Covid19 - Stop Singapore, do a stock check

 In one month, the number of infected cases spike from 100 to nearly 2,000. This is a 20 times increase.  In many countries such numbers would frighten the shit out of everyone.  But this is not the case in Singapore. The stupidity has no cure even say 5,000 is possible like nothing adverse would come out of it.  Remember, if we equate this to the population size of India, 5,000 x 230 = 1,150,000. This is twice the number of India's 400,000 daily at its worse. Can Singapore afford to live with 5,000 daily infection in this small island? Or would some imbeciles say 5,000 only what?

If we seriously look at the exploding number of cases now, the situation is dire. But we can choose to pretend that it is alright, just like the earlier days when India was exploding and we were happily taking visitors from India, some with fake certificates to prove they had been vaccinated as if nothing will harm us. What could really happen then was that they came, brought along the Delta variants with them, hard to prove now, and immersed themselves into the community. and with no mass testing, you can expect the virus to socialise with everyone in the community. This is the likely reason why the numbers are shooting up exponentially today.

Does Singapore still want to go down this chosen path of living with the virus or stop everything, not just a pause, and take stock of how bad the spread is in the community? This is a drastic measure that takes a tough or mad man to decide. Forget about the economy and opening our famous and beautiful and oversize airport, at least for a couple of weeks. Lock down everything and start mass testing of everyone. Less than 6m people, can be done quickly.

But to do this, a totally new team must replace the existing MTF. The new team members must not be MIW. They all suffered from group think, that it is ok to live with the virus, and mRNA is the saviour vaccine. The new team must be professionals in this field, and do not subscribe to the live with the virus mantra and go for the zero case policy instead. This is a turning point, jumping track, to stop the spread of the virus, not to let the virus party in the community.

Would there be a man tough enough to stop the circus and do something serious, real and proven effective in China and a few other countries? This is a life and death situation. The alternative is not to do anything and go down the chosen path of living with the virus and see cases skyrocketing, death increasing.

What would be the wiser decision to take? We don't have to wait too long to see how disastrous this present path is leading us to. Within 6 months, either hell will break loose or a new status quo of thousands of cases daily becoming a norm.

What do you think? You can bet the scenario and numbers the MTF are simulating and expecting have all gone wrong but they are sticking to their guns, and praying very hard that it would not get worse.

Singapore Virus Debate Sowing Rare Disquiet in Ruling Party

 

Senior members of Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party are concerned that mixed signals from the country’s virus task force are giving the appearance of divisions that could lead to rare infighting, people familiar with the situation said.

The party cadres, who decide which individuals are admitted to the PAP’s top decision making body, were concerned perceptions of a split could spur members to choose sides in the informal contest to succeed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, whose plans to step aside were delayed amid the pandemic after his heir-apparent bowed out earlier this year. They said the prime minister or another senior member should take charge and show decisiveness, according to the people.

Lee’s disrupted succession plan -- unusual in a country used to orderly transitions -- has added more pressure on the PAP as it looks to keep the economy on track while dealing with rising concerns about foreign workers in the financial hub. Although the party prolonged its nearly six-decade rule in an election last year, the opposition gained a record number of seats.

While the virus task force and Lee’s cabinet make key decisions and implement them as a team, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong and Health Minister Ong Ye Kung have noticeably focused on different aspects of the pandemic response in recent public comments as the country announced stop-start changes in its reopening plan. Wong has generally appeared to favor tighter measures to contain the virus, while Ong is seen as a greater advocate for opening. Both are regarded as prime contenders to one day take power from Lee.

The disquiet in the party reflects a broader debate within Singapore society about the pace of opening up, even as it boasts one of the world’s highest vaccination rates. The Southeast Asian financial hub has sought to balance the need to resume international travel and domestic activity with keeping overall mortality rate low, leading to abrupt shifts in policy on issues like working from home and dining out. 

Anonymous

Covid19 - KNN, Delta Variant made everyone looked so bad

SINGAPORE: Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said on Friday (Sep 24) that despite Singapore's many safe management measures, the Delta variant "did not follow our script".

"It transmitted through the community and is driving up daily cases much more quickly than we expected, before our ramp-up plans were fully implemented and before our support systems are fully in place," Mr Ong said at a COVID-19 multi-ministry task force virtual press conference where more restrictions were announced.

But Mr Ong said that this is the nature of the virus, and that to avoid putting the healthcare system under strain, Singapore is "tapping on the brakes" to slow the rise in cases even while stepping up plans to increase the number of COVID-19 hospital beds and other measures.  CNA

The above is reported in CNA. In short it said how the MTF were planning to deal with the Delta Variant methodologically, every step meticulously planned, something like Day 1 it will be like that, Day 2 we will do this, Day 3 we will do that, Day 4 this is what would happen....so on and on, and we will craft a happy ending to this fantastic plan and everyone will be so happy and live happily thereafter.

What a marvelous plan, and imagine how much effort were put in to chart the movement of the virus according to the wish of the MTF. But, KNN, this Delta variant is such an asshole. It refused to listen and went ahead to do what it wanted, went out of control. How irresponsible is the Delta variant. It was supposed to do this and that, on such a day and time, it was supposed to move according to our plan. How could it misbehaved like that? Didn't it know that it must do as told by the govt? Did it know that it must not do anything if the govt did not say so? It did not even follow the road signs. No U turn sign it also made U turn. 

What a rude and wayward virus, dared to disobey the govt and not follow the govt's plan. Now the whole detailed plan of the Millionaire Task Force is in disarray because of the ill mannered and out of control virus. It just refused to behave like the daft Singaporeans. And it made the millionaires so mad and looking so distraught, disheveled, so disorganised and so incompetent.

All because of this naughty virus. Everyone is looking so bad. Whistle has not blown yet and the virus started to run all over the place. KNN.

Huat ah! 2000 target hit. Next target 5,000!

Covid19 - No need 3rd booster shot for the vaccinated

 

Below article by Anonymous makes a lot of sense and could save a lot of money, time and resources from doing the unnecessary in giving the vaccinated a third booster shot.  The vaccinated already had two doses of the vaccines and should be safe from the virus, if you can believe the pharmaceutical companies and the govts that are telling their people to get the vaccine jabs. 

If this is true, then what is needed, instead of a third dose of the vaccine, is to let the vaccinated be exposed to the virus. Another way of doing this is to jab them with inactivated virus vaccines. The bodies would then react to the virus and produce more antibodies and making the bodies stronger and more resistance to the virus, exactly what a third booster jab is expected to do.

See, this is simply brilliant! Stop wasting time and resources on the third booster shot. Why go through all the trouble when it is so easy to get infected with the real stuff and be immuned for life? But of course this is a big risk if the pharma companies are lying and their vaccines are ineffective, useless, cannot protect the people vaccinated.

What do you think?

_____________________________

 

A mild tapping of the brakes to slow the rate of rise from the mask down
socialisation with many and diverse contacts.

This is to enable the backend to catch up.

Folks should remember that with the infectiousness of Delta, we are all bound to meet the virus sooner or later, well within the next 6 months.

We may even meet it multiple times.

The vaccinated among us can take comfort that meeting the virus would be like having a 3rd shot booster. We are already well protected against serious or severe illness or death, and meeting the virus helps remind our immune system what the target looks like.

The unvaccinated among us will have to accept the responsibility both to themselves and to others around them. Their risk of serious illness is higher, unless they are young, and their likelihood of infecting others is also higher bcos they carry the infectious virus for longer.

We can track the caseload as well as mobility data to assess the likely trajectory.

We can relax further, if we can clear the 3rd shot boosters for most of the early vaccination responders.

Many parents are understandably anxious about their unvaccinated young kids.

That will come - it’s a matter of 2-3 months as we track data elsewhere, preferably including field data from others.

We can afford to wait and track as the pre-puberty kids below 12 years old have very strong and fast 1st line defences against the Covid virus.

This is quite unlike the flu virus, which is dangerous to both the very old and the very young.

So if this were a new flu virus pandemic, we would be extremely worried for our young kids, esp those under 5.

But the Covid virus is like the SARS or MERS virus - dangerous to the old and very mild for the young below 12.

True, we do have kids with weakened immune system, either from illnesses like leukemia, or from genetic causes which affect their 1st line immune response.
There are some signs that Down syndrome is a higher risk factor for serious Covid illness, perhaps for genetic reasons which scramble their immune response.

