jbj

Crappiest crap:

"
CONDOLENCE LETTER FROM PRIME MINISTER LEE HSIEN LOONG ON DEMISE OF JB JEYARETNAM
30 September 2008
Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam
Mr Philip Jeyaretnam

Dear Kenneth and Philip Jeyaretnam
I was sad to learn that your father, Mr Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, has passed away.
Mr JB Jeyaretnam was a Member of Parliament for Anson constituency from 1981 till 1986, and a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament from 1997 till 2001. He used to engage in heated debates in the House. Perhaps it was because he and the PAP never saw eye to eye on any major political issue and he sought by all means to demolish the PAP and our system of government. Unfortunately, this helped neither to build up a constructive opposition nor our Parliamentary tradition. Nevertheless, one had to respect Mr JB Jeyaretnam’s dogged tenacity to be active in politics at his age.

However, our differences were not personal. In 1993, one of you (Kenneth) wrote to Mr Goh Chok Tong, who was then Prime Minister, to say that you found employers in Singapore reluctant to offer you a job, and your only explanation was that the employers felt the authorities would not welcome your employment because of your name. Mr Goh replied with a letter which could be shown to prospective employers, to say that the government did not hold anything against you, and that employers should evaluate you fairly on your own merits, like any other candidate, because Singapore needed every talented person that it could find. Mr Goh had previously made the same point to your brother Philip, whom he had invited to lunch. I am therefore happy that both of you have established yourselves in Singapore.
Please accept my deepest condolences.

Yours sincerely
Lee Hsien Loong
"

Obnoxious main points in the letter:

1. the PAP is always right.
2. Good riddance, loser.
3. Kenneth and Philip, you are not like their father. Keep it up.

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Wah, our president is even more power:



I suddenly very proud he is social work trained lor. In 2 sentences, he can draw more blood than other people's 2 paragraphs. Who knew the old guy had it in him?

more general flaming

Damn, flaming sure is addictive. This time, on this article DPM Jayakumar urges S'poreans to keep perspective on Mas Selamat's escape that appeared on CNA.

Here we go:

'...Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar called on them [them being the sg public] not to overlook the other good work done by the agencies.'

Yeah. Other good work. Like the Huang Na killer escaping. Or the fine responses our Sg police never fail to give our fave opposition politician.

'After the attack, the IRA claimed responsibility for the attacks and issued a warning saying they only had to be lucky once whereas security agencies had to be lucky all of the time.

Recalling that incident, Professor Jayakumar who is also Co-ordinating Minister for National Security said that is something security agencies have to always bear in mind.'

It must've been Mas Selamat's lucky day. Very lucky day.

'While Professor Jayakumar had no conclusions yet from the inquiries taking place, he commended the thousands of officers involved in the efforts to locate the fugitive.'

Like noone commends me when I home visit my clients in their dank and dark quarters, talk to them, befriend them and offer them slight slight solace. Oh right. Cuz that's my job.

'He added that he was heartened by Singaporeans' efforts in coming together for the search.'

This weekend I'm organizing a Search Party for Mas Selamat. $25/person. First drink free. Email for details.

'Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations, said: "There is no government on earth that will have enough money, enough personnel, enough organisational capacity to take care of everybody. It will literally come down to "Do you know your neighbours? Do you know who's needy? Are you there to help them? Do you know how to take care of your family?” And then when the dust is settled, we will see what's left of government."'

Noone is expecting the government to take care of everybody [i personally know my clients aren't at least]. We just expect them to take care of that one person in their prison.

Maybe the ISD should consider outsourcing. I hear the KKK is looking for employment. At least they don't let their targets go.

general flaming for the week

I don't generally comment on political/media stuff [yeah, right] because people generally only comment when things get really stupid [looking at you PAP] and I don't feel like posting 10 times a day. Besides my lecturer always says 'flame the argument, not the person' but you know how it is with me and fire; always out of hand.

Apparently, NUS magazine Ridge covers some silly political forum in their online portal about 2 months ago. At this point, we should all have already moved on and focus on bigger issues like blaming ourselves for Mas Selamat's escape and if there's leftover time, maybe fighting global warming. Apparently dengue this year is gonna be meaner so we should also be doing something about it since LKY says we shouldn't trust the government to get things done.

But no. Cuz 2 months later, SDP accuses the Ridge of censorship because apparently one of the Ridge's reporter had requested an interview with Chee Soon Juan, but the transcript of that interview was not published at all so that must be censorship because everyone else does it in Singapore. So maybe now we could all get a good laugh and move on since actually the interview was just to get a better understanding of the silly political forum which was what the article was about.

The Ridge replies recently and says so too. Mostly it was a good reply other than the very lack of expletives and vulgarities.

Of course the SDP must have the last say [as of now] and the plot thickens: the Ridge reporter who had asked for the interview promised it would be published, only for his editor to not want to use it. I particularly liked the reporter's email apology that the SDP produced saying that he was sorry to '...Mr Chee for having spent some of his personal time for an unpublished interview'. I'm sure Mr Chee has lots of personal time actually, when he is not behind bars.

Ok. Editors are always gonna have a final say in what appears and what doesn't, and when something doesn't appear, it doesn't necessarily mean censorship. I can think of so many reasons for an editor not to want to use an article, in this case, Chee's interview: the reporter did extra work, no more space le, not newsworthy, not auspicious etc etc. In this case, I think it was a matter of taste [has anyone read the interview? i can't believe the dude is a phd].

And like. Chee is so last century opposition? Now everyone is talking about JBJ lor.

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And here's the bit my flames get really out of hand: this really is like a playground squabble: the bigger kid from the broken home with all his issues picking on the tiny tot happily minding his own business in the sand pit. Like all broken kids, they do their best work only in the playground.