The nuclear energy is the greenest energy currently available on Earth. James Lovelock, a scientist, environmentalist, futurologist and the father of Gaia Hypothesis wrote in his book: “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning”, that the nuclear energy is indeed greener than any other form of power generating plants including solar voltaic and wind energy farm. A 1GW wind farm requires 2 millions tons of concrete, enough to build 30,000 homes for 100,000 people. That quantity of concrete would release 1 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air.

The under-construction Bakun Dam, located in Sarawak on the Balui River, will be the tallest concrete-faced rockfill dam in the world and the largest dam in Asia outside of China. Its powerhouse with 8 penstocks to powertrains comprising 8 vertical shaft Francis turbines of 300MW each, 8 air-cooled generators of 360MVA each and 8 oil-immersed transformers (360MVA each) will generate about 2.4GW of electricity. The dam has 16.71 million cubic meters of filled volume.  With catchment area of 14,750 km square, its gross storage capacity is 43,800 million cubic meters. How much concrete is required to build this dam? How much carbon dioxide will be released by the concrete? How much biodiversity would have perished under catchment area that large?

I read from various sources about people’s objections (including politicians’) of this nuclear energy project. This should not be a political issue and never be one. This should be an environmental, safety and social-economic issues at top.

TNB, the sole electricity distributor/supplier in Malaysia is not the sole energy producer. TNB buys, under contract, energy from many other producers. Unfair advantages, unscrupulous practice and increasing fuel cost in the produce-supply chain have contributed to rising energy cost, leading Malaysians to cry foul. The substandard service provided by TNB worsens the situation. As a corporation with revenue of MYR25.75 billion and net income of MYR2.6 billion as of fiscal year 2008, TNB is cutting more corners to reduce its operating costs and to maximize its profit with unhealthy practices, e.g. bi-monthly meter reading practice has stirred uproars in recent week. Being greenest, nuclear energy is more profitable than any other energy production. Could this help to reduce electricity cost for Malaysians considering the unhealthy practices and unfair advantages TNB has in its glossary bag?

I am not going to write more about TNB’s malpractice and sluggish substandard service. Ask any Malaysians, they will be able to tell you stories whole day and night. Instead, I am going to write more about safety.

The next question: Is it really safe to have nuclear power plant in Malaysia? This question does not imply that nuclear power plant is not safe. Rather, the human factors in managing and operating the nuclear power plant.

Alongside the nuclear physics in the power plant is the safety critical computer system, which includes both hardware and software, that is used to control and monitor the nuclear power plant. This safety critical system is the most crucial part and the entire operation of a nuclear power plant heavily relies on it.

Safety critical system is a computer (including software), electronic or electromechanical system whose failure may be a catastrophe, causing injury or death to human beings. This safety critical system comprises high integrity software. The safety critical system, both hardware and software, will likely be integrated and maintained by foreign contractors.

Nuclear power plant software are developed using Ada and/or SPARK programming language. SPARK is a subset of Ada. In the mid 1990s, UTM (University Technology Malaysia) KL campus was teaching Ada in CASE (Center for Advanced Software Engineering). At that time, CASE was a collaboration between UTM and Thomson CSF under special arrangement between the government of France and Malaysia. The Ada course was not long lived. Two years later, it was replaced by Java due to ignorance and market driven trends. Java is not a suitable candidate for high integrity, safety critical, real-time and distributed application development. Today, none of the universities in Malaysia is teaching Ada. According to my hitherto knowledge, apparently none of the Malaysia academies have submitted any high integrity and safety critical system related papers in international conferences and scientific journals.

It does not only require software engineers with Ada or SPARK knowledge. In safety critical software engineering, the individual developers, the entire team and organization are required to go through rigorous software development and safety critical validation processes. It takes years to achieve Carnegie-Mellon’s SEI (Software Engineering Institute) CMM (Capability Maturity Model) Level 5. Safety critical system development requires utterly strong discipline and engineering ethics in every requirement, design, development, testing and maintenance process and every process needs to be validated. Other than software process, there are many other non-software related risk assessments to comply.

Malaysia lacks qualified software engineers of such competency to develop and to maintain high integrity software system. It is costly to maintain such system by contract. The maintenance will increase the cost of energy production and hence will be borne by consumers.

The safety critical system of a nuclear power plant must be thoroughly tested with proven track records. With the loosey-goosey attitude of many Malaysians, will they have capability to manage the system and safety critical issues? Will they be effective to respond to emergencies, for example, system shutdown or nuclear melt down?

