Category: Politics & government

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Economics Environment Politics & government Science & technology

[691] Of worst floods, rice and climate change

Northern Malaysian states on the Malay Peninsula are suffering the worst flood in 30 years . It has been raining like crazy. Even in Kuala Lumpur, located hundreds of miles south, it’s been raining like cats and dogs. I’m surprised that the city hasn’t experience any flood.

The sky is starting to remind me of Ann Arbor; I could hardly see the sun everyday. Southern Thailand isn’t spared too. If borders are drawn with a huge pen, the floodwater would’ve erased them with ease. After all this, the weather still won’t relent.

The Weather Channel. Fair Use.

As you can see, it won’t end soon. Also, check out a current tropical storm that will hit Vietnam anytime soon today.The floodwater, among other things, affects rice harvest in Malaysia. Paddy fields are devastated by the overflowing water. This is especially bad considering that northeast Malaysian states are the main rice producers in Malaysia and that the fields are scheduled for harvest in this coming January. Looks like the rice industry will have to import more rice soon. I doubt local fields will be able to provide the share it usually offers to the market.

Worse, it isn’t just Malaysia that will suffer shortage of rice. Vietnam, which is one of the largest rice producers in Southeast Asia, suffers the same situation. Prices of rice in Southeast Asian markets should go up in the near future given that supply has been cut.

Digressing, price of chicken has gone up by 20 sen. Earlier, I had predicted a price decrease due to bird flu. Unfortunately, while playing around with the demand curve, I’d overlooked the supply function. The hike in chicken prices, ignoring inflation, could be due to the culling of chickens in Asia. With this flood, price could go up further, assuming demand curve is constant.

Though heavy raining this time of the year is typical in this part of the world, this year, the amount of rainfall is above average. Consider also the current situation in China and Japan – record breaking snowfall – and Vietnam – also record breaking rainfall. Finally, keep in mind that 2005 is, according to World Meteorological Organization, the second hottest year on reliable record.

Climate change? Too soon to ascertain but it’s good to keep the possibility in mind.

p/s – Kristof versus O’Reilly. Fight! This is the best yet since Bush versus Kerry.

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Economics Politics & government Society

[690] Of Bolivia, coca and cocaine

Very soon, the Bush administration might have another source of headache. Bolivians have just elected a socialist and an ally of Venezuelan Chavez as President. Some have gone farther and declared that this is Washington’s nightmare.

Bolivia Elects a President Who Supports Coca Farming

By JUAN FORERO
Published: December 19, 2005

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Dec. 18 – Evo Morales, a candidate for president who has pledged to reverse a campaign financed by the United States to wipe out coca growing, scored a decisive victory in general elections in Bolivia on Sunday.

What interest me the most about Morales is that he’s a former coca farmer.

Coca could be processed into cocaine. During the US War on Drug, the US had aggressively conducted coca eradication in Bolivia. Coca eradication continues even today. But not for long it seems.

Furthermore, Morales’ party, Movement to Socialism – scary name by the way – has its origin as a coca interest group. Given the US hostility towards coca farming, it won’t take a rocket scientist to predict what Bolivia’s foreign policy will look like.

But what will happen to coca plantation? Will there be an expansion? If yes, would there be an increase of cocaine in the world market?

I think yes.

p/s – Boris tagged me but I’m being rather uncreative at the moment. But I’ve thought of one. I love old weird nationalistic songs. Currently, I can’t get Ca-na-da, a song popular in 1967 celebrating 100 years of confederation, out of my head. The song could be heard at Expo 67. Found it while looking for Malaysia Forever, another nationalistic song sung in 1963 in Malaysian Singapore if I’m not mistaken.

So, one down, four to go.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government

[684] Of I’m glad she’s a Malay

When Malaysian lock-up detainee abuse scandal first came to surface, especially when a video of it was made public, I noticed a number of people tried to associate the scandal with discrimination and, ultimately, racism. Moreover, some tried to manipulate some sort of chauvinistic communal nationalism. I wholly disagree with the association; correlation does not imply causation is an apt phrase.

To me, this issue concerns neither ethnicity nor nationality. It’s simply about persons being abused. No more than that. Nevertheless, the apparent fact at that time didn’t help my case since, previously, all the abused detainees seemed disporportionately Chinese Malaysian and Chinese from People’s Republic of China. Hence, I must say, I’m relieved with the revelation that the abused detainee in the video that was forced to strip and squat by a Malaysian police officer was not a Chinese from PRC but in fact, is a Malay Malaysian.

