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Sleepless In Singapore

June 16, 2014, 9:36 pm
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After a few drinks at the lobby bar of the Sheraton at Shanghai, it was time to hit the sack. Our Norwegian chairman said he would stay on a bit, as sleep is more elusive at his age. We spied some cocktail hostesses in cheongsams - nice ones, not like the witch at the Hri Kumar Central Provident Fund (CPF) talk - and left instruction to keep him company.

It's a scientific fact: older adults are less able than younger adults to maintain sleep; sleep for them is lighter and more fragmented with brief arousals or longer awakenings throughout the night. Insomnia and disrupted sleep in elderly people are a common side effect caused by many chronic medical conditions such as arthritis, congestive heart failure, depression, and gastroesophogeal reflux disorder.

Maybe the senior citizens watching the public World Cup screenings organized by the The People's Association (PA) do not suffer from sleep disorders. More likely they are kept awake by the spectre of the Minimum Sum (MS) being raised at higher than inflation rate, and with it, the drawdown date pushed further and further into infinity and beyond. They may not be entrusted to spend their own money, but PA seems to have no problems with paying Singtel for the mioTV broadcasts.

Elsewhere at the APEC TEL Workshop & 9th IAC forum on 16 June, the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) is saying it is looking into using high-tech gadgets like wearable monitoring devices, robotic legs and pets to help Singaporeans cope with ageing. What the IDA Director for Strategy & Innovation Division did not enlighten his audience was how the fancy toys will be funded. All roads lead to Rome, and the worrisome thought giving all of us nightmares, old and young alike, is how much is routed from our savings. We will have to wait for the conclusion of the City Harvest Church court case to really understand how round-tripping is defined legally.

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Xenophobia And Racism

June 17, 2014, 8:14 pm
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A choice of headlines - take your pick
Some folks think that xenophobia and racism are similar and their usage can be easily interchanged, but this is not necessarily the case.  Xenophobia refers to dislike or fearing the unknown or something that is different from you. Knowing that you can lose your job to an alien is pretty scary. Racism on the other hand is based on the belief that race determines the traits of certain humans and their innate capacity, making one race more superior to another. One stems from the crouching fear of the uncertain, the other is a disdain emanating from smug superiority.

Xenophobia is not only aversion to a person but it is a fear or dislike of other cultures and beliefs. The phobic person knows that he or she is averse to the target group, but they may not accept the fact that they are actually afraid or it is their fear that motivates the hatred for the targeted group.

Racism is best exemplified in history by slavery and colonization in which blacks were treated as inferior races. Hitler upped the ante by "proving" Aryan whites were more superior to other races and that they were superior to the Jews also.

The Philippine Embassy is levying racist charges against a blogger for advocating displeasure with Filipinos in country "without breaking the law". Probably the same officials who chose to stay mum over the attempted take over of Ngee Ann Civic Plaza, when they could have avoided friction by hosting the planned event on embassy grounds. Or alternate venues suggested by the police.

The day after Contemplacion was hanged, Manila television aired a children's program where tiny tots were let loose into a room full of balloons and encouraged to burst them. "Stomp on them, imagine they are Singaporeans," egged on the program host. If our ambassador had filed a report on the festivities in his dispatches, one wonders whether the mainstream media will treat it as xenophobia or racism.

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Give Me Back My Money

June 18, 2014, 7:55 pm
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Days have passed and The Sunday Times has not been asked to make a retraction, or worse, slapped with a letter from a lawyer. We can safety adduce that the quote attributed to a certain politician is accurate:
“This is a resident who has an issue. I spoke with her personally after the dialogue and I’ll be doing my best to assist her. She’s a resident in one of the landed estates in Thomson.”

Was the third sentence really necessary? Ad hominem attacks take the form of overtly attacking somebody, or more subtly casting doubt on their character or personal attributes as a way to discredit their argument. The result of an ad hom attack can be used to undermine someone's case without actually having to engage with it.

Ex-Straits Times editor Cheong Yip Seng wrote in his memoir ("OB Markers: My Straits Times Story") that he resisted Lee Kuan Yew's pressure to print the full O level results of Opposition politician Chiam See Tong during the 1984 election. Chiam won that bout, but Mah Bow Tan was allowed to sneak into parliament via the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) route at the next electoral opportunity. Ad hominem attacks can backfire.

