What The Toot!

Sudo Make Friend

Hean — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:58:18 +0000

One of my most recurring jokes is that I don’t have any friends (yeah, right, joke…) so today I was thinking about how hard it is to make friend, and I mean a true friend, not just any acquaintances which more or less straight forward to obtain. Below is an account of my attempt to make friend at a terminal, with a setting I was not familiar with:

$ sudo make friend
[sudo] password for sudo:
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for sudo:
Sorry, try again.

It is then at this point that I realise, even with access to the source of a friendship, you just can’t make friend easily in a foreign setting, even by invoking sudo, since you don’t have the correct key.

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Math by Datuk Dr. Teng Hock Nan

khensthoth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:06:27 +0000

Here’s what the Penang Gerakan Chairman, who once were in a race to be the Penang Chief Minister before having their embarrassing asses “whoopped” by the DAP in the 12th General Election, said in a recent news:

Meanwhile, Teng, quoting MIDA’s statistics, said Penang received RM1.67 billion investment as at the third quarter this year.

The number, he said was eight times lower as compared to the investment secured in the corresponding period last year, which was at RM10.15 billion.

To be fair, I think I should use the original figures provided by MIDA available here. I should also point out that the figures are for the months January to August. The last I checked, “as at the third quarter this year” meant from “as at January to September” this year.

The figure for 2008 was RM 10,156,301,413, and the figure as at August 2009 is RM 1,664,533,609. When the numbers are rounded up to the nearest billion with two decimal places, that’s RM 10.16 billion for 2008 and RM 1.66 billion for 2009. How Datuk Dr. Teng got the figures of RM 10.15 billion and RM 1.67 billion is beyond my understanding.

Next, dividing the 2008 figure by 2009 figure, we get 6.1 – which meant as at August 2009, the amount of investment in the field of Manufacturing that the State of Penang received was 6.1 times lower compared to the same period last year. Clearly, 6.1 ≠ 8.

Even if we used the figures by Datuk Dr. Teng, it still doesn’t make sense no matter how you look at it:

10.15 ÷ 1.67 = 6.08

1.67 × 8 = 13.3

10.15÷ 8 = 1.27

So, there you have it. Mathematics according to the former Penang Chief Minister aspirant, Datuk Dr. Teng Hock Nan.

Ken’s Kinky Adventure

Hean — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:25:34 +0000

There is a Metro news on The Star today

Heck, I’m sure at 9 inches long, he’ll have all the adventures he want. Who would miss a chance for… ahem… learning, right?

SPOILER: Read the mouseover text to find out what’s really happening.

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Don’t Press the Glass to Get Hurt

khensthoth — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:18:45 +0000

Bad Translation

Yes, that is an actual sign found in a secluded place in The University of Melbourne. It’s almost as if someone insert the Mandarin phrase into an online translation service and just copied the output.

Almost… as Google Translate gave even worse results:

Equally bad translation

Pondan brand Cake Mix?

khensthoth — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:00:21 +0000

Not to be confused with "Pondan" in Malay language. Product found in Indonesian supermaket in Melbourne.

Yea… coz’ apparently the word Pondan doesn’t mean the same thing in Indonesian language and Malay language. Heck, the word doesn’t even exist in the Indonesian language. And no, I am not making this up. Check it out, they have a whole range of Pondan product available.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not a homophobe. I really do want to see this kind of products made available in Malaysia, all Pondan products. I just hope they have a better marketing/branding team in Malaysia, lest they make the mistake in the urban myth of the Chevy Nova.

Great Nokia Advertisement

Malaysia IS a country?

khensthoth — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:00:38 +0000

I can almost imagine what goes on in the minds of people who made those searches:

Hmm.. Malaysia? Vaguely familiar name. Let’s see which country it’s in..
Oh wait.. You mean to tell me Malaysia IS a country?

Seriously? 165,000,000 results for “Malaysia is in which country”?

Also note Malaysia is/is not an Islamic state

Also interesting is the Islamic state search results. 3.93 million results for “Malaysia is an Islamic state” versus 1.03 million for “Malaysia is not an Islamic state”. I have less faith in Malaysia now.

