Category: Rants

An Open Letter to Mr Amit Nagpal

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I haven’t been reading the Stooge Times Forum since Aug 15 last year, if I am not wrong, because the quality of letters is really disappointing. But the following forum letter was brought to my attention recently:

Home and Singapore, from a PR’s viewpoint
July 25, 2008

I REFER to the lively Forum discussion about home ownership in Singapore. As a new Singapore permanent resident (PR) from India, let me respond this way.

First, Singapore is the only country with such a high percentage of home owners. Trust me, your home will never be repossessed because of a sub-prime-like crisis.

In New Delhi, where I came from, government housing is a luxury. Once in two years, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) releases land and builds basic, two- and three-bedroom homes.

A lottery decides who gets to own the flats. Snaking queues, with hundreds of required documents, no salary or income cap and no cap on the number of flats applied for are a few of the scheme’s characteristics. The balloting is fraught with irregularities. Most successful applicants sell the flats almost immediately in the open market for a huge premium.

My parents in India still live in a rented apartment because they have not been successful in getting a DDA flat and cannot afford expensive private housing. These things happen in India because it does not have a system like the Housing and Development Board’s.

Second, I am 33 years old and live here with my wife and two children. I consider myself well educated, worldly wise and useful to my employers.

What am I doing in Singapore, leaving my parents, family, friends and comfort zone back home? Why did I strive to become a Singapore PR, and perhaps a citizen in future? I did it because Singapore is safe, dynamic, modern and conducive to a decent livelihood. Most important, the Government promotes harmonious living and equality for all. Many Singaporeans take these virtues for granted. I don’t blame them because they probably don’t know what it is like elsewhere, including a country like India which may have the world’s fastest growing economy, but is fraught with corruption and an unsafe environment and does not have what Singapore has.

So it pains me when I read letters which say that PRs like me should not be treated well enough. I know we cannot be given the same rights as citizens, but why demand no rights at all?

Now, this is my country too. There is no turning back. So why can’t I buy a flat directly from the HDB? And although I came as a permanent settler, why treat me like an enemy?

Amit Nagpal

Apparently this letter has upset a lot of my fellow citizens on the Hardwarezone (HWZ) forum and it has created quite a storm. Here’s my reply:

My only question to Mr Amit Nagpal is this: What is stopping you from taking up a Singapore Citizenship? As a foreign talent, do you not make a healthy amount to qualify? If it was a matter of insufficient income, I apologise for the mercenary nature of our government gahmen. Even some Singaporeans at times felt they are somewhat neglected and ignored if they are not making enough money.

If not, would you mind share with us what’s stopping you? A lack of sense of belonging, perhaps? You should voice up so our gahmen can look into setting up campaigns – they are damned good at that – to mobilise all of us citizens to assist PRs (Permanent Residents) in integrating into our society and also to explain to you the importance of some policies which might deter you: e.g. National Service for your kids, giving up your original citizenship, and why you can’t withdraw your CPF anymore until a certain age once you become a citizen.

Whatever the case is, I encourage you to renounce your current nationality so you can enjoy the same perks * cough * as the rest of us. In fact, I would be greatly impressed if you would insist in doing 2 years of National Service too even at your age. I am quite sure the Home Team or the SAF can find some use of your talent which our country so sorely lacks.

Anyway, buying a HDB flat is really not a right, but a privilege. If I remembered correctly, if you and your spouse earns a combined income of more than SGD 8000, you also cannot buy anything smaller than an E-Flat. This is part of the policy by our gahmen to ensure affordable housing * cough * is always first made available to the serfs Singaporeans who otherwise do not earn enough money to purchase private housing.

Surely, by now you can already understand why some of my fellow Singaporeans are indignant and hostile to the idea of giving PRs the same privilege as far as HDB flats are concerned? I am quite sure that you, being well educated, worldly wise and useful to your employers would understand that by the simple economic principle of supply and demand, we do fear that even at a discount ‘subsidised’, prices will rise even further if PRs are accorded the same privileges. Above which, the simple concept of citizens first wouldn’t be difficult to grasp for a person of your calibre, right?

While these reasons certainly cannot justify some of the less than dignified and repulsive remarks some of my fellow citizens have made, and I most certainly regret them, I hope by now the source and nature of their anger towards this apparently simple and innocent question is clear to you.

And please do also read another reply to you, as I am not quite as articulate in bringing some of the points forward as my fellow citizen has.

One step at a time [一步一步来]

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A discussion on Plurk about this news article took a turn when this comment was made – ‘No use talking about it. You want to fix things then come out with a concrete plan to fix it’

This is the most commonly used comment to stifle criticisms of idiotic policies and I personally loathe this comment. First of all, I am giving my feedback for free when at times it needs to be obtained by spending money to conduct surveys. Next, if we have a bunch of people who calls themselves the top brains of this country and earning $3 million a month, why should anyone even be contributing ideas at all? Will a substantial amount of that pay is given to the person who came up with a better idea? In fact, I recalled Mr. Low Thia Khiang once said something similar to this: ‘You wanna know my concrete plan how to fix it? Just quit and let me show you.’