The 76 year old spinster must have been frugal enough to set aside a portion of her teacher salary to pay for her terrace house, assuming she owns the property. Decades ago, such units could have been selling at a fraction of present day prices. A friend sold off her father's spacious house at the old teacher's estate after he passed on, and could only afford a tiny condominium unit with the proceeds.

She's not the only one who is asset rich, cash poor. Plaintively, the senior citizen had begged, "“What I want is my money back and I want to arrange for my funeral and I want to arrange for my rice and I want to arrange for a nice settlement." She articulated what we now see as a truism, the three letters for our retirement money spell Coffin Provision Fund.

“That’s all I want. Give me back my money. CPF, give me back my money. And make it as soon as possible. Because 76, I won’t be able to live (too long),” she added. If we are in her shoes, we too would like to spend the final hours on our own bed, rather than the tented facilities of our overcrowded public hospitals.

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Consistent Inconsistency

June 19, 2014, 7:36 pm
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Remember this quote?:
"Yes I know I did not serve NS, I have a harder road ahead and this is how I want to serve Singapore....  Yes I did break a promise to my wife, but we have talked about it she is behind me 100%. My father has supported my decision, there is no betrayal."

"Father" (committee member Singapore Association of Trade Unions (SATU) and Barisan Sosialis; vice-president Singapore General Employees' Union) was one of the "Big Six" trade union leaders - including Lim Chin Siong, Fong Swee Suan, Sidney Woodhull, Jamit Singh and ST Bani - who risked life and and limb to call for a "genuinely full internal government". The foreign powers of the day that colonialised Singapore made full use of the Internal Security Council to squash their minority voices, the nefarious instrument which launched Operation Coldstore (sometimes spelled Operation Cold Store, Chinese: 冷藏行动) to lock away away at least 111 anti-government elements, including key members of an opposition political party.

The son is now dissing a political commentator for stating the obvious. Boasting that the mistrust involves only a minority, he lambasts her for being Chicken Little, the character in a moral folk tale that has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.

"It appears that Ms Lim cannot be trusted  to be consistent in her own statement," crowed Janil Puthucheary. So says the pot calling the kettle black. This newbie citizen (landed in 2001, picked up passport in 2008, sneaked into parliament in 2011) fails to appreciate the angst of the seniors who were once promised their life savings will be available at age 55. This is how Toh Chin Chye highlighted the inconsistency:
"If I were to put this sum of money in a commercial bank and, on the due date I go to the bank to withdraw the money, the manager says, "I am sorry, Mr Toh, you will have to come next year", there will be a run on the bank!"

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Men And Women In White

June 20, 2014, 7:07 pm
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Silly me, to think that men (and women) wear white so that they can be associated the ruling party. Membership has its privileges, such as first shot at the choice units at Pinnacle@Duxton when it was launched. Too bad it is now degraded to a pissing spot for ladies with incontinence.

Islamic religious teacher Ustaz Noor Deros, 28, has launched the Wear White Facebook page and website to ask Muslims to wear white next Saturday in support of the "return to fitrah" - the Arabic word for "natural" - and support "what is good and pure". Which is all healthy and conducive for multi-racial multi-cultural living and loving. But the message of peace is short-lived:
"There are groups that are trying to destroy the sanctity of the family. The natural state of human relationships is now under sustained attack by lgbt activists. For the lgbt movement, the natural family is no longer sacred.
To underline their disdain for Islam and the family, lgbt activists are organising an event on the very evening of 1st Ramadan. They expect this event to be the biggest ever in their history."

The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) must think this is crossing the imaginary line that Tan Chuan-Jin drew for online viciousness. MUIS made the sensible call "not to adopt a confrontational approach or vilify those who are involved in LGBT lifestyles or in events such as the Pink Dot". Even the Singapore Islamic Scholars & Religious Teachers Association (PERGAS) "strongly urges" Muslims not to ostracise LGBT individuals, but to reach out and offer "continuous moral guidance". But not a word of support from the MIW politician general.

