Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Evil That Men Do

Look who's leaping from flood waters into hot water. Cornered by the tsunami of backlash against the proposed news website licensing requirements, Yaacob Ibrahim dismissed it in monetary terms as "just a banker's guarantee", arguing that no upfront payment is involved. The examples they cite as sites affected - Media Corp, Singapore Press Holding and Yahooo! News Singapore - all have deep pockets, but anybody with an IQ higher than the water logged minister knows that there are lots more individually operated websites that fall easily under the technical qualification of a "significant reach exceeding 50,000". Opposition MP Lina Chiam spoke for us when she asked the obvious, "How is a news website to be defined?"

This is not the first time they have insulted our intelligence, and will not be the last. There's good reason the White Paper made use of a 6.9 million figure, not 7.0. Robert M. Schindler, a professor of marketing at the Rutgers School of Business, explained that consumers “perceive a 9-ending price as a round-number price with a small amount given back.” Researchers have also found that prices ending in .99 communicate “low price” to consumers. Someone else put it this way: "I still think you need to be a moron with an IQ of 40 to miss the difference between 1.99 and 2.00." And it must be capricious of the anonymous White Paper authors to imagine that a 100,000 souls will be missed.

In another pathetic attempt to justify their incompetence - some will say outright deceit - MDA quoted the example of an article on the "Innocence of Muslim" video which they asked Google to block. Well, last we heard, Google still obliges if they think their content policy is violated. But it is doubtful they will  act on the nebulous grounds that MDA is proposing. While Google may do no evil, the same cannot be said of MDA, or Yaacob Ibrahim. Latter should learn from the sixth point of the 10-point corporate philosophy of Google which says, "You can make money without doing evil."

Even assuming that the policy makers had intended good - that they actually have an honest bone in their body, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian or other - they should be mindful of the potential harm they are inflicting on a future generation. Recall Marcus Antonius's speech to the crowd of Romans after Caesar was murdered ("Julius Caesar", Act 3, Scene 2): "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."

29 comments:

  1. Hey, maybe his son intend to evade NS by taking up US citizenship and he would not like such news to be reported online. Can anyone find out?

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  2. What we want to know is why this law was not debated and approved by Parliament?

    Workers Party, co-driver is no use lah if there are many cars used by PAP. If ministers can make laws without Parliament, what is the use of a co-driver?

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    Replies
    1. The fault lies in those daft people who gave the papayas the mandate.There is only very little the watermeleon can do.

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  3. Battleground is now defined and preparation made to inflict mass destruction.

    This is the beginning of a long battle, way beyond 2016.
    Fear not. Truth will prevail.


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  4. 50,000 IP addresses from Singapore may mean only 10,000 people reading the website. If I am not wrong, if I browse a website from my office PC, my home PC, my mobile phone, my iPad, my iPod, each of these will generate a different IP address and the MDA's counting meethods - which have not been disclosed - will count these as 5 IP addresses.

    And who is to say that the MDA will not use some means to use numerous sources to send numerous hits to the sites that they want to regulate (to push the number of hits from IP addresses over 50,000 even if these are not hits from genuine readers? FTs will come in useful for this as they can be paid $2,200 per month just to surf websites, and there are many PCs and devices in the Government for them to use to generate unique IP addresses for the purpose of clocking up hits.

    I fully concur with you. When Man seeks to do evil, there are no bounds to the heinous disgusting things they can come up with. Hitler would have been so proud of the PAP. Hitler tried with novel ways of exterminating Jews. PAP is always coming up with novel ways of exterminating freedom and democracy.

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    1. AH!.. the beauty of Jeremy Betham's prison concept: The Panopticon Prison

      Where prisoners are made to know that they are being watched, yet do not know for certain when and how.

      Perfect tool.. succeeds every time without fail.

      Delete
    2. Anyway they never disclose their method, which means they can just slap u with 50,000 ips accusation without even proving it.

      Delete
    3. The trick is to get it running first and then any dissident site they dislike they just ask you to be licensed & submit the guarantee, isn't it ?

      Again there are so many ways to hit a website to exceed 50,000 unique IP addresses like with the use of proxy addresses.

      Like what the old hero said the main purpose is to hit one of their target's pocket where it hurts just like defamation suits. Just thinking about it already make PAP sucks like hell.

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    4. I think the next step they are going to do is to stop our local advertising dollar going to online companies that are critical of Singapore.

      That is if any on them talk shit about Singapore, then expect our Govt to make it illegal for local companies to advertise with such with online companies much like what they used to do to those International magazines decades ago.

      Our PAP leaders are not known to be spiteful for nothing.

      Delete
    5. Even a harmless parody comic that clearly states "Any resemblance is purely coincident and everything is ficticious here" is no guarantee you will not be called up for sedition!

      Good luck, if anybody wants to trust their track records on this. We are not 149th for no reasons.

      Delete
  5. tsk..tsk..

    MDA ignorance, or might I say, arrogance is so visible.
    Since traditional medium is already licensed, why shouldn't online medium?!
    As if their 149th ranking is not already a worse demonstration of their quality, they want to bring the social media down to their par level?!
    The citizens have been decrying about the monopoly and biased-state of affairs for so long, and instead of liberalizing their medium to the internet standard, they want to drag international sites into the same dirty poo where they are used to swim.

