http://www.thevoiddeck.org/ en-us Nucleus CMS v3.23 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.thevoiddeck.org//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://www.thevoiddeck.org/ http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=403 Lau Ah Pek is pro-regulated organ trading as the world is not made up of absolutes, and there is no "yes" or "no", it is always "maybe under certain conditions". From euthanasia to abortion, the answer is always shrouded in hues of grey. In the end, will Singapore take the big step to green light organ sale? Organ trading is indeed controversial and the meme is likely to take on a new merry-go-round as Health Minister Khaw opened up the possibility of organ trading today in parliament.

"We should not reject any idea just because it is radical or controversial," Khaw said. "We may be able to find an acceptable way to allow a meaningful compensation for some living, unrelated kidney donors, without breaching ethical principles or hurting the sensitivities of others."

This is almost an about turn from last month when he said organ trading won't be legalised any time soon. What can be inferred from this double talk? The government is trying to be nice to both camps and not commit to whether organ trading will be legalised. Besides, being the apparently only country besides Iran to legalise organ trading is less than stellar for Singapore's international image.


The legalization of organ trading - Government going down a slippery path
"However, by allowing organ trading, the Singaporean government seems to be saying that wealthy but otherwise unhealthy people can simply buy a replaceable part from a poorer person."
Urban Rant

Medicine and Morality 2
"In other word, faced with the complexity of the task of regulating organ trading, SMA has chosen to object to it than to participate in looking at whether we can create a system that will minimise unfairness to parties concerned. How noble."
Angry Doctor

Old Kidneys and Young Kidneys
"Finally, back to the question of whether organ trading should be legalised. The way I see it, there are many ways to skin a cat, and they don't have to be mutually exclusive. For example, we could legalise organ trading and at the same time, accept the use of older cadaveric kidneys. At the same time, we could continue to encourage "altruistic" donations from living donors etc."
Mr Wang

Regulate, not ban, the sale of human organs
"Among the suggestions put up is for a central body to regulate the sale of organs. It would only be legal for an adult to contract with this body for the sale of an organ, with private contracts remaining illegal. Ditto for buyers. As a clearinghouse, this body can perform a number of functions that private contracts cannot quite satisfy, among which would be matching donor and recipient more accurately, and ensuring that the donor gets the best possible deal. Apparently, Iran, of all places, has such a system in place."
Yawning Bread

Human organs for sale
"I hope that the final decision on the sale of the human organs be left to potential donors. They can be assisted in making informed choices by a proper medical assessment of their suitability to make the organ donation and be given a fair price for this donation."
The Online Citizen


]]> Picks http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=403 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:05:35 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=402 since November rast yr liaoz. Now then he kena arrested. KNNCCB wahhh nothing is sacred anymore, longcong is profane man! Charity is con, donation is deceit, trust is terrible. Next thing we knows is dat this monk eat bak kut teh and got PRC mei mei mistress issit? Naibeh, from NKF, why we is kena tipu pian cheat overs and overs again and our feeling tio played? Chope. But issit actually we too blind to big picture coz watever this monk "cheat" (alleged oni ah), his money oso got go to his nursing homes wat. Errrrr dat is argument NKF used - SMLJ social enterprise - charity like biz but not really biz in objectives. So we brame wat we dun understand? hehe From NKF and stuntman monk, all the mediacock telephone-in donation shows semua scam (prataman star charity...i neber say anything hor)! Sgporeans get Roberted. Trust charities? Trust monks? Criminal breach of trust woh! Errrr trust Pappies? From I is ginah dat time I orways put money into the SPCA dog outsides supermkt. Coz the dog very cute and I pet its big plastic head. CB dun tell me dat dog is one big Ocean 13 and not by SPCA now ah! CHC spring cleaning maybe akan datang riaoz with all the ppl compraints...chio singing pastor oso cannot help siam the charity scam sexpose now.

---

Bob
Head of Ren Ci Hospital, Venerable Shi Ming Yi charged in court

Hardwarezone
Venerable Ming Yi Arrested
Head of Ren Ci arrested!

Sammyboy
RENCI MONK ARRESTED, finally!!

SgClub
Ren Ci under probe after MOH found financial irregularities

SgForums
Ren Ci Hospital, Venerable Shi Ming Yi charged in court !

