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Friday, June 30, 2017

Telegram VS Whatsapp (aka Facebook)

Whatsapp Info Given to Facebook
I deleted my Whatsapp account.

It was because I was creeped out by how Facebook (which owns Whatsapp) would show me advertisements about the ANOVA sous-vide machine just a few hours after I had chatted with my friend about the machine. This was after Whatsapp sent me messages saying that my messages were encrypted end to end... and that without my permission, my data would not be shared with Facebook.

Facebook Desires My Mobile Number VERY MUCH
When I left Whatsapp, Facebook started to bug me to use FB messenger on my mobile phone. I could not send FB messages from my smart phone anymore, unless I downloaded the Facebook messenger app. I decided I could live with that. Next, Facebook started bugging me for my mobile number as a security measure to rescue my account. I did not comply. After some time, I found that something had happened to my FB log in. I had to key in my password twice in order to get into my account. The first time I keyed in my password, a scary messsage about losing my account would appear. A request for me to give Facebook my mobile number in order to rescue my account would also appear.

I began to wonder why FB was sooooo keen to get my phone number. I still don't know why.

What I find disturbing is that Facebook owns Whatsapp AND Instagram. A mobile number is a critical piece of information that links all 3. If people have all 3 social media presences, there is nothing about a person that Facebook does not know. Facebook knows all and sees all... my private conversations with my husband... the deepest fears I share with my friends... photographs I want to share only with my closest.

Dangers of Giving ALL My Information to ONE Company
Even if Facebook is benign, hackers are not. My greatest fear was to have a hacker get into my Facebook account and learn things about me that would give them access to my bank accounts. Since people share different things across different platforms, if a hacker gains access to 1 of the 3 accounts (Insta, FB or Whatsapp) and from there, he/she accesses the others, the hacker knows everything and anything about me that I have shared.

As a result, I share nothing on Instagram and precious little on Facebook. These days, Facebook is useful only because I can take part in forums like the Singapore Celiac and Gluten Intolerance Group... Blessing Items for Low Income Families... Singapore Urban Gardening... Yarns Spree... These groups discuss things I am interested to grow my competence in. In return, all I have to do is occasionally contribute my own knitting or food projects and a bit of my own know how. After all, when one benefits from others' sharing, one must give back too.

About Telegram
Secret Chat: As an alternative to Facebook, I signed up with Telegram. Telegram allows an option called the Secret Chat. The secret chat sends me alerts when people take screenshots of my chat with them. I can also set a self-destruct timer that will destroy all my messages in that chat after a specified time.

Multi-Device Use: Telegram allows multi-device use. If you use whatsapp on a computer, the connections are unstable. If your phone is not switched on, whatsapp web does not work. With Telegram, I can switch off my phone and still interact via my desktop.

Send Files: I tend to use Telegram for work from my desktop. Telegram allows me to send files... pdf documents, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets. Along with the stable connection, this feature is very useful.

Pretty Stickers: I also love Telegram stickers. They are super fun! See picture below.

Delete Messages After Sending: I always send Whatsapp messages to the wrong person. Telegram allows me to delete the message from the chat after sending.

Name Mention: Telegram allows you to mention people in groups. So, you can mute a group and read nothing until someone mentions your name.

Confidential Phone Number: When people add me to a group where there are strangers, my phone number does not appear to these strangers.

Lock Chats: You can lock your chats in Telegram so that no one can see your personal messages.

Edit Messages: You can also edit messages after sending.

Partial Info: Best of all, Facebook does not own Telegram so I share only small parts of my life with Facebook. It does not get a whole picture of who I am.


Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Gluten Free Quiche


Even if you are not celiac nor gluten intolerant, you would want to make this quiche. Firstly, the crust is much easier to make than traditional shortcrust pastry. Secondly, the crust is made of almonds and egg... so, it is low carb.

Ingredients for Crust
1 egg
350 g of almonds
1 tbsp icing sugar

Sieve 1 tbsp of icing sugar into a bowl. Add 350g of almond meal. To make almond meal, simply blitz raw almonds in a blender or a food processor. 

Beat 1 raw egg and mix into the almond meal + icing sugar mixture. Make a sticky mass.

