Decision making

Just back from a trip to Taipei.

Since it was the week after the Presidential election, there were many coverages on TV regarding Ma-Ying Jeou , 馬英九 landslide win against Frank Hsieh, 謝長廷.

The Democratic Progress Party held the Taiwan Presidential Seats since 2000 after snatching it from the KouMinTang for the 1st time and now in 2008 the power is shift back to the KouMinTang.

Taiwanese are not very happy with the performance of the DPP for the last 8 years and they are now giving the KMT another chance.

I find that this constant check of the government by the people is very important.

Any layman will know that any new party in power will go 110% out during the 1st few years in power to gain the trust of the people.

So what happen to parties which stay in power for too long? (40years)

They become compliance and proud.

When the government makes a decision, who can tell they are doing it for the Good of the country and its people or are they doing it for their own party?

I believe that a good government should make a decision base on the development and well being on the country rather then selfishly decided on what is good only to them.

Give you an example, the YOUTH OLYMPIC.

Why it is good to host it?

For the government: More Money.

For the people: More crowded trains and buses.

Yes it is good for the economy to hold big event like the Youth Olympic games and the Formular 1 race here but did the life of average Singaporean got any better off from these money making event?

The answer is no!

We are facing record high inflation, GST hikes, higher transport cost etc etc....

So where has all the money gone too?

We should think carefully about this.

Decision making is easy but to make good decision against your own gain is difficult.

Greed.

MediaCorp gearing up its F1 coverage

IF YOU can't get a ticket for September's SingTel Singapore Grand Prix, you won't have to shell out extra to witness the historic event, for it will be shown live on MediaCorp TV Channel 5.

The station has secured the rights to be the official free-to-air TV broadcaster for the first-ever night race around the civic district — and the first street race in Asia — featuring the likes of defending world champion Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.

Announcing this yesterday, Singapore's leading media company said it is revving up its coverage of the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship — which flags off this Sunday with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne — across all its media platforms.

From tomorrow, Channel NewsAsia (CNA) will begin airing the first of an 18-part Inside Grand Prix series, which will preview every race of the 2008 season, going behind the scenes to showcase the teams, players and newsmakers.

Other programmes are also planned for both CNA and Channel 5.

Today will get the adrenaline pumping with a 14-page supplement in this Saturday's Weekend Edition, driven by Mr Ian De Cotta, 48, the newspaper's F1 correspondent.

MediaCorp Radio's 987FM and Class 95 stations will also get in on the act, organising the first racing challenge in August, as a prelude to September's big event.

FHM and Arena magazines will be producing racing-themed supplements and organising parties for clients, featuring the lovely FHM girls, while MediaCorp's news and entertainment websites will start offering the latest information on the races from this weekend onwards.

"We're glad to bring the excitement of the sport to our viewers, readers, and clients, offering coverage across the whole gamut of our media platforms," said MediaCorp chief executive officer Lucas Chow during yesterday's press conference, after signing the free-to-air agreement with Singapore GP.

It wonderful that they are reviving the FREE airing of the Formula 1 race on TV.

Why I said revive?

Well about 20 years ago I first saw what is Formula 1 on TV. I believe it was a Malaysian Channels and I was hooked on it then.

During the same time, there are also weekly English football update and matches in program like “Road to Wembly” on TV which got me interested in football as well.

But alias, with every greedy broadcaster trying to secure exclusive rights for sporting events and selling them at astronomical price to Television stations. We begin to see less and less of sporting program on TV.

Event important events like The World cups and European cups are suffering from these people greed. (I wonder why RTM are showing more live matches then Mediacorp in the last world cup.)

I am happy that somehow Mediacorp got the rights to televise this year Singapore Grandprix but I wonder how long will it last.

I suspect it is an attempt to get Singaporean to be interested in Formula 1 racing and therefore they will PAY for it either buying tickets for the race itself of subscribe to cable TV show live races.

Hope I am wrong about this but I doubt so. We shall see what happen next year.

For those who are interested, you actually can catch “delayed” telecast of Formula1 races on RTM on race day itself.

Shit flow downward

Yesterday LTA announced that it will fine SMRT about $400K for the train disruption it caused in January 2008 as they were found not complying to operation procedure during maintenance work.

SMRT reported it might appeal fine and ensure the discipline action will be taken against the staff concerned.

I seriously doubt any Top management from SMRT will take responsibility and resign. Most probably some poor soul will be made the scapegoat and take all the blame and be sacked.

Same go for the Mas Selamat escape.

I can be almost sure that DPM Wong and the Chief of Police will still be around for a long long time.

This is what I can “shit flow downward”.

Same things are happening at work places all the time.

When come to a crisis, no top managements are there to take the responsibilities. They are there all the time to enjoy the perks but never there to take the blames.

So if the government act like this, we can’t blame the government related companies for doing the same thing and we most certainly can’t blame Singaporean for being “bochap” and selfish.