Euro Joy for Spain

Spain have officially been crowned the new Kings of Europe after winning Euro 2008 against Germany. They outclassed their opponents by winning the battle 1-0. Spain, having failed to live up to expectations by not winning any silverware for 44 years, had finally ended that barren by winning this year's event.


And what a tournament it has turned out to be for the Spaniards. They literally cruised in the group stages, demolishing Russia 4-1 in the opening game before repeating that same feat (amid a different score line) in the semi finals. And in a game touted to be between Germany's physical strong and efficiency approach against the fluid passings of Spain, is was ultimately the Spanish's approach that prevailed. They passed the ball silky smoothly, and their touches were just exquisite. It was surely a joy to behold!

After France bowed out of the tournament at the first hurdle, I shifted my support towards Spain, as it had 4 Liverpool players in the squad (Reina, Arbeloa, Alonso, and Torres). And even though Torres failed to play his game in much of the tournament, he scored the goal that would forever be in the remembrance of Spanish supports as it was his goal that won them the game.


Read more of the victory at espnsoccernet.com if you may.

History Repeating Itself

Rule of thumb: Strong opposition leaders in Malaysia are gay. That's probably what the government wants us to believe.

When I heard about the allegations in Nightline while waiting for the Komuter, I thought I misheard it and thus spared minimum attention. But when I got back, my father confirmed the story.

They are accusing DS Anwar Ibrahim of a second sodomy.This time, to one of his aides. A decade ago, he was also accused of the same act, but was later released after being found not guilty. They accused him when his influence was reaching peak heights. Now, just as DSAI is going to the top, our respected government is again attempting to halt this worrying progression, and funny thing is, by the same method. Prepare to see another mattress being carried to court.

It's a funny world to be in, to say the least, regarding Malaysia's ever so colorful politics. They seem to be like little kids stupidly accusing one another as they play in their backyards with their friends. But as kids being kids, it's ok.

The difference between now and a decade ago is that, back in those days, there was no internet, making life so much easier for the government. Only main stream media reached the people, and the people knew minimum truth. Now, with the internet, it's another war this government is facing. Blogs, forums, and online news are fast catching any fishy statement released by the government. They won't go far now by just randomly accusing someone like that. No, not this time.

One such example is this:


Meet Saiful Bahari, accuser-cum-victim of this saga. Pictured here at the Deputy PM's office. Herm, indeed fishy it is. Owh, and there's plenty of other ministers met by him, such as here. Other reports claim that PKR knew all about Saiful being planted by the 'other side' once he entered the office a few days before the GE, and it was just a matter of time before they exposed him.

Now I'm no good at political analysis, nor am I and expert in Malaysia's judicial system. So for more information, you can always go to malaysia-today.net, anilnetto.com, or Harakahdaily to name a few. Or, if you want the funnier, less stressful version, read here.

Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim is currently seeking refugee at the Turkish Ambassador. What's next? Stay tuned.

A Little too Long

Malaysia has been under the same ruling party for 51 consecutive years, ever since Merdeka. Now isn't that a little too long?


No, says most of us. They've done reasonably well for the last 50 years, says most of the people I've encountered. Malaysia has prospered tremendously since gaining it's independence in 1957, they add. And why, just why, would we want to change for a new unproven party when we know at least it's safe with what we have now?

That's the voices of Malaysians who like to play it safe. They don't want to go daring and change governments, for they fear what the outcome might look like. They fear the worse. Basically, they're afraid of what they don't know.

Is that how it's supposed to be? Is that the best way to become a developed country? Is that the only way to progress?

No, I don't think so. If you look at all the major developed countries of the world, they have all been changing parties every now and then. Off course there is that one major party, but every once in a while they change and go for the opposition.

Take the US for example. Here is a list of the United States Presidents and the parties they represented. As seen there, the Republican has been ruling most of the states. However, as seen, every one or two years, they change and go for the Democrats. And with Barack Obama seen on the cards as the next US President, the government will once again shift from the Republicans to Democrats again.

This pattern of changing the governments ruling party can also be seen in the UK (Labor vs Conservative). And if Dasar Pandang ke Timur is to be applied, look at Japan. They too change parties (even though less frequent).

