Happy New Year (and a CNY food for thought by Helen)

May you all who celebrate this new year be blessed with prosperity, good health and happiness.

Dear, wishing you and your family all the very best on this new year day.

Take care.

ADDITIONAL
And in case anyone missed this at Helen Ang's  Kempen politik Hannah Yeoh dibiayai orang gereja, I'm putting it here as food for thought on this auspicious day.

It is perhaps the best rebuttal recorded in the Malaysian sopo blog scene during the departing Dragon year -

8. Ravin  |  Februari 8, 2013 at 7:37 am

That doesn’t mean she can’t defend herself from people like you and the prostitute joceline who are paid to attack her. You have switch camp, from anti to pro government. She is still with opposition.

Who is cakap tak serupa bikin actually?

Balas

• 9. Helen Ang  |  Februari 8, 2013 at 9:36 am

  (1) “defend herself”

  Supposing I have 60,000 Twitter followers – and pls do remember tweets are retweeted causing a wide ripple effect – and I tweeted:

  “Between Ravin and King Kong – who is more absurd?”

  How is that “defending myself”? That is raising a lynch mob against you.

  Defending one’s self is refuting facts. If she wanted to defend herself, she should come up with a more convincing argument than shifting blame to the NRD counter clerk or shifting blame to Najib when she was caught Facebooking during the S’gor state assembly in session.

  She should defend herself against the bloggers Dhanyaraam and Sea Demon who produced evidence that she “menipu”, blocked access to her Twitter feed by critics and deleted her tweets to erase evidence when she was caught out.

  (2) “people like you and the prostitute joceline who are paid to attack her”

  Your accusation is ambiguous. Are you suggesting that someone is paying me to attack Hannah Yeoh? If so, who? Do you have any proof that I’m being paid? Can you show any evidence that I’m enjoying the fruits of my payment, say produce a photo of me behind the wheel of a Mercedes sport?

  (3) “the prostitute joceline”

  Oh yes, that’s a widespread slur I often see being spread by Dapsters. So calling a political analyst a “prostitute” is considered a convincing defence of your idol?

  Is this also the reason Hannah deliberately coupled my name with Joceline’s?

  You’ve mentioned in previous comments that you’re a Subang Jaya resident. So hallelujah Jerusubang.

  (4) On the matter of “switching camps”.

  (a) I have NEVER ever been a member of any political party. So how is it possible for me to crossover, in the sense of cutting up any party membership card?

  (b) I started my journalism career in the NST and later worked inThe Star. They are mainstream media belonging to the ruling parties. Both are owned by proxy by BN interests.

  Therefore if you want to look at it that way, I’ve been in the employ of the establishment ever since I graduated. So what ‘switch’ is there if you’re saying I sound pro-establishment today?

  (c) Ideological consistency. Who has switched?

  (i) Hannah Yeoh belongs to a party that used to refuse to wear the songkok at official functions (like the opening of Dewan sittings or during investiture). Now, the DAP women are wearing tudung which the MCA women have never done in 60 years. Siapa yang Ubah?

  (ii) DAP used to scream their objections at regulations requiring school prefects to wear songkok and female police constables to wear tudung at parade. They demand the right to freedom of dressing. Today DAP is backing up PAS on the matter of tutup aurat and will not allow stage performers at their entertainment shows to wear ‘revealing’ clothes. Siapa yang Ubah?

  (iii) On the controversies regarding the overlapping jurisdiction of the syariah and civil court, DAP used to make a deafening hoo-ha against creeping Islamisation. Today Karpal is the only prominent leader left in the party willing to wager his (dead) body to be walked over first. Today, to win the Malay votes in Penang, Guan Eng is pumping money into the Islamic enforcement infrastructure.

  If you do that, you’re no longer secular as secularism means a separation of religion and state. In a secular country, no single faith system is privileged over another and nor is the state allocating a budget for expenditure on religious activities. In secular countries, the churches fund themselves and are not run by the government.