Press into the bottom and sides of a spring form tart pan lined with baking paper. Preheat the oven for 15 minutes at 180 DegC. Bake the crust with TOP HEAT ONLY for 10 minutes. 

Ingredients for Filling
A fistful of fresh oregano
5 large eggs
200ml of pure cream
1 teaspoon salt
200g of gluten free ham
500g of button mushrooms
200g of feta cheese

(1) Whisk 200ml pure cream, eggs and salt together. Keep aside.

(2) Slice the button mushrooms and fry in butter/ghee till they are wilted and sorry looking.

(3) Mince the oregano leaves.

(4) Chop the ham into bits.

(5) Dice the feta cheese.

(6) Layer the oregano at the base of the tart crust. Layer the ham on top of the oregano. Layer the feta cheese on top of the ham. Pour the cream+eggs+salt mixture over all the ham and cheese.

(7) Bake in the oven (top and bottom grill) at 120DegC for 40 minutes.



Friday, June 23, 2017

Who Was GIVEN 38 Oxley Road in its Entirety?

Fact #1
In October 2011, LKY informed his younger children on a topic related to "architect" that rebuilding on 38 Oxley Road was not possible because LHL, as PM, had indicated that he would declare 28 Oxley Rd as a heritage site. See HERE.

This shows that LHY already knew, in October 2011, that rebuilding could follow the demolition of the house. Indeed, rebuilding was discussed even before LKY died.

Fact #2
In December 2011, LKY wrote a letter to cabinet stating, "Cabinet members were unanimous that 38 Oxley Road should not be demolished as I wanted. I have reflected on this and have decided that if 38 Oxley Road is to be preserved, it needs to have its foundations reinforced and the whole building reburbished." See HERE.

This shows that LKY was ok for the house to be preserved.

Fact #3
Despite knowing that...
(1) LHY would not be averse to rebuilding on the site...
(2) LHL was looking at preserving the site for the benefit of the whole country...
... LKY still bequeathed 38 Oxley Rd to LHL in its entirety. See HERE.

LKY knew that LHL wanted to preserve the house for the whole country. Yet, he bequeathed the house to LHL entirely. What does that tell you about the choice LKY made between his 2 sons?

Since LKY bequeathed the house entirely to LHL, LHL could actually have...
(1) ... used his political power and influence to change the zoning laws of the area to allow high rise buildings...
(2)... used his political power and influence to prevent the government from declaring it a heritage site...
(3) ... exercised his personal right to demolish the house...
(4) ... personally develop the land into high rises...
(5) ... personally pocket hundreds of millions...

He could have abused his power for personal gain, but he DID NOT.

For those Singaporeans who jubilate at the attacks on LHL by his younger brother, I think you have placed your allegiance in the wrong party. LHL chose to dedicate his life to Singapore.  LHY CHOSE to leave the civil service. He preferred the more profitable private sector. Even today, LHY is uncaring to the damage he is inflicting on Singapore and Singaporeans.

Now that LHY has bought 38 Oxley Road from LHL, he stands to gain hundreds of millions.


What About 5 Generations Down?
The way I see it, the government MUST gazette 38 Oxley Road. It has no choice. The day will come when every Singaporean old enough to have personally known a living and breathing LKY will die. There is no guarantee that an enterprising future Singaporean will not rebuild the house based on archived photos and plans.

I remember that when LKY passed away, enterprising folks in his old village in China, designated a house as LKY's ancestral home and charged entrance fees for a visit... never mind that LKY never ever spent a night there.

As long as the land belongs in private hands, hundreds of years down the future, a Frankenstein of a monument WILL rise to LKY. Only if it belongs to the government and today's government sets down laws and regulations in perpetuity with regard to the house, can we honour LKY's wish for privacy.


Challenge Will in Court
I think it is unseemly to have a public to and fro about LKY's will. I wish they would settle the matter in court in camera.









Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Selling Picket & Rail Bed

I am selling this queen sized bed solid wood Picket & Rail bed at $250. Self-collection please. Please fill out your contact HERE if interested.

Update: Bed sold.


