WP bashing – a smear campaign

Some of you may be aware by now of the consistent and daily bashing of the WP by anonymous bloggers in their comments here and in other blogs. I want to declare that I am not a supporter of any political party. The tactic used is the same as that of the Americans attacking their chosen enemies, schemed by the mind benders, to subtly plant negative thoughts into the heads of the innocent readers. No, the readers do not believe or agree with the bashings, but the idea is planted in their subconscious and will eventually influence their thoughts in the most unexpected moment.

These are the works of highly trained professionals and executed by the runners. Everyday without fail, they will post things like WP is sleeping, WP is not doing anything, WP has few good people, WP is incapable of forming the next govt etc etc.

The work is not done by one individual but by a brigade. The line of thought is similar in nature. Just read through the blogs and take notice of such vibes and vitriols. Be aware and conscious about them and build yourself a defence mechanism to ignore and reject such negative ideas consciously. This requires effort to do so. Not doing anything will open one to a long period of idea planting and mind bending and before one knows anything, the idea is imbedded in the some corners of the mind and will affect one’s decision at those critical moments.

Be aware of what you read. Be protected like being protected against the virus. Be vaccinated. The mind game is ongoing all the time.

Another thing that the brigade is doing is character assassination. They would not discuss or engage an issue but just go straight to attack the blogger. Such slimey people are simply shameless things that walked on two legs and calling themselves human beans. There are plenty of them out there, here and in other blogs. And the people who sanctioned their acts, paid for their acts are the bigger devils themselves, though many would put on a pretense that they did not know and are not involved.

Bloggers Contest – World’s apart

The winner of the most popular blog contest organised by the citizens of the city state is none other than TREmeritus with millions of hits daily. Coming closely as first runner up is The Real Singapore. Second runner up goes to LittleSpeck. Actually these are just figments of my imagination.

The real winner of the Spore Blog Award went to Ivan Kwan whose blog, The Lazy Lizard’s Tales, whose article on the Pulau Ubin conservation went viral. Altogether 19 bloggers were honoured in the contest organised by the Singapore Press Holdings. Among the winners were bloggers on travel, lifestyle, parenthood, makan stalls and poetry.

Some of the winners would be blogging on finance and health matters soon. And one blogger commented, ‘It is also fantastic to see older bloggers – it shows that the trend is quite mainstream, no longer confined to the younger generation.’

Sorry uncles Seah Chiang Nee and Leong Sze Hian, not old enough, and not mainstream. And sorry, to be winners of the contest, you cannot blog about social political stuff. Mainstream bloggers don’t blog on such sticky stuff. I am going to set up a few new blogs on kite flying and fighting spiders. Maybe I will get a mention next year.

On the other hand it would be nice if TRE or some other lunatic blogging sites could organised a contest for the best blog or best bloggers on the lunatic fringe and we can reveal the fearful and frightening faces of these weird beings that exist in cyberspace. Otherwise no one will know of their existence or their blogs and the hot stuff they wrote. For sure they would not be writing about poetry and the beautiful garden city.

Ravi and Vellama shine through the constitutional haze

Last August a high court judge, Pillai ruled that the PM has all the discretion to call or not to call a by election when a single constituency seat is vacant. It more or less cast a big dark cloud over the constitutional rights of the citizens to be represented by an elected representative. Yesterday, light shone through the dark cloud to clear up this hazy matter. Three Appeal Court Judges, Chao Hick Tin, Andrew Phang and V Rajah, over ruled Judge Pillai’s judgement and re read what the Constitution really meant in a clear and logical way.

The Prime Minister may have certain leeway to decide when a by election is to be held but he must call a by election within reasonable time. A by election must be called to protect the rights of the people to be represented by an elected MP. Otherwise it would lead to the disenfranchisement of the people, an act contrary to the provision of the Constitution. Is not this logical from the very start? Well, judges are human beans too and their interpretations of the law sometimes left much to be desired.

