News quickie

This is just a quick one. I don't normally comment on local news articles because I don't quite believe what they publish anyway (read: not credible). However, I just can't help it when I saw this article published on Channel NewsAsia. Click here for it.

Anyway, long story short, I'm just really interested in the last 2 paragraphs, where MM Lee is quoted as follows:

He said: "I do not measure myself by the yardsticks of Amnesty International or Freedom House or Reporters Without Frontiers. I measure myself by the objectives of governance of my people. What must the government do? It must establish a system where there is peace, stability and opportunities for everybody to live a full life, which means good health, good housing, good jobs, good education, good hospitals.

"There is nothing which you want to read that you cannot read in Singapore. Everybody is on the Internet, everybody has got broadband, you have got cable television, access to all the information, you can blog, you can do anything you like."

While I have nothing against his personal yardsticks, I certainly don't agree with some of the statements in the second paragraph. For instance, "There is nothing which you want to read that you cannot read in Singapore." I'm dying for a copy of Playboy or Penthouse but hey, neither is available here. Also, I'd love to read the book entitled "Escape From Paradise" but unfortunately, it's banned here too. And I'm quite sure that the elderly who are living alone in those one-room flats have great difficulty in owning a computer, much less being "on the Internet", "has got broadband", "access to all the information" and able to "blog".