Our Immigration Act to protect Singaporeans

‘WHEN I was pursuing my undergraduate studies in the United States, a Taiwanese classmate of mine was deported at the border when she entered Vancouver ("Law allows minister to decide who is deported"; Sunday)

It turned out she had been in the US under a wrong classification of student visa. She was not given any due process, much less time to return to her residence to pack, but was immediately ushered into a plane and repatriated….

Singapore's Immigration Act serves to protect its citizens….

Security is important in Singapore. While we can empathise with those who were repatriated, we must stand by our Immigration Act as our safety comes first.’

The above is a letter in the ST online by a Juliana Ang. The USA is a big country that professes an open door to immigrants. But it also has a strict immigration law to decide who it wants and who it does not want.

We too have our own Immigration Act that is under attack for deporting some foreign workers that were involved directly or indirectly in the recent Little India riot. Some corners are demanding that the 53 that were deported must be given the right to defend themselves under our law.

Actually, what is the farce about deporting 53 foreigners that were found undesirable to our social security and safety? Actually, what is the purpose of an Immigration law when millions were let in indiscriminately under the least scrutiny? Our Immigration Act is a farce for sure, but not for deporting 53 undesirables, but for letting in millions that included many undesirables, fakes and trouble makers, people who discriminate, exploit, assault and cheat our law abiding citizens of jobs and a decent life.
53 may have been deported, but how many thousands or millions will be let in tomorrow? What is the real farce?

The real farce is that our Immigration law, if there is, is there to protect foreigners more than the citizens. Foreigners are here to compete with citizens unfairly, often by fraud and deceit over many areas of enterprise. If the Immigration Act is to protect citizens, it should give good jobs to citizens first, or citizens should have the first right of refusal. Only jobs that citizens do not want or cannot do should go to foreigners. If not it is a betrayal of the interests and rights of the citizens. Our Immigration Act is as good as no Immigration Act. Not forgetting allowing the world’s rich to buy up the few properties in the island and pushing the prices beyond the average citizens.

Our Immigration Act should not just protect the social security and physical safety of the citizens but also the jobs, rights and well being of citizens over foreigners.

DEAR TRS, I JUST TURNED 55 AND CPF DON'T WANT TO RETURN ME MY MONEY!

Dear The Real Singapore,

My well wishes to the next General Elections. Pray and hope the best last longer.

Sir, my name is UTHAYA KUMAR S/O P. THANGIAH, NRIC No: S1338799J. I am a Singaporean and on the 2nd December 2013, I have reached my 55 and I had great plans to utilize my CPF money, where my first priority is to get a nice place to live in and put my daughter to school in Indonesia. Purchase essential items for the home including a motor bike for transportation. 




All he got from his CPF savings was $5,000.

The above is the intro para of a letter written by Kumar and posted in The Real Singapore. This plea is going to be repeated by many Singaporeans when the hit 55 and found their savings untouchable. The Govt has decided to keep it for them for safe keeping to last them a life time.

Merry Christmas. No present for this Christmas for Kumar.

Appealing to the wisdom of the masses

What is the best education model for our children? This seems to be the hottest topic since the parents showed their displeasure on the PSLE. Some of the concerns are genuine and logical, some emotional and hazy. With the amount of research done in the field of education, with the great number of our teaching professionals being educated in the best universities, with a string of degrees to prove, we must have plentiful of them to tell the MOE what is the best system to adopt. If that is not enough, scouring the information available around the world should not be that difficult.
 
Why is there a sudden realization that things are not doing well and things must be changed? The obvious answer is that among all the experts in education, there is no agreement as to what is the best model for educating the young. There are so many schools with different values and assumptions of what is considered good for each country, the truth is that no one is wiser.
 
Now this perennial problem that is driving the parents and children crazy is given a new platform for airing, a kind of natcon. And the MOE is seriously looking into this issue and is also sounding out the parents for their wish lists. How many super talented Education Ministers have gone through the mills in their terms of office and how many changes have been made throughout the years? And strangely, the answer seems to be so elusive. Maybe every minister stepping into the MOE shoe deserves to tour the world to scout for the best education system.
 
There is the utilitarian school that advocates competitive education and making high demands from the children, to draw out the best from them, leading to hot housing. There are the advocates for a less stressful school system to allow the children to enjoy and be happy while in schools. There are many other variations in between. The bottom line is that parents want their children to be happy, less stressful and came out excellent in their education. Of course this combination is the best but unrealistic. The problem facing everyone, the MOE, teachers and parents, is how to find the right mix, less stressful, more fun, to give the children a good time in school and without compromising on the quality of education. A daunting and impossible task to think that this is achievable.
 
Maybe a buffet spread with all the variations and allowing the parents to make their choice and knowing very well the consequences of the different models. What I think the likely choice would still be the current system of high pressure hothousing model. What the parents would like is no choice, just an easy going, less stressful model for all children to enjoy schooling, with lesser competition. When they are faced with a buffet spread, many would have no choice but to want the best for their children, and sacrificing the more forgiving model when the children will grow up a happier child.
 
If there is a perfect model in the first place, the super talented ministers of the past would have found and delivered it to the happy parents and children. Maybe at primary level the schools should be more loving, more forgiving given the fact that nature would make most children to be children. Let the children have an easier time in primary level. The competition should come in at secondary level when the children are more mature and able, and a little better to know what they are in for.
 
I don’t think any education expert has the right answer. Ok I am not kpkb so I am not supposed to provide a solution. Neither am I paid to provide a solution.
This is Christmas. Relac.

3rd World in 1st World or 1st World in 3rd World?

Still vividly remember the slogan Garden in a City or City in a Garden. It is a nice cliché, sounds nice and meaning nice. What about a 3rd World in a 1st World City or a 1st World in a 3rd World City? Whichever way you look at it, it sure sounds just as nice. And it does not give one a sense of drama.

Is Sin City now a 3rd World City or is there a 3rd World in Sin City? The recent happenings that filled the pages of the media do not give the impression that it is a 1st World City. With a population of 5.4m of which more than a third came from the 3rd World, the composition will ensure that the visual impact is not going to be 1st World. Just hop onto a train and you will instantly be hit by the presence of 3rd World. The noise, the smell, the mannerism, and ungraceful and uncouth attitude speak all of 3rd World. There is no denying this truth.

What else are on the media? Street rioting with rioters throwing stones and bottles at the police, and cars burning? This is definitely 3rd World stuff. Unruly mobs in the tens or hundreds of thousands, all straying aimlessly, eating, drinking, urinating and shitting in the very same place. Confirmed, 3rd World. Open your windows for a whiff of the scented air, better than haze.

How about the bizarre, headless and limpless body floating in the canal in the heart of the city? This must be one notch better than floating pigs in the river, or floating body in the water tank flowing into the homes for consumption.

What about jilted lovers slashing their potential ‘bribes to be’ in broad day light? What about daylight robbery? Road rages where people got beaten up, especially taxi drivers? And there is a booming red light district that is growing and expanding across the island, even into the heartland. Good stuff for the GDP.

And there are drunken brawls for the sake of vibrancy and fun with innocents being bashed for no reasons. Women being rudely accosted in public by the drunkards? And tropical diseases are spreading in the most expensive part of the city cause by mosquito breedings.

Welcome to the 3rd World in a 1st World City or a 1st World in a 3rd World City. How about a new slogan for the tourist board, ‘Welcome to experience the 1st World and 3rd World in one stop’? Or better still, ‘See the 1st World cohabitating in harmony with the 3rd World’ and witness how 3rd World commits less crime than 1st World. Or see how the 3rd World is helping the 1st World by creating good jobs for the 1st World.

