Is Science a Religion?

by Richard Dawkins

A friend sent me this article by Prof. Richard Dawkins. Dr Richard Dawkins is an intellect par excellence who is leading the charge against ‘organised religion’. He is also a declared atheist. I have read Dawkins and I dont think that he is an atheist (despite what he may think of himself). Sometimes it is just a matter of labelling. Put the wrong labels on the right product and you think you have a wrong product. Or vice versa.

Richards Dawkins is also the author of that famous book "The God Delusion". Here is an article Dawkins wrote in 1997 in a magazine called The Humanist.

Its a very long piece. I have put my comments in blue only for some of it and not the whole article. You will need some forebearance to complete reading this. It will be worth your while. To the religious freaks and the lame, you can go back to dreaming about 72 virgins.

The 1996 Humanist of the Year asked this question in a speech accepting the honor from the American Humanist Association.

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. Faith, being belief that isn't based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion.

The Quran says clearly : “You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. You have been given the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them” 17:36

So we should not accept anything without the tests of verification. Here is another one:

“Show me your proof, if you are truthful” 27:64. See also 28:75, 21:24 and 2:111.

This is the scientific method. Dont accept anything blindly. Check it out. And show proof for whatever we say. No proof, no say.

And who, looking at Northern Ireland or the Middle East, can be confident that the brain virus of faith is not exceedingly dangerous? One of the stories told to the young Muslim suicide bombers is that martyrdom is the quickest way to heaven — and not just heaven but a special part of heaven where they will receive their special reward of 72 virgin brides. It occurs to me that our best hope may be to provide a kind of "spiritual arms control": send in specially trained theologians to deescalate the going rate in virgins.

There is no mention of “72 virgins” in the Quran.

Given the dangers of faith — and considering the accomplishments of reason and observation in the activity called science — I find it ironic that, whenever I lecture publicly, there always seems to be someone who comes forward and says, "Of course, your science is just a religion like ours. Fundamentally, science just comes down to faith, doesn't it?"

And I am sure we will hear the same lame illogic again and again.

Well, science is not religion and it doesn't just come down to faith. Although it has many of religion's virtues, it has none of its vices. Science is based upon verifiable evidence.

Please read what I have quoted above 17:36 and 27:64 again. The Quran demands verifiable evidence. Here is another verse :

“No soul can believe except in accordance with GOD's will. For He places a curse upon those who refuse to use their common sense (akal) ” 10:100

I like the next statement from Richard Dawkins:

Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops. Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as exemplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.

Doubting Thomas of course refers to the Biblical account of Thomas the Apostle, who doubted the resurrection of Jesus and demanded to feel Jesus' wounds before being convinced. In modern parlance a “Doubting Thomas” is a term that is used to describe someone who will not believe something without direct, physical, personal evidence; a skeptic.

Indeed independence from evidence is the pride and joy of most religionists too.

One reason I receive the comment about science being a religion is because I believe in the fact of evolution. I even believe in it with passionate conviction. To some, this may superficially look like faith. But the evidence that makes me believe in evolution is not only overwhelmingly strong; it is freely available to anyone who takes the trouble to read up on it. Anyone can study the same evidence that I have and presumably come to the same conclusion. But if you have a belief that is based solely on faith, I can't examine your reasons. You can retreat behind the private wall of faith where I can't reach you. Now in practice, of course, individual scientists do sometimes slip back into the vice of faith, and a few may believe so single-mindedly in a favorite theory that they occasionally falsify evidence. However, the fact that this sometimes happens doesn't alter the principle that, when they do so, they do it with shame and not with pride.

This is one of the few points where I do not agree with Dawkins. And my reason is not based on faith but it is based on Science. There is no real scientific evidence to support evolution. The more scientific evidence is uncovered the further we are from finding any scientific basis for evolution. For example the missing link has yet to be found.

And if there is scientific evidence for evolution, I will believe it. But that does not mean that I will give up believing in the role of the Creator.

The method of science is so designed that it usually finds them out in the end. Science is actually one of the most moral, one of the most honest disciplines around — because science would completely collapse if it weren't for a scrupulous adherence to honesty in the reporting of evidence. (As James Randi has pointed out, this is one reason why scientists are so often fooled by paranormal tricksters and why the debunking role is better played by professional conjurors; scientists just don't anticipate deliberate dishonesty as well.)

“a scrupulous adherence to honesty in the reporting of evidence.” If there is such a thing as sacred, these words would be it. “honesty in the reporting of evidence”. Here is the Quran again:

“Do you not observe that GOD sends down from the sky water, whereby We produce fruits of various colors? Even the mountains have different colors; the peaks are white, or red, or some other color. And the ravens are black. Also, the people, the animals, and the livestock come in various colors. This is why the people who truly reverence GOD are those who are knowledgeable (ulama). GOD is Almighty, Forgiving” 35:27-28

Do you not observe? The Quran demands that we observe and study everything around us. That is knowledge. Science is honest observation and science is knowledge.

Instead as a very sick perversion there are those who are wont to feel that wrapping cloth around their heads and going without shaving makes them knowledgeable ! ! What a lark.

There are other professions (no need to mention lawyers specifically) in which falsifying evidence or at least twisting it is precisely what people are paid for and get brownie points for doing.

I think the world experts at twisting things around are the religious folks. That is why they dont go anywhere and neither can they guide anyone to any good.

Science, then, is free of the main vice of religion, which is faith. But, as I pointed out, science does have some of religion's virtues. Religion may aspire to provide its followers with various benefits — among them explanation, consolation, and uplift. Science, too, has something to offer in these areas. Humans have a great hunger for explanation. It may be one of the main reasons why humanity so universally has religion, since religions do aspire to provide explanations.

Agree completely. Religion and Science both have come about to provide answers to man’s many questions. Religion however has gone way off the tracks. Hocus Pocus and all. In my humble opinion Islam is not a religion. And the Quran (hence Islam too) is Science. The problem is people do not obey the Quran.

We come to our individual consciousness in a mysterious universe and long to understand it. Most religions offer a cosmology and a biology, a theory of life, a theory of origins, and reasons for existence. In doing so, they demonstrate that religion is, in a sense, science; it's just bad science.

Don't fall for the argument that religion and science operate on separate dimensions and are concerned with quite separate sorts of questions. Religions have historically always attempted to answer the questions that properly belong to science. Thus religions should not be allowed now to retreat away from the ground upon which they have traditionally attempted to fight. They do offer both a cosmology and a biology; however, in both cases it is false.

True again. We should ask the religious folks to provide scientific proofs for whatever they say. There is a simple reason for this. If what they say is true, then there must be evidence and proofs to prove it. It is quite illogical for them to say that ‘we have no proof for what we say’.

Consolation is harder for science to provide. Unlike religion, science cannot offer the bereaved a glorious reunion with their loved ones in the hereafter. Those wronged on this earth cannot, on a scientific view, anticipate a sweet comeuppance for their tormentors in a life to come. It could be argued that, if the idea of an afterlife is an illusion (as I believe it is), the consolation it offers is hollow. But that's not necessarily so; a false belief can be just as comforting as a true one, provided the believer never discovers its falsity. But if consolation comes that cheap, science can weigh in with other cheap palliatives, such as pain-killing drugs, whose comfort may or may not be illusory, but they do work.