Leukemia is the cancer of the blood, which messes up the immune response bcos most of the 1st line response depends on the white blood cells and various other defence cells patrolling in the blood.

So for a small minority of pre-teen children, there is cause for concern.

James Bond would always be the face of an English man

 

Photo credit to CNA.

Can anyone expect the character James Bond be played by a non English man or by a non Anglo Saxon? Would an Asian, African or even an European man be given the chance to play James Bond?

Would the Brits go around the world to head hunt for the best man to star as James Bond? I think the Brits have enough pride and senses not to give this plum job to a foreign talent just because the foreign talent is presumably a better man. They have a country, a nation, they have national pride. 

Their country may now be filled with chap cheng. But it is still their country and not the country of migrants. They may have a few migrants in politics, but they are very clear it is their country. The presence of large migrant population is paying back for their guilt and crimes against these migrants' countries.

What do you think, a black, brown or yellow James Bond? Don't be silly, it would not happen. The women to please James Bond can be of any colour, but James Bond must be Anglo Saxon at the very least, British preferable.

PS.  Putin would make a good James Bond but he is Russian. Would Singapore be going around the world to head hunt for the best man to be PM or ministers?

Singapore preparing to deal with ‘5,000 new Covid-19 cases a day or maybe more’: Lawrence Wong

 


- Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said just 0.2 per cent of infected cases will need ICU treatment, but a much larger 10 per cent of them will need hospital beds as they are vulnerable
- Hence, Singapore is bolstering its hospital capacity to cope with a possible surge to more than 5,000 daily cases
- Once capacity is ramped up, cases will remain high as that is what it means to live with Covid-19, said Mr Wong
- Acknowledging people’s frustrations at the latest measures, he said the Government had “no choice” as the healthcare system is under strain

SINGAPORE — The Government is ramping up resources in order to prepare for the possibility of more than 5,000 new Covid-19 infections a day, of which about 10 per cent, or 500 people, may need to be warded for at least a week, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said on Monday (Sept 27).

“We want to be able to deal with a scenario where cases surge up to 5,000 new cases a day or maybe more,” said Mr Wong, the co-chair of the ministerial task force on Covid-19, during an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Mr Wong was responding to a question by anchor Haslinda Amin, who had queried him about what is needed for Singapore’s economic reopening to continue.

Explaining how the task force arrived at this parameter, Mr Wong said that although 0.2 per cent of Covid-19 positive cases require treatment in intensive care units (ICUs), around 50 times that number of infected cases require close monitoring in the hospital as they could be older, have serious symptoms or comorbidities.

Said Mr Wong: “To provide timely care for the persons who need ICU treatment, the doctors need to admit about 10 per cent of infected persons to our hospitals because these are the ones that the doctors would triage and identify as the more vulnerable persons.”

On Sunday, Singapore recorded 1,939 new Covid-19 cases, including five imported cases, the highest of the pandemic so far.

If Singapore reaches 5,000 cases daily, that would mean hospitals would need to take in 500 people who would need stays of at least a week, said Mr Wong. 

Anonymous

Why Singapore's Education System Has Failed The People And Country

Why Singapore's Education System Has Failed The People And Country

If India's fake degrees are readily available and acceptable, and so cheap and easy to obtain, why need we send out children through the Singapore's cannot-get-good-jobs education system? Moreover, it is so stringent, tedious, rigorous and stressful, and cost lots of precious time and hard-earned money!

From Primary 1 to Primary 6 is six years.

From Secondary 1 to Secondary 5 is five years.

Polytechnic is three years.

University is another four years.

Adding play-school 2 years and kindergarten years 2 years, the total time spent for each child is 22 years.

What about the total amount of money to be spent?

Go make a calculation and see if the amount to be spent comes up to at least $150,000 for the 22 years of education, not counting food and lodgings.

How much does it cost to get a fake basic degree plus a masters degree, PLUS a PHD? Less than SG$10,000! Some fake universities can even offer you all three degrees for only SG$5,000.

And you can easily get six IT certificates in just one week, with someone sitting for the exams for you. All you need is to pay your ghost writers and bribe the invigilators (or the ones who supervises the exams) through the specialised exams-taking agencies that are flourishing in India.

Another aspect, for Singaporean boys, is that two more years of Fulltime National Service have to be added. That brings to a grand total of 24 years of time spent in pursuit of a piece of paper that cannot even get you an interview for a good-paying and promising job.

On the other hand, foreigners do not need to do National Service nor be called up for reserve liabilities every year. Therefore, they do not need to disrupt their employment. As such, employers will naturally shun those who need to go for in-camp training every year, causing not only disruptions but also loss of money and time to their organisations. So they will openly say, "Singaporeans do not have the necessary qualifications", instead of saying that Singaporeans have to be disrupted to do in-camp training every year!

Singapore's education system is a failure because of several factors, not attributable to the Ministry of Education alone. They are:

1. Failure of the education system to cater for the job markets by grooming the students to be street-smart wilh and with the necessary skills that the jobs required.

2. The compulsory National Service liabilities are a pain in the ass for both the employees and employers because of their disruptive nature. This discourages all employers from hiring Singaporeans, preferring foreigners instead.

3. Foreigners are made readily available by the government's open arms and open legs policy and have a very vast and extensive pool of choices from 193 countries in the world.

4. Foreigners are cheaper to hire and, for various reasons, they are more willing to work longer hours, often going against Singapore and International labour laws, to satisfy the employer's demands and profit motives.

5. Fake qualifications are now acceptable in Singapore, either legally or illegally. The MOM's feeble attempts to curb this malpractice is way too little too late. The disease has already infested the entire employment environment of Singapore, since the beginning of the CECA explorations, exploitations and infestations.

Since the critical problem is at the national level, remedial actions have to be coordinated by a special task force comprising the Permanent Secretaries of MOE, MOM, MHF, MTI and NTUC, closely supervised by the PMO.


Conclusion:

Unless, a coordinated, integrated, vigorous and determined counter-measure campaign is launched to revamp the whole education system, the National Service policy and the open legs foreign talents policy, to right the wrongs, this slippery road of further deterioration and destruction for Singaporeans is there to stay and Singaporeans will have to bite the bullets and cringe the pains.


LIPS, At Your Service.

Covid19 - Living with the virus is a million dollar decision

 I do not know when the decision was made by the Multi Ministry Task Force, with the support of the govt to treat the pandemic as endemic and to live with the virus like the flu. This decision could be made much earlier at a time when laxity in letting people from high risk countries to come in was like nobody's business. This was likely the time when the highly infectious Delta variant came in and seeded in the community.  Without a national regime to test the people, no one is sure how widespread is the virus in the community, and the consequence is what we are seeing now, more than a thousand infections daily and growing  ie the virus was spreading while no one was looking or conducting big scale community testing. No testing means low number of cases detected, giving a false sense of security a la Donald Trump's way of thinking or unthinking.

The decision to live with the virus could be made after knowing that going for zero infection was no longer possible and thus it became a no choice solution. The spread in the community already gone out of control and what else could be done except to live with it. The recent small number of imported cases is a happening that is too late and would not change anything as the Delta variant is already everywhere.

To make the decision to live with the virus is indeed a tough decision, or a no choice decision. And this decision means having to experience more cases and more deaths. Before this decision was made, there must be expert and scientific data to support it. It could be based on gut feel or some unsubstantiated opinion.  The MMTF must  know and to expect the numbers to go up. There is no point in panicking now. Panicking now is a sign of poor appreciation of this outcome, or unable to take the heat. Or it is an awkward admission that the decision was made from uninformed data and recommendation.

Once such a stand was taken, everyone must behave like a man. You took a tough decision, you have to face it squarely like a man, not wobbling in the knees and regretting this situation. No way to rewind the clock. It is best to come straight and tell the people that this is what it should be. Let's stay united to face the outcome, ie more widespread of infection and....more deaths.

If still fumbling with the outcome, fearing that it would be a Little India version of what had happened in India, it might be a little too late. However, it is still possible to have an island wide lock down and go for zero case solution. This would be a tougher solution as it means a no nonsense termination of all activities and movement of people within the island, and in and out of the island, to try to stop the spread, island wide testing to arrest the spread with no one exempted from the test. The economy would be severely hit for sure.

