Pin Pin Dan: Beware. This Ahmad Ismail has an agenda. It is to stir up racial tension and spark racial unrest in the country. He has confirmed this by insisting that he will not apologise. He is deliberately mocking his critics and challenging all those who hit at him to come and get him.

I think Ahmad was certainly aware of what he was saying on the night of Aug 25, the last day of the Permatang Pauh by-election campaign. Ahmad was blunt to the point of calling Chinese squatters and pendatang in the presence of the deputy prime minister.

Ahmad is making it painfully obvious that he does not care two hoots about the feelings of the Chinese in the country. Did he make the remarks because the BN knew that it could not depend on the Chinese vote in Permatang Pauh? Well, the gambit failed because even the majority of Malay votes also went to PKR. So much for plotting a vile campaign along racial lines.

Now that Ahmad and Umno’s agenda of winning Permatang on the strength of Malay votes has failed, Ahmad is still unrepentant and continues to spit right in the face of MCA and Gerakan who are demanding an apology.

I wonder what Gerakan and MCA will do now if Pak Lah and Najib still back Ahmad for fear of getting a big Umno rebuff in the party elections in December if they do. Most likely Koh Tsu Koon, Ong Tee Keat, Fong Chan Onn and the others will either have to resign from politics or save whatever dignity they have left by leaving Barisan Nasional.

Watch out for more racial mischief from Umno extremists like Ahmad Ismail. It is imperative that Anwar goes all out to pre-empt this dangerous possibility which will rob him of his studious and painstaking efforts to take over the federal government by Sept16.

Let’s help Anwar by not playing into Ahmad’s hands. We must not be manipulated into fighting with each other because of race and religion. Umno must not be given a chance to think it can go on manipulating the rakyat for its benefit.

Let’s all stand united and give BN a peaceful but strong blow to knock it out once and for all.

MILLIONTH CITIZEN: If this racist fellow doesn’t want to apologise , he doesn’t have to. In fact he should keep up his antics. Hopefully when the PM decides that Ahmad is no longer of any use to the BN, he will initiate action against him.

BN is getting desperate. The game is going to get very dirty. Be prepared. But don’t be afraid. People should not be afraid of the government. The government should be afraid of its people. Watch out BN, the rakyat is watching.

JY: Well if Ahmad does not wish to apologise so be it. It will not make the Chinese poorer or unhappier. Maybe Ahmad 's friends are also racist or he had been brought up that way to dislike and mistrust other races. He may have a closed -mind. It's perfectly alright. I believe Malaysians, especially the Chinese, should just move on and not be disturbed by one nasty episode after another.

Incidently, I was reading the comments on Dr Mahathir’s blog. Word on the street is that the BN ship is sinking. One commentator even asked Mahathir to cabut nanti terlambat (run away before it’s too late). Can you imagine saying this to the once most powerful man in Malaysia? How times have changed.

Gman: This shows a few things, Ahmad's arrogance and that Najib's apology over the statement was not in consultation with Ahmad nor was the statement by the PM that he would ask Ahmad not to do it again.

This pretty much sums up the writing on the wall as to the disarray in Umno. They are just embarrassing themselves and despite already losing whatever shreds of decency they had, they are now dragging the party down with them.

On Another dose of racism? Over to you Najib

Dejected: Have our leaders in government not read and observed the consequences of racist policies in Zimbabwe, Serbia/Kosovo, Georgia/South Ossetia, etc?

If our leaders are worth their grain of salt, they should mourn the economic losses of the racist policies instead of promoting them. How many of our top students/brains have set sail for distant shores? These are loyal Malaysians forced to go aboard to practice their specialisations. This exodus of talents of all races is a loss to Malaysia and only benefits the economies of their host countries.

Where have we gone wrong? They (BN) plundered the talents God gave us. They denied the talents of their birth right to contribute to the betterment of their fellow Malaysians.

The ones being handed a raw deal are the underprivileged among us. Their lives would have been substantially better had our brainy citizens be allowed the right to contribute to their Malaysia.

