Public transport fares among issues raised at MacPherson dialogue session

i was looking through this article and i tot transport minister is talking some screwed up bullshit. well at least base on my very limited common knowledge.

"SINGAPORE : It would take a further 1.5 percentage point hike in GST if bus and train rides were to be made completely free.

Transport Minister Raymond Lim revealed this at a dialogue session with MacPherson residents on Sunday.

One resident at the session said: "(During) this tough and uncertain period, I hope there will be no increase in transport fares."

With leaner times ahead and recovery not yet in sight, public transport fares — always a hot issue — dominated the discussion.

And while Mr Lim is making no promises, he said he understands ground concerns and pointed out that the Public Transport Council will look carefully at economic conditions before considering any increase.

But if things became really bad, will the government consider subsidising public transport fares?
Mr Lim pointed out that even with subsidies, it will still be the public which ends up paying.
Mr Lim elaborated: "There are only two persons who pay when it comes to public transport fares. One, I use — I pay. Or two, I use — you help me subsidise my ride. What happens when you subsidise my rides? That means the taxpayers are now paying."

Going to the other end of the spectrum, if rides were to be made completely free, that would impose a heavy tax burden on the people, as it takes S$1.2 billion just to run the bus and train systems annually.

Mr Lim said: "The money still must come from somewhere, right? It is about a 1.5 percentage point increase of your GST. So, now it is 7%. You want it to be free, do you want the GST to go up to 8.5% to run a completely free bus and train system?"

But with oil prices — which operators traditionally cite as one of their high cost factors — dropping significantly in recent months, why have bus fares not come down in tandem?
Mr Lim explained: "This is because the public transport fare is not directly linked to the oil prices. We link it to national factors, like the inflation level in Singapore, and the wage level in the whole of Singapore."

Moving to a cheaper form of transport, one resident asked: "I would like to know... whether we are having, in the near future, a pro—bicycle government policy, where it can provide shady bicycle tracks all over the island."

For now, Mr Lim said using two—wheelers as a form of transport is good for just intra—town travel. And it cannot be applied uniformly across the island but has to be adapted for different communities.

Apart from Tampines, authorities are also looking at Yishun and Sembawang for pilot cycling projects.

MacPherson is a constituency which has a high number of compact high—rise HDB flats, and a population that has a higher proportion of the elderly above the age of 50 who are more likely to be from the lower household income group.

It is not surprising then that not just public transport fares but also other cost of living issues that dominated the dialogue session. These included questions on whether costs of goods and services are expected to come down during this recession.

Another topic touched on was that of foreigners working in Singapore. One issue raised was whether the policy of letting foreign workers go first should also apply at the management level.
Mr Lim pointed out that this differs from company to company, and depends on how badly the particular company needed the special skill sets of those management staff. — CNA/ms"

um... WTF!!!! are we asking for free public transport??? is he taking us for retards or wad? omg totally cant believe what the hell he is talking. i dun think he is getting the point the public is trying to make. then he goes on to make the comment "Public Transport Council will look carefully at economic conditions before considering any increase" - which measns. "f*** off. i dun give a shit if u think prices are too high. its not coming down. it'll never will. MAYBE i'll consider not raising it so high next time."

"Mr Lim pointed out that even with subsidies, it will still be the public which ends up paying."........ like duh........ um when does the public not pay for anything? for god's sakes wth are u talking? so what you are trying to say is..... if there are no subsidies, we are not paying?

Mr Lim elaborated: "There are only two persons who pay when it comes to public transport fares. One, I use — I pay. Or two, I use — you help me subsidise my ride. What happens when you subsidise my rides? That means the taxpayers are now paying."......... oh so now u are trying to get urself out of this awkward statement you jus made. like how george bush does it all the time. and sinks deeper into the pile of shit u jus dumped.... how abt: one, i use - i pay. two, i use - you help me subsidise. you use, i help you subsidise. that means everyone pays. hur....

and stop saying how much it costs to make public transport free. we dun want it free... the money must come from somewhere? yes we know. hmmm.... how abt coming from all the money u earn from ERP and COE? nice....

and i frankly think the resident who asked abt the bicycle thing quite retarded. asking for shady bicycle tracks around spore. omg.... might as well go on and ask for spore to be fully air conditioned. then spore and ban smoking all together and increase GST to 20%. how abt that retard.

i feel that the prices for public transport should go down jus like how electricity prices went down after the oil price hike died down. its a way of pacifying the public. sometimes i guess its not too good to test the limit too far.

