Two National Day Celebrations

This National Day is special in the sense that there will be two celebrations held about the same time and within the same vicinity. One has a theme, Many stories, One Singapore and the other, Reclaiming Singapore for Singaporeans. The first, the official celebration organized by the Govt, will be held at the Marina Bay with much fanfare and all the pomp and pageantry, a great festivity for all, Singaporeans and foreigners. At least a hundred thousand spectators will be there, watching the parade and performances and a grand display of fireworks to end the night.

Reclaiming Singapore for Singaporeans will be held a short distance away at the Speakers’ Corner in Hong Lim Park. There will likely be a smaller gathering of mainly Singaporeans to celebrate the National Day organized by Singaporeans with no official budget to give it the glamour and colours of a joyous event. They will celebrate the National Day in a solemn low key way, more in spirit as true blue Singaporeans, to remember the days gone by, the great but forgotten Singaporeans that contributed to the success story of this little island. They will remember what it was like when the island residents were mainly Singaporeans, like a bigger kampong of people who lived together for a long time and knew each and every one in the kampongs.

Amidst this little celebration there will also be a tinge of sadness, of the days gone by, the buildings and places that were lost forever, of the unrecognized and fallen heroes that were cast aside by the furious pace of development and change. There will be remembrance, there will be praises and regrets, but it will still be a National Day celebration by the original Singaporeans, the pioneers who built this nation and their loved ones.

Happy National Day to all Singaporeans.

Silencing of the lamb

The lamb has been silenced. All is peaceful under heaven. 天下太平. Three little girls were silenced, penalized by their school for participating in a fund raising event to help cancer stricken patients and helping to make a statement that it was alright to be bald, after chemotherapy treatment. Their brave and gracious act was seen as of lesser importance to a promise to wear wigs should they shorn off their locks and look bald. This is not acceptable as it could mean something else, a fad or a rebellious act.
 
The parents were furious, the public were furious. The girls were silent. The MOE has yet to make a statement on this. Would the Cancer Society that organized this event make a statement in defend of the girls? Or would this matter be stone walled, silence is better than saying the wrong thing? The three brave girls are facing the music in silence. Instead of being good role models, they are now seen as bad, disobedient and doing the wrong thing.
 
Some may think that this topic, Silencing of the lamb, is related to Leslie Chew. No, actually the silencing of the lamb is not even about the silencing of the girls. It is just coincidental that the case of the girls being silenced happened over the last couple of days.
 
There is a bigger silencing event going on nationwide. Ever been in the train or buses and notice the silence except when some loud mouth foreigners are around and screaming away? Our young are being silenced in a different way, by technology. Practically every one of them will be banging away on their mobile or ipad or whatever pad, oblivious of everything around them. They are busy, very busy, either messaging or playing worthless games of colour balls running down the screens. This is a generation of drones and droids who are glued to their little gadgets and do not care a thing about what is happening. You can sell them away standing or sitting in the trains or buses without them knowing.
 
Don’t the young have better things to do than to play with their mobile and ipads? Do they think about what is going to happen to them in the near future, their lives and their country? These are the lambs that live in a silent and meaningless world of their own, without a care.

We are so rich yet so miserable

Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world, or maybe the richest on a per capita basis using the reserves divided by the population of citizens. With this kind of money at the govt’s disposal, why is it that the people are getting more and more unhappy and upset with the govt? Shouldn’t the govt dish out some from the public coffers to make the people happier and less miserable? Or the govt could do it another way, by not squeezing more from the people through public housing, medical bills in public hospitals or through subsidizing public transportation and education?
 
Let me give two simplistic views on why the govt is not doing the obvious and get elected and get more popular votes in every election without having to stage rallies to convince the people how good it is. One possibility that is being rumoured, I hear drums beating, is that there is not enough money left as the losses in investments could not cover for the debt owing to the people in the CPF savings scheme. I say this is rumour and without any truth whatsoever as no one knows other than those in the know how much is left. The simple thinking is that if the govt has the money, there is no need to keep shifting the goal posts on withdrawal dates for taking out the CPF savings by the people or increasing the minimum sums to ever higher sums. Ok, no need to belabour this point as it is just an imagination of the people.
 
Another possible reason, this is just a personal view and is just as flawed as any rumour or misinformation, is that the govt is made up of sadistic people who enjoyed making the people miserable, especially Singaporeans. The billions or trillions in the reserves are there but the govt just refuses to let the people have them to have an easier time. The people must be strangled financially by a big 30 year housing loan to keep them in check and cannot be funny. The money in their CPF accounts must be kept away from them so that they cannot have fun with mei meis or toy boys. The govt just does not want to let the people have a good time.
 
OK, this is just a theory that the govt is made up of wicked people. Of course this is not true. They are the most compassionate, caring, selfless, righteous, honest and honourable people the country could ever produce. There is no reason for them to keep the money from the people. And the money is there, and they are not taking it to enrich themselves. The money is to be kept there for a rainy day in the future, when the rain comes. Maybe they are waiting for purple rain.
 
Seriously, why is the govt doing this to the people, making the people so angry and unhappy, and risking themselves being booted out in the next GE? Why don’t they take the easy way out, share the nation’s prosperity with the people to make the people live easier and more comfortable, cheaper public housing, free public transportation, cheaper health care, and still can charge foreigners to make up for the deficit? Why make foreigners richer and happier and citizens more miserable?
 
I really cannot understand. The govt cannot be so stupid right? What is the real reason for the govt to make life so difficult for the people and keep trying to make it worse by stubbornly trying to flood the island with more foreigners to replace the citizens, with higher and higher property prices and cost of living? Maybe this is the absolute proof that the citizens are daft and could not understand why the govt is doing this to them, for their own good. Only super talents can understand the goodness of all these tough and painful policies and decisions made by the govt.

A German's view on Islam

Interesting this as the person who sent it to me emigrated as a 13 year old from Germany to Australia. Liz

  

A Germans View on Islam

This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read.
The author's references to past history are accurate and clear. It's not a lengthy read, it's easy to understand, and it's well worth the read.
The author of this email is Dr.Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates.
When he  was asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.

'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care.
I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come.

