Some broken laws in this country that need to be fixed FAST

This thread contains some examples of the many broken laws in Singapore that need to be fixed.

On a side note, in a Straits Times 16 Feb 2012 titled "Judges do justice, not politics", Chief Justice proudly announced that "judges here do not let political considerations influence their decisions" in response to critics who charge that judges here make decisions that tends to favoured the Government. We shall hold him to that statement. Personally Askmelah is not convinced.

Matthew Chua - Does Singapore still have justice or not? (source)

I read with horror on the report that a public figure, albeit a TV personnel, was given 15 months’ probation for clashing with a cab driver.

It was a big pay day for Quan Yifeng’s lawyer and psychiatrist as their successful, virtually insanity plea managed to “con” the judge into offering probation. Mind you, this mentally distressed person was all this while still appearing on TV! So, one of the questions is, why is Mediacorp forcing us to watch a program hosted or guest-starred by a lunatic?

But more importantly, to audiences all over Singapore, did we see a distraught or even slightly mentally unstable Quan on any of the shows that were aired? The answer is a simple NO! So good job, District Judge Low Wee Ping!

Many years ago, I followed the OJ Simpson murder trial in the States. Back then, I proudly told all my friends that such craziness in the court’s decision will never, ever happen in Singapore. Oops, boy did I get it wrong! Quan is but one of the many increasing number of cases that demonstrate our prosecutions’ inability to process or punish the truly guilty!

Some weeks back, there was this lady who crashed her Mercedes into 4 stationary cars! How come you may ask? Because she was totally wasted! Despite her drunken state, she was still able to offer $20,000 bribe to cops to let her off easy. She too hired some big shot lawyers and got a psychiatric report. Her sentence? Jail for 8 weeks. Her sentence is really a joke because she could have killed someone while driving!!

All these examples have clearly shown that the rich and powerful are making a mockery out of our judicial system. They can hire fancy lawyers or psychiatrists and all go for the insanity plea. But, what about those people on the streets like you and me? Sometimes, we can’t even fork out the money to get proper legal advice or counseling, less employ them to fight out long court battles.

I ask myself why is the lady justice blindfolded? It is suppose to show that the same justice is meted out regardless of whether you are rich or poor. But, sorry to sad, the blindfold on our little city-state’s judicial system has been removed and it now only serves to protect the rich!

To me, the thing is simple. To keep crime rate low, we have to harshly punish those who do dare to test our justice system. The more lenient the court sentences, the bolder the criminals become. Whether you are rich or poor, should never be part of this equation.

Maybe it’s time to look at the judges and prosecutors who have dropped the ball and let all of Singapore down! I say let’s revamp our judicial system before we all lose faith with it.

So you want to be a Singapore "Scholar"?

Yes, it comes with big money and prestige, and may be even fast track promotion. But if your Bazi is no good or you step on the wrong toes, you may end up doing miserable things that you do not like and waste your most productive years doing unproductive tasks such as writing papers or becoming a highly paid PA. So at the age of 18, think doubly hard or triply hard before you sign on that dotted lines. There is no free lunch afterall in this world. I have seen some miserable "scholars".