The findings of the Appeal Court Judges in a way vindicated the smear poured over Ravi as an erratic person flawed by a bi polar sickness, meaning he is unreliable and may not even be fit to be a lawyer. This case proved beyond any doubt that for all the harsh accusations of a decent man in Ravi, his cranial faculty is still as sound as anyone learned man, if not better. Ravi pushed a case that was sound from the beginning and almost became unsound, which would also implicate him as being unsound. Now it is very clear that Ravi and his case are both as sound as they could be.

This judgement is a victory of the people, a victory of our judicial system, of sound interpretation of the law, a victory for Ravi and Vellama, two most unexpected individuals that took on the system to demand an explanation and interpretation of the law. And the Courts of Law delivered. And it also tells a story that judges do erred, particularly in the way laws are written and the way words are used.

Temasek Annual Report 2013

‘2009 News--Government will be able to issue more securities like bonds, after Parliament approved raising the limit of its borrowings from $250 billion to $320 billion.

This motion to increase the limit was passed yesterday.

Explaining the need for a higher amount, Second Finance Minister Lim Hwee Hua said the Government is close to reaching the current ceiling of $250 billion, with more securities likely to be issued.

There are $234.7 billion worth of outstanding government securities, she said, and the amount is expected to hit $320 billion in the next five years.’

The above was posted by an anonymous blogger as a comment. It is old news but may still be applicable when the next set of bond is due for redemption and wonder how much it would be.

I am no expert in this kind of numbers and I am not going to dig into them to figure out what is or what is not. Maybe Leong Sze Hian might have more to say on this. I think he must be banging away with his calculator at the moment to make sense of what is being published to day.

All I can say is that if Temasek’s net portfolio value is $215b and (if there is a $234.7b worth of bond expiring, hypothetically), the amount with Temasek would not be enough to redeem these bonds. Or maybe some of the bonds will be serviced by GIC. If Temasek is liable fully for this $234.7b, then the 16% annual return is going to be meaningless right? Anyone knows when will the next bond be due and how much would it be? I am just using the numbers as examples for discussion only.

And in order for Temasek to continue to hold on to this $215b, it needs to roll over the bonds by issuing more bonds to the tune of $320b. And this roll over is going to go up annually, while the value of Temasek’s holding may take a long time to catch up, which technically Temasek is operating on a negative asset basis. Tio boh? Please enlighten me that I am wrong and what Temasek is owning now a large portion of it is net profit, less bond redemption.

Oh, there are some economists here. Please help and explain to the laymen what the numbers mean, can?

Why are the Middle Eastern countries in perpetual turmoil?

The Middle Eastern region, including the north African states, are in perpetual turmoil, armed uprising, mass protest, regime change, civil wars and whatever you can name it, as long as it is about destabilizing a country, you can find it in the Middle East region. In the north you have Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian non state and Israel. In the south you have Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and to the east there are Afghanistan and Pakistan. And to the west, there are Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia etc etc.

There are two common factors in these countries, one is instability and war. The other, you guess.

The countries in Latin America used to be in a similar state with regime change and assassinations of their leaders a regular affair. These countries were also in a state of flux and instability. There were uprisings and rebel groups waiting to over throw the legitimate govts. Today, Latin American is like an oasis of peace. The turmoil and threats of regime change is past.

What are the two common factors that contributed to the peace and stability in the region? One is the absence of interstate conflict and subversion. The other factor, you guess?

OK, the other factor that is common in the Middle Eastern region that contributed to the existing state of constant turmoil and instability is the presence of the Americans. The Americans claimed that they have an interest in the region and thus have the right to put their fingers into the pot to stir shit, to promote regime change, to support rebel forces and insurgents against legitimate govts.

The other common factor that contributed to the state of peace and stability in Latin America is the absence of American interference. The Americans have been booted out of South America and with the door slammed shut in their face. As a result the Latin American countries could live in peace and concentrate on economic development, and to determine their own affairs the way they want it.

South East Asia has enjoyed four decades of relative peace after the Americans were forced to leave Vietnam and the Philippines. Today tension is again brewing in South East Asia with threats of war very imminent. What is the new factor that contributed to this new state of instability? You guess.

Ask why is the Korean Peninsula in a state of perpetual tension and at the brink of war? No it is not the North Koreans. They are just the straw men put up for bashing.