Still dilly dallying, or committed to live with the virus? Yes? No? Be strong, once the decision is made, live with it, live with all the pains and deaths and all the criticism and unhappiness from the affected people. And hope that it would turn out fine whichever way taken. If it doesn't turn out well, prepare the backside to be goreng. It is your decision, no one is forcing you to make this tough decision. You are paid millions exactly to make tough decisions and if you failed, face the music, and losing your million dollar pay. Take responsibility. You cannot wriggle out from this responsibility.

Pray that your decision is the right one and ends well.

On hindsight we were doing quite well until someone made this gungho decision to live with the virus like the crazy and clueless Americans. The Americans messed it up real bad. Why did we choose to follow the stupid and irresponsible Americans and ended up in this pathetic state of affair? At least the NZ and Australia have a little cow sense not to blindly follow their stupid masters and stick to the zero case solution, and willing to lock down parts of their country if needed be. They are trying very hard and have yet to lose control of the situation.

This virus would make and break countries, and also individual politicians that mishandled it.

PS. 1939 yesterday. When would it hit 5,000? Hitting 2,000 is a matter of tomorrow or the next few days. While rushing recklessly to open up, it might have the opposite effect if the infection exploded and even if the legs were open wide wide, no one would dare to come. Hope Singapore would not become a lepers' colony and be avoided by the rest of the world.

Singapore education - failure or success?

 Education and moulding of the people as a force to be recognised internationally is one of the many failed missions in the legacy of Lee Kuan Yew due of his poor choice of a good leader to succeed him. His choices were limited because of his eagerness to make his own eldest son become the Prime Minister, a square peg squeezed into a round hole.

LHL is more suitable to be an academic professional, teaching in higher institutions of learning in mathematics. He was and is never good in politics, diplomacy and people-skills.

He is by nature good in numbers and digits. He is not good in selecting quality leaders to help him govern because of his inability to tolerate and accommodate dissenting and maverick views.

Therefore, he surrounds himself with sycophantic loyalists instead of real quality leaders. Owing to this critical factir, his team has been unable to raise the standard of living of his people on the one hand but only good in increasing the cost of living on the other.

In the formulation and implementation of many of his myopic, nationally unintegrated and piece-meal policies, he has failed his father, his predecessors, his people and his country miserably.

Education is the epitome and the zenith of all his failures. The long-term leadership succession is the second. CECA is the third.

Help us, God!


Queen of Hearts.

Singapore Education - What price to pay for a piece of paper that cannot be eaten?

 ST 25 Sep had an article titled 'Lack of local talent a big challenge for Singapore business'. What is pertinent in the survey is this, the respondents said the lack of local talent was the biggest challenge, but this was not the case in Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia. And what are these talents they are referring to? Sales professionals, people skilled in technology business development, digital marketing and e-commerce.

Who or which organisation should be responsible to churn up such talents for the industries? The talents must be trained or educated and feed the market. The demands from the industries are ready talents, not talents that the industries would be producing or trained.The industries did not see it taking up the responsibility train talents for their own needs. Practically every organisation expects to fill their positions from trained and experienced people from the open market or from the rest of the world.

With this kind of mindset, the burden of providing educated and in some way trained talents must come from the institutions of higher learning, the polytechnics and universities. The irony here is that Singapore often boasts about its world class and very expensive universities, high fees because they are the best, at least better than the countries mentioned above. The why is it that these countries, with universities that mostly ranked at the tail end of surveys, are able to provide the talents but not Singapore?

A survey like this, and all craps coming out from employment agencies, even from third world countries, are as good as a dressing down on Singaporean talents, Singapore's institutions of higher learning. Useless universities, but very expensive, unable to provide talents for the industries. Are these real? Such smearing of local universities and their products is kind of being spread and supported even by the who's who in Singapore. Not only they did not dispute such disgusting smears, they also supported them by their actions, by employing foreigners to fill top management positions and often seen engaging foreign head hunters to hunt around the world for top management positions. And such disgraceful thoughts and comments are repeated quite often by the local media as if this is the truth, this is the fact, Singapore has no talents. Why are local media celebrating such lies, backing up such lies, like the survey mentioned above?

As long as the stupidity has no cure idiots keep allowing this narrative to go on and on, who would want to employ local graduates? On the other hand, the third world countries are praising their own graduates from their funny universities as better than Singapore graduates. And the Singapore;s idiotic who's who accept this without protest, without question, and happily filled even govt positions with funny foreign graduates from funny universities, including fakes and cheats.

What do all these mean to our institutions of higher learnings and Singapore education as a whole? Would it be cheaper and more productive to close them all down and send all our young to the funny universities around us, cheaper and better?

What do you think? What pay so much for a piece of a paper that cannot be eaten, and cannot get a good job?

PS. There are many Singaporean talents overseas but unable to return, unable to find equivalent positions in Singapore, simply because the imbeciles allowed the foreigners to set the narrative, to control the employment industry, to decide who is talent, who to be employed.  This is a crime committed by the imbeciles against our very own talents, with many local PMETs now retrenched, unemployed, underemployed or forced to retire prematurely.

 

 

 

Covid19 - I think the hysteria about reopening Singapore, voiced by some, is really out of place.

 
🔴 There's no alternative at this point.

Last year was different - the whole world was looking for a solution and it was found in the vaccines. But, first of all, no vaccine offers complete immunity and, secondly, quickly mutating viruses are always going to pose challenges to vaccine development.

This is why, for example, we have new flu jabs every year, because new strains emerge all the time.

Given that there are no new, miracle solutions coming, that could somehow wipe the virus out completely, and that vast majority of the population in Singapore is vaccinated, the only thing to do is to return to normal life - albeit responsibly.
No country can be on lockdown forever and zero-Covid strategies are untenable, because the virus is transmitted very easily. Not even North Korea was able to keep it out.

A change in mindset is needed.

Over the past 18 months people have been conditioned to react to relatively high infection figures with fear. It was justified in 2020 but not today.

The figures that need to be tracked are deaths and ICU hospitalizations, signifying severity of the virus (both compared against the vaccination status of the patients too - as we know it's the unvaccinated who are the most affected at this point).

So far only 73 people died of COVID in Singapore. This is less than 100+ who die in traffic accidents every year or an average of about 800 who die of regular flu.

We also have to remember that many of the patients that passed away due to COVID would have likely fallen prey to influenza or other common viruses, due to their already weakened state. In international statistics, the novel coronavirus pretty much wiped out flu as a cause of death in countries around the world (even though, of course, it is also responsible for a large number of excess deaths - but not in Singapore).

In other words, so far the death toll of C19 for the year and a half since the outbreak started in SG is on par with an average MONTH of flu deaths in a regular year.

Of course both viruses are different and Covid may impact even younger, healthier people more severely. Nevertheless, we have to maintain a sense of proportion.

Even at this point Singapore is doing many times better than comparable developed countries attempting large scale reopening.

In terms of death toll it is orders of magnitude better than most countries, in fact. Western nations lost anywhere between 1500 to 3000 people for 1 million inhabitants. In Singapore that figure is just 12-13 - easily over 100 times less.

As for patients in ICU, it's currently ca. 4 per million inhabitants - compared to 70 in the US, around 30 in Israel, France or Switzerland, 20 in countries like Germany, Belgium or Canada.

🔴 Considering that during previous waves this figure peaked around the world at anywhere between 60 to 120, SG still has a long way to go before it can start getting worried.

Since all that could have been done, has been done, it's now time to return to normal - however responsible - life, instead of expecting new lockdowns that threaten thousands of livelihoods. 

Anonymous

Meng Wanzhou - Biden slammed scum Trump

 Finally Biden took up the cudgel and threw it at Trump, ending a period of living under the dictates of this rascal. Biden had struck a deal with Xi and Meng Wanzhou is now back in China after a final plea of not guilty, that she was innocent of all the charges. Trump must be furiously mad for sleepy Joe to destroy his dubious scheme and threw it in his face.

This is the biggest slap Biden gave to the scoundrel Trump for illegally and shamefully arresting an innocent Chinese citizen just to attack and cripple Huawei as a competitor in 5G technology. After 3 years of this dirty and slimy act, what did the Americans achieved? Nothing, no 5G to show and still struggling to find out what is 5G. In the same time, under this unfair pressure from the evil Americans, Huawei has broken its dependence on American technology, developed its own chips, developed its own operating system and moving on to 6G.

The Americans would still be crying out loud that China stole its technology, technology that the Americans did not have in the first place.

