By: B Goode

Something disturbing dropped in my email over the weekend. No its not porny stuff. That would be considered as normal and expected. I mean, what’s so disturbing about animal sex?

Someone wrote to me about WP member Bernard Chen Jiaxi. Bernard who? I was scratching my head too.

Google told me that he stood for election on WP ticket in Macpherson. And lost. Presently he works as Legislative Assistant at Office of Muhamad Faisal bin Abdul Manap, Aljuneid MP.

Google also told me that he is a smart chap. Oxford graduate wor….

But the guy who wrote to me alleged that Bernard Chen is also a thief. He wrote that his grandmother who knew an uncle whose grandson’s ex-girlfriend’s adopted father twice removed (something to that effect) told him that Bernard Chen has been misappropriating WP party fund. In short, it is something that should be considered as rumour. Something that my email should have diverted into the junk bin.

But the fact that the guy took the time to write to me also meant that God knows who else he could have written to.

What I am saying is that, this could just be unsubstantiated rumour but the WP should look into this allegation or they’d end up with another bomb to diffuse.

Personally I find it hard to believe that someone as adorable and as smart as Bernard Chen would want to get his hands dirty by dipping into party fund. But then again, if everyone is honest, there is no need for heaven and hell.

By: B Goode

If I had scored a 221 for my PSLE and grew up to be a loser blogger, would I want to post it in the internet to let everyone know? Oh wait. I just did that.

Nevermind.

So some guy had scored a 221 for his PSLE and because he is now an associate professor he decided to brag about it on Facebook. Maybe just maybe if he had studied a little harder for his PSLE he might now be a Dean of a Faculty. Hah!

Jelly aside, why stopped at PSLE? What about his `O’ levels results? His `A’ levels, diploma or whatever? His degree? The thesis that he wrote that must have been very outstanding for him to get the associate professor post? During the course of his life, he must have upped his game to get to where he is now.

Remember folks. For every successful associate professor with mediocre PSLE results, there are hundreds of Deliveroo riders.

I know where he is coming from. And he is not the only one who try to destress our kids by saying that PSLE is not a life game changer even to the extent of listing millionaires and billionaires who had not done well academically. But please for Zeus’ sake, don’t overdo it to such an extent that we will undermotivate the kids into believing that they need to fail academically in order to be successful.

You think that will not happen? Really? We are talking about 12 year olds here. They are at a tender age when their minds and bodies are still developing, and when they need guidance, lots of it to prepare themselves for adulthood. So if you told a 12 year old that academic success in not really important in Singapore, chances were, he’d believe you. Heck! When I was 12, I still believe in Santa Claus. I still do, to be honest.

For a 12 year old living in Singapore, sadly, there are no other realistic goals for them to achieve other than to tell them to study hard and do well in the PSLE. If not that then what? To be a champion in Pokemon? Hah!

That is the reality in Singapore. We live in a system where meritocracy is based largely on educational qualifications. Unless that is changed, and it should be changed, we must continue to motivate our children to study hard and to continue the learning journey way into their adulthood.

You want to be a Minister? You jolly well have a double honours and not only be good at taking selfies or walking with your eyes covered pretending to be blind.

You want to be an associate professor? You jolly well submit a freakingly awesome thesis that you wrote after months of research and burning the midnight oil.

Hah!

By: B Goode (who is an attack helicopter trapped in a man’s body)

If you were to go to the Institute Of Mental Health (IMH) and if you were to tell the psychiatrist that you identify yourself neither as a man or woman, chances were, you’d be certified insane and be given a dose of medicine that would make you so dumb and so numb that you’d spend your time lying in your bed thinking about the meaning of life.

And if you saw someone like this walking along Orchard Road….

…..chances are, he, she or it is a member of AWARE (Association of Women For Action And Research)

For fear of offending the liberals and Hillary supporters, I am not going to call these people insane or crazy or screwloose or mentally-fucked. For once I will be politically correct and call them mentally-challenged.

For starters, I have got nothing against the mentally-challenged. All my friends are retarded.

AWARE has just announced that people who are non-binary i.e people who could not make up their minds whether to be a man or woman, not only could be members of AWARE, but could also vote in their meetings.

What it means is that AWARE has regressed from being an organisation helmed by real women who understood real women issues to an organisation filled with feminists, lesbians, bapoks and now people who think that they are kangkong, kailan or even belachan. Personally I would love to see a transvestite kangkong….

Sorry Hillary supporters. I couldn’t help it.

In short, AWARE is no longer an organisation for real women. It is now a congregation of weirdos people who do not manifest womanly traits, whatever that may be. But a non-binary person who identify itself as a kangkong is definitely not a woman.

How could an organisation that is so out of touch with reality be representative of women in Singapore? How could they be sympathetic towards women issues?

Imagine this scenario of a battered wife (BW) calling AWARE for help:

BW : Hello. My name is Amber Hurt. I have been assaulted by my husband,

AWARE: Hi Amber! First thing first. Are you a man or a woman?

BW: I am a woman.

AWARE: I know you are woman. I could tell from your voice unless you are David Beckham. But do you identify yourself as a man or a woman?

BW: I identify myself as a woman. Anyway my husband, that son of a bitch….

AWARE: Hold on. So you are saying that your husband is a dog? What kind of a dog is he? A Pomeranian or Husky?

BW: *puts down phone.

So we need another organisation to represent women in Singapore.

And AWARE should just change its name to something else to better reflect whatever fucked-up agendas they are pursuing now.

May I suggest BEWARE.

Like, BEWARE!. We have members who identify themselves as guard dogs….

By: B Goode

As the opportunistic leprechauns gather at Hong Lim Park to exercise their freedom of speech to protest the lack of freedom of speech in Singapore, I am preparing to go to JB to get myself a new irony board. My old one has been burnt by the heat of sarcasm.

Today is World’s Human Rights Day. If you are confused as to what this human rights thing is all about, don’t worry, let me confuse you even more.

