Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/57346/page/1

Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

Oct 29, 2007 Issue

At a meeting with reporters last week, President Bush said that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." These were not the barbs of some neoconservative crank or sidelined politician looking for publicity. This was the president of the United States, invoking the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon.

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have a nuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

In a speech last week, Rudy Giuliani said that while the Soviet Union and China could be deterred during the cold war, Iran can't be. The Soviet and Chinese regimes had a "residual rationality," he explained. Hmm. Stalin and Mao—who casually ordered the deaths of millions of their own people, fomented insurgencies and revolutions, and starved whole regions that opposed them—were rational folk. But not Ahmadinejad, who has done what that compares? One of the bizarre twists of the current Iran hysteria is that conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers.

If I had to choose whom to describe as a madman, North Korea's Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, I do not think there is really any contest. A decade ago Kim Jong Il allowed a famine to kill 2 million of his own people, forcing the others to survive by eating grass, while he imported gallons of expensive French wine. He has sold nuclear technology to other rogue states and threatened his neighbors with test-firings of rockets and missiles. Yet the United States will be participating in international relief efforts to Pyongyang worth billions of dollars.

We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003.

The one time we seriously negotiated with Tehran was in the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, in order to create a new political order in the country. Bush's representative to the Bonn conference, James Dobbins, says that "the Iranians were very professional, straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were also critical to our success. They persuaded the Northern Alliance to make the final concessions that we asked for." Dobbins says the Iranians made overtures to have better relations with the United States through him and others in 2001 and later, but got no reply. Even after the Axis of Evil speech, he recalls, they offered to cooperate in Afghanistan. Dobbins took the proposal to a principals meeting in Washington only to have it met with dead silence. The then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he says, "looked down and rustled his papers." No reply was ever sent back to the Iranians. Why bother? They're mad.

Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world" (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

© Newsweek, Inc

Queer Sense

I don't like Faggots. Perhaps I'm just a typical uncaring heterosexual male but I've had enough dealings with homosexuals to find them as group to be self-centred, bitchy, shallow, uncaring and self-absorbed. Perhaps it could be something to do with the fact that I spent my formative years in a male-dominated boring school, followed by the army but I am most comfortable with my fellow men and least comfortable with women (particularly the glamour girls) and homosexuals - at least the glamour girls are good to look at. One of the most painful moments in life was having lunch at BANG Pr when I had to endure the prattle of a Fag and a gang of women obsessed with the latest fashion.

However, I've been disturbed by some of the comments in recent days about the homosexual community in Singapore. These comments from "Conservative" Singaporeans begging the government to keep section 377A of the legal code show a lack of rationality and a desire to celebrate prejudices backed by ignorance. There has been no attempt by these “Conservative” folks to sit down and present a clear and rational case for keeping the State involved in the bedroom. For readers outside Singapore, 377A is the part of the penal code that makes homosexuality a crime! Reading the sentiments expressed, I fear that we are seeing the ugly emotions that brought us the Salem Witch hunts, Auschwitz and Hotel Rwanda.

And I'm sad to say that the government seems to be pandering to this. This government, which has been known to "Do what's Right rather than what’s Popular”, has decided to indulge the prejudices of the ignorant. One Minister of State has declared that Singapore must be diverse and not divisive and since 377A is a divisive issue, it will be ignored. The Prime Minister has gone as far as to point out that we should keep 377A because that’s what the majority of people (who are conservative) want but they won’t prosecute homosexuals. This is a cheap cop-out coming from a government that prides itself in being “strong” in the face of public opinion. Iran’s President was more ingenious in dealing with the question – he merely denied that homosexuality existed in Iran.

Let’s get straight to the point – the state should have no business in the bedroom. Sex is a fact of human existence. As long as it remains an act between consenting adults, it should remain just that. The only time the state and the legal process should ever get involved is when one of the parties is coerced or unable to provide consent (as with children). There is a clear distinction between sex and rape.

But then again, when it comes to homosexuality, people are likely to come-up with all sorts of arguments as to why the State should get involved.

Let’s start with the fact that homosexuality is “Not Natural.” As a heterosexual man, I can spend a good portion of my brainpower on any given day imagining the pleasure I’d get out of a vagina and the number of vagina’s I could enjoy. The penis on the other hand does not capture my imagination and the only penis that seems to interest me is the one attached in between my thighs. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how any man in his right mind could find the penis of another man more attractive than a woman’s vagina. To me, this is natural.

But what about the guy who has no interest in the vagina but gets excited by penises? I find this turn on to be unnatural. But then again, my obsession with the vagina and lack of interest in penis is also unnatural to the other guy. Face it, we all find different things sexy. Even between heterosexuals there are differences. I find a woman’s feet very attractive and erogenous. However, I once had a partner who found her feet to be horrible and didn’t want me touching them – so that was that. What’s natural and wonderful could easily be unnatural and repulsive to another. As long as both parties keep their preferences to themselves, who’s to say the other is wrong?

Can homosexuals help it? A few heterosexual women I know have admitted to wanting to “convert” the “hunky” beefcakes in the gym who are unfortunately for them, only interested in the other beefcakes. Leaving that aside, there are plenty of arguments on the nature and nurture side of the debate to indicate that homosexuality is not an abomination of nature as some would have us believe. Women is brothels for example are likely to enjoy lesbian relationships – given the abuse they face from men, why should that be surprising? The latest study into the subject of homosexuality indicates that a gene, which some people inherit, causes it. Either way, homosexuality is not a disease that someone can cure by going for hormone therapy.

The second argument against the legalisation of homosexuality in Singapore is centred on the question of values and the family. The family as the “Conservatives” have been quick to point out that in Asian societies, the family is the most important unit. A family is of course, defined as a man (papa), woman (mama) and several kids. Any deviation from this definition somehow ruins the family.

This mindset reflects shallow thinking. You don’t have to be a social scientist to realise that a family is more than just a man, woman and several kids – it is about a network of relationships where each individual has certain roles and responsibilities. Sexuality only comes into the fore because the man needs to get turned on by the woman to want to make her pregnant to produce the kids. Other than that, family units are primarily about performing certain roles and responsibilities and homosexuals have proven no less capable than heterosexuals at performing these family roles. I know a gay man who contributes more to his mother than I do.

Furthermore, in a world filled with rising divorce rates, domestic abuse and children being abandoned by parents, homosexuality is a minor issue in discussions about the family. Shouldn’t the family brigade show it is actually concerned about the family unit by concentrating its efforts on solving serious family issues than on denying consenting homosexual adults the right to form a family unit?

Perhaps one of the most pressing issues when it comes to homosexuality is HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. The “Moral Majority” is under the impression that the “homosexual” lifestyle promoted by things like “Gay Pride Parades” leads to increase in this terrible disease. What the “Moral Majority” seems to forget is that the days when HIV/AIDS was a purely homosexual disease are long gone. Even in Singapore, the most likely person to contact HIV is a young heterosexual male. More shockingly, the biggest increase of HIV in woman comes from loyal married women. The continual linkage of HIV as a homosexual condition is irresponsible and reckless.

Another fallacy that the moral majority (who seem to tolerate prostitution amongst other things) seem to be saying is the fact that legalising homosexuality will promote it? I could be blind but I fail to see how this will happen?

Is there a rational reason to keep 377A? How can it benefit Singapore? The moral majority have gone on about maintaining the moral and religious fibber. But so far they’ve only shown a few misguided examples of the morals of keeping this law. Non of them has shown Singaporeans a clear rationale for keeping a law. The government even goes as far to say that they won’t enforce the law but they’ll keep it.

What is the point of having a law but not enforcing it? Or is it a case where the government knows it cannot enforce the law? And if it cannot enforce the law, why keep the law?

In a day and age where Singapore claims to need talent from all over the world, why do we insist on keeping a law that will put off people from coming. Why should a talent from say San Francisco relocate to Singapore because his sexuality will criminalized? No point saying – “Under our law, we won’t prosecute you but you’re still a criminal because of your sexuality.” Let’s get the state out of people’s bedroom and move onto a brighter future instead of letting our prejudices hold us back.

