Mid-Autumn Festival

I wonder why I have never blogged about this festival before when we celebrate it on most years.

I could have many pieces of these but chose not to. Those days for indulging in this are over. This year I didn't even have one.

Now the fun is not something you put in you mouth but the many interesting pictures you can give and receive from each other. 

Counting to a Reserved PE - Legal or Policy matter

So was this a legal or policy matter? If you were a PAP supporter you would go along with what Shanmugam said i.e., Parliament is sovereign and decided it was to be a reserved presidential elections. If you were anti-PAP then you would buy Sylvia Lim's argument that it had started out as a legal matter and then became a policy decision along the way. 

This is how I would understand this:

Had Tan Cheng Bock not challenged this in court, it would be sold to Parliament and us as a legal sound and so Parliament is advised by ministers to take the legal advice on board. In this way the PAP government cannot be accused of being responsible for fixing the last PE to be a reserved one. Unfortunately for them Tan Cheng Bock mounted a challenge and this caused the government to give up its foil and admitted it was a policy matter. If this wasn't so, Tan Cheng Bock might have won in court. 

This is yet another lesson why cannot afford to let the PAP dominate parliament without sufficient check on their power. Time and again they have not proven themselves to as honorable as claimed. 

We must always treat this government with some suspicion because if you don't it might turn around and screw you. To illustrate, say between policy option A and B unlike in the distant past, politics is going to decide rather than the long term good. Assuming option A hurt you then better make a lot of noise hoping that those adversely affected by option B wouldn't. That is how issues will often be played. 

Increasingly the PAP is becoming ordinary like politicians elsewhere. The journey to go from extraordinary to ordinary has begun. The best we can hope for is that they take this journey as slowly as possible. Perhaps along the way we will find much better people to run this place than this self serving group. 

I thought Yahoo summarizes this quite well.

Update: October 5, 6:30am

And Mothership has done a very good job putting it all together but forgot to report the PSI number created by each minister.

When things are hazy you will have to just live with the oxymoron that these ministers have integrity with doubtful honesty. What I know is that as far back as I had complained about in 2011 you can't trust these guys without watching them to make sure they don't screw us, especially in order to serve the rich and powerful but most of all to stay in power regardless of their merit or lack of.

Chicken Cutlet in Tanglin Halt

Can't remember when the last time I was back at Tanglin Halt Food Centre for a meal. Anyway the price of this yummy chicken cutlet has gone up by 50 cents to $5.50. The bun and butter have also been taken out. One nice feature though is that it is noticeably less salty now.

The thunder rice stall my sis told me about but I had forgotten until we had finished lunch and went around looking for it. 

WiFi speeds on my devices

The Asus VivoMini PC

The Galaxy Tab A 10.1 with S-pen

ZenFone 3 5523KL

The unbeatable old Galaxy Note 4

PM's most important meeting in China

The meeting with Xi Jinping is essential and so it was with Li Keqiang and Zhang Dejiang but the most important meeting go to be with Wang Qishan. The real talking and understanding with the Chinese is with him. The first three were the top three in the PSC. Wang Qishan is ranked 6th but effectively he is number two. The PM can speak his mind with Wang Qishan much more than he could with Xi Jinping. It would be good for us and China as well if Wang Qishan continues to be in the PSC after the October meeting.

We have a lot to do and Zhang Feng have put it nicely into a table.

"Quality has declined since LKY's time" is a view shared by all three groups. These classifications are only out of necessity. In real life it is a spectrum of degree from left to right. To the Chinese the friction between us and them would not have happened if LKY were around. 

The Chinese are master par none at the oblique. Here is a lesson from Wang Qishan when he met PM Lee. I excerpt from Today Online. 

Mr Wang, who heads the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said he was surprised but happy that a request had been made to meet him.

"So I sought permission and I am here meeting you and your delegation today ... Singapore is among the countries I have the most contact with," added the 69-year-old during their meeting held at Zhongnanhai, a former imperial garden that now serves as headquarters for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Mr Wang also paid tribute to the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding Prime Minister.

"I had the privilege of having personal conversations with him on multiple occasions. He (was) such a visionary figure full of political wisdom.

"I gained a lot every time I talked with him ... I'm really greatly saddened by his passing. He was indeed a great man," said Mr Wang

Without making us lose face, the Chinese think we have "learned the lessons"

Did he really need to seek permission? That was meant for us.

No LKY but we need to move on with vision and wisdom. Since LKY is no longer with us, you know the Chinese would have enshrined his writings as scripture to guide them into the future were he a Chinese leader. We can do no better than that until we are lucky to have another LKY.

And that is the message of Wang Qishan to us.

Tharman connects better with us

Tharman will never be PM but he connects much better with us, and he has a way of sending a return message that he heard and understood us, which is very unlike the other ministers except Tan Chuan Jin, now out of Cabinet.

Here are some lines I lifted from the story:

The DPM, who said he himself would have also preferred a contest "like most people", said however that the aspiration for race not to count is something that requires working towards.

"It cannot just be a pledge, it cannot be just an incantation," he said. "Sometimes it requires a conscious act of the state."

"The reality of the matter is, not just in Singapore but anywhere else, including the most mature democracies that everything else (about a candidate) being equal, race, ethnicity, religion, matters."

If a leader cannot connect with the people he/she leads that leader has at best limited effectiveness. It is our unique circumstances that such bad communicators can still lead but clearly it is not sustainable. Such leaders will also eventually lack confidence and constantly worried about their positions.

Remembering Stanislav Petrov: He saved the world

That is a picture, not sure when it was taken of the former Lt. Col Stanislav Petrov. He passed away practically unnoticed on May 17 this year. His main contribution to humanity was he saved the world from a nuclear war. I have read about him before and I read his story again today when I got news that he had passed away.

The world would have ended if he didn't have the sense to recognize that the system was buggy and sending a wrong signal that the US had launched missiles against Moscow.

For his immense contribution what did he receive? Look at his apartment, it was not much.