The arrogance of Japanese militarism

What is happening at the Diaoyu/Senkaku Island dispute is a glaring example of the arrogance of Japanese militarism and how atrocious they could be when they are in a position of military superiority. After seizing several islands from China with Unequal Treaties signed after defeating China in a war, including Diaoyu and Taiwan, the cocky Japanese are today chanting the position that Diaoyu was theirs historically. They totally ignore the ownership of the island by China many centuries back. And they are doing it today when China is the second superpower that has the ability to flatten Tokyo and all the major cities in Japan.

This kind of arrogance is a reminder of how wild and abusive the Japanese was in the 19th and 20th centuries when it was the dominant East Asian power and China the Beggar of the Asia, poor and weak. In those days, the Japanese created many incidents, like what the Americans are doing around the world today, to provoke a fight and to bash a poorly armed Chinese military. And this would be followed by a long list of outrageous demands and compensation, best remembered by the 21 Demands of the days of Unequal Treaties.

Today the Japanese under the right wing militant Nationalist Shintaro Ishihara, after provoking the recent rioting against Japan, are again trying his Act II. This time he is advocating building infrastructure on the Diaoyu Island.

China must learn its lesson on how to deal with the Japanese. Only military might could make the deceitful and militant Japanese come to the negotiating table to return the islands taken from China in the past. China must make its stand very clear, that any further provocation or attempts by any Japanese to land on the islands or to build any infrastructure will be an act of war. There is no point fearing the Americans as that is what they intend to do and are behind every move the Japanese are making. It would be a war of mutual destruction and if the Americans and the Japanese so desire, let it be. China cannot act on a position of weakness and fear of war. China must take the bull by the horn and play this chicken game and not to blink.

The time has come when the Americans and the Japanese bullying of China must come to an end, if in a wasteful war. The Japanese must know that there will be no major Japanese city standing. Likewise there will be no American and Chinese city standing. Fearing this scenario will provide more reasons for more American and Japanese provocations and infringement of Chinese territories and interests.

While the Chinese are standing up to the bullying, they might as well include their claims on the Liu Chiu or Ryukyu Islands. Since there is gonna be a fight, make it more worthy and recover every island taken from China historically.

Is a massive market crash imminent?

‘In the financial world, the month of October is synonymous with stock market crashes. So will a massive stock market crash happen this year? You never know. The truth is that our financial system is even more vulnerable than it was back in 2008, and financial experts such as Doug Short, Peter Schiff, Robert Wiedemer and Harry Dent are all warning that the next crash is rapidly approaching. We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world and Wall Street has been transformed into a giant casino that is based on a massive web of debt, risk and leverage. When that web breaks we are going to see a stock market crash that is going to make 2008 look like a Sunday picnic.

Yes, the Federal Reserve has tried to prevent any problems from erupting in the financial markets by initiating another round of quantitative easing, but 40 billion dollars a month will not be nearly enough to stop the massive collapse that is coming. This will be explained in detail toward the end of the article. Hopefully we will get through October (and the rest of this year) without seeing a stock market collapse, but without a doubt one is coming at some point. Those on the wrong end of the coming crash are going to be absolutely wiped out....’

The above is posted in yolohub.com. Many financial experts are telling of the great danger of the stock market and financial system heading towards a big crash. And all because all the regulators and govts could not do anything to restrain the banks and funds from gambling and turning the whole financial system into a big casino.

Everyone with some knowledge knows how bad the situation is. What should they do about it? Some say, since nothing can be done, just join the fun and wait for the crash. Why is it that no govt is willing to say this is not the way to go, and decides to stay out. Keep clear from the danger and things they don’t understand.

Is there really no option, that govts can only watch and wait for the big collapse and nothing can be done? The least a govt can do is to stop getting dragged into the trap. Don’t participate. The worst thing is to go along, put in the chips as well and engaged the rogue gamblers to design the same system to be part of the dangerous system.

Then say, no choice, must follow the crowd and the rogue gamblers and let them do what they want. Such defeatist attitude is unimaginable. Holy cow, what is happening?

Do we need a lynching party?

Many police reports were made by the public against people, some times kids, making racist or anti religious remarks in the internet or facebook. Though all racist and anti religious remarks are not acceptable and cannot be condoned, is there really a need to make a police report? In many instances the comments were made in the heat of the moment or at a thoughtless moment by someone who could not understand the seriousness of the remarks or the consequences that could follow. Many would not have done so if they knew what they were doing. Not many, not even one in all the reported cases, was there a recalcitrant who had the intent to stir racial or religious hatred.

It is right to put such people into their proper place and telling them what they did was wrong. And if they need to be punished, let it be. Making police reports often is only aggravating a bad situation that is unnecessary. The last thing is to treat making police reports callously, like people making calls for ambulance service for the slightest reason. Making police reports is not like going for a pee. It must be a serious matter that needs the police attention.

