Bagan Lalang Gathering.. Bani Hashim Clan

An Oxford guy....

The Umno ‘Wow Factor’

A farmer named Lakbir Singh was overseeing his herd in a remote pasture in Bolehland when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young Malay man in an Armani suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the farmer, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

Lakbir looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within mere seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data is stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the farmer and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Lakbir.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then Lakbir says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a graduate from Oxford and a Member of Parliament for Umno," says Lakbir.

"Wow! That's correct," exclaims the yuppie with the customary Umno's Wow Factor, "But how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answered Lakbir. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, and to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter you are, and you don't know a thing about cows. This is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog."

KT Tales... Simple arithmetic

Sedikit Analisis PRK KT

Perbandingan keputusan pilihanraya Kuala Terengganu:

PAS :
2009 - 32,883
2008 - 31,934
Pertambahan - 949

BN:
2008 - 32,562
2009 - 30,252
Penurunan - 2,310

Peratus mengundi menurun.

Dikatakan pengundi Cina masih berpihak kepada BN.

Pada 2008 ada sekitar 2,000 yang mengundi Pas peringkat DUN yang tak mengundi PAS di peringkat Parlimen. Adakah pertambahan undi sebanyak 949 itu datangnya dari kategori ini? Atau juga datang dari pengundi BEBAS dulu yang kini mengundi PAS.

Yang jelasnya penurunan undi BN sebanyak 2,310 belum tentu beralih kepada Pas kerana jika beralih kepada PAS, maka jumlah undi PAS akan menjadi 31,934 + 2,310 = 34,244, tanpa mengira undi 949 diatas dan ada pengundi Pas dulu tak keluar mengundi kali ini, dengan mengambil kira peratusan mengundi yang menurun.

Adakah penurunan undi BN kerana penyokong lamanya tak turun mengundi kali ini. Jika benar, maknanya kempen PR berjaya melemahkan semangat penyokong BN untuk tidak keluar mengundi, walaupun masih belum boleh mengajak mereka beralih ke PAS. Sesungguhnya itulah tujuan kempen pilihan raya.

Kita tunggu analisa dari jentera pilihan raya Pas Kuala Terengganu nanti.

Matematik pilihan raya tidaklah mudah. Perlu pelbagai andaian.

Yang pasti Pas sudah menang. Ha ha.

KT Tales..

A threat too far..

If it was just Umno that threatened the Chinese this can be accepted as ‘normal’. But when MCA joins the gang of thugs to also threaten their own community, this is something the Chinese find hard to stomach.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

“I need guys who can drink like a fish and not fall down,” I told Bernard. “So make sure we get the hardcore drinkers to Kuala Terengganu. The Chinese will never trust anyone who does not drink.”

It was exactly two weeks that we spent in Kuala Terengganu -- from the eve of Nomination Day until the day after Polling Day. It was not a lot of money we spent, though, just about RM25,000 in all. But then that is because we never had to pay for our beer and liquor. Our Chinese hosts would refuse to accept our money and appeared very offended when we insisted we pay.

Okay, not everyone drank. Even some Indians in the group did not drink a drop in spite of them having a reputation of being ‘terror drinkers’. In fact, Bala would not even drink Coke. He only drank plain water or, once in awhile, green tea.

Nevertheless, seeing that we had about 20 rooms, twin-sharing, there were certainly enough in the gang to do us proud and to stand up to the heavy-drinking Chinese loggers and saw-millers without falling down drunk before the witching hour.

“PAS is going to win big,” said my ‘drinking partner’ who was not only pissed drunk but quite pissed that I had a Coke glass in my hand and was refusing his constant ‘harassment’ to ‘drink with me’.

“Hey!” I kept reminding him. “Just being in this pub is already an offence. I could get arrested. You want me behind bars or what? Imagine how Umno would go to town with the news tomorrow when the newspaper headlines report ‘Blogger RPK caught drinking in a pub in Kuala Terengganu’. They will crucify me.”

“Okay, okay, I understand. You are forgiven. But I still don’t like drinking with someone drinking only Coke.”

“Never mind about me. My friends are drinking. They can drink my share.” In fact, Bernard more than drank my share. He probably drank three people’s share. Anyway, being a Muslim was a convenient ‘excuse’ not to drink. The others were never allowed a half-empty glass. Our Chinese friends from Kuala Terengganu kept topping up the glasses of our Blogging Team until no one knew any longer how much they had drunk.

“You do not need the Chinese votes,” my Chinese friend went on. “PAS is going to win big without the Chinese votes.”

This statement troubled me and I asked my Chinese friend who was facing great trouble tying to remain standing to explain what he meant.

“PAS is going to win big. The Malays will swing to PAS. You just watch. So you do not need the Chinese votes. The Chinese can vote BN.”

