Lost in Singapore?
It had to happen. After 14 years of hashing in Singapore, I finally could not find my way out of the forest!
Yesterday on the Seletar HHH run, the trail as set by the hares, went from the Venus Drive carpark, through the forest and into the catchment area - once we got to the road leading up to the water storage tanks.
The hares warned that the run is through old trails that have become overgrown. But, again, we are hashmen. Nothing like this intimidates us.
As the run proceeded (more of a walk really), it was getting to be rather difficult with the overflowing growth of thorny undergrowth. I was with Prime Prick and was later joined by Deep Hole. The sweep, Brown Eye, arrived and went past us! Instead of doing the sweeping, he just scooted off into the shiggy.
We continued. It is amazing that even though Singapore is one degree north of the equator, at this time of the year, there is a noticable shortening of daylight with the sunset happening at least 10-20 minutes earlier. By 7pm we were pretty much groping in the dark - the thick canopy and the thorny obstacles were of no help and constant reminders of needing to be extra careful.
To their credit, the hares (Up Yours, Three KG and Pantat Bersih) did mark the trail well - the flour on the tree trunks were luminiscent (I wonder why that is so), and there were also luminiscent leaves on the forest floor - perhaps this is because of the leaves being stomped on. Gotta find out why they glow, albeit dimly.
We did push through inspite of the difficulties and reached a last point where we could not see any more trail markings. Thankfully, of the three of us, I was most able to spot the markings and sorta lead the way. We reached one spot and that was about the last marking we could see - on the left was the water's edge (from the reservoir), ahead there were no markings and to the right it was upslope, again with no markings.
As any true hashman, the next most obvious path to check would be to the left. I ventured out and started walking into the water, only to realize that the water was getting deeper than the calf. No, I ain't going there - not in the dark.
We figured that there is nothing else we can do and as any experienced hashman would, we stayed put on the last spot and on trail/paper. Let's just sit down and wait for the hares to come out looking for us.
I reckon it must have been about 7:30 - 7:45 then. The wonderful watch I have has a glowing keypad, but no light to see the time! Damn Casio - for 20 cents you could have put in a bulb/LED. Prime Prick and Deep Hole both had no way check time as well.
Resigned to the prospect of waiting out, we sat on a log and starting chatting. I think that was good - it certainly helped in passing the time. All I can say is that for the first time, I actually felt dehydrated. Sweaty and tired and with a zillion thorn scratches certainly did not help.
I am glad that we did chat - although I was doing most of the talking - time just went past. Somehow, the topic centered around Linux and open source (duh!). Deep Hole said that the Oracle deal in supporting Red Hat Enterprise Linux is going to cause problems for RH (DH is an accountant, but a techically clued in one, I must say). My retort was that what is happening is that Oracle is now working for Red Hat. They want to take RH stuff and strip out RH's trademarks and logos etc and sell it as theirs. DH wondered if that would fork Linux. I told him that it would be the case if the code was proprietary and not GPL. The beauty of the GPL is that you cannot hide things and one vendor fixing an issue will benefit all vendors. DH was not aware of that. [Note to self: How many others are like him? Need to work on public education on this.] We continued chatting and I told him that things are changing finally in Singapore as well - the "IT regulators" are now under pressure from up high to get a clue and bring open source into Singapore in a big way.
As the conversation proceeded, we heard the beautiful "R U" echoing through the forest. I shouted out "On On. Three hashmen here - Never Come, Prime Prick, Deep Hole". Through the spaces in the heavy bush we could make out flash lights shining. And finally, it were the two of the hares - Up Yours and Three KG. As expected, they came from the left side from the other side of the water body. UY crossed the water body some 10 meters back from where we were where the water was ankle deep. I should have checked that part - but in the dark, it was hard to figure these out. We crossed over and then up a couple of embankments and not more than 20 meters away it was a trail! Damn, we were just 30 or so meters from a track that would have seen us get back to the run site much earlier!