Sin City is getting more attractive, more exotic and full of surprises.

Let’s make nasi padang affordable

 HDB flats are affordable as they are priced according to the income of the buyer. It is quite easy to compute the income of young home buyers and price the flats according to how much they would have saved in the CPF and how much they would be able to pay for monthly mortgage over 30 years.
 
I think it would be equally easy to make the price of nasi padang affordable to the young people and also to those who are earning millions. For the former, a plate of nasi padang at $2.50 would be just right since they have not much left after paying for housing and if they dare to commit to a car, and to live perilously by having children too.
 
For those big earners, a $50 a plate nasi padang should be very affordable I am sure. Can throw is a glass of bandung for free and for good service a pack of tissue to wipe the mouth clean after the makan.
 
This is how the affordable formula is supposed to work. The price is pegged according to what the buyers can afford.
 
What do you think?

Thailand – Democrats do not believe Democracy

The Democrats in Thailand have had enough of Democracy and proclaimed that they do not believe in Democracy anymore. Can you believe it? They claimed that Democracy does not guarantee majority rule! They are the majority and always lose in a general election. So they want to do away with Democracy and replaced with the tyranny of the minority, with the leaders being appointed by self appointed righteous men and women who professed that they are not corrupt while others are.
 
Why the Democrats want to throw away Democracy? Since 1992, they have not won a general election. So they believe that they have the majority but the winners of the general election are supported by the minority. Strange that a minority can win a general election when the winners must be the majority.
 
They have big turnouts in street demonstrations recently. They did want to know that if the Red Shirts were to march in the streets, they would make the Yellow Shirts look so small. But the Democrats are claiming that the majority of the people are behind them. Then why not stand in the next general election if they have the majority supporting them? The truth, the majority, if there is, is only in Bangkok among the rich elite. The masses of Thai electorate across the country are the majority and this majority is not with the Democrats. The Democrats know this and know in a democratic election they will lose as the majority of the Thais are not with them. So they are now going to turn away from Democracy and to install a govt by a few self appointed elite.
 
Down with Democracy!

An oasis in the 3rd World

What makes Singapore so different and so special? Someone once said, we build an oasis in a 3rd World region. In this oasis of modernity, everything works. We have an infrastructure that worked, an environment for creature comfort and a safe and clean environment. We created all these for people who are looking for such an environment to live and work in. And these are the people from the rich industrialized west and also the rich warlords and royalties of the 3rd World.
 
You can say that much about impressing the westerners from the developed world. And they would be pleasantly surprised to find such a place in the 3rd World where everything works. The water is drinkable from the tap. You press a button it works. You press a switch the light comes on. We take these simple things for granted. But they are miracles in many 3rd World countries. The people from the developed world would die to be here than elsewhere to do their business.
 
And those from the 3rd World, even if they are royalties or filthy rich, they have not seen anything like this outside of their palaces and mansions except filth. It is something they would feel comfortable and like to live in. Yes, they would prefer here than their 3rd World environment unless they did not want to leave their homes when taking a step outside is a walk into poverty, disorder and filth.
 
And for the rest of the 3rd World creatures, they have never seen anything like this in their life times and would never be able to enjoy them in their home countries. The road sides or the pavements, the walkways, are many many times cleaner and more comfortable than their homes. Walking into a shopping centre is like walking into a palace, and much better, much more comfortable.
 
Why do we need to go around the 3rd World countries begging for them to be here? They are crawling here, forming long queues. Even those from the developed world would want to be here than elsewhere.
 
We are selling ourselves too cheaply, like unwanted cheap prostitutes. We even offer ourselves to cheap foreign workers in large numbers. Is it something to be proud of, something that we want and can called achievements? We created a 1st World environment, 1st world public transport system, 1st world infrastructure only to flood them with more than a million or two million 3rd World inhabitants. Is that really what we want? Swiss standard of living amidst the 3rd World?

Be prepared for a glut in dormitories

According to Chuan Jin and his MOM, there are some tightening in the intake of foreigners into the country and some SMEs already kpkb like backside burning. So this must be true and the inflow of foreign workers is slowing down. What is surprising is the announcement by Hsien Loong that the govt will be building more dormitories for foreign workers.

Remember just a few years back when the country was faced with a severe shortage of public housing when more than a million foreigners were brought in while HDB wound down its building programme? Many simply brushed this off as a case of left hand and right hand not knowing what the other was doing. A case of bad synchronising of govt policies, or is it? Could it be perfectly synchronised to achieve the desire results, high property prices? The shortage was criminal and let many Sinkies emptying all their savings just to get a roof over their heads. And now everyone is talking about downgrading except the super rich and the ministers and top civil servants. And the young people are the most badly hurt, just starting to work, save a little bit, all coughed out including blood, and not enough, and had to buy smaller and smaller units of public flats.

What has this got to do with a glut in dormitories? If Chuan Jin is going ahead with his tightening of foreign workers policy, the number coming in must go down. And if we are going to build more dormitories when lesser are coming in, would there be a possibility of building too many dormitories for too few workers resulting in a glut of dormitories?

Or it has all been perfectly synchronised, the net inflow is still going to be higher and the pool of foreign workers will keep on increasing, thus needing more dormitories. This makes sense if one is looking at the 6.9m target in 2030. So they is no mismatched, no such thing as left hand not knowing what right hand it doing. There would be no glut of dormitories as more foreign workers will still be flowing in. Tiok bo?

Support fare hike, the poll so far

163 bloggers have responded to this little survey to support or not to support the fare hike. 159 or 97% have kee chiu not to support the fare hike. Only 2 or 1% kee chiu to support the fare hike and another 2 just say chin chai.

KNN, why so many people kee chiu not to support fare hike? Why this sample is so different from those who told the minister they are supporting the fare hike? Ok, netizen's views are always wrong view. The views of netizens are never representative of the silent majority that are presumably always right.

We still have a few more days to see if there is a real swing, or a last minute swing like the Presidential Election when Cheng Bock was leading until the very last hour when suddenly the votes changed and ended with him losing. So there is always this likelihood that nearer the end of the counting things may take a dramatic change.

Those who don't support the fare hike better kee chiu to make their point and not let last minute changes swing the vote.

Cheers.

How to programme the unthinking to think the way you want them to think

Heheheh. I think many people would not like what this statement implies and would not think they have been programmed to think by other people. The pathetic truth is that many have been programmed unknowingly, unconsciously, and are not aware of it.

Let me just quote one simple example. Singaporeans like to complain, like to kpkb. So the top talents turn around and said, if you want to complain, please come out with a solution. It is so easy to complain, but no one wants to offer any solution. So the buck is passed back to the complainant. You see, just because I am paid several millions, it is not my job to solve your problem. It is you the complainant to solve your problem, if you want to complain. Passing the buck is a carefully honed skill you know. Now the monkey is off their back and back on the back of the complainants.

And this is what unthinking Sinkies have been programmed to accept and think it is right that the people who complained must come up with a solution, if not just shut up. It is not the responsibility of the people who are paid millions to do his job to come up with the solution. And the silliest of it all, you are a nobody, you come up with a suggestion, and you think it can get implemented by a ministry or a stats board? You think as a nobody, people will listen to your solution, you have the in dept knowledge to get a problem solved? If it is so easy for a layperson to offer a solution, it would have been solved long ago. In reality, many solutions are simply rejected for the right reason or wrong reason or because of other vested interests. Not that they are not good, not that the super talents did not think of it. It is just not in their interest.

