Murphy’s Law’s of Combat Operations

 This list has been making the rounds for dunno how many years, but it is still funny every time i read it..

Some of my favourite:

1) Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when the General is watching.

2)Combat will occur on the ground between two adjoining maps.

3)The quartermaster has only two sizes, too large and too small.

And my all time favourite: 

4) The most dangerous thing in the world is a Second Lieutenant with a map and a compass.

Taken from Christopher’s blog who probably took it from this website.

Great Tamil Movie Clips

OK, i know everyone thinks Tamil movies are just about dancing around coconut trees and love-struck couples running at each other. Come on people, stop being so narrow minded. There are so many other things Kollywood can do.

Check this videos out.

 

My 2 cents on the increase in civil servants pay.

When I started this blog, i told myself that i would not want to it to be another, ‘yet another political blog‘. As expected, the announcement on the increase in civil servants pay has brought about a lot of debate and discussions. And i find myself with some strong viewpoints as well.

 When I first read about the increase on the newspaper, my first impression was, ‘Minister pay already so high, still want to raise some more. Some more just after GST increase to 7%.’

Then as the days went by, the rationale for the increase was presented by the PM. This was then torn to shreds in online forums and in political blogs that were against the govt. But strangely, I too start to agree with the fact that a raise was in need. Even though i felt there were holes into the rationale myself.

The many arguments that go against the pay raise tend to only focus on the increase in the senior grade civil servants – the ministers and high ranking members of the judicial system. The usual arguments go like this:

1) They will mention that the president of the mighty USA only earns US 400K a year. Various examples of how other bigger countries pay lesser amounts to their Ministers then Singapore will also follow.

My reply to this point: Other countries might have different schemes/laws which decides how they pay their politicians. Politicians from other countries also do earn from donations given by groups which they lobby for as well as enjoy special benefits. For example, ex-US presidents do get a yearly allowance amounting to USD 1 million dollars and they receive secret service protection for at least 10 years. This is only some of the benefits they enjoy.  Hence, different countries, different systems, different scenarios, different benefits. So one cannot compare salaries with other countries’ politicians.

2) The second point most will mention is about how the ‘masses’ do not understand the rationale on why there is a need for such a big pay check for senior civil servants.

Herein lies the problem. I feel that the ‘masses’, inclusive of me, simply do not understand what it takes to be a MP, much less a senior civil servant or a Minister with a certain portfolio. And since we do not know what kind of responsibility and effort it takes to be a senior civil servant, we frown on the seemingly obscene amount that is paid to them. I feel that there is not much publicity to what the civil service does, hence the skepticism of need for high pay.

To quote an article from TODAY,”Foreigners and new citizens appreciate that we have a first-class public service, one of the best in the world. It is only Singaporeans who seem to doubt it.”

My 2 cents: Is there a need for increase in salaries of civil servants such as teachers? Yes.. But the standard in which the pay scale for senior grade civil servants is pegged to and how much is not too much is something beyond me..

 This 2 points are what i think to be the main ones. If you see any holes in this post, pls do leave a comment.. Learning process mah.. Haha, if only my JC GP tutor could see me doing this.. Maybe can get higher than my C5 for ‘A’s.

2 Schoolgirls bring down Ribena

GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of Ribena and with a worldwide turnover of more than $61 billion, has been fined $217,500 after admitting it mislead customers about the vitamin C content of the blackcurrant drink.

Full story here.

Amazing how much power 2 teenagers have. So next time you drink Ribena, don’t drink it for its high Vitamin C content, because it’s simply not true and seems as if it has the same amount of sugar as a can of Coke.

The Gospel According to Judas

The Gospel According to Judas, as told by Benjamin Iscariot, Recounted by Jeffrey Archer.

 

Mention Judas Iscariot and the first thing that comes to mind is his betrayal of Jesus.  The name ‘Judas’ along with Ephialtes and other famous traitors have long been synonymous with traitor and betrayal.

Or is it?

