Quintuplets: A happy family!

I read to end and enjoyed every bit of this story but I was also looking to find out how they are doing academically. The answer came about three quarter way. I think I can understand why they are in neighborhood secondary schools near by but I was hoping to read about outstanding academic performance too. Petunia Lee's post about how she needed to be more involved with her son's schooling in order for him to do very well still echoed in my mind. There are exceptions but these are too rare to matter. I have to be very involved with my children's schooling too in order for them to do well. MOE do a good job only because they are comparing themselves against a huge class of failing system across the world.

Redeeming the ST iPad App

Front the first page to the last the ST iPad app did not crash :-)

Can't remember when I had it so good before. Therefore I am going to record this achievement here and see how long it lasts.

Haze: The Economist telling

The Economist newspaper is read by many thoughtful readers and decision makers. My daughter has suggested I checked out the article which she read yesterday. I think the venerable publication has done a first rate job cutting to the chase and explaining this to the world.

In the picture, tiny Singapore has been marked out in red but not filled with the color to satisfy our sobriquet: the little red dot.

Here a paragraph from it to note and remember:

Fraternal relations within the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional political grouping, quickly dissolved into acrimonious finger-pointing. Agung Laksono, the minister in charge of Indonesia’s response to the crisis, said that Singaporeans were behaving “like children, in such a tizzy”. Singaporeans and Malaysians pointed out that Indonesia was the only ASEAN member not to have ratified a 2002 Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. It was only on June 24th, when the damage was done, that its president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, apologised to his irate neighbours.

I was right to focus my ire on Ah-gong WhyUdonno. That intemperate and callous remark will stick with him for life for Singaporeans even after he has kicked the bucket. An idiotic successor to Habibie and given so many of such kind over there, who else will be following in these little men foot steps.

The Economist is pessimistic that this would be the last bad haze incident. The Indonesians are just not committed or able police their territories successfully. Incompetent enforcement and corruption pretty much guarantee that. So what if the legislature is willing to ratify the Transboundary Haze Pollution accord, which is remote.

I have always enjoyed Economist sardonic humor although this time we are getting the short end of the stick. They rounded off their story as follows.

For peat's sake
Much of the area now burning in Riau is peat wetland, almost all that’s left after years of rampant deforestation. Peat, which can go down to a depth of 30m in Sumatra, is highly combustible, even many metres down. A fire doused on the surface might smoulder underground long after. It is illegal to burn peat for commercial development. But as the past few weeks have proved, the law is not enough. And, ominously for those hoping for clear skies and clean air, a lot of peat is left.

Written with a natural flow and getting to the point quickly, this story will be read by just far to many for the Indonesian leadership comfort. Any face they might have left is flushed down the drain by this newspaper and many other leading publications. The BBC continues to rub salt into the wound for them. Malaysia and Singapore are seen as the victims and the giant Indonesia as incompetent, corrupt and callous. As much as Indonesia offer us many economic opportunities, she will always be an existential threat to us. Friends and enemies further away come and go but Indonesia will always be here and worryingly relevant.

One last crazy idea madder than my earlier posts on solving this problem. Will there be a fragmented world sometime where we are forced go nuclear with submarines in international water to be an effective deterrent against Indonesia? Of course by then it isn't necessary to entertain a nuclear option. Conventional weaponry tomorrow could pack as much devastation. May be space rather than under water is the delivery platform. We must always invest in leverage against Indonesia for our security. How I wish our relations with our neighbors could be like the one between US and Canada but that is just too much to ask for forever.

Shocking disrespect for the HK chief

See the thumbs down marked by the red circle. What disrespect to the HK leader. We must never ever get anywhere near to that point.

Li Xueying says HK Chief needs to lead the way on democracy. My question is how do you suppose he do that? Real power does not reside with him but China. A great moat separates the leaders in Beijing from the Hongkongers.

I don't know, but I think at the end of the day as China had always done if she would buy progress with very painful trade offs. The human costs would often be scary, the tactics brutal. As Xi Jinping has finally revealed himself to be a closet conservative, the people of Hong Kong are not by a long shot going to get what they want.

Regina Yip the former security chief with limited imagination sees the possibility of a Tiananmen reproduced in Hong Kong. He is out of his mind. The PLA assets in Hong Kong are very different and more important this is not 1989 the age before pervasive Internet.

When leaders are powerless to solve problems they always buy time but it is not clear to me that CY Leung is doing that. There are no viable solutions until the external environment change or Beijing is more accommodative. Most important the wealth gap must narrow and young people have good jobs and are optimistic about the future. The tycoons have a heavy moral duty to mobilize and lead but knowing them they rather decamp to somewhere else and make more money.

Update: July 5

Understanding one more out of countless reasons why they are so unhappy.

An unforgettable Indonesian lesson

This ungrateful SOB Ah-gong Whydunno. This must be the strongest language thus far I have used on anyone in this blog.