Aung Sun Suu Kyi, the world’s biggest emotional scammer and the darling of human rights groups won the Nobel peace prize due to her humanitarian work for underprivileged people in Myanmar, as long as they are not Rohingyas. Placating your support base at the expense of the disenfranchised is not humanitarianism. It is called politics.

So the day Aung Sun Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace prize was the day when the hijacking of Human Rights by the politicians from under the noses of the social workers was made complete.

Just like the day when Bob Dylan won the Nobel prize for literature was the day when books were made obsolete.

Today is World’s Human Rights day. Another auspicious day for the usual suspects to gather to entertain the anti-government crowd and earn some donations.

Let’s see who we have here.

Gilbert Goh – who hates foreigners

Jolovan Wham – who loves foreigners

Han Hui Hui – who was a foreigner who hates foreigners

M Ravi – who loves or hates foreigners depending on his mood today

Leong Sze Hian – who loves himself

Tan Kin Lian – only about 300 people loved him to be the President

Teo Soh Lung – who loves Lenin

But one thing they all have in common is the love for the limelight and the need for relevancy. And donations of course.

So I will ignore the politics of human rights and get to the basics and list out what it feels like to be human in Singapore.

1. I’ve got a roof over my head to protect me against the weather although I will still get wet in the MRT trains during a thunderstorm but hey! where is my irony board?
2. I’ve never gone hungry even if it means eating cup noodles and drinking tap water during the last few days before my pay day, and getting free leftovers from the nearby 7-11. (Note: at 1am every morning, 7-11 do give away leftover currypuffs, biscuits, paus and breads). For others, there are soup kitchens aplenty such as Willing Hearts. And begging from friends. You can’t do this in some poorest countries because all your friends are beggars too.
3. I will not get turned away from the polyclinics and hospitals even if I am broke as fuck. Thus the reminder notices from Singhealth asking me to pay up. Sorry la bro. I’ll pay when I get my CPF.
4. I have the freedom of movement because we have the cheapest public transport fares in the world (haha) and the most efficient (hahahaha). Although I have to be careful where I walked in case a facade or plaster falls on my head.
5. My passport is one of the most valuable in the world. If only I could afford to travel overseas but hey! there is always Batam and JB.
6. I have the freedom to have consensual sex with anyone. Don’t ask. In some countries, you might get 100 lashes if you were lucky, and stoned to death if you were not.
7. I have the freedom to marry anyone I like regardless of race or religion. In Malaysia for instance, if you want to marry a Minah, you need to get circumcised. Ouch! (Quick mental maths: 7– 1= 6. Not bad lah. But what if you are blessed with only a 3?)
8. I have the freedom to name my children anything I want even Plutonium (true story). Do you know that in France, you cannot name your son `Jones’? It must be the French version which I think is `Cajones’.
9. But all that means nothing if we don’t have the security to protect us. So I have to say a big thank you to the police and the army. Thank God we have the Terexxes to protect us.

But most importantly, so important that it deserves a new paragraph of its own is that, I have the freedom to talk cock. Wanna bet?

LEE HSIEN LOONG IS UGLY AF!

I doubt anything will happen to me. But if you don’t hear from me anymore then yes, we don’t have the freedom of speech but hey! they do provide free lodging and food in Changi Ville you know…..

By: B Goode

Without being cynical, I sincerely wish Amos Yee every success in his endeavour to lead a new life in the US as a refugee. If I could write a referral letter for him I would but I have no idea who is in-charge of the US now.

Love him or loathe him, he has decided to find a safe space for himself in the land of the free and I for one would like to wish him well. He needs every luck bit of luck and a lot of hard work.

Amos Yee is Amos Yee because of Singapore. We are such a small and an anal-retentive country that people like him who live on the edge and on the periphery of the mainstream can gain fame and notoriety quick.

The US though, is a different kettle of fish. Ironically, the same space and freedom that he sought would drown him in anonymity.

There are thousands of Amos Yees in the US. Those who are anti-establishment, bigots, racists, internet trolls and those who seek their 5 minutes of fame litter the streets of every big city in the US, and stalk and hog the social media hoping to be heard and made famous. Most of them end up as hobos and dependent on government handouts.

If Amos Yee is hoping to get a free ride in the US being what he is now, I am afraid he will be utterly disappointed. Because let’s be honest, as far as the Americans are concerned, Amos Yee is a nobody. Uneducated, talentless and with an unremarkable face, he will find it hard to etch a decent living in the US unless he turns his life around, something that his fellow Singaporeans have been edging him to.

And as a fellow Singaporean, I wish him all the best. I hope he will grow up because the city streets in the US is not the place for a manchild.

By: B Goode

With 2016 taking so many well-known celebrities with it, it had me scrambling for news about Anita Sarawak. She’s fine. No worries.

So in-between going to the toilet because I had too much Anchor Beer for the New Year (my friends are cheap), I managed to put together the things I wish had died in 2016:

• FAKE NEWS

All fake things are bad. Unless you are Sally when she met Harry:

But if we were to somehow magically make every single fake things disappear, 90% of made-in-China products would go poof including possibly the lift you were standing on. And Mariah Carey’s tits. We wouldn’t want that to happen.

But I wish at least we could make fake news go away because they mess up with our minds. That’s why I still refuse to believe that our Terrex tanks are being held hostage in Hong Kong. I refuse to believe that our government is so stupid as to allow our weapons to be transported by private companies. I refuse to believe that no government officials did a due diligence on the documents. And I refuse to believe that our Ministers are not capable to negotiate a return. I will only believe if someone gets screwed for dereliction of duty. Fake news I say!

• Doom Merchants

Duterte Happened: OMG! The Philippines will go to the dogs! Nope. The Philippines economy is the fastest growing in the region and investments are pouring in because businesses believe in Duterte and his back-to-basics socio/political and economic policies.

Brexit Happened: OMG! The UK will go to the dogs! Nope. The UK economy and the pound sterling have been strongest in more than a decade and almost everyone wants to do business directly with them.

Trump Happened: OMG! The US will go to the dogs! Nope. Have you checked the Dow Jones and the US dollar exchange rate lately?

