We never seem to see the obvious

Case 1
When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out
that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to
the writing surface). To solve this problem, it took them one decade
and US$12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity,
upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal
and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.

And what did the Russians do...?? They used a pencil.

Case 2
One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the
case of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of Japan 's biggest
cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer
had bought a soapbox that was empty. Immediately the authorities
isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the
packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason,

some soapboxes went through the assembly line empty.

Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the
engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution
monitors manned by two people to watch all the soapboxes that passed
through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they
worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a huge amount to do
so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with
the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc.,
but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong
industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He

switched the fan on, and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply
blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Moral: Always look for simple solutions.

Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems

Always Focus on solutions & not on problems

Case 3

On Chinese New Year Eve, after having washed my car, I decided to drive it back into the car porch. The engine could not start and so with my two boys, we decided to push the car instead. Later in the evening, I had a gripping pain at my spine near the kidney area. Somewhere around 11 pm, unable to tolerate the pain anymore, my son drove me to the Pantai Hospital Cheras for checkup. I was given some ointment and some pain killers, total bill that came up to RM84.

On the second day of Chinese New Year, the pain did not subside and I had to pay my sister-in-law a visit. Seeing me in that painful condition, she gave me a bottle of Chinese wine (in Cantonese, it is called 'tit ta chau') to rub my back with. I was given a rub over there and then and after 10 minutes, the pain was gone. Cost of the ointment RM3.50. Why didn't I think of this in the first place?

Monday Humour

A little boy goes to his father and asks 'Daddy, how was I born?'

The father answers, 'Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, and googled each other. There your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said:

You got MALE!

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THE CHINESE SPEAKEE

At the final dinner of an international conference, an American delegate turned to the Chinese delegate sitting next to him, pointed to the soup and asked somewhat condescendingly, 'Likee soupee?'

The Chinese gentlemen nodded eagerly.

A little later, it was 'Likee fishee?' and 'Likee meatee?' and 'Likee fruitee?' and always the response was an affable nod.

At the end of the dinner the chairman of the conference introduced the guest speaker of the evening: none other than the Chinese gentleman who delivered a penetrating, witty discourse in impeccable English, much to the astonishment of his American neighbour.

When the speech was over, the speaker turned to his neighbour and with a mischievous twinkle in his eye and asked, 'Likee speechee?'

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Why Osama does not dare to mess around with China?

Bin Laden said: China is the world's only country we absolutely cannot mess with

The reason is this: al-Qaeda terrorists had made 8 attacks on the Chinese with
the following results:

One person was to explode a bomb in Beijing Xizhimen (the main northwest gate
of Beijing) but he lost his way in the three-dimensional traffic bridge

One person in Shanghai was to take a bus to explode a suicide bomb in the bus,
but it was so crowded he could not get into a bus for two hours

One person was to bomb a supermarket in Wuhan, but found that the bomb remote
control was stolen

One person wanted to bomb government buildings in Chengdu, but was stopped at
the door by the security staff and arrested as an East Turkistan separatist,
and was beaten and interrogated

One person succeeded in bombing a Hebei mine, with hundreds of people dead and
wounded, and then returned to the al-Qaeda center, but even after six months,
failed to see any news reports on the success of the bombing (due to news
blackout by the China government), was considered by the organization to claim
a false victory and was executed (this is the most pathetic!)

One person had tried to bomb Guangzhou, but as he came off the train, a
motorcycle robber (flying car robber) snatched his bag (containing the bomb)
from him

One person who arrived in Xi'an lost contact, and was later found at the
hospital in a coma. Doctors said it was the result of him eating not
only "black-hearted" food products, but he also drank fake alcohol, and would
possibly be in a vegetative state

Later, bin Laden tried to send a female terrorist to blow up Hainan Island, but
she was cheated into prostitution

Finally, bin Laden have to say: Remember! ! China is the world's only country
we absolutely cannot mess with!.

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What Makes A Malaysian A Malaysian?

1. A typical young Malaysian can name all the players from a top English
Premier League club, but ask him to name one football player from Malaysia,
he cannot!

2.. When StreamyX come, you complain StreamyX too slow. When Maxis Broadband
come, you complain Maxis Broadband always disconnects. When WiMax come, you
complain Wimax too expensive. In the end, you say StreamyX still the best lah..

3. When highway toll price increase, you complain. When petrol price increase,
you complain. When you go Starbucks buy RM10 coffee, NO COMPLAINTS.

4. When you cannot find parking in a shopping mall and have to walk very far,
you complain. When you go inside the shopping mall and there's SALE, run from
one end of 1Utama to the other, that one? NO COMPLAINT.

5. You are always late. And the excuse you give when you're late is always
either: (a) traffic jam (b) no transport or (c) cannot find parking.

