vox populi big thumbnail 'I empathise with Altantuya's father and I believe he must have thousands of questions running through his mind. How cruel is the world to him and his family.'

Peter Ooi:

Just like majority of Malaysians, I felt disappointed over Abdul Razak's acquittal. I empathise with Altantuya's father and I do feel how the whole world is tumbling down on him.

I believe he must have thousands of questions running through his mind.

Top of the list would be that had there not existed a man by the name of Abdul Razak Baginda, his dear daughter would not have made her fateful visit to Malaysia.

Now that he has been acquitted, he must be wondering why such key evidence by Balasubramaniam was not examined in detail particularly the statutory declaration.

Also he must be questioning where on earth Balasubramaniam has disappeared to without a trace. With all the expertise that our police have, he could have been traced with ease.

Then he must be thinking why the police did not even examine the implications of SMSes between Najib and a lawyer. Any layman would feel that those messages were vital to the case and yet the prosecution did not use them.

Altantuya's father must be thinking too why RPK - who made a statutory declaration - was not called as a witness but was instead slapped with criminal defamation charges.

I believe Altantuya's father must be spending sleepless nights trying to find answers to even more questions than these few. How cruel is the world to him and his family.

Can his daughter's murderers live with a clear conscience, I wonder.

Lisa: The hearing has been so protracted and the evidence so convoluted that few have been able to follow facts of this murder case over the years.

Add to that questions that were never addressed and other aspects of ‘water-muddying' and we have public perception of a tainted trial.

Therefore, the belief is that there must have been something to hide and for that, Abdul Razak Baginda's acquittal will always make him guilty of something in the minds of the public.

On Najib wins Umno presidency uncontested

Tetraigrat: My dear members of Umno, ask yourself why didn't Mahathir pick Najib instead of Abdullah Badawi after sacking Anwar? Najib was one of the three VPs and had the highest winning votes.

By that virtue, Najib should have rightfully been promoted to deputy prime minister after Anwar. was sacked from Umno. But Mahathir knew well Najib's skeletons and knew appointing him deputy premier would not been seen as right.

Mahathir knew that people will question why was Najib appointed so to play to the tune of the people, Mahathir brought in Abdullah as a temporary solution though by virtue Najib should have been promoted.

Now we only know that Mahathir is dead keen to get Najib in the PM's post to continue all his unfinished dreams at any cost. As it is being said, its not Najibism for Malaysia but a return of Mahathirism for another two or more decades.

Putting this aside, with such a tainted background, Najib is not only playing puppet to Mahathir but may be blackmailed for favours. Why are the people in Umno subjecting Malaysia to this?

Where is the morality of electing a true leader who has the country and people at heart? Perhaps we shouldn't be expecting morality from members of a party who put themself above the true interests of the party.

On Backbenchers rap Penang's multi-lingual road signs

SH Huang : Lately we read and hear a lot about road signs, road names and languages. What are the purposes of road signs, road names and their languages?

Road names are usually named after certain personalities who had done some service for the people or nation. It is regrettable that some famous names have been replaced with some other names. Why should the names be changed?

Some famous road names in Kuala Lumpur have been changed and this has made make tourists and locals alike a bit confused.

Who would know the once-famous names like Foch Avenue, High Street, Davidson Road, Cross Street, Mountbatten Road, Batu Road, Swettenham Road, Circular Road, Brickfields Road, Madras Lane, Theatre Street to name a few ?

I am sure many young people living in Kuala Lumpur will not know what their present names are! There is a history behind most of these names. Why try to change history?

Many anti-colonialists want to discard the names which have a foreign sound. But those colonial masters administered the country named Malaya then and we should respect the British for the good administration they left behind.

What about the language for road names? To familiarise the names which reputation took decades to build up, we should not change the language, just because we like to change them or just because we are in power and want to show our power. Leave them alone.

But to make more people know about the place, we may need to have several languages like in Penang. Tourists want to know the meanings too.

So several languages are included for easy reference and knowledge. Take the KLIA, for example. Why are their announcements in several languages? KLIA does it because it caters to foreigners.

We should have proper road signs for easy access but keep the old road names for history and have several languages for road signs for tourists.

On Why is Georgetown called Georgetown?

Upper Caise : At the risk of sounding petty, it's not called ‘Georgetown'. The name of the heritage city of Nyonya and Straits Settlement culture and capital city of the state of Penang is George Town.

Many make the common mistake of using Georgetown - but that is the name of various places in the world (the high class suburb in Washington DC, a university, many cities all over the US, a city in the Bahamas, and the capital of Guyana).

But it is not the name of Penang's state capital no matter that the federal works and highway departments have misnamed the city so in road signs all over the state.

And why George Town? After George III, the reigning monarch then, who is more well-known these days as the mad king who lost the colonies in North America.

George Town was founded in 1876 - just 10 years after the colonists in New England declared independence.

Another link to that event is in the naming of Fort Cornwallis, after the general who surrendered at Yorktown to the American revolutionaries and who was Governor-General of India when George Town was founded.

Were the British obsessed with naming roads after themselves? Hardly. They named places after their notables and big shots, just like Malaysians do (but without the vanity of titles and full names, eg, Jalan Tan Sri Teh Ewe Lim, just one of several improbably long and snobbish present-day road names).

So we have Weld Quay, after Frederick Weld, a governor and Gurney Drive, after Henry Gurney the high commissioner, but also Jalan Sir Hussein, after Hussein Abdoolcader, father of the late and respected federal court judge.