I can comment on this point too but I better withold my views here. After all this is Malaysia. “Tauliah” and all that. Bukan rugi saya. (Its not my loss).

Uplift, however, is where science really comes into its own. All the great religions have a place for awe, for ecstatic transport at the wonder and beauty of creation. And it's exactly this feeling of spine-shivering, breath-catching awe — almost worship — this flooding of the chest with ecstatic wonder, that modern science can provide. And it does so beyond the wildest dreams of saints and mystics. The fact that the supernatural has no place in our explanations, in our understanding of so much about the universe and life, doesn't diminish the awe. Quite the contrary. The merest glance through a microscope at the brain of an ant or through a telescope at a long-ago galaxy of a billion worlds is enough to render poky and parochial the very psalms of praise.

I can still recall when I first watched television in 1964. (TV came to Malaysia in 1963). We bought our first TV set in Ipoh (a black and white Mitsubishi which stood on four legs) in 1965. I also remember the first time I held an electronic calculator in 1976. Today cellular telephones, the Internet, the Blogs and technology all hold us in awe.

The Quran tells the Muslims : “Anything good that happens to you is from GOD” 4:79

Good things are therefore from God. If they are from God, they must be Islamic too.

Now, as I say, when it is put to me that science or some particular part of science, like evolutionary theory, is just a religion like any other, I usually deny it with indignation. But I've begun to wonder whether perhaps that's the wrong tactic. Perhaps the right tactic is to accept the charge gratefully and demand equal time for science in religious education classes. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that an excellent case could be made for this.

To vary this a little, I have two suggestions: Maybe we can insist that ALL religioius teachers must be trained in the sciences first before they study religion. But if they are smart enough to study the sciences, will they still want to study religion? Or we can take out the State sponsored study of religion. Lets leave religion to the parents, the religious folks and others but outside the purview of the State.

So I want to talk a little bit about religious education and the place that science might play in it. I do feel very strongly about the way children are brought up. I'm not entirely familiar with the way things are in the United States, and what I say may have more relevance to the United Kingdom, where there is state-obliged, legally-enforced religious instruction for all children. That's unconstitutional in the United States, but I presume that children are nevertheless given religious instruction in whatever particular religion their parents deem suitable. Which brings me to my point about mental child abuse.

Wow ! ! Richard Dawkins is smouldering here. He calls religious education for children ‘mental child abuse’. From what I have seen (all over the world) I agree. But the mental abuse is not limited to children. Just this morning an Engineer who is a fervent church goer was telling me about demons that inhabited a construction site. Recall the movie ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ ?

In a 1995 issue of the Independent, one of London's leading newspapers, there was a photograph of a rather sweet and touching scene. It was Christmas time, and the picture showed three children dressed up as the three wise men for a nativity play. The accompanying story described one child as a Muslim, one as a Hindu, and one as a Christian. The supposedly sweet and touching point of the story was that they were all taking part in this Nativity play.

What is not sweet and touching is that these children were all four years old. How can you possibly describe a child of four as a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew? Would you talk about a four-year-old economic monetarist? Would you talk about a four-year-old neo-isolationist or a four-year-old liberal Republican?

No you cannot.

There are opinions about the cosmos and the world that children, once grown, will presumably be in a position to evaluate for themselves. Religion is the one field in our culture about which it is absolutely accepted, without question — without even noticing how bizarre it is — that parents have a total and absolute say in what their children are going to be, how their children are going to be raised, what opinions their children are going to have about the cosmos, about life, about existence. Do you see what I mean about mental child abuse?

In brief why do we profess the “religions” that we follow? The Quran has an answer for this too. Here it is:

“When they are told, "Come to what GOD has revealed, and to the messenger," they say, "What we found our parents doing is sufficient for us." What if their parents knew nothing, and were not guided? 5:104.

For the vast majority of humans (until today and across all “religions” ), people simply follow what their fathers and forefathers believed. Rather random. But what if their fathers and grandfathers were wrong?

My comments stop here. For those of you with fortitude you can read the rest of Dawkins article. Basically Dawkins is asking us to think. I hope Prof. Dawkins has the opportunity to read the Quran closely someday.

Looking now at the various things that religious education might be expected to accomplish, one of its aims could be to encourage children to reflect upon the deep questions of existence, to invite them to rise above the humdrum preoccupations of ordinary life and think sub specie aeternitatis. Science can offer a vision of life and the universe which, as I've already remarked, for humbling poetic inspiration far outclasses any of the mutually contradictory faiths and disappointingly recent traditions of the world's religions. For example, how could children in religious education classes fail to be inspired if we could get across to them some inkling of the age of the universe? Suppose that, at the moment of Christ's death, the news of it had started traveling at the maximum possible speed around the universe outwards from the earth. How far would the terrible tidings have traveled by now? Following the theory of special relativity, the answer is that the news could not, under any circumstances whatever, have reached more that one-fiftieth of the way across one galaxy — not one- thousandth of the way to our nearest neighboring galaxy in the 100-million-galaxy-strong universe. The universe at large couldn't possibly be anything other than indifferent to Christ, his birth, his passion, and his death. Even such momentous news as the origin of life on Earth could have traveled only across our little local cluster of galaxies.

Yet so ancient was that event on our earthly time-scale that, if you span its age with your open arms, the whole of human history, the whole of human culture, would fall in the dust from your fingertip at a single stroke of a nail file. The argument from design, an important part of the history of religion, wouldn't be ignored in my religious education classes, needless to say. The children would look at the spellbinding wonders of the living kingdoms and would consider Darwinism alongside the creationist alternatives and make up their own minds. I think the children would have no difficulty in making up their minds the right way if presented with the evidence. What worries me is not the question of equal time but that, as far as I can see, children in the United Kingdom and the United States are essentially given no time with evolution yet are taught creationism (whether at school, in church, or at home).

It would also be interesting to teach more than one theory of creation. The dominant one in this culture happens to be the Jewish creation myth, which is taken over from the Babylonian creation myth. There are, of course, lots and lots of others, and perhaps they should all be given equal time (except that wouldn't leave much time for studying anything else). I understand that there are Hindus who believe that the world was created in a cosmic butter churn and Nigerian peoples who believe that the world was created by God from the excrement of ants. Surely these stories have as much right to equal time as the Judeo-Christian myth of Adam and Eve. So much for Genesis; now let's move on to the prophets. Halley's Comet will return without fail in the year 2062. Biblical or Delphic prophecies don't begin to aspire to such accuracy; astrologers and Nostradamians dare not commit themselves to factual prognostications but, rather, disguise their charlatanry in a smokescreen of vagueness. When comets have appeared in the past, they've often been taken as portents of disaster.

Astrology has played an important part in various religious traditions, including Hinduism. The three wise men I mentioned earlier were said to have been led to the cradle of Jesus by a star. We might ask the children by what physical route do they imagine the alleged stellar influence on human affairs could travel. Incidentally, there was a shocking program on the BBC radio around Christmas 1995 featuring an astronomer, a bishop, and a journalist who were sent off on an assignment to retrace the steps of the three wise men. Well, you could understand the participation of the bishop and the journalist (who happened to be a religious writer), but the astronomer was a supposedly respectable astronomy writer, and yet she went along with this!

