Alvinology said:

Rachel and I are the first couple in Singapore to have our solemnisation ceremony on board an airplane – how cool is that? :)

It happened at 5.50am on 2 February, 2010, on board Jetstar’s plane, 3K 823 at Changi Airport, Terminal 1.

The two witnesses who signed on the certificate were my mom and Rachel’s mom. The wedding solemniser is Justice of Peace, Mr Lim Huan Chiang.

The ceremony was short, it was over in around ten minutes. The plane took off on time after that with no delay.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Something cheery and romantic for the upcoming Valentine's Day cum Chinese New Year."

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QuaChee said:

Ho Yeow Sun, the wife of the Pastor Kong from City Harvest Church came out with a few Chinese albums and I bought her first. There were lots of hype for the album and controversies too. Ntevertheless I think her first album is not too bad - it does fulfill its purpose - ie to inspire :)

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "It's a compilation of singers from Singapore - sometimes we never know how talented we are till someone points it out"

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Lucky Tan said:

"I've applied with the govt before. It always comes to nothing." - Mother

"Where do you go to apply" - Christopher Lee

"The fourth floor of HDB inToa Payoh. I don't understand much English. I only know it is the welfare department. Sometimes, they reject my applications. We go to them because we need help. Otherwise, why bother going to them or subject ourselves to humiliation? I wished I didn't have to go there. They can be so rude. " - Mother

"In what way?" - Actress..

"They keep telling you to work. Its okay if I can find a job. But I may not find one that allows me to look after my children. We go to them only because we need help. They shouldn't say 'Look for a job. Don't always expect help' - Mother

"How did you reply" - Actress

"I kept quiet. Just weep. What else?" - Mother.

So the govt helps these poor folks by telling them to look for a job. Having 2 disabled kids is not a sufficient to qualify for help?

Recommended by at82: "Here is a family that obviously needs help and are poor due to no fault of their own. They have 2 kids with disabilities and the father has difficulty finding a job. What does the govt do to them? Humiliate them when they ask for help and threaten to evict them from their rented flat due to arrears. The part about govt help starts at 6 minutes 23 seconds into the video."

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Alvinology said:

Just go to this URL. I cancelled mine once I ORDed years ago.

Frankly, the magazine is a waste of paper and money. Help spread the word along to save the Earth as I believe most people will just chuck their Pioneer magazine straight into the waste paper bin without even tearing open the plastic wrapper.

Subscription is forced for all NSF at 80 cents per issue (if not I would have cancelled it immediately after getting my first issue). It’s cheap, but it’s still money. Not cancelling it will be wasteful as I am not interested in reading news about SAF. Moreover, there’s the online version which is better for the environment if you really want to read.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Go green. Read Pioneer magazine online instead of wasting paper."

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Temasek Review said:

Ms Jayne Goh made headlines this year with the setting up of the Association of Blogger ostensibly to “educate” bloggers on responsible blogging.

The association drew flak from the online community with many bloggers expressing scepticism about the organisation, questioning its purpose and leadership.

It was boycotted by most major blogs including the Temasek Review.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Ironic that founder of Singapore Bloggers Association wanted to promote responsible blogging, but ended up defaming people and being sued."

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Yuhui said:

This group was created in response to a comment by well known American blogger, Michael Arrington. In a blog entry, he claimed that Singaporean blogs are (largely) controlled by the government. [...] it is more likely that there are many more Singaporean blogs that are NOT controlled by the government [...].

Recommended by yuhui: "We need to educate people from around the world about the independence of our Singapore blogosphere!"

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Hri Kumar said:

We need to recognise that we are dealing with life-changing issues. I do not know what would have happened to me if I had not made it to JC. There is a good chance I would be doing something completely different today. Others have not been so lucky. It is plainly wrong and illogical to deny a bright student advancement, or to disadvantage him, simply because of a weakness in second language. The sooner we pry this albatross from our necks the better.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Should a student be prevented from going to university if he fails his Second Language? Hri says no."

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fireopal said:

iting his words "You not happy, fight lar!" and he posed in an extremely aggressive manner, almost wanting to hit me from that distance.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "This is the way our law enforcers are behaving!

What will happen next?
"

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Seah Chiang Nee said:

Years later, if writers looked back at the current severe downturn to ask what lasting impact the global crisis had on this society, one answer would be the erosion of the middle class...

The theory, known as the M-shaped society, was enunciated by Japanese strategist Kenichi Ohmae. He observed that in Japan’s “M-shape” class distribution, very few middle-class people may climb up the ladder into the upper class, while the others gradually sank to the lower classes.

These people suffered a deterioration in living standards, faced the threat of unemployment, or their average salary was dropping...

Kenichi said all this might take place while the economy enjoyed remarkable growth and overall wages rose. However, the wealth increase may concentrate in the pockets of the very few rich people in society.

The masses cannot benefit from the growth, and their living standard goes into decline. For many middle-class Singaporeans, these sound uncomfortably like home. ...

Singapore has the second-highest income gap with a Gini score of 42.5 among developed economies after Hong Kong

Recommended by at82: "New millionaires will emerge from the ashes, but a bit of the middle class will disappear."