but with regards to tax and inflation and wages. i'm wondering. why ministers like to use the excuse of inflation and increasing wages to increase tax. spore's tax is pretty much all by percentage. lets say GST. the amount taxed increases along with inflation. so it doesnt reli matter how much inflation is. the amount taxed will increase along with inflation cos the govt is always taxing along with this particular percentage of spending. and looking at things from another point of view. the increase of wage and general prices hardly doubled in the past decade. lets say inflation is 50% over the past decade. the cheapest can of coke i can get is around 40c in 98 its around 55c now. a machicken meal is $4.50 last time and aruond $6.50 now. so 50% is okay. but look at GST, from 3& to 7%. a whopping 233% increase!!! hmmm..... food for thought.

oh well. its common that once prices go up. they'll never come down. govts find excuse to increase prices. then they'll sneakly keep prices up. i'm not referring specifically to spore here. look at china. cost of living in beijing has gone up substantially this year mainly due to the olympic games. the prices are not going down. i'll like to see how the chinese deal with this. on the outside china looks okay from this economic crisis. but i say its jus a outer shell. the damage is deeply felt in china. more serious that anyone of us expect. but china is so good at keeping bad news away from the world and her own citizens (look at SARS, bird flu, and the all the chemical spills and mine collapse shit, nothing leaks out, except all the poisonous chemicals).

gerbert i do not agree with your view that we do not have to worry abt shortage of food. i know abt all the hydoponanics or hrydro-dunno-wad-shit thing farming. but its pretty much limited to vegetables. i'm talking abt proper crops here. maize, corn, potato, rice. in chinse we call 五谷杂粮. have u seen rice, potato or corn grown in multi level indoor farms? i guess not.

i'm not sure if u tried farming before but i did. my grandparents are farmers. so i've tried growing random stuff in the field before. and i fell countless times into the padi field, destroying acres of rice. the technique is still damn freaking ancient. and i doubt it'll change much. rice padi for example. u grow the seeds first in a tight cluster. then u talk the younglings and manually insert them into the wet field. its not something easily done by machines. and there is a limit to how densely the crops can be grown. so there is not much room for improvement. take my word for it. we will see the effects of shortage of food in decades to come.

we are already very easily affected by natural disasters. one hurrican in vietnam causes regional prices of rice to go up. flour and rice prices have been consistantly rising through the years. go ask ur mum they'll know.

i predict that agriculture will be a sunrise industry in the decades to come.

jenhan gets screwed by mum. hope i dun get screwed too badly haha. =x

and i do not eat grass. i never eat before. and i'll never eat in the future.

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ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh not another white dress!!!

haha damn. after watching hours of korean drama i decided to take a breather on facebook. and there on the notifications, omg not another bunch of girls in white dresses.

haha. i think white dress looks damn good. haha super random. but seriously man. who dun think white dress looks good. come find me. i give u a nice beating.

i've been watching this show called 冲吧！啊达 or 101st proposal (another name for it, the korean name is actually this also). its abt this 38 yr old carpenter going after this television hostess. this is like totally impossible but like all korean dramas, it becomes possible and a love story without any consideration of what is going to happen with regards to life after marriage is shown. quite nice. great acting by an ugly actor. which means i probably got a shot at acting. but anyways, the lead actress is like 35 now and she's still single. hur..... haha. wonder why. but she's the atas kinda hot. graceful one. not the usually whole day jump around quarrel like crazy kind of character. very nice. never look down on other ppl. her name is park seon yeong. not the most famous actress around. but she's reli reli hot. and in the show when she wears the white dress. whoa... ownage. insane.

kinda reminds me of many shows i watched. white dress is the killer outfit. be it angelina jolin in mr and mrs smith, liv tyler in lord of the rings, or anne hathaway in so many shows, natalie portman in star wars, yoon eun hye in princess hours, lee ha na in merry mary, isla fisher in the wedding crashers, kristin davis in sex and the city, katherine heigl in knocked up, the list goes on and on and on. gawd. haha. omg. white dress insane ownage.

i guess cos the ladies look best in wedding gowns. 2nd best translates to a smaller, more subtle version, a white dress. white dress gives the kinda pure look. unlike black which gives a gothic/seductive/dark kinda look. white is jus plain, nice, and innocent. makes ppl feel comfortable. then i guess cos nurse wears white too. gives a warm feeling. because white is pure thats why nurse wear white. i dunno. but gives the same effect. but anyways white dress rocks. like totally.

