"because the PM was excited"

"If people have a problem with Warisan Merdeka, they should ask PNB who are building it, we are not using government funds. The reason why it was announced during Budget 2011 was because the PM was excited about it and wanted to talk about it,” said UMNO MP Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed.

(read the article here)

Faster

On Friday 15 Oct 2010, the Prime Minister unveiled the Warisan Merdeka 100 storey tower project that would cost RM5 billion. Seven days later, a community page called "No Mega Tower" on Facebook had gained 100,000 supporters. Within that week, the page (www.facebook.com/NoMegaTower) was blocked and then unblocked. Several news sites covered it and, over the weekend, another 50% more FB denizens "liked" the protest site. Not long after the clock ticked over to 00h00 this morning, the figure hit a staggering 170,000. (I did wonder what percentage is attributable to creative accounting --multiple accounts, anyone?-- and just how many of the Likers are actually Malaysians... but let's save that for a rant on misleading statistics another day.) The fact remains, the developments in the past 10 days have come so fast and so furious that it was literally a case of "blink and you'll miss it".

Speaking of "Blink", author of that bestseller, Malcolm Gladwell, who also wrote "The Tipping Point", recently opined in the New Yorker magazine on the phenomenon of wiki-activism. The Guardian did a fine analysis, part of which summed up Gladwell's position thus:

...Gladwell drew the following conclusion: that while social networks may be useful for some communication – to alert like-minded acquaintances to social events, or to solve a specific "weak tie" problem, such as the location of a bone marrow donor – they do not promote the passionate collective engagement that causes individuals to make commitments that result in social change. Facebook "likers", he argued, are not sitters-in or nonviolent activists, they are not even marchers or candle-wavers; they may wish to associate themselves with a protest app, but the nature of their medium means they do so with negligible risk and therefore negligible effect.

Do you agree? Read the full article here.

FOOTNOTE: The Edge quotes PNB as saying, "We are not taking the government's money for the project." That threw me for a loop. If PNB are footing the entire RM5 billion bill, why was this item included in the PM's Budget announcement? Can someone please explain that to me?

The Future is Calling...

Having used it once in Kuching, before Tuan Ravinthran JC in High Court III, I would heartily welcome the full implementation of teleconferencing in Sarawak:

"With this telephonic conferencing installed, lawyers can do their case management in the comfort from their offices, bedrooms or even while doing whatever they are doing. They save the trouble of having to struggle through the traffic jams which are becoming worse by the day just to spend two (2) minutes to get a hearing date."

(full speech by the CJ can be read here)

The Curious Case of The Lost Privacy

I was having a beer with an old pal last night and we agreed that, for many kids today, the boundary between one's private and public lives seems to have utterly and perhaps irrevocably disappeared. I'm talking about Twitter and Facebook in particular. As a curmudgeon of 42 (yes, get off my lawn, you damn kids), I'm telling anyone who'll listen to remember that what you tweet and shoot out to FB at the speed of light can be read by many, many people and it has a way of floating around out there forever, even if you try one day to delete your accounts. Teachers might read your rants, or people who might consider your university admission one day, or your employer, or your future spouse and, yes, god forbid, your kids. So, PLEASE, be discreet and think about what you are posting. Much of that is your business and none of mine...

Further reading: Neil Gaiman

The Crow

Yesterday, 20.10.2010, my blog was viewed for the 1,010th time. Allow me to thank you, my three loyal readers, for clicking here so many times! As my daughter would say: LOLs...

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Money often costs too much.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

This is J L A Dot Com.

Can we try mediation, please? (picture credit: MSNBC)