I respect Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad very much for his intelligence, but I cannot understand why a visionary like him would appoint people with little or no substance to the cabinet.

Take Deputy Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin, for instance. He talks nonsense all the time and acts silly, too. The so-called de facto Law Minister Rais Yatim, a PhD holder, does everything opposite or against what he himself wrote in his doctoral thesis on the Internal Security Act. It certainly means that the PhD has no meaning, if it is not written with conviction. Perhaps the university should withdraw the degree.

Transport Minister Dr Ling Liong Sik claims he doesn't even know anything about the billion-ringgit Penang Outer Ring Road project. That's a real joke. I wonder why Mahathir put such people in his cabinet.