Jaxon’s Review

It’s look like we are moving into two-party system. Maybe not now.

Maybe sometime in the future — perhaps very far into the future — we maybe able to ask, “Are you a Barisan or Pakatan?” the way we can ask the question “Are you a Democrat or a Republican?” in the US.

Not that I’ve been there but I guess that pretty much sums up the political divide in the land of the free. I don’t really know. Right now we are still very much into race-based politics. If you ask me if this is good or bad, I’d say I don’t know.

It depends. There’s no right or wrong, good or bad in this one, only blurred lines.

Anyway, for those of you who are interested to listen to the official podcast of the 2008 Democratic National Convention where Senator Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech as the Democrat candidate for the US Presidential Elections, you can now download it from iTunes for free.

A whopping 38 million people reportedly tuned in to Obama’s acceptance speech during the convention on Aug 28.

If I were an American, I would be a Democrat I guess. And that explains the bigger banner for the Democrat National Convention.

Hari ini debat pasal minyak, esok polis datang tangkap (Debate the fuel today, get arrested the next day). That was the first line that comes to my mind when I read the news just now about the arrest of Parti Keadilan Rakyat advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar, who has had a good show during the first-ever live TV debate with Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek last night, was picked up by the police from his house in Segambut Dalam.

The debate last night was titled “Hari Ini Bentuk Kerajaan, Esok Turun Harga Minyak” (Form the Government Today, Fuel Price Down Tomorrow).

The Star quoted Anwar’s lawyer Sankara Nair as saying that the police told Anwar that he was being arrested for investigations under Section 377C of the Penal Code for alleged “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”

At 72, John McCain, is still eyeing for the toughest job in the world. From The New York Times op-ed article:

John McCain, when I was born, you were nearly six years older than my mother. Now, seven years into her retirement, you want a new job: the hardest job in the world. Wow!

Read the article, here.

I know a traffic puller story when I see one and the latest sodomy accusation against Anwar Ibrahim is one such story.

It’s about a police report lodged against Anwar by a 23-year-old aid, claiming that the politician had sodomised him on Thursday, June 26.

Anwar’s news hit the blogs after midnight

I came to know of the story well before midnight last night. Had I blogged about it, I would have been among the first tell the story in the form of a blog entry.

Heck, I could have been the first to blog about it in the whole wide world as other bloggers, I noticed, only started to post entries about the issue after midnight.

This blog would have benefited in the form of a spike in the number of visitors, notwithstanding that most Malaysians were asleep during the hours when the story unfolded.

Information everywhere but not a post to blog

I was at home, sitting in front of the computer at around 11pm when I came to know about the story. I had all the information I needed to write a blog entry — enough to tell that a police report had been lodged against Anwar.

Had I blogged about it and consistently updated the blog entry right till the wee hours, I could be assured of hundreds of visitors to Jaxon’s Review in a matter of hours.

It’s all in the intention

But I chose not to blog about it and in a sense, failed in my task as a blogger.

Why? It was because I had problems with my intention in doing so — that is, to take advantage of the situation just to pull traffic to this blog, and not so much about wanting to inform others. I guess it’s a problem of conscience. Too much of it.

Timid blogger

In a way you can call me a timid blogger — one who had difficulties getting past his conscience; who could not bring himself to blog about other people’s embarrassing situation.

Strangely, it had happened to me before — in the case of the sex video scandal involving a former health minister.

I had the information more than a day before the minister himself confessed that, “Yes, I’m the man in the video.”

Yet, I had chosen not to post a blog entry about it. My conscience failed me.

Blog world is no country for timid bloggers

Looking back and on hindsight, I should have gone on and blog about Anwar last night for I have now come to realise that the world of blogs — I hate the term blogosphere — is no country for timid bloggers. It’s a cruel world out there, offline or online.

So from now on, if I ever find myself in a similar situation again, I will just let my conscience go down the drain.

As I was about to step into my office building yesterday, I bumped into a colleague, whose means of greeting was to ask about politics.

“So, I heard your Sabah MPs are switching parties on Wednesday. Is that true?” he asked. I told him, that couldn’t be.

“You think they will switch parties?” he asked again. I said one or two might do so. But then, that would be alang-alang (less than enough), I told him. We burst out laughing.

No laughing matter?

Later on as I was reading the breaking news from the parliament sitting, I realised that I might have spoken too soon; that I’ve been away too long from my homestate that I might have underestimated the strength of the sentiments among the people back home.

Yesterday, a MP from Sabah, Abdul Ghapur Salleh, spoke strongly against the federal government, saying it had been neglecting Sabah all this while, economically, and now, politically.

