Public Surveillance in US of A and how it’s being countered

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China is Great Again

Tremble with fear before the Dragon Throne.

S’poreans who appreciate 4G leaders

What follows reminds me of a joke I heard in the mid-70s that the PAP removed the words “socialist” and “socialism” from its constitution.

Credit Suisse reports that Belgium, Canada, S’pore and the UK suffered the most economically with an average contraction of 7.1%. But, they enjoyed unusually high wealth gains averaging 7.7% net of exchange rate movements.

Globally, household wealth held up despite the record economic contraction because of buoyant equity markets and housing prices. This “is testament to the success of government support programs and lower interest rates following central bank intervention,” says Credit Suisse.

Some data and projections on rich people here.

According to Credit Suisse’s estimates, in 2020, there were 270,000 millionaires in here. This is expected to rise 61.9% to around 437,000 millionaires in 2025. There were 1,361 ultra-high-net-worth adults with a net worth exceeding US$50 million in 2020, coming in 19th place globally.

Total wealth in Singapore stood at US$1.6 trillion in 2020, up from US$1.5 trillion in 2019.

Globally, Singapore ranked 10th highest in mean wealth per adult, with US$332,995 in 2020, up 8.3% increase over 2019 and working out to a 3.9% annual growth since 2010.

Bitcoin is dead! Long live Monero!

Bitcoun: Easy come, easy go

The new King? Or at least the new kid on the block.

Covid-19: Mama variant rules the world

OK, OK, more like the US, UK and Europe. What China can do (remember the Kung Flu aka Wuhan virus aka Chinese virus), India also can do.

Delta variant aka the Indian variant now represents 20% of new cases in the US says Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden.

In the UK, Modi’s virus represents over 90% of new cases.

The Indian variant is now dominant in Portugal and appeared in clusters across Germany, France and Spain.

[T]he delta variant appears to be more transmissible than any other. It may also be more severe and deadly. Even people who have previously been infected may be vulnerable.

Economist

But

Thankfully, the vaccines made by Pfizer and AstraZeneca, the main ones deployed in Britain, remain 80% effective after two doses. However, efficacy is considerably lower after a single dose.

Economist

Some reports put the efficacy at 90%. But don’t worry Modi’s working on a updated variant to infect the world.

PA: Where are the experts on Malay culture?/ In a hole? Keep on digging

Imagine these three events:

To celebrate the Spring Festival, PA puts up signage saying gōng xǐ fā cáim, and exhibits cardboard figures of a couple in traditional Chinese wedding costumes or in modern day takes of traditional Chinese wedding costumes.

When Deepavali or Diwali came along, the PA has signage wishing Indians who celebrate Deepavali or Diwali the appropriate Deepavali or Diwali greetings. PA is careful not to inflame the intra-Indian wars on which term to use. There are cardboard figures of a couple in Indian wedding costumes accompanying the signage.

Finally to celebrate Christmas, PA has appropriate traditional signage and decorations with the traditional and appropriate greetings. There are figures of a couple dressed for a Western style church wedding.

The figures of wedding couples have never appeared, because weddings and the Spring Festival, Deepavali and Christmas are different cultural events. And PA knows this. PA was set up by one Harry Lee, among other things, to promote racial harmony and social cohesion here, with the mission of building and bridging communities in “achieving one people, one Singapore”.

Yet when it came to a Malay culture event, it messed up big time recently.

When Ms Sarah Bagharib (the lady whose photo was used in above) KPKBed, there were almost immediate apologies from the PA, the MP’s office, the MP and even a cabinet minister to Ms Sarah Bagharib for the inappropriate mixing of different cultural events (a wedding with Hari Raya Aidilfitri) and for not getting her permission to use her photo. Her hubbie was pretty quiet. We can guess who wears the pants in this family. Whisper it, but it’s alleged that wimmin rule the roost in Malay families.

So where were the experts on Malay culture in PA? Maybe PA should buy the book on Malay culture written for kids: Get hold of these books.

But Sarah Bagharib, a so-called “communications specialist”, kept on talking.

The PA took umbrage at these remarks. It interpreted them as her calling the PA “racist” and cancelled a meeting with her. Neutral observers said the PA’s interpretation of her remarks was not consistent with what she said.

There was the usual anti-PAP and PA uproar on social media.

Then a PA adviser and Malay PAP candidate MP added dynamite to the fire. He shared an image on social media that was widely seen as insinuating she was a WP activist. But she was not the masked WP activist in the montage he used. The uproar resulted in the montage being tweaked and the guy saying he was being misunderstood but not offering any explanation of why he did what he did. Maybe he was just stupid?

