Not good enough for Singapore, good enough for HK

NUS Professor Michael Hor Yew Meng has been appointed the law dean of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), but not good enough for NUS. Actually hor, he was good enough until a more brilliant and able foreigner came along in the name of Simon Chesterman
 
‘HKU vice-chancellor Professor Tsui Lap-chee described Prof Hor as an “inspiring and passionate teacher”. Prof Hor was selected after two rounds of a worldwide search by HKU.’ This means that Prof Hor was competing with the best in the world and found to be the best candidate.
 
In 2009 Professor Michael Hor and Professor John Phillips from King’s College London were the two shortlisted candidate to take over from Professor Tan Cheng Han. Then came a Ginny comes lately, and sorry hor, this Ginny leapfrogged over the two candidates to be the law dean of NUS.
 
Singapore has this disease of not able to find good talents among Sinkies, or somehow Sinkies are not good enough and angmohs or foreigners are always better even from the Third World, like an impressional dumb kid that has yet to grow up. Anything foreigner is good. See a foreigner goes gaga.
 
So hor, Michael Hor has to become a foreign talent in HongKong. They said the prophet is never appreciated in his home town. My bet is that the next PM will be a foreigner as well. They will not be able to find a Sinkie good enough for the job.

The Laws of ADIZ

After the confrontation and defiance by the US against China’s ADIZ, the American State Department has issued a directive advising all American commercial flights to heed the rules of the air zone. It also quickly clarified that this did not amount to a recognition of the ADIZ and ‘Our expectation of operations by US carriers…does not indicate US government acceptance of China’s requirements for operating in the newly declared ADIZ.’

This may not be an exceptional ruling applicable only to Americans or is it an international law governing ADIZ, but it could set the norms for every country to follow. It simply said that commercial flights have to follow but military flights don’t have to. Or maybe it is saying only American military flights can fly into other countries ADIZ and need not follow their rules. This is the privilege of the Empire or the gangster, depending on how one looks at it.

Is this American Imperial decree applicable on a reciprocal basis, that other countries’ military aircraft can also fly into American ADIZ without heeding their rules? At the moment not many countries can fly their military aircraft into American ADIZs or have no reasons to do so. Perhaps the Russians and the Chinese may want to put this to a test, that it applies both ways, you can come and go like the Americans.

Would the Americans scramble their fighters to intercept the visitors and wave to say hello, or would they take offensive measures like shooting them down? If the Americans were to shoot down alien aircraft in their ADIZs, then Russia and China could do the same. The rules have to be equitable and apply to all nations that are seen as equals in the UN Charter, big or small. No?

But the Empire may have its own laws that are above the UN Charter. In that case, China would have to decide if it is able to take down American military aircraft in its ADIZ and risk an open war with the Empire. If it is not able to, it would have to buy for more time before the playing field is level.

The Empire will have the last word. What is right and free to do for the Empire is not right and free to do for those that are enemies of the Empire. When would the Russians and Chinese put this Empire decree to a litmus test?

Qian Xue Sen - Father of American and Chinese rocketry

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/34728219/e%20HD1280eeae%20Hsue-shen%20Tsien%20i2012i.avi

This is the link to a video on the life of this Chinese patriot who left a life of luxury and fame in the USA to return to Communist China and founded the Chinese missile and space programme. He was the professor in Caltech and was head of the American jet propulsion and rocketry programme, and others in the Navy, Air Force and Army.

There can be no sacrifice more than this man and his family and his friends who chose to return to their motherland, a poor communist country, and made a difference in the lives of more than 1b people.

The video is recommended for the bananas to know what dignity is all about. Not the kind that comes with a high pay. Anyway that is not dignity but foolishness.

A Sunday Sermon on hypocrisy

‘Pope Francis gave a stirring denouncement of "the idolatry of money" and wealth inequality in a statement that should be heeded by people of all religions and atheists alike. There is a desperate need to address the unjust economic structures now in place.

Pope Francis was absolutely correct in calling the workings of the prevailing global economic system "sacrilised", but this is a point rarely made by people with real influence.’

I received this comment in an email referring to the Pope’s speech reported in the Bangkok Post. The idolatory of money is as good as idolising Satan. When people carry Satan on their shoulders and worship him as their God, what is right or wrong takes on a different meaning. This is best reflected in the media articles on corporate honchos talking about ethical business practices and good corporate governance. These are the idolators of money and making money is right, the means is not an issue.