The only LBGT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) person I know is Ellen Lee DeGeneres, and I absolutely adore her to death. Elton John, on the other hand, gives me the creeps. Ellen is not only fabulously rich and talented, she is also fantastically generous and caring. She came out publicly as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and married her long-term girlfriend Portia de Rossi in 2008. Even LBGTs aim to start a family unit. Maybe they'll adopt and lavish the additions with lots of love and gifts. Which is more than the couple in a Singapore 2-room housing board flat can provide for their naturally born child. Children of gay and lesbian parents live in 96% of U.S. counties — and decades of research shows that those children grow up as happy, healthy and well-adjusted as their peers.

Politics of envy and politics of hate should never have a place here. Maybe the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will take action, like Google (do no evil) removing the blog with the primer on dealing with Filipinos. Maybe they will wait for a police report to be filed first. Maybe the mainstream media will pester them later to ask why they did not act earlier. Maybe, as Vikram Nair put it, the online post was just "a sign that some people are trying to stir controversy". And detract us, kawan kawan semua, from the the hot button CPF issues.

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Not Funny At All

June 22, 2014, 6:54 pm
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The follow-up blurb to the insurance offering says, "VivoCare 100 covers 100 medical conditions, providing comprehensive coverage against early, intermediate and advanced stages of dread diseases as well as medical conditions under the special benefit".
The disclaimer about the "special benefit" stipulate this: "A survival period of seven days after diagnosis, or after having the medical procedure will apply."

Wow, an insurance policy that covers the risks of a sex-change medical procedure! And you thought Medishield Life will provide all the cover you, transgenders included, will ever need - $8 open heart surgery excepted.

Either the NTUC Income product is the best invention since sliced bread or - and this would be a more plausible explanation for the gaffe - the foreigner they hired for developing the advertisement routinely strings English words without an iota of comprehension. That's the xenophobe speaking, still upset about the busybody ang moh who claims foreigners "have helped Singapore become the economic powerhouse that it is today".

It turns out that the "mistake" was a bad taste in insensitive marketing, one of a series which includes a man admitting he suffers from ovarian cancer and a young girl talking about her onset of dementia. One who failed to appreciate the merits of the attention getter points out the adverse effect of the message: "Put yourself in a patient's shoes. How will you feel when you are suffering from a terminal illness and you keep seeing this ad playing on tv? Even if it does not get to you the first time, it drills in after subsequent times. You'll start to feel depressed, demoralised, thinking you are a burden to your family." There's no insurance cover for suicides.

You know there's a dire shortage of empaths in the country when a minister barges into a ward full of sick people requiring rest, drabbed in a Zorro outfit. Or selfishly deprives restaurant customers of their entitlement of free toothpicks. Even when there's a place for humour, such as the advertisement below, those whose lives have been ruined by the evils of the casinos may not find it funny.

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Spot The Difference

June 23, 2014, 8:13 pm
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The linguistically challenged minister cried foul when Channel Newsasia quoted him saying:
“The best way for Singaporeans to prepare for retirement is to use less of their Central Provident Fund (CPF) money when they are young.”

It sounds so perfectly logical until Lim Swee Say insisted he was misquoted, and provided his original intended text:
"... the less you make use of your money when you are young, the more money you will have for retirement."

For the less devious, this may look like a version of the old kids' game of trying to spot the differences in two seemingly identical representations. Lim highlighted his unique mindset when he expanded:
"It is clear in this context that ‘young’ refers to those who are aged 55."

Maybe the minister feels rejuvenated each time he sees his CPF statement, but only a nonagenarian will consider age 55 as "young". Or the Brad Pitt character in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".

But there must be method in his madness. Lim, like the rest of his crowd, seems determined that senior citizens should not be allowed to withdraw their retirement savings at the original promised age of 55 years. Even if Toh Chin Chye had deemed that a breach of contract, and an abuse of the trust placed in a government. Lim also conveniently ignores how many a retirement nest egg has been eroded by the ravages of overpriced public housing, inflated health care costs and ever escalating education charges.

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The Outing Of Dr W

June 24, 2014, 9:02 pm
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Horror scene from The Stoning of Soraya M
And you thought these things don't happen in the clean city of Singapore.

