Great Leap of Faith in Singaporeans

Every Singaporean has to be forgiven for having the impression that our politics is actually petty politics of individual attacks and character assassinations. It is always about how to argue or talk cock to win a brownie point at best, nothing substantive or meaningful, and nothing constructive towards the well being of citizens and a better future. And every encounter almost without failed ended up in the gutters with both parties ending up dirty with mud and shit all over. There is no dignity in this kind of political scuffles even for the winners.

Oh, there were big issues being talked about but always a one sided affair. There seems to be a conscious effort to avoid discussing anything important or anything that will affect the people and the future of this island. Don’t believe me, check, any real discussion on the CPF issue or it is a case of I said so and it is now the law. So get on with your life.

What about the PWP, was there any discussion, or serious discussion? Oh yes, they discussed and voted for it in Parliament. Really? Then why was there a big crowd at Hong Lim and why are the people still so angry about it?

What about the cost of health care, the number of Singaporeans PMETs losing their jobs to foreigners, etc etc, were there really discussions, political discussions by political leaders?

When would our politics take a leap forward to a higher plane, to really talk and discuss about serious issues and not personal attacks and ignoring the contrarian points raised? Maybe there were some school boy debates going on. I am wondering if they were serious discussions that men and women in leadership should be doing, or simply the blasting and pushing aside of someone without any attempt to listen? No need to talk, no need a second look, anything coming from the other side must be bad and not worth the time to look at.

And serious discussions are not like kopitiam talks, when two parties just shoot it out and whoever can talk better, even when talking rubbish, would look good and clever. Serious discussions require serious and deep thoughts and take times to consider. The main stream media should take the lead to publish these thought processes in full not only for the authors to express their views fully but also to educate the masses of the opposing intellectual thinking. So far this appears to be the reserves of a few select academics and individuals. A few politicians may enjoy such a privilege to have their thoughts printed in the media, and rarely, if there was any coming from politicians from the wrong camp. In general, politicians did not seem to have serious ideas worth printings or to share with the public. Only academics are intelligent enough for this kind of works.

Isn’t this strange, that the million dollar politicians don’t have better or worthier ideas than the academics to be aired in the media? It is high time that the MSM put in effort to allow our super talents to have a say in the press, at least to prove that they are really intelligent. It is also time to show the world that our super talents can think and their ideas are worth printing and reading and bestest.

Why allocate so much valuable media space to foreigners that often have an agenda that could be contrary to our interests? Why allowed foreign propaganda and agenda to have so much space in our MSM, often written by dounces?

There is a need for national issues to be aired in our media, by our thinkers, academics and politicians. Nevermind if we only have a handful of thinkers. Nevermind if only the thoughts of Mahbubani, Tommy Koh, Chan Heng Chee and Barry Desker are good enough for the time being. There must be others that have ideas that are worth reading and sharing.  Oh, I nearly missed out on Han Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez and Chua Mui Hoong. This island cannot have only these few local thinkers, and the thousands of highly paid foreign correspondents to fill our pages telling us their coloured views of local and international events.

We need to fill our pages with serious local issues, political issues, written by our very own thinkers. Please, spare us the new citizens. It is quite insulting to think that there is no works of local thinkers worth printing and only views of new citizens and foreigners are superior. Or it is true that we have no talents except the few in political office?

When will we take this great leap of faith, to openly talk and discuss about our own affairs and our own futures? Can start with CPF, PWP for the moment. Or there is really nothing to discuss, or too sensitive to discuss, or they are state secrets? Or there is no good enough or talented enough Singaporeans to discuss them? Or they are all too busy counting their money?

Kopi Level - Red

Mean testing – Still testing?

How many of you remember this mean method of testing people when they are admitted to hospital to determine what ward they should be warded? Mind you, if I am not mistaken, it is still in practice. Now what is this mean testing all about?
 