Friday, June 16, 2017

I Stand With LHL

In the whole FamiLEE saga, much is shrouded in mystery. It is an alarming story of He Say and They Say. Where the truth lies, nobody really knows. I would like to think that everyone is speaking truth but they are just looking at the issue from different perspectives. You know, like the blind man who asserted that the elephant was like a wall... and his equally blind colleague insisted that an elephant resembled a snake.

Yet, there are certain things we already know.

Lee Hsien Loong's Dynastic Aspirations
Firstly, LHL is planning his own retirement. His own political career has very little to gain from errr... moving into Oxley Road himself. His son has announced that he does not want to be in politics. You might call him a liar but seriously, he really does not look like he is interested. Where is he in grassroots work? Where was he when his Dad was campaigning? Even if you believe that LHL and HC have dynastic aspirations, have you tried making an adult/adolescent child fulfill your parental aspirations? Not even LKY could bring LWL to heel... and LKY was for decades, the most powerful man in Singapore.

I once chatted with a group of CEOs about staff motivation. They were thrilled when they heard that I was branching out into child motivation. They said that staff motivation was easier - hire, fire, bonus. Staff will heed their CEOs. CEO children do not. If LHL's son is not interested, there is no way any dynastic aspiration on the part of his aging parents will ever be fulfilled. 

So, what political mileage has LHL got to gain from preserving the house? Clearly nothing.

Lee Hsien Loong's Monetary Gains
He willingly sold his share to his siblings and even donated half the value of the house to charity. So, our PM was not looking at monetary gains either! Wouldn't it have been so easy for LHL to demolish the house and cash in? He did not have to sell his share to LHY, you know.

If we had a lesser man than LHL, he would have sold and cashed out his millions. No! He donated millions instead. Look across the causeway and see Mrs Najib spend USD$30 million on jewellery lohhhh... Man! I am so damn proud of Ho Ching for wearing slippers to the White House, and carrying a plastic purse.

Are those not LKY's values?

Lee Hsien Loong's Duty to the Nation
Now, don't forget, he is our Prime Minister. He has learnt at his father's knee to put Singaporeans first. Foremost on his mind is the need to preserve 38 Oxley Road as a historical record of Singapore's history. He would be thinking of future Singaporean children who need to see and learn about the values that built our nation. He would be sensitive to the lobbying of all the historians and archivists who must have been screaming blue murder at the thought of destroying the house.

How can we fault our PM for putting country before family?

Really? You want a PM to prioritise his family before Singaporeans? Then, go become a Malaysian lohhhh...

Lee Wei Ling's Desire To Stay At Oxley Road
I can understand that LWL wants to stay at Oxley Road. If I were the unmarried daughter, I too would want to stay there. However, simply for a selfish, personal desire to stay in a house, she has come out into the open to destroy OUR Prime Minister's social capital, political capital and global standing. This is plain wrong. Your selfish desire has hurt the whole country. 

The assertions are malicious and calculated to inflict maximum damage on a PM who has for the past 10 years, been struggling to redeem his track record. Can you not see him try?

Lee Hsien Yang's Desire To Demolish the House
For certain, it was LKY's wish, However, in the fulfillment of this wish, 38 Oxley Road represents humongous monetary gains for LHY and LSF. Inasmuch as LHL has nothing to gain and everything to lose (when his siblings come out to slander him), LHY has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Opposition MPs have been sued for saying less slanderous things about LHL. Till now, LHL has breathed no litigious word.

And really, it is ok to fight with your brother over your father's last wish. Plenty of people do that. However, to do it a way calculated to hurt an entire country is wrong. You hurt LHL. You hurt Singaporeans. Which part of that do you not get?

Why Set Up the "Secret" Committee?
Very secret meh? Even before this saga, the existence of this committee was publicised in the papers. Perhaps, the committee wished to understand better the circumstances of the drafting of the last will discreetly so that face might be saved for those who stand to gain millions from demolishing the house. Challenging the last will in court would have clear penalties for those found to have somehow influenced an old man to draft a last will in not exactly the way he really wanted.

He was very old and frail at that time... (and yet, his daughter quarrelled with him. Surely, for a father so old, one could close one eye and indulge him?)