here is a picture of park seon yeong. very random i know. but i would like to use her to end this post. my current fav actress haha. damn hot. and another white dress lady =x

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shift happens?

haha more like shit happens.

looked thru hasu's post on class blog. here's the link oneso6a.blogspot.com
suddenly reminded me to blog abt something that i forgot after i attended this particular seminar. on fri i attended this talk by cisco's vice ceo cum chief globalisation officer. yes u heard right, chief globalisation officer.

he talked abt the globalisation of talents on top of the usual thomas freidman BS abt the globalisation 1.0 2.0 blah blah blah. talked abt how connectivity is affecting the whole world how it can help countries to development. how technology saves costs and stuff. basically nothing a decent jc or uni grad wouldnt know if he bothers to read some stuff.

frankly i'm pretty tired of all these globalisation shit. all these connectivity and stuff. i dun reli care if china is building 200 new cities in 2008. admist all the urbanisation, the development of technologies, the building of new skyscrapers, does anyone give a shit abt agriculture? i not some super wide reading guy. jus read some books and a few periodicals. but it surprises me that none of them mentions about how we are going about to boost production of food.

we are currently experiencing exponential growth in population growth. unlike cars and planes which get more and more fuel efficient as technologies advance, i highly doubt that humans will become more and more energy efficient. in fact, the newer generations requires even more energy. there is this new trend that guys want to look muscular, so they eat alot of protein shit and go gym alot (like jenhan and ghin hoe). some might argue that girls are eating less to get that toothpick figure which they think is desirable and this will balance out the guys. but anyways, back to the main point, the requirement for food is going to increase exponentially along with the population.

china and india are among the world's largest crop producing countries. sadly these 2 countries are also the fastest developing and urbanising countries. i fear that by blindly aiming for urbanisation and development these 2 countries will overlook one of the most important role they play in the world, providing food, not mass production of random stuff at dirt cheap prices.

i've seen what is happening to farming villages. people are very poor and they are trying desperately to escape from farming. they want to get higher paying jobs in the city, building houses and railways. farming is a dying business in many of the rural villages in china.

take a look at where some ancient civilisations are born. the yellow river, yang tse river, nile, mississippi, indus river. all these great civilisations are born beside rivers. where the soil is fertile. why? cos can grow crops. got food. wun starve. then got energy to have sex and have babies. farming used to be the foundation of civilisations. wars are fought for fertile land. but today. what is happening. farming is one of the lowest paying jobs (except countries which provide bloody subsidies for farmers). it is no longer considered to be the foundation of development.

i agree that development in agriculture techniques and fertilisation have increase crop yields dramatically over the past decades. but until people invent a way to grow rice on building resembling multi level car parks. i do not feel safe seeing padi fields being converted into concrete floors. arable land is already rapidly decreasing due to changes in climate, urbanisation is jus making it worse.

today we are already seeing an increase in rice prices. what next? maybe now we are not seeing the effects. but in the near future, what will happen? we dunno. we can predict this predict that. we predicted the economic crisis. but were we ready for it? no. we can predict food shortage in the future. and i doubt that we will be prepared for it either.

i'm getting tired of hearing all the BS abt globalisation. building infrastructure for connectivity. have a global economy. free flow of talents. do something about our future meals for christ's sakes! at least let us see that action is being taken. i dun wanna see stats on how many people visit youtube a year, or how many google searches are made. does it help put food on our plates. kinda reminds me of army where ppl used to say "got pride got wad shit use? pride can eat ah?" i wanna see how many more grains of rice can be grown on 1 square metre of soil, or how many more tomatoes can be grown on a single tree.

like oil, price of food will affect overall cost of all commodity. price of food goes up means everything else goes up. which means shit happens. and when this kind of shit happens, pumping money into the economy will be useless.

i shall call this essay Hot, Crowded, and Hungry.

btw thomas freidman's new book is crap. anne hathaway ftw. devil wears prada.

like i said, completed assassin's creed already. fantastic game. could have improved the ending a bit better. too much of a cliff hanger.

played my muddiest game of football on sunday. the field is so bad its a swimming pool for babies. its sandy in the middle and muddy at the corners. mud go so deep it covers my entire boot. insane gross. a good game nonetheless. met up with a couple of random frens. time to get back match fitness.

the wait for uni accpetance (...... more like rejection) is painful to say the least. a very very very long wait. the feeling sucks man. sigh......

looking forward to tmr. meet up with some long lost frens from tuition.

miss amk....