All along the route, she talked about the portents of when Saturn and Jupiter were in the ascendant up Uranus or whatever it was. She doesn't actually believe in astrology, but one of the problems is that our culture has been taught to become tolerant of it, vaguely amused by it — so much so that even scientific people who don't believe in astrology sort of think it's a bit of harmless fun. I take astrology very seriously indeed: I think it's deeply pernicious because it undermines rationality, and I should like to see campaigns against it. When the religious education class turns to ethics, I don't think science actually has a lot to say, and I would replace it with rational moral philosophy. Do the children think there are absolute standards of right and wrong?

And if so, where do they come from? Can you make up good working principles of right and wrong, like "do as you would be done by" and "the greatest good for the greatest number" (whatever that is supposed to mean)? It's a rewarding question, whatever your personal morality, to ask as an evolutionist where morals come from; by what route has the human brain gained its tendency to have ethics and morals, a feeling of right and wrong? Should we value human life above all other life? Is there a rigid wall to be built around the species Homo sapiens, or should we talk about whether there are other species which are entitled to our humanistic sympathies? Should we, for example, follow the right-to-life lobby, which is wholly preoccupied with human life, and value the life of a human fetus with the faculties of a worm over the life of a thinking and feeling chimpanzee? What is the basis of this fence that we erect around Homo sapiens — even around a small piece of fetal tissue? (Not a very sound evolutionary idea when you think about it.)

When, in our evolutionary descent from our common ancestor with chimpanzees, did the fence suddenly rear itself up? Well, moving on, then, from morals to last things, to eschatology, we know from the second law of thermodynamics that all complexity, all life, all laughter, all sorrow, is hell bent on leveling itself out into cold nothingness in the end. They — and we — can never be more then temporary, local buckings of the great universal slide into the abyss of uniformity. We know that the universe is expanding and will probably expand forever, although it's possible it may contract again. We know that, whatever happens to the universe, the sun will engulf the earth in about 60 million centuries from now.

Time itself began at a certain moment, and time may end at a certain moment — or it may not. Time may come locally to an end in miniature crunches called black holes. The laws of the universe seem to be true all over the universe. Why is this? Might the laws change in these crunches? To be really speculative, time could begin again with new laws of physics, new physical constants. And it has even been suggested that there could be many universes, each one isolated so completely that, for it, the others don't exist. Then again, there might be a Darwinian selection among universes. So science could give a good account of itself in religious education. But it wouldn't be enough.

I believe that some familiarity with the King James version of the Bible is important for anyone wanting to understand the allusions that appear in English literature. Together with the Book of Common Prayer, the Bible gets 58 pages in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Only Shakespeare has more. I do think that not having any kind of biblical education is unfortunate if children want to read English literature and understand the provenance of phrases like "through a glass darkly," "all flesh is as grass," "the race is not to the swift," "crying in the wilderness," "reaping the whirlwind," "amid the alien corn," "Eyeless in Gaza," "Job's comforters," and "the widow's mite."

I want to return now to the charge that science is just a faith. The more extreme version of that charge — and one that I often encounter as both a scientist and a rationalist — is an accusation of zealotry and bigotry in scientists themselves as great as that found in religious people. Sometimes there may be a little bit of justice in this accusation; but as zealous bigots, we scientists are mere amateurs at the game. We're content to argue with those who disagree with us. We don't kill them. But I would want to deny even the lesser charge of purely verbal zealotry.

There is a very, very important difference between feeling strongly, even passionately, about something because we have thought about and examined the evidence for it on the one hand, and feeling strongly about something because it has been internally revealed to us, or internally revealed to somebody else in history and subsequently hallowed by tradition. There's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation.

GLCs, GLsC, G’sLC

By Syed Akbar Ali

Well someone did ask for further clarification on Finance Minister II Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah’s clarification about the GST yesterday. After reading his comment, people have become even more confused. Here is the report from The Star yesterday (trunc)

KUALA LUMPUR: The 4% Goods and Services Tax (GST) is expected to be implemented by the middle of 2011.

The GST Bill was tabled for the first reading in Parliament by Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah yesterday.

Speaking to reporters at the Parliament lobby later, Husni said the GST implementation would be a win-win situation for all, as the Government would receive an additional RM1bil in revenue for the first year while the business and export sectors would save RM4.1bil and RM1.4bil, respectively.

Lets step back a little. If businesses and export sectors are going to save RM5.5 billion, how does the Government increase its tax revenue by RM1 bill? Is this mathematics in Malay or English? It is common knowledge that the Government is short of funds and this GST is just a way to hike up Government revenue. I believe the PM said something to this effect. He said he wanted to widen the tax base. But here the Finance Minister II is saying the GST is a great favour unto mankind to reduce the tax burden for the public. This is so touching.

“The Government is proposing GST at a rate lower than the (current) sales and services tax rates, and to allow certain exemptions from GST, especially on essential goods such as padi, vegetables, basic food (rice, sugar, flour, cooking oil), fish, meat and chicken, to ensure it will not burden the rakyat, especially the lower income group.

OK but presently the only people who charge the public service taxes are McDonalds, KFC, Chilli’s Steak House, hotels and classy restaurants.

Ibrahmsa Nasi Kandar and Kin Sun Chicken Rice do not levy any service charges at all. And most certainly ikan bawal, ikan kembong, ayam and daging at the pasar suffer no service taxes too. And Perumal the vege seller at the Pasar Borong also does not charge any service taxes.

So how does the GST help the ordinary man “save money” in lieu of service taxes when he does not pay any or much services taxes to begin with?

“The main purpose for introducing GST is to make the current taxation system more comprehensive, efficient, effective, transparent and business friendly. The sales and services tax will be abolished and replaced with GST,” he said. The current sales and services tax is from 5% to 10%.

“Based on the proposed model, businesses are expected to benefit in terms of lower cost of doing business”

Err Dato Menteri Kewangan Kedua, lu sekolah kat mana? Businesses never suffer these costs. Sales taxes, service taxes, and GSTs are what are known as “pass through costs”. Businesses pass them through to the consumer. If Cik Jah the pisang goreng seller sells three pisang goreng for M1.00 and you force her to collect 4% GST, she will just increase her price of pisang goreng to 4%. Her customers will now have to pay RM1.04. She is not going to pay the service tax from her profits. You have just increased the inflation rate by 4%.

“GST will be able to reduce bureaucratic practices in the management and administration of the country’s tax system, and overcome various inherent weaknesses that exist in the sales and services tax.”

How are you going to collect the GST tax? If there are four intermediaries in the supply chain (manufacturer, importer, stockist, wholesaler, retailer etc) each one of them will have to impose the 4% GST. In theory the GST can be compounded four times and become about 20%.

In practise, to avoid this compounding, each time one intermediary sells the product down the distribution channel, then he will (or should) be allowed to reclaim back the 4% GST from the Government. So that the net GST suffered by the public is only 4%.

The only guy who cannot or should not reclaim is the retailer – the fellow who sells direct to the end pucrhaser ie the public. How are you going to monitor all this in our country called Malaysia?

He said companies with a revenue of RM500,000 and below would be exempted from GST, and also, about 70% of SMEs would be exempted.

This does not make sense. The idea of the GST is that it is a consumption tax and it is also designed to increase the Government’s tax revenue. The more you consume the more you have to pay – this was the poor logic. (Why punish the rich? Because they work harder? )

Anyway, if I consume fried chicken at KFC I pay GST. But if I eat fried chicken at Al Amnah Restoran I dont have to pay GST. But I still consume the fried chicken ma? If I buy a water heater from an SME (eg Joven brand – Made in Malaysia) I dont pay GST. But if I buy a National water heater (Japanese), then I pay GST? Both ways I am still consuming.