The disposal of nuclear waste poses another safety issue. If the engine of a RMAF (Royal Malaysia Air Force) fighter jet could go missing and be exported, can you imagine the potential hazard of missing nuclear waste?

Objection should be rational, not emotional. It is imbecilic to politicize the objection without scrutinizing facts. I, in my book, embrace nuclear energy for it is the greenest energy. On the contrary, I do not have any confidence in the management of safety related issues in Malaysia.

The candidate from Pakatan Rakyat or People’s Coalition is Zaid Ibrahim, a well known household name to every Malaysians. He quit Barisan Nasional or National Coalition and later joined PKR because he found BN’s doings are against his principle. A man of principle, he is.

What is the reason for PKR to field Zaid in this by-election? Zaid is an intellectual man. He will be best known and accepted in a city constituency where more working professionals or literates can easily understand his capabilities and visions. I have no intention to scorn the intelligence or intellectual level of the people of Hulu Selangor. There may be many professionals working in the city are from Hulu Selangor.

Is Zaid Ibrahim a sure win by PR? Or is PR desperate to find a good candidate from its arsenal, looking at the number of PR’s members turned “Froggies”?

I hope democracy will prevail this Sunday.

Before our former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad stepped down, he made a radical change to our education – the use of English language to teach math and science subjects in all primary and secondary schools. His change was immediately welcome by many Malaysians, I was for one of them. This, of course, was disagreed by many other parties who champion pro-ethnic education. Dong Jiao Zhong (the association of Chinese vernacular school boards and teachers) is one of them to loudly protest.

Before we get deeper into education, it is worthwhile to mention a few racial and religious pandemonium which happened recently. One most recent uproar is the protest of the ruling of court over the use of the word “Allah” in a Catholic newspapers, Herald. Churches were bombed and torched by some unscrupulous citizens. Before this, a group of Muslim protesters trampled a severed cow head to protest the building of Hindu temple near their residences. You can find many reports on disheartening eruptions of racial and religious matters besides politics on the Internet so I am not writing the entire length and breadth but to mention one or two as examples.

Malaysia advertises herself as a beautiful country with multi races living together in harmony and tolerance. Where is the noble tolerance between different races and religions? What is contributing to this separation of ethnicity and religion?

Let us ask ourselves a very simple question: What has happened to Malaysia? This simple question has no easy answer. The answer is multifold and viciously lurking and recycling in every layers of Malaysian society.

If you ask me what my answer is, I think the best analogy to describe this is cancer! Yes, multi-stream education in Malaysia is like cancer, slowly suffocating and envenoming the pure untouched minds, silently consuming ethnic unity in Malaysia.

Before I go further, I would like to boldly correct a common mistake and suggest a term to address Chinese descendants or Malaysia-born Chinese as “ orang Cina” or “Cina” for short. In my opinion, only the native inhabitant of China can be entitled as “Chinese”. Like Peranakan, “Cina” will be the proper localized term to classify our ethnicity. While for Malaysia Indian, I would address them as “orang India” or “India” and Malays as “orang Melayu” or “Melayu”. To be fair.

As a Cina myself who has received 6 years of primary Cina education, I generalized the grass root Cina community as conservative and hardworking with narrow and superficial thinking and vision. Close minded, emotional and shallow. I personally have experienced these many years ago during school days.

I was a town boy and lived among grass root Cina. I had never communicated with a Melayu or India until I was in secondary school. I would see some Melayu ladies passing by my house every morning and evening.

In primary school, I was among the 100% Cina students except a few Melayu teachers and staffs. My limited exposure to other races did not come to the end when I went to secondary school. All students coming from Cina primary school would be put together in “Remove” class, 100% Cina with no India at all. I only began to have Melayu classmates during Form 1 and I could tell you, they were fun to call them friends compared to other Cina peers. This racial mixture had to come to the end when I entered Form 4. I was in Science 1 class and there was not a single Melayu classmate, only 1 India. In Form 6, again I was in Science 1 doing double math, my classmates were 100% Cina.

After more than 20 years, I can still remember an experience during my upper 6. Our teachers always advised and encouraged us to speak English in school and of course I was the only “stupid” Cina student to comply. As the result, one of my female classmate called me “Banana Man” （a racial discrimination term used by Cina to call other Cina who does not speak Cina, it is like banana, yellow (Chinese skin) on the outside, white (English) on the inside) and together with other classmates as well as our peers from other classes to desist from speaking to me. How shallow she and the others could be? This is the malignant product of multi-stream education. These shallow and superficial minds are poisoned and shaped by the monotonous environment.

About 5 years ago, my wife and I were to decide which school we should send our children to. Being a Cina educated who did not have confidence in Cina vernacular education and my wife received her education from national school, we decided to send our children to national school based on a few observations.

