Secession - Taiwan has a choice

 Texas and California are talking about seceding or breaking away from the United States of America. Why not? Every state has a right to break away, and Taiwan can also do so. The only question is whether they have the means to do so. Texas and California have a choice, Taiwan also has a choice.

The thing is that the process of breaking away from the motherland is not like talking cock or cocktail party gossip. It involves a lot of heartbreaking and soul stealing effort. The good thing is that Taiwan is fortunate to have a slow motion movie now playing in Europe, in Ukraine telling them what to expect. Yes, every state can wish for everything. The trick is how to execute it, and how much would it cost.

Ukraine is paying the price with billions of dollars on weapons and bullets and hundreds of thousands of lives and people wounded, its citizens fleeing, and its cities flattened, and a thriving country turning into a graveyard. This is not fiction or disinformation. It is all happening in Ukraine, a real life play for all to learn from.

Are the Taiwanese willing to pay the price to secede from the motherland China? Even if the Taiwanese wanted to die fighting to the last Taiwanese, would they be able to secede from China after the last Taiwanese has fallen?

The reunification with the motherland is not an option. China would make it happen, sooner or later, peacefully or forcefully. Would Taiwan want to return to the motherland in one piece, with nothing missing, with no one dead, all the infrastructure intact, or be like Ukraine, half the country flattened and half the Taiwanese dead or maimed for life, and the rest fleeing as refugees from a peaceful and prosperous Taiwan and a good life?

Go for it Taiwan, secede from the motherland, but prepare to die and be destroyed like the Ukrainians and Ukraine. Be brave and the Americans and the Europeans would send you all the money and weapons you need. Fight and die like the numbskulls in Ukraine. Oops, like the brave Ukrainians. The Americans and the West would clap for you and honour you with epitaphs in their cities. You will be remembered as the stupid that volunteered to change your good life for the peace in the cemetery.

You have a choice!

 

PS. Reflect on the fate of the daft Hongkies that fled Hong Kong, gave up their homes and good jobs, to become beggars in UK, their staunchest supporter of 'freedom and independence'. When they failed, they would be left in the lurch by the Brits and the Americans. No more pretention about caring for them, about their welfare and freedom. They would be left to wallow in self pity and poverty.

Stupidity has no cure.

American spaceship finally made it to the moon

 WASHINGTON: The first American spaceship on the Moon since Apollo is "alive and well" following a drama-packed touchdown, the company that built it said Friday (Feb 22) as it worked to download data and images from the uncrewed robot....

 Odysseus is the first success for a new fleet of NASA-funded lunar landers designed to carry out science investigations that pave the way for the return of American astronauts to the Moon later this decade, under the Artemis program. CNA

Oops, wait a minute...

Intuitive Machines, the company behind this first-ever lunar landing by a private company, initially posted on social media that its hexagonal spaceship was upright, but CEO Steve Altemus told reporters on Friday that statement was based on misinterpreted data.

Instead, it appears that it caught a foot on the surface and tipped over, coming to rest horizontally with its top perched on a small rock -- taking some shine off an accomplishment widely hailed as a historic achievement. Yahoo News

The final story, the lander is well on the moon surface but lying on its side, still able to send data and images, but not going anywhere. Well, it is the best effort of the Americans so far. The big question, if it could not even land a lander right side up on the moon, could it land a rover on the Mars right side up? Of course they could, if not how to send back data from Mars. Really? Who is there to prove that the data really came from the rover in Mars, or was the rover really in Mars?

And the bigger question, did the Americans really land on the moon in the 1960s? Of course they did. They landed on the moon many times, with many astronauts strutting around, jumping and tumbling on the surface of the moon. Really? Sure, the Americans said so. Then how come they could not even land a simple lander on the moon with today's advanced technology? That is the problem. Today's advanced technology is too advanced, too far ahead for the lander to keep up with. No?

Actually, the truth is that all the moon landing technology and data were stolen by China and the Americans have nothing left to work on. So they have to start from scratch. First, must make sure they have a rocket to take them to the moon. Next, they must learn how to land a lander upright and not sideway. Thirdly, they have to find out if humans can survive passing through the Van Allen Radiation Belt. The Americans are still testing this. They have forgotten that they had many astronauts flying many missions through this Belt and came back alive. So they must confirm that this is still the case before sending their astronauts to the moon again!

The short cut is for the Americans to beg the Chinese to return all the data and technology stolen by China. See how easy the Chinese land their rover on the moon, like a piece of cake. Thanks to American's 1960s backward technology. Maybe the Chinese can sell the data and technology back to the Americans as a goodwill gesture.