Boy PM Trudeau now looking more stupid than ever. The whole shitty political game was decided by the Americans. He was a little boy ball picker. The Americans said pick, he would pick, run, he would run. Now the Americans said game over, he has to surrender Meng Wanzhou back to China. He has practically no say in this matter. Did he gain anything other than for Trump to pat his head and said, good boy?

And for all the silly things he had done to please Trump, the Canadian economy got tanked, and two Americans were arrested and stayed in Chinese jail for 3 years, sentenced to prison and one facing death row. The only consolation is for China to release these two Canadians after spending time in isolation in China.

Are all these worth it?

This sordid story does not end with the return of Meng to China. It is just the beginning for Canada. Biden may have struck a deal with Xi and American China relations may be on the mend, but not Canadian China relations. Canada would be kept in cold storage for some time to come.

Meng Wanzhou would be honoured as a heroine in China, having been unfairly arrested by the silly Canadian boy PM on behalf of the gangster Trump, and having to endure the separation from family and country and the prospect of not returning to her homeland. Meng Wanzhou stood the ground with great strength and dignity and is now famous not just in China, but also the world. She is a mighty woman standing against the might of two horrible western govts and returned home in honour, unscathed, and did not waver under immense pressure, alone in a foreign land.

China has a new heroine to add to its long history and civilisation.

PS. This episode is a good reminder to all the crony countries that think America is an honourable and good place to visit and to park their money in. They stand to have their money confiscated and they be arrested by fabricated lies and charges cooked up by the evil Americans.

CECA - Fierce argument to support this agreement

  The Singapore government has once again made efforts to debunk the misconceptions about the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), this time in two Youtube videos explaining two “serious falsehoods” relating to CECA....

The first video, which was posted by the Gov.sg on Monday (23 Aug) as an “abridged version” of the video, started off with the fact that CECA is one of the 26 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that was signed by Singapore in 2005.

It revealed that the investments made by Singapore companies to India have grown to S$61 billion since the inception of CECA, of which these companies supported a total of 97,000 local jobs in Singapore as of 2019.

At the same time, Singapore gained help from Indian companies to boost its Infocomm sector.

 

Above quoted from an article, 'Singapore Govt produces Youtube videos to explain “serious falsehoods” about CECA'  in the now banned TOC.

Singapore invested S$61b through CECA and this ended up supporting 97,000 jobs in Singapore. This type of argument 'sibeh heon' from sibeh clever millionaires. 97,000 jobs! If no CECA die leow. How to create 97,000 jobs in Singapore? Still scratching my head, pumped in S$61b in India and this created 97,000 jobs in Singapore? How ah? Only bone I want to pick is the word 'local' jobs. Local means not necessary to be Singaporeans.  What if 90% of the local jobs go to foreigners, then how ah?

What are the companies that have created these 97,000 jobs? Those in Singapore's Chennai Business Park?

No need to worry about the details. This is put up by the government, so must be true. Sibeh heng ah, got CECA and got S$61b to invest in India. If S$61b invest in Singapore sure cannot create 97,000 jobs.

So, don't criticise or attack CECA. CECA creates jobs for Singaporeans, or is it locals? The feeling is so good for the locals. How many of the locals are Singaporeans?  When they dared not count the Singaporeans, what did it mean?

COVID-19 Singapore: Selective Reporting And Half-Truths Instead Of Full Disclosure?

 

In a Straits Times report dated 15 Dec 202, it was established that 47 per cent of migrant workers in S'pore dorms have had a Covid-19 infection.

There are about 323,000 dormitory dwellers in Singapore.

Almost half of the migrant workers living in dormitories have had a Covid-19 infection, the authorities said on Monday (Dec 14, 2020) in a joint statement made by MOH and MOM.

As of Sunday (Dec 13, 2020), 54,505 such workers have tested positive for the virus via a polymerase chain reaction or PCR test.

Another 98,289 had a positive result from a serology test, which checks for a previous infection.

This means 152,794 workers in dorms have tested positive in PCR or serology tests or both.

They form 47 per cent of the 323,000 dormitory dwellers in Singapore, said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) in a joint statement.

The ministries added that serology tests for about 65,000 workers in dorms who had not taken them before were still being carried out. "This will give us the full picture of the infection prevalence among our migrant workers," they said.

PCR tests are used to diagnose current or new infections.

Serology tests identify those who have been infected in the past, by detecting the presence of Covid-19 antibodies in blood samples.


Question:

WHY IS THE 152,794 Cases of Infections not included in the Overall Total Count for COVID-19 Infections in Singapore?

LIPS 

China - 开门打狗

 The history of China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was best described by the phrase, 关门打狗, or locking the door to beat the dogs. The western foreigners and the Japanese were the ones locking the door and the Chinese were the dogs. And they had no mercy beating up the Chinese in everyway possible. The Chinese were subhuman and were subject to all kinds of beating and thrashing, bullying oppression and suppression. All their possession were free to be taken away from them. They were even drugged with opium brought in by the foreigners, legally, by force of course.  The Chinese did not have human rights or rights of any kind, no equality, no dignity.

They were locked in by the foreign powers to be exploited, cheated, robbed, beaten and kicked around in their own land. Their no longer belonged to them but to the foreign invaders.

China was lucky to have Mao and his communist Party to unite them as one people and to drive out all the foreigners from their land. But the door was still locked by the foreigners in their containment policy. The Chinese would have to make do with whatever they had and find their own way out of poverty and misery. It was a time of rebuilding their country by themselves, 关门自强. There were no foreign aid or assistance.

China got a little reprieve when the West needed China to be on their aside in their containment of USSR and allowed to open up and join the world economy, joined the WTO. Under Deng's guidance, it was a time to quickly learn everything from the new western dominated world, economic and scientific developments that had gone by while they were isolated from the world. It was also a time to work furiously and not getting into trouble. Kept the head low, when slapped, turned the other cheek.

The Americans had a great time time beating and bullying the Chinese with no repercussion, no fighting back from the Chinese.  The western world and even small little Asian and SE Asian countries followed to take liberty on China.  Some Asean countries even thought it was alright to grab Chinese islands and claimed them as their own. US and EU freely sanctioned and threatened China for every nonsensical reasons and talking down to China.  Canada arrested innocent Chinese citizen. Australia tore away trade agreements and taunted and challenged China like a gangster. Japan openly supported Taiwan's independence and verbally said it would support Taiwan militarily. Little Lithuania and EU wanted to recognise Taiwan as an independent state from China etc etc

Against all these threats and violation to China's sovereignty, what could or should China do?

开门打狗

With so many dogs and pests banging at its door and blaring their megaphones in its front yard, China had it enough. It is time to open the door to beat the dogs and pests away. Australia, Canada and Lithuania were the first to have a taste of China's dog beating stick. Others would follow in the course of time if they did not beat a retreat.

This is a major change in China's coming out policy. China would now go for tit for tat, a tooth for a tooth or more policy in dealings with aggressive and disrespectful little or big brats. China will be aggressive, very aggressive, and will come down very hard on people or countries that infringed on its rights. China will behave like a big super power and will carry a big dog beating stick.  Any country wanting to behave like a stray dog in China's court yard would be whacked real hard with no exceptions. Make this very clear, China is coming out with a big club and with the intention to use it. Do not fool around when China means serious business. 

China would not give away an inch of its territory or turn away when challenged or taunted. The Anglo Saxon countries, the world's trouble makers,  the world's number threat to world peace, and with the pretension and dream of ruling the rest of the world would be the top dogs, top on the list to be beaten by China. They formed offensive military alliances in the forms of 5 eyes, the QUAD, and now AUKUS, all aimed to take on China,  to bring down China.

By the time China has done enough of dog beating, it would be time for China to 开门平天下, to bring peace and prosperity to the world, like what it is doing in Africa and Central Asia. These countries would develop and progress faster than the Asean countries with Chinese funds, technology and assistance. They will leapfrog and become the new rich countries of the world while Europe and America fade into oblivion. 

Many European countries are already bankrupt or at the verge of bankruptcy. Going against China and cutting themselves off from China's economic train would leave them out in the cold, high and dry. They would be competitive and would not survive in an economy dominated and controlled by the Americans.

The World will be safer without the United States. PART ONE

   The world will be safer , more peaceful and harmonious without the United States.

