Saturday, July 15, 2006

BIRTHDAYS

While they are at it, the government ought to declassify its Cabinet ministers' birthdays, too.

I Google-d, went to Wikipedia, asked Answers.com and dropped by the e-Media but could not come up with the dates of birth for all 32 ministers!

So if I had wanted to send that 1974 vintage to one of the ministers, I wouldn't be able to because I don't know when his birthday is, unless I ask him myself or I get that information from someone who knows.

I had gone looking for our ministers' dates of birth after reading The Scribe's latest take on the AAB-Dr M's feud, where he expressed concern about damning talk of a Malaysian minister who recently celebrated that happening 52nd birthday in Singapore.

My effort produces interesting numbers, though. Mohd Najib Abdul Razak is 52!! But his birthday's July 23, which means our Deputy Prime Minister turns 53 in 8 days (and which also means he celebrated his 52nd a while ago and not recently).

It certainly wasn't Pak Lah; the PM was born on 11 Nov 1939.

And not Rafidah Aziz (4 Nov 1943), Ong Ka Ting (15 Nov 1956), Samy Vellu (8 March 1936), Fong Chan Onn (25 Feb 1944).

Lim Keng Yaik's birthday was nowhere to be found but his profile says he graduated from the University of Belfast in 1964, so he cannot be in his 50s.

Azalina and Hishamuddin are both too young: she 43 years of age (31 Dec) and he 44 (5 Aug 1961).

So who cut his cake at Arabelle in Singapore on a recent 52nd birthday bash?