6. You have a parent who forces you to take science stream in high school,
study engineering in Uni, then when you graduate, they ask you to forget
everything you learnt in Uni and do commerce.

7. You know someone who can specially develop an angmoh accent when speaking to
an American/ British / Australian.

8. You complain against the government in kopitiam, you talk loud loud. Leave
anonymous comments on blogs, you also talk loud loud. Attend ceremah by DAP,
you shout loud loud. Then when Opposition organise a protest and ask you to
go, you dun wan. Scared later kena tangkap by ISA.

9. Every year on the 30th April, you are one of the people below queuing up
last minute to submit your tax return at the IRB.

10. When you pay RM10 for something that costs RM1, you blame the Chinese.
When a government service is too slow, you blame the Malays.
. When a building is not good and collapsed, you blame the Indians.

11. When a Chinese student won a scholarship, you say 'Wah! Very clever hor?'
When a Malay student won a scholarship, you say 'Aiya! Of course lah! He Malay
mah!'

12. When an angmoh stranger kisses you on the cheek to say hello, you very
happy. When a Malaysian guy kisses you on the cheek to say hello, you slap him
in face.

Here's wishing all my Chinese friends and readers a very Happy Chinese New Year and may the Year of the Tiger brings you much happiness and prosperity!!

Happy Valentine's Day

To all husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, grandpas, grandmas, boy friends, girl friends, fiances, uncles, aunties, grand sons, grand daughters, nephews and nieces, there is nothing like feeling that wonderful sensation once again at this time of the year.

Love me with all your heart

That's all I want love

Love me with all of your heart

Or not at all

Just promise me this

That you'll give me

All your kisses

Every winter, every summer, every fall

When we are far apart

Or when you're near me

Love me with all of your heart

As I love you

Don't give me your love

For a moment, or an hour

But be always, as you love me

From the start

With every bit of your heart

[Repeat second verse]

Eat your heart out, Zahrain

Now this is the man that Zahrain Mohd Hashim, MP for Bayan Baru, has been accusing of being “chauvinistic, arrogant and communistic” . Well, anyway, the latest news is that Zahrain had decided to quit PKR and good riddance to bad rubbish too.

A PICTURE SAYS A THOUSAND WORDS.

The Chief Minister of Penang, Lim Guan Eng, giving Nik Shamrul Zaimi a consoling hug when he learned that the latter had lost two daughters, aged 3 and 4, to dengue fever.

[Photo: The Sun]

Zahrain exposed

Lim Guan Eng hit back today at his chief critic by releasing details of how his administration over-ruled Datuk Seri Zahrain Mohd Hashim’s recommendation for the state-owned Bukit Jambul Country Club’s (BJCC) operations contract to be awarded to a RM2 company.

The Penang chief minister said the state government decided instead to have an open tender for the contract, which was subsequently awarded to another, more experienced company.

Lim’s statement comes amid increasing dissent against his administration, sparked of by former PKR state chief Zahrain, who described the chief minister as a “dictator, a chauvinist and communist-minded”.

The Penang CM disclosed today that BJCC was currently operated by Island Golf Properties Bhd (IGP), a Penang Development Corporation (PDC) subsidiary. Zahrain is IGP Chairman, and has held the post since July 9, 2008.

On Tuesday, the PDC board decided to award, via an open tender, the operations contract to a company which Lim said was worth more than RM40 million.

Yesterday, the PDC board, rejected Zahrain’s recommendation that it should have been awarded to the RM2 company he had recommended.

Lim said the full details of the tender award would be published after the Chinese New Year holidays.

“Certain actions and claims by Zahrain on the IGP has compelled PDC to monitor IGP closely to ensure that IGP is run in the public interest,” said Lim, who is also DAP secretary-general.

According to the statement, Lim had based his recommendations for a fresh open tender to the management of BJCC for two reasons:

“To allow a RM2 private company to win the tender for running BJCC, that involves [the] expenditure of tens of millions of ringgit, would make a mockery of the meaning of [an] open tender system.

“The RM2 company had no track record of running a golf club and was established on 29 Sept, 2008. The RM2 company was established a mere two months before the tender, clearly with the sole intended purpose of bidding for the tender in December 2008.”

Lim said that his refusal to agree to the requests made by Zahrain to select the RM2 company was based on the fact that an open tender must be fully transparent.

“The fresh open tender exercise was carried out last year with seven interested applicants. The PDC Board decided in its Fe 9, 2010 meeting to select a company that offered a combined value of more than RM40 million to BJCC over 10 years.

“The company selected has a track record, and most importantly, its paid up capital is not RM2.”

The DAP leader also asserted that open tenders and government contracts needed to be looked at objectively, based solely on “performance and public interest”.