Got back to the top of the hill where the water storage facility is and we had a welcome back party comprising, the GM, Sticky Tissue (with a parang ready to do the needful), and Hornbill. GM managed to get a golf cart from the SICC to come up as well to help get us out. Hornbill got me to ride on his Big Bike instead. To the refrains of "Rock On Amadeus" we were cruising down the road to Venus Drive.
Once I got back at the run site, Whip was on hand with a microphone-look alike to ask me what happened. Read all of that above.
Anyway, it was a great experience, save for the thorns. Getting "lost" was not a concern for me, frankly. I knew someone would come in looking for us. The key was to keep to the trail.
I was back home at 10:45 pm and in bed by 11:45 pm - completely drained!
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Friday, October 27, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Where is the SG equivalent?
I think this is an incredibly useful site to be able to locate the transmitting towers of the cell phone providers. The jury is still not out on what the real impact of the various GSM, 3G etc signals are doing to all of us, especially in this urban environment.
I think this is an incredibly useful site to be able to locate the transmitting towers of the cell phone providers. The jury is still not out on what the real impact of the various GSM, 3G etc signals are doing to all of us, especially in this urban environment.
Monday, July 17, 2006
It is sad that this person holds such views and if you listen to the latter part of the interview, he seems to be completely out of touch with the reality. The column is a humour column. If MITA thinks that the rag stepped out of their play pen, the editors and management should be taken to task not the columnist.
It has been described many a times that the so called "main stream media" is a government mouthpiece. I think it is wrong. They are actually finger puppets. They do not have a body and all they have is a painted face with a non moving mouth (hey at least they have a mouth, Hello Kitty does not have it!). Every so often, these marionettes show an independent thought only to have the supporting finger withdrawn!
I am wondering what constitutes "main stream media"? If a publication is not supportive of the government script, will it be deems alternative and therefore non-main stream? So, if the Edge carried mrbrown's column, this turn of events would not have happened? My sense is that the "main stream media" is a red herring. mrbrown was being targeted because of the bak chor mee satire and this was an easy 1-2 punch. Could Mr TalkingCock.Com be next?
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Don't Cry My Singapore - don't let the PAPy harm you!
I am deeply concerned that this country of mine seems to be tottering on an increasing level of non-tolerance for opinion that is not an echo of the ruling regime. Case in point is the humour challenged response to mr brown's blog-to-paper posting. Clearly there is a tripping of fuses that were held back during the election scam. Wong Kan Seng (a deputy prime minister at that) was shown to be wanting to place eloquent questions against James Gomez which were all then satirically put together by mr brown in a podcast. The humour challenged honchos at the ministry of information management had to bite their tongue and did not do anything - were they perhaps waiting for an opportunity to swing at mr brown? His column must have served as fodder and they chose to launch an attack which cost him his column with the rag that published his column. I am certain in the circles that got stung by the bak chor mee podcast, they must have popped a bottle (or two) of champagne. Will CNetAsia suffer the same fate?
The ruling regime would like the population to believe that they cannot possibly contribute anything useful (lack of talent you see) and that there are only a few "local talent" who can do things and so they shall be piled with a lot roles (a certain investment arm ceo comes to mind). But, I have, on the other hand, confidence that Singaporeans are brilliant people (save for those brainwashed by PAPy) and here's an example of it (No, I have no idea what the song is about, save that it is in Chinese - Cantonese I think).
I am deeply concerned that this country of mine seems to be tottering on an increasing level of non-tolerance for opinion that is not an echo of the ruling regime. Case in point is the humour challenged response to mr brown's blog-to-paper posting. Clearly there is a tripping of fuses that were held back during the election scam. Wong Kan Seng (a deputy prime minister at that) was shown to be wanting to place eloquent questions against James Gomez which were all then satirically put together by mr brown in a podcast. The humour challenged honchos at the ministry of information management had to bite their tongue and did not do anything - were they perhaps waiting for an opportunity to swing at mr brown? His column must have served as fodder and they chose to launch an attack which cost him his column with the rag that published his column. I am certain in the circles that got stung by the bak chor mee podcast, they must have popped a bottle (or two) of champagne. Will CNetAsia suffer the same fate?