Malaysians need to be more bold and fierce when it comes to voting. By doing so, it would cause the government to always be on their toes, always working hard to develop the nation to it's highest capabilities. Takde la derang senang duduk, lepak2, and let their guards down.

To the people's full credit though, the GE 12 was a wake up call to the serving government and it's allies. They now notice that Malaysians are starting to voice their opinions more drastically, and if they set another foot wrong, surely more punishment will come their way.

Then again, this blog post may be a little too late too begin with. The GE is way gone. But whatever, may this blog post console those who are sadden, sorrowed, or just afraid after the lost of 5 states to Barisan Rakyat. This change may not necessarily be bad. We'll wait and see.

Starbucks in IPTA

So the Higher eduction Ministry has confirmed that they've allowed franchise cafes, such as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and kopitiams to be opened in IPTA's nation wide. Read here.

Are they going nuts again? I mean a Starbucks coffee would cost belasan ringgit for a cup. What are they trying to do? Dry up the money of the student's to fill up their own pockets this time?

Deputy Minister of Higher Eduction, Dato Idris Haron claimed that by opening Starbucks on campus, would help provide a more comfortable place for the student's to study with wifi internet connections. Ya right mister. I mean, even McDonalds can provid that! And the food there is much2 cheaper too. Or better yet, a Mamak!

Opening a Starbucks on campus would just add different social classes among the students. Class 1: those who can afford starbucks and enjoy it, Class 2: those who can't afford starbucks, and watch jealously as the rich go there, and Class 3: wannabes; those who don't have the money, but heck, everyones going, I wanna go to type. Either or, it's just not good for the students.

A Tale Before Columbus: Part 2

Over a year ago, I compiled some facts and wrote an article entitled A Tale Before Columbus. You can read it here. Since, the article has been read countless times and has become references to a few websites including answers.com and wikipedia. Here, I'd like to compile a few more articles from various websites and blogs to further proof the existence of Muslims in America, centuries before Christopher Columbus.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that there are 526 towns in America that have Muslim names. These include Alhambra, Medina, Mecca, Tallahassee, and Palestine. Whether or not this means that Arabs were once residents of those places respectively or not is yet to be confirmed. But heck, why would Americans want to name their cities with Muslim names?

Now for the archaeological evidence. Findings of coins. Take a look at this one for instance:


The coins bearing the shahada, were found by construction workers working on a road in Massachusetts in 1787 and were dated way back to the 8-10th century Samarkand. This founding further proved people of that time and place had been to those areas before.

Berry Fell, a distinguished Harvard professor of marine biology and writer of Saga America has done countless researches and discoveries that proves this theory. He bases his conclusion that there were Muslim schools in the seventh and eighth centuries in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Indiana on findings unearthed in archeological excavations. These findings are writings and drawings on rocks and tablets that bear the name of Allah and Muhammad. Among them are as shown below:


In the first picture above, you can obviously see the name Muhammad scripted on it (third line) and the second picture says Syaitan Maha Mayan, or the devil is the source of all lies.

Other than that there were also similarities between Berber buildings from Northern Africa with that of buildings in New Mexico. One such building is the Castle of Montezuma built by the Sinagua people. Here is a building from northern Africa.


This may sound a bit surprising to you, but check this out:


It says Malaca haji mi Malaya. Whatever that means. I don't want to jump to any conclusions on this one.

The Muslims that traveled to the new world during that time not only came here to trade, but they also set up communities and stayed here. Some even ended up marrying the natives here. They preached the natives about Islam and their high moral values would no doubt attract those peace lovings natives towards Islam (as in the case of Melaka). Many native tribes converted to Islam as their chiefs converted. Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet wore a turban. Is this just coincidence? You tell me.Further proof that there were Native American Muslim tribes around is a revelation of a letter from Mahir Abdal-Razzaaq, an American Cherokee Muslim. Read it here. The last Muslim Cherokee Chief was Ramadhan Ibn Wati in 1866.

Adding to all this, I found some native American teachings that resembles to Islamic teaching. You can read them here. Among them, 'The Indian was a religious man from his mother's womb', which is as close to what Prophet Muhammad said, "No baby is born but upon fitrah (Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or Christian or a Ployeist." Sahih Muslim. Other similar teachings include those regarding the treatment of orphans and women.

