Hsien Loong’s popular TV show

‘Ask the PM’ is indeed a popular show with 700 questions tabled and the talk of the town. The questions varied from the serious national issues, bread and butter issues to entertaining the juveniles. It was actually asking too much to expect 700 questions to be answered in all seriousness in a one hour slot. As a result some viewers were disappointed as they did not get what they wanted to hear. Only the children were the happy ones.
 
Let me put up a few suggestions to make this show better and more thorough so that no one will be disappointed and left feeling hungry and unhappy that many issues were not adequately tackled. The serious adults must be demanding for a detailed discussion on national issues. But the children must be very happy knowing the PM also shared the same passion for comic heroes.
 
With this in mind, one thing the producer could do is to classify the TV show into different segments to cater for different groups of people, the PG14, PG16, PG21 or X rated. No NAR please. This will in a way separate the viewers so that their interests would not clash and start to blame one another, or be bored by the different issues raised by the different age groups.
 
Another thing is to turn it into a serial to give more time to the different category. Otherwise there is no way to answer 700 questions within one hour. With only a handful of questions answered, nearly 700 people would be very angry for putting up the questions and the effort knowing that it was a waste of time.
 
And the 700 questions were only the beginning. When the serial is on air, more questions could come in and the streets would be silent. People would all be rushing home to watch the programme, Monday for children, Tuesday for youth, Wednesday for adults, Thursday for aunties and Friday for uncles. Oh, Saturday night primetime can be reserved for foreign talents. It could be a long running series to better the Taiwanese Life drama. And no one can complain about the questions being too shallow, naïve, jokes and nothing serious. The adult series would definitely be serious and the children would be light hearted. They might call Hsien Loong uncle in the programme. The interesting one could be the auntie series, and they may regard Hsien Loong as an auntie killer.
 
There is great potential for this programme to be as famous as Yes, Prime Minister! It could generate a lot of revenue for Mediacorp and propel Hsien Loong as a TV idol, a heart throb of the young and the aunties.
 
Think my suggestion is good.

Kopi Level - Green

Are we printing fake degrees?

We are recruiting so called foreign talents en masse from the capital cities infamous for degree mills and selling fake degrees. And there are more than a million of these things here. And how many fake degrees have been uncovered? 10, 20, or 30? Incredible is the word. Either these fakers are damn street smart or we are damn stupid that barely a handful could be found among the millions that have entered our system over the years. Is it something of an accolade that we should shower over our heads or should we bow in shame? The cavalier attitude towards the presence of fakes in out system is frightening and simply irresponsible!

Never mind, never mind, it doesn’t matter. Only a few losers got fired and replaced and they are not complaining. So where is the problem? No complains means no problems right? Let’s just ignore their abundant presence. Since no one bothers so let it be. Let’s move on. Employers are happy, the fakers are happy, the govt is happy, except for the few that turned taxi drivers. Maybe they are also happy as they are now their own bosses managing their own time and trying to better their services by being more courteous and gracious to their customers.

Fake degrees are simply fake degrees, obtained without the need to attend classes or lectures. Some may attend a few fake classes by fly by night operators calling themselves Universities of Oxbridge or Camford, or New Harvard or Old Yale, something like that. We also have quite a lot here in our streets. Some have been caught and closed.

What if an university is very reputable but the professors or lecturers are fakes? Would their degrees be considered fake degrees as well? 

Kopi Level - Green

Reincarnation Truth shall set Tibetans Free.

By Michael Heng PBM of miko-wisdom.blogspot.sg

Be Free at Last.  Reincarnation and the 15^th Dalai Lama.  The end of the Dalai Lamas, announced by the current 14^th Dalai Lama in an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, would usher the rebirth of Tibetan Buddhism as it abandons its wrongful understanding of reincarnation and return to original Buddhism roots to begin Tibetans on the long journey of enlightenment towards the Truth. 

Tibetans would finally be completely free to create their own future through the cultural transformation of the worldviews and mental paradigms which has locked them in a timeless medieval prison of theocratic serf bondage for centuries until the 1950’s. And with this change, ordinary Tibetans can prepare their children for the crucial reforms, radical social reconstruction and education towards a better, more modern future society with the rest of the world.   