The ruling regime would like the population to believe that they cannot possibly contribute anything useful (lack of talent you see) and that there are only a few "local talent" who can do things and so they shall be piled with a lot roles (a certain investment arm ceo comes to mind). But, I have, on the other hand, confidence that Singaporeans are brilliant people (save for those brainwashed by PAPy) and here's an example of it (No, I have no idea what the song is about, save that it is in Chinese - Cantonese I think).
(courtesy of YouTube)
Stress more on sciences, less on second language
[The following appeared in the July 11, 2006 edition of the straits times]
I AM very glad to see the launch of the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council. The council's deputy chairman, Dr Tony Tan, observed that efforts to create new job opportunities will need Singaporeans and it would be a shame if the posts have to be filled by more 'foreign talents'.
That is a very telling statement. Why is it that we are not creating more deep-thinking engineers, mathematicians, biologists, chemists and physicists?
For the answer, we need not look any further than the school system. Instead of spending time and effort in the hard sciences, engineering and mathematics, our students are spending large amounts of time on Second Language (euphemistically labeled 'Mother Tongue').
Take, for example, my son who is in Primary 3. He has 10 Second Language periods a week, while having only three Science, 11 Mathematics and 13 English periods.
I do not expect him to be a master linguist, but I do expect him to be able to maintain a level of competency in the Second Language he is learning (Malay, which is not even his 'mother' tongue). He is also learning Mandarin (outside school hours) at a conversational level because I think it is fun to learn languages in general.
However, I would want him to be able to spend a significantly increased amount of time, in school, doing Science/Mathematics (at the expense of reduced Second Language exposure) for that is what is going to be of more critical use to him than any second language.
I would, therefore, urge the Education Minister to review the disproportionate amount of time spent on Second Language and reallocate the time to the sciences immediately. At least, students should be offered a choice to do more sciences or Mathematics and less of Second Language.
The present one-size-fits- all model is untenable and I am sure the Ministry of Education is well aware of this.
I dream of seeing a Singaporean win a Nobel prize in my lifetime, but the current skewed emphasis on Second Language means that this is, at best, a pipe dream. Years of exposure to a scientific and enquiring environment is needed before it will pay dividends.
If a significant amount of time during the formative school years is taken up trying to cope with Second Language (and the additional tuition classes), I think we are fooling ourselves in believing that we can have the type of mindset that an innovating economy needs.
I am not advocating a total eradication of Second Language, but a significant rolling back of the emphasis, perhaps to the levels when I was in school from 1966-1977, during which Second Language ended at Secondary 4 and was not a criterion for the pursuit of further education.
Harish Pillay
[The following appeared in the July 11, 2006 edition of the straits times]
I AM very glad to see the launch of the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council. The council's deputy chairman, Dr Tony Tan, observed that efforts to create new job opportunities will need Singaporeans and it would be a shame if the posts have to be filled by more 'foreign talents'.
That is a very telling statement. Why is it that we are not creating more deep-thinking engineers, mathematicians, biologists, chemists and physicists?
For the answer, we need not look any further than the school system. Instead of spending time and effort in the hard sciences, engineering and mathematics, our students are spending large amounts of time on Second Language (euphemistically labeled 'Mother Tongue').
Take, for example, my son who is in Primary 3. He has 10 Second Language periods a week, while having only three Science, 11 Mathematics and 13 English periods.
I do not expect him to be a master linguist, but I do expect him to be able to maintain a level of competency in the Second Language he is learning (Malay, which is not even his 'mother' tongue). He is also learning Mandarin (outside school hours) at a conversational level because I think it is fun to learn languages in general.
However, I would want him to be able to spend a significantly increased amount of time, in school, doing Science/Mathematics (at the expense of reduced Second Language exposure) for that is what is going to be of more critical use to him than any second language.