Mean testing is to make sure that those who are richer, can afford higher medical bills, should not be allowed to be admitted to lower class wards. The lower class wards are reserved for the poorer patients because of greater subsidies. So, if they mean tested you and concluded that you can pay for it, you go to a more expensive ward with less subsidies. You cannot decide to spend less even if you want to save some money. So, how to use less of your CPF when they mean tested you and say you must use more? Can Lim Swee Say help out on this when the patients want to save and did not want to spend?
 
And mine you, because of the higher subsidies for C class wards, the percentage of C class wards available is not determined by demand but decided by the hospital and can be like HDB flats, determined by ‘market forces’.
 
And Gan Kim Yong telling the people not to worry when Medishield Life comes into effect, there will be enough hospital beds for everyone. Now what did he mean by that? No more tents in hospitals under normal supply and demand situation? When there is a sudden epidemic the hospitals can be excused for not having enough beds and needing to pitch tents in the car parks or any space available.
 
In normal circumstances, would the hospitals have enough beds for the patients or would the patients have to wait in the corridors? Or would the patients have to upgrade to higher wards to get a bed? What would the situation be when the demand for hospital beds increases with more people aging and with more demands for beds when the Medishield Life kicks in?
 
Sure got enough beds and no need to worry? Don’t forget, other than the aging population and the mentality of Medishield Life taken care of the bigger chunk of medical fees, the population is going to go up and up, to the planning numbers of 6.9m or could be more.
 
What do you think, Minister Gan, everything ok and planned for? Sure got enough, no need to worry?
 
PS. Can anyone confirm that mean testing is still in practice?

Kopi Level  - Yellow

Hsien Loong - Rising international stature

Hsien Loong’s state visit to the US is a sign of his higher profile in the international arena and also the growing importance of his views. The Americans are listening at least. He made two important calls to the Americans. One, he told the Americans to use trade instead of military means to engage Asia. Two, he told the Americans to support their country’s initiative, the TPP. In the case of his first call, would the Americans be saying, oh yes, we are using trade for sure. We are selling military weapons to the Asian countries. But to do that we need to create some tension first, maybe a little localized war. The second call is needed probably because the Americans were not heeding Shanmugam’s call in his earlier visit. So Hsien Loong needed to make this visit to convince the Americans one more time.
 
The Americans are funny, or is it the Singaporeans. The TPP is started by them and they are not supporting it and it needs Singaporean leaders to go all the way to the US to explain to them how important it is to the Americans. If they finally listen to Hsien Loong, it will mean that Hsien Loong’s view carries more weight than Obama.
 
Another point Hsien Loong said was to Abe in Japan. He told Abe to forget about WW2 as it is causing tension in Asia. Let me guess what Abe would say to him. What WW2 history? There was no WW2, no Rape of Nanking, no comfort women, no Japanese soldiers killing the natives of Asia and SE Asia, no Sook Ching in Singapore. Abe would probably be asking Hsien Loong what WW2 history was he talking about.
Maybe Abe will also say he is suffering from dementia. And many Sinkies too have forgotten about WW2 and Sook Ching, particularly those who were not affected by it, who have no one in their family being shot by the Japanese firing squads in East Coast, Punggol, Changi or Blakang Mati. It is so easy to forget and move on for these people.
 
Why is Abe finding it so difficult to forget and keeps arguing with China about the Rape of Nanking and with the Koreans about comfort women? Ask Aquino, he too cannot remember the massacre of Pinoys by the Japanese when they were invaded.
 
To be able to tell the Americans what is best for them, to be able to tell Abe what is good for Japan, these are good signs that Hsien Loong is now acting like a senior statesman, in the same class as his father. He speaks, the world listens.

Kopi Level - Green

MH370 – Between facts and myths

After more than 3 months of agony and shooting blanks, the MH370 saga is still muddled by myths than facts. People are still guessing and extrapolating from myths and not wanting to know the facts and starting on another wild goose chase based on their beliefs and gut feels.
 
What is really important now is to go back to facts, what was known, from the ground and on radar and radio. What were the last know contacts, I mean seen by the controllers on the radar screen and not by someone who believed he had seen something that might look like MH370 or they believed could be so. The radar contacts will be the most important primary source of where MH370 was before disappearing, its location, heading, height and speed.
 