Mosquito infestation, blocked drains, falling façade, lifts and plasters Happened: OMG! Singapore is falling apart! Hmmmm…

• SJWs

Social Justice Warriors, the ultra-liberals, whiners, sore losers etc. Not the people but the movement and their agendas `cos I will never wish death upon anyone or anything except pigeons. The SJWs with their incessant and misplaced political correctness are the scourge of this earth playing with words instead of action. What’s wrong if I want to call a spade a spade? I mean if I were to call a fat lady fat, no amount of niceties could alter the fact that she’s fat and most probably will die from diabetes. There I’ve said it. Sue me.

• Superficial Socio-political Activists

You know who they are. The banana-eating goons who swarmed Hong Lim Park like a plague at every opportunity to earn some dough. How many times can they yell `Return Our CPF’ or `Singapore For Singaporeans’ before they get old like my 5-year old underwear, or stale like the Anchor Beer (my friends are cheap) I had for New Year? I yearn for some activists who could offer solid alternative model of governance and economic policies. The longer these movements exists, the more Singaporeans will get side-tracked from the real issues of the day that are bugging our government like….how to take a perfect selfie.

• Opposition Parties

Speaking of superficial, wtf happened to our Opposition? The one in Parliament is too busy trying to balance their account. Others are putting up alternative policy ideas which are good to begin with but once their policies are attacked, they simply whimper and suck thumb one corner. I yearn for an opposition with fire in their belly, who is not afraid to engage in robust discourse to put forward their ideas and alternative views. When was the last time the WP put up a Bill to be debated in Parliament? When was the last time it snowed in Singapore?

• Funny Laws

When a reckless driver who mowed dead a pedestrian got two weeks jail, whilst a bird smuggler got 6 months jail….I rest my case.

Happy New Year everyone! Hic!

By: B Goode

Just the other day I was sitting alone under the banyan tree nursing my broken heart and empty wallet reminiscing about the days gone by, checking my phone balance and thinking :

“How the hell did I end up broke and sitting alone under a banyan tree?”

Sadly there was no one to capture my photo ‘cos it would have been awesome. Against the backdrop of the setting sun, I would have made a mesmerizing, picture-perfect silhouette of a forlorn man. Heck! They might even mistake me as a sad and lonely foreign worker because you know only a foreign worker would do something as depressing as that, amirite?

And it would have made a fantastic Facebook post about the trials and tribulations of foreign workers in Singapore.

/cue the sound of the world’s smallest violin

Meanwhile, most of the foreign workers were celebrating New Year like the rest of us. Like this.

I get it and I totally appreciate it. The legion of foreign workers have helped to build the country’s infrastructure but don’t make it as if they were forced to come here on slave ships. And don’t make it as if Singaporeans are lazy bastards who contribute nothing to the country. Like as if we spent all our time lounging on a sofa being fed grapes and poured wine through our noses:

The narrative about our foreign workers must change. We have to stop being condescending towards them and to stop giving back-handed compliments. They are after all humans and as humans they are expected to do what other humans would do like sitting under a tree.  It is normal and it is natural. There is nothing to romanticise about those actions and certainly nothing further to extrapolate.

They don’t need a pat on the head after each and every normal human act like helping to change tyres. Only pets need that.

And never forget. Our forefathers used to sit under a tree somewhere after a hard day’s work dreaming of good times ahead.

Only difference is that there was no smartphones then and no facebook to post our ode.

By – B Goode

Someone needs to tell Trump that China is a communist state, lest he forgets like Obama does.

While he’s at it, tell him to remind the other leaders of the free world that China is still ruled by the communist doctrine which among other things include world domination.

Remind them also of the many wars fought in the name of freedom. And the thousands upon thousands perhaps millions of lives and limbs lost because they were told of the threat to freewill, freedom, democracy and humanity that communism posed.

And yet here we are, sleeping with the enemy. It is an act of grand betrayal to the millions of souls lying in the cemeteries and battlefields all over the world. Had they known that future generations would embrace a communist state with open arms and undo all those premise that they had sacrificed their lives for, would they have gone to war?

It all started when the late Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader, came out with a brilliant idea to combat what he termed as imperialist capitalism. After years of wars and antagonism towards the free world had failed, he decided to hit them at their weakest spot; capitalist greed.

“It doesn’t matter the colour of the cat as long as it catches the mouse”, he famously said.

Back then and even now, we all thought that he meant for China to move away from state-controlled and central planning economic policies that were clearly not working, to capitalist policies as long as the Chinese people prosper.

Deng Xiaoping would not have been regarded as one of the great thinkers of the world if he was myopic to only think of China. And Communism is not tailored just for one or two states. The end game is to make the whole world subscribed to Communism.

So a few of us now realised what Deng Xiaoping had actually meant; that it doesn’t matter how you do it as long as you achieve the final victory against the free world.

When China first embarked on her economic restructuring, the free world welcomed her thinking that free trade and capitalism would naturally and inevitably turn China into a democracy.

After about 30 years, China has become the second largest economy and flushed with riches, it has increasingly exhibited its true colour with its belligerent expansionist policies. Case in point, the South China Seas.

Yet, it still remains a Communist state ruled and dictated by the communist manifesto, the document that gave them the legitimacy to rule.

The free world, blinded by capitalist greed, continued to lap it all up oblivious of who they were dancing and sleeping with.

Take Singapore for example. Only some thirty years ago we would not have accepted un-screened workers from China who might be card-carrying communist party members. We would not have allowed China companies to build our key installations for fear of being sabotaged. Like it or not, insurgency whether overt or covert, political or economic still forms part and parcel of communist doctrine.

And yet we embraced them because `cheaper, better, faster’.

Malaysia too, the country who kicked Singapore out of the federation to ensure Malay hegemony, embraced China like there was no tomorrow because of greed. Sri Lanka that committed genocide using Chinese weapons, Sudan, Philippines, Indonesia, countries in Africa, South America, Eastern Europe have huge Chinese presence that they are practically beholden to the whims and fancies of China.

