In the News

Pirate Haven Singapore (ST Mar 28). The 3rd part of the Pirates of the Carribean movie has a scarred Chow Yun Fat in a Singapore from an indeterminate past. It was a more interesting Singapore with stilt houses, back alleys, and I gather, an overall seedy atmosphere that makes it perfect as a pirates stomping ground. Most Singaporeans took the depiction of Singapore in their stride, and Chow's depiction of a Chinese pirate as a role.

Chinese (as in from China) response however, has been more... emotional, calling the role demeaning and insulting.

Excuse me. He's playing a pirate. So even Chinese pirates must be shown to be virtuous, upright, and honourable men in touch with the grand and glorious history of the greatest civilisation in the world?

Me thinks, perhaps the protesters doth protests too much.

Fearful Mahathir (29 & 30 Mar, ST). Over the last two days, the press have been reporting Mahathir's speech on Thursday where he criticised the plans for the Iskandar Development Region in South Johor. The plans include opening up investment to foreigners and lifting ownership quotas for businesses in the region. Dr M claimed that this would lead once again the the Malays being enslaved by foreigners.

"Enslaved Again?" Didn't know they were ever enslaved. British colonial rule? Oh that enslavement. Right. A bit of hyperbole there. Good for public speeches.

Well, Dr M, there was that New Economic Plan that was in place since 1969 to level up Malay's ability and share of the economic pie. That was 35 years ago, and 22 of those years were under under your leadership. And you still say that you believe in Malay ability, but that as of now they are not able to compete internationally? Perhaps the problem is that protection, means never needing to compete on equal footing?

If you want to improve your tennis game, you got to play with better players. Perhaps Mr Abdullah understands that a little better than you.

F1
So while we have been dreaming about Ferraris zipping past the Esplanade, M'sia has been worried about what it would mean for their F1 spot. Okay, it was only their Youth and Sports Minister who said she was worried. She even said that Singapore shouldn't compete with Malaysia. One Malaysian said it was strange that Malaysia would feel this way given the previous challenge from the Johor ports to try to wrest business away from Singapore ports. Oh wait, the Youth and Sports Minister is only 44. That means for most of her formative years, she has experienced the New Economic Policy that has protect Malays from competition. Too bad it doesn't extend to Singapore, eh?

Not to worry, Malaysia has come back with an answer. They can also host a night race to boost TV audiences! Nice one Sepang! :-) (Hmmm "see pang" in Hokkien means square right?)

Bullet Train To Singapore.
As predicted, Singapore went, "Huh?". But it was the Malaysia Minister who shot down the story. (Mar 28) New Straits Times, your bad.

Here's the news...

Singapore, Malaysia approves bullet train. (26 Mar) The New Straits Times citing unnamed sources from a Malaysian conglomerate said that the governments of Malaysia and Singapore had approved plans for a bullet train from KL to Singapore.

Based on past experience, the Singapore Foreign Affairs Ministry should be issuing a "huh?" the next day. If it is confirmed by the Singapore Government, I'll... stop blogging for a few days.

DVD Pirates put bounty on dogs. (23 Mar) Malaysian movie and music pirates put a contract out on the sniffer dogs that busted their million dollar cache of DVDs. They are now trying to confuse the dogs by spraying chemicals on their DVDs. So next time you go to your friend's place and he plays you the latest Ghostrider DVD, take a sniff. If it smells like curry, it could be fake.

At least the DVD pirates aren't thinking too smart. One suggestion for drug dealers is to pretend to be blind, get a guide dog and hide the drugs up the dog's anus. Then when he passes the narco dogs, it is only natural for dogs to sniff each others arse and the narco officers will never get suspicious.

So now you know why there are so few guide dogs in Singapore.

Probably won't work with DVDs tho... (ouch!)

Granite quarry blast could be deliberate - Indon police. (26 Mar) Gee. You think? It's all well and good bashing Singapore for the sake of (Indonesian) Nation building. But when people start believing your stupid rhetoric and start engaging in terrorist activities, then the demogogic politicians are no better than radical fundamental Islamists militants...

Minister's Pay. What can I say that has not been said? $2.2m a year? That's about $183k a month. Or $6,100 per day. Or $254 per hour. If he sleeps 8 hours each night, that's $2000 gone! If we don't count sleeping hours, that's still $382 per hour for every waking hour. If he's constipated and spent 30 minutes in the loo, that's $190 down the toilet!

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So the General Medical Council (GMC) of UK has lost their right to police themselves after they failed to detect how one of them (Harold Shipman) had systematically killed over 200 patients over 20 years (ST 22 Feb 2007).

The inquiry into the case found that the GMC was too focused on "looking after their own".

How's this related to Singapore?
The Singapore Medical Council had raised the Shorvon case to the GMC only to have the case dropped by the GMC who had a cursory review of the case and decided that Shorvon had nothing to answer for.

Shorvon was the UK researcher who was doing medical research in Singapore and had arbitrarily changed medications without regard for patients welfare. He escaped to the UK.

In view of this development, the SMC should appeal the decision.

Now on Technorati.

Technorati Profile

So Mahathir ends the little truce and comes out swinging.

He warns Abdullah not to let his son-in-law become PM because as a democratic country Malaysia should oppose any attempt to create a political dynasty. "In our country," he's reported to have said, "anyone can be the PM. Even the fisherman." But not the son-in-law of the PM. Or a homosexual.

And he accused Abdullah of being intolerant.

"Hello, Kettle? This is Pot. You're Black."

So who was it that persecuted his DPM with charges of homosexuality and kick him out of the political party just because the DPM didn't agree with him?

Sorry, that should have been: "Hello, Snow? This is Pot. You're Black!"

He was also reported to have said:
"We should quickly renegotiate the water deals so we can raise the price of raw water we sell to Singapore." That way Malaysia will have more incentive to sell water to Singapore and Johor won't get flooded. So ya, it's Singapore's fault that Johor flooded. Because we didn't buy more water. Instead we make our own water!

City of Garden and Water
So PM Lee has announced that Singapore should aim to be a City of Gardens and Water. Jakarta says, Pfffttt!!!! We're already halfway there. Just need to work on the gardens part.

PUB in Singapore says, "Then why we work so hard!!!!"

The nurseries at Thomson Road says, "So we are ahead of time lah?"