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Tan Lam Siong Will Support Lina Chiam’s Campaign, No Longer Contesting As Independent

Last night, I was doing my usual walkabout. As I was driving out from the carpark near Block 108 in Potong Pasir after 11 p.m., I saw a Mercedez Benz waiting to park. It has just entered the car park and its headlights were shining in my direction.

As I exited from my parking lot and passed by the Merc to my right, I noticed the lady driver struggling to turn her steering wheel so as to move her car aside to let me pass. As I drove passed the stationary Merc, I saw that the driver was Mrs. Lina Chiam. She was in her party T-shirt and looked rather haggard.

Along the way home, I kept thinking about my encounter with Mrs. Chiam and felt sorry that she was still out at such a late hour. I recall her recent statement about this election being her last election and that she will be retiring with Mr. Chiam. I began to have this feeling of sadness and couldn’t sleep after reaching home.

I contacted my team members this morning and shared with them my thoughts and feelings. And I told them my decision. I have decided not to contest. Instead, I will lead my team to show our support for Mrs. Chiam at her rally and hope she succeeds to regain Potong Pasir SMC and continue Mr. Chiam’s dedicated service to its residents.

The 3-cornered fight in Potong Pasir SMC that was meant to be will no longer take place. I am sorry to disappoint all those who have encouraged me to offer my candidacy and to serve the residents of Potong Pasir SMC as their Member of Parliament. In my walkabouts over the last 2 months, I have come to know many of you at a personal level and appreciate your warm support. Let me assure you that notwithstanding this decision, I will continue to be at your service. For Potong Pasir SMC will always be my kind of town.

Source: http://tanlamsiong.blogspot.sg

September 1, 2015
SMRT Ltd (Feedback) Revealed?

I remember it was in the evening of December 15, 2011 when I logged into IRC to see a flood of comments about the MRT disruption. It was to be one of the worst train disruption in SMRT’s history. And then we had a plan.

I was part of an online community in IRC. It wasn’t very big. We had a channel called #brainy where like-minded people with an interest in everything that’s to do with human intelligence come together to have a banter. By intelligence, I do not refer to the collection of information that is of military or political value, but rather, the understanding of the power of reasoning, logic, and acuity.

The rules of the community was simple. None of us were to communicate in their own names or exchange personal information about ourselves. Everyone was anonymous. The idea was that without a face and the knowledge of a person’s character, no one will be able to have a cognitive bias about the individual. Without such bias, any discourse about a myriad of topics are seen with neutrality, without any irrationality in judgement due to inferences about the person’s background.

“Let there be light, and there was light.”

On December 16, 2011, right after the major breakdown, someone in the community lamented about how there wasn’t any proper feedback channel for SMRT that was real-time. It was then the page SMRT Ltd (Feedback) was formed. The intent was to compile all complaints into one easily digestible page to get SMRT to look into.

Of course, some of us felt it was a very boh liao thing to do at the time but coincidentally, the topic of discussion during the day in that channel was on the concept of Totalism, more specifically, Psychological Totalism.

Psychological Totalism is the idealogical concept of total control over human behaviour and thought. This may sound complex but it’s basically the idea that we can change human perception through a controlled conversation flow that seeks to exploit specific behavioural patterns and emotions of an individual with the objective of changing a negative perception into that of positivity.

I’m a big fan of dry humour, although I’m not exactly very humorous in nature. We had two accounts for the page: the Administrator, and the Editor. The guy/lady that started the page was the administrator, and anyone from the #brainy community who wants in can log in through an Editor account.

The Editor account is shared amongst other people including myself. I’m not entirely sure how many are there but the structure was simple enough to have a fallback contingency. The rule of our wolf pack was that anonymity has to be maintained; there should be no political discussions whatsoever, and that any disclosure as to who’s behind the page has to be from a personal angle instead of a group. (Eg. I am the page admin as opposed to several people are the page admins.) This was to ensure personal responsibility in the event the page have run-ins with the law. Let’s face it. Nobody is going to go to jail for you. If one gets caught, he faces the penalties whilst the Facebook page remains in it’s entirety.

Failing to conform to these rules will have access to the Editor role removed and access to the #brainy channel banned. This was a tough penalty because the IRC channel was a place where we shared alot of research topics; from brain hacking to philosophy, determinism and free will. Anything and everything. It was a goldmine of information and access to this community was by referral. One has to go through a simple series of test in network penetration and social engineering. It was our collective belief that if one is able to traverse a network without much digital footprint, he or she is competent enough to protect him or herself, and to keep the consequential effects of anonymity at bay, a belief that forms the building blocks of the #brainy community.

