SG 50 – Red Dot to party all year round

Singapore has really arrived. It is truly a very rich country and the mood is all about celebration. Now, who is talking about poor people? Next year is our 50^th Anniversary as an independent country and a very successful one. It deserves a year of celebration. I dunno what is the budget for this big bang but there will also be budget for the people to organise functions of their own to celebrate a City State growing up and with so much money to party and to throw. We no longer need to be prudent and thrifty like our first generation leaders. We need not think or plan carefully for each dollar we spent and where it will come from, or how to invest it wisely. We only need to be happy spending and partying. We have so much money to spend.

Lawrence Wong has called on the people to put up suggestions for the celebration. This gives me an idea about inclusiveness and the big number of foreigners here contributing to our progress and creating jobs for Sinkies. And lately Sinkies have been rebuked for not being kind to them.

I would like to propose that all Sinkies invite foreigners to spend a day in their homes, or more if they like, prepare a good meal for them, and show them how kind Sinkies are. We need to integrate them to our way of life so that they down bring us down to their normal. And we need to if we want them to treat us kindly.

For this effort, for every foreigner brought into the homes of a Sinkie, the govt shall pay the Sinkie $100 for the expenses and inconvenience caused. Oh, for those with big mansions and would like to invite big and successful foreigners driving sports cars and not comfortable with the stench in HDB flats, they should be paid $1000 per head so that such foreigners would have a good time and not to think Sinkies are poor. Throw in a few SPGs to show them some kindness as well.

This is the time to show the world we are rich. I got a bigger celebration to propose. See, my whole faculty is only thinking of having parties and spending the money we have made. This is like 1997 in Hongkong or in the early 70s when the British were pulling out. It was party time and time to spend all the money saved before the curtain closed.

Oh, 2019 is a very important year. Think 1819. See, you remember. We can celebrate together with our colonial masters in London all year round. We can have road shows and all kinds of shows in both countries. Our ministers and head of state and head of govt can visit each other and dance the night away. Money is no issue. It is OPM mah.

What is important is for us to show the world how rich we are and how much money we have to have a good time. We can even throw a few billions to buy a few toys that nobody wants to show that we can really afford it.

The Tourist Board can then promote this as a City that parties all year round. And when other people make surveys on the mood of the people, the conclusion will be a very happy people that only think of parties and nothing else. No need a million smiles campaign anymore when everyone is so happy party like no tomorrow.

Mid term report card

2 and half years passed since the last GE and it is about time to do an assessment on how the govt had been doing. The massive housing problem has started to show some result. The backlog of housing needed has temporarily been transferred to the waiting list of units under construction. I won’t give credit to this as it was a self created problem due to bad management. In fact the govt should apologise to all the home buyers who ended up paying very unreasonable high prices. The fear of a runaway housing price has been removed. But the price is still high as it is still hovering at near its peak after more than doubling or tripling in the last decade.

The train continues its routine breakdown and disruption of services like a new normal of the 3^rd World. Maybe we are having too many foreign engineers running it and so this is the standard to be accepted.

The huge influx of foreigners is still in the country and still growing. The number of cheats caught was more like a token, like they said, a little wayang. The FCF and paying an Indian company to check on Indian certificates is looking more like jokes.

Medical cost is continuing to rise, shortages of doctors and hospital beds have reached an epidemic proportion to some critics. University places are still going to foreigners, including millions of dollars being thrown at them when the money could go to our children and saved their parents from selling properties to finance their overseas education. The wastage of our top students going into medicine and replacing them with questionable medical professionals from questionable institutions will show its ugly consequences as a matter of time.

Has anything changed? Some ministers were seen working very hard with some results. Some were working very hard with no results. Some dunno what they were busy with. Some were all noise and no substance and attracting ridicules. Some were looking after dogs and pets and foreigners rather than citizens. Some were chasing after pampers. Some disappeared, never seen nor heard even in Parliament.

How should the report card be written? The apologists will give it a big A to be accompanied by the big bonuses to be shared. It will be a matter of who would get more rather than who would get less? Unfortunately this will be a well kept secret and no one will be wiser. One thing for sure, the public courts of justice will pass their judgement comes 2016 using their own criteria of measurement.

Thailand – an unspoken perspective

Suthep and his protesters are still reported by the main media as the game changer, fully in charge and in control and like a sure thing to topple the Yingluck govt. Many govt agencies and Bangkok elite are also singing the same tune. The truth is that Suthep is looking more like a legalized thug, and a foolish one at it.
 