That disclosure vindicates my stance that there was no racism involved. This piece of information should render those that expounded that the scandal was tainted with discrimination and racism to sit in a corner and sulk. It proves that they’re wrong. More importantly, it cleanly undoes those racist opportunists’ crude works that tried to fire up communal feeling.

Of course, because my take is that ethnicity doesn’t matter, the fact that the victim’s a Malay shouldn’t make the issue any less angering as it should be. But it does and it does because of the existence of those that always try to transpose every issue as communal issues. These people cry of discrimination while they, deep within themselves are racists. Without them, the fact that the victim’s a Malay wouldn’t comfort me by one bit.

Malaysian society is young when compared to many others. While we grow up, we need to realize that not everything is about discrimination and racism. At the same time, racists don’t work in the open. They’re among us, trying to cry “Discrimination!” or any other word in similar context even when it’s not. Whenever we overhear somebody cries that, we must to ask ourselves, is it really about discrimination or racism or is someone trying to manipulate Malaysian complicated racial politics?

The ability to discern the two possibilities is paramount if we as Malaysians hope not to see the current Australian race riot to replicate itself in Malaysia as our second May 13 Incident.

Categories
Gaming Photography Politics & government

[683] Of lost in reflection

Yeah, I know. I know. That’s a lame entry title. Unoriginal. But they say, it’s a form of flattery.

This one was taken near Dang Wangi, Kuala Lumpur ; in front of a shoe store.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

Some passersby noticed me while I was taking the photo. And there was this WTF-kind of expression on their face. I’m sure that they were thinking, what so interesting about shoes.For people that know me quite well, and as the picture suggests, I’m interested in the reflection, not the shoes.

This idea of shoot yourself in a mirror started when I first stumbled upon The Mirror Project. As of currently, I have 13 photos there. w00t!

p/s – god. I hate this shaman. I think I’m going to log into World of Warcraft again sometimes soon. I miss all the people in Sanct.

pp/s – What’s going on here? (via)

ppp/s – now, this is what I call shrewd diplomacy.

Iran Offers U.S. Share in Nuclear Plants

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer Sun Dec 11, 8:18 PM ET

TEHRAN, Iran –
Iran opened the door Sunday for U.S. help in building a nuclear power plant � a move designed to ease American suspicions that Tehran is using its nuclear program as a cover to build atomic weapons.

…

“America can take part in international bidding for the construction of Iran’s nuclear power plant if they observe the basic standards and quality,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a news conference.

Erm…

p4/s – Wizards of Winter (via).

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[680] Of Pengkalan Pasir and Malaysian general election in 2008: hypothesis testing

So, Barisan Nasional won Pengkalan Pasir with a slim margin. A recount confirmed BN’s victory. But does this mean PAS in deep shit? More precisely, if this by-election acts as a signal for the next Malaysian general election, does this mean support for Barisan Nasional’s growing in Kelantan?

Quite hard to say. Let’s see some statistics to see how hard it is.

First of all, we know from the New Straits Times that the first count showed that BN received 7419 votes, PAS 7290, Ibrahim Ali 414 and there were 160 spoiled votes. In total, 15283 votes.

Now, let’s assume two things to make life simpler.

Kick Ibrahim Ali out of our equation, like how he was kicked from UMNO. And then, we shoved all the spoiled votes into Ibrahim Ali’s throat before we kick him. That leaves us a total of 14709.

Thanks to the two assumptions, now we have only BN and PAS to worry about. The assumptions help making things easier since it allows us to use bootstrapping method – the easiest way to get a standard error. Bootstrapping gives us a standard deviation of roughly 0.5 with 60.64 for SE.

Now, my hypothesis is that the difference between BN and PAS – a difference of 129 votes – is zero. That makes t = 129/60.64, which makes t about 2.13. t is as in the t-distribution.

Using t-test, the hypothesis at 25% significance level is rejected.

However, at 10% and lower significance levels, the hypothesis is significant. Doesn’t necessarily mean it must be accepted but it can’t be rejected.

So, did anybody win outright statistically? I don’t know. It’s likely the answer is no. More importantly, if this is a signal of things to come in 2008, Pengkalan Pasir is a crystal ball with industrial defect.

Anyway, given this entry is written at 2 AM, you might be reading crap with bad statistics. Hah!

Heh. I myself am not convinced with the statistics; the hypothesis testing in particular looks odd. I’ve done this before extensively but I haven’t touched real statistics in a long time. So, you are more than welcomed to check them up or even refined them to include Ibrahim Ali and the spoiled votes.