Husni said the Government had done a comprehensive study on the GST. “Under the sales and services tax system, the burden on the poor is 2.38%, but under the GST, it will be 2.17%. “For the higher income group, their tax burden will be reduced from 3.13% to 2.74%,” he added.

“The overall savings for households will be between RM14.52 and RM346.92 yearly. On all grounds, we will benefit more from the GST,” he said.

“ their tax burden will be reduced ! ! ! ” YB Dato Seri, ini sah saya tak percaya. Do you seriously expect us to believe that the Government is going through this GST exercise to reduce its own tax revenue? So that each household will suffer less tax burden of RM14.52 to RM346 each? Baik hatinya Kerajaan kita.

That was Government Losing Concerns. Now here is some news from a Government’s Losing Concern.

“The research house anticipates better earnings for Maybank but warns of potential earnings risk from the bank’s US$140mil exposure to the Dubai debt crisis and its investments in Pakistan. It noted that the bank had the largest exposure to Dubai among local banking players.”

For years now I have been cautioning against putting taxpayers money at risk by venturing into countries which are members of The Club of Doom. This is not the first time that a Malaysian GLC is getting its fingers burnt and taxpayers funds going up in smoke in some God forsaken desert strip. Market talk is the Qatar issue involving Sime is not over yet. That is bound to break the surface some time. Maybank has USD140 million (almost RM500.0 mil) at risk now in Dubai. That is a lot of money. Siapa suruh pinjam duit kat depa?

Of the very basic “Four Cs” of Credit (capital, collateral, capacity, character) I think the Doo-bye folks fail all four, especially the last two. The same goes for Pakistan. These are very high risk countries. They do not have a strong tradition of law and order too.

But here is the more interesting news today. This is about Khazanah Nasional Bhd playing around with more of taxpayer’s money :

KUALA LUMPUR: Khazanah Nasional Bhd has committed to invest RM400mil to build the region’s biggest independently-owned studio facility in Johor together with renowned international film production company Pinewood Shepperton plc, as the Government’s investment arm steps up efforts to boost Iskandar Malaysia’s appeal as a global creative hub.

New investment flows into the Iskandar Malaysia economic region have suffered a “slight setback” due to the fallout from the economic recession, which also crippled Dubai recently, Khazanah managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar told reporters at a briefing yesterday.

The PIMS project is estimated to cost RM400mil and would be entirely “underwritten” by Khazanah.

Sounds like "wag the dog" again. This project will boost the investment figures into Iskandar? At last our taxpayers funds are being pumped into Iskandar. What happened to the RM15 billion, gazillion, trillion that was pouring into Iskandar? And what on earth is this the region’s biggest independently-owned studio facility? Huh ?

(By the way what happened to the RM11.0 billion proposal to WiFi all of Kuala Lumpur?)

Azman said PIMS (Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studio) was “conservatively” projected to contribute about RM1bil in economic spinoffs over the next eight years and “will create 3,000 direct jobs and potentially an additional 5,000 indirect jobs a year.’’ About half the amount would come in the form of construction-related works.

Of 5000 jobs, half would come from construction related works? So there will be tons of low tech, low value labourer jobs - making plywood movie sets, landscaping etc. For Indon and Bangla workers. Then the language gets blurry.

Pinewood chief executive Ivan Dunleavy said the company would provide key operational and marketing input during both the construction and operating phases, in addition to the rights to use Pinewood’s global brand.

The Mat Sallehs will provide “operational and marketing input” in addition to “rights to use the Pinewood label”? Hmm.. sounds like more money – Khazanah must pay them. Is it already part of the M400.0 million or is it a ‘pay as you go’ situation? Here is more blurry talk

. . .Khazanah is relying on Pinewood’s global reach to market the facility as a “host” to bi-budget movie producers in Europe and the United States.

“relying on” ? Do they teach that in business school? I say kawan, ada kontrak ke tak ade? “relying on” sounds wishy washy. Is that bi-budget or is it ‘big budget’? Lets keep track of this project shall we.

According to Pinewoods website, the company made after tax profit of close to 6.0 mill Pounds in 2008. That is about RM31.0 million. This RM400.0 mill deal must be quite a lifesaver. This will be another “GLC”.

While the Government is going around imposing new GST and so on to increase the tax base and burden the suffering rakyat, we find the backdoor being left wide open where money flows like water. RM500 million at risk in Dubai, RM400 million with some studio in Iskandar and more.

Here are a few more projects that Khazanah Nasional has undertaken about which the public is generally in the dark:

Check out a company called Blue Archipelago Bhd

This is a prawn farm in Kedah – a sort of phase two of the infamous Kerpan prawn project. Not much invested, just about RM200.0 mill, give or take a few.

An interesting feature of this project is that they have built a pier that goes out 2 km into the sea – it should make a wonderful fishing pier. The pier goes out that far to pump cleaner sea water to the farm. You can actually see this fantastic pier in Google Earth.

Go to Google Earth and search "Kerpan, Air Hitam, Kedah". You will be able to see the long thin pier going out 2 km. But how is this project doing? Udang jadi ke ? The company slogan says “Seafood You Can Trust”.

Then there is the Malaysian Agri Food Corporation Bhd in Lanchang, Pahang. Another cool RM250 million invested by Khazanah Nasional. This is a fruit farm which now grows papayas. Corporate papayas?

In 2009 this company spent RM16.0 million to set up a sorting, grading and packaging centre to process up to 80 tonnes of papayas a day. But here is the catch – daily production is only two tonnes. I would assume there is a massive overcapacity.

They also export papayas overseas to the UK. The report says one tonne per week or four tonnes a month of papayas are exported to the UK. A friend with experience in the food import export business says a 20 foot container usually carries 24 tonnes of cargo. So Khazanah is exporting less than one container weight of papayas a week. Well papayas are bulky fruits, no?

There is a very interesting website called http://www.alibaba.com which sells all sorts of agri products online. Papayas are available too with a minimum order of five metric tonnes. Perhaps Khazanah’s papaya boys should check out alibaba.com.

Finally here is a possible Government Losing Concern or GLC too. Is it true that the Government is spending RM12.0 million to build a house for Slumberjack our ex Prime Minister ? The Malay Mail has the story here. There is a picture too:

Why so much money? Is it true that this spending did not go through the proper Parliamentary process? If so how come?

Is this where the new GST taxes are going?

Dr M: OIC has failed to unite Muslims

By Syed Akbar Ali

KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has lambasted the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) for failing to unite Muslims. “It often serves to emphasise the division within the Muslim world. The disagreements bet­ween member countries are so obvious as to expose their disunity,” he said in his keynote address at the Second International Muslim Unity Convention here. “Today, Muslims are deeply divided into many different sects which often are violently pitted against each other,” he said.

I was invited to attend this Conference but I declined. It is a total waste of time. And I think Tun Dr Mahathir is also wasting his precious time talking to these folks. Let me make a prediction : 20 years from now they will be in a worse off situation.

