Election in 2011 ? ...

One blog just mentioned that the GST implementation which was to be on sometime in Year 2011 has been put off. The blog concluded that this meant that the general election might happen in that year when it should be in 2013. By putting off the GST to a later date, the ruling party may not run the risk of being prematurely kicked out of office. Fair enough.

But one idiot of a senior customs official, said that the public should not be unduly worried about the GST because, in reality, the GST provided benefits to the people. How can this be when anyone knows that tax, in any form, takes away the people's money. The man said that GST was a progressive tax, that the GST plan did not include essential goods like rice, sugar, flour, cooking oil and so on are not subject to GST. He further said that the GST that's about to be introduced was unique, and was unlike the GSTs of any other countries.

Sure, we all know about this - that the GST to be introduced is 4% and it does not apply to all the goods consumed. But this is a start. After all, those countries that are enforcing GST started their GST at lower rates but which were increased progressively over the years until today when countries like Sweden, Britain, and Greece have GSTs at the rates of 26%, 20% and 23% respectively.

He said that Malaysia depended too much of its income from oil (40% of government revenue) and therefore it's about time that other sources of government revenue be introduced. However, one sane guy of an analyst proposed that the government must plug in leakages of government revenues first before introducing new forms of tax.

Update 02/11/2010: An interesting bit of info just appeared on Malaysia-Today about the GST. In increasing the sales tax from 5% to 6%, but not introducing the GST just yet for fear of an election backlash, the wily Malaysian Government, more or less, will earn about as much money as introducing the GST and doing away with the Sales Tax. How clever !

Resident Evil :Afterlife ...

After waiting for so long, I managed to download the latest Resident Evil film. The video was of mediocre quality, both for its visual and sound characteristics. The video starts in Tokyo where Alice confronted Wesker as she promised she would towards the end of Resident Evil:Extinction. She also brought along some of her clones to fight the remains of Wesker's organisation. As usual, Wesker managed to escape at the expense of some of Alice's clones.

The scene then shifted to somewhere in USA where somehow Alice got hold of a prop plane and landed in an airfield of parked planes. Here she came upon the helicopter flown by Claire Redfield in the last scene of the Extinction but there was no one around. Alice then met Claire under strange circumstances for Claire tried to attack Alice. Alice managed to subdue Claire and noticed that Claire had an electronic device stuck to her chest, similar to the one that got stuck in Jill Valentine's chest in Resident Evil 5 , game that is. It was not shown how Alice removed the device for the scene then changed to Alice flying the plane again with Claire sitting in the back seat with her hands tied up.

As Alice flew over a city full of zombies and the like, she noticed a group of survivors on a high rise roof top waving for help. Somehow she managed to land the plane with the help of the survivors who had strung up a judder cable to catch the plane. When she finally met the leader of the survivors, one survivor Chris Redfield got united with his sister Claire. The leader had been telling Alice about a place called Arcadia which transmitted voice messages inviting survivors to go to Arcadia where there was no infection. Alice was a bit flabbergasted by what was told to her because all she knew that Arcadia was a place somewhere in Alaska where there was no viral infection at all.

Curiousity got the better of her and she and a few others including Chris and Claire somehow took a boat to Arcadia which turned out to be a big ship, a tanker in fact. When they reached the control room, the ship's bridge, Alice realised that something was wrong with the ship because it was empty of people. The voice transmission sent out at regular intervals was in fact programmed by a computer.

On touring the inside of the ship, Alice discovered that the ship was a big laboratory where survivors were kept alive in suspended animation in capsules similar to the capsules where monsters were kept in Resident Evil 2 Game. Each survivor had the red electronic device to its chest.

Alice then finally met Wesker wearing his usual dark glasses. Wesker then explained the purpose of Arcadia [ I can't get this as the audio became incoherent]. There was the usual fight involving Wesker and his face splitting dogs, against Alice, and the Redfields who just appeared in time to help Alice. Somehow Wesker was subdued and while Alice and the Redfields were not paying attention, Wesker regained consciousness and quietly took off in a VTOL aeroplane, similar to the type used in the Resistance Games.

As Wesker was gloating that he was about to finish off Alice and her group thinking that he planted high explosives in the ship, little did he realise that the explosives were in fact in his aeroplane. As he was waiting for the ship to be detonated, Wesker heard the count down chime of a timing device in his plane. Frantically, he searched for it only to find that the digital clock was counting down with 2 seconds left on the display. Before he could do anything, the aircraft exploded in a burst of fire, presumably killing Wesker. The scene then changed to Alice, and the Redfields laughing at Wesker's misfortune.

The story ends with all the survivors, all dressed in white, walking about on the ship's deck, apparently rescued at last. However, VTOL aircrafts carrying soldiers with Umbrella insignias were seen flying towards the tanker in an apparent stance to attack the ship. Finally, the scene took us to the leader of the group that Alice first met on the rooftop whom I thought died but had apparently survived. End of the story... er end of the video for I think about 12 minutes have been left out towards the end.

[I have to redo this blog when I get to see a clear version of the video] ...................

The 12 who died for nothing ...

In a fatal crash yesterday involving 2 buses, a van, 2 cars, and a motorcycle, on the NS Plus Highway in Melaka, 12 people died. News has it that one bus hit the back of a van, veered and crashed through the divider to hit vehicles coming from the opposite direction. The bus driver is reported to have died.

To me, it's nothing unusual for express buses to be involved in accidents on the highways. Bus drivers are notorious for driving fast on them. That's why the bus hit the back of the van going in the same direction. I have had many experiences of being flashed at to move aside by bus drivers even when I am travelling on the fast lane at 120 kph (the speed limit is 110 kph) in a high powered sports car.

In an unrelated event, I notice that the Malaysian Ringgit is starting to weaken. The GBP and the Euro are rising vis-a-vis the MYR. So are the Baht, the S$, the AUD, and most other currencies in the list.