The United States of America is far too evil and wicked and if God so willing it should be destroyed. There are many reasons why the white Anglo-Saxon United States should be destroyed by God. Ever since its founding the white supremacists United States never cease its evil acts of atrocities and genocide of natives in America and in other parts of the world. It has constantly and mindlessly interfered in the internal affairs of other countries and imposing unwarranted wars on others causing deaths and destruction and unnerving suffering, all just for US belligerence and wanton greed. All these have been going on for the last 70 years since the end of the Second World War in 1945. This leaves us to wander when will the US ever let the world live in peace and harmony for at least even one day. May be the evil things and atrocities that the Evil Empire has been commiting against the non-white countries will eventually catch up with the Americans and destroy them forever.

From day one since its independence to the present the Evil Empire has never given the world a day of peace. From its intial 13 states the Evil Empire aggressively expanded its territories by invading hundreds of self-governing natives states as agreed in treaties by the British imperialist with the native Americans. But the Evil Empire's expansionist policy of 'Manifest Destiny of America' would not recognize the native American states. It went on to invade them and to kill and genocide all the native Americans. Having successfully taken over all the states of the native Americans the Evil Empire planned for the conquest of many Mexican states. Thus between 1840s to 1890s the Evil Empire attacked and invaded Mexico and occupied eight  Mexican states which include the present states of Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California. 

Having taken over most of Mexico's territories the Evil Empire began to look overseas for expanding its empire in its competition with many European powers for conquering non-white people's lands in the far flung oceans. In 1895 it began to invade Hawaii. And in 1898 it invaded Cuba, Puerto,  and the Philippines. Thereafter the United States cast its evil eyes on China.  In 1890, Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan and Theodore  Roosevelt said far across the western Pacific Ocean lies China in which the sick Chinese people are not qualified to run the country. He said China with a big population will provide  a huge market for US to export its products and US must occupy China and teach the Chinese some semblance of civilize rule before it is completly partitioned by European powers and Japan to the exclusion of US interest. 

Theodore Roosevelt was elected US president in 1901. He was a supra white supremacist and he was also an ardent believer in US imperialism in the way of the imperialism of the European powers in empire building. His ideology of adopting a very aggressive foreign policy of imperialism reinforced the doctrine of 'Manifest Destiny of America' even further. He strongly believe that the United States should use its strength and power to advance US interests in the world. Thus to threaten other countries into submission he quoted a proverb, 'Speak softly, but carry a big stick.'

Theodore Roosevelt also used racism to make a distinction between "civilized" and "uncivilized" nations of the world. He was far too arrogant and uncouth when he defined civilized nations as predominantly white and Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic and uncivilized nations were generally non-white, Latin Americans or Slavic. Another distinction he used was the importance of economic development. Thus by his definition civilized nations were producers of industrial goods while the uncivilized nations were the suppliers of raw materials and markets. Theodore Roosevelt was a savage animal with wild pretensions. Though his chronic perspectives of civilized and uncivilized nations and his white supremacist outlook have been the practice of Western powers for centuries but his accentuation of this fake doctrine has been followed zealously  as biblical through in Washington, the Pentagon and CIA. And this is the evil seed that spawns all diabolical deeds and permanent wars that the Evil Empire has been imposing on all non-white countries in this world for decades.

Adding more toxic to his belligerent doctrine he claimed that a civilized country had a right and duty to intervene in the affairs of backward nations to preserve law and order for the good of both the  countries being intervened and the intervener, USA. Armed with this aggressive policy Theodore Roosevelt developed American sea power to surpass that of all the European powers and US became the most dominant sea power in the world. US then continued to intervene more aggressively in the internal affairs of Central  America and South America countries. These interventions cause severe economic disasters to the victimised countries though they benefit US substantially both in economic and political terms.  US then forage into the Pacific Ocean where it mopped up all the small island nations and took them under US control and where US built their military bases. Some of these islands are Guam, Samoa, Marshall Islands, Bikini Islands and Mid-way islands. From these Pacific Ocean island military bases US was laying the beach-heads for its future aggressions in the Far East of East Asia and South East Asia. This is what is happening now as US is posturing its marine and naval power in the South China Sea and the East China sea in a threatening manner trying to intimidate China and other countries which refuse to toe US dictates.

The present crux of the matter is that though US is clearly a very evil expansonist and harmful atrocious imperial power yet quite a lot of ex-colonial non-white countries see US and its Western power allies in a better light vis-a-vis their perspectives on China, Iran, Russia, North Korea or Cuba. Why? Is it what Mabu Mahubani said, "Can Asians Think". Or is it due to ceaseless US / Western propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, lies and half truth. Or is there a third dimension to this matter.

US and Western toxic propaganda does play a very important part to hijack the brain and thinking power of these ex-colonial countries. But it can be observed that many of these ex-colonial countries have also gained extensively in their countries territories after given independence by their colonial masters. Some examples of these countries are India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Before the British came India consisted more  than 20 different separate states and kingdoms with over 60 major different languages. The British came and ruled all the separate different Indian states and kingdoms collectively as one political unit. Thus India gained from British rule in forging it into a  unitary single state. India had gained over two hundred thousand square miles of Chinese land which the British had illegally and forcibly detached from China in the years 1890s to 1915. The British was supposed to return these stolen lands to China but it kept on stalling inspite of many meetings and discussions on the matter until 1947 when England gave independence to India without the final settlement of the India-China border issues. After independence India refused to discuss and negotiate with China on the border issues. India just wanted to assume the mantle of British imperialism in keeping  China's territories. The evil Anglo-Saxon British had indeed laid the seed of future contention between an independent India and China under its toxic divide and rule policy.

Malaysia was never a single entity country. It was hemmed in as a single entity ruled by the British imperialist. In the late 1950s to preempt Malaya from being taken over by the communists England granted independence to Malaya and incorporated Sarawak and Sabah ( British North Borneo ) into Malaya to form Malaysia and to preempt Indonesia from swallowing Sarawak and Sabah.

Indonesia also gained extensive territories when it got its independence from the Dutch or Holland. It gained the large territories of Borneo ( or Kalimantan as called by the Indonesians ), Papua New Guinea and  Timor.

The Philippines also gained new territories in the Sulu Sea Archipelago which was formerly an independent kingdom.

India, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines had gained substantial new territories  in their independence from their ex white colonial masters in which they are psycologically inclined to look at them with favourite light vis-a-vis issues with China.

Indo-China which consists of Viet-nam, Cambodia and Laos were formerly  part of Chinese sovereign territory and a Chinese province for over a thousand years. But during the over hundred years of humiliation from 1830s to 1948 China was ravaged, trampled and invaded by European powers, Russia, the United States and Japan. England was stealing Chinese lands in southwest and south east China bordering Tibet and Yunnan. Russia was devouring huge Chinese territories north of the Heilongjiang River and the Maritime province of the Ussuri region up to the Pacific Ocean including the Sakhalin Island from 1850s to 1885. The principal Chinese city of Haisenwei the capital of the Maritime Ussuri region was occupied by Russia which renamed it as Vladivostok or Russian Fort of the East. In the meantime Germany invaded and took away the Shangtung province with its Capital city Tsingtao. In 1875 Japan attacked China and occupied the Liu Chiu Island Archipelago which they renamed it as Ókinawa.' In 1885 France took advantage of China's weakness and attacked the Chinese province of Indo-China in the Árrow War' as the war was so called. Though the French lost the Arrow War but through its capricity it managed to hookwink the Qing empeor in far away Beijing to believe that China lost the war and coerced the emperor  to surrender the province of Indo-China to France.

After the Second World War in 1945 the United States took over the mantle of world hegemon from England. The Anglo-Saxon elites of the U.S. had planned for a long time to build The United States empire to be the most powerful empire of all times and to be the one and only lasting empire on earth. And as the only superpower the US has no qualms about how it bullies and threatens other countries into submission to its control with wars and invasions with impunity to bring these countries to follow its dictates. Since 1946 to the present US has attacked and invaded not less than 60 countries and imposed more than 70 wars on other countries in Europe, Asia including the Middle East Arab countries,  Africa, Central America and South America.

To further and strengthen its grip on other countries the United States has adopted many various forms of mechanism of power of control in the UN Organisation like the World Bank, IMF, World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation and the Petro Dollar. It uses its fake NGO ( Non-government Organisation ) the NED ( National Endowment for Democracy ) as a Trojan Horse to infiltrate into other countries military and police force to create choas and instabilities to carry out regime change that fits US agenda. The NED is under the direct control of the US terrorist organisation  CIA the toxic and diabolical US spy and intelligence agency which is not only responsible for espionage, murders, assassinations, creating upheavals, choas and instabilities for regime change  but also indulge in drug trafficking and smuggling in which it is a fact that CIA is the biggest drug and heroin trafficking organisation in the world. 

