general election: crystal ball gazing

this is my guess of the chances of pap ministers in the coming election. i will classify them under four categories, sure win, sure win but can have upsets, quite safe, and anything can happen. sure win: chok tong, jayakumar, chee hean, george yeo, kan seng, boonwan, sure win but can have upsets: hsien loong, lky, eng hen quite safe: yaacob, vivian, tharman, boon yang, raymond anything can happen: boon heng, swee say, bow tan, hng kiang, cheow tong just my gut feels. i think a fortune teller will also have his own take and so does anyone. you guys are welcome to make your guess. no prizes for the best forecast.

medisave: is cpf violating the law

there are two laws on medisave. one requires a self employed to continue to contribute to the medisave regardless of his age as long as he is self employed. does it mean that if a person is 100 years old and still self employed, he is still required to contribute to his medisave? obviously it is and no one in cpf cares two hoots why or is this an anomaly. the second law says the ceiling for contribution to the medisave currently stands at $32,500. this means there is no need to contribute to the medisave once this ceiling is reached. but the cpf practice is to transfer the medisave contribution into the ordinary account. or if this account is closed for members above 55 years, then the excess will be transferred to the retirement account. is this legally right to do so? all these laws seems to be conceived separately for different reasons in different times. should not the cpf straighten these laws to make them more sensible and relevant to the other cpf regulations like partial withdrawal at 55 and paying out at 62? should there be a law to stop cpf from demanding contributions from the self employed after a certain age? why is it so fun and shiok to keep collecting people's money? is cpf in violation of the laws that it introduces and implemented for its own convenience?

snoop squad kenna snooped

a snoop squad broke into a room, beat up the young man and followed up by molesting the girl. then they hauled the couple to the police station. the police on hearing the girl's story decided to arrest the snoop squad members for molesting. what about beating up the man? this kind of kangaroo court still exists in malaysia, the icon of modernisation in the muslim world. this type of tribal behaviour is quite frightening for the innocents. is it a country with laws or lawlessness?

singaporean IQ: an interesting post in soc.cul.spore

Hello there, I am an Indian graduate from the University of Madras. In the next few weeks, I will be traveling to your country Singapore to take up a job as a Chemical Engineer. I hope that I can integrate well into your society. I am a fresh graduate without any working experience, but was surprised to get this job with a handsome pay package. May better than most of you all. I understand through my daily news that young working Singaporeans is less intelligent than their elder. Is that true? Someone told me that you people have very low IQ, and because of this, your government had no choice but to import foreign workers. More than half the population is foreign workers I supposed? Anyway, immediately I was told by my interviewers that I will be classified as a foreign talent. I hope that I can impart some knowledge or teach you while I am there. As you know, Madras University is among a few top universities in the world, and from my judgment, it should be much higher in subject level and competency and more prestigious than any of your universities in tiny Singapore. Although it is not officially stated that I shall be employed as a foreign talent, I wish to be treated as one with due respect base on your lower IQ. above is an article posted in soc.cul.spore. i am truly amazed by the responses to the above articles, presumably by singaporeans. though a couple expressed doubts that the article was from a genuine indian foreign talent, several took him and his comments seriously. now what does that say of singaporean IQs?

general election: prelim round 6

this is more a kopitiam impression of how things have changed over the years. not too long ago the most frustrating compliant by the opposition is that they find it very difficult to contest the election. and the reason was not the redrawing of boundaries or grcs. the reason against the opposition is simply the brand name. it was often heard that you wear the badge on anyone or anything, it will be voted into parliament. the pap brand was so strong that it was quite pointless for the opposition to think of winning. today kopitiam talk is quite different. the impression is that if you wear the badge on anyone or thing, it is likely to lose. what a reversal in trend. a 180 degress about turn. would such an impression really be an indication of a big vote swing? kopitiam talk is one thing and the voting pattern or the actual voting is another. given the track record, the goodies, and the lack of good decent candidates from the opposition, even if there is a vote swing, the impact is not likely to be very great. but it will all depend on how good the opposition is. the issue now is not how good the pap is. so if the opposition is able to attract and put up good people, the mood may be more favourable to them to get voted in.