The New Heroes – A New Chapter

The most unlikely new hero in this queer little city state is an anonymous masked man infamously called The Messiah. He hacked into the websites of public institutions, including the PMO and the Istana. And some people clapped and called him the Robin Hood of the oppressed. He has been unmasked as James Raj, a drug addict on the run, and the hacker that threatened the govt. This revelation still did not arouse a barrage of attacks and criticisms for what he had done which everyone would admit was not a proper thing to do.

The myth and mystery of the mask have been removed. In the eyes of the law, he is a criminal waiting trial and may serve terms behind bars. He is on the wrong side of the law. Then out of the blue came this ‘Support James Raj, victim of the Singapore Govt’. This is an article appearing in TRS and authored by Andy Xian Wong. Wow! This is another challenge to the govt, no longer anonymous. This is a very brave act indeed, literally condoning a wrongful act.

Nevermind, my discourse is about the making of New Heroes in this uncertain time. A hacker attacking and threatening the govt is received by quite a number of people as a hero. And he is not the only one. Many that were tarred and feathered are now seen as heroes in the eyes of some quarters of the population.

M Ravi, the famous and one and only human rights lawyer in this city is also worshipped as another new hero. He has taken up many high profile and politically tainted cases for the underdogs, motivated not by money but by a sense of justice and fair play. He has been victorious so far. Despite the saga when he was almost bundled into the Institute of Mental Health and not seeing daylight. Some learned people had claimed that he was mad or suffering from mental illness that made him unfit to be a lawyer, he is now standing taller than before. He is definitely not mad and every inch a lawyer, and a righteous one.

The victims of the Marxist Conspiracy and Operation Cold Store have written their stories and are seen with a different light. Dr Poh Soo Kai is quietly acknowledged as another hero in the hearts of many Singaporeans, and so were his comrades.

And there is Chee Soon Juan and his SDP. Charged in court several times, faced bankruptcy, branded, dishonest for claiming a few dollars more on taxi fares and using university postage instead of paying for himself, he is being revived, and gaining more popularity and support from the people. His party is growing and he is becoming more credible and a political force to be reckoned with in the next GE.

And of course there was the famous JBJ. His name will be forever etched in the history books of this city as the most tenacious politician that would not fall. He took all the body blows and stood up again and again. He fought a political career and lost everything, but gained everything in respect from the people. He is an icon of sort.

A new chapter is being written with New Heroes in the making. Salted fish resurrected. Many salted fish will be resurrected as the new heros of this queer city. They need not be scholars or eminent doctors or lawyers with a string of degrees. They are the ordinary citizens, the ordinary Singaporeans who care for this country and its citizens, the Singaporeans. They are standing up to take on an onerous and arduous task of reclaiming and reconstructing the country and the lives of its citizens, to write a new chapter of its history.

Fantasies Series

One of my latest creation under the Fantasies Series.

Do you know why Malaysia refused to introduce National Service?

I think we all know the answer. No country will train and arm people who are suspects or potential enemies of the state. The Japanese had an immaculate and ambitious long term plan to conquer the world by sending their people as migrants overseas, to China and Southeast Asia and as far as the USA. They took several decades before they called on these Japanese in their new countries to rise to serve their Empire against their host nations.

I dunno whether we are too smart to the verge to becoming stupid, or too gullible and trusting to foreigners that we welcomed so many with our legs wide open and waiting for something to shaft into the hole. Foreigners are given citizenships so easily and so happy to make them serve in our armed forces. We lost two of our brightest boys in Sydney in the hands of a new citizen.

The latest, we want foreigners, PRs, to serve in our volunteer army, to be trained to handle weapons and taught the art of war, believing that they would not turn against us. They could be many sleepers now in the armed forces, all appearing so loyal and obedient, perfect new citizens. Some may even be in positions of high commands.

We are truly unique in our psychic, so naïve and gullible of foreigners, the unknown elements, like the daft citizens welcoming strangers into their homes to look after their young and old. So many families have met with tragic ends. Is the risk worth taking, so foolishly? We do not believe is guarding against strangers. We want to integrate them to be one of us. I think training and taming the tigers would be a safer bet.

Rich communists

This is a recent photo of some Chinese villagers in the Northeastern part of China. (Picture credit to China Daily). They were teachers and students standing in front of a school. China is hit by falling admission of students in the village schools as the young migrated to the big cities. What is nice to note is the clothing they are wearing, the warm clothings and shoes. The school building is also quite new. This is 2013.

In the 50s and 60s, and even 70s, looking at their photos was like looking into poverty. I still have some black and white photos of my relatives in the 70s, in their best for photo taking. The children were barefooted and the adults, at best, were wearing slippers or sandals. The shirts and dresses were worse than the cheap sales in our pasar malam. 