The Arabs, Pakistanis and whoever else just do not listen. Here are some more pictures taken at another Islamic conference. Basically they capture the problem facing the Muslims : they are blissfully ignorant of their predicament. In Malay we have a phrase for it : bodoh sombong. You are bodoh, but you are too sombong to know that you are bodoh.



The late Professor Syed Hussein Al Atas had coined another phrase : jadong. Jadong means 'jahat, bodoh dan sombong'



























Sleep Mr Mulla and the whole Islamic world will snore with you.

I think future Islamic conferences must insist that the night before the Conference, the delegates should not surf the “Free To View” TV stations they find in their hotel rooms. Too much excitement in the night can dull the senses in the morning.

Then here is a picture I took just this morning. The wonders of truly Islamic digital technology and IT. Its a picture of a Quran nicely wrapped up in some package and then placed inside a Gilded Cage. Isnt there some tauliah or ajaran sesat issue involved if you put the Quran inside a cage?

These folks were selling the ‘hantaran’ stuff for Malay weddings. Among the items for ‘hantaran’ was this Quran inside a gilded cage.

But it does capture precisely the single biggest reason why the Muslims around the world are in such a predicament. They have ignored the Quran. They rather lock up the book inside a cage than open it up and read it carefully. If the Muslims (and the non Muslims too) seriously read the Quran, they will end up talking like me.

It is such a wonderful, fast forward, zoom to the future, liberating document.

To conclude I just looked up a little about Gilded Cages. Here is a well known painting called the "Gilded Cage" by the painter Evelyn De Morgan painted in 1919 (the year my late father was born).

The caption reads : In this painting, a woman looks out a window with her hand stretched out and up in a gesture of yearning. She is looking at a group of gypsy figures, dancing under the open sky. The principal figure among the gypsy group is a woman who dances while holding her baby close to her, thus suggesting an alternative vision of maternal duty.

Soaring free about the dancing group is a bird, which contrasts sharply to the captive bird in the gilded cage that hangs beside the woman's older husband. The husband seems oblivious to his wife's state of mind.

On the floor and disregarded is jewelry and an open book, which signifies her rejection of tradition, convention, and old ideas.

Action Against Money Changers : Turf War

By Syed Akbar Ali

Bank Negara acts on errant money-changers

KUALA LUMPUR, Wed: Bank Negara Malaysia has revoked 41 money-changers' licences so far this year. This includes contravention of Section 30 of the Act, which prohibits money-changers from transferring funds outside Malaysia, whether on their own behalf or on behalf of third parties.

In the statement, Bank Negara reminded members of the public to use the services offered by commercial banking institutions or the 45 non-bank remittance service providers approved by the central bank to transfer funds abroad.

The list of commercial and Islamic banks as well as approved non-bank remittance service providers can be obtained from the Bank Negara website at http://www.bnm.gov.my/microsites/fxadmin/index.htm. -- BERNAMA

Bernama has even provided the website where people can find the licensed money remitters. Well there is always more than meets the eye.

I run my business in the Masjid India area, which is undoubtedly the Money Changers capital of Malaysia. I know a little bit of what is really going on.

By law money changers can only change foreign currencies. By Bank Negara regulations, money changers cannot have more than RM250,000 worth of all currencies at any one time on their premises. It is meant to be a small business. And Money Changers are not allowed to open branches.

However some years ago, for some strange reason Bank Negara allowed two corporate players (one was Berjaya Group and the other was an outfit started by an ex banker Dato Amin something) to run a branch network of Money Change outlets. Bank Negara has never explained this double standard. Why were the corporate players given multiple licenses or allowed to open money change branch outlets when others were not allowed to do the same?

And quite predictably, despite being located in choice locations like in airports, both the corporate players Berjaya and the other guy soon closed shop.

A vast majority of Money Changers are Indian Muslims but a sizeable number of license holders are also Malays (which usually end up being farmed out). The mamaks have long dominated this business and there are good reasons for it. Few can match their speed and honesty in providing this service.

And most of the time the Money Changers bust the RM250,000 cash limit. Recently the Court discharged a case involving a Money Changer and allowed him to cart home over RM4.8 million in cash. The guy coolly put the money in cardboard boxes and pushed it out on a trolley. Some Money Changers may handle much more than that in just one day.

The reason is because the RM250,000 sum is too small a figure for today’s business. The fact is even banks and corporates who want to change foreign currency in a hurry call upon the Money Changers. This happens frequently in Singapore. Say someone has a million US Dollars and they want to change it to Ringgit, one phone call to a Money Changer can setttle the problem instantly. If a Money Changer does not have enough cash, he will call his network and ‘syndicate’ the amount within minutes.

But the biggest business for the Money Changers (not all of them though) is remitting money overseas. This is an illegal business. This is not allowed by Malaysian law. But for decades now, Indonesian workers go to the Money Changers and send money home to Indonesia. The Money Changers provide an unbeatable service. Now the Banglas, Nepalis and even Filipino workers do the same.

Their networking is such that an Indon here can ask his wife to go to the Bank or to some designated disbursement point in Indonesia and wait at the agreed time. The Indon then goes to the Money Changer here, pays the amount of Ringgit and it is sent in Rupiah to his wife. For a small extra fee the Money Changer will call their counterpart in Indonesia and the Indon can speak directly to his wife and she can confirm instantly that she has received the funds.

My friends tell me that the amount of visible relief you can see on an Indon’s face when he hears his wife saying she has received the money is worthy of a Kodak moment. Despite being such a screwed up country, the mamak Money Changer networks can penetrate the deepest points in Indonesia to provide a real service for the Indon workers here. Lhokseumawe in Sumatra, Puruwokerto in Java and Menado in Sulawesi are part of their lingo.

But the most important part of their service is that they deliver full value. When an Indon sends money home through the Banks, they levy very high charges here in Malaysia. The worst cut is in Indonesia where the paying Bank again takes a big cut. An Indon worker can lose up to 10% of the amount remitted in service charges paid to the Banks here and in Indonesia. In my definition that is riba or unjust profiteering. You are sucking the blood of poor labourers.

On the other hand the Money Changers charge a one time fee of about RM10 – RM20 per transaction only. Whether the Indon sends over RM500 or RM1000, he still incurs only RM20 “service fees”. (In Klang it went as low as RM3 per remittance transaction). His wife still gets the full RM500 or RM1000 worth in Rupiahs in Indonesia. This is why the Money Changers are so popular with the Indons. Considering that there are over a million Indons working here, that is a lot of money being sent.

Bank Negara has always known of their illegal remittance businesses but has “closed one eye” for a long time. This is because Bank Negara recognises that the Money Changers provide a highly needed service. A few years ago the Money Changers themselves got tired of operating under the radar and getting harrased by Bank Negara. They wanted Bank Negara to issue them licenses so that they could remit money overseas as a legal business.

Some of them approached me and I helped them prepare a Working Paper which was submitted to Bank Negara Malaysia. Subsequent to that Bank Negara has issued what are known as ‘Remittance Licenses’. This includes the foreign players like the American company Western Union which now operates throughout the country. A few Money Changers have also formed companies and have been issued these remittance licenses.

However this being Malaysia many of the 45 licenses were issued to people with “links” and “cables” who obviously did not know what the business was all about. Needless to say they are mostly floundering and some have not taken off. And more importantly these ‘licensed remittance’ outfits are not popular with the market (the Indons, the Banglas etc. Maybe their charges are too high or there is too much red tape involved). And the fact is you cannot instantly penetrate an industry which has been dominated by the mamaks since the First World War or earlier.