The Bangkok elite of royalists, the military and the residents and academics are convincing themselves that the Yingluck govt is corrupt and must be removed and will be removed. The police have been castrated and cannot do anything. Any move by the police will allow the army to stage a coup immediately.
 
One of the assumptions in this scenario is that Thailand consists of only the Yellow Shirts from Bangkok and they can ignore the 65 mil rural Thais. The 5 mil Yellow Shirts can decide for the 65 mil Thais who should rule Thailand. This arrogance and disrespect of the majority of the Thais will not go down well with the Red Shirts. And they are not going to take it quietly. The rural Thais are politicized and no longer the ignorant masses to be manipulated by the city elite. They will not allow the Yingluck govt to fall and not do anything.
 
The army is also very careful of their options and the bigger picture. They are not as united as they appeared to be and know that the regional commanders may have different ideas. An attempt to stage a coup in Bangkok could ignite a bigger coup in the north and northeast regions, maybe more. The army not only has to contend with a pro govt police but also the factions within. A coup in Bangkok would lead to an array of events that would run out of control.
 
The division in the army is likely due to the imminent fall of the big tree. When the tree falls, there will be a regrouping of forces within the monarchy, if it is still intact. Backing the wrong horse now could be very costly and could join Suthep and his followers behind bars when the dice falls on the wrong side. Many of the army commanders must be wavering at the prospect of a royal change and a new royalty may have different ideas.
 
Playing safe and playing the cards close to their chests will be to the interest of all the military commanders. What they are very sure is the tree falling and a New Order. The old elite and old royalists could be in for a severe rubbing. Playing the game wrongly could see Thailand transforming into a republic when the people’s power shall rule, which also means the Red Shirts shall call the shot.
 
It is a complex political game at the moment and what is reported in the main media is only one side of the story and ignoring the will of the majority of the Thai people. Bangkok is not Thailand.

Anton Casey, Paradise found and lost

Anton Casey was invited into paradise, got a high paying job waiting for him by a big bank. His income was so good that he could live in top end condominium that cost a bomb and a flashy sports car that cost half a million to go with it. He was living it up, mixing with the elite and moving in the right circle of the who’s who in the island paradise. He was rewarded further with a local native beauty queen as his wife. And she gave him a beautiful son.
 
Life was a bliss like living in paradise on earth. Hardship and poverty were words that he could not see or hear in his high living of beautiful people and flashy material comfort that are dreams to many of the natives. His first encounter with the poor natives came when his car was sent for servicing. He took the train with his son, a transport mode that the locals are very proud of as they could not afford the cars that are priced the highest in the world. To own a car, one has to buy a certificate that cost more than the price of a medium size car. Anton was uncomfortable with the poverty around him in the train. It was a different and unfamiliar environment. He went home and wrote in his facebook about the need to get rid of the stench that stuck on him from the train.
 
Someone found it amusing to forward what he wrote and it went viral. The natives were not amused. They were angry for the first time against a foreigner that came to take their good paying jobs and their beautiful women and instead of being grateful for the good fortune and blessing, he literally shitted on their face. It created a violent tropical storm never seen before in his life. He quickly apologized but was a bit too late and too little. The natives are calling for his blood.
 
Anton Casey’s paradise collapsed overnight and went into hiding with his beautiful wife and son. His company is investigating the incident and under pressure to remove him. The govt is not amused either and also under pressure to cancel his employment pass. Not sure if his local native clients are happy with his remarks and would continue to do business with him. Not should if the anger of the natives will spread to affect the whole high living foreign community.
 
This is a case of paradise found and lost. In two years’ time I may be writing about paradise inherited and lost. The cause for losing it would be quite similar, snubbing the citizens, selling out the citizens and offering their paradise to foreigners. At the moment this is only the outline of the plot but with signs that it will happen in 2016. Just wondering would this story become a reality then.

Breaking in, breaking out, any difference?

The security breaches by a Malaysian woman, Nurul Ruhana bte Ishak, are getting more attention as the day goes by. More and more criticism, some getting stronger, is appearing in the internet. “If this ‘lapse’ is not symptomatic of some kind of systems breakdown, then I don’t know what is,… It would be ironic if our law enforcement agencies and their officers are taking peace and security for granted.” Bertha Henson wrote on her blog.