I would, therefore, urge the Education Minister to review the disproportionate amount of time spent on Second Language and reallocate the time to the sciences immediately. At least, students should be offered a choice to do more sciences or Mathematics and less of Second Language.
The present one-size-fits- all model is untenable and I am sure the Ministry of Education is well aware of this.
I dream of seeing a Singaporean win a Nobel prize in my lifetime, but the current skewed emphasis on Second Language means that this is, at best, a pipe dream. Years of exposure to a scientific and enquiring environment is needed before it will pay dividends.
If a significant amount of time during the formative school years is taken up trying to cope with Second Language (and the additional tuition classes), I think we are fooling ourselves in believing that we can have the type of mindset that an innovating economy needs.
I am not advocating a total eradication of Second Language, but a significant rolling back of the emphasis, perhaps to the levels when I was in school from 1966-1977, during which Second Language ended at Secondary 4 and was not a criterion for the pursuit of further education.
Harish Pillay
Friday, July 07, 2006
So, Mahathir jokes about bombing Singapore. I have no issue with him saying that for I know the context it is said, but I think, this time, the silence on the part of the Singapore government is in a sense good. No need for stupid remarks to counter silliness (quite unlike the stupidity of the MICA reply to MrBrown's column).
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Monday, June 05, 2006
Channel X: This is what worries the PAPy.
Once a minister - I believe it was Teo Chee Hean - who was reported to have said that "ideas can be dangerous". Perhaps it was out of context. At the IPS seminar last week, I was troubled by what Tarn How said about how he felt that those who saw "The Singapore Rebel", would have a change of heart about Dr SJ Chee. I am sure he was not suggesting anything like what Chee Hean said, but the implications can be enormous.
Just as this video (from http://channel-x.blogspot.com):
projects, the messaging and clarity of information can be presented in compelling fashion given the right tools. What is more important, IMHO, is to not artificially chain regular media so that they too can be honest with their chosen profession and not be pawns to be played into the hands of a self-appointed few.
Once a minister - I believe it was Teo Chee Hean - who was reported to have said that "ideas can be dangerous". Perhaps it was out of context. At the IPS seminar last week, I was troubled by what Tarn How said about how he felt that those who saw "The Singapore Rebel", would have a change of heart about Dr SJ Chee. I am sure he was not suggesting anything like what Chee Hean said, but the implications can be enormous.
Just as this video (from http://channel-x.blogspot.com):
projects, the messaging and clarity of information can be presented in compelling fashion given the right tools. What is more important, IMHO, is to not artificially chain regular media so that they too can be honest with their chosen profession and not be pawns to be played into the hands of a self-appointed few.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Session III - The Future of the parties
Chaired by Gillian and panelists included Derek da Cunha, Indranee Rajah, Sylvia Lim, Vincent Yeo and Chee Siok Chin.
Derek da Cunha:
- The 06 distribution of popular vote:
wp: 38.4%, sda: 32.5%, sdp: 23.2%, pap: 66.6%
- three themes: performance of the parties, issues and trends in SGP, prospects and trends of the parties
- SDP's fortunes are out of whack because of their loose canons.
- SDA's politics is gentlemanly because of Chiam ST
- WP seems to be doing all the right things, post-JBJ. There seems to be a "mainstreaming" of the WP this time around and if this keeps up, it could mean that the longtail event of WP taking over or at least being the 2nd party of a functional two-party parliament could be a reality.
Political Spectrum:
Sylvia: "Worker's Party: Hope For The Future?"
2006: Pleasant Surprises:
- fate of SM Goh's "mission" - a disaster.
- open rejection of selective upgrading
- role of cyber community despite threat of illegality
- voter behaviour pre and post election
Awakening of politics in the population - forced to make a choice? Exercising the vote.
Vincent Yeo: SDA, exco member of National Solidarity Party: I just felt that he was rambling and really could not get a sense of what he was trying to propose except at the very end when he stated that the loose coalition of parties that form the SDA could be merged into one party for the next election. So, no more PKNS, NSP, and whoever else makes up the SDA. Probably a good thing.
