Al Qaeda shot two – A bird in hand is worth two in the bush

The cowboys did it again, sending a team of Hollywood crack commandoes to raid an Al Qaeda hideout and hoping to rescue an American photojournalist, Luke Somers. The botched attempt got Somers shot immediately by his captors and the unfortunate Pierre Korkie as collateral damage. In Hollywood, such dare devil rescue jobs can be scripted to the fine details and always ended with the heroes coming back as heroes and with the prisoners safe and sound. But this is real stuff and you cannot write your own script and rubbish the Arabs.

The only people that could really pull off such a job could be the Israelis. They are real soldiers and they have good intelligence and know their enemies well. Now the Americans are blaming on faulty intelligence in the doomed raid. My goodness, all their intelligence gatherings have been faulty since the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the evil accusation of WMD in Iraq. When have their intelligence been accurate except those cooked up in Hollywood?

Now look at what happened. Pierre Korkie was due for release in a couple of days. And the Americans did not know! The Americans also did not know that there was this South African hostage in the hideout. Or did they know but the African was just not important enough. Maybe Somers was an important operative that must be saved at all cost. Did someone say nothing to lose even if the mission failed?

Have the Americans degenerated to such a low level that they embarked on such a dangerous mission on the justification that there was nothing to lose? Did they even consider the life of Pierre Korkie as something of value? Oh, sorry, they did not know that Pierre Korkie existed. Korkie was not their problem, PNG.

Who is going to answer for this fiasco and the lost of an unnecessary life? Who is going to answer to the wife and family of Korkie? What happened to the fame Hollywood American heroes and their successful missions against all odds?

It is so sad that Pierre could be home now and could celebrate Christmas with his loved ones in a couple of weeks. Hagel would not have a good Christmas for sure.

When is the world going to prosecute Bush and Blair for crimes against humanity? Obama may become a collateral as well when this happened.

Kopi Level - Yellow

How many people can be squeezed inside a Mini Cooper?

This was a favourite challenge in the early 1970s. For those who can remember what a Mini Cooper was like, other than its legendary fast pick up and road hugging ability, the Mini Cooper was a little fun car. And it was shaped like a small lunch box fit for a driver and a front passenger. The little space behind could squeeze a couple of adults in a very compromising manner but definitely not for two fat guys.

The challenge then was to squeeze as many bodies, living beans, into the Mini. And if I am not mistaken, the record was 17 or 18 bodies. How could they do it? The bodies were crumbled like contorted sausages, not the nicely sardine pack. And the poor guys or gals at the bottom must be gasping for air and feeling the weight. But never mind, they would not die of suffocation or compression. They would remain in that uncomfortable position for a minute or two before being dragged out to live another day.

The moral of the story is that you could force people into very uncomfortable little corners for fun, for a moment. But when you want them to stay that way for anything longer they would not be able to bear the discomfort. No way.

You want to squeeze in 10 million or 20 million people into this island? For goodness sake, get your head examined. Or you are going to rent out your properties for triple the value to live on your rent while you migrate to Australia or some bigger country to live a life of spatial luxury? The temperature is rising here. The people are angry and the foreigners took are losing their cool and bashing up the natives. And we only have 5.4m people today. You want to double that and double everything and think it is fun?

If it is to prove how clever you are to squeeze more people into a foxhole, just try to put more people into a 3rm flat for a try. I think I can easily stuff in 300 people with room to spare, like stuffing bodies into a Mini Cooper, to prove a point. But that kind of things are not for real, not a condition for people to live their lives.

Again, why would you want to squeeze 18 people into a Mini Cooper? Why do you madly want to put 10m or more people into this island to over populate it? The world leaders are trying to save the world by cutting consumption and reducing populations. What kind of fools are insisting on increasing population and consumption but turn around to exhort people to be green to save Gaia?

Kopi Level - Yellow

What kind of people to form the new govt?

A blogger writing under the name of United Opposition Front posted an article in the TRE with the title ‘Forming the new govt’. In his first sentence he wrote this, ‘Do we have in our opposition a viable alternative to become a credible government once PAP is defeated?’ The author’s thinking is that even if the PAP is defeated, which means the opposition parties have the number to form the next govt, there is still doubt about their ability to form a credible govt, and the problem is the quality of the new elected representatives.

Take a deep breath and ask yourself why was this author asking this question. The answer is simple. After so many years being fed by the same idea, the same message that only super talents, ie those with a string of As and masters or doctorates, are able to form a credible govt, one cannot think of anything else. This kind of condition is very dangerous. Ask yourself again, is this true? Let me make it clearer. Only super talents that are making millions in the professions are able to form a credible govt to run this country. Is this so? If you don’t get the idea, let me repeat, is this so?

If this is so, then the opposition parties must go out and recruit the straight As, the scholars, the doctors, the lawyers, and must be making millions or else not good enough. Is that so? If so, then the new govt must also prepare the same expensive budget to pay them in the millions or else they would not want to join them.

We have the same kind of people in govt, the straight As, the scholars, the top lawyers and doctors, aren’t they doing a very fine job? And if they are, why is there a need to want to replace them? What is the main reason to want to replace them and then to replace them with the same kind, with the same criteria and same thinking?

What I know as of today, not many opposition candidates are of these kinds, academically damn bright, making money damn clever. Think Low Thia Khiang. Silvia Lim, Png Eng Huat, Pritam Singh, Lee Li Lian and Mohamad Faisal. Chen Show Mao is the only exception.

