ICONOCLASSING Pt 2 RH:1. I had, in this previous Comment in The Online Citizen [ http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/02/knowledge-based-economy-needs-more-uni-education-financing/#more-527 ] first tried to reason dispassionately about Foreigners and their effects on GDP, which have led to an unbelievable tidal wave of foreigners that has swamped our islet. Today, I will try to fuller.2. What makes a Singaporean? -- vs a foreigner? I had postulated that it is SCE [Shared Common Experience]. "Thus, a Chinese and a Malay Singaporean can have More Shared Experiences than with a Chinese from China. However, if that Chinaman has enough Commonalities when he arrives, and gains more with time, he can be as Singaporean as any local-born." [self quote].3. Thus, while we become emotional and even angry at Foreigners many advantages over locals, we need to remember that our ancestors were once immigrants but became Singaporeans. Singaporeans vs Foreigners is not one or the other, not Black vs White, but a SCALE which we all, locals or not, are on, each at various points of being more or less Singaporean. Simply, it is how much SCE you have, I think. My maid has worked here ~15 years. She can MRT and commute about, speak, read and write fairly good English, speak Teochew and some Mandarin besides Indonesian, and in looks and behaviour, indistinguishable from Singaporeans. I think, on my basis, she deserves to be given PR instead of the 'Foreign Talent' [FT] who flies in with few Commonalities. This SCE principle may already be implicitly recognised by some countries. My wife's colleague took his maid to London for several years. When he returned, his maid did not — she had qualified for PR!4. Thus, countries may look into granting PR also on the basis of SCE and not just 'economic value'. This will save much maladjustments to both the immigrant and the receiving society.5. In PAPadise, it is purely economic value but as usual, stupidly and typically UNTHINKING, leading to great harm and tragic results.6. For example, suppose you vacuum your floor and wash clothes and dishes. You are generating NO economic value or GDP activity. Thus, a housewife, according to current Economic theories, generates little or no 'economic activity' and thus no GDP. So Singapore housewives are encouraged to work outside home because earning a salary gets recorded as 'economic activity' or 'economic value' and thus gets into the GDP figures. So when she earns $1,000, she 'generates' far more than $1,000 because she commutes, eats outside, buys office clothes, etc. All these suddenly boost the GDP simply because that is how GDP is measured. Further, the maid she has to hire to look after her kids, for $350, also 'generates' far more than $350 because the maid also consumes some personal-use goods and services, etc, thus also boosting the GDP -- again, since this is how GDP is measured. This explains the Second Wave in my 3 Waves Of Labour theory in my essay on Leeconomics [ http://i-came-i-saw-i-wrote-it.blogspot.com/search/label/RH%3A%20Robert%27s%20Complete%20Case%20against%20Leeconomics%20%5BMain%5D ].7. Thus, we see the ATTRACTION of foreigners to the MinisterMoron, PrimeMoron, and their Cronies Morons. Even a lowly maid or other foreigner cheap labour generates far more 'GDP activities' than just their nominal salary. To crystallise it, suppose they import a foreigner cripple without arms or legs. This cripple will still 'generate' appreciable GDP activity because he will house, eat, buy diapers, medical care, etc. So more GDP activities. In short, like in the movie "Matrix", just Human Bodies are enough to generate GDP. So the Morons keep importing bodies, almost all cheap labour since they cannot lure betters. Thus, today, >1 in 4 of people in Singapore are foreigners! The most astounding rate in world history! Do LIE KY LHL PAP know something we don't? The contrary.8. I don't think these Morons, or anybody else, have reasoned it all thus. What they do know is that every time they import foreigners, the GDP goes up and hence, their Performance Bonuses, so they keep importing foreigners even when these DISPLACE LOCALS. In fact, by not understanding all this, their importing policies have the effect of Displacing Locals because the GDP GROWS EVEN MORE THIS WAY. Let me explain : suppose a cheap labour foreigner is imported to displace a local low-wage labourer. This cheap foreigner generates far more than just his nominal salary in GDP activities, so good for the Morons Bonuses. But the unemployed local labourer does not become 0 upon being displaced and unemployed. He still needs to house, eat, utilities, etc, so he still consumes and thus generate GDP activities. So the NET GAIN is not just from the foreigner but also the captive local who still needs to consume and thus generate GDP. Thus, 2-WAY net gains from this Displacement policy. This explains the callous policies and insane tidal wave influx of foreigners, almost all cheap labour -- but never mind, they still generate big GDP. The so-called FT are only handfuls and mostly used to justify the real tidal wave influx of cheap foreigners. FTs have better options elsewhere so most don't come or stay.9. The Morons are like lab rats in a cage. They have discovered that by pressing the Green Lever, more marbles drop into their cage and somehow, the lab scientists reward them more titbits as a result of the more marbles. So they furiously keep pressing the Green Lever, thinking they are "successful" [Performance Bonuses] even though there are so many marbles they have little living space left. But they still keep pressing as if addicted. This analogy explains the Morons unthinking addiction to foreigners and DELIBERATE DISPLACEMENT of locals -- nothing is NON-Deliberate in Singapore, except maybe the unique or extremely rare KASTARI escape from an ISD prison! Which is why it is so unbelievable and led to so many conspiracy theories.10. Another example of this unthinking Green Lever Syndrome is the DELIBERATE [like Displacement of low-wage Singaporean workers -- IN MANY CASES, ALSO HIGHER WAGE ONES, TOO] policy to bias towards Manufacturing as against Services. Our Morons have always scorned Hongkong for its Service Economy and prided themselves on still having a big Manufacturing sector. The Green Lever Syndrome at work again.11. In the first place, Hongkong DOES have manufacturing and very big, too, except that it is all captured as China statistics in Shenzhen and other centres. Second, it is Green Lever Syndrome again because manufacturing is mostly measurable in $ [as in widget parts costs and final selling prices] and so easily captured into final GDP figures whereas Services like a Hongkong clerk processing forms or answering calls in a Call Centre is difficult to value in $ and so only their nominal salaries get into the GDP. This doesn't mean that Manufacturing is superior to Services! as the Morons think. Only that one is more measurable than the other -- at least in $ and GDP terms. But, just like reading to a child or volunteer social work instructing elderlies in exercise, activities that are not capturable in GDP does not mean inferior or not worth doing, as the Morons believe in both thought and action.12. Thus, Hongkong has a more 'normal', REAL economy as opposed to the LIEgime FALSE and distorted economy. For example, like all Real economies, Hongkong considers many factors besides GDP numbers, such as inflation, unemployment, jobs creation, consumer spending, social spending and welfare, govt spending and taxations, etc, and devises policies towards these [multiple] ends, whereas the False and distorted economy of the LIEgime is constructed and deliberately designed to produce high GDP numbers only. The US, probably the most intelligently monitored and managed economy, has a whole slew of economic indicators besides GDP numbers. US business media almost daily analyse dozens of indicators, from housing starts to PMI to Producer Price Indices, stock indices and prices, etc, and not just the final GDP numbers. Only the LIEgime stupidly constructs an economy solely to produce high GDP numbers. Thus, Hongkong's Real economy is probably many times bigger and better than the False economy of the LIEgime, which is more like a shop window display, artificial and FOR SHOW ONLY, like everything else about the LIEgime.13. This False economy of the LIEgime is paralleled by its equally stupid education policies. In Education, there is also obsession with scoring high marks in exams, thus paralleling the construction of the False economy to score high GDP numbers. So, schools, principals, teachers and students are obsessed only with scoring high marks in exams. This means that non-exam subjects are hardly taught and studied. Worse, teachers and students choose subjects purely to score high marks, hence the decades-long bias to Math and Science subjects [far easier to score] than say, Lit and Lang. