Cooling-off Period. It's a sound policy.
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Straits Times Forum -14 Jan 2010
DR CATHERINE Lim's interpretation yesterday ('Surprised by 'cooling off' idea') of the People's Action Party's (PAP) announcement of a 24-hour cooling-off period before Polling Day is as striking in its perspicuity of human behaviour as it is jaundiced of the PAP's intentions.
Her view goes to the heart of the problem of how governments are unexpectedly voted out of power through a concatenation of a young electorate manipulated by disingenuous oratory, just as countries are bobbing in a sea of uncertainty now and trying to recover from massive economic and natural global disasters.
No one can argue with Singapore's success and the PAP's pivotal role in it. It is moot whether we could have accomplished as much with as little had another political party led the nation since independence.
Yet successful governance has always been associated with an iron will to push for tough policies which frequently disenfranchise certain sections of the population.
Visionary leadership comes with a price and the PAP deserves grudging admiration and support, even as many Singaporeans are not always enamoured of it.
Calm, collected and rational voting is what all sensible citizens should seek. Yet who among us is not ruled partly by emotions, letting the heart overrule the head in the heat of the moment?
It is easier to be swayed momentarily by demagoguery and emotional argument than by rational reasoning.
Nothing remedies this better than a good night's rest and some rational reflection, after which convictions can be firmed and action taken without room for remorse.
This is a sane policy that should be applied not only to voting practice but also in our daily routine.
Dr Lim may ascribe PAP insecurity and anxiety to this new policy, but in the final analysis, the PAP's idea is more conducive to the election of a government that Singaporeans are less likely to regret.
Dr Yik Keng Yong
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woof...woof
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I do not trust it anymore. who knows what will happen later. When they implemented 3 to a GRC in the name of racial harmony so that the minorities will be represented, I bought that idea, only later to know that I as a citizen of Singapore sold my right to vote due to walkover.
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Yes it is so very sane Singaporeans must be ever grateful that so many policies have been so very conducive - HDB policies - conducive huh? FT policy conducive huh? ...to enumerate here is much too long lar!
If the PAP is thinking that Singaporeans are going to buy into this crap of a policy - one must be dreaming.
The only remorse I think in many, too many minds of Singaporeans is the mistake of allowing this govt into power and worst of all - allowing them to still stay on.
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Catherine is bootlicking the bloody heartless evil party
I don't trust Catherine Lim, as a person she is arrogant. Very much like the typical PAP
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Cat Lim
ar
I always see her wiht many cats around
one le
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Anything by PAP is a sound policy.
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Dr Yik Keng Yong
Wah, A Dr.
PHD also drive taxi you know. So are you a cabby Yik Keng Yong?
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The cooling off day might backfire.
They forget the youngesters nowadays are tech savy. The debates may continue online. The main stream media influence has much eroded.
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
The cooling off day might backfire.
They forget the youngesters nowadays are tech savy. The debates may continue online. The main stream media influence has much eroded.
no lehyoungter now busy playing fishville
farmville, rest city, UFO catching...counterstrike,
WOW.etc
no time for debate also
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
The cooling off day might backfire.
They forget the youngesters nowadays are tech savy. The debates may continue online. The main stream media influence has much eroded.
They have no access to allow all websites concerning what they care about to be under their control. hahhahahh, too bad!If they are able to, I am sure they will stop people from accessing the net.
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Originally posted by noahnoah:
no lehyoungter now busy playing fishville
farmville, rest city, UFO catching...counterstrike,
WOW.etc
no time for debate also
What are you doing here?
Shouldn't you be building your Ark now?
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
What are you doing here?
Shouldn't you be building your Ark now?
I already build liao maprepare for 2012
hiding it somewhere
but due to the increase of population in sg
i must further upgrade the size and more rooms
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Originally posted by Fantagf:
They have no access to allow all websites concerning what they care about to be under their control. hahhahahh, too bad!If they are able to, I am sure they will stop people from accessing the net.
I doubt they can switch off the internet.
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Originally posted by noahnoah:
I already build liao maprepare for 2012
hiding it somewhere
but due to the increase of population in sg
i must further upgrade the size and more rooms
Then get busy.
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
I doubt they can switch off the internet.
They must be finding internet a pain in the neck. Cannot don't care and cannot control. hahahah.Thank goodness we have internet.
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
The cooling off day might backfire.
They forget the youngesters nowadays are tech savy. The debates may continue online. The main stream media influence has much eroded.