My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.
Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march.
It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.
It is the fanatics who systematically slaughte! r Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.
It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.
It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals.
It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and s! laughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killin! g that i ncluded the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

Now Islamic prayers have been introduced into Toronto and other public! schools in Ontario, and, yes, in Ottawa too while the Lord's Prayer was removed (due to being so offensive?) The Islamic way may be peaceful for the time being in our country until the fanatics move in.

In Australia, and indeed in many countries around the world, many of the most commonly consumed food items have the halal emblem on them.
Just look at the back of some of the most popular chocolate bars, and at other food items in your local supermarket.
Food on aircraft have the halal emblem, just to appease the privileged minority who are now rapidly expanding within the nation’s shores.

In the U.K, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of “no-go” zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon.
Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuse to acknowledge British law.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to th! e only group that counts - the fanatics who threaten our way o! f life.

Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand.

So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and they also continue to send it on - before it's too late. And we are silent......

Tharman’s call on repaying the debt to the pioneering generations

Be grateful, all the successful million dollar salary employees in govt service or in the private sector, the politicians included. What you are enjoying today is made possible by the hard work and labour of the pioneering generations who planted the seed to grow this tree. They paid the price without enjoying much of their labour. Many lived a life of poverty and died alone with little material comfort.

It is time for the successful to repay this debt to the pioneers of this modern and prosperous city. There are many things the Govt can do to acknowledge the contributions of the pioneers who were poorly paid and worked in very harsh conditions to make what is possible today. Their woes were not much different form the foreign workers today. But they were the foundations, the steps, the stones that we trampled on to scale greater heights.

For some of the pioneers, the little savings they have are fast eroding and wiped away by the high inflation and high cost of living. And with the longer lifespan, many will be in serious financial troubles before they call it a day. Many were also victims of the early retirement policies that took them out of the economic equation too early when they could continue to work to pay for another 30 or 40 years of existence. The situation will only get worse if the Govt does not give a helping hand.

Below are some of the things that our millionaire politicians and the huge reserves created from the pioneers can do.

1. Govt should come out with a comprehensive medicare insurance with the govt footing the premiums.
2. Seniors should enjoy free outpatient care in polyclinics
3. Senior ex NS men should be given a pension to compensate for the miserable $90 NS allowance they received in those pioneering days. The womenfolk should not be forgotten.
4. The older PMETs are also from the pioneering generations. All Singaporean PMETs qualified in their respective fields and professions should be given first priority to be employed unless their health fails them. The govt should implement this policy immediately in the ministries, stats boards and GLCs. The private sector may be difficult and undesirable to do so. Foreigners in the ministries, stats boards and GLCs should be released as early as possible and be replaced by citizens unless their skills are indispensable.
5. All NS men must be eligible to buy a HDB flat and not be disqualified by any stupid rulings. It is a stake for them to defend and make their sacrifices meaningful and not empty.

It is good that Tharman and the Govt is toying with this idea, to acknowledge the contributions of the pioneering generations. There is no need to pay more millions to those pioneers already having money oozing out from all their orifices.

Be grateful and thankful.

The DRUMS of War

Many bloggers are still very uncomfortable with Eng Hen’s comment on the internet and the acronym DRUMS, meaning Distortions, Rumours, Untruths, Misinformation and Smears, that can spread far and wide in the internet. As this came closely after the new licensing laws on websites, it is natural for bloggers to feel that both are inter related and a concerted effort by the Govt to curb internet freedom. Some fear that this is like the Govt declaring war on bloggers and netizens.
 
One underlying assumption is that DRUMS could be spread in the internet to undermine the Govt, or aiming at discrediting the Govt, or be simply anti Govt. Another assumption is that this would be the works of Sinkies to a great extent. The other more dangerous and expected part is that DRUMS could come from external sources which would be more direct in many cases, or in disguise and subtle as the works of the Sinkies.
 
Paranoia is raising its head in some quarters. No doubt the internet has been pretty critical of the Govt in many issues recently. Without the internet, such issues would not have been blown up and many would either die a natural death through a wall of silence, or be simply dissipated over time. The internet is making a presence that makes governing that much more difficult than before. Every little hiccup or flaw in govt decisions or policies will be pasted on the internet wall, truth or untruth, half truth or exaggeration, for all to see.
 
This development has made the Govt feeling very uneasy and very uncomfortable. They are unable to adapt or get use to being in the spotlight for all the wrong things. Things will be so much nicer and running the city so much easier without the irritating noises coming from the internet.
 
With this kind of mindset, that the internet is NG or up to no good, and DRUMS could be the latest label of threats to the people and country and any perpetrator of DRUMS is likely to face the music. The internet has in a way been seen as a trouble maker, an enemy of the state, on the other side of the fence unlike the main media. They are more likely to create mischief and chaos that will undermine the Govt.
 
Is that true? Admittedly there have been many unhappy and disgruntled views, very critical and some even hostile to the Govt, posted in the internet. If one is to step back and ask a simple question, why are such views posted and what are the intent of the authors, one cannot miss the fact that they are genuine feedbacks to the Govt and demanding attention. They are not advocating rioting or an uprising to overthrow the Govt. Look at them positively, they are saying that the Govt can and still have time to tackle the issues and problems raised. They are not enemies of the Govt but concerned citizens, or citizens who are badly affected by bad policies.
 
Would the Govt embrace them, take the angry comments seriously and work on it? Or would the Govt simply ignore and dismiss them as nothing worth listening to, that they are voices of the enemies? Taking the first stand could lead to a narrowing of the differences and making policies more acceptable to the people. Taking the latter stand would only divide the people further from the Govt.
 
In a crisis situation, or when the country faces a common threat, it is likely that many critics would rally around the Govt as one people one nation, to deal with the crisis. But if the Govt is to take the critics as enemies from first base, then they will be enemies, real or imagined, or even fabricated or concocted.
 
Many netizens are concerned and responsible citizens. Period. Do not regard them as enemies of the Govt. The people who spoke out, who spent efforts to tell the Govt that things are wrong, or things are going wrong, are people who care for this country and its citizens. They are the real patriots, the unappreciated friends of the Govt but wrongly perceived as threats by the narrow minded and the unenlightened.
 
The sound of the DRUMS can be music but can also be noise depending on who is the drummer and who is the listener. No more branding or tagging please.