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Singaporeans and the way Math is taught from primary to university, this bias produces several generations of unintelligent 'scholars' [many become Cronies Ministers or Generals who later metamorphosise into GLC CEOs] who, other than high Math marks, cannot think, since Language is the Basis of Thought, not Math. Thus, when you teach [and learn] TO the test or exam, you do score high marks but learn little, in not much of an education.14. Thus, the LIEgime has only 5 aims of govt. First, to entrench and further the LIE family stranglehold on power and to increase that power without limit so as to control every aspect of work and life in Singapore. Second, to LOOK GOOD always -- an obsession -- even if this is only surface or cosmetic. Third, as regards the economy, to produce high GDP numbers. Fourth, to produce huge budget surpluses. This means decades of unremitting, relentless, Overtax and Underspend policies, overtaxing exorbitantly on everything possible, especially HDB housing, car taxes [both giving many, many, multiples of profit or rather, profiteering], GST, etc, while underspending on everything else except the military, which always has the biggest budget allocations. Thus, Singaporeans are overtaxed in every way possible and imaginable while spending on heathcare, education, the poor, etc, are all shortchanged. The budget surpluses are not enough apparently, so in order to create even bigger and more impressive Reserves and SWF [Fifth goal], Singaporeans CPF are withheld to make the Reserves bigger. Thus, Singaporeans have little access to and cannot even withdraw their own monies because the LIEgime wants it in its own kitty. CPF was as much as 40% of every worker salary and bonus OVER HIS LIFETIME CAREER, now slightly less. Thus, 'managing by/for results', which is pretty legitimate, became bastardised, like everything else, to become 'managing by numbers', further bastardised to 'managing FOR [GDP] numbers'. Thus, the economy is constructed mainly to score high GDP numbers and the easiest way is to massively import foreigners -- preferably rich -- but practically, mostly cheap labour, since millionaires or FTs cannot be imported in numbers for various reasons. This explains why the LIEgime bends over backwards [this time] to play nice to all foreigners. It also explains why there is such an unbelievable tidal wave of foreigners in Singapore, the Third Wave in my essay.15. The >1 in 4 of us being foreigners has obviously [how can anyone NOT notice!] become 'sensitive', meaning actually 'explosive' -- as it would be in a democracy instead of the secretive, suppressive dictatorship here. So, being politicians, and a govt obsessed with looking good ["Every time LIE KY looks good, the Truth doesn't" -- self quote] they spin and rationalise. They also Reclassify. This Reclassification trick reclassifies foreigners as Residents, PRs and even citizens to reduce resentment when the 'official' figures are out. If we grant PRs and citizenship more on SCE, this Reclassification trick will be harder. As is now, they can, with a simple sleight of the hand, change the numbers of foreigners into Residents, PRs and citizens. There is here, the 'magic trick' of DOUBLE or 2-WAY 'gains', just like in Displacing local low wage and even HIGH WAGE workers with foreigners. When the LIEgime reclassifies a foreigner into a PR or citizen, 1 MORE is added to the PR or citizen group while 1 LESS is reduced in the foreigner group. So double-counting 'gains'! But foreigner or local or whatever, the buses, trains, food centres, roads, infrastructures, malls, etc, are all overcrowded [noticed the many big groups of dark-skinned young men watching the big tv displays or loitering near the money-changers or just loitering]? The problem is vaster than anyone, including the Morons, realise. They are just rats pressing levers and thinking they are doing a great job.16. What can anyone do about it? Nothing. LIE KY LHL PAP are proven to have rigged the 1997 Cheng San GRC election, almost certainly also the 1963 General Elections in a suspicious 6-hour electricity blackout centred around the City Hall Vote Counting Centre, most probably also the Ong Teng Cheong Presidential election, plus the Malaysia Referendum that offered no, only rigged, choices. We can all do nothing because LIE KY LHL PAP need no mandate since they cheat massively ['winning' 82 out of 84 seats is mathematically, politically and electorally impossible without massive cheating -- like Saddam Hussein >90% votes every 'election'] so they do what they like, "never mind what the people think" -- LIE KY.17. According to a 2008 report from the Asian Development Bank, "The Singapore govt estimates that foreign labour contributed 3.2% of its annual growth rate of 7.8% in the 1990's." Another factoid : >40% of Singapore total labour force are cheap foreign labourers and >170,000 of the nearly 1 million foreign labourers are maids.18. In an official Report from the ManPower Ministry for 2006 : http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal/en/communities/others/mrsd/Publications/ReportonLabourForceinSingapore2006.htmlThe 2006 Total Labour Force was 2.59m; 'Residents' [note Reclassification Trick] were 1.80m. UNEMPLOYED 'Residents' [seasonally adjusted] were 70,000 or 3.6% but 84,000 or 4.5% non-seasonally adjusted.19. The point to note is that the overwhelming PAPaganda which has overpowered all thinking and discussions about foreigners, is that firstly, "foreigners do the dirty and dangerous jobs we locals shun". Secondly, "FT do the kind of Talented Jobs that we locals don't have the Talent to do so shut up and don't dare complain when YOUR job goes to a foreigner". Thirdly, "foreigners average DOWN business costs so businesses can profit more" [this is actually done by rigidly tying foreigners to employers so they cannot jobhop to better, plus other draconian conditions to give employers great advantages to exploit them, which explains why no employer wants Singaporeans!]20. To this, I can only ask, pointing to MOM statistics in Paragraph 18, are there really so many "dirty and dangerous" jobs in Singapore? Or so many Talent jobs we cannot do? To the extent 3.6%/4.5% of us are unemployed? Or is it the usual politicians scapegoating and 'blaming the victims'? After all, even garbage collection is highly mechanised, requiring few workers. Same for cleaners who even drive cleaning machines. Same for construction work, since there is a limit to how many workers can work at any time because concrete floors are laid and harden floor by floor. The Truth is, employers PREFER foreigners because they can be exploited far more easily due to LIEgime policies, entirely pro-business and anti-workers at the best of times, having jailed union leaders from the moment LIE KY seized power half a century ago, who then constructed and maintained by force, a fake NTUC 'union' body to further supppress workers, an NTUC whose main objective like every LIEgime org or institution, is to profit from its multiplicity of businesses from supermarket 'co-ops' to condos and even funeral parlours.21. This is the tragedy for us -- not for the Morons. They just keep pressing levers and collecting marbles and Performance Bonuses. While the tidal wave of foreigners continue to swamp every aspect of life on this little islet.