The Cane Mutiny... By Kartika, With Shahrizat, Then Bar Council... Lagi?

I'm disgusted by the Kartika Canning Saga. First of all, this woman was caught drinking, which is an offence for Muslims. It does gall me though how easily some Muslims get caught (then sentenced) for drinking, and how some get away with it being a chic trendy activity of the 'upper class'. One drinker (since taubat? I dunno...!) was even known to have been Chairman of a Halal Forum! Such hypocracy should offend all Malaysian Muslims!

OK, so lets forgive our religious establishment a while and give them the support to carry out this punishment against this offending woman. But then no... lets not! A whole bunch liberals, real and pretend, including the ever confused Sisters in Islam, started crying foul on the 'cruel' punishment of whipping a woman under Syariah. Their voices were lent further 'weight' by the leaders of both major Malay Muslim parties, DS Shahrizat Jalil for UMNO and YB Dr Lo'Lo' Ghazali from PAS.

Rather disappointingly, all this defence for the offending woman was done in ignorance. All this complaining was done without finding out what Syariah whipping by the cane is like, thinking it's like the vicious whipping by cane regularly sentenced to drug dealers by the secular courts. When th syariah authorities revealed how relatively mild Syariah canning was, the PAS lady rather embarrasedly withdrew her protest! DS Shahrizat just went mum for a while...

In the meantime, whilst the world press got to enjoy bashing Syariah Law... again... as well as Malaysia... again... the person who seems to be benefiting from all this is... the offending woman! She is now seen in full glamour, on the front pages of newspapers, walking at her kampung, waving to people, she's everywhere! She is supposed to be shamed by the punishment, instead, she's revelling in it! Even her father gets quoted in the press!

As a friend remarked on Facebook,"Any 5 minutes of fame is always good for a part time model what?!! After this she should be receiving a lot of modelling offers, I am sure..."

Disgusting!

Now we have two extremes coming out of the Pakatan or quasi-Pakatan side of the political divide:

1. Selangor Pakatan exco and PAS Commissioner Datuk Dr Hassan Ali, fresh from hugging Ronnie Liu in front of DS Anwar Ibrahim, has given the state's Mosque officials power to nab Muslims drinking alcohol! HO HO! Not sure really whether this is because of the Kartika case, seeing as the offending woman was nabbed in a BN state (!), or if it is Round 2 of the state DAP vs PAS slugfest!


2. Bar Council President Ragunath Kesavan, in response to fresh news that the punishment will be postponed to after Ramadhan, and perhaps in heat with the chance to bantai our Syariah courts, which is NOT Bar Council territory, declares he wants 'whipping' abolished! One wonders whether he feels the same about the more vicious mandatory whipping sentence against convicted drug dealers? If so, why not declare something earlier on that?

In the end, all these people are declaring this and that to get the same thing Kartika is now getting, a chance to be prominent in some way... WOI! THE WOMAN GOT CAUGHT DRINKING ALCOHOL, SHE IS MUSLIM and SHE'S BEING PUNISHED! Dah la tu! This is between her and Allah! The religious authorities are just facilitating this and her family has at least 'shown her the light'! WE SHOULD BE WISHING MORE OFFENDING MUSLIMS ARE CAUGHT AND PUNISHED!

But nooo... the saga continues! Sure punya...

Amnesty International, an organisation that has singularly failed to achieve any change in the world, but continue to get money by pretending to achieve stuff, now has jumped into the band-wagon! Please-lah Amnesty, go achieve something more meaningful first lah, like stopping Palestinian kids and babies from being killed by the Zionists, then maybe we and the rest of the world will listen to you more... No need to butt into our small local drama ...

So, 'siapa lagi?', who else wants to wade into this one?

PKR's PRK Epidemic; Symptoms Of A Greater Disease?

There will be a by-election for the Penanti DUN seat in Penang. This is due to it's PKR assemblyman's resignation following the charge against him for corruption. This will be the 3rd by-election or 'PRK' that is happening due to the resignation of a PKR incumbent just over 1 year since the PRU12 that saw the party's resurgence under Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's leadership. Such statistics do not augur well for PKR, especially when one considers there could have been double the number of such PRK's!

Note that PKR had tried to have their two assemblymen in Perak who 'jumped' out of the party, leading to BN's takeover of Perak, removed from office, which would have led to by-elections. Note also that these 2 'jumpers' are still due be tried for corruption during their time as Pakatan Rakyat Exco members, which is why BN left them as independents, so we may yet see 2 more PKR related by-elections in Perak!

It should hence come as no surprise when it was decided by the PKR leadership that Elizabeth Wong could retain her position, not just as the assemblywoman for Bukit Lanjan, but also as a state exco member. Having her resign both posts, also over a moral issue, would have been too much.