Young NTUC
Head of Ren Ci Hospital, Venerable Shi Ming Yi charged

]]> What Others Are Saying http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=402 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:54:57 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=401 SBS Transit premium bus svc started last yr in July and cost between $2.70 and $3.00 per trip. Now leh, it can costs up to $3.60 per trip! SMRT night rider oso upz fare recently from $3 to $3.50! PTC oredi support dis upping of bus fare! They orways cite same reason - rising fuel costs and these are "special" or "extra" svc so muz pay more. Pui. These are still public trnspt wat right? You really think PTC wont allow MRT and bus fare increase for all svc soon? They is bunbun slowly bit by bit upz fares. Today is night bus and premium bus, tomollow is feeder bus fares, change concession for old ppl or they cancel some bus svc say not many ppl use dat route. Gahment say they want ppl to choose bus and mrt over car, and use pricing to change demand. OK lor. I is supports "no money no drive car Darwinism". But but but how come bus and MRT see rising prices of car ownership and usage as opportunity to upz fares oso! Why PTC and gahment allow? KNNBCCB Drivers kena squeezed! Commuters kena Robert! Sgporeans all kena chie!

]]> Flash http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=401 Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:19:27 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=400 upz petrol price first!

Shell - 4 pm, 24 June 08
Caltex - 7 pm, 24 June 08
ExxonMobil - 8 pm, 24 June 08
SPC - 9 am, 25 June 08

Mah Bow Tan say decreasing petrol tax is a petrol subsidy to Sgporeans! SMLJ? Subsidy is to make it cheaper than pasar price, tax is tamba on the pasar price! Oni in Sg and Mah Bow Tan with his HDB's famous market-subsidy not cost-subsidy flats then got this type of reasoning! Pui! Drivers siong liao! ERP go upz, petrol oso go upz. Oso ah, Lim Swee Say cakap if dun have traffic increase, there will be no ERP increase. ERP is not to earn revenue he say woh! hehe then some days oni car ending with odd number can go inside CBD, other days oni car with even number can go inside CBD, like China liddat for the Olympigs. KNN chope. I jokes oni hor. I die die oso wans to drive my car even tho petrol kee and kee, up and up, and ERP niak and niak. Piangz. Macam got inelastic demand for petrol and road use liddat. Alamak! Dat means if petrol go up to $3 per liter and ERP go up to $30 oso I will pays and demand for petrol and road use is not affect! Eh? Then gahment build more ERP for fuck? Muz be to makan my money! hehe

Hardwarezone
Lim Swee Say: If there is no traffic congestion, there will be no ERP increases.
Mah cant differentiate between tax and subsidy
Another 16 ERP Gantries this year!!

My Car
Minister Mah says cutting petrol taxes not the way to cushion rising oil prices

One Motoring
ERP CHARGES TO INCREASE AGAIN

Sg Club
The Evolution of ERP (Electronic Road Pricing)

VAGSG Community
ERP rates to rise; more gantries too
]]> What Others Are Saying http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=400 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:14:49 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=399 adjusted upwards from 7 July - 7/7. There will also be 5 more gantries in the CBD area and hours will be extended from 7 pm to 8 pm weeknights in the CBD. Orchard Road on Saturday would have ERP from 11 am instead of noon. CBD weekday ERP rates would increase from 50 cents to $2 depending on where and when. CBD ERP would range from $1 to $3 after the adjustment takes effect. By increasing ERP rates from $0.50 to $1 (12-1230 pm, the cheapest ERP band for the day in the CBD) for example, ERP rates have increased by 100%. Compare this percentage with the decrease in road tax by 15% which would also take effect in July.

Buckle up. Rough costly ride ahead.]]> Flash http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=399 Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:59:00 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=398
Butz wat is the cause of the yumkong deaths? Oso the deaths not say those type of siong realistic SOF training or suay M113 tumbalek accident. A brudder say "Duty, Honour and Country - Can eat meh?", Issit the 2 poor thing deaths is cause by kena tekan by sadist sargen until die? Cannot be wat now, sargen like skool teachers liddat scared the recruit/cadet comprain to parents. Issit recruits nowadays is kuniang oni know how to paichiucheng and not carry real cheng? Cannot be wat, paichiucheng is lots of stamina needed one wat. Issit SAF food got from worse to worsetest? Cannot be wat. Nowadays is contract out to SFI, not those ah beng cook anymore who dunno put laikor underwear inside the veggie to cook and give us eat. Maybe it is the no.4 got chemical reaction with skin macam nerve agent liddat and some ppl will getz really can-die skin irritation. Recruit? hehe Say you excuse uniform as u gotz azema or dunno wat "skin disorder" liao! Learn from the old bird here!