Then this comment was made: ‘If Tali-PAP ever gets voted out, we will truly really die.’

I tell you the truth. I would buy that if God said so. Otherwise, give me back my choice, and I’ll bear whatever consequences that might come. In fact, let me choose the manner I will die, will ya, and not let the Tali-PAP kill me silently, slowly and steadily. Don’t even think about scaring me with insane extrapolations – like how the economy will shoot itself to hell simply because the opposition takes over because it’s as good as saying I should never leave home as a flower pot will drop on my head and kill me! At the mean time, I am supposed to lock myself in, while there’s a fire outside that cause me to slowly suffocate to death. And that’s not the best part yet… I am even asked to come out with a plan to put out the fire, if I don’t like this insane solution. Come on!!

Enough of my rants… and let me put aside my vehement hatred of the Tali-PAP and look at this situation realistically.

  1. None of the opposition parties are in any position to take over. In other words, stop asking the baby to come up with a plan to fly like Superman, when the baby isn’t even given the chance to walk. And by that I mean, if you don’t even vote – or trust – the opposition parties in to let them manage your own constituency and town council, why the hell are you even asking them for a plan when they are in no condition to, anyway? Is trust not built bit by bit? Would it not be more realistic that during elections, ask the opposition candidates what plan they have to make your constituency better or to run the town? Come on, even the Tali-PAP has downgraded the national election to a town / constituency level by repeatedly blackmailing the electorate with nothing more but estate and lift upgrading on a constituency level, and you expect the oppposition parties to do better?

    In fact, I do not recall that the Tali-PAP ever revealed any concrete national level plans during elections – like raising GST to help the needy, implementing more ERP to ease traffic conditions etc. So why should the opposition even come up with one?!

  2. Most Singaporeans would prefer more accountability – not a change in government gahmen.

    Accountability in the operations of GIC and Temasek Holdings, our CPF funds, and our reserves. In fact, to start with, can the Tali-PAP account for why their well run town councils have millions in sinking funds whereby some of that is used for gambling investments? When did our town councils become profitable entities which derive profits from money we pay to maintain our towns at yet at times the town councils still raise our conservancy charges? Then, can you explain to us why you need to raise GST by a hefty 40% (from 5% to 7%), claiming that there will be a deficit and then making a windfall?

    And when you are done with that, then tell us what drives and who makes the decisions behind the investments made by GIC and Temasek Holdings. How is it that our CPF is paying that meagre amount of interest, and during last year, not even good enough to cover inflation? How much is our national reserves? And in what form are they held? U.S. Treasury bonds? Assets?

In short, cut that bullshit about the opposition being not credible and them having no plans to take over. Who are you to define for me – if not the people – what the opposition’s role should be?

I am merely asking a watchdog with more bite. After all, the MAS requires that banks be audited by an external auditor regularly, even conduct audits on their own to ensure that the banks don’t fxxk up again like SocGen and Barings and also be accountable to the public… then who is there to conduct these audits of the GIC and Temasek Holdings, which manage the fortune of our nation and make sure that this gahmen is accountable?

Let’s not even start talking about having an opposition that could seize power yet, until we can agree on this! One step at a time alright?

Let me dedicate this Mandarin Xinyao [新谣] – 一步一步来 (One step at a time) – to my fellow Singaporeans. Let us take things one step at a time, and ignore that usual bullshit of demanding the opposition come up with a plan to ‘take over’ when they obviously can’t.

An Uneventful Week (20th – 26th July)

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The past week has been pretty uneventful except maybe for a corny attempt at joking by one blogger which has caused some unhappiness and distress to two other bloggers. Other than that, the furor over a particular blog aggregator has basically died down just like the Chinese Civil War – no truce, no peace, no nothing. Basically, there is really nothing more to talk about and no more flesh left on a dead horse to flog until yet another is killed to provide more entertainment, much like the Romans have their usual gladiator battles in the Colosseum to entertain themselves.

However, before the week was out a very small matter occurred which requires me to make certain things clear. It is generally agreed among my friends and associates that facts are distorted, then the matter should be set straight, unless the person is a moral coward, imagines he is the Almighty God, or the allegations are so true he can’t refute them.

So firstly, there has been rumors that I have a ‘plan’ to attack the blog aggregator by ‘getting people out of the community’ . This is one of the most ludicrous remark I have heard in a long time. The reason being it has been my stand that there is no community because a community means interaction between its constituents and participation. If there are 3000 people in a place but more than 96% of the constituents do not even actively interact or participate in its activities, then all these talk about a community is nothing but a figment of imagination of a delusional mind. That’s not mentioning – get the people out to where? Just who the hell will come out to… nowhere?

