First was this:-
The above was the situation along LDP just before Tractor Malaysia on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There was an unexpected traffic jam and my first thought was that there was an accident – a very bad one. As we crawled along the traffic and towards the ramp, we realised that the road was closed for road works. Not the usual partial closure but rather a full closure and the traffic were diverted to another exit. It was quite a surprise.
Litrak after a long, long time had finally decided to do a proper resurface of the whole ramp. Previously, remedial work on this part of the highway was nothing more than minor patch works (which was badly done and still caused rough drive). It is made worse by oil spills by heavy trucks whenever they make the sharp turn just after going up the ramp. Quite number of motorcyclist had dangerous time here – trying to take the corner without falling. People been complaining about it for some time now but nothing was done.
Couple of days after the announcement of the increase in toll, Litrak was all armed up to do a real resurfacing work. Talk about perfect timing here! It kind of reminds me of the time when the local politicians decides to come down and see the people just before the general election. Is it just a coincidence or is it not?
By the way, did Samy Vellu say something on “low traffic volume” on LDP? A picture of heavy traffic jam on a Sunday afternoon should speak for itself.
Second was this:-
TheStar carrying a post titled “No space for teh tarik”. Apparently someone in the government decided to wake up from their long slumber and decided to put a stop to the sick joke of our astronaut playing traditional games and making the famous teh tarik in space.
It is a (big) surprise turnaround by our politicians on this issue.
Just last month (on 15th November 2006), Bernama reported that the Malaysian pioneer astronaut will spin top and toss “batu seremban’ (five-stone game) as part of an experiment during his space travel. The astronaut will also paint a batik motif and make ‘teh tarik‘ which would be shared with his fellow astronauts. This was not a joke but rather the submission made by the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry parliamentary secretary Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim who represented the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry to the Parliament.
Mind you that this was stated in Parliament and yet, I don’t recall hearing any of the BN MPs making any noise on this – probably because they are so used being in a circus and the fact that the Malaysian astronaut would be making a fool of himself and the nation mattered little to them. For the opposition and the general public however, it was clear that Malaysia was missing once in a lifetime chance to do real experiments in space.
However, someone had waked up from their sleep. It looks like now; our local grown Astronaut will be carrying out at least 10 laboratory tests for serious research which have been designed by 10 universities, institutes of higher education and government science agencies.
That is news indeed.
But being THE government, they still had to come up with some insulting statement like “We are not sending up a space tourist. Whoever is chosen will be carrying out ground-breaking experiments with serious implications on our economy” Oh pleaasseee! Just last month, the government was all geared up on activities that had no bearing on the economy whatsoever. Where was this kind of “gung-ho” statements then? Or does this mean someone lied in the Parliament and got away with it?
And ya, by the way did you know that “unlike other countries that have to pay the Russians to send their astronauts to space, the entire program for Malaysia is borne by the Russians”? I didn’t know that – I thought the cost was already added into the total cost of the Sukhoi fighter so as to make it look like we were getting the space trip for free? Did we?
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