Why got so many deaths? Issit SAF dun coverup anymore or issit really more ppl die? The whole plobrem is dat SAF is conscript army, so we is vely the sensitive to NSF dying. Accident is one thing, but simple PT oso die? So far SAF no solution and give expranation like no expranation liddat. So dat means dis carry on? Until when? I says accident can happens and when got no negligence, then it is suay. Like X-Files liddat case closed.

But wat can SAF do abt it? Do NSF have tokkong solid group life insurance dat SAF automatically buy for them? Last time is we buy ourselves coz SAF is damn kiamsiap can buy F-15SG but dowan buy insurance for chao NSF. Has times changed?

]]> Flash http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=398 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:51:12 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=397 cut petrol subsidy poricy. Wahsay! They protest on streets when their petrol price increase by 41% as BN gahment dowan to pay for their ppl's petrol anymore! Dis Abdullah realy kiam pa man!

We in Sg petrol price increase and gahment some more no cut petrol tax to panchan us oso we dun protest! See Msians so spoilt! See we so tough! Or issit we so cock? hehe KNN once petrol riots start there, their economy and investor confidence sure habis man. Tsk tsk KNN liddat better dun drive to Genting liao otherwise suay they see Sg cars they anger and attack coz we go there buy up all their cheeeep cheeep gahment-subsidised petrol. hehe go to Genting really is a gamble! Better dun go thru KL on July 5, dat day is the big big petrol price protest man!

hehe Dun forgetz hor. Petrol prices increases in Sg more than 10 times since July last year! Waahhhh in June last year, Shell 95 is $1.66 niah. Now le, it is $2.18, jumpz by $0.52, about 30%. Wah piangz! The more the petrol companys upz petrol price, the more our gahment earn from petrol tax. hehe other gahments oso dowan to cut petrol tax, coz once cut oredi, next time vely vely hard to upz petrol tax to current or higher level coz the ppl sure KPKB. Petrol subsidy is cock, look at Indonesia and Msia, unrealistic petrol prices coz they so used to gahment handout...macam their bumiputra poricy liddat. hehe but wat is the "right" price of petrol? To tax petrol now when crude oil price more than US$130 a barrel is oso a bit heartless leh. When then can gahment decrease petrol tax? Maybe the gahment wan to push ppl to use pubric trnspt coz driving car bcomes more and more ex liao. hehe Can, can PTC promise no MRT or bus fare increase from now on?

]]> Flash http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=397 Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:46:42 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=396 recycling of old good news. For public relations spinning, whenever the government has some goodies, they might make a few announcements of it in different parts of the year all the way till its implementation to maximise political mileage.

The ERP as a Road Use Tax

The government reiterated that they are moving from taxing car ownership to taxing car usage. A "fair" laudable policy because road tax should be based on actual road use, not potential road use just because one owns a vehicle. The implication of the reduction of the road tax is that other taxes on road use will be implemented soon. The right hand reduces tax on ownership, while the left hand raises tax on usage. However, what is the net effect on road tax going up or down is difficult to determine although my guess is that it is going up still. If one works in the CBD and drives to work on the ECP from the East between 0805 hrs and 0855 hrs, the driver would spend $4.50. In 4 weeks of a Mon-Fri pattern, the driver would spend $90 just for going to work in the morning. In 6 months, he would have spent roughly $540. The ERP opportunity cost for drivers who live in the PM's own ward at Ang Mo Kio and use the CTE is even greater, factoring the morning and evening ERP charges. Putting cost in perspective, the road tax for a 1600cc car for 6 months is $437. A 15% reduction in road tax i.e. about more than $60 for a 1600cc car for 6 months, is good but actually very little in the context of overall car usage cost.

Road usage tax is already in the form of ERP. This is an extremely unpopular policy among most motorists especially as ERP does not decrease congestion, it just displaces it elsewhere. Furthermore, the fact that ERP is implemented even in the evening rush hours when motorists are going home is a sure vote-losing decision. Therefore to mitigate any further bad PR from having more ERP gantries and higher ERP rates, I half suspect the government is going to explore other less obvious taxation avenues on road usage.