Cyber Space : The Wolf And The Lamb

The wolf and the lamb
Updated: 2013-07-29 10:41
By Xu Peixi ( China.org.cn)


The wolf and the lamb
  Face off [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

In Aesop's fable about the wolf and the lamb, the wolf wants to eat the lamb yet does not want to convey an unreasonable or greedy self-image. Keeping this in the back of its head, the wolf invents a series of excuses ranging from "you muddle the water from which I am drinking," to "you insulted me last year" and "you feed on my pasture." Nonetheless, the lamb is able to refute every single one of these accusations. These refutations range from "I cannot be the cause for the water being muddy because it runs down from you to me" to "I have not yet tasted grass." The wolf gobbles up the lamb anyway. The moral of this story? A tyrant will use any excuse to do evil.

To the larger Chinese public, the US-China row over cyber security and whistleblower Edward Snowden seemingly reproduces the narratives contained in the fable.

On the American side, Google accused the Chinese government of accessing "the accounts of dozens of US-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users" and with that left the Chinese market. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned against the risks of investing in "countries with aggressive censorship and surveillance policies." American information security firm Mandiant reported that "140 companies have been hacked … and hacking groups from China were responsible for most of the attacks." American Attorney General Eric Holder announced a plan to "fight the quickly growing threat from cyber spies." National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon was concerned about "cyber intrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale" and warned that "the international community cannot afford to tolerate such activity from any country." Finally then, President Obama pushed the hard ball game to new heights by charging the Chinese government with endorsing espionage activities, and consequently called for US Congress to take action in "protecting people's privacy and civil liberties."

From the Chinese side then, some claimed that the US wolf controlled most of the world's Internet resources and was unreasonable in voicing such allegations against the Chinese lamb. Moreover, China said that China itself was in fact the most vulnerable target and biggest victim of hacking activities emanating from the US Former Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi responded that "the Chinese government opposes hacking activities," "anyone who tries to fabricate or piece together a sensational story to serve their political motives will not be able to blacken the name of others or whitewash oneself," and "what cyber space needs is not war, but rules and cooperation." Newly installed Prime Minster Li Keqiang simply dismissed American accusations as being a "presumption of guilt." Chinese President Xi Jinping called for "conducting good-faith cooperation" as to "remove misgivings and make information security and cyber security a positive area of cooperation between China and the US".


Yet for now, let us be reasonable – even in a post-Snowden era. The abovementioned American accusations are "fair" in the sense that they leave China room to refute. Surely, the Chinese refutations have not been heard by a wider global public since the American commercial media often dominates the global public opinion and redemption has to come within the West. Let us just say it is "fair" for the simple reason that China is able to give an explanation.

As the fable goes, for every excuse the wolf comes up with, the lamb is able to refute the claims and back up its arguments with evidence. However, the American trick – dubbed "21st century statecraft" – has gone far beyond what the wolf in Aesop's fable could ever imagine. Let us here reiterate the rationale used by Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In his efforts to defame Chinese telecommunication companies Huawei/ZTE, he said: "China has the means, opportunities and motives to use telecommunication companies for malicious purposes." This charge implies a future tense that China is unable to rebut. In comparison with Mr. Rogers, the wolf in Aesop's fable is still being quite reasonable.

The dispute over cyber security in the post-Snowden era between the US and China has evolved onto psychological and cosmological levels. The issue of cyber security was discussed by a working group installed under the fifth China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue. To many members of the global public, it appeared China wasted its chance at a full-fledged counterattack. Germany and Brazil, for example, would like to discuss the cyber security matter with the US, but their efforts did not materialize. The reason that China actually was able to do so, stemmed from the fact that the cyber security working group had been approved well before Snowden blew the lid off America's mass Internet surveillance, at the initiative of John Kerry and with the original purpose to shame China. Instead of fighting back, China asked for nothing but an explanation over the Snowden case and even this request was brushed aside. The Chinese philosophy behind this grand retreat is one of "live and let live," with the kind expectation that the US would take the message and back down. Nevertheless, this gesture was completely misinterpreted.

The US mistook China's kindness for cowardice. The reason behind this misinterpretation occurred on a cosmological level. The US adores the zero-sum game mentality, making China's reservations a stimulus for more American attacks. According to Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung, this American cosmological view of objects and people exists in terms of competition and tries to decide "who is best, who is worst, who wins and who loses." After a bizarre period of truce between both countries, running from early June when the first document was revealed through early July when the fifth China-US Economic and Strategic Dialogue started, the US went back to its old disapproving ways. During their so-called truce, China had wanted to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt and did not undertake any counterattack – despite its people learnt Chinese institutions had indeed been systematically hacked into. The US entered stand-off mode, mainly to observe China's reaction to the Snowden scandal. By the fifth China-US E&SD, the US thought it had figured China out and decided to resume its earlier accusations. Following American logic, when China is involved with espionage activity, it is called IPR theft. Whenever America does it, it is for the sake of national security.

If American accusations continue on the same level as before, China may still find it worthwhile to prove its innocence by providing counter evidence. However, politically-motivated American style accusations are bound to grow and self-escalate.

I would say that the abovementioned points to the typical American mentality that once it has gained any advantage over others (with the term "others" often referring to the former Soviet Union, large parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the global South), it would use it against them; it mistakenly assumes China shares this same zero-sum mentality.

The American history is too short for it to realize that if you overstretch yourself, it will come back to you. In other words, the US need to follow the Dao in international relations. China has learned to respect this adage thousands years ago. "Whoever relies on the Dao in governance does not try to force issues or defeat enemies by force of arms because for every force there is a counterforce; violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself" (taken from the "Dao De Jing," 551-479 BC, Para.30).

The American cyber, hot and cold warring mentality has to be dropped. Its propaganda of righteousness to showcase its moral superiority must be halted – unless it fixes its democracy deficit. My earlier analysis of the sudden rise of American accusations of China over cyber security issues were three-fold: to divert world attention over the American domination of Internet resources through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to create a new enemy to stimulate the imagination of the American public and bridge polarized party politics and to keep Chinese businesses out of the US in the name of national security while using its leverage to expand American business in China.