I didn't participate in the Tsunami rescue. I only remember pictures (that's why this blog is full of them) and nine years later I only recalled that we gave them invaluable help but the details had escaped me. Now I want to reproduce some of that courtesy of John Mcbeth piece in the ST today.

Defeated in the 2009 legislative elections, before being named a Cabinet minister, Mr Agung needs to realise that indulging in a blame game is helpful to no one when the health of Sumatrans is equally at risk. He also needs a timely reminder about how quickly Singapore responded on Dec 26, 2004.

Within three days, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) had mounted its biggest-ever rescue and relief operation, code-named Operation Flying Eagle, with missions to Medan, Banda Aceh and Meulaboh and other parts of the region.

Because Indonesia was hampered by a minimal airlift capability, a twin-rotor SAF Chinook helicopter was the first to deliver relief aid to hard-hit Meulaboh on Aceh's devastated west coast with a shipment of water, food and medicine.

Later, the Singaporeans lifted Indonesian military satellite communication systems and relief teams into the town, along with a Telkomsel GSM base station. More aid was to follow, including money for the much-needed rehabilitation of Meulaboh's port.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visited Meulaboh within days of the tsunami. He, then Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean and other officials spent 16 hours touring northern Sumatra to assess what other assistance they could provide. It is exactly what good neighbours are meant to do.

I hope this low life get cast out into the political wilderness and never return. He must be one of those SBY reluctantly installed as a senior minister in view of political and party realities.

Mr Kuntoro himself, who must have inwardly cringed at Mr Agung's callous display of indifference and ingratitude, had no reservations about calling Singapore's assistance "timely and invaluable".

"Their rebuilding of the pier in Meulaboh, as well as their hospitals there and in Nias, became the backbone of the whole rebuilding of west Aceh," he told The Straits Times. "The Singapore Red Cross and Mercy (Relief) were among a number of Singaporean organisations which supported us very strongly. I owe them a lot."

I imagine our PM in his letter to their president might have reminded how rapidly we rushed to Indonesia aid whilst they dragged their feet when we needed theirs. Indeed it is a giant lesson for all Singaporeans what we can expect from Indonesia in future. They are a liability when weak and a menace if they become strong. Then they can't help losing face and afterward they don't earn the keep to have face.

The Indonesians have a long way from the deep bottom to show us that they can be a good neighbor. Spare me the insult of calling us brothers. That is not how members of the family behave, especially the elder brother.

The next time they have a natural disaster in Sumatra, Singaporeans wouldn't be as forthcoming as before but reports of civilians suffering might make us change our mind. The onus is on Indonesia to repair the damage because we can't. Don't wait till the next big one hits.

How many Ah-gong WhyUdonno do they have? What is their chances of running the show?


Update: 5:00pm

I could have created a new post instead of an update. I do this to bring balance after directing my anger at some Indonesian ministers.

ST Joyce Lim and Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja have given us a human face to the haze.

I'm not able to put up each story easily and so the title summaries for each one would serve that purpose. Click on pic.

One is clueless. Another has lost everything. The man in charge of putting out the fire is under a lot of pressure and how he is coping - Thanks to him! The woman thought she was environmentally friendly to burn and the fisherman took everything in his stride when he can't go out to fish - that's life. For obvious reasons we cannot accept that.

This is a very difficult problem to solve.

Update: 9:40pm

Amazing how the hotspots could just rise and fall so rapidly. I hope we get to understand how this is achieved. Looks like Mr. Budiarto (the guy in the middle above) has led his team to achieve the impossible? If they are that good and as long as they are committed to repeating this feat as needed, what is there to worry? But I am sure something is missing. I want to know how they got lucky.


Source: NEA

Our experience with N95s

Two N95s. The turquoise one 1860S is the one that fits, which came from Unity Pharmacy.The one huge white one 8210 is from the office. They must be thinking we are all bigger face ang mohs. Many locals will find the 1860S the right fit.

The difference in size is quite remarkable. You could conceal the turquoise one completely in the white. I was irreverently thinking of using them against each other in a game of kuti kuti. Bad idea as it would just dirty both and make them unusable.

Perhaps I ought to mail the white one to Ah-gong WhyUdonno.

Chinese Banks are Dorian Grays

More and more people are coming round to the minority view that the new Chinese leadership were just trying to frighten the money monkeys. Now there are bargains to be got.

I no longer have the subscription to read the article but more or less you can guess what the report is about: the banks are now cheap. Perhaps and for as long as the game lasts and it can be quite a while. Imagine it lasting very long, only longer.

To me the Chinese without the check and balances we are familiar with have used their legendary inscrutability and shrewd to set themselves up for a Dorian Gray game. By now nobody asks what happened to those bad assets even as they went on to pile on more.

Until recently short sellers must take the lessons from the wounds that suffered for a long time shorting the JPY and apply that to China. Few people are prepared to see China as Dorian Gray because the Chinese leaders can afford to play the game. Along the way more and more who had recognized this would also somehow forget. I hope Temasek remembers.

You know it will end but not when. The fate of those who like to collect skeletons in hidden cupboards.