Red faces everywhere? Better to point the fingers at someone else before people point it at you is a good strategy. Some critics are yelling for blood or heads to roll. Who is responsible? Like the Mas Selamat’s breakout from his detention centre, this breaking in into Singapore, through our very complex and highly secured checkpoints, is unparalleled. This is more perplexing than the breakout by Took Leng How who simply walked into JB. At least Mas Selamat was more ingenious, with him tying plastic bottles all over his body to float across the Straits of Johore in total darkness and evading patrol boats.

In terms of dare devil stance, this case is simply a mind game, an open challenge to the security officers and systems, in broad daylight and repeating it again all the way into the MFA compound. It must set many people wandering what was this Nurul Ruhana trying to do and to prove. She drove all the way from Kedah in the northern tip of the Malaysian Peninsula just to shake up everyone in this little island like a bolt of lightning.

No need to worry, this is another once in 50 years happening. Just hold a BOI and the truth will all be out and the system will be improved and nothing like this will happen again. The police should thank Mas Selamat and Nurul Ruhana for testing the systems and improving on it. After the vandalised paintings on the MRT trains, the system was also improved and nothing of similar nature has happened again. So is the case of Little India riot.

In the meantime, more BOIs should be on standby so that when more of such incidents happen again, BOIs can jump in straight away to review them. Those critics of security lapses, please hold your fire. Let the BOI do the job to polish up the lapses.

Now, who’s head will roll? Ask Mas Selamat.

Kopi level - Green

Anton Casey, I disagree with your remark

I want to disagree with Anton Casey for his ‘poor people’ remark.
 
Singapore is one of the richest country in the world. And half of all Singaporeans, or Sinkies in short, are millionaires with their HDB flats costing at least half a million or more. How can Sinkies be called poor? The only thing they don’t have is cash. But that is also not a problem because the govt has many assistance and subsidies schemes to give money to the millionaire Sinkies.
 
Sinkies have a lot more money in their CPF savings which they would not want to spend. They enjoy smiling quietly to themselves every time they received the monthly statements to show how rich they are, like money written on the walls.
 
And all Sinkies can afford cars. How not when earning $1000 a month already can afford to buy public flats? The prices of cars, including COEs, are definitely affordable. But Sinkies are prudent and would not want to spend their money on expensive cars. They want to have a lot of money to live till 100 years.
 
Sinkies also love to take public transport to be gracious. And the squeeze in the trains is what they are looking forward to everyday. And many are buying expensive bikes, not because they cannot afford to buy cars, but for healthy living.
 
Sinkies are also green conscious and do not want to live in big houses. They have an obsession to live in shoebox flats, costing a bomb too, so as not to waste precious land and space. Their quality of life will not be affected even if they live in flats the size of a dog’s kennel. The experts have double confirmed that this is true.
 
Sinkies are not poor, just got no money in the pocket that is all. All their monies are in their flats and in their CPF savings. Sinkies are very rich, many are millionaires, on paper only lah.

Foreigners: Treat them as’ you want to be treated’

‘Singaporeans should treat foreigners the same way that they want to be treated when travelling overseas, said Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen on Friday night.’ Asiaone online
The heading above is quite misleading as the meaning is not very clear. Is it a message to foreigners or to Sinkies reminding them to treat ‘them’ well if they want to be treated well? Take it as a message to Singaporeans, that they must treat foreigners well if they want foreigners to treat them well. Is there a meaningful relationship? Ahem, should ask an Angmoh for his opinion.
 
Eng Hen in the same article when he addressed NUS staff and students also added that Singaporeans are extremely generous to the foreigners here. Iif his theory is correct, than the foreigners should reciprocate by treating the Singaporeans well. The truth is that the foreigners despised the Singaporeans, insulted the Singaporeans, threatened and even beat up Singaporeans when they felt like it. Not only that they took the jobs from Singaporeans, they cheated and conspired to get rid of Singaporeans in the workplace so that they can bring in their village friends.
 
Why is it that Singaporeans are so generous to foreigners here and still kena bashed and discriminated by foreigners? If foreigners could treat Singaporeans so badly in Singapore, what are the chances of them treating Singaporeans well overseas? Would some Ph D students want to conduct a research on this to prove that this theory is workable, that this is a quid pro quo thing? Or shall I conduct a survey to ask the experience of Singaporeans when they were overseas or their interactions with foreigners here? How many Singaporeans have had bad encounters with foreigners here and overseas?
 