For one thing has to be said about all these PKR 'wakil rakyat' resignations and PRKs. With the exception of Permatang Pauh, where DS Wan Azizah just resigned as she was sick of being her hubby's proxy, all of the PKR assemblymen that have resigned have done so because or are or were expected to due to corruption or a scandal due to slack morals.

Everyone knows PKR exists to get DS Anwar Ibrahim the PM's post, by any means. In fact, if PKR needs to join BN so that Anwar can be made PM, they'd abandon PR and make the deal. However, PKR's rhetoric has always been justice and the opposition of government corruption. All this was well and good when in opposition, but they are tripping up now they're in power at some states.

With morals being the issue leading to their ADUN resigning at Bukit Selambau earlier and DS Anwar's sodomy case pending, the acceptance of Eli Wong's lapse in moral judgement as a 'private' matter by PKR's MB means PR can no longer sit on a high horse on moral issues. In fact, they have less reason to frown upon DS Chua Soi Lek's DVD scandal than MCA and BN.

But PKR losing their high horse on corruption could prove fatal. Much to DS Anwar's delight, DS Najib does still have much to do to improve UMNO and BN's image based on the last by-elections results. However, the government is still BN's to lose, and the economic crisis presents an ideal opportunity for DS Najib and BN to regain its credibility.

The problem DS Anwar has to resolve is more difficult, that is, how to turn PKR's gains, even the recent PRK ones, from being mere protest votes against BN, which they are, into genuine support for Pakatan Rakyat and PKR especially. Having more credible, moral and less corrupt election candidates from PKR would help... before people start wondering whether there are any...

PS I'm now back home, but am still on MC. Will slowly get back to work next week. Still need to take it easy, so sorry for the continued poor formatting and referencing... limitations of blogging on my HTC TytnII...

Cooking Oil, Cooking Oil, Where Art Thou Cooking Oil...

This blogger was recently accused of needing a sex scandal to resume writting. Whilst not denying such things can be inspirational, may I be 'holier than thou' here by proclaiming that it was the clear degeneration in Moral Standards in our leadership that 'inspired' me!

Be that as it may, I now feel compelled to further prove my worth by borrowing from Shakespeare to alude to the fact that not only sex-scandalised Federal Ministers are so cultured, but also to write on something completely devoid of sexual intonations to us 'holier..', cooking oil!

Actually, I had loads in mind to write until I saw the good work done by fellow blogger lulu, and was compelled to quote her instead when agreeing, disappearance of cooking oil may be partly due to high CPO price (indicative of high edible oils price in general as well)...

http://whatalulu.blogspot.com/2008/01/then-it-suddenly-struck-lulu.html

...and likely has very little to do with a prompt 'population explosion' as believed by a certain minister... unless the 'explosion' was due to sudden massive imports of cooking-oil guzzling illegal workers (jeng-jeng!) or if Siti Nurhaliza has been heavily campaigning for the feeding of cooking oil to the more modest baby output making it look like an explosion, of which she has not ...

http://whatalulu.blogspot.com/2008/01/lulus-wondering-if-we-had-sudden.html

This theory of lulu's that price controlled goods are being affected by such shortages more than others is also plausible, though maybe some general economics discussion would be prudent to explain why this may be happening to us Malaysians...

http://whatalulu.blogspot.com/2008/01/lulu-wonders-whats-next.html

OK, everyone who pretends to know economics reckons it is all to do with 'supply and demand'. Unfortunately for many of us, since the publishing of the Undercover Economist among other books, more have begun to understand that economics and the movement of goods is actually more to do with marginal supply and marginal demand.

What do I mean by 'marginal' - well marginal here means effectively the last ton, lori, kg, tanker, litre, bottle, metre, cup or whatever unit/resceptacle of a product that is or may be sold at any time. Movements of marginal supply and demand levels are not necessarily indicative of a shortage in a market for a good, but it may indicate why goods are not being sold.

So, time now for a motherhood statement - just because I like them as it makes me look important! THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF COOKING OIL GLOBALLY AND CERTAINLY NOT IN MALAYSIA, ONE OF THE BIGGEST MARGINAL PRODUCERS OF EDIBLES OILS!

There is however a structural problem with the country's ability to efficiently distribute food, leading to issues of availability at certain locations at certain times and a need for a better supply chain as one can read from these articles on the web for starters:

http://www.econ.upm.edu.my/~peta/nik/nikmustapha.html
http://www.isis.org.my/files/pubs/papers/LWFoodSecurity&EconomicGrowth.pdf

No mention of cooking oil though, so how is this relevant? It is relevant in the context of the one source of news that Malaysians all rely on... gossip! Compounded by the biggest authority that shapes consumer market movements in the country, rumour!

