Wednesday, December 25, 2013

The Year In Images

January
Responding to questions on the by-election outcome of Saturday January 26, Ng Eng Hen haughtily dismissed the notion that the result is a report card of the ruling party's performance. Their candidate did perform to script: "Before (my wife and I) moved into our house, in our combined bank accounts... we had $11.50".

February
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong once said "People support CPF cuts because there are no protest (sic) outside the Parliament." From his perspective, the guys at Hong Lim green were just having a picnic.

March
Episode 7 of the Series 2 Idhayam Pesugirathu talk show demonstrated what a no holds barred National Conversation is really about.

April
The sex-for-grades trial was not just about a horny law professor. It was an invaluable insight how CPIB Deputy Director Teng Khee Fatt operates: "I stab you once, you die beautifully, legs straight up. But if you insist, I can stab you tens of times, and you die most horrendously."
Caught with records of wrong timings in his interrogation diary, he cavalierly dismissed the discrepancy with, "But this was the timing that was taken down by me during the time."

May
Man of the year Yaacob Ibrahim dismissed the backlash against the proposed news website licensing requirements in monetary terms as "just a banker's guarantee", arguing that no upfront payment is involved.

June
Forget about the alleged profiteering on face masks, what is really important is that one man's view was spoilt. Lee Hsien Loong's Facebook photo of the haze taken at the Istana, commenting: "The city in the distance is barely visible. We are all affected by the haze."

July
There's no CCTV footage or phone camera capture, so we can only speculate how the young life of Dinesh Raman was snuffed out.

August
The Attorney-General's Chambers decided not to proceed  with the contempt of court charges against cartoonist Chew in light of his apology and undertaking, "which he initiated".

September
It was supposed to be his show, so he didn't expect Aung San Suu Kyi to be quoted, "You can't expect everyone to agree with you, that is simply not possible... if you believe that what you are doing is good for the country, then you must be prepared to lose the next elections."

October
Father and son were allegedly barred from entering Sydney's Botanic Gardens because they were not Singaporeans. Irate people phoned 2GB radio talkback host Ben Fordham to complain that "white people" had been "turned away in droves" from the Singapore Day event. But they are welcomed with open arms in Singapore, leh.

November
Within the computing community, the primary meaning of hacker is a complimentary, not pejorative, label for a particularly brilliant programmer or technical expert, like Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux.

December
Enough said.

17 comments:

  1. 1st in. Well done!

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    1. Hopefully I will be around to see the ultimate image.....the whole bunch of MIW serving time in Changi Resort. LOL

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  2. A year that most citizens would rather forget. You have a sense of foreboding that everything is unravelling. You have written about the shit deposited outside but citizens are concerned about the shit inside.

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  3. What a year. It started and ended with a slap on each side of the face. You wonder why his red face. It's due to alcohol, what else.

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  4. December should have two photo . The other being that infamous / improbable SDG 2.60 Nasi Padang and SGD0.50 Bandung diversion by MP Baey .

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  5. Is koh poh koon, not ng eng hen.

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    1. apologies, you were right. NEH did dismiss the result.
      still hungover from feasting.
      merry christmas to you Tattler.

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  6. By the way, he was referring to S$11.50 in their only combined account. But did anybody say anything about individual separate or other proxy accounts, if there are any ?

    Isn't that how politicians usually get away with their lies even if they are hard truths ?

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  7. "... if you believe that what you are doing is good for the country, then you must be prepared to lose the next elections."

    So he must believe that he must do anything, even if it is bad for the country, because he is not prepared to lose the next election. Is he prepared to sell the country away to get elected? What a dimwit for a PM.

    Brain: Do you practice being dim or is it a natural talent?
    Pinky: Oh practice Brain. All day, EVERYDAY!

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    1. Kinda reminds you of this:

      PM Lee in a rally speech at Raffles place, 3 May 2006 just before the General Election:

      “Supposing you have a Parliament with 10, 15 or 20 opposition members out of 80, then instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I will spend all my time, I have to spend all my time thinking of what is the right way to fix them, what’s the best way to buy my own supporters over”.

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    2. “I do not accept that we must straight away ask whether fundamental approaches or the whole way our society is organised needs to be re-thought immediately,” he said. Does this sound like the thinker Lee Hsien Loong claims to be? More like someone who spend too much time on how to fix the opposition.

