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Lingua-nazis in Malaysia are having a field day. The government has decided to abolish the Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English (more popularly known in Malaysia by its Malay acronym PPSMI) in 2012; after six years of poor planning and implementation.

In that six years, PPSMI has endured endless assaults by neophobic politicians and so-called academics and sociologists.

Yesterday, the got the best news of their lives; PPSMI will be phased out.

The terrorists have won.

Read the rest of A Dark Day for Malaysia’s Education System »

I guess I’m not alone in having optimism as President Obama takes office. My grandparents remember the reign of Adolf Hitler as being the worst in their lifetime. I’m pretty sure that the days of George W. Bush is the closest I’ve gotten to their experience.

I’m sure Dubya has done quite a number of good things during his time in office, unfortunately the severity of the bad things he’s done is greater in enormity.

George Bush Jr. will forever be remembered for Iraq and his faux war on terror. Some will miss him. For me though, all I can say is; Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Have you heard the story of this vibrant neighbourhood where there’s rich people and poor living side by side? The neighbourhood also has nice and not so nice people in it. Actually, “not so nice” is an understatement. Some of these people are pure evil; murderers of the worst kind.

In this neighbourhood, tensions often flare for the simplest of reasons, especially between residents of two apartment blocks; side by side with one another. One block is modern, with the residents having plenty of money and the facilities are very much admired. They also have pretty nifty weapons, the most advanced in the region (maybe even the world)… although they maintain that these weapons are for self defense, there are proven records that they quite often use these weapons to intimidate their neighbours.

The neighbouring block is decrepit and old… very much a ghetto in every sense of the word. Almost nothing ever functions properly and most units don’t even have doors on them, let alone more advanced security systems like their rich neighbours. Nevertheless, every once in a while relatives from other parts of the neighbourhood give them weapons too, also allegedly for self defense… but we all know what weapons do, especially in the wrong hands.

These two neighbouring blocks’ residents have been at odds with one another, especially in the issue of ownership of the apartment blocks they live in. The residents of the decrepit block claims that parts of the modern block belong to them; taken forcefully away during a conflict they had years ago.

Their neighbours maintain that they had no other choice but to take those units because the poorer people started the conflict by attempting to seize more units in the modern block. Ultimately the rich guys blame the poor guys for the state they’re in right now.

Til this very day, the two neighbours have been arguing and fighting. The apartment blocks have been damaged and repaired countless times. Residents have been hurt, maimed and even killed. Men, women, the elderly, and worst; children and even unborn babies have been killed in the violence.

The two apartment blocks are called Israel and Palestine… and you’ve probably heard of them very often nowadays. If you’ve been living in a secluded cave for the past 50 years, get a recap here.

Read the rest of The Cowardice Of Arab States In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict »

Photo Credit: Leia

For the past 11 days, I’ve been bombarded by accusations that my company’s server is slow. As much as I explained that the server performance is on par with service standards of developed countries (in fact, we’re doing much better than most), the truth of the matter is, regardless of where your server is located; you will always be subjected to your ISP’s failures and incompetencies.

For any problem (especially Internet connectivity related ones), one must find the source of the bottleneck. In our case, it has been Streamyx’s “service interruption” that has been going on since 20 December 2008.

Nevermind that the server has been performing admirably since that period for the rest of the world. The painful truth is that my customer base is almost entirely located in Malaysia. Even more painful is the fact that almost all of them are Streamyx customers; that monolithic, incompetent, self-absorbed, competophobic, poor excuse of an ISP.

Read the rest of Poor Internet Sevice Is Destroying Malaysia’s Image As A Tech Hub »

Photo Credit: Olivander

Outgoing Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi mentioned that Malaysia’s race relations are at an unhealthy level and that he will spend his remaining time in the administration to cool these tensions.

I’m aware that being both a multi-cultured and united society is very challenging indeed. At the same time, I can’t help but think that this issue has been blown out of proportion lately.

Seriously, I’m sure that a huge majority of Malaysians have already accepted the fact that we’re a nation of multiple ethnicities and religious backgrounds. Heck, we’ve been this way even before independence. Yet, I’m very sure we recognized that nationhood is not an issue of the individual; but rather, what we can become as a community.

The way I see it, the only people who are making this issue a big deal are the politicians. Both the ruling coalition and the opposition look to me hell bent on making this issue larger than life.

Read the rest of Does Malaysia Have Race Relations Problems? »