Here is an article of which I don't know the author but based on the context it is very unlikely by a Muslim, rather, probably by an African American. Read it here. You might want to copy paste the article in a Word document for easier reading. The article confirms the role played by Africans in discovering America. It mentioned the name of Sultan Abubakari of the Mandiga Mali Empire who lead voyages across the Atlantic towards America (I mentioned this in the first version). However, as the author was presumably not Muslim, it failed to account that the Sultan was indeed a Muslim.

With such a large Muslim community in America, it is hence possible that some tribes, presumably those of natives American, were actually North African Muslims tribes. Many tribes have names that sound similar to Arabic, take the Algonquin or the Anasazi for example. So it's not impossible for this confusion to happen.

Other than that, even Columbus recorded on 21 October 1492 that he had noticed a mosque on top of a mountain while sailing around Cibara on the northeast coast of Cuba. Relics of mosques carrying Qur’anic inscriptions on their minarets have been found in Cuba, Mexico, Texas, and Nevada since these times. Columbus also described some natives as Muhammadians, i.e very Arab-like. Not to mention, at least two crew members of Columbus's were Muslim. They were captains of Nina and Pinta respectively, brothers Vicente Yanez Pinzon and Martin Alonso Pinzon, descendants from Sultan Abu Zayan Muhammad III (1362-66) of Morocco.

Here's something I came up with, and I have no further proof to back it up yet. It came to me, 'Why were the Europeans so ruthless and violent in killing innocent natives and stripping off their lands? Had the natives attacked these settlers? No. Text books say that the Europeans were greedy. But I think theres more to just plain old greed.


Similar to the incident in Melaka 1511, when the Europeans landed in America, they were well received by the locals (same as in Melaka) as Islam teaches it's followers to honor to it's visitors. But these Europeans, having lost the Crusade, had always been carrying their vengeance towards the Muslim World. Hence, if so the Native Americans were Muslim, these Europeans would carry that same vengeance towards them as well. I mean, look at what they did to Melaka. That should explain some of the slaughter of the natives.

If the theory that Muslims from Africa were the original explorers of America doesn't convince you, what about Muslims from China? And who am I talking about here? I'm talking about Zheng He, or his Muslim name, Hajji Mahmud Shams. Just take a look at his armada!


His ship is the gigantic one. And whose tiny ship is the other one? That inferior ship my friend, is the Santa Maria of Christopher Columbus. It is said that the ship was capable of carrying thousands of crew, as narrated by Ibnu Battuta and Marco Polo. With such knowledge of the sea, you would have to reckon that China has the capability, the knowledge, expertise and man power to lead themselves to unknown territory. And some historians do say that. This includes Gavin Menzies in his book; 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. This may answer the scribblings of Malaca Haji Mi Malaya above. We all know that China and Melaka had very close relationships and the trade routes that existed between the two East Asian powerhouse. So it is no surprise if, among the thousands of crew members aboard Zheng He's ship was a person from the Sultanate of Malacca. And to their credit, the Malays were once great seafarers, colonizing as far as New Zealand and Hawaii!

Most of history as we know it today are Eurocentric because of the power and influnce the West had and still have over the world. Most of the rich Islamic history were abandoned and forgotten all together. Heck, some don't even know that Islam once had it's golden ages for centuries sometime during the Medieval Years. So it's up to us to uncover that past.

For more information, you can go to here, here and here.

More on DBZ

So I was spending my leisure time at the office blog jumping, and I was surprised to find new updates on the upcoming action packed movie I've been so craving to watch, Dragonball Z.

Here is what is supposedly one of the posters:


And here is one magazine scans also found on the internet.



You can find out more on this blog. It's a really nice blog to find out what movies will be coming up, movie reviews and etc. This is probably what is to be the official site for the movie. Let's hope FOX won't screw this movie up.

Guys Day Out

Lol. It wasn't much of a guys day out actually. There were only three of us; Babe, danny and me. But we had fun none the less.

We hung out at MidValley, watched a movie, played a game of bowling (of which we all sucked badly!) and had dinner. Got home at around 10 pm.

The movie we watched was The Happening, a movie by M. Night Shyamalan who brought to us The Six Sense. Turned out the movie wasn't as nice and a bit hard to understand. Even Danny couldn't be sure what caused the commotion in that movie..fuh... Read the review here.

