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27 March 2014

Chicken Climbs Tree

This incident happened on the evening of 25 Mar 2014 in the NanNing City of GuangXi. It was an anti-vice sweep targeting street walkers trawling the parks in the evenings.

Many were arrested and this particular one climbed up a tree to avoid capture.


As you can see in the picture, how thin was the branch that she was perched on. Perhaps the cops didn't want to take further action at the point was for her own personal safety.


I find this picture the most amusing of the lot. Look at the number of people gawking at her! I don't see how she is going to Houdini out of this!


Quite an artistic shot this? No? Anyway, do check out how dangerously high she has climbed.


Ahh..... the legs are starting to tire or perhaps she was going to pee like the suicide attempt girl in my earlier entry? --> JayWalk Online (10 Nov 2009) - Bizarre Suicide Attempt In China


Even squatting will be tiring after a while as this girl is attempting to sit on the branch instead? Frankly, capture is inevitable and so I am not sure what she was thinking. Perhaps she was hoping to frustrate the cops into giving up?


Looks like the local cops this week all no need to buy 4D/TOTO liao.

At the end of it all, she had to come down and be arrested finally.

The twist to this whole saga was that when they established her identity, the cops realized that she was in actual fact, a man!

Wow.

There is an old Chinese saying 狗急跳墙, 人急生计 (The panicked dog jumps the wall, the panicked man hatch a plan).

In this particular case, one may have to adapt that 鸡急爬树 (The panicked cock climbs the tree).


Image Credit: http://www.netease.com

- Voxeros

11 March 2014

Checkpoint Breach


I am not going to go into how this is the second border breach blah blah blah.

I was watching the CCTV clip and three things came to my mind.

Three things not right.

First, were the police officers. Noticed how everyone just standing around not knowing what to do?

Were there no SOP/drills to handle such a scenario?

Why did everyone appear to be clueless?

What about the second police officer who took out and extended his telescopic baton? Then what? Only know how to wave wave menacingly without any real commitment. NATO. Wayang only.

Come on! Smash that goddamn window already!

Mind you, this isn't a mere trying to sneak into the country. This was a blatant broad daylight in-your-face breach of our sovereign border. I'd say smash that bladdy window and shoot the bugger (to wound/disable) already! At such a close range, hard to miss then accidentally kill right?

What I saw was hesitation. It was very much the same during the Little India Riot. In my humble opinion, I do not think that our boys in blue froze at time of crisis. Perhaps what was more crippling was the worry of the consequences of their action(s) at that critical moment. It was a time where the situation calls for one or more of these officers to take action WITHOUT permission/approval from a higher up first.

I may be wrong here but it appears nobody wishes to gamble by sticking his neck out. What if the said officer were to be accused of "excessive violence"? Heaven forbids we discharge a weapon! Loss of job? Career hentak kaki?

During the COI of the Little India Riot, we saw that those who took positive action received commendation while those who cowardly dragged their feet trying to find someone to pass the buck first before doing his/her job got stick.

Something is not right.


The second item on my list of "something not right" was the cat claws road barrier whose Gandalf purpose was to prevent any vehicle from passing.

From the video clip, we can see that it was working properly. There was no malfunction which suggests that there is no issue in the maintenance of this device.

The ICA claimed that it did not work "optimally" but it appears to me that it DID NOT WORK. PERIOD.

That brings us to the question if due diligence of evaluating this device at public tender time. Was there a lapse in competence and/or negligence when we awarded the relevant contracts to install this, which at crunch time failed to fulfill what it had promised to do?

Perhaps we need a COI for this too.

Lastly, it was reported that the cat claws punctured two of the four tyres.

Question 1: Why didn't the cat claws puncture all four tyres? Something in the design needs to be reviewed, which brings us back to point No.2. Was the due diligence on the product diligently done?

Question 2: With 2 of the 4 tyres punctured, how is it that we can't locate the chiongster until 5 hours later. Was it THAT difficult to chase a car with only 2 out of 4 healthy tyres?

We need a shitload of COIs this coming year.

- Voxeros

06 March 2014

World's Most Expensive City



So we have now become the world's most expensive city  according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Worldwide Cost Of Living Index 2014 Report.

Essentially, it is an aggregate score of a basket of items, one of which is the price of a car.

So that kinda got me thinking.

WHAT IF.......

...we are to take the price of a car out of this aggregate score calculation?

The way I see it, the price of a car in Singapore is ridiculously expensive to the extent that it doesn't, imho, offer justifiable utility to own one.

Good thing we are a small island country where in time to come (soon), our subway system would be able to cover almost every corner of this land, sans the occasional breakdown here and there and here and there and here and.....

I am sure our Gahmen are already on hand to tackle the issue of frequent breakdowns for we, the voters will have a say in getting the right guy for the transport ministry. We will replace any incompetent minister with our vote and we will continue doing it every 5 years until we get the right guy.

With the ruling party getting only a mere 60% of the popular vote in the 2011 General Elections, the day where we have the option to pick an alternative candidate from the opposition pool may just be sooner than we think.

If the ruling party cannot find the right person for the job, then perhaps we should try someone else from alternative parties.

But I digress.

So coming back to the topic on hand. I was thinking since the average Singaporean CAN do without owning a car due to our relatively awesome public transport, sans breakdowns, why not take that out of the equation?

Oh. Some may say that owning a car gives you the freedom to go anywhere, anytime in comfort. Well, if you wallet allows it, take the taxi which would still be cheaper than owning a car.

Wait? What's that you say? No cab during peak period especially during thunder storms or near midnight? Well, if you can't sit back, relax and wait for the peak period to be over i.e. you die-die-money-no-object must get to a certain place, a certain time, there is always UBER Singapore.

While we are cutting back on luxuries, perhaps we should also take into consideration giving up alcohol, tobacco and gambling, given the tax hike as announced in the latest budget recently.

When one is living on meager resources, one should be able to forgo the able three items that are already expensive even before the latest tax increase.

A dram, a shot, a glass or a mug is nice to have but not essential. Tobacco is bad for the health which will cost you even more when your medical bills start coming in later in life. And then there's gambling where it is well, just bad.

So, if we are to take out these items from the calculation, would we still rank No.1?

I would like to believe that we won't, albeit we'd probably still be in the Top 20.

My point in this entry is this.

There is no need to panic right now. Singapore is NOT THAT expensive to the extent that you can't survive.

You'll live. Trust me. Just need to keep your material pursuits in check and you'll do just fine.

Image Credit: http://i2.cdn.turner.com (CNN Edition: International); http://www.bloomberg.com; http://www.straitstimes.com

- Voxeros