A Pictorial Guide to Causes of Traffic Congestion in Penang

khensthoth — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:16:24 +0000

So, you now know that when you park your car illegally, somebody is going to take a picture and upload it onto the Internet for the world to see. And next time, the number plates won’t be blurred so inconspicuously. =)

Cost and Completion Date of the Penang Second Bridge

khensthoth — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:00:47 +0000

October 10 2009 4:32 PM (16:32), BERNAMA News:

Bridge will be ready before 2013

October 10 2009 6.19 PM (18:19), TheStar News:

No, it's April 2013 and bridge is apparently spelled Bbridge.

It’s amazing how much news can change within 2 hours.

I decided to see how much the reported cost and anticipated date of completion of the Penang Second Bridge changed throughout the year, from 2003 to 2009. So I went through all the news source here and here, filtered the similar and obviously wrong ones, and plotted a beautiful graph:

Compiled from various news source from 2003 - 2009

Interestingly it was not too long ago in 2005 that Samy Vellu said the second bridge is not economically viable. Anyway, following the trends of the two graphs, we should be seeing further increase in cost and expected completion date. I shall be looking forward to April 2013 – I don’t remember the last time a Malaysian government mega-project was on-time and under-budget.

Ridiculous Religion Site Stupid

khensthoth — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:48:43 +0000

Ever since Wordpress supported tags, we have been tagging each post because we believe it’s a better way to organise and find things that way compared to the archaic Categories (which I would add we still use as if they were tags). Over the years we have used quite a number of tags, and Wordpress has a sidebar widget to automatically change the font size of the tags according to the times it is used. See the sidebar if you don’t understand.

Admittedly, we have talked about religion on this blog quite a lot, and our love for the Pastafarianism religion and the Flying Spaghetti Monster is quite evident. Perhaps then, by divine intervention, the tags have aligned themselves together to create a powerful message for all to see, although those tags were never used in tandem.

As if FSM is not ridiculous

Now THAT is what we call a message from God. We particularly like the part where Stupid were the most emphasised of all. A “Rediculous Religion Site Stupid” example would be “The Church of the Whale Penis” known to us many years ago. No, I AM deadly serious:

Yes, it's huge.

But perhaps one of the MOST ridiculous thing (even by crazy “Whale-penisism” standard) we have came across is from a book we got from a booth of an Islamic RMIT student association spreading the word of Islam, supposedly. We have a terribly good laugh looking at the so-called evidence of God in Quran, and forgot about it – until we rediscovered it online. Apparently the whole book is for all to see online.

Image from Pharyngula blog, originally from A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam

No, we are serious – the book compared the embryo to a “chewed substance” or a piece of chewing gum with teeth marks in it and call that evidence of the miracles in the Holy Quran. Now THAT is “Rediculous Religion Site Stupid”.

The next stage mentioned in the verse is the mudghah stage. The Arabic word mudghah means “chewed substance.” If one were to take a piece of gum and chew it in his or her mouth and then compare it with an embryo at the mudghah stage, we would conclude that the embryo at the mudghah stage acquires the appearance of a chewed substance. This is because of the somites at the back of the embryo that “somewhat resemble teethmarks in a chewed substance.”

Intrigued, we decided to do some research on that phrase in the Holy Quran. We referred to at least five translations, in English and Malay, of that specific phrase in the Holy Quran. We are not at all proficient in the Islamic religion, which is why we used translation. And all translations point to one conclusion – that the Embryo-Gum metaphor is totally ridiculous. All of them made more sense (even scientifically speaking) than the said metaphor.

Man We did create from a quintessence (of clay); Then We placed him as (a drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed; Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create!

Now, we are not even sure if the book, in print and in online form, is a parody of the religion, or do some Muslim take them for Quranic miracles. We don’t even know if the RMIT Islamic students read and understood what they were handing out freely that day. I am sure they should have checked the facts, or at least the translation in the books, lest they misled people like me.

P.S.: We are not “bashing” Islam. We are just bashing some bad translation of the Quran.

