Really wonder what is happening in this country.

We have lawyers having a hard time scheduling criminal cases which probably resulting as much from a lack of lawyers (lack? really? or just lack of lawyers willing to take on criminal cases?) as from the amount of crimes being committed as seen here:
* Magistrate’s house broken into
* Cop found with throat slit
* Foreman accidentally shot by cop while catching thief
And as if it wasn't enough we have KL cabbies declare turf war

However, there is a counter-balance coming by the way of Policemen and their ‘best friends’ to patrol nine crime-prone areas.

25 men and 14 dogs for nine areas. May have made sense if each "area" is small enough (perhaps 6 streets or so?). But no, something the size of PJ is an "area". Here are the other 8 areas (districts) Dang Wangi, Brickfields, Sentul, Ampang, Subang Jaya, Cheras, Gombak and Kajang.

Amazing, isn't it? How someone somewhere think that 14 dogs and 25 men can reduce crime in these areas. I doubt if it could significantly reduce street crime if all 14 dogs and 25 men were focussed on 1 district.

According to wikipedia, PJ is roughly 97 square kilometres. If 2 dogs and 4 men are assigned to PJ, it will give each dog and 2 men an estimated 48 square kilometres or if in the form of a rectangle roughly 6km by 8km. For each dog to patrol.

And the TheStar expects this new addition to "add more bite to crime prevention in the Klang Valley". If it does add significant "bite", then we were probably way under in the first place. If we were not way under, then how can it add any significance?

I honestly doubt if a tiger can patrol and control crime in an area that size, and we expect a dog to do it.

I wonder.

I give up

I started this with the intention of highlighting dumb stuff that happens in the country.

Evidently, I cant do it anymore. The news are so full of it that I cant decide which case is worst. And it is so incredible and absurd that I have a hard time trying to be sarcastic about it.

Maybe one day, I'll say something here again.

Good Luck.

Roads to be 3% safer for only RM50 million

Another brilliant attempt to make our roads safer for all motorists and passengers -Super safe roads for everyone.

Seems that 8% of the road accidents are caused by the roads and related stuff (such as lighting, U-turns, potholes, etc). And we are going to spend some RM50 million to improve these roads with the objective of reducing this cause to less than 5% of the accidents. (Just to digress, we can also increase numbers for the other causes and thereby reduce this cause as a percentage! hah!)

Not that this is bad at all. It is just that we should also look at the other 92%!!

From where I come from, if you intend to spend even RM50 (see, no M) to act on cause A(which accounts for some 8% of a problem), you may also want to consider how to address the other 92%. After all, if you can reduce 10% of the other 92% (some 9%), its effect is more than eliminating the entire cause A.

Maybe it is not in my department (or my interest) to reduce the other causes? But someone jolly well should consider spending some decent money on the other causes (42 % due to driver attitude and 48% due to mechanical failure).

Imagine if we can improve driver attitude? Based on the same maths, if we can spend some 50M to improve something worth 8%, we should also consider (and easily justify) spending RM250M to improve the 42% (driver attitude) and another RM250M to reduce mechanical faults.

Not that we do not value lives. Just that we should also allocate a reasonable amount to the other causes.

Which comes back to what I have in mind.

I'm going to get a concession to start a franchise called DAIS. It stands for Driver Attitude Improvement Schools. Then seek government funding to the tune of RM250M (plus/minus a few million). Get all drivers to come in for attitude test every 5 years (for a RM100 fee), and more frequently for those involved in accidents. (Maybe we'll even give a frequent offender discount?)

Erm.. maybe I should also start some kind of education program (grant of 250M?) to teach people how to prevent about mechanical failures? It's called PMS (yes, periodic too) Preventive Maintenance School.

Someone said "A quarter billion here, a quarter billion there. Soon we will be talking serious money."

I wonder if anyone is going to steal my idea?

No indications of a recession

In today's The Star,
* Malaysia’s October exports down
* Petronas shuts petrochemical plants
* Retrenchment ‘the last resort’
* Retrench only as last resort: Muhyiddin
* Najib: Expect fewer tourists with global slowdown
* Johor seeks to cap number of foreign workers
But we are still ok because our esteemed DPM DS Najib said “Nobody really knows the problem out there or how deep the problem is, it is anybody’s guess.” He said there were no indications that Malaysia would slip into recession next year or even into a technical recession.

From the looks of it he admits that no one knows how deep the problem is but he remains confident that there were no indications of a recession (technical or otherwise). I wonder where or who our government gets their information from. I wish I could those articles too.

I remain amazed and in awe at how they can see through all the bad news, and how clouded and confused all the others are.

On a separate note, there are some people in Malaysia that doubt the crime rates published recently that showed that we have lower crime (per 1000, 10000 or 100000 people) rate than other countries. And in these published article, Malaysia did better than some very respected countries (countries that a single female can walk on the streets at night).

And because of our doubting citizens, our esteemed Minister seeks an external and independent body to conduct a survey. I guess there is no way for the raw data to be wrong. Number of police reports = number of crimes. Our criminal acts = their criminal acts.

And because the independent body is believable when they summarise the same data and publish statistics.

We now have a simple way to convince the doubting citizens. Ask a independent body about:
1. How is our economy so strong?
2. What happened to the foreign model that kind of exploded into fame?
3. Whether money politics is real and who are involved?
4. Whether our ISA is used in a justifiable manner?

