A frog in a pot of water whereby the temperature slowly increases was once used to describe the situation Singaporeans are in. The reason being that if you increase the temperature slowly, the frog would not notice the temperature difference and jump out of the water.

It’s a good description but hardly apt. Because ultimately it kills the frog, and well, the Singapore gover-min would not have that, would they? They certainly do not want the frog to die, or jump out of the water [quit]. It would be a waste of the only natural resource this nation has.

Thus, the Singapore gover-min has perfected the art of making a spectacular amount of money out of the people, by spreading out the cost among everyone until the ‘losers’ have no incentive at all to fight back, but simply accept their losses and move on.

Take for example, the incessant fare increases by still profitable transport operators in spite of an obvious lack of improvement in service. It is clear that the transport operators reap huge profits from the hikes, even when it costs the commuters a mere 1 cent per trip.

Will the ‘losers’ – i.e. the commuters – in this case, want to spend more time and possibly money to try and fight the hikes? The answer is obvious.

Next, we look at the postage increases by SingPost. Local postage has gone up from 22 cents to 25 cents. And this will cost a 3 cents increase per letter posted locally.

Will the ‘losers’ – i.e. the people who use the postal service – want to spend more time and / or money to try and fight the hikes? The answer is again, obvious.

Finally, we look at mini$terial pay. Our mini$ter$ are the highest paid in the world and what does it cost each taxpayer? A mere 3 plates of ‘char kway teow’ a day, as it is claimed.

Will the ‘losers’ – i.e. the common citizens – want to risk their necks, and face possible loss of freedom, or run afoul of the law, to stage public protests and fight it? Again, the answer is pretty obvious.

Simply put, the Singapore gover-min perfected the art to make money out of its citizens by presenting them with nothing but a Hobson’s choice. It’s an apparently free choice that is no choice at all. You simply accept it because the other choice is so much more unacceptable. It is a choice between two undesirable options. The obvious choice is the one which wouldn’t kill you, unlike raising the temperature of the pot of water in which the frog is in.

So, a more suitable description for the plight of Singaporeans, is more of that of a rubber tree. Incessant, bit-by-bit increases is more akin to making a shallow groove in the rubber tree to tap its latex. You can continue to come back and make more shallow grooves to tap the rubber tree again and again without killing the tree. Just make sure you don’t tap too deep or it’ll kill the tree.

The best part of all is that a rubber tree doesn’t demand much. All it needs is fertilisers and water. That probably also explains why Singaporeans can take a lot of shit from the gover-min and yet get on with their lives. And if there is no water, the tree can’t blame the plantation workers, because rain is controlled by God, just as we can’t blame the Tali-PAP gover-min for bad economic conditions, because that’s the problem of external factors.

Not only are Singaporeans like rubber trees, they must also be like rubber. They must be flexible and soft so as to take a lot of stress and pressure. A Singaporean worker must be flexible enough to ‘upgrade his skills to stay employable’ and soft enough to take whatever our so-called trade unions and employers dishes out at them.

Thus, I, Darth Grievous, proudly proclaim all of us Rubber Trees, Singapore’s Only True Natural Resource.

Have a nice day, dude.

“Terrorists don’t need to blow up trains or the stations. All they have to do is toy with the braking systems.” – A Stooge Times reader, who made the comment after noting how pack every train is.

Can that happen? Why not, because a disgruntled employee could sabotage a train to make it happen!

You definitely do not like to think that our vaunted ‘World Class Transport’ is a disaster waiting to happen. Our lea-duhs will always assure us that they are safe, pointing out that they have special forces patrolling our stations. Talking about that, wasn’t there once when they were talking about ‘Train Marshals’? Whatever happened to that?

Above which, our profit-minded public transport operators will say that the trains are just packed to 85% capacity * during peak hours, not to mention that they have in station security doing random checks to keep the trains safe.

Like hell any of that is going to help us!

One can only imagine what happens if just a MRT train is made to brake without warning. The standing passengers start flying off their feet into one another and also the sitting passengers. But that isn’t the worst case scenario. I can’t imagine the situation when a train full of 1200 people derail in the tunnels, or if one of them derails, flies off a viaduct and hit the traffic below.

If the terrorists can have 2 trains doing just that on each of our MRT lines – i.e. N-E, E-W, and N-S lines – during peak hours, that will put 6 trains, up to 7200 people’s lives in jeopardy. Ultra mayhem!!

Worst yet, imagine it happening when a train supposed to pull slowly into a station instead comes roaring into the station at full speed and then the brakes kicks in causing the train to derail and carriages to fly onto a platform packed full of people during peak hour!

Can you imagine the guys who want something like this to happen don’t even need bombs to create the maximum destruction they desired? Frankly, I am not sure if the Civil Defense guys in the Home Team are even prepared for the eventually of doing in-tunnel rescue, should that happen.

Scary, isn’t it? Let’s hope that’s will remain pure fantasy and imagination, a bad nightmare, or just a good script for another Hollywoord Movie. And of course, we can also hope we aren’t on one of those trains if it ever happens.

* Figure is taken from a public reply by an SMRT spokesperson after several complaints by commuters that our trains are too packed. The spokesperson refute the allegation that our trains are overpacked, stating that only 1200 people are loaded while the trains’ maximum capacity is 1400. [1200/1400 = 85.71%]

Well done! After that victory against Ecuador resulting from Beckham’s lucky free kick, Portugal needed all the help and you were right there to provide it.With the 2 Argentine FIFA officials, you should have known better that Beckham’s lucky score has but exhausted all of England’s LUCK!

They should add that red card you get in the world cup to the first 20 seconds of this video, Wonder Boy! Bwaghahaha…

Duh! So this was all to what the entire hoo-hah is all about?

Let’s have a look at what a mess has snowballed from this:

• Accoutability. Gomez has left a doubt in the public’s mind as to whether he had been straight in his dealings with the department.
• Gomez could be out to tarnish the name of the Elections Department. It is a dastardly trick to discredit the Elections Department and the gover-min.
• Singapore’s international standing will suffer if the Gomez issue is not handled properly.
• Singapore cannot afford to have dishonest characters as MPs and ministers, and urged the WP to withdraw Gomez from the elections.
• Gomez had described the incident at the Elections Department as a ‘wayang’
• Gomez has been called a liar.

What do I have to say about this?

可能只有 “大长今” 那部韩剧才比这更拖泥带水吧？不过我还是比较喜欢 “大长今”。

[Translation: Maybe only that Korean TV drama ‘Dae Jang Geum’ is more lengthly and long winded than this. But still, I like ‘Dae Jang Geum’ more.]

* YAWN *