Now what

After the incredible escape of the most wanted man (in Singapore) on 27 Feb, there seem no more news updates for this 2 days, is the gahmen trying to cover up again after making such a big BLUNDER and made every Singaporeans look stupid after these 9 days?

Instead of hearing this fugitive being caught or shot to death, what we see on the news are these:

1. Police shot dead murder suspect in Outram MRT

2. Limping Bangladeshi triggers security alert

3. Jail for Peeping Tom who entered women's toilet for 'a thrill'

Some people say that giving rewards or bounty is bad idea, citing moral obligation and similar horse shits.

If we are to talk about moral obligation, and make the record straight, moral obligation is applicable to those (you know who they are) who made this BLUNDER in the first place. It is their BLUNDER and therefore their RESPONSIBILITY and DUTY and MORAL OBLIGATION to catch this fugitive without getting a single reward. The only reward they deserve is to be able to sleep peacefully without guilt or maybe start planning for long vacation at Tahiti.

REWARD should therefore be given to peasants like us, who got no combat, anti-terrorist, or whatsoever trainings, to risk our heads, our limbs and bodies to catch this fugitive, and just to get a Singapore flag on our coffin?

Which is which

Police have received a number of tip-offs and calls on sightings of the militant leader of the Singapore Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network since his daring escape from Internal Security Department's custody at the Whitley Road Detention Centre on Wednesday at 4.05 pm.

The manager of a petrol station at Whitley Road was reported as having told two Chinese evening newspapers, Lianhe Wanbao and Shin Min Daily, on Friday that he saw a man resembling the escaped detainee Mas Selamat about one hour after he bolted from the nearby detention centre.

He said the man's upper body was bare and he was wearing brown pants with the letters 'WRC'. He was seen struggling and limping up a flight of steps on the hill slope which leads to the Bukit Brown Chinese cemetery.

Police said they had received similar information from his co-worker at the petrol station at about 5.15pm.

Links: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_212139.html

On why the public was informed of the escape only four hours after the escape, Mr Wong said the escape posed no 'imminent danger to the public' at the time.

Links: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_211363.html

Besides the standard attire of a beige T-shirt, brown draw-string pants and black rubber slippers which all detainees wear, he was also wearing a greenish grey baju kurung with long sleeves.

Links: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_213131.html

A 'SECURITY LAPSE' led to the escape of the leader of the Singapore's wing of the Islamic militant network, Jemaah Islamiah (JI), and drew an apology from Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng on Thursday.

Mr Wong Kan Seng, who is the Deputy Prime Minister, told Parliament that Mas Selamat Kastari, who walks with a limp, escaped from the toilet of the Whitley Road Detention Centre, near a wooded park on Wednesday afternoon.

Links: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_213131.html

Mr Wong, who is Deputy Prime Minister, said there was a 'physical breach' at the Whitley Road detention centre that led to the terrorist's breakout, and this had been dealt with. Security within the detention centre had also been beefed up.

Links: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_212442.html

The independent Committee of Inquiry will look into how Mas Selamat broke out of the detention centre and recommend changes to prevent similar break-outs.

It will be headed by Mr Goh Joon Seng, who served as a High Court judge for a decade before retiring in 2000. He is now a consultant with law firm Lee & Lee and is also a member of the Council of Presidential Advisers.

The second member of the panel, Mr Tee Tua Ba, retired as police commissioner in 1997. He was also director of prisons between 1987 and 1992, and previously director of CID and the Central Narcotics Bureau.

The third member is the Home Affairs Ministry's deputy secretary for security and corporate services, Dr Choong May Ling, who has held senior positions in various ministries such as Education and Finance.

Links: http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_212600.html

So which is which?

1. The public was informed 4 hours later, but someone already aware and witness the escape one hour after it happened? Isn't it strange the petrol station workers are so free looking at the hill while working? They must have fantastic photographic memories to remember the features of so many strangers who passed by that area.

2. He was seen wearing nothing on his upper body as "seen" by the petrol station workers. Now the news say he is wearing long sleeves too!

3. Imagine the toilet is in a building which is inside a compound surrounded by barb wire fences, with 24 hours video cameras every corners, at the time when he is inside the toilet doing his business for say 20 minutes, and the guard is outside the toilet door. How does a limping man disappear from the cubicle without making any noise, say by climbing to the ceiling, bypassing the guard outside the toilet door, and then he have to go through various gates before reaching the compound where he has to dig beneath the fence or climb over the fence without being detected by the Gurkhas or the video cameras. And he have to do all this stunts within say 20 minutes and still has all the time to jog to the hill! This is so much tougher than doing the SOC (standard obstacle course) and unbelievable for a limping man to achieve such feat!

4. First they say it is caused by "security lapse", giving us the impression some guard is sleeping on the job, now they say it is caused by "physical breach", as though the Mission Impossible team has penetrated the multi layers of securities and picked him from the toilet.