Singaporeans have been most gracious and kind to foreigners to the extent of being seen as meek and stupid. That is why they deserved to be walloped and threatened by foreigners right in their home country. And for those who lost their jobs to foreigners and been cheated or discriminated by foreigners they deserved it for being so extremely generous to foreigners. They deserve to be boat people, to be booted out of their own country. The elite of this island would be mainly foreigners if they keep giving all the top jobs to foreigners.
 
The foreigners are not the saints that they are made out to be, and neither are they more talented. They would not treat you well because you treat them well. Superficially yes, but when come to their vested interest, they will not hesitate to put a knife in the back of Singaporeans. They don’t call Singaporeans daft for nothing. It is a national character of a people brought up to be stupid no matter how high are their educational levels.
 
The SPGs are nothing. They only sleep with the foreigners. The most serious ones are the SPBoys. They brought in the foreigners to screw everyone here and pay them handsomely, look to them like gods.

Kopi level - Green

China’s economic policy ‘may backfire’?

This is what an English businessman, Phil Mead, said when China took punitive actions against countries that cross the red line. He quoted the case of Norway whose share of salmon export to China fell from 92% to 29%. The AFP report also mentioned the trickle of Chinese aid to the Philippines during the Haiyan typhoon.
 
The reaction by China is nothing new. The Americans and many western powers have been doing it practically daily without fear of their image being screwed or bad press by the western media. So what if China is to dismiss those pesky countries for spitting at China at will? See what the Americans did to India and how India reacted?
 
In the case of the Philippines, they have set their sight to regard China as a foe and even if China would to pour millions into their pocket they would come back to scratch at China. China must put its foot down on such hostile countries and show them the middle finger. China can continue to trade with the rest of the world that are on friendly terms.
 
What is a Norway or the Philippines, or the British Empire? China should follow the western protocol of power politics and give whoever that comes crashing at its door a bloody knock on the head to keep them away. It has to set an example to a few pests to keep the rest of the hordes at bay.
 
Just learn from the Americans, carry a big stick.

SGX circuit breakers to protect investors? What a joke

SGX is going to introduce circuit breakers to temporarily suspend a stock that has prices fluctuating more than 10% of its reference or recent price. So this is claimed to be a big step in protecting the interest of investors, said its President Muthukrishnan Ramaswami. When was this President of SGX appointed? I hope he is a true blue Singaporean and not another foreigner or new citizen to triple confirm that Singapore really has no talent and must depend solely on foreigners to fill up top positions, so that these foreigners can create low paying jobs for our no talents while we created top jobs and high paying jobs for foreigners.
 
I digress. In the same report SGX announced that its profit has dropped by 2% for the second quarter due to decline in trading volumes. The total volume traded year on year fell 18%.
 
Does SGX know why the volume is falling? Does SGX know why the retail traders are abandoning the market? Or does the SGX want to know? Does Hsien Loong, Tharman or Ravi Menon want to know what is happening to the stock market?
 
There are about 8000 jobs that are at stake at the moment because of a market that is critically ill. The circuit breakers would be redundant when no one wants to trade in the market, when the broking houses start to retrench their staff, when remisiers flee or quit the industry.
 
Does anyone want to know what is seriously wrong with the market? The circuit breakers are like putting up signs that there are crocodiles in the water and no one bothers about the crocodiles, about who put the crocodiles in the water, and encouraging the ignorant investors to walk and swim in the water.
 
What is going on? Anyone knows? Anyone wants to know? Or no one knows, no one sees anything wrong?

Why pay so much to World Bank

‘The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance is seeking Parliament’s approval to increase Singapore’s membership subscription limit to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (or IBRD) from the current US$40 million to US$672 million….
 
Our current subscription limit is US$40 million. This limit has not changed since 1966, when we were much smaller and poorer. Considering our economy has grown a lot since then, our current subscription appears relatively low. We have one of the lowest subscriptions among the 188 member countries in the World Bank.
 
Having said that, the quantum of the proposed increase in our subscription limit is not small. It is going up from US$40 million to US$672 million – an increase of almost 17 times. Can I ask the DPM how the Government arrived at this quantum?’ Gerald Giam’s speech in Parliament
 
Contribution to the World Bank to do good is a good thing. What is US$672m when we have billions in our reserve? We are giving away $210m as tuition grant to foreign students studying in Singapore and the total amount, including all things, could be double or more of this sum annually. Another US$672m is ‘sup sup sway’. When there is so much money around, just spend lah.
 
