First world gahmen

honesty is the best policy.

extracted from an article on cna titled " PM Lee says countries worldwide respect and admire Singapore's proven system"

Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia. We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I'm going to spend all my time thinking what's the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes, how can I solve this week's problem and forget about next year's challenges?

the speech was recorded on state of the art video equipment, not sneakily caught on some cheapo grainy cctv.

its time the bushes, the blairs, the merkels learn something from the son of the great leader!

Elastic dental floss anyone?

while waiting for my bus yesterday, i saw a lau beng flossing away at the bus stop.

on closer look, i noticed that his "dental floss" was unlike the ones i have came across.

firstly, it was red in colour and when lau beng stopped temporarily to answer his mobile, i noticed that it was not stiff like the usual dental floss. lau beng's dental floss was kind of rubbery!

omg! he was using a rubber band to floss his teeth!

how's that for innovation?

Give the man a Singha!

gutsy move by thaksin to dissolve parliament and call for snap elections.

no need for a election budget or "waiting till the ground is sweet" as is the case for sillypore.
no need for declaring a state of emergency as is the case for philippines.

thaksin's message to the opposition parties: STFU!

give the man a singha!

Official reply to "all going through motion"

reply in the sillytimes to my earlier post from the police and armed forces team.

Feb 25, 2006
SAF, Police are geared to deal with explosives

WE REFER to Mr Neo Poh Goon's letter 'Bomb squad slow to respond to threat' (ST, Feb 20).

We would like to assure him that the Singapore Armed Forces and the Police treat all cases of explosives and ordnance seriously and we work closely to deal with them.

When the Police receive a call on suspected explosive devices, our officers will be dispatched immediately to the site to ensure public safety by throwing a cordon around the object and order an evacuation, if necessary.

The officers will inform SAF's Explosives and Ordnance Disposal unit to dispose of the item after identifying the object.

There are different levels of responses in such cases depending on the risk level.

In this case, if the threat to public safety was high, the team would have been activated immediately. But the object was a World War II three-inch round which did not contain any high explosives.

The SAF's teams are well-organised to react to contingencies. Such an approach is necessary at a time when there is a heightened threat of terrorist attacks.

We want to assure the public that both the SAF and Police are well-prepared and committed to ensuring their safety at all times.

Col Benedict Lim
Director, Public Affairs
Ministry of Defence

Audrey Ang
Assistant Director, Media Relations
Singapore Police Force

perhaps dick and audrey would enlighten me on the following:

• original article ("OA") stated "a corporal from the queenstown police station arrived on the scene. it was more than 45 minutes later, at 5.18pm that an officer from police explosives team ("PET") confirmed it was a bomb" VS joint statement ("JS") which stated "our officers will be dispatched immediately to the site to ensure public safety by throwing a cordon around the object and order an evacuation, if necessary". what good would it serve to send a corporal who was not trained to handle explosives to the scene in the first place? why couldn't the officer(s) from the police explosives team be dispatched immediately to the scene? it is unlikely the police receive many reports of objects that resembles bombs that would keep PET so busy that they need to send a normal non-explosive trained policeman to the scene to "confirm" it. besides, it does not take 45 minutes to travel from the eastern most point of sillypore to the western most point of sillypore (especially in brand new subarus wrx or slightly older bmws 3-series with sirens blaring away).
• OA "at about 8pm, a unit from the explosives ordnance department arrived" VS JS "officers will inform saf's explosives and ordnance disposal ("EOD") unit to dispose of the item after identifying the object". since the object was positively identified by the PET officer as a bomb at 5.18pm, why did it take the EOD 2hrs 42mins to arrive at the scene? granted a lone 2LT from the EOD arrived at the scene 15mins before the main body, but he was doing f-call "unable to remove or dispose of the bomb".
• JS "if the threat to public safety was high, the team would have been activated immediately". does this mean that the lives of a construction supervisor and the tens/hundreds/thousands of foreign workers on the worksite is low priority?
• JS "the saf's teams are well-organised to react to contingencies. such an approach is necessary at a time when there is a heightened threat of terrorist attacks". since there are "well-organised teams" (read: plural, i.e. more than one), why did it take 2hrs 42mins for one of the teams to reach the scene? were there many "terrorist attacks" or unexploded bombs reported between 5.18pm and 8pm on the said day?
  

the JS does not seem to answer mr neo's questions, which were:

• why did it take them nearly three hours to arrive after the bomb was confirmed at 5.18pm?
• what if the bomb had exploded in those three hours?

mr neo was not interested in the sops that were in place, he wanted to know WHY the police and armed forces took so f-king bloody long to arrive at the scene! WHY?! perhaps the traffic was heavy on the ecp. need to put up more gantries than.

Oops... all going through motion. Wayang exposed!

in an article by a construction senior security supervisor to the sillytimes on 20 february 2006 as follows:

Feb 20, 2006
Bomb squad slow to respond to threat

SINCE the beginning of the year, the Government has organised various mock terror attacks to gauge and improve Singapore's readiness to cope with such catastrophes.

However, as a senior security supervisor on a worksite in the western part of Singapore, my experience when a bomb was discovered on our worksite makes me wonder if we are ready to face the threat of terrorism.