Now where did I get this idea that unthinking or daft Sinkies are being programmed to think like this, cannot complain unless one must have a solution? I was listening to the Talk About programme hosted by Kenneth Liang, and this kind of thinking came out from a young man. That was exactly what he said without knowing that this kind of thinking was planted in him by people in authority. He must have heard it many times in many reports in the media and in parliament as well. So it becomes a part of him, you want to complain, where is your solution?

See, it is so easy to get such silly ideas in the minds of unthinking Sinkies and it becomes part of their psychic and mentality. And they unconsciously believe that this is the right thing to say. They did not know that no one would take them seriously, maybe some lip service like ‘good idea’, and next please… if they really and stupidly come up with a solution.

They did not bother to know that these people are collecting millions and are supposed to solve national problems, not create national problems and ask the grumblers to solve the problems themselves. Weird? No, just uniquely Singapore. We are brought up in a system of falsehood and false reasoning without knowing what is the better truth or better quality reasoning. They think it is alright and very clever for someone who is paid millions to ask the layperson not paid a single cent, not a professional or expert, to solve the problems raised.

Many Sinkies support fare hike

Someone quoted Lui Tuck Yew, the Transport Minister, that he was glad many Sinkies support the fare hike by the Fare Review Mechanism Committee's recommendations, particularly those concessions. Should one read the support for all the recommendations and concessions together, or support only for the fare concessions, or support for the fare hike and others? Read that sentence in one mouthful gives the impression that the Sinkies are in support of fare hike and fare concessions, all in.

Just to make things a bit clearer, I have set up a poll on the right column. This poll only refers to one item, fare hike, so as not to be too confusing. Those who support the fare hike can kee chiu. Others can vote anyhow. Vote ching chai also can.

Myth 235 - They myth of difficulties in getting a job in Sin

Many Sinkies are crying father and mother that getting a job is so difficult in Sin City. Some have experienced writing and sending out hundreds of letters without a reply. As for the PMETs, they knew what it was like and many have refused to apply anymore, given up hope. Same goes to those above 50 years old, also no hope, has beens, finito, unless they are very well connected.

This is the general impression given and repeated in cyberspace. There are so many horror stories posted in Gilbert Goh’s Transitioning.org blog for the unemployed. The cases sounded genuine, and in most cases are.

The funny thing is that foreigners have no problem find a job in this Sin City except Sinkies. Maybe they are called Sinkies not for nothing. Sinkies have no place in Sin City. There are more than a million foreigners happily employed here and in many high paying jobs. How could Sinkies claim that they could not find decent jobs here? This must be a lie or a myth.

Many foreigners don’t even need to set foot here before landing a job. They are offered jobs in their home countries and could start work the moment they landed in this island of opportunities for foreigners. And many many more are coming as Sinkies make way for them and reduced themselves to social scums, whole day kpkb for no reasons but only themselves to blame. They are just not good enough. And many Sinkies are saying so too, from the top to those quitters who came back to soak up whatever they could find here.

The only thing one can say about these Sinkies is that they deserve it. They no longer know how to fight back, how to scratch, and happily let the assholes tagged them as daft, lazy, expensive, timid and good for nothing, unemployable. And everyday they can only see plane loads of foreigners happily landing in Changi to take up jobs waiting for them here.

How did this happen and for so long, and everyone is so comfortable about this state of affair?

PS. Max posted this in TRE.
'I have a Master degree in Logistics from a top ten Australian university. Been jobless at 48, for 3 years having been laid off after losing job to foreigner. Applied for PR for my foreigner wife whom I met and married while working overseas but was rejected by ICA.
Having applied numerous jobs without any response, finally found one without competition and an all Singaporeans company. Am now driving a taxi, no complains about foreigners, because 100% Singaporeans in this company.'

The truth is that Sinkies have been urged to go for higher education and now found out that they are over qualified. So must downgrade to be taxi drivers. Their high qualification becomes a liability. Top jobs are reserved for FTs, low jobs for FWs. Sinkies with high qualifications unfit for both.

Contract jobs getting popular with irresponsible employers

More PMETs are being hired on contracts, according to figures from MOM showing that some 70,000 PMETs were hired on contracts last year, up from 67,000 the year before in 2011. The contract period for PMETs typically runs from 6 months to 1 year.

Ask the Sinkies how many can afford to survive on contract work when they are committed to a 30 year mortgage and a host of family and social commitments that must be paid in cash every month?
Ask the foreigners and none will be against it as they know they are not here for the long haul or their commitments are not like the albatross on the neck of the Sinkies.

These conflicting realities and demands in the lives of the Sinkies are simply brushed off as non issues. No one will bother about it. Sinkies are soft, timid, lazy and it is their fault. Why can’t they be like the foreigners and work on short contract terms?

Now, would the Sinkies know who to blame for the plight and the fix that they are in now? Do they understand that the system is designed against their well being? Would the Sinkies wise up and decide what is good for them and do the necessary to help themselves, to change the system that is loaded against them but in favour of the foreigners and the elite?

The housing mortgage is a 30 year monthly repayment that must be paid every month. The household expenses cannot wait. The children’s schooling and expenses cannot wait. The monthly bills cannot wait. Contract jobs is contrary to the well being of Sinkies when they are faced with continuous barrage of bills and payments and any period out of job and without income is unbearable and crippling to their life style.

The proliferation of contract jobs offered to Sinkies must be regulated and reduced. How can Sinkies live with impermanent and temporary income when the expenditure is continuous? Companies offering contract jobs to Sinkies when the job is permanent in nature is irresponsible and unfit to be good corporate citizens. They are exploiting Sinkies and compromising their livelihood for short term benefits.

There are jobs that are temporary in nature that requires short term contracts, fair enough. But there have been many cases exposed that the nature of the jobs are permanent in nature but being offered on contract terms that detrimental to Sinkies with their list of family commitments.
So?

I fainted twice

Many of you must be quite happy registering yourself in the Do Not Call register to stop cold calls or nuisance calls from marketing people from disturbing you. I have been informed of the Personal Data Protection Act.
 
S37(1) of the PDPA, a message is a specified message if the purpose of the message or if one of the purposes is to offer, to advertise, promote or offer to supply or provide any of the following
ii. goods or services or
ii) a business opportunity or an investment opportunity
 
What is the meaning of all this? It is like that, with the Do Not Call thing in effect on 2 Jan 2014, if a sales representative is to make a cold call or to invite a client to attend a seminar or something like that, and the client has registered with the DNC, the sales representative can be fined up to $10,000 for making the call to the client. Damn serious offence, better be very careful who you call.
 
And it is the responsibility of a sales representative to check the DNC list before calling. I think you have to pay everytime you check a number. I can’t believe what I read. I fainted, woke up and relooked at the message again, and fainted again.
 
Is this real, that it is the responsibility of a sales person to check if a person he is calling is in the DNC list? My God, I have no word to describe this insanity. No sales rep is going to call anyone anymore. And many of you will not be receiving any calls for fear of being fined $10,000. A thief that broke into a house may be fined how much? A hooligan or road rage case when someone is severely beaten, how much would be the fine? In this DNC thing, making a call can be fined up to $10,000. And oh, a text message like SMS or fax is the same as calling.
 
What is happening?

The Americans bullying another superpower wannabe

The way the Americans manhandled the female Indian diplomat in New York is simply humiliating. She was handcuffed in public, stripped down and even had a cavity search done on her. The Indians are furious about this demeaning conduct of the American police. There was no respect for decency and courtesy extended to a diplomat of another country. They are treating her like another of those from the Third World country. It was abused and an assault on human dignity.
 
India is rightly not bemused and angry. And India is behaving exactly how a big power should, go for a tit for tat. India is not going to be push around, not even by the Americans. India is going to subject the same treatment to American diplomats in India.
 
