Poking Fun at Mount Rushmore

Just for a laugh, is there more to the the august-looking past US presidents on Mount Rushmore?

Do they have a 'backside'?

The following two perspectives will let you snicker!!!


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Human Wafers

Soylent Green continues to thrill inspite of its dated production in 1973. A dystopian science fiction movie, it depicts a future in which overpopulation leads to depleted resources, widespread unemployment and poverty. Real fruit, vegetables, and meat are rare and commodities are expensive and reserved only for the very powerful and rich.

Much of the population survives on processed food rations, including " soylent yellow" and "soylent green" wafers.

New York City police detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) with the help of an elderly police researcher Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson) investigated the brutal slaying of a wealthy businessman named William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotten). Thorn and Roth uncover clues which pointed to something more sinister. That Soylent Green was made from human flesh!


The film, which is loosely based upon the 1966 science fiction novel "Make Room! Make Room" by Harry Harrison, won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film in 1973.

As a movie, it is at once shocking and unnerving.

Superb acting by Charlton Heston and Edward G Robinson.

Good movie to watch again and again.

Mamee-Double Decker (M) Berhad

Value Investing in the KLSE has now recommended Mamee-Double Decker (M) Berhad, (Mamee) an investment holding company that engages in the manufacture and marketing of food and dairy products, and soft drinks primarily in Malaysia, the People's Republic of China, Myanmar, and other Asian countries.

The company currently manufacture products such as instant noodles, snacks, dairy products, chilled products, beverages, and confectionery. It also exports a range of products, including yogurt, cultured milk, fruit juice, instant noodles, snacks, and beverages to countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. In addition, the company engages in the development of commercial buildings; and provides advertising contractor and agent services, as well as information systems management and motor vehicle rental services.

Mamee is currently selling at RM2.46 per share at P/E 6.6. In 1Q2009,it made RM10mil which is almost 2.5 times compare to 1Q2008. By analysing historical earnings,Mamee is expected to make 30 mil this year (compared to RM20 mil for previous years)

Its balance sheet continues to be very strong.It holds about RM51 mil in cash with no long term debt.Its current ratio is 2.88 and quick ratio is 2.26.Historically,it gave about 6% dividend yield.

There are a few possibilities on how Mamee will utilize its cash horde.

1) Make acquisition to enhance cashflow. Recently it acquires Charmille Pte Ltd (Charmille) which is a company involved in the precision engineering industry in the Asia Pacific for more than 25 years. This type of business has some synergy element in manufacturing and trading business.

2) Buy back shares if the share price is undervalued.Mamee has been buying back its shares since a few months ago.Hence,it's downside is pretty small.

3) Take over target. Mamee is a good take over target by Pang's Family or other companies.But Pang's family,which own around 70% collectively of Mamee may not takeover Mamee since these owners are in their 50s already.Thus,Mamee may be taken over by other companies.

Mamee has net asset per share of 2.46 and based on current share price,it is selling at RM210 million for the whole business. Stripping the cash of RM51mil away,the whole business is selling at RM160 mil.By estimating a net profit of RM30 mil this year,the actual P/E is 5.3

At share price of RM 2.46,investors are getting a good bargain for a defensive company with further growth prospect such as Mamee.

Buy in Mamee if it weakens appreciably.

The New One -Sen Tick

Yes, these must be desperate times!

Ranked as the worst performing stock market in a recent survey, Bursa KL is scratching its head on how to improve the volume of shares traded as well as to make it attractive to foreigners.

So one way to attract volume they thought will be to implement the one-sen tick.

From Monday, 27 July 2009, you will see shares being quoted with a one-sen difference across the board.

In the past, if share prices were below RM1, they would be quoted in 1/2 sen to 1 sen difference. When it is above RM1 to RM4.99, it would be quoted with a 2 sen difference. From RM5.00, it was quoted at 5 sen intervals and above RM10-with a 10 sen difference. Shares above RM50 such as BAT will be quoted with a 50 sen difference.

Do you think more shares will be traded with the one-sen tick in place or for that matter; will foreign investors be beguiled to trade with a vengeance on Bursa because of this petty difference from Monday onwards?

Come Monday and we will know.

Tanjong Plc AGM

Today was Tanjong Plc's AGM.

After fumbling at the registration counter, I finally got registered at the H-L counter. They were generous-a door-gift of RM50 gift voucher tenable at any food outlet except the Wasabi Japanese outlet, was given to both shareholders and proxies. Guess the Japanese guys thought they were exclusive and want the riff-raff out of the way!

They also gave shareholders and proxies two complimentary tickets to Tanjong Village cinema shows.

As for the breakfast, there was satay and timsum besides the regular fare. As usual human crows flew in and played ( including gate-crashers)the grabbing game and tahpau all the satays and timsum.

I have to contend myself with a plate of meehoon and fried rice, a piece of martabab,bread pudding and fruits.

Even the drink stations ran out of cups and tea. I was fortunate to have a cup of bitter coffee.

What an AGM! A lady was busy taking photos of the mad rush as old ladies grab at timsum trays!

Something must be done about these human parasites. The PR Department of Tanjong must come out with a fresh new way to control such wanton behaviour from recurring.

Clumsy Parody of the Lost World

Rick, Marshall, a crazy scientist who studies time warps enters the Land of the Lost, a parallel dimension where the present and the past collide.

It is supposed to be funny but it fails badly in that department. The whole story revolves around how Rick Marshall got into the Lost World via a cave, lost his time machine and the need to get back to the real world. In the movie, we see the ludicrous and onerous ways he has to use to get it back; fighting and befriending a T. Rex, having a monkey man in his team, escaping from the pterodactyl hatchery and clashing with the lizard people.