Arabs should pursue independent strategy

http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10161863.html

By James Zogby, Special to Gulf News
Published: October 21, 2007, 23:04

In the aftermath of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's fourth recent visit to the region to prepare for a Middle East peace conference, only the meeting's proposed location has been decided. The situation looks quite bleak, with little to show for the efforts made to date.

Early in her visit, Rice made an effort to tamp down expectations about the conference - not a good sign - sending mixed and confusing signals. Despite, yet again, reiterating the Bush Administration's commitment to a Palestinian state, after meeting with a number of Israeli officials, Rice made it clear that the US Administration would not press hard for a declaration of a defined outcome with a fixed timetable for implementation - two essential Palestinian requirements.

During Rice's meetings with the Israelis, there was no focus given to the intolerable strangulation of the population in Gaza, and only slight attention directed at the hardships being visited upon the West Bank. Even the recent Israeli confiscation of a large swath of land east of occupied Jerusalem, in order to build a bypass road that would, in effect, complete the separation of the northern and southern portions of the West Bank, was given short shrift. While previously the US had cautioned against "unilateral actions" (not quite a rebuke), at one point on this visit Rice appeared to diminish the significance of this recent land grab, and even offer an excuse for it.

Rice made a point of meeting with many of the fractious elements comprising Olmert's government, each of whom in their own way, laid down their objections and/or preconditions to the peace conference. Fearing no pressure from the US, each made clear what they were not willing to surrender to the Palestinians. Having followed this process for decades, it never ceases to amaze me how the Israelis are able to use their internal differences to their advantage, and to pose as the weak party always in need of US support. After hearing this cacophony of Israeli voices, Rice, of course, felt compelled to offer the Israelis and their weak prime minister renewed assurances.

The bottom line: Israel, it appears, feels no real compulsion to respond to Palestinian requirements for peace, or to alter its behaviour. Evidence of this abounds. The above-mentioned seizure of Palestinian land for the purpose of building a bypass road, and the ongoing efforts to expand colonies while continuing other disruptive projects in the occupied West Bank make this clear. So does the intensified blockade on Gaza which amounts to cruel collective punishment.

For their part, the Palestinians and the Arab leadership who have made clear their commitment to this peace conference, and who, in fact, have much invested in its outcome, are in a bind. Without a committed American partner willing to apply direct pressure on Israel, the talks will surely fail. But failure is no option. With failure the only winners would be despair and extremism, and it is Arabs who will pay the dearest price.

Salvage

To salvage the situation, Arabs need to aggressively pursue an independent strategy. Instead of being passive recipients of whatever ineffectual US diplomacy can deliver, and instead of allowing success or failure to be determined by the outcome of the asymmetric Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Arab principals (including, at least, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) ought to formulate and project a common position, the elements of which should include:

1. A detailed account of Israeli behaviours that are destroying Palestinian life and impeding hope for an independent Palestinian state;

2. A specific and realistic list of those Israeli behaviours that must end before any Peace Conference can occur;

3. An elaboration of the Arab summit proposals that, instead of using vague language about "full peace for full normalisation", spells out in detail what a final peace would look like and lays out the stages of implementation, in sequence, and a realistic timetable for realisation of this state; and

4. A call for a postponement of the proposed meeting until Israel and the US respond to this unified Arab call.

In the intervening weeks, or months, while the US and Israel are shaping their response, the Arab side ought to engage in active diplomacy to press their call in the US, in Israel, and with the other partners in the Quartet. The advantages of such an approach are clear. It moves Arabs from the role of passive recipients to active agents, and allows them to seize the political initiative on their own behalf. Such an effort would have the additional benefit of avoiding the risk of a failed summit.

At the moment, the Israeli, Palestinian, and US governments are not in a strong position to address difficult diplomatic challenges. On the other hand, the Egyptian, Jordanian and Saudi governments are in a better position. The Palestinians would do better to work in this broader Arab context, than to be at the mercy of the US and Israel, because the Israelis appear to be in no position to move forward, and the US is disinclined to push.

Perhaps instead of urging reconsideration of the roadmap, Arab interests would be better served by developing an actual "Road to Peace". More than a poorly-conceived and ill-prepared conference, an Arab diplomatic offensive, at this time, might help breathe new life into the peace process and set the table for future talks.

Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC.

Peanut Farmers and the Value of Common Sense

I've just finished reading Jimmy Carter's Book, "Palestine: Peace not Arpathied." This was a book that proved to be an exceedingly controversial one in as much as the former US President stated the obvoius - there will be no peace in the Middle East until, Israel stops grabbing land that it has no right to and when the USA actually starts acting like an honest broker rather than like an Israeli pawn. The former President goes onto say that the current "Anti-American" sentiment is linked to America's blatant support for Israel's violation of a host of UN resolutions.

Personally, I never thought much of Jimmy Carter. Like many of his critics in AIPEC, I believe Jimmy made some pretty horendous mistakes. For example, he tried to make the Shah of Persia into a "Democratic Hero" when in reality, the man was a dictator. He also underestimated the threat of the Soviet Union - the worst he did to protest the Soviet invasion of Afgahnistan was to lead a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. The poor man's administration was marked by such a long list of blunders that the American military suffered one of its most embarrasing moments in its history just as he was leaving office after being crushed by Ronald Regan.

Old Jimmy certainly did not come accross as being heavy in the brain department. For Christ sake, the man was peanut farmer! But having said that, you have to hand it to the peanut farmer for having something which a load of intellectuals don't have - common sense. Perhaps I'm reading too much into a romanticised image of farmers here but when you read his book on Palestine, you really start to wonder if we should kick out all the intellectuals running policy in that part of the world and leave it to the hands of ordinary people with good old fashioned common sense.

Carter is not some sort of liberal "Arab-Lover" from the campuses of Berkly. The man is actually one of the better friends that the Israeli people have had. Which makes what he says so much more credible. He does not cheer for suicide bombers - in fact he condems such practices as vile. However, throughout the book he states the blatantly obvious - Israel is occupying land that it should not be occupying, it is violating the human rights of people whom it should not be harming and most important of all, the USA, the land of the brave and free is....well being held hostage into colluding with criminal acts.

He points out that the vast majority of Israeli people are willing to swap land for peace and have been constantly sabotaged by their political leadership. And he points out that the lack of discussion in the American media about the role of Israel is precisely what America needs.

Humm, its so blatantly obvoius and yet, and yet the Fags in the White House and their cabal will never allow common sense to rule the day. - Isn't time for a change of global leadership?

A Bum Who Lives Well

It's Firday today and I'm currently in a reflective mode, one where I look back on the week that has gone by and look forward to the week that is to come. What did I do well last week and what I could I do to improve this week. Usual answers abound - I could have had more women killing themselves to use me sexually, some foreign dignatary could have showered me in gold and I would be elected to a Bullshit job like being the Head of State. But since these things did not happen to me, I look back at the things that did happen.

Highlight of the week is undoubtedly GE Day on Monday. Managed to touch base with the Commercial Finance arm that I work with and meet some of the people from the other GE units. The article in Straits Times came out and the SEA CEO that I am working for actually wrote me a mini-testimonial, which I shall, God Willing have printed up on my Tang-Asia website. This will as they say, add a wee bit more to my credibility.

There was also a good lunch with Kuntal Joshi on Wednesday. He was being interviewed by the Business Times. Seemed to go quite well, he had a lot of fun telling her about Alcon and there was quite a tasty meal at Novus in the National Museum.

All in all, I managed to have a fairly good week even if I didn't get paid and remained fairly skint in real terms, I managed to live rather well. Had a few good meals here and there and managed to enjoy the company of some new found friends - namely the band at the Long Bar in the Raffles.

