The quality and credibility of social media

The Bromptomgate and the Ravi case have proven beyond any doubt about the quality and credibility of the social media. Some have gone so far, walked that extra mile, to uncover the hidden truths that the public were dying to know. And social media have done that extremely well, to tell the truth, nothing but the truth.

Anyone want to disagree with me that social media is just some voices in the wilderness or some lunatics fringes? The quality and intensity in the investigation to get to the truth without being paid a single cent is simply remarkable. Social responsibility need not be bought by money. Social media is not only the voice of the people, but also the voice of conscience and social justice.

You want the truth, social media can handle it.

So frightening….

A medical report from a psychiatrist, Dr Calvin Fones Soon Leng from the Gleneagles Medical Centre, was submitted to the court by the Law Society to raise doubts about lawyer M Ravi’s ability to practice law. Some of the contents of the reports in the media state that Ravi is ‘currently unfit to practice law and his illness is likely to affect his professional capacity…is having a manic relapse of his bipolar disorder…this is likely to occur over the past two weeks.’

Ravi was advised by his kind and concerned friends to take a break from his heavy load in cases like the death sentence of Yong Vui Kong, Kenneth Jeyaretnam’s case on Singapore’s loan to the IMF and the case of cleaner Vellama versus the PM on the PM’s discretion to hold by elections. The report did not state whether his good friends advised him to get a medical MC or to see a psychiatrist. But he went to see Dr Fones leading to this report in court, submitted by the Law Society.

The more significant and frightening part of the report in the media is this. ‘He(Dr Fones) added that the lawyer “lacks any insight into his condition as is often the case for many patients who (suffer a) relapse”. If Mr Ravi remains uncooperative, the doctor said that the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act may need to be invoked. The Act provides for the admission, detention, care and treatment of mentally disordered persons in designated psychiatric institutions.’

Don’t pray pray with the power of the doctors. When they have diagnosed someone as mad or potentially mad, this is what they can do to the person. And it looks like Ravi is diagnosed as mad or going mad in layman terminology.

Would Ravi be seen running wild brandishing a sword that makes him dangerous to society or to the judges in court? Or would Ravi ended up throwing a shoe at some VVIP. I am wondering what had Ravi done to put him in this dangerous person list?

What can happen now would be for Ravi to be struck off the practicing lawyer’s list, or may be put into a mental institution. End of the story.

Inclusive society, no one left behind

With this grand motherhood statement, one can presumed that it is true, a govt position and all policies will follow suit. So anyone left behind?

All those victims of past govt policies, especially those citizens that still have no homes, ostracized, discriminated, banned, punished or for whatever reasons, not allowed to by HDB flats, it is time to show your middle finger, together as a group. Some of these were the singles, some could not find a partners to get married and their incomes exceeded the arbitrary ceilings that should not be there in the first place if the govt’s goal is to build homes for the people, not finding excuses not to build and put the blame on high demands, some waited and see their incomes grew or got promoted and found themselves screwed.

If the govt has been caring and know that it is duty bound to build flats/homes for the citizens, and did not hold back from building, there will be no demand exceeding supply problem. And the idiots could not understand that all young people started work with incomes below the ceilings and should be qualified unless they were children of millionaire ministers who already be given private properties in a silver platter.

The children of the working class, worked their way up, saved and stinged, only to be knocked out of the system because they took a little more time to save, to decide to get hitched, to save a little more, or could not get what they want because of limited supply and the curtailment of building more flats by the ministry. And it is their fault, not the ministry’s fault, for taking too long, waiting too long.

Where is the inclusiveness when citizens are not allowed to buy public housing, when new citizens could easily buy them? All discriminated citizens should send a petition to the govt to acknowledge their failure in providing housing to them as citizens, and the flawed policies of the past, not building enough flats to meet the needs of citizens. Would the govt reply that it is the citizen’s fault for not planning their lives and bad decision not to buy a flat when their incomes were low? Conversely, would the govt acknowledge that this is a problem due to flawed govt policies, not building, slow building, and allowing influx of foreigners and new citizens to join the queue to compete with local citizens?

What inclusiveness is the govt talking about? Inclusive of foreigners, new citizens, integrate them and screw the citizens? How many sinkies are out there, never bought or disqualified from buying public housing?

What is the purpose of calling for a public tender?

There is no need for an expert to explain why a public tender is called. At times tenders may be restricted, pre qualified, or selected for various reasons like secrecy, confidentiality, expediency or some peculiar reasons like corruption or cronyism.

Normally a public tender is called to ensure that the buyer has the best deal in terms of quality, choice and price. This is normally achieved by having a good number and selections from tenderers with a good mix of products and pricing. The buyer would then be able to make a more informed decision on what are available in the market and the cost of the product or services.

A public tender also ensures fair play, no favouritism, under hand tactics, no fixing, no collusion or corruption. It is about being fair and transparent to the buyer and sellers.

Govt agencies, public or private companies do not established procurement procedures and tender processes for fun. No responsible management staff would simply place a public tender and accept anything that comes along, and the last thing is to accept a one bid tender. This can only happen when the value is insignificant and when there is a critical time issue at stake.

