Thomas Friedman - A most entertaining piece

Friedman had an article in the Today paper reposted from the NYT a couple of days back. The article titled ‘War on ISIS: It’s about Arabs, not Americans’. What Friedman did was to add in some humour in the way he ridiculed the Americans and their allies. I would be doing him injustice to paraphrase what he crafted. Let me quote a few of his wise jabs here.
 
‘There are 3 things in life that you should never do ambivalently: getting married, buy a house and go to war. Alas, we’re about to do No 3….How could he(Obama) not? Our staying power is ambiguous, our enemy is barbarous, our regional allies are duplicitous, our European allies are feckless and the Iraqis and Syrians we’re trying to help are factious.
 
Consider Saudi Arabia. It’s going to help train Free Syrian Army soldiers, but, at the same time, is one of the biggest sources of volunteer jihadists in Syria….Turkey allowed foreign jihadists to pass into and out of Syria and has been an important market for oil that ISIS is smuggling out of Iraq for cash….Qatar is with us Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and against us Tuesday and Thursdays. Fortunately, it takes the weekends off.
 
Back home,… the Republican Party who are urging him to bomb ISIS will be the first to run for the hills if we get stuck, fail or accidentally bomb a kindergarten class.’
 
Still he has good reasons to want Obama to start the war. His reason, ‘if ISIS jihadists consolidate their power in the heart of Iraq and Syria, it could threaten some real island of decency, like Kurdistan, Jordan and Lebanon…’ Here he was a bit evasive and not telling the whole truth. The island of decency is Israel but not politically correct now to say it is all about Israel’s interests.
 
But he has his fingers at the pulse of the conflict. If the Americans were to enter this war and turn it into a Christian against the Muslims or the West against the Arabs, it would be disastrous. ‘ISIS wins if it can make this America’s war with Sunni Islam.’
 
So, would the Americans listen to him and stop making this an American or Obama’s war against the Arabs? Would America be roping in the non Muslim states to fight the Arabs/Muslim states or would American be able to get the Arab/Muslim states to fight among themselves?
 
For a start the Americans and the ‘Coalition of the New Willings’ are going to start training more fighters to fight IS and Assad. And they jolly well know that these fighters would be the new Al Qaeda or Talebans or ISIS of the future, and will be more deadly when will be fighting the Americans.

Kopi Level - Green

Xtron models after GIC

Roy Ngerng’s article comparing GIC with Xtron got him into a legal suit for defamation against Hsien Loong. So touching on this issue demands extra sensitivity to keep Sue away. I have avoided this issue for a long time not so much because of Roy’s law suit but more because it involves a religious organization and a religion. They said it is better to stay away from religion and race. So I took the good advice. I barely read or follow the discussion in the media on the Xtron’s case, perhaps at most glancing at the headlines and giving it a casual glance over.
 
Yesterday someone pointed to me an article in TheNewPaper on the City Harvest Church Leaders Trial. It is very interesting to note that as early as 2008, according to the news report by Ng Jun Sen, Xtron and its relationship with CHC was compared to that of GIC and the Govt. And to be very safe, I quote, “Xtron Productions is like City Harvest Church’s (CHC) own GIC. Its founder Kong Hee had told church members in a speech…Just like the GIC, Xtron was meant to protect the interest of CHC, he had said in August 2008.”
 
These words became the main topic of discussion in the court. And the revelation included how Xtron models and functions, and in a way very similar to GIC. Were they trying to say that Xtron not only modelled its functions like GIC but also works in the same way?
 
And I quote again, “You know, in Singapore, we have GIC? Every time you ask the Govt what is a GIC, they say ‘national security, we cannot make it known to everybody.’” And using this example Kong Hee told his members to keep Xtron’s relationship to the church “within the four walls of the building”.
 
The report in TheNewPaper has many other interesting quotes and revelations as to how Xtron works and the need not to tell the world. Go look up the article yourself, dated 16 Sep. Get a copy of the paper.
Finally, let me conclude this post with a final quote. “Tan(Sharon) claimed that Wee(Serina) had told her not to record minutes at board meetings that pertained to Xtron’s decisions because the church ‘was not supposed to be aware’ of them.
 
The trial continues. This case is getting more and more interesting by the days. Let me double check to ensure that I have not misquoted anything. Please let me know if I have said anything that I am not supposed to say.

Kopi Level - Green

Did Roy Ngerng mean anything to you?

Here is the programme of the vigil on 17 Sep at Hong Lim Park. If Roy means something to you, if Roy has done something good for you, hope you will be there to reciprocate, a show of support at the very least to Roy for speaking up for your CPF.
 
Program for the Candlelight evening:
 
7.30 pm People gather for a short welcome speech
7.35 pm Lighting of the Torches at the mound
7.45 pm Singing “We Shall Overcome”
“How many roads must a Man walk down?”
“ When we walk through a storm………..”
8.00 pm Well wishers light up their individual candle and plant it along the white carpet walkway, near the mount or the tent. After that they can sign their good wishes on the cloth banner.
8.30 pm Light refreshment of moon cake, chai tow kuay and tea
9.00 pm Sing or rap to your heart’s content:
“To dream the impossible Dream”
Songs from “Les Miserables”
 
Midnight: Goodnight farewell we hate to say goodbye.
 
We hope you will use the occasion to get to know each other better and share your hopes and dreams for a better tomorrow.

Convenors:
Teo Soh Lung

Kopi Level - Green

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