The biggest hypocrites are those in the big banks, and financial institutions, when they sold derivatives and traded against their clients. Some even resorted to stealing clients from their staff by unfair deals, undercutting, just to make money. When confronted, they would say they did not know. Several big banks like Stanchart, Citi, Goldman Sach and many others have been made to pay huge fines and they willingly paid through diluting the shareholders’ equities. The culprits authorising all the gamings and fraudulent schemes are still there sitting at the top designing more scams to cheat their clients.

The whole stock exchange in New York is a scam. The NYSE management needs to be put behind bars for creating a system that cheats the innocent investors. They redesigned the systems to facilitate computer trading and HFT to cheat the rest of the investors with no qualms and concerns for fair trading practices. Cheating is good and not a crime. The American law makers are not fools that could not see the crime right before them. But many are paid to look the other way. And the top dogs could go on talking about good corporate governance and ethical business practices like angels.

The best part, the authorities that are supposed to check on them idolise them as the talented that could bring in the money. No one wants to know the meaning of cheating. They said, the fish rots from the head. How true.

Would anyone heed what Pope Francis said about idolatory of money and addressing the unjust economic structures?  I only hear laughters. When a corporate honcho talks about ethics and honesty, it is better to listen to a pimp.

China and the US – A Tangential Warfare

China and the US are at war in the most unusual and the most inconceivable kind. Both know that they are at war, in a very intense competition for power and influence but heading tangentially away to avoid a direct confrontation. Both are fighting without meeting and definitely not in the conventional battle field. No face off yet. This came too close last week when the Americans flew their B52s heading directly into China and came within firing range of both parties, one to launch its cruise missiles and the other to fire its SAMs.

The Americans are gearing up for a war that they are most confident to win, with their massive fire power, technology and military hardware. They are preparing for a showdown. The pivot to Asia has just begun and the first few pieces of pawns have been moved. More and more American hardware and personnel would be deployed to the Western Pacific. The latest aircraft carriers and sophisticated aircraft in service and those still on the drawing board are all earmarked and bound for the region.

The Americans are preparing for a swift and abominable war of decimation and destruction in a scale never seen before. The shock and awe strategy of the Iraq War was too miniscule in every aspect compares to what the Americans are planning.

The Chinese are also planning. Actually this is inaccurate. The Chinese have started the war many years back. The Chinese have been moving their pieces to all corners of the world, without moving a single soldier. They are sending their warriors in suits and ties to every country that is willing to trade with China. They are acquiring assets, commodities, resources and American dollars everywhere with the Americans the bigger losers. The Americans thought otherwise, that they could wipe out the debt either by printing away or by an open conflict.

The Chinese are gearing up militarily but in defensive mode. It is cheaper and more sustainable in many ways in the long run. They only need to defend and it would take an offensive force many times more powerful, and resources to dislodge the defensive force. The Chinese only need to hold out, avoid a military conflict for as long as they could. Everyday of peace or no war, the Chinese are winning on the economic front. Everyday of no conflict, the Americans are spending and consuming their dwindling resources on the soldiers, equipments and bases. There is no way for the Americans to maintain such a huge military force in peace time. The attrition rate will mount on the Americans and pile up their financial debt to bankrupt their economy. It is a very expensive game that the Americans are playing. It is all cost. To the Chinese, the cost is relatively low and they are amassing wealth on the economic front. They can go on and on, getting richer and richer, and militarily stronger, without fighting. The Americans will sink deeper and deeper into debt to maintain the huge military build up for a war that the Chinese would not engage.

The Chinese are on the offensive in the economic front while holing up in a defensive stance on the military front. The Americans are on the defensive in the economic front and draining their finances and in a waiting game on the military front. The soldiers and the equipments are ready for war, waiting for war. As long as the military front is not open it is at best a seige. In the economic front, it is a different picture, with the Chinese on the offensive and ambushing the Americans and cutting them off in every battle field and war zone.

It is a long war of attrition aiming at the pockets of the Americans. It is a war of accumulating wealth and resources to the Chinese. While the Americans get poorer with their huge expenditure on their military, the Chinese are getting richer and a supporting a smaller budget defensive force that is on home ground and keeping cost to the minimum.

The Chinese are fighting a protracted war with no end date, an adaptation of guerilla warfare in the world stage. The Americans are waiting to fight a war that has no start date. Militarily it is all posturing and preparation, with no open conflict, no declared hostility. Economically there is also no declaration of war but there is a war in full swing. There is a tangential war but with no military engagement. The Chinese are playing Wei Qi or Go while the Americans are playing Checkers.