The Malaysian Insider

JAN 21 — This the story appeared in The Star:

Nanyang Siang Pau reported that the number of Chinese in the civil service has dropped tremendously despite the Government’s efforts to lure the community into the service. Although their recruitment had been the highest in recent years, the overall number was still smaller than five years ago, and even less compared to 10 years ago, Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Sidek Hassan told the daily.

JAN 8 — This article is for Sarawak observers and Sarawakians in general. After the last state election in 2006, many think another state election would be due in 2010. Sarawak is BN’s “fixed deposit”, to quote Pak Lah, and Sarawak’s 31 seats are worth about 13 per cent of the seats in Parliament.

However, BN will probably lose up to three parliamentary seats in the next general election in Sarawak. A lot will depend on whether Sarawak will hold state and parliamentary elections simultaneously. Right now, Sarawak is the only state in Malaysia with a separate date for state elections.

DEC 26 — Malaysians like to laugh at the kiasu, (Hokkien dialect for “afraid to lose”), mentality among Singaporeans. We think it’s funny but in reality, it is actually one of the reasons why Singaporeans are winning the economic growth game. They will do anything to win and will go the extra mile.

On this side of the causeway, we suffer from a condition called “give chance”. Whenever mistakes are made, or when someone does not perform or under-perform, we “give chance” to that person. In many cases, that person will not improve, consequently, nothing improves, and nothing works but we “give chance”.

DEC 19 — We Malaysians are really on par with the developed countries.

We produce thousands of university graduates every year and our academics keep winning “gold medals” in competitions in trade fairs where the entrance fees, more or less, guarantee you a bronze prize.

When this issue as raised in parliament four years ago the then Higher Education minister said he was no longer allow these sort of things to happen again. Well guess what — this year alone the newspapers reported at least six public universities taking part in these sorts of shenanigans again. Ahhhhh, our collective memory is short....

DEC 11 — In the days of strongman rule by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, nobody dared to use the word “racist” against any Umno politician. Now it seems the word “racist” is being used all over the place. In Parliament where the nation’s brightest are supposed to be found, they keep calling each other racist. The following are “racist”, according to their fellow parliamentarians — Lim Guan Eng, Lim Kit Siang, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Karpal Singh, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, Datuk Ibrahim Ali, M. Kulasegaran, Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin and many others. But the “father of all racism” is Dr Mahathir, according to Nazri.