Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Police vs Former Police

The Manila Bus Hostage Crisis reminds me of the movie "SPEED" and "The Negotiator" combined together. Its a hijack and hostage taking of a bus plus a former decorated police chief as the hostage taker.

Why does a man had to go to such extend to prove his point only to be shot in the head? A good hostage taker should be calm and not kill the hostage to infuriate the Police, a good police force should be there to calm the hostage taker and secure the safety of the hostage through trick or treats.

The SWAT Team totally lost the element of surprise with their failed assault attempts. All the hostage could have perished from this blunder.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Headache of the middle man.

Headache is nothing but a sensation created by the human brain as a respond to stress and pain, both physical and psychological. The human body comprise millions of nerve cell, sensors around the body responsible for sensing of physical stimuli like pleasure and pain, good taste and bad taste, pungent and fragrance. All this sensors as I had choose to call them transmit signals to the nerve processing center, the brain, which create a appropriate bodily and emotional respond.

When there is an overload of information coupled with psychological stresses like deadlines, lack of information, reporting to superior, fear, in confidence our entire brain become highly stressed and start responding with headache, sending signal to the entire body to cease the activity however at the same time getting signal from the long term memory that stoppage=failure, facing reprimand, lost of job, work pile up, $$$. This become rather restrictive to a person work and affects his/her performance ultimately.

Our brain the processing center of our body. In our line of work, information center are Command Post, Ops Center, HQ, the prime contractor, the middle management team and basically anyone or department coordinating effort between the top decision makers and the ground workers. You see, decision makers make or break decision while the ground workers make or break the work... in the middle of this process are the unfortunate sandwiched middle work force who sometimes have to juggle the outrageous requirements,deadline or action of the decision makers and the restrictive, poor morale and unconvinced man on the ground. This is an extreme case causing extreme stress to the "brain" of the organization whose livelihood depends on making both party satisfied.

In my opinion... you either be the humble guy doing the grunt and ground work and keep work life simple or the Top decision makers who make life difficult for a good or bad down the chain but never the middle management who get squeeze dry.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

My favourite Thai Song! Mai-roo-jak-chan-mai-roo-jak-ter



Translation of lyrics available here

I am really surprise that the Singer is a 实力派 (Talent) rather than 偶像派 (Idol) artiste. He may not look good but he got a great voice!!! Judging from his size, I understand why the singer is call "Calories Blah Blah". Female singer is Endorphine.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Tax than kanna tax again?

TAX

1.
a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.

2.
a burdensome charge, obligation, duty, or demand.

Ok so most of us pay tax. We pay tax base on our annual salary factor in the deduction of tax relief. So in essence we are paying tax for the money left over for us to spend and a portion of our salary are excused from tax factoring due to government policy, this is call tax relief. If you have dependent parents and kids, you can get tax relief. If you havw a handicapped sibling requiring your monetary support, you get tax relief. If you are studying part time at a government approved education institution, you get tax relief. The list goes on as a reward to obedient Singaporean who follows the government policy.

However some (like me) may realize that we are unwittingly subjected to double taxation in many instances? Take for example the everyday GST of 7% you paid from grocery to electronic product using your taxable salary. The 7% don't go to profiting the merchant but straight to the government coffers as tax. You had paid $100 for the "real value" of the product and a $7 tax to the government making the total of $107 out off your pocket. As for your income tax, the government will still tax you base on your initial ownership of that $107 dollars. Lets assume the tax is 2% which means you will be paying an additional $2.14 cents to the government.

This is simple elementary math here we are dealing with but it make simple sense as well. You paid $107 dollars for a $100 product means $7 dollars of GST plus $2.14 of income tax goes to the government. Thats $9.14.

So should we be grateful to the government for giving us GST rebates? No in my opinion because its only right that as a law abiding citizen who never evade tax to get back the extra money that was given away due to poor taxation principles.

Food for thought, its not just the GST that are part of the double taxation. You are double tax on properties (set to rise soon), tv license fee, your water supply bills, your electricity bill, monthly fees to town council for service and conservancy charges and god knows what else.