Next, I have on several occasions chat with certain acquaintances and friends about the strength and weakness of the blog aggregator in question, and even spoke about possible ‘vector of attacks’ to exploit certain weaknesses, but no concrete plans have ever come about from these chats. I have never insisted anyone act on them, nor do I harbour any delusions that anyone would act upon them. Above which, the participants in these chats are professionals and matured adults and it makes me wonder if it is because the person making the allegations is weak-minded on her own to even imagine that there are people out there who would be as easily swayed.

Anyway, this isn’t going to be yet another post about some blog aggregator’s so-called ‘community’ or any particular person (those have been done on 21st July and 19th July respectively, and I have already closed the chapter even when someone was still sore and talking about it on Plurk last Friday as if I am still at it). This is more about my personal experience of the true meaning of a particular individual’s vaunted ‘neutrality’ , which translates as – I am neutral as long as you accept what I suggest you should do about this matter. Or else…

And this person has made the above allegations without a single nuance of evidence, much like how dk99 was slandered once over coffee after dinner at a coffee shop near Kallang MRT. A testimony that birds of the same feather do indeed flock together.

Let me just say, I can respect a person giving suggestions to resolve the matter in question. I can even accept having a different decision – just ask paced what my stand is over her choice with regard to the furor. However, don’t expect me to accept any suggestions which have no merits at all. Much less after I have pointed that out again and again. In fact, don’t even suggest that anyone has ‘failed to accept criticism’ when you yourself failed to accept the criticisms to your own suggestions. In short, pardon me for feeling rather ironical when you make that accusation.

To end, let me say it is one thing to be ungracious, but another to be despicable. There is nothing wrong with who you want to consort with, but it is morally wrong to profess neutrality on one hand and then take sides in another setting. The ethnic Hokkien have a very specific term for your kind – 狗母蛇 (gau bu zua aka Bitch Snake), and it is definitely quite apt as far as you are concerned.

Now that I have gotten this off my chest, and just in case anyone thinks my blood pressure has shot through the roof, let me share with everybody a hilarious video that Endoh has spent quite a bit of time on.

Movie – Hellboy II (The Golden Army) / Dragon Wars

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I had planned to watch Hellboy II: The Golden Army for quite a while. Unfortunately, my usual movies kakis have either fallen sick, too busy, or not interested in ‘demonic’ movies at all. That I actually watched the original Hellboy on my computer first (I failed to watch the first one when it was shown) before this, showed how much I wanted to watch it. It was rather disappointing that I failed to catch it over the last 2 weekends and I had finally decided to just go catch it on my own. on a weekday.

Here’s brief introduction for those who didn’t watch Hellboy: In World War II, a team of U.S. soldiers were sent along with Professor Broom to ruins on an island off the coast of Scotland to stop Nazi scientists led by Rasputin and his mistress, IIsa from opening a portal to another dimension and awaken forces known as “The Seven Gods of Chaos.”

The Americans successfully foiled the attempt to keep the gate opened, but as the gate was opened long enough, a creature got through. Professor Broom lured it with a candy bar and subsequently adopted it as his own child. They called it Hellboy and he subsequently grew up to become a part of the the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) which includes pyrokinetic Liz Sherman and an aqua empath known as Abe Sapien.

The story revolves around the BPRD efforts to stop Rasputin and his minion Kroenen from completing what they failed to do near the end of World War II.

Hellboy II’s story begin when an ancient truce between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken. Prince Nuada decided that the truce with the humans should be terminated and return from exile to unleash the invincible and indestructible Golden Army to exterminate mankind.

Of course, Hellboy and BPRD stands in the way of the Elf Prince. A new character, protoplasmic mystic Johann Krauss was introduced in this movie and together they travel to the unseen magical world where creatures of fantasy become corporeal to stop the Prince.

I think, I liked the first Hellboy better than the second even though the computer graphics in the second one is much better along with the humor factor. But somehow I think movies with a ‘Save the World’ storyline is getting a little stale and boring these days. On a scale of 1 – 5, I’ll give 4 for entertainment, 3 for story and 2.5 for ending. I sincerely think the Princess (sister to Prince Nuada) do not have to take that step to stop her brother.

By the way, during the almost 3-week long cinema drought, I decided to watch some of the movies either friends lent to me, or VCDs I have bought in the past for reasons unknown. One of this movie is D-War (or Dragon Wars), which apparently was based on a Korean legend or story.

