Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Breakfast Network: The canary died but only for now

The kitchen at Breakfast Network is closed. Informed by a life long first hand experience with the G, Bertha Henson finally decided this is the best course of action. I agree with her but this must have come as a shock to the clueless MDA.

Let's not be naive about this. Freedom of expression on the Internet is only tolerated because it is obvious on which side the cost benefit analysis falls. If we were China, this government will control it like the CCP. So it isn't because they were willing to cede control but because they have no means to. If one day it becomes possible for them to do so, they will make it happen.

Like Sun Yat Sen, the only rational response toward the Qing Empire is to run. You don't fight the G, you win the people. Bertha, it might interest you to know that Dr. Sun was a very good fund raiser too, and no, he didn't take them on board as shareholders.

If you are a bacteria and the germ fighter have microscopes you better turn yourself into a virus when they still do not have electron microscopes. That is what Breakfast Network is doing. Alternatively you could become a hardy spore and wait till the right conditions to prevail before germinating again. They are choosing to be both. To rise from the dead is a time tested strategy for success by waiting for the right conditions to act. This is also the WP strategy which the PAP kept baiting and provoking them with no results.

Yes, Breakfast Network is another canary in the mine. That canary just died and what a shocking way to show what a baddie MDA is. This is exactly like what my mom told me as a kid when I wanted to put a sparrow in a cage. She told me it would die because such birds are meant to be free.

Just as Chris Tan knows land transport better than anyone at LTA, BH also knows this space better than any at MDA. So the forms weren't onerous to fill? The hell you know MDA.


Update: Dec 13, 4:20 pm

Taken from Today Online article.

Wonder how come MDA is not embarrassed. Not only are they clueless they are also downright stupid. Quite a few leaders in MDA ought to be dismissed from their jobs. They really don't know what they are doing and this is so public. Any leader who defends MDA position I must also conclude needs to have his head examined whether he or she could reason logically. Where is the clear headedness they were famous for?


Update: Dec 13 4:55 pm

A sample of feedback on CNA on this subject. MDA has been so unbelievably obtuse.





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Bought the iPad Air

Wifey bought the iPad Air last evening. All of 128 GB, a massive upgrade from her iPad 2 which has only 32 GB.

After a period of transition the iPad 2 will have a new owner: me.

The number of devices we have at home is getting out of control but honestly it doesn't feel that way. Eventually old ones just get ignored. We just brought home from Japan three Kobo Glo e-readers I didn't blog about because the experience of getting them at half price was just unforgettable.
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Monday, December 9, 2013

Riot: This is not the Singapore Way

Police Commissioner Ng Joo Hee was really savvy. He gave the media the sound bites they couldn't refused but of course he was speaking as the top Police officer and not as a political leader.

The Singapore way is that the riot in Little India should not even have happened. The unhappiness of the strike by the bus captains should already have served as an early warning sign of what might be in store isn't it?

Look at this two video clips. They explained why the Police version of the Singapore Way worked last night.



About 20 seconds into the clip you could see a South Asian dissuading the others to stop whacking the bus. Not everyone and in fact enough of them were not crazy people. It was restrained rioting. Not everyone was unhappy but enough were.



About 38 seconds into the play you can see civil defense officers running away but no rioters chased them and tried to hurt them. That's why the Police showed so much restraint. They were matching the rioters but what caught our imagination is the burning of government vehicles. It is easy to assume that everything was a mess but the riots elsewhere were often more violent. No wonder there were no fatalities or serious injuries.

Police had done an excellent job but the PAP ministers had let the ball dropped and needed our Home Officers to shore them up. This government was either complacent or never understood what was brewing all along. Now following on the calls of many of us and some MPs, Lui Tuck Yew is likewise calling for the shops in the neighborhood to stop selling liquor.


Let this be a big learning experience for our leaders. We can repair the serious loss of reputation and our radars better attuned to similar risks in future.

We have been taking our foreign workers for granted and now they have sent a most unmistakable message. The guys I think we should really gun for are the bullying employers which like SMRT were the root of the problem.

