6/22/2013

Don’t worry, the haze will go away


This I can assure you, while I look out of the window and see a condition very much worse than yesterday. And I heard in the news that the Indonesians have declared emergency in the Riau Archipelago. And we can keep talking, and talk the haze away. It will go away, one week, one month or three months, when the burning stops, the haze will stop coming. In the meantime keep talking.

Some quarters have spoken that this is a domestic issue and got nothing to do with us. We can’t tell our neighbours what not to do. And our neighbours also think so.

Really? Allow me to remind people on the basics of human rights or individual rights. Everyone has the freedom to do as he pleases…as long as it does not affect others. The freedom stops when others are affected by it. When an act of freedom invades into the privacy of anther person or causing harm to another person, it is no longer an act of freedom. J S Mills called this ‘others regarding action’. Your freedom to act goes as far as the next person you are going to hurt.

If the Indonesians can contain the pollutants within their borders, who cares? They can burn for all they like. But the problems it is causing to the neighbouring countries have made this bush burning an ‘others regarding action’ and is no longer a private domestic affair. Be responsible and do something about it.

This be responsible and do something about it have been spoken for many years and I assure you every year this time Singapore and Malaysia will be telling the Indonesians the same old thing. And come next year or the years after, this time of the year, we will be scrambling as to what should be done, and all equally lost, forever lost about how to handle this annual haze migration problem. Did we have a department monitoring on the haze situation? Didn’t we have sophisticated instruments and satellites in space watching over the hot spots? Did we see it coming?

But don’t worry, keep talking and the haze will go away. It may go away before the masks we ordered arrived. It may go away before we have the chance to distribute the masks to those who needed them. It will go away for sure and talking is good enough for this problem. I am one hundred per cent confident that in a few more days or weeks there will be no more haze around.

No need to do anything. We can talk the haze away.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

RB, of course what. U are right it will go away in weeks if not in months time. Just like our sovereign fund investment, if their investment horizon is 30 years as communicated, how can u ever lose money. They forgot that there is such thing as opportunity cost. In another word, if one is not so stupid, it's not an issue of recovering your investment in 30 years but what u could have made in the 30 years if one did not make the mistake

Anonymous said...

I disagree with this idea of long term investment horizon.

It's been 50 years since Singapore's independence.
And the PAPigs are still here.

When will we ever see a return of our CPF money ?

Anonymous said...

Human rights? You must be joking right? Human rights apply only to some select groups of people.

Where do you find human rights in Iraq, Afghanistan or the Jews during the World War. You know how the Red Indians and Aborigines were treated to a dose of 'white human rights'. They do not even have the right to exist.

Act of Freedom is what you think you possess. Act against the wrong people and you will be crushed, either by their power or their wealth. Getting away with murder is no idle talk if you have the resources to get the right lawyer and connections.

So, in the meanwhile let us talk cock and sing song for the haze to go away lah!

Anonymous said...

Some more u have joker like tkl stating that he walk around for one hour and feel fine. Not knowing he has influence over some people, this is a dangerous act and while he may be fine now, who know what a scared lungs would get him in the future

WB said...

Relax brothers.

Go to the shopping malls, casinos, pubs, night clubs to chill out. Have a dozen or so bottles of Bavaria, now the hottest bear around. Tastes great.

Don't you guys know that almost the whole country is air-conditioned?

I just don't understand what the fuss is all about.

One suggestion though is that the government may want to consider building a giant smokescreen to block the haze floating over. If we can build the MBS, this smokescreen is a piece of cake. With so many types of smokescreens around, a real smokescreen that actually does the work of screening smoke would be wunderfool. Another suggestion is to build giant wind mills to blow the haze back to our abangs so they can have more of same rather than sending some to irritate and test us. Again, if we can build the MBS, what's a giant fan or two? Nuclear powered would be fine.

So cheer up guys. When this haze clears up soon enough with just talk, look forward to the next one next year which may just outperform the current one.

Give our hard working leaders in Jakarta a Tiger!

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

redbean quoting Mills:

>> Everyone has the freedom to do as he pleases…as long as it does not affect others. The freedom stops when others are affected by it. When an act of freedom invades into the privacy of anther person or causing harm to another person, it is no longer an act of freedom.