“Shots fired! Shots fired!”

We all had our day-jobs. To keep the engagement running, anyone who was free at any particular point of time will post on the page. I started posting on December 17, 2011. It was the day of the 2nd largest breakdown, and boy did I had fun.

I was known as the “Customer Service Guy” in the group. If you had message SMRT Feedback between December 2011 and June 2012, and you’ve received some smartass remark, that was probably me.

I am also that guy who is still finding that kueh.

I mastered the art of Tai-chi too.

I didn’t really ace my Math but I guess I got the concept right.

And of course, Philosophy.

The administrator does not seem to be an active participant of the page since early 2012. Every year, between January to March, SMRT Feedback will be unpublished for at least 48 hours. Posts deemed very controversial will be removed by the administrator, and once it’s been cleaned up, the page gets publish again.

The page has since grown into Singapore’s social media badass (or dumbass as some would call it), known for its dark humour and snarky wit. It was the effort of a collective, with a a belief that if you want to confront something head-on, you put everything out in the open instead of suppressing opinions and painting a fantastical picture over it. By suppressing thoughts, you amplify curiosity and if there is no proper channel for feedback, these curiosities will manifest itself into perception, creating an illusion of truth and with time, will be perceived as being the truth itself.

But of course, the reality of life took a toll. Many left and many joined. I left midway through 2012 to focus on a start-up. Priorities changed and the page was left to run on it’s own by anyone who is boh liao enough to do so. Many of SMRT Feedback’s followers who have been religiously keeping up with the page updates have noticed a change in tonality and overall ‘feel’. I don’t fault them. The old guards are now gone, and the freshlings took over. It’s been close to 4 years, surely many would have move forward in life. I did.

By 2013, the #brainy IRC group no longer exist. It has been running since 2004. And now here I am prepping myself up for the General Elections. I’ve stood for public office before, more specifically, stood infront of it – at the Police Cantonment Complex.

I’m not a fan of politics. It’s annoying all these back and forth talk about what’s good for the people and what’s not. I think all political parties have their fair share of good idealogy and at the same time, both camps have idiots saying idiotic things. I wanted to be rational; that common man on the street who wants his voice heard.

I didn’t come from a privileged background, neither is my father a ‘sombody’. I didn’t go through the traditional route of education. I went for night classes at the Singapore Accountancy Academy whilst at the same time studying for my ‘O’ level. I went into NS earlier than my cohort, and along the way dropped out of ACCA. I was heavily involved in start-ups and the creation of things although I didn’t actually create anything particularly useful.

And now it comes to this. The Teh Tarik Party.

I developed the concept of Teh Tarik Economics to represent the philosophical idea of determinism where every human decisions and actions are based from preceding circumstances, both cognitive and metaphysical, to cause a future chain of events shaped out of our individual motives and desires. Such events are then influenced through Psychological Totalism, as explained earlier – the idealogical concept of total control over human behaviour and thought.

Truth to be told, I’m not exactly sure what I’ve just said or how Teh Tarik has any relation to determinism.

But one thing I know for sure is that to make a good mug of teh tarik, the contributing ingredients that forms the drink has to be in harmony. With the right mix and the right temperature, we are able to create a nice consistency.

This can be applied to politics. Any policies proposed has to be in harmony with each other to collectively form the system. With the right diversity and the right environment, only then can the system be consistent.

I created the Manifesto to represent this consistency. It’s idealistic and radical, but perhaps it’s something that we need for Singapore. If you haven’t already read the Manifesto, here are the policies that I’ve covered:

1. Family Development & Care

2. Immigration

3. Tax

4. Education

5. National Service, Healthcare, Society, CPF and Transport

Let’s face it. It’s not the future of our children we are worried about. We are more worried that we have to pay for their asses in the future. Nobody wants to make a living. They simply want to retire early. There’s a difference.I end this note with the hope that Singaporeans will now think rationally when deciding the future of Singapore. Don’t oppose for the sake of opposing, and don’t be blinded by populist ideology. I am not pro-Singaporean neither do I accept the definition of a ‘true-blue Singaporean’. When we divide people into different categories and class, we are in for a downward spiral, and it’s something that I cannot accept.

