I believe this is an old story, but one can change the scenario to reflect their cultures moral values. It goes something like this,

Integrity can be lost very quickly, and it's difficult to get it back. If you go back on what you just said as in this situation, you then become a liar. If it's an organisational statement, then it unfortunately also reflects on everybody in that organisation.

So when you check how the voting went for that broken format OOXML you'll see that MDec, Mimos and PIKOM voting yes.

More telling is that it was a very technical standard, for which hundreds of flaws were highlighted within a short time internationally. What kind of impression then does it give to the technical capabilities of these organisations and their members? A lot of questions are raised when your integrity is in doubt.

So do stuff with integrity and honesty. They're values you don't want to lose.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Intel#INTEL_RESIGNS_FROM_OLPC

This is why all my servers have been on AMD for a while now, and likely future purchases too.

Take time to watch the following documentary, which I've mentioned before.

http://www.thecorporation.com

Not all of them do, but the documentary covers a lot of things on why corporations tend to do bad things. Mostly because there is no liability, and that a corporation although defined as a person, is not a real person with actual feelings and morals.

The scary thing is that when people start working for these corporations, they start becoming like the corporations themselves, heartless and immoral with the excuse I often hear which is I was just doing my job.

Ever watched Aliens? Remember this guy?

Anything is justifiable, as long as the company makes a profit, and you earn a raise or a cut. If you find that character repulsive, we have to take care that our actions are not the same. There is always a choice.

I applaud the positive actions and posts of Malaysian Indians like danny, ditesh and byte in response to the HINDRAF rally.

I am however very disappointed that some have tried to portray all Malaysians negatively, as much as calling us an apartheid nation and asking foreigners for the boycott of Malaysian businesses. I state again that this is the corrupt BN government against all Malaysians irrespective of race.

This was a Malay Malaysian at Batu Burok who was shot with live bullets by police at a ceramah (public speech) for fair elections recently in Terengganu. Just to repeat that again, they were shot at. One was hit in the chest, another was hit in the neck. How quickly we forget, or maybe because the guys were Malay,  we can look the other way? And if we replace this with Indian it's not ok?

There is a lesson here on why Malaysian rights should be race free. Sticking up for the rights of your race only, doesn't help us build a better multiracial country. We should stick up for the rights that apply to all Malaysians, so whether you're Malay, Indian, Chinese, Iban, Penan, Orang Asli etc. if we see another being deprived of their Malaysian rights that have been accorded to others, we have to stick up for them. If peaceful protestors have been hosed down by FRU, we have to help them (see Kampung Baru folk). Why? Because they're Malaysians. The moment you start having different sets of rights, is when we get into trouble like my example above, and you start being racist yourself. I'm only going to stick for the rights of my own kind!

HINDRAF rally is just the latest in ongoing disputes the Malaysian people have against the current government. It goes to show that the BN government are running scared and cracking down on anything and everything to ensure that the current corrupt system is in place.

Imagine how difficult it would be to get into KL city centre soon for anybody,

• Wearing yellow shirts (or any yellow apparel)
  
• Wearing light blue shirts
• Wearing green and kopiah (skull cap)
• Looks like an Indian Malaysian (I don't know what the criteria they use for this)
• Have an interest in building hobby rockets (particular red in colour)
  
• Calling themselves a blogger
  
• Wearing a Tux T-shirt?
  

We're heading towards a new generation now, with new ideas, and I'd like for us to all move together away from the past racial system and instead work to protect our rights equally as Malaysians.

For example, everybody should have a right to eat what they want, so instead of fighting for the right to have beef or pork banned everywhere based on racial and religious lines, we should instead settle on a set of equal rights where we say, each place of eating should state clearly what they are serving to respect the rights of others to not eat something taboo to their beliefs. Now this would respect the rights of all Malaysians. I believe this is the direction we need to go for the future.

To the 40,000 or so of you who braved the rain and police to demonstrate for free and fair elections, you make me proud to be Malaysian. These are real Malaysians who are fighting to change the present corrupt politicians who are running the country. These Malaysians and not stupid space tourists are who we should be proud off. Malaysia will be a better place because of them and the new generation that wants to see the old corrupt and racist system go away. They are doing their part. Now let's all work towards voting out the current government in the next election!

Of course there is a local media blackout of this. "We are not Pakistan?", well mister (mis)-Information Minister, this is similar to what Musharraf did to the press and communications in Pakistan. Luckily for us, we can't shut down the Internet here in Malaysia, and the younger, smarter and more knowledgable Malaysians have taken full advantage of the free knowledge sharing tools on the Internet to bring us the real news and images.

You can get the summary of the event on WIkipedia. Check the various videos also on YouTube including the Aljazeera coverage.

Joseph Stiglitz just wrote an article regarding Malaysia's 50 years of development.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz91/English

It's sad that a lot of the good things in there, need to be revised because they are no longer applicable or applied in Malaysia.

• Affirmative action now needs to be non-racial, it should be more towards target groups such as rural areas and plantation workers. I don't see the need for affirmative action anymore for foreign educated, middle class Malays (or worse uber-rich Malays).
  
• "following or rejecting outsiders’ advice on a pragmatic basis", this sadly is being ignored since departure of Dr. Mahathir, and now more often than not, the government follows blindly whatever large foreign corporations (or their proxy the US government trade groups) say Malaysia should do. Kudos to government bodies like MAMPU and K-Perak for example that indepdently evaluate and suggest plans that are beneficial for the local IT industry and local economy by advocating FOSS. In these areas, we are even ahead of more developed countries like the UK.
• Lack of free speech and corruption. The article overlooks the costs of corruption in Malaysia.
  
• There are also numerous complaints on the state of our education system, especially tertiary in which academic freedom is curtailed and there are student quotas limiting local opportunities for the best students.

That being said however, I am definitely appreciative of Malaysia has achieved so far, and that we need to be critical  and adapt so as not to regress over the next 50 years.