another stupid idea up north
luckily.. their leader still sane...
Abdullah calls for halt to sex-spy plan
Feb 23, 2007
The Straits Times JAKARTA -
MALAYSIAN Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi yesterday called on state governments to stop forming 'snoop squads' to spy on Muslim couples.
His comments at the end of a two-day visit to Indonesia followed an earlier announcement by Terengganu state that it plans to hire spies to catch couples committing khalwat or 'close proximity', which is considered a sin in Islam.
Datuk Seri Abdullah said spying could be considered an intrusion of privacy.
'We do not need to form groups for spying because if there is anything bad happening, there are laws on indecent behaviour in public places.
'If we want to go around spying on others, this can be seen as an intrusion of privacy,' he said.
He added that the state religious departments have programmes that can be implemented to improve the morals of Muslims and inculcate Islamic values.
Malaysian rights groups have reacted angrily to the plan to hire spies in Terengganu, fearing it would lead to abuse of power.
Sisters-in-Islam, a Muslim women's group that champions gender rights, urged the state authorities to scrap the plan, saying 'moral policing by state religious authorities and their auxiliary services have often led to rampant abuses of power'.
'We call on the Terengganu government to call off its plan and to stop turning the people of Terengganu into spies of the state,' the group's programme manager Zaitun Kasim said in a statement.
'The public funds that will be wasted on this can be put to better use, particularly for public education.'
Under the plan, spies trained by Terengganu's religious officials will be placed at hotels and parks. They will be rewarded for tipping off the authorities about couples in compromising situations.
small red dot of envy
sometimes its hard not to feel patriotic .. esp when we have neighbours up north.. further north.. and south..
why izzit tat some pple like to blame their shortcomings on others??.. does cutting some foreskin off at birth triggers that?? or having a lots of ah guas in your country somehow leads to this false conclusion??
go read...
Green with envy over a red dot
By Janadas Devan, Senior Writer Feb 23, 2007
The Straits TimesACCUSATION:
Indonesia's Parliamentary Speaker Agung Laksono says Singapore's reclamation projects could affect his country's maritime borders.
Facts:
Singapore had a land area of about 580 sq km in the 1960s. By 2000, it had 660 sq km. That 80 sq km increase came at the expense of 80 sq km less sea for Singapore. Its reclamation works served to recover land from sea, not sea from land. And under international law, a country's sea territory cannot expand as its land territory expands.
This point can be best illustrated by comparing small things to great. Take a look at a map of the United States. Continental US terminates on its west coast in California. But out there, in the wide blue yonder that is the Pacific Ocean, are the Hawaiian islands, and even further out, Guam. Just because the US has sovereignty over these islands does not mean that it also owns the huge chunk of ocean that lies between California and Hawaii or Guam.
Similarly, just because Changi Point, or whatever passes for Changi's 'Point' today, is now a few thousand metres closer to Indonesia's Batam than it used to be 40 years ago, does not mean that Singapore now owns a few thousand more metres of sea.
If it were possible to extend a country's sea territory so easily, Singapore could build a lighthouse at the edge of its current maritime boundary, claim a further 22km of sea from that point as its territorial waters, build another lighthouse at the edge of the new boundary, claim a further 22km of sea...and with a few more hops and jumps, the country's maritime boundary could extend all the way to the North Pole.
Mr Laksono, relax. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does not work that way. As an Indonesian expert, Professor Hikmahanto Juwana of the University of Indonesia, has pointed out - and as any number of other experts would too - Singapore can reclaim land only at the expense of its own sea territory.
Singapore's necessary trade-off of sea for land has to occur within its existing maritime boundaries, or it cannot occur at all. Singapore used to buy sand from Indonesia till recently, but it cannot get sea - ever.
Accusation:
Johor Menteri Besar Abdul Ghani Othman said a few weeks ago that the floods in his state, including in Kota Tinggi, were caused by reclamation works off Singapore's Tekong island.
Facts:
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak has dismissed this claim, so there is no need to go on about it at great length. Just one small point here would suffice: As one writer to The Straits Times' Forum page put it: Kota Tinggi (which means 'high fort') is called what it is because it is situated at a high elevation. Water cannot possibly flow upwards from Kota Bawah (which is what Singapore is in terms of elevation) to Kota Tinggi.
Gravity, Menteri Besar Abdul Ghani, causes apples to fall down. It cannot make apples, let alone water, fall up.
Accusation:
The head of Thailand's Council for National Security, General Sonthi Boonyarataglin, claimed that Singapore's Temasek Holdings' control of Shin Corp's mobile phone and satellite operations would jeopardise his country's national security.
