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A weblog about life / politics/ impressions of Malaysia through the eyes of a foreigner




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Monday 30 June, 2008
25 Jumada al-Thanni 1429AH

A weblog by Albert. From my home in Yan Kedah. I reside here since 1992. See here to know where Yan is.

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10/06- rm 4.00 a liter?
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10/06- a responsible husband....

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Blog category: all categories. - August 2005
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 KLIA welcome - by @lbert
  Posted:26/08/2005 - 12:15 - in category: travel abroad
Arriving at KLIA from Bali, you are greeted in the arrival hall by a tremendous queue of people for the Non-Malaysian passport section.
You think they would take the trouble in opening more counters..... WRONG they actually closed one more because it was dinner time.
TOTALLY RIDICULOUS hundreds of people waiting.
Took me 45 minutes before my passport was stamped. Malayasian passport counters 6 or more meanwhile all idle.
Custom officers who still have to invent smiling, grim or sauer looking.
Welcome to Malaysia tourist, this is Malaysia boleh! Hundreds of people were turned off and grumbling by this behaviour!
Please can anyone make these customes people people friendly? And learn to open more counters when the need is there! Wawasan 2020 remember?
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 Bali the tourist trap. - by @lbert
  Posted:25/08/2005 - 14:28 - in category: travel abroad
I thought i was gonna have some nice days in Bali.
First in Kuta .... but what a disaster, Kuta, Sanur, Legian it is an ents nest. People crawling every where, prices 3x more than normal, and a 24 hours jam on the road.
What a disaster.
Thus the next day off to Ubud, cooler and luckily less people. The area around there is beautifull, but still the same idea, they try to cheat every tourist on everything you buy. This makes you really sick especially if everything has to be bargained down from Rp 80-100.000 upe to 5-10.000 crazy.
Renting a motor bike and a car each 1 day gave some chance to go around, and leave the hustlers out, till the next stop.
Below you see some paddy fields, beautifull

And a view on lake Batur

And of course the famous Tanah Lot temple on the coast near Seminyak.


All in all nice views, but Bali will NEVER see me again.
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 Outstation - by @lbert
  Posted:05/08/2005 - 11:00 - in category: travel abroad
I will be outstation again. Have to do some work in Indonesia. After that i will go one week to Bali and see how much it changed in the 20+ years i have not been there.
But Bali is a photographers paradise......so i'll do my best. See what i can produce with my digital camera.
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 Petrol subsidies. - by @lbert
  Posted:04/08/2005 - 12:08 - in category: politics Malaysia
For a long time i now see all the stories about 'subsidizing' the petrol in Malaysia.
I think all this is rubish! Malaysia is a net exporter of petrol products and gas.
This means nothing is bought abroad and thus NOTHING is subsidized.
The only thing is that Petroleam Nasional is loosing out when selling locally or selling on the world marked.
But than all petrol is pumped from Malaysian soil, thus owned by all Malaysians.
It comes out for free! Only cost of pumping it up / exploration / transport counts, the rest is profit 100%!
Are Malaysians not entitled to enjoy some fruits of it?

The goverment is short of money because of all the Malaysia Boleh projects, but does this mean the small man has to pay through the nose?
Nothing has been done in Malaysia to be energy efficient. Houses/offices with aircon gulp 2-3 times the needed energy for cooling.
We use electrical heaters, while a sun boiler easily does the job.
People drive asoc-cars (A-social cars) like ridiculous 4 wheel drives that gulp petrol like crazy.
Mind you a Kancil uses 1 liter in 18-20km, those asoc cars easily gobble up 1 liter in 8 km

Petroleam Nasional is a 100% goverment company making billions in profit every year. (profit up 30% last year)
Profits have been misused by goverment to bail out cronies, finance projects.
Even Putrajaya is allmost completely financed by Petronas through a 65+% holding.
Every sen the public pays more for petrol is profit for Petronas, and thus straight disappears in the goverment coffers, think about that.
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 Another victory for Anwar... - by @lbert
  Posted:03/08/2005 - 14:26 - in category: politics Malaysia
from Malaysiakini:
Ex-IGP Rahim Noor agrees to apologise publicly for assaulting the former deputy prime minister while he was in custody and the defendants are willing to pay an undisclosed amount of damages.

