Istana Negara on a Monday morn

Updated, 2 Feb:

Panglima Mahkota Wilayah. Sorry for the late update. Pak Lah and I were less than 3 feet away from each other at one point during the 4-hour ceremony yesterday morning but there was no chance for any exchange whatsoever.

Bernama's report from yesterday:

Three media organisation heads, namely the Director-General of Broadcasting, Datuk Ibrahim Yahaya, Malay Mail editor-in-chief Ahirudin Attan, who is better known as the blogger Rocky Bru and is also protem president of the Alliance of Bloggers (All-Blogs), and Harian Metro group editor Mustapa Omar are among the 27 recipients of the Panglima Mahkota Wilayah (PMW) which carries the title "Datuk".

Picture courtesy of NSTP.


Original article:
The last time I was invited to the Istana Negara was in Nov 2001 to receive the Kesatria Mangku Negara from the King. I was the Editor of Business Times and Acting Editor of the Malay Mail then. Blogging wasn't in the vocab.

Tomorrow morning, in the same old black Baju Melayu, I'll be making my way to the Balairong Seri once again, this time for the Istiadat Menghadap dan Istiadat Pengurniaan Darjah Kebesaran, Bintang dan Pingat Wilayah Persekutuan.

Updates later, after the news Embargo. In advance, Thank You from the bottom of my heart for the well-wishes.

"Dictator, a chauvinist and communist-minded"

Losing it? If Zahrain Mohd Hashim the PKR Member of Parliament did utter those words to describe the Chief Minister of DAP's Penang, I can only say that either Zahrain has lost his marbles or Lim Guan Eng has lost control.

Either way, Guan Eng can't sit still. He can't leave it to someone like Chow Kon Yeow, his own party's state chairman, to do the defending for him (Frustration could be reasons for Zahrain's outburst) or his own dad to put the pressure on PKR and PAS (Pakatan Rakyat - What next?). He can't lodge a police report against Zahrain (lodging police report against fellow MP is a form of intimidation, says Zaid Ibrahim, here) and surely, surely he can't be thinking of suing the former Penang PKR state chairman for defamation!

But he needs to act fast. The other side is having a field day!

Police report against Selangor MB

Poor Foundation. The war between the Yayasan Basmi Kemiskinan and the Selangor Menteri Besar intensifies with a police report lodged this morning against Khalid Ibrahim by the NGO.

On Wednesday, Khalid announced that he was declassifying documents pertaining to YBK to enable his state government to prepare a detailed report on the state government's contributions towards YBK. The MB did not say when the report will be completed. I'm sure we are very interested to know how much Khalid's government has given to the Foundation to justify it's wish to take over its running.

Meanwhile, YBK officials were in Melaka yesterday to visit a site the Melaka government is offering for their proposed UiTM campus. The campus was originally meant for Serdang in Selangor but Khalid stopped the project because YBK wouldn't make him chairman of the foundation.

The Malay Mail has the story here.

Apalah, Mas?

Angry Customer. Sedutan blog Op Ed membaham Malaysia Airlines:

Lebih memalukan untuk MAS ialah kira-kira 10 minit selepas kecoh dan hingar-bingar ni, seorang kakitangan SIA dari Singapura (saya kenal suara dan telo orang Cina Singapore!) membuat announcement dari PA system (lebih kurang): 'To all SIA customers, please go to Gate 4, my staff will give you hotel vouchers. Your flight tomorrow has been rescheduled to 2pm. We have ground staff directing you where to go. Please give us about an hour to arrange for buses to take you to a hotel for the night.'

Terdengar beberapa mat salleh dalam kumpulan MAS dan juga penumpang India berkata: 'That's SIA for you'. 'Singapore, efficient as usual'.
Geram aku dengan bongok MAS ni!
Ini bukan kali pertama - dah dua minggu kabus delay flight.
Apa rancangan kamu? Mana ground staff kanan? Bodoh betul.
Notice this also: SIA tak panggil penumpang mereka 'passengers'. Mereka digelar 'customers'.
Maknanya: You are our customers, we will take good care of you.

What's up, MAS?

Baca Saya dah pulang - Marah dengan MAS, KLIA