Yet the free world stood still and did nothing.

You might ask: What’s wrong with communism? China is a communist state and is rich and perhaps we too should just embrace it.

If you are only after fortune then yes. Go ahead. But it must be warned that there is no guarantee that the prosperity you are enjoying now will last forever once the Communist’s end-game has been achieved.

But if you want your basic human rights to be protected and the rule of laws be it International or otherwise be respected, then you might want to think again.

The communist will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. There is no place for sentimentality in Communism.

Go and visit Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The once tranquil city has now become the Hadyai of the Himalayas; part of the communist regime’s plan to morally and culturally corrupt the Tibetans to negate their sense of national identity and pride to finally stop their independent spirit.

But most importantly, ask yourself this question: are we going to accept that the deaths of so many soldiers and civilians fighting in the name of freedom were in vain?

Would you be able to enjoy your little life comforts if they had lost?

The ideological war between communism and democracy is still ongoing. And if we don’t wake up our ideas, we will lose this war and our future generations will curse us for failing.

WARNING: This article contains a sickening dose of nostalgia

By: B Goode

When a minister got overly excited over the prospect of the return of our seized terrex tanks and urged Singaporeans to celebrate Chinese New Year with them, you knew that Chinese New Year had lost some of its charms.

Dude. In the first place, tanks don’t celebrate CNY.

Secondly, who in this side of hell would celebrate something that would not have happened if someone somewhere didn’t screw up? It was akin to getting your girlfriend pregnant because you were too cheap to buy a pack of condoms and then after a time of much consternation, you managed to persuade your girlfriend to have an abortion and then celebrate the occasion with a lion dance.

Yay! Hit me baby one more time!

Most importantly, and this is where my melancholic rant shall begin, most Singaporeans will not be in Singapore to welcome the tanks back.

I know this because all of my friends are overseas. I have actually expected this.

So a month ago I used the Chinese app to apply for a rent-a-girlfriend to keep me company this CNY. But I received this in my mail instead:

Oh man. They have taken fuckery fakery to another new level.

In between trying to figure out what to do with the monstrosity, should I blow it with my mouth or use a bicycle pump, I was overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness.

In days gone by, CNY was glorious. It was colourful, noisy, smoky, foody…..you know…celebratory. There were people around to celebrate with you.

Not that Singapore is deserted now. On CNY day, I popped over to the neighbourhood mall to look for a pair of cheongsam for my ‘girlfriend’ hoping that my aged father would not notice that my `girlfriend’ had a gaping mouth, and it was crowded. And that’s the problem. They were not supposed to be in a mall on CNY day doing non-CNY stuff. They were supposed to be stuffing themselves silly with CNY goodies in someone’s house.

But then again, if their relatives and friends were overseas….

And this trend of going overseas during the cultural festivities is not only restricted to CNY. Increasing numbers of Malays do it too during Hari Raya. And Indians during Deepavali.

My advice to the young couples who went overseas with their children during the cultural holidays leaving their parents behind. In years to come, when your children grew up, they too would leave for the holidays leaving you all alone.

Then, you’d have to apply for rent-a-child-or-grandchild. You might end up with an enhanced version of what I got.

Or, you’d be asked by the government to celebrate with inanimate objects like terrex tanks for instance.

Kong Hee Fatt Choy everyone!

By: B Goode

Love him or loathe him, the man with a dead Golden Retriever on his head (it was a Pomeranian actually) is now the most powerful man on earth.

Inevitably, the man with the small hands has between his fingers the most powerful pen in the world.

And indeed he has shown its commanding powers when within days of his inauguration, he signed off executive orders after executive orders that shook the world to its very core.

But his actions should not have caught the world by surprise. He was just fulfilling his election promises; the very platform from which he was elected.

On second thoughts, perhaps the world was shocked because for the first time in living memory, the President of the United States meant what he said and did what he promised.

During his inauguration speech, he repeated his mantra ‘America First’ over and over again and the world reacted as if they had seen a ghost. What did they expect him to say? America last? Business as usual?

And so we got to his latest edict; the temporary ban on travels for citizens from some muslim-dominated countries.

Why do we have doors to our houses? Why do we have locks and keys and peepholes? Why do we even have security guards to our condos? Why bother with Police cameras in the void decks?

The reason is because we do not want any Tom, Dick or Suicide Harris to enter our homes. When we ourselves were wary of who we let into our homes; heck! even the Istana open house would require you to pass through metal detectors, why should we expect the US to have a free-for-all entry policy?

Just like us, what Trump did was merely to ensure that the US government would at least know who they allowed into their country.

Some argued that Trump’s latest action was akin to using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. Well, those people obviously have never been bothered by a mosquito zzzzing in their ears and sucking blood from spots on their body that are impossible to scratch.

So Trump temporarily banned people from some countries from entering the US. Who do we blame? Trump for trying to do what he is supposed to do and that is to protect his countrymen or those countries who allowed mosquitoes to breed in their courtyards?

Perhaps Trump is being racist and is indulging in religious profiling but those countries are making it too easy for him to be and do just that.

And those people especially pop stars and celebrities who wouldn’t dare to leave their fortified homes without a gang of bodyguards to keep them safe are now protesting oblivious to the gigantic irony that they are getting into.

And already there are corporations trying to milk this for profits such as Starbucks that promised to take in 10,000 refugees as employees in their worldwide chains.

Hello Mr Starbucks. Try employing refugees in your Singapore stores. Oh yes that’s right. You can’t because Singapore doesn’t accept refugees. But it’s ok. Carry on with your marketing strategy that surely must have been discussed in your ultra-fortified head office.

So before we ourselves start to condemn Trump’s action, ask ourselves this question.

Would you be able to sleep soundly at night knowing that your front door is left wide open?

By: B Goode

Sad news for us chicken lovers.

After some serious deliberations (about 2 minutes whilst secretly playing Candycrush on their smartphones), our clueless bureaucrats have decided to cull the foreign-import chickens that lined the backlanes of Geylang.

Oh wait! Wrong channel. Sorry.