Last Thursday, at about 4.30pm, a bomb (probably a World War II relic) was discovered on our worksite. The police were notified five minutes later and a corporal from Queenstown Police Station arrived on the scene. It was more than 45 minutes later, at 5.18pm, that an officer from police explosives team confirmed it was a bomb. By then, the area had been cordoned off.

At 6.25pm, a police assistant superintendent, who was the investigating officer, arrived but there was still no sign of the bomb disposal unit. At 7.45pm, a lone second lieutenant from the unit arrived but was unable to remove or dispose of the bomb.

Finally, at about 8pm, a unit from the explosives ordnance department arrived. At 8.18pm, a search dog was brought to locate other possible bombs. Only at 9pm was the bomb safely removed from the scene.

I am disappointed by the slow response time of the bomb disposal unit. Why did it take them nearly three hours to arrive after the bomb was confirmed at 5.18pm? What if the bomb had exploded in those three hours?

I understand the bomb disposal unit needs to follow certain standard operating procedures but does it really need to take three hours?

It is fortunate the bomb was found at the edge of the worksite. Had it been on the worksite itself, it would not only have posed a greater risk to workers but also have resulted in considerable economic loss because of the time the bomb disposal unit took to arrive.

If we are so slow to act on a single bomb threat, how can we cope with a terror attack on even the smallest scale?

I hope this is an isolated incident that does not reflect on the overall operational readiness of the bomb disposal unit.

Neo Poh Goon

key timing in the whole incident
4:30pm - bomb discovered
4:35pm - police notified
between 4:35pm and 5:18pm - police arrived on the scene
5:18pm - an officer from police explosive team confirmed it was a bomb
6:25pm - a higher ranked police officer arrived
7:45pm - an officer from the sillypore armed forces arrived but was unable to do anything
8:00pm - bomb disposal unit arrived
8:18pm - a search dog arrived
9:00pm - bomb was finally removed

took the police and the armed forces team 4½ hours from the time the bomb was discovered till the time it was safely removed. ok 4hrs 25mins since mr neo only notified the police at 4:35pm.

these people can only perform during drills/mock exercises. when it comes to the real deal their balls shrink its a whole new ball game. makes me wonder why sillypore spends so much on wayang defence. in a real war, the soldiers are not longer shooting at a figure 11. the enemies are going to shoot back with real rounds! how many people in mindeaf have been shot at with a live round before? ZERO, ZILCH, KOSONG!

question: how many people does it take to dispose off a bomb?
answer: THREE police officers, ONE armed forces officer, a unit of men (probably SEVEN men) from the bomb disposal unit and ONE search dog.

let's see what col bend-a-dick lim has to say about this.

over to you, DICK!


p.s. if it was a real terrorist attack and the terrorist planted a REAL time bomb, would the timer even allow for 4½hr detonation time?

Sacrificial lamb

i have a friend who works as a trader in a local broking house.

sometime late 2005, a local individual (perhaps acting as a proxy for a filthy mega-rich foreigner) wanted to acquire the shares of a foreign listed entity and approached the broking house to explore the possibility. the broking house granted a credit line of FIVE times the security placed and the individual gleefully accepted the line by placing a SEVEN figure deposit with them.

such a large credit line seem excessive to me (but then again i am a "bean counter" by training and our kind are taught to be prudent) and i am certain many levels of approval by higher management were sought before it was granted. head of trading? head of credit risk management?

with the credit line in place, the trade was executed. i am unaware of whether the share price jumped significantly because of that trade. however i very much doubt there was a significant jump because on settlement day, the individual (who most likely was playing contra) could not settle. this caused wide-spread panic and the broking house initiated a force sale for ALL the unsettled shares. this in turn caused the share price to plunge in excess of 50% within a week which in turn cause the exchange to suspend the counter pending investigations.

fast forward to january 2006. the share is still suspended and so is my friend. he is now on paid leave pending the broking house's internal investigation. his superior, the head of trading and whoever head that approved the credit line still report to work everyday and probably still extending overly generous credit lines.

i wonder why my friend, the guy who's job is merely to enter the trade is suspended while the people who APPROVED the credit line are still enjoying the high life. was he made the sacrificial lamb to appease the higher gods?

btw the broking house is staring at a very likely loss of FOUR times the SEVEN figure security placed. heads should roll but i very much doubt the correct ones will.

Election goodies

election goodies announced by the gahmen yesterday (19 January 2006). extract from the said report:

the silly times newspaper reported that the government was considering a one-off cash reward of between s$100 to s$200 for each of the 700,000 sillyporean men who are doing or have done their military service.

gosh! what a "generous" reward for 2-2½ years of national slavery service and 10 years of reservist ict.

i am certain all nsf/nsmen will be "extremely excited" by the "generosity". in fact, i will be so "delighted" with the "reward" that i would donate it to the people who could bring about an open society aka opposition parties. actually i have a better suggestion, shove the "reward" up your ass i will double the "reward" the gahmen (which gahmen investment arm will eventually lose through questionable investment decisions) will be handing out if saf does not call me back for ict and ippt.

other goodies announced recently include:

• one-off bonus of s$1 billion to low-wage workers; and
• over s$2 billion to upgrade heavily "subsidised" pigeon holes in pappy wards.
  

question: does sillypore reserve belong to the peasants of sillypore regardless of who the gahmen is OR does it belong solely to the pappy and for them to use at their discretion?