a great president charity show

It was a great show featuring our local talents, or that was the part that I saw. I missed the first half of the show. The poly students were great, and so were the girls from MGS. And so was Stephanie. We have a lot more talents to market if we keep at nurturing them and providing them with more opportunies to excel. No need foreign talents really. As for the charity aspect, the effect of exhaustion was obvious. The callers chalked up a miserable $340,000. The balance that made up the $4 million were from corporate donations. The glamour and novelty of painful faces were not pulling the heartstrings as they used to. Maybe over exposure had toughened the senses of the audience. If that be the case then we are going to see poorer response in future charity shows. Hopefully cynicism will not replace the genuine human warmth when staring at people in grief.

israelis must learn from singapore

According to Clement Mesenas, Editor at large of the Today paper, Israel should learn from Singapore to live in peace with its Arab neighbours. The first thing that Israel should do is to be more Arab, learn to speak Arab and accept the ethos of Arab, to live more like the Middle Eastern people. Israel should not embrace the western way of life. And Singapore was quoted as the shining example to follow, learning and have Malay as our national language. All Israelis must speak Arab as a second language. But he forgot that Singapore is also like Israel, embracing everything that is good from the west and eschews all the lifestyle of the west. And, Singapore is modeling itself after Israel! Horrors!!! I am amazed at the simple solution to the Israeli problem and that the Israeli would not take this road to peace. Stupid Israelis?

the british nightmare

Britain is paying a heavy price for its arrogance, the colonial master that knew it all. And today it is crying. It is living with a nightmare it created for itself. They must have regretted not taking the advice of Enoch Powell. The raids at all the muslim hideouts to flush out terrorists over the last few days are only skimming the surface. The problem has very deep roots and well spread across the British Isles. How could they ever uproot the terrorists living among them and who were locally born, bred and trained? For their generosity or guilt, they embraced all their colonial subjects regardless of race or religion. These same people who came to Britain for a better life are turning against their benefactor. How ironic. Or is it retribution for the excesses of their forefathers who ravaged the colonies and turned free people into British subjects, subjected to British rule? We are also embarking on a major policy change to welcome the world into our little space. Will we live to regret it one day like the British? Bringing a stranger into your home is a big risk. It could turn out to be a devil in disguise.

myth 60

'The Little Red Dot is not viable' We have lived with this myth for 41 years. We started off with a population of less than 2 million. We were heading towards a dead end, political suicide for leaving our Malaysian hinterland without resources and a treasury that is virtually empty. All these are history. Today the same threat has been raised, that Singapore will not survive if we do not increase the population to 6-8 million. This time it is not outsiders that said we cannot survive. This time we said it ourselves. And to survive, we need the influx of more foreigners. The originals are no longer good enough and is a dying breed. It is like cattles with too much inbreeding. We need a dosage of new DNAs to boost out the impoverished stock. And so far everyone believe so. At least the whole govt machinery believe so. And the whole main stream media also believe so. No one has uttered a little disagreement to this embracing truth. We die if we do grow our population. The little voices in cyberspace, from the not too well educated, the unprofessional and not too objectives, the kopit tiam kakis, seem to think otherwise. So we have a competition of ideas from the thoughtful against the unthinking gossipers. Obviously the unthinking cannot be believed. The thinkers and policymakers must be right. There is another group of thinkers in the academia. Why are they saying notthing? Do they agree or disagree? Silence is golden, silence is consent. Silence can also mean protest. Or they have spoken but not heard. This is a major issue that will change the nature of the nation and its future. The academics cannot be clueless or without any views. Still waiting to hear some hot debates among the high brow thinkers on this issue. Or the viability of this nation without the doubling of its population is a truth and not a myth?

cheaper and better

When I first bought my Nikon camera a couple of years back, it cost me $399. My plasma tv cost $6000. Today, less than two years, I can get a better Nikon for the same price, with better features and improved technology, from 4 megapixels to 6 and a 1.5 inch LCD to a 2.5 inch. So is a plasma tv. A laptop used to cost at least $2k. Today it can cost below $1.5k. All the prices are coming down but without compromising on quality. In fact the quality has improved in leaps and bounds. Why is it that in this little queer island called Uniquely Singapore, the price of everything can only go up. And any suggestion of cutting down cost, the immediate reply is that quality will be compromised. That lower cost means lower quality. A CEO is a CEO and is himself. Pay him $1m or $10m, he is the same turkey producing the same work. Of course he will turn into a monkey if he is being paid peanuts. The only problem here is that nobody thinks that he is paid enough or excessively. And with the govt setting the trend, telling people that all cost and prices and salaries must go up (except for those at the lower rung that are faced with fierce international competition), it is like an edict to raise prices. And salaries are raised even in positions that have no international competition. Positions that are the reserves of Singaporeans. Then look at all the low tech industries like public transportation, essential services and basic food, how can their cost keep going up when high tech industries with cutting edge technologies, employing the best brains are able to produce better products at lower cost? Something is seriously wrong in this logic that cheap means lower quality. Just look at those who are getting ever higher salaries and compare their performances and see whether there is a proportional improvement in their performance. I bet many were just doing the same shit in and out or may even be worst. Some may spend time networking for more kickbacks for doing nothing but to show their faces or lend their names. But this is not a game of golf when a name like Tiger Woods sells.