Market talk is many of these 45 licensees who are floundering are now using their substantial “muscle” with Bank Negara to come down hard on the Money Changers who are still doing the business illegally. Hence the clampdown and the newspaper headlines involving Money Changers. This is just a turf war where legal “muscle” is being used to edge out the mamak Money Changers by a group of newbies who are in strange territory. They want to even out the playing field.

Let me give some advise : you cannot beat them. Please take my word on this.

Then there are more nefarious reasons why the illegal money remittance business will always survive. We have heard it in Parliament. The Menteri Besar of Negeri Sembilan (who was a Bank manager with Maybank for many years and must know Malaysia’s Remittance Regulations) has been sending money (not much lah, only about RM10.0 million, ie eight or nine cardboard boxes full) to Singapore through the Money Changers. Mohd Hassan said he did not know that it was illegal to do so. And what the hell, the money was only to buy property in Singapore. Has anyone asked how he got the freaking RM10.0 million?

Then it was reported that the wife of a Minister has also been sending about six million pounds sterling through the Money Changers. That is about RM34 million? Where do they get this amount of money? Has anyone asked this question? Was that from the Minister's monthly salary?

This is why illegal money remittance will always be in demand. When you have corruption in the land, all this “hot money” needs to fly hurriedly to safe locations like Singapore and the UK. You cannot expect the Minister’s wife or the MB to go to a ‘licensed remitter’ and fill up Borang XYZ and declare that they are sending RM10.0 million or RM34 million here and there.

But again all this is peanuts compared to other regular money remittances which really does not want to attract attention. There are hundreds of millions if not billions of ringgit amounts being remitted overseas by importers and traders – to avoid import duties. This has been going on since the time of the Melaka Empire. Here is how it works.

Say a major carpet trader or textile importer imports stuff from China or Korea. Lets say there are import duties to be paid here. To avoid or reduce the import duties, they underdeclare the value of the goods. Say a shipment of carpets is worth RM1.0 million. To pay less import duty here, the importer underdeclares the value say by half ie RM500,000. So he only pays import duty on RM500,000 instead of on RM1.0 million. He thereby cheats the Government of revenue on RM500,000.

To do this, his agent in Korea or China must be in cahoots with him to prepare Bills of Lading, export documents etc all showing a lower value of the goods. Often the bigger traders have “purchasing offices” in Korea etc whose only purpose is this : to prepare undervalued export documents. Then he will remit money legally through his Bank here to make a payment of RM500,000 based on the undervalued Bills of Lading etc. But he still has to pay the remaining RM500,000 to his supplier in Korea or China.

How does he do that legally through the Banks considering that his import documents only show a value of RM500,000? He cannot. This is where the ‘illegal remitters’ provide a service. Here the mamak Money Changers may or may not be involved because the traders also have their own trusted networks. And frequently this network is race based.

The Chinese trust their Chinese remittters. The Gujeratis trust their Gujerati remitters, the Punjabis trust the Punjabi remitters etc. Many years ago I knew of a man (not a mamak) who provided this service for many textile and carpet importers who were of his own race.

These people are not Money Changers. They may operate out of their homes or some trading company or so. They often have bank accounts in Singapore (where they ask very very few questions) and they also move cash around (not in cardboard boxes though). Another time there was this Dato who wanted to move about 10.0 million pounds sterling from the UK to Kuala Lumpur in a hurry.

Considering the amount of skullduggery that goes on, my wife and I have steered well clear of this “money” business. We are quite happy with our jewellery business where the greatest excitement is when someone tries to unload fake gold or well dressed characters walk in (like this morning) and try to sell large amounts of gold for cash. We just say no. Why take the risk of buying stolen property?

But so long as we have “hot money” flowing around the world, so long as we have corruption in the land, so long as we have stifling economic regulations, stifling duties and taxes, then that is how long the illegal money remittance business will go on. In places like Singapore they make it simpler. They simply make a lot of this legal. And they are duty free too.

Some Old Videos

By Syed Akbar Ali


I saw the following posted on Rocky's Bru. These are old BTN tapes of Brader Anwar giving his usual 'jual ubat' speech at one BTN session (Biro Tata Negara). I am not impressed with the contents of what he is saying. The brader was always dull.

But look at his hands. Ini confirm DNA mamak - the flying hands.






The second video here is of a much younger Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim (presently MB of Selangor and formerly also a speaker at BTN). He is at pains to focus on the differences between "Malaysian Chinese" and "Chinese Malaysians".


Has Elizabeth Wong seen this tape? Eli? Eli? Lama sabachthani?

Moolas And Mullahs.

By Syed Akbar Ali

Not to confuse you but “moola” here refers to the American slang term for money. A ‘mullah’ on the other hand is usually a hugely bearded, unhygienic fellow often with a huge belly whose grubby hands love to hold moolas (money).

In the mid 90s during the time of khalifah Anwar I met a foreign lecturer at the International Islamic University who was part of the international ‘Islamic brotherhood’ that the Brader was trying to inculcate at that time. At that time all sorts of strange and funny foreign ‘Islamic’ scholars found their way to our country. I used to attend various forums and functions organised by the Braders’ henchmen. (Yes I used to keep an eye on them – just for fun. I did not know that I would be writing books or writing a Blog someday).

One of the stranger set of foreigners I met who came to this country on Brader Anwar’s largesse was a couple made up of an American with a very distinct twang in his voice and a pretty young woman from Morocco who he claimed was his wife. The girl wore silver coins around her forehead and silver bracelets in the fashion of traditional Arab women from the Maghreb.

The foreigner I met was a lecturer with a very strange outlook on Islam (even to me). He did not seem to believe in God! The University finally fired him. He was called a non Muslim – he told me himself ! The person who had labelled him a non Muslim was himself another foreigner and yet another controversial character from Pakistan who belonged to a pernicious outfit in that country called the Jamiaat Al Islami (Muslim League). These were all foreigners – bringing their strange and potentially violent thinking to our peaceful country.

The foreigner lecturer who was fired was quite disillusioned with Islam and Muslims. He said that he had previously worked for a number of years in the UK for a British Mat Salleh artiste who later became a Muslim. He had quit working for the Mat Salleh turned Muslim over money matters. He was not getting paid enough.

Then he explained how the British artiste received tons of money from the Arabs, especially from Saudi Arabia. The artiste frequently went to Saudi Arabia and would receive money in briefcases which he would bring back with him to Britain. No need for money changers there.

From the 70s (when oil revenues shot up) until now and going into the future, the Arab rulers are willing and ready to spend their oil money on “promoting Islam”. There is some psychology behind this. Most Arab rulers are potentates. A potentate is a ruler who has vast power over the people which is not limited by silly things like Parliament or even more sillier things like the Courts.

Potentates need not campaign for votes or face democratic processes. After them, their sons will most likely succeed them. They know that their people detest their presence. It is only ok if they splurge money on the people (like in Dubai and the rest of the Emirates) where a male Emirati is paid USD120,000 per annum just for breathing. But even then the potentates must show the people that they are worth their peoples’ respect. The ‘I am helping to promote Islam around the world’ angle is one such example. Arab potentates love to make speeches and to appear on stage. And if it is the world stage, then even better.