Which brings me to the main cut, thrust and parry of this rant. Life is about not making any money of your own and finding ways to live off other people's money. Corporate expense accounts or at least friends with corporate expense accounts are wonderful boon. Its thanks to things like these that keep the economy running. Spend lots and lots of the company's money - nobody will object - that is unless you choose to spend it on things like....hookers, drugs and endless booze.

In Defense of Boring Farts

Am back to housesitting for my friend with cable TV, which means I actually get to watch Rugby World Cup and last night I managed to watch two games that gave me an interesting insight into how life is lived.

The first game I managed to catch a glimpse of was the Wales-Fiji Game. The Fijians are natural 7-a-side players but have somehow never managed to translate their 7s success into the 15-a-side game. Although each Fijian is physically well endowed for the game, they somehow lacked the discipline and cohesivness to make it as a formidable team. As for the Welsh, they have traditionally been known to play the most 'beautiful' rugby on the British Isles. True, Wales have not done as well as they should have in the past decade but Welsh Rugby is at the core - wonderful to watch and since this was the Fijians you would have imagined them comming out ontop.

The game was a stunner. Lots of tries were scored. Both sides played some attractive rugby. When I caught onto the game, the Fijians were leading31-29. Then the Welsh came out of nowhere (Welsh Magic) to score a try that put them ahead. You would have imagined that with four miniutes left all would have been lost but the Fijians came right back and scored a try, which was duely converted. In the end it was the Fijians who came out ontop.

The Scotland-Italy game, was a less exciting affair. Both sides had billed this as their do-or-die match (both new losing to the All Blacks was inevitable as thrashing Romania and Portugal). The Scots started out well by racing to a 6-0 lead thanks to two penalities. The Italians to their credit fought back and got the only try of the game and lead for a while at 10-6. Howeer, thanks to making less mistakes and having a kicker who was on form - the Scots emerged 18-16 winners.

What lessons can be drawn from both games? I think the first one is about discipline. The Scots for the most part were not the better team when they played against Italy. Yet, they were awarded more penalities and made less mistakes than the Italians.

In a world obsessed with how much you make, we often forget that the winners in life often concentrate on how much they keep rather than how much they earn. People with sky high incomes don't often live well because - well, they forgot that they had to keep a portion of what they made. Success as they say is about self-discipline and self-control and it's quite true in sports.

Last night's Scotish team was boring and defensive but they had supperior discipline to their opponents. Scotish Rugby is often defensive - remember their most famous Grand Slam win in 1990 when they faced a supperior Enland Squad that had blown away all the teams that the Scots had struggled to beat. Wade. The Scots somehow hunkered down and dennied the English scoring opportunities and emerged winners.

South of the Border, the same proved to be true. The England Rugby Team lead by Will Carling managed to win back-to-back Grand Slams by being better disciplined than their opponents. English Rugby was slammed as being "Boring" but it worked! Sure, there was a formula to it - get the penalty and let Simon Hodgkinson or Johnathan Webb kick the points. When the England team promptly abandoned the formula in the final of the 1991 World Cup against Australia - they lost. By 2003, they had learnt their lesson and stuck to their discipline and methodical approach.

Of course one should also be prepared to abandon formulas when they stop working and one should also realise that certain situations require different tactics. Discipline and forumla can only get you so far. Will Carling's double-grand-slam winning team promptly feel to unfancied Irish men 1993 and they promptly got blown away by the All Blacks in 1995. Both the Irish and All Blacks played inspired rugby when they needed to. They knew the English Formula and its weaknesses. They were willing to take risk.

The All Blacks have remained the rugby team with the world's best record (even if their World Cup record is dissapointing) because they are willing to adapt to their opponents. True, they went through a patch when everything evolved around Jonah Lomu, the Giant Wing. Against obviously inferior sides, they play expansive rugby. They are willing to make mistakes in the handling of the ball. But they get the practice. By the time they meet competition - which in the Rugbyverse means South African, Austrlia, England and France, they are able to tighten up and match flair and inspiration with discipline.

Knowing when to mix flair and discipline is probably the key to success. In sort it's about knowing when to play offensive and defensive. In business its the same. Hong Kong businessmen often trump their Singapore counterparts because they are able to mix imagination with discipline. In Singapore business success is simple - ride on the government's coat tails or better still be a government enterprise. Resources are thrown into a project to make it succeed (A case of God being on the side of the Big Battalions). In Hong Kong, businessmen have to fend for themselves. They learn how to take risk and act on them but at the same time they become good at taking care of themselves. - Although the Singapore approach looks more ordered, nine out of ten times, the Hong Kon business is usually more productive.

This was an observation by a top Prudential sales manager in Singapore. He noted that Singapore restaurants are always neat and orderly. Hong Kong restaurants look chaotic and messy by comparison. However, its the Hong Kong restaurant that's more efficient and effective. The trick as they say is in organising the chaos.

Every Now and Then I get a Little ...bye bye

It’s been a fairly useless and unproductive but an enjoyable day. I managed to spend Monday night in the Conrad Hotel thanks to a good friend of mine who had booked it for some fun and then passed the room to me. Love sleeping in good hotels. Managed to get a wonderful shower, or rather two good showers and slept in a big fluffy bed. Also managed to get my fill of cable TV, something I've not really watched since Dad moved off to Thailand and the family unit went its separate ways. - Was kind of anti-climatic - was trying to watch rugby but had to settle for a French movie about a nymphomaniac without the interesting details of being a nymphomaniac.

After get-up time, the day was spent with Han Li, who had just come back from Vietnam. She's looking really good and we got to have lunch together. We talked and I took her on a short shopping trip - mainly groceries. Talked a bit and I guess I really have to cobble together the money to go to Vietnam.

Highlight of the day was speaking to Thui. Felt really good. I have not spoken to the little tyke for quite a while and had been surviving on watching silly videos I had shot of her on my phone. HL tells me that she asks about me and when I'm coming over to Vietnam. OK, I guess its my turn to make the return journey, this was something we had talked about a while back and I just got to get out of my way and do it.

Besides, I'm told that Vietnam is very up and coming. This is SEA's second largest population with 76 million people and if Han Li is anything to go by - they are hungry to go places and they have an incredible sense of optimism about the future. I think its rightly pointed out that the Vietnamese are the people who held of the French, Americans and Mainland Chinese in major military conflicts and yet today, the Vietnamese have welcomed all their former enemies with open arms (well, not quite with the Chinese).

My mother and Aunt do worry about my relationship with Han Li. To quote my mother, "Your Aunt has lived in Vietnam and she knows the people, they're all survivors and ruthless." Funnily enough, I know HL is a tough cookie and a hustler of the highest order, but that's what I like best about her. If HL is representative of the Vietnamese people, I think we should all find a way to invest in the place. Give the Vietnamese (particularly those with Chinese Blood - as I think HL has) a piece of shit and they'll turn it into a thriving business. Give a Singaporean with ten times the education and the working capital the same piece of shit and they'll whine allot about it, bitch about the government being mean to them and then expect someone in the government to plan their destiny for them.

Meet two guys from New Zealand over dinner. Talked about rugby - All Blacks are great and Singapore TV channels are royally screwing people who enjoy a good game by not showing any games on TV. Mentioned I was part of a batch that was meant to go out to New Zealand to do live firing and one of the guys actually remembered Exercise Swift Lion. He was in the NZ Army and knew where the accident happened.

It's been ten-years since Ronnie and Yin Tit were killed when their FH2000 blew-up. It's amazing how time has passed. I think I've gotten used to the idea that someone I was close to and knew to be as good a person as you can get was robbed of his life. I mean, for the most part, most of us have moved on. We don't visit Ronnie's grave to commemorate his death (9 March, 1997) the way we used to. For the most part, the living have continued to live. Every time I run into an army colleague, they're already married and on their second child. I like to think that the two guys who were killed in that incident would want us to carry on living our lives.