Suhaimi Said: As a PKR party member, I went to Permatang Pauh 2 days prior to nomination day. I was placed with about 30 others in Rumah Pahang, hosted by PKR Kg Padang Ibu. I was soon appointed as the Co-ordinator, working closely with the local Election Committee known as JDM Guar Perahu.

JDM Guar Perahu had 8 villages under it. It was under a PAS-led election committee. Guar Perahu is the largest single village having more than 530 registered voters and Kg Kubu was the smallest having only 10 houses.

The BN issue was liwat (sodomy), sumpah (swear) and Anwar ejen Cina (Anwar is aChinese agent). Liwat and sumpah were rejected by the locals as legitimate issues as they felt the BN and Umno were not truly Islamic and their leaders did not have a good understanding of Islam.

However, the issue of Anwar as a Chinese agent working hand-in-hand with Lim Guan Eng to displace the Malays in Penang made an in-road. The BN machinery harped on it and they painted a bleak future for the Malays in Penang under an Anwar-Lim Guan Eng pro-Chinese government.

They (BN/umno) did not even want to accept that Wong Pow Nee, Dr Lim Chong Eu and Dr Koh Tsu Koon were Chinese. Yes, they were Chinese but they were Barisan Nasional members, and Barisan Chinese were not really Chinese, so they claimed. They even went as far as calling Dr Koh ‘Mohd Koh Tsu Koon bin Abdullah’.

Under the Anwar-Guan Eng government, the Malays in Pulau Pinang will lose everything, their land, their jobs and their ketuanan . The Malays will become subservient and hamba (slaves) to the Chinese.

These were the messages transmitted by Umno party workers to the local population and voters. Voting for Anwar is a vote against the Malays, they said.

The racial issues played up by Umno are so hardened that it took one hell of an argument to convince the folk that PKR is fighting for the rakyat irrespective of race and that Anwar has promised to respect the privileges of the Malays.

We made in-roads, we managed to convince the Malays of the JDM Guar Perahu but after much deliberation and hard work.

In the first place, why did Umno party workers have to play up racial politics? This kind of politics imports divisions amongst the people of Malaysia, it is draconian, outdated and not suitable for the unity of the nation.

Exiled Malaysian: Umno’s tyrannical and racist dictatorship and their doctrines have poisoned the minds of lots of decent Malay folk.I am one of the many Malaysians who had to leave for Europe for the sake of the children.

Umno, shame on you. So far, the country has been run by intellectually challenged people who only know how to leverage on racism to get support.

Malaysia, I weep for you.

On Samy: MIC's new campaign tactics effective

Peter: All I’d like to say to Samy is, how can a racist election campaign that attacks the candidate, as well as makes empty promises to the rakyat be an effective one?

Obviously the veteran politician doesn’t get it. People are now wiser to the ploys of the BN who promises but never delivers. I spoke to a friend who lives in Permatang Pauh. He said he loves elections because it is the only time he gets to listen to tall-tales spun by desperate politicians and get paid RM200 for no apparent reason!

Many would consider this a blatant bribe. But no doubt BN would have a good excuse for handing out money. Whatever the excuse, this ploy may have worked in the past but it is not going to win the coalition any more elections. The sooner these politicians wake up to the reality that Malaysians have wisened up to their tricks, the better.

On Watchdog groups: ACA, haul up 'big fishes'

Dhammika: If the Anti-Corruption Agency is genuinely working towards cleaning up the nation, they must move in to nab the big names who have squandered millions and billions of ringgit .

The ACA must not be afraid of probing high-profile cases. Just because the rakyat are quiet doesn’t mean that we are not aware of what is going on. We want action because our livelihoods have been staolen by the big sharks.

The ACA must show the nation that it is committed to fair and transparent investigations. If the agency is too afraid to act, maybe Pakatan Rakyat will get it to buck up once it takes over the government. The ACA must prove to the electorate that it is really independent and earn back the respect of the rakyat who regard it as a toothless tiger.