This is something that China must learn. As a big power it has to behave like a big power and mush give the other guy a bloody nose if being whacked. If not, China would be kicked around not only by the USA, but also by Japan and pesky countries like the Philippines.
 
In international relations dominated by the American and western powers, the language is power. And if one has the power, one must use it. There is nothing to be shy about it. Let the pesky countries scream. That is the only thing they could do and the screaming will die down after a while and they will learn not to misbehave. If not dealt with this way, they will keep on coming back to scratch at China.
 
After this incident, India will be accorded the respect it deserves as a big power from the Americans. The Americans would not dare to do it again to any Indian diplomat or abuse India in any way.
 
China must look at this case and learn the India way to deal with another country, big or small. As a big power, you have to behave like a big power to be respected. If not, just sit on them and let them feel the weight. That is what the Americans have been doing all the while and this time on India. And India is shoving the Americans off its back. It is not going to be a pushover. China must not be a pushover or it would be pushed to a corner in a very humiliating way that is unbecoming of a big power.

SMRT asking for fare hike

Is the hike in fare justifiable? In the past, before a hike there would be talks of hike ok lah so long as service would be improved. And after so many years and so many hikes, has the service improved?
 
This time the hike is due to operating cost. Sure, with the frequent breakdowns and the massive changes to rectify the faults, cost must have gone up. But why was there a need for such massive and expensive cost expenditure to upgrade and replace worn out parts and equipment?
 
For many years, the transport operators had been chalking up hundreds of millions of profits annually and the top management was happily enjoying the fat bonuses. And no one was complaining about the good windfall. Recently, after the repeated disruption of services, it was revealed that maintenance were compromised or neglected in the past. Is this true? If so, the big profits of past years were partially due to the savings on maintenance cost. It is thus time for SMRT to cough out what it took from maintenance to plough back into the system. The higher maintenance and operating costs are just payback time and should not be passed to the commuters.
 
And don’t forget the more than a billion charity from the public coffer to buy more trains and equipment that should have come from the operators.
 
So, is this fare hike justifiable? And no one is mumbling about improving quality of service. How much profit are the operators making or are there incurring losses?
 
What do you think?

Snowden - Man of The Year in GUARDIAN

Year of Snowden and his revelations

Below is an extract of an article in China Daily on 2013-12-13 by Chen Weihua

There is no doubt in my mind that former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden should have been Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2013.... if the Person of the Year is someone who has done the most to influence the world in 2013 for better or worse, then Snowden should have had no competitor this year.
Snowden's revelations since early June awakened the whole world - government, corporations and ordinary people alike.
People have realized that they are under massive surveillance, through various NSA programs, such as PRISM, XKeyscore and Tempora, and the mining of telephone metadata. They have had to redefine the word privacy....

Snowden's revelations came as the US was busily attempting to label China a major hacker against the US, and showed that whatever China or any other country is doing in cyberspace simply pales to insignificance compared with the actions of the NSA. The NSA has not only hacked into China's cell phone and telecom companies as well as universities and hospitals, it has also spied on many other countries, including many of its allies, as well as 35 world leaders.
Last week, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom, said that his paper had published only 1 percent of the 58,000 files passed on by Snowden. If 1 percent of Snowden's disclosures are so damning of the US, it's hard to imagine what the impact would be if the remaining 99 percent is also made public....

While Snowden is widely seen as a hero and a whistleblower, the US government and many US politicians have tried hard to paint him as a criminal and traitor. The US federal prosecutors have charged Snowden with violating the 1917 Espionage Act....

I don't know why Time magazine did not select Snowden as the Person of the Year. Hopefully it is not because that the controversial nature of his revelations inside the US. It is certainly not controversial at all in the rest of the world....

If the arrival of Pope Francis has been a breath of fresh air, the revelations by Snowden have been an earthquake whose shockwaves have been felt around the world. Time magazine got it wrong. There was no one more influential this year.
The author, based in Washington, is deputy editor of China Daily USA.

A great PR man doing a great PR job

Say whatever you like about Baey Yam Keng, he is indeed a first class PR man. Just for a $2.50 nasi padang meal, he is able to arouse enough publicity to himself that no one or organization could attract even after spending several million dollars on a top notch PR agency to do such a job.
 
Baey Yam Keng’s name is in everyone’s lip. His photographs, selfies, are everywhere, in the main media and social media. His facebook is hot. He outshines everyone, even the PM and the President as the most talked about guy in town. He even out done the Little India riot. No one is going to forget him. He monopolises the news for a whole week and still counting.
 
After this term in office he could go back to PR and will be the most sought after guy in the industry to carry any advertising job. You just have to give it to him when generating publicity is concerned. Well done man.
 
The whole publicity stance costs him $2.50, meals and drinks included. Oh, he added another $3.70 for another meal to extend the publicity campaign and raise it to a higher pitch. Can any PR agency do it, all $6.20 to be in everyone’s lips and in every media? 

Baey’s the man.

Time to say a few good words for the men in blue

Never in any country had the police run away from rioters without hitting back. Never in a riot that the only people injured or got beaten up were the policemen. What happened in Little India is uniquely Singapore.
 
Over the years, with a more educated and well disciplined people that are law abiding, the law enforcers too have gradually adopted a new doctrine that is more people friendly. The police and the people are the same people of the country. And this fact is made more pertinent by the number of NS men in the force. The men in blue and the people do not see each other as the opposite and people felt very comfortable with the men in blue, often making themselves a nuisance in police posts and burdening the police with their silly idiosyncracies.
 
When the traffic accident happened, the police and civil defence officers rushed to the ground to render help and first aid. Never would they imagine that they would be set upon by a mob and became victims themselves. The attack must have shocked the officers who could not know how to react except to run for safety. They forgot that their role was to keep peace and control the rowdy crowd. I would not claim that officers were complacent. It was just out of the normal.
 
When the police cars and ambulance were overturned and torched, they were more in awe of the events exploding in front of them. Most of the young officers would not have seen such violence in their life time. Everything had been peaceful in Little India. It was only a traffic accident. How come like that?
 
There were no thoughts of retaliation, to whack the rioters. This in a way helped not to escalate the rioting, or it could encourage the mobs to be more brazen, depending on how one looked at it. The aftermath is that no one can accuse the men in blue of police brutality. If there was, it was mob brutality against the policemen.
 
When reinforcement finally came, the officers went in only with one purpose, to arrest the rioters. The baton was never used. In one video clip that was circulating, the officers were just escorting the rioters to the police van. The pedestrian spectators were more worried for the policemen than them. The rioters could run or turn violent. And many of the spectators were shouting to the men in blue to cuff the rioters. The policemen were so civil to disbelief. They were treating the rioters just like any other Singaporeans, friendly and without any sense of anger. In most countries, the rioters in the hands of the police or in the process of arresting them would be rewarded with several whacks of the baton to let them know the heavy hand of the law.
 
Not in Singapore, not our men in blue. Fortunately this was a small version of a full scale riot. Our men could be in bokok or in the emergency wards if the situation blossomed into a pandemonium. Actually it was just like the exercises the men in blue held as part of their training. No undue force needed or applied.
 
The proof of the civility of our men in blue was a total absence of wild accusations against them, that the rioters were brutally bashed up. The home policemen of these rioters would have had a whale of a time teaching the rioters who was the boss.
It was a happy ending for both parties though the men in blue took all the blows and all the injuries, including the embarrassing torching of their vehicles and ambulances. The last figure tossing around was 16 vehicles. Ouch, quite some money to be burnt and really pai seh.
 
