Photos from Huanglong – Pandas!!

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Some of the photos my mother took when she was over in Sichuan (四川).

She didn’t take too many as the entire holiday mood was dampened by the earthquake. The pictures of the giant pandas were taken in Huanglong (黄龙). The others were taken at assorted places around Sichuan.

They were unable to enter Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟) as the local public security (gong’an 公安) officers were concerned that the roads might not be safe as there’s possibility of aftershocks and landslides. Those who insisted on going in were allowed to do so after they sign some kind of documents indicating that they will not hold anyone responsible for any mishaps including their deaths.

My mother informed me that one of the cities she visited – Mian Yang (绵阳) suffered large scale devastation after they departed. In fact, my uncle was pretty adamant he saw one of the schools with many student deaths when he was there.

Either way, my uncle and my two aunts all came back a little sick as a result of the anxiety and fear they felt at the area. The entire region was quite chaotic as the Chinese authorities tried to balance incoming air traffic and outgoing ones. Some people on the flight out had slept two days in the airport trying to get an air ticket out and flights were held back and delayed as priority was given to incoming rescue teams from other parts of China and the world.

Fortunately for my mother, the local tour guide managed to arrange with the tour agency to put my mother and relatives in a proper hotel while they try and get tickets to get out. There were some unfortunate souls from other tour groups which end up in hotels whereby they spent most o their time in the open anyway.


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A Rant on a Hot Sleepless Night

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I read with great amusement DK’s post on ‘HDB RAP VIDEO PRODUCTION’.

Just why the fxxk are they spending this money when they claim they have been making a loss providing housing for Singaporeans? Would a stupid rap like this makes our stay in our pigeon holes which takes us a decade and a half (or more) to pay off more comfortable? Would it not be better they save that money so that everyone can pay maybe even $1 less for their little pigeon hole?

In fact, looking at the extravagance, it begs the questions: does the HDB this day still serve its original intended function – i.e. to provide affordable housing for Singaporeans?

While some may still claim that it is still serving the function, the reality is that some people are now taking a decade and a half or more to pay their housing loans. And for those of lower income, the flats have more or less moved out of their reach. Of course, the $3 million dollar ministers will tell you to get a smaller flat if you can’t afford it.

So, on paper, the HDB ‘still provides affordable housing for Singaporeans’ . However, it is my considered opinion that slowly and surely, the impression of its true functions today are these:

  1. to find a way to build the houses as cheap as possible, like $60K a unit, and then sell them for at least $100K of profits. (e.g. A brand new 4-room for first-time owner costs $160K!)

  2. to come up with the best way to call a discount a subsidy. (e.g. It’s a real and tangible subsidy! Because you are paying less compared to the market price! And to get the subsidy you have to sell it to some other poor sucker.)

  3. to come up with ridiculous arguments on why they are making a loss. (e.g. Well, if we sells the plot of land to a private developer we could have earned more!)

Add the above to the list of stuff we should get an accounting from the Tali-PAP gahmen on top of the following:

  1. The surprise surplus from the raise of GST;

  2. The escape of Mas Selamat;

  3. The GIC & Temasek investments;

  4. What exactly is being done with our national reserves?

  5. How did a huge sinking fund in the town councils come about when they claimed our conservancy charges are just good enough to pay for the services rendered?

  6. Why is the sinking fund that grew on the money tree used for gambling investments, and yet conservancy charges are still raised?

  7. Are we even getting proportional returns from what they are doing with our CPF money?

Simply put, ‘You don’t ask why you strike Toto’ is a lousy and uneducated excuse to give in Parliament – by one with a doctorate no less – when the Tali-PAP is asked to be accountable for how the huge surplus comes about from the GST increase!

When asked to clarify on the principle in which the gahmen applied in looking at salary of the minister pitching to corporate world vis-a-vis when it comes to accountability and responsibility, we expect the gahmen to do so, and not answered with the question to an opposition MP if anyone thinks that DPM Wong should be fired!

These examples gives me the impression that we are being held in contempt or low regards simply for asking for some accountability! It is as if we are all being ungrateful for even asking because they think they have ‘provided’ in terms of their own self-defined job descriptions! It would appear they are expecting us to shut up because we don’t know better and we shouldn’t know! In fact, I must ask, if this attitude is our own fault, just like over indulging parents have spoil their own children?

Come on, fellow Singaporeans! It’s time we put things in the right perspective, and stop allowing the Tali-PAP to put the carriage before the horse!

It is time to look beyond that pathetic few hundred dollars of GST rebates, the car or condo you might own or the well paid job you have now. It’s time to look at how we can get this gahmen to be accountable to us!

It’s way past due time we remember that they are paid in full with their $3 million p.a. pay, and remember the performance of a gahmen during its term is nothing but vindication of our trust in them for the previous election, and not justification for us to continue ‘signing them blank cheques’ for the next term so they can continue to do whatever they want!

When, will you say with your votes: ‘Enough is enough already?’

When?

Or you already did it another way, with your feet?

Odd Messages on Facebook

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I am seeing quite a number of these today in Facebook (see screen capture).

