If you are visiting Taipan USJ for business or shopping, please take note

With effect from January 1st 2010, Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) will implement a new parking system that has a one-hour only restriction on parking in USJ 10 (Taipan).

Shop owners, workers and residents who require longer parking are encouraged to apply for the monthly parking pass or use the multi-storey car park. The cost of the monthly pass has been reduced from RM150 to RM80, MPSJ president Datuk Adnan Md Ikshan said.

From January 1st, the machines would be tuned to accept an hour of parking fee only. Car owners, who wish to park for more than one hour, have to make payment again when the period runs out.

Subang Jaya ADUN Hannah Yeoh said that here more than 1,100 parking lots are available at Taipan USJ area, including the multi-storey car park.

This system will be on trial for three (3) months. MPSJ are welcoming feedback from residents. All feedback can be sent to the following email address: fadzil@mpsj.gov.my .

And the misdeeds continue ...

Chang Lih Kang (left), the Perak PKR Vice Chairman and Teja assemblyperson, had recently turned the spotlight on a land scam involving 40 lots of state land in Sungai Itek meant for the poor and landless. Instead, they were given to 10 committee members of the Umno Gopeng division. On Dec 16, Chang had lodged a report with the state Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) against menteri besar and state Umno chief Zambry Abdul Kadir and Umno Gopeng division chairman Hamzah Mohd Kassim over the scandal.

Later, Hamzah and senior BN state executive councillor Hamidah Osman in separate statements denied that they were at fault, blaming the Kampar district and land officer for the "blunder". Chang rapped Hamidah for defending Hamzah as she did not handle land matters which come under Zambry's portfolio. He also said there was clear conflict of interest, where Hamzah and Hamidah were both business partners in Projek Bitara Sdn Bhd. Hamidah is also Gopeng Umno wanita chief. Chang wants the 40 lots in dispute to be reallocated to poor deserving people and also legal action taken against Hamzah for abuse of power. "Otherwise, I will be forced to lodge an abuse of power report against the five members of the Kampar land committee members with the state MACC," he said.

[Source: Malaysiakini]

Geronimo's Take: These UMNO fellas have every opportunity of redeeming themselves after having staged a "coup" to take over the silver state early this year by being of service to the people of Perak, but no, they just have to find that opportunity of being self-serving instead. So sad!

Former Indonesian President, Gus Dur, dies

JAKARTA, Dec 30 — Indonesian media today reported the death of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, better known as Gus Dur.

According to Jakarta Globe he died in a hospital in the capital at 1945 Malaysian time today.

He was 69 years old.

According to Jakarta Globe the former president had been undergoing regular dialysis for some time and was hospitalized last week after traveling in East Java.

Gus Dur served as president from 1999-2001 during the turbulent years following the resignation of strongman Suharto in 1998.

He was the longtime head of the Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama, and the founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB)

He was listed as one of the world’s 500 most influential Muslim figures in a book published by Washington’s Georgetown University last month.

GST For Dummies

This is the motive of the UMNO/BN Government.

Our Rakyat do not fully understand the implication of GST, until it is implemented and prices of goods spiraling upwards. By then it is too late.

A rich country like Singapore introduced GST at 3%.

A poor Malaysia wants to implement GST at 4%

GST is a multi-stage tax system.

Everything the sellers sold, from manufacturer, wholesaler to retailers, collect GST for the government. Unlike the current sales and service tax (SST) is a single-stage tax. Only one party along the supply chain collect the SST for the government. If the manufacturer collects the tax, the rest are not allowed to collect.

Just imagine every seller add GST when they sell.

For example: The current Sales Tax for Toilet soap is 10%. With GST, the manufacturer pays 4% to the government when he sells it to the Wholesaler, the Wholesaler pays the government another 4% when he sells to a Retailer; and when the Retailer sells it to the Consumer, he pays another 4% to the govt. The Consumer actually ends up paying more than 12% in cumulative GSTs for the same piece of soap or > 20% more in taxes. (10% vs 12%+++)

If the supply chain is longer than 3 stages, the consumer ends up paying 4% more for each addition stage. Eg Manufacturer to Agent (4%) to Wholesaler (4%) to Retailer (4%) to Consumer (4%).. Total 16% ++++ (vs 10%) or 60% more in taxes!!!!

