ge round 31: a strong mandate to show our foreign friends

Chok Tong said: - "It is important that he gets a strong mandate because, despite all that he has done, if the mandate is weak, what signals are we giving him? "What signals are we giving to our friends outside of Singapore and what signals are we giving to investors? So it is important that we give him a strong mandate." However, Mr Goh declined to be drawn into setting a winning margin for the ruling People's Action Party (PAP). 'If there's a mandate, I would know whether it was strong or weak, but at this stage, I'm not in the business of measuring the support level for him,' he said. The above is lifted from littlespeck.com. What is this thing about a strong mandate? 84/84? Why is 70/84 not a strong mandate, or a popular vote of 60% not good enough? This is a serious problem affecting the thinking of Singaporeans. We are obsessed by abundance. And while some corners of the population are crying money not enough, there are some corners that cannot appreciate what is more than enough or having too much. I can foresee that they will suffer from indigestion one of these days. Our society is suffering from excesses which we are blind to see and pretending to understand that money not enough is a problem to some people. And we need a strong mandate to tell our foreign friends, to pass them a signal? What do our foreign friends want? What the American and Europeans want to see is obvious. I kind of getting use to this word obvious. They want to see multi party representation in parliament. They want to see more opposition members being elected. Now what signal do we want to pass to our foreign friends?

sunday morning lethargy

Woke up this morning, still sleepy eyes and was immediately slammed by the Straits Times with 6 full pages of coverage on the general election. The 7th page don't count. Looks like anything worthy to be mentioned were in the 6 brightly coloured pages with happy people and smiling faces. I flipped onto the next section. Wow, pretty faces again. And only half a page. My inner self said that is all he will give me before going back to snooze. Ya, I thought, how to read 6 full pages of hard solid stuff on a Sunday morning? This reminds me of what Seah Chiang Nee told me. Keep your post short and sweet. Nobody bothers when it is too long. I visited the world of the livings, enjoyed their pursuit of the good life. High living, low thinking. Oops, my apologies. Just tickling. These are the real people whose main concern in life is whether they are invited to the next party, where to order their next designer tog. All the togs flew in first class by SIA from Paris, London and New York. Any where else is an embarassment. And the god they worship is not LKY but a Dr Woffles. Reminds me of hobbits and wizards. And their crown prince is a Dick. Now why are people so obsessed about a 20c increase in bus fare? There is a beautiful life to live. Maybe it is time to forget about all the walking zombies who can't even make ends meet. And everyday complaining about money not enough. I know what I want to do. Visit some remote regions in Tibet or China to find the secret recipe or herbal concoction to stay young and beautiful forever. Then I can make all these blessed people beautiful even for a night. And I will be their new god. Be invited to all the parties and celebrated, with everyone trying to take a picture with me. Good morning Sunday.

the crooked bridge,: a kl perception

A KL viewpoint From Khiary Jamaluddin, influential son-in-law of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. New Straits Times.Apr 15, 2006 GOVERNMENTS the world over will only consider a volte-face in policy as a last option. The one thing that political leaders want to avoid is a U-turn, a track back, a change of mind.... Why the about-turn, especially after some very strong and categorical statements from senior government leaders that work on a curved half-bridge would commence shortly? We knew the Singapore Government was not keen on a bridge replacing the Causeway. The last thing they want is easier access across the Johor Strait for Singaporeans to spend their money in Malaysia. They know that a new bridge combined with the new Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex would considerably alleviate traffic woes for the 70 million users of the Causeway every year and make the trip up north all the more palatable. A bridge would have also been a catalyst in promoting Johor as a cargo, logistics and transshipment gateway. They have also been aware for some months that the Prime Minister has earmarked southern Johor as a new growth centre for services, strategically positioning it as a competitor to Singapore which has natural limits to growth and a richly valued property market. With this in mind, they could not allow any project — like the bridge — that would accelerate the development of southern Johor. But obviously they couldn’t afford to be so obvious in showing their hand.... When dealing with slippery opponents, hardheadedness is the worst strategy. Call their bluff, change your mind, walk away, even float like a butterfly. Now they know it’s game on. * The writer is an investment banker and deputy head of BarisanNasional Youth. the above full article can be viewed from littlespeck.com. though khairy brought out many objective points, but the slant of the article is very obvious. that singapore is a slippery opponent with other objectives, and misleading the malaysians. his key argument is that singapore does not want to have a convenient access for singaporeans to visit jb or malaysia. putting aside arguments like the higher cost and toll fees and lesser relatively cheaper goods and services as reasons for singaporeans rushing over to malaysia, lets put his argument to the test. i would suggest that the malaysian govt, with all its sincere effort to build a wider and more convenient road of access to malaysia, propose to the singapore govt to widen the existing causeway to a 20 lane causeway. i am sure that will greatly reduce the jam and facilitate two way travel for the people. and to make it more attractive, do not increase the toll fees or maintain it at a reasonable level. then we will see whether the singapore govt will still object to extending the causeway. and that will prove that khairy is right, or wrong, if the singapore govt says go ahead with few demands.