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  8. one more photo to add

    lhl: pls keep the artificially low rates going for another ten more years. we dunno want house prices to crash until we are done with our AYCE entitlements.

    hp: i was born on a snake year. long live AYCE financial policy for snakes and their brothers-in-claws.

    http://www.
    asianewsnet.net/news-36152.html

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  9. Is he not confirming these facts right before our eyes in the case of those hawker centre & trade fairs scandals in opposition constituencies ?

    When we have a dimwit in charge, how can the rest not be dimwits ?

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  10. As business cost rise higher and higher, business need to rely on foreigners more and more, from cheaper sources of the third world countries, which add pressure to the employers and foreign workers, these could resulting in foreign workers release their frustration somewhere?

    With the world highest salaried ministers, possibly need the world highest indirect taxes to support them or find indirect taxes to support them, their pay is ten times that of the Nordic countries?

    So business got to mitigate and find cheaper foreign workers and make them do more, as all the cost of indirect taxes they can't do much about it, what business can do is pressure the foreign workers to do more with less, as the levies or other indirect taxes increased and the inflation of more people coming in?

    Tourist come is ok, they come to spend and went back?

    If ministers salaries are reduce to that of the Nordic minister pay, we don't need so much indirect taxes and foreigners to support the economy, you can see all the side effect of relying on more and more foreigners? Because of the highest pay in the world, it need to import more new citizens to support their pay?

    Oppositions need to spread the messages early and more, to talk to more new citizens, through door to door like Lee LI Lian in Punggol East Election?

    More need to spread the messages across, everyone should help out to spread the message, don't wait until too late? They need to volunteering reduce their salaries to that of the Nordic, so Singapore don't need to to import so many foreigners, if one day foreigners are the majority.

    What do you think, riots can be as frequently as the little India riot? We should wait until the days, those foreigners from the third world culture, if anything happen they can just go back to their countries, old Singaporean will be the receiving end? Now because of relying too heavily on foreigners to run the economy, more and more of the social ills creeping up, and the environment getting worse?

    More and more oppositions need to co operate, united and reduce their differences, to make the main party a minority party so they can't change laws to suit themselves, Singapore future is at stake, It took many years to build up Singapore, it can be destroy by so serious rioting, SARS or so serious infectious diseases, which causes by overcrowding and overpopulation?

    Singapore no resources but only it is in one of the most busiest place in the world, if any countries cut of their supply to Singapore because of various reasons, what will happen to Singapore, last with less citizens Singapore can cope with it, with more citizens can Singapore cope with it again, Singapore can't take too many chances?

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  11. All the levis, ERP, GST and COV etc are business cost, possibly one of the highest in the world to support the highest ministers salaries of the world, which is ten times that of the Nordic ministers salaries?

    Business can't do much to these fixed costs, like Levis, ERP, GST and COV and other rising cost and inflation? To mitigate those rising fixed costs, they got to look for cheaper and cheaper foreign workers, which could increase the pressure on these foreign workers, as they will pay them lesser and want them to do more?

    So with the frustration building up by the days, those foreign workers could will release their frustrations somewhere someday, if there is a single spark or catalyst, like the recent riot?

    The leaders need to examine the real causes of the riot? More oppositions need in the parliament to reduce the main party to minority, so that they can't change law to suit them? Nordic countries do very well with their models of govt and little social ills, unlike Singapore, which many don't want to married or born babies due to worrying foreigner might take away their jobs. Jobs stability is one of the most important factor in getting married and born children?

    More people need to spread the message to the new citizens, as they don't know much about Singapore histories, which all the glitter might not be the gold and got the shock of their life later as the increasing cost and indirect taxes, as more importing of foreigners need to run the systems and vote for them and to pay the indirect taxes to support them? As 500,000 permanent resident don't want to convert to Singaporean citizenship, they wishes only to make enough and went back to their countries to lower cost?

    A few persons who spend all their CPF after the withdraw, is so pitiful that they got to be use as bogeyman for the rest who had withdraw their CPF and do well in life?

    These few persons who had spent all the CPF, you think they can rely on the govt to support them like the Nordic, of course not they got to go back to work as usual as gardeners, cab drivers, security or cleaners?

    But the sad things is that they were made used as excuses to lock away others CPF for life for the propaganda machines, if people able to withdraw their CPF at 55 as last time for emergency and they can get better dividends, recent survey saw Singapore blue chips give the highest dividends in the world?

    Now they can't withdraw their CPF to improve their own life, and got to maybe use as funding to handouts to attract votes?

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  12. Just came back from Australia tour. My children asked me why they don't use foreign workers for cleaners, construction workers, and maids.

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