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.

An ingenius way to collect donations

Donating to a charity or a charitable home cannot be more easy than just tapping an EZ card on a reader. Every tap will only lead to a deduction of $1 from the card. This is a very convenient way of donating without being pestered by little boys and girls with their tin cans or donation cards. Just simply tap the card when one feels like it.

This is an initiative of the Community Chest and the posters with the readers are already up in 5 MRT stations. In the ST today there is a beautiful photo of several young primary school children tapping on the reader to make their donations. And the children are very happy doing their part for charity. It is always good to start young, to make the children think about caring for the less unfortunate. What a way to go.

I remember a story of a young school boy who hailed a cab and after being dropped off, told the uncle driving the taxi to keep the change. The uncle told the boy it was good to be generous but to wait till he earned his own money before trying to be generous and spending his parent’s money so happily and so easily. Children may not know how difficult it was to earn a few dollars and what a few dollars could mean to those lower income people. Exceptions if the children have parents who are ministers or tycoons.

Children are very innocent. Tell them to do good and they will happily obliged. Tap the reader, they will. How many of them understand how hard it is for their parents to earn a few dollars more to load into their EZ cards? How many of them know that the few dollars in their EZ cards could be squeezed out by their parents missing a meal? How many of them know that the $1 in the EZ card was the last dollar in the card and their parents would have a hard time trying to top up the cards?

There are laws against the young buying cigarettes or liquor or betting in the Singapore Pool outlets. There should be laws against little innocent children donating without the consent of the adults or being accompanied by their parents.

It is a good cause to donate. I think it is necessary to spare the children who still do not know what they are doing and donating the hard earned money of their parents who are struggling to make ends meet. For those parents who are earning millions or hundreds of thousands, it is damn fun tapping and tapping and tapping at the card readers. The Community Chest may want to organise a contest to see who can tap the most times in a minute or an hour or who can tap continuously for the longest number of hours non stop and stood to win a prize, like a car donated by a car dealer.

I think that would be nice. But keep the children out unless with parental consent.