The Malaysian Insider

FEB 6 — The recent racist remark by a top aide to the Prime Minister may be a signal that all is not well in the dominant party.

A general in the field, no matter how brilliant he is, cannot win battles on his own. He needs to depend on his staff to plan, his subordinates to execute his orders, and most importantly, his foot soldiers to fight his war the way he wants it.

He can be as brilliant as Rommel, deemed one of the best tacticians in the Second World War, but without the support from the people around him, he will never be able to execute his war plans.

JAN 7 — Ever experienced having to run across a busy road, even when you are crossing at a zebra crossing?

Ever experiencing darting in and out trying all sorts of stunts just to cross such roads?

In the West, cars will invariably stop when a pedestrian steps on the designated crossing area.

JAN 1 — My late father drove a car until the very day he died of a heart attack at the ripe old age of almost 90. He got his heart attack not while driving, but in his sleep.

When he was 78, I used to tell him that he should consider taking buses and taxis and stop driving. Not that he was a bad driver; on the contrary, being old, he drove very carefully and always stuck to the official speed limits. He also never ventured to KL from PJ; for that he always took the bus — there was no LRT then.

DEC 16 — Malaysia faces the prospect of dwindling income from petroleum since petroleum is a depleting resource and will not be there forever. After suffering the curse of oil, which has resulted in massive misuse of petrol money and wasteful expenditure like massive buildings and bailouts, we are now staring at a future without oil money.

To cover for the loss of income from oil, GST is to be implemented in a year or two.

DEC 12  — In September 2008, the Umno supreme council decided to suspend Ahmad Ismail for three years for uttering racist remarks. Many people had in fact asked that the ISA be used against him, but as an ISA opponent myself, I was against practising double standards, and I thought he should not be held under the ISA but should instead face the other existing laws of the country.