islam under attack in malaysia?

the recent furore in malaysia and the petition by the non muslim ministers is seen by the muslims in malaysia as an attack on islam. is that so? what about the seizure of the dead bodies from their families by islam? why is this being ignored or accepted as the norm of a civilised secular state, or even a modern islamic state? from the non muslim perspective, it is the encroachment of islam into their lives. it is islam that is threatening the privacy of non muslim citizens, not the other way round. but the clerics, the fundamentalists, will claim it as otherwise. it is their right and duty, in the name of islam, to push aside the non muslim private lives and sensitivity. islam is above the law. islam is the law. this is the sign of a fundamentalist islamic state in its infancy.

smrt profit up 36%

third quarter profit of smrt rose by 36% over the same period last year to $30 mil. well done smrt. big bonuses coming up. the brilliant management must be thoroughly rewarded for such a sterling performance. they must have improved a lot on their services and other revenue generating projects and decisions. i am very sure the great improvement in profit is not due to the increase in commuter fare. thank you commuters for your contribution.

education and personal fun

there were complains by parents that top elite schools did not play football. the reason given by the schools is that they excelled in other areas and football is not their cup of tea. this is what i think a reasonable answer. but no, it is not acceptable. the reasoning is that the elite school students must play football to socialise with the non elite students. is that a good reason? the next reason is that the parents want their children who enjoy playing football to play them at the school level, for fun. now, is that another good reason? for fun they can play any where, can't they? schools, and independent schools, yes independent, must be allowed to think independently and do what they think is good for their students. it is their choice to allocate time and resources to what they do best or want to do best. what's wrong with not playing football? there are many other ways and opportunities to socialise with the non elite students. or why can't the non elite students socialise with the elite students in activities that the elite students do? why is the onus or burden be on the shoulder of the elite students? or is elitism bad? if bad then we should not promote elitism. make everyone average and happy playing football. or shall all the elite students pierce their ears or roam orchard road because the non elite students do that, and get the chance to socialise and understand them better? smoke like them and dress like them to be like them? for those parents who want their children to have fun playing football, send them to the football fields anywhere or in the hdb courts and play lah. why must insist that the school provide for them? the school don't provide then cannot play?

nkf reducing dialysis by $4

gerard ee announces that dialysis fee will now go down by $4 and another $8 later. total reduction over the last few months came to an overall reduction of 25%! what does this mean? the patients were paying so much more unnecessarily due to nkf's inefficiency or what? the monthly expenditure for a patient is $2,730. this will be reduced eventually to $2045. but still a huge sum for any poor bugger or even not so poor buggers. and to qualify for partial subsidy, the cut off household income is $3,500. without going into details of how much is partial subsidy proportional to income less than $3,500, lets look at those whose household income is above this magical number. and assuming that this is nett and not before cpf reduction. technically, a patient with $3,600 will be disqualify from subsidy and has to pay the full amount of $2,730. what is left of the $3,600? $870!!! even with a household income of $4,000, the disposal income left is only $1,270. almost 3/4 of the household income for dialysis. that is what people think a kidney patient deserves to live on, or his family deserves to live on. is that mean? and they have mean testing to ensure that this is so.

general election : preliminary round

the pap is still throwing their punches on the wp's manifesto. boon wan has come into the ring and hit at the same points. what is the wp doing? are they going to parry blow by blow? or are they taking the side step to evade the blow and taking aim at what they think will be better openings that can knock out the pap? not standing to take blows and trade blows is one tactic to adopt. but looks like wp is doing the cowboy way. stand and take the blows. and i would presume they will throw their punches while absorbing the pain. this could be the wp's strategy, knowing that pap will hit at their weaknesses, they might just take a few punches but attack the pap with more of pap's weaknesses. and at the end let the judges count who score more hits. now lets see where the wp will hit and how many punches it will throw.