Petrol Tax: The Unseen Road Use Tax

And what better way than to raise petrol tax which now stands at 29% of pump price for a litre of petrol? Hong Kong has a heavy tax of 57% of the pump price per litre. From the government's perspective, there is still room for raising petrol taxes if Hong Kong petrol tax is used as the red line. Nevertheless, the timing for increasing petrol tax to control car usage has to be precise as oil prices are already reaching high RPM levels now. Any further petrol tax would only drive Singaporeans off the road as petrol becomes even more expensive. Higher petrol taxes might slip in when oil prices stabilise. By then, drivers would be "used to" the minimum $2 per litre petrol price and would not notice the income leak that much.

The Road Ahead

Diesel, unlike petrol, is not taxed and that explains why diesel is "cheaper" than petrol. But diesel cars endure a revised but still heavy pollutant tax in a way already so drivers should do their maths first if they want to switch from petrol to diesel. With regards to alternatives to petrol, if CNG cars do gain mass appeal in Singapore looking at the trend of escalating petrol prices, LTA might even introduce a CNG tax or remove the Green Car rebate so as to control CNG/petrol/hybrid/diesel car usage. The government might even Green spin the introduction of carbon emission tax on top of all the current taxes.

The bottom line is that car users are cash cows for the government, which is fine as long as the revenue collected is put to good use e.g. improving public transport, and not used to build more ERP gantries at auxiliary roads.
]]> Columns http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=396 Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:17:00 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=395 St James is CMI but want to make it, so they use discrimination to excrude ppl as marketing trick dat St James is the sibeh atas... more atas than BS, hehe KNN how can dat be? St James have this "exclusive" policy so dat they look like they vely high class, but instd they high crass!

St James oredi show banyak kali many times liao they vely tao, so no need to panchan them. They excrude lao kway bu, altho it is supposed to be Lady's Night, KNN wan xiaomeimei customers oni then say so lah! They excrude ppl with angkong, CCB lah so many ppl nowadays got inked liao it is as common as ppl not virgin when they kahwin. They oni wan to carry and kam angmoh lampa, dun allow locals in. SMLJ? Go BS or Dynasty..you ah pek, got angkong or Sgporean oso they treat you like king as long as you gots money to spend hehe!

Last time in Sg if man got long hair like hippie, in post office they will tekan you and say they wont serve you. KNN fuckup right? Last time when angmoh in Sg rulez and national anthem is God Save the Queen, some angmoh restaurants or clubs would say "No Chinaman Allowed" but dogs can! WTF Nowadays, why we put up with this kind of LJ thing in service industry? Macam got money to spend but still give ppl spit on face! Buay song leh. Nong nong time ago got comprains of this Brazilian place at 6th avenue por angmoh, serve them first but fuck the local customers, hehe like SQ liddat. Dont go these places lor! Discrimination of customers who can afford the service is cockest bizness model and conpirm give bad PR and limit the potential pool of paying customers. hehe "paying" is impt hor...those who cannot afford, ask them FO, but poritely! hehe in this double-stds society, discrimination based on pricing out-in customers, boleh!

]]> Flash http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=395 Mon, 9 Jun 2008 12:29:00 +0800 http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=394 Sgpolitics, Gopalan Nair is now charged under the Sedition Act and not under Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order & Nuisance) Act Section 13D(1)(a).

Out of the window goes the Internal Security Act as the catchall screwem'all legislation to deal with troublesome govt critics. The Sedition Act is the new rage and it is the happenin' law now. Yet another anachronistic law handed over by our colonial masters of yesteryear, conveniently adopted by our new "colonial" masters.

The Sedition Act is like (Marcus) Fenix from the (Gow) flames in the govt's "lighter touch" management of bloggers. Initially restricted to 3 bigot bloggers in 2005, it recently was used on 2 Bible-thumpers for sending religious "My-God-Rawks" spam. Now Gopalan is the 6th person to be charged with this old school anti-anti-govt law. Heh.

The Sedition Act carries a maximum $5,000 hole in the wallet and 3 years jail. The insult-civil-servant law initially used carries a maximum $5,000 fine and 1 year jail. Why the govt changed the law use to bitchsmack Gopolan? Heh. The threat of a 3-year jail sentence is the big bad Bat'leth over his head for his in-your-face big mouthness.

]]> Flash http://www.thevoiddeck.org/index.php?itemid=394 Fri, 6 Jun 2008 16:44:00 +0800