Both the original and the tweaked montage came from a group that posts pro PAP or anti- Opposition stuff. The group is a reliable source of fake news. Yet this PA adviser and PAP activist trusted it without checking. Says a lot about him and the PAP and PA. Remember the PAP says its candidates are the best people available.

Then someone came out to complain, that part of the montage the PA adviser used was used without permission, raising the issue about whether the PA and its advisers, and the PAP were cavalier about such matters, or just stupid.

The slow motion car crash is ongoing.

Someone has just written to the constructive, nation-building media suggesting that PA had better meet her: https://www.todayonline.com/voices/heres-why-pa-should-meet-woman-whose-wedding-photo-it-used-without-permission?fbclid=IwAR0QXG2H2-Dtbp7nYwV7njm9J7amDGWhzKBkyDlwcJeWA2rWT5nJb9GVIGI

I’m sure the letter was published after the editor consulted with the appropriate authorities.

Oh and I’m waiting to hear from

or

Their silence is defeaning:

Related posts for detailed background.

https://mothership.sg/2021/05/wedding-photo-hari-raya-standee/

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/pa-sorry-for-using-couples-photo

Malays are the lest racist?

Further to Is freedom to choose a partner racism?, and Intra Indian marriages, the following table has been used to “show” that Malays are the least racist.

They may be the least blinded by race. But want to marry a Malay means conversion: Islamic law requires it. And for men this means circumcision. My Malay friends tell me conversion is a must for the Muslim parents and the community to accept the marriage. A civil marriage is a no-no.

There’s a family I know well: husband is around my age (Pioneer Generation) and from ACS. He married a M’sian (father Arab, mother Chinese). He had to convert: no pork. But he got a pass on fasting because he converted when an adult. And btw, his Chinese family had no issues with his marriage.

But, I also know of a Chinese Christian (Aunt’s friend) who married a Muslim. But the man did not require her to convert: no pork only. Their children are Christians. Her parents also had no objections.

Whatever, mixed marriages are a complex issues: numbers can’t catch the nuances.

PAP govt squandered our efforts in obeying the Covid-19 rules

The following made me think the above.

Lawrence Wong’s latest remarks about the Bukit Merah Covid-19 outbreak (Indian variant I assume?) led to STI losing 1%++ on Wednesday

COVID-19 task force ‘evaluating’ timing and scope of reopening amid fresh outbreak: Lawrence Wong

Constructive, nation-building CNA

The only meaningful announcement on Friday was that two persons can eat together at an F&B outlet.. The rest were cosmetic, hence more support using our money: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/work-from-home-wfh-default-jobs-support-scheme-covid-19-15040560

It was then that I read that a senior British cabinet minister, annoyed that the lockdown in England has been extended for another month because of the Indian variant (In the UK, the Indian variant is everywhere, accounting for 90% of cases.) grumbled very publicly:

Several papers pick up on comments made by the Leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, about the delay to fully lifting lockdown restrictions in England.

Mr Rees-Mogg told a podcast on the Conservative Home website that you shouldn’t “run society purely to stop the hospitals being full” – adding that “the NHS is there to serve the British people,” rather than the other way around.

BBC

 

(Ministers and pulic health experts in the UK want to protect hospitals from being overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients.)

This made me think.

The PAP government is here to serve S’poreans, rather the other way round. S’pore shouldn’t be run purely to ensure that Lawrence Wong and the other 4G leaders look good after cocking up.

S’poreans did their bit, by following the rules and getting vaccinated. But the PAP govt squandered our efforts by carelessly letting in the Indian variant because they wanted FTs from Mamaland by the plane load.

Don’t believe me? TOC has lots of charts showing that the data shows we got infected by Indian Indians: https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2021/06/17/indian-nationals-make-up-about-70-of-imported-cases-from-nepal-50-of-uae-to-singapore-in-2021-based-on-moh-data/

And the data does not seem to support the PAP govt’s assertion that the danger of getting infected is the price we have to pay to keep the building and construction industry going.

Btw, one Indian who brought the Indian variant in (She denies it, claiming she got it here at Changi) said she felt safer in India than In S’pore. And the PAP govt didn’t deport her back for her insult.

Still to be fair to the PAP govt, the int’l media has reported that Pfizer ‘s vaccine (the most common vaccine here) is highly effective at preventing hospitalisations from the Indian variant. So it did get us the best vaccine our money can buy.

And then there’s this

So a C grade for the $4G’s efforts is fair? What do u think?

Intra Indian marriages

Notice how Indians are less approving of other Indians? 14% are not accepting of other Indians. Because of the FTs (Aryans many of them call themselves. They are mostly Hindi speakers and have skins they call “wheat coloured” and love dogs unlike the local Tamils) vs local Indian, mostly Tamil speakers? Or is it the Caste system? Or both?