A solution for the aforementioned issues may already be overdue as severe harm has been done. The privacy and commercial secrets of global citizens and companies have been intercepted and/or stolen. There is also the particular element of the ultimate breaking point igniting a global sentiment of anger. American senior officials try to justify their actions to American citizens by saying that these activities are directed against foreign citizens. This kind of phrasing had Germans, Brazilians, Indians and Chinese speechless. The damage is done. However, fixing these problems would indeed make a fundamental difference: preventing the country from falling into fascism. At this time, governments ranging from China to Russia, France to Germany are surprisingly silent – with a few Latin American exceptions. By remaining silent, comes the possibility that many of these governments have become willing partners of hegemony and business interests. If that is the case, we will have to re-define the wolves and the lambs.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://china.org.cn/opinion/xupeixi.htm

Loan sharks strike in Hougang

The loan shark scourge does not seem to go away. They are looking like a permanent feature in this city. Three cars were hit by red paints in the carpark in Hougang Avenue 8. And what more, the attacks on the residents have been going for three months. Can you believe that?
 
Several units of flats have had their doors chained locked and the loan sharks even warned the residents that they would set fire to the flats. The beautiful thing about this kind of incidents is that the residents are innocent and did not borrow money from the loan sharks. They are threatened and harassed as collateral damages to force the intended victim to pay up. How could this be? Or are the loan sharks thinking that the harassment would be frightening and disruptive enough that the innocent residents would cough up money to pay for the one who took loans from the loan sharks?
 
The MP Yeo Guat Kuang has advised the residents to install CCTV on their own or the Town Council will help them to do so. What can the CCTV do to deter the brazen and law defying attacks? Are the residents supposed to protect themselves? Can the residents form a vigilante and attack the loan sharks without being hauled to the police station for assaulting them in an act of self defence? Would the loan sharks counter sue the residents for damages and grievous hurt if they are wounded by the resident vigilante?
 
What is happening?

Al Qaeda threat, 21 US embassies and consulates closed

The Americans have received the most explicit threat of attacks by the Al Qaeda and have closed 21 embassies and consulates in the Middle East region. With the vivid memory of the bombing of the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya, the Americans are not taking any chances. The threat is not only limited to Sunday and will extend through the month of August.

The American law makers are busily trying to second guess what this threat is all about with mounting fears over the safety of Americans and their families in the Middle East and the rest of the world. The danger of this threat is best described by a retired general, “We have to remember that we’re up against an enemy who kills indiscriminately — whether it be women, children, diplomats — and our embassies … have been one of the targets,” Mattis told CNN on Friday. Funny that I thought this is what the Arab and Middle Eastern countries are saying about the Americans bombing them and killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of their olds, women and children. But the Arabs did not know that those innocent civilians killed by the Americans were not seen as victims of American warfare but collateral damages, not lives or living things.

With a whole month of Ramadan, paranoia is hitting the American law makers. It could be anything, it could be anywhere. And the Americans are also self praising their govt and claiming credits for taking such a drastic and comprehensive measure in advance. Whether anything incident occurred as a result of this intelligence, the Al Aqaeda won. They are now in a position to cripple the Americans in a big scale across the world by simply creating a threat which could be a hoax. And they need to make it looked real serious to make the Americans jumpy.

The next threat could be American businesses or anything and the Americans would be made to jump and scurry for cover. And this can go on and on till the American’s guards are down and a real incident could strike that will drive the American bonkers and blaming one another and everyone. The intelligence agencies would be the first scapegoat. They will not blame those in Congress and the White House for starting wars against other people.

The initiative is now in the hands of the Al Qaeda to set the time and place in a war of terror, a war without borders, that the Americans or any country will be ill prepared. They cannot keep closing down their embassies or businesses all over the world whenever the Al Qaeda leaked out an intelligence threat. When would the war mongers learn the lesson that the enemies are now in as good a position to deal a crippling blow to them in places beyond their wildest imagination and at their own time and own target?

It is amazing how warfare has changed and the hunter is now the hunted. The terrorists have found a way to squeeze the American balls and make them jump whenever they like it.

Education - What kind of education are our young getting in schools?

Other than teaching the 3Rs, going to schools to get educated involves a lot of other things. The students are taught to be a wholesome person, to learn some good values, to be honest, caring and responsible persons, and more.

And there are more challenging agendas like telling the children to seize the moment, dare to be different, just do it, to stand up for what one thinks is right, to think critically, to challenge conventional thoughts, to be creative, to be caring, kind, compassionate and to help those who need a helping hand. Actually no, none of these if you know what I mean.

One thing I believe our education system should not teach is to make the students conformist, unthinking, follow the rule blindly, to be just another exact copy of many from a standard mould. The educators must not try to force all the different pegs into a square hole.

Educators are there to inspire the students to find themselves, to be themselves, to find their own ways in life, to light up a spark inside them. Educators must not be there to restrain and enforce stupidity for the sake of stupidity.

Foolish, idiotic and bureaucratic educators have no place in an education system that is preparing the young to meet the challenges of a brave new world that is ever changing in increasing speed. This is the 21^st Century. Why are the youth of Korea so innovative and creative and taking the world by storm? Why are our students still sucking pacifiers, restrained, inhibited, and believing in follow the teachers or follow the leaders, without a mind of their own, dull, lacking in fresh ideas, and fearful of authority, and bullied by narrow minded old matrons or school masters that walked around with a cane on their backs?

No wonder our students are straight As but blank in everything. Did I hear that some girl students were punished for shaving their heads bald to support a cause for cancer patients because getting bald is unacceptable in the school? And did the MOE support the stand of the school or otherwise?

What kind of values are our young taught in schools, or what kind of products is our educational system supposed to produce? Little droids? R2D2 or C3PO?

The USA is what it is today because of a dare devil spirit of crossing the line, to do something when they believe in it and will break away with whatever rules and convention. That is the American free spirit. That is the greatest value of American education. Our education system, though we professed to be the best, to want our children to be innovative, creative and entrepreneurial, but in practice we are turning them into fearful conformists, fearful of authority, fearful of initiative and adventurism. And the authority will kill the fire in them before a little spark can light up.

They should duly all be replaced by the never say die attitude of the foreigners grown up in the wild and a free wheeling spirit to try and take the unbeaten road.