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:05 am

    The Jebat defence against Tuah’s afreet goodness

    THE lavish 52nd birthday bash that Singapore heaped upon a Cabinet ingrate and Saiful Azhar’s sudden removal from the NST newsdesk are but coups de théâtre that betrayed again the hulking menace: Singapore’s subtle invasion of Malaysia, which must be enunciated with the unorthodoxy only Hang Jebat could inspire.
    Jebat’s improvisations is slowly being strangled from behind by the afreet goodness of Hang Tuah, whose blind loyalty – on hindsight – is as insufferable as an Abdullah Ahmad Badawi blanched speech.
    Nevertheless, Tuah would surely stab and snuff Jebat soon enough but with a little help from some nifty historical revisionism of Sejarah Melayu–Hikayat Hang Tuah; we can alter this do-or-die scenario to a more advantageous position for Jebat. Let us provide Jebat, while struggling to get out of Tuah’s expert hammerlock, a dagger exceeding the surreal superiority of the Taming Sari. But of what make and nature would that anti-Tuah keris be?
    While we assimilate the “magic keris” metaphor, we have to analyse the mental “dumbdowness” best defined by the shallow underpinnings of the Malay psyche that has proceleusmaticised this catastrophe (I know, I know…Pasquale has described the “dumbdowness” as moronic but I prefer a more stately description).
    What is the current state of the Malays psyche now? No need to go far to find out. Get a copy of Harian Metro, Kosmo and Mastika and read the incredulous fluff that passes off as editorial content. It is centred on gossip more useless than the Siti Nurhaliza-Datuk K popinjay blather (even the mainstream press jumped into this creepy bandwagon), the supernatural and for all the Malay hinterland ultra-conservatism, amateurishly tawdry sex. The three publications’ circulation figures can read like China-India’s population statistics.
    Then view Akademi Fantasia and be amazed at how a third-rate entertainment dross hyperventilates hundreds of thousands of Malays into giving away millions in SMS ringgit to vote in their favourite puerile act. It’s phenomenal, I’ll grant you that, but it also underscores my assertion that the Malay psyche, minus the Malays who reject the froth, is entrenched in psychosis.
    This is Singapore’s acute understanding of the Malay psyche and being leaders of Chinese extract honed by Confucianistic stoicism, they have exploited – with a little prodding from their Israeli tutors – the Malays’ most significant vulnerability.
    The “dumbdowness” of the Malay psyche, as I have partitioned, is but a microcosm of the big picture but for now, it will do. And that “dumbdowness” is whittling the Malays into a post-modernist feudalism, not that the Malays ever got out of it entirely in the first place.
    This explains to a certain extent why the Abdullah administration is slumbering (okay, just Abdullah while the rest are forcibly silenced) and heretically pinned down by third party manipulation. Their “puppeteering” of corporate-economic policies while sauntering in shibboleth shenanigans in the highest office provokes the wide spreading of the nation’s hind legs for Singapore’s easy penetration.
    And here is what is most depressing: the Abdullah administration is doomed to succeed, all for Singapore’s greater republican expansive domination.
    It also explains why cost of amenities have spiked, consumer prices have inflated, the Bursa Malaysia is anaemic, and FDIs are veering away – it’s all orchestrated by this callow cabal, allowing Singapore’s holding corporations to plunder the dirt-cheap assets and even cheaper Malaysian dignity. Like I stated before, it’s the fire sale of the decade.
    Singapore, with its paranoiac disposition towards its neighbours, have learnt so much from the powerful supranational spook services specialising in national backwash that they lulled Abdullah from performing his OIC chairmanship duties – commentators have pointed out that not even a whimper is heard from the OIC condemning the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Oh, it’s just another aspect of the "elegant but malignant” silence that perfectly suits Singapore’s chumminess with Israel.
    In the meantime, a new spin has been initiated, the so-called declassifying of documents by the Prime Minister’s Office that continues the demonisation of Dr Mahathir Mohamad that all the past, present and, what the hell, future dealings with Singapore – bridge, airspace, sand, probably even engineered procreation. It’s all the good doctor’s doing and undoing, it would seem.
    Since I expect Rocky to denude and detoxify the declassified documents, I’m also anxious for Dr Mahathir to return home soon to authenticate these documents. Are they indeed what they are? Glancing at the documents, and the way Brendan Pereira had ultra-spun them, it made Singapore appear more sinless than a Jesuit priest.
    Back to the question of the anti-Tuah keris for Jebat to beat the crap out of Tuah and his loathsome bent-out-of-shape sacrifice to his monarchic oracles. If we were to follow political conventions, that dagger should morph into the fence-sitting Najib Abdul Razak’s sudden elevation as Prime Minister. But it won’t happen anytime soon because Najib hasn’t shown any signs that he is “da man.”
    But let’s be realistic: to demand Najib to assume a ballsy, unyielding stand against the might of Singapore and the callow cabal stringing Abdullah is to demand a wildebeest to yap against a bloodlust pride of lions, hyenas and jackals in the middle of the Serengeti. It’s never going to happen or Najib gets shredded to pieces first.
    In essence, the keris I’m cavorting for has already been brandished and slashing in the form of the indefatigable blogging that acts as a sluiceway to allow underground and undercurrents of commentary and reporting to scrape raw the couche Singapore stalking. It’s been a while since we fought a righteous rebellion but I sense the blogs, Rocky’s Bru included, could be our last line of defence. And it should be our finest moment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:12 am

    Pak Lah's birthday falls on 26 Nov as published in "Sin Chew Daily" in 2002 quoting Kak Endon.

    Chan Kong Choy is 52 this year. He was born in 1955-year of goat.

    Ong Tee Keat was born in Nov 1956 - year of Monkey like OKT.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:04 pm

    Since we are in the coy game of guessing the identity of the birthday boy, did you guys know that he made his birthday trip a sort of official trip as well, meeting a few Singapore ministers? All so that he could bill his expenses to the government. Looks like we do pay for our ministers' fun and games as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous3:01 pm

    Please pardon me, Rocky.

    Chan Kong Choy is 51. OKT and OTK are both 50.

    NTR was born in 1953. So he is 53.

    The Minister we are looking for was born in 1954-year of Horse.He must be from UMNO?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous3:41 pm

    siapa ada profile nazri, cuba check bila dia beranak. tdm kata dia jadi ahli umno sebelum nazri beranak.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous4:01 pm

    aha! Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Dato' Seri Haji Mohamed Nazri bin Tan Sri Abdul Aziz lahir pada 15 Mei 1954 di Ipoh, Perak.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous4:02 pm

    Bru,

    You want answers?