Letter from the family of the late Dr Allan Ooi Source: AsiaOne Mar 31, 2009

We write in response to MINDEF's ST Forum statement on 23 March regarding Cpt (Dr) Allan Ooi Seng Teik, who ended his life on 3 March 2009. Allan was proud of his SAF study award and pursued his studies and housemanship enthusiastically. His 12-year bond was to include two specialisation courses, and that it could be terminated, subject to liquidated damages. The following is an excerpt of his last email: "My job was terrible - no joy, no satisfaction, 10-14 hours a day of nothing. A prison. One of my own forging, perhaps, by signing a contract with the SAF at the age of 18. Youth was not an excuse, yes, but I refused to accept being deceived into believing things about the nature of my employment that were simply untrue. 12 years of bonded service became potentially 15 or 16, became unbreakable. How can a bond be unbreakable? How can it be extended at will by an administration, simply by passing a paper? And how can the people subject to this bond not even question it, but instead sit in silent resentment and ultimate dissatisfaction? I was angry, so angry, which stemmed ultimately from a sense of waste and imprisonment so profound that I had no choice but to leave it entirely. To the people within this system, please change it to better benefit yourselves and future generations, instead of creating a self-perpetuating cycle of, at best, painful obligation, and at worst, utter despair. That was certainly the main cause for my severing of ties." Other speculative reasons have appeared detracting from the real reasons for his drastic action so plaintively explained by Allan himself. We ask for details of Allan's discussions with his superiors and how a contract is subject to policy changes, including prolonging his bond by three years for one six-month specialist course. Importantly, why would a bond be breakable only in "strong, extenuating circumstances" when this was not stated in his contract? What are these? We now know Allan wrote to HQMC Manpower in July 2008 with the intention of breaking his bond. What was the outcome? We feel Allan's concerns can only be addressed effectively via an inquiry by an independent panel with oversight powers. We hope to help bring possible deficiencies to light in order to avert a similar tragedy and pain to other families. Family of the late Cpt (Dr.) Allan Ooi

IT for IT sake? An unhealthy rush to adopt new technologies by schools here

“Without conclusive findings, heightened usage of ICT might not necessarily mean better-quality education for our students … [there is a] a plethora of unreliable information online, instances of plagiarism, and an assortment of distractions – for both teachers and students”.

ICT In Schools: Blind Obsession Or Genuine Necessity?

The recent furor over the River Valley High School to adopt the IPAD2 by requiring all students to buy the IPADs at unsubsidised rate begs the following questions:

• Why there is no coordinated efforts from the MOE on the IT adoption?
• How can a school push a blanket adoption when the benefits are not yet proven?
• Is it right to mandate the adoption of a particular brand rather than brand neutral?
• Is it right to adopt a proprietary technology (iOS) in this case rather than an open system such as Android where competition will drive down prices and encourage innovation?
• Why the set is sold at unsubsidised rate (at a "special" bundle of $7++ for the cheapest model with inclusion of screen protector etc vis-a-vis $668 available in many stores islandwide)
• What assistance has the school give to the students from poor family? What if the family who are poor but not eligible for school assistance? Will it add to the financial burdens of these families?
• Will the students using the IPADs addicted to Facebook and games, other than for school works used? Will the addictions outweigh all the benefits of the IT learnings?

The cost is not a one-time cost, how about cost associated with frequent hardware upgrade, battery and other hardware problems associated with IPADs? (Apple is notorious in nudging their users to upgrade their hardware years after years with their annual refresh of the product lineups! You can bet that the students will ask their parents for an upgrade when their batteries wear off) While some students (Student to parents: Lay off the incredible iPad) are quick to embrace the concept, it pays to think hard from the educators and parents point of views as well. The benefits of using ICT is yet to be proven, history has been laden with some high profile and expensive failures such as IDA's BackPack.NET program (using Windows tablet with IDA "investing" $20m).

As pointed by Guanyingmiao which has written an excellent article on this topic,  "the novelty of the iPad (and ICT in general) will tempt educators to adopt them as the easy way out, under the guise of expressions like “collaborative education”, “interactive, user-based lessons”, “academic-scholastic breakthrough”, “innovative implementation of activities” et cetera. The assumption that technology automatically enhances teaching-learning experiences is extremely fallacious; so unless schools are willing to take more calculated, sound and practical approaches, we must remain wary."

Just because we can afford, it doesn't mean that we have to!

(Updated: according to a RV student I know, he said majority of his classmate have actually placed the orders for the IPAD2. It is kind of surprising as almost every family that I know has at least one IPAD, but on deeper analysis if the IPAD is to be used for school works, it can not be shared, so these students are forced to buy one more just for the school's IT learning. This is over and above the more than $400+ that they already spent on books. Thus it is indeed a heavy burden to students belonging to the lower income families.)

Related articles:

• The River Valley iPad Debacle: Education-Based ICT Too Fast, Too Quickly? 