Why are people voting for them in Aljunied, especially during the by elections when the bright and brilliant and exceptionally clever types were defeated by the ordinary Singaporean type? The only thing that the people saw in Png Eng Huat and Lee Li Lian and the Aljunied team is not academic brilliance and ability to make more money, but the heart. They saw a heart in the right place in every one of them. And they voted for a good heart, to serve the people.

Is a good heart not what the people are looking in the new candidates to form the next govt? Or are the people still being stuck with the idea that the people that are going to form the next govt must be of the same kind, the same type, the same mindset and aspirations as the PAP?

Anyone with reasonable intelligence and a good heart should be good enough to form the next govt. All they need is to think of the good of the people and country, and the super talented civil servants would be there to provide the expertise and the solutions. We need good men and women with good hearts, in the right place, with good intentions, to form the next govt. And I believe there will be no shortage of such people. Too clever people would have too many clever ideas, and if their hearts are in the wrong place, can create big and clever problems.

Ask the right questions and you will find the right answers. Ask the wrong questions and you will get the ‘right’ wrong answers.

Kopi Level - Green

Kshore Mahbubani – How to love Singapore

I saw this sticker on the top right hand corner of the ST today. I swear my eyes were not deceiving me. My first thought, goodness, this is deep trouble. I have written a few articles questioning whether Singapore would be in deep trouble. But this has nothing to do with Singapore. It was about Kishore. There are only two possibilities, between the devil and the deep blue sea. Is he growing stupider by the days? Or is he going senile?

Who does not know how to love Singapore if they are being paid by the millions and have all the riches in the world to last a few generations? Actually no need so much lah. Anyone who has the wealth of Kishore and be in his position would make loving Singapore so easy.

Kishore went on to explain how dirty Singapore has become and how Singaporeans can make it clean by loving Singapore. Here he unintentionally disclosed a little of his mental state. He claimed that the dirtiness of Singapore is the fault of Singaporeans. He didn’t even know the real cause. He made a farcical assumption that even a child in school would have told him off. For every two persons here, one is a foreigner. In fact if we include all the new citizens that are here for less than 10 years, it is likely that 60% or more of the people in the island are foreigners. So blaming Singaporeans for dirtying the island is a no good reason. And expecting Singaporeans, now a minority, to clean up the littering of foreigners, and Singapore will be clean is nonsensical.

Kishore went on to talk about happiness, about promoting Singaporeans to be like Lat and how the rich should help the poor Singaporeans. And he indulged in the same crap that if Singaporeans laugh a lot, even living in a pigeon hole they can be. When he quoted the experiment on how animals got unhappy and ate up each other in confined space I thought there is still some sanity in him. But he has proven beyond any doubt that senility is catching up with him. And I told myself, if he keeps on this way, I would write to the ST to publish his articles in the juvenile section.

But on reflection, reading the whole article all over again, he is getting to be like me, so innocent and appearing so naïve in what he wrote. Actually there are deeper messages in what he said other than the little distractions to lower the guards of his readers. His cartoonist part, about the ability to laugh at our ourselves and the names that he quoted, like Mahathir as a good example, and the names of people for people to ridicule, like Tommy Koh, Chan Heng Chee, Ho Kwon Ping and Gerard Ee. Look how clever he ‘eh lar’ the more meaning names to avoid saying the wrong things? This part shows that he is sane after all, and very smart by not suggesting himself to be the cartoonist’s joke.

His most important message in the whole article is in this phrase, ‘If our deeds do no match our words, we do not love Singapore’. He said this in the beginning of the article and to make sure the readers get his message and did not think he is really going nuts, he repeated this again, ‘Many of us say we do so. Here again, the one question is: Do our deeds match our words?’

Think about it, ignore all the rubbish that he spun in so many words. The gist is, ‘Do our deeds match our words?’ This phrase alone said what is bothering him about Singapore. And it is not about his $2 contribution to Sinda every month.  He would not give more or would want to stop contributing.

Kopi level - Green

China’s problem is stubbornness, not wanting to learn from Sin City

China is plagued by this huge problem of corruption. Xi Jinping is now going all out to curb corruption after Zhu Rongji failed to clean up the act during his watch. The more Xi Jinping dig, the bigger the problem revealed, as many top brass are taken out of the closet.
 
China could have avoided this big corruption problem if it had learnt all the good things from Singapore. China is a good student and has learnt many good things and is now so many times richer than Singapore. Its economy is complete in a way, with agriculture, manufacturing, financial services, engineering, high tech, almost anything you name it China would have it.
 
But China is also a stubborn student. The most important thing in Singapore’s success is anti corruption. Singapore is corruption free, or nearly, forget about what you read in the paper today, because no one in high position finds the need to be corrupt. The remuneration system for politicians and top govt officials is based on paying them so that they would not be corrupt. Singapore has succeeded. China has failed badly in this area by not paying their equivalent officials the kind of out of this world salaries. If China has done what Singapore did, there will be no corruption in China and Xi Jinping would not have such a big and dangerous task to tackle.
 
It is still not too late to learn from Singapore. Maybe they need not go all the way as that would be too much given the size of China’s economy. Just go half the mile will do and their politicians and top govt officials will not be tempted to be corrupt anymore. Maybe they were learning from Goh Keng Swee’s old principles of thrift and integrity, that civil service is a calling, an honour to serve, not about pay. Goh’s thinkings were long obsolete. Now there is a new thinking, new doctrine and new principles, accepting that human beans are human beans and will corrupt if not paid enough.
 
Would China learn from Singapore in this area and rid corruption from its system?

Kopi Level - Green