It was all I needed after a month of almost lifeless internship.

iCON/VMGSim International User Conference 2008

Recently (17-19 June), I attended a conference on simulation processing co-organized by Petronas and Virtual Materials Group (VMG) at the Le Meridien Hotel in KL. ICON/VMGSim is a simulation software, one much like Aspen Plus .

The honorable guess speaker was Dr. Ding-Yu Peng (as in Peng-Robinson equation of state). It was a real surprise to learn of his attendance as that EOS he created is a real deal and is widely used in the chemical engineering world after it was created in 1976. Ask anyone in ChE, and they'll surely know of that equation (or heard of it, as in my case). Right Qayyum? Hehe..

The other speakers came from Petronas and VMG. It was a really nice experience, to say the least, considering all those people I got to meet and the things I got to learn. Frankly speaking, after meeting all those people from the ChE industry, I finally got a clearer picture of what they do in the industry.

The venue was a great one indeed. Le Meridien is such a luxurious hotel, probably the best yet I've been to (you can see I haven't been to much hotels). But nevertheless it was really fine. And the food? Well, the organizes had the kind of money to provide 3 lunches, a dinner, and tea breaks. Not to mention, Petronas workers and VIP invites as they call it(including myself) didn't have to pay for the event. And those who had to, only had to pay RM 160. This just shows how rich Petronas is. I could hardly stop eating once I enter the hotel restaurant. My eyes are always looking around, searching for the best to eat. haha..

And we also received some souvenirs from the organizers. They gave us this really neat 4GB thumb drive a third the size of the conventional thumb drives you see around. And being not much of a gadget person, I found that thumb drive to be really cool. lol. And they also gave us a Petronas shirt, which was kinda nice also. Petronas is just such a wealthy company. Sigh..

Pictures to come.....

Euro So Far

And so far indeed it has been! I am still yet to watch the full 90 minutes of any of the games. The most would probably be Holland vs Romania which I watched for about 60 minutes. Working during the days and my travel by bus to and from work really drains the energy out of me to an extent that I usually am a sleep by 11.

But that doesn't prevent me from writing my share does it? Here goes.


Holland is no doubt the biggest surprise package. Few predicted the team to be able to emerge from the 'Group of Death', let alone predict them to do so which such style. They outplayed the old tiring legs of Italy in their opening match 3-0, then demolished the uninspiring France 4-1. Their reserves beat Romania 2-0. Not only their attack was proven to be superb, their back line is as water tight as ever after just conceding once.

If Holland was a surprise for being superb, France was surprising for performing way below par. Their so called reliable defense was torn into shreds as they were bombarded with four goals against Holland. Then they conceded another two against Italy. On the other side, France only managed to score once, even with the likes of Thierry Henry, Frank Ribery and new comer, Karim Benzema all playing. This was such a disappointing campaign for them, one very similar to the 2002 World Cup in Japan/Korea where they too where eliminated at group stage. Another similarity between these two campaigns is the fact that they played without their talismanic play maker, the legendary Zinadane Zidane. In 2002, he was injured and played minimum parts of the campaign. The player hung his boots after the 2006 World Cup loss.

Henry ponders on what might have been, while the Italians celebrate

The old rags of Italy proved once and again, that they might not have that blistering speed in their ranks, but surely the experience. And their experience prevailed. After a humbling in the hands of the Dutch, they picked themselves up by un-lucking-ly drew with Romania with a Luca Toni goal incorrectly ruled out for offside. And then, they went on to beat France in the winner's-take-all game. Surely Italy's squad has the highest average player age, but with the experience they have, no one can be too certain where they'll end up this time around.

Beaten Euro 2004 finalist, Portugal also emerged as favorites for the championship. And they showed us why by convincingly winning their group (although losing to the Swiss in the final game). They have since bowed out to the likes of Germany in the quarter finals. There's still a long way to go for Portugal's young promising squad consisting of Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Miguel Veloso, Joao Moutinho and Ricardo Quaresma. Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari will be plying his trade at Stamford Bridge after it was reviled that he was the new Chelsea coach, where as Ronaldo's continuous transfer speculation would be finalized in the next few days, according to the player.

A cry baby

Germany has failed to make it from the group stages of Euro since 1996. However, being Germans, they were still tipped as favorites for this edition. They barely made it out of the group stages this time, after losing to Croatia and an unconvincing 1-0 victory over the lowly Austrians. But they have since upped a notch by deposing Portugal 3-2 in the quarters even without their suspended coach Joachim Low.

