Thursday, March 31, 2011


In his plays the incredibly trenchant German playwrite Bertolt Brecht satirized the East German communists is casting them as such:

"If the people let down the Communist Party, then it was up to the communist party to 'dissolve' the people and get themselves a new people".

This reversing of democracy is indeed a twisted idea of such a horrific and unimaginable magnitude -- which is one of the reasons Brecht is still considered a thinking-genius today.

You could look on the PAP doctrine through the lens of Bertolt Brecht: The people getting too disobedient and disrespectful of the 'wonders' of 'the world's best government'? simple: Get new people.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

To study locally or overseas? 5 factors to consider When choosing to further their studies locally or overseas, there are factors students take into serious consideration before making their decision. Here are some of the main concerns of graduating students. 1. Cost Spending expenses surfaced as the number one factor when students decide if they should pursue their degree overseas. "I'm lucky. My parents are able to support my overseas education." - Rachel Goh, 20, University of Melbourne "It's also cheaper here. The course fees abroad and locally are more or less the same, except that overseas, you have to pay more for living expenses." - Sabrina Tan, 19, SIM - University of London 2. Proximity from family and friends Daily interaction and activities with friends and family will greatly lessen. From seeing the people closest to you every day, you are now at least a plane ride away. "I preferred studying in Australia rather than the UK or US as it is much nearer (to home)." - Charles Ma, Alumni at Monash University. "My mum didn't feel safe with me studying overseas alone" - Sabrina Tan, 19, SIM - University of London 3. Lifestyle changes "I migrated to New Zealand 10 years ago, so integrating back into the Singaporean education system would have been much too great a challenge for me." - Rachel Woon, 21, University of Auckland "Having to alter my late sleeping habits to wake up early and start the day since malls in Melbourne close at 5PM. You cannot afford to sleep most of your day away here." - Rachel Goh, 20, University of Melbo 4. Academic programmes Of course, before enrolling in any school, the choices of graduating students are greatly affected by the pedagogy in each institution. "I wanted a change in terms of exposing myself to different style of learning. Also, I wanted to challenge myself in a foreign environment." - Jan Lin, Alumni at University of Melbourne "The unique pedagogy attracted me. Classes aren't conducted in the conventional lecture-tutorial styles. SMU prides itself over its seminar-styled broad-based education and I found that extremely appealing" Zizie Zuzantie, 20, on her choice - Singapore Management University 5. Future Prospects Students will most definitely want to spend their time and money on a course of study which will aid them in the future career choices they make. "Studying at NTU as opened up opportunities for me. It has made it much easier to find a job." - Soon Qiao Ying, 22, Alumni at National Technological University "Statistically, it's a highly ranked university and highly regarded amongst employers." - Rachel Goh, 20, University of Melbourne Simple. Study overseas and start working overseas. Local talents are less appreciated that FTs. However overseas we are the FTs, living the good life, less stress, more open spaces, to ski, snowboard, rock climbing, hiking, cheaper cars n homes. Back in S'pore we'll be in debt the rest of our lives with such cost. These days when someone tells you that his child is going overseas for his Uni education, two questions cross the mind. Is he a scholar or a NUS/NTU/SMU reject? Peter Low .....your brain is so shallow

Sunday, March 20, 2011


Dirty secrets of foreign recruitment unveil

Last week, I approached a Job agency use by our company to
source for candidates, as our HR manager had left the company,
I was put in charge to look for an IT programmer, I received
several suitable resume from other source, they were mainly
local applicants. Then this job agency called me up, the boss
was Micheal, he was very friendly, he told me of the great working
relationship he had with the previous HR manager.

As he carry on describing his services, he mentioned about red packets.
you see, if our company were to employ locals which is widely available,
this Job agency will not get any commission, because local will not pay
commission to the job agencies. Therefore to get the commision from our
company and the job applicants, they have to get foreigners who are more
willing to pay. So he was proposing to me that if I were to select his
foreign candidates, I will get a cut of the commission from our company and
the foreigners, and he reminded me that our previous manager always works
that way.

I thank him for his services, but i told him, that respective dept choose the
applicants, not me.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011



