The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 23 trips to carry that many people.
An earlier news released by Yahoo! Newsroom this evening reported an accident along a particular Singapore road, where one driver was killed after a bus hit his stationary car. My focus wasn’t really on the deceased or the tragic end to a life. Well, surely, my heartfelt and sincere condolences go out to his family. But what really captured my attention was the response from the bus company’s corporate communications department.
Extracting from the news report, “the operator is in touch with the car’s passenger to find out how she is and to see how they can render assistance. They are also trying to get in touch with the family of the driver and are assisting the police with their investigations. She went on to say that the company is very sorry that this has happened, and that their immediate focus is on helping the injured”.
What really puzzled me is how such politically correct response is used in almost all catastrophes, and that it appears a standard script out of a textbook. Is it really that easy to be a corporate communications manager? I sure can be one myself! Of course, you don’t really hear much from them after that, except to apologize again, or to offer compensation to the family of the unfortunate soul. Come to think of it, what else can you really do anyway?
Assuming you’re a pregnant lady, stays in Boon Lay, and takes the train to work in Woodlands daily. The sensible thing would be to alight at Jurong East interchange and transfer to the north-bound train right? So say you boarded the train at Boon Lay station, and knowing that you only have three stops before alighting, would you have accepted the reserved seat from someone?
If you do accept and get up in about seven minutes, would you feel that it’s too much? I mean, even though you’re pregnant, you couldn’t stand for seven minutes? Most people I came across in such situation would politely decline the offer, leaving the one who offered the seat in a loss.
On the other hand, if you decline gracefully, what about the passengers who would board the train at Lakeside or Chinese Garden? Would they present their killer stare at those occupying the reserved seats and curse their soul for not giving up to the needy? If you are the seated one, how would you react?
It seems to me there is no right or wrong to this, but it also appears that either way, there are bound to have rooms for misunderstanding or misinterpretation of intentions. Hard to play good guy nowadays huh?
Reserved Seating on the MRT train
The recent announcement by Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew to reduce the quota for new cars come 2012 had sparked both online and offline debates. Comments such as the restriction in quota favoring only the rich, to the penalization of multiple car owners surfaced. These comments seem to be divided, with different people voicing in favor of the new plan or otherwise.
Let’s put it this way. Owning a car in Singapore is already by itself a heavy burden. What could cost more than $100,000 in Singapore would probably cost only a third of that in some countries. Geographically, Singapore is really too small an island to accommodate a large number of private cars. Imagine if a Japanese sedan costs only $20,000 here in this tiny city-state. There’s gonna be a traffic jam even in the most remote part of the island! So yes, I would’ve agreed with the Government’s decision to limit the car population, as well as to ensure that the cost of owning a car is high enough.
Now, what about owning multiple cars per person? Yes, please raise their COE and road tax! Even though someone commented that owning multiple cars would not lead to congestion, this measure will allow more Singaporeans to fulfill their aspiration to own a private car of their own. But please don’t restrict this to household though, as we all know that more than one family could be living under the same roof. Just my five-cent worth.
The 2011 Presidential Election officially ended early this morning after a recount was conducted for both Dr Tony Tan and Dr Tan Cheng Bock, with the former emerging victorious as the 7th President of the Republic of Singapore (3rd Elected President). He will be sworn in on 1st of September, taking over the highest office from incumbent SR Nathan.
I don’t mind telling you, I voted for Tan Jee Say, and had also successfully persuaded my mum to vote for him. She’s someone who had no idea who to vote for, so I guess that helped in a small way during the persuasion process.
My humble opinion is such that Tan Kin Lian did not appeal to voters during his campaign. For one, he’s not an intellect and wasn’t articulate. His presence in Singapore was also hardly conspicuous, resulting in little or no knowledge of who he is. Nine days were just not enough for Singaporeans to convince themselves he can do the job. The three opponents are just too prominent for Tan Kin Lian.
Tan Jee Say, on the other hand, has the support of the opposition. Even though he garnered only 25% of the votes, I think he has done well in this campaign. His prominence only came in during the General Election in May this year, and similar to Tan Kin Lian, his name was just not as house-held as the two leading candidates. Baby-boomers and the conservative population probably did not vote for him.
Dr Tan Cheng Bock has an overwhelming support from the Westerners, and that helped propelled his vote-count up north. However, because of the resistance from the Tan Jee Say and Dr Tony Tan’s camp, he did not manage to convince the other parts of Singapore to put their faith in him. From the campaign itself, I would’ve placed Dr Tan Cheng Bock in between the pro-government and the opposition sides.
The victor, Dr Tony Tan, obviously had the support of the government and the pro-PAP camp. On top of that, his credentials and experience in the government gave him the edge over the rest. At the very least, those who were clueless or careless as to who to vote for would probably put their cross on the candidate they know – Dr Tony Tan.
Nevertheless, the result spoke for itself. Dr Tony Tan did not win by a convincing margin, and was definitely not the majority’s choice. I dare say that his win was based solely on the pro-PAP camp, as well as the clueless, the I-don’t-care and the I-don’t-want-radical-changes camp.