////////////////////Recommended Reading :RH:http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/page.news.php?clid=33&id=30038130A recent 500-page brilliant, extensively-researched book, “Lion Without Teeth” that proves that everything most people, especially foreigners, know about Singapore and LIE KY are carefully planted and fabricated LIES./////////////////////////////On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Robert HO wrote: RH: 1. Since this is INFLATION Week in TOC, thought I would contribute the following snippets. Just short quotes and their urls : http://www.europac.net/externalframeset.asp?from=home&id=10612 "...fixated on wholly meaningless govt data that managed to report the lowest inflation... However, the govt's ability to make 'economic growth' magically appear is based purely on statistical finesse." "...govt [should] adjust nominal GDP gains using the GDP deflator, which represents the inflation rate. This is done to strip inflation out of the GDP calculation so that only real growth gets counted: not nominal gains that result purely from inflation." "Similar illusions are created in other numbers, such as retail sales, corporate earnings, and stock prices, which are all rising merely as a result of actual inflation being higher than the official reports. For example, higher retail sales reflect consumers paying higher prices for the products that they buy. They may in fact be buying less stuff, but are paying more for it." "Similarly, just as inflation causes prices to rise for goods and services, it causes stock prices to rise as well. Though such gains may be less than the actual increase in the cost of living, as long as the govt gets away with using bogus CPI numbers which fail to fully reflect inflation, ...takes credit for nominal gains as if they were real." "However, as ridiculous as the phony GDP number was, yesterday's biggest joke was a report on global competitiveness put out by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which ranked the [LIE KY LHL PAP] economy as [among] the world's most competitive. To arrive at this conclusion, the forum has obliterated the obvious under a mountain of theory. In determining country rankings, the WEF weighed strengths in their "12 Pillars of Competitiveness", including: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation. It is as if the WEF decided to judge a weight loss contest without using a scale, by instead focusing only on mental attitude, dedication, perseverance, and nutritional education! As a result the prize is awarded to the fattest contestant. [Singapore] is clearly not [among] the most competitive economies in the world. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 2. http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/numbers-lie/2007/11/02/ "More Proof That Numbers Lie" "Numbers don't lie, do they? Ha! Numbers are the biggest liars on the planet." "...govt statisticians – and corporate ones too – typically "crunch" numbers into the shape they want. Numbers get punched, beaten, hammered, bullied, and bamboozled. When the torture session is over they'll admit to anything. That is how we get a "consumer price index" of only 3%...when everyone knows prices are rising a lot faster. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 3. http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/11/3/focus/19360112&sec=focus "Increasing prices in just about everything has overshadowed the city state's prosperity in the last four years." "The city-state has been hit by an unceasing bout of price increases that has overshadowed the city's prosperity in the past four years. Inflation is at its worst here in 12 years [now 26 years] and has become the people's biggest worry today. For many, the high costs are blurring the Singapore Dream." "Worst affected is the broad middle class, ...a punishing [from] 5% to 7% rise in the Goods and Services Tax (GST)." "There are two immediate effects. The value of money is dropping by the week, and savings are discouraged since consumer prices are rising faster than interest the banks pay on deposits." "The govt appears unable to take action to stop the epidemic, a contrast to the first-generation govt during such crises." "But so strong and persistent is inflation that many Singaporeans feel they are the poorer for it." "...the govt ...priorities are economic growth and asset accumulation (for foreign investments) – even at the expense of a higher cost of living. To that end, it has increased GST from 5% to 7% and may eventually reach 10%. Fees for public services are being raised to ensure no drop in Treasury collection." "Deficit budget, although not entirely unknown in Singapore, is a very rare happening." "Many young professionals who just start off in life are worried that the sharp run-up in property prices has made it virtually impossible for them to buy a flat. Some are putting off marriage or raising children." "Understandably inflation has become a hot debate subject. This is tough for the middle class and working class, which are just struggling for a living amidst the perceived wealth, unhappy and with few choices in life." ///////////////////////////////////////////////// 4. http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_173723.html "Grocery bills increase as prices for foodstuffs go up." "A Straits Times check on a random basket of basic goods sold at supermarkets here revealed price increases in almost every category, from fresh chicken to coffee and milk formula." "Rising food prices have contributed to inflation here. September's [2007] overall Consumer Price Index showed that prices generally retreated by 0.3 per cent from the previous month, but the food component - the biggest item at 23% - rose 3.7% as the cost of fresh vegetables, fruit, seafood and milk powder, as well as hawker and restaurant food, went up." "Consumers The Straits Times spoke to said that while increases for each item may seem like a token sum, together, they add up to a much bigger grocery bill." "She said that rental on her stall, which is now S$4,500 a month, is set to rise to S$5,500 at the start of next year, and then to S$6,500 in 2009." ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 5. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/inflation-low-because-oil-prices/story.aspx?guid=%7BF29A8D00-50E5-44D6-9981-0E54430C3A96%7D "In GDP math, sometimes one plus one equals zero." "If you don't understand that, welcome to the confusing world of national income accounting, where up sometimes is down, and where sometimes one plus one can equal zero." "Because of the way govt counts and reports the numbers, real-life inflation was understated and growth was [therefore] overstated." "The economy didn't really grow 3.9%, and inflation really wasn't 0.8%. The numbers aren't as good as they look." "...it did produce quirky numbers that don't accurately reflect reality, even though they are correct from an accounting point of view. The accounting is right. But it's not reality." //////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 6. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/specialreport/news/269666_26/1/.html "Why the GDP link?" "...the higher the gross domestic product (GDP), the bigger the bonus — even some ruling party MPs question the wisdom of such a link." "If Monday's parliamentary debate on pay revisions for ministers and civil servants focused mainly on that "benchmark thing", yesterday's session saw the spotlight being trained on the GDP bonus." "This bonus is a component which ministers, parliamentary secretaries, top civil servants and MPs are eligible for. Several of the 13 backbenchers who spoke yesterday had reservations about the GDP bonus. One common refrain heard in the House was whether it is a fair performance peg to use." "We all know that a rise in GDP may not benefit all sectors of society equally. Some may even lag behind. I would suggest that the Govt consider using indicators that directly impact the livelihood of all Singaporeans," said Dr Lim Wee Kiak (Sembawang GRC)." "He proposed one other indicator to be considered: That of the total cost of running the Govt as a percentage of total revenue. After all, CEOs in the private sector have to ensure profits are not eroded by increasing [inflation] costs and expenses, Mr Loo said." "Other suggestions of alternative benchmarks included: The consumer price index and the inflation rate, as a way to keep cost of living affordable and protect savings; citizens' feedback to major public services; the number of jobs created for Singaporeans; and even the number of Singaporeans who migrate." "Based on the latest revisions, ministers will enjoy a GDP bonus of between 3 and 8 