1 Bill Gates, Microsoft founder
2 Homer, Greek poet
3 Cui Jian, Chinese singer
4 Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary
5 Pavel Korchagin, Russian artist
6 Bill Clinton, former US President
7 Peter the Great, Russian leader
8 Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister
9 Bruce Lee, martial arts actor
10 Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister
11 Henri Matisse, French artist
12 Gengis Khan, Mongolian warlord
13 Napoleon Bonaparte, French military leader
14 Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary
15 Fidel Castro, former Prime Minister and President of Cuba
16 Marlon Brando, actor
17 Yasser Arafat, former leader of Palastine
18 Julius Caesar, Roman emperor
19 Claire Lee Chennault, Second World War US Lieutenant
20 Luciano Pavarotti, singer
21 George W. Bush, former US President
22 The Prince of Wales
23 Liu Xiang, Chinese hurdler
24 Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General
25 Zhang An (the painter)
26 Mikhail Gorbachev, former Russian leader
27 Li Tiezi (the painter)
28 Dante Alighieri, Florentine poet
29 Dai Dudu (the painter)
30 Pele, footballer
31 Guan Yu, Chinese warlord
32 Ramses II, Egyptian pharoah
33 Charles De Gaulle, French general
34 Albert Nobel, Swedish chemist, founder of Nobel prizes
35 Franklin Roosevelt, former US President
36 Ernest Hemingway, American novelist
37 Elvis Presley, American singer
38 Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist
39 William Shakespeare, English playwright
40 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer
41 Steven Spielberg, American film director
42 Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter
43 Marie Curie, physicist and pioneer of radioactivity
44 Zhou Enlai, first Premier of the People’s Republic of China
45 Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, German writer
46 Laozi, Chinese philosopher
47 Marilyn Monroe, American actress
48 Salvador Dali, Spanish painter
49 Dowager Cixi, former ruler of China
50 Ariel Sharon, former Israeli Prime Minister
51 Qi Baishi, Chinese painter
52 Qin Shi Huang, former Emperor of China
53 Mother Teresa, Roman Catholic Missionary
54 Song Qingling, Chinese politician
55 Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet
56 Otto Von Bismarck, German statesman
57 Run Run Shaw, Chinese media mogul
58 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher
59 Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-born actress
60 Ludwig Van Beethoven, German composer
61 Adolf Hitler, Nazi leader
62 Benito Mussolini, Italian fascist politician
63 Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq
64 Maxim Gorky, Russian writer
65 Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese revolutionary
66 Den Xiaoping, Chinese revolutionary
67 Alexander Pushkin, Russian author
68 Lu Xun, Chinese writer
69 Joseph Stalin, former Soviet Union leader
70 Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian painter
71 Karl Marx, German philosopher
72 Friedrich Nietzche, German philosopher
73 Abraham Lincoln, former US President
74 Mao Zedong, Chinese dictator
75 Charlie Chaplin, British actor
76 Henry Ford, founder of Ford motor company
77 Lei Feng, Chinese soldier
78 Norman Bethune, Canadian physician
79 Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist
80 Juan Antonio Samaranch, former International Olympic Committee president
81 Chiang Kai Shek, Chinese general
82 Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom
83 Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist
84 Li Bai, Chinese poet
85 Corneliu Baba, Romanian painter
86 Auguste Rodin, French artist
87 Dwight Eisenhower, former US President
88 Michael Jordan, American basketball player
89 Hideki Tojo, former Japan Prime Minister
90 Michelangelo, Italian Renaissance painter
91 Yi Sun-Sin, Korean naval commander
92 Mike Tyson, American boxer
93 Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister
94 Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author
95 Shirley Temple, American actress
96 Albert Einstein, German physicist
97 Moses, Hebrew religious leader
98 Confucius, Chinese philosopher
99 Ghandi, Indian spiritual leader
100 Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter
101 Toulouse Lautrec, French painter
102 Marcel Duchamp, French artist
103 Behind George Bush is Osama bin Laden

Tuesday, March 8, 2011


Not to practice but to do research

http://thinkhappiness.blogspot.com/2006/08/meeting-david-marshall-in-1994.html

1956 – ON Repressing And ILLICIT Love-Making!

“Repression, Sir is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love – it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the attack. All you have to do is to dissolve organizations and societies and banish and detain the key political workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is tranquil on the surface. Then an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referred to again they’re conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity, because there will be no opposition to contradict.” – Lee as an opposition PAP member speaking to David Marshall, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Debates, 4 October 1956

we use this concept of family cohesion to place on our youths the burden of caring for aging and ailing parents and grand-parents.

The young have got their own lives to make. To carry in your own homes aging irritable ailing parents and grandparents can destroy the family life of the young.

But then, the alternative is for the government to pour so much mountains of gold into building homes for the aged. That’s sacrilege – gold is to be gathered and not to be spent.

I want to see more crèches, more homes for the aged.

Friday, March 4, 2011


Son of ex-judge charged with taking cocaine
PRIVATE equity investor Dinesh Singh Bhatia, the son of former judicial commissioner Amarjeet Singh and orthopaedic surgeon Kanwaljit Soin, has been charged with consuming cocaine.

His father is now a senior counsel and consultant at law firm Khattar Wong & Partners, and his mother is a former Nominated Member of Parliament.

In all, the CNB arrested 23 people, three of whom have been charged with trafficking. They are Singaporean Marx Oh Chee Wee, director of an events management company, restaurant marketing manager Guiga Lyes Ben Laroussi from Tunisia; and his Singaporean girlfriend Mariana Abdullah. All three face the death penalty if convicted.