He said Sabah, which together with Sarawak, won the government for the Barisan Nasional, had only been given three ministerial posts while a state (Selangor) where the ruling coalition lost the state government, was awarded with four ministerial posts.

Ghapur made the remark just days after another Sabah MP, Anifah Aman, said that there was nothing wrong in switching parties if the party in which the Sabah representatives currently in, was not giving them any space.

It’s about number

The magic number is not 13, but 30. The opposition needed that number to force the government of the day out of office. But the numbers are too great. And it would be near impossible for the opposition to pull that many MPs to switch camps.

Anti-hop law

Some MPs from the ruling parties apparently are feeling the heat and have called for the enactment of some sorts of legislations to prevent members from switching parties.

Basically, it was to force those who wanted to switch parties to resign from their seat to pave the way for a by-election. The downside is, the person who resigned would lose his or her eligibility to contest in an election for five years.

Anti-hop law is unlawful, court ruled

Perhaps those who had been asking for the institution of such a law, had not been digging too far back into history.

More than a decade ago in Sabah, we do have such a law to prevent the representatives of the then opposition PBS government from switching parties.

The provision was a subject a lengthy court trial which in the end, the court ruled that the anti-hop provision of the State Constitution was null and void as it contravened the freedom of association as enshrined in the Federal Constitution.

In other words

In other words, the YBs are free to switch parties, which is not a politically-correct things for me to say as I am supposed to be apolitical. I guess my views are harmless and will not, in any way, move a mountain.

So, will my Sabah MPs switch parties? Only time will tell. But definitely, not on Wednesday (tomorrow). Perhaps some other Wednesdays.

Folks, if you ever want to join politics, don’t repeat these five mistakes that Hillary Clinton made:

#1: She misjudged the mood
#2: She didn’t master the rules
#3: She underestimated the caucus states
#4: She relied on old money
#5: She never counted on a long haul.

Read the details of each of the Clinton mistakes from Time.

I’m in the process of compiling blogs and websites run by Malaysian politicians. I reckon that there are no less than 20 of them now and growing, with more and more politicians opening up to the new media.

I hope to compile at least 20 of them which I will be posting here within the next few days, tentatively titled, “Top 20 Malaysian Politician Bloggers”. It may not be an authoritative list and not meant to be exhaustive but I’m going to do it anyway.

YouTube. That’s what they have in common, according to this blog, created in the run up to the March 8 Malaysian general election campaign.

Maimum Yusof, the spunky 89-year-old grandma who became the oldest candidate to contest in the election, needs no introduction in Malaysia. She lost in the election, though; but she has won many hearts with her determination in achieving her aspiration to become a candidate in an election after a series of four unsuccessful attempts in the past 20 years or so.

So, getting herself as a candidate in the election is already a success, irrespective of the result.

Meanwhile, from half way around the globe, I’m following the progress of the US Presidential Election with great interest. If I was an American, I’d be a democrat so it has to be either Obama or Hillary, though my vote would go to Obama.

For me though, the choice is either one of them; not both. As an outsider, I don’t quite see the point in going for a Obama-Hillary joint ticket, because there should not be two lions ruling the same mountain, so says Confucius.

Spunky grandmother Maimun Yusof, 89, who contested as an Independent candidate in Kuala Terengganu parliamentary seat lost her deposit in the election after obtaining 685 votes out of 65,112 votes cast in the area in today’s election.

But this blog would give an “A” for her effort. She secured enough votes to deny Mat Sabu the victory in the area.

Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Razali Ismail who polled 32,562 votes won the seat with a 628-vote majority, beating Maimun and Mat Sabu who garnered 31,934 votes.

In Sabah, an Independent candidate in Senallang state seat, Mohd Sayadi Bakal, failed to obtain a single vote and is probably the only candidate who obtained zero-vote in this election.

In order not to lose a deposit, a candidate must obtain 1/8 of the total votes cast.

Politics is thicker than blood in Sabah but forgive me for being parochial. At a time when a political tsunami seems to be hitting the north and middle part of the peninsular, all I could manage was a blog entry about a rather “insignificant” election result in the interior of my homestate.

But first thing first, the result: Parti Bersatu Sabah president Datuk Joseph Pairin Kitingan has won the Keningau parliamentary seat, beating younger brother and Parti Keadilan Rakyat vice-president Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan by a 4,264-vote majority.

Pairin polled 14,598 against Jeffrey’s 10,334. Jeffrey also lost in Bingkor state seat.

What can I say; I was down with a rather severe bout of flu that knocked me out during the best part of the night when the 12th general election results were being announced.

I woke up at 12.30am after sleeping my fever away for nearly four hours and little did I realise how the world has changed — and has remained — while I was laying there at the sofa, dreaming about things other than tonight’s election results.