Sad Malaysian: If our leaders cannot differentiate between what's wrong and what's right, what's considered an act of corruption and what is "normal and nothing to fuss about" , then we better look for leaders who know how to differentiate between right and wrong.

On DNA evidence can go terribly wrong: lawyer

Kein: The experience of experts and law enforcement bodies in other countries have shown that DNA profiling is certainly not infallible. Results may be influenced by contamination, degradation, human errors and even by willful planting of a DNA sample.

Why then does the Home Minister want to rush through a DNA bill which compels the court to treat DNA evidence as conclusive proof of DNA identification?

This is especially unsafe when there are no safeguards built into the DNA bill to govern extraction, custody and handling of DNA samples.

No reasonable criminal justice system will allow the party which has to look for evidence to be in charge of the DNA database as the temptation for abuse to obtain an easy conviction is too great.

The way the DNA bill is structured is so fundamentally flawed that it has the potential to make a mockery of court proceedings. It means that even if an accused can prove that he was overseas on the day of the crime, he can still be convicted on the basis of DNA evidence which the court must consider as conclusive.

Barring the possibility that those behind the bill are imbeciles, such defects appear to be intentionally designed in to allow the DNA law to be used as a tool of political oppression.

The way the BN government is trying to bulldoze this draconian bill through shows a deep moral bankruptcy and a cavalier disregard for the rule of law.

This is why we cannot wait for another four years to change this government.

On USM picked as Apex university

IL: It was widely reported that Universiti Sains Malaysia has been selected the APEX university for the country. The country seems to have swallowed hook, line and sinker the implication that it is therefore the best university in the country. Kudos were given to it with comments made of its triumph over other more established universities like Universiti Malaya. I would like to clarify that the situation is nothing of the sort.

Initially, the concept of APEX may have been formulated to seek out the best university in the country and to propel it further forward on the global stage. But, like many things in this country, along the way the rules changed - surreptitiously and largely unknown to the public.

They morphed into the university that can best benefit from extra government help to world class standard. Hence, the meaning of its acronym: Accelerated Programme for Excellence. Note: It is not yet excellence achieved, but merely a path to excellence which may or may not be achieved.

UM was effectively told that since it is 'world class’, it is already 'there' and therefore out of the running. Thus, whether USM is better than this or that university does not arise.

Arguably, the worst university can be the APEX institution. If, hypothetically, all Malaysian universities are already world class except one - which would make it the worst in the country - then it may be seen as the one most likely to benefit and be accorded the title.

In this case, the awardee would be the university in most dire need of help. The news is therefore nothing to celebrate, rather one to deplore as another of the country's efforts at obfuscation.

TETRAIGRAT: The selection of academicians in public universities and schools is so blatantly racial and politically motivated that the end result is self-explanatory. Apex it seems is an initiative by the ministry to assist local universities reach world-class standards.

I wonder what world-class are we are preaching here when we have sub-standard practice right from pre-school to university. Just look at all the unemployed graduates from the many universities mushrooming in Malaysia today.

So many new universities and colleges have sprang out up overnight, taking in students with sub-standard academic results, who are then lectured by sub-standard lecturers, producing sub-standard graduates. If they are not sub-standard grads, then why does the government spend millions of taxpayers' money in re-training them to enter the work-force?

On PM: Pray for lower fuel prices

MILLIONTH CITIZEN: First it was brouhaha over foreigners buying cheap petrol from Malaysia. Then came the restrictions to stop them from buying the petrol. Just when that was about sink in, came the shocking increase of 41 percent at the pumps. Then came the rebates. Then the decrease in fuel price.

Everything from food, electricity and the very necessities needed for a daily life have already sky-rocketed. And finally in further desperation, came the promise to review fuel prices every month.

And now we are being asked to pray? Can someone tell me what is happening? What is this government trying to do? Why are they unloading their worries and problems on the rakyat ? Or are they taking the nation for a ride with their sob stories?

Densemy: Wow! What's this? A new economic strategy to manage the country? I wonder how many people will have to be praying at any one time to have an impact on the price of crude oil?

Give us all a break Pak Lah.