“I don’t think we should look at it that way,” I told my friend with a discouraged sound in my voice. “Every vote counts. We need the Chinese votes.”

My Chinese friend probably detected that I was perturbed and he downed his glass before explaining further. “We Chinese know that PAS is going to win. The Malays are going to swing to PAS. So you can win without the Chinese votes. The Malay votes are enough to give PAS the win.”

“Okay,” I replied. “But even if PAS can win with the Malay votes why can’t the Chinese also vote for PAS?”

“PAS is already going to win by at least 2,000 votes even if the Chinese vote BN. So why worry?”

“Okay, I understand. But what’s wrong if the Chinese also vote PAS and make the win 5,000 instead of 2,000?”

“We Chinese don’t want to be blamed for Umno’s loss. Let the Malays vote PAS. PAS then wins on the Malay votes. The Chinese will vote BN. Then Umno can’t blame the Chinese for their defeat. The Chinese voted BN and PAS won with the Malay votes, not the Chinese votes.”

I could see his logic here but I did not like it. “What if the Chinese vote BN and BN wins, PAS loses.”

“No way man. PAS will win. The Malay swing is big. It is safe for the Chinese to vote BN. PAS will still win.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why do the Chinese want to vote BN when you support PAS?”

“We support PAS. Look, my friend over there gave PAS RM1 million in the last general election.” He pointed to the chap at the end of the bar and signalled him to come over.

“We have no problems with PAS. We prefer PAS to BN,” his friend added. “I was the one in the Chinese newspapers who held up the can of beer in front of the PAS markas in Wakaf Tapai. You remember or not?”

Yes, I remembered that episode. I think it was in the 2004 general election. But Umno went to town with the whole thing and distorted the issue. They said that PAS is hypocritical about Islam and is allowing liquor in the state.

“Okay, what if PAS loses and they lose because the Chinese voted BN?”

“No way. PAS will win. If PAS is going to lose then we Chinese will vote PAS. But we know PAS will win. So no need for the Chinese to vote PAS. Let PAS win on the Malay votes. We Chinese can then say we voted BN but BN still lost. And it is because of the Malays and not the Chinese that PAS won.”

I suppose this is Chinese ‘logic’ and I have come to understand how the Chinese mind works. Cari makan is very important to the Chinese and must come first. They can’t risk their cari makan by being seen to be supporting the opposition. This was, after all, a bunch of Chinese towkays that I was taking to. They are flush with money and became rich not by being seen as anti-government.

By the end of the two weeks I realised that PAS would have to depend on the Malay swing, not the Chinese votes. The Chinese would give us enough votes just to keep BN in check. At best we can expect 40% to 45% votes from the Chinese. They will make sure that the majority of the Chinese vote for BN just so that it can be seen that more than half the Chinese support the government. But it will not be more than that.

Rosmah Mansor, the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister, made this very clear to the Kuala Terengganu voters on Saturday, one week before the by-election. “We know who you vote for,” said Rosmah. “If you vote for the opposition we will know.”

The message Rosmah was sending to the Kuala Terengganu voters is that your vote is not secret and the government will know if you voted for PAS or BN. That is not true, of course, but who would want to take that risk in case it is?

The Terengganu Menteri Besar, Ahmad Said, was more blunt when he told the Chinese. “If you are nice to me, then I will be nice to you. If you are not nice to me, then I can be ten times more not nice to you.”

This was a veiled threat if ever I did see one and the message was simple: if you vote for PAS then expect my wrath. And everyone knows Ahmad Said would not hesitate to engage in fisticuffs, even during a State Assembly meeting, as Wahid Endut, who was once a victim of Ahmad Said, can testify.

The 8,000 Chinese voters in a state with a population of more than one million Malays do not need too many ‘messages’ to understand what lies ahead of them if they vote for PAS. And the 8,000 police personnel positioned all over town, practically laying Kuala Terengganu to siege, makes matters more dicey. Why the need for a police-to-Chinese ratio of one-to-one?

What the Chinese were telling us was not comforting but something we could not quarrel with. The Chinese were being threatened. They were being told that they vote for PAS at their own peril. If they know what is good for them then they must vote BN.

The Chinese got the message loud and clear. And they also knew that PAS was going to win just on Malay votes, even if the Chinese voted BN. Okay, if the Chinese vote BN then PAS is going to win by a 2,000-vote majority. And if the Chinese vote PAS then the majority is going to be 5,000. But is it worth the risk just to increase PAS’s majority from 2,000 to 5,000?

I had to concede that the Chinese are going to ‘play safe’. “But just promise me one thing,” I told my Chinese friend. “If PAS can’t get the Malay swing will the Chinese then vote PAS?”