Update: 9:05pm

Now we have a clearer if yet incomplete picture of what happened leading to the fatality of the Indian construction worker Sakthivel Kumaravelu.

Like others and myself have said before, they are often poorly treated and not respected. This is always the set up for bullying which of course do not happen to everyone but too many.

Note that the mob could have lynched the bus driver and attendant but didn't. They could also have easily overwhelmed the small police force forcing them to resort lethal response with their pistols which fortunately wasn't necessary.

















Look, no businesses along that road as much as we could tell were looted. The focus of their attacks weren't even on Home Team officers but their physical assets, namely vehicles. Does this not look similar to some riots in China where the angry mob overturn and burn police vehicles. Are they angry with the government for failing to protect them, which my conjecture it had failed to restrain some employers and supervisors from bullying them? These guys are powerless with zero leverage. They don't even have their passports with them.

We must not just focus on what was done but also what wasn't which could have as seen in may other riotings all over the world.
















Update: Dec 11, 6:15am

Foreign workers helped our trapped officers escape. Good on them!




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McDonalds latest burgers are awful

They are the Ebi Burger I tried at Changi Airport before taking off for Kansai and the Kampung Burger today. Verdict: Thumbs down. The Samurai Burger was good but not these two.

Actually I kinda of expected this. Stupid that I even bother to try, I told the family as we sat around the table waiting for our plane. It tasted cheap. This is more like reconstituted nutritional chemicals than nature's goodness.








I loved pineapples and so I was very curious since I like their pineapple pie. Again this was a total disappointment. Everything about it is bad but I ate it since I am not a fussy eater. I wouldn't want it even if you treat or pay me for another one. It's not cheap either. More than $7 for the meal.


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Desk Clocks: Casio Out; Hoseki In

The first Casio desk clock was very well made and pricey. The second one was inferior but usable. Then we had two and they were cheaper and downright disappointments. Even the battery compartment couldn't open and close easily.

No more Casio clocks for us. They are not like the G-Shock Tough Solar I am using as a wrist watch.






Yesterday we paid $33.80 for a Hoseki at Bain Complex. I hope this one is good but as you can see those old fashioned shop keeper had failed to use price tags of the right material and glue. He was quite pushy too. I just ignored him since I knew what I was looking for.
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Sunday Night Riots: Finally the volcano blew its top

Looks like we have arrived at the 'Tipping Point' with the foreign working class among us. It only happen to be South Asian but the skin color didn't matter. It is the pyscho-social aspects leading to this that we must grasp.

Our eyes is only capable of seeing what is outside. Who knows what's in a person's heart until it express himself through action and in this instance an explosion.

Not all work sites treat their workers badly but enough of them do to create the circumstances necessary for a tipping point to occur. This problem cannot be successfully solved without taking bad employers to task. Come on even white collar workers are often bullied by their employers but enough don't feel trapped and could often easily switch jobs.

We want peace but let's not forget that these workers must have confidence that we also not just talk but walk the talk that we run a fair and just system for them. How many of them are idiotic enough to pay a ransom to work in Singapore only to come here to create trouble? These are deeply angry and trapped people.

There is no explosion without gunpowder.



Update: 6:20am


There was so much photo taking and video capture that they even record each other doing this. Combined with technology, it would be very efficient in gathering, identifying and fishing out the crazies among them. Of course many have no idea they we have the technological means to pinpoint them. 

How to send a wake up call to employers is much harder. Nevertheless each worker arrested, it should pay for the Police and MOM to talk and may be even warn the employer too. His workers cannot take it out on the company, they ended up as mass action against society? Totally unacceptable. 

The PM spoke of using the full force of the law but the DPM more wisely spoke of fairness and justice. 


Update: Dec 10, 11:50pm

Ho Kwon Ping had always get it on this one. We had lived in Dubai before and I understand what he is talking about. Unlike many Singaporeans we got to know there, we didn't like Dubai because of their shallowness and moral vacuum. 

It doesn't surprise me that many Singaporeans are asking for these rioters to be severely punished. What's the different between those I got to know in Dubai and here? I think they should face the wrath of the law however we must also consider the mitigating factors like we had to also with the Chinese bus drivers. 





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