Another Euro powerhouse would be Spain. The 4-1 win over the Russians raised eyebrows and on lookers doubted their ability to maintain that form. They proved their doubters wrong by winning 2-1 against Sweden before completing their route with a 2-0 win over Greece. With in form strike pair of Fernando Torres and David Villa, they would surely stand a chance to end their trophy less hoodoo stretching back since 1964 by winning this championship. David Villa, with four goals to his name so far, is in contention to become the leading scorer.

Giant killers, Croatia are seeking to be the major cause of upsets. They've already knocked out England in qualifying, then later, in the group stages, won 2-1 against the Germans. They regard themselves as having an outside chance to win this competition. The Turks, on the other hand staged the biggest comeback of the tournament so far by coming from 2 goals down to score 3 goals in the dying 15 minutes of the game against Czech Republic. Croatia and Turkey would play each other in the quarter finals.

Turkish players embrace each other at the final whistle

Euro 2008 co-host, Switzerland and Austria both bowed out from the competition in the group stages. While Austria only managed to gain a point, the Swiss managed a win against Portugal in an otherwise meaningless game. Reigning kings of Europe, Greece, didn't manage to equal the rearguard form of Euro 2004 and went crashing down in the group stages after failing to win a single game. A fall from grace for the Greeks surely.

Czech Republic also bowed all to soon after winning only once (against the Swiss) and losing twice. Russia, coached by the 'impossible is nothing' Guss Hiddink, went second in group D and are in the quarter finals for the first time in a major tournament since the break up of the Soviet Union. Guss Hiddink has previously defied the odds by bringing South Korea to the semi finals of the 2002 World Cup, and later brought Australia to the last 16 at Germany. He is now to face his native Holland in the QF. Sweden too, were disappointing after losing the winners take all match with Russia. Their fans labeled them as shameful and a big disgrace.

Romania, widely regarded as the no chances of the killer group, proved everyone right by failing to qualify from the group stages. An up that they can consider is that they finished above France in the group. And the fact that they also managed to top their group and win against Holland in the qualification rounds proves that on another day, it could be Romania. Finally, Poland were also unable to emerge from their group after a woeful and disastrous campaign.

So that wraps up the group stages of Euro 2008 so far. To read more, go to ESPNsoccernet.com for all your soccer news. Owh, and one thing I noticed, it's become a trend nowadays, for espn, soccer broadcasters, and newspapers, to show only the hot and beautiful babes as the supporters. Here's an example:

Sarah Brandner, wife/gf of German player, Bastian Schweinsteiger

A History of Cats

I've had more than enough experiences (bad ones that is) with cats. Now we're all more than familiar with kucing mabuk, i.e. kucing yg kat vandy tuh with it's cakaran-cakaran maut. But that's not even half as bad as the other experiences with cats that I've had.

One.

I once ate sebungkus nasi goreng that was half eaten by a cat. This incident was when I was still at Sains Dungun. I bought satu bungkus nasi goreng from koop after prep malam and was about to eat it under a tree with my friend. I opened the rice and realized that I forgot to wash my hands. So I hurriedly went to the surau leaving my nasi goreng exposed. Bad idea. While I was washing, a cat sneaked and ate my nasi goreng w/o my friend's awareness. But once he did, he pushed the cat away, but afraid I would be hungry if I didn't eat the 'left over' he decided to tell me once I ate everything. Imagine my reaction!

Two.
(Warning: Explicit material. Only for those strong hearted)

This incident even happened before that first one, probably when I was in form 2. A cat gave birth to a litter of kittens in the unused locker in my dorm. At first, we got all excited seeing those kittens to an extent we were already playing with them even before they could open their eyes! But then the cute turned gory. One morning, we found left over pieces of the kittens almost everywhere! Either the mother (although very unlikely) or father was eating it's kittens through the night. The thigh was on the corridor side, some intestines where out there also, and if I'm not mistaken, even a head was found! Nasty! Some friends also heard the grueling sounds of bones breaking through the night. What a nightmare!


Three.
(If you can't stand 2, turn away now!)