Facts:
It took a while, but Thailand's own Minister for Information and Communication Technology Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom pooh-poohed this claim on Tuesday.
He admitted on Thai television what the Singapore authorities have been at pains to explain for weeks now: That it would not be 'worth it' for Shin Corp to eavesdrop on its customers; that to do so would be to risk an awful scandal; and in any case, eavesdropping would require the cooperation of Thai managers and engineers at Shin Corp - and they 'would not be willing to do so'.
Mr Sitthichai might have explained further that if Temasek had indulged in such activity in Thailand, it would have risked its telecom investments elsewhere in the world, including in Australia and the US. Temasek-owned telcos cannot invest anywhere in the world if they did not play by the rules everywhere.
Our neighbours know all these things. For every Mr Laksono in Indonesia, there is a Prof Hikmahanto; for every Datuk Abdul Ghani in Malaysia, a Deputy Prime Minister Najib; for every conspiracy theorist in Thailand, a sporadically rational Mr Sitthichai. Why are the sensible voices being drowned out?
There are any number of reasons, 'envy' being one, as some Singapore Members of Parliament and The Economist have suggested. Nationalism is another, as is clearly the case where Thailand is concerned.
But there is another, more worrisome, reason - and that is globalisation. For better or worse, Singapore, as the most economically dynamic country in Asean, has become globalisation's chief proxy in the region. And again, Thailand is Exhibit A.
Temasek's purchase of Shin Corp undoubtedly triggered a political upheaval in Thailand, leading finally to the downfall of its then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose family controlled Shin.
But whatever one might think of the wisdom of the Shin deal in retrospect, the deal was the occasion, not the cause, of what transpired.
Ten years ago, during the Asian Financial Crisis, the objects of blame were global financial markets and the International Monetary Fund; today they are Singapore and Temasek. The precise identity of the globalising agency does not quite matter. The fundamental problem here is that the Thai elite are confused about what to do about globalisation.
They want to be able to eat their cake and have it; they want the benefits of globalisation, but fear losing control; they want foreign investors, but only if 'my assets', as Gen Sonthi described Shin Corp, remain 'mine' and 'Thai'.
This confusion extends beyond Temasek. Since taking power in a military coup, Thailand's interim government has rattled investors by imposing capital controls, spoken vaguely of what it calls the 'sufficiency model' of development, and amended its Foreign Business Act to limit foreign ownership of Thai companies.
The new Thai elite have tried to command, as of old, a country that had already globalised to a significant extent since the introduction of market-oriented policies following the 1997-98 financial crisis. Predictably, the result is that foreign investment has ground to a virtual halt and the economy has slowed.
Nationalism - and its ugly cousin, envy - are the mirror-images of anti-globalisation. So long as Singapore remains committed to globalisation, it will remain the object of accusation and blame. Till the region as a whole decides to accept the logic of globalisation, this is the price Singapore will have to pay.
Unfortunately for our neighbours - and ultimately, for Singapore as well - our neighbours are likely to pay an even heftier price for their failures.
I love this reader man.. hes good..
chinese new year
during chinese new year.. we do the usual... halo.. happy new year.. take ang pao.. gamble gamble.. zhi mo.. thanks alot for your money...
this year is not exception.. but its still as boring.. now.. cny is more like a break.. no need to go work.. yay.. other than my frens still working shift at the fab.. then no choice la.. but at least you are paid more..
im really losing patience with my pay.. i think prob i will lose to a fresh grad... and i have been working for like 3 years liao.. experience wis.. got quite alot under my belt...
now im only waiting for this company to sent me overseas to work.. if not for this.. i will prob leave.... cant survive on this pay forever mah... and the general feedback is the pay here is always lower than outside...
but im not going to leave my colls in the lurch now.. im going to complete this project and then consider.. not becos im a man of honor and all that shit.. but becos i want to add this project to my resume.. increment is coming in july.. and tat will be a very very big factor....
anyway.. cny passes without much to tok about..
1st day.. went to relatives house... usual niceties.. tok tok.. take ang pao....at nite go to cow's house to play marjong wit ah boon and chicken.. only played 2 rounds in like 8 hours.. damn slow man.. but not easy to be fast if you have someone mistaking the cock(1 tai) for 1 bamboo(bird)..
2nd day... nothing much also.. mrs nicelegs come to my house.. then after tat we go to her sister's house.. stay for a while.... eat pizza... and then they start to gamble 21 pts.. which i had no interest in playing.. left to play pool wit cow and boon after a while..