• IDA-Microsoft BackPack.NET - Paving the Way for the Future of Education 

• Do not dismiss new ways of learning

• Costly tool for school

Some of the most unusual "western" names (work in progress)

Many younger generation of parents like to give their kids an English (or more commonly known as Christian or western) names, irregardless of whether they are Christians or Catholics or not. This phenomenon is especially pronounced in the Chinese community (as one forumer commented: it seems Chinese worldwide are using it.  The Koreans and Japanese don't do it. Are Chinese more susceptible to cultural attack?) and a small minority in the Indian and Malay communities as well. It is a free country and anybody can call whatever names they like for themselves or their children, just that please spare some thoughts for the poor kids who may have to bear some unusual annoyance due to the poor choice of the names by their parents. Some of the ridiculous and famous ones are Monica Chng (touch your backside in Hokkien), Jasmine Gwee (What are you eating?), Michael Tan (egg seller in Cantonese). But the trend is many are outdoing one another by inventing new names by changing a letter or two to make it "uniquee". Some are down right weird or hard to pronounce, here are some examples that I have come across:

Honey,Atomic, Nuclear,Baby, Ezekie, Izael, maximus, visa, Faymond (a play on Raymond)

Some of the weirdest English names that I have come across from the younger generation of mainland Chineses include:

Welcome, Lipton, Summer, winter, spring, German, Lotus

This article is still work in progress as I come across more and more weird names.

Reated links:

• Englishised names? Naming patterns amongst ethnic-Chinese Singaporeans
• Trend of using unique Westernised names reflects insecurity
• Mixed-race baby's name cannot be registered under ICA rules
• No need for a 'uneqqee' name - Lee Wei Ling

Need to clamp down on subtle profiteering

It has been known for years that many companies, private and government linked companies alike, are always quick to attribute the cost to the slightest rises in cost but are mum when the cost recedes and happily profiting the extra profit. While this phenomenon may also be practising elsewhere, but "honesty" and "integrity" have been extolled by our leaders and foreigners alike, we ought to do better than that. Government is also guilty of "closing one eye" and allow such practices to go on for years. Sometime, a warning or subtle nudging will be able to tame such unscrupulous behaviour in the long run.

Why prices stay up when costs go down

Source: The Straits Times  4 Feb 2012

WHILE the media often reports on price rises in essential items and foodstuffs such as rice, wheat and coffee, subsequent falls in the prices of such items are reported less diligently, affecting the country's fight against inflation.

For instance, in 2010, the media rushed to report on the doubling of onion and garlic prices owing to bad weather in China and India.

Housewives hoarded onions and garlic and restaurants raised their dining prices.

And around this time, coffee shops increased the prices for coffee and tea citing a hike in commodity prices.

Today, garlic and onion prices have crashed to prices below those publicised in 2010 because of good weather, and the increased planting brought about by the earlier jump in prices.

Prices for tea and robusta coffee, the kind normally used in our daily heartland cuppa, have fallen by up to 15 per cent.

However, the media has been silent on such drops in prices, and restaurants and coffee shops have not reduced their menu prices despite the lower costs.

It may interest readers to know that cocoa prices had fallen by 50 per cent between March and December last year.

Yet, I doubt if we shall ever see Cadbury's 250g chocolate bar again, although the cocoa price spike was given as a reason for reducing the per bar weight from 250g to 200g, while the price per bar stayed the same.

Rising raw material prices are often cited as the reason for increasing the prices of end-use products. This contributes to a higher rate of inflation in Singapore.

Failing to publicise falling commodity prices is detrimental to consumers' welfare, as they are not kept informed of actual market conditions and prices, and suffer higher household expenses even when the reasons for the price increases have diminished or disappeared.

Reporting on commodity price trends is difficult and speculative. But one-sided reporting of just price increases - without alerting the public when prices drop - will feed into increased expectations of businesses and the acceptance of higher food costs by consumers, to their own detriment, and fuel inflation.

Lim Wei Jan