The Sunday Times front page splash was about a 6 year old who won an Encouragement Award in the defence science section of this year's Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors' Award. Her "cooling umbrella" was meant for soldiers to use in hot weather conditions, so "they can keep up a level of high performance". So, besides carrying the backpack, it looks like the maid will have to tote an umbrella into battle as well.
Maybe the adults didn't want to dampen her spirits by pointing out that the combination of the latent heat of vaporisation of water and the relative humidity in our Singapore clime would defeat her system of evaporative cooling through perforated straws which lined her umbrella. They teach Science in kindergarten, don't they? Someone once tried to market a water spray that claimed to cool the insides of a car left in the summer sun in Perth, where windows have actually popped out due to the intense pressure built up by the heat. It quickly lowers the temperature by about 10 degrees, in a place where it can be 44 degrees in the shade, and average humidity at 40 percent. It didn't sell too well.
Jointly organised by the Tan Kah Kee Foundation, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, and the Defence Science and Technology Agency, with the support of Science Centre Singapore, the award event couldn't be a joke, right? The keynote address was delivered by Su Guaning, president of NTU, another serious sounding organisation. But the last paragraph of the write-up has this sneak preview of what's to come. "I have already thought of a lot of inventions," the acclaimed genius volunteered, "Like a circle which, when you look through it, will let you know whether someone is a good or bad person." Just the thing for those tea parties to vet potential members of parliament.
But you stop laughing when you read that a 23 year old man had two good teeth extracted by mistake in May 2007. Dr Debbie Hong, 30, of the Singapore Dental Centre, must have been on auto-pilot, following blindly the instruction of a wrong referral slip inserted in the wrong patient file. She probably didn't even notice it was a human being seated in the dentist chair, and there was nothing wrong with his upper left first premolar and lower left second premolar. The May 2011 statement from the SDC read, "The disciplinary committee was of the opinion that the wrong extraction of the patient's two teeth was a serious matter which could have been avoided." Why are adults so dumb?
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Solving The Housing Problem
If Mah Bow Tan knew it was so easy to solve the housing problems, he would have preached the same message Khaw Boon Wan delivered to avoid the ignominious spectacle of being booted out by the electorate. Build 25,000 instead of 22,000 new HDB flats, provide 45,000 rental flats for those who can't afford to pay the outlandish prices.
Addressing the Sembawang GRC Youth Executive Committee, Khaw rattled off a series of statistics:
What Khaw did not address was the affordability of new purchase flats, and whether they will still be priced at 30 year repayment levels. The market is already bracing for the price softening impact of the record 25,000 new flats to be built this year. Khaw had simply asked HDB to build "ahead of order", a departure from Mah's instruction to call for construction tender only if orders have been received for at least 70 percent of the units launched.
Even the alternative political parties were treading carefully on this issue at the elections. At stake is the one million existing HDB flat owners, most of whom have been fleeced by the mark-to-market pricing policy. Those who paid $300,000++ for a flat would hate to find out that it's worth only $200,000, the difference being what The Valuer posted to the reserves. Maybe they aren't that greedy, but the truth can only be told if Khaw opens up the HDB books for transparent accounting. Like finally telling us the $8 bill for the heart bypass was closer to $25,000.
Khaw also told the 230 youths who attended the dialogue session that stiff competition posed by foreigners is a reality youths entering the workforce today have to face in a globalised world. The reality is that while foreigners are allowed to displace us from affordable housing units, university places and standing room on trains and buses, the cabinet is immune from the forces of globalisation. Hilary Clinton, or her husband, would more than welcome an opportunity to earn $3.8 million for political office.
Addressing the Sembawang GRC Youth Executive Committee, Khaw rattled off a series of statistics:
- 45,000 HDB rental flats, including one-room ($26/month) and two-room ($275/month)
- 5,000 new rental flats by next year
- 8 months waiting time for a rental flat (21 months in 2008)
- $1,500 montly income ceiling for applicant households
What Khaw did not address was the affordability of new purchase flats, and whether they will still be priced at 30 year repayment levels. The market is already bracing for the price softening impact of the record 25,000 new flats to be built this year. Khaw had simply asked HDB to build "ahead of order", a departure from Mah's instruction to call for construction tender only if orders have been received for at least 70 percent of the units launched.
