Amos Yee – The boy versus the State

Amos Yee was charged for 3 counts by the public prosecutor for his rant in his youtube video. The third charge has now been stood down but not necessarily withdrawn. The first charge is for posting obscenity, an offence against the law and not necessarily that someone has been hurt. Of course there will be people who felt offended by it, but without stretching the imagination too far to say that someone may also be offended when it rains or the sun rises too early or too late. The second charge of offending a religion, very subjective, some people would claim to be offended while the church would to say it was alright and forgiven.

The third charge would be the family members of the dead person to feel offended and there is a clear relationship between the offended and the people abused or ridiculed. Can a non related person or the public claimed to be offended too and seek the court to judge against the boy? For the moment this not an issue as it has since been set aside.

The situation now is that this boy is being charged by the State and produced in court with hands handcuffed and legs shackled like a very serious criminal. And the boy is being defended by 3 lawyers on a pro bono basis. And that was it. It is now a matter between the boy and the State.

Roy Ngerng, a friend of the boy, tried to internationalise his plight by writing to the Pope in the Vatican and several bodies in the UN. Not sure if he had addressed his mail to Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General. And not sure if he has sent any mail to Obama, the President of the USA who always climbed to the top of the mountain to yell human rights violation and claimed to be the defender of human rights in all corners of the earth. Maybe this case is not an issue of human rights, just a legal issue, not even political.

There has been silence in the western front. No Pope, no UN, no Obama. No one seems to be interested in the affair of this boy or his well being. In the domestic front, no politician, not even from the ruling party, except maybe the SDP, has stood up to say something about this case. So it is not a political issue too.

The case as it stood is a straight forward case of a boy against the State on a matter of law, a trepassing of the State. No amount of internationalisation or politicisation would turn this simple and trivial case into anything else but a simple matter for the court to decide. The case is so simple that no one would dare to use it as an excuse to flog for their cause or to cry crocodile tears. The only tears that would be shed would be the tears of the boy’s parents. No, the brave boy would stand tall, would not shed a tear, not even when he was hit by a 49 year old man outside the court.

There are some noises from the lunatic fringe but just noise and nothing more to have any impact on this case. The world and world news too have scant little interest in this case. No do gooder, bleeding heart socialist, or conscience stricken western journalist would even give it a second look.

It is the boy against the State. Or it is the boy and his parents and the 3 lawyers versus the State. No drumming in Hong Lim Park other than the little murmurs that were hardly heard in the alternative media. It is the day the world and conscience turn their backs, to look the other way, not wanting to know there is a boy called Amos Yee.

Planktons struck- fish farmers needing help

Noven Chew and a member of the Nylon String, the organiser of the Charity event

Bachata Rosa's dancers



Last Thursday the ST put up another article on the plight of fish farmers struck by killer planktons in the Straits of Johore. A few hundred tons of fish for the table were wiped out in a matter of days and the poor farmers saw their hard work went belly up. Their harvests were gone, each losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, putting their livelihood at stake. It was a big blow to the industry and to the fish farmers with limited resources. They needed all the financial assistance to replenish their fish stocks and to go about without income for months.

The AVA has stepped in to provide technical assistance and some financial help to give the fish farmers a new start, new fish stocks and fries, technology and equipment to protect against new plankton proliferations in the water and threatening the fish stocks.

Private individuals have also step forward to give a helping hand to the fish farmers. Noven Chew, a single mum, lost almost everything and her friends rounded up their friends to get her farm back to shape. A group calling themselves ‘Nylon String Men’, the organizer, worked with Victor, the owner of Hooha Pub/Café in Pasir Panjang to raise fund for Noven two weekends ago. Local singers and dancers answered the call to perform for a charity night at Hooha.

Bachata Rosa, a single mum helping another single mum, also did her part, contributing  two dance items for the night with 4 dancers from 4 different age group.

It is heartening to see fellow citizens standing to help fellow citizens in difficult times. Many thanks to the Nylon String Men, Victor and Bachata Rosa for their public spiritedness and generosities. Govt bodies can help, the people too can do their parts and lend a helping hand when fellow citizens are in need.

 

Amos Yee – What are the issues?

On the first day of the hearing that took just 20 minutes, the defence lawyers stated that the graphics in Amos Yee’s facebook were nothing offensive or obscene and many magazines or media had similar graphics or pictures in them. The case was adjourned with the court asking the counsels to define what is offensive and not offensive.

The second point in contention was Amos offending the Christians and with intent. And that it is no good as it would, in my interpretation, harmful to our social fabric and make the Christians angry. The defence pleaded it was not Amos intention to hurt the Christians. So the issue now is a matter of Amos intent with what he said and how it offended the Christians.

The defence counsel also quoted that many Christians said they were not offended. Would this be enough? Would it be enough if hypothetically the Pope or some Christian leaders were to stand up to say they are not offended, which means there was no victim?

While the two sides were saying their peace, it would be good if the defence lawyers could make a plea to the judge to remove the chains and shackles on the poor boy. He is only a kid and he has not hurt anyone. Can the court be kind enough to take pity on the boy without influencing the court’s decision the case?

Perhaps the President or Chairman of the Kindness Movement may want to say some kind words for poor Amos.

Poor child.

1MDB – modus operandi of SWF

The way the 1MDB operates and the attacks on its integrity have become a great publicity case in Malaysia and a political football between those in power and those waiting to unseat those in power. Given the fact that both sides are quite equally matched in political influence and with significant support on the ground, the contenders are not going to get away easily or be thumped down without putting up a big fight.