Wijeysingha narrates, for the first time, of how he was abused by a Catholic priest. When he was 15, we are told, "I came into unfortunate contact with a priest who would engage me in play wrestling and attempt to touch my crotch in the process. He once brought me into his bedroom and took a stack of pornographic magazines from his wardrobe to show me."

"I haven't till now disclosed this sorry incident publicly. It never seemed momentous and, so far, as I'm aware, it didn't damage me. But Archbishop William Goh's pronouncements this weekend prompted me to." The Archbishop had pronounced earlier that the church does not condone relationships which "are not in accordance to the plan of God".

It was the Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of sexual abuse cases involving Catholic priests that first drew the attention of the United States, and then ultimately the world, to the abuse of God's plan. Victims soon came forward with their own horrific tales of abuse, resulting in lawsuits and criminal cases. ("Scores of priests involved in sex abuse cases", Walter V. Robinson et al, January 31, 2002)

In February 2011, two German lawyers initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court. As one of the reasons for the charges they referred also to the "strong suspicion" that Joseph Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, covered up the sexual abuse of children and youths and protected the perpetrators.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, in early 2014, issued a report and minced no words:
"The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators."

Religion is one of the taboo subjects in our multi-racial society, so it is unlikely the Attorney General's Chambers will want to wade into these waters. After all, who without sin has the cheek to hurl the first stone?

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Working Hard For His Money

June 26, 2014, 1:28 am
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Settling for second best
The first reports claimed that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong met United States President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Susan Rice on Wednesday (June 25) in Washington, DC. Later, the statement from the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary said Mr Obama only dropped by Lee's meeting with Ms Rice. The guy in the photo op is definitely not the president of the most powerful democracy on planet earth. No Obama.

Lee met with Joe Biden instead, to reaffirm Singapore-US bilateral ties and exchange views on further enhancing relations, yada yada yada, and Joe promised to visit in November. No Obama.

On Wednesday, Lee was also hosted to tea by US Senator Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), which was attended by US Senators Robert Corker, Marco Rubio and Benjamin Cardin, who is Chairman of the SFRC Sub-Committee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs. No Obama.

Shucks, that's like visiting Paris and not get to climb the Eiffel Tower.

But Obama's a pretty busy guy right now. With Sunni militants capturing two border crossings, one along the frontier with Jordan and the other with Syria, and fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) advancing on the Haditha Dam, it's all hands on deck. The 300 advisers he's sending to Iraq better not end up like the 300 Spartans. If you saw the movie, you'll know they were wiped out by the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae. US secretary of state John Kerry has been asked by President Barack Obama to travel to Saudi Arabia on Friday to confer with King Abdullah on the best ways to counter the ISIL advance.

This may be his last term of office, but he's sure putting the pedal to the metal as if it were the first. Whatever Obama is paid, this guy sure works hard for his money.

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Medishield Life Bites Hard

June 27, 2014, 6:01 am
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At its core, universal health coverage (UHC) is about giving the individual and his family access to health care and preventing them from facing financial ruin that can come from unexpected illness and disability. At least that was what Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, widely credited as the intellectual father of today's UHC programmes, had in mind when he introduced national compulsory coverage for workers. Profit was never the motive.

Last year, Medishield premiums were quietly increased without much fanfare. Han Fook Kwang himself woke up to discover that his MediShield premium had jumped to $1,589, double what was deducted ($800) from his Medisave account previously. Before you could even contemplate bailing out of the scam, they introduced the compulsory Medishield Life to skim you off for perpetuity.

For a while now, the spiel was about additional benefits, never about whether we need them or are prepared to pay for the extras. They can hide the numbers only for so long. Now the secret is out.

As expected, leopards never change their spots. Medisave, one component of the Central Provident Fund (CPF), is also supposed to be our money, but that never stopped the grubby greedy hands from  helping themselves to the loot. Discounting the placebo of the subsidies, valid only for a temporal grace period, the numbers are higher than present (already inflated) Medishield premiums. The only important table is the set of before and after numbers.

Other than per capita household income, the determining factor for entitlement to a "discount" is the Annual Value (AV) of one's home. The retiree living in his old house with no source of income will still have to pay full rate. Ditto the sickly and handicapped, those in dire need of affordable medicare, will just have to downgrade to the void deck to qualify for a miserly handout.