First, it appears as some of my friends status message, and subsequently these friends start spamming my wall with the message. And when I checked back with these friends what’s so interesting about this site, they first expressed surprise and ignorance, before they disavowed of having done so. In fact, in all cases, they are adamant they didn’t log-on to Facebook to send those messages. (i.e. the status will show it was update 30 minutes ago, but this friend hasn’t even log in to Facebook for days!)

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the URL in Firefox and it led me to a site selling some kind of dried plant and I suspect it’s probably some kind of weed like marijuana. However, please refrain from visiting the site (especially with IE), not because of what it is touting, but a simple precaution against any possible ActiveX ‘niceties’ and malware that might be hiding behind it.

Anyway, I am not very sure if those friends’ accounts were hacked to send these messages. The one friend I managed to convince to check out his Facebook account, said his password was not changed and he could still access his Facebook account. For good measure, he changed his password and I see that those messages have stopped. But for some of the others, I see an increasing number of walls of mutual friends getting spammed with this message.

I could think of one possibility how something else can gain access to your password for whatever nefarious purposes. A scam which says it could reveal those blocked you on MSN Live Messenger has been making its rounds on the net previously and many have been fooled. Once a person tried checking on who has blocked them through this site, those on their contact list will receive a message touting this site, or links to dubious and questionable sites at random times. I suspect that if one has used the same ID – usually one’s Hotmail / Microsoft Live Mail email address – and password to sign up to Facebook, and have not changed their password since, then that same information could now be exploited by the same scammers.

Whatever the case is, I would suggest that if you have been using a simple alpha-numeric password to login to any kind of online services, to change it and increase it’s complexity. A password like Passw0rd is definitely not good enough. You might want to consider a complex password like P@s5w0Rd+ instead.

Of course, the most important thing is to remember not to sign on to some completely unrelated site on the wild Internet with a password belonging to another service, simply because the site appears to offer you something in return. In short, if www.kennasai.com says it could reveal to you who has blocked or deleted you on MSN Messenger, it’s simply common sense to ask just how www.kennasai.com is going to obtain that information from one of Microsoft’s servers.

Donation Appeal

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I am overwhelmed when I looked at all the photos coming out of the disaster zone in Sichuan, China on the newspapers. My only comfort was that the Chinese government has responded with utmost urgency, and put aside her pride to accept help from those who have offered.

China is indeed blessed to have a Prime Minister like Wen Jiabao, who is more or less directly involved in the rescue operations. Even though the fact that he has to be there personally to whip the local cadres into shape reflects badly on the command and control aspects of the Chinese government, the people will remember what is done right, and thus re-affirm the Communist Party’s right to govern the nation.

At the same time, Myanmar’s government response to her own cyclone disaster is appalling. It is a pity the cyclone did not drown the bastards in the junta first, as they have demonstrated they are completely unworthy to govern the people. (Much like a certain deputy of this country who not only can’t sing, and the arschloch who says China beer promoters help retained jobs for Singaporeans, are unworthy of their positions!)

It further disgusts me when I read that leaders lea-duhs in the junta put their names on the boxes of material given as aid to the people of Myanmar. This shameless attempt to fool the people into being grateful to them shows they appear to be more concern with politics instead of the well being of the people. That can be further seen in how much harder they are pushing their stupid little sham of a referendum while they continue to refuse help from the other countries.

Anyway, I am not really helping anyone by wacking away on my keyboard. The main objective of this post is not so much to rant, but rather to increase awareness on one of the avenues you can use to provide monetary aid to those affected.

The following link was found on the Singapore Red Cross website, a reputable non-old NKF kind of charity organisation. It contains instructions on how you can donate to help those affected and you will be guided to choose between giving to Myanmar or China.

My personal opinion is that no matter how you feel about charity organizations or the political conditions of the countries affected, do not forget giving money is the least we can do to help. It is just way better than doing nothing, and personally I would prefer to go to China to dig people out of the ruins if I can.

One last thing: While I understand that it is your right and your prerogative to donate or not to donate, I would generally prefer you keep your reasons to yourself if you do not intend to give. It is unwise to present an image of selfishness and heartlessness apathy – even when you aren’t such a person – and even more so when the reasons are made available on the public domain so some irresponsible jerks can now use to justify their own lack of empathy.

My thanks to everyone who heed this call to donate.

Earthquake in China [Update]

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UPDATE:

My mom has took her mobile phone with her to China! Yaaaaay!! But unfortunately I have no luck raising her on the phone. So I went back to find out which agency she booked her package with. I searched high and low for the invoice and stuff but can’t find it, but fortunately, my mother has passed me the AIG Global Travel Insurance ‘booklet’ which has the chop of the travel agency on it. And she called back at 22:31hrs.

So Anyway, I had googled and found the website of the agency and look through the tour packages. Since my mother took the 9 days tour package with my aunts, I checked the itinerary and discovered that on day 3 my mother should be now quite some distance away in Zhangjiajie (张家界) [See map below]. (Ya, beat me up for not having the contacts of my cousins and my aunts as well. My mistake for failing to be close to the maternal side of my family.)

I hope am glad the agency is following the itinerary closely, as I continue to feel burdened by my failure to contact my mother. I am going to call the travel agency tomorrow morning to find out if they are in contact with their guides over in China.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for my relatives over there. Please keep them in prayers until I receive confirmation of them being safe and sound in China their return to Singapore, as after shocks are expected in China.

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