But for me, at least, that incident said allot about the institution I was serving. For those of us who were close to the guys who were killed, we managed to pull together in our time of grief. For the powers that be, you got to see those who genuinely cared about the welfare of their soldiers and those who paid lip-service to idea of welfare for the troops but were in actual fact more interested in gaining political capital out of the tragedy.

A decade after the incident, I’m now catching glimpses of the society that I live in. For Singaporeans, Swift Lion has passed into the pages of the classified documents to be shelved away by some mindless bureaucrat. It’s an incident that mentally scared kids don’t want to talk about but we know what happened. These days, if you ask certain people about the incident, they’ll be quick to tell you that it wasn’t the fault of Singapore made technology – it was guess what – shoddy Mainland Chinese manufacturing that some careless American firm had, unbeknown to the Singapore arms industry, outsourced the manufacturing. (This is why I say, all credit to Mattel owning-up to their stupidity after blaming their subcontractors.).

I mean for crying out loud – two guys were killed in the line of duty and all that the institution seems to remember is – “It wasn’t our fault.” Seriously, human lives were lost and we don’t talk about it because – it does not reflect well on the institution and the nation and so on and so on and besides, it’s not our fault because someone else used a shoddy subcontractor!

New Zealanders are very different from us. You mention to a New Zealander that you were in the Singapore Artillery and they’ll remember an incident where two people died and they will express regret that two people died. That touches me. New Zealanders have no reason to care about two foreign troopers who died and yet those who know of the incident can somehow express the tragedy of the whole situation whilst Singaporeans are so self-absorbed they would rather blame everyone else for the incident.

It really doesn’t say very much about the nation when it encourages and supports a culture that denies accountability who give their lives to the nation.

Yex Again

It must definately be that time of the year again but I'm down with yet another gastric problem. Its a case of regular burbing and the runs and that really makes me feel depressed because it limits my movements to somewhat comfortable places with useable toilets. Yech! The Eggy Burps make me feel like I'm an overblown ballon that was blown up by a drunken clown who pucked up after one too many good ones.

Anyway, the good side to being down with something is that I get to sleep. Yes, I am well and truely sounding like my good friend the naan maker who works a 12-hour shift and has become obsessed with going home to get his beauty rest. Life seems too short to be spent sleeping at night - especially during the weekdays when I have clients to call, events to attend to and am busy trying to turn my click empire into something that might actually pay off my pension liabilities one of these days.

It helps that I am housitting for a friend of mine who is overseas with his wife. He's got a cute little place near the Ministry of Defence. The place is fairly self-contained and next to the swimming pool. Gives me plenty of scope to do things like...read and surf the net and watch sattilite TV (just finished the Samoa-Tonga Rugby World-Cup Match). Good to be able to meditate a bit and enjoy a bit of tranquility. However, this place is out of the way and the strategy with being here is that I don't go to many places because by the time I do....I might as well have flown. Anyway, his pet cat and I get along and I guess that's the most important thing.

Coast City Clean Up and a Truely Tacky Week

It's the weekend and I started it by getting to work for Fabulous Tan, an indoor sun taning salon started by an old friend of Mun Loong's. Everytime I work for Fab Tan, I think I'm working for a genious or a mad man. This is Singapore, the land of excess sunshine, our Chinese population is around 76% of the total population and as everyone knows, the Chinese or at least the women are obsessed with getting whiter not more tan!

Having said that, Fabulous Tan has been a rip roaring success - within a year of establishment, the company now has two branches (in prime locations - Bugis and Orchard) and expanded into the oxygen and teeth whitening business. And every success for Fabulous Tan has to add to ones credentials - a case of - if you can sell a sun tan studio in a country with more than enough sun ...you can sell anything.

Anyway, the project was about cleaning up the coast on International Coastal Clean Up Day. Quite tiring trying to run around through a park and getting sound bites for the cameras but rewarding enough to see one of my former journalism students covering the story for her school newspaper and pleasing on the eye in as much as Mr Tan decided to bring along his FHM Best Smile Chick and a long legged babe from the show "Deal or No Deal,' sponsored by Terry O' Connor's Courts. Long Legged Babes - ah, always good for pleasing the eye and stiring the lust .... but this being Singapore, attractive bodies have an unfortunate habit ..... they feel obliged to speak and thus ruining ones fantasies.

Since I've lived in Singapore, I'm comming to the conclusion that certain cultures should stick to certain things. Mainland Chinese and Vietnamese women easily have the best grooming in Singapore. You'd be surprised by the fact that we're talking about people from nominally communist countries here. I remember Angela from Crush would deliberately dress down and dowdy and would still look better than all the rest of the wanna be girls dressing for the kill. Han Li manages to look presentable even if she shops cheap at City Plaza and avoids expensive brand names.

When it comes to conversation, the Filipinos and Indians come-up trumps. Indian women are exceptionally articulate and very sharp. As for the Filipinos, they have this amazing ability to enjoy life and music. It's like you can give a Filipino a guitar and he or she will somehow be able to string a decent tune together just like that. You give a Singaporean a musical instrument and they'll have to check with the PAP Central Comittee about getting a schoolarship to a top class music academy on a government funds before they condecend to pretend to whistle along with you.

As for gentleness, I'm with the Thais and Indonesians. I think it has something to do with the culture but people from this part of Asia seem so content and happy with life. I remember going to Thailand when I was with the army. Hated the excercise but came back to Singapore feeling very empty. When you hit the Thai countryside, you know you are in the third world. You know why every Thai girl selling her body is doing what she's doing. And yet, and yet, you can't help feeling that these people who have so much less than we do have something very important that we lost along time ago.

This was kind of a funnish week. Went in for National Service Duty but discharged on medical grounds. Attended the Saudi National Day Celebration where I managed to touch base with HE and the team at the Embassy and Saudi Aramco. Went through September 11 without a political thought in my mind and somehow managed to get a few interviews for clients set-up. Insh Allah, GECF project will finally get to see some results next week and I can get the ball rolling into other things - Alcon trugs along as usual, Asiamedic could continue to feed me and 3M has its usual projects - all of which will feed and God Willing put me in profit this year.

Life is seemingly improving as the Seventh Month draws to a close and Ramadan gets underway. Can't go out on the daily chomping sessions with Muslim friends so I guess its a case of either concentrating on slimming down or finding non-Muslims to hang out with. This being Singapore - we all get fat regardless of race, language or religion. Anyway, the Muslim Holy Month should help improve things - I guess having a few people say prayers on your behalf should be exceedingly helpful for the Karmic Game.

Or perhaps I was just too obsessed with the wrong things in the Seventh Month. A friend of mine reminds me that I was very focused on cheque collection from GECF rather than on the work process and doing the work that I love to do. Somehow, I got poked in the wrong places by Murphy - the world's favourite Jink Meister.

Proceeds seems to be a national obsession. Everyone becomes so focused on the end results they usually end up making themselves unhappy. I like Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men who says, " I'm more interested in processes than proceeds, though I've leant to be happy with them too." Being broke is no fun but I'm realising that what I dislike about being broke is that I tend to focus on the cash instead of the job on hand. May be this month, I'll be able to focus on the right things and life and go to better places.

Where does betrayal begin?

Managed to get a bit of relief today. Was paid for last month's Asiamedic retainer and I managed to pay down some of the bills I ran up. Really have not liked the delays in payment but now that the money is coming in, its time to settle accounts and keep moving on and work on the big jobs that will put me into the profit zone next year.

It's been quite an interesting week in International affairs. The British have reduced their presence in Basra and two of Britain's top soldiers have actually come out and condemned the US handling of the war in Iraq. One of them, General Sir Mike Jackson described US policy as "Intellectually Bankrupt." Thank goodness someone has the courage to speak honestly. Sir Mike is a genuine solider, he lead the troops into Bosnia in the late 90s. He is a former member of the Paras - a man who has seen action and knows what he's talking about when it comes to war.

