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| Nothing but the truth? |
Flashback to May 2011, the last general election. We were testing the low light capability of a friend's new digital SLR, and wanted to check how efficient the built-in denoising algorithm was. PAP rallies are seldom well attended, despite the bussed-in supporters and free packet meals thrown in for good measure, Sure enough, the Clementi crowd was thin enough for us to get close to the stage for some shots. At any opposition party rally, one would have to turn up a couple of hours early to get a similar vantage point.
While fiddling with the ISO and white balance settings, we heard the speaker say that when the YOG was facing a cost over-run, he had asked the prime minister for more money. Vivian Balakrishnan said he asked for a revised budget of $387 million, and was told not to spend a cent more. Something clicked, and it was not the camera. Wait a minute, wasn't the final cost reported in parliament as $387 million, down to the same 3 digit accuracy? It was an atrocious lie, and not a very good one at that. There were at least 20 "professional journalists" parked right in front of the stage, beyond the barricades that kept out the rest of us mere mortals. It was weird not a single word of the strange coincidence was mentioned in print in the mainstream media.
Following the foot steps of the MDA, now NEA is clearly mired in politicisation. Needless to say, the 10 websites targeted for the new licensing scheme, save Yahoo! News, are all members of the same political club, all swinging for the same agenda. Maybe that's why they feel safe to let the compulsive liar forage into the food centre cleaning row. Let the scoundrel wallow in the mud, but please keep our hard working hawkers out of the fray.
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Note that this is the second time that the WP has beeen accused of arrogance; the first from Khaw Boon Wan in Parliament(the ex-Malaysian, of all persons) beating his chest proclaiming his patrtiotism. The irony in this latest blast cannot escape us - the same Minister whose arrogance in his response to Dr. Lily Neo and his defence of the indefensible overblown YOG budget brought howls of protests. Can these brilliant Ministers stop using the overwrought word in future?
ReplyDeleteHow come NEA can make such a mistake in their e-mail that the said scaffoding is to be provided by the said hawker's association ?
ReplyDeleteOr was it a deliberate mistake to fix the Aljunied Town Council again like what our PM admitted he will need to do if the opposition seats increases ?
Looks like the million dollars pay he demanded is inclusive of spending time thinking about how to fix the opposition, no ?
and this is just the NEA....
ReplyDeletein the last few days, a couple of blogs listed the number of BGs and other SAF chiefs who are heading various govt agencies/stat boards.
consider what could happen if the PAP lost an election.
would these same SAF fellows take orders from the new boss? would thy cooperate with the new boss? or would they create havoc, like NEA is now doing?
is this what kuan yew meant when he said that in the case of a freak election, the army would take over? is this govt preparing for such an event?
do we have too many ex-army chieftains running too many aspects of our life? how is it that those in the commercial sector are not being picked as heads?
And so the "confuse and distract the sheeple with bullshit" continues. Someone obviously decided that all the sex-on-parade kangaroo courts for out-of-luck colleagues and disobedient professors have not been distraction enough. Hence the heavy bazooka of talented civil "masters" has been deployed to create some tricky little emails to bate unsuspecting opposition. With the combined intellect of ivy-league trained scholars dangled with a million dollar year-end bonus, it's beyond doubt they will find a crafty little pen-pusher in the admin service (perhaps also porshe-driving and living in a $10m condo) who will succeed in trapping the opposition. And who knows whether they have planted a mole among the so-called hardworking hawkers, a-la Anwar "sotongmee" scandal part two to stir up some shit there too? Pity the taxpayers who have to foot the million dollar salaries for such low-life civil servants and ministers. As always, in the civil service of today, competence take backseat to reading the lips of your ministers. If you cannot reduce dengue cases, cannot solve ponding, cannot stop the rails from cracking, cannot raise productivity, cannot stop some FT managers from hiring their own kinds, or even stay within 100% of an over-padded budget for a sports meet for school boys, then just butter the behind of the one just above you. Thats how you rise in that low-life jungle of the feckless.