    Yup..it is that feeling that you've heard this crap before.

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    1. We see where they are going with this.

      First they want to hold the individual bloggers accountable to douse down the flames and eject the critical trolls bordering on defamation (which one must have a reasonable skill, knowledge and resources to do that) or face Letters of Demand. Next they want a loosely defined "new sites with 50k readerships" to fork out $50k bond as a form of self-censorship. Guess what's next? Since we don't allow nicknames or anonymous on newspaper, time we have the same veracity; or when we next congregate with 5 or more in google+ or skype conference to discuss political news, it will also be an illegal assembly!!! I And so on and so forth..oppression, as they say, is a habit.

      Laughably, they want our trust by thrusting more regulations on the very citizens they themselves distrust.

      Delete
    2. Yaacob seems to have a thing for 50.

      Once every-50 years-flood
      $50,000 bond for 50,000 visitors.
      Why didn't he just demand the news to be taken down within 50 hours?
      Does his Ministry intend to hire 50cts IB to spy or spam sites who hit that 50,000 unique IPs?
      Is he past 50yrs old, ready to retire perhaps?
      I bet there is a 50/50 chance he has been misquoted or misinterpreted.

      Delete
  6. Granted it is in the maxim of watershed science that each of us is personally responsible for contributing some of the pollutants that run off our streets, car parks and field etc, but as a Water MP who has failed to solve series of ponding problems, and in the aftermath of the watershed GE2011, I really doubt he will understand what tsunami means come 2016 if the Minister or MDA continues to impose their draconian tactics to repress and chill the voices of the growing interconnected citizens.

    Damnation will be the word he's looking at.

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  7. the real educated man, the big man, the man who truly wants to learn and improve, looks at criticism as feedback, and a way to improve himself and his suggestions, as steps to climb up.

    the small man, the small-minded guy, the one who lives perpetually in fear, sees criticism as only a way to bring him down. and if he is arrogant, he believes that like God, he is never wrong...

    the PAP may have lots of people with A's filling leadership positions, but all they have are academic grades. true leadership requires a lot more.

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    Replies
    1. Big man can forgive and forget. Small man cannot forgive, are vindictive, will destroy those who cross them, even to the extent of taking out on their families.

      Who is supposed to be looked upon as a big man after all these decades? You guess.

      Delete
    2. MDA: No clampdown on Internet freedom - Says offending website's owner could be fined up to $200,000 and/or imprisoned up to 3years No wonder they dont want too many Singaporeans to get degree now. Better that they remain dumb and daft to see how flawed that logic is.

      Delete
  8. //../they should be mindful of the potential harm they are inflicting on a future generation.//

    Supporters of such regulation will say it is on that premise, that they want to ensure our future children receive "Safe" news as we are not always there to guide them. Gee, they might as well unsubscribe their cable channels, unplug internet or ipad connection, no FB or chat rooms with friends/strangers, stay home all the time, and oh yes, don't forget to tell them to keep safe under their blankets at all time.

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  9. And come to think about it, they even have the guts to do it in the midst of the National Con.

    To hell with PAP.

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  10. MDA should change name to MAD.

    Which part of media are they developing?
    More like they are busy developing Authority instead.

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  11. Suka suka they just slap us with these kind of rules, each time eroding our basic fundamental right to freedom of speech.

    PAP is a bully worst than that IT boss.

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  12. Hope Marissa Mayers of Yahoo Inc will not take this sitting down.
    IF they give in, it will pave way to the rest of the news-sites in no time, and definitely by 2016.

    "Next year, the Broadcast Act will also be amended to cover overseas sites."

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  13. Now you know why I never bothered with NatCON.
    They talk.
    We listen.
    What's new?

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  14. PAP! PAP! PAP!5/30/2013 6:23 PM

    If you cant beat them, join them!

    Be an elite! Be a PA associate!

    There you will get access to all sites with impunity... imagine! all of us join as PAP members!!
    Wah!.. heaven & earth as one!!

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  15. Is there an occasional paper written up for this Regulation by MDA?

    Otherwise, abolish this idiotic quangocracy. What are they paid for to simply just come up with more legislations from their backside with no papers, public consultation or basis?

    As for attempted internet censorship on whatever grounds, the words of John Gilmore's dictum prevail: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

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  16. The man is practically begging to be stopped. He probably wants out but cannot leave.

    “Help me please, before I do it again. Tolong! Tolong!!

    Let's give the man a hand, boys and girls!

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  17. Recall 2005 when the dengue epidemic that claimed 13 lives had happened under his watch at NEA. It was a case of the evil that man don't do (enough).

    This time, it may just happen under the watch of Vivian Bala. 8000 cases and the first casualty, and we have hardly just started with peak season.

    But at least Yaacob is not guilty of producing really awful and uncool tv commercial. Both MDA rap & the Wally Water are master works by VB's Ministry. Can't wait to see Meanest Mosquito ad ever to produce.

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  18. Yacob's son has dual nationality? Will he post an NS bond? Maybe scratch that la, his papa's one week pay for his freedom, worth every cent! Anyway money will go to jackass neo to make more ah boys to men Part n propaganda for the MDA.

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    1. we need need worry for these WHITE HORSES ..

      their talents will not be wasted

      ... delivering baby can also be a part of ns; according to someone (cUnt remember his name)

      ... "soil expert" also can ...

      Delete