Now what? The police really need to revise their doctrines in handling a mob, especially a foreign one when rioting is normal in their country. And the police must know that they would get violent and could maim and kill. The police need to indoctrinate into their officers that this is not wayang kulit. This is the real stuff and they need to be more exertive and even teach the rioters with their brand of violence to keep them in check. Rioters only know the language of force. They used force to intimidate and to achieve their goals. A civilized and nice nice police force is going to look not very nice at the end of a riot in the truest sense.
 
Let’s be prepared in case more violence came their way. The men in blue cannot be too nice to a mob or they could get themselves killed. And they were able to escort the bus driver and his female attendant to safety but not before they were bashed by the rioters. At least they got out of it alive. There was bravery and the commitment to protect and save lives. Kudos to the men in blue. This called for a medal for the few brave guys. It was so lucky none of them ended in black plastic bags.
 
PS. I read in the main media this morning that some rioters are accusing the men in blue of violence during custody. Now there is a big investigation going on and the police deputy commissioner has said that if the allegation is false, the accusers will see justice in return. This is like a murderer accusing the authority of violation of human rights when his back is whipped. The rioters cannot be expecting to be escorted around by pretty nurses do they?

The creepy Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

The last negotiation for the TPP was held in Singapore with the Americans having very high hope that Singapore as the Chairman of the talk would deliver to Obama an agreement before the end of the year. Somehow the Americans have this very loyal and diligent ally to do its bidding in getting things done when the Americans are no longer able to do so with so much distrust it has built up over the years. No one really trusts the Americans anymore, not its western allies. And the most remarkable thing is that the American Congress was also suspicious of this TPP. In the words of Nancy Pelosi, she urged the Congress to approve the TPP as time was the essence and once it is signed, Congress would then have a chance to know what the TPP is all about.

Can you believe that? The American Congress was asked to sign a blank cheque without knowing what they were signing? And if the American Congress refused to sign something they did not know, why would any country feel so confident and so good that they should blindly sign on the dotted line? Are these people stupid or crazy or being bribed or under a spell?


The TPP has aroused intense suspicion and much opposition in the US Congress but not from some of the loyal American cronies who think of nothing but to go along. At the Singapore session, the Asian negotiating partners too have refused to bow to Washington’s pressure to conclude the deal before the end of they year so that Obama can celebrate Christmas with this Christmas present.

One important feature of the TPP that is sending cold sweat down the spines of the negotiating parties is its secretive nature. Many things are concealed and the parties negotiating it have no clue whatsoever. It is really amazing, really bizarre that the Americans could proposed a trade pact with secret terms that the signing parties have no privy to and are expected to sign, or presumably stupid enough to do so. And there are some parties who pretended to be so intelligent and so knowledgeable to sign the pact without knowing the secretive parts of the pact. Or maybe these few insiders knew what were the non disclosed terms in the pact. But this is very unlikely. How could they be so privileged to know when the American Congress was not allowed to know?

‘This secret treaty gives the public no chance to examine the contents,
and even govts have no right to comment.’ From the look of it, this treaty is going to be hundreds of times more dangerous than the CECA Singapore signed with India. Should Singaporeans allow the govt to go ahead and sign this TPP when the American Congress is also feeling uncomfortable and insecure and signing it would only make them look like fools?

There must be more transparency and the parties signing the agreement must know what they are signing. This is basic. The Americans are as good as saying, trust us, no need to worry, it is good for you. My God, how many govts are willing to be treated like naïve little children, offered a lollipop and happily impress their thumb prints on a piece of paper that may sign the lives of their citizens away?

If the Singapore govt is going to sign this TPP, should the Singaporeans object to it and demand to know what the govt is signing? We did not ask what the govt was signing when the CECA was signed. Now we know and the citizens would want to tear it to pieces. Are Singaporeans daft enough to allow the govt to sign another sweeping agreement that they did not know and neither does the govt?

Is this fiction or is this real? This signing of the TPP is like something the British colonialists made the Temengong signed in the early 19th century. But then the Temengong did not have any option as the offer could not be resisted At the moment the Singapore govt seems to be the most comfortable with the TPP and is behaving like the pipe piper. It is so scary.

We are immigrants!!!!???

Thomas Cook posted this in TRE on the riot in Little India..
 
‘I summarize it in few points below & hope you take note it and pass to as many friends & citizens as possible:
Today’s America prosper due to the early immigrants arrive there.
Today’s Germany prosper due to the early immigrants arrive there.
Today’s Australia prosper due to the early immigrants arrive there.
Today’s Singapore prosper due to our fore parents arrive here.
Need I say more?’
 
What this Thomas Cook was implying is that we are immigrants and forever immigrants and we must open our arms to welcome more immigrants. I am not going to deal with the size of this little piece of rock we called a country. Anyone who cannot imagine how small we are and still keep calling for more people to settle here is not only mad but dangerous to the well being of the citizens of this island.
 
My main point is that our fore fathers or our parents are immigrants. We are not immigrants. We are born here, built a modern city on the sweat on our backs. We own this place. We are not immigrants anymore.
 
Our forefathers came to a place that was hardly a country. The early Americans and Australians went to different lands as immigrants. Their roots were immigrants, but the present Americans and Australians are no longer immigrants.
 
What many people are spouting is that we are forever immigrants and we have no right to this land. We must share it with whoever that comes along and wears a badge, ‘I am immigrant’. How foolish can these people be? They do not understand what is ownership? They stupidly want to share whatever they have with foreigners and they believe that they owe it to the foreigners. The homes or properties that you bought and owned, you want to share with anyone that comes along?
 
Sinkies must start to get rid of this silly immigrant mentality. That is history. Today you are owners of this island. You want to invite foreigners here to kick you out of this island? You believe the foreigners have the same equal rights as you to be here?
Now which twit is implanting this silliness in the minds of daft Sinkies? Sinkies who believe in this nonsense deserve to be boat people one day. PMEs deserve to lose their jobs to foreigners. Our children deserve to be deprived of university places. Sinkies don’t deserve to be owners of this island…coz you are immigrants. Damn it!

Send them home

The police have completed their investigation and 28 foreign workers had been charged in court for rioting. Another 53 are waiting for deportation. Some were given warnings. This is the end of the first chapter of this nasty incident. Hopefully there is no need to open a few more chapters and followed by a sequel. The accident that caused the death of the foreign worker by a bus is still under investigation and this would ensure the story would not end just yet.
 
There were comments that our laws may not have been fair for not giving the foreign workers due for deportation a fair hearing. But our laws do not provide that comfort. The arrival of foreigners to work here is on their free will, like someone accepting a job offer voluntarily. The owner of this land has the same right to ask the foreigner to leave without the need to give a reason, or like an employee resigning from a company without the need to give a reason.
 
Under the Immigration Act, we do have a provision ‘that someone has acted contrary to our interest or public security or safety, to ask them to leave.’ Throwing the book to the foreign workers may appear to be harsh as these are people from different countries, different culture and different socio economic background. They could be behaving normally as rioting is normal to them in their country. But this does not mean that we have to accept their normal and to tolerate their wildness and lawlessness. They have to accept what is normal to us, to be civilized, to learn what modernity is all about and the social norms of a developed country. We must not go down to their level.
 
This also does not imply that people in developed countries, like ours or the west, would not behave like animals. The aggressive and boorish behaviour of some foreigners that are in the PME levels have been in display many times, with Sinkies on the receiving end. The Law Minister should make use of this same Immigration Act to send those unruly and uncouth animals home as well. We must apply the Act fairly across the spectrum of people regardless of their income and appointments.
 