However what is often missed is how to protect these freedoms, or what is the form of action to take when your freedom is being violated by others.

At some point, philosophy -- i.e. the "ought to's" "is's" and "shoulds" must be exercised in ACTION in the REAL WORLD, otherwise philosophy remains just a bunch of clever sounding words, never emerging from the realm of prose.

What then might be the ACTIONS to take in the REAL WORLD to:

1. Protect, defend and thus ensure on-going individual freedoms

2. What forms of retaliation are necessary or "appropriate" to recompense, seek justice, set an example to ensure that individual freedoms thus violated are restored


It all boils down to ACTION. No ACTION, no results. Even failed action is often better than no action, because you can always try again, learning from past errors.

Anonymous said...

I think the only thing sinkie can do is three then to bomb jarkata to Stone Age given the fire power our Air Force has? Matilar Tio Bo?

Anonymous said...

The govt really needs to be more open about all these matters.

All talking by the govt should be done in the open -- outside in the haze. Preferably at a construction site. Definitely not an aircon room. Whether it is on giving out masks to the poor, deciding a stop-work order, saying there is nothing that can be done and we must be stoic.

The govt also needs to meet on these issues in the open -- at a construction site. No aircon plse.

Anonymous said...

Another bird is telling Singaporeans to look at the 24 hr PSI rather than the 3 hr readings.

Of course the average readings for 24 hrs will be much lower, but what is more pertinent is if there is a very high 3 hr PSI reading during the day, the damage is already done whatever low readings the 24 hr readings may show.

What is the bird doctor driving at?
Trying to diffuse the seriousness of the haze? Why not make it a monthly average?

Anonymous said...

When you take the temperature of a patient every 24 hrs, he would have died in that one hr when his temperature go past the critical level. How cock can people be.

In a haze situation people need to know the PSI by the hour not even the average of 3 hrs.

Anonymous said...

The PSI reading cannot be trusted just like the papayas. The haze will go away but the stuff will stay in the lungs and develop cancer. Many will develop lung cancer ultimately.

Anonymous said...

Ha ha,

@ anon 3.18 pm

Think you are quite right.

But, who knows what would some scholars be thinking of next?

Mb adapting psi readings using the financial technical chart stds of 50-day, 100-day, 200-day moving average.

MB, MACD.

How about using PSI to plot the "Ichimoku" chart ..... ?

Sounds gd?

Think RB and a bunch of guys here are quite gd at these things ......

MB, they can offer such service to some scholars up there? Tio bo? Kee Chiu

Anonymous said...

Kee chiu damn fun hor.
One day he and his other members will make You kee both your hands against your will and You have to comply without even daring to ask why, then You will have no choice but kee your two chius whilst squeezing everything between your thighs. Or maybe even peeing without control.

denk said...

heard that girl who wrote this letter to the peace laureate ?
https://twitter.com/livinginsg/status/347665516036513792/photo/1

the prez replies.....

obama
*r u kidding ?

im building a cordon sanitaire around china right now
the last thing i need is to piss off *my kind of guys* in jakarta for that chink infested piece of rock, er, whats that name again, sink.... what ?

all these asean nitwits are supposed to gang up against the god damned chicoms, not squabbling amonst themselves like a bunch of old ladies.
the indons are right, those sinkies ought to buck up n stop whinning like kids.,

hmm, imagine if all that damned smoke are coming outta china, i'd get that ban dude to hit them with a sanction so fast, before they can cry omama* !

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

You are right on this. Look at the silly Taiwanese, they are now shaking hands with the Pinoys for killing their fishermen in broad day light in an attempted robbery.

The bigger picture is to appease the Evil Empire and to join hands against the PRC. What is the killing of a few fishermen by the Pinoys?

No more heart thumping, no more naval exercises to regain any national pride loss. Now Obama said, kiss kiss and hug each other.

denk said...

rb

one thing u gotta hand it to the muricuns, they'r real hard working chaps
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-soldiers-in-nepal-on-chinas-tibet-border-on-a-reconnaissance-humanitarian-mission/5305643