months if the economy grows between 5% and 10% or more. But they will not get any bonus if the economy grows by 2% or less. For example, the entry-level annual salary of a minister this year is expected to include a 5.9-month bonus based on Singapore's estimated GDP growth of between 4.5% and 6.5%." "Another comparison, between the civil service pay increases and the S$30 monthly increase for those on Public Assistance, was raised in the House. Said NMP Kalyani Mehta: "If we are going to be [so] generous to civil servants, then let's be generous to the very poor." In response, Mr Teo Chee Hean, Defence Minister and Minister-in-Charge of the Civil Service, said: "The needs of these individuals are quite different and we need to find more holistic and flexible ways of looking after their needs."" "One new issue that cropped up yesterday was the danger of concentrating too much power and money in the hands of top public officers. MP Denise Phua (Jalan Besar GRC) said: "As responsible leaders, we must be careful not to leave behind a system or structure that combines power and monetary rewards to such high levels that incumbents are so handcuffed by this lethal combination that they find it hard to let go." NMP Eunice Olsen argued that the coupling of political and financial power is more likely to lead to the creation of a rogue govt." "On this issue, Mr Teo said that the checks are elections [RH: a lie since elections are routinely rigged] and the ruling party's selection process. "If (a person's) motivations are self-serving or to make money, we do not select him. And if we discover that's what he's about after he has come in, we drop him," he said. ///////////////////////////////////////////////// 7. http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_172073.html "But economists say one crucial aspect to watch out for is rising inflation. It hit 2.9% in August - the biggest monthly rise since 1994. MAS expects inflation of 1.5% to 2% this year, and up to 3.5% for the first half of 2008. But it expects this to ease in the second half of the year, with inflation at 2% to 3% for the whole of 2008." ////////////////////////////////////////////// RH: Many, many, THANKS to Mr Kaye Poh, from whose brilliant email all the above articles are sourced and excerpted here. The thrust of all these articles prove convincingly enough, that GDP Numbers are faked Higher when Inflation is faked Lower than it really is. They prove why LIE KY LHL PAP kept reporting abnormally Low inflation numbers for decades, when the experience of every Singaporean is of rampant inflation. Also, by reporting falsely Low inflation numbers, LIE KY LHL PAP disguise the simple fact that our CPF monies are actually Reducing in value, eroded by Inflation because the miserable, exploitative, cheating, scam 'interest' they give us are far, far, below inflation -- "an implicit tax" as Prof Mukul Asher [ http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/Faculty_Mukul_Asher.aspx ] wrote. . Also, by reporting -- and convincing us through their PAPaganda media -- that inflation is 'low', the alleged GDP each year becomes automatically and fakedly Higher thereby giving the Ministers and top civil servants more millions in GDP 'Performance Bonuses'!!! Disgusting, dirty, cheats and scammers who routinely rig elections so as to be able to keep paying themselves more millions.. ICONOCLASSING SINGAPORE GDP MYTHS RH:1. An Iconoclass is an iconoclast who does it with class. This essay is an expanded version of a comment I penned in The Online Citizen 2 days ago on January 15, 2008 at 6:10 pm as Comment 22 in http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/01/15/mm-lee-lucky-indonesians/#comments in which I first publicly penned thoughts I had recently conceived. Thoughts that are a sudden realisation of something I had skimmed recently, probably a UN Report on Cities and its mention that many/most? people are now living in cities. The sudden realisation was that this fact, that many/most of humanity are now living in cities, must be because of the many advantages/efficiencies of city life versus suburban or countryside life. This instantly crystallised the thoughts that Singapore's -- and Hongkong's as well as other similar cities' -- economic progress owe much to the efficiencies of CITIFICATION and HIGH DENSITY LIVING. AS WELL AS TINYNESS. These latter thoughts are not new and I have had them for some time, maybe even a year or more, and have exampled them in the closeness of bus stops in Singapore -- and Hongkong, etc -- where buses can come far more frequently than in Less Dense Cities. There, future historians can now trace these ideas that follow in this essay.2. We all know vaguely that cities, especially very dense cities, offer higher efficiencies and therefore a higher quality of life. For example, to reprise my Bus Stop examples, bus stops in Singapore -- and Hongkong, etc, can be sited less than 1 km apart and buses come frequently, even 5 minutes apart, and it can all be still profitable. Thus, high density = high efficiency = high quality of life. The 3 HIGHs Theory. Another example; in dense cities, you can find everything nearby, from cardiologists and toe transplant surgeons to shops selling pet chihuahuas. If you un-migrate from the city to the suburb or countryside, you will instantly suffer loss of or unreliable cellphone signal reception as well as a host of other inefficiencies and inconveniences from sparse petrol stations to lack of Chinese restaurants. Thus, I don't need to labour the point further.3. Given that cities are automatically far more efficient than suburbs or countrysides, we can now examine Singapore, Hongkong and similars. Singapore and Hongkong are among the densest cities in the world and renowned for their efficiencies and high quality of life. The S$3.7++ million dollar question is then, "Are these the achievements of their govts or simply the inevitable effects of simple economic laws such as supply and demand, low costs of logistics, the efficiencies of tinyness where a deliveryman and his van/truck can do a dozen trade deliveries a day compared with say, having to drive 50-100 km to each delivery point and hence only making 2-3 deliveries a day. In shopping [very important for economics and quality of life, since life and economics revolve around buying and consuming], a Best Denki or Challenger electronics store can revenue even S$1 million a day and hence can afford to display lavish displays of laptops and flat panel TVs for shoppers to try and experience, etc. A Giant hypermarket need only be a km or 2 away and offer a vast cornucopia of products you can never try them all even in a lifetime.4. Thus, the unending PAPaganda of Good News and Even More Triumphs of LIE KY LHL PAP and its controlled, fawning, worshipful, media must be countered with the understanding that almost all of Singapore's -- and for that matter, Hongkong's, etc, economic achievements ARE DUE TO CITIFICATION, TINYNESS AND ULTRA HIGH DENSITY OF POPULATION. In fact, I will proffer that even China's astounding economic progress over the last few decades, is largely due to Density. Of course, being Chinese, with all the usual, typical, Chinese characteristics and cultural values, etc, also help but it is probably Density that explains everything. Realising and proving this is important because it offers lessons for the rest of humanity and the world. An indication of my theory as expressed in China is the fact that almost all of China's economic juggernaut progress is in the Dense Cities and not the suburb or countryside. Point proven? Probably.5. The fact that Hongkong never had a LIE KY -- or China, or Taiwan [among world's 20 biggest economies], for that matter, proves conclusively that LIE KY is not the reason for Singapore's progress. Singapore would have made similar progress under LIM Chin Siong, if he had not been treacherously supplanted by LIE KY in a secret deal with then British PM Harold MacMillan, to serve British interests in return for the arrest, jailing and political elimination of LIM without charge or trial under the ISA. LIE KY's treacherous nature also saw him collaborating with the Japanese during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore in WW2, when other young Singaporeans were going into the jungles to fight and resist the