Gerald Giam is asking the DPM how this sum is derived? Does it matter? I can give one hundred and one explanations but what does it mean? Nothing. What is enough, not enough or too much is relative. It is like eating in a hawker centre, food court or restaurant kind of argument.
 
What matters is how is this sum going to be funded? From taxes, ERPs, SWF’s revenue, from CPF, the casinos or where? The money must come from somewhere and someone has to pay for it. Even though it is nothing compares to the billions to be spent on the pending purchase of F35 aircraft, it is still money that could be put to better use. We spent $4.3b for a 5km expressway! So US$672m is definitely very affordable to give away.
 
Spending OPM is easy, but don’t cause hardship to the people as this is an annual commitment and the same money can do a lot of good to the citizens. When the govt wants to be generous, let’s be generous with the citizens first, can?
 
It is US$672m man, not a small sum to the ordinary people. To those spending OPM as a habit, it is just a number and would not affect their pockets. But it will eventually affect the taxpayers and the citizens. The money must cough out from somewhere.
 
The peranakans would like so say, ‘yeow siew’ for spending such a big sum of money when it could make many citizens happy.

Kopi level - Green

Tuition grant, how much did we give away?

Png Eng Huat asked in Parliament and the MOE gave its reply. $210 m were given to international students as tuition grant annually. Presumably or assumingly this is the average sum, so in 10 years it will be $2.1b and 20 years it will be $4.2 b.
 
There are several questions to this figure. Is it just for tuition grants and excludes living allowance and others, or is this the total package given away? Also, how much was given to PRs? PRs are not citizens mind you. What is the amount, can any tell?
 
As for the number of students receiving the grant in polys, it was 1,700 for year 2011 which is 6% of the cohort, lesser than the 9% in year 2010. Similarly 2,200 grants were given to university students in 2011, or 13% of the cohort instead of 18% in 2010. The combined number is 3,900 for 2011 and much less than in 2010. All the data do not include PRs. And the data are only for two years, 2010 and 2011.
 
How many of our own children, the children of citizens, were deprived of a place that rightly belonged to them but went to foreigners and PRs? Seriously, what is the objective of throwing so much money to foreigners and not giving uni and poly places to our children? I can understand that it is good to do it as a charitable act to help other countries. The question is how far should this go and how much should we compromise or deprive our children in so doing?
 
I don’t thing there is another country in the world that gave away so much to foreigners and hurting the children of citizens so much in doing so. What is the return for all these money and places for foreigners?
 
This is not your grandfather’s country you know. The money does not belong to your grandfather too.

No sane person can breach our checkpoint security

With the tight security checks at our checkpoints, particularly at Woodlands and Tuas, it is insane for anyone to think of slipping through the checks and getting away. It could be done by foot as proven by a Took. But to get across in a vehicle is unimaginable.
 
Well, a Malaysian woman motorist did just that and was lost in our concrete jungle for 3 days. Our network of cameras also failed to locate her despite an island wide alert. She was only caught when she did another tailgating job into the Ministry of Foreign Affair, intentionally I supposed, to prove something. Why she did that is still puzzling. It seems that she was trying to prove to the security officers that she could do what she like and there is no way for them to trace her unless she offered herself, like driving into the MFA compound voluntarily.
 
The police should interrogate her intensively and learn a few tricks from her. Never mind if she is insane. The divide between a genius and an insane is only a thin line, so they said. This may be the Achilles heel of our security system, that only an insane person can breach it in an insane way. If the woman is sane, there is no way for her to get through and run free in this tiny island when there was no attempt for her to change cars, number plate or camouflage the car.
 
She simply drove the same car everywhere she wanted. Cool man. Insanity is our weakness.

Sinkies the modern day Sick man of Asia

Many Sinkies are still lull to believe that the future is so rosy and will be so for a long time to come. For the super rich, sure, if things get bad, pack up and go to the new homes they bought all over the world. They have the least to worry what would happen to Sin City tomorrow, even if it goes to dustbin. Their preoccupation is to make hay while the sun is still shining, grab as much as they can while they still can.

For the rest of the Sinkies, they are really sick. They got replaced by foreigners in their jobs, with many who came with fake qualifications. And the sick Sinkies just accept it as normal, nothing wrong with that, can’t do anything about it.

And those who are still working could be working for fakes who had qualifications and experience that were lower or far inferior to them, or all fakes. And the sick Sinkies got to call them boss, listen to their rubbish and got screwed by them as they liked to show who is boss.

