MCA party polls: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing?

And so, MCA has finally get the chance now to assert its political being. This Sunday will see the 61 year old pseudo political party tryout its wings in politics.

The forming, storming, norming of MCA:

After enduring its stormy spring and autumn period, MCA is now gingerly moving towards democracy, starting from and within its own entity.

Good luck to them MCA members contesting the posts of Presidents, Deputy Presidents, Vices Presidents and Central Committee. Some of the wiser old birds oops hands, know that MCA politics is going to be business unusual from next Monday onwards.
Pull up your socks, people. A political MCA is going to be different this time around AFTER it follows through le norming period.

And yeah, UMNO is watching MCA’s democratization experience. Will UMNO do a la MCA when its turn comes up? The signs are good. So far Najib Razak seems to have a roadmap to work towards so.

Speaking about democracy, Tun Dr. Mahathir has said it all here and hinted at how it will especially affect BN political parties. This is Malaysia’s small step towards democracy in politics. Whether you object to it or not, it is the reality now. Best is for political party members with higher aspirations to learn more about democracy and how it serves rakyat in real life in order to partake in politics.

1Malaysia will learn and adopt democracy.

To dear readers and friends who may have the tendency to  violent objection to what I’m saying here, please go back to your cadre school or books to quickly learn up the principles of democracy.

Really, I mean this all sincerity.

Of MCA, hitmen, cleaning up cyber off lies and slander before GE

Tourism Malaysia wishes to clarify that currently there is no new contract yet been sealed with any party with regard to the global buy advertising campaign 2010, as claimed by the writer – Malaysia New Kid On Blog, Wednesday, March 10, 2010. For the record, the process and procedures in terms of procurement for advertising is carried out in accordance to Financial Procedures.

Wan Zawawi Mohammed
Director
Communications & Publicity
Tourism Malaysia

—
The above statement really piqued my curiosity. What a nice surprise to my Sunday morning: A government ministry issuing just that to clarify fact, re-butt an unsubstantiated story whilst stressing their adherence to financial policy for public record.

Thumbs up to Ministry of Tourism. This is a good sign of responsiveness when a government ministry practice such swift response to an alleged ‘true story’ published on the internet.

A blog writer ‘Malaysia New Kid On Blog (alias mynkob)’ whose ‘true’ article was published on Raja Petra’s website Malaysia-Today tells a story of “If Dato Mirza fails to comply with Ruzi’s order, Ruzi will punish Dato Mirza”.

Hmmm, the name Dato’ Mirza seems familiar. Intrigued, I did some fact finding on this Dato’ Mirza character to find out more.

I found out that Dato’ Mirza Mohd Taiyyab (Director General of Tourism Board Promotion Board) is well respected by his staff and regarded as a straightforward civil servant who’d stick to procedures despite solicitations of ‘businessmen’ hungry for shortcut to contract.

According to a fellow blogger, “When Datuk Mirza was first charged in Court, almost his entire Tourism Ministry Staff came to Court to show support. The Ministry’s Sports Club or Union or something also held a Sembahyang Hajat for him. Mirza was well known as a “strict and straight by the book, no nonsense DG of Tourism”. His forte was saying NO.”

That this Dato’ Mirza came out jubilant in court with his reputation intact is one evidence of his worthiness as an upright government servant that rakyat want so much to see nowadays.

If this story by mynkob were true, one would find it queerly out of character for the experienced Dato’ Mirza to now suddenly kow tow to ‘threats’ from a mere Managing Director from Sen Media Sdn. Bhd and not have the fellow reported to the authorities.

I’m curious about the state of mind of the writer mynkob. Was his motive to again hit and slander also the DG who is entrusted to run a no-nonsense tightship for his current boss lady minister Ng Yen Yen?

Could business rivalry or jealousy be one of the reasons for the writer’s attempt to slander the DG, his hardworking lady boss and the well performing Tourism Ministry?

And for mynkob to link the story to MCA – it is just too wild for this rational mind.

Every MCA central delegate worth his/her salt knows that the fight and MCA party polls is all about its top 2 ‘leaders’. The rest of the leaders like Vice President Ng Yen Yen, etc, are status quo as their internal party voters have never objected to them continuing as the Central Committee until the next one due in 2011.

Aiyah! If the MCA party polls can generate such hateful and libelous writings in the internet, BN would have one hell of a headache to think of how best to hide all these self inflicted injurious scabs when this Barisan Nasional component party goes out to campaign in the next General Election.

It’s better for MCA quickly get a strategist to clean up the cyber mess their hitman writers left all over the internet before MCA goes to campaign for the next GE under BN banner.

I can also think of friends who would naturally adapt all these juicy stuff to boost image of their party vs BN. All is fair in love and war, baby. And be mindful that the aim is not to be the biggest loser.

Hmmmm…. how the mind doth boggles at all theories and political implications brought on by just one article in the internet.

TM’s High Speed Broadband (HSBB) and photo

“This is a broadband service offering network speeds of up to 4.0Mbps delivered via wired, wireless and mobile technologies such as ADSL, wi-fi, WiMax and high-speed downlink packet access and is available nationwide,” said TM Group chief executive officer, Dato’ Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa.

I’m not going to compare Malaysia’s network speed with Korea’s 14.6 Mbps. Really.

Why?

Cos Malaysia got to replace those oldie physical copper wires with fiber ones before we can speed up the virtual internet autobahn like them Koreans. If you are a KL night owl, you might have noticed those TM contractors working feverishly digging out copper wires and replacing with fiber cables.