Japanese.6. However, although with some research, I could probably draw many other cities and countries as examples of my theory, I consider it proven, even with these limited, unacademic examples. I would like to finish by comparing Hongkong's progress with Singapore's, since they are almost as identical as twins. At first glance, Singapore and Hongkong's economies seem comparable, with Singapore slightly ahead [2006 estimates of Nominal Per Capita GDP puts Singapore slightly ahead at 21st spot with US$34,152 against Hongkong's 27th spot with US$29,149] but these figures OVERSTATE for Singapore due to LIE KY LHL PAP incessant manipulation and falsification of statistics so the Cabinet can pay themselves bigger million-dollar 'Performance Bonuses', since these bonuses are directly correlated to GDP! while the Hongkong Govt gains nothing from exaggerating GDP numbers and so doesn't lie about it like LIE KY LHL PAP.7. In fact, I believe that Hongkong's GDP is grossly UNDERSTATED and exceeds by far that of Singapore's. For example, prior to around 1978, Hongkong was the biggest toy maker in the world and every kid in the world had at least 1 water pistol or model car Made In Hongkong. After Deng Xiao Ping opened the adjoining Shenzhen SEZ around 1978, Hongkong's toy industry disappeared. Relocated to nextdoor Shenzhen. Thus, although official statistics would seem that Hongkong today has little or no toy [and other] manufacturing industries, THESE STATISTICS ARE CAPTURED AS CHINA [SHENZHEN] PRODUCTION EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE OWNED AND DRIVEN BY HONGKONGERS. Hongkong has no manufacturing? Only services, mostly financial? That is erroneous. To correct this, economists should include most of Shenzhen's economic output to Hongkong, not China. Worse, Hongkongers, having conquered Shenzhen, went on to other parts of China, especially Shanghai and Beijing, not just in toy manufacturing but also a vast outpouring of goods and services industries. Hongkong businessmen are so brilliant they dance circles around the Singaporean, whose Chineseness and business acumen and native ingenuity have been distorted by LIE KY into obedient, even STUPID, fearful, cowed sheep who cannot think, let alone solve problems or start and run businesses. Every Dictator produces stupid people and since LIE KY is an Absolute Dictator, the most powerful in history over his people, naturally the Singaporean is now very, very stupid. The GLCs' dominance and deliberate elimination of small businesses so as to reduce the ranks of financially independent [and hence politically independent] Singaporeans to render all subservient to LIE KY also deleted the business genes from Singaporeans.8. Thus, there are several lessons for humanity here. High density living = high efficiencies = high quality living. Town planners and architects, please note. Cities offer better lives than suburbs or countrysides. Hongkong is what a truly free and open society and economy can achieve in quality living as well as GDP, trumping Singapore by far in everything. LIE KY LHL PAP are stupid and cheats, not only cheating in elections but also true GDP figures and other statistics. Overpaid, incompetent, cheats. I rest my case./////////////////////Recommended Reading :RH:http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/page.news.php?clid=33&id=30038130Recent 500-page brilliant, extensively-researched book, “Lion Without Teeth” that proves that everything most people, especially foreigners, know about Singapore and LIE KY are carefully planted and fabricated LIES. Filmmaker Martyn SEE interviews Robert HO http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/Filmmaker Martyn SEE interviews Cyber Dissident Robert HO. For interview, please click above. Or read it in full below, reproduced with grateful thanks to Martyn:Sunday, January 07, 2007Singapore's cyber dissident speaks out "You can express any view that you want, you can form a political party, you can contest the elections, you can have rallies, make speeches, no trouble whatsoever." - PM Lee Hsien Loong, CNN TalkAsia, Dec 2006 Robert HO is Singapore's leading cyber dissident.In late 2001, marking the first-ever case of its kind, HO was arrested in his home for allegedly posting "inflammatory" articles online during the General Elections. In 2002, following an as-yet-unspecified article(s) posted on soc.culture.singapore, police entered his home to serve him a summons to attend an investigation. Again, his computer was seized. Three weeks later, according to HO, he was forcibly taken to the police station by officers who entered his home without a warrant or a charge. In 2005, upon returning from a shopping mall where he had been distributing flyers alleging election fraud, he was again apprehended. His computer, purchased after the police failed to return the one seized in 2002, was confiscated. In all, he has been arrested another three times since 2001, and thrice the authorities had remanded him at a mental institution. Oddly enough, he has yet to be prosecuted for these alleged offences, although the criminal defamation case from 2002 may still be pending.While critics, including international publications, have yielded to defamation threats issued by Singapore's leaders, Robert HO has instead emerged from his arrests and detention an even more recalcitrant heretic of the establishment. In Singapore's political cyberspace where fear of surveillance and libel suits have compelled dissenting netizens and bloggers to post articles under pseudonyms, HO sticks his neck out by brazenly disclosing his real identity online. He is now a regular contributor to the Singapore Review news group and is also a blogger.Martyn See interviews Robert HO via email and phone in December 2006.Have you always been a critic of the PAP Government?Ha, ha. Nobody is born a PAP critic so I must have become one along the way. It would be true to say that LEE Kuan Yew creates his own enemies, through arrogance and unbridled power. I have written that LEE Kuan Yew is the 'most powerful man in the world or even in history' because he has so much total control over his entire population. You know as much, having been hauled up by his police, for essentially nothing. Doesn't that make you even more determined? Or changed you from pro-PAP to anti-PAP? Every time LEE Kuan Yew wrongs one person, he creates 100 critics or even oppositionists. If Dr CHEE Soon Juan had not been unfairly sacked from his university job, he would be there today, still teaching; and not a dedicated oppositionist. Power and abuse of power always create its own resistance which may one day succeed in toppling that power. Newton's Third Law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."When did I turn anti-PAP? Let me see. I lost my last job in advertising as a copywriter on 10 Jul 92. I was still pro-PAP then and still thought LEE Kuan Yew a 'great man' and all that, thanks to the Straits Times' unending propaganda. Shortly after that, I discovered that LEE Kuan Yew had been keeping me under audio-visual surveillance since I was a teen or even earlier and was releasing all this information to his entire crony system from Straits Times journalists and editors to even foreign journalists and politicos in order to embarrass me and as a publicity stunt [a kind of reality show before there were reality shows] purely to make himself famous, to self-aggrandise and to put on a command performance for the edification of his international audience, especially the Americans. Then I got angry, rightly so, and started to hit back. The whole story is more convoluted than this but this is the essence in summary.In fact, before 1992, I had sent a few suggestions through snail mail [no pc then and the Internet was new] to then Prime Minister LEE Kuan Yew, suggestions ranging from redoing the National Anthem [which was slightly reworked subsequently] to a proposal for Block Managers to manage every HDB block much like a condo manager manages a condo; to developing Dirty Bombs [I coined this term and came up with the concept of radioactive bombs for Singapore's defence -- now it is a worldwide concern and probably only a matter of time before one goes off somewhere]. I also suggested to him that voting age be reduced to 18 like in some countries but that those below 18 also be given a vote, such