Perhaps I'm prejudiced in favour of the British Armed Forces especially when it comes to comparisons with their American counterparts. I went to a school where the armed forces where highly respected and many of my friends had fathers who are high ranking British officers. I grew up reading biographies of British Generals like General Sir Peter de la Billere, British Commander during the first Gulf War.

British officers or at least those I knew and read were all professionals. Men who are tough and yet compassionate. Perhaps its because they lacked the resources of their American counterparts but the British Armed forces tend to be better at enlisting the help of the locals and winning 'hearts and minds.' Just study the Malayan Campaign...the SAS were sent in to do good for the locals and this helped win local support against the Communist. Compare that to the American campaign in Vietnam and what do you think of.....Napalm.

I know I sound cheap here, comparing American servicemen in an unfair light to other soldiers. American soldiers have given their lives for millions of people to throughout the world. However, the US military has often ended up doing badly in situations where it should not have been.

I believe that this has been caused by political leadership or the lack of it. In recent years, the British have not been betrayed by their political leaders. Say what you like of Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands War but she had respect for the brass. She gave them an objective and let them get on with it. When they needed resources and political support, the government supported them. Even in the current situation in Iraq, the British political leadership has shown respect for its military. Before Sir Mike, CGS, General Sir Richard Datton spoke critically about the Iraq War to the media. Blair Babble tried to spin his comments but didn't try to reprimand him for speaking up for his troops and he remains in office.

Compare that situation in the USA. Rumsfeld refused to listen to his Generals - he even made a point of public ally humiliating them. As a result, the USA, as the senior partner in the occupation of Iraq has continued to have a lack of necessary troops in Iraq and American troops have been caught in the worst of situations - see Abu Gharib. At best, the American leadership has indulged in shows of grand showmanship but shown little sensitivity to the local population. - The difference was already clear in Gulf War One - Schwarzkopf could barely speak English - Sir Peter speaks Arabic - a qualification that one would imagine would be essential when dealing in the Arab world.

It's funny, every time you read comments from the extreme right in the USA, they keep going on about how the media is exaggerating how bad the situation is in Iraq and anyone who suggests that the US mission in Iraq is anything short of a holy God-Given Crusade is an anti-Semitic racist leftie.

But I wonder why these people are always quick to talk about other people as being the traitors. It should be easy to realise who are bigger traitors between those who are now calling for a troop withdrawal and those who sent the troops into a strategically pointless war based on lies.

Why isn't anyone calling Bush a traitor? Here is a man who allowed an incompetent to overrule the qualified experts and then allowed proceeded to lie and fabricate evidence to delude the American people into justifying a war that had no obvious strategic value for American interest. At best, this is incompetence. At worst……this is treachery – sending troops to die in a conflict with no purpose.

It’s become something of a Hollywood Drama to see Generals and military people are power-mad threats to democratic freedoms. The truth is rather more complicated. Generals, who have earned their stars, tend to understand the horrors of war and as a result, they are the last people to send their troops into a combat situation for the sake of it. The culture of the military having no say in the operations the political leadership ask them to get involved in has gone a bit too far.

Surely, every General should be morally obliged to protect their troops and have the right to speak out in public whenever the politicians try and send troops into wars based on lies and deception. Every General should have the right to speak out in public whenever a Defence Secretary insist on running a military campaign against all advice of the military experts.

Let’s stop the betrayal of the soldiers by the political leadership!

I must be really awful

Well it must be something to do with me. I'm not sure what I did but I think it has to be pretty awful for me to be out here, broke and waiting for cheques that are slowly eeeking their way before me while my bills pile up like an avalanche. GECF was particularly heart breaking, this was the job that was supposed to launch me to better things but ....things seem to have fallen apart and I'm now trying to revive things - the delay of funds is painful - but the fact that the client/prospect was let down is even more painful.

Anyway, I'm here, waiting around for someone to transfer funds so that I can get on with the job on hand. This is another long delayed cheque that has to go through several parties. Should be getting another bunch of money tomorrow and by Friday there should be even more funds coming in - High Bloody Time .

Well, I guess this is part and parcel of the world we live in today. Credit terms are a reality of doing business - the bean counters exist for a reason and one has to live with them - hell, I even dated a girl who was trained to be a bean counter.

I also have to note that being broke is actually not the worst of things to be. On Friday, while I was absorbed with my bad run of luck, a family with a young boy who could not walk bumped into me on the bus. I guess, everything is relative here. I may be broke for the moment but that can be solved. Whatever situation I am in, I have functioning arms, legs, ears and eyes - at the end of the day, I really can't ask for more than that.

Life may seem frustrating but just as there's always someone out there with something better, there are also tonnes of people who have it worse than you. In Singapore we bitch about Reservist. But unlike the USA we don't have a political leadership that stabs the troops in the back by lying to send to send them into a pointless war. As a Singaporean, I may bith about excessive government salaries, but at least the man ontop does not make it a habit to send his "War Veterans" into my home to take it away from me as happens in Zimbabwe.

So there you have it. Life has a way of placing you in the shitty pits from time to time but I guess one has to look at things in perspective. I didn't have cash on me, but I could go home and have a meal. There are sadly too many people who cannot do that. There are times when I've scrambled for bus fare but I can also walk from point-to-point. There are people who can't do that. Life isn't that bad after all.....

Zoellick Sees Asia's Clear and Present Danger: by William Pesek

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- ``I plan to listen to our people in the field and then we'll talk.'' That's how Robert Zoellick responded when I asked what the World Bank's priorities will be in Asia under his leadership.

That was on Aug. 2 in Coolum, Australia. From there, Zoellick headed to Cambodia, Vietnam and Japan. On Aug. 8, I caught up with Zoellick again in Tokyo to pick his brain on what Asia needs to do to avoid a repeat of the 1997 crisis. The short answer: Asia has come a long way, but has lots to do.

While Zoellick has been in the job just two months now, it's hard not to be impressed by the poverty-fighting agency's new leader. Granted, after the debacle that was Paul Wolfowitz's two years in the job, Zoellick hardly has big shoes to fill. Yet his take on Asia thus far seems refreshing.

Zoellick's focus on debt is a case in point. The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. vice chairman understands two things about Asia's markets that are often overlooked. One, they are far less developed than the ones Asia's leaders pledged to create 10 years ago. Two, liquid bond markets aren't just about investors, but also reducing poverty.

``My experience, and this is as much from my prior job as this one, is that the securities markets still have a lot of work to do,'' Zoellick said. ``If you look at the depth and liquidity of bond markets here, it's pretty weak compared to what you have elsewhere in the world. That leads to a natural agenda, there needs to be things to do to get better information: that's corporate governance, accounting information.''

Big Vulnerability

Zoellick continued that ``there are things you could do to reduce the transaction costs and some of this is including having a greater variety of financial instruments that in more developed markets you can use to manage risk and diversify your position.''

Herein lies one of Asia's biggest vulnerabilities as a global surge in borrowing costs shakes up markets. The region's high growth rates are marred by the lack of the shock-absorbing mechanism provided by bond markets.

It's among the lessons from 1997 that Asia hasn't learned very well. Back then, when asset prices plunged, investors who wanted to stay in Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines didn't have the choice of moving their money from stocks to bonds. So, they fled the region.

A decade after the crisis, Asia is experiencing a new financial contagion -- from the U.S. It started with a crisis in the subprime-mortgage market and has since morphed into broader problems in credit markets. Zoellick sees increasing capital flows as a ``clear and present danger'' if Asia doesn't raise its game in bond markets.

Risks Abound

Risks to Asia's outlook abound. They include a surge in oil prices, a collapse in the dollar and a reversal of trades involving investors borrowing cheaply in yen and moving the funds into higher-yielding assets overseas, even a terrorist attack.

An overheating China is another. China's Finance Minister Jin Renqing resigned yesterday for ``personal reasons.'' That didn't stop markets from buzzing about whether he was forced out for failing to keep inflation from accelerating in Asia's No. 2 economy.