Send them home if they are nasty to Sinkies. This is our right ya? We need to make an example out of some foreigners that think they own this country. Start by sending the cyclist in Vivo City home. No reason is needed. That will send a message to the hooligans in suits that they are also hooligans and will be dealt with like hooligans. We do not have to live with monkeys.

US gangster behaviour in the South China Sea and the PACIFIC OCEAN

Communication key to avoid sea incidents

Global Times | 2013-12-16 0:43:01 By Global Times

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The US media has reported, citing sources from the American military, that on December 5 the Cowpens, a US guided missile cruiser, was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision with a Chinese warship when the Cowpens was near the Liaoning aircraft carrier in the South China Sea.

Anonymous sources from the US side called it a "dangerous maneuver" and said the US has made protests to China through diplomatic and military means. A statement issued by the US Pacific Fleet said that the State Department has taken the issue up with China and thinks the acts of both "not uncommon." As of last night, the Chinese military has not responded. This is not the first time that Chinese and American warships have confronted each other in the South China Sea. Airborne confrontations have also occurred often.

It is a fact that China has already announced three regions in the South China Sea as its military areas. The outside world knows that they are used for scientific research and training of the Liaoning aircraft carrier. Meanwhile, many areas in the South China Sea are China's exclusive economic zones. Clearly, the US missile cruiser has come to China's threshold and posed a threat to China's military security.

If the American navy and air force always encroach near China's doorstep, "confrontation" is bound to take place. In 2001, the collision between an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet was such an accident resulting from constant confrontation between the two.

The US side demands the Chinese navy and air force abide by "rules." Such rules are only served at American convenience to conduct inspections and show off its military strength. They do not belong to international laws. With its overall strength as the backing, the US forces the world to abide by them.

But the US should not go too far. Especially, it should show respect for China's legal interests and concerns for its own security and should not harm China's security at will.

We don't think the South China Sea is a stage where the US 7th Fleet flaunts its prowess. We try to avoid friction because we wish for a new type of major power relationship with the US rather than being pressured by this fleet.

The China-US crisis management system should be based on past rules on the one hand. On the other hand, China should also participate in rule-making. American leaders have welcomed China's peaceful rise, but they didn't actually respect the fact that as China's interests expand and its strength increases, its concern for security also deepens.

As China's strength grows, the US should learn to communicate with and respect China if it doesn't want a collision on the sea or in the air.

China should speed up empowering itself. Only when the US feels China is a well-matched adversary, will it deal with China in a reasonable way. China is trying to avoid friction with the US. But it should also be firm about safeguarding its own interests.

This has nothing to do with the "China threat" theory. Only when the world acknowledges China's deterrence, could the South and East China Seas stay in peace. We will bear every risk involved in this process.

Samurai in the train

A man or was it a boy, dressed up in a samurai attire complete with a samurai sword boarded a train in Paya Lebar and went to town. Some passengers were wondering if he was involved in some cosplay event until he unshielded his sword which looked very real. Then panic struck.
 
Apparently the men jumped over the gate at Paya Lebar station and the MRT staff alerted the police. Inside the train the passengers kept a safe distance from the man while the police stood in front to protect them. After the man left the train, the police went into pursuit and eventually arrested him after a struggle. Presumably the man was of unsound mind at this moment.
 
There is a photo of the man in the train in the ST. His face and hand were blurred, very likely he is a juvenile and there is a need to protect his identity. It cannot be a case of the media protecting a potentially dangerous criminal or too shy to show who he was.. It is a practice to protect the identity of young people caught in violation of the law. This guy must be very young. It is so thoughtful of the media.

Crooked bridge and crooked expressway

When Mahathir insisted on building his crooked bridge everyone had a good laugh. For whatever crazy reasons, he wanted to demolish a land bridge in the form of a solid causeway just to build a bridge in its place, presumably more efficient in that way and awe inspiring. Fortunately the Malaysian govt had the commonsense not to believe him and his crooked bridge.

How can a bridge be more efficient that a piece of land with relatively little maintenance and could easily be expanded to take in more load? How could a straight causeway, with shorter distance to travel be less effective than a crooked bridge with more distance to cover and high in the air? And there would be the cost of demolition and relocation cost of the causeway and the water pipes and all the businesses in JB town to account for.

While the crooked bridge is now history, Singapore has built a crooked expressway in Marina South and capped with an undersea tunnel and earning the accolade of being the most expensive stretch of road on earth. While Mahathir failed to get his pet project off the ground, Singapore got its pet project underground and under the sea.

In many ways, the crooked bridge and the crooked expressway have a lot of similarities. Cost is definitely one. A simple surface road plus a bridge could be much cheaper than the elaborate and highly geared tunnel with so many electrical and safety gadgets attached to it. And it is crooked, and its existence led to a stretch of ECP being chopped off. The trade off is a bigger piece of land to build more highrise buildings. Driving through a straight expressway from Tanjong Pagar to Fort Road must be faster and more economical on fuel and tyre wear for sure. Could a straight tunnel work and still create additional space?

Suffice to note these similarities, and there are many more that are obvious to everyone. Both are state of the art engineering feats, and monuments of achievements for whoever desired them, a legacy of sort.

And one thing for sure, the crooked bridge and crooked expressway would cost the users that much more in tolls to be paid and time to travel for the unnecessary distance added on. To the masterminds of these two projects, there must be great reasons and benefits to build them crooked instead of straight. Crooked is definite better than straight in both cases.

1.1m foreign workers, not 500k

In a Bloomberg report today, it is stated that the number of foreign workers here is 1.1m and not 500k. In the same report it quoted Chuan Jin as saying that the govt is slowing down the number of foreign worker intake in view of the riot in Little India.
This change in policy would invite criticism from the same bunch of idiots accusing Singapore of racism, discrimination and exploitation of foreign workers. Now when lesser workers are allowed, they will change their tune and would demand that more workers be allowed to work here. These double headed snakes would always have their say, that Singapore owes them a living but they could not do anything to provide better jobs and decent standard of living for their fellowmen in their own dastard countries.
 
1.1m or 500k is still too big a number for a highly densely populated island to absorb. And the risk of rioting, in bigger number, is always there. With more than 1m of them here, there will be 1m reason to trigger a riot. With 500k, there will be 500k reasons to do the same.
 
Are our police prepared and equipped to deal with a mob of 50,000 on the street? Do we have the manpower, equipment and resources to be mobilized when there is an outbreak of violence? How many men will be needed to quell such an unrest? It only takes 20 minutes to set the city and the housing estates ablaze. It is not easy to mobilize so many uniform men to take on such an urgent task even if this is carefully planned and with many drills conducted to get the men ready. I have not seen such an exercise carried out in a scale that may be warranted one day.
 
We have been playing with fire for so long and getting away with it through our good fortune. After the Little India Riot, the reality of such an eventuality is getting very real and the risk that much higher. As of today, if a massive riot occurs, I am very pessimistic of the outcome. I don’t think our police are ready for it. And the likelihood is that they would not have enough troops on the ground and a joint operation with the support of the military must be in order.
 
How fast can the govt mobilize enough men in a short span of time to deal with a major unrest is a big question. The root of the problem is the big number of foreign workers in our midst. Would we get away a second time with minimal life lost, injured or equipment and buildings razed?
 
Oh, it is an isolated incident that would happen once in 50 years. Not to worry. The next one will be another 50 year.

Foreign workers in Little India

This is a photo of foreign workers relaxing and having a drink with friends in Little India. Photo courtesy of Singapore News Alternative.

Are these workers having a hard time in Singapore? Look at their dressing, the enviroment they are in, would they be better off in India? These are not the well educated professionals. Would they be able to enjoy such comfort in such a fine and clean surrounding? If they are back in India, would they have the money to enjoy their drinks or would they be jobless, poorly clothed and could not even afford a drink?