This is one movie with Will Farrel in the lead and yet if fails miserably. Anna Friel supports Will as the doctoral student.

Do What I Say, Not What I Did

Lee Wei Ling is the daughter of Lee Kuan Yew and sister of the current Prime Minister of Singapore.

Here is a story of why she stayed single which was published in the Sunday Times on 5 April 2009.

It makes interesting reading though you may feel she remotely harbours a tinge of regret for not being married when talking about the happy family lives of her two brothers.

This is her story in her own words.

My father became Prime Minister in 1959, when I was just four years old. Inevitably, most people know me as Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter.

My every move, every word, is scrutinised and sometimes subject to criticism. One friend said I lived in a glass house. After my father’s recent comment on my lack of
culinary skills, another observed: ‘You live in a house without any walls.’

Fortunately, I am not easily embarrassed.

As long as my conscience is clear, what other people say of me does not bother me. Indeed, I am open about my life since the more I try to conceal from the public, the wilder the speculation becomes. My father said of my mother two weeks ago: ‘My wife was…not a traditional wife. She was educated, a professional woman… We had Ah Mahs, reliable, professional, dependable. (My wife) came back every lunchtime to have lunch with the children.’

Actually, my mother was a traditional wife and mother. She was not traditional only in one respect: She was also a professional woman and, for many years, the family’s main breadwinner.

One of my mother’s proudest possessions is a gold pendant that my father commissioned for her. He had a calligrapher engrave on the pendant the following characters: ‘xian qi liang mu’ and ‘nei xian wai de’.

The first four characters mean virtuous wife and caring mother. The second four mean wise in looking after the family, virtuous in behaviour towards the outside world.

My mother lived her life around my father and, while we were young, around her children. I remember my mother protesting gently once about something my father had asked her to do.

‘It is a partnership, dear,’ my father urged. ‘But it is not an equal partnership,’my mother replied.

The partnership may not have been exactly equal at particular points in time. But over the years, especially after my mother’s health deteriorated after she suffered a
stroke, my father was the one who took care of her. She clearly indicated she preferred my father’s care to that of the doctors’, in itself a revelation of the quality of his care.

He remembers her complicated regime of medications. Because she cannot see on the left side of her visual field, he sits on her left during meals. He prompts her to eat the food on the left side of her plate and picks up whatever food her
left hand drops on the table.

I have always admired my father for his dedication to Singapore , his determination to do what is right, his courage in standing up to foreigners who try to tell us how to run our country.

But my father was also the eldest son in a typical Peranakan family. He cannot even crack a soft-boiled egg - such things not being expected of men, especially eldest
sons, in Peranakan families.

But when my mother’s health deteriorated, he readily adjusted his lifestyle to accommodate her, took care of her medications and lived his life around her. I knew how much effort it took him to do all this, and I was surprised that he was able to make the effort.

If my parents have such a loving relationship, why then did I decide to remain single?

Firstly, my mother set the bar too high for me. I could not envisage being the kind of wife and mother she had been.

Secondly, I am temperamentally similar to my father. Indeed, he once said to me: ‘You have all my traits - but to such an exaggerated degree that they become a disadvantage in you.’

When my father made that pendant for my mother, he also commissioned one for me. But the words he chose for me were very different from those he chose for my mother.
On one side of my pendant was engraved ‘yang jing xu rui’,which means to conserve energy and build up strength. On the other side was engraved ‘chu lei ba cui’, which means to stand out and excel.

The latter was added just for completion. His main message was in the first phrase, telling me, in effect, not to be so intense about so many things in life.I knew I could not live my life around a husband; nor would I want a husband to live his life around me. Of course, there are any number of variations in marital relationships
between those extremes. But there is always a need for spouses to change their behaviour or habits to suit each other. I have always been set in my ways and did
not fancy changing my behaviour or lifestyle.

I had my first date when I was 21 years old. He was a doctor in the hospital ward I was posted to. We went out to a dinner party. I noted that the other guests were all rich socialites. I dropped him like a hot potato.

In 2005, while on an African safari with a small group of friends, one of them, Professor C.N. Lee, listed the men who had tried to woo me. There were three besides the first. Two were converted into friends and another, like the first, was dropped.

I am now 54 years old and happily single. In addition to my nuclear family, I have a close circle of friends. Most of my friends are men. But my reputation is such that their female partners would never consider me a threat. More than 10 years ago, when there was still a slim chance I might have got married, my father told me: ‘Your mother and I could be selfish and feel happy that you remain single and can look after us in our old age. But you will be lonely.’

I was not convinced. Better one person feeling lonely than two people miserable because they cannot adapt to each other, I figured.

I do not regret my choice. But I want to end with a warning to young men and women: What works for me may not work for others.

Many years ago, a young single woman asked me about training in neurology in a top US hospital. I advised her to ‘grab the opportunity’.

She did and stayed away for eight years. She returned to Singapore in her late 30s and now worries that she may have missed her chance to get married.

Fertility in women drops dramatically with age, and older mothers run the risk of having offspring with congenital abnormalities.

Recent studies show also that advanced paternal age is associated with an increased risk of neuro-developmental disorders in offspring, such as autism and schizophrenia,
not to mention dyslexia and a subtle reduction in intelligence. Men can also suffer from diminished fertility with age although there is wide individual variation.

I would advise young men and women not to delay getting married and having children. I say this not to be politically correct. I say it in all sincerity because I have enjoyed a happy family life as a daughter and a sister, and I see both my brothers enjoying their own families.

Wei Ling is currently the Director of the National Neuroscience Institute in Singapore.

Interesting reading, don't you think?