The storyline is about how one mythical giant serpent, called the Imoogi, will turn into the Dragon every 500 years when the bearer (always a female) of the Yeouijoo fulfills her role and give it up to the good Imoogi. However, the Dark Imoogi, Buraki covets to the Yeouijoo for itself and had seek to capture the bearer and kill her so it can get the Yeouijoo for itself.

500 years ago, the bearer of the Yeouijoo and her lover and protector committed suicide instead of fulfilling their duties to bring the Yeouijoo to the Good Imoogi (that’s quite a mouthful to say)… and so the Good Imoogi has waited another 500 years for it the next bearer to be born.

The story revolves around the minions of Buraki trying to capture the present incarnation of the bearer and her protector, which culminates in a huge battle between modern weaponry – M1 Abram Tanks and Apache attack choppers – against Buraki, flying drakes, lumbering creatures with 2x 3pod rocket pods complete with unlimited ammo, and medieval looking dino-raptor riders in the streets of L.A.

My personal opinion is that you aren’t missing much if you didn’t watch this, and perhaps that’s the reason why I don’t recall seeing it here on the big screen. But if you love to see state of the art helicopters ‘getting their asses kicked’ by drakes and modern armour vehicles getting trashed, then this is definitely the movie for you. Of course, to get there you will have to sit through at least an hour of boring storyline, and if you happened to have a VCD without subtitles, about 5 minutes or so of ‘Korean medieval drama’ .

On a scale of 1 – 5, I’ll give 2.5 for entertainment, 2 for story and 2 for ending. Verily, you aren’t missing anything if you decided to give this a miss completely.

iPhone 2.0

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Courtesy of dk99 of Blog2U, I was invited to a sneak preview of the iPhone 2.0 at iShop21 over at Cineleisure on Friday (25th July) night. These sets are not brought in for sale, but for the Bak2U to test their PhoneBAK mobile phone anti-theft software written for the iPhone. (Read more about PhoneBAK and which other types of phones it supports here.)

For those who read my blog frequently, they would know I am no fan of Apple. However I still had to see the phone for myself and see what so great about this thing every one is talking about. And now, this is not a review, just a write up on the parts I have tested.

Firstly, let me say I am not very familiar with the interface and Malique had to guide me on it. And for a first time user like me, it really isn’t too difficult to use at all once you get the hang of it.

Anyway, I am not too interested in all the features of the iPhone except the Safari browser since many of the other features – music player, phone, GPS etc – are already available in other phone. I did play around a little with the Wifi though once I discovered it’s connected, I decided not to make a fool of myself and left it alone. After all, the password for the connection has already been entered. I think I saw both Malique and Chillycraps took some pictures with the camera and they appeared to be pretty alright on screen.

Back to the browser. I must say I am damned impressed with it. The rendering is so much better than Opera Mini on the Blackberry 8820 and the touchscreen interface which allows me to expand a selected portion of the screen is wonderful. It is very fast and very responsive. (I guess all the Apple Fanbois didn’t need to be told this, but it’s for the benefit of those who never heard about it.)
Picture courtesy of Michael Cheng

However, I also discover that Flash media doesn’t work on it, and java applet support seems to be absent. I wanted to try out the Internet Banking sites to see if I can get as far as the login screen but to no avail because the applet didn’t load. I must say I am a little disappointed by that.

Anyway, since I don’t know if there are settings in Safari which I am unaware of (or whether it is possible for some add-ins tbe be installed), don’t start flaming me already, alright? Also, dk99 told me that Youtube videos plays natively on it and if that is true, then it’s browser is way better than the Blackberry. Still, that’s no way compare as the iPhone 2.0 I get to touch has a 8GB Flash Drive while most other mobiles usually comes with a pathetic amount of Flash memory installed.

Next, the physical aspect of the device. Sleek, light (I suspect it was even lighter than the older generation) and very elegant. It fits nicely into the hand. Unfortunately, everyone of us has a difficulty typing URLs into the browser and indeed like Xiaxue Xiasuay says, you can’t use your nails on the touchscreen to do it. I think Blackberry users will have no problem using it though, since it appeared to me – and confirmed by Paddy – that if you use both your thumbs to type, it is actually quite ok. It is slow only when you start using your finger to ‘poke’ at the on-screen letters one by one as if it is as stylus. On top of that, Malique pointed out that the difficulty to typing might not be the ‘fault’ of the interface itself but could possibly be the protective film applied over the screen to protect it. I agree with that view so should you get one, you might want to be careful about the screen protection you are going to use on the device.

Now, let’s move on to what I didn’t like. Just one thing: the battery. It is still built in which means you can’t buy a spare to go with the phone. While it maybe argued that the battery may last pretty long on its own, I still like the flexibility of using one battery and leaving one to charge.

Beyond that, I have nothing more to talk about, since I can’t hold on to the phone for long while other people are trying, but you can read up Wishbone‘s write up here.
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