family chuckles
Visiting my parents is always a good and interesting thing to do. Visiting them for 6 days on my travels and got the usual reception. Which means picked up, chatted for a few hours to catch up on events, learn a few things and then sit back and watch TV and chat about the shows. Also, my mother has a habit of cutting out newspaper articles that I might find interesting as well as comics that give her a chuckle. This time out I got a few articles about 'culinary boot camp' and 'the first 10 anniversary gifts to give' as well as an article that hit the Edmonton Journal a few months ago concerning Singapore and the minister wage increase. This is what the article read:
***
SINGAPORE MINISTERS SUDDENLY MILLIONAIRES
Singapore/ How much money does it take to keep a government minister in Singapore happy?
The government says a million dollars is not enough, and on Monday it annouced a 60-per-cent boost in ministers' salaries, to an average of $1.9 million Singapore dollars, or about $1.3 million US, by next year.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will see his pay jump to about $2 million -- five times the $400,000 earned by President George W. Bush.
Despire a public outcry, officials have defended the increase, saying the government has to pay well to attract people -- and to keep corruption at bay.
***
After having kept up to date on the reading in Singapore, as well as the few blog comments made when this increase was announced, I really wasn't that shocked or astounded to read this now. After all, kind of hard to gasp and go "OH MY GOD!" when you have done that a few months earlier. What got me about the article was the statement 'despite a public outcry'. When I read about a 'public outcry' I think North American public outcry of people looking to buck the system and not pay taxes to get the message across that they are not happy with this, people protesting in the streets (or at least in front of city halls or their parliament buildings), at the very least there is a bombardment of letters to the local newspapers or letters to the local politicians saying that this is a load of crap and threatening lack of support in the next election if this is actually done. But, after keeping an eye on the papers, there was no mention of strikes, no mention of protests, no mention of basically anything. The only public outcry I read about was the fact that people in the streets mumbled "lousy thing to do to us" and then nothing. Think the bloggers covered more about this than the papers did. So, this public outcry must have been the letters being sent by the handful to the local GRC politicians/ministers and nothing really outcrying. Perhaps the article should have report "Despite a public murmering.." or "..public ripple.." over an 'outcry'. Guess some papers just aren't up to snuff with the proper use of the english language and all and want to sensationalize the news instead of reporting what actually happens.
The other thing that got me shaking my head was the show The Power of Ten (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/powerof10/about/). Wikipedia gives a brief idea of the game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_10) though I also read in a magazine that 25% of readers have found errors or falsehoods in the reporting, so take it with a grain of salt. Nothing is stated as to where they actually get their statistics that they ask to the people. I think it is drastically skewed. I mean, one question was "what percentage of American men would leave their wives if she gained 100 lbs?" Of course, being a guy and knowing how shallow us North American men are, I went with a high percentage of 60-100% of men. I mean with all this obssession with weight loss, age reduction beauty treatments and crap like that, obviously there is something there with physical beauty, right? Well, turns out that only 24% of men would do this. Ok, I can justify it, the question was obviously asked with the wife standing next to the man and only a few brave men were willing to sleep on the sofa and end up spending nearly $300 on flowers and gifts to say that they were sorry.
Then they asked "what percentage of americans eat out at a fast food restaurant more than once a week?" Again, seeing the obesity problem in the States go through the roof to the point of it being considered an epidemic, I put the range into the 60-90%. Answer? 23% of the poled people in America eat out at a fast food place more than once a week. Got me wondering, what people are they poling here? Are they going to health food stores and work out gyms and polling them? I mean, if you look at the student life style, they live on pizza and burgers and students and single mothers have to make up for a large percentage of the American population, so there is a lot of fast food eating happening there.
The last question I watched before walking away shaking my head in wonderment was "what percentage of Americans think that they could, if they wanted to, sneak a firearm through airport security?" Of course, I figured that Americans being the safety people that they are would be between 1-21% of people think they could do it. Answer? 56% of Americans seem to think that they could sneak a firearm through airport security. Are they out of their minds? A 75 year old grandmother can't get knitting needles on a plane, I can't even get a bottle of water on a plane, ladies have trouble getting lipstick and facial cream together (you can have a lipstick tube OR a facial cream container, but both would go over the 100ml limit) and 56% of Americans think that they can get a fire arm onto a plane?