National Geography - A publicity stunt in Raffles Place

A group of actors were hired and dressed up as soldiers of the SAF and formed up in the heart of Raffles Place. The public was encouraged to shout orders to the soldiers to stand at attention or at ease, maybe pusing kanan and pusing kiri as well. Some of the lunch crowd, including aunties, were amused enough to shout their orders at the actor soldiers, and they reacted like robots, drilled to respond to commands.

Some Sinkies find it nothing amusing but insulting and belittling our army boys, the guardians of our security. Below are some comments posted in Yahoo News.

‘In a comment on Yahoo! Singapore’s Facebook page, Renson Seow said that regardless of whether the men were full time NS men or paid actors, what mattered was that the stunt portrayed NS men and the army.
“They were being advertised as automatons, playthings for the command and amusement of civilians, who in fact…owe it to our NS men for their security,” he said.
Another Facebook user, Au Kah Kay commented, “It makes a mockery of NS and trivializes the sacrifices that Singaporean men have to make to defend the country and its people, including foreigners.”
A part-time student, 31-year-old Adrian Poon, whom Yahoo! Singapore spoke to, also felt that the stunt trivialised life in the army.’

I think it will be more hilarious and meaningful if we let the foreigners yell at our actor soldiers and see how they will obey without questioning. Let the foreign maids have a good too, and the construction workers. That could be a reality in the foreseeable future when more foreigners are in charge or join the SAF. Then we will have foreigners ordering Sinkies around like robotic toy soldiers. It will be an eye opener of what things could be in the future to come. Mesti akan datang.

When the truth sinks in. What is the moral of this publicity stunt? Is there one or none?

Why was China erased from Western memory

The remarkable history of Chinese invention - Why was China erased from Western memory? Article by 龙信明

Introduction

Joseph Needham was an English medical doctor and biologist, teaching in England in the 1930s. By an accident of fate he acquired some Chinese students, and was intrigued to hear their claims of so many medical and scientific discoveries having originated in China, rather than in the West.

Needham became fully fluent in Chinese, and eventually moved to China in 1942 to investigate these claims and to research the entire history of Chinese invention. That work led to an astonishing voyage of historical discovery.

Needham originally planned to write a book cataloguing Chinese inventions, but his first volume barely scratched the surface of his subject. He slowly gatherred many of his students into this enterprise, and they eventually wrote a collection of 26 books, to catalog the history of Chinese discovery.

Myth and Misrepresentation

It leaves one speechless to learn the vast extent of things invented by the Chinese many hundreds of years, and often several millennia, before they appeared in the West.

All the myths about China and the Chinese being good at 'memorising and passing exams', but being unable to think independently or to be imaginative and creative, are just that - myths. Those stories were never true, not then and not now.

This isn't a simple matter of gunpowder and fireworks, but encompasses the entire range of human knowledge from endocrinoloy to mathematics, from agriculture to astronomy.

How could such facts have been hidden from the entire Western world for so long? And why were they withheld? Needham made his discoveries in the 1940s, but our Western education has never made reference to them, never acknowledged them.

We Westerners were taught that virtually all inventions and discoveries arose in Europe but, thanks to Joseph Needham, we have clear documentation proving they existed in China often 1,000 or more years before the Europeans copied them.

In all of the above, Needham has published not only old Chinese texts, but photos of old drawings that clearly depict all of these items, from texts that can be accurately dated. These are not wild claims or
supppositions; the evidence is both conclusive and striking, and is there for anyone to examine.

Where has the world been, for so many years? How could all of this have remained hidden? How - and Why - did the West so thoroughly erase China from the world's current historical memory?

China's Former World Position

Eurocentric historians have distorted and ignored China's dominant role in the world economy until about 1800. There exists an enormous amount of empirical data proving China's economic and technological superiority over Western civilization for the better part of several millennia.

Given that China was the world's supreme technological power up to about 1800, it is especially important to emphasize that this is what made the West's emergence possible. It was only by borrowing, copying, and assimilating Chinese innovations and China's much more advanced technology that the West was able to make the transition to modern capitalist and imperialist economies.

Until then, China was the leading trading nation, with long distance trade reaching most of Southern Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Even as late as the early 19th century China's merchants employed 130,000 private transport ships, several times that of Britain, and China had held this pre-eminent position for millennia.

China's innovations in the production of paper, book printing, firearms and tools led to a manufacturing superpower whose goods were transported throughout the world by the most advanced navigational system.

Moreover, banking, a stable paper money economy, excellent manufacturing and high agricultural yields resulted in China 's per capita income surpassing that of Great Britain until the late 1700s.

China's Opening to, and Withdrawal from, the World

From this study of Chinese inventions and discoveries, a theory is developing about the reasons China closed itself off from the world some hundreds of years ago.

It's almost impossible to overstate that a first thought of anyone reviewing all this research would be that the world must have seemed very primitive to China 500 years ago. Here are two noteworthy examples:

Agriculture

China's agriculture and comparative food production was orders of magnitude ahead of the West, and of other countries as well, for more than 1,000 years. Compared to China, the rest of the world must have seemed truly "third world" at the time.

Europe and other nations had difficulty just feeding themselves, while China could produce surplus food in abundance, in spite of having a much greater population.

China had invented the seed drill, sowing in rows, a scientifically-efficent plow that is still in use around the world today, animal harnesses and collars, the winnowing fan, the spinning wheel, and so much more.

China's advances in agriculture were eagerly copied by the Europeans and were the enabling cause of Europe's agricultural revolution that first permitted it to begin feeding itself adequately.

Sailing and Navigation

More than 1,000 years ago, China's sailing ships were far larger than any in the rest of the world. The Chinese invented and deployed multiple masts, luff sails that permitted sailing into the wind.

They invented the rudder, enabling ships to be steered. Chinese ships had watertight compartments, enabling them to complete journeys even when damaged.

The Chinese invented the compass, and had such extensive astronomical knowledge that they could navigate the world by the stars, while Western ships were small, uncontrollable and fragile, and were useless for travelling any distance.

As Needham so strongly pointed out, China was so far ahead of the Western world in sailing and navigation that comparisons are just embarrassing.

China Closes its Doors

When the Chinese conducted their voyages of exploration around the world, with Zhang He and others, they must have been disappointed in what they found.

