Malaysiakini Your Say | Jun 17, 11

‘The gov’t expects the public to believe that they would carry out a fair and transparent probe? Since when have they been known to do that?’

Special board to probe ‘nude squat’ claims

L Joy: The Immigration Department is to set up a special board to investigate the nude squat? They and the government expect the public and Singapore to believe that they would carry out a fair and transparent probe?

Since when have they been known to do that? Could they state just one case in the history of the Immigration Department? Name any ministry or department, for that matter, that has made a finding against its own self?

Just using the word ‘special’ does not make the investigation transparent and fair.

Cinaputra: When I was a kid, the teachers would punish the naughty ones by making them squat up and down – clothed, of course – while crossing their hands to pinch their ear lobes between thumb and index fingers.

The aim was to make them look silly and embarrassed them in front of their schoolmates. This is not longer done in schools and guess who has adopted this as standard operating procedure?

RAW: A real investigation should be carried out on why Immigration entry points for cars are frequently unmanned. I’ve nearly driven through one before. Although I am Malaysian, one of the passengers in my car was a foreigner.

Since then, I had heard of many accounts of unmanned entry points which were open to be driven through by cars. This link gives another example of unmanned lane (this time it was the exit point).

The Sensibility: It is really sickening. Previously, it was the police who were accused of asking a Chinese national to strip, but it later found it was a Malaysian woman. This was plain abuse of power. Now the Immigration Department personnel are doing it.

I hope the home minister, his deputy and the Immigration director-general investigate the matter thoroughly. Respect is earned and not forced.

Don’t let your personnel behave like ‘little Napoleons’ and don’t take their sides when their actions are wrong and belittle the country’s image. This will drive tourists away.

Expert: RM1.8m for FB page a ‘bit too much’

KohJL: I find it hard to call this a social media campaign by the Tourism Ministry. Yes, it exists on a social media site, but it is very self-contained. It does not have the ‘social’ component that made Facebook games like Farmville hugely successful. Not to mention that having yet another rhythm game was very unoriginal.

A friend of mine who works in the same industry thought that the Flash game should cost no more than RM20,000. The rest? Still a mystery.

But RM1.8 million split between two media companies – one with a crappy website and the other with zero online presence – that’s way too much. One would expect such companies to have a fancy website to show as part of their portfolio, no?

Call me Jibby: RM300,000 seem “a bit much” for a single Facebook application, said David Duarte. Duarte, you forget the commission and sub-contract processes in Malaysia.

Rubystar_4037: I think that the 20,000 odd fans of the Facebook page comprise of padding by the ministry itself. It is so easy to create fictitious accounts, and among the genuine fans, three-fourths may come from the ministry itself.

Before it is launched, a huge commission had already being paid to the first liners, second-liners, third-liners and other runners. The bottom liners eventually slogged to put up some presentable material and they just might get pittances from the ministry.

Hann Wei Toh: I am not sure if MP Anthony Loke understood what the minister Dr Ng Yen Yen said.

I checked the Cuti-Cuti 1 Malaysia page on Facebook. After countless attempts, the game was finally loaded. I believe the minister said servers are needed, because the flash game is hosted by http://cwdance.cuticuti1malaysia.com/, which resides on hardware owned by cloudflare.com.

So, the minister did not lie. I would prefer our MPs do a bit more study so that criticisms and responses can be sufficiently accurate to avoid misleading the public.

Eugene T: What annoys me currently are the ignorant boasting by Facebook users who claim they can create a Facebook page for free, which is true to an extent.

But these same people do not realise the mechanism for Facebook app page is totally different. The application must be hosted externally and linked to the Facebook page instead.

Who will pay for those? However, the high cost of RM300,000 still remains totally unjustified for such a terrible app game.

Go to stadium instead, Sabah Umno tells Bersih

Geronimo: Here we go again, Sabah Umno deputy chief Salleh Said Keruak says that public rallies and mass demonstration is not our culture. Ask Umno, they are the masters at this as they were the one who started the first mass demonstration in 1946 against the Malaysian Union.

Blogsmith: The call to hold the rally in a closed area is to reduce its publicity and impact, but not necessarily on traffic, which can be minimised if the police play their part.

The big question is, if Bersih holds its rally in a stadium, would the authorities listen and change what is long overdue? Those seeking reforms have no option but to take to the streets as their cries have fallen on deaf ears.