Dear The Malaysian Insider Webmaster

khensthoth — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:27:02 +0000

Dear The Malaysian Insider Webmaster,

I like your online news portal very much. You provide me with up-to-date news about Malaysia and I enjoy reading the many columnist from both sides of the political divide a lot. In fact, the commentaries and opinions are where I spent my time the most, while I usually just glance through the news headlines and click “Mark all as read” in Google Reader. The news your website provide is, on rare occasions, ever-so-slightly-tiny-weeny biased, which is already a vast improvement over the traditional mainstream media in Malaysia.

However, for the longest time the RSS feed for your news items has been… dysfunctional, to say the least. Take a look for yourself:

Repeated news item. Screenshot from my Google Reader

The arrows point to repeated news items. This happens, at the very least, on a daily basis. Sometimes a headline would be repeated up to three times.

I don’t know the cause of it nor if you knew this problem existed. If you didn’t, this is me informing you. Suffice to say that if you were doing that to increase your pageviews to your website and by extension the online advertisements, it is failing – because this problem is absolutely annoying. The repeated news item in your RSS Feed only encourages me to nonchalantly glance through the feed, and makes me more “trigger-happy” with the “Mark all as read” button than I already am.

So, dear webmaster of The Malaysian Insider, please fix this. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
WhatTheToot!

What is easier to understand than Google Wave?

khensthoth — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:24:16 +0000

I was very excited when Google Wave was announced, so excited, in fact I grabbed the 1 hour 20 minutes video of the Google I/O conference from YouTube. Partly because Google Wave has such an ambitious goal of replacing email and online communication, it is quite complicated – Google needs to design the protocol and the software, as if each is not complicated enough on its own.

Google Wave is so complicated that many video has surfaced online to explain what it is, and a lot of them is from Google itself. One of the better, funnier non-Google ones is this:

Yet, there are still a lot of people who find Google Wave hard to understand – which is whyI had a good laugh when I found this parody website. Well, apparently a lot of wisdom can be gained from such a simple site. For example:

Men are easier to understand than Google Wave

Women - definitely not so.

Google Wave pwned Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

Considering Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is not without it’s fair share of online criticism and ridicule, one should perhaps look at one of his ambitious, noble, still-unimplemented initiative – the Healthcare Reform.

Healthcare Reform? Too hard to understand.

It’s interesting to note similar amount and percentage of people find Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and his Healthcare Reform Bill easier to understand than Google Wave. I suspect these two are the similar group of people, that is to say, people who actually understood the Healthcare Reform Bills more than Google Wave are the people who find it easier to understand why Obama won awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

… coz’ I certainly do not understand.

How do people find our site?

khensthoth — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:00:16 +0000

After a long hiatus, this series is back. This post, however, will just be a short one, serving as a teaser of things to come.

Seriously F-up

Let’s see where this visitor came from then:

IP blurred for his sake.

The Verizon hostname and the browser language flag should be a dead give away – that is to say, the visitor is an Amerifag (to use his/her choice of language), more commonly known as Americunt (Yes, it’s an Internet lingo). The IP address indicated that the visitor is from a small town in north-eastern United States.

It’s a little ironic that the keyword search landed on a category page for racism, as if his God was trying to lead him there. That should teach him/her a lesson or two about respect, xenophobia, and homosexuality.

More importantly though, I didn’t know one could find this site on the first page of Google Images search results using the keywords “allah is fag”. What that American visitor was trying to find, in Google Images no less, about THAT though, continues to baffle me.

Hypocrites from Tanjung Bungah

khensthoth — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:30:34 +0000

Firstly, let me make one thing clear: I am a Tanjung Bungah resident. I strongly oppose the stance of Tanjung Bungah Residents’ Association (TBRA) in various issues, and I am supportive of Tanjung Bungah being classified as a Primary Development Corridor, provided that proper planning, including Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) is done on subsequent projects.

Now that I have that quasi-disclaimer out of the way, time for some background: Originally Tanjung Bungah was zoned as a Secondary Development Corridor in the Penang State Structure Plan. After a lot of SNAFU which I do not want to get into, the area is now classified, uncertain and debatable, in the Primary Development Corridor. In Primary Corridor, the density limit is 30 units/acre, as opposed to 15 unit/acre in Secondary Corridor.

Now my story/rant starts. A few days ago, I saw this on the Chinese daily:

Essentially, some of the residents from The Cove want to sue the state government in regards to a project on the neighbouring lot, because the project was approved at a density limit of 30 units/acre. That is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard, primarily because it shows how hypocritical one can be.

