The recently formed Reform Party, led by Mr J B Jeyaretnam, held its inauguration dinner last night. Several opposition parties, including the Singapore Democrats, were present to help celebrate the occasion.

Mr
Jeyaretnam delivered the keynote address and called on Singaporeans to help in the effort to reform and liberate Singapore's political system.

"Walk with me," the 82-year-old opposition leader called out to Singaporeans. "I don't have many years left."

Mr Jeyaretnam has been championing the cause of democracy sich the for nearly 40 years. His trials and tribulations have been many. But his passion and desire for justice and freedom for Singapore has remain undiminished.

The Singapore Democrats stands ready to work with anyone, including the Reform Party, to bring about a new era free of PAP domination and oppression, an era of genuine progress and shared prosperity.

“The strength is in the ordinary people” – JB Jeyaretnam

Opposition politician JB Jeyaretnam argues that the limited freedom of expression has stifled the country’s search for talent.

Jamie Lee

Part 1:

Part 2:

Dear PM Lee Hsien Loong,

In the past, Singapore civil service was messy and rude. Although it is orderly and polite now, it just isn't able to shake out of its bureaucratic, rigid, kiasi and kiasu frames and become thinking and self-responsible.

Instead of doing what is best for Singapore, the aim to please their employers and further their own career takes precedent. And ordinary Singaporeans as a whole loses out.

In the popular syndicated comic Foxtrot, Jason Fox the nerdy genius younger brother presents a perfect-score math test to his mom and gets a pat on the head for a good job done. Then Paige Fox, Jason's older and not-so-smart teen sister presents to their mom a math test score that while not spectacular, was a decent score. Paige gets rewarded with a substantial prize despite Jason's protests. Mom replies that while Jason does a good job with his repeated perfect scores, Paige's higher score took more effort and therefore should be rewarded.

In another strip, Eileen Jacobson is a schoolmate of Jason's and Jason frequently tutors her in math. In one rare occasion, Jason is in for a rude shock as Eileen actually outscored Jason in a math test. Eileen doesn't think it that dumbfounding preferring to enjoy her good math score while Jason repeatedly wails upon Eileen for beating him and gets upset.

Dr Mahathir has been of late bashing Pak Lah and blaming him for the humiliating results of UMNO during the recent Malaysian GE. At the same time Pak Lah is reaching out to pin down the causes for UMNO's major losses other than pinning them on himself. And so it begins yet another clash between Dr M and one of his proteges.

Wong Kan Seng practically called off the search, even before the Committee of Inquiry finished its findings. This action, a surprise shrugging of shoulders, seen suspiciously together with a flippant "what to do it has happened" from Lee Hsien Loong no less, only goes to confirm that the escape and subsequent search is not what it appears to be.

To say the darndest things:

10) "For a person who runs a million-dollar charitable organisation, $600,000 is peanuts as it has a few hundred millions in reserves." - Mrs Goh Chok Tong

9) "Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia. We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I'm going to spend all my time thinking what's the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes, how can I solve this week's problem and forget about next year's challenges?" - PM Lee Hsien Loong

8) "If you don't include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society...So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That's a problem." - MM Lee in 1983

7) "...I regret making the decision because, in the end, the baby continued to be in intensive care, and KKH now runs up a total bill of more than $300,000..."- Lim Hng Kiang, regretting the decision to save a baby's life because KKH ran up a $300K.

6) "Save on one hairdo and use the money for breast screening." - Lim Hng Kiang

5) "Only 5% are unemployed. We still have 95% who are employed." - Yeo Cheow Tong

4) "Retrenchment is good for singapore. If there is no retrenchments, then I worry." - SM Goh

3) "We must encourage those who earn less than $200 per month and cannot afford to nurture and educate many children never to have more than two... We will regret the time lost if we do not now take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellecually and culturally anaemic." - MM Lee in 1967

2) "Contrary to public perception, the White Horse classification is not to ensure that sons of influential men gets preferential treatment. Instead it is to ensure that they do not get preferential treatment." - Cedric Foo

1) "I give you an example: you put out a fun podcast, you talk about ‘bak chor mee’; I will say “mee siam mai hum”, then we compete." - PM Lee Hsien Loong

0) "For example, the price of chicken may be rising fast, but we can encourage Singaporeans to turn to alternative sources of protein, such as fish" - Halimah Yacob

Pay peanuts get monkeys. Pay gold get monkeys.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

With the most recent protest on March 15, 2008 by Singaporeans who seek an end to dictatorial rule in Singapore , here are important things you need to know about Constitutional Law. You are not breaking any law at all in engaging in peaceful protests.

