The future fashion of Sin City

Khaw Boon Wan was gazing at this crystal ball and foresaw that car ownership would no longer be fashionable to the young in the future. This would free up spaces occupied by carparks for the people’s use. We will have more parks and, not forgetting, more space for a bigger population, maybe the highly desired number of 10m.
 
I could see many things going in and out of fashion in the future, and as a result a better quality of life. People will not longer want to stay in landed properties or big properties. They would prefer a new and futuristic style of living, each one renting a cocoon in the shape of a big cigar for sleeping. They will spend their times enjoying life, working or staying awake for 18 to 20 hours a day.
 
High salary jobs would also not be popular. People do not need so much money since they don’t need to buy big houses and expensive cars. So they would be very happy earning just enough for the day. They would even opt for temporary or contract jobs, work for a few hours and enjoy all the free time they have. The happiest people will be those who are their own bosses, like taxi drivers, a highly desired and preferred occupation.
 
University education will definitely be passé. Who needs an expensive university education when they are aspiring for part time or temporary jobs? Many will be contented with an O level or ITE education. And they know that they could get very far with them as long as they work hard and are good at what they are doing. It will be so fashionable as a career choice that parents will all be opting their children for it, less stress and lower cost. No more expensive tuition, no more exams and everyone very happy, parents happy, children lagi happy.
 
No one would want to eat in fine restaurant, it will be unfashionable to go for fine dining for the average Singaporeans. Only the very few conservative rich that refused to follow the fashion will still be going for fine dining. They will still think living in big houses is good and stick to their old fashion ways, owning and driving big cars that the young have rejected as unfashionable. They forget that the new lifestyle, of very high quality living, is to take public transports, without owning cars. They do not mind being laughed at driving their big cars around. And they don’t mind being out of fashion or being unfashionable. But this group of people will be so small that they will hardly be seen in public places except in their private clubs. For the rest of HDB dwellers, another popular and fashionable past time, other than talking about down grading, will be walking in and out of pawn shops with their flats.
 
The future is really interesting, with high fashion and high living with no loss in the quality of living, eating in hawker stalls. Yes, eating hawker food will be a lifestyle choice too, for the people of Sin. There is a great and exciting future ahead of us.

Kopi Level - Green

Roy Ngerng - Night vigil at Hong Lim - Pictorial essay

The above are some pictures of the night vigil held at Hong Lim Park on 17 Sep evening. Roy and his fatther were there to meet the supporters and friends.

Again, Malays are Still Lazy – Dr Mahathir

By MIKOspace

Mahathir defends ‘lazy Malays’ remarks.

He had a few days ago vilified the Malays for being lazy, saying he was ashamed that they had been left behind by the forward-thinking Chinese community. Dr Mahathir continues to see the “Malay” problems of intelligence, performance and social mobility by attributing them fundamentally to their “inferior” genes, as elaborated in his 1970 book “The Malay Dilemma”.

“THEY ARE STLL LAZY”, he again told the Utusan Malaysia newspaper in an exclusive interview, citing the gender imbalance at institutions of higher learning where the majority were women as an example. “The Malays are lazy; they are not interested in studying and revising. If we go to the universities, 70 per cent of the students are women, where are the men?” “They prefer to become Mat Rempit (Malay motorcycle gang members), that is why I said they are lazy,” Dr Mahathir told the newspaper. 

The former Malaysian Prime Minister continues to disparage his country’s Malay ethnic group.  He blamed himself for failing to transform the country’s ethnic majority into a hard-working race during his tenure as the 4th Prime Minister from 1981-2004. Truth is that under the leadership of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir over 22 years, his economic and business agenda has created a large number of politically connected Bumiputra rent seekers promoting a business system riddled with kickbacks and corruption.

The poor economic attainment of many in the privileged Malay majority in Malaysia can be better understood not in terms of their race, but in term of a class structure of social inequality created by their own Malay elites.

Read the Full Post: Again, Malays are Still Lazy - Dr Mahathir

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Malays are Lazy - Mahathir

Again, Malays are Lazy - Mahathir

Lazy Malays? Blame Failed Policies Instead

Kopi Level - Green

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