rhapsody in bloom

This is a major article in the paper celebrating the riots of colours in the spring of Singapore. Yes, yes, plentiful of colours everywhere. But it could be much better if more carefully conceptualised to maximise the impact of the blooms. What has happened is that in the process of trying to do too many things at one go in a small plot of land, we created a jungle in the garden or mini park. There are simply too many varities of plants and too small in numbers of any specific plant to create that whoomp and ahhs feelings. The sakura park, or a pine forest, is sensational and dramatic because of its sheer size and expanse of uniformity. One specie or one bloom that stretches as far as the eyes can see. This induces or extracts a sense of beauty and awe among the viewers. In the local context, an example is the 5 km drive from Changi Airport to town, and if both sides and the centre divider were lined with just bougainvillas. Nothing but blooming bougainvillas of a particular colour. The sight will be permanently etched in the memory. Or we can designate some roads just for frangipani, some parks only tristellatia, some ixora or allamanda. Lantanas, if well trimmed, are very compact and colourful. Imagine a long stretch of roads of red from the flame of the forest or yellow from cassia or yellow flame? We don't need sakura parks. We can have our own local floral parks. Not little jungles of uncoordinated themes. It is simply a mess. It could have been better if carefully thought out. Diversity in landscaping in this sense is bad. Simplicity and less is actually good.

boon yang clarified: MDA to put up No U turn signs

We have waited for the clarification after Balaji spoke. And MDA or Boon Yang has explained. In his measured email to a journalist Sue Ann Chia, he carefully laid out the rules and the rationale behind MDA. What amounts to is that all the U turn signs have been taken down and new No U turn signs will be put up. Blogs or forums that are deemed to have been clearly political would be notified to register. That makes the situation so much clearer. That also speaks well of the govt's willingness to engage the people, explain its policies and be transparent about them. Maybe we were expecting too much for Balaji or any govt official to respond directly in the forum or in YPAP forum when posed the question. The official media has been an unlevel playing field with advantage strongly in favour of the govt. I hope they don't waste time trying to defend this position. In the case of forums and blogs, it is also unlevel, but strongly against the govt if it intends to. There are several good reasons for this. First, the forumers and bloggers can be anonymous. Now, no govt official is going to respond to an anonymous writer. Two, forumers and bloggers can inflame, scandalise, make sweeping statements without justifications. And three, they can use the full vocabulary of vulgarities and throw them at whoever they pleased. So, agreed, it is not fair and one cannot expect govt officials to engage in an anonymous forum or blog. But they can come in using terms like MDA officer or its equivalent. What is good now is that we can continue to post, and seriously, until such time when we receive a notification to register. Let me quote Boon Yang: 'We encourage the free flow of information and exchange of views within our political system. However, for political debates and discourse to be constructive and taken seriously, people have to take responsibility for what they say and should not remain anonymous. Facts must be ascertainable and arguments examined.' On the part of anonymity, I disagree. The forumers here, though anonymous, are mostly responsible. And their views are serious. It is not a truth to claim that a forumer who uses a name will be truthful and responsible. If there is a need to, many of us here will readily furnish our names to MDA without hesitation. We are using a nick for convenience as this is after all cyberspace.