I know that this is the year of the Rooster but I don’t expect the cocks in the government HQs to start crowing this early already. Dude. Can you guys just wait after Chap Goh Meh? Have some respect please!

Apparently some of our government departments; NEA, AVA and others with an `A’ (for ass) in their acronyms are ganging up to murder free-ranging chickens because of…

…wait for it

…wait for it

…wait for it…

Noise!

Captain Treehugger Louis Ng! Where are you when we need you?

SAVE THE CHICKENS, BRO!

You see, if we need to cull noisy things, I would have choked to death one of my ex-girlfriends who was of Japanese descent. Apart from the following things:

• The impatient taxi uncles at the traffic light or wherever and whenever they decide to be impatient
• The Ah Bengs in their revved-up Subaru. (Why must it always be Subaru? Can someone please tell me?)
• Malay weddings, Chinese funerals, Thaipusam procession, Santa Claus and his jingling bells and whatever atheist people do. Sorry I went there. I am not racist. Just making a point. There is a reason why there is no `A’ in ISD because you guys are cool…
• My mom. But she’s dead already. RIP mom. I love you!
• And a million other things.

And perhaps realising that simply being noisy is not an ironclad reason to start butchering the helpless, flightless and delicious chickens, they decided to insert another reason. I am sure they are very proud of themselves now. All those taxpayers’ money spent to send them on overseas scholarships are reaping the rewards. I mean. Only people who went to Oxbridge, Yale, MIT, NUS etc could have come up with this brilliant idea. Plebs like us who gained our education via mere observation would be too stupid to even think.

You guys want to know what the reason is? Just remember not to cull yourself after you hear it;

It is to prevent these free-ranging chickens from interbreeding with the native chickens. Brilliant or what?

Of course not!

You know why is this so stupid? Try imagining the free-range chickens as foreign talents and you will know what I mean.

So if the free-range chickens are to be culled because they are foreign, I’d suggest the following to be culled too for the same reason:

• Persian cats, Siamese cats, Burmese cats, British Shorthairs, Octopussy (wait. That’s not a cat), and all cats except for the Singapura cat. You guys do know that there’s a native cat breed called the Singapura, right? No? Oh that’s right. You guys didn’t go to Oxbridge. The only bridge you went to was the overhead bridge. Hahahaha plebs!
• All breeds of dogs except for…hmmm there are no native dogs in Singapore so yeah, all dogs! There’s a joke about bitches in there somewhere but I am not going there because this is a family-friendly website.
• Pigeons that originated from India to prevent them from interbreeding with the native green pigeons. You guys do know that there is a native green p….oh nevermind. I’ll just assume that you guys were all dropouts from Chai Chee Secondary from now on.
• The black Mynahs that originated from somewhere in the world, that roost on the trees outside your bedroom window singing `We Are The Champions’ every freaking night and shitting on your parked cars underneath. The native Mynah is brown in colour but of course the policymakers didn’t know about this because the imported black Mynahs even got three statues in their honour in front of Victoria Hall:

• The wild boars. If you think that the wild boars that are causing havoc to motorcyclists using Thomson Road are native to Singapore, think again. They actually originated from domesticated pigs that escaped from the villages that used to exist in that area and then their descendants became wild. But I don’t expect you guys to know this….

• And the list goes on and on to Kallang Park on a Sunday.

So free-range chickens are to be culled because they are foreign. And yet the above things are allowed to roam free and shit in your plate of mee rebus.

Policies like this make me wish for those cocks in the government departments who are responsible for them to be culled instead.

By: B Goode

Like day follows night; like spring follows winter; like a retiree follows the Batam ferry; like PM Lee’s selfies; like me going to church on Sundays (so true); some things in life are as predictable as Kim Kardashian’s hoe game.

If you have lived as long as me my friends, you too will notice a trend in Singapore-Malaysia relations. And if you are as good as whatshisname who got sacked from TTSH because of malingering, you will be able to tabulate a graph of peaks and troughs and see that the troughs lined perfectly with the Malaysian General Elections.

The Malaysian GE is expected to be held sooner rather than later. And as per tradition, the Malaysian politicians will be seeking something to distract the electorates from the real issues of the day. For UMNO, the biggest party in the ruling coalition, that will mean finding a `hantu’ (bogeyman) to scare their predominantly simple-minded support base; the FELDA settlers.

And of course what is scarier than the `toyol’ (little black devil) just south of the causeway?

In elections gone by, there were bound to be issues raised by the Malaysian politicians against Singapore. From the water issue, to the crooked bridge, to Pedra Branca, to anything that Lee Kuan Yew might have said, to the Malays in the SAF; anything under the sun to make Malaysian villagers and fishermen forget about how miserable their lives are, because a hantu is much scarier than a leaking roof and a blocked waterway that also acts as the sewerage system.

And having convinced them of the existence of a hantu, UMNO leaders could then paint themselves as the bomohs who could dispel the nightmare from their lives.

*Note: The joke about the coconut bomoh with his bamboo binoculars is old already, guys. Just let it slide…

The Malaysian election is around the corner. This time, they tried to find a different bogeyman. They targeted Myanmar and the Rohingyas. But apparently this didn’t scare the villagers because most probably they didn’t know wtf is the rohingyas or for that matter, where the hell is Myanmar. So they reverted back to the tried and tested; the toyol that is Singapore.

And so they have decided to re-ignite their claims to Pedra Branca. This is not going to be end of it. As the election nears, this issue will somehow degenerate into name-calling and UMNO latchkeys threatening to block the causeway.

So what can Singapore do? Just go with the flow and participate in their wayang; perhaps PM Lee may want to pop over to KL to take another selfie with Najib. Only this time, just remember to include Rosmah Mansor in the picture. What a scary thought.

Whatever it is, stay calm because when the election is over, everything will be back to normal until the next election, of course.

By: B Goode

So that’s it. There will be a Malay President this September.

Although it is still seven months away, by now there should already be one or two candidates who would have put their names in the hat. I am not going to flog a dead horse but Dr Adrian Tan had his name up in the sky way, way before the sky was even created. He was like that guy who queued for Samsung Note52.