But unfortunately they have few products to sell. Oil is drilled, transported and sold for them by the Americans, the Brits, the Chinese and now even by Petronas. The only thing over which the Arabs can claim some ‘patent’ rights is religion. They can still make a pretty good impression on their people if they claim to be fighting for religion. But even this too must be ‘great impact’ projects.

If you go see an Arab potentate and say that you need a bag full of money to help convert a busload of former Cabinet Ministers of Chinese extraction in Malaysia who want to repent their corruption sins and convert they will go like ‘Huh?’ Such things will not excite them. No money.

But if you say that there is a pub full of Mat Sallehs in the UK who can be converted, you may get at least one bag of money to do the job. Mat Sallehs in the UK can generate more publicity on the home turf. Imagine if world renowned folks like Michael Jackson turn up at their doorstep and want to be converted ? The money really flowed. The Oo of Oo-baa-doo really rode high when it was said that Micahel Jackson wanted to convert on his turf. That was some major bird in the bag. (The Oo eventually had to sue Mikey for all the money that was spent on Mikey’s comfort and the hospitality dished out). Unfortunately Michael Jackson died.

Seeing the amount of moolas that are flowing, some clever beggars with beards, mullah bellies and grubby hands are getting into the act too. After the 9-11 event, this has become a career for some.. If you want to extract money out of the Arab oil potentates first you have to create some kind of hoo haa, a cause or platform which can entice them to open the money tap. On the guise of promoting peace between Islam and the West, presenting the true face of Islam to the West and other such notions the money sponsorship can be quite lucrative.

Sometimes the beardos get really lucky. They can even entice unsuspecting leaders to appear on the same stage as them. Its like a KPI thing. When there is more bang, they get more bucks. The oil money sponsor will go home feeling it is money well spent. Someone else will go home with a big smile.

KPI Postponed Again.

By Syed Akbar Ali

First two news items (truncated)

PM invites people to attend Open Day on govt KPI plan

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Key Result Areas (NKRAs) is not going to be an all-government affair. In an unprecedented move, the people have been invited to provide input on ways to achieve the six targets. The big date has been fixed for Friday at the Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre. Invited persons and NGOs will have their say a day earlier. . . .

Govt to seek public feedback on NKRAs this Friday

KUALA LUMPUR:

Najib : “We are very committed in carrying out the GTP (Government Transformation Program) as our main government agenda is based on the 1Malaysia approach and philosophy of People First, Performance Now. On the “live” labs on 1Malaysia and national unity, he said a comprehensive document would be out by the end of next month outlining a better understanding of both concepts. . .

I say jemput lah Blogger sekali. Kalau dijemput, saya pasti akan datang. Tapi kalau tak jemput, takpa lah. Here is what I feel anyway.

Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak assumed office in April 2009. Among his earliest announcements in the first 100 Days in office was the Key Performance Indicators or KPIs for the Cabinet Ministers. The promises were grand. Every six months, the Ministers would be evaluated based on their KPIs. Those who did not make the grade would be “handled accordingly” or even cut.

Well, first of all to evaluate the Minister’s KPIs we would need to see what the KPIs are? The Ministers too were surely interested to know what their KPIs would be. So to this effect Najib appointed Koh Tsu Koon the Minister in charge of KPIs for the Cabinet Ministers.

Then the talk was the Government would subcontract figuring out this “KPIs for Ministers” job to the mother of all GLCs. This was the First Step in this Tai Chi, that is now evolving. Then market talk was that the mother of all GLCs in turn would (or had) sub-subcontracted this KPI job to their “favorite” management consultant (Tai Chi Step 2). who in turn would (or had) asked another ‘specialist’ human resources consultant to help out too (Tai Chi Step 3.) The cost ? This is Malaysia ok. Taxpayers’ money involved. (I heard a figure mentioned but it was unbelievable – so I will not say it here).

Well its now nine months on and still there is no KPI for the Ministers. Najib is way past his first review date of six months. Considering his 32 years in Government but still allowing thirty days for Najib to get his timetable in order, the Ministers performance should have been KPIed latest by October 2009 (seven months after Najib taking office). Tak ada apa pun?

Obviously Koh Tsu Koon (who holds a PhD in Physics) was falling down on the job of figuring out the KPIs. Then to help Koh Tsu Koon, the PM appointed Idris Jala into the Cabinet as ‘Assistant to Minister in charge of KPI.’

But people in the know say that Idris Jala’s function and role as Minister in the PM’s Department is vague. Idris has been holding “brainstorming sessions” to figure out this whole thing – the KPIs, the KRAs and stuff like that. One of Idris’ admirers even wrote a long letter in The Star extolling Idris’ opennes and transparency in his brainstorming sessions.

Ok is the “ribut otak” over already? Can we see some results now please? But where are the KPIs? Where are the results? When will the Cabinet be graded every six months according to the KPIs – as promised by the PM 10 months ago in April? When will the public know?

To avoid confusion, and in the public interest, can the Prime Minister explain clearly to the let-down-once-too-often public the exact time frame that is meant by ‘Performance Now’? When you say ‘Performance Now’ do you really mean today or do you mean one month from now, six months from now, before 2012 (when Hollywood predicts the world will end) or some other date. What exactly is the time frame when you say “Performance Now’? Dont be misleading the public about doing things now and then not delivering.

We have had enough of that from Slumberjack, his family members and cronies who crapped all over the place for five years.

If “Performance Now” cannot be put into neat and precise time frames (today, one month, six months, two years etc) then may I advise the PM to please stop using this slogan ‘Performance Now’. Yes it becoming another slogan – just like in the bad days of Slumberjack ‘Towering Malay’, ‘Towering Inferno’, ‘Infernal Towering’ and stuff like that.

Now I see this “lets meet the public” thingy on Thursday and Friday as just another Tai Chi exercise to postpone even further the PM’s promise to evaluate the Cabinet Ministers performance based on their KPIs. To me it looks like a delay tactic to postpone the long overdue KPI for Ministers.

Dont believe me? Here is the evidence : Najib himself says,

“On the “live” labs on 1Malaysia and national unity, he said a comprehensive document would be out by the end of next month outlining a better understanding of both concepts”

So now a comprehensive document would be out by the end of January 2010 “outlining” a better “understanding” of both concepts. Believe me I am the expert in detecting double talk and b.s. If this is not double talk, then the Pope is not Catholic either.

What this means is that by end January 2010, the first cut or the first draft of whatever will be ready. According to the PM, it will be an “outline” only. Not the final document. And on and on. Maybe another round of talking and debating? Maybe another three months will go by ?

May I suggest something more simpler and more easily achievable. The number of potholes on the roads around KL is incerasing. (Klang Valley is worse but that is under Pakatan – so who cares?) Can the Government please instruct whoever is running the DBKL (the Mayor ke, Raja Nong Chik ke or the other fellow ke) to please patch up the roads around KL first? The roads are just getting bad.

And in the ‘Performace Now’ timeline, this can be achieved in say 30 days. All the PM has to do is call any one of of the most effective among the three people mentioned above and say ‘Dato, you have 30 days to patch up all the potholes around KL’.

Finally, I think it was a mistake for the PM to have made his pronouncements of a KPI for the Cabinet Ministers. No less than a former Cabinet Minister told me this - and I agree with him. I dont know who put this idea into his head but it is not an easy or clever thing to do. For example how do you KPI the Menteri Agama ? Religion is a State matter.