Maybe the MDA shut down this forum altogether on this day.
Who knows. -
Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
I doubt they can switch off the internet.
Maybe one of the cables got disconnected on this day by accident and there is no internet surfing for one day. We never know.
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Originally posted by Junyang700:
Maybe one of the cables got disconnected on this day by accident and there is no internet surfing for one day. We never know.
sometimes, things like that are a catalyst which makes the simmering overflow into a huge whacking uncontrolled boil... -
Originally posted by Junyang700:
Maybe one of the cables got disconnected on this day by accident and there is no internet surfing for one day. We never know.
Sg is a financial centre, the banking systems will be on its knees.
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
I doubt they can switch off the internet.
they are good fren of china what..u think they never learn anything from them meh??? censored till u sianz only... u come china try try lor.... tulan even my favorite site also kena blocked....no facebook no youtube.. soon maybe no google too... knn.. -
Originally posted by I-like-flings(m):
they are good fren of china what..u think they never learn anything from them meh??? censored till u sianz only... u come china try try lor.... tulan even my favorite site also kena blocked....no facebook no youtube.. soon maybe no google too... knn..Ok lor, Chinapore.
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
Ok lor, Chinapore.
It is Chindianporeah pu neh and sha sha sha!
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Originally posted by Junyang700:
Maybe the MDA shut down this forum altogether on this day.
Who knows.You are right. There are ways of cyber-attack but not by shutting down website or pulling off plug. But by concerted attack from professional hacker, and it is anyone's guess about the people behind these hackers.
As people already know, the Temasek Review was under DDOS attacked for a long time. Temasek pointed its fingers at a well-known, govt-linked organisation (which was also reported in the mainstream media).
Here is an extract from TR:-
On 9th January 2010, The Online Citizen, one of the two major socio-political blogs in Singapore was incapacitated by what is known as a DDOS (Denial of Service) attack which is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users to prevent an internal site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely.
The site is only accessible intermittently for the last two days and has been down for the past few hours. According to the last posting on TOC’s Facebook, the attack is still going on.A day later, the Temasek Review came under a similar DDOS attack too, but fortunately with our new anti-DDOS firewall blocking the attacks, our site is able to stay up though the loading may be slow. A week ago, TR will be completely inaccessible like TOC now.
(Some readers are unable to access TR not because of the attack, but due to DNS propagation issues which we have already resolved.)
The Temasek Review has come under such attacks on several occasions in the last few months beginning in September last year. The first attack on our site completely overwhelmed us and it was down for more than 24 hours, sparking a controversy in cyberspace.
This is probably the first time that any socio-political blog in Singapore has come under such an attack and it is therefore understandable that some netizens were skeptical about our claims.
Since the first attack, we have been attacked on an increasing frequency, initially on a monthly basis followed by bi-weekly, weekly and now once in a few days.
Due to the complexities involved, it is not possible for us to explain clearly each time our site becomes inaccessible because it may not be caused directly by the attack.
Sometimes, it is not a DDOS attack, but a sync attack, a smurf attack or a massive “content grabbing” like what SPH did to us which has the potential to slow our site down if we do not have a firewall to block off its requests.
In the past, everytime we come under an attack, we will have to move our server or change a IP address to strengthen our security system which explains why some readers may see our page as “upgrading in process” at times which our detractors used to “prove” that we did not suffer a DDOS attack. These were evasive measures necessary to safeguard our original site’s data and hardware from further damages.
The attacks follow a classic pattern:
1. They come suddenly without any warning with IPs flooding in from all over the world at the same time which overloads the server and brings it crashing down in no time.
2. It usually lasts more than 48 hours. The longest duration of attack we suffered was 4 days. The site was not down for so long because we had a dedicated IT team to trouble-shoot and find ways to keep the site accessible to some readers.
3. They were not isolated attacks and will come again, again and again.
Why is this happening?
The short-term aim of these attacks is to prevent readers from accessing our site to decrease our growing readership and to prevent damaging articles from reaching out to a larger audience.
The long-term goal would be to discourage us from continuing to work on TR and give up completely which we did consider as unlike TOC, we do not have somebody to manage TR full-time. All of us have full-time jobs outside and we cannot afford to spend too much time bogged down by these perplexing problems with the site.
A secondary goal will be to deplete our resources so that we are unable to devote our time, energy and finances to expand the site which they (the attackers) have succeeded in a way.
And you can read more under the topic "The well-coordinated simultaneous attacks on TR and TOC: Who, Why and What"
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learn from china one what