Chee Siok Chin: SDP exco member. Are opposition political parties in control of their future? SDP's future uncertain because of the suit from the father and son team. She reported that at a NUSS event last week, she repeated the call for election reform citing the excessively unfair stacking of the field in favour of the PAP. Roadmap for Democracy: many areas for reform, 1) reform has to come from the people not from the ruling party. People have to work for reform. June 27th case on declaring 2006 elections null and void.
Indranee: people and policies. cyberspace? Disappointed (perhaps set my expectations too high) that there was nothing new in what she had to say. She is a 2nd term non-elected member of parliament - a WOMP (Walk Over MP) - ie, no moral right to the seat in parliament even if the law says she can.
Comment by Cherian George:
"A tale of two parties. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It used to be the best of times for sdp and worst of times for wp. those were the days. how it has changed! and dramatically too. hard to believe that it was all the doing the of the PAP and the media. Image can be fashioned not only be foisted upon you." This was in reponse to Siok Chin's comment that the compliant media made her and the SDP look like morons while the WP and others were not treated as harshly.
Chaired by Gillian and panelists included Derek da Cunha, Indranee Rajah, Sylvia Lim, Vincent Yeo and Chee Siok Chin.
Derek da Cunha:
- The 06 distribution of popular vote:
wp: 38.4%, sda: 32.5%, sdp: 23.2%, pap: 66.6%
- three themes: performance of the parties, issues and trends in SGP, prospects and trends of the parties
- SDP's fortunes are out of whack because of their loose canons.
- SDA's politics is gentlemanly because of Chiam ST
- WP seems to be doing all the right things, post-JBJ. There seems to be a "mainstreaming" of the WP this time around and if this keeps up, it could mean that the longtail event of WP taking over or at least being the 2nd party of a functional two-party parliament could be a reality.
Political Spectrum:
Left center-left centre-right
PAP
WP
SDA
SDP
Sylvia: "Worker's Party: Hope For The Future?"
2006: Pleasant Surprises:
- fate of SM Goh's "mission" - a disaster.
- open rejection of selective upgrading
- role of cyber community despite threat of illegality
- voter behaviour pre and post election
Awakening of politics in the population - forced to make a choice? Exercising the vote.
Vincent Yeo: SDA, exco member of National Solidarity Party: I just felt that he was rambling and really could not get a sense of what he was trying to propose except at the very end when he stated that the loose coalition of parties that form the SDA could be merged into one party for the next election. So, no more PKNS, NSP, and whoever else makes up the SDA. Probably a good thing.
Chee Siok Chin: SDP exco member. Are opposition political parties in control of their future? SDP's future uncertain because of the suit from the father and son team. She reported that at a NUSS event last week, she repeated the call for election reform citing the excessively unfair stacking of the field in favour of the PAP. Roadmap for Democracy: many areas for reform, 1) reform has to come from the people not from the ruling party. People have to work for reform. June 27th case on declaring 2006 elections null and void.
Indranee: people and policies. cyberspace? Disappointed (perhaps set my expectations too high) that there was nothing new in what she had to say. She is a 2nd term non-elected member of parliament - a WOMP (Walk Over MP) - ie, no moral right to the seat in parliament even if the law says she can.
Comment by Cherian George:
"A tale of two parties. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It used to be the best of times for sdp and worst of times for wp. those were the days. how it has changed! and dramatically too. hard to believe that it was all the doing the of the PAP and the media. Image can be fashioned not only be foisted upon you." This was in reponse to Siok Chin's comment that the compliant media made her and the SDP look like morons while the WP and others were not treated as harshly.
Session II: "Electoral Authoritarianism' No More? The Future of the political system in Singapore.
Prof Wang Gungwu. member of the board of governors of the IPS is now introducing the next session.
Panelists:Janadas Devan, Viswa Sadasivan and Ken Kwek.
Janadas:
- phlosophical analysis of 2006 elections
- seeking to be deceived?