    You dont have to go far. Who among our ministers... minus the non-Malay ministers... who enjoy fine vintage wine, darvidoff and cohiba cigars, the company of fine women and whose private life has been a mystery to most of us.

    Watch for official functions. This dude hardly brings his wife or wives, if he has any.

    Anonymous has pointed you in the right direction. It doesnt surprised me a bit that this dude had doubled up his romping with official business. Romping has become an integral part of official business among our esteemed YB Menteris.

    Burung Kakak Tua that mencol at the jendela belonging to the nenek yang sudah tua told me... the happening party was not under written by taxpayer but by a prominent non-Bumiputra internet/IT entrepreneur. For certainty please check with Singapore's SB.

    Surely Bru being someone who enjoys a good brew yourself should know who among our non-Bumiputra Ministers who enjoy fine wine and good time.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous12:19 am

    Bro/Posters,
    Erratum
    Another small but significant mistake. I attributed Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as lulling in his responsibility as OIC chairman in the delay in condemning Israel's aggression over Lebanon. The Prime Minister is actually the Non-Aligned Movement chairman. Apologies to Abdullah for the wrong designation but my criticism of his tardiness remains.

    Sincerely,
    Bandit

    ReplyDelete
  9. Bandit!

    Malaysia is OIC chairman, until 2007.

    Check out:


    http://www.kln.gov.my/?m_id=1&c_id=14&s_id=43

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous8:49 pm

    Bro/Posters,
    Erratum Redux or Abdullah is the bogeyman

    Thanks a bunch for the heads up. Again, I am doubly wretched by the international designations of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi outside of being the “official” Prime Minister of Malaysia, “official” being the operative word here. It’s like dealing with the bogeyman.
    But here’s the bummer: Abdullah’s sloth meekness as the OIC/NAM chairmen have lulled us into assuming that he has only a token international role in those two organisations. I cannot recall the last time he said something ballsy on any of those two platforms.
    Perhaps nobody outside his own aides and foreign policy wonks knows for sure what international roles he should be parlaying the way Malaysia – small country, big balls - should provoke. And that’s the apathy he invites for not batting aggressively, as a NAM and OIC supremo should (OK, supremo may be an overboard description for Abdullah to live up to, so I’ll compromise and accept “simpleton”).
    In any case, Abdullah has to wait for Lebanon to incinerate and its people maimed and killed by Israeli bombardment before he is prodded into making denouncements against Tel Aviv. If it had been Dr Mahathir Mohamad, words of action would fly faster than you could say “screw those Israeli swine” and donation/aid from various quarters would be swiftly organised.
    Not Abdullah and not that Foreign Ministry ingrate, which begs the cynical me into thinking that the Prime Minister was smoothly wheedled into imposing a DELAYED response, seeing that his callow cabal receives instructions from Israeli-trained Singapore.
    A bêtise conspiracy theory? The Israel-Singapore-Malaysia interlink is just too preposterously real to ignore as patently false. It should bitterly dangerous times we live in now but on a parallax view, it’s insipid, done in by a man too good for his own good.
    Sincerely,
    Bandit

    ReplyDelete
  11. Interviewer, Kalibren and Vintage Brew 54!

    Nazri may talk like the cork of a Chilean wine bottle sometimes, but I never knew him to drink. Nazri and I spent some time in London back in the cold winter days in the year when I was the NST correspondent in London and Dr M had just made him the Mara chairman. They guy did not touch a single drop of anything. And no Cohiba or Davidoff, either.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous6:21 pm

    hey. someone's gotta check out this JJ guy. He's from Pahang which is the state of Najib, has often claimed to be a Pak Lah man and is close to Shaziman who's aligned to menantu. That makes him a chameleon and can play all sides. I also heard about his political secretary Dato Mutalib who was with Daim and deals a lot with Mukhriz while having financial dealings with Shaziman. He's no different from his boss and is a chameleon too. Both are known to be lovers of fine wine, fine cigars and well, not-so-fine women. But then money has never bought taste.

    ReplyDelete