We could argue that the law for the Malay Presidency had just been passed by parliament but the plan was already there more than a year ago. Yet, up to now, no Malays had step up to be a candidate.

The names suggested such as Halimah Yaacob, Abdullah Tarmugi, Masagoes, Zainul Abidin and a few more were mere speculations from the political analysts. None of them was from the horse’s mouth.

Why are they not keen? It cannot be a cultural thing because the Malays up north prove otherwise. Most probably it is due to the lack of backers. The only sponsors I could think of as far as a Malay candidate can hope to get will be the ruling party. Or to put it more succinctly, they need the greenlight from the PAP.

And here’s the clincher. Why is the PAP so slow in backing or at least hinting at their preferred candidate?

I have to word this statement really, really carefully for fear of you know what. But in a country with a dearth of suitable Malays to be the President according to the criteria, it will be good for the PAP to quickly suggest a candidate so as to give some time for Singaporeans to get to know the candidate better.

Or a better alternative will be to just ask Madam Speaker Halimah Yaacob to stand for elections. I mean, who doesn’t know Halimah Yaacob?

So can we expect Halimah Yaacob to stand down from her Speaker Of parliament post after the current parliament sitting?

Make it happen!

#Halimah4Prez

RIP

By: B Goode

This Valentine’s Day, I thought of going to the Botanic Gardens to snap a photo of myself under the giant Tembusu tree just like I did so many years ago. Just me and my hand.

But alas, the tree is gone, bringing with it the life of a woman. RIP.

Unlike the Nparks, I am not going to blame God for it. I am however, will blame good ol’ Father Time.

All living things will die someday. Surpise!

The thing is that, we know of a species’ life span. Humans about 60-80 years. Cats about 10-15 years etc.

I don’t know about Tembusu trees but 200 over years old is one freaking old tree.

Google told me that in the tropics, the only tree that could live for thousands of years is the Banyan. The others are about a few hundred years because of the humidity. If you heard about an old oak tree somewhere in England that was a sapling when Jesus was born, it didn’t mean that all trees could grow to that age. Especially in the tropics.

What I am trying to say is that, trees growing in an overly populated citystate like Singapore need to be cut down after they reached a certain age to prevent them from toppling over because sooner or later they will topple. Surprise!

In the forests and jungles, the toppling of trees is very common, according to Sir David Attenborough of course. But we hardly ever heard of it unless we lived in the jungle. But in a concrete jungle like Singapore, the natural toppling of trees not only can be heard, but will have dire consequences.

Already in the current monsoon season, trees were toppling left, right and centre. Not only the trees, but the branches too.

So again like everything else, Singapore will have to consider our uniqueness when it comes to managing our environment. The authorities need to study the lifespan of each tree species growing in our crowded land and to cut them down when they reached a certain age, and to replace them with new saplings.

This is called regeneration. If regeneration from natural means like what happened with the fallen Tembusu tree will have fatal consequences, we need to regenerate our flora manually.

I agree that old things give us a sense of nostalgia. I would love to revisit the old Tembusu tree for another snap. I guess now I just have to snap a photo of me and my hand at East Coast Park BBQ Pit No: 267.

But that lady who died when she was pinned down by the old Tembusu tree, could never celebrate another Valentine’s day.

By: B Goode

The report by the Committee on Future Economy (CFE) is already out. It was old news I know. But I had to spend a few days just to google all the big words and phrases used within. If the late Goh Keng Swee had vetted the report, he would have given it a big fat zero for the lack of brevity.

And maybe a 2/10 for substance.

You see, behind the gobbledegook is the same old strategy worded in a more contemporary way. It is like walking along the same path that has been newly paved. It will still lead to the same place. A good place perhaps, but still the same place.

The strategies put forward in the report are too safe. There is nothing out of the ordinary and certainly nothing out of the box. It is Singapore’s own version of a safe space.

And most importantly, the strategies, because they are too formulaic, are also being pursued by other countries relentlessly and unless we can offer an edge, we will lose out or at best, just getting the crumbs. Take the plan to re-invent Orchard Road for instance. The fact of the matter is, Orchard Road will never be another Dubai. And as far as digital thing is concerned, we will never be another Silicon Valley.

So why not do something that will always be in high demand but other countries will not dare to follow.

To get a better view of what I am driving at, here is the list of the Bold Alternatives:

• SEX

Who doesn’t like sex? The sex industry is worth billions of dollars globally. But it is an industry that is mostly hidden under the heavy blanket of pretend prude. In fact there is already a thriving sex industry in Singapore. Why not monetise it? Make it into an international attraction with the same safeguards we had for the casinos.

Find a good place. I suggest the abandoned Tang Village. Refurbished it, expand it but retain the high walls surrounding it. We need to change the name though or people might flock to Tang’s shopping mall instead. How about Sin City? I’ve already got a tagline for it:

Welcome To SIN CITY™ where the Angels wear thongs and the Devil is YOU!

Clean up Geylang and other areas once and for all and move all the vice activities to Sin City. Have an age restriction of 21+. For uncles (and aunties) aged 70 and above, they have to produce a medical cert to certify that they are healthy. We do not want people dying of heart attack, yo!

Have gogo bars, strip joints, sex shows, massage parlours, dirty bars, saunas, sex shops, parades, lemon parties (don’t google it. Just don’t!), pharmacies that sell real sex medicines, four floors of whores and more! For those of you who have gone to Patphong, Bangkok (I have not), you might say that it would be similar to that place. It is not because chewing gum will still be banned so visitors will have something more to chew like edible panties for instance.

Slap a hefty entrance fee. I know my friends will pay regardless of the amount. For Singaporeans, they have to pay $100 extra.

And while we are at it, attract the porn industry as well to produce their films here.

Of course the prudish religious community will be up in arms. Well, just tell them that sex is good because if it is bad, God would not have blessed us with sex organs and orgasms.

Let’s see if the Gulf Arabs dare to copy us.