- compares SG/MY with TW/KR/HK in the 60s. He made a good set of points about how in the 60s, MY and SG were really the leading lights in democracy, regularly held elections etc and TW/KR were ruled by generals and HK by the Brits. Those three countries were not democratic by any stretch of the imagination, and yet, 30 or so years later, they have surpassed SG in creating and maintaining a perception of liberal democracy. SG, in the meantime, has stayed stagnant. Yes, we do have regularly held elections, but there is missing the X factor.
- he suggested that the way SG evolved the political system today can be traced back to a by-election held in June/July 1995 in Hong Lim. The PAPy had lost two preceding attempts at winning that seat and when it fell vacant, the by-election was seen as a chance to prove itself to stand up to the Tengku and UMNO. When the election was over and the PAPy won that seat, there was a sense of thumping one's nose at KL which probably snowballed to the ejection of Singapore from the Federation of Malaysia on August 9 1965. The thesis is that the by-election was the turning point in the PAPy gaining stronghold in Singapore and explains how they continued to bulldoze through subsequent election. I think it is an interesting theory. In Gladwell terms, that was the tipping point. I think that there has been another tipping point at this election with the WP winning a substantial mindshare. In 10 years, we can probably verify that this was indeed the key event that toppled the PAPy's stronghold only to be replaced by another party's!
Viswa:
- larry diamond's paper quoted
- independent election commission
- most countries have it. esp commonwealth countries. Canada, USA, Malaysia, Romania, S Korea. They have tenure as well. What is it that we do not have it? Does having it make the level playing field? Who chooses the members? Will they have tenure?
- constitutional boundaries: made know well in advance. Popular belief is that is is redrawn to favour the PAP. 15K voters moved from Marine Parade to Aljunied via GerryMandering? Amazing isn't?
- Adequate time and scope for campaigning. 9 days is what we have legally and it does no one any good. Of course the PAPy benefits as they have been able to use the government machinery *before* the elections to project themselves.
- adequate and fair info in media
- pork barrel politics should be avoided. We do not have to do it, we are Singapore!
- right of citizens to vote; vote to be secret; I hoped that he would have brought up the need to invalidate the walkover scheme as it robs the very essence what it means to be able to exercise the very right to vote and participate.
- fair and established framework: law applies well. defamation action seems to work in favour of the ruling party.
- conclusion: there is no fair and complete system. we need to keep improving it none the less. Good and honest introspection.
Ken:
- every election over the last 15 years labelled "watershed". but what is a watershed election?
Q&A:
- PAP monopolizing the definition of "talent". Talent is what they define it to be and not what is generally accepted. They claim they have the "talent" within their party. How can that be an honest statement?
- "We rule, you shop" compact
- "stomachs full, minds empty"
- The US is referred to as a aircraft carrier on which any dancing and jiggling will not upset the ship, however, Singapore is a sampan which cannot afford that kind of a shake. The suggestion is that we cannot continue to be a sampan and we have to become a catamaran - two hulled and balanced. Two hulled in that we have a functioning two party system with checks and balances in parliament.
Prof Wang Gungwu. member of the board of governors of the IPS is now introducing the next session.
Panelists:Janadas Devan, Viswa Sadasivan and Ken Kwek.
Janadas:
- phlosophical analysis of 2006 elections
- seeking to be deceived?
- compares SG/MY with TW/KR/HK in the 60s. He made a good set of points about how in the 60s, MY and SG were really the leading lights in democracy, regularly held elections etc and TW/KR were ruled by generals and HK by the Brits. Those three countries were not democratic by any stretch of the imagination, and yet, 30 or so years later, they have surpassed SG in creating and maintaining a perception of liberal democracy. SG, in the meantime, has stayed stagnant. Yes, we do have regularly held elections, but there is missing the X factor.