The defendants include Malaysia's home ministry, so since the tax-payers money is involved why should the amount be undisclosed? I would really like to know how much the goverment is bleeding.....
They must have been bloody scared for more bad publicity that they settle outside court.

The Star and NST are blank again....hero's!
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 Judith Lilian Macdonald's story - by @lbert
  Posted:02/08/2005 - 10:24 - in category: general
Judith Macdonald is the woman from New Zealand, who was unlawfully detained in Terenganu.
A few excerpts:
Malaysia is considered one of the three most technologically advanced countries in the world. Their communication system (and ability to discommunicate or miscommunicate should it be deemed expedient especially within the echelons of power), is awesome, and the media, controlled by an Islamic Government, sensationalist and irresponsible, well known in all but a few cases (the non Muslim editors and reporter) to squash anything protesting Government or Islam actions, and for their deliberate lying and/or distortion of the facts.

And another striking thing:
Bones aching in the morning, I requested exercise. This was refused. We had one squat toilet and one shower. The drain was blocked. Water splashing from the bucketed method of cleansing after toileting was carried together with collected shower water into the area where ome of us were forced to attempt sleep, where the toddlers played. I had iahorrea and requested soap. This too was refused. When I complained this was below world standards concerning the rights of detainees and of human rights, the reply came, 'we are not the police.'- more evidence these self-styled Islamic Reformists, like terrorists themselves, consider themselves unaccountable to any laws concerning the rights and dignity of mankind.


Draw your own conclusion, read the full story here
Star/Utusan/NST and NTV-7 you can learn something here, if proves how much your reporting stinks!
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 Can i have that payrise too? - by @lbert
  Posted:02/08/2005 - 08:35 - in category: politics Malaysia
THE Menteri Besar, state councillors and assemblymen will see a 10 per cent increase in salaries and allowance.
Now the small print:
Menteri Besar RM14,175.15 ( RM12,880.50)
Deputy Menteri Besar RM7,440.29 (6,763.90)
Executive councillors RM6,109.29 (5,533.90)
Assemblymen RM4,112.79 (RM3,778.90).

Than:
All assemblymen will receive an additional RM50,000 allocation a year to carry out community projects in their constituencies.
Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo said the amount was in addition to the RM100,000 a year each representative now received.
That is 150K for playing santa claus? or buy a new fat Mercedes......
Add all the duit kopi to that, well nice jobs!
Just drive around in your fat Mercedes or Volvo in aircon all day.
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 Dating in Acheh..... - by @lbert
  Posted:01/08/2005 - 22:56 - in category: travel abroad
Not on Malaysia...but nearby and in the future?
In Aceh, Indonesia�s northernmost province, the police are now �arresting unmarried women and men caught dating in public places�.
Aceh province is gradually implementing Islamic sharia law under a broad autonomy package granted by the central government in 2001 to curb separatist sentiment there.

Well, if the Acehnese can�t date in public, how are they gonna find a partner? They could try an internet dating service I suppose. But if you click here, you�ll see why the last time that was tried it was such a spectacular failure�
(from http://indcoup.blogspot.com/)
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 Sky-Kingdom no more.... - by @lbert
  Posted:01/08/2005 - 05:00 - in category: general
Updated
SHAME ON YOU TERENGGANU GOVERMENT AND ALL OTHERS INVOLVED!!
There are no words i can find for the demolition of the objects in Ayah Pin's Sky kingdom in Besut.
All the beautifull items as teapot, assembly hall, and payong are demolished.
I still wonder which law gives you the right to do so, the more since ayah Pin get an injunction from the court last month that forbids the demolition.
But than court orders are not valid for goverment and religious bodies, they are above the law in Malaysia.
Well Malaysia has shown again how tolerant it is, freedom of religion.....
These people were not even involved in a religion.
Everything exists in words only, thank you NST, The Star, NTV7 and of course various religious bodies who think they can play god.
A job well done, you really have shown that you are a bunch of hypocryts.
I weep for Malaysia.......
And Ayah Pin, in spite of road-blocks and god knows what else, they can't find him, dont make me laugh....Ayah Pin better changes his name to Houdini....

A job well done, they needed 50+ people for this!
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