A committee would have allowed LHL to get to the bottom of the matter without the courts punishing anyone.

Powers of the Committee
The government has a legal right to gazette anything in this country as a national monument. It could gazette my house if it wanted. Once gazetted, it belongs to all Singaporeans.

The government really doesn't NEED a committee to study the issue of 38, Oxley Road if there was a clear desire to disobey LKY's deathbed wish. The only reason I can think of, for this committee to be set up, is to ascertain whether the last will was INDEED LKY's true desire. If not, then the committee could go ahead and gazette the house as a national monument. If yes, then the committee would honour LKY's wishes.

Hence, LHL's 9 questions pertaining to LSF's involvement are very important. IF LSF and LHY had unduly influenced the drafting of the 7th will, then the government could exert its right to go right ahead to preserve the house for future generations of Singaporeans.

Bear in mind that there is no need for the committee. The government of the day has every legal right to designate 38 Oxley Rise a national monument, over riding LKY's will. No man is above the law. Not even LKY. He would not want to be above the law either.

Hence, if a committee was set up, it really was to honour LKY. However, to honour his last wish, it was necessary to know whether the 7th will was really his true last wish.


Robbing Singaporeans
If it should really turn out that LKY's last will was messed with, then LHY and LSF  are robbing the nation of our birthright. Standing between us and this loss is LHL! This should get personal for every Singaporean! Why are we not standing with our PM on this?


First Salvo
The desire to do hurt came first from LHY and LWL. It was they who brought this out into the open. To me, it was clear that they meant to hurt. If they were really afraid of a PM abusing his powers, they would have left the country already. Why are they still here?

Clearly, they know that LHL is too kind to sock it to them with the same ruthlessness that they socked it to him.





Wednesday, June 14, 2017

It is NOT Islam, but Malsi!

It pains me to see the carnage currently taking place in European capitals. France and Britain have been the subject of terror attacks for years now. Terrorists have wreaked havoc in the Middle East on true Muslims for decades already. That the carnage which regularly happens in the Middle East does not flood our media in the way European terror attacks do, does not mean that Middle Easterners are exempt from the violence unleashed upon Muslims by other people who call themselves Muslims.

It is easy to confuse the 2 - terrorism and Islam. It is easy to think that Islam is a religion that gives birth to terrorism and violence. Part of the reason is because these terrorists like to yell "Allahu akbar!" just before they mow down people with their cars, their bombs and their guns.

I refuse to believe these terrorists are Muslims. Unfortunately, we do not have another name for people who kill in the name of Allah. There is power in names you know. If we had another name with which to refer to these individuals who subvert a largely peaceful religion (Islam) to violent ends, then we can psychological differentiate between the multitudes of Islamists who are peaceful and loving... from those few who kill in the name of Allah.

If we had a different name for those who kill in the name Allah, then we can name them and talk about them without psychologically hurting people who are true Muslims. Right now, when we call those who kill in the name of Allah, Muslims or Islamists, we also verbally attack the true Muslims.

We really should call those who kill in the name of Allah, Milsum. This is "Muslim" written backwards to signify that these are people who do NOTHING in the name of Allah, because Allah is love and NOT murder.

Similarly, the religion espoused by those who kill in the name Allah, should be called Malsi, because it is quite the opposite of Islam... and would benefit from being called something that is the backward spelling of Islam.

Words have power. It is important to name things without ambiguity. In this case, it is important to differentiate between those who love in the name of Allah and those who hate in the name of Allah. They may read and quote the same Quran BUT they are NOT the same people. They do NOT have the same religion.

Once we can name a phenomenon properly, we can deal with it in a targeted manner without fear of being politically incorrect.

I really like what the Australian Muslims have done HERE. They clearly reject those who kill in the name of Allah. The whole world should follow their lead and reject the Milsums as people who subvert a peaceful and loving religion (Islam) into a violent one (Malsi).

I don't care that it is the same Quran. It really is not the same religion.

I mean, the Crusaders could call themselves Christians but they really were Crusaders... a violent group of ne-er do wells who killed in the name of God. Crusaders had a religion that was NOT Christianity because the Christian God I know is a loving one.

God... Jehovah... Yahweh... Allah... all are love.