1. Sports
i) Badminton
Lee Chong Wei has again lost to his nemesis Lin Dan of China in the semi-final of China Open in Shanghai. Just 2 weeks ago he had also lost to Lin Dan at the same stage of the Hong Kong Open. This is the second consecutive loss to the Chinese ace
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| Sunday StarSport 27 November 2011 |
Following this, chief coach Rashid Sidek tried to explain the losses by saying that Chong Wei had been on a hectic schedule.
I want to ask Rashid Sidek whether he only came to realise this after the consecutive losses? Of course, Chong Wei had been on a hectic schedule, playing in almost all the open tournaments.
Why put Chong Wei to play in all the tournaments in the first place? Why couldn't we be a little more selective? Lin Dan himself only played in a few tournaments and each time he played he would get the better of Chong Wei except at this year's All-England tournament.
Lee Chong Wei is the current world number 1 only because he has played in more tournaments than Lin Dan. For me, I am not convinced that Chong Wei is the true world number 1 badminton player. I will only be convinced if he consistently beats Lin Dan and not the other way around.
ii) Football
When we lost 2-0 to Syria in the recent Olympics qualifier in Bukit Jalil I had hoped that we would not use the excuse that our players had been tired from the matches in the Sea Games in Indonesia earlier on. But sure enough, that was the excuse used for the loss to Syria.
I would like to ask whether the schedule to play Syria was given to us only after the Sea Games? Of course not. We had notice of it way in advance. So, why didn't we rotate the players?
Now that we have just lost to Bahrain 3-2 in another Olympics qualifier match a few hours ago what excuse will we use?
2. Politics
After he had been criticized for demonising the Bersih2 rally and being against freedom of assembly, PM Najib came up with a grand suggestion to abolish a slew of draconian laws - including the dreaded ISA (Internal Security Act) that allows for detention without trail. When he came up with this a few months back few people, yours truly included, took him seriously.
Many believed that he would just replace one draconian law with another. And true enough, the Peaceful Assembly Bill being currently tabled in Parliament appears to be even more draconian than the existing legislation on the matter.
This has led the Malaysian Bar to protest the proposed Bill so much so that they are planning a march to Parliament House today to make known their objection.
After strong objections from the opposition which have called on the government to withdraw the Bill, the Najib administration has decided on several changes to the Bill including shortening the period of 30 days advance notice to the police of an assembly to 10 days.
This is still ridiculous. Even in repressive Burma, only 5 days advance notice is required. Are we saying that we are more repressive than Burma?
But what practically makes a mockery of the whole thing is the outright ban on street protests. If you can't protest on the streets, what protests are you talking about?
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