Who is claiming that they are being exploited and living in drudgery, in a fearful environment and being discriminated by the Chinese majority in Singapore? Look at their faces, are they unhappy, in pain, in fear, being harassed? Or are they free and relax and happy, enjoying their drinks in the company of friends?

They may not be making a lot of money. But they are getting on well and with the freedom to do as they pleased in their off days.

How the rich get richer and the poor get poorer

The infamous photograph posted in Baey Yam Keng’s facebook is going on its second round of circulation. A plate of nasi padang with fish, chicken and cuttlefish I think, and probably with vegetables, cost $2.50. And there is the even more infamous $8 open heart by pass, and free serving of quality grade tooth picks in boxes, are privileges of the rich and famous. They seemed to know how to get things cheaper than the common folks.
 
Most ordinary people would be charged at least $6 or $7 for a plate of similar nasi padang. Most people would be broke or have their Medisave savings emptied and probably not enough if they have gone for a heart by pass. And if they need some tooth picks, probably will get the ordinary ones and comes in a few pieces.
 
While the poor have smaller incomes got to pay more for what they need, the rich with million dollar incomes could get things so much cheaply. Now you understand why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
 
And this is just a natural thing in life, one of those hard truths. Some are born more equal than others. And some don’t even know what $2.50 can get for a nasi padang lunch. And some don’t even know there are poor people in this rich city. This is uniquely Singapore. And you can’t blame them. They don’t eat in hawker centre like the poor do. They don’t walk in the company of the poor or when they did their walkaround the poor might have been shooed away, not to be seen.
 
Heard of the story that there are only 3 seasons and not four?

500,000 march with their feet

DNAIndia.com, 14 Dec 2013
‘While it is no one’s case to condone Sunday’s violence, Singapore would do well not to treat the incident as an aberration, and not be dismissive about the larger sociological implications. It would be wrong to ignore the underlying simmering resentmentand frustration of Singpaore’s imported labourers. It is Singapore’s worst-kept secret that most of the lowly jobs (housemaids, construction workers, garbage removal and sewer maintenance personnel, so on) are performed by non-Chinese immigrants from South/Southeast Asia. Stories of worker abuse, intimidation and exploitation are aplenty : employers lodge thousands of imported workers in poorly provided cubbyholes, subject them to long work hours and confiscate their passports during the contract tenures….’
 
The above is a comment in DNA India which reflects the kind of thinking in India over the plight of the Indian workers here. Many of the claims are true, but things are improving dramatically and many dormitories are now like little country clubs with facilities that the workers would never dream of at home. Some of the dormitories are quality housing, better than HDB flats, and thousands of time better than the broken sheds they had at home with poor or no sanitation. Once the full programme dished out by the MOM is implemented, the quality of living condition in dormitories would be like heaven and hell from where they came from.
 
The proof of all these is that 500,000 of them are voting with their feet and more are craving to be here. There are exploitations, sure. Who are the exploiters? Who did the workers took their loans from? The Singapore side of the equation is no angels, but the law is coming down fast on them. Would the Indian media and their heart wrenching journalists and reporters offer these ‘exploited’ workers jobs that are better or at least the same as what Singapore can provide, with the same decent income? The answer is a big NO. They could not give these workers decent jobs, decent income and decent lodging and they are blaming Singapore for providing them a decent alternative! If these workers are thrifty and not exploited by their agents and employers, many of them would not only provide well for their families, some would return fairly rich, much richer than the reporters writing their nonsense.
 
If India is so good, these 500,000 workers would not be here. If the terms of their employments and life are so bad, they would not pay thousands to their agent to be here. And not only the workers are here, many of the professionals that India could not provide them with decent jobs and incomes are escaping from India to the West, with many coming to this island that are victimizing them on racist grounds. Many of their top brains are here to be exploited. Either their top brains are fools or the reporters are talking rubbish.
 
The truth is that they are exploiting Sinkies and the good infrastructure here for their own good. The people that are exploited are the Sinkies, particularly the PMEs. Wait till these local PMEs find life unbearable and unsustainable when they could no longer provide for their families. Just wait for their wrath.
 
And a final word, if the Indians, professionals and the workers, find it so bad here, exploited here, discriminated by the racist Chinese here, please get lost, go back home to the great comfort of your great country.
 
If our relations with India are so good, why are the Indian media so hostile to Singapore? Remember Sun TV. Who is spreading the myth that relations between the people of the two countries are so good that it deserves a big celebration in 2015 using public money? How much of the people’s money would be spent on this make belief while the Indians are cursing us everyday in their media?
 
Do we still want to spend public fund on this 150th Anniversary? For those people who believe that relations are so good and it is deserving of a big celebration, can they please use their own pocket money for it and not the people’s money? It is so easy to spend OPM ya.

The simplicity of it all

As life gets more complicated, as solutions to problems get more complex, some things are getting simpler. The Little India Riot is a case in point. It was all because of alcohol. Stop the selling of alcohol and the problem will go away. And the govt did just that over the weekend, and yes, no more rioting in Little India after the ban. It was a peaceful and quiet little place for the families and children to walk around and feeling very safe from the fierce bottle hurling and car burning mob. This is like a miracle.
 
The solution is simple and effective, like what Singapore is all about. It also sent a signal to all the drinkers around the island, if they want to continue to enjoy their booze, keep the peace. Any sign of trouble will mean no more booze. Yes, got it. Who says complex problem needs complex solution?
 
In the MyPaper today, Dr Koh Poh Soon diagnosed his election defeat to something he said or should not have said. The offending statement was ‘everybody has a car’. And to make it worse, he added that he and his wife had two cars, one each, caused they were professionals. Another reason was the parachute. He was seen as a paratrooper dropping in from the sky. These two reasons caused his electoral defeat to an unknown. And the margin was quite a trumping.
 
Dr Koh is still walking the ground in preparation for his next election. By then he would not be seen as someone dropping down on a parachute. So this problem would be a non issue. As for the two cars he and his wife owned, he can either not talk about it, or to make a bigger show, sell one away. This should make him more like everybody else, owning one car and could give him the votes for a victory.
 
Thank God that life is getting so simple. Time to reconsider cutting the salaries of ministers when solving problems is so easy.
 
What do you think?

150th anniversary of Sin India fraternal relations

I remember that 2015 has already been earmarked as the year to celebrate the good relations between India and Singapore and a long list of activities will be planned for this great event. The presidents of both countries will pay homage to each other with their entourages of courtiers and royalties. Dunno who is paying for this great year long party. Maybe they will provide for it in the next budget.

As a warm up to this event, it would be appropriate to build up the tempo early to get the people of the two countries in a celebration mood and to be emotionally prepared to love and hug each other when 2015 arrives. The little isolated incident at Little India may mar the mindsets of the two people at the moment and both may be looking at each other with suspicion. Those who listened and believed what TV Sun had broadcasted over the air may not only be harbouring hatred against the Sinkie Chinese, some may even be planning some vengeful treats in return. It is thus of utmost importance to cleanse out this bad and wrongful thought that had been planted in some unthinking minds, of course done unintentionally, just an innocent mistake.

Make 2014 a year of love and peace between the two people prior to the year long celebration in 2015. And this can start almost immediately, now, and encouraging all Sinkie households to adopt an India worker and play host to him till 2015. The Indian workers can be invited to stay with Sinkie families and enjoy the tender loving care of Sinkie families and our way of life. This would definitely be the best integration exercise of all integration exercise. This would not only build a damn good relationship with the people of India, it will also save a lot of other problems, like housing, saving them on food and lodging, govt no need to build more dormitories to ‘angrify’ the neighbourhood, and the Indian workers need not go to Little India to feel at home, thus reducing their tendency to drink and get drunk and ending in rioting.