The rest of the world had no paper or printing, no mathematics, no science, little medicine of note, almost no metallurgy to speak of, a most primitive agriculture, no manufactures of any worthy kind, no porcelain, no spinning wheels or weaving looms to make clothing. No nothing.

From reviewing the history of Chinese invention, one easily develops an increasingly strong feeling the Chinese looked at the world and found nothing they wanted, nothing to interest them, in all those societies that were centuries, and in some cases millennia, behind China in almost every way.

One can easily theorise that this is one of the reasons China closed itself off from the world at that time. In all of China's travels and exploration, it would have been easy to conclude that other parts of
the world were so backward there was nothing to be gained from prolonged contact.

One can imagine they returned home and closed the door, perhaps planning to return in another 500 years to see if things had progressed. With the addition of detail, this is most likely how events transpired.

The Christian West Shows its Appreciation

What China didn't count on, was the West taking all these ideas, turning them into weapons of colonisation and war, and returning to the nation that was the source of that knowledge, and invading it - along with every other nation they could find, to colonise, to steal the resources, to enslave and massacre the populations.

China's interest was always only exploration and trade. The Chinese were never expansionist or warlike, wanting only to protect their own borders from invasion from the North. China was quite unprepared for the violent nature and savage brutality of the Christians who sailed the world with God on their side, invoking His blessing on their countless atrocities.

Coupled with a weak domestic government at the time, and with the inventiveness of the Baghdad Jews in using opium to profit while enslaving a nation for the British Empire, and the greed and savagery of the White-Supremacist British, we have the severe downward swing for 100 or more years.

China's Inventiveness has not ended. It may have only just begun

Now China is finally recovering and once again taking its rightful place in the world.

China is back on track to continue where it left off 200 years ago. Today, China is putting men in space, has built a space station that functions well, and plans to put men on the moon. This is all done without Western technology, since the West won't share.

China is building its own GPS system, again with entirely home-grown technology, and has built a submersible that can descend below 7,000 meters into the sea. Only one other nation can do that, and China didn't get their help.

China leads the world in HSR train technology, and is rapidly developing its own aircraft industry and supersonic missile technology.

China leads the world in the human genome mapping, and is rapidly progressing in a long list of other fields, not only catching up to the West but close to surpassing it.

China's large-scale engineering skills are second to none in the world today. China built a computer that was 150% faster than the fastest in the world - with an entirely Chinese-developed operating system.

China already leads the world in cat-scan technology and in DNA mapping and synthesising, also in many medical fields such as laser eye surgery and cornea transplants.

The only thing that might derail China's rise is the very real danger of the US starting yet another competitive "war of liberation" in blind pursuit of its stated objective of full-scale global dominance.

Only 6 interviews for jobless PMET, 53, since Dec 2011

This is the title of a very depressing post in the TRE that I recommend Hsien Loong and all his ministers to read. And I would recommend that Hsien Loong throw away the National Day Speech he is working on at the moment and write something with the issues raised in this post. The comments following the article by a lkh are cries of despair and hopelessness, and very resentful of the PAP and the govt. And if more and more people are feeling this way, the PAP is a goner comes 2016.

The issue is about the plight of Sinkie PMETs above 45 years old, very qualified, very experienced, used to earn 5 figure salaries, but cannot find employment. To make matter worse, many have growing up children to feed and some may also have mortgages to service. Many were jobless for years and have to downgrade to cheaper homes.

What makes them angrier is that the country has jobs for more than a million foreigners, many of which are less qualified and with a big number with fake qualifications. A govt that cannot provide jobs for qualified professionals who are citizens, who are willing to work, who are able, will not last long, not longer than the next election. The call to ‘Vote Them Out’ is getting louder.

The problem of the PMETs is a very serious one, a clear and present crisis, as every PMET has a family and extended family to get to know of his plight. If the Govt still continues to be yah yah papaya and tiada apa, and refuses to acknowledge and deal with this problem immediately, the end of its rule will come much faster than they think.

With a life expectancy of 80 or 90 years, and with good medical care and good quality of life, many are healthy and can continue to work till their 70s. And many must continue to work as not many have enough savings to retire when their nest eggs are eaten up by high inflation. 50 or 60 is the prime of their lives and they should not be cut off from the job market just like that and be replaced with foreigners.

Is the govt listening? Is Hsien Loong listening? Or would they bother? Do they really think that the people will vote for them again in the next GE while they keep ignoring the people’s jobless problem? Do they think it is ok to send these PMETs to be cleaners and security guards or taxi drivers or whatever part time agents? Is it just a matter of mismatch that their skills and experience could find no takers and they need to be retrained to be cleaners and security guards while the questionable skills and experience of foreigners could find a few hundred thousand jobs here?

Hsien Loong better makes his National Day Speech counts and addresses the unemployment of PMETs now while there is still time to make amends, how to get them decent jobs that befit their qualifications. An easy task is to freeze all ministries, stats boards and GLC hirings of foreigners right away and take in all the Sinkie PMETs immediately. No Sinkie can afford to be unemployed living in this very expensive city.

I urge Hsien Loong and his ministers to read this post in the TRE and the comments again and again personally. Or is it that they are so used to such matters that they are no longer sensitive to them, just treat them like all the patients waiting outside the Emergency units of the hospitals, all equally ill, desperate and needing immediate medical attention. Just let them be. There are better things to do, like bringing in more foreigners to replace the older Sinkies.

The two most important and urgent matter for the govt to deal with are jobs for jobless PMETs and a home for every Singaporean without all the silly disqualification rules. Every Singaporean deserves and is entitled to buy his first flat direct from the govt. This is a social contract the govt owes to the citizens. With the unbearable high cost of private housing, not allowing Sinkies to buy from HDB is as good as telling them to move out, unwanted, Singapore has no place for them.

There is no need to waste the people’s time with a 2 or 3 hour speech that makes the listeners feel good for a moment but not solving the dire problems of the people. A short half an hour speech with concrete measures to make the lives of Sinkies better, get them the jobs and the homes, is more important, useful and welcome than a long and grandiose speech of nothingness.