The police must not be exploited by anyone for personal attention or to serve their personal agenda, or to use the police to whack another person. People who think they can misuse or abuse the police, to set the agenda and make the police to run around like bull arse flies, need to think again. First, the police have many serious matters to deal with. Two, the police would not react every time a public make a police report.

For those who are passionate and feel that people making racist remarks in the internet must be hanged, I would suggest that they form a lynching party if that is what they think should be done to appease their anger. I think there are many such righteous and upright fighters for justice, for fair play, for teaching the bad boys or girls a lesson they would not forget. And they want them to be whacked badly.

No one is going to stop them from forming their own lynching party. But don’t expect the police to do the lynching for them. The police would unlikely have the resources to answer to every report made and to conduct an investigation.

But after reading today’s ST, in the front page, the police has already launched an investigation into the Amy Cheong police report. So I take back whatever I said about police not having the resources and people should not suka suka make police reports. Our efficient police will investigate into their reports if this case is an example of the standard of our police force.

By the way, the outbursts by some netizens and bloggers could be a manifestation of the problems of overcrowding and strains in our compact living environment. Feel the pulse of the people and understand the real cause of the problem instead of attacking individuals. The symptoms of a people under stress are all there but the people that matter are blind to them and stubbornly persisting with their agenda of increasing the population to even bigger numbers.

The age of Scams

Why are consumers being scammed by the insurers and no authority bothers to do anything about it? Why are the workshops continuing to scam the insurers who in turn pass the buck to the car owners? Really, that there is no way to curb the scam, like loan shark harassments?

Scamming and cheating the consumers seem to be fair game as there are profits to be made, depending on which side one is on. Even in the internet, spamming, Nigerian scams and spreading viruses are allowed with eyes wide opened, encouraged, as it means big businesses to the software developers.

There is no moral or ethics to talk about when making money is concerned. As long as there is money to be made, the scams will continue, the spammings and the development and spreading of viruses will be part and parcel of internet biz. Only the poor consumers ended as suckers, paying for the irritations, harrassments and the damages.

This is the real world. How many of the less enlightened, computer illiterate, and the poor, have to end up forking up money to clean up the virus infecting their computers? How many people would fall victims to Nigerian scams? How many people will have to live with the spamming and abuses or invasion of privacy to their internet accounts because no one deems it necessary to stop the nonsense?

This is exactly like the American weapons industry. The industry thrives on warfare and they will get the American govts to continue to incite and start wars to feed the industry. The poor buggers will be the American boys and girls coming home in black plastic bags or live a life as invalids on wheelchairs, and the collateral damages, the innocent victims of the targeted countries and the ruins of their countries and lives of their citizens.

Scams are good for biz.

What we need to feed the bananas?

The issue of ethnic and religious practices is getting more annoying to some Sinkies. The huge population and crammed up environment, living so closely with each other, undoubtedly, have added pressure to mutual tolerance. When there were lesser of us, when there were more living space, when such practices were relatively less frequent as the number of people were smaller, things were much manageable.

Now the crazy thought of 6m, without thinking how the sardine packed environment is going to turn every average tolerant Sinkies into a monster in an instant is not funny. People who lived in 30,000 sq ft houses, who are being chauffeured around in comfort, can NEVER understand what it is like to be cooked in such a pressurised environment and would merrily go around spouting nonsense that 6m or 10m is no issue. We have the technology to build more houses and be creative in space management. To me they are just asses that only use their own comfortable lifestyle as a reference point. The masses can be squeezed and moulded to any shape and size for all matters. It does not affect them.

What has bananas got to do with multi racial religious and cultural activities? Bananas’ lifestyle is highly dependent on the media hype. The media says go and jump into the Singapore River in your evening dress at 12 midnight and they will do it. Go and scream at Block 108 at 3am in the morning, they will go and think it is fun. Go to the next field or park and bang the dustbins for an hour to create a record in the Guinness Book, they will do it. It is hip, fun, cool and spectacular.

Ethnic celebrations and ceremonies? Yak, so uncool, so backward, so noisy, dirty, smelly. Bananas cannot appreciate their own cultures or anything Asian except something that I don’t think much about, a bastardised culture called Peranakan. This is the only hip thing that they adored and craved about.

But there is hope. All the govt needs to do is to invite a few westerners to say a few good things about our ethnic diversities, cultural practices and ceremonies. Film the angmohs having a good time at a void deck wedding, at a seventh moon ghost festival, at a Thaipusam procession, and let them comment how excited and exciting these events were. I bet the bananas would turn up in droves, with the reporters, to report on these events as something new and fantastic that they never know were so interesting, something so cool and they want to be a part of them. A little PR using the media, and using the westerners, and the western lenses will do the trick.

Then all our ancient and antiquated cultural and religious practices would be in vogue, cool. Otherwise they will be viewed as disgusting, tasteless, offensive and waste of time and money.

The govt, Tourism Board, Media Corp, can do their part. And yes, you need to spend money using angmoh PR firms and angmoh models if you want it to be successful, to change the taste of bananas. Don’t use MPs or ministers.