It's such an obvious decision but no one dares to even suggest it, says a malaysiakini reader on the decision by the government to abandon the 'crooked' bridge to Singapore.

Chin Koon Siang: Best decision the PM has made. Such an obvious decision but no one dares to even suggest it. The only ones benefitting really are the contractors and people who feed off the contractors. Now everyone will sigh a great relief, and suddenly everyone will say it is such a wise decision.

MS Abdullah: I salute Dato' Seri Abdullah Badawi for making this brave decision to scrap the decision to build this expensive and farcical bridge. It is a symbol of his wisdom and steel determination to decide according to his own way of thinking and break away from the dictates of his predecessor, Tun Dr Mahathir. Do more of this and the rakyat will respect you more.

Sean Yee: Unfortunately, the reason not to proceed with the 'half bridge' is over the supply of sand and airspace, and not the cost and benefit of the bridge itself. It is costly and ridiculous to build a crooked bridge. A straight half bridge is impossible because the existing causeway would still need to be used during the construction period.

Reasons given for replacing the causeway with a bridge is not very convincing. By letting the water to freely flow under the new bridge would just disperse the pollutant in the Johor strait rather than eliminate them.

Why is there a need to let ocean going ships use the strait of Johor to steal business from the Port of Singapore? The congestion at the causeway can be reduced if more traffic are encourage to use the second link, which is currently underused.

The following are readers comments on other burning issues. On the Mystery of the 'rich' Indian Malaysians

Henrik Zenkner: The levels of ownership are continuously discussed on Malaysian forums. There is rigorous debate on percentages of ownership and trends of ownership. It is somewhat strange to notice that almost all refer to the official numbers published by the Malaysian government. One would expect there to be more distrust to numbers provided by Umno. Umno has after all the biggest political stake in the allegation that the Malays are still financially underprivileged.

The fact that there are numerous poor Malays does not mean that the Malays are poor. It's just an indication that a small number of Malays control a vast majority of the wealth. If you search the net you will run into both domestic and foreign articles and studies that consider the government numbers to be questionable. Questions like that government-owned companies are not counted; the percentage is not based on the real stock value and similar. Don't use google.com.my, you won't get the hits. One of the more interesting articles is in Far Eastern Economic Review by Edmund Terence Gomez, Volume 168, Number 8, September 2005.

K Narayanasamy: We should not be surprised at the statistics given by the government as it has become a practice to justify the current and future policies with such creative statistics. The political parties that represent the minority races have to toe the line to enjoy the privileges to be in the decorative parts of the government machinery.

Actually, the involvement of these parties in the government lends credence to the ruling party that vigorously pursues its partisan policies. The political parties that represent the minority communities do not have their own statistics to disprove the figures given by the government.

These parties will not be allowed to embark on any of their own surveys within their communities by the government unless it is done discreetly ... but then statistics from such surveys can easily be disputed by those in authority.

The enormity of statistics is enough to put off most of the ordinary citizens. When policies are designed based on creative statistics to favour certain sections of the population, there will always be some other sections of the population that will be forgotten.

The underprivileged Indians will continue to be marginalised in many ways. Unfortunately, this section of the community is so gullible that empty promises, and some allocations for temples, schools, societies, and permits for entertainment shows will suffice to keep it happy in its place. And those who represent, or hope to represent them will continue to shadow box their way to enjoy the few decorative privileged positions set aside by those in power.

Mathew: Firstly, I believe the population breakdown figures need to be transparent. I read in the papers that bumiputeras were about 65% , Chinese about 25% and Indians around 7%. The bumiputera portions should be broken down to Malays, Iban, Kadazans, Babas, Indian Muslims, etc, in order to know what the make-up really is. Preferably, the population figures should be provided in age brackets, e.g. between 1 - 17 years, 18 to 65, and above 65.

Secondly, how the percentage of equity of each race is calculated needs to be made transparent. Looking at percentage of professionals from each race is total waste of time, as we all know that this does not mean anything. Many of the wealthy are in business and are directors of companies (some multiple). These at times are not reflected in their tax returns. How is this accounted for in calculating the percentage in equity?

Could there be a double dipping where Indian Muslim have been included in the 'Indian' category when determining wealth figures, but included in the bumiputera category when determining population figures?

On the police opposition to IPCMC

Anony:

This time, it is police belligerence and what seems like the law dragging its heels that have contributed to this outrage that does nothing but brings international shame to Malaysia. The country seems to be attracting such negative news of late; all very much attributed to the ineffectual leadership prevailing .This kind of unfair play has no place in modern society. ICPMC should be demanded and voiced at the highest level as the racist police apparently seems to be taking the law into their own hands. Amnesty International take note. The world is watching

Aaron Yap: I agreed that the IPCMC should be set up at all cost without fearing anyone. Therefore, I do really put my faith and trust in our PM to be very firm on his decision to set up the IPCMC as soon as possible.