And in hospitals, they could be treated by fakes and paying top dollars for it and paying top salaries to the fakes. They are lucky if nothing goes wrong, if not their lives could be at stake or the condition get worse.

And the NSmen are there to protect these fakes in the country who are taking their jobs, their parent’s jobs and making their parents jobless and hoping that their NSmen children could give them some pocket money. How many of them are here when there are at least 500k in the PME category? How many, 10%, 30% or 50% or more?

Yes, many Sinkies are now the new Sick man of Asia, bullied by the fakes and have to serve the fakes and without knowing it or cannot do anything about it. And the foreigners despised the Sinkies, feeling very free to insult and beat up Sinkies, just like old Shanghai where the foreigners are more equal than the locals.

There are many equivalents of foreign concessions, China concession, Indian concession, Pinoy concession, Thais and Pinoy concessions. There are even business parks and condominiums practically filled by foreigners.

Maybe I am wrong, all the foreign PMEs are the real McCoys. The Sick Sinkies are really no good. This may be the reasons why so few were caught with fake certificates. And it is a total waste of money to pay an Indian company to check on their qualifications when all of them are real, or very few are fakes. Imagine getting paid $50k or $60k just to submit reports that may prove all negatives.

Sinkies should just bugger off to other countries to find a job and let the real foreign PMEs to replace them at home. History has come full circle. The poor parents of Sinkies came from the Sick Man of Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries to look for work. Today, the Sinkies are themselves the new Sick Man of Asia and scurrying back to China and other countries to look for work. Their parents could not find decent jobs in their country China. Today, Sinkies cannot find decent jobs in their country, Sin City. Their parents were replaced by foreigners who invaded their country by force. Today’s Sinkies are replaced by foreigners who invaded their island by invitation.

Kopi level - Green

Fare Hike Protest 5pm 25 Jan Sat at Hong Lim

Gilbert is organising another protest at Hong Lim Park this Sat on the public transport fare hike.

Just wondering how many Sinkies would bother to attend despite kpkb about the hike everyday. If only 500 turn out then it will be reported as only 500 are unhappy with the fare hike. The rest, the majority of the Sinkies support the fare hike and find the increase very reasonable and affordable.

Tiok boh?

SMRT – Why so unforgiving?

Read a post by a Gabriel Bai posted in The Real Singapore of a student whose mobile battery ran out and thought it was ok to get it charged while in a MRT platform. She was caught by a train officer and charged in court.
 
‘The first time she went to court, the judge advised her to write a letter to appeal to SMRT, considering how minor this issue was. The appeal failed, and the second time she went to court, she was then fined $400.
 
I just felt really unfair for her, considering the fact that she has no idea the sockets could not be used (there were no warnings, or labels that the public cannot use them). It was also her first offence, and that she is still a student working part-time to support herself.’
 
Should an incident like this committed by a young student that often than not did it without any malice, just a bit unthoughtful, be treated as a crime? Or should an adult of a big business be more generous and forgiving to just tell the student not to do it again? Why is the SMRT so harsh in its dealing with a young student that there was no room for a little kindness and forgiveness when the Judge had already indicated that a little human kindness was called for?
 
Ok, some asshole will say a crime is a crime, an offence is an offence. I accept that there are assholes that would think and react this way. But personally I would have let the student go with the most a warning. Unless there is more to this case and this was a repeat offender, then I can understand the need to make it an offence. But to charge a student in court for such a minor infringement is beyond me.
 
Well there are immortals and some are more righteous and less tolerant of the young. Some will just throw the book at anyone and hide behind the law. A little discretion is warranted in the enforcement of rules and regulations and even the law. Yes, when you only have a hammer, everything is a nail to be hammered.
 
This is the kind of sick society we have become in the way we deal with our young and fellow citizens. Oh remember, ‘Our apologies for the slight delay. This train will be delayed due to a technical fault’. And the commuters are expected to be forgiving. And ’19,000 stranded by third train delay in a week’. So, should the public throw the book at the SMRT? Or should the public be forgiving, kind and understanding?
 
The poor student would now have to put in his/her CV, charged in court for an offence. How would this minor indiscretion that ended with a guilty judgement in court affect this young person’s life? Where is the kindness and generosity when it is expected from the adults? Or should we applaud the SMRT for being very proper, an offence is an offence, a mistake is a mistake?