Given all the liquidity flowing to Asia these last few years, it's time governments got more serious about developing deeper debt markets. Along with offering investors more places to put their money, well-functioning bond markets would help Asia keep more of its vast household savings at home, as opposed to watching it flow to the West.

Desperate Need

Such a dynamic would lower borrowing costs and offer more financing opportunities. Small- and medium-size enterprises would be among the biggest beneficiaries. They often go hungry for investment capital because banks are too preoccupied with larger businesses to lend to less established upstarts. More financing options would mean more entrepreneurship and job creation.

That's desperately needed in Asia. Amid the region's economic boom, it's easy to forget Asia is home to two-thirds of the world's poor. Better capital markets might help change things.

There's also the U.S.'s subprime troubles, which could increasingly affect emerging markets through three different channels, says Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics LLC in New York. They include increased risk aversion, the growing odds emerging-market investors have direct exposure to the U.S. housing market and financial turmoil deepening a slump in the U.S.

Bonding Experience

There are plenty of other reasons why Asia needs a bonding experience. China, for example, lacks a liquid secondary debt market. It needs one to help clear bad loans from banks and corporate balance sheets -- especially given all the debt being amassed to prepare for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. China also needs to breathe life into the private sector. It's all about economic maturity.

The relative immaturity of Asian debt markets will be a bigger problem if today's market turmoil worsens. It's great that the World Bank's new president is focused on the issue. It's even more important for Asian leaders to do the same.

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Mexico City, or through the Tokyo newsroom at wpesek@bloomberg.net

Show students how their school lessons can be applied to everyday life

http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/Online%2BStory/STIStory_152902.html

Aug 30, 2007

AS A former school teacher, I was really delighted to read Ms Lau Ai Lin's letter, 'Children need curiosity and passion to take on challenges of globalised world' (ST, Aug 27).

For far too long, Singaporeans have regarded education as being similar to medicine, something which is not always pleasant tasting but should be shoved down the pupils' throats all in the name of being good for them. As any school teacher should know, this approach to teaching any subject is an exceedingly frustrating one.

Ms Lau rightly points out that students need to be curious and passionate about what they are doing. She rightly points out that in the 'working world', attitude counts. An employee doing something that he or she is passionate about is usually good at it. The same is true of students.

Why can't we think of education in the same manner? Rather than treating the school curriculum as a painful but necessary operation to be imposed on an unwilling student, we should approach education as a two-way process - one where students see the value in what they are learning.

How can we achieve this? I believe that this can be done by showing students how their school lessons can be applied to everyday life and given the Government's focus on 'Private-Public-Partnership' (PPP), the private sector should be encouraged to help the Ministry of Education (MOE) in this area.

One positive example is 3M, a company known for inventing technologies like the Post-It Pad. At last month's Young Innovators Award, the company introduced two programmes that it is working on with MOE, the 'Visiting Wizards Programme' for Primary Students and a 'TECH'' programme for secondary school students. Both these programmes involve practising scientists showing students how their basic science lessons are applied in real life.

MOE should work on more of such partnerships. Helping students discover their curiosity and passion for learning will reap benefits for the private sector in the form of more innovative and productive workers. The Government should actively look at ways in which such PPP activities can be formed between the education system and private sector. It can only be good for Singapore's future.

Tang Li

IMF Renews Iraq Standby Arrangement

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6§ion=0&article=99308&d=4&m=8&y=2007&pix=business.jpg&category=Business

Tang Li, Arab News

SINGAPORE, 4 August 2007 — Iraq’s government received a rare boost when the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to renew a standby arrangement that has been supporting its economic program. The standby arrangement in an amount equivalent to SDR475.36 million (about $727.4 million) which was approved on Dec. 23, 2005, will be extended through to Dec. 28, 2007. The Iraqi authorities request for the waivers of the non-observance of the structural performance criteria on the interim audit of the Central Bank of Iraq’s 2006 financial statements was approved by the Board.

Top Pot Pot

Decided to give myself a bit of quality mind improving time and took the better part of the day off today. Bought myself a copy of "Harry Potter and Deathly Hollows," the grand finale to the Harry Potter series. Have finished it and I've got Potter on the brain so to speak. Each and every one of the books has been utterly spell binding, which is quite appropriate when you consider the hero is a wizard and we're talking about the world of magic. JK Rowling deserves every penny of the billion plus dollars that she has earned.

What makes Harry Potter so readable is the fact that although it's essentially a children's story, it's packed with very deep and serious thems. Think of the Dementor's, beings that suck out all the happiness - hey, people who suffer from depression have the joy sucked out of them.

The seventh book is wonderful. She ties up many of the lose ends from the previous six books and somehow, you are left with the feeling that you need to reread the previous six. The themes of evil, love, power and magic are well presented.

For the sake of those of you who have not read the book, one of the characters who's been fairly unpleasent in the prevous six, is finally revealed to be a courageous and decent person. What was his motivation? The answer is "Love." He loved someone for most of his life and that love drove him to become a ....hero!

The second aspect of the story is the fact that you find the past of one of the more "Holy" characters. This is a character who is considered the greatest wizard of his generation, a leader of his people. Yet, in stead of seeking higher political office, he remains a mere headmaster. Finally, you know why. The character makes a point that those who make the best leaders are not those who seek power for its own sake but those who have leadership thrust upon them - they somehow find the qualities that they never thought they had and they maintain the ever moral compass, which those who seek power for its own sake tend to lose. (Think of 2000 campaign when GW Bush rightly pointed out that Al Gore was the type of person who would say ANYTHING to become president).

JK Rowling celebrates the rebellious streaks in the young. The Ministry of Magic is shown up for what most bureaucratic institutions are - slow and corruptable - staffed with people who become so "Power-Corrupt" their love for office stops them for doing the things that they know are right.

Hongkies, Singaporeans, Indonesians and Malaysians

Being Hongkies is good because..

1. We are Hongkies and not Chinese.
2. We can talk and shout and nobody gives a damn.
3. Jackie Chan is our icon.
4. We can live in a 5' x 5' cubicle and call it luxury apartment. We even
need to pay $10,000 a month for this cubicle.
5. Our children can speak Cantonese at a young age.
6. We get to blame everything on Feng Shui or Tung Chee Hwa or the mainland
communists.
7. Gambling is more interesting than sex. Macau is the place to for thrills!
8. We produce a lot of Miss Hong Kong to the enjoyment of the rich and
famous.

We love being Singaporean because..
1. We are not Malaysians.
2. Everyone (especially the Malaysian) hates us, except ourselves.
3. Famous for Orchard Road and we love Geylang. Geylang is the place to go for thrills!
4. We have our own island.
5. We will never ever have yucky chewing gum stuck under our shoes.
6. We know how to enjoy our vacation in Malaysia - keep a few RM50 notes
before you enter the highway: You can throw anything, anytime, anywhere and always wash our cars at the resort.
7. We can speed up to 180 kilometers per hour and not ending up with a summon as long as we have RM50 with us to spare.
8. The men are always concerned, first question to ask a girl "Do you have CPF?"
9. Never fear of getting lost in our country - S$20 taxi ride will get you into the sea. Hahaha!
10. We'll never have to worry about finding Mr or Ms right because the government will find one for us.
11. 1 Singapore dollar = 2.5 Ringgit... nyek nyek nyek.
12. It's OK to be Kiasu. It's part of our culture.

Top reasons for being Indonesian are as follow

1. We are not Australian.
2. We live in the biggest country in South East Asia .
3. No pirates in Indonesia water if you exclude the Navy and Coast guards.
4. Everything is cheap, even our salaries...
5. We can blame everything to Suharto or BJ Habibie or Gus Dur or Megawati, who's next?
6. Only in Indonesia you can get involved in real demonstrations daily for different causes and see no results.
7. Our Rupiah is like a Yo Yo, it can go up and down just because IMF says so.
8. We burn everything and nobody gives a damn. We cause haze all over the
South East Asia and nobody can do a thing... nyek nyek nyek.
9. We don't need fire fighters as our neighbours will provide...