In the rumour mills, there have been speculations as to how a fund like this would or could make money for the people behind the fund. And it is interesting to see the different processes involved and how money is being made. The first part is the source of fund. As a sovereign fund, the funding is easy if the people behind it could use all the political influence and power to get cheap fund without having to go through the due process of qualifications as a reliable and credible borrower. It is a case of just demand and the money will appear, OPM, or from govt linked organizations where there is no individual owners to talk about.

Such funds are not only easy to come by, the terms of repayment are just as fluid if not hazy. It can be on a continuous basis with no beginning and no ending, round tripping or refinancing and refinancing with the funds remaining in the SWF forever and unaccountable to anyone. With this part secure, there is money, plenty of money, unlimited supply of money.

The next big question is how to siphon the money out from the fund. Oh, I have skipped the investment part completely. Maybe I should touch on this, as suggested by some analysts as to how the SWF will invest the good money to make good returns. The trick is NOT to make money. Profitable investments are only good on paper but not worthwhile if the money cannot be taken out from the fund. So paper profits or cooking the books to show profits would do.

The best and easiest part is to lose money, the more the better. Any bad investment would mean the money in the fund can be drawn down, or lost, spent. With this model, investment becomes so easy and needs only a little bit of ingenuity. Find junk companies, boost up their share prices, inflate them as high as possible, buy high, very high. Then let the price falls and sell at the bottom. Junk companies can be created by proxies or cronies. Some junk companies can be a shell or fictitious, never mind. The intent is to lose money in order to get the money out from the SWF.

Just imagine if each investment in a junk or fictitious company would lead to a loss of $300m, how much could be pocketed if 10 such companies would to fail? Easily $3b and setting aside a few hundred millions for the cronies and proxies would be small change and everyone very happy.

The other important trick is to keep the accounts secret to allow the fund to write whatever profit or loss it so desired. In a way the fund can keep on running in perpetuity, with new money coming in and pocketed by announcing bad deals and big losses. Then top up with more of OPMs.

This is a very simple model of how to make SWFs make money for the people behind them, no transparency, no accountability, just get a few cronies to go through the motion of investing in loss making companies over and over again. No one will bother to check it out, no one will bother to complain and ask for accountability. 1 MDB was just unfortunate that it could not keep its activities under wrapped and was exposed prematurely. If not, it could be a golden goose that would lay unlimited golden eggs.

The genuine SWFs got to sweat to make money, to justify to shareholders, to govts and auditors, and be accountable for the profit and loss. It is not easy to make good and profitable investments. Not everyone is a Warren Buffett. But making ‘sure loss’ investment is a piece of cake. The small difficulty is how to make the loss as big as possible and still look genuine.

This is great fun, oops funs, to operate. No stress, no need to work too hard and money is coming in by money going out in loss making investments. Simply ingenious!

Expats agree Singaporeans should be employed first

‘It seems there are just VERY FEW good jobs on offer in Singapore because the market IS SO SMALL.
Having said this, why does your PAP Government even allow Pinoys and Indos to take PR and then take SENIOR MANAGEMENT JOBS?

These jobs (which are the same jobs I am competing for) are in EXTREMELY LIMITED SUPPLY and, in my opinion, should be RESERVED EXCLUSIVELY for local citizens and foreigners should be told to fxxx off.

You see, while I compete with Pinoys, Indonesians, Indians and Chinese (not locals) for these jobs, I have seen on many occasions that my interviewer is actually NOT EVEN A LOCAL SINGAPORE CITIZEN.

I feel the PAP is doing a great disservice to the local Singaporeans.’ By Sam

The above extract is posted both in Transitioning.org and TRE, supposedly by an expat called Sam.
The main question is why are Singaporeans, PMETs and young graduates, facing so many problems and hard times getting a decent job here? Singaporeans are complaining not because they are against expats and foreigners working here. The angst is that why are so many Singaporeans not able to get a decent job and ended up unemployed, underemployed or retired prematurely? And we have practically full employment. And we have a few hundred thousand foreigners here with good jobs.

Why is it so difficult to get all the Singaporeans, especially the PMETs and young graduates employed? Singapore is not facing a situation when there are not enough jobs to go round. We have so many foreigners happily employed here and many found it so easy to get a job while our very own citizens are having trouble landing a job.

Any politicians still cannot understand or see the point or the angst the Singaporeans are facing? I must conclude that such people are simply daft, dumb or pretending to be daft and dumb, looking the other way.

And no, for the monkeys who are accusing the jobless Singaporeans of having an entitlement mentality, I say stuff it in your ass. Singaporeans should have priority for jobs here, good jobs.  Level playing field is not good enough. This country belongs to the Singaporeans, not to any asses. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t have to work and underperform. The lazy and spoilt PMETs would get the boot. They should get preference, especially in govt or GLC jobs but it must not be an iron rice bowl and they could be fired if not performing.

We have so many jobs to go around, to 500,000 foreigners. There is no good reason that Singaporeans who want to work cannot find a decent job commensurate with his qualifications and experience. Please don’t give any crap reasons like lack of skills set. Rubbish! Sometimes a little training, orientation and OJT would be enough to work someone into a job until the job is so specialized or technical in nature. It is so sinful, a crime, for fake foreigners to take the good jobs of qualified Singaporean.

There is no excuse for not providing jobs to Singaporeans. There are plenty of jobs for Singaporeans and foreigners and for fakes. Even if all the PMETs and young unemployed Singaporean graduates are employed, there will still be hundreds of thousands of good jobs available for foreigners.

Let’s not short change the Singaporeans, the citizens of this country. Singaporeans must not accept this state of affair. Not doing anything to right this wrong against Singaporeans is unacceptable. This is the chance for politicians to prove that they are there to serve the interest of the Singaporeans, to look after the voters who voted them into Parliament. Did anyone say they need to take care of the interest of foreigners first, to give them jobs because they are better than Singaporeans?

Please kee chiu.