National leaders versus boy scouts/girl guides

Many people take their early life experience with them wherever they go. Boy scouts and girl guides would bring along their fun times, their pranks and brickbats with them in their jobs as adults. And what are boy scouts and girl guides famous for? Curi ayam, placing thumb tacks on the chairs of unsuspecting victims, waking up in the middle of the night to flatten the sandcastles of competitors, pulling the chairs while someone is about to sit down. These are childish pranks that were fun where one is young in the heart and in the head. Hopefully the boys and girls, when turned adults, would remember them fondly as part and parcel of growing up, but not to think and practise them in adulthood.
 
Many boys and girls grow into top management positions. Some became professionals and some became national leaders. The wiser ones, the more intelligent ones, will know that their stations in life have changed. As a professional, they need to live and act as a professional. As national leaders, they must rise to the occasion and act and behave like national leaders, not like boy scouts and girl guides.
 
It is not funny, not at all, and very pathetic if these boys and girls grow up and still continue to behave like boy scouts and girl guides, playing their pranks and thinking they are very clever. Worse if any of them become national leaders and still behave in such manners. When are these boys and girls going to grow up and take their adult roles seriously and behave like adults and national leaders?
 
No more thumb tacks, please. No more pulling people’s chairs from their behinds.
 
Are you a national leader or a boy scout/girl guide?

Kopi Level - Yellow

Human Rights – The Americans walking around naked

The exposure of the misdeeds committed against humanity by the Americans/CIA came in time for Christmas. In a way this is the best Christmas gift for the Americans. In another way it is so sad for the rest of world to think that they did not know, did not bother to monitor what this demon has been doing against other countries and people, and only when the Americans made a slip then the world got to know about it. The Americans have been using this Human Rights excuse to attack and punish the rest of the world, and the whole world looks like pathetic sheep, guilty as the Americans accused them of.
 
Now the Americans are walking naked for the world to see, guilty and confirmed and convicted by their own conscience, of the worst human rights violation in the 21st Century. But his disclosure of torture against Muslim and Arab prisoners is really nothing, really, if you count the killings and maiming of hundreds of thousand of Iraqis alone by the invasion that also resulted in the murder of President Saddam Hussein all because of a lie fabricated by Bush and Blair.
 
Soon the world will forget of these crimes as the western media would soon stop talking about them and the Americans would go around pointing their fingers and carrying a cane again. But before that, the Malaysians are taking notice of this and rebuking the Americans for their hypocrisy. Perkasa, a Malay rights group has criticized the US for gross violation of human rights and also practicing double standards. ‘The US is the father of all devils in this world. What right has it to intervene(into Malaysia’s affair)?’
 
Would the Americans still dare to walk around naked showing what is hanging between their legs and accusing the world of obscenity?

Kopi Level - Yellow

PAP falls, would Singapore be in deep trouble?

I have been pondering over this statement for several days and trying to make a balance approach to this piece of rhetoric. Would Singapore be in deep trouble when PAP falls and the opposition parties take over as the new govt? A good way to look at this comment is the recent installation of Jokowi as the new President of Indonesia. Jokowi is in many senses like the opposition parties in Singapore. A man with no scintillating strings of As and MBAs. He rose from the ranks, made his fortune and became the governor of Jakarta. Not the kind of experience at national level, but more relevant experience than our boys and girls who became ministers, and definitely more experienced than our opposition party leaders running their constituencies and town council.
 
And the best part, the out going President did all he could to ensure that the new President took power in an orderly manner, and no one, no rogue generals would be there to make things difficult, no rogue politicians would be allowed to disrupt the ceremony. Yudhoyono has proven to be a great president, a valiant and honourable gentlemen, and truly deserved to be the Asian of the Year instead of the 6 month old Modi who has done nothing except meeting foreign leaders and rhetoric of great power. The danger of Jokowi being deprived of his presidency and turning Indonesia into turmoil were extremely grave.
 
What would happen to this first world pretender island if there is a change of political power? Would it be in deep trouble? Maybe the PAP believes that all the talents that can govern this little island are with them and there will be no one good enough to take over and all systems will break down. This is of course rubbish.
 
The danger of a major crisis can come from a losing ruling party refusing to hand over power gracefully, or a military coup. If this is really a first world country, it can be expected that the outgoing ruling party would do the honour to ensure a proper hand over of power and responsibilities. And this applies to all the ministries and stats boards. All Singaporeans expect it to be that way. It must be that way in a democracy when the change of power is in-built in the system. Theoretically there could be a change of power after every GE. Our one party rule without a change of power is unnatural and would not be for too long or so long. A time must come for a change of power, and an orderly and peaceful one if the men in charge are responsible and honourable, who obey the democratic constitution of this country. Not handing over power or disrupting the handing over of power is against the law. Anyone or political power that lost an election and refused to hand over power could be arrested under the law.
 
So, can we expect a proper handover of political power when there the PAP falls and Singapore continues to run smoothly and efficiently like before, all things normal, no deep trouble? Any one flirting to ride the tiger of disorder or a military coup must be prepared to be devoured by the tiger should things turn bad. It is a road of no return once embarked on. Yes, if this happens, Singapore will be in deep trouble.

Kopi Level - Yellow

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