Another five men, including high-society magazine Singapore Tatler's editor Nigel Bruce Simmonds and French chef Francois Fabien Mermilliod from Flutes at the Fort restaurant, were charged with drug possession.

Thursday, March 3, 2011


Published November 17, 2010
GuocoLand aims for the sky with 78-storey homes
It submits highest of 6 bids for site above Tanjong Pagar MRT Station, plans $3 billion mixed-development project
By KALPANA RASHIWALA
MALAYSIAN tycoon Quek Leng Chan's GuocoLand is planning to build Singapore's tallest residences, up to 78 storeys high, within a $3 billion mixed-development project on a site above Tanjong Pagar MRT Station.
The $3 billion development cost includes the $1.708 billion or $1,006 per square foot per plot ratio (psf ppr) that Singapore-listed GuocoLand will pay for the 99-year leasehold plot. It placed the highest of six bids for the 'white' site, which was offered at a state tender which closed yesterday.
GuocoLand is required to allocate at least 60 per cent of the maximum 1.7 million sq ft gross floor area (GFA) to offices and another 10 per cent for hotel use, under the rules for the site set by Urban Redevelopment Authority.
GuocoLand Singapore managing director Trina Loh says that with a maximum height of 280 metres above mean sea level the proposed development will join Republic Plaza, UOB Plaza and OUB Centre in Raffles Place as Singapore's tallest buildings.
'Within the Tanjong Pagar area, it will be the tallest project and we'll also offer the tallest residences in the whole of Singapore,' Mrs Loh added.
The proposed development will rank alongside Republic Plaza, UOB Plaza and OUB Centre in Raffles Place as one of the tallest buildings in Singapore, all of which are 280 metres above mean sea level.
The group plans to develop two towers, possibly with a mix of uses. In addition to offices, a hotel and apartments, there will also be ground-floor retail space. 'What makes this site very exciting is that it can be a truly, fully-integrated development above the MRT Station, plus the height of the project.
'And as the winner of two BCA Green Mark Platinum awards, we'll ensure this latest proposed development will also be eco friendly,' she added.
GuocoLand bid 11.8 per cent or about $180 million more than its closest rival. The partnership comprising Keppel Land, Hongkong Land and Cheung Kong Holdings which is developing the Marina Bay Financial Centre was the second highest bidder at yesterday's tender. It offered about $1.53 billion or $900 psf ppr.
Frasers Centrepoint teamed up with Far East Organization and Japan's Sekisui House to emerge as the third highest bidder, at around $1.43 billion or $844 psf ppr. The other bidders were CapitaLand group ($777 psf ppr), Malaysia's IOI Properties Berhad ($730 psf ppr) and Lippo-unit Overseas Union Enterprise ($362 psf ppr).
In addition to these six offers, URA received a submission from a tenderer that was disqualified - Wee Jong Dit.
A person bearing the same name received the Public Service Medal at the 2002 National Day Awards. He is understood to be a former banker (involved in forex dealing).
Typically, a bidder at a state land tender would be disqualified if he does not fulfil tender conditions, the most important of which is that the submission must be accompanied by a tender deposit (of at least 5 per cent of the bid price).
GuocoLand has been on the lookout for a mega development site in Singapore for years. It was unsuccessful in its bids for the plots that have since been developed into Marina Bay Financial Centre site and Ion Orchard/Or- chard Residences.
BT understands that some overseas parties are keen on teaming up with GuocoLand for the proposed Tanjong Pagar project.
The group's bid was above market expectations; property consultants polled in late July when the site was launched had forecast bids of up to $1.4 billion.
However, Cushman & Wakefield Singapore vice-chairman Donald Han said yesterday that GuocoLand's bid was 'still workable'. 'Singapore Grade A office rents have been recovering nicely and investors' appetite in completed office buildings has also returned. GuocoLand may sell the Tanjong Pagar project's office portion after completion. The group has experience in developing residential and office properties. And its sister company, Thistle Hotels of UK, may get an entry to manage a Singapore hotel,' he added.
CBRE Research executive director Li Hiaw Ho said: 'In order to obtain this top bid of $1,006 psf ppr, the gross development value for the 60 per cent office component is estimated at $2,200-2,300 psf.
'The mandatory 10 per cent of GFA for hotel use would translate into 330-350 rooms with each room estimated at $800,000-900,000. Based on the top bid, condo units at this mega development could possibly transact at $2,400-2,500 psf when ready for launch.

there are lots of Singaporeans that are deemed “bright” in Singapore as they have excelled in all school curricula. More importantly, they think of themselves as bright and when they get to a Western University, they realise that they are not so bright as being bright is more than just recurgitating facts and established principles. This is where Singaporeans lose out in the West as they are good in answering but they are not good in questioning.