I was back to my former secondary school and coaching karate there. In my class, I had both Cina and Melayu students. And the Cina students were from both Cina and national school. I observed them for very long time and these were what I concluded:

1. the Cina students coming from national school are more willing to interact with their Melayu peers.
2. the Cina students coming from national school are more communicable and possess good interpersonal skill far better than those coming from Cina stream.
3. the Cina school educated students demonstrate self centered attitude.
4. the Cina school educated students shun themselves away from dialog.
5. the Cina students from national school are more active and socializing.

As a software engineer, I have not used Mandarin to communicate despite the fact that many years ago I had collaborated with software developers and engineers from China and Taiwan. Based on personal experience and observation, we decided not to send our children to Cina-stream school.

But to be fair, ethnic and religious demarcation happens in national school. This Chinese New Year, my wife prepared some cookies for our eldest son to bring to school and to share with his classmates. None of his Melayu friends ate or touched the cookies. It is pathetic to see how religion separates Malaysian children at such a young age!

Multi-stream education is the separatist which divides the ethnicity at the very young age. Children are separated by ethnic idealism in the name of education. And Malaysia is the only country in the world which practices multi-stream education.

Next, we should look at treacherous political influence and the historical mistakes in multi-stream education.

Religion is a fraternity of politics which is engineered by politicians to control people’s behaviors and minds. — Adrian Hoe 2010.

This is why “Religion” has initial “R” which comes after “P”.

As far as “Unity” or “One Malaysia” is concerned, the word “Bumiputera”, should be strikeout and will never exist in the dictionary of the Malay language. Literally translated, it means prince of the land. The ethnics Chinese and Indians, although they are the lawful citizens of Malaysia, they are not the prince of the land.

Let all be referred to as “Rakyat Malaysia” (Malaysia citizens). For example, there should never be “Bumiputera” and “Non-Bumiputera” pricing in housing properties sales. But when election comes, they call all “Rakyat Malaysia” to vote.

How can the country unite whilst the people are divided into “Bumiputera” and “Non-Bumiputera”? I wish Mr. Najib, the new prime minister, will critically consider to abolish the word “Bumiputera” if he is really serious about uniting the people of Malaysia.

Ahmad is Buiputera Rakyat Malaysia. Sivakumar is non-Bumiputera Rakyat Malaysia. I am non-Bumiputera Rakyat Malaysia.

So why divide citizens of Malaysia into Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera?

The new fares will certainly burden a large group of citizens who rely on public transports as their locomotion. The increase of school bus fares will also stretch more burdens to households who depend on school bus service to send their children to and from school.

While the Najib’s administration has implemented some new economic measures to stimulate economic growth and unity, is this increment of public transport fares to balance up his check book?

It takes years of hard work for the People’s Coalition to win majority seats in a few states in northern peninsular. Sparrow became Phoenix by the power of people. It then betrays her own people and opts to be fowl.

Let us together despise them, spit on them.

PS: It is the fault of PKR for accepting the crossover from the other camp. They destroyed what they have sowed. Who is to be blamed?

看了之后，本人极度感慨马来西亚华人这种自私自利的态度。人家做得好，一声感谢都没有，要是有吗就随便说声”好！“。人家要是做不到吗，就踩到底，要人家解释等等荒唐之说。读了“安华好心没好报”和“应该体谅行动者”，我略有同感：安华欠了你吗？

好些马来西亚华人多是自私自利、怕事、不团结、自扫门前雪。举一项列子，一些华人看到他人被打劫，就快快躲起来，眼不见为净。有些还告诉子女亲人不要多管他人“闲事”惹麻烦。反观马来友族，要是一人被抢劫，整个kampung的人就会出来捉人。难怪会让他人看扁我们华人说我们是“寄居者”！

变天是一件国家大事，不是小孩子玩泥沙。变天如棋，安华正小心翼翼下这盘棋，一步错，全盘皆落索。安华一定要依照宪政程序一步一步来。要是安华直接觐见国家元首，肯定被对方咬定安华没照宪政程序，反被对方问为何安华不先在国会讨论，那时就连国家元首也帮不了安华。

安华除了依照宪政程序之外，他也正在打心理牌，让现今政府丑态百出，同时也试探国际社会对他的支持。安华比任何一位在朝或在野政客有更多的国际人脉网络，如果由他出任首相，肯定很多外资蜂涌来马。