• DEFENSE INDUSTRY

There will always be wars. It’s in our DNA. Wars need weapons, bombs and it is worth trillions of dollars. So apart from attracting the safer industries like aerospace, IT, zzzzzz, etc, we should also attract the big Defense Industry players to set up shops here. We might not want their production plants here because you know, KABOOM! But they can have their R&D here and maybe factories that make parts that will not explode.

Yes I know. We already have Chartered Industries but compare them to Deloitte….

• MARIJUANA

Hold on a sec. I am not advocating the legalisation of recreational marijuana consumption, no siree Mr CNB.

But increasing number of countries are legalising marijuana for medicinal use. Some of them are going even further towards decriminalising recreational marijuana use.

There is a strain of marijuana that originated from this part of the world that is considered as the crème de la crème of marijuana. It is expensive and highly sought after. Don’t ask me how I know except to say that I have a friend who is a rastafarian.

So why not be the global producer for this strain of marijuana to feed the cancer sufferers and stoners around the world? Marijuana is not difficult to grow. It is actually considered a weed. We just have to give licences to farmers to grow marijuana and to have in place stringent security checks to ensure that none of the marijuana grown goes out into Singapore streets. We can even have it packaged in easy to use zip-lock bags with the stamp `Organically grown In Singapore’ on it. Given the choice between growing kangkong and ganja, the farmers will gladly choose the latter, giggling whilst tilling the land. Happy farmers. Who would have thought?

We can also attract pharmaceutical companies to set up their R&D facilities for marijuana research. Heck! Let’s be bolder and be the global trading centre for legalised marijuana.

I doubt any country in the world would want to follow suit.

And there are other industries that we could consider such as GM foods. Why have normal cows when we can have them the size of a house? Or a padi that grows from a tembusu tree? But you got my drift.

What I was trying to say was that we should traiblaze our way to where angels fear to tread.

By: B Goode

So our Propaganda Minister, Yaacob Ibrahim finally admitted defeat and decided to re-name Syonan Gallery into something loooooooong…

But the name change happened not before he gave a good fight in trying to explain stuff.

In the first place, if you had to explain the meaning of a name, it simply meant that the name wasn’t that great to begin with. A good name should be self-explanatory. The meaning should be inherent and obvious. The same reason why the National Museum is called just that and not The Stamford Building.

The same reason why this website has a terrible name because people still think that it is a website devoted to religion….

And I guess the same reason why Syonan Gallery has now been changed to Surviving the Japanese Occupation: War and its Legacies.

A mouthful, yes. Self-explanatory, yes. Long, YES!

But not to worry. People will just call it The Ford Factory.

Like many others, when I first heard of the name Syonan Gallery, I said: WTF? I thought it was a place to glamourise the life under the Japanese until it was explained to me that it was actually a place to document the terror and atrocities of Japanese occupation.

Which brings me to the second point:

You see, words are like humans. They are not born equal. Some words are more powerful and when put together with another word, they will dominate and infused it with its own aura.

Take Syonan Gallery for example. You might think that between the two words, Syonan is the powerful one. Nope. It is the seemingly decent and innocuous word, gallery.

When people mention the word gallery, people will think of art, music, sculptures, paintings and other nice cultural stuff. So when you put another word with Gallery, that word automatically becomes nice.

That’s why you can never find something called The Nazi Gallery.

But you will find a lot of things with the word Durian in it….mmmm yum….

But it doesn’t matter now. It is all water under the bridge.

And with Yaacob Ibrahim apologising for the naming booboo only after much condemnation, it just proved the point that:

Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

By: B Goode

There was this news that was trending a few days ago about a Malay-Muslim in Malaysia who was accused of being not-Muslim enough. Actually the incident happened in 2008 but nowadays if you wanted to be in the news, just report something controversial about Islam or Muslims and BAM! you’d be trending regardless if the news was 10-years old. (Ed Note: Thus the title of this article /giggles)

Koreans eat dogs? Meh! Nothing new.

Muslims touch dogs? OMG! News headlines for weeks on end.

But the news got me thinking; is there such a thing as a not-Muslim-enough Muslim which I personally understood as another way of saying a bad Muslim.

So if the lady in the aforementioned article was considered a bad Muslim because she didn’t exhibit or exercise all the traits a Muslim woman was supposed to, would ISIS members be considered as good Muslims because they purportedly followed Islamic principles to the teeth?

How about the Thai Buddhist monk who is now on the run for allegedly embezzling donors’ monies? Is he a bad Buddhist? How about Madonna? Is she a bad Christian?

The answer is Hell No!

You see, it is impossible to ascribe the notion of good or bad onto something that is supposed to be judged by God. That is if you believe in God.

If you don’t believe in God (good luck to you, bro!), the exercise will also be futile.

What I am trying to say is that; there is no such thing as a bad Muslim, or a bad Buddhist, or a bad Christian or a bad whateveralienyoubelievedin.

Only bad people.

By: B Goode

When the Smartnation initiative was first announced, the paranoid amongst us along with some techgurus raised red flags above the confetti strewn by Vivian Balakrishnan. We warned that if not properly designed especially in the security aspect, it could lead to all kinds of malicious repercussions.

But all that was brushed aside with the typical government half-assed assurance that the initiative would be secured and hardened against cyberattacks. Some of us were still not convinced because for Smartnation to work as intended, and that is for a seamless and fluid data gathering and sharing, the system cannot be made too hard. There can only be so many doors with locks and keys before the system is rendered too cumbersome to be useful.

And so today it was announced that there was a breach in one of MINDEF’s computer system causing the compromise of a few hundred NSmen identities. The incident is now under investigations and so it will not be appropriate to comment at this stage.

But imagine if the Smartnation initiative was in full swing. That breach would have caused untold damage to the personnel affected. Using the stolen data, the hacker could have access to other government departments linked to that compromised database via Smartnation and do whatever hackers do.

Hopefully this incident would serve as a wake-up call to the government that in their rigorous attempt at being the first nation in the world to be linked digitally, they should not forget the basics. A building is as safe as its foundation.