There could be another reason. There is also talk that there may be snap elections next year. In such event, Najib will need to keep almost all the Ministers he can get. As an example, in case there are fireworks amongst the present set of cahaya matas in Sarawak, Idris Jala will be crucial to sustain the Dayak vote and hence BN’s power in Sarawak.

And if Najib fires any Minister now (and he should fire some) then they may just go back and tell their Bahagian boys to shut down operations. That would be trouble indeed for Najib (especially if he is planning a snap election) who really has to win back the five States and the two thirds majority in Parliament. Has anyone considered the shift in the dynamics if Najib fails to win back the five States and / or the two thirds majority? Even without a snap election, the next General Election is due anyway in 2012 or 2013.

There is an increasing feeling among many pro-UMNO, pro-Government people, especially the Bloggers like me that the PM should swallow some extra strength vitamins and boldly drop some of the not so favorite, controversial and non performing Ministers from the Cabinet. No need for a KPI review. There seems to be an easily established consensus on some of these names. If he can do this boldly, the PM will stand a better chance at winning big in the elections. The whole country will be with him. At the end of the day it is all about winning votes.

The PM should have the confidence that it is possible to win more votes by doing the right thing. KPI or no KPI, it may be quite disastrous for him to go into the elections with the present crop of Ministers. I think the consensus on this is getting larger and gaining momentum too.

So will I still be invited ? A really sharp tongued friend of mine is itching to come along too.

Non Suicidal Samurai Islam Met Shogun.

By Syed Akbar Ali

I received smses yesterday saying that Nazri had been summoned to see the PM and received an earful. Its in the papers today. But there is still the clowning.

PETALING JAYA: ..(Datuk Seri Naz­ri Aziz) The Minister in the Prime Minis­ter’s Department was summoned to Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s office in Putrajaya early yesterday for a meeting over the issue

“I agreed to end this whole thing because I do not want to make things difficult for the Prime Minister, I don’t want to hurt his image,” he said,

Alluding to media reports of him as the “Last Samurai” or the last of the fearless politicians, he said there would be no hara kiri. “Muslim Samurais do not commit harakiri,” he said. Referring to Najib as the Shogun, he added: “My Shogun has spoken. As a Samurai, I have to do as he says.”

Well in Japan, Shoguns have been known to tell the Samurai to commit seppuku (ritual suicide). But since Nazri insists that he is a Muslim samurai (samurai Islam) and that samurai Islam do not commit harakiri, he has denied his Shogun this option - with yet more blunt strokes of his tongue.

Then the taxi drivers are also unhappy with the non suicidal Samurai Islam about other stinky matters from him:

Cabbies want Nazri to say sorry over toilet remark

KUALA LUMPUR: Taxi drivers in the Klang Valley have demanded that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz withdraw his statement saying “the bad attitude of our taxi drivers is worse than our filthy public toilets.”

Azmi Md Yatin, chairman of the Executive Taxi Owners Association of Malaysia, said . . . . his equating taxi drivers to toilets was an insult.

Here is a picture of a non Muslim suicidal samurai from old Chippanggu:

Accepting Peace Prize, Obama Evokes ‘Just War’

By Syed Akbar Ali

In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Obama said:

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: we will not eradicate violent conflicts in our lifetimes,” Mr. Obama said, addressing the paradox of receiving an award for peace as commander in chief of a nation that is escalating the war in Afghanistan as it continues to fight in Iraq. “There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

He delivered a mix of realism and idealism, implicitly criticizing both the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as naïve about a dangerous world and President George W. Bush as too quick to set aside fundamental American values in pursuit of security. And he embraced the concept of American exceptionalism, the idea that the United States has a special role as a defender of liberty, even as he promoted multilateralism.

Well this is a lie. They said that Osama bin Ladin, a terrorist from Saudi Arabia had attacked the Twin Towers in New York. There is no evidence to back this up. Are we really expected to believe that Osama, the most wanted man on the surface of the earth can evade capture for eight years by hiding in caves and the deserts of Afghanistan? Maybe Osama is hanging around the Jews in New York. They all look alike.

Has everyone forgotten that after 9-11, the Americans put a demand to the Afghans to hand over Osama bin Ladin or the Afghans will be bombed to the Stone Age. There was even a “Mr Taliban Hand Over Bin Ladin” song that was sung. Here is the YouTube.

Well instead of punishing the Saudis, the Americans invaded Afghanistan to flush out Osama.

Other than the Greek attempt to repossess Helen of Troy (a myth) and the attempt by Rama to rescue Sita from the clutches of Ravan in Lanka (another myth) this would be the first time that a superpower invaded Afghanistan ostensibly to look for one person Osama. Helen of Troy, Sita Devi and Osama bin Ladin all wore or wear dresses. Other than that, I think all three are myths.

Well the Americans have now been there for eight years and they have not found Osama. So shouldnt they be leaving Afghanistan?

We all know that Osama, Taliban etc were just excuses. The Americans wanted to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Taliban or no Taliban, Osama or no Osama, for some sick reason they want these pieces of real estate.

So do you think that the US wants Osama found? If Osama is found then of course their game will be up. They will have no more reason to occupy Afghanistan. They will have to pack up and leave. We all know that is not something they want to do. So Osama will not be found, not for a long while yet.

Or Osama could be dead – as claimed by Pervez Musharraf – who probably knows the American game plan. My view is Osama is in the US – under some CIA protection program.

Then they invaded Iraq. Again the reason the US gave was that Sadam had WMDs or weapons of mass destruction and super duper ballistic missiles with which he could launch an attack against Britain in 40 minutes ! Whatever for? Surprisingly Saddam did not use any of these super duper ballistic missiles against Israel. He fired refurbished Scud missiles which were soon brought down by American Patriot missiles – some even falling over Saudi Arabia.

After invading Iraq the Americans have not found a single weapon of mass destruction in Iraq. Neither have they found German style mass graves of Iraqis which they say existed all over Iraq. So shouldnt they be leaving Iraq too ? Mission has been accomplished. No ?

So when Obama uses the rostrum at the Nobel Peace Prize awards to justify the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and says quite blatantly “we will not eradicate violent conflicts in our lifetimes” he is really insulting everyone’s intelligence – especially the people gathered to listen to him receive the Nobel Peace Prize !

Obama has been touched by the devil. This is no more the Obama who won the elections. He has been fully co-opted by the dark forces who inhabit the upper echelons of power in the US and every where else.

But my view is that the Nobel Peace Prize Commitee has become part of this game. Otherwise how in the name of dynamite can the Peace Prize be awarded to Al Gore for his con-game about global warming? And how can Obama’s nomination be accepted hardly a month after he became president this year?

When they announced the award to Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize committee cited the “promise of peace” that Obama was bringing. That promise is now coming true in the form of 30,000 extra troops in Afghanistan and with an American commitment ‘for the long haul’ in Afghanistan and Iraq.

My question is this : when the Taliban send more Americans home in body bags and finally kick them out of Afghanistan will the Taliban be awarded a Peace Prize too?

Please recall Le Duc Tho. He was the North Vietnamese Politburo Member who was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 (along with Henry Kissinger) after negotiating a truce between the US and North Vietnam. The Vietcong sent thousands of Americans home in body bags and had kicked out the Americans from Vietnam.

The Vietcong and the Taliban have something common – both wear pyjamas.