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Is freedom to choose a partner racism?

The following table has been making the rounds in cyberspace following the video of a senior polytechnic lecturer KPKBing about mixed relations. And the table is also used to accuse us Chinese of racism (accusation not reproduced). Btw the accuser is Chinese. A woke.

A FB friend (Chinese) in response wrote:

One fundamental freedom is the *freedom to choose a mate without being subject to abuse for making that choice*. In the NP lecturer case, he scolded the Chinese girl for making her choice of an Indian male partner, claiming that her parents would be ashamed, or words to that effect. That was wrong and racist of the lecturer, and rightly called out.

Yet in this post the writer is scolding Chinese for merely *expressing* their freedom of choice in choosing mates. This is wrong. We must not lose sight of the fundamental freedom any of us have to choose our mates, no matter what race we belong to.

Go down this dark road at your own peril. The future is dark for the next generation if this fundamental freedom of mate choice is ever questioned.

Covid-19: Proud moment for India

And all Mamas round the world.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reclassified the Delta strain of Covid-19 as a variant of concern, saying it is more transmissible and adding further pressure to maintain the country’s vaccination drive.

FT

The slit eyes may have started the Kung Flu but the Indian version is the most transmissible.

Congrats Modi. Anything China can do, Modi’s India can do better.

Kirsten Han trusts PAP govt and our legal system

LOL. No not fake news. It’s true.

Further to Kirsten Han is angry at retired NUS head of department, the guy she accuses of trolling her responded by saying

she says she thought about calling police or getting court order; so authoritarian, but I am glad she trusts SG gov & legal system, after all

I don’t know about her other allegations, but she’s right to call him a troll. Power to him.

Meanwhile in Cynical Historian: Othman Wok wrote supernatural and horror fiction before he became a PAP Old Guard, Othman Wok: our very own Stephen King

Kirsten Han is angry at retired NUS head of department

Typical of her to get her facts wrong. She says he was “lecturer in Computer Science at NUS”: actually he was head of the Computer Science Department. Big difference, but facts don’t matter to her.

He’s a reader of this blog and a cyber friend. Nice bloke who believes that the Woke should Walk the Woke, not just Talk the Woke.

Her FB post is reproduced below.

I originally talked about this in a friends-only post because I just wanted to vent to a closed group of people. But I’ve decided to make it public because I think there are things that are worth saying openly.

For the past five years, a man who used to be a lecturer in Computer Science at NUS has been harassing me online. He doesn’t say anything directly abusive, violent, or threatening, but his persistence even after being told *multiple* times that his actions—such as downloading photos of myself with my family from my parent’s social media and re-posting it elsewhere without consent—are inappropriate and make me uncomfortable. I’ve been trying to ignore him for a long time because people have said “don’t feed the troll” and “don’t give him the attention he craves”, but have come to realise that the flip side of this is an inability to take care of myself and acknowledge the impact this has had. In trying hard not to give him what he might want, I’ve not been able to give myself what I need.

Even if I’m vocal in public settings, even if videos and photos and articles by/about me are publicly available online, doesn’t mean I should put up with this. But in this case, I have. For five years.

I don’t know this man. As far as I can remember, we have never met in person. But if you know this man, Yuen Chungkwong, if you are friends or family with him—please engage him and tell him that what he’s doing is inappropriate and unacceptable.

A blog post, with screencaps, about what’s been going on, and how I’m trying to decide what the best thing to do for myself is: https://www.kirstenhan.com/…/dont-feed-the-trolls-and…(Removed the embed so it’s easier to share this post if you like.)

More on the Sinovac vaccine

Further to Share this with fans of Sinovac, a regular reader who was a medical doctor turned fat cat wrote

What’s happening in Chile now is EXACTLY what happened in Seychelles couple months ago.

This is exactly why Beijing said 2 weeks ago that China cannot follow the West to re-open because Beijing themselves are uncertain how effective their own cheena vaccines are.

People are now suspecting the wide difference of results in the various cheena vaccine trials in 3rd world countries (Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia) is due to different Covid variants, apart from maybe fishy or lousy record-keeping.

Traditional vaccines like the cheena ones, as well as Astrazeneca, have proven themselves in real life to be far less effective against newer Covid variants, in particular the Indian strain. Ongoing & future mutations will make ALL vaccines less effective, but will affect the traditional ones even more so.

At least so far, the traditional vaccines can still reduce severe infections, hospital/ICU admissions, and deaths. However Chile & Seychelles have shown that traditional vaccines are unable to significantly prevent infection by newer Covid variants, as well as transmission.