The government should not only look at the technological aspect of the system. The people running the system are also to be considered as potential accessories to hacking. They should be screened thoroughly and punishments for any indiscretions are to be calibrated appropriately to reflect the seriousness of the offence.

The safeguard of the people’s identities demands it.

By: B Goode

There are not many things in this world simpler than this life’s equation:

No Water = You Die

Water, or the lack of it is in fact everyone’s waterloo, not only ours.

On that basis, it is perhaps justifiable for the 30% increase in water prices. But we shall leave the full-on brown-nosing justifications for the MSMs to do. They have been doing a fantastic job thus far.

But is the increase fair? Water Minister Masagos states that since water is precious, we have to pay the full price. It is as good as him pushing the full responsibility to the consumers rather than the government.

Let us look into this issue from the supply and demand angles because I’ve realised that our government will only listen if you put forward your ideas using Economics and Mathemathical terminologies.

1. Supply

Since water is a basic necessity, it is therefore incumbent upon the government to provide us with it. It is in fact inherent in the unwritten contract between the government and the people; the government must provide clean water for the people. Period.

Although we should not expect the government to provide free water to us, the government should not use water as a budgetary tool either. Not enough money in the government coffers? Up the price of water. The worst thing to do is to profiteer.

From what we have heard thus far from the Water Minister, this seems to be the case. The consumers, he said, would have to pay the full price. It could only mean the full production costs. What happened to our taxes? Are we not supposed to pay taxes as a form of collective payment to the government to provide the necessary infrastructure for basic necessities such as water, defence, security, education etc. So what will happen to the potion of our taxes that are supposed to be allocated to water production? We gonna give it to supporting ineffective corporations like what we did to SMRT? Or the Town Councils?

What’s next? We need to pay for the upkeep of the trees because they provide clean air to us?

And if the government’s reason to increase the water price is because of increased production costs, then the onus is on the government to explain as to why they have failed to keep the costs down or to find cheaper alternatives.

As if God too wanted to show his disbelief, since the announcement it had been raining cats and dogs. Granted we have very limited land to store all this water but how about storing them in oil tankers to be parked off the coasts? Due to the oil glut, we could buy oil tankers for cheap now.

Or what about getting our water supply say from Vietnam? If we could have an undersea oil/gas pipeline from Natuna, why not an undersea water pipeline from the Mekong Delta? Vietnam would love to sell the water to Singapore since it is going to go wasted into the sea.

Or from Pahang River since Najib is in the mood to sell anything and everything.

Or how about providing untreated water to flush our toilets?

In short, Singaporeans should not be made to pay more than their fair share as far as water supply is concerned. The government too would have to shoulder part of the responsibility.

2. Demand

As the Water Minister said, water is precious. In fact we could add to say that water is essential for life. In this regard, no matter how high the price of water is, we still need it to survive.

For example, I would need 8 glasses of water to drink. Maybe I could cut down on my shower to once a day. Flush the toilet once a day or until the toilet bowl is so reeked with foul smell until I cannot tahan. Wash my clothes once a week. Cook once a day. Use dry mop for my floorings.

And yet I am still punished for being a good citizen.

Water is unlike beer. If the price of beer is too high, I can stop drinking it. But I will need the minimum of water per day to survive. That’s why water is a necessity, Todd.

Therefore the price of water must not be punitive to those of us who are already conscientious about its value. Why don’t the thousands of government scholars put their brains together to form a gigantic thinking blob and make a study on how much water an average family would need just to survive? Price that amount of water very, very affordably, and for those of us who used over and above that amount be charged with a hefty price.

Using a sledgehammer approach to drive in the point that water is precious is smacked of political arrogance and blatant laziness.

By: B Goode

The case of the Muslim preacher who gave an inflammatory sermon against the Christians and the Jews has, rightly so, caused much consternation and debate across the country. And by country I meant the internet. Even Home Minister Shanmugam has asked for the debate to end as the case is under Police investigations.

But since PM Lee has said that he doesn’t appreciate `yes men’, I am going to say no to him.

From what I’ve heard from my Muslim friends, the type of inflammatory sermon as displayed by the Muslim preacher was prevalent in the early days up to the early eighties when MUIS started to distribute prepared texts for Friday sermons.

During those days, attacking the so called `enemies’ of Islam came with the territory. In Khawspeak, it was `common but not uncommon also’. It was the remnant of the sermons conducted by the first Muslim preachers and Imams who set foot on this region; the Arabs. Their local successors followed suit and soon it became sort of the standard in Friday sermons.

In fact, even now, Friday sermons in the Middle-east and in most parts of Malaysia and Indonesia are still peppered and embellished with phrases such as `victory against the Christians and the Jews’. It came as I said, with the territory because it was part and parcel of the fear-tactics employed by the old preachers in order to get Muslims to comply with Islamic laws. Don’t do this or you will go to hell. Do this and you will go to hell. Hell is hot. Hell is….hellish!

“But Hell has Hellboy, bro!” – says the nerd.

“But all my friends will be in hell, bro!” – says me.

And those words would be shouted out loud. As my friend said, it was more to wake the congregation up from slumber. I mean, who doesn’t snooze during sermons be it in Church, Temples, Mosques or Parliament?

But ever since MUIS started to distribute prepared texts to all Mosques to be read during Friday sermons, those kind of fearmongering subsided. Now it is all about heaven and love. Don’t do this and you will go to heaven. Do this and you will go to heaven. Heaven is….heavenly!

“But I will have no friends in heaven, bro!” – says me.

It is the kind of message more palatable and acceptable to the increasingly progressive Muslim community in Singapore. It might put you to sleep but it is better than to cause you to hate your non-Muslim neighbours.

So that kind of old school sermons that has gotten the preacher in trouble has got no place in a modern progressive society. Something that many have missed in the heat of the discussion is that, the video was recorded and a complaint was lodged by a Muslim.

For what’s worth, that is a good sign that even the Muslim community in Singapore will not tolerate such inflammatory and divisive teachings.