The key to the grand scheme of things is the MediShield Life Review Committee (MLRC)'s suggestion  to work with private insurers to review the "landscape and features" of Integrated Shield Plans (IPs). You bet these private insurers, working in cahoots with the compliant Government appointees, will be laughing all the way to the bank. And you thought it was all about providing affordable health care. Bobby Chin, the Chairman of the MediShield Life Review Committee has even suggested that those who default on their premiums for MediShield Life should be penalised: "If you don't pay, the government will look into certain enforcement."

Speaking from the safety of several thousand miles away, the prime minister said, "You will have to pay somewhat more premiums but the premiums are affordable." Probably as affordable as those 35 year mortgages for a leasehold public housing unit.

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Commuters Are Not Entertained

June 29, 2014, 9:16 pm
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When you have civil servants paid from $300,000 onwards, it's inevitable they miss the disconnect. Instead of looking for ways and means to cut costs and reduce public transportation charges, they are forever cooking up ideas to splurge to the hilt. Any financial relief is welcome now, in the wake of the Medishield Life premium hikes.

Do we really need entertainment videos at train stations when the jam packed coaches afford only views of the smelly armpit of another unhappy commuter, 1 of 3 which is likely to be non-Singaporean? They had a failed attempt once installing mobile video on buses, at an undisclosed cost which was probably passed on to the passengers. When that system was canned, and video service terminated, no fare reduction materialised.

The "heritage videos" they are planning to showcase at station platforms won't be coming in cheap. Keep the propaganda videos and offer fare rebates instead. Commuters would rather have a shorter wait for a ride than hanging around the station for the 5 or 10 minute "content which is meaningful, informational and entertaining."

"Expect more entertainment to make time pass a little faster" seems to be a coded message implying longer waiting time for a train is inevitable, despite all the broken promises to speed up the train service. The congestion at the station during peak hours is barely sustainable as it is, do we need to add buskers to the crowd? Train stations are key to a quick clearing system, so that tired workers can go home promptly to their family and recover from the grind at the office or factory place. As it is, most leave their house before the sun rises, and return only after the sun has set. The only people who would hang around a train station are those looking at it as a novelty, not an essential transportation hub that need to be processed efficiently and speedily.

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Definitely Out Of Country

July 3, 2014, 2:08 pm
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You know you are not in Singapore when the population is 99 percent local born and bred. Even the sweeper at the train station platform is local, so are the workers emptying the trash bins.

The station master must have wished he had stayed in bed instead of having to deal with two alien cultures in one morning. A very dark African in a business suit was obviously having problems communicating with the paleface ang moh. Seeing the chicken-duck conversation was not getting any headway, we barged in with our own request for assistance. He looked at us quixotically and asked if we spoke English. Yes, we do, we announced with pride, and he proceeded to provide us with directions for the platforms. At this, the flustered African turned blacker than his natural complexion and protested, "But I am speaking English too!" The station master suddenly realised his gaffe, and turned to answer the African bro's travel questions, the fog of cultural bias having been lifted. We didn't mind, we have experienced our own headaches with the strange speech of the foreign elements in our midst at home.

The trains here are only 80 percent full at peak - that's seats occupied, nobody has to stand. The cabins have power points to charge your mobile phone during the ride, and a toilet onboard. Don't suggest these nifty features to the SMRT fellows, they'll just use them as excuses to hike the fare, again.

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Electrifying Alternatives

July 4, 2014, 4:00 pm
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Whenever you are out of town, never, never ask about local prices of cars. That's one sure way to shoot up your blood pressure. And you don't want to end up in a hospital, not with the rigged Medishield Life premiums awaiting.

Far from being amongst the lowest tax paying countries, we are ripped off in many ways, key of which is the cost of private vehicle ownership. You don't need a fancy sports job like Anton Casey's to get away from the olfactory infestation of public transport, just any mobile private space should suffice. Unfortunately, even if and when the compact electric cars are available, the taxes will make sure only the elites can afford the latest toy.

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EZ Cash

July 6, 2014, 3:00 pm
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Why do EZ-Link cardholders have to pay 20 cents every time they top up their card at all DBS, OCBC ATMs and AXS stations? The easy answer is "... if we can collect more money, why not..."