No fiber, no real speed. Reality sucks, doesn’t it.

And until Malaysia is truly fibered, we’re stuck in between dreams of surfing up to 4.0Mbps, I guess.
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Having been using Streamyx’s 1.0Mbps for so long, I jumped at a friend’s invite to test out the High Speed Broad Band (HSBB) a few week ago.

If you have tried watching CNN at peak time with ye Streamyx, you’ll know that it is a stop and go watch. But HSBB, no problem, streaming is very steady, no interuption to the CNN live videos.

Haven’t tested video upload speed to Youtube using HSBB, yet. Need to try before giving more praise (if applicable).

btw, I wish TM will be less coy and let consumers know when the HSBB real deal will be available to all other places beyond the Bangsar, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Shah Alam and Subang Jaya areas. Don’t la expect busy consumers to search through your TM website for the information, netizens are not paid to do that.

Anyways, if TM really want to convert us to HSBB, put lar TM big, big ads with enticing subscription fees to grab our eyeballs at places where we meet/talk in the internet. I don’t mind hosting a paid ad or two in me blog (heeheeheehee)

Here’s to affordable HSBB, speed and access to information so important to drive the Malaysian high income economy dream.

To drool over HSBB gadgets, see photo below.

MCA’s AGM on 7 March and fresh elections 28 March

Boy did I have fun with MCA’s Central Committee supplying a ping pong like suspense this afternoon; following Twitter and Twitterers.

Maybe this year’s MCA Anniversary cum AGM should be tagged as “To hold, not to hold, kena hold, ordered to hold and have to hold”

See how some poor media friends have to play catch up with the changing by the hour decisions by the Malaysian Chinese Association central committee ‘leaders’…

Chronological order below:

mkini_en: MCA Youth, Wanita put off tomorrow’s AGM: Both annual general meetings (AGMs) of MCA Youth and Wanita, which were … http://bit.ly/ag34pK

nstonline: Breaking Now! MCA Youth, wanita postpone AGM: KUALA LUMPUR: The MCA Youth and Wanita wings have postponed their re… http://bit.ly/bIB3qv

NoorAzam: Cancel 1 assignment! Phew. RT @insider_latest: MCA Youth, Wanita scratch this weekend’s AGM to pressure OTK to hold party polls quickly.

insider_latest: FLASH – MCA central committee decides to hold EGM March 28 & have fresh party elections.

insider_latest: FLASH – MCA AGM to go on this Sunday, March 7.

ashwad1: Changes…kena bookn camera semula :D@NoorAzam RT @insider_latest: FLASH – MCA AGM to go on this Sunday, March 7.

insider_latest: FLASH – MCA central committee orders Youth & Wanita wings to have AGMs on March 6 despite respective chief’s decision to postpone.

chedet: First time in 56-year MCA history – fresh party leadership elections decided by external remote control: Who was t… http://bit.ly/aIv5FZ

Makes you wonder who is in charge of the remote control, doesn’t it…

Tik Tok on the clock…

Malaysia Netroots and Citizen Bloggers

Ever wonder if our savvy politicians are even aware of the changing pattern of communication of our loyal party grassroot voters?

Let’s do a checklist:

Got blog? – check

Got Facebook and Twitter? – check

Got interactive conversation to walk with and connect with commentators’ fears and tears? – “Itu software belum lagi di pasaran, boss…,” explained the hapless political aide. “Pergi tanya dekat bloggers,” exclaimed the half awake politician.

Suddenly a vision pops in my head – she, the internet evangelist grandma in a TV advertisement going, “Jom Streamyx !!”

Share with you below highlights from a related article:
…

Rise of the Netroots: How citizen army of bloggers is changing Malaysian politics

Malaysian politicians need to rise up with the digital reality and collaborate with social-political new media practitioners to extend constituencies beyond their silver haired circle of loyalist voters. Never before has the need to connect with today’s digital-savvy consumers been so crucial to winning campaigns for a high income economy aspirant nation state.

Thanks to information technology, the possible spectrum for ideological debate in Malaysia has been widen a little especially since the advent of emails, blogs, sms, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter dented the traditionally unidirectional political messaging and campaigning that voters have been subjected to.

So instead of issuing numbing political slogans or lamentations of political parties attributing their troubles to the machinations of their adversaries rather than to their own failures or sheer misfortune, why don’t they just get to work with the netroots as an outreach connector to reach constituents beyond their traditional voters neatly segmented by race, association or party membership?

Click here to read the article in full.

RHB Investment Bank Bhd better improve their helpdesk!!!

Just got off the telephone after being given stern treatment from RHB Investment Bank Bhd’s Helpdesk.

You see, this banana subscribed to play some shares with the rhbinvest.com. Being a banana, sometimes forgot la my password combination and kena lockout from login.

So I called the Helpdesk telephone number +60 3 9205 1300 as displayed on RHB Investment Bank website.

Guess how long it took before helpdesk answer the telephone?

20 minutes of pure ringing sensation.

The stern voice at the Helpdesk who picked up my call did not even acknowledge my distress. She just curtly told me to login again.

When I tried to find out from her why Helpdesk took so long to answer the phone, she just said many people calling in non-stop. To my remarks that RHB should hire more people to man the helpdesk, she just curtly retorted, “No, No, No.” For a second, I was temporarily teleported back to my fierce SRK teacher’s classroom.

RHB’s Cold Desk (Help Desk is a deviously clever disguise, I must say) must not forget the company giving them their salary is now doing business in the competitve social media age.