The current team at SMRT Feedback will continue to do what they do best and I thank them for helping me to amplify the manifesto. This is also part of their public disclosure policy, to ensure the Government, the Authorities and the people, that SMRT Feedback is here to stay and will be the neutral voice for Singapore, without fear nor favour. I’m no longer part of them but I guess once you’ve put on the mask, you carry their legacy. And yes, they are still anonymous. I have no idea who they are and it’s not anytime soon that their identities will be revealed because the structure and design is pretty much failsafe – has been for the past 4 years, and will remain so for the next few years.

I may or may not run for elections, but the manifesto is there for everyone to figure out where their vote goes to.

In the near future, I’ll probably be walking to court with a target behind my back, but I guess that’s the beauty of karma.

To one and all, my name is Azly J Nor. In case I don’t see you, good morning, good evening, and goodnight.

Source: SMRT Ltd (Feedback)

September 1, 2015
SGD Is Strong But Singaporeans Should Be Humble And Not Be A Dick In Malaysia

Ringgit falls to record Low. One SGD is now 3 RM.

There are just so many things going on that it really reflected quite badly on us Singaporeans as a group. A recent trip to JB was quite uneventful, thankfully. There was no traffic jams as it was a weekday, and the immigration officer (on both sides) were quite happy, yet bored, to just routinely scan and stamp our passports.

As we passed the checkpoints, our stomach growled and we had our breakfast at the R&R along the expressway. The tudung-ed makcik at the foodstall lost her smile as she spied us approaching. Her face changed to a “RBF” that supermodels would be proud to flaunt but was definitely out of place in a supposedly welcoming Malay society.
“Nasi Lemak Ayam: RM6”

You could see on the signboards peppered around the stall that prices have been adjusted abit too frequently. A faded RM3.50 shadowed a pink shade for RM4.50 before the current price of RM6. As she took the order, her hands moved with mechanical memory, taking the ikan bilis and chicken and the sambal to garnish the fragrant pandan rice. As we made our way to the table, I spied a smile on her face once more as she attended to a man in PLUS Ronda Overalls looking to purchase his own breakfast.
He didn’t buy it immediately like we did, he looked around and pondered the dishes, he glanced, twice, at the contents of his beaten and aged leather wallet.

I turned to purchase drinks.

As I made my payment for drinks, the stereotypical plea came.

“Bang, ada duit kecik?” (Bro, do you have small change?)

But it didn’t sound like he meant it tho’. It seemed like he already knew my negative answer, and this was just a formality to see if I actually did have change. I rummaged through my wallet and managed to at least get 20 cents, which would make the return change easier.

As I left the drinks stall, I looked at him once more.

Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com

September 1, 2015
Many Opposition Supporters Used To Be PAP Fanboys

Many Opposition supporters were former PAP supporters during the 80s, the 90s and the early 2000s.

We once believed in the PAP. We once believed our cost of living will remain as affordable as always. We once believed our country is safe from con men and bullying foreigners. We once believed there is no homeless people in Singapore and elderly carting cardboards are a rare sight. We once believed our transport system is the most efficient without any breakdowns. And we once believed we locals will be given the first priority.

Then we woke up.

We looked outside the mainstream media and newspapers. We experienced and witnessed what’s going on around us. We opened our ears to the taxi drivers, the coffee shop owners and the lower to middle income families. We listened to them as they tell us how they struggled to meet the rising expenses and costs of living while their wages aren’t enough to afford them. We researched and found our ministers are earning million dollar salaries and many of us couldn’t receive our CPF even at the age of 55. We saw how overcrowded our train stations are due to the 6.9 million population policy. We traced foreigners working in the government sector with fake degrees. We saw how foreign talents are able to breeze through universities and be employed in the top sectors while we the locals have to struggle with unemployment and proper education

And that’s when we switched sides.

In the past, the Opposition were weak and do not have any power or support from the people. Now times have changed and we’ve grown so strong we won a single GRC. We had a lot support from the locals and we know what we want.

Because we ourselves are true. blue. Singaporeans. And we’re taking our power back.

Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com

September 1, 2015
An Aljunied GRC Resident On Life Under The Workers’ Party

Four years after votes were counted for Aljunied Group Representation Constituency on election night in 2011, I have yet to see the post-apocalyptic nightmare some had said my estate would soon be in.