Even the alternative political parties were treading carefully on this issue at the elections. At stake is the one million existing HDB flat owners, most of whom have been fleeced by the mark-to-market pricing policy. Those who paid $300,000++ for a flat would hate to find out that it's worth only $200,000, the difference being what The Valuer posted to the reserves. Maybe they aren't that greedy, but the truth can only be told if Khaw opens up the HDB books for transparent accounting. Like finally telling us the $8 bill for the heart bypass was closer to $25,000.
Khaw also told the 230 youths who attended the dialogue session that stiff competition posed by foreigners is a reality youths entering the workforce today have to face in a globalised world. The reality is that while foreigners are allowed to displace us from affordable housing units, university places and standing room on trains and buses, the cabinet is immune from the forces of globalisation. Hilary Clinton, or her husband, would more than welcome an opportunity to earn $3.8 million for political office.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
OooOooooOooh I've apologized
The social network is working out to be anathema to the PAP stewards. Instead of engaging the people, they are outraging the citizens at warp speed.
Speed was not invented by this generation's technophiles, wrote Rosenberg and Feldam in their book, "No Time To Think, The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle." The public's right to know has been supplanted by the public's right to know everything, however fanciful and even erroneous, as fast as technology allows. Unfortunately for some parties, the fancy and erroneous stuff seem to be self generated.
Lim Wee Kiak kicked it off with his infamous remark reported by Lianhe Wanbao on 23 May, that a $500k paycheck would be beneath the dignity of the Minister of Information, Communication and Arts.
His first attempt at spin control was to claim that it was a joke, which the reporter failed to grasp. Recall Goh Chok Chong tried similar line with the trauma posting of his own gaffe.
3 hours later, Lim blames the reporter for quoting him out of context "when they do not report the whole thing". He stated his "whole thing" on individuals who serve should not do so because of pay and perks, adding, "On the other hand, they do have families and dependents and need to consider for their retirement, etc." Talk about pouring oil on a smoldering fire.
The massive outcry from cyberspace must have been a rude reminder for Lim - if you can't stand the flames, better get out of the kitchen pronto. And quickly write a "clarification" note on his Facebook on 27 May:
No apology was made to the reporter accused of lacking a sense of humour and misquoting him out of context. Let's hope that this doesn't mean the reporter has been hastily sacked.
But apologies seem to come cheap these days, and if we are to believe these words from the 2006 elections, the day of reckoning is yet to come.
"You can't just go and say - OooOooooOooh I've apologized let's move on. Can you commit a dishonorable - maybe even one which is against the law - an illegal act, and say 'let's move on, because I've apologized?' You may move on, hah, but you're going to move on out of politics in time."
Speed was not invented by this generation's technophiles, wrote Rosenberg and Feldam in their book, "No Time To Think, The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle." The public's right to know has been supplanted by the public's right to know everything, however fanciful and even erroneous, as fast as technology allows. Unfortunately for some parties, the fancy and erroneous stuff seem to be self generated.
 |
| Price Of Dignity |
His first attempt at spin control was to claim that it was a joke, which the reporter failed to grasp. Recall Goh Chok Chong tried similar line with the trauma posting of his own gaffe.
3 hours later, Lim blames the reporter for quoting him out of context "when they do not report the whole thing". He stated his "whole thing" on individuals who serve should not do so because of pay and perks, adding, "On the other hand, they do have families and dependents and need to consider for their retirement, etc." Talk about pouring oil on a smoldering fire.
The massive outcry from cyberspace must have been a rude reminder for Lim - if you can't stand the flames, better get out of the kitchen pronto. And quickly write a "clarification" note on his Facebook on 27 May:
"On further reflection, I agree that the example I quoted a MICA minister meeting the heads of telcos and saying that there may be some loss of face if the minister's salary is low is inappropriate and incorrect. I withdraw those remarks and apologise for making them."
