I know where you are; On HIV and gay-ers

I recall that when the Ezylink thingy was to be introduced in Singapore, someone told me of his conspiracy theory: that the whole thing was a ploy to track down where anyone and everyone was in the lovely 'Big Brother' state. You see, you've got to 'di' the card when you board the bus, and 'di' again when you get off, and the sophisticated GPS R2-D2 robot will tell Mr Autocrat Someone-out-there where Mr. Chee et al. are. One of the problems with that theory is that, hey, people forget to 'di' when they get off. So, the dear transport companies find themselves with some more not-so-spare change and 'Big Brother' wonders why on earth are people taking the people's air-conditioned limousine to the interchanges so often. Are they congregating there for some demonstration / secret meetings of the malcontent HIV-stricken gay-ers? *gasp*.

Now, conspiracy theorists would gasp in horror if and when they hear of the scheme to be set up in England. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4075490.stm Essentially, it's a satellite system to track down the distance one has travelled on the car, and then charge according to this distance. This charge will hopefully replace the road tax and fuel duty. So, England's 'Big Brother' laggy more powderful: Oyster card to track down where London-ers go, road charging to find out where every single freaking vehicle in freaking Britain is going!

Frankly, I think it does not make financial sense. Given the Brits' track record in building and setting up stuff, the costs involved would prolly be wildly under-estimated. And the financial ploughbacks would also be grossly over-estimated. Haven't they learnt from their experiences with congestion charging, the introduction of the Oyster card, and happy-clappy bendy buses? I would be very surprised if the Treasury makes enough to cut fuel taxes.

It is more likely to make financial sense in Singapore.

& thank goodness I don't drive.

Just ran a google search for HIV organisations in Singapore. There's the AFA - Action for Aids. On the website, it says: 'Over 500 Singaporeans have been reported with HIV infection (up to late-1996). There are many more who are infected but do not know that they are. In the 1980s the majority of infections in Singapore were homosexual or bisexual men; but now there are many more infections seen among heterosexual men and women. Heterosexual spread is now the main method of transmission in Singapore. And over 75% of infections around the world are acquired through heterosexual intercourse. '

I would bet that the majority of those who do not know that they infected with HIV are heterosexual men. Why? Coz Mr. Heterosexual: "Aiya, gover-ment say must be gay then get HIV one mah. So I no need to test one lar, sure ok one." If one extrapolates from STD clinics in London to ones in Singapore, the demographic of people taking HIV tests might well be largely of two demographic groups: the women, and the gay-ers. Surely, this would mean that dear Mr. Minister's statistic for HIV-incidence suffers terribly from sample selection bias.