The Umno 'Wow Factor'

Is this an example of Umno's 'Wow factor'? :

IPOH, Jan 20 (Bernama) -- All federal departments and agencies in the states governed by the opposition have been told not to accept and recognise recommendations and certification made by chairmen of village development and security committees (JKKKs) appointed by the state government.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the federal departments and agencies would only accept application forms and support documents signed and certified by chairmen of Federal JKKKs appointed by the federal government.

"And I have instructed the federal department and agency heads in Perak to follow this directive which takes effect immediately," he told reporters after chairing the Perak State Federal Action Council meeting here today.

He said the directive was not applicable to applications or business at federal departments and agencies in the state submitted before today.

Zahid also said all federal department and agency heads in Perak were barred from attending meetings organised by the state government.

This boycott thing is unbecoming of a Federal Minister, presumably with the acquiescence of the PM, both with strong Islamic credentials. I am terribly disappointed. At least Azalina, being a Karate black-belt holder, I can understand her belligerent stance, though still unforgivable.

Excerpt from a Raja Petra's article in Malaysia Today:

The Umno ‘Wow Factor’

A farmer named Lakbir Singh was overseeing his herd in a remote pasture in Bolehland when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young Malay man in an Armani suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the farmer, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

Lakbir looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within mere seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data is stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the farmer and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Lakbir.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then Lakbir says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a graduate from Oxford and a Member of Parliament for Umno," says Lakbir.

"Wow! That's correct," exclaims the yuppie with the customary Umno's Wow Factor, "But how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answered Lakbir. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, and to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter you are, and you don't know a thing about cows. This is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog."

The joke is not original, but the adaptation by Raja Petra was superb. Without mentioning name, everyone knows to whom he was referring, which goes to show how some people are really well known for the wrong reasons.