Redbean Soup in the process of printing

                Redbean Soup
                Tonic for the soul




This is a collection of essays and satires posted in http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.sg by Chua Chin Leng aka Redbean


 

My book is off to the printer. It would be just about 200 pages but only managed to squeeze in 54 articles. I thought I could put in 100 articles but with an intro appetiser to each article to bring it into context, it is the best I could do.

Think should be able to get it out before end of this month. Waiting for confirmation from printer on date of delivery.

Thanks folks for the encouragement.

Redbean

The daft’s understanding of disputed territories

The South China Sea islands are disputed territories so no one can conduct land reclamation. Who said so, the Empire said so. China first laid claims to the islands donkey years ago, centuries ago. Johnny comes lately makes his claim to the islands as well, so the islands are now disputed territories.

The Philippines are claiming Sabah. So Sabah is disputed territories and the Malaysian govt cannot to anything to the state until some warlord decides who has the right to the territory. If not happy, bring in the Americans and their warships to arbitrate according to American’s interest to favour whichever party. What if someone claims that Singapore belongs to him, so Singapore is a disputed territory and no more land reclamation can be carried out, no more building of HDB flats etc etc.

Is this an acceptable argument, a reasonable logic? What if the Red Indians start to make claims to the USA, Mexico starts to make claims to California and Texas and New Mexico, would these states also become disputed territories and all works must stop?

The daft are very easy to convince and very easy to con. The Americans are using power logic, using gunboat diplomacy and thinking that might is right all over again. This is the 21st Century and the Americans may have a lot of big guns, but other countries also have big guns. You want to play the game of chicken, come lets play.

What would the daft say? What would the daft think? Oops, sorry, the daft can’t think. They just parrot whatever the Americans are saying as the right thing. Ng Eng Hen also warned about the use of force and ‘might is right’ in the Shangri La Dialogue. The gangsters have brought in their biggest team this time with their Vietnamese killer, the Number One hawk in John McCain, to support another new hawk in Ash Carter.

Might is right is the American way when they have overwhelming power like in the Middle East where they could wallop the Arabs and the Arabs could not hit back. Now with ISIS growing as the next force to reckon with, the Americans knew they could not deal with them, so they shift their theatre of war to the South China Sea. It would be good if the ISIS could do more damages to the Americans in homeland and keep them at home and not doing mischief all over the world.

ISIS has promised to fight in American soil. The prospect of that happening should bring Ash Carter and John McCain rushing home to cover their asses. If that would to happen they will have no time to talk about disputed territories in South China Sea, show of force and their pivot to Asia. The only way to deal with the Americans is in homeland America, where their comfort zone is too close for comfort.

Remember George Bush Junior running for cover during 911?

All Singapore Stuff(ASS)

Singapore - Statutory Board Media Development Authority (MDA) has axed 33 full-time staff today, ST has learned

- More at AllSingaporeStuff.com http://www.allsingaporestuff.com/article/stat-board-mda-retrenches-33-full-time-staff-after-trs-closure
FB: http://fb.com/allsgstuff
 
A MDA staff "Amanda" who declined to give her real name as she was not authorised to speak with the media informed ST that MDA has 41 full-time staff to monitor Fabrications About the PAP Facebook page, Calvin Cheng Facebook page, Mothership.sg and SMRT (Feedback).

"But MDA also hires good honours graduates from local universities. We have 67 full-time graduate staff on superscale pay on 24-hours shift to monitor sonofadud.com and straitstimesreview.com".


The above posted in All Singapore Stuff and reposted in several aggregator sites revealed that the MDA is employing a substantial number of staff just to monitor the social media. I am not sure how true or accurate the information is, assuming that it is true, just to monitor the above mentioned, 108 staff are employed.
 
Assuming the average pay of the staff is $4000 pm, annually each staff will cost at least $60,000 minimum. The 108 staff would thus cost more than $6m annually and likely to be much higher given the fact that many are superscale grades.
 
It is not sure how many sites are being monitored, but the number could go up to the hundreds or thousands. Assuming that 100 sites are being monitored, conservatively, that would mean a budget of $600 million annually! Can this be true? Is this too much to pay just to monitor the social media? How much was actually spent to do this kind of thing and how necessary, and is the money worth spending?
 
How many staff are employed by MDA to do this unproductive work?

Asean - 50 years of peace and stability

The Asean region enjoyed 50 years of peace and stability and the countries made good with the time to pursue economic development that made Asean the up and coming new rich nations of the world. The only blemish during this period of peace and prosperity was the Vietnam War where the Americans attempted to maintain their military presence in the region and to keep Vietnam as a semi colony, replacing the French, Fortunately they were defeated by the Vietnamese and chased out of the region. This was followed up by the nationalists in the Philippines. They took back Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Base from the Americans, leaving the region free of American military bases and free from warfare for the last 50 years.

The founding fathers of Asean were wary of the rivalry between big powers and adopted a policy of neutrality, formalised under the concept of peace, freedom and neutrality or Zopfan. The big powers were kept out of the region and dealt at arms length to prevent them from doing mischief and inciting interstate rivalry among the Asean countries. Asean leaders played the game well and enjoyed the fruit of peace and stability without the big powers messing around in the region.

