BUTTERWORTH: Precisely at 8am on polling day, Barisan Nasional candidate Datuk Arif Shah Omar Shah will be stepping into SK Seberang Jaya 2 to cast his vote. The jolly candidate said he would like to keep the ‘triple eight’ effect on that day.
“Polling is on the 26th, and the year is 2008,” he pointed out to newsmen at his house in Persiaran Tenggiri yesterday.
“If you add two and six, it equals eight. The ‘two’ in the beginning of 2008 is perceived as going ‘towards’ the number eight, which is at the end. So there are two eights derived from the two dates and I’ll enter the polling station at 8am, the third eight.”
The number ‘8’ is a homonym for prosperity in Cantonese. Arif’s voting slip also has a number ‘8’ in it. His slip is numbered 978.
Arif is printing 58,000 post cards to be sent to the electorate to urge them to vote for him.
The postcards – in Bahasa Malaysia, English and Chinese – carry the message ‘Do not need an internationally know YB, but the people should pick a leader who can solve local problems.’
Source
The average joe from the State of Nine would say ‘Iyolah tu’ and ‘Apo-apo ajelah’. Loosely translated as ‘Whatever’ and ‘Yeah, right’
Oh dear, the YB has decided to allow numbers and dates to dictate and control his fate. A question comes to mind. Are Muslims ‘allowed’ to believe in this? A quick search at islamonline.net reveals the following:
“As regards the belief that name numerology has power in realizing one’s wishes, traits, and characteristics or in determining one’s future plans or what his life will become, it’s a baseless idea; there is no room in Islam for such thing.”
“Using astrology or numerology to determine the future is haram. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) cursed people who practice fortune-telling. Therefore, the people should be discouraged from following this sinful practice.”
Source
Aisehman YB, you have successfully showed the world how insecure and ‘jahiliah’ you are. If your stool turns maroonish, coils into a figure of eight and your skin turns deep blue come polling day, then please do take a picture, and take them as good luck signs for you and UMNO.
Enter Google Trends.
Snippet: Google Trends works by analyzing a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.
Easy enough to understand. Some dude in the States used it to predict the American elections and even claimed it to be as accurate as or more accurate than traditional tracking poll. The Press is recommended not to ignore it and candidates can use it to see which state they need to focus on.
Source
Pretty cool claim. I did a quick comparison between Anwar Ibrahim and Arif Shah Omar Shah.
Oh shucks, zero for Arif Shah Omar? An explanation from Google:
If you see all zeros for one of your search terms, it could be that the term doesn’t have enough search volume to be reflected on a graph. It’s also possible that the term’s search volume is insignificant compared to the other terms you’ve entered.
Insignificant. Ok, I could understand that.
How about comparison between Anwar Ibrahim and UMNO?
Anwar still tops. Not even the ‘mighty’ (really?) UMNO with all the corruption and scandals can match Anwar’s popularity.
Well, that’s it folks! Whether Google Trends can predict the P44 election outcome, I will leave it to you to decide. Ultimately, god willing, it’s the Rakyat that gets to exercise their power, cast their vote and determine the outcome.
One last poke:
Anwar Ibrahim, Abdullah Badawi.
Someone is still sleeping. And thus, INSIGNIFICANT 
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