Singapore will not be another Detroit

Detroit City was one of the richest American city in the 60s and 70s. Ford, GM and Chrysler made it their homes and provided hundreds of thousands of well paying jobs to create a rich middle class of Americans driving ultra big cars and tearing down the highways with petrol costing only a few cents. What a good life.
 
Detroit has just declared bankrupt with a debt of US$18b and unable to pay. I thought this is too small an amount for bankruptcy. Maybe Temasek or GIC should pay for it and buy over the City. The automobile industry was long gone, the houses and factories left vacant to rot. Two main factors contributed to the fall of a one time rich and prosperous city. It happened.
 
The first is high wages. Japan took over and sold cheap Japanese cars to replace the American hunks. Cheaper Japanese labour and even cheaper labours elsewhere just made the American workers not competitive with their high wages.
The second factor was debt. The city incurred huge debt that it could not repay without the big industrial base supporting it. The demand for housing fell when jobs disappeared and the population shifted out. And very likely many homes were just abandoned or disposed off under fire sales.
 
Singapore will never be another Detroit on these two factors alone. We don’t have overpriced Singaporean workers. We only have overpriced govt and this is unlikely to bankrupt the City like Detroit. If there are overpriced workers, and if they are not competitive, they can easily be replaced by cheaper foreign workers all the way to top management level. So Singapore is safe. Not sure about the fate of Singapore workers.
 
As for debt, Singapore has very big debt, among the highest in the world. But the debt is being dissipated by several schemes. Whatever the Govt owes to the people through the CPF saving schemes, a large part has been redeemed through selling exorbitant priced public flats back to the people. And whatever still owed to the people, the minimum sum schemes will ensure that there is very little chance of the need to pay back for at least the next 20 or 30 years. And if the minimum sums can keep spiraling up to a million or two or more, then there is really no need to pay back at all, or at very minimum sum that will be very bearable.
 
The Singapore Govt thus will have no debt despite owing a lot of money to the people through the CPF savings scheme. All the debt is either redeemed or deferred to perpetuity, to till the cow comes home.
 
The only debt is incurred by the people through expensive housing and cars and high medical bills. The state is debt free and will not be another Detroit. The State or City of Singapore will always be rich, with free supply of cheap labour and with the Singaporeans funding the debt through their life savings.

The inhuman monetary consideration and solutions

Money can solve all problems, or many problems. We have nearly solved our corruption problem with money. We can easily solve our traffic congestion with monetary solution. A $6 pass through an ERP gate is going to deter many drivers. A $10 pass will deter even more. A $50 pass will make it very convenient for those who can afford it to use the road as their private road.
 
These kinds of solution and mentality do not take into consideration the human factor, the empathy and compassion on those who need to pass through the gantry come what may and either have to pay painfully or be as good as drop dead.
 
Dropping dead at an ERP gantry may not be a common occurrence when one just cannot afford to pass through. Dropping dead could be a high probability when many simply cannot afford to pay for hospital bills. The latest suggestion of pegging hospital beds to inflation is one such monetary solution with a missing heart. It is an inhuman suggestion. The need for hospitalization cannot be measured in terms of monetary value. To minimize a hospital bed shortage problem by making the beds unaffordable is a very mean solution. Get it?
 
When there is a shortage of beds, why not increase the supply? It will add to cost in building more hospitals or providing more beds. But this provision is not a luxury, not liposuction to look better, not a hairdo, it could be a matter of life and death. The need for hospitalization is a genuine need and has to be provided. When the demand for more basic food is high, should the price be raised to reduce the demand?
 
Reducing the demand for road usage or even housing may not be life threatening, just an inconvenience or a difficult choice for some. Don’t build enough roads or no land to build more roads, don’t build enough housing, would create some pain and frustration. But life goes on. People who cannot afford the housing or cars would check their expectations or look for other cheaper alternatives.
 
Can the sick look for cheaper alternative beds elsewhere other than to cheaper medical practitioners like TCM or self medication or going to the temples or to voodoo doctors? Alternative medicine could do well when expensive conventional medicine is beyond the reach of the poor. At least there are voodoo alternatives available. But when they are so sick and needed to be hospitalized, price them out? Price them out to lower the demand for beds? Though it is an economic problem, a monetary problem, it is still wicked to think in such terms. A commercial decision, a private enterprise, got to think of shareholders’ profit?

Senior’s studio versus single’s 2 rm flats

The latest launch of 2 rm BTO flats for singles came as a pleasant surprise to many singles waiting eagerly for a place to stay and having nightmares watching how the prices have skyrocketed to beyond their reach. Many would not be able to afford to buy even direct from HDB, or be barred from buying because they were singles. Now the latest delivery by Boon Wan, with grants that could make a 2 rm flat going to as low as $16k! This is cheaper than a top of the range bike. Too good to believe, but it is true. It is possible, more real than the $1000 income can afford to buy HDB flat.
 
With such a good price, the seniors would now have a better option, instead of buying 30 year lease studio apartment at $90k each, correct me if I am wrong on this pricing. Now, which will give better value, a 99 year 2 rm flat of 45 sq m or a 30 year studio of 30-45 sq m? The former is priced at $76k before grant and the latter at $90k also without grant. The studio apartments do come with a lot of features to support the life style of the oldies, like grab bars, emergency buttons and better designs to make moving around easier.
 
I am an oldie too. I would definitely go for the 2 rm flat with a 99 year lease. At $76k for 99 years, it works out to be $768 per year, without grant. The studio will cost $3000 per year and unlikely to have any appreciation value as the lease will run out soon.
 
the oldies being short changed? Or let me put it in a positive way, are the singles being given a very good discount?

Japan spreading white lie

In its attempt to show the world that Japan is willing to talk to China and that China is the one that is unwilling, the special adviser to Shinzo Abe, Isao Iljima, has been spreading a lie that he had spoken to Chinese leaders and a summit between Xi Jinping and Abe is on the card. Chinese foreign ministry had rebutted this statement and said that Iljima was in China to discuss about North Korea and nothing to do with any summit of the two leaders.
 
China’s condition for a meeting is that Japan must agree to a dispute on the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands before any talk can commence. Japan seized the islands from China after a war and is now claiming that the islands were inherently Japanese.
 
