One directorship to do top cop in

Malaysia's No 3 cop, Ramli Yusoff, director of Commercial Crime Investigation Dept, was charge for owning properties of more than RM1 million and also for violating a regulation by not declaring his directorship in a private company. His total assets that were in question were more than RM27 million. If he would have become a politician, he could have 10 or 20 directorships and no question will be asked. It will all be above board and legitimate. Only politicians have such privileges. And he could also be given millions of shares in their govt linked companies, and be much richer than the RM27 million that he had. Must know how to play the right game.

Sexy talks on radio

The msm reported that Mediacorp Radio has been fined $5000 when DJs Glenn Ong and Mark van Cuylenburg talked about sex in the morning. To be precise, it was done between 7am and 8am. What they discussed was whether men and women should make noise during sex and whether noisy men turned women off. A few hours just after bed, they may be reliving their encounters and needing some affirmation that they are doing the right things. And it is good sex education for school children on their way to schools. They will have heightened awareness of what sex is all about and would have a lot of questions to ask their sex education teachers. Mediacorp should take the opportunity to have a radio channel devoted to sexy talks since it is so popular and they have enthusiatic DJs to anchor the programme. It will be a really hot and steamy channel. And more money will roll in from the advertisers. From the hotels in Geylang as well.

The years that Asean squandered away

China made the decision to open up their economy in 1978. It was, till then, a closed and very backward country and economy. In 1978, Asean and several countries within Asean were already a mini economic powerhouse compare to the China. What happens today is that China and India have leapfrogged over Asean and are now two big engines that run the world economy. Where is Asean? Still stuck in its own bickering over national interest and pride but not moving anywhere. We laugh at the two giants, India and China, as slow, difficult to manage with gigantic population and infrastructure problems. They have got their acts together. Have Asean got theirs together? Hsien Loong called for more rapid liberalisation, opening up of the skies and economies. There were several attempts at building growth triangles but only to fizzle out like the opening of a bottle of coke. Only some gases made a little noise. And the world moves ahead.

The international dumb asses

If pay be the criteria for intelligence, these must be the dumb asses in international politics. Russian President Vladimir Putin S$113,000 pa French President Nicolas Sarkozy S$480,000 British PM Gordon Brown S$534,000 German Chancellor Angela Merkel S$544,000 Irish PM Bertie Ahern S$620,00 These dumb asses were so shortchanged that they didn't know their market values.

My take on the mean criteria

With means testing becoming a reality, let's guess what the criteria will be to qualify people for medical subsidies. Starting at C wards. First condition will be living in rental flats. Personal income not more than $800 pm and household income not more than $1,500. Also there must be no savings and the Medisave account must have less than $3000. For B2 wards, subsidies will be eligible to those living in 3 rm HDB flats or equivalent. Personal income should not be more than $1500 pm and household income not more than $3000. And Medisave should not be less than $10000. For B1 subsidies, only for those living in 4 rm HDB flats. Personal income less than $2000 and household income less than $4000. Medisave account should be less than $15000. I think these could be the possible conditions for means testing. Anyone in better conditions than these should be warded in B1 or A wards and pay accordingly. The poorer people will thus benefit from lesser people competiting for the subsidies while more people will have to pay the full rate, providing more subsidies for the poorer people. Brilliant right? What say you people?