I read with disbelief the recent news of the Thai girl Nitcharee Peneakchanasak‘s family suing SMRT Corporation for S$3.4 million, being the cost that the family would incur for 20 pairs of prosthetic legs throughout her life. This is of course, assuming she lives to at least 75 years old.
For a start, it’s still a mystery how she fell onto the MRT tracks during the day of the accident. Her father was also adamant that Nitcharee was fully conscious on that ill-fated day, and that the platform was very crowded. Could someone had accidentally bumped into her and caused her to slip and fall? If so, how is SMRT responsible in any way? True, the plan to erect safety doors on all above-ground stations are underway, but then again, wasn’t this incident a mere accident, and in no way SMRT’s fault? I mean, if someone were to jump from a flat and land on a passerby (by the way, this really happened), causing both death, should the innocent passerby’s family sue HDB?
In my humble opinion, SMRT is in no way to be blamed for this case, and with an already generous donation of over S$400,000 from the public to the unfortunate teenager, and a further S$15,000 goodwill gesture from SMRT, the family should be more than grateful than to even think of suing the organization. Verdict: No Case!
With closure of the General Election 2011, it also marked a new milestone for both the ruling party and the opposition. This was also by far the most interesting and hard-fought elections in Singapore’s history.
To summarize, the PAP won more than two-third of the parliamentary seats, and with this, will continue to rule the country for at least the next five years. Of course, they also experienced one of the most major setback by losing the Aljunied ward to the Workers’ Party, led by their Secretary-General Low Thia Kiang. The loss will see the departure of the current Foreign Minister BG George Yeo and the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Mdm Lim Hwee Hua. Potential Speaker of Parliament, Zainul Abidin Rasheed, is also out of the parliament.
In my humble opinion, even though the PAP has won yet again, their mandate of just 60.1% isn’t gonna bring them very far if they were to continue governing the way they were doing for the past five years. Their votes have declined, and this simple meant more people voted for the opposition parties. It’s high time PAP re-evaluate the way they implement policies, and the way such policies are being communicated to the citizens.
I guess the majority of voters are still the conservative lots, with a number of GRCs/SMCs consisting of senior citizens and the more matured, who want a stable government and less “trouble”. I am also pretty sure that “your vote is secret” still remains an uncertainty in many people’s mind. But, in ten years’ time, when more of the current senior citizens have passed, it will be the real test for the PAP should they continue to govern Singapore the way they do now. The emergence of Gen-Y voters will surely set a different tone in future elections.
Congratulations to Low Thia Kiang and his team in Aljunied for securing the first ever GRC win for an opposition party, and Workers’ Party’s continued win in Hougang SMC. It’s goodbye for now to the longest serving opposition party MP, Mr Chiam See Tong, Foreign Minister BG George Yeo, and Minister in the PMO, Mdm Lim Hwee Hua.
With the upcoming General Elections (GE) in Singapore, everyone seems to be hyped up and more than ready to vote for the party that they would like to see represent their constituency. Nomination Day is set as 27 April, and Polling Day on 7 May 2011. It looks like the GE this round will see fierce competition from both the ruling party and the oppositions.
Many wondered how the results will eventually be. Will the ruling party continues to dominate Parliament? Will they be able to retain all the seats but two? A lot of people probably will think otherwise, as the GE back in 2006 saw almost no competition from the oppositions, and thereby relinquishing the seats to the ruling party. It’s different this time round! The oppositions are set to field in some serious contests against the ruling party, and to make matter more complicated, the announcement of several veteran politicians retiring from the ruling party.
So, with all the noises and displeasure voiced by netizens against the ruling party, the retirement of veteran politicians, and the emergence of what looks like a fiercer opposition, I believe that the GE this round would be a great show to catch!
Capital punishment is a legal form of punishment in Singapore. The city-state had the highest per-capita execution rate in the world between 1994 and 1999, estimated by the United Nations to be 13.57 executions per one million population during that period. So is the death penalty necessary for the various felonies?
Well, if you were to ask me, I would say that capital punishment should be retained and upheld, especially for grave felonies such as murder or any other forms of acts with the gross intent to murder. However, for offences such as drug trafficking, I still think that the death penalty by hanging is a little too much. Perhaps they should consider life imprisonment instead.
There have been so many cases of foreigners being given the most serious form of punishment, and human rights groups all over the world condemned Singapore for our legal system. Time to really think through about this, and revise the judicial system and implement laws that are both just and humane.
According to the Vice Principal of the primary school in question, “Jigaree” is an imaginary alien character in children’s literature. A “big book” entitled “The Jigaree” will be read together in class with the P1 pupils.
The word “Jigaree” is included in the recommended Spelling list of the MOE Teaching Guide (STELLAR) for teachers. It has been included in the Spelling list to train pupils the understanding of “letter-sound” relationships as well as to facilitate use of the word in related writing activities following the shared reading.
Well, make some sense, but to tell you the truth, I don’t really think that the word should be included in the Spelling list right from the beginning, especially when it’s not even a word you can find in the English dictionary. At least that’s how I feel. Hahaha…!
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