Big NEWS! Spinning in Action

Big News!

2,000 National service trainees hit by transport chaos.

1,000 trainees were stranded for 12 hours at the KLIA Low-Cost Carrier Terminal due to hiccups in flight arrangements.

832 trainees from Kelantan were sent home after Road Transport Department (JPJ) found that 19 buses did not have the permits to ferry them.

What a great piece of management parody. I thought, after nearly 5 years of experience in managing the national service projects, the organisors had learn about project management planning, monitoring and control. Looks like they haven't.

JPJ denied that they are out to sabotage the national service programme. "We are only enforcing the law and we have co-operated by not sealing the buses and have allowed them to ferry the trainees to their camps. The contractors are responsible as they did not ensure the buses have the permits."

JPJ seems flexible in enforcing the law. This attitude can be contrasted with the Custom's officers in Malacca who would not even allow a 1-2cm deviation in timber sizes to be imported and would seize the whole shipment and include seizing the barges.



Bigger News!

Mahathir described the execution of Saddam Hussein as barbaric, sadistic and a public murder.

I wonder, when Saddam murdered his fellow Kurdish brethens, numbering hundreds of thousands and attacked Kuwait in order to control the oil fields to generate far greater wealth than he already possessed, what words would had been used to describe him. Kuwait Emir had to spent tens of billions to "employ" the Americans to help re-possess their nation.



Much Bigger News!

Singapore, the South-East Asian most advance economy, and a tiny red-dot down south, had another swan song. Their economy grew by 7.7% in 2006. Their growth forecast was only 5%.

The economy is expected to remain buoyant in 2007 with the casino projects in place.


Big, Big, Big News!

NST paraded the headlines in page 16 Prime News:

ASHAMED TO BE BRITISH.

A new opinion poll, YouGov survey revealed that 55% of the British velieved that it has been a bad year for Britain. 52% say Britain will be a worse place in 5-years' time. 47% say that immigration is a daily concern. 40% believe politics is riddled with corruption. 25% say they are not even proud to be British.

By contrast, almost all Malaysians had been made to believe that politics is never riddled with corruption as we had a clean, efficient and trustworthy government (most probably, it was due to the fact that corruption had been eradicated by the introduction of a new convention to legalise it). Nobody in Malaysia, in particular, the contractors, the restaurant owners, the plantation operators, the hawkers, the factories, et al, had a problem with immigration issues. Illegal Indonesian workers, Bangladeshis, Burmese, Thais, Chinadolls, and African dealers, they were all integrated into our workforce system and not an issue anymore. The police, immigration, and enforcers love them and constantly pay visits to their dwelling place and workplace. They are all co-operative with each other - win-win situation.

Damn Big-Big News!

Billionairess Paris Hilton, the current party-companion to Britney Spears, walked out of the Sloanes Cafe without paying a A$9.80 drink, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

"She got bucket loads of money and won't pay for her drink," waitress Jo Pfahl told the paper.

Hilton had planned to spent her new year with Sam Branson, son of Sir Richard Branson.

Is that a big deal? Would it be that she had forgotten to pay or that she believed her publicists had ordered and paid on her behalf? The publicist had ordered and paid for two burgers, a mineral water. A frappe was then requested and duly served. Paris had a little chat with a waiter and then all of them got up and walked out, failing to pay the later drinks.

Why create such a grand story about this issue? Is that a crime? If there is delictum fault, it may just constitute an inchoate summary offence; nothing more. The waiters or those fans around her could had been a little generous to pay on her behalf.