3rd day... nua day... planning to nua the whole day in prep for work after the hols.. until my mum decided to cook porridge for dinner.. sian.. i don eat porridge at home... called mrs nicelegs but she going somewhere for visiting.. so wat to do.. no food.. decided to go to frens bbq after all.. at least there got food.. broke my 21 pt hiatus there and won about 10 bucks..
so today limpeh come back to work.. but not much pple here.. most of them on leave... so i nua again..haha..
well... motivation is lacking la.. but how to get motivated on this kind of pay??
remembering wang pin
haiz.. sad case..
Wang Pin is my choir teacher.. i used to go choir with the bitch.. started way back in 1999.... those were good times..
but this post is not about the bitch.. its about the teacher...
lao shi as we like to call her was a very nice lady... really nice.. jovial.. and of cos quite round la.. and she loves to tok cock.. the choir was a fun place to go... and i seriously cant find another group of old pple tat got so much cock to tok.. and they are seriously funny pple...
singing was fun... i mean.. even singing those so called chinese classics were pretty fun... and most imptly... the choir made it fun to sing.. and of cos.. cos i have talent..
lao shi has got really sharp ears.. she can tell who is singing wat and who is singing out of key even when the whole choir.. all 4 part.. tenor.. base.. suprano.. auto.. are singing together.. i remember when i was new..mostly the mistakes were made by me.. but i could get away wit anything by saying lao shi is very cute..
the choir went for performances overseas.. actually in malaysia la.. we went over to a few states... and those were really fun.. lao shi was really nice to tok to.. and she was a good fren..
i stop going to choir in my 2nd year in ntu.. after a performance in dbs auditorium in mid 2001.. cos i was failing some modules and mostly becos it became abit boring la..i mean.. sometimes sat nights i just want to go somewhere else la..
the bitch and i broke up in aug 2002 and i haven been to the choir ever since...haven been in contact with lao shi ever since too... and there isnt any chance to tok to her again....
she passed away on the 8th apr 2006...ronald inform me.. but i was away on business trip at chiang mai... and i wasnt able to make it for her wake... its a regret for me..
today as i was slacking(as usual)... was reading the newpaper online during lunch time.. i came across this
article tat started this sense of loss...
tears did flow when im writing this... may god(all religions) bless her wherever she is now..
and seriously... i do miss her... but its too damn late....
look at wat this idiot wrote
was reading today.. you know.. the newspaper.. when i came across this article..
well.. i think this guy is seriously quite stupid.. pig headed even.. to suggest increasing income tax for older single individuals. read article below...
Sometimes its not really about singles or couples not wanting to have babies. but the financial and social cost of having babies..
come to think about it.. the world is filled wit idiots.. there are pple living just below my unit that likes to complain about us making noise all the time.. when then best part is.. we are seldom home.. she even refuse to take the same lift as my mum.. haven happened to me.. but im looking forward to it... im so going to have a good time about it..
there are pple in my block tat like to complain about the flowers pots on the corridor.. there are pple in my block that like to complain about leaking water.. and so on.. sometimes.. you wonder why pple my block are so cheebye..
i should start making complains to hdb too..
maybe i should go:
limpeh:hi.. i would like to make a complain..
hdb officer: yes sir, wat would you like to complain about?
limpeh: i want to complain that my neighbour living below my unit is very ugly. she is so ugly tat its affecting my appetite and the lift isnt working becos she is so ugly..
hdb officer: very good sir.. she must really be ugly..
something of tat sort... haha
read this:
Want to increase S'pore population? Here's howLetter from seah leong khai I am surprised at the Government's vision of increasing the population to 6.5 million from the current 4.5 million. As I see it, unless Singapore opens its floodgate to immigrants, it is near impossible to achieve this target. With our low birth rate, Singaporeans are not even reproducing enough to replace ourselves. There are many reasons for this. Nowadays, Singapore men and women get married in the later years of their lives. There are many who choose to stay single. Other than for medical reasons, there are also many couples who do not want to have children. How do you arrest this problem? Even though the Government has given these people more carrots such as tax incentives, baby bonus and longer maternity leave, the baby shortage situation remains. I believe it is time to dish out some sticks such as imposing more income tax on older singles who refuse to marry and able-bodied childless couples.
Another way is to attract more foreign women who are qualified and who share similar cultural and social background to come to Singapore and allow them to marry the locals. Offer them permanent residence status and citizenship if they can produce two or more children. sometimes.. pples views are so narrow and their actions so stupid.... they just make me want to remould the shape of their heads...
breathe... nicelegs.. breathe
