened before, with past protests being exclusively focused on particular race or religious issues. I guess everybody’s united against government actions that hurt their pockets
The increase in protests against the Abdullah administration is also largely caused by the economic slowdown experienced there. Dr Mahathir had fewer of these problems the because of Malaysia’s accelerating ‘Asian Tiger’ economy during the 80’s and early 90’s.
These racially-united protests sends out grave signals to BN, as it would seem that the Opposition are rightly riding on this wave of discontent on their way towards grabbing one of their best election results in recent decades. Again, I would predict that the urban-based DAP would be the biggest benefactor of this discontent with their traditional secular platform of good governance and accountability, followed closely by Keadilan, if it is successful in tapping on to the relatively new phenomenon of the discontented Malay voters.
Following the Australian political trend, new leaders usually enjoy a honeymoon period which their popularity spikes, but which following that will dip again. So far, Rudd has managed to avoid that trend. He has consolidated his honeymoon ratings into 2007.
I’ve also noticed that this year’s coming elections is shaping up to be a very interesting one. Unlike his predecessors Latham (who was too emotionally unstable and too pro-working class) and Beazley (unable to get the voter’s attention), Rudd seems to have gotten Howard into a corner. He has stolen Howard’s stranglehold on the religious segment of voters, since he’s a devout Christian. Rudd is also not afraid in trying to blend Christianity with social-democracy to form his ideological platform to be offered to the voters.
I also think that Rudd has helped to usher more ideological debates to the public political discourse. He isn’t afraid to defend social-democracy from its usual detractors from the Right camps of social conservatives and economic liberals. In fact, he is going one better by trying to form a wedge between those two camps! I am very happy that he has spotted that weakness of the New Right. I’ve always wondered how the social and economic aspects of the New Right can be reconciled ever since I got into Western politics. On one hand, you have these religious types who advocates providing assistance to the poor and destitute in society, and on the other hand you have these corporate fat cats who are pushing for unrestricted free-market mechanisms and bottom lines, at the expense of families, the poor and the working class. And Howard is saying that they go together? Get real!
Since my uni is situated in the middle of Sydney, I’ve had the luxury of having many options when it comes to chow time
You know, I could have sworn that in my first year at uni, I gained an extra 5 kg! Goddamn because of McDonalds there. Also because I kinda slacked off from pounding the pavements that year.
Present weight: 68.5kg (with a height of bout 1.72m)
Don’t know whether that’s still good or bad. But considering how I still look like a bean-pole in front of the mirror, I think I’m still under the ‘acceptable’ category.
Anyway, I digress. Back to the topic at hand
My favourite place of all is Shalom, situated along Broadway, a little way down from the Broadway Shopping Centre. It hands down sells the spiciest Indonesian food in Sydney. I don’t just love this place, I think I’m addicted to it Since I was a Malay/Mamak food addict, and because there are very few original Malay/Mamak food in Sydney, I had to substitute my cravings to Indonesian food here. To tell the truth, I haven’t even eaten anything non-chicken at Shalom yet. Every time I go there (which is quite often) I will only order either 71C (Ayam Bakar with fresh chili) or 73 (Ayam Goreng with fresh chili). To me, these two dishes with their stupendous fresh chili paste is heaven. Indonesian food differs greatly from Malay food due to that. Malay food doesn’t have fresh chopped chili paste, it only has sambal (which is also good, incidentally).