US a rogue state has by force of its military might arm twisted and coerced many countries to acquiese to US building of military bases in their countries which serve to further intimidate and threaten other neighbouring countries in the regions. But at last with the rise of Russia and China to challenge US evil hegemony and the growing awareness among all other non-white countries of the evilness and wickedness of the US wars of aggression and atrocities committed incessantly on victimised countries that US power to do evil may be curbed and eventually destroyed.

The world will definitely be safer, more peaceful and harmonious without the satanic United States.

Southernglory1

No visitors allowed at all wards from Sept 24 for a month as more hospital workers, patients get Covid-19

 

A greater number of hospital staff members, patients and visitors are being infected by Covid-19, so all hospitals here will not be allowing visitors from Friday (Sept 24) until Oct 23 to curb the disease spread and reduce the strain on hospital bed capacity.

Higher-risk patients visiting emergency departments will have to undergo an antigen rapid test for the coronavirus.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a press release on Wednesday that these tightened measures will apply to all public, community and private hospitals.

With the rise in community cases over the past weeks, the ministry said that it has detected more Covid-19 cases among hospital staff members, patients and visitors.

“The detection of these cases had led to ward closures and staff quarantine, which had impacted some hospitals, putting a strain on hospital bed capacity and staffing at a time when more hospital beds are ramped up to care for hospitalised Covid-19 patients,” MOH said.

The latest move will help to safeguard hospital capacity, it added.

Although visits to hospital wards will be suspended from this Friday to Oct 23, both dates inclusive, hospitals will make case-by-case exceptions for visitors of the following patients:

Patients who are in critical condition

Patients who are young children

Birthing or postpartum mothers

Patients requiring extra care support from caregivers such as those who are mentally incapacitated or family members who are undergoing caregiver training

Such patients will only be allowed one pre-designated visitor who may enter the ward once a day.

Patients in critical condition may have up to five pre-designated visitors with a maximum of two visitors at the patient’s bedside at any one time.

All visitors will need to produce a valid negative antigen rapid test or polymerase chain reaction test result obtained within the last 24 hours of each visit.

All visitors regardless of vaccination status must comply with the conditions except those who have recovered from Covid-19 and are able to present a valid pre-event test exemption notice.

Read also
Visitors must also wear a face mask with good filtration capability such as surgical masks or two-layered reusable masks.

There must be no eating or drinking in the inpatient wards. Visitors must not use the patients’ toilets in the wards and must avoid sitting on patients’ beds.

TESTING AT EMERGENCY UNITS

From Friday, higher-risk patients, regardless of the vaccination status, must take a mandatory antigen rapid test at 24-hour emergency clinics or departments.

Higher-risk patients include:

Those who are on beds in emergency rooms for prolonged observation, whether in the short-stay unit or extended diagnostic and treatment unit

Those who are required to undergo mask-off assessment or procedures lasting for 15 minutes or more, or both

Visitors or caregivers accompanying patients during the observation period will also have to take an antigen rapid test

Accompanying persons may have to pay for the tests, depending on the hospitals.

MOH said that it has increased the frequency of surveillance testing for hospital workers, as well as vendors who work in the hospital, in order to identify at the earliest possible time the staff members who are infected with Covid-19.

Anonymous

General heading Childhood Education

“Early childhood leadership certification is needed for preschool teachers to be qualified to be a principal. Even with a degree of early childhood and numerous ten years of experience does not qualify,” said a netizen. “So may I ask what kind of qualifications and pre-experience this general has in regards to early childhood? We are talking of education of your young children…not the army.” 

Meanwhile, Facebook user Catherine Dee asked if “retired generals could stop being allowed to lead ministries,” particularly those they have no experience in. “If the government really has to do this, please start them from the bottom to gain experience and work their way up first rather than dropping them from a helicopter,” she added in a comment liked by over 200 netizens. 

“Why doesn’t the ministry look at promoting someone with understanding, experience and track record in the sector instead of parachuting someone without the relevant experience or knowledge of the ground despite his impressive military credentials?” asked Facebook user Shermin Chen. 

“A military guy in early childhood education…and none of the existing early childhood education personal can take up…seriously…,” added a netizen.  theindependent.sg

BG Tan Chee Wee to be CEO of early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA). And this has raised eyebrows in the education industry and parents for obvious reasons.  The objections were understandable. Ask a foreign recruitment agency, they will throw out his application for lack of relevant experience and qualification. The general is so lucky that the govt did not contract the search agencies to go hunting for a foreign talent overseas. It was purely a parachute drop from the sky. Retired generals need not apply for jobs. Jobs would be offered to them, as CEOs here and there.

Look at the positive side, they are lucky that they did not appoint a third world funny graduate with funny experience from a funny university to take over this job, aka fake or cheat. If they did, the children would turn out funny as well, if not illiterate. Be grateful.

Another good thing that may come out from this is that the children will be well prepared for NS, with a good foundation in military jargons and way of life. The children are likely to be tougher than otherwise with boot camps modified as child play.

If one is prepared to look at the good side, there are many. If one is looking from the negative side, there will also be many, just like CECA. You can bet, just like CECA, the govt would have all the good things to say about this appointment.

AUKUS or FAUKUS? Another evil white men's scheme

 The Anglo Saxons still think they could rule the world. The defeats after defeats of the evil mighty American Empire in the hands of militarily weak and poor Asian countries still did not teach them anything. Before the curtain falls in Afghanistan, they are shifting all their attention to the Pacific Ocean with China in their cross hair and the prize of Asean as their new colonies.

What ever AUKUS or FUCKUS, would be no different from the lame QUAD. The result would be the same as in Korea, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria etc etc. All the military hardware would not win wars except little battles. And to think that the clueless Americans could think that a little Australia could change their fortune in Asia Pacific is pathetic. A mere 22m white men in a stolen piece of land in Asia Pacific to become their new foothold to remain as the hegemon in Asia Pacific? The population of just Malaysia is bigger than Australia, and there are 250m Indonesians next door.

The evil white men is everywhere building military alliances and military bases to control the world, to remain as the white evil Empire. Their fingers are everywhere, in every country, poking here and there. Countries of the world must place more mouse traps, the snapping type, to snap off the itchy white fingers.

Hiding under the names of peace, democracy and human rights, they are inciting wars, agitating for wars, and building military bases, manufacturing weapons, just to have more people killed and more countries destroyed. The Indonesians are worried, and so are the Malaysians. South East Asia aka Asean must remain a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality, not on papers but for real. After the defeat in Vietnam and fleeing, South East Asia was blessed for nearly 40 years of peace, stability and prosperity without the Americans warring in the region. 

The fear now is that peace would turn into war with the evil Americans coming back and with a pseudo Asian country but basically a white Anglo Saxon country in Australia happily playing the role of the front man. Asean countries must be united and resolute in preventing the region from becoming another war zone, another Afghanistan and the Asean countries and economies destroyed and people died and wounded, when the evil white men start another war here.

The whole intent and purpose of the white men are their dominance and their Empire, to rule over the coloured people they regard as subhumans. They are the rulers and coming here to rule.

Not in the 21st century, not when Asians have risen, have stood up, have awaken, and would not be ruled and bullied by the evil white men again.

THE REAL CANCER THAT IS PERMEATING DEEPLY INTO THE SINGAPORE SOCIETY IS ELITISM, NOT RACISM...

 ISN’T A SYSTEM OF CLASS FILTERED BY MERITOCRACY STILL A SYSTEM OF CLASS?

Lord Young (1958) , the man who coined the word meritocracy, clearly understood the real dangers of meritocracy if misused.

Meritocracy, like other man-made ideas such as capitalism and democracy, are dangerous concepts when applied to their extreme ends.

In Singapore, we have witnessed Mr Umbrage who talked down to the reporter, Mr slip-of-the-tongue Minister who called an NMP illiterate and a Senior Minister who sees anyone earning less than S$500,000 per annum mediocre.

What happens in a society when mechanisms of mobility turn into fortresses of privilege?

What happens when meritocrats become insufferably smug, much more so than aristocrats who are measurably humbled by knowing they have achieved advancement quite often not on their own merit but from inheritance?

The carapace of “merit”, Young argued, had only inoculated the winners from shame and reproach.