5. They setup an "independent" Committee of Inquiry (COI) with someone from Home Affairs Ministry, shouldn't they get someone else without giving us the impression of "conflict of interests" (COI).

City of Surcharge

I wonder is this deja vu or just coincidence, MacDonald Delivery Service (MDS) surcharge is now $3, i can remember it is only $2 last month.

So whats next? More things to come. Here are some of things i predict will hit us soon. Deja vu?

1. Petrol and diesel price.
2. Water tax (currently 30%)
3. Electricity Tariff (currently 21.38¢/kWh for domestic)
4. Refuse Removal (currently $5.88 on my last bill)
5. MRT and Bus fares.
6. TV license (currently $110 for color tv)

I just found something very interesting with Google. Here are the electricity tariff that keeps increasing year after year.

Electricity tariff:

2002 15.02¢/kWh
2005 16.73¢/kWh
2006 21.15¢/kWh
Oct 2007 21.38¢/kWh

A complete list can be found here.

If you don't pay your utility bill promptly, you will be "invited" to join PAY-AS-YOU-USE’Metering Scheme. In Singapore there is no welfare, no charity for the poor, you don't pay, you don't get water and electricity.

City of possible impossibilities

Finally, they have announced this news after giving themselves a fat bonus and fat pension.

Top public sector officers to get 4% to 21% pay rise in January

I was expecting them to announce this sooner or later, they cannot afford to wait any longer. Like they said before, there is no such thing as good time, with all the bad news of rising costs of living, news of government spending our national reserves on various foreign assets, anything can happen, especially the bad ones.

Many bloggers have written extensively on the recent taxi hike, some of them even thinking of boycott taxi entirely. Seem like taxi drivers going to suffer, some describe them as worker bees working hard to feed those taxi operators who are the queen bees. The queen bees only know how to increase their own profits. See the amount of profits ComfortDelgro generates year after year, what are they doing, obsessed with breaking new records? The figures below taken from Lucky Tan's blog.

ComfortDelgro Profits
2006 - S$244.6 million
2005 - S$201.9 milion
2004 - S$200.6 million
2003 - S$134.0 million

The taxi drivers suffer, we consumers suffer. Enough is enough.

Creative service sucks?

Definitely something is wrong when it takes 6 weeks to replace your item which can be taken anytime from shelves. Read this blog by Cloudywind:

Creative's way of customer support

It is also interesting to read one comment left by Buaya. Not only he need to wait 2 months to replace his Zen player, he also need to pay a few hundreds even though it is under warranty! This shows that they are not the only "victims" of Creative sucked service!

I got the same 'service' from Creative!

My Zen's LCD screen cracked and they told me I had to pay for it even though it was under warranty. I was ok with that and asked how long do I have to wait for me to get it repaired. They told me it will take about 2 weeks.

The 2 weeks turned to 2 months! And guess what? All they did was to REPLACE a new Zen for me...

When I asked them why can't they just take 1 from the shelves, they said it was not possible, citing some funny reasons. And I actually have to personally go down to the Creative Center to complain before they actually handed me the brand new Zen, taken from inside their storeroom to replace the cracked one. And I still have to fork out a few hundred dollars for that...

Didn't we read about our Town Council buying lots of Creative shares and it is also a major shareholder too!

Town councils investing in stock market

Plagiarism equal creativity?

The news is everywhere, some "senior citizens" doing rap song, circulating on YouTube and blogs. It is even discovered that the song is "plagiarised" from a rap group KRS-One. Telling people to get creative by practising "plagiarism" huh? Hope they don't get sued like Timbaland.

Here are links of some blogs commenting this video:

1. MDA Senior Director's Rap

2. MDA Senior Management Rap was inspired by KRS-One?

3. MDA head honchos rap on video to get Singapore “creative and connected”

Congratulation to our ministers

Civil servants to get two-month bonus in December 2007

This is indeed a good news for all the civil servants. Well done, time to pat each other shoulders, thank you for all the hard work in helping our people, creating so many new schemes that make Singapore so unique.

We will never forget all the goodies you have shower on our head after KO all the oppositions big time in every election.

Not only you get extra bonus every year, you will get pay hike too. You really make us envious, make us regret not study hard enough to become great leaders like you.

Here are the example of pay hikes you are getting for past few years. There are alot more from Google.

1. Singapore civil servants get 13% pay hike

2. PM, ministers to get pay rise of between 14% and 33%

3. MINISTERIAL STATEMENT BY MR TEO CHEE HEAN, MINISTER-IN-CHARGE OF THE CIVIL SERVICE, ON CIVIL SERVICE SALARY REVISIONS, AT PARLIAMENT 9 APRIL 2007

And not forgetting your fat pensions too.