The Cove is like the quintessential high-density high-class condominium that is sprouting in Tanjung Bungah. Regardless of the actual density, the project looked quite cramped, probably because it is. It has 146 units built on 4 blocks. I know, because I checked. In order for it to be under the 15 units/acre limit, the land it was built on has to be 9.73 acre (146 ÷ 15 ≈ 9.73). In reality, the land area is around 5 acre. I know, because I checked. Taken together, that means the density of The Cove is more than 29 units/acre (146 ÷ 5.006 ≈ 29.165). As such, The Cove is just following the trend of the many apartments before it, such as Sri Golden Bay, which also has a density of higher than 15 units/acre.

My point is, the residents of The Cove are staying in a residential area with a density of 29 units/acre. They are the ones who benefited from the relatively cheap price of the condominium because the developer do not need to adhere to any 15 units/acre density limit in the first place. For them to oppose a neighbouring project because it would have a density more than of 15 units/acre, despite the fact that The Cove itself has a density so close to the new density limit (30 units/acre) the government is inclined towards, is highly ironic and extremely hypocritical.

Equally so is the aforementioned TBRA, who in this news indicated that they are supportive of the action by the residents of The Cove – the same TBRA who not so long ago were highly critical of The Cove, calling it an “eyesore”. I don’t know – perhaps they have got used to the “eyesore” after years of seeing it.

Astrology to gain legal recognition in Kelantan.

Hean — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:37:59 +0000

Kelantan plans to table a bill which will give legal recognition to Astrology. It has been reported by The Star that this bill on Astrology will be used to determine the direction of the Kaabah.

Astrology to gain legal recognition.

“The move by the Kelantan government can be seen as a hit in the face to the modern understanding of Astronomy, or even the use of GPS,” said WhatTheToot Advisor on Scientific Affair, Toot.

However, there are others who celebrate the move by the Kelantan government. “It is time Astrology is given the recognition that it deserves. The day the bill is passed is the day of celebration for all Astrology activist!” said WhatTheToot Advisor on Supposed-Crazy-Beliefs, Toot.

It should be noted that WhatTheToot advisors are really the same person. Toot suffers from multi-personality disorder which is a disease which causes many people to say one thing, but act another way.

- Reported by WhatTheToot Mythology Believer, Toot.

¥1.5 million = RM750 million

khensthoth — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:35:31 +0000

I read the Metro North news of TheStar everyday to find local news regarding Penang. Last week I saw something of interest.

Oriental-style city proposed

Amidst the good news, however, I found something really really depressing:

¥1.5 million = RM750 million

I know the value of the Ringgit is not much, and in fact is gradually decreasing, but I didn’t know it’s at such a fast pace. Apparently, ¥1 is equivalent to RM500 now. At this rate, we are going the way of Zimbabwe.

Seriously though, what is the point of having an editor in a newspaper if such mistake are not apparent to them. Luckily the Chinese daily got the figures right.

When Hell Freezes over in Melbourne, Literally

khensthoth — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:22:21 +0000

I just upgraded my operating system to the latest beta of Ubuntu Karmic Koala to test it and have fun with it. Overall, it has turned out to be a fine release so far. As part of my upgrade however, I thought I would change the way I use computer and access applications, which is why I install Gnome Do and enabled Docky. Here’s how my current desktop look like:

Ubuntu 9.10 Beta with Docky

Anyway, one of the docklets included in Gnome Do is the weather docklet, which allows me to see the current temperature and a six day forecast of the temperature and the weather conditions with just a click. So, there I was checking the forecast when I was extremely shocked to see this:

Yes, it's that cold.

If that’s not immediately clear to you, have a look at Docky alone.

Doomsday on Friday

Yes, it’s going to be -5572°C in Melbourne this Friday. Even colder than theoretical absolute zero, in fact exactly -5298.15°C colder. Hell is freezing over Melbourne literally. Come to think of it, how is a low of 5°C and a high of 5572°C even be possible?

On second thought, I decided to refresh the weather data to see if there is any glitch:

Now THAT'S cold

Immediately the temperature dropped 29°C. For other days, Melbourne will be expected to enjoy weather in commonly experienced in Antarctica.

