Um, does anybody have a brain mouth filter for sale?

If you are the Transport Minister and when someone comes up to you to complain about high COE prices, you don’t say that’s because times are good! You don’t tell them that wages are rising so people can afford it. You don’t tell them that is is a demand thing because seriously, the Ministry under your charge controls the supply!

You can perhaps say:
a) We have no choice, there are too much vehicular traffic and some form of control is needed till more roads become available. (That’s the original story, stick to it. It buys you more time too!)
b) That is why Bukit Brown has got to go. To build more roads to accomodate more traffic. (Kill two birds with one stone.)

Nobody would be complaining to you if the economy is good enough for them to afford the high COE prices. These complaining chaps obviously are not feeling it.
You might as well just show them the LOSER sign in their face and tell them “COE price high meh? People paying these current prices obviously doesn’t think so!

They then went on to say that “it is believed this cynicism is targeted, to a greater degree, at the ruling party.” Um, seriously, believed? Where did this believe stem from? The believe of the writer or the news agency as a whole? I don’t think publishing make belief is a good idea but then, that’s not my point.

I am doing this limited blog because I find the response from people interviewed interesting.

I think Mr Vikram Nair is not doing very well differentiating cynicism from criticism. He keeps talking about being criticised. We are talking about cynics not critics ya? If I am a cynic, nothing you do is right. Even if you answer to my feedback (which I won’t since I’m cynical), I will still think that it is crap.  If I am a critic, you might have a chance to change my view with an intelligent response.

Since he is addressing criticism, I am of the opinion that it not true that more criticism are levelled at the PAP because they have been in government a long time. It is because we have limited opposition in parliament to criticise. As an active citizen, people criticise when there is a lack of it. If you kena criticise until damn jialat, I will not waste my energy to criticise somemore. Where got time? You will probably have less criticism if there were more opposition in parliament but then again, you can’t have the cake and eat it can you?

Mr Baey feels that “that each society needs to be looked at on its own” and the level of cynicism at 30% is not alarming because a similar study in the US found that 47% to 74% of their people are politically cynical. I think 30% is alarming.

Voting is not compulsory in the US. The cynics generally don’t come out and vote because to a cynic, their vote don’t matter. In Singapore, voting is compulsory. So cynics will come out and anyhow vote. I would say that 30% of people coming out to anyhow vote is pretty dangerous.

As for the opposition MPs who decline to comment, well maybe they don’t know the difference between cynicism and criticism so better shaddap. Or maybe they just want to stay below the radar. They are indeed quite stealthy. I’ve not seen a single one of them in Aljuneid since they won the election. Or maybe they are still feeling sore about not being invited to PA events. I don’t know.

I agree that cynicism must be kept in check. The best way to go about this is not to answer to criticisms because good response won’t appease a cynic but a crappy response will contribute to the growth of cynicism.

I think transparency in governance is the way forward. A transparent government will show the electorate that they have nothing to hide, gain their trust and hence, eradicate cynicism. Except for some high level cynics who will just say “Transparent meh? Fake one lah!”

81 to 6 majority in parliament is a figure other governing democracies could only dream about.

MM, we all love you deep deep but please don’t say young people forget how we got to where we are today. We not around to see then how to forget? Not many of us also know that last time policemen wear shorts.

As a country, if we keep looking at past glories, then it is difficult to aim for future success.

Looking at the +41.15 points on the STI as of 11.25am, I’d say the market like the results too!

Congratulations to the WP too for making history as the first opposition party to win a GRC and for being the first opposition party to parachute people we never hear before into parliament.

While the co-driver analogy certainly made some impact, your MP-elect for Hougang having a minor accident while dozing off behind the wheel the following day does not do you any credit. It makes me wonder how you can be a good co-driver when you fall asleep while driving. You can’t slap the driver when you fall asleep first. Please don’t do that in parliament. The 6 of you are all the opposition voice that we have.

Lastly, congratulations to the people of Singapore. Most debate among friends I’ve ever seen during an election. There is indeed hope. This has been the most exciting GE I’ve seen! I even sacrificed F1 just to talk about what happened and things to come in the next 5 years!

Majulah Singapura!

But what does a normal peasant think? Here’s what I think:

A fantastic show. Like National Day Parade without the fly past. The theme of the show seems to have been pulled out of someone’s nightmare. Something that would make Tim Burton jealous.

There was this large hairy blue and red monster that look like a giant spiderman with hair. A giant spider sasquatch perhaps? Then there’s the flooded stage which brings back recent memories of the Orchard Road flooding.

There was also this large golden fish head with a kid in it that was spewing out flames, not much different from a very hot curry fishhead consuming anyone who dares try it.

I love the way the singers on stage spoof the lip synching. It would have made Britney and Ashley wake up in cold sweat.

