Lee Kuan Yew and the American Society of Newspaper Editors - Press Freedoms and the Role of the Press in context.

"Press Freedom" is one of the go-to criticism of Singapore. Reporters without Borders rank Singapore 139 (out of 180 states) in 2022 - just above Somalia, and below United Arab Emirates. This is an improvement! Previously, Singapore was ranked 160th! Surprisingly, UAE (ranked 1 position above Singapore has 2 journalist currently in prison. Singapore, being 1 position below UAE must be worst right? So... 3 journalists in prison? Nope. 0. Somalia has 1 media worker in prison... So... who knows how Reporters without borders rank these things. Without borders, without boundaries, and without logic, perhaps?

New American Century

With the fall the of the Soviet Union, the US became the sole superpower and without a rival to compete and challenge the US started to reduce its military investments... until Sept 11 2001.

NATO was losing relevance, Trump was trying to extricate the US from its commitments to NATO, and so were other members of NATO... until Feb 24, 2022.

[Video: Can the US continue to be the Police of the World - Visual Politics EN]

COE hits $114k (in open Category -- 20th July 2022)!

COE - the world's best voluntary taxation system. 

[Taxes are usually mandatory. You cannot CHOOSE not to pay it. COE is VOLUNTARY. *I* don't pay COE, because I CHOOSE not to own a car.]

Chicken Feed

Fifty BILLION chickens are raised for meat (just for meat, not counting the chickens raised primarily for eggs!) each year, so approximately 136 million are slaughtered each day for meat.

Sea Level Rise - Singapore's possible response

[First drafted in May 2022 in response to a simplistic comment online about cancelling the Cross Island line, reducing our population, not cutting trees to prevent climate change and sea level rise, instead of coming up with measures and means to mitigate sea level rise.]

The truth is, even if Singapore does NOTHING to add to the carbon in the atmosphere, the sea levels WILL rise. For the simple reason that ALL the carbon in the atmosphere that was added in the last 100 years (or since the start of the Industrial revolution) is already melting glaciers and polar ice caps, and permafrost, and these are reducing albedo effects, and releasing methane (in the permafrost) and earth is already in a runaway cascade of heating up. EVEN if Singapore completely shuts down our carbon emission TODAY, it will not matter to the world. 

Singapore is less than 0.01% of the population of the world, and our land area is less than 0.001% of the world's land area. Our environmental impact on the WORLD will have less than negligible impact on sea level rise. Heck, if somehow a virulent and deadly pandemic wipes out the entire population of Singapore today, so we do not produce and pollute one MORE atom of carbon from today onwards, the sea levels WILL STILL RISE.

Fake News Checklist

 

Why Tolerance is Intolerable (A comment on a message of tolerance to LGBT)

[From a Facebook Post in June 2015 - I think it was a commentary on why we are intolerant of LGBT.]

It is going to take a while because the issue is tied up in values. And when one's position is informed by values, tolerance is intolerable.

Why? Because if you believe in the One True God, then what of other believers of other faiths? Obviously their gods are false. Then how can one tolerate those of other faiths? Obviously only in a patronising way. Not necessarily OVERTLY patronising. But in your heart of hearts, you KNOW you are the follower of the One True God (OTG, reg'd trademark), and those of other faiths are obviously wrong, deluded, and hell-bound.

How else can you tolerate them except with the Knowledge that they are wrong, but you have to keep your mouth shut because, hey - multi-culti, diverse and fruity, let's all just get along or the ISD will get you for sedition?

So we "tolerate" other faiths.