变天这件事已经引起国际社会的关注。要是当今政府胆敢以内安法令捉安华，西方国家，由其是国际人权委员会肯定会大肆谴责当今政府并向其施加压力。

请大家先搞清楚才做指责。要是不知道宪政或法律程序，那请不要胡乱指责安华，于事无补，反而弄巧反拙。这样会让他人更瞧不起我们华人！

这种态度要是不改，不管有位多么好的首相，我们华人在马来西亚不会有什么好日子过。

老谋深算的安华自有他的策划。916过了两天还没“变天”，其中自有原因。安华要的是和平方式接任，也盼给阿都拉一个下台阶。觐见国家元首是最后一步。安华要接任之余，也避免树立敌人，乃大将风范。

大家既然支持安华，就应该对安华有信心。做大事，要有耐心。我们也不想有个粗心、鲁莽行事的首相，对吗？

If this continues, our country will be dumb-headed in a few generation to come. Our country is already losing competitiveness in so many areas. With the rise of China as a new economy in this region, the competition gets tougher. And soon, Vietnam will rise. What will be our future?

KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — American motorcycle giant Harley-Davidson has, according to the Associated Press, agreed to buy MV Agusta for US$109 million (RM360 million), in sharp contrast to the one euro Italian company Gevi paid when it bought the Italian bike-maker from Proton Holdings in 2006.

Harley-Davidson said in a statement out of Milwaukee last Friday that it was likely to seal the deal in weeks but the news is likely to unleash a firestorm of criticism against Proton, which was savagely assailed for the 2006 sale by no less a person than former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who conceived Proton back in 1984, according to the SingaporeBusiness Times.

Proton, then under the leadership of Dr Mahathir protege Tengku Mahaleel Ariff, bought a 57.75 per cent interest in MV Agusta in December 2004 for 70 million euros (RM357 million). Dr Mahathir had stepped down as premier a month earlier but had been appointed Proton adviser by his successor Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at the time.

By 2005, Proton was floundering amid intense competition from better-quality Japanese models and relations between Tengku Mahaleel and the new Proton board, all appointed by Abdullah, were tense. These culminated in the chief executive’s contract not being renewed. Barely a year later, the company sold MV Agusta, with its debt of 107 million euros, for one euro.

Dr Mahathir took it personally, asking for an investigation of the sale decision and its beneficiaries, and questioning the urgency of the deal.

Proton defended itself by saying there were “no operational, engineering or technological synergies” between the two companies, a conclusion that it said had “been independently confirmed by its appointed advisers”.

When Tengku Mahaleel and Dr Mahathir decided on the buy earlier, it was precisely because of the deal’s so-called “technological synergies”.

Even so, the Harley deal would appear to vindicate both men and is likely to rebound upon Proton and, by extension, Abdullah and his administration, which has stoutly defended Proton’s new management against the criticism of Dr Mahathir.

MV Agusta makes a line of premium sports motorcycles under its own name and another line of lightweight bikes under the Cagiva brand.

Meanwhile, the deal will help Harley-Davidson expand into the European market as sales slump in the US where consumers are pulling back on spending. Performance biking accounts for almost 80 per cent of sales in Europe, where Harley’s sales have been growing in double digits over the past three years. The US bike-maker now has a 10 per cent share of the European market.

Meanwhile Bernama reports that Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah told the Dewan Rakyat today that the sale of MV Agusta for one euro was profitable to Proton as there was no synergy between the Italian motorcycle maker and Proton as a car manufacturer.

He said Proton made the decision after taking into account the financial liabilities of Agusta which had debts of 107 million euros.

Under the agreement, the shareholder must be responsible for the company’s debts, he said.

“As there was no synergy between car and motorcycle and instead of shouldering the debt, Proton decided to sell Agusta,” he said in reply to a supplementary question from Nga Kor Ming (DAP-Taiping) during Question Time.

Take a look at the last fourth paragraph carefully. The speaker was really lack of intelligence. How can a business be profitable if it spends 70 millions Euros to buy a company and then sells it for 1 Euro? But in the first place, will you buy a company with 107 millions Euros of debts?

Hello? Is this a typo? I don’t think so. But the person who made such statement in Dewan Rakyat must be thinking the Malaysians are mentally retarded.

IMHO, the abrupt increased of fuel prices has good reason that we should consider and support. The sudden increase of prices by as much as 40% will force citizens to be more thrifty. Malaysians have been pampered with low fuel prices for so long. As you can notice (if you really pay attention), many people go to grocery shops which are very near their home by cars. These shops are in within walking distance. This is just one of the example.

By forcing Malaysians to be thrifty and less travel unnecessarily, we can save more precious natural resources and emit less pollutants. The change of lifestyle is going to take place sooner or later as we know our oil production is going to cease in 2014. That is just 6 years away.