- he suggested that the way SG evolved the political system today can be traced back to a by-election held in June/July 1995 in Hong Lim. The PAPy had lost two preceding attempts at winning that seat and when it fell vacant, the by-election was seen as a chance to prove itself to stand up to the Tengku and UMNO. When the election was over and the PAPy won that seat, there was a sense of thumping one's nose at KL which probably snowballed to the ejection of Singapore from the Federation of Malaysia on August 9 1965. The thesis is that the by-election was the turning point in the PAPy gaining stronghold in Singapore and explains how they continued to bulldoze through subsequent election. I think it is an interesting theory. In Gladwell terms, that was the tipping point. I think that there has been another tipping point at this election with the WP winning a substantial mindshare. In 10 years, we can probably verify that this was indeed the key event that toppled the PAPy's stronghold only to be replaced by another party's!
Viswa:
- larry diamond's paper quoted
- independent election commission
- most countries have it. esp commonwealth countries. Canada, USA, Malaysia, Romania, S Korea. They have tenure as well. What is it that we do not have it? Does having it make the level playing field? Who chooses the members? Will they have tenure?
- constitutional boundaries: made know well in advance. Popular belief is that is is redrawn to favour the PAP. 15K voters moved from Marine Parade to Aljunied via GerryMandering? Amazing isn't?
- Adequate time and scope for campaigning. 9 days is what we have legally and it does no one any good. Of course the PAPy benefits as they have been able to use the government machinery *before* the elections to project themselves.
- adequate and fair info in media
- pork barrel politics should be avoided. We do not have to do it, we are Singapore!
- right of citizens to vote; vote to be secret; I hoped that he would have brought up the need to invalidate the walkover scheme as it robs the very essence what it means to be able to exercise the very right to vote and participate.
- fair and established framework: law applies well. defamation action seems to work in favour of the ruling party.
- conclusion: there is no fair and complete system. we need to keep improving it none the less. Good and honest introspection.
Ken:
- every election over the last 15 years labelled "watershed". but what is a watershed election?
Q&A:
- PAP monopolizing the definition of "talent". Talent is what they define it to be and not what is generally accepted. They claim they have the "talent" within their party. How can that be an honest statement?
- "We rule, you shop" compact
- "stomachs full, minds empty"
- The US is referred to as a aircraft carrier on which any dancing and jiggling will not upset the ship, however, Singapore is a sampan which cannot afford that kind of a shake. The suggestion is that we cannot continue to be a sampan and we have to become a catamaran - two hulled and balanced. Two hulled in that we have a functioning two party system with checks and balances in parliament.
What do voters want?
Gillian is presenting the survey results. Indicative data not representative. Sample size is 985 persons.
Good set of questions being asked in the Q&A. Of them, a question about how many people did not/declined to participate in the survey was asked. According to the survey company, 70% declined. Apparently this is not entirely surprising as indicated because there seems to be a common underlying drop out rate from surveys.
This itself is interesting though. How many times when approached by survey folks outside MRT stations, did you just say no. I know I do it regularly. It is annoying and I cannot remember when it was that I last obliged with a response.
Having said that, it is probably likely that this survey - a phone survey - would have been something I would have participated in given that the topic would be of interest to me.
The person whose company did the survey said that although the turn down rate was 7 out of 10, the 30% that did agree inevitably had a lot to say. The 20 minutes which the survey was supposed to last, went on to 25, 30 minutes as the people just wanted to talk and talk.
I think this survey is interesting and is long overdue. We need to do this on a regular basis, both pre and post election. I know the ruling party does not like opinion polls done in the usual way and I think the blogging community should rise up to this and try to figure out how to do this reliably. We need baselines to do honest analysis. Somehow, the ruling party has missed the boat on this regard - and it would apprear that they still have no clue, probably being held back by Lee Sr.
Gillian is presenting the survey results. Indicative data not representative. Sample size is 985 persons.
Good set of questions being asked in the Q&A. Of them, a question about how many people did not/declined to participate in the survey was asked. According to the survey company, 70% declined. Apparently this is not entirely surprising as indicated because there seems to be a common underlying drop out rate from surveys.
