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Sunday, Mar 04, 2012 - 02:40 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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Think Thunk

Still not feeling that well, but there's simply too much on my plate to relax. Mr. Ham has however in a rare burst of magnanimity offered to hold the mr.ham show on the cheap today to lighten my burden, for which I sincerely thank my hamster buddy.

Mr. Ham: No problem at all, my lousy lawyers haven't been able to get the Hamerican-issued arrest warrants against me withdrawn yet, and as I'm stuck here for now, I might as well expand my fanbase, no? As you've got no production budget, this edition's talkshow guests will be on the cheap. Presenting the Ham Think Tank!

Mr. Robo: He threatened to beat me up unless I came.

The ghost of Ms. Robo: He agreed to give me a part refund on his Cult materials for my apparition.

The ghost of Mr. Fish: Long time no see, nothing much to do up there anyway, so here I am.


Missing Mademoiselle

Mr. Ham: Thank you all for gracing the mr.ham show, and before we begin, I would like to clear the air on something that has always bothered me. Why is it Ms. Robo, and not Mrs. Robo? *Mr. Robo shifts about uneasily*

The ghost of Ms. Robo: Easy enough. I am a strong independent female who saw no need to play into the hands of the evil patriarchy by being forced to implicitly reveal my marital status, a stand which Mr. Robo agreed wholeheartedly with after a bit of beating up on him.

Mr. Robo: *whimpers* A bit?

Mr. Ham: I tip my hat to you, my dear Ms. Robo!

Ms. Robo: Thank you, but don't think I'm gonna forgive that refund that easily. They are doing it as a matter of policy in France now - no more Mademoiselle from now on!

Me: I can't say that I'm too happy with this move...


How could this song have come about then? (Translated lyrics)



The Once and Forever Kim

Mr. Ham: That's it for Ms. Robo's clarification, then; next on the agenda - I am chuffed to announce that my dear idol has been paid deserved tribute at the Oscars! All hail the Kim! *flicks on prerecorded applause*


The mighty Kim Jong Urn, dad of Kim Jong Un, in attendance
(Source: hitflix.com)


I understand that the dignitary doing the honours is His Excellency Admiral General and Supreme Leader Shabazz Aladeen of the fraternal comrade Republic of Wadiya, maybe a bit less democratic and people-oriented, but certainly in the same class as the incomparable paradise and undisputed Happiest Nation in the World (do not bother with the partisan list compiled by the capitalist-controlled so-called United Nations, which puts Singapore at 26th of 187 nations, which is all you have to know about it) that is North Korea.

Not only that, the Dear Leader's son has stepped fully into his Dear Father's shoes after a short bedding-in period, and is even now personally handling his country's major export produce, i.e. nuclear blackmail. Once again, they will be spearheading world peace by not setting off their warheads willy-nilly, for which thankful lesser states will willingly send large tribute of food to the Kim, exalted be his name.

Mr. Robo: I give it six months.

The ghost of Ms. Robo: Three.

The ghost of Mr. Fish: It'll last till the day after the shipment of caviar is unloaded.

Mr. Ham: How uncouth! Do you all have no trust in the unimpeachable honour vested in the person that is Kim? His word is good as any bond!

Me: *cough*

Mr. Ham: *grumbles* Ok, ok, nine months at least, and the capitalist imperialist swine had it coming. Mr. Robo, your turn.


Tech Review

Mr. Robo: What? You didn't tell me that I had to lead anything!

Mr. Ham: I'm telling you now, and also telling you that I have a very hard baseball bat under the desk.

Mr. Robo: *gulps* Ok, ok, uh... Firefox is crashing, largely thanks to Google Chrome! Windows 8 is ready for preview (but from long experience, probably not worth it)! Speech jamming gun invented! Civ 5 expansion out soon! Diablo 3 out soon! Dota 2 out soon! Duke Nukem Forever out soon!

Mr. Ham: Whoa, whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Mr. Robo: The Order of the Stick raised US$1.24 million in a month for their reprint drive!

Mr. Ham: Ok, now that's what I call impressive.

Mr. Robo: Um, is this enough? I'm running out of material here... Quad limb transplant fails (why didn't they do it one at a time?)! Vanishing spray proposed for football...

Mr. Ham: That's not even new, it's just politics! Which, thankfully for your softer parts, is scheduled for... right about now.

Mr. Robo: Phew!