On the bright side, at least it’s going to be “just” -1747°C on Friday. Yay.

P.S.: The only graphic editing done was cropping the pictures.
P.P.S: Still, how is a high of -1747°C and a low of -26°C even comprehensible?

Of Proton Jumbuck

khensthoth — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:57:22 +0000

A few days ago while I was watching NCIS, a brief news update flashed on the television during the commercials. As I very much hate the overly-formal, pseudo-robotic voice of the news presenter, I paid no attention to it. However, I heard her saying that she would be reporting on the “most dangerous car in Australia”. Again, I gave no attention.

It was not until the next news update that my sister alerted me about the label on the car. It spelled “PROTON JUMBUCK” in black bold font, all capitalised, which clearly stand out against the white paint of the test vehicle. Immediately, I went online to search for it and saw all the news.

More importantly, I went to the official ANCAP result for Proton Jumbuck.

One freaking meagre star. Even worst than the Chinese-made Great Wall Motors SA220 or V240, which scored 2 stars.

Luckily, Proton already has plans to phase out the vehicle in Australia. Seeing how close the date of the news was to the date label on the crash text vehicle (20 AUG 09), I can’t help but come up with the conspiracy theory that the the decision is linked to the fact that the vehicle would be undergoing crash test in the next few days.

Back in Malaysia though, none of the media seems to be reporting it. It’s a good thing the car isn’t available in Malaysia. Yet, if the Malaysian-made vehicle scored such appalling figure, what about other passenger vehicles manufactured by Proton? Then, I found this, and this, and finally this. So, it does seem that Proton has a bad rep for making sub-standard, relatively unsafe car.

A NATIONAL car company, which after over 25 years of protectionism from the state, still produces sub-par cars – if that’s not an embarrassment to Malaysia, I don’t know what is.

By the way, the overly-formal pseudo-robotic voice of the reporter with the Proton Jumbuck segment can be watched here:

Ris Low – Of Miss Singapore World, Credit Card Fraud and Pokemon Card Theft

khensthoth — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:15:38 +0000

A few weeks ago, my cousin send me a YouTube link and asked me to watch it.

I had a good laugh, thinking she was just a contestant. Little did I know that I was in for some surprise. After some Googling, I was shocked to find out that she actually WON the Miss Singapore World title. Her normal appearance aside, it’s a little stupefying that someone with her level of English communication skill can win the title, at all.

Today, I read with amazement the following news:

Miss Singapore World, exposed for credit card fraud of almost SGD $8000!? Just two months prior to the pageant? I thought those title and crown are supposed to be esteemed, a source of inspiration and a model figure for some?

Even worse is the following quote from the paper:

Low also admitted that she started stealing Pokemon cards when she was young and credit cards when she grew up.

Wow. Pokemon cards…

Luckily, she backed out from the finals, and gave up her crown. Otherwise, she will continue to be an embarrassment to Singapore, and netizens will continue to rip on her for having such appalling English.

Frankly though, I don’t really know how Miss Ris Low can continue on without having people constantly talk about her. That’s kinda sad, actually.

No related posts.

Dear Chief Minister, Bear Some Responsibility

khensthoth — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:34:26 +0000

Dear Chief Minister, Mr. Lim Guan Eng:

Sorry to bother you, but it’s me again. Yea, the one who asked you to give a verifiable source to the data you quoted. Thanks to a reader, Leong JT, I now know the data first surfaced in Business Times. Crucially, it was the Transport Ministry’s special maritime adviser, Datuk Captain Abdul Rahim Abd Aziz who made the mistake in the data.

Obaid Mansor, PPSB General Manager of Containers Strategic Business Unit, clarified that they have notified the Ministry of Transport about the error, but it was not widely reported. He was being gentlemanly, compared to the Managing Director, in saying that perhaps “nobody saw that” and he believed you have “picked up the wrong report.”

Now that all that is sorted out, everything is fine and dandy – except for this. Sure, you are only quoting the figures from the ministry, and we all know he made an honest mistake. However, we also know you relied on the figures without verifying it first with PPSB. Perhaps the state government’s relationship with PPSB is less than friendly. In that case, you could have relied on the data provided by SERI.

