general election: political parties

on a sunday morning, i was musing with the names of political parties. we have our fair share of punts on our political parties' names. then i look north and things are very different. they called themselves, or recognised themselves as umno, mca, mic, gerakan, keadilan and pas. one feature that is very different from singapore that the missing of 'p' except for pas. pas can still be recognised as p...a...s. the rest are called quite differently. 'p' is a common denominator in singapore's political parties. we have p...and...p, w...p or worker's p, s...d...p, s...u...p...p, s...d...p, and s...p...p. so all our parties are called p's. we used to have the singapore alliance and the barisan socialis. but maybe because there don't have p's and can not exist here. looks like p is key to political success. i was thinking, if i were to name a new party, what kind of p would sound good? people' p, worker's p, citizen's p, singapore's p, as long as it has a p sounding at the end. but i still prefer not to p. somehow p does not sound so nice.

freedom of expression: how far shall it go?

Singapore A small reaction Arab-Muslim coffee shop puts up 'Danes Not Welcome' sign, but.. By Satirat Dam-ampai. scanasia.com.Feb 10, 2006 After the furore over the published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed made it to Singapore, a coffee shop there has put up a sign saying that Danish citizens were not welcome. The sign, which said “Citizens of Denmark are not welcomed in Samar till further notice” was displayed at the entrance and also inside of the Samar café on Friday 3 February, 2006. However the sign was removed on Monday 6 after the owner of the shop was ordered by the police to do so. He has also been ordered to go to a police station for questioning. The café supervisor Saiful Bahari told TMCNet News, "Basically we did it to express our freedom of speech because the cartoons touched on Islam and our beloved Prophet Muhammad. "As a Muslim, I do feel angry with what happened as it was totally insensitive." This cafe is located in the heavily Arab commercial area of Singapore and is owned by a Singapore citizen of Arab descent. i extracted this from littlespeck.com. on the ground of freedom of expression, i agree that there is nothing wrong with the sign. the cafe owner has a right not to welcome whoever he does not wish to welcome. then the next thing can happen is that every shop and restaurant starts to put up signs not to welcome this and that. then what? more heat will be generated and one leads to two and we will have riots on our streets. is freedom of expression worth what it is in such a case? contrast this with the white elephant issue and the little school girls selling white elephant t shirts, i think the police did it right this time. i do not think any sensible singaporeans will be offended by the police action in this case. as a people, we respect different races and their cultural and religious practices as long as each group keeps it within themselves. no group is allowed to make expressions that are rude or unpleasant to another group. to be selfish, the world can burn. but we shall live our lives the way we want it, peacefully. who says we must always court excitement? that singapore must be as exciting as other places? excitement often courts danger.

general election: a reflective moment

before the heat of the election proper gets in the way, there is time for a little reflection. lky asked what would he do if he were in the opposition. his formula, go for a single ward, get elected, established your credibility, then get a few good men and go for a grc and later a few grcs. chiam seetong had walked that road, intentional or by accident. he had the opportunity to do exactly what lky said. it did not work out for one big reason, he did not have good men with him. there was this lingering doubt as to the quality of the people he had then. hypothetically, if he did have good and decent men with him then, would it make any difference? would the ruling party be in a more generous mood to accommodate these new upstarts? would the road would be full of obstacles that making further advances treacherous? we have seen many casualities along the way. would it make any difference if these were genuine and sincere men who wanted to offer themselves as leaders of the nation? there are many good men but unwilling to step forward for good reasons. no one who is thinking would want to fight an uphill battle, no matter how fair and hard they fought, when defeat meant total destruction of life in the country. when a defeat meant a ticket of no return. in today's road map, can lky's formula work? unlikely. no independent candidate can hope to fight a decent election and win. there are too few single wards available and a one on one contest with the ruling pap is impossible. every single ward will be contested by the existing opposition parties. an independent candidate will find himself in a 3 corner fight, further weakening his chances. unless of course, there is a real change in the thinking of the ruling party, to welcome good people to stand and compete with them on equal terms. is lky's message an invitation for more good people to step forward? the number of single wards available will be a sign of whether there is a real change in perception of things to come. my formula, get a clean slate of good men and go straight for a grc. the time has come when a group of good men can take a grc from the ruling party. provided of course there is no underhand tactics being employed. and what is good and decent is very subjective and would need the approval of the 3 wise men, in a similar way.

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?