No apology was made to the reporter accused of lacking a sense of humour and misquoting him out of context. Let's hope that this doesn't mean the reporter has been hastily sacked.
But apologies seem to come cheap these days, and if we are to believe these words from the 2006 elections, the day of reckoning is yet to come.
"You can't just go and say - OooOooooOooh I've apologized let's move on. Can you commit a dishonorable - maybe even one which is against the law - an illegal act, and say 'let's move on, because I've apologized?' You may move on, hah, but you're going to move on out of politics in time."
 |
| OooOooooOooh I've apologized |
Friday, May 27, 2011
Lessons From The Private Sector
It all sounds too much like common sense, when Mak says that if you pay very well, you also risk attracting the wrong people who are motivated purely by money. One example of such motivation is best illustrated by what Dr Lim Wee Kiak, PAP MP for Nee Soon GRC, told Lianhe Wanbao: “If the annual salary of the Minister of Information, Communication and Arts is only $500,000, it may pose some problems when he discuss policies with media CEOs who earn millions of dollars because they need not listen to the minister’s ideas and proposals, hence a reasonable payout will help to maintain a bit of dignity.” It sounds better in the original Chinese:
“如果新闻、通讯及艺术部长年薪只有50万，当他和身价数百万的电讯公司总裁开会商讨政策问题时，可能面对一些困难。因为总裁们可能认为没有必要听取部长的意见与建议，因此合理的薪酬将有助于维持一点尊严。”
Mak adds that people who are attracted to politics because of the money (or power) might still want to use their positions for their own benefit because for some, it is never enough. Considering that Lim Wee Kiat is one of the newbies who sneaked into parliament via the GRC route, one only hopes that his monetary concept of dignity is not too virulent among the PAP ranks. But then again, didn't the SAF army generals once tried to justify being driven around in Mercedes cars "so that the men will look up to them?"
The professor says he is not concerned about high pay, and is outraged only by someone who makes money in an illegal or unethical manner, in that the compensation is not related to appropriate measures of performance , or the pay determined is through a contaminated process. By his measures, namely average wage growth, Gini coefficient, average expressway speeds, admission rates of Singaporeans into local universities, percentage of low income families owning HDB flats, our ministers have got away with murder. And if they still persist in the contaminated formulation of drawing private sector pay, to paraphrase the good professor, they risk receiving an unexpected performance appraisal from the electorate again. George Yeo was just the first to face the music.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Questions For The Education Minister
In last year's Chemistry paper for the A levels, there was one question that was out of syllabus. However, one school did provide the required text material for its own students, and the raw score was adjusted upwards for the whole 2010 batch of students to address the anomaly. Some "B" grade students happily earned an "A" score, thanks to the "upgrading" exercise. Not all "A"s are created equal.
The incongruity happened because, for reasons best known to the Mandarins at MOE, junior colleges do not use textbooks. Instead, teachers produce notes which are culled from the recommended textbooks included in MOE's official syllabus for each subject. Although the same list of recommended books are used by the teachers to prepare the study notes, the students end up with study material content that depend on the varying industry and competence of the relevant subject teachers. Teachers are not textbook writers. Despite the differing sets of input material, all students sit for a common test paper to evaluate their scholastic output.
One teacher acknowledged and recognised the inequality of the system, but could offer no explanation. She had her own frustrations with the top-down dictates from MOE. "Do you know we are not supposed to teach Kirchhoff's Law?" she volunteered, referring to the most fundamental and important rules in electronics. If Mr Kirchhoff fell out of favour with the powers that be, perhaps one day Issac Newton will also face the same fate. Maybe our schools will soon explain away all physical phenomena as acts of god. That would be so convenient for the Minister for Floods.
Although better recognised for his experience at MAS, Heng was supposed to have spent time at the Education Ministry, the esteemed halls of which have been paced by many high flying scholars. Time will tell if he is the right man for the job. One thing's for sure, it has to be better than tasking Tharman Shanmugaratnam to spearhead the learning of Mandarin, as he was once assigned.
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