The very fact that a purchase must go through the process is already a reminder to the buyer that they cannot suka suka buy anything at any price. It is a reminder that the process is to ensure the organisation is getting a fair deal and also suppliers are given a fair chance to bid for the tender. There will always be cheats who go through the motion to give an image of transparency and fair play. There will be those who will game the system for obvious reasons as had happened, and anyone who knows the system could do it so easily. And when caught, pretend to be naive and ignorant and mouth things like the system can be improved.

Are these commonsensical objectives of a tender so complicated and difficult to understand? A moron can be expected to overlook such processes and the reasons for them because a moron is simply a moron. Can anyone be more moronic than a moron and failed to observe and practise these basic rules of procurement and purchases using public money?

The dying days of a dynasty

History students will be familiar with the events leading to the eclipse of an empire or dynasty. Everything seemed so right but so wrong, badly wrong, starkly wrong. But no one would be there to say things were wrong and to put them right. Many would stand up to speak and defend the wrongs and insisted that wrongs were right, nothing is wrong. Either they could not see or would not see or so used to wrongs as being rights as long as they said so.

In recent years, many flawed policies were thrashed out in the open leading to the PM apologising for them. That was about as far as it could get. The flawed immigrantion policy, congestion, high inflation, high cost of living, high property prices, high medical cost, high salary to pay for corruption, widening income gap, rewarding foreign thrash and demeaning the people that are the owners of this land, policies that favoured foreigners and against Sinkies.  And there are many others that were so obviously wrong but pronounced as so right and so good, or as something unavoidable, nothing can be done to change them.

The echoes of HDB prices are affordable, income gap is ok, high property prices are caused by market forces, nothing can be done, more foreigners are good for growth, immigrants are here to help the daft Sinkies,…..can go on and on, are still ringing in many people’s ears.

The charade of charity shows and big fund raisings were fun and a fad for the organisers until the funds were used by some individuals to have more private funs. The running down of the public transport system was never seen and everyone was happily rewarding themselves with more bonuses until it took a simple accident that ended up life threatening to shake everybody up.

The shameless exploitations for profits in the medical profession that led to many patients ended as victims of big scams and paying dearly to the noble profession of life saving until it exploded into a big ugly incident. No, nothing wrong about how much professionals or hospitals billed their patients. Caveat emptor, willing buyer willing selling. You want quality, you pay for quality. Moneyism has replaced ethics as the new social more. The banking and finance industry has been turned into a den of crooks and no one can see anything wrong with it except pointing fingers at the low down front line snake oil peddlers who failed to explain how poisonous the snake oil is. It is their fault. Snake oils were permitted to be peddled to innocent customers as sophisticated products and advanced computerised games.

What else is new? Money is not an issue when there are plenty to go around. The squandering of millions by people and splashed across the front pages of the media were dismissed as nonsense. Many cannot see anything wrong with them but wrong for accusing the squanderers wrongfully. And the good name of God was paraded to defend the squanderers. Some have ended behind bars but the loyal supporters would not see the human failings. What is a few millions?

Was there anything wrong with the purchase of $2,200 high end branded bicycles for public servants? No, definitely no. Minister had spoken out to defend the decision. Academics too sang in support. Nothing wrong. The whole process was done properly, lowest bid, cheapest available, right procedures. The only hint of some wrongdoings was the admission that it could be done better and the system could be improved. My God, our civil service procedures were found wanting in the 21^st century for such a simple straight forward process. I think tendering is such a new thing in the civil service and they are still testing out the processes. I can only think of Ah Beng and his seventh month bidding which is more effective, efficient as a transparent tender system.

Just ask anyone involved in purchasing, any CEOs or dept heads, or any working adults and they will all shake their heads. Was there an elephant in the room? No, swear, no elephant! When a pile of shit stood right in front of everyone and in broad daylight, and respected people are defending it as no shit, you can expect how decadent things have become.

So far, the only person that is brave enough to stand up and call a spade a spade is Lui Tuck Yew. Not for fun like some pretenders claiming to do the same. And he is probably the only minister that is really working 25 hours to get the MRT running smoothly again. But he fell short of saying that heads must roll. Has anyone seen any heads rolling in the last decade or so? There is a phrase in the US called ‘too big to fail’. We may have our equivalent of ‘too talented to fail’. Anyway, this is only a side issue.

The main issue is that Nothing Is Wrong. No one can see anything wrong. And any wrong must be defended by all till it is accepted as right. Used the media to broadcast that it is right daily, get some known personalities to support the wrong as right. The daft Sinkies will believe it after a while.

Events in the dying days of a dynasty often manifest themselves in similar light, similar treatment and attention. Anyone dares claim that things are going wrong?

Look at the American Empire. Anyone dares say they are the problem of the world? Anyone dares say they are the one that is causing tension and wars around the world? Anyone dares say America is free from corruption? Everyone says, America is good, freedom, no corruption, America is saving the world, a benevolent and peace loving nation. And the best part, the Americans and their leaders, the scheming, conniving gangsters and murderers, believe it too. They too cannot see anything wrong with themselves and what they are doing. Did they ever admit that they enslaved 20 million Africans for 200 years! And murdered 10 million Red Indians and seized their lands?  Hitler was a novice compared to the Americans.

Oops, I digress.