It's coming, you know it

I blogged about it briefly on my other blog, It's all about the spin..., but here are my thoughts in full.

Was reading the news today when I spied this article that said prices of crude oil had made a sudden jump to a new high of nearly USD94 on reports that Mexico had suspended a fifth of its production. Wasn't it just last year that oil prices made a sudden jump to the USD60s range that prompted the last round of fuel hike? (You may correct me if I'm wrong.)

Back then, I could fill up my little Kelisa tank with premium V-Power fuel and a full tank only cost me about RM42. I love my car, so I give it the best la. Then with the fuel increase, I switched down to regular fuel and now a semi-full tank already costs me RM40 plus. If I were to really fill it up, I'm sure it would easily be over RM50. And that's for a small Kelisa. I shudder to think of my Dad's Waja, which right now drinks about RM90 plus of fuel every four days or so (he travels a fair bit). Luckily, his company pays for the fuel.

I don't want to think about next year when the promise of the government to NOT increase the prices of fuel expires. With crazy oil prices like this, by next year I could well be spending RM80 just to fill up one semi-full tank of petrol for my car. That is just madness, I'm telling you. Somehow or other, I get the feeling of impending doom that one day, humans will just use up everything that's viable on Earth and then we'll all go extinct.

A space-y issue

So our very first Malaysian astronaut went up into space and came back down to earth safely. Should we break out the bottles of champagne? I dunno. With all that talk about sending the second fella up now, it's not very good news for me and my taxpayer ringgits.

The news today said that the second Malaysian astronaut could probably take off in the year 2010 - 2011 as the Russian space agency had offered. But I agree with the statement by Public Accounts Committee chairman Datuk Shahrir Samad that a second bid *may* eat into funds. In my opinion, it's highly likely that that will happen.

So gee, I'm paying to send a man into space. How exciting. Not!

'Because he's already trained'

Forgive me if I sound unpatriotic Mr. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, but why should I stand a few inches taller just because one man (albeit a Malaysian) has blasted off into space? I am but a normal Malaysian on the street and while I think it's great we launched a man into space... it wasn't our technology. It wasn't our training, we had to send him to learn from others. It isn't our space shuttle. Borrowed one nia. It isn't our space mission. Just kinda like hitching a ride.

And... once was alright la, in my opinion. Now you want to send the next fella just because he's 'trained'? Not disrespecting that second fella and his dreams, but if I were to train an orangutan, you'd also send it just because it already received training, izzit?