Dr M Speaks

One and a half years ago, some friends of Malaysia's former PM, Dr Mahathir (Dr M) reputedly set up a blog named UndurLAH in support of his call on PM Abdullah Badawi to step down as PM. That blog, UndurLAH was shortlived, or neverlived, because I managed to register the UndurLAH.blogspot.com (the blog that you are now reading) to blog about things Malaysia. A search for UndurLAH.com, UndurLAH.com.my, etc. returned nothing. So I wonder if ever that report was true in the first place.

Now, Dr M himself has taken to blogging, with his freshly minted www.chedet.com blogsite. It is surprising that he has done so only now. His daughter, Marina M, has been blogging for some time now. Better late than never, I suppose.

His one entry has so far has attracted more than 600 comments - not bad for a beginner - although some of those comments seem patronising to me. One thing I did notice about how Dr M blogged - very civil service like, numbering all his points. It is said that Singapore's George Yeo blogs (here and here) in this manner too. I suppose habits die hard for these government (and former government) officials. Once an officialese, always an officialese.

Whatever, it will be interesting to see more of Dr M in print rather than just hearing him shoot his mouth off.

Angkasawan technician

Yes, there is no more funds for Malaysia's space programme. So its second prospective Angkasawan, Major Dr Faiz Khaleed, will have to look at the moon and the universe from one side of a spyglass - the telescope, for now and in the future. Dr Faiz was brave about the decision by the state to stop at one. He reportedly said that the "space mission should no longer be about sending a Malaysian to space but for Malaysia to embark on the aerospace industry" - brave words, those. It this is so, then stop referring to it as the space mission. Its just like saying building the second Penang bridge is not about building a bridge... Ironically, this bridge project is also stalled by a lack of funds.

I pity the Dr. I am sure he trained long and hard for the prospect of going to space. His government failed him because it persisted in wasting money sending its one and only Angkasawan to space on a Soviet Soyuz and giving him the impression that he will still be very involved in the space industry. Wake up Dr Faiz, your employer just admitted that it went bust. Do you still want to be around and stick with them? What aerospace industry are you talking about? The country cannot even sustain its own automobile industry - the national car project has been sick for a long long time - do you think the aerospace industry will go anywhere except perhaps into MRO? Then you will be a glorified Angkasawan technician repairing aeroplanes. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Malaysia did not buy that Soyuz spacecraft from the Russians. Otherwise there will be yet more space craft to do MRO on....