Almost a Year Later... As the cliché goes, time sure flies for it has been almost a year since I said goodbye to the blogsphere. Another year, another month and yet another day in life. This is still my domain, still my space. I have been lurking around the socio-political world as I read on with withering interest. The topics are still surrounding similar issues. People just do not learn. They just do not realise. Free Burma! Goodbye blogsphere..... "If you care too much about Singapore, first it’ll break your spirit, and finally it will break your heart." --Alfian Saat My apologies for not updating or replying to posts. After much consideration, I have decided to stop blogging. I am still thinking if I should close down this blog. It has been wonderful to be in this community, debating and discussing issues with people who care about our Refuting a comment regarding the pay hike for ministers: part 2 Sorry everyone. Here is my long overdue response to bryan over the last post I made. It's not a perfect reply as I did not polish it up as much as I would have liked to. I do apologise for any possible mistakes in this reply. ------------- 1) On the first point on profit motive - you seem to be refering to income distribution, in which I readily agree, and am ashamed, that some of our citizens Refuting a comment regarding the pay hike for ministers One of the commenter, Bryan, left an interesting comment on my last post, "Pay and Pay" and it got me thinking. Thus, I think it would be good for me to discuss about it in a separate post. So here it is! tada.... "I heartily agree that ministers exist to serve the people, but I do not believe that this "calling" as you describe (also peopleheart's post) is at odds with the profit motives that Questioning Singapore's fiscal conditions? "Singapore's economy is booming, with gross domestic product (GDP) on course to expand 7.2% this year after racing ahead 7.9% last year. But the strong economic-growth figures mask a structural weakness in the island state's economic-policy mix, one that threatens its long-term international competitiveness, and one that the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) clearly has no intention of amending. Fatigue and Deja Vu I am not sure about all of you, but I feel a sense of fatigue and deja vu about this whole issue of ministerial pay. For one, however much we debate and vent our frustrations, it seems to have little impact on their decisions. The only impact is perhaps PM Lee declaring to donate his pay rise to charitable causes. Not surprisingly, this action drew criticisms from skeptics and they are once Pay And Pay So the policy which has been cast in stone eons ago has finally been revealed. The Ministers are giving themselves a big fat pay hike. In fact this is only the sneak preview!! "Salaries at the MR4 Grade are currently at 55% of the benchmark. Given the large gap, it is not realistic to close the gap fully in one go. Instead, we will close half of the current gap, that is, from 55% of the The other face of Singapore and some musings.... Hi! Do take some time to read this excellent article about the other face of Singapore. We often hear digits telling us that our country is progressing and is the best. However, there is this often forgotten part of society which many of us tend to be (intentionally of unknowingly) unaware of. The poor is one of them. Increasingly, they have been left behind as Singapore progresses. In the last Classic quotes showing the great class divide Just a quick post before I continue writing my reports....... zyberzitizen did a brilliant job in compiling all some note-worthy quotes and linking it all together in his latest post, "A creepy elitist arrogance". He pointed out that these quotes clearly illustrate that the class divide is well and alive in Singapore. For example.... does anyone remember this quote? “I will tell you squarely in YPAP unmasked Hi everyone! This blog is not dead. I am still alive and kicking. I have been having a hell of a semester right. However, thank goodness it is all going to end soon. My friend just told me that younpap has set up an blog. It looks like they have decided to come out from the shadows of anonymous commenting to so-called counter criticism about them and perhaps make the internet political Hiatus It has been a month since my last post. I do apologize for the lack of updates. So many things have happened since I last updated. The most prominent one has to be this year's goody bag from budget 2007. Wow, what a complicated and confusing budget. The whole workfare, medisave, gst rebates etc have been so intricately crafted and interconnected that they are simply messy and confusing. Maybe I Review: "Freedom of Speech - How Far Can We Go?" A forum titled "Freedom of Speech - How Far Can We Go?" was held today at NUS. It was the best seminar DSC has held so far. The line of speakers were impressive and the level of engagement was good. The five speakers (in order) were 1) Mr Perry Tong, President of Youth Wing, Worker's Party 2) Mr Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow at Institute of Policy Studies 3) Dr Cherian George, Adjunct A rise in GST would dampen consumer expenditure Logically, a rise in GST would further dampen consumer expenditure. I am one of the guilty Singaporean who like to shop in Thailand and Hong Kong. When the increase in GST kicks in, it would become higher relative to our neighbors. This together with their weaker exchange rate and budget airlines, I am would become more inclined to shop there instead. However, as long as capital investment Something does not seem right Updates; There are a couple of interesting discussions about death penalty in; --The Death Penalty: Questioning Ourselves --Complicity in the senseless murder of a young boy ------------- I used to be for the death penalty. I use to think that it is require because it benefits the majority. However, after reading more and becoming more aware of cases like Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi, I feel that DSC forum: Freedom of Speech - How Far Can u go? Hi everyone! I am helping a friend advertise this =p .NUS Democratic Socialist Club (DSC) is holding another discussion forum on Sat 3rd Feb 07. 