Thaksin’s ghost would not go away

He was ousted in 2006 by a military coup during his second term in office. 8 years have gone by while he lives in exile with a big corruption tag on his head and a jail sentence. His Puea Thai Party has since been winning elections after elections and is the standing govt that the protesters in Bangkok are trying to dislodge from office. Yingluck has been accused of all kinds of crimes and the latest for corruption related to her rice policy for the Thai farmers.
 
Under pressure from the protesters who were pointing the corruption finger at her, she called for a general election to vote her out. The Democrats refused to participate knowing that they would lose again. Why would a political party with so much power behind it and claiming to represent the majority of the Thais afraid to fight a general election and so convinced that it would lose?
 
Do they believe in their accusations against the Yingluck govt for being corrupt and that the Thai voters are not stupid to want to vote a corrupt govt back into power again and again? Or the majority of the Thais do not believe anything the Democrats and the protest leaders are leveling against the Yingluck govt? Or they believe that the Democrats and the Bangkok elite are more corrupt instead?
 
Thaksin has been away for so long. If he and his sister are so corrupt, why would the Thais keep voting them back to power? Why would he not go away? The majority of the Thais are stupid?
 
Why would the Thais want to continue to support the Thaksin and Yingluck party? Do they know what is good for them and which party is against their interests? They cannot be voting for a party and leaders that are corrupt can they?
 
What is the truth? The Yellow Shirts and Suthep are claiming on moral high ground but still believe that they would not be voted in by the majority of the Thais. He even declared a victory day ‘more than 5 times’ but no confident to fight a general election. Funny isn’t it?
 
They said you cannot bluff all the people all the time. 8 years have passed and Thaksin is still a popular leader of the Thai people. He and Yingluck must have done something right or his corruption tag would have finished him off, and Yingluck as well. Who is being conned, the simple rural farmers or the educated Bangkok city folks?

Kopi level - Green

American’s cheap drone war

The Americans have been fighting wars after wars non stop since WW2, and often several wars at the same time. They have learnt valuable lessons in the areas of strategies, tactics and cost effectiveness. The latest concept is drone wars.
The Americans must have taken quite a toll in the lost of expensive aircraft and lives of pilots, even though they have so many available, that using expensive aircraft and risking the lives of pilots are a no go and very costly in all fronts.
 
The cheap drones are safe and effective. The expensive leading edge technology of the best, most sophisticated and most advanced and most expensive fighters are just for show, a PR job to demoralize the enemy. The real war is fought by drones. The days of Battle of Britain and having the fastest and best aircraft for air superiority is over. Today there are cruise missiles and anti aircraft missiles that would make sophisticated and expensive aircraft irrelevant.
 
There is nothing secretive or surprising about the F35s. It is another con game that only a super power with bottomless funds can afford to play. Who are we bluffing that we need the most sophisticated and problem plagued and most expensive fighter aircraft when drones will do? Why do we need the most expensive aircraft to fight who? And don’t forget, to fly such sophisticated aircraft we need near supermen and women to operate them. Putting an idiot or monkey on the pilot seat will not do justice to such a piece of technology shit. At that speed the intelligence level and reaction time falls drastically and put on a lot of stress on the pilots. A super aircraft is only as good as the technicians and the quality of the pilots. Lousy technicians and pilots would undermine the capability that was paid for.
 
In the case of drones, you can fly them by school children with fast fingers on the ground. Warfare has moved on and the Americans know what they are doing. Are we still stuck in our old mindset of fighting wars with pilots and more and more sophisticated machines when the Americans have abandoned such a military strategy?
 
With the money to be spent on sophisticated piloted aircraft, we can have a few hundreds or thousands of drones or cruise missiles at our disposal. And training the boys and girls to fly them would be a piece of cake, with practically no war casualty. On the defensive part there are the famous and highly rated Patriot Missile System or the even better Iron Dome of Israel to take down the best fighter aircraft.
 
What is the better war strategy? Ask the Americans why they are using drones instead. In many ways, the F35 is another Ponzi Scheme to make the participants in the programme pay and pay when they have already committed money out front and very painful to cut losses at this point in time.

Kopi level - Green

Susie Lingham – Nurturing a local talent

In the realms of the esoterics, an area called arts, the big names are often Europeans. The big galleries and museums are managed and fronted by big European names. The few big local names in arts are generally confined to music and dance. We do have a few painters of international standing.
 