If the GST is not stopped, the Rakyat will ended up paying very very very high prices for everything.

'When you have a government that can't cut down on financial wastage and curb corruption, the next best thing is to tax the rakyat and squeeze them further.'

Last Sunday, 13 December 2009, the Cabinet booked the entire Ballroom of Oriental Mandarin at KLCC for cabinet meeting. Isn't this a waste of Rakyat's money? Is our Putrajaya complex so run down and bad that it is not good enough for the minister to have a "talk shop" ?

It ended up that the DPM and Rais Yatim rejected the PM's proposal for 1 Malaysia. [What have I been saying all along?]

Taking a bunch of racist to a five-star hotel for nothing. What an absolute waste.

If you still not in the know, GST is not Goods & Service Tax but "Go Squeeze Them"!

After all that have been said and done, believe it or not, it is happening again

It is really unbelievable that despite the recent debate on the way the BTN conduct it's so called patriotic courses, it has happened again. Now, you know why Najib's 1Malaysia will never work as much as he would like us to believe it would. This is a letter to The Sun -

[Picture from The NutGraph]

MY nephew, a doctor, is upset and disappointed after attending an induction course from Dec 19 to 24 at the Bayu Beach Resort in Port Dickson.

The first four days of the programme was conducted by officials from the Health Ministry who were professional in their approach and methodology.

However, the sessions during next two days conducted by National Civics Bureau (Biro Tata Negara) were downright racist. It was sickening and nothing more than an exercise to divide Malaysian society, create disunity, instil hatred and discord.

Although my nephew is a Muslim and a Malay and was not the target of the BTN instructors, he and his other Muslim friends were sick and tired that their non-Muslim brothers and sisters were constantly labelled as “pendatang”. Malaysian Indians were continuously hounded regarding the actions of the now outlawed Hindraf movement.

One BTN instructor even had the temerity to say “no need to attend the BTN course if you think we are racist” and “we warn you not to report what happens here to the press or to anyone else.”

No need to attend? Can the chief secretary to the government (to whom the BTN reports directly) please confirm that the attendance at the programme is voluntary and participants can indeed choose not to attend without fear of being reprimanded and blacklisted later?

And the BTN instructors warned and threatened these young and intelligent doctors. Can we make police reports against them for threatening our children?

So much has been said about the BTN programme over the last few months and many federal ministers have defended it. The truth is either the ministers are ignorant or they simply lied through their teeth.

The prime minister himself had issued a gag order and said he would personally look into the programme. Thus, by continuing with their racist and fascist agenda, have the BTN instructors committed insubordination? Are their actions in line with the noble spirit of 1Malaysia, people first, performance now?

I take this opportunity to congratulate the civics bureau for its kind deed in inducting the 80-odd doctors who attended the programme into the folds of Pakatan Rakyat.

DRHS
Alor Star

You are off your rockers, Dr Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah

When I first read this Dr Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah's article"Accused As Criminals Better than being evil" goes to show how shallow he is in the handling of race relations, especially to the understanding of religious and cultural practices of the other races. His view points are so skewed that the only races he knows are Malays, Chinese and Indians. He failed to mention our East Malaysian brethren such as the Kadazans, the Ibans, the Bidayus, the Muruts, etc. It is with deep regret that this Tee fella has to resort to writing such distasteful article just to please the Muslims, and especially, UMNO. Bear in mind, he is a Chinese, but a wannabe Malay Muslim. It is really unforgiving to run down your own race just because he is a Muslim. I am interested to know what is shown under "Bangsa" on his MyKad, "Chinese, Malay or Pariah"?

What is most ludicrous is that he was able to come out with a formula which he wrote : "According to the year 2000 census, the percentages of Malaysians by religions were as follows: 60% Islam, 40% non-Malay (22% Buddhist-Taoism-Confucius, 9% Christian, 6% Hindu, 3% others). This formula can be applied in the context of the nationalization, including justification on the rights of religious festivals and celebrations of all races. This formula fulfills part of the meaning to justification in Islam which means to put things in its place although not completely." Is this guy for real or what? Will the UMNO government open up local universities to 40% non-Malay? Will all high ranking military officers be made up of 40% non-Malays, i.e. General 40%, Colonel 40%, Major 40%, etc. What about the civil service? 40% non-Malays? What about places of worship, say for Christians and Hindus? 40% allocation?