Being a Malaysian is the best because

1. World tallest twin towers, Best F1 circuit, largest roti canai, most
expensive toll rates, ...because Malaysia Boleh!
2. We can be driving, picking our nose, cursing another driver, talking on the handphone, adjusting the radio and bribing the traffic police at the same time.
3. We divorce by sending SMS.
4. Traffic summon can be settled on the spot with the traffic police.
5. We have Teh Tarik & Roti Canai on the Russian space ship.
6. We can save a lot of electricity b'coz our TV shows are so crappy.
7. We can blame everything on the haze or George Soros or government or opposition parties
8. Resourceful City Council, one person to drive the van, one to carry the ladder, one to change a street's bulb and three others watching.
9. We make 2 lane trunk roads into 3 lane highway and back to 2 lane when police are sighted
10. There's always something for the JKR to do. They dig, resurface the road, dig and resurface.
11. All main roads are designated highway because it gives Velooo a reason to collect toll.
12. Our government can never be wrong.
13. Our badminton players can only win on home grounds because we are kampung champions.
14. We have more water than Singapore ... nyek nyek nyek.

Vive Le France....

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=99013&d=27&m=7&y=2007 Learn to Trust Arabs With Nukes: Sarkozy Agencies

TRIPOLI, 27 July 2007 — After agreeing to nuclear cooperation with Libya, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the West should trust Arab states to develop such technology for peaceful purposes or risk a war of civilizations. France agreed Wednesday to help Libya develop a nuclear reactor to supply drinking water from desalinated sea water. The reactor might be supplied by French atomic energy firm Areva. Sarkozy told reporters in Libya that to consider the Arab world “is not sensible enough to use civilian nuclear power” would, in the long run, risk a “war of civilizations.” “Nuclear power is the energy of the future,” he said. “If we don’t give the energy of the future to the countries of the southern Mediterranean, how will they develop themselves? And if they don’t develop, how will we fight terrorism and fanaticism?” Many Middle Eastern countries, including some worried about Iran’s nuclear program, are interested in developing atomic energy resources. Claude Gueant, Sarkozy’s chief of staff, noted the nuclear cooperation deal means “a country that respects international rules can obtain civilian nuclear energy.” Sarkozy denied any link between the nuclear deal and the release this week of six foreign medics who spent eight years in Libyan jails and were convicted of infecting hundreds of children with HIV. He helped clinch the deal between Tripoli and the European Union to free the medics, removing a major obstacle hampering reconciliation between Libya and the West. “The only link one can make is that if the nurses had not been released, I would not have come,” he said. Areva, the world’s biggest maker of nuclear reactors, deals with the full nuclear cycle from mining to waste. Libya said in February it would join Areva in exploring and mining uranium. Saudi Arabia along with Gulf Cooperation Council partners Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates announced a joint project for peaceful nuclear energy, mainly for water desalination, in December last year. Egypt, which suspended an earlier nuclear energy program after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, is looking to revive it to meet energy needs and conserve gas and oil reserves. Libya and France also signed accords for a military-industrial partnership and cooperation in scientific research and higher education on Wednesday. “I am trying to reassure a part of the Arab world,” said Sarkozy. “There is Libya, but all the other Arab states are looking at the way Libya will be treated following the release of the nurses.” French green groups attacked the plan as a perilous masquerade that would encourage Muammar Qaddafi to get a nuclear bomb. Sortir du Nucleaire (Get Out of Nuclear) said the official reason for the reactor was a “deception” as the civilian and military uses of nuclear technology were “indissociable.” “Delivering civilian nuclear energy to Libya would amount to helping the country, sooner or later, to acquire nuclear weapons,” it said. Rich in oil and gas, Libya is “very amply self-sufficient in energy,” the group argued. “If it wishes to diversify, it should logically give priority to solar energy: the country enjoys remarkable levels of sunshine all year long.” Greenpeace France said the deal “poses an enormous problem in terms of nuclear proliferation” and branded it as “in keeping with the French policy of irresponsible export of nuclear technology.” Greenpeace pointed out that previous French presidents had signed nuclear deals with the former shah of Iran, ex-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and with South Africa during the apartheid era. But experts said the plan posed no immediate risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. They said Libya was cooperating with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and had given up its nuclear weapons program in late 2003. Since then “there has been very good cooperation with the IAEA,” a diplomat close to the Vienna-based IAEA said. Nonproliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) added: “I don’t think there is any proliferation risk, given the fact that Libya is still cooperating with the IAEA (and) the manner it turned over and destroyed equipment.” “(Libya’s) cooperation with the IAEA and British and American governments has been exemplary,” Fitzpatrick said. “It is important for the rest of the world to see that when a country abandons its nuclear weapons programs and weapons of mass destruction, there are tangible benefits. This cooperation (with France) is a direct result,” he added.

Worry and Joy

It's been a fairly busy day. Somehow or other most of my waking hours have been spent trying to tiddy up bits and pieces from jobs that have yet to be done and so as the expression goes, I'm quite knackered. Or at least I should be, have not worked this intensly for quite a while, which is probably saying something about moi and my affairs.

Managed to finish a script and a write up today. Fabulous Tan, one of my SME clients is offering a range of "Interesting" cosmetic services. When the business first started, I was sceptical. I still am. I know its awful to publicise this about my own client but the idea of a "Sun Tan" studio in Singapore is really comical. I mean we have more than enough sun and the culture here is for women to became fair rather than dark. Having said all of that the client is obviously doing something right. He's actually been expanding and somehow you can't help but want him to succeed. I think that's one of the reasons why I still support the guy. People who can defy logic and proving conventional reason wrong have the ability to bring you to interesting places. I mean, if I can sell a Sun Tan studio in Singapore I guess I can do pretty much anything.

Managed to get Julian to deliver a talk in Leng Kee Community Centre. He was really good. Could have been something to do with the fact that Julian is the perfect image of what every Chinese old lady hopes her daughters and grandaughters will bring home - in spite of being a very good cornea specialist (one of Singapore's best), Julian is a riddiculously young looking 38-year old. Anyway, Julian's secret to eternal youth aside, he was a hit. He handled the presentation and questions in Mandarin and Alcon managed to get very good exposure from the excercise.

Han Li called today. I'm a little worried. Thui is not feeling too good - bad enough for Han Li to want to fly back quickly. I still have this image of my baby girl as a ever ready bunny and the idea of her being less than that does not make me a happy bunny too.

Night ended at Number 5, a bar in Emerald Hill. Generally not my hang out. Too filled with Whisky Tango and SPG's and girls trying to be SPG's (Sarong Party Girls to reading Brits). Event was an SPCA (In the UK it would be the RSPCA) function and I was there at the invitation of one of my favourite radio producers.

Having said that, the event was a joy to behold. There was this band from South America, one local guy, two Cubans and a Columbian. Seriously, I love to hear Spanish being sung - could be something to do with the fact that I spent the better part of my student days with my head glued to Spanish sound track. But they were really good. Both the Columbian and Cuban chick were enchanting when they moved - for the life of me, I can't understand how the Whisky Tango could look at the SPG's after those two were performing on stage. The Columbian (black chick) could glide effortlessly while the Cuban (white chick) could really shake her booty. Cuba may be communist and Columbia may be a place where people get murdered like everyone else eats ice cream but for those two....I'd move anywhere they'll go to.

I think it must be something about the temprament. Its like whenever you see the Southern Europeans, South Americans and even the Philipinos gather together, there's always an atmosphere of pure joy. It's like when any of these groups gather together, they just let lose like no one else can and the joy that they have is infectious.

Almost at the halfway point

Its Wednesday morning and I thought I would bash a note out on the blog to see how the world outside me is doing before I hit the sack and get ready for another action filled day tomorrow. Life, as they say has been fairly decent, keeping me stressed up trying to finish a few bits and pieces of work here and there and getting my life off the ground.