I think that with these answers coming out I have come up with a statistic of my own. How many Americans lie on surveys, and I am sure that the answer is in the high top 5 percentile. Cause the only other alternative is 'how many Americans are totally nuts?'
***
SINGAPORE MINISTERS SUDDENLY MILLIONAIRES
Singapore/ How much money does it take to keep a government minister in Singapore happy?
The government says a million dollars is not enough, and on Monday it annouced a 60-per-cent boost in ministers' salaries, to an average of $1.9 million Singapore dollars, or about $1.3 million US, by next year.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will see his pay jump to about $2 million -- five times the $400,000 earned by President George W. Bush.
Despire a public outcry, officials have defended the increase, saying the government has to pay well to attract people -- and to keep corruption at bay.
***
After having kept up to date on the reading in Singapore, as well as the few blog comments made when this increase was announced, I really wasn't that shocked or astounded to read this now. After all, kind of hard to gasp and go "OH MY GOD!" when you have done that a few months earlier. What got me about the article was the statement 'despite a public outcry'. When I read about a 'public outcry' I think North American public outcry of people looking to buck the system and not pay taxes to get the message across that they are not happy with this, people protesting in the streets (or at least in front of city halls or their parliament buildings), at the very least there is a bombardment of letters to the local newspapers or letters to the local politicians saying that this is a load of crap and threatening lack of support in the next election if this is actually done. But, after keeping an eye on the papers, there was no mention of strikes, no mention of protests, no mention of basically anything. The only public outcry I read about was the fact that people in the streets mumbled "lousy thing to do to us" and then nothing. Think the bloggers covered more about this than the papers did. So, this public outcry must have been the letters being sent by the handful to the local GRC politicians/ministers and nothing really outcrying. Perhaps the article should have report "Despite a public murmering.." or "..public ripple.." over an 'outcry'. Guess some papers just aren't up to snuff with the proper use of the english language and all and want to sensationalize the news instead of reporting what actually happens.
The other thing that got me shaking my head was the show The Power of Ten (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/powerof10/about/). Wikipedia gives a brief idea of the game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_10) though I also read in a magazine that 25% of readers have found errors or falsehoods in the reporting, so take it with a grain of salt. Nothing is stated as to where they actually get their statistics that they ask to the people. I think it is drastically skewed. I mean, one question was "what percentage of American men would leave their wives if she gained 100 lbs?" Of course, being a guy and knowing how shallow us North American men are, I went with a high percentage of 60-100% of men. I mean with all this obssession with weight loss, age reduction beauty treatments and crap like that, obviously there is something there with physical beauty, right? Well, turns out that only 24% of men would do this. Ok, I can justify it, the question was obviously asked with the wife standing next to the man and only a few brave men were willing to sleep on the sofa and end up spending nearly $300 on flowers and gifts to say that they were sorry.
Then they asked "what percentage of americans eat out at a fast food restaurant more than once a week?" Again, seeing the obesity problem in the States go through the roof to the point of it being considered an epidemic, I put the range into the 60-90%. Answer? 23% of the poled people in America eat out at a fast food place more than once a week. Got me wondering, what people are they poling here? Are they going to health food stores and work out gyms and polling them? I mean, if you look at the student life style, they live on pizza and burgers and students and single mothers have to make up for a large percentage of the American population, so there is a lot of fast food eating happening there.
The last question I watched before walking away shaking my head in wonderment was "what percentage of Americans think that they could, if they wanted to, sneak a firearm through airport security?" Of course, I figured that Americans being the safety people that they are would be between 1-21% of people think they could do it. Answer? 56% of Americans seem to think that they could sneak a firearm through airport security. Are they out of their minds? A 75 year old grandmother can't get knitting needles on a plane, I can't even get a bottle of water on a plane, ladies have trouble getting lipstick and facial cream together (you can have a lipstick tube OR a facial cream container, but both would go over the 100ml limit) and 56% of Americans think that they can get a fire arm onto a plane?
I think that with these answers coming out I have come up with a statistic of my own. How many Americans lie on surveys, and I am sure that the answer is in the high top 5 percentile. Cause the only other alternative is 'how many Americans are totally nuts?'
posted by Capt_Canuck at 9:34 PM
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