This type of writings by this Dr Tee has become very tiresome. I hope he is not one of the facilitators for any of the BTN modules. It will simply spell disaster by speeding up the cancerous growth of racism.

Fortunately, I came across a response by none other than blogger/lawyer Art Harun. You can read it here. You can also log in to MyAsylum blog for his comments.

With Dr Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, who needs 1Malaysia?

Why aren't they recognised?

It is very disturbing to note that whenever Malaysians, non-Malays that is, made the news, or received international acclaim, the UMNO government has a tendency of turning a blind eye in recognising the achievements of these Malaysians. Is it because they are non-Malays? These are the people who have put Malaysia on the world map for the right reason and made us proud. Certainly not some unworthy happenings like the murder of a Mongolian citizen, missing aircraft engines, FOREX loss, the PKFZ scandal, the cow head incident, committing sacrilege in a Catholic church and conducting coups of another state [just to name a few] which have made us t he world laughing stock instead. The silence from the government in not recognising the achievement of the non-Malays is most deafening. This is what meritocracy is all about. Competing among the best. Not the version expounded by UMNO. It is no mere wonder that such Malaysian achievers decided to stay abroad where their efforts continued to receive recognition. The brain drain has started years ago and now only, UMNO is showing concern. I believe it is too little too late to salvage the situation. These are the Malaysians that don't need land, prize money or titles as rewards. All they wanted was support and recognition (which cost very little) and yet UMNO could not afford these.

There have been cases of many achievements by non-Malays Malaysians but two stood out in recent times.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE AWARD FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN OF COURAGE

On March 12 2009, this is a prestigious award presented to our Ambiga Sreenevasan of the Malaysian BAR Council. The ceremony was held at the State Department in Washington DC in the presence of the Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton and the wife of the President, Michelle Obama. The question is, other than a small press release in The Sun, hidden somewhere in the inner pages, no other msm reported this event. The question is why? Oh, by the way, where is Sharizat. Did she say anything to commemorate this event since she is in charge of women affairs of the nation?

THE PEN DRIVE INNOVATION

By now, we all know that the founder of single chip USB flash pen drive( USB is universal serial bus) is from Malaysia.

He is a Malaysian Chinese from a small village in Sekinchan, and educated in an independent Chinese school, which is not the main stream education system in his country. He was a graduate with Master degree in electrical and control engineering, from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, a degree may not recognized by his country. The market reported that he designed the world first single chip USB flash pen-drive.

He is KS Pua (Pua Kian Seng ), the youngest CEO of Taiex darling stock, Phison Electronic, at 33 years old. Phison means 5 persons who found the company, which included two other Malaysians, Aw Yong Chee Kong and KS Pua, both former students of Pin Hwa High School,Klang).

His biodata:
Birth date: 1974 in Sekinchan,Malaysia
Primary School: (1981 ~ 1986)
Secondary School: (1987 ~ 1992)
Tertiary education: Bachelor of NCTU, Taiwan (1993 ~ 1997), Master of Electrical & Control Engineering, NCTU, Taiwan (1998-1999)

Awards received:

• ”The President Award of National Management Excellence Award 2006”

• “Outstanding Young Manager Award” of HsinChu, Taiwan, 2005

• “Outstanding Young Entrepreneur Award” of TAIWAN BUSINESS AWARDS, 2005

He has changed the world in data storage...he is the technology idol that Taiwan has produced for Malaysia. If he is still in Malaysia, the world may be still using floppy disk.

Taiwan education give him the opportunity, just like what his father said to him, when he was 9 years old. "People are not unlucky in their entire lives.if you work hard you will naturally be rewarded". Is it possible if he was not given the opportunity in education? Taiwan's liberal education has produced many successful people for Malaysian Chinese education students, but yet their degrees are not recognized by their own country (except recently dental and medical degrees have been accorded recognition). The justification was not clear, their standard (Taiwan universities rank among top in the global list), their language (Japanese and Korean universities, and western foreign language universities are recognized e.g. France, Germany, Russia).

This is global era, if you don't provide the reward after their hard work (many going to Taiwan with their own finance, some borrowed monies), they will stay in Taiwan. With our discriminating education recognization system, the country lost the talents. The consequence : Malaysia's loss, Taiwan's gain.

If our education is as good as claimed by UMNO, how come it has not generated world beaters?