Overkill, v. See "Singapore Government"

From The Straits Times:

S'pore to cull 5,000 chickens in crisis test

SINGAPORE -- Singapore will cull 5,000 chickens to test the country's defence system against the bird flu epidemic that has struck at least 10 Asian countries, the Government said on Thursday.

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

overkill, v: trans. and intr. To kill or destroy to a greater extent than is necessary.

As usual, the government is going to extremes. Usually they just waste money, but now they are slaughtering 5,000 chickens just to test their ability to cull chickens in case of the avian flu hitting Singapore... which basically means, they are killing 5000 chickens to make sure they can kill 2,100,000 chickens.

I fail to see the point here. How does 5000 scale to 2.1 million where 10, 50 or 100 does not? Even if it were absolutely, positively necessary to test out your equipment to make sure it works, do they have to needlesly slaughter so many chickens? I can see maybe 100 at the most to account for variables. But five thousand chickens?

The lengths the government goes to sometimes completely baffles me. Did they get some sort of bulk rate discount? Because it is a known fact that our government is so cheapskate that even Gladstone would have winced at their cost cutting. Maybe they got a really good deal on the chickens...

Chicken seller: "Eh, I got this great deal for you. Cannot beat! You buy one chicken, I give you 999 for free."

Gahmen: "Great! We'll take five!"

Thankfully, an online STI poll shows 85% of respondents against the exercise, so at least 85% of Straits Times Interactive readers have some sense!

(Speaking of Singapore, The 20 All-Time Most Condemned Pick Up Lines by Singaporeans by TalkingCock had me falling over laughing. How appropriate, especially ahead of Valentine's Day!)