loan sharks swimming freely

it is so sad to hear the sad story of the innocent woman who lost her baby because of a loan shark. how could this situation continue for so long and never seem to be able to solve? once our society was infested with secret societies and triads. and they were practically wiped out. is the loan shark such a great problem to handle compare to these secret societies?

tipping for good service

let's not have this stupid practice. i am totally against it. it is a colonial hangover. it is a practice of the rich who can afford to throw away small change to the servitude. it is degrading and patronising. the rich patron takes pride in giving and the servant takes pride in receiving. what we should encourage among the people is pride for their work and services. and also pride in themselves as an individual. that they need not live on other people's charity and generosity. people are paid to do a job and to do it well. the satisfaction and acknowledgement by others of their work is enough reward. i don't like to insult the taxi driver by giving him a few cents or a couple of dollars. and often i can sense that they felt insulted. there were many cases of rich little school boys giving tips to old daddy taxi drivers. how humiliating that can be. living a life depending on people's tips, tips from school boys or girls. on the practical aspect, many not so rich people also take taxis now and then. it will be very stressful on them to tip the taxi drivers. they don't have that many spare cash like our rich people who suggested such a silly practice, all because they could afford to practise it. it will lead to many uncomfortable situations where the poor taxi driver expecting a tip with a big grin and the poor taxi customer could not give. stop thinking like colonial masters and the rich aristocrats or the royalties...' here, this is for you.' and the servants will receive it with both hands and happily said, 'thank you master,' or 'thank you sir, m'am.' this is my tip of a people or society that has some pride left in themselves. do i have to tip the minister if he pays me a visit?

misinformation and disinformation about singapore

below is an extract of the kind of misinformation and disinformation being circulated by forumers in the soc.cul.spore website. with such misinformation, innocent people who are not aware of the truth will think that these are truth. this is the danger of how the media, in what ever form, can be misused. "Minorities cant get into the faculties they want because there exists a "quota system" in tertiary institutes , universities in Singapore for example in NUS ( National University of Singapore ) , Nanyang Technological University and SMU ( Singapore Management University) and various other tertiary institutes. The unwritten quota system made by Singapore politicians within the Singapore universities and tertiary institutes prevents some ethnic minorities particularly Malay-Muslims and Singapore born Indians in enrolling the faculties, field of study or even courses they want. " by 'concerned_people_person' dated 8 dec.

umno youth chief challenged

below article is copied from littlespeck.com UMNO Youth chiefHishammuddin asked to explain where he got million ringgit to buy luxurious car. Arfa'eza A Aziz. malaysiakiniDec 7, 2005 Umno Youth chief Hishammuddin Hussein has been challenged to explain how he could afford to pay M$1m in cash for an American-made vehicle registered to his name. Revealing this during a pre-election ceramah in Pasir Mas, Kelantan, Keadilan-Rakyat vice-president Mohd Azmin Ali also dared Hishammuddin to hold an open debate with him. Azmin produced the vehicle registration card issued by the Road Transport Department, indicating that Hishammuddin has paid in cash for the Chevrolet Hummer. "He keeps saying that he champions the rights of the Malays and the poor. How can he understand the plight of the poor when he indulges in such a lavish lifestyle," Azmin told some 2,000 people. "Hishammuddin (left) has to explain as to how he can afford to pay cash for the car which costs close to M$1 million, given his ministerial salary." He also said the people should not buy Umno's claim that it is protecting those who are marginalised, when its officials are squandering the people's wealth. Azmin said Hishammuddin must clear his name before the voters of Pengkalan Pasir go to the polls tomorrow to elect a new state legislative representative. "I dare him to have an open debate with me on this issue," he said. Ready for investigations Later at a function in PAS election headquarters in Pasir Mas, Azmin said he is ready to face police investigations into the issue. He said this when told by a reporter that Hishammddin had accused him of breaching the law by exposing a confidential document. "It's a public document which I obtained after doing a search. If he says I have committed an offence, charge me in court. No problem with that. "This is typical of Umno. It does not address the real issue but diverts the people's attention to other things." Two days ago, PAS Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub threw a challenge to Umno deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin to debate the New Economic Policy. malaysiakini

singapore defends its record against hrw

the human rights watch group, hrw, has published a report condemning singapore's record of maid abuses and the lack of legislations to protect them. this has elicited a strong response from the mom who protested that the report is a gross exaggeration and the conditions for maids are improving. no matter how much we shout about how good we are, if we think it is reasonable to give maids one off day in a month, this tells very badly on the values we placed on decency. even when we work 5 and 1/2 days with 1 and 1/2 days off we are already complaining. and we can argue that it is ok for maids to work 29 days out of 30/31 days. how are we going to defend our position as being reasonable and a fair and kind employer who treats another human decently?

my public apology

the 4 singaporeans who made a public protest at robinson road had their case thrown out of court because of 3 letters, n k f. the judge ruled that by linking the cpf board and other entities with nkf, 'the protesters had used insulting and abusive words against "persons responsible for the finances of those bodies".'...He called their actions "tantamount to insinuations of mismanagement and financial impropriety." since the nkf saga, i have made many posts here referring to the 3 letters n k f. and if these letters were found in the same post where some reputable organisations were also mentioned, i would like to deny any intention to insinuate anything unfavourable. now i am not sure whether mentioning the name of the late president nair together with other founding fathers of singapore will be deemed unacceptable. in the papers today, there have been good words about his past contributions.

al zarqawi's iraq force in china

according to debka weekly, dec 7, a small unit of al zarqawi's iraq force (part of al qaeda) has been assigned a new mission: to a start a campaign in china. it then went on to describe in detail how the small potent force smuggled into a chinese border town of kushi in xinjiang in nov, absorbed into the muslim extremist cells there. the fine details were astonishing, with names of places for secret rendevous, names of some terrorist leaders were also mentioned. this gives the impression that someone was closely monitoring all their movements, tracking them and knowing exactly what these secret forces were up to. funny thing is that no one was able or willing to nab them along the way. and the information was passed on to the russians and the chinese who were all caught by surprise and stumbling all over to pass the information around and trying to intercept them. with such detail information, no one can afford not to take them seriously. it is better to assume that it is true than to be sorry. one question to ask is why would the iraqi forces fighting the americans in iraq want to mess up china and drag china and russia into the fray to wallop them? are these arabs that stupid? that if russia and china were to standby quietly on the side lines, they would have more rooms to play with against the americans, only one enemy and one front? the second thought that comes to my mind is that this could be another disinformation paid by the americans to drag the russians and chinese into the conflict. ask a simple question. who is going to benefit from this information? why or how could such a covert operation by the iraqi forces becomes public knowledge? it is like news of a boys scout excursion trip rather than a serious discreet cell whose movements are meant to be very secretive. if the americans are so good in all their intelligence and monitoring of the insurgent activities, the war in iraq and afganistan would have long been over. osama would long have been caught. now, is this news genuine or another story from spin doctors. just wondering. this news is available at littlespeck.com today.