Today, with silly and ambitious leaders that have forgotten how Asean came about, and the hardearned peace, some of these jokers are itching to go to war, to be heroes and to make dead heroes of their people. War and glory appear to be a very attractive fancy and with the money they wasted on all the military hardware, they wanted to give a good display of the destructive power of the weapons they have paid for, believing that they could kill others and would not be killed. To them war is fun and a very macho thing like in Hollywood. Some have shown tendencies of being trigger happy by shooting at fishing boats and even provoking other countries to engage in arm conflict.

Some Asean states have willingly invited the Americans back to boss around in the region, demanding acceptance as the de facto Empire and calling the shot on regional affairs, appointing themselves as the uninvited policeman of the region, a role that the founding fathers of Asean had rejected and would not allow it to happen. Asean countries can look after themselves and do not need big powers to come here to dictate to them. For the last 50 years this was the case.

What is happening today, with some Asean states happily offering to host American soldiers and unashamingly calling the Americans masters, have turned Asean into the pawns of big power rivalry again. Asean’s neutrality has been compromised and the consequences of forgetting how they got here is to see open military conflict in the region, something that Asean has avoided for so long. The stupidity and shallowness of the Asean leaders would find Asean caught in the crossfire of big power rivalry, a price they have to pay for prostituting to the big powers.

It would be a sad day when the region is embroiled and engulfed by the fire and destruction of war. Asean countries got only themselves to blamed for betraying the principles of their founding fathers. The last 50 years were peaceful. The next 50 years could be war and conflict and their money would be needed to buy more military hardware, their people would become collaterals of wars, and the stability for economic development gone. Asean countries could end up like the Middle East, thanks for inviting the Empire to roost and incite tension and war in the name of peace.

NUS and NTU needs a washing machine

Singapore is very proud of NUS and NTU that have been ranked among the best universities in the world. As an alumnus it is a good feeling to be a member of prestigious institutions even if the rankings have been the subject of ridicules and uncomplimentary remarks. What is important is the aspiration to want to be the best, and for doing so there are many things that must be put right in the process of getting there, even if we are not there.

In brief, without going into an academic discourse, there are four main factors that contributed to the quality of a learning institution, the academic staff, the students, the culture of learning, and the infrastructure. The most difficult to achieve good and respectable quality are the students and the culture. The latter is a complex issue that can prove to be evasive and defeating. As for the students, it is an issue of that is all we got. But today, good students can be bought or brought in from all over the world. If the responsibility of educating the children of the country is secondary, we can buy all the top students from the world to be here. But this is unlikely except when the govt is made up of silly asses that think this is a non country, where the interests of the citizens are expendable. If the children of our citizens are not top material we will give the places to the gentiles of the world.

The quality of the academic staff and the infrastructure are easier to manage. We have the money and can build and provide whatever that is needed. The most advance leading edge equipment and facilities would be made available. As for the academic staff, if we want the best from the world, we have the money, we can even relocate Yale, Princeton, Harvard or Cambridge lock, stock and barrel here. It is only a matter of price.

While we are in blind pursuit of quality and reputation, to create the best learning institutions here, we must not be so blind to bring in the shit and fakes as well. We have our embarrassing moments of fakes in our midst and held in high regards by other fakes who could not tell the difference between a fake and the real stuff. And we also have a lot of creeps and rogues that are hired to beef up the quality of our institutions. Unbelievable! How can the institutions live with fakes, shits and character flawed professors and teaching staff to teach our students?

Some organizations, even govt related, can dismiss fakes and degree mills as no crime, as part and parcel of importing foreigners and living the fakes. But for institutions that are being pep up to be the best among the best, any slipshod or shits must be gotten rid of immediately. There is no room for mediocrity or fakes and flawed personalities if we want to be the best. And one by one the fakes and freaks and shitty characters are revealing themselves. The latest as reported in the TRE, and I quote, ‘NUS assistant law professor Sundram Peter Soosay was convicted by the court yesterday (29 May) of assaulting a 70-year-old cabby, Mr Sun Chun Hua, while drunk.’

Other than the aspiration to be the best institutions of learning, it is madness to have fakes and shits among the academic staff to teach our students. The thought of their existence, and they are given the responsibilities to teach our young undergraduates/post graduates, is simply disgusting. How many of such fakes and shits is still hiding in our world best institutions and being paid world best pay and doing damage to our students? Eventually the reputation of these institutions would cave in. It is very unflattering to be infamous for having fakes and shits as teaching staff and very embarrassing for graduates to have been taught by them.

I recommend the two institutions to buy the best washing machine, those with fuzzy logic, to clean up the shits and fakes in them. Please don’t swear that all is well. We pay top dollars and should be getting the best, not freaks and sluts to shit on our young and impressionable minds. The two institutions have a grave responsibility to do due diligence to the public funds given to them to ensure that we have the best to teach our young. Please do not just believe in the papers and testimonials. I can buy tons of them for a song. Not only there are degree mills, there are also testimonial mills.