I bought this book fresh off the printing press (or is it hot off the printing press?) as it was only released in Singapore 3 days ago.

The Gospel According to Judas (TGAJ) is written by the famous story teller, Jeffrey Archer with assistance from a certain Prof. Moloney. The reader is seemingly led to believe that TGAJ was originally written by Judas’s eldest son, Benjamin.

TGAJ is also written in a format that it follows other Books/Gospels from the Bible, as in, the whole story is divided into chapters and verses.

Chapter 1, Verse 1 goes like this:

This gospel is written so that all may know the truth about Judas Iscariot  and the role he played in the life and tragic death of Jesus of Nazareth.

And Verse 6:

I, Benjamin, son of Judas Iscariot, his first born, listened to my father’s account of what took place at that time, and recorded accurately all that he saw and heard, initially in Aramaic – the language Jesus spoke- and then in Greek, which my father taught me from a young age.

The story starts off with Benjamin looking for his father, Judas, who has gone into hiding after the crucifixation. Once Benjamin finds his father, he convinces the latter to share with him the ‘real’ truth of what really happened.

Jeffrey Archer states that this book was not inspired by the Gospel of Judas, recently made famous by National Geographic, but it’s an attempt to present the Christian story through the eyes of Judas.

Even then, this book seems to be making a bee-line for controversy and criticism. Points such as Judas being wrongly accused of  the one who betrayed Jesus and Judas not committing suicide due to his guilt but also put to death by the crucifix by the Romans are bound to raise some eyebrows around the world.

 

Feel that it’s just a matter of time before both positive and negative reviews start flowing in, although this book would never match the impact created by the Da Vinci Code.

                                                                                                                                                                       

Command and Conquer 3

 

Command and Conquer 3, Tiberium Wars.

Launch Event: 26 March 07, Shaw Lido Complex, Orchard Road, Level 5

If you grew up on a steady diet of Command and Conquer games and the Red Alert series of games, then this would be one game you have looking forward for past 2 years ever since the launch of Yuri’s Revenge, Red Alert 2.

A very disgruntled Singaporean

 Had a good laugh reading this post from a forummer on SgForums.  He was responding to the latest initiative by the government to increase the salaries of those in the civil service.

 Quite a bit of inaccuracies, but think the point he wanted to make was there.

We ministers, must raise our salary by 100% in order to fight corruption and retain talent.

Singaporeans need to take lower salary in order to remain competitive against FTs.

Increase GST by 2% is to help the poor.

We are considering to raise the retirement age to 65.

We have no problems with Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand

Losing 4billion on Shincorp has nothing to do with the Govt.

IMF meeting was a resounding success.

We need tighten media control, the world press stating that we have 148th worst media is nonsense. We give a lot of freedom.

All opposition wards do not get any upgrading or funding because the govt does not have enough money.

$500k is peanuts.

NKF corruption has nothing to do with the Govt.

Welfare is a dirty word

We increase the electricity bills even though oil prices have gone down now is because we foresee that the oil prices will go up again

Our beloved president deserves the pay raise(2.7m excl. allowance) as he is the president for 2 terms uncontested, that shows that he is popular and well-loved.

By a chorus of MPs: “The budget is heaven made of compassion and generous. It is the best budget i ever seen.”

ERP has been very effective in traffic controlling

We created 550,000 jobs, average salary has rise up, employment is all time low. Theres a happy mood everywhere within Singaporeans

Get out of my elite uncaring face

The original story is here. Make your own judgement on the pay rise as well whatever the points stated. 

My Orange Monster

 Oh dear, think the Omega Syndrome has struck me as well. 

Well, 2 days ago i became the owner of a ‘Seiko Orange Monster’.

 

Think orange face makes the watch rather outstanding yet not so much of attracting attention.

So why is this called the ‘Monster’?

42mm diameter, arrowhead for an hour hand and sword for a minute hand, the rotating thingy(called a bezel) giving it a muscular appearance. And the colour screams of attitude and a rebellious presence. Basically a watch that other watches would not want to meet in a dark alley..