More Of The Same

Mr. Ham: So it seems that the $1.1 billion injection for the bus fleet is going back to the government one way or the other - which isn't exactly new, seeing as government-associated entities were always big shareholders in these sectional monopolies.

While public transport fares have supposedly only gone up by 0.3% since 2006, and apologists have written in to suggest that bus operations are not wildly profitable because the company's share price has dipped by about 50% since mid-2007, there's still an unavoidable niggling sense that things aren't quite adding up, as with the case for the HDB (so are they profitable or loss-making or what?)

In this case, however, there are hard figures, and it is pretty curious (a rare thing here) that the letter writer attempted to infer profitability from share price movements (indubitably affected by the overall recession) instead of official profit reports, which show combined year-on-year profits easily in the hundreds of millions.

Now, there is of course nothing wrong with making profits, but the question is whether it should be done in such a sector, especially after all the added efficiency from private incentive seems to have resulted in is a wholesale injection of public funds, exactly like a nationalised industry anyway.

The ghost of Ms. Robo: At least something is being done.

Mr. Ham: Perhaps so. I expect the suits to have a field day writing extremely long opinions on what should constitute excess profits, which brings us to the legal two-on-one handicap match of Tan & Lim vs. Nair. NMP and Professor of Law Eugene Tan started off by explaining "The Value of a By-Election", in which he argued that the Prime Minister "does not have unfettered discretion to delay the calling of a by-election indefinitely", and should state reasons if that is done, as a stand-in MP is not quite the same.

PAP MP Hri Kumar Nair, himself a distinguished lawyer too, then huffed that there is "No automatic by-election in our model of parliamentary democracy", saying in so many words that the Prime Minister can do what he wants since the Constitution doesn't set a strict time limit, especially if he is very busy with important national matters.

This was countered by NMP Tan in "Representation is a cardinal principle in our democracy, too", who began to really dig into the details - in particular, he emphasizes that Article 49 (1) of the Constitution provides that an election "shall", not "may" be called, and thus is mandatory, while Section 52 of the Interpretation Act states that "Where no time is prescribed or allowed within which anything shall be done, that thing shall be done with all convenient speed and as often as the prescribed occasion arises."

MP Nair in "We should let PM do his job" then accused NMP Tan of ignoring his points, putting words in his mouth and electioneering at an inopportune time, again emphasizing that a by-election is neither automatic nor the default position, stating in classic legalese that Article 49 did not say that an election shall be "called" to fill a vacant seat, simply prescribing that the vacant seat "shall be filled by election", said election, I presume, not necessarily called but possibly dropping out of thin air. And oh, the Prime Minister gets to decide what's convenient for him.

This letter did finally draw a response from WP MP Sylvia Lim, who in "By-election is not optional" clarified that they voted against a motion for time limits on by-elections in GRCs in 2008 because they were opposed to the principle of GRCs (but apparently not so much that they would refuse to contest one), and took the opportunity to hammer in what was said in Article 49/Section 52.

MP Nair has kept his peace so far, probably wisely since I doubt that any new ground will be broken in this line of correspondence. And it might all have gone very conveniently quiet, had a part-time cleaner not thrown a curveball by filing a request with the High Court to hold the Prime Minister accountable, by declaring that he does not in fact possess "unfettered discretion to decide when to announce by-elections in Hougang SMC and must do so within three months or within such reasonable time as this Honorable Court deems fit."

Mr. Robo: I must say, this is a splendid development, though it does smell like a manufactured test case to me.

The ghost of Ms. Robo: Girl's got guts!

The ghost of Mr. Fish: Isn't too hard to call - the ruling will essentially be that the PM does not have "unfettered discretion", but does have "fettered discretion", bounds of the fetters to be defined by himself. Like, who cares about representation anyhow, you're taxed here either way!

Mr. Ham: Thing is, my feeling is that he wasn't going to delay it that much longer in the first place. All of this could have been avoided if a reasonable deadline had been set for the by-election - or are the establishment so incompetent that they can't foresee themselves scraping together some ballot papers and boxes within a few months - but no, somebody had to posture as a tough guy.

Mr. Robo: Erm, the applicant and her cohort might have shot themselves in the foot once more, actually. Such cases can famously drag on, and I wouldn't put it beyond the defendants to conveniently point to it and use it as an excuse for not holding the by-election until a judgment - which as Mr. Fish has guessed, will likely say mostly nothing - is made, which might conceivably be years later.

Mr. Ham: Darn, this throws Herr Ahm's predictions into disarray! Show's over, folks!



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