The letters in the forum are always very amusing. I still remember one writer admonishing readers with an oddly phrased line, "Those who worship at the altar of materialism will say a resounding 'Yes', and the time some person suggested adding letters before and after bus numbers so you'd know which interchanges they started from and were bound to, and somehow divine where they'd stop along the way.

This time, someone wrote something so incomprehensible that I know not how to describe or deplore it:

"Plug-in problem at UOB site

I REFER to Mr Paul Chan Boon Cheow's letter, 'DBS website needed plug-ins, but unavailable' (ST, Aug 1).

I recently visited the UOB Group's website www.uobgroup.com to change my user name and password.

I, too, encountered a similar problem.

The website requested that I install the 'Java virtual machine' plug-in before I could proceed.

Users who have already installed the plug-in would not encounter the prompt, as I later found out when I visited the website using another computer.

I wonder how many banks still rely on this software, yet claim that their online facilities have high security.

CHONG KOK SENG"

Apparently this person is saying that those who install the JRE plugin will be able to bypass the security measures on the site or something. But supposedly letters "...based on incorrect information or spurious assumptions" will be rejected. Looks like a fish got through the net.


It's news commentary time! I was reading Friday's papers on Saturday and was so free that I decided to meditate briefly upon some points. So let me mount the bully pulpit for a few paragraphs (alternatively you can always switch the channel)

It seems that the Sportswomen we got from China are bringing us many Golds. Now, I do not dispute their Singaporean-ness, one of them having lived here since the early 1990s, as I recall. However, it is rather ludicrous for 3/4 of the Women's team to be China-born and bred. If this is taken to mean that Singapore is a melting pot which welcomes all manner of people, then what about the Vietnamese Boat People of yesteryear? To my knowledge, not content with merely deporting them, the government decided to give them a souvenir in the form of some strokes of the cane, before shipping them back to the totalitarian regime of Vietnam. And the same goes for all the other unwelcome ones. Of course other countries do the same - I caught a glimpse of the New Zealand vs Singapore Womens' Doubles match, and it turned out that it was a match between 4 China-borns. Most amusing.

There was also an article on proactive parenting. It was about how some parents take great interest in, and actively strive to improve, their childrens' academic performance. As examples, the article gave how one mother attends all her daughter's birthday parties, so she can keep in contact with the parents of children who do well in their studies, and ask them how they do so well. Another moved house three times within the same neighbourhood to keep ties with parents whose children could achieve good results academically. One spends $24,000 a year in tuition fees for her children, and sends the tender minds for endless classes and a battery of psychiatric and psychological tests to identify problems and improve their performance in school. And a last doesn't buy toys for her children. I'm sure many or most (not parents) would find this behaviour repugnant, but the article implied that this sort of behaviour was good and should be encouraged. A testament to how disgustingly warped and pathetic kiasuism has made Singaporean society.


Some time in the past, I was ranting that the SAT I's "Verbal" section was inexplicably named, for it was written. My apologies, for I have checked it up and found that "verbal" and "oral" do not necessarily mean the same thing.

Lyrics to the farting song!


Word of the day: "quodlibet"