Comments section taken off the Straits Times Interactive

Why has the comment option of the Straits Time Interactive has been removed?

STI may not realized the simple phenomena that readers who actually made the effort to write comments often feel strongly for or against the article, and therefore the comments are often relatively one-sided.

Given that STI tends to report more favorably on the actions of the government, it is not surprising the comments left on STI aim to balance that by being less favorably on the government.

The same phenomena is reflected in feedback ratings of Amazon.com or Yelp.com. Even though the normal distribution will suggests more 3 ratings out of a rating of 1 to 5, most of the ratings are often 1 and 5, and very few 3s. Readers or users who feel strongly will make the effort to do the review, and this is also the problem faced by internet-based survey causing bias sampling.

Therefore, read the comments on blogs and reviews knowing that you are hearing the vocal minority and obviously not the silent majority. Don't be overly shaped by these comments and reviews.....form your own judgment.

Cycling event .. .soon forgetton

Singaporeans have short memory, especially in the blogsphere

After mr brown and the online citizen (two of the most widely read blogs) have shown clearly the alleged double standard the PAP has practiced by not allowing Worker Party to organize a cycling event while the Young PAP had done so in the past, nothing really happen in the last few days.

The mainstream media such as The Straits Times, Today, New Paper, Lianho Zaobao refused to chase the story why the Young PAP took these cycling events down from the websites very shortly (2-3 days later- what a coincidence!) after the rejection of the Worker's party application, and so nothing much really happen.

Now the current hot issue is the Mr Otto Fong being asked by his employer to take down his blog which has an open letter stating he is gay, and lots of blogs have articles on the incident. Is anyone else still blogging on the apparent double standards of the PAP with regards to the rejection of the Worker Party application?

It will be fair to estimate that the socio-political articles are followed regularly (once a week) by a very small percentage of Singaporean (<0.25%-2% / 10,000-80,000), and even this small percentage doesn't really take actions to the larger community. The most efforts these readers take is to leave both intelligent and random comments on these articles.

Nothing wrong with writing about all these events that happen and then nothing much happen, but this just shows the mainstream media still play a very big role in influencing Singaporeans. The blogsphere seems to have limited ability to compel the government to answer to some of their actions, unless the mainstream media decides to pursue the news.

Police Chief Tour of Duty

Police Commissioner Khoo Boon Hui has served Singapore as the Police Chief faithfully since 1997. However, given that the maximum length of service for our Public Sector Leadership (PSL) such as Permanent Secretary and Deputy Secretary to be 10 years, are we expecting Commissioner Khoo Boon Hui to step down soon?

The need for political competition.

Microsoft and PAP are alike in many ways. They provide what most common users/citizens need daily. They are very competent, and constantly innovate from within. They desire to have the best talents, and the best practices. They continually create value for their customers/people.

On the other hand, they are a monopolistic player in their respective spheres - software and politics. They have little credible opposition players in their respective spheres.Why is the US government suing Microsoft for antitrust behaviors then, if Microsoft is competent, and generated immense value for the US economy?

The answer is very simple.

Americans understand the need for competition. External driven competition is always more intense, always forces everyone to response better to their customers, and always provide better valued products at lower cost. History had and is constantly vindicating this phenomenon, rejecting the idea than internal driven innovation and betterment are better than external-driven ones. As many discerning consumers and businesses lament the lack of competition in the US software industry, I lament the lack of political competition in the Singapore political sphere.

The PAP, and Singapore citizens may actually benefit more if we have stronger competition in the political arena. But alas, we do not have the equivalent of the US antitrust laws for Singapore political sphere, so as to ensure that the possible growth of credible opposition parties in a one- party dominated political environment. The question is: When will substantial political competition ever take place in Singapore?

Why the People Action Party (PAP) needs the Opposition?

Let's try a thought experiment.

Imagine PAP wining all the seats in Parliament . No more opposition members in the Parliament. Convenient?

How will the international community perceived this result? Will they perceived Singapore to be a more politically stable country, or will they perceived Singapore to be more vulnerable without institutional checks and balance.

For a world that is moving towards more pluralistic governments, it seem the answer will be the latter rather than the former.

In addition, the PAP needs the Opposition to serve Singapore. More opposition members asking more substantial questions makes the government (PAP) works harder to provide the answers, and to increase disclosure, which is something that the Asian Financial Crisis taught everyone, including us.

Should we have opposition members in the Parliament?

Ultimately, you decide.

Why are Opposition members not considered credible?

Just as we did not judge the PAP as not being credible when one of its MP was found guilty of corruption charges, we should not judge all opposition candidates as being not credible from the behavior of one opposition candidate.

Many opposition candidates have good educational qualifications, but only 4 have parliamentary experiences.

Many will agree that Mr. Low and Mr. Chiam had proven to be credible opposition members, because they had the opportunity to serve and be judged by their constituencies.

To have credible opposition members, we need to provide them with a chance to determine their credibility, by voting them in Parliament after serious consideration of each candidate.

The opposition MPs may disappoint us, but our election process allows us to vote them out in 5 years time. Moreover, with PAP in power, isn’t now a time to let the opposition candidates prove their mettle in Parliament?

It is easy to lament that the opposition members are not credible, but without the opportunity, how can they be proven to be credible?

NKF disclosure standards to be of the Government.

It is distressing to hear that Mrs. Goh Chok Tong remarked that the annual compensation of S$600, 000 of the CEO is peanuts because the CEO is running a million dollar charitable organization with hundreds of millions in reserve.

If the CEO salary was indeed "peanuts", this seems to imply that the pay of the CEO is perfectly acceptable to everyone, even to the household that earns S$1000 monthly and donated to NKF.

Therefore, why doesn't the board of NKF releases the salary range of the CEO given that almost 2 out of 3 Singaporean donates to NKF. NKF is one of the very few organizations that so many Singaporean donate to.

Using the same principle, NKF disclosure policy should be like the Government, which releases the salary benchmarks of its Ministers and civil servants because the public (i.e. taxpayers) pay its wages.

It shouldn't take a costly court session paid by the donors of NKF to disclose the "peanuts" salary of the CEO.