“If PAS can’t win without Malay votes then we Chinese will vote PAS. But PAS will win, you watch, so no need for the Chinese votes. Let us vote BN and then we can put the blame on the Malays when PAS wins.”

The story does not end here though. On Sunday morning, the Blogging Team did a door-to-door walkabout to personally thank the Chinese voters before we came home to Kuala Lumpur. Some had tears in their eyes. “Kita menang,” many told me. Yes, ‘kita menang’, not ‘you menang’. It was a win for them as well as far as the Chinese were concerned.

Many who were wet with tears while hugging me tightly probably did not vote for PAS. They could not due to fear of retaliation. But it was still ‘we won’ for them. And they will tell their comrades all over Malaysia that they voted for BN mainly because the government threatened them. 8,000 Chinese voters in a state of more than one million and with 8,000 armed police surrounding the town did not offer them too many options.

But the Chinese will remember this. They will remember how Umno threatened them in the Kuala Terengganu by-election on 17 January 2009. And it will be payback time come the next general election. You can threaten 8,000 Chinese when your numbers are more than one million. But try doing this in states where the Malay-Chinese population is almost balanced.

Umno ‘won over’ the Chinese in Kuala Terengganu. But it was with a gun at the head. And the Chinese will never forget this. And neither will we. I was hoping that the Chinese were right. I was hoping that the Chinese can safely vote BN and that PAS will still win just on the Malay votes. On hindsight, the Chinese were right of course. Much to my relief that is exactly what happened, though I would have loved a 5,000 majority instead of just 2,631.

In the short-term, Umno ‘won’ the Chinese votes. But the ‘win’ was gained through the barrel of the gun. This is not the best way to win because, in the long-term, the Chinese will want to ‘pay back’ Umno for threatening them in the Kuala Terengganu by-election.

And that will be when Umno discovers they have won the battle of Kuala Terengganu but they are going to lose the war, the bigger battle for Malaysia. And MCA too will suffer. If it was just Umno that threatened the Chinese this can be accepted as ‘normal’. But when MCA joins the gang of thugs to also threaten their own community, this is something the Chinese find hard to stomach. MCA is supposed to serve the Chinese. In the Kuala Terengganu by-election, MCA was the voice of Umno to help threaten the Chinese.

Israelis are living high on US expense account - Michael Backman

Michal Backman

AN 17 — There's a memorable scene in the Stephen Spielberg film “Munich”. After the 1972 Munich Olympic Games killings of Israeli athletes, Prime Minister Golda Meir tells confidants she wants to show the plotters that killing Jews "is expensive". She then organises for the assassination of each of the plotters.

Today, it is Israel itself that has become expensive. Most directly, it is very expensive to the US, which subsidises and arms it.

But Israel's utter inability to transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends has imposed big costs on us all. We have paid for Israel's failure with bombs on London public transport, bombs in bars in Bali, and even the loss of the World Trade Centre towers in New York.

It is not true that these outrages have occurred because certain Islamic fundamentalists don't like Western lifestyles and so plant bombs in response. Rather, it is Israel — or more correctly the treatment of the Palestinians — that is at the nub of these events.

The world's Muslims have no head: no overarching caliph or pope equivalent exists — no single power source with whom to negotiate. Instead, Islam is remarkably decentralised. So, how extraordinary that Israel and the West have managed to unite this headless, diverse, dispersed grouping without any institutional framework, around just one issue — anger at the treatment of the Palestinians.

Otherwise dispersed groups of Muslims do seem to feel for one another in a way that Christians and others do not. In this respect, the international Islamic community is like a body: kick it in the leg and the rest of the body feels it. Kick it hard enough and the entire body will be energised to defend itself. Pictures of distraught Gazan mothers beside the mutilated bodies of their children are circulating right now among Muslim communities worldwide. It is pictures like these that make them want to do something.

Consider Malaysia. Every citizen of this outpost of Islam has printed in his or her passport that the passport is not valid for Israel. And given that Malaysians are not allowed to hold dual citizenship, this essentially means that every Malaysian citizen, including the 40 per cent who are not Muslims, are banned from visiting Israel.

"When will Malaysia recognise Israel?" I once asked the then finance minister. "Once Israel treats the Palestinians better," was his reply. How would he determine that? "When the Palestinians tell us," he said. It is not Israel's right to exist that is at issue.

The enmity many Muslims now feel for Israel has nothing to do with religion. The historical persecutors of the Jews have been Christians — their punishment for the death of Jesus. Jews and Muslims have lived in peace for hundreds of years in many parts of the Islamic world. When Catholic Spain and Portugal expelled its Jews, the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul invited them in. It is the Palestinian issue that has ruined all this.