This new gotcha came into effect at the start of July. Top up is still free if effected at places like Transit Link sales offices, Add Value Machines and General Ticketing Machines (GTM) located at MRT stations and selected bus interchanges - they are not telling us where - as well as EZ-Link Top-up Machines at People's Association (PA) Community Centres.

An EZ-Link card user said: "I didn't even know that this new surcharge update was there. So I think it would have been much better if they put up some kind of notice to inform the general public."

In response, EZ-Link said the top up fee of 20 cents had already been waived for 5 years to allow sufficient time for consumers to try out the service. Apparently now is the time to collect. EZ-Link claims they have been bearing the cost, without explaining how and where the cost is incurred since DBS, OCBC ATMs and AXS stations are the interfaces affected. Maybe some $2 company is acting as middle men between these unmanned terminals and the faceless EZ-Link.

The Consumer Association of Singapore, not exactly one famed for championing the cause of consumers in Singapore - you actually have to pay them a fee to look into a complaint - said EZ-Link should "enhance transparency by communicating better to consumers by putting posters at permanent locations such as at the walls near ATMs." What, and ruin the golden opportunity to rip off customers who don't read the fine print? Posters are fine to boost poor attendance at PA hosted events like live broadcast of football matches, but broadcasting avenues for cutting costs and saving precious money is never top priority.
Great money saving housing alternative not available

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Hot Money

July 7, 2014, 4:00 pm
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Indonesia's Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) Deputy Chairman Agus Santoso told Jakarta Post that while the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) move to stop issuing the S$10,000 note from October 1 onwards would "meaningfully" help Indonesia curb rampant corruption and money-laundering, withdrawing or imposing a new expiration date on the notes would be more effective.

"If the bill remained on the market, let's say until five to 10 years after its production stops, Indonesia would still be vulnerable to money-laundering and graft," Mr Agus said in the report.

It was bad enough when people like Samad (not his real name) used to hand carry sports bags chockful of US dollars across via the Batam-Singapore ferries. Remember what Lee Kuan Yew said about Indonesians flying in for weekend shopping and be back to Jakarta by Monday morning? Well, Samad's task was to meet some of these visitors at selected hotels to pass over the hot money, either as gratitude for favours extended by the politically connected or plain old palm greasing. Your boss trust you with all that cash, ever feel tempted to pocket few hundred dollar bills for yourself? Samad said even if he did, no one will notice, the system frowns on receipts which tend to leave a paper trail.

The $10,000 notes would have made his "day job" a lot lighter. Heck, he can probably dispense with the attention getting sports bag. Samad dresses casually, you'll never suspect he was loaded to the gills with cash. And if the immigration officers ever notice his frequent passport stamps, they never seem to want to know why. It's not known as Sin City for nothing.
Scene from "The Counterfeiters", movie about Nazis
printing money in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

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Gimme The Old Model Anytime

July 8, 2014, 4:00 pm
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The most popular minister in the cabinet just said that fare hikes are needed to keep bus contracting model sustainable. Makes you wonder if he ever asked himself whether the people needed a more expensive bus contracting model in the first place.

Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew also said the Land Transport Authority (LTA) is working on a framework to assess the passenger threshold a new route ought to meet before it can be operated. What he should work on is the threshold of pain the average passenger will tolerate before this peaceful island will really turn red with seething anger.

Then follows the standard con job with the subsidy spiel: “The eventual amount of subsidy will crucially depend on whether fares and bus service standards are set realistically." We know by now the cost of the new bus system will be paid for either directly by commuters in the form of fare hikes or indirectly by taxpayers (in the form of Government "subsidies"). Notice the huge budget surplus this year is not factored into the equation.

Instead of stressing that new routes and higher service standards have to be “assessed judiciously”, what should be assessed is the performance of the ministers in respect of taking the commuters to the cleaners year after year. A new route could be tested for a few months and, if it does not cross the passenger threshold, the authorities may have to “sometimes make the painful decision to cut that route and eliminate it”. If pain alleviation is the objective, it would a more painless decision to cut some ministerial jobs.