The benefit of mRNA drugs is that scientists can easily “re-program” the instruction code to combat new variants relatively quickly, often within 3 months. It will take much longer for traditional vaccines, as the scientists will need to practically start from scratch again.

The main benefit of traditional vaccines is that they may be better for people who have history of SEVERE allergic reactions. However real life experience so far also indicates the traditional Covid vaccines appear to have proclivity for adverse blood clotting events, especially in women.

*

Share this with fans of Sinovac

Plenty of KPKBing From China tua kees that PAP govt is wrongly depriving of the best vaccine for Covid-19.

Well Chile has been relying on Sinovac and 58% of the population has been vaccinated:

Chile has announced a lockdown in the capital Santiago amid rising Covid cases, despite nearly 60% of the country being fully vaccinated.

More than eight million residents living in and around the capital now must stay at home from Saturday.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57436861

No posts for a while

Something’s wrong. Yesterday’s post disappeared. And there was a problem with an an older post.
Weird.

Grandpa Xi trying to suck up to Sleepy Joe?

What are M’sians doing here as barbers and delivery riders?

But first a rant channelling the ethnic Chinese chauvinist lurking within all pure ethnic Chinese.

Jialat. We not only have to worry about Indians from India infecting us.

Because Indian Indians think we are the 4th China (Covid-19: India trying to reinfect China?) despite all the mamas migrating here from India, turning S’pore into the something akin like the slums of Calcutta? Or maybe they all want to live in China?

We now have to worry about M’sians infecting us.

On June 5, our constructive, nation-building media reported:

Four of the new community cases reported on Saturday (June 5) are linked to a barber shop at Bedok Road, forming a new cluster, the Ministry of Health said.

Two of them are barbers at the shop, called Atatcutz Singapore. Both are Malaysian nationals. 

The other two new cases linked to the cluster are a Singaporean woman who works for Workforce Singapore and a Malaysian delivery rider for Pizza Hut.

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/new-covid-19-cases-june-5-21-barber-shop-bedok-cluster

Tun M trying to infect us isit? His hatred of S’pore is well documented.

PJ Thum and Kirsten Han wanted him to bring democracy here: Jolovan Wham: Nothing wrong in asking Tun M to intervene in S’porean affairs and Still urging Tun to take leadership in SE Asia; PJ, Kirsten?

Do they want him to infect S’pore?

But think about it further and as travel is practically non-existent between M’sia and S’pore (unlike until recently, between India and S’pore: I know a local Indian who went there on a short business trip), the M’sians must have caught the Covid-19 here.

The elephant in the room is what are M’sians doing here as barbers and delivery riders? We got a shortage of S’poreans for these jobs? MOM should tell us.

Btw, has anybody tot the Chinese gentleman KPKBing about an “Indian” and a “Chinese” going out together, be mentally ill?

I hope the authorities will investigate the incident thoroughly. And in the meantime, let’s shut up and sit down. And that includes ministers and the usual anti-govt wokes.

Reason why PAP wins and wins?

But people like Lim Tean and Goh Meng Seng help: Why even with 4G donkeys, PAP will retain power.

And there’s still hope as the last GE showed: Legitimacy problem for the PAP as 9% of voters get smarter.

Good news for 4G leaders and us

World trade is booming.

This chart is even better news:

The bad news, a GST rise is again on the agenda of the Pay And Pay govt.

M’sia quietly destroys forests, avoiding being named and shamed by the woke

Meanwhile Indonesia, Congo and Brazil get bad publicity for doing what M’sia is doing.

Covid-19: Importance of first jab especially for elderly

In mid May

Singapore is expecting to administer at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine to its entire adult population by early August, authorities said on Tuesday, after a decision to widen the gap between doses to inoculate more people faster.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/singapore-seeks-covid-19-vaccination-all-adults-by-august-2021-05-18/

The first jab is very important because

Very small numbers of people have been admitted to hospital with Covid several weeks after having one vaccine dose, a study of UK patients has found.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56933756

So PM’s message that we are ahead of schedule is good news.

The BBC report goes on to say,

Most of those affected were frail and elderly and at high risk of being very unwell.

Hence PM’s call yesterday

For those with elderly parents or relatives, please encourage and persuade your old folks to get vaccinated.

He reported that 280,000 elderly people have yet to book appointments and urged them to do so as soon as possible. The govt should hunt them down and vaccinate them forcibly, if necessary, for their own good and the nation’s prosperity.

So far S’pore is doing pretty well : 37% have had one dose and 28% have had the two doses. Lawrence Wong for PM!