You know, this is not a new idea. Corporations often engage external consultants to tell them what they already know but dont like to admit, or when shareholders are doubtful. But it takes our government to apply the idea to ... erm.. the governing of the country.

I should have thought of that!

Solution to the rear seat belt dilemma for families

There is something common amongt families with 4 children, families with more than 5 members, families with 3 generations that stay together.

They are caught in a dilemma of either leaving someone behind, or breaking the rear seat belt law. But then again, in another article yesterday, someone said that they may fined for overloading.

This time, I want to be faster than our esteemed government in proposing a solution - Change your lifestyle with this Top Ten ways to solve the rear seat belt dilemma without changing or getting a new car.

10. Stay near amenities so that everything is accessible within a 30 minute walk?
9. Stop going out for meals. Cook, buy back or get it delivered?
8. Don't go out as a family?
7. Leave one or two of the worst behaved behind ?
6. Drive cars that are registered before 1995?
5. Have a smaller family?
4. Change to a smaller family?
3. Avoid getting caught by police (see Law and Enforcement)?
2. Stick a folded RM50 to your driving licence?
1. Put everybody on a motorbike?

Other options include staying in Sri Hartamas or ChowKit where there are no policemen. But these cannot be recommended because we dont want the property prices to shoot up for a silly reason.

Clever me!

Low Crime Rates

A few days ago, some prominent government person stated that Malaysia has lower crime rates than many other countries, including countries that we normally accept as safe enough for a female to walk alone at night on the streets.

To confirm my suspicion that the government is right, I saw this article in The Star, "Thugs strike terror in Desa Sri Hartamas"

Apparently, in that area, there are robbers who rob customers in restuarants, gangsters who extort protection money, double parkers who block roads, illegal food court operating on a piece of land designated for a police station.

And then there is a problem with rubbish collection, and no public transport in the area, difficulty in hiring workers and lack of a police station. So, maybe all our criminals are "working" in Desa Sri Hartamas only and therefore our average crime rates are low. Oh, then there are those in ChowKit that scared away the police. Not too bad, only 2 areas where crime is concentrated.

Out of curiousity, it seems that our gangsters/robbers who can travel on private transport are richer than the workers who have to use public transport. So why dont the gangsters give up crime and become a worker?

From a personal safety perspective, I would recommend to the robbers/gangsters to be careful when entering and leaving their cars/motorbikes while holding parangs and sticks. Who knows where the parang may poke into while you are trying to belt up (which needs two hands) with the parang in your lap.

Don't say I didn't warn them.

Then some policeman said that it is difficult to catch the robbers in action (especially if the police are not around the area) and that the police will use preventive laws to stop the criminals.

We should have those preventive laws implemented immediately in those 2 areas. Why didnt we use preventive laws to stop all crime earlier?

I should have thought of that!

Law and enforcement

Now that the belting up in the rear seats are mandatory, we are reminded that it is illegal to seat 4 people at the back of a car.

This new reminder is brought about when many realised that there can only be 3 seat belts at the back. What do we do with the 4th passenger? Well, the answer is that the driver will probably be fine as far as the seat belt ruling goes. But "there is no guarantee that he won't be fined under other laws."

Again, our conscientious officials have reminded us that we should not put members of our family or friends at risk because when a car is overloaded the steering control and the braking ability of it is affected.

I should have thought of that!

So I began thinking....

This overloading thing begs clarification on how overloading is defined:

1. Is there a limit on the number of people (normal sedans are typically designed for 3 adults in the rear seats)

2. How do we count children (1 child = 1 adult or 3 children = 2 adults?)

3. If 3 children = 2 adults is applicable, then at what age is a child not a child? And if we do not use age, do we use weight (more appropriate?), or height?

4. If child-seats or booster seats are mandatory too, at what age (or is it height or weight?) can a child go without the child-seats?

5. Or is there also a limit on the total weight of the load? So if we have very well-rounded people, we can only seat 4 instead of 5?

6. Does it also depend on the type of car (such as wira, myvi, kancil, satria), and/or make of car, such as perodua(smaller), toyota (typical), mercedes (larger)?

7. How will the authorities check the weight if overloading is defined by weight (as it should be, if steering and braking ability are the measures)?

8. Will the relevant personnel checking be carrying portable weighing machines? or will the suspect (and passengers) be sent to a weighing centre? Are we going to build more weighing centres?

9. Are we going to send some officials for trips to other countries to study how they effect such rules?

10. Errm... does a similar law apply to other vehicles, such as lorries, buses, trains? how to weigh a train?

Come to think of it, I can already see some business potential in selling weighing equipment if this overloading thing is to be enforced:
a. Mobile weighing machines, kind of like a trailer with a weighing machine that the suspect (and passengers drive up on?
b. Below the surface weighing machines installed on major roads that shows the weight of the vehicle driving past?
c. Home use machines for families wary of breaking the laws?

We can probably also address the issue of the overloaded lorries plaguing our roads for so many years. See how we can kill many worms with one bird?

And then the automotive industry may well start to promote loading limits on their cars together with fuel efficiency, headroom, engine stats, etc.

Imagine the advertisement "45kg more than the nearest competitor means you get to keep the car as the family grows (weight-wise)"

Or "Why be punished because you are more than a model's figure, our new sedan exceeds the average load limits by 75kg".

And also "Planning for another child, our 2009 model is designed for 5 adults + 1 child, leading the industry in weight-limits for our class."

I could go on, but I am running out of paper...