Of course, today Israel must defend itself. If the residents of Bendigo started firing rockets into Melbourne you would expect Melbourne to retaliate. But what must Melbourne have done to Bendigo to make them do such a thing? Constantly slapping an opponent in the face, kicking it down to its knees, and watching it struggle in the dirt will not teach the opponent to love or respect you. It teaches only hatred.

Persecuting people does not weaken them. Israel should know that. The Jews have been persecuted for centuries. It didn't destroy them but gave them the impetus to survive.

One characteristic that is common among persecuted groups is a strong investment in education — when people's physical wealth is in danger of destruction from war and persecution one store of wealth that stays with individuals even when they must flee as refugees is education. It explains why such groups often insist on their own schools — education is too important to be entrusted to others.

Hamas did not enjoy the support of all the people of Gaza. It does now. Why does Israel keep getting it wrong?

Trekking in Nepal is fashionable among young Israelis. So much so that many shops in Kathmandu and Pokhara have signs in Hebrew. But once you get on the trekking circuit and speak with local Nepalese guides and guesthouse operators you soon discover how disliked the Israelis are. Many guesthouses in this poor country will even tell Israeli trekking groups that they are full rather than accept them. This has nothing to do with religion or politics: Nepalese people are some of the warmest, most hospitable in the world. Rather, they say that the young Israelis are rude, arrogant, and argue over trifling amounts of money even though they clearly have means.

Israel needs to change. The Parsees of India might provide a model. The Parsees are a very tiny, very rich ethnic and religious minority. They own perhaps most of the land in central Mumbai as well as the country's largest conglomerate. And yet ordinary Indians admire and respect them. Violence against them is unthinkable.

How have they achieved this? They are not flashy or arrogant. Their overriding characteristic is a deep interest in the welfare of others. They have established hospitals, libraries, schools, museums and many other institutions and, most importantly, not for the Parsee community exclusively but for everyone. So the Parsees have peace and the Israelis do not. — The Age

Actual Photographs of HAMAS most wanted Terrorists..

Another Israeli spokesman, Tzipora Menache, said she was not immensely worried about negative ramifications that Operation Cast Lead might have on the way the Obama administration would view Israel.

“You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House.”

“You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable.”

Asked if he was not worried that her remarks would cause a public relations disaster, Menache said “what can they do to us. We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, we control everything in America.

“In America you can criticize G-d, but you can’t criticize Israel.”

Desertpeace

Why they hate us so much....

"Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?"

Robert Fisk

In Contrast......

One ...

Versus 47

"...Grad rockets can't compete with footage from Gaza of crying children splattered in blood.."

"Another problem facing Israel, according to Foreign Ministry sources, is that while the world is being fed dramatic pictures from Gaza, there are few dramatic pictures from Israel, and gaping holes in apartment buildings hit by Grad rockets can't compete with footage from Gaza of crying children splattered in blood."

The Jurusalem Post

I think they're sleeping, don't u?

Qunut for Gazans/Palestines/Kashmiries/Al muslimeen..

warlocke

Qunut for Gaza in the Obligatory Prayers

Sun Jan 4, 2009 3:47AM

60.54.41.48

Qunut for Gaza in the Obligatory Prayers

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.As far as Islamic Shari`ah is concerned, it is permissible to make du`aa’ Al-Qunut in every obligatory Prayer for our brothers and sisters in Gaza. In fact, it is recommended to do so and to think of other practical ways to help stop the current aggression against them. During times of affliction and crises, Muslims, rulers and the ruled, scholars and individuals should lend a helping hand to afflicted or oppressed people. Du`aa’ is a strong weapon that any Muslim should use.
It is strongly recommended to recite du`aa’ Qunut in all Prayers for our beloved brothers and sisters in Gaza seeking divine assistance for them, and wishing that Almighty Allah grants mercy to all those who have been killed unjustly and inhumanly. This is firmly in line with the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) practice when the Muslims faced difficult moments and situations such as the situation of people of Gaza. Surely, the people of Gaza badly need our continuous Prayers and du`aa’s for them in all our prostrations. The oppressors and those who help them must be ready for their days which will surely and certainly come.

Moreover, Sheikh `Abdul-Majeed Subh, a prominent Azharite scholar, adds:

It is permissible for Muslims to offer du`aa’ Al-Qunut in each obligatory Prayer during times of calamity and affliction. We are now facing a great catastrophe and it is therefore good to offer this du`aa’ in the daily Prayers.

Ibn `Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) is reported to have said that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) made qunut consecutively for one month in all the five daily Prayers. At the end of each Prayer, after saying "Allah hears him who praises Him" in the last rak`ah, he would supplicate Almighty Allah against Ri`l, Dhakwan, and `Usiyyah of Banu Sulaim, and the people behind him would say Ameen.