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avalon said:

Recently, we rescued 2 factory puppies from my neighbourhood and after taking care of them, we went about finding new loving homes for the pups...But something horrible happened. We found on 88db.com that the same boy-pup, Dane, was being posted for SALE... he even claims he paid $4k for the dog. This is NOT TRUE. He paid an adoption fee of $350...I made a mystery shopper's call this morning..It is the SAME GUY. He spoke with the same funny PRC accent and had the same voice.

Recommended by avalon: "This PRC mofo claimed to be offering a good home for this rescued puppy and now puts him up for sale."

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BigBert's Fotoblog said:

Singtel has been wrongly charging its customer(s) for wrong price plans. I have been charged for a 300MB plan when I have signed up for a 1GB plan. They took few days to resolve it instead of pacifying me and still made me hold e line while they checked.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "An embarrassing case of Singtel not doing its due diligence and honoring its agreements"

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Singapore Fountain Pen said:

The man seen in posters and in the run's official site took part in the race too. His name is Hanniel Choong, a heroin user in a previous life, whose self-imposed mission was to break his personal best of 48 minutes as he celebrates his 48th birthday. I was among those who cheered while he got on stage during the awarding ceremony as the announcers exclaimed "mission accomplished!"

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "It talks about the inaugural Yellow Ribbon Prison Run"

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King Kong Jane said:

He's a regular at local gigs. He's really good at dancing spontaneously. And he's the uncle I'll always remember for giving us one of our best gigs yet.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Check out this video of a cute uncle who dances super energetically at the Esplanade, to a song by local band King Kong Jane"

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Mr Wang said:

I had expected to be blogging about PM Lee's rally speech today. However, I find that I have almost nothing to say about it.

It was .... substanceless.

The PM's rally speech is traditionally the time for him to announce important new developments, ideas and policies for the nation. But this year, none of that happened.

Instead all PM Lee really talked about was racial and religious harmony, and in a way that contained nothing new. It sounded the same as the nation-building chapters of my Primary 3 Chinese language textbook, many, many years ago.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Totally agree with him. It's practically non-news for the entire speech."

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Wet Calamari said:

There were a number of artists from Malaysia and Indonesia, and Australia too, and some of them commented that it was awfully quiet; much less traffic then they expected. They seemed disappointed… but I did tell them that today being Friday was still a workday and if we went by last year’s experience, there won’t even be room to breathe tomorrow.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "A taster of what to expect."

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Your SDP said:

Yesterday, Dr Chee Soon Juan posted on Mr George Yeo's Facebook to invite the Minister to an online debate. This set off an exchange of messages which we think readers might be interested to read.

Dear Dr Chee

May I suggest you write to the PAP as what you propose seems rather formal.

I don't really want my FB activities to be so formal or serious. I am happy to engage as and when issues arise, but I do so as an individual without getting the PAP or MFA involved. Short responses, not long exchanges if possible. So far it has been fun for me and I hope to keep it that way. Hope you understand.

George

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Chee Soon Juan and George Yeo face off on facebook."

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Loh and Behold said:

Are you proud to be Singaporean?

Why?

Shouldn’t you just be proud of actual accomplishments?

Is being Singaporean a skill?

I can never understand it when people say “I’m proud to be Singaporean.”

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Gets to the heart of the pros and cons of patriotism."

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Yu-Mei Balasingamchow said:

Amidst the annual scholarship fever and the flurry of applications, what the newspaper ads don’t mention, and what people don’t talk about enough in a meaningful way, is that the three or four years spent in university can change a person quite profoundly, all the more so if that university education is conducted abroad. I don’t mean having a British- or American-sounding accent, or having visited half of Europe in one summer backpacking jaunt, or learning how to cook the food you get homesick for. I’m talking about the kind of deep-seated change that can leave a person wondering how to reconcile what her old self agreed to do, with what her new self now believes.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "in retrospect: a government scholar looks back on the choices she has made"

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fireopal said:

Obviously SMRT has not thought about the consequences about such enforcement. Sad to say, it is almost discriminatory to diabetic patients under such scenarios!

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "SMRT is being too money-minded and discriminatory? "

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Lucky Tan said:

Two financial institutions, Sun Hung Kai and KGI Asia, have compensated their customers in full and 16 banks have offered to repay between 60-70% of the principal invested. The securities watchdog, SFC, is likely to reject the proposal by the 16 banks as they are demanding the banks pay investors in full. The Hong Kong authorities have found misconduct among the banks in the selling of these products[Link]. I believe Hong Kong banks will eventually compensate investors in full. . In Singapore, 5350 out of 10000 investors filed complaints. Of the 5350, 66% or roughly 3500 received offers of compensation on a no-admission-of-liability-basis. 25% or roughly 1300 received full compensation.

Recommended by at82: "Catastrophic events such as the minibond saga that occurs in Singapore and somewhere else at the same time is rare but it allows us to compare the behavior of our leaders and the authorities with those of other countries. The type of outcome they aim for says a lot about where their interests lie."

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