  With DAP playing the religion card, can they rightly still call themselves a secular party? They have breached every parameter of secularism as delineated in the textbooks. So who has Ubah?

  (5) On the other hand, I’m soooo consistent. I’m anti-hudud. I see that MCA is anti-hudud although this blog is not promoting the party as I tag them “dinosaur pupus”.

  I can see that DAP is inconsistent – you can compare Guan Eng’s speeches in the past when he was in oppo and his speeches now that he’s heading a state govt – and that DAP has Ubah so much in the last handful of years and that DAP has pusing roundabout berkali-kali.

  If I take a more critical view of DAP today, it’s b’cos they’ve changed beyond recognition.

  (a) They shout meritocracy but what is the merit of Zairil’s meteoric rise? Why did Guan Eng introduce Zairil’s appointment to the press as the (record) first “setpol Melayu” to the party sec-gen? I thought they claim to be colour blind. So his merit is mainly his Malay name and the name of his famous father who was an Umno stalwart.

  (b) What is the merit of appointing Zairil to the CEC? Guan Eng said, so that he can attract more Malays to join DAP. So again his merit is on his skin colour, like the multi-level marketing schemes of Member Get Member. This one is Malay Get Malay (to join DAP).

  (c) Zairil was overnight made CEO of the state think-tank. What is his professional qualification for the job? Has he got the CV of rising up through the ranks with previous experience as a researcher and a Fellow? Remember DAP is screaming Meritocracy, Accountability and Transparency.

  Transparency would be if a PhD holder with the right qualifications in the field and who has done the lecturing circuit of other prestigious think-tanks in the region were to be appointed. Instead Penang Institute gets Zairil who is nothing more than a political appointee.

  (d) Why do I say that he is no more than Guan Eng’s budak suruhan? Well, Tunku Aziz revealed that his boss the CM sent the pol-sec to dangle the RM50,000 carrot in front of Tunku Aziz.

  So Penang Institute made the decision that they suddenly had a lucrative vacancy and for which Tunku Aziz could fill. Was the vacancy open before Tunku Aziz’s resignation from the party?

  (e) Did the Penang Institute board of directors unanimously decide that Tunku Aziz should be hired or was it Guan Eng’s unilateral political decision as Penang Institute chairman, and which he sent his budak suruhan the institute CEO to convey?

  If Guan Eng practised any accountability and transparency, then the most qualified candidate should have been taken into the Penang Institute. No offence to Tunku Aziz but the Penang DAP govt is always talking about Open Tender.

  So rather than allegedly “bribing” Tunku Aziz, the sudden ‘vacancy’ in the Penang Institute should have been openly advertised and at least half a dozen prospective applicants go through a rigorous process of vetting and interviews. Nope, what we see in the Tunku Aziz “bribe” episode was instead cronyism, the same they accuse BN of and the worse that they themselves practice.

  (f) Even the Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya also they practice cronyism. Hannah Yeoh’s personal assistants Rajiv Rishyakaran and Ken Chia and her political secretary Edward Ling have been appointed MPSJ councillors past and present.

  And they accuse BN of cronyism and claim that the DAP practises meritocracy.

  So if I object to their Ubah, and their cronyism and all their actions which are against secularism and democracy, am I being consistent to my past objections against BN’s cronyism and lack of transparency?

  How is it that I’ve “changed” or I’ve Ubah when my objections to the wrongdoings remain the same?

  (6) Look at how DAP used to tear into PAS and tear into Anwar Ibrahim before. In fact, it was Karpal who raised in Parliament the charge of Anwar’s sodomy. This is recorded in the Hansard.

  So DAP has Ubah from being the fiercest critics of Anwar and of PAS to becoming the sleeping partner who is closing one eye to PAS banning this (unisex hair salon flap) and tangkap that (two men sitting alone in a car).

  So who is the one who switched camp? You tell me.