Lim’s statement comes as his DAP-led state government in Penang continues to attract criticisms from his PKR allies.

Besides Zahrain, another Penang PKR leader, Tan Tee Beng, also lashed out at Lim by stating that he was “a leader without class who practised vengeful politics”.

Both Zahrain and Tan have been referred to PKR’s disciplinary board.

[Source : The MalaysianInsider]

The "Allah" Issue: The Turkish point of view

The following was from the Turkey’s Daily News, written by Mustafa Akyol, January 12 2010.
The trouble with Islamo-tribalism

Nasty things are happening in Malaysia. Nine Christian churches have been vandalized or burnt just over the last weekend. Thank God, nobody has been hurt, yet, but the terror unleashed is terrifying enough for the Christian minority of this overwhelmingly Muslim nation.
Also thank God that the attacks were the work of a fanatic minority among Malaysian Muslims, or Malays. Many others, including government spokesmen, denounced the barbarism. Some volunteers from Muslim nongovernmental organizations have even begun patrolling churches to protect them from possible future attacks. This is, of course, commendable.

Yet still, I think that Malays should deal not just with the radical symptoms of the problem. They should also deal with the problem itself.
A copyright of God?
The problem itself is a “copyright issue,” as Marina Mahathir, a Malay commentator, rightly put it. Christians in the country have been using the word “Allah” to refer to God in their services and publications, whereas the Malays believe that they have a monopoly on it. Hence the Muslim-dominated government recently put a ban on non-Muslims using the term. Yet last month the High Court overturned the ban. And hell broke lose.

As a Turkish Muslim, I strongly disagree with my Malaysian coreligionists who disagree with the Christians. The word “Allah” simply means “The God” in Arabic, and Arab Christians have been using it for centuries without any trouble. In Turkey, too, Bibles published by Turkish Christians used to have the term “Allah” until the recent “modernization” in their discourse. The change is their choice, and none of our business.

Most Muslims, in other words, don’t have a problem with hearing the word “Allah” from non-Muslim theists. And this is how it should be, because the Koran repeatedly says that Muslims worship the same God with Jews and Christians. "We believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you,” a verse orders Muslims to tell these fellow monotheists. “Our God and your God is one."

Whence, then, comes the Malay possessiveness of Allah?
The Malaysian government argues that making Allah synonymous with God may “confuse Muslims and ultimately mislead them into converting to Christianity.” Wow, what a great sign of self-confidence. Why don’t they rather think, one wonders, that the same thing might ultimately “mislead” Christians into converting to Islam.

Besides the obvious immaturity, what is really disturbing to me here is how Allah, the “Lord of mankind” according to the Koran, is reduced to something like a tribal deity.
This was all too obvious in the slogan of the protesters at the mosques of Kuala Lumpur: "Allah,” they said, “is only for us."

But who do you think you are, one should ask. Who gives you the authority to claim that the name of God of all men is your private property?

The answer, as you can guess, lies not in theology but politics. As a piece published in these pages yesterday (Gwynne Dyer, "In the Name of Allah") explained well, the Muslim Malays, despite making up 60 percent of Malaysia, “feel perpetually insecure.” They worry that if their numbers in population decrease so will their dominant role in the country.

Hence comes Malaysia’s tyrannical bans on apostasy from Islam, limitations on mixed marriages, and the current obsession with the Christians’ language. The main intention behind these is the preservation of the dominance, and the “purity,” of a certain political community – say, a big tribe. (The medieval Islamic ban an apostasy, which has no basis in the Koran, was similarly a product of political motives.)

But pursuing the perceived interests of a political community that happens to be Muslim, is not the same thing with upholding the religious values that God has bestowed on Muslims.
The difference between the two is subtle but crucial. It is the difference between serving God, and making God serve us.

Jihad, victory and empire

The latter motivation, I suspect, is imperative in the makeup of the self-righteous, authoritarian and violent movements in the contemporary Muslim world. These movements always strive for some victory, some political dominance, which will elevate their very selves above all other men.
The words of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who tried to blow up a passenger airliner near Detroit two weeks ago, are quite telling. “I imagine how the great jihad will take place,” he reportedly said, “how the Muslims will win ... and rule the whole world, and establish the greatest empire once again!!!”

The yearning for glory here is not too different from what a revolutionary communist expects from the dictatorship of the proletariat, or what a chauvinist expects from an imperialist agenda that will make his nation the master of the world.

The Muslim thing to do, however, is to be more humble, modest and openhearted. The Koran tells Muslims that they are supposed to be “the best community that has been raised up for mankind.” Yet they really can’t serve that purpose if they begin by despising the rest of mankind, and claiming an ownership of God.

And Malaysia can’t really uphold the values of Islam through Islamo-tribalism.