that their vote be exercised by the mother, first, and for the second child, exercised by the father, and so on in the world's first truly universal suffrage. This idea was bastardised by LEE Kuan Yew years later [he never acknowledged any of my letters] as giving some privileged class of Singaporeans TWO votes instead of one, that is, the class most likely to vote PAP!So from pro-PAP, I reacted to LEE Kuan Yew's shameless, self-serving puiblicity stunt telecasting me and my family live 24 hours a day, to anti-PAP. Then, I cast about for ways to react to LEE Kuan Yew's 24 hour a day live telecast of me and my family. I soon found a way. Mr LING How Doong of the opposition SDP had won the Bukit Gombak Consituency in 1991 and Dr CHEE, SDP Secretary-General, was serving as a manager in the Gombak Town Council. I started faxing suggestions to him. One suggestion was to do a political (actually, more a corporate) video, which he subsequently did but which drew a blanket ban on political videos from the kiasu PAP government.I not only faxed suggestions to Dr CHEE but also to Mr J B JEYARETNAM who was NCMP from 1997 to 2001. Those were years of faxed suggestions. These suggestions could not and did not hurt LEE Kuan Yew nor diminish his power in the least but he and his ISD henchmen took the exaggerationism or kiasuism to the extreme and hit back at me.Around 2001, I also started writing articles published on the Internet. I had bought a pc by then. The website is Singaporeans For Democracy, now no longer online. I wrote some 61 articles published in SFD. [In my"RH: Robert's Almost-Complete Archive of Works" Book of Essays 1 to 61]. There were no blogs then, although there were Home Pages.One of those essays was to lead to the police arriving at my door.In 2001, you became the first person in Singapore to be arrested for posting an article on the internet. What happened?On 16 Nov 01, about 1115am, 8 serious, stern men rang my doorbell and came into my flat. They were ASP SOH Kien Peng, SI Jeffrey KUEK, SSS Simon LEE, SSS SEOW Chong Teck, SS TAN Soon Teck, SGT Eddie TOH, SS Leslie LEONG and SGT IRWAN. They quickly searched my entire flat, asked for my computer and took it as well as every single computer-related device from printer, floppy disks, CD-Rs, modem to cables. They then took me away to the CID Police Cantonment Complex. Being arrested and having all my entire computer system confiscated was quite unnerving and disconcerting. The handcuffs were locked on so tight I suffered a pinched nerve in my left wrist for weeks after.At the CID, I was questioned for hours during which I dictated my statement/s to ASP SOH Kien Peng. In my statement/s, I described the years of radiation attacks from the flat above mine, from the time I lived in a 5-room HDB flat in Block 203 Bukit Batok, to my current Guilin View flat. I finished the statement/s around 1405pm, pleading Not Guilty in summation to the charge of posting in soc.culture.singapore my article entitled "Break the Law and get away with it, like PAP", posted 19 Oct 01.Link to articleThis article is also posted in Singaporeans For Democracy.After my statement/s were recorded, edited and signed, I was taken to a cell where I was to spend the night on the bare floor. The next morning, I was driven to the Subordinate Courts where I awaited my turn for the judge to deal with me. The long queue was made up of many foreigners. Obviously, many foreigners run afoul of the law in Singapore and this could be one reason why the judicial system is so harsh -- they are mostly foreigners anyway and most could not even speak English. We accused were processed like an assembly line, with each one getting very limited time or attention. Singapore efficiency, if you like.When my turn came to plead, I tried to tell the judge that I wanted to claim trial and ask for release on bail, since my offence is probably bailable, being merely a posting in a newsgroup. She was impatient, there being about 100 accused to process that morning before her lunch. I spoke into the microphone that she should not treat me on the basis of "once a madman always a madman" but was sent to IMH for observation anyway.In IMH, the doctors see us about once a week, so it took about 3 weeks before the doctor assigned to me could finalise his report, which is "Fit for Trial", which is another way of saying that I was not mentally ill, that I could stand trial.The charge against me was "incitement to violence" for asking voters to enter the polling stations without authorisation, just like PM GOH Chok Tong, Deputy PMs LEE Hsien Loong and Tony TAN and MP VASOO had done in the 1997 General Election and which the Attorney General CHAN Sek Keong [now Chief Justice] had refused to prosecute and who had written an unbelievable explanation that these 4 PAP men were not committing an offence, in his opinion, seeUnauthorised persons inside polling stations: Attorney General's letterThat this was a trumped-up charge, with very serious jail terms, is evident to all: if the AG deems unauthorised entry into polling stations by the 4 men legal, then my asking people to also do the same should also be legal, so where's my crime?In any event, the Long Statement I made to ASP SOH, describing the years of radiation attacks on me, plus the biological attacks of putting virulent flu germs into our food/drink thus causing us [myself, my son and my little niece] to be very sick to the point of pneumonia, deterred LEE Kuan Yew from proceeding with the trial. So, at trial after I was released from IMH, LEE Kuan Yew's henchmen put on an elaborate wayang show in which the prosecutor DPP HAN Ming Kuang read the psychiatrist's report on me, but only the old historical parts and not the conclusion which is that I am fit for trial, to show that I was unfit for trial! Who would you believe the truth of my mental state? A DPP and the Straits Times or the psychiatrist who saw me? [I was told beforehand by ASP SOH that the charge would be dropped and that once released from court, I was to avoid reporters and leave the courthouse]. So I left the Subordinate Courts, collected my entire computer system back from the CID and went home without giving any interviews to reporters].DPP HAN took so long to read all the old historical parts that the judge told him testily to stop, saying, "You can take it that I have read the report." but DPP HAN continued anyway. The next day, I knew why. He was reading, not for the court, but for the Straits Times reporters present. The next day's Straits Times carried a large report of DPP HAN's readings to give the impression that I was mad and that was why the charge was dropped. At that time, HAN Fook Kwang was Editor [now Chief Editor I believe] of the Straits Times. Note the similarity in names as in the Chinese custom of naming siblings or close relations. They are probably related and LEE Kuan Yew's henchmen, out to destroy my credibility, one reading copiously in court while the other took care to publish the read parts prominently. More attempts to destroy my credibility, and their modus operandi, are captured in this soc.culture.singapore newsgroup posting.Barely eight months later, following two other online postings, the police twice visited you in your home.As the above post shows, I was arrested twice more after that. One was on Wed 3 Jul 02 when ASP GOH Tat Boon, SI Kamaruzaman GAFFAR, Sgt IRWAN Abdul Rahman and S/SGT LEE Lioh Ying came to my flat to seize my computer again. Sgt IRWAN was the same man who came with ASP SOH the last time, so he went straight to my pc. I persuaded ASP GOH not to take everything, since everything had been seized and examined before and still carried the police sticker labels. So he seized only the pc tower. This has still not been returned today probably because the case is still not closed, I believe. This is the case of "criminal defamation" which carries a considerable jail term.However, LEE Kuan Yew's enthusiasm for court cases against me had considerably chilled, since he realised that once in court and sworn to tell the truth, on pains of perjury, which is a serious offence, I would tell all about his publicity stunt light-torture of me, which many, including judges, would already know about and know to be true. Of course, he can still find judges to do his will and bidding but it would mean very personal