Okay, that was when I woke up. I mean got up, left the TV and went out for a cup of tea instead. I’m glad the local press enjoyed the show.

Not my cup of tea though. Never did like the horror genre.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong calling a parking space a parking lot. Not in Singapore. In Singapore, we have Turf City. Is it really a city? Nah! We also have Ching Pang City. Not really a city too!

If we can call housing estates and buildings cities, we sure can call an allocated parking space a parking lot.

It makes the Little Red Dot a little bigger.

Anyway, I think the fella got it all wrong. I think Space is a lot larger than a lot. Inside space, we have the sun, the moon, our planet, the Milky Way etc… So a parking space should be bigger than a parking lot.

Suspect he’s gonna draw shit loads of flak man! We really did spend a lot of tax payers’ money doing up our museums. Now he say nobody will “go to the museum to look at some lifeless pieces of ceramics…”.

Win liao lah!

I say, don’t worry, not many people knew that he was singing the National Anthem much less that he bungled up the lyrics.

In fact, he sounded like some ‘tang kee’ going into a trance. It sure didn’t sound like the National Anthem that I have been singing from Primary 1 through Secondary 4!

I find the arguments brought up by the writer to be flawed and well, unconvincing.

Singapore is a multi-racial country. We take pride in being one of the few multi-racial country in the world that have seen harmony among the various races for almost half a century. This was not always the case.

Baby boomers and older would remember the days where racial riots were common and state emergency had to be declared.

People spoke different languages and even the Chinese fought among different dialect groups.

Earlier Chinese immigrants did not take up English because there is an advantage in doing so. English was only needed if you want to do business with the British. Everyone could easily get by speaking their own dialects and work in their own community.

It took independent Singapore great pains to get everyone to speak English.

English was being introduced as a compulsory first language in our schools because the Government saw the dual benefit of English both as an international language, as well as a language that can become common to all Singaporeans thus bringing us closer.

The journalist also mentioned that “One only has to look at the world’s most economically vibrant cities – London, Sydney and New York – to see the benefits accruing from recruiting foreigners.”

Two of these cities have been hit by terrorist attacks. The perpetrators are of foreign origins and some are second or third generation immigrants.

Some of these immigrants, born there cannot even speak English! Why? Because there is no reason to. They can get by in their own local enclaves without the use of English.

The governments there were not bothered that their immigrants do not speak English or are unable to interact with the rest of the population. As long as they stayed in their own area. When misunderstandings arise, the language barrier prevents resolutions from being made. People get angry. Some feel oppressed. This gives fanatics a chance to spread their ideology among the immigrants.

I am not saying that this will happen in Singapore. That our immigrants will become terrorist if they do not speak English.

What I am trying to highlight is, we cannot take it for granted that immigrants will take up English to better themselves or even just to get to know us better. Not when the need is not there.

The rate of immigration in Singapore is high. We cannot be ostriches, stick our heads in the ground and wait for the fullness of time to bring about a generation of English speaking immigrants. It will not happen. London, Sydney and New York have all shown us that it will not happen.

Action needs to be taken to ensure that immigrants and Singaporeans speak a common language as quickly as possible. In this case, English.

Speak English campaign, like those I had in primary school might be a good idea. We can’t speak good English if most of our immigrants can’t even speak English!

Of course I called their reservations line and had a shock. I made 9 reservations. 2 via Paypal. None was successful.

The staff at SWA was really nice. 15 minutes later, I was booked on my flight and ready to fly.

Then I realised one thing. Paypal deducted my money from the 2 transactions that did not go through and placed the transactions as pending.

The answer that the Paypal website gave to this question “Why is the order status pending?” was “The status of an order is pending until it expires, is completed or has been canceled.” Is that an answer?

I decided to call Paypal. They have this nice little “Call Us” button somewhere on their website which intelligently gave me a Singapore number.

I dialed that number. The machine picked up the call, gave me a warning that my call is being recorded for ‘training’ purposes before it kept me waiting for 20 minutes. Then a guy called “Kirk” or something picked up the call.

I told him my predicament. He said I have 2 options. One is to wait for the transaction to void itself after it expires in one month.  The second one is to contact Southwest Airlines. What kind of an option is that? I waited 20 minutes for the a non answer!

I asked Kirk if he is sure that there are no other options. His reply was, “There are no other buttons that I can click here.” Okay, great. This guy is a genius!

I grilled him a few more times hoping against all hope that he could come up with a more helpful solution. I wonder why I even tried.

Not wanting to let Paypal earn any interest out of me, I decided to choose the second option. Since SWA mentioned that I should contact Paypal when I voiced this up while making my reservation, I figured SWA staff probably don’t know how Paypal really works. So I asked Kirk to give me a contact in SWA that can help. He told me to go to the website and check.

Seriously Paypal, I think I just found a way for you to cut cost. Close down your call center. It is crap.