Am now in the process of finishing the Home Affairs job with the boys at Consulus. It's going to be a bit of an adventure as I'm being brought into meet with the client on Thursday. Going to be someone from the Ministry, Cops and one of the other agencies I think. Been interesting working on the project - got a chance to get to know how the agencies work.

Yesterday was Flesh Ball's birthday. Quite funny. Got Julian to give her an eye-test for hyperopia (long-sightedness) and then brought her to lunch in the Fullerton. She said it was her dream to have a meal there and so I was nice. Always interesting to see the rolly-polly thing munching away at things.

Anyway, today was also good too. We had an Absolut event - Vodka 'nosing' and getting to know more about cocktails. I love booze events, you can get tipsey and have a legitimate claim to be actually working. Interestingly enough, I found out that Kristianstadt, where Vincent and I visited at the begining of the year is where the ABSOLUT AKADEMI is based. - And to think that the highlight of our trip there was the joy of eating Sweedish Pizza (run by Lebaneese) and playing on the new Nintendo Wi.

After that it was all about trying to tiddy up some stuff for 3M. They are organising a work place safety seminar, which I guess should be quite fun.

Anyway, it's now time to retire.

Sleepy On Friday, In Need of beep, beer and FOOD

It's Friday, the proverbial end of the week that everyone seems to look out for. Everyone starts to unwind on Friday (though in Saudi they're already unwound and getting rewound) and I had to start Friday at a meeting with ISD. This is part of a project I'm working off with the guys at Consulus. Interesting meeting, the girl from ISD (Internal Security Department - Singapore version of MI5) studied theater and English and as things turned out had to seriously deflate my ego to tell me that I was probably not being monitored by ISD. Damn, I thought that was going to give me some street cred with the plebs.

Anyway, I managed to collect some more money today, which is always good. Being broke is quite a common occurance unless you are part of the rulling elite but not much fun either (unless you are part of the rulling elite - when things don't happen to you, it always seems so much more fun/funny)

Well, I guess, I'm just in a sleepy and hungry mood. Managed to edit one script, write a brand new one (admitedly with the help of some pointers) and emcee remarks - all this in aid of conference of health and work safety. Personally, workers should be exploited - I know, once you've been exploited you take a particularly childish delight in watching someone else get exploited by the evils of capitalism.

OK, need a nap - got to look for some where to crash before heading back to work

The Auction

It's not everyday where you get a eye-opening experience and so, when an aquaintaince of mine ended up getting into some trouble with the law today, I found myself hanging out at the scene of his troubles so that I could find myself indulging in a bit of voueristic pleasure at someone elses humiliation. I was, as the Singapore government is so fond of saying "Educated" in the way the due process of the law works and into an exciting world of vulture trading.

The saga began when a businesses asssociate of this aquaintaince decided to take the bugger to court for non-payment of loans. The clown decided to "Talk" things over with his business associate who was clearly in no mood to talk and so the guy's restaurant ended up having a "Writ of Seziure" issused against his restaurant. As luck would have it, this was the day that the court had to decided to auction off his "goods."

Actually his goods were more like "Bads". The man runs an Indian restaurant and catering service somewhere near the end of little India. The word is he caters for some of Singapore's more dignified people but has at the same time employed two parasites who were busy pretending to be sympathetic. Anyway, the bads that were to be auctioned off involved several steel tables used for chopping and a fridge that looked large enough to store a body ..... well at least it looked like it should have been storing bodies because the condition it was in made bodies look like a picnic in the park.

Anyway, the balifs were late and so the gang that attends these auctions had plenty of time to assess the goods on offer. Its an interesting group of people who attend these auctions. Many of the crowd had brought their own lorries (Cash and carry-same day delivery).

Like in all things capitalist, the Balif Sales Gang is multi-racial, mostly a good reflection of Singapore's ethnic make-up - majority Chinese, a few Indians and a Eurasian. Non of them look gentle, especially the women. But as long as you keep a respectable distance, nobody disturbs you.

Auction itself is pretty straight forward. Non of the glamour of the Keenland Yearling Sales or Southerby Auctions. But non the less, the process works on a similar principle. The regulars are quite sharp and seem to have a nose for value. Most of them walked out of the auction when it was clear that the price was going to be more than what they could have got on the resale value.

Outside of Geylang, this was capitalism at its naked best. You see people as they really are and you appreciate that the real economy of Singapore is not run by clowns with degrees but by sharp nosed traders with a good nose for value and relationship building (The Balif is obviously familiar with the usual gang).

I always had this fantasy that I could create a viable business going to baliff sales. Well, my fantasy was always at a slightly more elegant level, dealing in fabulous cars and watches of captured drug dealers and bankrupt movie stars. Never had the capital to get into this. Never had the guts to actually study and execute how this could be done.

But having seen todays auction, I'm intreagued. Its not that I plan to give-up my world of intangibles but somehow seeing street traders in action has excited me into wanting to have a decent side line. Perhaps its just me but I seem to think that Karang Gunni men (Rag and bone traders who by junk and sell it for more) are one the best things that keep Singapore running.

Ge De Buk Ge De Buk Ge De Buk

Woke up fairly early this morning. Wasn't too difficult. Just got a very tight squeeze on the left arm and suddenly it was out of lala dream land for me. Nothing like having your arm squeezed until it turns blue to keep you alert.

Anyway, the long and the short of all of this is the fact that I managed to get the the darn thing taken off my arm and spent the morning in Changi General having an ultra-sound of my heart. Ultra sounds are quite kinky in a wierd way. You get gel smeared on your body but I didn't seem to mind - I had a good snooze at various moments. Nothing like having a good snooze to make ones morning.

Day has been quite OK. Had lunch with Allan and a new opthalomologist, Dr Gerard Chua, whom we are likely to work with on the Alcon account. Gerard Chua is a nice man, very loving towards his girlfriend. During lunch, he and girlfriend (who happens to be a nurse) held hands. He has to be a nice guy. For me, food comes first - which probably accounts for why I'm a cuddly 97 KG .

Anyway, its been quiet. Some of the press reverted on some of the pitches I sent out late last night. Won't get rich, its all part of the Alcon retainer but its good because every bit of news coverage keeps the client happy and more importantly, I think it helps get some important eye-care issues a higher profile. Alcon is one of those really nice clients where you manage to get a few pennies out of them and do a public service by publicising and 'educating' people are issues like cataracts, presbyopia and glaucoma. So, its nice to earn a few Karma points or whatever they have in the nether world or wherever one is supposed to go to after dropping dead.

Its been a fairly quiet week. Am seriously skint and somehow I need to raise survival cash pretty darn quickly. No, I'm not about to take up prostitution as a living, even if at times being a free-lance writer sometimes feels like being one (on second thoughts, its an insult to whores, they get in cash). But seriously, I'm not going to kill myself. Now that things are moving on GE Commercial Finance, I think the future looks a wee bit brighter or at least more interesting than it did this time last month. A case of ready to die before going into better things.

A Day of Many Almost

It's been a day of almost, almost events. Thought I was going to meet with Grid to tie up our financial details about the GE job but it did not happen. Then I thought I was going to discuss several projects but it turned out that I didn not and ended up looking at what could be a load of crisis management activties - oh, ar, wah.

The hot event of the day was the fact that Han Li was nearly not allowed to come into Singapore after a month back home. The girl has her issues with immigration and I guess she's used to dealing with the guys at ICA. For me, it was getting ready to psychologically prepare for the fact that she might not have been prancing around in the background to make my life a bit more interesting.

I guess it could be something to do with the fact that its now half way through the year. Its not been as dramatically as good as it was last year, but then again that much is to be expected. However, I do wish certain things were better and I suppose I could be doing better. Health issues have also cropped up. I'm off for an MRI next week - back is making life uncomfortable when I do too much sitting in front of the computer - which is pretty ironic because I need to sit in front of a computer to make a living. - Eech.

Anyway, will have something deeper and happier to write in the next few moments.