This itself is interesting though. How many times when approached by survey folks outside MRT stations, did you just say no. I know I do it regularly. It is annoying and I cannot remember when it was that I last obliged with a response.
Having said that, it is probably likely that this survey - a phone survey - would have been something I would have participated in given that the topic would be of interest to me.
The person whose company did the survey said that although the turn down rate was 7 out of 10, the 30% that did agree inevitably had a lot to say. The 20 minutes which the survey was supposed to last, went on to 25, 30 minutes as the people just wanted to talk and talk.
I think this survey is interesting and is long overdue. We need to do this on a regular basis, both pre and post election. I know the ruling party does not like opinion polls done in the usual way and I think the blogging community should rise up to this and try to figure out how to do this reliably. We need baselines to do honest analysis. Somehow, the ruling party has missed the boat on this regard - and it would apprear that they still have no clue, probably being held back by Lee Sr.
Wireless is ON!
It is nice to be able to blog a conference live in Singapore. Thanks to the Orchard Hotel making available wireless - dare I say for free!
Prof Tommy Koh has just started his welcome address. I have very high regard for him and I have great expectation of this forum. So far things are looking good. There are 48 tables of about 6-9 persons each.
Prof Koh is posing a set of questions for discussion and he has just touched on "Internet" and it's influence on the election. By the looks of it, I think I am the only one blogging.
An independent elections commission? Thanks Prof Koh for bringing it up. We need it.
Arun: 400 persons here! Wow! Says that this is the first time IPS is doing a post election forum and survey. There is hope in this country after all!
a. all adullts are eligible to vote
b. vote is secret
c. all parties can contest
d. judiciary independent
e. rule of law
survey about
It is nice to be able to blog a conference live in Singapore. Thanks to the Orchard Hotel making available wireless - dare I say for free!
Prof Tommy Koh has just started his welcome address. I have very high regard for him and I have great expectation of this forum. So far things are looking good. There are 48 tables of about 6-9 persons each.
Prof Koh is posing a set of questions for discussion and he has just touched on "Internet" and it's influence on the election. By the looks of it, I think I am the only one blogging.
An independent elections commission? Thanks Prof Koh for bringing it up. We need it.
Arun: 400 persons here! Wow! Says that this is the first time IPS is doing a post election forum and survey. There is hope in this country after all!
a. all adullts are eligible to vote
b. vote is secret
c. all parties can contest
d. judiciary independent
e. rule of law
survey about
Was doing some analysis of the 06 results.
Of the total number of voters, 2,158,704, only 56.65 people were allowed to actually vote. 935,820 persons were denied their right to vote by the illegal walkovers.
The math suggests that the PAPy vote was 61.67% of the total (not sure how the 66.6% came about). Perhaps that is an average of the percentages. Need to look at the math again.
(to be updated)
Of the total number of voters, 2,158,704, only 56.65 people were allowed to actually vote. 935,820 persons were denied their right to vote by the illegal walkovers.
The math suggests that the PAPy vote was 61.67% of the total (not sure how the 66.6% came about). Perhaps that is an average of the percentages. Need to look at the math again.
(to be updated)
The Institute of Policy Studies is holding a Post Election Forum on Friday June 2nd. I will be attending it and am hoping to be able to blog about it in real time assuming that there is connectivity, failing which, I will post a summary.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Just found out that I was referenced to by Nanyang Circle. Unfortunately, I am not able to comment there because of need for an MSN account. Thanks but no thanks, MSN. There are also problems in MSN Spaces in how they render pages on a Firefox/Linux environment I live in.
A new cabinet was sworn in earlier this week. Will these chaps have any new ideas on how to move this country forward? Will the words mouthed by Loong about being inclusive ad nauseum be, once again, fodder for the Straight Times to publish verbatim? Sigh.
A new cabinet was sworn in earlier this week. Will these chaps have any new ideas on how to move this country forward? Will the words mouthed by Loong about being inclusive ad nauseum be, once again, fodder for the Straight Times to publish verbatim? Sigh.
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