interference from him and this could open him to complications since judges may talk, migrate, give an interview or even write a book or even a blog!. You never know. So kiasuism won again and LEE Kuan Yew never took me to court nor gave me a chance to testify in court for posterity.ASP GOH simply stopped calling me or investigating my case and ignored my phone calls and faxes to him to return my pc tower. But LEE Kuan Yew was not one to leave critics alone. He had to tit for every tat. It's all kiasuism again. So, on 26 Jul 02, 2 non-ASP policemen came to my flat just as I was sitting down to dinner and arrested me yet again. They were Sergeant SEOW Chow Chin and Corporal Wandi. The entire police procedures book was ignored and I was handcuffed, driven to Jurong Police HQ and locked in a cell. Then, without even an interview with an Investigating Officer, I was driven to IMH where the doctor, despite strenuous objections from me, admitted me. Since doctors there see patients only about once a week, it took me 8 days to get out. I append a handwritten note I faxed to Dr CHEE Soon Juan of the SDP: To: Dr CHEE Soon Juan, Mr LING How Doong From: Robert HO Recap: On Wed 3 July 2002, ASP GOH Tat Boon and 3 others came to my apartment to seize my computer and to serve upon me an Order to attend an investigation. Which I duly attended at the CID, the next day 4 Jul 2002 from about 10am to about 12.30pm. It was a 'proper' seizure and Order served. An 'improper' arrest: However, on 26 Jul 2002, 2 policemen of low rank came to my apartment just as I was sitting down to dinner at about 8pm and arrested me. I asked them "On what charge?" They did not say. I asked them for an arrest warrant. They did not have one. This is most 'improper'. I had no choice but to follow them. They said they were from the Bukit Batok NPP. I was taken to a cell in Jurong Police HQ and spent several hours there, locked up. Then, without even a meeting with an IO [Investigation Officer], I was taken away to Woodbridge Hospital [IMH] at about 5am 27 July 2002. There, I stayed for 8 days till my discharge on Sat 3 August 2002. I know that under Section 32 of the Mental Disorders and Treatment Act; and under Section 43 [1] [b] of the Prisons Act, I may be detained in a mental hospital provided I am a threat to the safety of others or myself. This is clearly not the case in my case. So who ordered my arrest and incarceration in IMH? And on what charge? There is no basis whatsoever. I still do not know now. Worse still, it seems that in future, this unlawful confinement may be enacted again and again. All it takes is for some anonymous order from somebody and I will find myself locked up and incommunicado. It is a frightening power that has no safeguards or checks. 5 Aug '02 Robert HOAnd more recently, in a case that I believe has gone unreported, you were arrested and detained for distributing flyers at a shopping mall.On 27 Feb 05, I went to WestMall Shopping Centre to photocopy and distribute copies of a document alleging that LEE Kuan Yew rigged the 1997 Cheng San GRC election. I was arrested, locked in a police station cell [Clementi Police Division HQ] and then driven to IMH where it took me about a dozen days to get out, again because the doctors see patients only once a week mainly. This case closed with a formal written Warning on 20 Feb 06. My entire computer system, a new one from the pc tower ASP GOH seized, which is still with him, was returned to me.Why do I keep getting entangled with the law? To understand this, you have to know, as many Singaporeans and foreigners already know, that LEE Kuan Yew had been lightly torturing me since shortly since around 1992. This consists of mostly [still ongoing and happening even now] sleep deprivation lasting from minutes [thereby leading to unrestful sleep on being awakened up to several times a night], to hours-long sleep deprivation. This is done with the CIA TWS [Through Wall Surveillance] devices, from the flat above. Why? Because, as one ISD man said to his colleague years ago at the NUSS swimming pool where I was with my family, "It's a power play". Sleep deprivation is a dangerously serious form of aggression. Lab mice denied sleep die after just two and a half weeks. Bodily organs and the immunity systems are also weakened, increasing the likelihood of cancers and other diseases.Were you an ex-journalist? Where?Hardly. I was a night sub-editor from late 1975 to early 1976 in The Straits Times. I went mentally ill around that time and didn't recover until 1979, the illness most proably due to the stress of doing 2 jobs at the same time [teaching by day] and not sleeping regularly or enough so the present dozen years of sleep deprivation light torture is potentially havoc to my health. None of my ancestors or family have been mentally ill so this reinforces the possibility that irregular and insufficient sleep is the cause. Once I was discharged from IMH in 1979, I went straight back to work and a normal life and have only had to eat medicine on an outpatient basis after that. Note that all the incarceration episodes of the police arresting me and putting me in IMH didn't last more than about a dozen days or so, except for the 3-week episode of court-ordered observation around 16 Nov 01. If I were really mentally ill, I wouldn't have been released in about a dozen days each time! The doctors would be too kiasu to dare risk their reputation in releasing a patient who is not fit to be released or who is still unstable.In the Straits Times, I occasionally witnessed the 'Upstairs' control of news and I have written this in my "Letter to Blair" article, in my Archive. We all know that the Straits Times practises what they euphemistically call "nation building" but the main quarrel many of us have with this rigid and total control of the media is not whether nation building should be done or not or whether it is right for media to do this. There is a deeper issue and this is about Truth and Falsehood. Truth and Falsehood are often separated only by a thin line and that is why we talk about Half-Truths. In one of my quotes in my Archive, I wrote that "LEE Kuan Yew is adept at turning half-truths into whole lies" and it is not just a neat aphorism, it captures the fact that sometimes, very little separate a Truth from an UnTruth or Lie. So, the Straits Times should, like a court witness, always tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth. As an eyewitness to history. It is not about nation building but about Truth.There is also the insidious effect of Time. If a newspaper suppresses a fact or a piece of news one day, it is not too bad. But when it consistently suppresses similar facts, over time, this becomes a total manipulation of the readers' mind. So, over time, even innocuous news suppression, or a slight 'slant' to the news, or a slight 'spin' take on huge dimensions in an unforgiveable attempt at nothing less than brainwashing.How do you rate the performance of PM Lee Hsien Loong so far?To understand LEE Hsien Loong's performance, you have to consider the advantages he inherited from his father and GOH Chok Tong and the challenges facing him. In a way, it is unfair to expect too much from LEE Hsien Loong because the challenges he faces today are the left over unsolved problems that his father and GOH did not or more likely, could not solve. It stands to reason that if his father and GOH could solve those problems, they would have done so already. So, many of the problems that remain for LEE Hsien Loong are intractable ones. However, every new leader faces the same situation, in every country, so LEE Hsien Loong cannot excuse himself for not solving them.He faces another obstacle. His father. LEE Kuan Yew is even more active now than say, during GOH's time. There is a sense that he wants to set everything in stone, to so cast Singapore with rigid policies that long after he has become non-sentient, Singapore will still continue as though he is still in control, shaping events. Every person in power wants to shape his state according to what he thinks fit and LEE Kuan Yew is no exception. But the only way is to shape institutions, not direct policies.If you shape an institution, that institution can go on to evolve policies to fit any new circumstances. If you cast policies in stone, policies are quickly outdated and become