The importance of the islands is not just about resources and minerals. It is national sovereignty and even if there is nothing there, no country will allow another country to seize its territories by force. China could only lie low if it is still militarily a weak country like in the past. Today, China could overrun Japan if needed and would not be lying down or turning the other cheek anymore. It will want its islands back.
 
The only compromise to this dispute is for both sides to acknowledge there is a dispute but leave it on the back burner. China and Japan both do not need the islands for their economic development for a long time to come and can talk about it in the future when relations are better state. For Japan to push the issue and resorting to underhand tactics and lies like they used to do in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries would not do today. Even the balance of power is tilted towards China and in favour of China. The use of force to settle the issue will be very costly to Japan and a likely defeat given the odds.
 
China is no longer the bankrupt Sick Man of Asia. It is the second super power and will deal a very bloody nose to Japan if force to. Would Japan be tempted to take on China militarily with the abolition of its pacifist constitution and remilitarization of its armed forces as a big military power? The changing of the pacifist constitution is only a matter of time In today’s report, Taro Aso, the Finance Minister has been accused of sowing the idea of changing the constitution secretly like Nazi Germany without the knowledge of the Japanese people and the world. The rightist govt of Abe is on the march towards remilitarization with the support of the US to counter China’s rise.

Hsien Loong’s National Day Speech

Hsien Loong is working hard on his new National Day Speech to the nation. And with the coverage of CNA, the speech is going to be broadcasted over many countries and will have millions of viewers. It is a great PR opportunity to sell the island and how well it is managed.
 
I hope he does not get carried away by the size of the audience and get down to really talk about the problems and challenges facing the people, the unhappiness and the concerns. There are many serious issues that will not go away just by not talking about them. In the past, most of his speeches were devoted to making the people feel good. The effect of such feel good speeches does not last longer than the next TV programme. It would be good if he could address the people’s concern, not what the Govt thinks are the people’s concerns or to say what the Govt thinks are the right things.
 
Would he be telling the people what is the Govt’s position on the 6.9m population and what is the situation now, what is the size of the population and what is the Govt’s intent? There were two public demonstrations against the 6.9m population and the disquiet cannot be ignored. Would he address the problems of locals losing jobs to foreigners, particularly in the PME fields and how the Govt is tackling the fake qualifications and discrimination against Singaporeans by foreigners here? Would he be talking about the housing problems, how many Singaporeans have been left out from public housing schemes by the bad policies of the past and what the Govt is going to do to redeem itself and to ensure that every Singaporean will have a chance to buy a HDB flat, that every male citizen who has served NS and will continue to be in the reserve, has the right to buy a public flat?
 
The problems of public transportation, car ownership and the regular breakdowns of the SMRT, what is the Govt thinking, what it is going to do about them? Higher ERPs and higher COEs are not going to solve these problems if the influx of foreigners continues and the target of 6.9m is still unchanged.
 
The high medical cost, the shortages of hospital beds when we don’t have such problems in the past when the govt was relatively very poor, fewer hospitals and few doctors. The waiting time to see a specialist, to see a medical practitioner, to see a dental surgeon, is now becoming ridiculous. Many would have died or suffered while waiting for their next appointments. Why are there such a big shortage of doctors and hospital beds and what are the solutions when the situation can only get worse with more immigrants coming in?
 
There are so many problems and so many things to answer. Can Hsien Loong address the problems and let the people know what the Govt will be doing, a change from the past when he painted almost an utopia, of happy and prosperous people in a vibrant and rich city and everyone hoping to live happily ever after?

Single BTO flat at $16K!

Where on earth can one buy a 2 rm flat for $16k? Surely not in Singapore when housing prices are hitting the roof. A small 3 rm govt built flat in the city could cost $400k or more in the resale market. But it is true. This is the latest govt offer to singles at a net price of $16k for a 2 rm BTO flat.
 
Now for the details. A 2 rm BTO flat is priced at $76k, how to get it at $16k? There is a govt grant of $30k for an applicant whose income is less than $750 or is it $1125 pm. And if there is a joint application by two equally low income applicants, each will get a $30k grant or $60k in full. There you are, $76k less $60k equals $16k.
 
Now who are the people earning less than $750/$1125? If I am not mistaken, most cleaners and dishwashers in the hawker centres are also earning more than this, probably $800 or $900. I can only think of those who are self employed like some remisiers or part time insurance or housing agents who make a sale once a year.
 
Oh, I think there is another category of self employed that may qualify to buy, the tin can or cardboard collectors or karung guni collectors, not the karung guni bosses. The latter are likely to be millionaires driving Mercedes around. Oh dear, I heard some were saying that the new karung guni collectors are new citizens or PRs. Hopefully not so. Could they be considered as talents with this kind of skills?
 
Can people who earn less than $2000 resign and apply as unemployed? Or could they get a temporary job and ask to be paid less than $750/$1125 to qualify for the $30k grant? Can right?

Notion of aggression not defined – Shinzo Abe

When Abe was asked the question of Japan’s aggression in Korea, China and the rest of South East Asia in the Second World War, his reply was that ‘the notion of aggression was not defined’. What he meant must be that while the countries invaded was screaming aggression, just like a sexually violated victim shouting rape, the Japanese do not see it that way. To him, it was not aggression, but probably liberation. They were liberating the colonized countries to free them so that Japan can rule over them under the East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere. So where got aggression? It is for the mutual benefit and prosperity of Japan and all the countries they invaded.
 
How many Asian countries would believe this man? Can this man and Japan be trusted to revive its military and aggressive past as a military power? Abe is now visiting some of the countries that were victims of Japanese aggression which he did not agree and offering another version of the East Asian Co Prosperity formula. Japan is going to be the same old Imperial power to lead these countries under Japan. Japan is going tear away its pacifist constitution, rearmed like it used to be, a military power, and to be the leader of Asian countries once again.
 
It is increasing its military budget, acquiring more arms, involved in military adventures, offering to help the Philippines fight against China. It is behaving aggressively and provoking China and Korea and still making devious moves to continue to stake claims to the territories of Korea and China.
 
Would Asian countries be stupid enough to buy this Japanese lie that the remilitarization of Japan is for peace and for the good of Asia? Have these countries forgotten what a beast Japan was and could be again when it becomes an aggressive military power once again? Can Abe and Japan be trusted?