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food for thought

i was reading an article on whether video games should be considered a work of art and it set me thinking.

In 1917 French artist Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal and called it art. Eighty-seven years later it was voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century by 500 art world professionals. A FREAKING URINAL!!! i'll show u the picture.



ahhhhhh......... so this is wad "professionals" call art.

alot of professionals and critics argue that video games will never be as artistically worthy as paintings, musics or even movies or literature. but i beg to differ.


here are some definitions of art:

1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature

2.
a-The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
b-The study of these activities.
c-The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.
d-A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.
e-A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer.
f-Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation: the art of the baker; the blacksmith's art.
g-Skill arising from the exercise of intuitive faculties: "Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice" (Joyce Carol Oates).
h-arts Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks.
i-Artful contrivance; cunning.

3.High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value.

4.A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature.

5.A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.

so.... if ppl consider all these as art, why are video games are not. the 3d graphics design in games is like sculpturing. the graphics texturing is like painting. the music well, is music be it an original score or a licensed soundtrack. the story element is like writing a book or script. and then its the movie element in how the game tells the story. lets not also forget the creative elements involved in level design, interactivity, AI, etc.... so why the sum of all the elements is not considered an art? hmmmmmm....... weird........ all i can see is that these so-called "professionals" are stereotyping and downgrading video games

the same goes for parents. always thinking that video games are good for nothing, waste time activities. but little do their ignorant minds know that what gamers like us are enjoying art. jus like those rich bastards spending millions and hours in the art lounge. all we need is a console and a good high def tv. and voila! full high def gaming.

games like okami, bioshock, assassin's creed are jus some examples of seriously artistic thought put into gaming. i feel in love with assassin's creed recently. at first i tot it was jus another boring game like prince of persia sands of time with a huge sandbox structure with unskipable cut scenes and NO SUBTITLES OMG!!! i cant even hear wth the characters are talking abt. but i'm freaking addicted now. the music reli immerse u into the action. every time u assassinate someone, u kill someone high profile or low profile. different cities u enter. all different feel. each city also looks different, the structures, the people, the way ppl talk. level design is brilliant despite some small errors. finished half the game and 2 days. looking forward to completing it by this week. cant wait for the sequel. way to go ubisoft Montreal.

one more thing that is making me very happy. i usually dun say this cos i dun wanna get into trouble. but i simply have to say this now. i jus downloaded this 250 song pack from isohunt. omg. insane ownage. its call best 250 hits of 90s. u simply have to go download it. around 1.5gb of pure entertainment. its the best 250 songs u'll download if u are born in the 80s. all the songs u use to hear on the radio but dunno the song title. u'll find them here. insane popular radio classic hits like "Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison", "I Can See Clearly Now by Jimmy Cliff", "I Swear by All 4 One", "Sweat by Inner Circle", "Lovefool by Cardigans", "Unbelieveable by UMF", "How Bizarre by OMC", and quite a few fantastic songs by Alanis Morissette (u have to get her album jagged little pill. omg its damn good). okay...... i think i lost u already. but do wait already. go find the torrent and download. its a must have!!! i havnt come across such a good compliation in a very very very long time already.

i'm currently watching this korean show called merry mary, or marry mary wadever not sure wad it reli is exactly. koreans not very good at english. got this actress call lee ha na. omg she's a total human chipmunk. quite funny haha. should go and watch the show on dvd.

back to no life...

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langkawi post mortem

jus came back from langkawi trip with 4 other bmt bros. gotta say that at first din reli think that langkawi would be fun. but it turned out to be a pretty fun trip.

din have time to pack for the trip cos was finishing up on uni apps. sat in front of the comp for around 10 hours straight. got insanely pissed off with the common app web page cos it was so screwed up. i cant fill in more than 2 boxes and save my application cos the browser would hang. so i had to fill in box by box. fill in one box, save, wait for page to load, fill in another one, save, wait for it to load. omg.... so freaking pissed man.

anyways, after the uni app i jus dumped hell lot of shit into my bag, brought alot of extra stuff i din even need. bringing jeans and sneakers was a bad idea too. stupid island no night life one. it was a trip of cheap fashion. majority of us were wearing free NS/marathon singlets. owned. but who cares. langkawi has a severe lack of hot chicks anyway.

the scenery was pretty good. mountain, vegetation, sea, birds and stuff. there is hardly much build up area. the tallest building in town is like... 5 floors high... we rented a car and drove around at night so got quite alot of freedom.