The people from our neighboring countries such as Singapore has been benefited by the fuel subsidy. It is the time to stop benefit them. The subsidy is to be enjoyed by our citizens but not others. It is very messy to handle this issue.

One day before the increase, there had been news about the price hike. But people treated it as rumor because there was no announcement on TV news channels. But Sharir said in the TV interview that things would change tomorrow. That’s the indication from the government. Again, IMHO, I think Pak Lah and his administration are quite smart in handling this situation. First, they sanction the sales of petrol. No sales to foreign vehicles within 50KM radius from the border. Kedah responded with a full ban on entire state. The ban was to deter foreign vehicles to fill up their tanks before the price hike. Smart strategy.

The government has sent enough signals to every citizens but no one took it seriously. Another indication is that one or two days prior the announcement, fuel tankers were busy refilling petrol kiosks. Did anyone notice that?

Although most of the Malaysians dislike Pak Lah and his administration, but we need more intelligence to address and to helm through this crisis. The fingers pointing is just another dirty strategy by some politicians trying to out throw Pak Lah.

So, Malaysia government offers aids to Myanmar and China. Good course. But don’t ask the people to donate. Where is all the money the tax payers paid? What is all the money the country has earned from exporting oil and other commodities?

The Malaysia government can’t even take care of the scarcity of rice in the country. It can’t even feed its own people now, and yet it offers help and urge the “Rakyat” (the people) to donate! Shame on you and mind your own business!

Why did they have such privilege? Isn’t supposed to teach these school children to queue up and to play fair in the society? I guessed these students really enjoyed being a VIP and roamed in the corridor of power! What a bunch spoilt brats!

The five rings in the Olympic flag signifies the people from five continents, united together to persevere in sports for humanity. The Olympic game is a way to bring nations closer together, to have the youth of the world compete in sports, rather than fight in war.

So, stop sabotaging the Chinese Olympic for the good course of humanity. Let the politic dissolves on alternate track.

This marked the remarkable and memorable day in Malaysia’s history where all three major races, Malays, Indians and Chinese hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart vote for a change. The outcry of the people has transformed into a political tsunami which rocked the entire nation.

Now, we are on our way to one nation, one Malaysian, “Satu Bangsa”! I, including my family, my children and millions of Malaysians will be proud to call themselves “Malaysian” in front of the world. This is the perfect time to say “Malaysia Boleh!” (Malaysia can)

The people’s front coalition has won 76 seats, DAP 27, PKR 25 and PAS 24. The people’s front coalition has taken on Penang, Kedah, Kelantan and Selangor and they are likely to take on Perak.

If the national front loses 2/3 majority, the coalition leader, Abdullah Badawi will face tremendous pressure in the coming party assembly and face step down. Let’s hope Malaysia will have a new remake.

I believe the new government in Penang will be a good start to reform Malaysia and her economy and internal security which all Malaysians are longing for. If the People’s Front can prove to Malaysians that they can run the government more efficiently, a bigger wind of change will be most likely to take place again in the next election.

Please, do your jobs well and don’t let the people down. Ganbatte kudasai!

IMHO, Raja Petra should be the top key person who helps stirring up the wind of change. His speeches are marvelous and inspiring. If you wish to watch his speeches, search for “Raja Petra” or “RPK” in YouTube.

And the latest news, Lim Guan Eng from DAP will be the next Chief Minister of Penang. This will be confirmed in the morning or on Monday. Anyhow, good luck to Guan Eng and DAP and please give the people all your best.

The wind of change is blowing furiously. This has voiced out people’s inner voice to have a change of the government. A tsunami is rocking the whole Malaysia right now. Logon to MalaysiaKini for more latest results/reports.

Long live Malaysia! Long live Malaysians!

Good luck all!

It is so sad that there are still many people have been deceived by their disguise. Luckily, there are also many young people are starting to see the awful faces of these stupid politicians. Hopefully, these new forces from the younger generation may one day change the country.

With all the happenings in Malaysia, I hope dear Malaysians know who they are going to vote for this time. Here is a video for you to laugh and relax. So, no headache, just relax and cast your vote wisely this time.

The military government of Burma does not deserve to rule the country. Burma has been a country practicing Buddhism which spread Buddha’s philosophy and compassion. How can this happen? Greed?

Weapons should be pointed outward to any possible incoming threat which will harm the country. Weapons should not be pointed inward to their own people. Killing their own country men is a crime which cannot and will not be tolerated by any God and by human race.

Today, humanity is lost. Do we, the almighty human, deserve to live and rule the wonderful mother earth?