Lately, I noticed The Star’s Wong Chun Wai acquainted himself to help popularise the unparliamentary act of fellow lawmakers, furthermore instilling more pressure towards general taxpayers’ wish of witnessing a more constructive debate during the parliamentary session and proper behaviour afterwards.

"Our Yang Berhormat expect to be treated with honour and respect because they are supposed to be VIPs, and most of them have titles. But can we expect some decency from them in return?" he asked.

Surely, as leaders, they must uphold some degree of decorum, integrity and credibility if they insist on respect from the people.

We should reject MPs who habitually display their utter lack of understanding towards women, who form a large proportion of voters. 

Such MPs should be made to attend classes on sexual violence and problems affecting single mothers, so that they can speak with some intelligence on issues concerning women. 

Otherwise, we will have to continue to suffer their silly antics.

Another naked truth of why live parliamentary proceedings will remain a dream and hoax, as it is appeared to be, now.

Yesterday, Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin labelled Malaysians as a bunch of racist who are not ready to for live parliamentary proceedings, thus putting a halt on idea of live parliament TV.

This morning, I received an email from reader Hang Jebat, calling upon the broadcasting of several videos on parliamentary debate which are available on internet, in a way trying to inform every single Malaysians the naked truth on why the Government is not prepared for live telecasts.

Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 01:43:37 +0100
From: "Hang Jebat"
Subject: Parliament TV

Hi

There are several videos on parliamentary debates available online at the DAP TV site. I think it is very important for all Malaysians to promote the videos. And it is much more effective to direct them to the videos put up on
YouTube or Google Video. There is unlimited bandwith, ppl can comment and ppl can embed the videos on their own sites/blogs.

Zam said that Malaysias are not prepared for live telecasts (http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/50317).

Let all Malaysians know why.

The videos are on You Tube and Google Video. Do a search on "parlimen"

Or link directly to Google Video or YouTube.

Let’s all continue to press for accountability!

Lobby for Parliamentary Telecasts!

Again, let me repeat my plea to Minister ZAM: Don’t bark at the wrong tree, it’s the headless some that you need to question, not us!

Parliament on TV, remember? Let me jolt your memory.

After months of ding-dong, we got a big NO from the Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin. Reason? Listen carefully and read out loud.

Racist Malaysian viewers are not ready for live parliamentary proceedings. […]

This is because most Malaysians still think from a racial point of view. […]

It was not time yet to have live broadcasts because Malaysians still have a ‘third world mentality’.

"We have not reached an intellectual stage where Malaysians can carry the wisdom of being able to agree to disagree," he added.

All the while, the quality of debate over the parliament sessions were questioned by the media and public. We have a bunch of lawmakers puking fun on various rubbish kind of topics, part of the reasons that caused the Government to prolong the decision on airing the parliament proceedings live, citing high cost, audience rating and racial sensitivity as reasons for rejecting the proposal.

Back in 2004, Minister in the Prime Minister Department Nazri Aziz, who oversea who oversees parliamentary affairs, said live telecasts of Parliament sittings would bring more negative consequences than positive outcomes.

However, there was a tragic U-turn during the early of 2006, when he spoke in favor of putting parliament live on TV, so that to get more people to follow what goes on in Parliament. A few BN MPs too, agreed with the idea to keep MPs and ministers on their toes.

But now, out of nowhere, the finger has been pointed on us, we Malaysians for being racist and not ready to take live parliamentary proceedings?

Minister ZAM, let me tell you what, don’t bark at the wrong tree, it’s the headless some that you need to question, not us!

… when an island school in Sabah has secured a zero pass rate in the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) last year.

The even more dubious part is, not once, but twice!

What’s the point of having a comprehensive 9th Malaysia Plan (9MP) when certain Malaysians are being deprived of a proper, leave alone condusive studying environment?

After years of letting Internet Explorer 6 languish in non development, Microsoft has finally gotten the ball rolling with its successor, unveiling the second beta of IE7 to the public for testing.

I installed the IE7 and checked company’s webmail. The browser’s interface has not changed dramatically since the public preview. There is still the strange arrangement with the menu bar sandwiched in-between the address bar and the list of tabs. However, there are some minor changes, such as with the customizable search engine box.

Improvements to the new version primarily revolve around speed and stability. Beta 2 takes less memory than its predecessor and appears, at least at a cursory glance, to render pages slightly faster.

However, one thing for sure, destroy Internet Explorer campaign has just started. A group of Firefox advocates from Massachusetts is offering website publishers and bloggers $1 for each Internet Explorer visitor to their sites they can convince to switch to the Mozilla Firefox browser. Google has recently announced that it will pay websites $1 for each referred download of Firefox it receives via the Google Toolbar.

"Firefox is one of the most important software applications in the world because it can play a big part in determining the future of the web. It is crucial that an open-source, standards-based web browser becomes the most popular browser, and Firefox has a shot at being that. Google has just set the stage for Firefox to literally "take back the web" and go from 11% of browsers to over 50%. If people can now spread Firefox, stick it to Microsoft, and make money for each user switched, an aggressive strategy just got more appealing."

So is IE7 a legitimate contender to other Windows browsers like Firefox and Opera? Judging browsers is a very personal and subjective task, and I won’t attempt it here.

But, IE7 will remain on my laptop, solely for webmail checking purpose. Anything more than that, Firefox is still the favourite.

We all know the reason.

Another 3 more days, Malaysia Thomas Cup team will be down to the court, playing against minnow USA.

The sentiment on the grassroot level is that, this time around, we’ve the best team with the strongest unity ever shown and to regain the Thomas Cup should not be a problem.

One thing for sure, Malaysians are behind them to shower them with the needed support. Do-or-Die mission, void of excuse, too much of that since 1992.

Click here for the full schedule.

Heck, throughout my 17 years of studying history, none of the teacher offered me such luxury.

Kids nowadays, are pampered lot!

With his comments increasingly ‘censored’ in the pro-government mainstream media, former premier Mahathir Mohamad has now resorted to air his hard-hitting arguments in cyberspace.

"I must publicise the facts in this manner because not many of my statements are being published by the mass media, although they send representatives to attend my press conferences."

Mahathir in his seven-page letter published in a pro-Umno website called Kelab Maya Umno, reiterated that the government had failed to defend the nation’s sovereignty.

It is believed that the letter has also been sent to all members of parliament as well as Umno leaders.

My view is that, it won’t be long before we welcome Tun Mahathir as part of our blogging community, to provide more insights, in which the Government finds it hard to accept, at times.

Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar has picked up the ball, albeit in a special way.

"I have a witness for all my actions, He is Allah."

"I have carried out my job and the judge is Allah." […]

"The important thing is I need not comment on what this man (Chang) said. I do not even know what is his job, whether his job is only to tell others to quit or not,"

Now, what Matthias Chang is going to say without showing disrespect towards one’s religious belief?

We shall see.

The Star SMS alert at 9:34am.

Former DPM Tun Ghafar Baba died at the Gleneagles Intan Medical Centre in KL at 7.34am today. Ghafar, 81, has been hospitalised since October.

Al-fatihah.