War Dead Medal Tally

What I would like to see is for Asian media to maintain a War Dead Medal Tally similar to the Olympic or Commonwealth Medal Tally to be viewed by their audience daily during news presentation. In this case instead of Gold, Silver and Bronze, the count will be war dead by nationals, those killed in the ensuing wars in Asia. The Tally Board shall read for example, Iraqi 1200 Afghan 800 Pakistan 600 Palestinian 500 Israeli 100 American 300 English 150 German 30 French 20 Australian 10 Such a Tally Board not only serves the purpose of tracking the number of war dead, it also gives a clear picture of the people that have been sacrificed in the name of country and nation or as war collateral. It also helps to remind the politicians who support and promote the wars to know the number of lives they have killed. For the moment I think only the Americans and the Europeans are interested or care about the lives of their citizens killed in wars. The rest don’t matter. Or is it? I am sure the rest of the countries too value the lives of their citizens and those killed in wars, directly or indirectly. The statistics should not be difficult to obtain as every country involved will have their reporters reporting in the war zones. Not only that the media will be doing its duty to report and tell the pain and sufferings of wars, it will also remind people that as long as wars are not stopped, people are being killed daily. By not reporting them, by not knowing the numbers, no one feels guilty, no one can relate the horrors and grief of the victims of wars. I really hope some Asian media will take up this proposal as the Western media do not think it as their responsibility to do so, nor would they want to tell the evil side of the story of wars started by their trigger happy Presidents/Prime Ministers. Al Jazeeera and Channel News Asia are suitable candidates to take on this task to educate the people on wars, and indirectly to stop proliferating wars. Countries waging wars should also know that the world is watching at their evil and wicked deeds. It is a duty to humanity to tell the story of wars and war dead to keep people from thinking that war is only a movie.

Pressing all the right buttons

Mah Bow Tan was very impressive in Parliament yesterday. He was pressing all the right buttons and saying all the right things. I like the word prudence, the need for prudence in buying properties. I like to hear him going after those overseas properties, though I don't agree with him. I like what he said about more calibrated measures to control property prices. Though prices will not fall, they will not go up as much as 5% per quarter, only 3%, giving an annual increase of 12%. Not bad for property appreciation. Still got chance to hit $1m for HDB flats. The Ministry of National Development is doing a great job in managing the housing problem. Soon there will be no housing problems to talk about. Or maybe someone will say you cannot expect to have zero problems. But just don't create more problems to be solved by brilliant remedies.

Is China trigger happy?

According to Paul Krugman, Professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, China is. He referred to the recent Diaoyutai Incident when the Japanese Navy arrested a Chinese fishing boat captain and China's withholding the sale of rare earth to Japan and made this comment. '...the incident shows a Chinese govt that is dangerously trigger happy, willing to wage economic warfare on the slightest provocation.' What is the US doing in pressuring China to revalue the Yuan? Not trigger happy, just an American right to do so? What about the calls for trade sanctions, branding China a currency manipulator when the US is the real currency manipulator, printing more and more money and depreciating its own currency? But wait, let's talk about trigger happy? What was the reason for the invasion of Iraq? In this case, real bullets were fired. No, not real bullets, bombs, all kinds of bombs were thrown into Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. No this is not trigger happy to the Americans. What about Pakistan and Afghanistan? Oh, the Americans are using water pistols to shoot at their enemies. So the Americans are not trigger happy. They only squeeze water at their enemies. This is the American hypocrisy! They can be trigger happy but point the fingers at other people. Has China fire a single bullet? But he is only talking about economic warfare, firing economic guns. Which country has been enforcing economic sanctions on other countries on its own terms? China has been the victims of all kinds of economic sanctions from the Americans even till today. No need to mention North Korea, the Middle Eastern countries and all countries branded as enemies of the US. The US is not trigger happy. China is, according to Paul Krugman and most of the Americans who can speak and write. And they all believe in this hypocrisy as the American and western truth.

The relevance of copyrights and internet domain names

Just a hypothetical question. Supposing someone could register a domain name like MacDonald.com.sg, and MacDonald writes a polite letter to ask him not to use it, change it, does he need to comply? This is only a hypothetical situation. It can apply to any domain name. Or would MacDonald call the owner of such a domain name and negotiate to buy it over as a business transaction? If I am not mistaken, the trademark of MacDonald, or any other brand name, is a different matter from a domain name. And every country can have their own MacDonald.com.xx. So MacDonald would either have to register it first or have to buy it over from the first registered owner? Anyone can fill in on this?

Myth 224 - Our land is limited! Property prices must go up!

Everyone is spouting this nonsense daily as if it is a gospel truth. There is limited land, we are land scarce, so property prices can only go up. The supply will never meet the demands. Here is the fallacy or root of this fallacy. Who says we don’t have enough land? Or why is there not enough land? Land was plentiful at one time. The migrants just go around and build their little attap or zinc roof houses anywhere, on any piece of empty land they could find. Our population then was a few hundred thousand and increasing gradually. At 2 million or 3 million, land is not an issue. It is when we keep piling up the numbers, inviting more and more people here that land become scarce. We create our own problem. We make our land scarce. We will have plenty of land once more if people start to run away from this land. Or we can stop the inflow and reduce the population. But economic laws and principles will be against any reduction. It means recession and depression. No growth is bad. So we must have growth and growth and growth. This unending growth is good for us. Same as for the whole world. Keep producing more people and more people. Go forth and multiply. Where will it end if growth is unceasing, unending? Is our limited land a myth or a conjure reality? We have changed from land abundance to land scarce. That is clever from the economics of growth. If Australia will to blindly follow this economic principle of growth, it too will run out of land in a matter of time. The whole world will run out of land. But it does not have to. The pain is self inflicted. We don't have to go down this road. It's final destiny is self destruct. We need to know our limitations and stop while we can. So is the world. Population growth, economic growth, high consumption, high destruction to environment, depletion of resources and food supply, climate warming etc etc etc. All for incessant growth.