It begins with Makcik Lela, who whinges to her friend that she couldn't find anything but Mazola at the supermarket. She just happened to mention this while passing by the kedai kopi where Pak Tam, happily asked the owner if he has oil. The owner says yes, but his Minyak Cap Kerja feels like is getting more expensive. Maybe it is because there is less Minyak Cap Kerja since the kedai kopi owner of course knows all about Supply and Demand. Other patrons nod their head in shared wisdom over cups of kopi-o.

Pak Tam in panic rushes home, instructs his wife to rush to the local kedai runcit and buy up all the Mazola left. Whilst his wife rushes along to buy Mazola, which she never buys, spreading gossip along the way, Pak Tam chooses to alert his daughter and all his daughter in-laws of the rumour of a shortage in cooking oil. "Remember the salt shortage?" he says,"This is worse!"

In due course, one of the younger members of Pak Tam's family finds it to be his civic duty to warn the entire staff of his GLC as well as his entire high school alumni and futsal club of the shortage in cooking oil. These fellows in turn decide that they should sms people as people should be warned promptly, and many are not on the web! Then the 'news' reaches the ears of a few politicians, many still reeling and gleeing over a DVD Sex-Scandal, as well as a few bloggers...

OK, I digress...

As I mentioned, back to marginal economics, lulu did have a point when linking the cooking oil and other recent shortages with our government's controlled goods policy. All in all, the policy is a good one as it provides some cost security of some critical food items to the populace, of significant benefit to the poor, but a benefit shared by all.

However, the government must also remember that businesses that produce these goods are there to make money. So, unless these businesses find it favourable and profitable to produce these goods for local consumption, these producers would rather produce the goods for export to more profitable markets or worse, not produce anything at all! They are not 'holier than thou'.

The solution, beyond the distribution issue mentioned earlier, would likely be a review of the control elements, such as price, or perhaps even the systems, mechanisms and processes underlying the control goods policy itself. In the end, whilst controling the cost of cooking oil, salt or other goods for public good, the government must ensure the prices are still better than the marginal cost of supply for the producer, and if needed, better than the marginal export options.

Of course, you need to find better people that those consultants who proposed the National Automotive Policy, but then I am holier than thou...

... by the way, was it those jokers or their friends on the 4th floor who suggested that 'rationing' of cooking oil was a solution. Hahahaha... what sort of unenforcable inefficient measure is this! Do we have to show our MyKad before buying now? Maybe queue at the nearest cooking oil AP holder's place?

PS - I hear even the PM is weighing in on this one now. Come on Pak Lah! It seems only you can solve such a difficult problem affecting so many voters! I'm sure as Finance Minister you know all about Marginal Economics...

Morality Or Dogma: A Test Case Of What Religion Means To Our Leaders

The start of the year presents me with a wonderful issue to resume my writing on, which presents a test-case for the government. I am referring to of course the DVD-Sex Scandal featuring the current MCA VP and Health minister Dato' Dr Chua Soi Lek:
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/1/2/nation/19897364&sec=nation&focus=1

Whilst there have been quite a few views being shared of how this was a 'private matter', by no lesser critic than the opposition DAP, and the family has 'forgiven' Dato' Dr Chua, this remains an interesting and critical case for the government especially due to the various regligious issues plaguing the Lah-ist Hadharite administration.

The question in my mind is, does the government care about personal morals, that is the shared core of all religious beliefs in Malaysia, or does it only play lip service to religion for the sake of politics. The former would and should result in the immediate dismissal of Dato' Dr Chua, not just as he has strayed, but more due to the Health Minister's apparent view that infidelity, a key moral transgression, is a minor problem and not worthy enough reason for him to tender his resignation.

That Dato' Dr Chua was also one of the non-Muslim cabinet ministers that last year stood up for the rights of minority religions in Malaysia stands proof positive of his hypocracy, as how can one defend religion publicly whilst privately practice loose morals!

For the Pak Lah to retain Dato' Dr Chua in his cabonet would result in a further erossion of its authority to administer and address issues related to religion, which is being particularly challenged at this point in time.

The first line in the tenets of this country, the Rukunegara, is "Kepercayaan Kepada Tuhan" or "Belief In God". It is incumbent on this government to ACT on this of all Rukunegara.

By the way, I wrote ACT with emphasis with the hopethat any 4th floor boys reading this don't think Pak Lah can get away with lame spins like:

• We leave it to the leadership of the component party... or
• It is a private matter... or
• We have discussed with yadda yadda and will come to a conclusion soon... or
• We leave it to the wisdom of the grassroots...

Pak Lah, we are still waiting for you to lead. If you can't show leadership on this issue, an issue of morals and religion, for which you have even have a university degree on(!), then...