"Reincarnation” is popularly, but wrongfully, understood to be the transmigration of a soul to another body after death. Each successive Dalai Lama thus justifies his continual entitlement as the spiritual and political Head of the Tibetans residing in the posh and luxurious Potala Palace overlooking the world’s highest plateau. 

There is no such teaching as Tibetan “reincarnation” in Buddhism.

Read More:

Reincarnation Truth Shall Set Tibetans Free

Reincarnation Failed Outside Tibet

War against the Islamic State getting closer

The Axis, from Washington and London, has reached Canberra. The three European colonial powers have joined hands to take on the ISIS. They have formed a ‘Coalition of the Willings’ once again to take on the Islamic fighters they called evil. On the evil Islamic fighters side there is a real coalition of more than 80 countries, fighters from these countries who marched there with their feet, to fight on the side of the Islamic State. This kind of volunteerism and martyrdom is frightening and very difficult to defeat.
 
When we were part of the first ‘Coalition of the Willings’, many knew it was the ‘Coalition of the Unwillings’, we could be excused for being forced into a situation when we were either with George Bush or against George Bush. We had no choice. Do we have a choice this time? Has the armed twisting started and we would again be volunteered to fight in this war against the Islamic State?
 
In the first instance, fighting to topple Saddam Hussein was a pretty isolated event. Invading Iraq on a fake charge of WMD, a serious violation of a country’s sovereignty, a very serious precedent set by the evil Empire to justify an invasion, given the predominance of the Empire, it was quite safe to do so with minimal repercussions.
 
To be actively involved against the Islamic State is not going to be a cake walk, and not going to be pleasant. In particular, living in a sea of Islamic states and with many sympathizers quietly supporting, it is deadly crazy to incur their wrath. We cannot afford to be involved in this war. We are too vulnerable and exposed.
 
May wisdom rule and we be spared from becoming a party to this Coalition of the Willings or Unwillings. We have no choice but to walk away. And pray there is no hero who thinks this is another party for a bit of glory and chest thumping. This war is disease. There will be plenty of gory.

Kopi Level - Green

Are we gaming the university ranking systems?

Within a few years, the rankings of NUS and NTU have shot up by leaps and bounds. It is like out of the blue we are world champions or nearly there in table tennis and nothing else. And every time when the media proudly splashed in their pages that we were ranked higher than the Ivy League universities in the US and UK, my goose pimples popped up instantly. Really ah? Even if we are really better than these Ivy League universities, why are our graduates ended up as rejects and unable to compete for jobs in our very own country, in our very own system, in our very own companies, organisations and institutions? Never mind.

Our universities are flooded with foreigners in the administration, the teaching staff and among the undergrads and post grads. Is their presence part of the gaming process? If they are, I say if, cause I dunno, how much are we paying for all these foreigners just to put a mask over our face? Foreigners in administration and teaching staff, mostly academically highly qualified, don’t come cheap unless they are from Timbuktu. But Timbuktu doesn’t count for high rankings, so NG. And there is the often repeated complaints of hundreds of millions, by now could be billions of dollars, given as scholarships to foreigners. Are the scholarships and money spent part of the gaming process too?

Now what is the gain, what is the return if the money were spent on gambling. Shit, why did I say gambling? It must be the influence of the casinos or the big gamblers managing big funds. I mean gaming the system, not gambling the system. Ok, just to be clear, I am not saying anyone is gaming the system, I am just asking if we are gaming the system and what is the cost of gaming the system?

Before I forget, what is the gain? Like the medals for table tennis, what is the gain and is the gain worth it for the money spent? So what if our rankings are in high heavens. What is the point? It would be better to use the money to build a few monuments, maybe cheaper if the maintenance is low. Just don’t build monuments that need hundreds of millions for upkeeping and to provide jobs for highly paid foreigners.

Anyone knows if we are hooked on gaming the university ranking systems and who gives the green light if we are really doing it? It costs a lot of money that could be used for better things. My gut feel is that we cannot be so stupid to waste public money on such cheapo reputations. Our administrators would have better sense and circumspection not to waste public money. Our rankings are high because we are good and the presence of the foreigners is coincidental. There is nothing to it. Go look somewhere else. We don’t game the system for some cheapo unrecognised subjective rankings that really mean nothing.

Kopi Level - Green