Saturday, July 03, 2010

Law and Order

You invite a guest from another country to stay in your home for a few years. One day he got a bit tipsy and accidently push you onto the ground after stumbling back to your home in the middle of the night. Next thing you know, he threw a small tantrum while picking up a dropped key when at the same time his elbow swing and met the face of your child resulting in a bleeding nose. Your guest never said sorry and went straight to bedroon, collapsing onto the bed and snored like a pig.

The next day, you confronted him and he denied all wrong doings. Moment later he left your house and flew back to your country, leaving behind bruises and a broken nose. Never got an apology and not even a chance to bring immediate justice to his brawl act.

Dr Silviu Ionescu's trial in Romania hopefully bring justice to the victim of the Romanian Embassy hit and run case. This case put Singapore in the spotlight on how we dealt with an errant official with supposely diplomatic immunity who commited a crime in our country. Not only are the victims Singaporean but also a Malaysian who died from the hit and run. It will be a major mockery to our justice system if Ionescu were to be let away scot free as a result of pressure from the Romanian Government. Imagine what picture our dear neighbour will will paint of us when Singapore could not bring closure to the matter, satisfying the justice of the victims (from both side of the causeway) and the citizen as a whole.

After a failed assasination on Dong Zhuo (董卓), Cao Cao (曹操) flee the palace with his adviser Chen Gong (陈宫) and found refuge with a family in the rural farm land. He was well taken care by the farm family, given new set of clothes, good food, water and his horse was fed as well. The head of the household gave him the best bed available in the family for rest after Cao Cao tiring miles of escape from Dong Zhuo. One evening while the family are sharpening their knife on grind stone to slaughter a lamb for dinner, anxiety and suspicion strikes on Cao Cao. He killed the whole family, assuming that they are sharpening the knife to kill him, the fugitive. After the bloodshed he was horrified to realise the mistake he made but fled the scene with his adviser. He eventually become a noctorious leader in the Three Kingdom Era. Chen Gong could had bring him to justice for harming the host of the family.

Today a friend came your home, sprayed a creative graffati design on the wall of your house and left the scene immediately. It was a really nice form of art but it clearly is done without your consent. Further more he entered your home without your permission. I'm sure you will not be happy with what your friend did.

Every country had its laws and cultures for order of society. I think its only right for visitor to respect it. A 5 months jail sentence and 3 stroke of butt splitting canes to the Swiss man is fair justice for his attempt to undermine our law and order no matter how nicely done the graffati are. It should be 5 years and 30 strokes in my opinion for he knew very well that he is trespassing and vandalism. Oh yes he had been famous for doing so in many other countries but too bad he did it in Singapore as well. Lets not forget what Micheal Fay did years ago with his vandalism act and the outrage of American for the harsh punishment he recieve to his buttocks.

Recently its Mediacorp Artiste Quan Yi Feng vs Comfort Delgro Taxi Driver Mr Chan. Time and Court will tell whether Mr Chan had commited aggravated assault or Quan Yi Feng had committed aggravated defense. I hope the polices/lawyers know that they are handling an actress vs a day to day Taxi Driver, special interview/interogation skills are required when dealing with someone who does acting almost everyday. Ironically Quan Yi Feng hired a criminal lawyer to defend her....

Friday, June 25, 2010

Heading for LOB Dive trip

Finally...the long awaited break from work is finally here. Oversea leave from Friday to Monday (long long weekend) Gonna keep those work to a hidden memory of mine and time to do some scuba diving after almost 1 year of inactivity in the sea. This time, instead of staying on an island resort and heading out to sea to dive each day, me and my khakis will be Living On Board.

No more boat transfer to dive boat and waiting at the jetty. Eat, sleep and dive all from the LOB dive boat, good enough to slack it out over the weekend with minimal walking. Joining me for this weekend trip will be Palm and ZaiMing who I had went on dive trip seperately with during my basic and advance Openwater course. This time will be a team of three instead.

Looking at the weather forecast for the island of Tioman and surrounding waters, it looks like a raining season for the next two days when we will be diving. It said 20%~40% chance of rain so I hope we are in the 80%~60% percent weather bracket throughout the trip.

Focus for this dive trip will be underwater navigation and some photography of this little adventure. Will post the pictures when I get back.

Leaving you guys now with this "Kung Fu Bear" video that was claim to be real! Its really amazing how animal will fight back against human poaching in the future,