Saturday, July 12, 2008

System failure

I hereby declare the BYOB day a failure, along with all the whacko ideas that the authorities have come up with. Why? Because everything just failed from the end-users' viewpoint.

First up, BYOB day was implemented to try getting people to cut down on the use of plastic bags. Just the other day, I was down to the local supermarket (with my own bag in tow) and was greeted with the sickening sight of all the lazy folks gorging themselves with the plastic bags to carry their merchandise with. There at the side of the counter was a small can which 10cents was to be donated for every plastic bag taken. Not a single cent was ever dropped in after observing 10 people with obvious plastic bag fetishes moving off from the check-out counters. Instant failure...

Next comes the road traffic regulating measures, most "fondly" in the form of higher payment on what used to be heavily-congested roads (which are still congested). Has the ERP succeeded in easing traffic flow? Hell no! Let's put this in the form of a simple analogysince the brains behind it fail to see it so clearly. If I have 100 cars heading to a single point A with only 3 roads leading to A I get congested roads on all 3 with perhaps road 1 being more congested. If I make people travelling on road 1 pay more, I successfully "eased" the traffic flow for road 1. What the nit wits dun see is there are STILL 100 cars on all 3 roads and that number is still allowed to grow! Why is it so damn hard to just cut the number of new cars sprouting out on the roads? Is it because daddy's little boy just got his licence and he has to make sure he gets one so as to show that your family is well-to-do?

Hello people! Yeah, you sitting in that office chair in some Ministry or authority. I seriously question your credentials to be sitting in your positions. I even question your qualifications as graduates or professionals with any common sense.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Say what?

I now wish to refute a very popular gripe among the locals here. Singaporeans are NOT inconsiderate. They are the most kind and generous people around. They can have the heart to throw millions away to every disaster area that needs relief, oblivious to the fact that most of it probably ended up in some politician's pockets, funding their Mercedez rides. They can even donate tens of thousands in "blood money" to a poor murdered girl, which ended up with her mother whom promptly packed her bags and left for her home town in China and live in a life of semi-luxury. All these thanks to our generosity.

So why is it that many of us berate our fellow countrymen as inconsiderate and yet we show such a generous side? The answer is very simple. Singaporeans are ILLITERATE and hence STUPID. Take for example the many sign boards telling people not to litter and yet you see litter underneathe that very sign. What irony. Escalators with signs telling people to stand on the left to let people pass on the right side are not understood, even though its in the universal language English. Whats even worse are the cars that park next to signs asking them not to park there. How do these people even get a licence to begin with!?

Well, thats just it. The government has to step in and start sending the majority of the population back to grammar school instead of harping over the official "statistics" that we have a 98% literacy rate. Because the evidence just points otherwise, that many of the adults and working professionals are simply not up to par yet.