We are not blaming you for relying on a wrong report. After all, it was wrong, and it’s not really your fault. We are, however, holding you accountable for making inaccurate conclusions without seeking clarifications. You did say “if there is anything wrong in the report, the person concerned should take the responsibility to correct it.” Therefore, we should hold you to the same standard you espouse, and you should take some responsibility for making the report that the cargo traffic dropped 24%.

Commentators from various websites seem to agree:

You cannot pass the ball back to the person preparing the report. You are the one reading it and therefore has to be 100% responsible for its accuracy. You are suppose to be the CEO of Penang and not a copy speech writer of Penang. I am not happy that each time after you have made a statement, and if someone points out to you of an error, straight away, you go into defensive gear and blame somebody for providing you the information. Ridiculous! (by concerned, 26/09/09, TheMalaysianInsider)

Its worrying when important figures like the CM of Penang can get his facts wrong! What message is this sending us! (by Dzurina Razuan, 24/9/09, TheEdge)

I do have to wonder – is it so hard to take responsibility for it, even partially? It is, after all, just your honest mistake. This is not even the first time you relied on false information, and for that you admitted your mistake and apologised in the State Assembly of Penang. What changed this time? By not admitting it was partially your fault, you appear to be playing the blame game and shirk responsibility. By apologising, you appear courteous and gentlemanly, and you show that you, like the 6.2 billion or so human in this world, are just human who sometimes do make mistakes.

So, Chief Minister, please do try to verify your information with various sources next time, and when you do make an honest mistake, please be responsible by admitting it. That is what Competency and Accountability is all about.

Sincerely,
WhatTheToot!

Dear Chief Minister, Citation Needed

khensthoth — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:46:49 +0000

Dear Chief Minister of Penang, Mr. Lim Guan Eng:

How are you? I hope you are doing well and has recovered from your flu. Recently you published in your blog that the traffic at Penang Port, managed by Penang Port Sdn. Bhd., has declined sharply. Specifically, you said that the twenty-foot equivalent unit at said port has declined by 24% in the second quarter of 2009, compared to the first quarter. You proceeded to show following table, and quoted the source of “Ports, Marine Department”:

Your blog post generated quite some news, and unlike all the news reports, I tried to verify the data you have given. I went to the website of the Marine Department of Malaysia as well as the Department of Statistics Malaysia, but I couldn’t find the aforementioned table. It might be that my searching skill or my information source is not as great as yours. However, without you actually providing a verifiable data source or link, you reminded me a well known XKCD comic:

Then, this news surfaced, and followed by this. The Managing Director of Penang Port, Datuk Ahmad Ibnihajar, lambasted you for quoting the wrong figure. Admittedly, his reaction is overly excessive, and his statement that your figures will tarnish the port and cause quite some financial implication is, in my opinion, a little exaggerated. He even called you a “clown”, as the Chinese daily reported, which is highly out of place.

He, however, does have a point. You see, I remembered a small research institution in Penang called SERI – the Socio-economical and Environmental Research Institute. In fact, SERI, which describe itself as the “Think Tank for the State of Penang”, has some prominent and re-nown researchers, and in fact is established by the State of Penang – the Penang State Government.

More importantly, SERI publishes important monthly research articles since 2003 and compiles quarterly statistics about Penang since 1999. On Page 22 of their latest statistical report for the second quater of 2009, this table is included:

If you calculated the figures, you would notice that the second quarter TEU traffic actually increased from 199391 to 255322. An increase of 25931 TEU, which is 13% – not a drop of 24%.

I don’t really know why you didn’t refer to the figure given by the SERI report – maybe you didn’t know it existed. Well, this is me informing you about the existence of SERI and their wonderful reports and research articles. Seriously, they have some good information and ideas there. Moreover, you could have just given the Penang Port Sdn. Bhd. a call, and I assume they would have cleared your doubts about the declining cargo traffic.

Thus, Chief Minister, please do try to verify your data, and give a verifiable data source next time in accordance to your governing mantra of Competency, Accountability and Transparency. More importantly, please read the various publications by SERI. I’m sure you will greatly benefit from it, and you will govern the state even better.

Sincerely,
WhatTheToot!