ge round 27: cordial and friendly competition

Saw a brief moment when Hsienloong was on tv when he met a delegation of the opposition at a food court. Both exchanged greetings, big smiles and handshakes and a little loose chat. If only such friendliness can be maintained during the election without anyone going after the jugular. Competing candidates should treat each other with respect and civility and challenge each other on issues and programmes and not hitting under the belt. They should remain on friendly terms during and after the election campaign. Then we can say our political system is maturing, and politicians also maturing. Hooliganism and gangsterism must not surface during the campaigning for the good of future Singapore.

world's 2nd most peaceloving nation: north korea

North Korea has emerged as the world's second most peace loving nation after the USA. This is in accordance to the new definition for peace loving and friendly nation that the world is now led to believe in. The USA is the number one peace loving nation. And to qualify to be peace loving, the country must threaten to invade another nation, or even invade another country, or threaten to launch pre emptive strike against another nation. The USA has done all that. Invaded Iraq, fighting in Afganistan, threatening to launch an attack against Iran, threatening to launch a pre emptive strike against North Korea. And yesterday North Korea did just that. It threatens to launch a pre emptive strike against the USA and will not sit idly by to wait for the USA to strike first. It also has the capability, though not able to launch so many ICBMs, to attack the US. For once the most friendly and peace loving nation is being threatened by the second most friendly and peace loving nation with a pre emptive strike. Now we will see how the US reacts to such a threat.

general election: engaging issues

Technically and legally if the MDA said that any blog or forum talks politics must register with them, then we have to register. And technically this applies to blogs/forums by Singaporeans or non Singaporeans. Only difference is whether they are able to enforce them when non citizens are concerned. For Singaporeans, this is our law and they can throw the book at us. It is up to them whether to do it or not. What is interesting and I would like to quote Hsienloong's statement over the weekend: "But when we have Opposition parties which avoid the issues, which refuse to answer questions, which publish a manifesto and...(which) say, well, the manifesto speaks for itself - and refuse to explain, defend, elaborate and persuade - then I think it's a very strange sort of competition," Let me substitute the above with a few words and hopefully Balaji reads it. I saw him together with Hsienloong when the above was mentioned. "But when we have Government which avoid the issues, which refuse to answer questions, which publish a regulation and...(which) say, well, the regulation speaks for itself - and refuse to explain, defend, elaborate and persuade - then I think it's a very strange sort of government, Ever since Balaji came out with his regulation on controlling free speech in blogs and forums, he has been very reticent about it, without any further explanation though many people are asking for clarifications. Maybe grassroot or peasants are too unimportant for him to reply. There is no need to engage grassroot in any discussion.

invitation to all bloggers and forumers

i know many of you have very interesting views and ways of expressing them. i have set up www.redbeanforum.com so that you can all share your views with other well meaning and concerned singaporeans. you are all invited to post there as a blog is a bit restrictive and limited. remember, you are all welcome. use it as an opportunity to share your ways of looking at things and sharpen your journalistic skills in the cyberworld. this is a new frontier and we are the pioneers in this area. we need to beat a path for others to follow suit. regards.

Thai mob dictating to their king

The mob democracy in Thailand is just going too far and is irritating the powers and even the King. They have abused the power of democracy to throw out a popularly elected prime minister. And now they are demanding his exile from Thailand, to ensure that he has no more influence on Thai politics. Is this too much to ask for? To force a Thai citizen out of Thailand? And now they are even telling their revered king what to do. This is how power corrupts and got crazy in the heads of crazy people. They did not know how much damages they have done to the Thai economy, Thai tourism and trade and investment. And the military is losing its patience on a mob that has gone crazy with power. Would they demand the removal of the king if the king turns down their request to appoint an undemocratically elected prime minister?