Lui declined to reveal the Government’s budget to operate the system and how much it was prepared to subsidise the routes at this juncture. That's how paper generals and rear admirals work, spend the money first, let others worry about the cost. We only know one thing for sure: getting to work is going to me more expensive.

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Book Burning The Next Step

July 10, 2014, 7:39 pm
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On August 25, 1914, the German army ravaged the city of Leuven, deliberately burning the university's library of 300,000 medieval books and manuscripts with gasoline. The first exhibits one sees on entering the KU Leuven library is the burnt out remains of priceless literature salvaged from the attempt to wipe out a cultural heritage. We didn't photograph the charred fragments, preserved painstakingly in plastic cases, because book burning has to be thing of the evil past, has no place in the modern day and age.

One parent in Singapore did organise a bonfire of assessment books after his kids cleared their final examinations. That was a pretty dumb thing to do, fire hazard and all, but nothing serious to be riled up about.

The National Library taking off books from the shelves because of one bigot's input is a different matter. It's a slippery slope from there to the conflagration of literary archives. In a literal sense, it's the next logical step from the minister's directorate to "read the right stuff".  The kind of move that makes a laughing stock out of Singapore, the equivalent of the ban of chewing gum. The joke that comes right after Singapore being a fine city. Makes you wonder why the millions are splurged on the F-1 night race or the youth olympics to put the little red dot on the world map. What we don't need is for neo-Nazis to create more adverse publicity, and throw more mud on our faces.

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Non Pro-Family Images Under Threat

July 11, 2014, 4:00 pm
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Male and male together - mana boleh

Two women - also tak boleh

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Myths Busted

July 13, 2014, 3:30 pm
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Real generals like Patton are famed for their tank busting exploits. Lesser warriors like Tan Chuan Jin have to settle for myth busting. Not that he is doing too well on the battle front of the Central Provident Fund (CPF) wars.

One of the "myths" he set his sights on: the minimum sum is a shifting goal post. In his warped mentality, the number changes only with the cohort affected, therefore no change is involved. The kind of perverse logic that broke the original promise of releasing the retirement funds at age 55. Nothing has changed, so he says, only the rules have changed. Poor Dr Toh Chin Chye must be rolling in his grave.

There is one myth that is really propagated: the CPF is our retirement package. Firstly, it cannot be ours by any definition in the English language since we are hapless to the twisting of the access rules without our consent. Then, there are the millions siphoned to the secretive "reserves" portion of the public housing pricing, which has resulted in the anomaly of the Singapore asset-rich cash-poor social phenomenal. Don't even get started on the returns from the CPF - the only guys guaranteed a cushy retirement at the Bahamas are the fund managers. The sickness has now spread to the Medishield Life sham. Opposition members have asked on our behalf why Medishield needs such a large reserves account, a similar question once levied at the National Kidney Foundation board. As in the case of the NKF fiction, there was no credible answer.

Oh, there is one other myth being perpetuated. Paying millions to the ministers is necessary for sustainable government. I see they are now encouraging Singaporeans to start walking, just the nudge we need to start voting with our feet.

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The Elusive Truth

July 15, 2014, 1:04 pm
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Dark clouds gathering over the Vatican
Italy's La Repubblica daily quoted Pope Francis as saying 1 in 50 clerics is a pedophile. The figure represents about 8,000 priests out of more than 400,000 worldwide, according to the latest statistics from the Vatican. A figure which includes priests "and even bishops and cardinals." A figure which includes priests in Singapore who are supposedly strongly pro-family. And we are worried about penguins?

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the quotations in the newspaper on the existence of pedophile cardinals did not correspond to what the pope actually said. According to the BBC, off-the-cuff statements made by the pope often lend themselves to ambiguity.

But our ministers were not speaking off-the-cuff, either in or out of parliament, when they continue their spiel on the unholy mess of the Central Provident Fund (CPF). Even the local rag put out an ad to reassure the doubting Thomases that "With CPF, working Singaporeans do not have to pay for the retirement benefits of those who have retired. Every dollar saved in CPF will benefit you and your loved ones". That last sentence can't be correct. If you don't have to pay for others who have retired, the number should not include "your loved ones" - latter will have to bear their own burdens. If the pope has a credibility problem, what more the propagators of a flawed retirement system?

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