Poor Americans. the Chinese also stole their 5G and 6G technologies until the Americans cannot put up a workable 5G network in America, and too shy to beg the Chinese to return the technology to them.

Let's all wait for more spins from the lander Odysseus now lying on the lunar surface. It is still alive and well. Perhaps the Americans can ask the Chinese rover, moon rabbit, for help to give the Odysseus a nudge to turn it upright. Oops, ask the Indians, they also have a rover in the South Pole of the moon, definitely nearer to the American lander.

Help, Hollywood, help!

Budget 2024 - A Robin Hood Budget...?

 People of former British colonies are all familiar with the legend of Robin Hood and his merry men. And the moral of this British legend is about robbing the rich to give to the poor in an English society mired with corruption and abuse of power. In several ways, the 2024 Budget came close to the image of the Robin Hood legend, a lot of takings and a lot of giving back to the poor. 

After all the taxes, fee hikes, fare hikes and whatever increases in revenue that the govt can think of over the years, the incessant hikes must have reaped in a lot of revenue to spread around. Now sure how much was brought in from the investments in our trillion dollar reserves. The govt now has a lot of money to give back, which is a good thing.

Here are the differences from Robin Hood. The taxes and fee and fare hikes took from everyone, from the poor as well as the rich. And the GST, without fine tuning, is taxing the poorest as well as the dead and the unborn. Robin Hood was supposedly robbing only from the rich and giving to the poor. This budget gave to everyone, to the rich, to businesses and the poor, the difference is how much. What the average Singaporeans are concerned is how much is given to the poor, and were they adequate.

Who are the poor is obvious and Lawrence Wong has put in much thoughts to this group of Singaporeans that needed financial help badly. The most badly hit are the senior citizens and the retirees and the jobless. For the seniors and retirees, mostly from the Merdeka and Pioneer Generations, they have been hit for many years, primarily from having no income, and the never ending increases in taxes of all kinds, and hikes in fees and fares that led to a runaway inflation of food prices in the kopitiams. Oops, oops, maybe not so serious as the official inflation statistics is probably around 3% only. But this does not hide away from the fact that price increases in basic items like teh and kopi and chap chye png have gone up by 20% or more. These are real and hit the seniors and retirees very hard. Spending time drinking kopi in their clubhouses, ie kopitiams, is no longer cheap and affordable.

On a rough estimate, the average payout to the retirees and seniors is about $4,000 to $6,000 a year from this budget. Without an income, and runaway inflation, it looks like govt handouts to the seniors and retirees are going to be a permanent feature in future budgets, to keep them at least fed daily. Perhaps there should be a specific budget allocated to take care of the ageing seniors and retirees going forward.

The Merdeka and Pioneer Generations were the main contributors to the healthy reserves of the state. It was accumulated at a time when their income were much lower, and cost of living as well. Today, after several decades of inflation, tax, fare and fee hikes, whatever savings of the seniors and retirees, if there is anything left, would have their values shrunk by at least half. A hundred dollar is now worth maybe $50, depending on what it is spent on. It would really be nice and appropriate to tap on the national reserves to provide for the people that contributed the biggest share to it, as dividend payout.  A way to compensate taking a cut from the reserves for the seniors is to remove the cut for new citizens that did not play a part in its creation, at best a token now, and only in the future.

Without any income, the govt must bear in mind that any increases in taxes, fares and fees would hit the seniors real hard, especially those that already run down their savings. It is like robbing the poor when they have nothing to be robbed. High inflation and high taxes, fees, fares are threatening the life and existence of the seniors that are not millionaires. Robin Hood only rob the rich to pay the poor, not robbing the poor and give back a little that is not adequate to get by. The seniors and retirees are hapless and silent victims of high inflation, taxes and fee hikes. They have no choice, no option, no way to defend or help themselves. Maybe, crudely to some, old furniture that is a sore eye and better to be forgotten.

While American terrorists are at wars, China is doing this

 

2 min clip on China's island development near Hainan Island. Money well spent instead of wasting on wars, weapons and killings like the American terrorists. China is building bridges, railways, roads, ports, cities etc etc, what are the Americans doing? Starting wars and inciting wars everywhere, spending billions and billions on wars and weapons.

Mysingaporenews is back!!

 Hi everyone,

I was notified to appeal for reinstatement of my blog. It is now back.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone.

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