I went back to KB with my dad last weekend. On Sunday, he had a meeting, so he sent me to KB Mall. As he was dropping me off at the side of the road, a small abandoned kitten happened to be there. I warned my father to be careful and he said, the kitten would be alright if it didn't move. And sure enough, it was alright, but then, it was under the car. I noticed this only when I closed the door. And I wasn't quick enough to warn my father. And then as my father moved back into the main road, the kitten (maybe a bit frightened) tried to come out from under the car. And then.... CRACK!

The left rear tire of my father's car crushed half of the poor thing's head! Half of his head was gone. One of his eyes were crushed, the other popping out. Part of his body was also crushed. Blood was all over. The saddest part though, was the fact that he was still fighting for his life, kicking, while enduring that immense pain! It was only after a few minutes later that the kitten died.

So there you have it. Conclusion of the story? Cats/kittens, no matter how cute they may appear to be on the outside, can actually be very, very gore. And mind you, I like cats.

Price Increase

As widely expected before, the price of daily good would increase tremendously amid the increase of oil prices.

And as before also, no matter what the government says, has to be taken with a pinch of salt. They did previously say that they would control the prices of these daily goods, but look at what the prices are now as reported by Berita Harian.

I quote this one anonymous guy telling me, "You represent the attitude of many malaysian. Always lsiten to rumors, jumping to conclusions and blatantly accuse other ppl of wrongdoings." How is it possible not to believe them, when each time, these so called 'rumors' turn out to be true?

Purchasing Power Parity

When we look at the oil price in Malaysia, it is wrong to actually compare the oil price in Malaysia, with that in the US (as did by some parties), and say,'hey, at least the price of oil in Malaysia is still considerately lower than than in US. The oil price in the US, if converted to RM, (and in liters) would be equivalent to RM3.46/L.


However, in reality, a huge consideration has to be put into the equation, and that consideration is the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). According to Wikipedia, this purchasing power exchange rate equalizes the purchasing power of different currencies in their home countries for a given basket of goods. It is used to compare the standard of living between two countries.

And obviously, the standard of living in the US is much2 higher than here in Malaysia. For example, in the US, the minimun wage (differs with each state) is at least $5/hour. That means, each American is capable of buying a gallon of oil with each hour they work. In Malaysia, that's a different story all together. Here, we don't have a minimum wage allocation. Here, people can actually earn as low as almost nothing an hour! Imagine how many hours these people would have to work in order to afford a liter of oil to power their car.

An easy way to estimate this PPP is by applying the Big Mac Index. This is done by comparing the big mac price for two different countries. For example, a big mac in the US would cost about $2.50. In malaysia, a Big Mac would be about RM5. The ratio would thus be 2. If you multiply this ratio with the price of oil in the US (which is $4/gal), you get RM8/gal. Convert this to liters and you get about RM2.11/L. The price of oil in Malaysia should be, ladies and gentlemen, more or less that amount only.

So wahai rakyat jelata sekalian, don't let them cheat and lie in your face regarding this world oil price thing. We can change this, and let's do just that!

Obama for Democrates

Obama Tuesday night secured the 2,118 delegates to claim the Democratic nomination. He will then compete with Senator McCain for the US President. If Obama does win the election, we will, InsyaAllah, see the withdrawal of the US troops in various countries, namely Iraq.

Let's wait and see the outcome of this. Hopefully, for the better of the world.

Of Being Considerate

I was in KL Sentral yesterday night and just finished my Maghrib prayers. As I was wearing my shoes, this Chinese guy (who I initially thought was Malay) entered the surau and brought his son to pee in the wudu' area of the surau! What was even more nasty was the fact that he didn't wash up after his son was finished.

How inconsiderate and disrespectful of other people's place of worship! And heck, the toilet was actually located just down the hall of that surau.

I remember one time when I was little, we were swimming at the KLCC park when this chinese mother asked her daughter to pee in the pool. How absurd. Just unimaginable, how uncivic minded some people tend to be.

How will Malaysia prosper if it's people still don't know how to use the toilet?

Oil Price Looms Sky High

Today marks the first day of the new increase in oil prices. Oil prices rose to a 41% increase compared to the previous, subsidized price of RM1.92/L. Diesel prices increased by as high as 1 ringgit. The government is still subsidizing 30 sen a liter for oil.