That was taken from this review of the orange monster.  I  conveniently chose to focus on the positive ones and ignore the negative ones..

Looks like a great watch, now to see how long is it before my bubble bursts.

 

What happens when Apple and OSIM run out of names?

What’s with all the putting of vowels in front of products to portray a cooler image?

Some time back, it was the ‘in’ thing to have a ‘e’ infront. With the emergence of the ‘e’ ternet, we now have e-mail, e-commerce, e-vite, e-dollars and whatever e-lse. After a while the pretenders looked like e-diots.

Since the letter ‘e’ had been overused, along came the marketing whizes who said, “Let’s give ‘i’ and ‘u’ a run and see how it goes”.

And  now we have Apple and its products: iPod, iMac, iPhone, iTunes

To go one further, we have OSIM and its products such as iGallop, iBike, iLife, iPoke, iCheck, iGoGo, iMedic, uSurf, uJog, uSonic, uZap, uScale, uBaby, uMoments and etc.

Good thing OSIM named its vaccum cleaners iEcologi and not something more direct to the point. Wonder if they sell hairdryers too, if then what will they name it?  uDry and iBlow?  

If you ask me, Apple and OSIM are heading for a collision course sooner or later. Well, there are only so many words to play around with before one starts suing the other.

An imaginery scene if that were to happen:

                News Flash: Apple Inc has won control of the letters ‘I’ and ‘U’. Now anyone wishing to use ‘I’ and ‘U’ as a prefix must now apply to Apple’s i-Marketing and u-Advertising Department. We shall now hear more from Apple’s iSpokesperson, I-leen.

Ms I-leen: We are very happy that Apple has won control of letter ‘U’ and ‘I’. We have also applied successfully for the use of the letter ‘V’. To celebrate our victory, we will be releasing two new products, V-Win and U-Lose. To show that we are humble in victory, we will be handing over the details and patent of one of our new products to OSIM. It is called, ‘U-Wish’.

Furthermore, we will now end off all our commercials with the following statement. ” This commercial was brought to you by the letters ‘I’, ‘U’ and ‘V’. ”

Right..

Singapore is 1st in almost everything.. Click, Click, Click

I am sure that you know that Singapore has broken many records and received many accolades along its short history.

Now there is one more record to add to the list.

Check out this!  clickclickclick.com

Wanted to post a pic, but WordPress said something was wrong.

Basically, that link is to a clicking game. Every time you click the orange button, one vote goes to your country’s total.

As you can see, Singapore is first, with currently 14, 147,980 votes.  Thats more than 3 votes for every person in Singapore. By the time you read this, it should be more.

This was first mentioned (to my knowledge) in SGForums on 17th Mar, with Singapore only having 7,100 votes. Then how the remarkable jump from 27th to 1st?

I have to admire the brains and ingenuity of Singaporeans here. If you read all the 50 pages of that thread, you’ll understand why.

Initially, the forummers started clicking manually, then some got smart and started to download and pass around auto-clicking programs. Then some realized if you opened more tabs and set the auto-clicker, the click rate is faster. Then, someone else wrote a certain code/program for it and left it to run overnight. Hence the 100 000% jump in less than 3 days.

One of them, even sent a letter to the more prominent bloggers in Singapore in a bid to secure 1st spot. On page 47 of the thread, somewhere in the middle. Hilarious, the way the writer equated Singapore to the 300 Spartans and the rest as the Persians.

They started passing the word around in the online community and it became a national project. The story does not end here. People from different countries started passing around viruses disguised as codes in order to ’sabo’ the other country’s attempt.

This is all very funny and good for a joke or two. But, please la, that ranking is not really important and i am stopping short of saying ‘Go get a life’..

But on the other hand, Keep up the good work, Clickers of Singapore..

Edit: The site server is probably down due to excessive clicking. Or maybe it is a conspiracy by the estonians.