It is high time that you become aware of your rights now, with peaceful protests becoming almost a common occurrence in Singapore . Since it is impossible to seek change through Parliament, Singaporeans have now realized that only through protests can they ever hope to see real change.

These courageous protesters are mainly educated middle class Singaporeans, mostly upwardly and geographically mobile and aware of their legal right to protest. However there are some who are still are unaware, and it is these people that this blog is intended to educate and enlighten.

The recent Malaysian Election results were both a surprise and a barometer for the winds of change in regional politics. After the dust has settled the ruling party retained only 137 parliamentary seats while the PKR-DAP-PAS opposition coalition captured 82, a significant minority share. Many of the seats seized from BN's hands were surprisingly by relative unknowns (like Loh Gwo-Burne of Lingam-Gate fame and Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi); it is to be said that a good many were protest votes in disfavour of the ruling BN coalition than an endorsement of the opposition candidate.

We at SG Review pride at being an independent source of review and critique. As such, we call out to our fellow netizens for information regarding the escape of Mas Selamat Kastari. If you know inside info on how he escaped, or know someone who knows something, info that the Gahment is not telling the media and the media isn't telling the People, let SG Review know now!

Politically motivated law enforcement is exposed gain :-)

Election Related Aspects of Reform

Is it the end of protest in Singapore? Are all Singaporeans apathetic on politics? Don't we have to right to peaceful dissent?

Artist and activist Seelan Palay should be familiar to New Sintercom readers. He has a blog Singapore Indian Voice and recently he stood by and fasted for his beliefs outside the Malaysian High Commission. His laudable lone action was in protest of Indian marginalisation in Malaysia and the use of the draconian Internal Security Act against some members of Hindraf. Seelan is one of the latest activist to revitalise Singapore's activist scene. Previously he was involved in anti-death penalty and the 400 Frowns campaigns, and became an inspiring testimony that not all Singaporeans are deaf and dumb to the injustice around us.

Dr Balaji Sadasivan promises lower healthcare costs if PAP given strong mandate

"In fact, if you listen carefully in Parliament, sometimes the opposition MPs look like they are PAP MPs, and the PAP MPs, like the few that I mentioned, including myself, look like opposition MPs." - CNA/ms

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/205667/1/...

I, Seelan Palay, am going to undertake fasting in my personal capacity for a period of 5 days calling for the release of the 5 Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) leaders, legal adviser P Uthayakumar, lawyers M Manoharan, R Kenghadharan, V Ganabatirau and organizing secretary T Vasanthakumar, who were arrested on 13 December 2007under the Malaysian Internal Security Act (ISA) on unfounded charges of incitement to rebellion and for having links with terrorist organizations.

Last week, actually 5 instead of initially reported 4 SDP leaders were arrested at the Istana Park directly opposite the main gate of Istana. Today, they are all proudly back into protesting actions at exactly same place with the same issue of Burma - Singapore regimes' links. Using the same placard slogans. Today, they are further distributing this flyer to the members of public on Orchard Road. Most significantly, their actions will persist for several days.

When Odex, a local anime distributor, started sending out legal letters threatening to sue anime fansub downloaders, local otakus (fans) were up in furore. It swirled to a raging mass when the owner of Odex went online boasting about his legal action successes, especially when reports came out that some of those sued were young fans below legal age.

Amidst the vitriol, one blogger decided to take matters to a different dimension. Zero the Hero staged a rare figurine protest, to much international (but not local) and online fanfare.

Mr Goh Meng Seng, NSP member and author of singaporealternatives.blogspot.com, was gracious enough to accede an interview with SG Review. Mr Goh aka MADCOW is probably Singapore's first cyber-celebrity, establishing himself first as a key figure in Internet circles, then standing for elections in the 2006 General Elections.