The mainstream media was singing praises of the Prime Minister's announcement of the launching of the Sabah Development Plan which promises a RM105 billion investment package and 900,000 new jobs over the next 18 years amongst other things. This, of course, comes very closely in the wake of a bold statement by a local Barisan Nasional apparatchik that the Opposition will not be able to create an upset in the state and topple the incumbent administration.

Maybe that's why the powers that be found it necessary to reach deep into the people's money and give back some to the people themselves. Then again, its still just talk. They've promised quite a bit to the people of the Land Below the Wind just to topple what was then the only other state to be administered by a party that wasn't from the incumbent ruling coalition in the Federal administration. How much of those promises have been fulfilled, I'll leave that for Sabahans to fill us in.

Damian Lau Chung Yan (劉松仁) deserves the accolades he gets. I still teared up watching this clip from 大時代 (The Greed of Men). Man .. I'm such a wuss ...

I'm taking some time off blogging to reorganise my stuff. Will be back sooner than I think.

In conjunction with her 40th anniversary, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies organised a forum entitled the Regional Outlook Forum 2008. Among the invited speakers were Dr. Norbert Lammert (President of the Bundestag; the parliament of Germany), and former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Panellists in the forum included noted individuals like Prof. Wang Gungwu, Dr Surin Pitsuwan (ASEAN Sec Gen), our own Lim Teck Ghee and Rajah Rasiah, and more.

Anwar's speech was given some coverage by Malaysiakini and I also quoted excerpts of it in a previous post. I have just been sent the full text of the speech which I reproduce here. It is definitely worth a read and might be one reason why he is viewed as a "traitor" and a "threat to the nation (read Umno)" by the Prime Minister :

Surprisingly it isn't too divergent from mine except that as a Muslim, he probably could be much more candid about it than I can prudently be. Malaysiakini has the full scoop but here are some choice quotes :

.. Anwar, the once heir apparent to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, said Malaysia's problem is not radicalism.

"The real issue is what I would describe as state-sponsored Muslim puritanism more by racist sentiments than religious principles," he told the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies' Regional Outlook Forum ..

Apparently the blog advertising network; Advertlets; allowed their domain to expire and all blogs that carried their ad snippet were temporarily hijacked by Adbaaz. If the latter name sounds familiar to you, especially if you're privy to discussions online on security and privacy, its because its a pretty notorious advertising network that uses somewhat gray methods including browser hijacking to disseminate the ads on their network.

Anyway, if you're in a fix over this, the fix-it is to remove the Advertlets ad code from your template code and to clear your browser's cookies and cache.

Speaking of domain expiries, I just made payment to my host but I think I might be a little too late to prevent the hosting from being temporarily suspended. Hehe. So this site might be down for a day or so.

And I've been a little tied down lately babysitting my 3 year old for the last week or so. The new term of her pre-school only started on the 3rd. That kinda explains my absense from blogging. So that's that for now. Will try to update later if my payment clears in time and the hosting doesn't get suspended. :)

This letter was sent to the Reb from the family of the late Kerk Zi-On, the Malaysian student who recently lost his life in Australia after saving the life of another :

Dear friends and family members,

These past 20 days have been the most traumatic and painful time for our family.

As the search turns from survival to body search, it is difficult to come to terms with ourselves that our dear son and brother Zi On will no longer come home.