april 1 comes early

sunday morning is a time for a little senseless digression. it is good to read of laughters and applauses in the sunday times, during speeches by koh boon wan and ng eng hen. both must have been telling a lot of jokes to draw the laughters from their audiences. it is good that ministers have a good sense of humour. a rare quality in this highly stressed singapore when children playing with white elephants are taken very seriously by adults. now for a little good news. boonwan announced that from april 1, withdrawal of medisave is up from $300 to $400. this is one of the reasons for the loud applause reported by the serious sunday times. i think the applause will be thunderous if the announcement is for medical fees to by slashed by another 10%. but good news is good news. no need to bother about substance. another piece of good news. an average c class hospital bill is $800. and 9 in 10 patients in b2 class paid less than $2,200. and the medisave account as at end 2004 showed a balance of at least $17,000. more than enough to pay for hospital bills. so no need to worry. given that not many people will be hospitalised more than 3 times in their life time, and using the $2,200 figure as a guide, would a $6,600 medisave balance be more than adequate? take in the continuous increases in medical fees, a $10,000 medisave balance will surely be sufficient. ahem, i think the roar of approval will bring down the roof of the hall if boonwan would to announce that from april 1 medisave will be capped at $10,000 instead of the current $32,500 and will go up further. and eng hen drew laugher in his rebuttal of wp's 4 dangerous time bombs in its manifesto. maybe the wp should take his advice and do a thorough audit on the team that put up these dangerous proposals. are the proposals seriously thought out to win votes for the wp or to undermine wp? if i can agree with 3 out of eng hen's four rebuttals, then i think it is serious. the four points may be announced too early. april 1 is still quite some time away. the point that i agree with wp is subsidies and assistances to those who need help. after spending $2.5 bil on upgradings of parks and facilities, and $1 bil for needy folks, i thought it will be better to spend $2.5 bil on people and $1 bil on parks and plants and upgrading. then no reason to say money not enough. with 240,000 on the official list of being poor, money sure not enough. $1 bil really can't do much. it is better to give, maybe $100,000 to one person and he will be so much happier. and cheaper to do so. and one can claim authority from the divine who said, 'for those who have, more will be given to them.' with divine authority, who dare to say it is wrong? so if you are earning a lot more, maybe $2 mil, you need not have to complain that you need a raise. you need not have to tell people that you need more cash to stash away in your bank accounts. more will be given to you without asking. isn't that nice? it is a beautiful sunday.

foreign talents: malaysians not in the equation

while many write or talk about the foreign talent issue, one thing that has escape notice or discussion is the malaysians, and also ex singaporeans. these two groups are being taken for granted. the malaysians, for historical reasons, and familiarity are never seen as outsiders in this regard. there are welcome to come and go. the issue of singaporean vs malaysian, the you against us mentality, only crops up when there is a spat, usually politically motivated. this closeness as a common people between two bickering nations is unique in our context. but with a few more generations down the line, will this closeness remain or evaporate forever into the future?

janadas devan: why spore should welcome foreign talent

i fully agree with his final remarks 'give me your weavers, your drainers,/your huddled financiers and traders yearning to breathe free,/the wretched geniuses - with IQs above 160, never mind EQ -of your teeming shore.' the crux of the matter is all talents, with IQs of 160. not all the half talents or mister average which we too have plentiful, and have given two or two and a half years of their precious youth to the nation. and will take up arms to die for the nation. we cannot trade off the lives of our own sons for half bakes. experts, technocrats, professionals are welcome with open arms. i will welcome them too. janadas uses the example of america and uk as good examples of free countries that benefitted greatly from the welcome foreign talent policies. what he forgot to elaborate is that these two are big countries and especially america where land is big and opportunities are aplenty but with few heads except red indians. they have no problems accepting all the foreign talents without causing severe unemployment and social stress to their own people. america is a totally different case as the country was new and unstructured, and wild. we have structured ourselves over the last 40 years. we cannot afford to drown our country with an influx of foreigners to replace the citizens. or shall we follow the americans in displacing their true sons of the soil, the red indians, with foreign talents? this follow the america thinking is very dangerous for a small country like us. the stark difference in dimension and size will put all policies that were right in america wrong here. we try to do things like we are america but without the critical mass to spread the risk or to provide the numbers. as such, we have seen many crazy ideas being implemented, blindly to the detriment of nation and people. yes welcome all those with 160 IQs.

nude squat to snoop squad

malaysia will be a nation forever divided and sanctioned in the constitution. the bumiputra policies, with its well intention to protect the rights of the malays, will divide the country along racial lines. ain't this bad enough? now the more serious and dangerous threat to further divide the country is the sanctioned of islam as a parallel institution to the national courts of justice. article 121(1A) rules that the national courts have no jurisdiction over the religious courts. the nation thus has two judicial systems of equal status. does it mean that if the religious court sentenced a thief to have his hands chop off, the national court has no right to intervene? what about citizens who are muslims and are also from other races, and the issue is grey or controversial? can the accused choose to be judged by a national court? the body case is a good example. the family has no say and neither has the national court any say even to dispute whether moorthy actually became a muslim. and as much as he is a muslim and belongs to islam, he is also a husband and a father and belongs to the family and his indian community. but the religious court is supreme. with racial and religion as the two swords that divide the nation, and with a religion that has no qualms about interfering into the private affairs of its believers and non believers, the stage is set for more confrontation. malaysia can be set on fire any day.

catherine lim, i agree with you

catherine lim wrote a long article today in the straits times on the perennial issue of freedom of speech. i must say i fully agree with her. just recall the white elephants at buangkok and the sale of white elephant t-shirt issues are enough to tell a very enlightening story. i buy you kopi, catherine.