ReplyDeleteright on.
Deleteditto for @5.22pm
Yes, that's why they no longer tell us the budget for the upcoming SEA games. Hush hush in case Chan Chun Seng burst the budget like Vivian.
DeleteThey play the same mirage with numbers like 6.9 million instead of 7.0 million, and 9 sycophant websites plus 1 anti-establishment site to give the impression of fair play. But we know these numbers will balloon upwards at their pleasure, like how the YOG budget exploded to four times the original forecast, with nary a blink. They who hold the gold make the rules - might makes right.
ReplyDeleteAdin Ballou (1803–1890): "But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. 'Might makes right,' and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies."
PAP SUCKS!
ReplyDeleteYah; now they try brainwashing our young thru PCF cyber wellness course. Sad.
ReplyDeleteVivien was just curry flavouring his Party Chief the elderly Cow who was the First to do a personal attack on Sylvia Lim. Maybe Vivien feels that the Cow could end up in the slaughter house in the next General Election. He himself is afraid of being abandon by PAP, so he tries his best to make the old Cow happy to stay around for next GE. Life of a minister is so wonderful that he probably does not want to be a medical professional anymore.
ReplyDeleteFirst HDB questioned about the missing $1m in Aljunied TC in a politically motivated charge. Then MDA with that stupid internet web ruling and now NEA's accusation and playing nice for once siding with the hawkers.
ReplyDeleteDon't these civil servants know where their allegiance lies and who's paying their wages??
It is quite obvious a case of miscommunication by the NEA officer who is in charged of coordinating the spring cleaning. But the PAP choose to blow up this matter and make a mountain out of a molehill by harping on it day in day out on the front page of our 149th ranked toilet papers. I find it absurd for NEA to deny their mistake and trying to twist their way out by saying that the scaffold in question refers to the one used for canvas cover. Why would the town council care about how the hawkers going to erect their canvas cover, by means of ladder or scaffolds or whatever. Quite clear to me that the scaffold in question relates to the one used for cleaning purpose. NEA and Vivian should stop playing politics and admit their own mistakes. Be honest and apologise.
ReplyDeleteWhich version would I reject?
ReplyDeleteI would probably reject one who rejected the request for an increase of S$1/day for the needy when the issue of such request was raised in the Parliament by one lady MP some years ago...
What a shame!
What more do you want?
Delete900, 9,000 or 90,000 cases of dengue fever?
Heard that Tote Board has cash reserves in billions. WTF, can anyoneexplain why Tote Board need such a huge reserves? Are the monies collected supposed to channel to charities? Lucky Lena Chiam brought up the case or else it would be another dark hole kept locked somewhere.
DeleteAfter TRE expose, is quite obvious who were the ones who started the entire korean drama isn't it? IF hawkers are ALL honest, then Vivian Bala must also be a liar is it? Or he has lost touch of his skills in optical illusions, just seeing what he wants others to see? Can we the people demand MDA to pay us $50,000 performance bond for reading the 'wrong' things on shit times?
ReplyDeleteCome on, ST, please report this fully so that we can earn the trust of the Institution like NEA and believe that they truly are non-partisan body serving their people? I really like them to earn their respect from me, not just given blindly like as if there is some kind of constitutional rights automatically granted to them.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=506728426047144&set=a.181409655245691.55639.181333458586644&type=1&theater
Bala, why the change of CEO at NEA ? Mr Ronnie Tay, ex Chief of Navy no less, taking over from Mr Andrew Tan come July 1st. The dengue outbreak getting too hot for Andrew to handle? We only got 5.4 million people now, wait till we get 6.9 million, what then? SARS, H7N9, Chickamauga, Foot and Mouth, etc, are just waiting to pounce on this overcrowded red dot. Stop trying to find ways to fix the opposition, like your boss. Fix the mozzies.
ReplyDelete