10am-2pm. The topic is "Freedom of Speech - How Far Can u go?" This is their largest scale forum yet. Their impressive line of speakers include -Mr Perry Tong (President of Youth Wing, Worker’s Party) -Mr Tan Tarn How (Senior Research Fellow at The Year Of The Netizen This is with regards to my last post about possible censorship at hooked. I just want to inform everyone that I sent an e-mail telling hooked that their link to their article "The Year Of The Netizen" was not working. They have since fixed the link. =) The article is not too bad. You can check it out here. It was not censorship after all ;) I think I have been staying in Singapore for too long. Reflections 06 Part 2: Rise of the New Media in Singapore Politics Time magazine's Person of the Year aware goes to “You.” 2006 saw the exponential “growth and influence of user-generated content on the internet.” In particular, youtube, blogs and podcasts were used by ordinary Singaporeans to make their voices heard. Many people termed GE 2006 as Singapore’s first internet-influenced election. This is true to a large extent. At the beginning, the government Reflections 06 Part 1: Singapore General Elections 2006 This is the 1st of a few reflective articles about Singapore in 2006. It was written for "The Online Citizen". Once again, I do apologize for not writing some articles which I promised to.... I will get on it as soon as I can. Happy New Year everyone! ------------------- This election was the first in many years that the more than half the seats were contested and PAP was not automatically Merry Christmas! This lovely song is dedicated to all my friends and readers! It is taken from the movie "Love Actually." The title is "All I Want For Christmas." Merry Christmas everyone!!! =D Hope you have a blessed and wonderful day! Censorship at Hooked? Just a short post. Hooked is a NUSSU (NUS student union) web publication that mostly carries articles revolving around lifestyle. For their year end edition, they have written 1 1/4 pages worth of more serious articles related to singapore politics. Sad to say, my eagerness in reading it was dampened when I realised that the articles seem to be censored. The 2006 reflection article touched upon How to read statistics? Surfing around Singapore Surf today, I found an article that caught my eye. The title is "Flexible Work Arrangements Few In Singapore's Private Sector". The reason it caught my eye was because there were many confusing ambiguous figures cited in the article. I would like to analyze these figures and provide a critical and useful way (hopefully) of reading them. In this way, I do hope everyone Dancing Post-Its!! Hee... Above is a really creative clip I found on youtube. The dancing figure was made using post-its! Cool! Got Bushed! Hi everyone! I know I am a few weeks late in posting this, but it's better late than never right? =p --------- As the title of my post goes, I actually had the "privilege" to attend the Bush talk at the NUS UCC on 16/11/06. I do not know if I should feel happy for this "once in a lifetime chance" or not.... as I am not a Bush supporter. I am against the Iraq war so go figure. In fact, I was Bias 146th strikes yet again! I just cannot help myself by pointing this out. Our self-professed "objective" mainstream media (MSM) has time and time again proved to be extremely bias. Just look at today's ST home.... PAP had 3 full pages dedicated to them!?! Above is 2 of the pages. All three pages portrayed them to be very nice, perfect, united and understanding. It's all sounds so good that it feels unreal. In addition, Progessive GST anyone? "The increase in GST was part of a larger effort to raise revenue and boost government spending to invest in the future. It is not purely for the sake of redistribution, he took pains to stress. Rather, the aim is to grow the economy by investing in the country's future, by improving the education system, renewing estates and building better homes, transport, medical care and creating a How fee-fixing is done in a British University.... In relation to my NUS fee hike entry, I found the following entry by Dharmendra Yadav of thinkhappiness to be very inspiring. Below is part of his entry; Fee-Fixing In British University During my time in university, I served on at least one fee-fixing committee. Any plan to increase fees is disclosed about a year in advance. Months of consultation with students, which follow after this Part 1 on Liberty: The Philosophy Apologies to people who have read this post yesterday. I took it down for a day and have corrected it as I realized a some mistakes while illustrating positive liberty. Below is the corrected version. I have corrected the last part about positive liberty and the conclusion. -------------------------------- Above is an excellent educational video about liberty. In summary, the video is trying Elite Girl probes NUS..... The elite girl series of comics did a awesome take on NUS fee hikes and the warped logic of NUS admin. The elite girl comic satirize socio-political news/events in Singapore. The comics are excellent at illustrating the brutal truth! Click here for more elite girl adventures! Is it really unlikely that a Singaporean Culture would emerge? As reported in the Straits Times on 6th September 2006, MM Lee made the following statements during Forbes Global CEO Conference 2006; "We try in a pragmatic way to take in what we must take in to survive as a people, which means we've got to keep abreast with the changes in technology, the changes in lifestyles which technology brings with it, and at the same time accommodate the different