Put simply, winners of the “merit” game can easily and dangerously be led to believe that their success in life is solely due to themselves and others who fail only have themselves to blame.

This is the meritocracy trap that Singapore has fallen into and a big dose of socialism maybe needed to dig the society out of the deep hole.

RACISM IS THE RED HERRING OF POLITICAL DISTRACTION...

Racism is a political red herring used by the ruling elites to distract from the real issues of inequality, social justice, loss of dignity and self-esteem amongst the commoners, policies that over reward a few and under-compensate the rest on the false narrative that cognitive jobs pay a thousand times more than honest blue-collared jobs.

The hypothesis that minorities will always feel racially discriminated by a majority population is bollocks. Have you ever heard of a minority white Swiss banker, German CEO and British scientist becoming a victim of racism in Singapore?

Why is there no racism amongst the rich, educated and famous people in the world?

Billionaire Oprah is an icon in America, regardless of her race. Will Smith has no problems booking the best restaurants in Beverly Hills at short notice. The mega-rich are colour-blind. And I am also willing to bet that our highly paid MPs, mayors, and ministers of minority races are colour-blind and do not suffer the least from racism too.

Societies divided by class and caste have existed long before societies understood racism. Policies can only get you thus far and beyond which the free and ruthless market takes over.

There may be an EIP system to prevent racial enclaves in the HDB flat allocation system. But has any study been done to investigate elite racial enclaves amongst our privileged new citizens (> 500,000 of them in the last 15-20 years), PRs (>500,000 of them today) and EPs (200,000)?

Many core Singaporeans have served NS and helped built the Singapore of today and by some estimates, more than 100,000 of born and bred locals are now displaced by new Singaporeans, PRs, EPs and SPs. 

Anonymous

Covid19 -Antigen Rapid Test versus Oximeter

 With more people returning to work, there is now a new requirement for workers that have not been vaccinated to perform Antigen Rapid Test (ART) twice a week to check for virus infection. Those vaccinated need not do this presumably they are less likely to be infected. How true is this assumption when on the ground the number of vaccinated and unvaccinated people being infected are just as many, if not more among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. If this assumption is false, it is like the vaccinated would have a licence to spread the virus and the unvaccinated no such licence. The problem is that this fallacy can lead to complacency and misplaced faith in the vaccines, leading to more infections.

With the data of infection available, both the vaccinated and unvaccinated should also be tested. But this is going to be a very costly exercise both in time and money and wastage. Not everyone can afford the $10 per test ART, twice a week, and the time consuming ritual of testing and disposal of the used test kit.

Why not use the oximeter that we have been issued for this test? This is a much easier and efficient way of testing and can be conducted daily and many times a day at minimal cost and disruption. There will be no need to clear any used material as the oximeter can be used and reused for a long time. The ART kits would lead to a lot of waste to clear.

The advantages of oximeter testing over ART kits are many. As the infection can happen any time, not days in between ART test, daily test and repeated test over a day would be more efficient and effective. As both tests are just indicators and a good guide to the possibility of an infection, using oximeter would definitely be superior than ART test kits. The oxygen level is a good indicator of a person's condition. Maybe oximeter may not detect those asymptomatic cases, but it would be very cost efficient if hundreds of thousands or millions of tests are being conducted on a daily basis.

The MTF should look at the use of oximeters instead of the expensive and cumbersome ART test kits and the need to dispose all the waste material after used. It saves a lot of time and money and no need to worry for supply chain and shortage of supply.

What do you think? Anyone with a 97% oxygen level should be likely to be healthy and free from the virus. Maybe 90% or 95% would be equally good. The experts would know what is the best percentage to accept as a good indicator of being free from the virus.

Super talented Ministers and MPs deserve million dollar pay

 Two weeks ago (25 Jul), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced his new Cabinet line-up and the other political appointments in his government.

In particular, Member of Parliament for Chua Chu Kang GRC, Low Yen Ling was promoted to Minister of State at the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) as well as at the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI). She will also remain as Mayor of South West District. There are currently 5 mayors appointed by PM Lee in Singapore.

Concurrently, she has the added responsibility of being the “Coordinator of Mayors”.

PM Lee must have thought highly of Ms Low in order to appoint her to hold 3 concurrent political positions in his government, notwithstanding also making her the “Coordinator of Mayors”.

  

It’s not known how Ms Low would divide her time to manage her 3 political appointments, in addition to her MP job, while trying to take care of her family.

In an interview in 2014, she told the media that the toughest part for her has been sacrificing time with her 2 boys.

 

The above is an old post in TOC but deserving to be read again to tell the story of our super talented ministers in Singapore. Holding 4 or more important official appointments is normal in Singapore. How did these super talented individuals spread their time and attention to such a heavy workload must be the marvel of many people. How many hours do they have to work in a day? These jobs cannot be just for show or really nothing to do, just a title, like a badge of honour. They are full time jobs and each job could actually take the time of one individual 8 hours a day, 7 days a week to work on. But our super talented ministers could handle all 4 jobs and still, in this case, be a mother and a wife.

Maybe there will be MP coordinator for every 10 MPs.

Now you understand why they are deserving of being paid a million dollar. Some of them even have 10 or 20 directorships and other appointments as advisors of clubs, clans, associations etc etc to be added on.

So, please don't be envious of their million dollar salary. They worked very, very hard, including having to attend dinners practically 4 or 5 times a week.  When they sweat, it is oil that is oozing out, not water. So poor things.

Everyone of them is so busy until you lose track of  them or what they are doing, buried in their work. Some even become TV presenters on their own private time, not official time I believe.

Collateral damage of Elitism in Singapore

 This is the COLLATERAL DAMAGE caused by the ruling elites' desire to turbo charge and punch our economy well above our natural weight.

Given that we are a tiny hub city with no natural resources, inflating the economy on “steroids” – huge overflow of multinationals and foreign talent - IS NOT A SIN PER SE.

What is sinful is when the “loot” or the “artificially inflated economic cake” created by multinationals and foreign talents – whom of course will have their generous cut – is reaped by a few elite Singaporeans while leaving the majority of Singaporeans, in particular the old and under-educated ones, to fight over the crumbs.

LKY warned that if we did not vote the PAP, our women would become maids in foreign lands. But instead, we now have 40,000 core Singaporean men driving Grab, 30,000 delivering food, 16,000 driving taxis, 40,000 cleaners and landscape personnel, 30,000 security guards etc. all of whom are lowly paid compared to the imported high-flyers.

Throw in Covid-19 stresses and the mix can become explosive.

Therefore, racism may not be all about elitism but is more likely to be substantially a part of it. The cure for racism is not so different as the cure for elitism. A more egalitarian and a fairer society is a less racist society.

To a large extent, racism is just an excuse or bogeyman used to mask the real problem of elitism, class, and caste.

And in Singapore, how can one not expect to see an elitist pecking ordered society when a certain ruling party MP once said that if a senior bureaucrat is not paid a very high salary, how can she conduct a meeting with a CEO of a corporation who is paid much more?

What a set of bollocks and false narratives.

In Singapore, money has been wrongly and conveniently used as the sole yardstick to measure job responsibility.

By this definition, Jacinda Ardern would not be able to do her job effectively because she is paid much less than many corporate high-flyers and does not live in a "good class bungalow" in New Zealand.

She earns less than $500k per annum and by our Senior Minister's definition, she is supposed to be mediocre. Yet she was voted this year by Fortune magazine as the world's greatest leader, beating all our Singapore leaders by a mile.
In Singapore, the ruling elites have inadvertently created a big elephant in the room known as elitism. The scholarship system worked well at the time when the nation was poor. Today, the same system perpetuates elitism.

Why is there a $2 billion private tuition market if not abundantly explained by an artificially created intellectual arms race?

Therefore real cancer that is permeating deeply into the Singapore society is elitism, not racism.

A highly questionable and gamed meritocratic system, where the top salaries are uncapped and gamed (with obscenely low individual taxes for the million-dollar earners) while the bottom salaries are uplifted in a miserly and calibrated way (all cleaners will eventually earn $2420/-by year 2028!).

So, the government now wishes to conflate elitism, societal stress due to excessive and unfair competition, Covid-19, loss of self-esteem amongst commoners, pretty much everything suffering caused by skewed policies, and conveniently blame it on one single issue, which is racism/xenophobia.

Racism and xenophobia are merely the external manifestation of some FAR DEEPER ROOT CAUSES that the ruling elites are slow to address. 