The gurus or regents of running art houses and museums are never Singaporeans. Fortunately in this area, we have not sold ourselves cheap by importing foreign talents except for one, if I am not mistaken. The National Museum, the National Art Gallery and the National Heritage Board are all helmed by locals. Cannot imagine the National Heritage Board being helmed by a foreigner. But it looks quite natural given our colonial history to have an angmoh to sit there, even if he is 30 year old who did not know what colonial Singapore was. We were once owned by angmohs and so it becomes a natural right of passage of sort to have an angmoh to look authentic or international.
 
Good God, they appointed a local lass in Susie Singham to head the Singapore Arts Museum. I am sure there must be thousands of better qualified foreigners with great CVs, authentic ones I am sure, to put Susie Singham in a corner. The decision to put Susie there must be a national one, one of pride and confidence that we are as good as the best in the world. How else are we going to have a good representation in this field if we keep hiring foreigners to screw the local talents? The locals will have no chance to be trained, to gain the experience and credentials to write in their CVs that they have taken such an appointment.
 
I hope our local institutions will take the cue from our arts institutions to go local and nurture out local talents to be there with the best in the world. If we don’t train our locals, if we don’t give them a chance, who will?
 
The painful part is to place a foreign fake to helm our national institutions and deprive our own from having a go at these positions. New pink ICs are just as sick and fake.
Hope the daft in charge are taking the hints and do not be stubborn to go foreign to prove how inadequate and incompetent they are. It would not be funny for MOM to turn out a few foreign fakes at the highest level and kicking local asses.
 
By the way, the title of an article on Susie Singham by Huang Lijie is titled, ‘A heart for the arts’. Luckily the heart is in the right place and not misplaced.

Bounty schemes for hunting down cheats

The announcement by MOM on hiring an Indian company to check on the CVs and qualifications of Indian PMEs here is throwing up a lot of meaningful and effective suggestions from cyberspace. So don’t say bloggers only criticize and did not offer solutions. Instead of throwing good money after bad money, some bloggers commented it is an absolute stupidity, brainless piece of work, it should be one based on rewards like the bounty hunters.
 
The bounty hunter scheme does not pay blindly and useless and unfruitful work, like a bottomless pit, for bull shitting works that yielded no results. It pays for results. The hunters are paid for every head they brought in. A range of $200 to $10,000 can be offered as reward according to the income or seniority of the cheat. This will incentivize the hunters to go for the kill, the biggies. Then the bill can be presented to the company that did the hiring as fines. Make the companies responsible for the cost incurred.
 
Under the present scheme, an agency could go through the motion and collect $100 each without producing any result or doing anything. Just file the reports with fictitious work done. Don’t worry, they have honed this cheating game to fine arts and know exactly how to fool the super talents here. After all they have been doing it all these years and with a few hundred thousand cheats working here as PMEs.
 
Go for the real stuff and stop monkeying around and wasting public money. Oops, I don’t think the bloggers are smart enough to come out with anything better than the present scheme of MOM.
 
I apologise on behalf of all the daft bloggers and their daft suggestions. A thousand apologies.

Avert culture of entitlement

The ST editorial today talked about averting the entitlement culture with respect to COE. The demand for cars is going up but not the supply. As more and more people, especially the rich foreign talents, are brought in, you can expect the squeeze on the few COEs available. It is normal and natural, no one’s fault, just market forces. Do you want growth? How many believe in this crap?
 
Then again, Sinkies must get use to this kind of philosophy. You are not entitled to anything with your citizenship. No one, not even the govt, is responsible to your basic needs. It is all determined by market forces and affordability ie if you can pay for it.
 
Sinkies must erase this entitlement mentality. Don’t think you are entitled to public housing. Don’t think your children are entitled to a place in the universities or schools. Don’t think that you are entitled to a job, especially a good job. There are millions or hungry and more talented mercenaries out there waiting to take your place. Their rights and passport to a job here is their talent, meritocracy. If you are not meritorious enough, sorry, the job goes to the best man or woman even if that is a foreigner.
 
Is there anything else that Sinkies believed they are entitled to? The return of their life savings? Keep hoping. The only thing they are entitled to perhaps are doing National Service and be compelled by all the compulsory payment schemes by the govt. No, they are not taxes. Swear. They are good for you. These compulsory payment schemes are your entitlements as citizens.
 
Oh, you are entitled to the world’s best paid govt that will take very good care of your welfare, second only to the meritorious foreigners who are more meritocratic and deserving to jobs, car ownerships and home ownerships and whatever that is of value. Entitlement here, regardless of whether you are a citizen or not, is based on meritocracy.
 
So, please don’t talk or think entitlement anymore just because you hold the pink IC.

Is this an official message?