The next important information will be the radio conversation between air traffickers and the captain or co pilot. And it will really be good if the military radar stations could come out with positively identified radar contacts and not some fabrications. Stick on to confirmed radar blips and information and then work on from there.
 
Based on the reports in the papers today, the aircraft was flying into the Indian Ocean. If that was so, which radar station had positive contacts on their screens? Forget about the Immarsat handshake as it did not have any positive location of the aircraft. If there was anything of real value, it was only the initial handshake. After that, all the arcs were unreliable but just extrapolation.
 
The investigators must get real and positive radar identification as proof that the aircraft was heading into the Indian Ocean. Do they have any? If the aircraft was flying over the Indian Ocean, the Indonesians were the best people to pick it up. The Indians could possibly pick up as well in the Andaman region. If both countries did not, then why? The Australians were unlikely to see anything.
 
The search in the southern Indian Ocean is likely to be extrapolation and nothing else and the reliability is very low. Unfortunately, based on what were reported, the known facts were very limited unless the Indonesians and Indians could offer more. If both could not show anything, the Indian Ocean theory is as good as fabrication.
 
When the radars failed to provide more new evidence, the best people to be able to unravel this mystery or conspiracy will be the intelligence people, working on the paper information available and their sources. The technical experts could not go any further than 100km from the last know sightings on radar. To believe that they could guess where the aircraft could be, thousands of kilometers away, is as good as believing where God is. And I think believing in God would have more credibility than believing in these technical experts when real information was so few and so limited. There are real limitations on what the technical experts can do if the only thing they knew was the location of the aircraft in the South China Sea and nothing else.
 
It is unbelieveable that the Australians are rehashing the same plot that the crew were all suffering from hypoxia and were not in control of the aircraft. So were the passengers and none of them knew what was happening and were unconscious all the way, at the same time. The fact was that the crew could turn make a U turn which required tremendous conscious effort but following that they were unconscious after switching the aircraft to auto pilot and point it to the Indian Ocean. Why would they want to point to the Indian Ocean? Another best, no radar station picked up any blips from the aircraft on their radars. They expect the whole world to be stupid enough to believe in this story.
 
Well some do, and some pretended to do so, and are mounting another huge search operation in the Indian Ocean. And all of them are not boy scouts but adults, professionals, but doing things that innocent and ignorant boy scouts would do, wasting millions of dollars and resources on a wild imagination.

Kopi Level - Back to Green

60 year old sacked by FT

Below is a letter by a Wei Yi to TRS.
 
‘My father was terminated last week as a senior waiter by his Pinoy supervisor for no apparent reason. He had been working for the hotel restaurant since the 1990s and is well-regarded by both his colleagues and bosses....
 
The worst part is that this was only 2 months after the new Pinoy joined the hotel as the F&B manager. My father had complained to HR which then did an investigation but then the supervisor said that he was too slow and this did not give the hotel a good image….
 
Although I have long heard of middle-aged Singaporeans getting replaced by foreigners, I cannot actually believe how suay that it would happen to my own dad. Worse, I work for the HR industry and an increasing number of Pinoys have joined the industry.
 
With a target of 6.9 million, it seems that less than 50% of our population will be native Singaporeans and the only jobs for them are in the government sector, NS as well as taxi drivers. It would really be damn disastrous if we don’t act fast and kick the PAP out.’
 
This is the new normal. But fret not. My advice is for the sacked employee to go for upgrading training. Then he can get a new job as a table cleaner in the foodcourts or hawker centres. And the upgrading training is heavily subsidised, maybe free some more. '
 
The 60 year old uncle can then work with dignity until 80 or maybe 90. Be grateful and say thank you for being a citizen. The Govt will take care of him all the way.
 
If not happy, can go and see Gilbert Goh for some pep talks. Sinkies are really so lucky.

Kopi Level Yellow