Save the Earth or...

What's on 22 April?

In case you're not aware, it's the Earth Day. The day when every body becomes expert on environment, recycling, global warming, etc.

The day when we pledge ourselves to save the earth or NOT...

Do we really care about the earth?

Don't you think we care more about ourselves?

We try to save the earth so that WE, the shameless humans, can EXPLOIT the earth for a few more years. Aren't we evil? Claiming we want to save something while we wish to kill it as slow as possible. Yet, we can feel good about it, congratulate ourselves that we've done 'good thing'.

The truth is: we only care about ourselves. I'm pretty sure that the earth will be just fine when all men (and women) disappear from the face of the earth. Chances are it will have been a much better place then.

You don't think so? I guess those noble dinosaurs also thought the same way as you do before they were extinct.

I've had enough of this nonsense. My pledge for this year's Earth day will be "go natural": do whatever I want and let nature take its course. I guess I've done the earth a favor: speeding up the extinction of humans which means getting rid of its bigger enemy...

Happy (belated) Earth Day!

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Philosophical question of the day

You're standing at pedestrian crossing
The pedestrian light has turned red

You look to the left:
No car, no truck, no motorcycle, no bicycle

You look to the right:
No car, no truck, no motorcycle, no bicycle

Zip

Should you
Stand there and wait
or
Walk across and move on with you life


Life's hard...

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Mate, don't play play lah...

From NZ Herald

New Zealand police plan to recruit staff from Singapore to overcome a shortage in the force and help Labour to fulfill its election deal with NZ First to appoint 1000 new officers.

What??? I thought 1st of April was already a few weeks behind?


Singapore might have the reputation as one of the safest country (city?) in the world, but it's not because of the police officers. It's Singapore government (read: LKY) managed to instill fear into its people, similar to the way Indonesian feared Suharto in his good days.

This idea is not going to work if NZ decides to put these police officers on the street. There's no fear factor here. Local criminals here are much bigger in posture than most Asian. If you're bigger, and you are threatened by someone smaller than you, you tend to have more guts and fight back. In short, the bad guys won't be afraid of these police officers. In addition to that, in Singapore the patrolling police officers carry guns with them, while here in NZ they only carry handcuffs and tie wraps, so in order for this to work, NZ police needs to recruit only those with martial art skills close to Jet Li.

The other reasons that NZ police cited was that they needed to learn Asian culture and someone who can speak Chinese as the Chinese population has grown quickly (especially in Auckland area)

Singaporean police officers will also have the language and cultural understanding capabilities to help improve our Asian responsiveness.

The question is, does the NZ police (and its officers) really want to learn Chinese culture? If it does, then it doesn't have to hire someone from Singapore. It's a matter of keeping open mind , learning the language, and some good readings (I'd recommend reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, where he gave one example of Amadou Diallo who was shot by police officers in US as an inevitable byproduct of racism) When multiculturalism is not encouraged and recognized inside the organization itself, this extra Singapore officers won't be their magic bullet.

Come to think of it, it is not practical too to expect special arm of police to handle specific segment of the society. You don't want this to happen:

Patrolling Police: we got the suspects
HQ: good stuff, where are they now?
Patrolling Police: they're in the car in front of us.
Patrolling Police: err.. bugger, they're Chinese, HELP HELP
HQ: this is a job for Singapore police (theme song here)

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it will work out...

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