Those were the days that we even had to send food and western medicine to them.  They have come a very long way, from abject poverty, without pride or dignity, to become the second largest economy in the world and challenging the Americans with the number of billionaires and millionaires. This is the new China, a very rich communist country. 

What can $4.3b buy?

 Last few days we were all marvelling at the new $4.3b wonders in Marina South. There were some comparisons as to what $4.3b could buy other than a 5km stretch of roads albeit underground and under the sea. This kind of thing is something daft Sinkies have heard of for the first time. It was touted as a great engineering feat, maybe can rival the pyramids. The tourists will soon be landing on this city to ogle at this 8^th Wonders of the World.

$4.3b can buy something like 43,000 of the latest buses for public transport, or 10,000 units of 5 rm HDB flats. This morning I was enlightened by a better idea on what $4.3b can buy. India has taken delivery of its latest aircraft carrier, an old Russian refit, at a cost of $2.9b. This ship can carry 30 fighter aircraft on board and a crew of 2,000. With a bit more we can have the whole complements of aircraft as well. And if we buy a few junk banks or junk stocks less, we could easily buy 3 or 4 or these aircraft carriers. Then we need not spend so much money stationing our fly boys and their families and aircraft overseas.

Someone in Mindef may want to do a bit of paper shuffling to evaluate the cost of buying a few of these aircraft carriers versus stationing our hardware and soldiers in the other half of the globe. The aircraft carrier group can be floating nearby in the South China Seas. Think it would be cheap and more effective, closer to home and can take up its combat duties immediately when needed, just a few minutes away.

At $2.9b a piece, it is cheap. Throwing $10b we can have 3 to form a carrier battle group that would dwarf those owned by any Asian powers. Wow, the most powerful military state in Asia, for $10b or two underground roads. This must be worth considering. It is a bargain.

DBS iBANKING Alert!!!

I received this email this morning which I suspect is FAKE. The email did not speak English. DBS may want to look at it immediately or explain why it is not speaking English.


DBS BANK SINGAPORE
To
Nov 16 at 6:01 PM

Dear valued customer,

DBS INTERNET BANKING SECURITY UPDATE.

Since March 2013, we introduced a new security system. This new system ensures that there can be no abuse on your DBS iBANKING. To ensure that your account is protected by our new security system, we recommend that you click on the link below and enter your information on check. Once you have done this, your account will be updated with the new security software.

CLICK HERE NOW

CAUTION: After filling out the information requested, you will be contacted/called by one of our staff to be able to complete the software installation.

DBS, The Safest Bank in Asia, your safety and protection is obliged. Thank you for your time and
cooperation.

Sincerely yours
Customer service department.
DBS, Asia’s Safest, Asia’s Best
Safest Bank in Asia 2009-2013, Global Finance
Bank of the year Asia 2012, The Banker
Best Managed Bank in Asia Pacific 2013,
The Asian Banker.

Grace Fu confirms that we are the best

At the Ong Teng Cheong Labour Leadership Institute’s graduation ceremony Grace Fu cautioned against some pitfalls that Singapore should avoid while running the country. She spoke about Sweden and Japan, two of the model countries in the developed world.

In the case of Sweden, despite having one of the best labour relations, remunerations and benefits for workers, there are problems of high cost of employment, loss of competitiveness of the companies and youth unemployment. Sweden thus has one of the highest ratios of youth unemployment in Europe. This in a way could see Sweden facing more problems in the years ahead. This is something that we should avoid if we want to remain competitive and continue to provide full employment to our people. In my view this is our greatest achievements, to be able to provide our workers with good jobs and also helped to provide more than a million jobs to foreigners.

In Japan’s case, it has serious flaws in its healthcare system mainly due to its stubbornness not to employ foreign nurses to take care of its ageing population. The quality of healthcare has dropped and there are long waiting queues in clinics and poor emergency health care. Must be worse than Singapore.

In short, we are the best in both labour management and creating jobs, and also in our healthcare services. Our healthcare system is so efficient that we don’t have long queues in clinics except only one or two wait for appointments to see specialists. But actually this is not true as well.  The waiting time can be cut to immediate if one has the money to pay. So it is wrong to complain of ridiculously long waiting time for medical appointments.

Now who is so stupid to send delegations to Japan and Sweden to learn from their flawed systems? These countries should be learning from us instead. We are the best. But one proviso, we are so good because we imported the best foreign talents to run and manage our systems. Without the foreign talents, we will have the same pitfalls as Sweden and Japan.

She should recommend to Hsien Loong to forbid sending delegations to these countries to learn their pitfalls. It is a waste of public funds, unless we are there to confirm that we are doing the right thing.