The last time I filled my car in the US, the price of gas there was $3.60/gal. That price if converted to RM would be roughly RM3.04/L. Which means Malaysians are paying just a little bit less than what Americans are paying for. Good for that.

Last night saw massive jams on roads leading to gas stations. Consumers decided to fill up their tanks before the new price was implemented.


Read full story here.

With that increase, a person spending 100 ringgit would end up spending at least 141 ringgit on gas alone. That's not including the extra money he has to spend on daily goods that would also increase due to this oil increase. Imagine how much would that be...

So what do we do with this oil surge? Well the government has outlined some massive policies. Among them is the announcement that they would give Rm625 as rebates to people with cars of up to 2000cc and jeeps/pick ups to 2500cc a year every time they renew their road tax. Read that hear.

At first glance, this may seem a very good deal. But think again. Pak Abu, a fisherman in the rural parts of Terengganu, would receive that 625 ringgit for his old and rusty Kancil. Mean while, Tan Seri Dato' Ahmad, a highly successful business man in KL, who ones 20 cars, would receive Rm625 for each of his cars. 625 ringgit for that Tan Seri is nothing compared to 625 ringgit for Pak Abu. I say a different approach has to be done on this policy.

What else can we do? Well, I say it's about time we explore alternatives to fuels. Why not go for hybrid cars some might say? I agree as well with that. It cuts the consumption of oil and uses reusable energy sources like rechargeable batteries and so on. Plus, with less fuel consumption, the cars will be also less of a pollutant. That's a major plus. But if the government does proceed with an influx of these cars, Proton would obviously go bankrupt. And that's a major no no for the government. They've spent endless amount of money for the continuous survival of this 'anak kesayangan', they are not prepared to let Proton go down the drain. Proton can't compete with hybrid cars. Heck, they can hardly even compete with the cars already here in Malaysia, even with all the government policies on foreign cars that benefit them.

What I heard from my colleagues here in SIRIM is that Petronas is actually building this very huge storage tank in Melaka that would store low grade oil from Africa. The diameter would be 75 m (not sure with the height). This low grade oil is obtained from the very bottom of the oil wells, and are even said to contain sand! This low grade oil would then be processed and mixed with regular grade oil to be sold. Just imagine.

Well, with the global rise of oil price, a lot has to be done by the government to help sustain the need of it's people, especially those low income people. Any new measurements taken has to be done with extra consideration for these people. Everything has to be done wisely and carefully. Else, the poor gets poorer, and the rich gets richer. We don't want that. No, not here in Malaysia.

Ku Mencari Damai Abadi...

...Retire la then. You'd find it easier to be in peace by doing so. Malaysia pon dah in choas tak habis lagi. You retire, insyaAllah, peace not only to yourself, but also to the whole nation will find it's away.

Tawakal Concept in Islam

I was on my way back to sg buloh from work yesterday with my father when we stopped at this toll both to pray Maghrib. Concerned about shoe thefts, my father and I put our shoes close to the door of the surau. And Alhamdulillah, they were safe.

After finishing the prayers, a group of three people entered the surau. One of them asked me whether it was safe to leave their shoes outside. My father replied that it was safer to keep their shoes closer, as thefts are happening everywhere these days. So the guy moved his shoes by the door and urged his friends to do so too.

Surprisingly, both replied, "Alah, tawakal je la,"

My father smiled, and I knew why.

"Konsep tawakal tak betol," he said.

Tawakal isn't just about leaving your hope all to Allah without doing anything. You have to show effort in improving the condition.

It's true fate is in Allah's hand, Kun fayakun. Allah kata jadi, maka jadilah. But then again, "Verily, never will God change the condition of a people until they change it themselves.."
[Qur'an 13:11]

Remember the hadith: "One day Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, noticed a Bedouin leaving his camel without tying it. He asked the Bedouin, 'Why don't you tie down your camel?' The Bedouin answered, 'I put my trust in Allah .' The Prophet then said, 'Tie your camel first, then put your trust in Allah ' [Tirmidhi].

Moral of the story? First put your effort, then put your trust. May we take notice.

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Why is everyone privatizing their blogs nowadays? What's going on? Is there something I don't know? lol..

Well, whatever the case, kalau la anda sudi memperbolehkan saye membace blog2 anda yang hebat, maka sile lah approve my email address ni yer... free_4ever02@yahoo.com

Thanks.