As the first GRC to have ‘fallen’ to an opposition party, the Workers’ Party-run Aljunied was seen as the first real test of the opposition’s capability to govern, albeit on a smaller scale.

There has been a lot of news about the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol-East Town Council (AHPETC) recently, but in the Serangoon ward where I have stayed for 22 years, it is very much business as usual.

The garbage is still cleared, the chutes fumigated regularly, the unfortunate cockroaches that fail to escape the fumes are still removed from the side-walks within the day.

Coffee shop prices have risen, perhaps not as drastically as some other areas. My usual plate of chicken chop now costs $5.80 from $4.50 a decade ago but inflation is a fact of life everywhere.

In fact, if one were to ask me what the differences were between living in the Workers’ Party-run Aljunied and when my ward was under the People’s Action Party, I do not think I could give a satisfactory answer. Perhaps there were differences, but as a resident, my life has not been affected.

I have to put up with a new Build-to-order project next to my block, this on the somewhat tiny plot of land where dog owners used to gather on the weekends but it is an experience not uncommon in Singapore.

As a resident and dog-lover, I obviously wished the Housing Development Board could have chosen to build the project somewhere else. As a Singaporean, I realise it is necessary to ensure everyone has a place to call home.

I have emailed my Town Council several times, and each time someone would reply within a day and resolved the issues highlighted, such as the time I noticed a damaged external wall during a neighbour’s renovation works.

An upgrading of a nearby park was finished recently, and it now comes with a resurfaced basketball court and elderly-friendly facilities. And while I do not like the new paint scheme of my estate, it is just my personal preference.

As someone who does the occasional political commentary via Facebook, I do chance across comments regarding my GRC, usually supporting the establishment or the opposition incumbents.

I cannot identify with the ‘regret’ and ‘Aljunied residents have learnt their lesson’ camp, but neither can I attest to being on the Workers’ Party cheer leading squad.

I have seen my Member of Parliament, the WP chairman Sylvia Lim, around on several occasions, but I also have had the good fortune of not needing her assistance in most daily matters, and cannot describe any encounters with her beyond my professional job scope.

I saw my previous PAP MP, Lim Hwee Hwa, once when I was a young teenager and my ward was still part of the Marine Parade GRC.

Her supporters invited me down to shake her hand when I popped my head out of the window one Sunday morning. I declined, rather quickly, as I was in the middle of playing a game – as a 13-year-old then, politics didn’t interest me much. I remember someone gasping loudly when I said no.

I have been asked about the AHPETC saga and the council’s former managing agent, and the recent statement by the Ministry of National Development over the profits made by the said agent. My stand is simple – if there was wrongdoing, there should be a criminal investigation.

As it is, there is none, and the WP’s explanation to the residents suffices for now. Hougang MP Png Eng Huat even announced that AHPETC was back in the black, after compiling their annual report for 2014/2015.

Of course, there is also the matter of how the WP has performed in parliament, which is where most voters will expect their MPs to repay their trust and faith.

The WP’s ‘A team’ has stumbled along the way, such as Pritam Singh saying in parliament that he will only answer to Aljunied residents before checking if there were any present to actually demand an answer, but none at the level of what I would consider as political suicide. But which politician has not made a gaffe now and then?

The WP MPs have also argued against policies I am concerned over, such as the 6.9 million population target set out in the White Paper. Would I like to see more debate? Certainly, but with the party having just seven voting MPs out of 87 in parliament, I have learnt to tone down my expectations on such issues.

A common question I get asked, once people know which GRC I reside in, is whether I regret my GRC voting out former Foreign Minister George Yeo.

My answer is: had Yeo been fielded in a single seat contest, I do not believe he would have lost. The Aljunied residents did not vote for any single individual, but a team. For better or for worse, that is the nature of our unique GRC political system.

Life in Aljunied GRC under the WP has more or less been the same for me as before GE2011. I cannot speak for the capabilities of the other opposition parties, but considering the teething problems that arose from taking over a GRC, I would have to say the WP has done a decent job.

That alone, however, will not be enough to win my vote. What will swing it for me is what the candidates from WP or the ruling party standing this time around can bring to parliament, and focus on issues that have an impact on not just my estate or my GRC, but for Singapore and its citizens as well.

Both parties have unveiled their candidates for Aljunied, but it still feels premature to make a decision before Nomination Day and the rallies that follow. But my vote – and yours – counts so I will exercise that right as a resident in the GRC and a citizen wisely.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

September 1, 2015