Anonymous

Covid19 - Man proposes, God disposes 人算不如天算

SINGAPORE — Singapore's current surge in COVID-19 cases came much earlier than authorities had hoped for, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on Friday (17 September), a day after the city-state reported 910 new infections – the highest since 1 May last year.

"We had hoped that this transmission wave can come later, maybe at Transition Stage B, but it has presented itself much earlier largely because Delta is so much more infectious," he said during a virtual doorstop interview.

Since 10 August, Singapore is in the first stage – or the Preparatory Stage – of a four-part road map towards endemic COVID-19. This is followed by Transition Stage A, Transition Stage B, and lastly, Covid-19 Resilient Nation.

While this "major wave of transmission" came earlier than expected here, it is inevitable for every country that has decided to live with the virus, said Ong, who is the COVID-19 multi-ministry taskforce co-chair.

"This is almost like a rite of passage before humans and the virus achieve a new equilibrium and things stabilise," he stressed.  Yahoo News

This pandemic is the best example of Nature telling man not to be too smart.  It started with the evil Americans planting the virus in Wuhan, China, part of the sinister scheme to depopulate the world starting with China, a humanly conceived plan to dominate the world by the white men forever. It greatly backfired, when it was supposed to destroy Asians and coloured men but now tearing apart North America and Europe and losing control over it.

Would this pandemic humble the arrogance of man in trying to play God, to manipulate life on earth, to dictate and shape life on earth to their specifications? Not so easy, man. 

Singapore is using the American play book to want to control this virus, oops, to live with the virus after failing to control it. With conflicting interest and challenges, Singapore could choose to control it like China and some countries that had been quite successful in limiting the spread of the virus in the respective countries. Singapore chose the American way, drops its pants and the virus has a free play in all the crevices.  Not every country decides to live with the virus.

Only failed western countries are going own this road.  Singapore chose to go with the loser countries. and thinking that it is smart enough to control and chart its path at its own terms. Singapore is like telling the virus to toe the line and behave accordingly. The virus did not want to have anything to do with the MTF's master plan.

The wave of transmission came too early, unexpected. The virus did not behave like daft Singaporeans, act only when told or programmed by the govt and threw the whole plan into disarray. Now what?

With the earlier complacency and lapses, the Delta variants have walked into quite freely and God knows how widespread they are without full public testing. Now it is like the genie is out of the bottle and like it or not, the virus is going to live among the Singaporeans. The next arrogant expectation that the virus would stop at 2,000 might prove to be a fleeting moment, too good to believe. 

What if the spread goes exponential since no one really knows how widespread is this virus? What happen if it goes to 10,000, 20,000 or more daily and hospitalisation and death become a new normal? Where is the limit to say enough is enough? Is there a possibility of turning back the clock when the number is unbearable?

Even the white gods in USA and Europe are being humbled for thinking this was a child's play. They have everything under control, they could switch on and off as the master mind of this pandemic. And our million dollar super talents outdo the white men to dictate to the virus how to behave and when to behave? 

As it is, all things failed in the West in dealing with this virus. Our immortals still think otherwise. They had it all planned, a 4 part road map now looking like a one path downwards spiral.

CECA Issues: Populist, Xenophobia, Racism OR Existential Issues?

It seems like some PAP millionaire "leeders" are barking very bravely and loudly up the wrong tree. It seems that they are cock-sure that they are right, on the right side and right sight of the people, citizens, breadwinners, voters.

Some gangho and dare devil newbie PAP millionaire 'leeders" seems adamant that barking up the wrong tree by twisting the main rice bowl, bread and butter survival issues that the people are suffering from, as a result of the CECA favouritism to foreigners, is the right approach to tackle this pain in their neck "political" problem.

By stupidly using standard motherhood statements employed by the old guards in the past, such as "populist", "xenophobia" and "racism", they think they can threaten the voters into submission to their will, whims and wiles again?

It will not work this time around.

While old dogs cannot learn new tricks, new and young puppies cannot bark like the old dogs. These young puppies simply do not sound threatening at all. In fact, they sounded so funny, like a squirrel trying to imitate a lion's roar.

This time around, it is definitely not a populist issue, nor xenophobia, nor racism.

It is a bread and butter, survival, life and death issue - an existential issue to the people and the future generations. This is not funny. This is not political even. This is a very serious matter. This is real!

This time around, it is not going to be the PAP fighting any alternative political party or opposition politicians. It is going to be the PAP fighting for its own life and survival against the people's life and survival. Either they get kick out or the voters die of hunger and misery. Simple as that.

This time around, it is going to be the exposure of a group of people (possibly
traitors) who have been in cahoots with foreigners to cause unnecessary and undue sufferings to their own fellow Singaporeans and countrymen, women and children. This is a treachery that has lasted far too long, unnecessarily and undeservedly, which could have been easily avoided long time ago.

It is going to be the Pro-foreigners vs Singaporeans.

It is going to be the millionaires vs the Poor an Commoners.

It is going to be the Elitist Aristocrats vs the Farmers, Peasants and Workers.

It is going to be the Haves vs the Have-Nots.

It is going to be the Power-receiving (Voted) vs the Power-giving (Voters).

It is going to be our own Stupidity vs our own Wisdom!

It is THE Question that needs an Answer:

Shall we survive as a people and country or perish under the hands of some questionable PAP millionaire "leeders" whose primary concerns are their status in life, power over all of us, wealth amassed at taxpayers' expense, and their political longevity?


LIPS Service.

Nuke Cub Deal Could Make Australia 'Potential Target in Nuclear War'

The US, UK and Australia have announced a new alliance named "AUKUS" to target China, and they even made a deal to provide nuclear submarines to Australia. Such a move will potentially make Australia a target of a nuclear strike if a nuclear war breaks out even if Washington said it won't arm Canberra with nuclear weapons, because it's easy for the US to arm Australia with nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles when Australia has the submarines.

The new alliance of three English-speaking Anglo-Saxon countries is not a surprise as they share closer strategic ties with one another than with other Western countries, and this is why France's deal of submarines was canceled by Australia as Canberra can get the nuclear ones from Washington and London.

The US is using the same approach employed to contain Russia in Europe after the Cold War to contain China in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington is building a NATO-like alliance in the region, with AUKUS at the core, and the US-Japan and US-South Korea alliances surrounding it, and the Quad at the outermost level, because India, not an US ally, can't be trusted by the US.

AUKUS is at the core of the US alliance system to contain China with extreme hostility, and it should not be underestimated. If Donald Trump or a Trump-like president returns to the White House one day, this alliance could bring unpredictable and catastrophic consequences.

The threat and challenge that China is being confronted with are critical and serious. The most shocking and dangerous message about AUKUS is the US and the UK will provide nuclear submarines to Australia. Biden said at the virtual joint press conference with Morrison and Johnson that "we are launching consultations with Australia's acquisition of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines for its navy - conventionally armed."

At present, only nuclear-armed states have nuclear submarines, and a nuclear submarine is one tasked to launch a second-round nuclear strike in a nuclear war. So when Australia acquires such weaponry and technology, the country will potentially pose a nuclear threat to other countries, "because it's easy for the US and the UK to deploy nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles on the Australian submarines if they believe it's necessary, and Biden and Morrison's promises of 'not seeking nuclear weapons' are meaningless.

This would make Australia a potential target for a nuclear strike, because nuclear-armed states like China and Russia are directly facing the threat from Australia's nuclear submarines which serve US strategic demands. Beijing and Moscow won't treat Canberra as "an innocent non-nuclear power," but "a US ally which could be armed with nuclear weapons anytime." 

Anonymous

Covid19 - Comparative data on serious illnesses

 

 

The above reports in the Straits Times compare the adverse cases of people vaccinated with Pfizer/Moderna vaccines against those with Sinovac/CoronaVac vaccines.

The suspected adverse reactions of mRNA vaccines were 0.13 percent. The same data for inactivated vaccines was 0.053 percent. What did the data say of the effectiveness of the two types of vaccines in preventing adverse cases? The data is from the most authoritative main media in Singapore, data verified after due diligence by the best reporters, must be real and difficult to dispute.

Which is more effective? Sinovac-Coronavac of course.  Then why are these vaccines excluded from the national emergency scheme and  people vaccinated with these vaccines are discriminated? Why are these vaccines not preferred? Why were there so many reports claiming that mRNA vaccines are more effective when the data said otherwise?

Would someone be coming out to dispute the ST data?