Trying To Keep Up With The Joneses

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

- excerpts from The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner


In Southeast Asia,Singapore has stood out like a beacon(or a sore thumb) from the rest of its neighbours for many decades.Singapore can be described as a 7-11 store in a neighbourhood full of rundown provision mama shops.How else can you describe a country that has surpassed the Swiss standard of living(yes,we can all now yodel from Mt Faber) but is somehow surrounded by third world countries?However,in recent years our neighbour Malaysia tried to play catch up.We had PSA,they wanted a slice from the pie with PTP(Pelabuhan Tanjong Pelepas).We had Changi Airport,they built the stone cold KLIA(which recently overtook Changi as the No.1 airport.)Now their efforts are focused on something called the Iskandar Economic Region

This piece of news that I read come as no surpise .

NIBONG TEBAL: While Singapore has NEWater, which is waste water that has been purified, Malaysia may soon have drinking water from palm oil waste. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has scored another first by inventing a system which can turn palm oil waste into drinking water.
USM School of Chemical Engineering’s dean Professor Abdul Latif Ahmad’s invention is called the "novel membrane-based treatment system" which turns palm oil mill effluents (POME) into crystal clear drinking water.

It has been quite some time since we trumpeted our success of inventing the sai chwee New water.Not to be outdone,the Malaysians also recently invented.....drinking water from palm oil waste.Jeezz...so the next time we visit Malaysia,I reckon we would have to drink water which contains traces of microscopic trans/saturated fat.That would certainly do our arteries a great 'favour'