Myth 151 - No beggar in Singapore

No beggar in Singapore Technically there is no beggar in Singapore except for a few baskers and a few rich beggars that make begging their profession. And we also do not believe in free lunch and no charity from the state. We are not a welfare state. The reality is that we only beg big time, and in style. Everyday there is news of some kind of begging in the media, or on TV, telling people how good it is to give and how stylish and noble it is to beg. And the proxies to all the beggars are the celebrities and the leaders, all dressed in their Sunday best and asking for donations. This is first world style of begging. We don't encourage begging. But if you must, do it in style in a big way. Why waste your effort begging for a dollar or two when you can beg for millions?

Notable quotes from Sammyboy forum.

We want the tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth. You want the tooth? You can't handle the tooth. Ouch, the tooth hurts. It is an inconvenient tooth. Just a little distractions.

notable quotes - mahathir

'When you're coming up from behind to catch up, you have to run faster, you have to make more effort.' Mahathir Mohamad Without the NEP the bumis will regress. That's what Mahathir said. With the NEP for almost 40 years, they are still behind. They have not made good use of the policy. So they must run faster to catch up. Who would want to run faster when there is no need to run, where money drops onto their laps? This is the irony of the NEP. It is based on the wrong assumption that people would voluntarily want to work hard when they don't have to. Like it or not, it is a double edged sword. It cuts both ways.

MOE, not 987

MOE corrected the misleading data It is 18% and not 4.3%. That is the official data, 4,218 foreign students offereed places in local universities, not 987 in the latest intake.

Myth 150 - Threats in Parliament

I read some postings in other forums discussing about Sylvia Lim being threatened by Jayakumar, a law minister and DPM. Now this is ridiculous. In a first world country like ours, such things will never occur here. This may happen in third world countries or in Taiwan Parliament, or maybe a communist country, but definitely not in our democratic Parliament. Further, we have carefully chosen the best men of impeccable character, honourable and intelligent to become politicians, they will not resort to such tactics to intimidate other parliamentarians. We will become a joke if this really happen. In a kingdom or in communist state where abuse of power is common and prevalent, these things happen. For those in power know that their power is forever. In our democratically elected govt, power is only for a short duration. And everyone knows that they can become ordinary citizens the next day. So fooling around with unrestraint power or abusing power can only be temporary and the day of reckoning will come when they step down from power. And such abuses are very rare if we look at all the happily retired politicians. They live among the people without anyone spitting at them or threatening them now that they have no power. Our politicians are sensible people and will not do that. Those people who commented about the threats are stretching the argument a bit too far. Nothing will happen to Sylvia Lim.