how to become a laffing stock

the times higher education supplement(thes) has ranked nus and ntu at 22 and 48 positions. this places nus ahead of many reputable universities in the usa. and if we work on it, it is so easy for nus to be the top university in the world. singaporeans really excelled in the area of examination. we are exam smart. just let a singaporean go through the exam for a few times and we know exactly how to score in every area. the criteria set by thes is no different. we will learn quickly and overcome them, and score As in every section. another few years and we will be there, the top university in the whole world. but being at the top comes with a price. financially this is chicken feed. we have the dole. we can afford it. if not enough we can raise fund. if necessary we can raise tuition fees. as simple as that. but the financial cost is nothing. today nus is 22. even at 22, many people are already sneering at nus. how could nus be better than such and such a university in the states. these universities are well established and with records of producing brilliant and successful graduates. what is the track record of nus? just imagine when we become number 1. we out ranked all the top ivy league universities in the usa. we are on top of harvard, mit, carnegie mellon, princeton, stanford, yale, ucla...etc etc we may become number 1 on paper. but nobody is going to take us seriously. we may work very hard to be tops in the thes ranking. but we will only work ourself to become a laughing stock. a really good university is not just because of its ranking by some superficial survey. there are more to it than having how many foreign students, how many papers published, how good are the facilities and how many reputable professors. it is a history of many things in combination. and most important thing is the x factor. people just know and recognise it as the best. do we want to work so hard to be number 1?

handcuff is a must even for minor offences

lionel de souza, a former police officer, still maintained that a crime is a crime and handcuff is a must. big crime small crime, seizable offence, non seizable offence doesn't matter. better to play safe than to let an offender run away. i hope he will suggest to mrt and the bus company to equip all bus and train captains with a dozen pairs of handcuff for each train or bus. all these fare cheats must know that they are committing a crime when they cheated and must be handcuffed to prevent them from running away. otherwise the poor policement will have to submit a report, subject to investigations and may lose his jobs. this is how serious an offence for a police officer for letting a criminal escape. and don't forget those drivers who went in to jb to top up their tanks but broken the 3/4 tank rule. these drivers must be handcuffed quickly in case they drive their cars into jb and don't come back. i am going to import handcuffs for sale to these companies and quote lionel de souza as an authority. i like this lionel. good for handcuff business. the next tourist attraction in this island will be to look out for minor offenders being handcuffed. there will be plenty of opportunities given the abundance of fine rulings in the island, spitting, chewing gums, kicking footballs in void decks, jaywalking or running across busy orchard road, etc etc and don't forget our professional visitors soliciting for business. is this a good insight to the thinking of our govt officers? kiasu and kiasi and the public pays the price for it. now i know where the term pgo originates.

the desperate middle class

irene ng raised the plight of the new poor of singapore. lost job, sold hdb flat still no money to survive and pleaded for cpf to let them retain some portion of the money needed to return to cpf. gan kim yong replied, 'allowing homeowners to keep part of the proceeds from selling their flats will "deplete their cpf savings and undermine their post retirement needs...this might help them meet their daily needs for a while, but we will be storing up bigger problems for the future...arranging loans from cpf is also not practical because they are unlikely to repay their loans even through instalments."' the answer will come, said gan kim yong, when the ministerial committee on low wage workers releases its final report in january. so meantime do nothing. the problem will go away by itself. or can comcare fund help to tie them over in the meantime? do people understand that there are people who are desperate for help now and cannot wait?

privatisation is a 4 letter word

whenever the word privatisation is mentioned, it means several things, improve efficiency, improve profits and higher price or cost to the users. the problem here is that improve efficiency may not take place. but higher profits and higher price/cost can be guaranteed. the reason is simple. it is now a private organisation and is answerable to shareholders and must return profits to shareholders. and profits is never enough, be it $10 mil, $30 mil or $100 mil. every year the profit must increase by a certain percentage to show growth. so $100 mil profit this year, next $100 mil again is no good. it must be $110 mil at least. what it means to the consumers is very simple too. you have to pay more. that is only a natural thing in privatisation especially in a monopolistic business. the other problem associated with privatisation is the change of priority. the business objective is no longer the service or products but profits. hospitals now find it their business to generate revenue and profit. not to provide medical care. no money...just too bad. you must pay for your medical service which comes at a level equivalent to how much you pay. the reason and objective of public transport is not public transport per se but profit. if education goes along the same path, then educating the young of the nation is not important but profit. can't afford to pay for quality(ie expensive) education, go elsewhere. and the cost of all these quality stuff must only go up. privatisation is a word to be fear in the singapore context. is there such a thing called 'not for profit' organisation in the private sector? even charitable organisations talked about revenue and profits to motivate their stuff and pay them well. it is only a matter of time before we privatise the govt and the whole country.

taro aso a very dangerous man

taro aso defended koizumi's visit to yasukuni shrine and made his stand on japan's role during the second world war. in his view, japan's invasion of east and southeast asia was to defend itself against western imperialism. how does defending western imperialism led to the invasion of china, korea and the greater part of southeast asia? these are not western countries and have done no wrong to the japs. this is a sick and deluded japanese man who only thinks about japanese interests and is prepared to distort history to support his private views. together with koizumi and abe, they make an unholy trinity that could lead japan to another war with its neighbours. and with the encouragement of the cowboy in the white house, war with its neighbours is not a remote possibility.