the cable car ride was good and freaking scary. knn my balls were shrinking when we were going up and even worse when we were going down. its like 1km of cable without a tower going almost straight up a cliff. nice.

snorkeling was fun too. get to see fish, sharks, and stung by tiny jelly fish everywhere. too bad not all of us got diving license. if not might be even more fun. we had so much time to snorkel we decided to take a nap on a floating pontoon around 100m off the shore. what a bad move it turned out to be. kena sunburn like crazy.

having 5 guys on an overseas holiday trip screams lupsup at night. so we did. or we tried. hunting all the night spots in langkawi but failing to find any decent fun places in the little muslim island. one got so fed up that he said a famous quote "damn it lah this island too 正经 i cannot take it already!" haha. freaking hilarious. in the end we went for this massage where i was practically pressed to death by the insanely strong masseur. we went pub hunting along the beach but failed again. so we decide to jus buy a bottle of malibu and drank in our own rooms. made a mess of the table. and went to slp.

the 3 most used words during the trip. "failure", "sophisticated", and "lupsup" even thou there is no lupsup to speak of. oh one final thing. the seafood restaurant we went was reli good. its pretty expensive thou. around 300 for the dinner we had. but the tiger prawns were insanely good. fantastic gravey, good texture for the prawns maintaining the freshness. the lime chili padi fish was very unique. steamed fish with lime juice and chili padi. crazy spicy and sour. good thing is that they allowed us to bring our own liquor to the restaurant and even provided us with cups and ice. nice.

sadly the trip only lasted 4 days and i'm back now. in my dimly lighted room. went to 天津官 and ate hell lot of 小笼包 and 烧茄子. and bought some econs books. need to start studying already.

stumbled upon this jap AV actress maria ozawa on the dvd website which i order my xbox games from. whoa she is damn hot. up. =x too bad she's AV idol. wasted sia.

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completes another game on xbox

finished like 3 games after i moved to new house. thats roughly around 50 hours of game time. that shows much much i've been on my xbox =x no lifer... feeling quite sian in the west. nothing to do. jus rotting at home. wanna go field to play football but too shy to ask. quite unlike me. been missing out on footfall in sch on sat cos too far.

sigh damn sian... nothing to do here. so ulu. want good food dun have. cheap movies dun have. no longer can i walk to amk hub to get anything i want or catch a random $6 movie. mrt is like 15min away by bus instead of 5min by walking. NO MORE CABLE!!! which spells the end of weekend football =( that kinda sucks. seriously sucks.

good thing no need to back camp anymore but feels like something is missing. like no mission in life at the moment. nothing to do. feel very empty. guess its jus the ord syndrome. need to learn driving but jus cant find the drive to do it. oh well...

guess its back to the box. play until the controller getting cui already haha.

psp charger spoil... how... or is it psp spoil. i dunno already. sucks man... now going overseas for holidays then spoil.... knn....

any good books to recommend? i think its time i start to continue my pursue for intellectual excellence.... yea right.........

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less teeth doesnt mean i'm less mean

jus took out the stictches for my wisdom tooth ops this morning. knn the stupid dentist never take out all the stictches. left one stuck btwn my teeth. stuck so hard i cant even pull it out. sianzzzz.....

extracted 4 wisdom teeth last week btw. bad experience. lucky dun have to go thru it again. initially only one giving trouble, went to dentist she say jus extract all 4. i tot might as well. turned out to be such a bad move. suffer sia. =( look like chipmunk. until now the swelling still not down.

still stuck at my bloody essays. no mood to do. no juice to write. no inspirations. god this sucks. dragging too much. need to get things out before my teacher reject me again =( come on..... jus a few days of writing to go. then can relax..... and xbox......... haha no life.

going ord already. soon ns life over liao. dun feel happy leh. abit like the jc feeling. like going leave sch liao. sigh....

moved house. staying at nus now. kinda not used to it. feel weird. house quite spacious. but like. jus dun feel at home. in the day ppl keep walking outside my house. then i living ground floor. so its like no privacy. feel not at peace. a lot of restrictions also. like cant on music too loud or xbox till too late. aiya sucks lah... good thing is everyday got ppl playing soccer at field. need to know the guys soon so can join them. if they let me play that is. show them some skills.

need good food recommendations at west area near nus. new to this place. sigh. west side girls no where near as hot as east siders man. gonna miss all the chicks i see on my way to changi naval base already =( damn.....

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