Singaporeans will also not be attacked and blamed for xenophobia. The whole country may be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for building a harmonious relationship with poor foreign workers needing shelter and love and a home away from home. Hey, if every home has one, there should be enough to go round with half a million of them here and more to come, there would not be any enclaves forming. They will all blend in nicely with the families and the housing estates.

Now would not this be nice? And come 2015, we can celebrate together all year round with Indians visiting here and Sinkies visiting India. The visiting should not be confined to just the Presidents and govt dignitaries. That would be too selfish. Let the joy be shared by the people of both counties. I am already looking forward to it.

Inviting the wolf home 引狼入室

The wolf cub is very cute and cuddly to play with, just like the Alsatian dog. But it will grow up fast. When it becomes an adult, it will still be quite cuddly and friendly, a very good pet to keep for company. It would still wag its tail and give the owner a very warm smile. The only difference is that the teeth are sharp and shiny and the jaws are huge. And it has a very big appetite. Just feed him well.

Just feed him well and good. Don’t ever provoke it or step on its tail. When it turns against the owner and snaps its jaw, it will be too late to regret. A wolf is still a wolf. Don’t pray pray.

And don’t let the weak and vulnerables unattended, especially the infants. You just won’t know. There is an animal inside the friendly and apparently harmless beast.

Economic cleansing by Gilbert Goh

Below is the first part of a long article by Gilbert Goh on the grave changes in our socio, economic and political landscape. I will post the other parts as a series.

I seldom felt so enraged when I received emails from our readers until I received one from Francisthe other day.

Francis wrote how he was ousted from his company – a global Fortune 500 conglomerate, by a foreigner Indian IT director from India. He is now happily resettled in Melbourne – one of the tens of thousands of Singaporeans forced by the recent economical circumstances to relocate elsewhere in search of greener pasture.

What irked me was how easily the Indian IT director could replace our own local executives, without any repercussion, with his own people from India. Something is wrong with our human resource policy here and so far the ministry of manpower has kept quiet about this hiring discrimination….

Economic cleansing being practised here?

Though we may not have entered into such grotesque activity yet, the signs are there and its pretty ominous.

Nevertheless, we may have enter into a dark period of economic cleansing – foreigners arriving on our shore invited with open arms by a regime to take over our jobs and hiding a sinister agenda for political gain.

The agenda though subtle is equally damaging as economic cleansing has driven many of our citizens into deep depression and some have even attempted suicide. Those who can emigrate will do so – leaving the country to well-to-do foreigners with good paying jobs to gain control.

One in three workers in Singapore is a foreigner now and at least 1.5 million foreigners, carrying all kinds of work permits, have settled down on our tiny island state – artificially inflating our population to a miserable 5.1 million and stretching infrastructure and employment opportunities to the maximum.

Amidst this economic sizzle which is supposed to benefit its own people, entire companies have been replaced by foreigners and one only needs to walk along busy financial centre at Marina to witness the ugly manifestation.

Singaporean executives ironically remain a rare representation in our best economic model thus far – the financial sector.

Deustche Bank, Barclays, Credit Sussie, Hong Kong Shanghai Bank – all banking giants out to clamour for a lucrative piece of the Asian economic miracle here could only mysteriously employ a majority of foreign executives on its payroll. We don’t have enough talents – so say the employers and agreed by our government.

Let the foreign talents come in – not by the tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands as our own local workers sit by the wayside and envy the smartly-dressed foreign executives filing past on their way to work in gleaming glass-towered buildings! Never before has any country in the world imposed work discrimination so obviously and maliciously played out - against its own people mind you.

For the first time in history, more foreign doctors (60%) last year registered with our Singapore Medical Council (SMC) than local ones – a reflection of economic cleansing that will continue unabated in the near future.

The government has also shamelessly used tax-payer money to lure foreigners via a comprehensivewebsite meant to simplify procedures for immigrants coming into our country.

Government-linked companies, multi national companies and even small and medium enterprises splashed out full page advertisement abroad in search of foreign workers to fortify their economic prowess as companies continue to shun local workers labelling them lazy, choosy and hard to please.

The government has always asked its own people to welcome foreigners into our midst as if not – jobs will evaporate, investors will run away and the economy will collapse.

However, it could not properly explain why capable well-educated citizens continue to stay jobless or enter into under employment by driving cabs and taking on low level jobs in order to survive.

If this happens in any country in the world, citizens will gather together and speak out against such employment discrimination but in a law-abiding country like Singapore - whereby even a lone demonstrator can be arrested, we are being denied such basic human rights and can only count emigration as a way out of our misery.

The attack on Sinkies has just begun

Sinkies are xenophobic, very bad, they must reflect on themselves, to treat the foreigners nicer, help them to be civilised, to have good manners, to be like them, oops, but not the xenophobic part. Arising from the riot in Little India, the attacks and vehements are all targeted at Sinkies. It is all the sinkies fault. The foreigners are nice people. Only a minority is bad.

Seriously, fucking seriously, to all the fuckheads, who started the rioting? Sinkies? Who are the rioters? Sinkies? Who got beaten up? Sinkies? Who overturned police cars and ambulance? Sinkies? Who burnt the cars? Sinkies?

Why are Sinkies now at fault, and are called xenophobic when they had nothing to do with the rioting? The leaders are blaming the Sinkies, the media are repeating it, forum writers are also adding fuel to fire. Sinkies must reflect on their behaviour and how to treat the foreigners better. Sinkies are guilty of xenophobia!

Who are getting displaced by foreigners in good jobs? Who are being discriminated by foreigners in this island? Sinkies?

For fuck sake, the Sinkies are not that daft to be branded as xenophobic when they are not. But I bet you, the daft Sinkies will take this with a smile, a shrug of the head and walk away. If Sinkies are not prepared to defend their rights in this island, their rights to be respected, their rights to good jobs, their rights to an orderly and peaceful country, safe and clean and harmonious, they deserved to be kicked out of this island.

Don’t the Sinkies feel violated, the peace and tranquillity of their island home is now threatened and are the Sinkies expected to keep quiet, and even have to sayang the foreigners because they are such nice people but are being bullied by the Sinkies, and like the Sun TV report, being beaten up by Sinkies and are hiding in fear?

The foreigners are exploited for sure. By who? Who are the exploiters? Not the ordinary Sinkies that are being blamed for xenophobia. The riot is expected given all the factors that are conducive for a riot. It is only a matter of time and how severe it would be. It is not just the exploitation. Pay them well, give them the best in everything, but if you have a mob of tens of thousands, a hundred thousand, all hungry and lonely men, bored, far away from their home and family, a little spark is all it needs to start a mayhem, a pandemonium. You have all the ingredients for a bloody riot in a big crowd, not necessarily in Little India, but in any corner of the island when you have such a big gathering of single males, foreigners, workers, and from the less developed parts of the world when violence and rioting is normal.

Please stop putting the blame on Sinkies. Please stop calling the Sinkies xenophobic. The Sinkies are innocent bystanders. There may be a few minorities in cyberspace venting their anger. And can you blame them when they saw the peace and safety of their country going up in flame? It would be worse if they really sheepishly and meekly say nothing about this violation of their country. It is only natural and understandable for Sinkies to be angry. It is good to be angry when you are wrong. Some may say things a bit too harshly, but none of them are out there beating any foreigner or burning cars.

Would the assholes stop attacking and branding Sinkies as xenophobic? They are trying to pass the buck, to make Sinkies feel guilty for their devious ways.