irrelevant or counterproductive especially so with the modern speed of change. The faster things change, the more you need institutions and not direct policies. So it is always best to leave behind strong institutions. What are some of these? Free and fair elections for example. An independent judiciary. A critical press unafraid to investigate and spotlight governmental wrongdoings. A Parliament of independent-thinking MPs that is not today's rubberstamp Yes Men. Cabinet colleagues of diverse backgrounds who follow very different Muses. An Opposition that is free to challenge the government's ideas and policies.On all of these, LEE Kuan Yew has failed, failed, failed. He has corrupted every single institution in the land. This is his greatest failure. He did not have the wisdom to see where corrupted institutions will lead. He has created a system that needs him at the top to continue running. Once he becomes non-sentient, LEE Hsien Loong either becomes another LEE Kuan Yew, or he will find that One Man Rule or Top Down Rule cannot function. So, either LEE Kuan Yew reverses his entire life's doings or else he better hope that LEE Hsien Loong turns out to be close enough like him. But then, remember that LEE Kuan Yew has already solved all the easy problems and only the hard ones remain. Thus, LEE Hsien Loong will not have an easy time.LEE Kuan Yew once boasted to a foreign journalist, "If people don't fear me, then I am meaningless." This has led other sharp observers to note that LEE Kuan Yew's rule is "...only thinly disguised Rule By Decree" and that he has imposed a "Fearocracy". Make no mistake, LEE enjoys flaunting his power and abusing his power to force 'solutions' on people, like the recent publicly administered 'breaking the head' of pilot Captain Ryan GOH by LEE who pointedly revealed some highlights of GOH's private family life.LEE Kuan Yew ruled during a time when the world was simple and straightforward. LEE Hsien Loong now faces a far different world than the one his father lived through. My prediction: LEE Hsien Loong will falter once his father is no longer around. The elder LEE left not a single viable institution intact in his haste to dismantle everything that got in his way. Simply put, if you create a system where you must have a LEE Kuan Yew in charge to function, then the moment a non-LEE Kuan Yew comes along, even if he is a son, things unravel. That is why I say, leave behind strong institutions, not a strongman.To answer your question directly, I think LEE Hsien Loong won't last long either through disease relapse of cancer or some such. God loves playing games, too, and has already given him an albino and an autistic son, such odds being many millions to one unless you prefer to take the simplest explanation that God, too, loves games! Take it as divine retribution for LEE Kuan Yew's unashamedly eugenics policies!In this year's 2006 General Election, the PAP averaged 66.6% of the votes but in LEE Hsien Loong's very own GRC, he despite his cachet and his Father's dominating presence, got only 66.14%. This despite running against 6 neophyte no-hopers nobody has ever heard of and who the PAP boasted "will lose their deposits"! LEE Hsien Loong won't last loong!You seem to display a particular affinity in delving into the psyche of Lee Kuan Yew. What is your fascination with the Minister Mentor?I fought him for a dozen years. In those dozen years, I have come to fear him, ridicule him, expose his failings and wrongdoings, all of which are now in written form in thousands of postings in soc.culture.singapore and elsewhere on the wonderful thing called the Internet.When I first began writing anti-PAP articles, I was careful about defamation lawsuits, now, I couldn't care less. LEE Kuan Yew, by committing crimes against me and my family members for a dozen years, has lost the moral right to apply the law to me since he has broken the law himself every day, sometimes even dozens of times a day, for a dozen years, against me and my family.Nowadays, I have the luxury of ranting and raving against LEE Kuan Yew, restrained only by the facts and the Truth and my credibility.Most still have to be careful but the Internet is spawning a freedom to think, associate and opine. For example, you can read a blog and leave an anonymous comment. That comment may be a sentence or a whole essay. Can LEE Kuan Yew clamp down on commenters? I think not. Can LEE Kuan Yew even take bloggers to court? Maybe today but it gets less and less likely as the Internet Age progresses. Already, there are proxies and encrypted communications that allow anonymous postings. If the PAP tries to wipe out blogs and Internet postings, all these will simply go underground. Then, there is email. The PAP cannot look into every email account to stamp out criticisms. For persistent emailers like me, it can quickly establish my identity and charge me but it cannot do this to the occasional critic. It is so easy to write and forward an email that it is ridiculous to treat it as equivalent to an essay meant for publication. That essay may be more formal but emails are often rough and thoughtless -- can you take the same stance on both? The law courts will not be able to handle the load!Do you think that Singapore will become a more open society with the passing of LKY?Definitely. I cannot wait for LEE Kuan Yew to die. He has committed and still committing so many crimes against me and my family and property that I will cheer his death. LEE Kuan Yew is from a different era. That man cannot even type, which primary schoolkids today all can. He still reads only printed paper documents, not a computer monitor. That is how backward he is. Can such a man run a 21st century country? No way! Besides, there are more university graduates today than there were people in Singapore when LEE Kuan Yew became PM. He is a relic, a kind of fossil from the past, alive long past his time. The sooner he goes the better.You have been alleging on numerous postings that the PAP had rigged the Cheng San GRC results in GE 1997. Yet, you have not been sued. How do you get away with this?Because it is true and I can prove it. My eyewitness is Mr David DUCLOS, a Singaporean eurasian and a Catholic. He has emailed me, then confirmed in person to my wife and I what he had seen and subsequently, confirmed on the phone to Dr CHEE Soon Juan what he wrote. Note that the police arrested me several times but never for my allegations of LEE Kuan Yew criminal attacks using TWS equipment from the flat above. Neither has he arrested or sued me for my allegations of his election rigging. Instead, he chose 2 other charges, the first for 'incitement to violence' and the second for 'criminal defamation'. Never for my allegations of his criminal attacks from the flat above or my allegations of his election rigging. He is afraid the truth will out and it is slowly outing. I have said before that if a criminal stops after a few crimes, he will usually get away with it but when he keeps committing the same crimes again and again, sooner or later he will luck out. LEE Kuan Yew's luck ran out long ago, in fact, the moment Mr DUCLOS emailed me. DUCLOS is heaven's way of evening out right and wrong.With the view that the Government is finding it increasingly difficult to stifle, or even manage, political expression on the internet, what are your thoughts on Singapore for 2007 and beyond?2007. A new year with all the promises of another year. Man is probably the only animal with a deep sense of time. Animals probably live out their entire lives triggered by the seasons or their hormones. Man alone have a sense of time, to plot and plan for the future, reminisce the past and recognise that the future can be moulded by his own efforts. That what we do today can shape tomorrow.What will 2007 bring? Of this, we can be certain: 2007 will bring exciting new technologies that will entrench blogs like this and free Singaporeans even more as they start their own blogs. Many will discover that they need not even write much or anything at all. For example, aggregator blogs like Intelligent Singaporean are doing a good job of collating excellent blogs and important news articles and putting them all in one convenient click of the mouse.I once wrote in one of my articles that 'historians of the future will probably divide human history into pre-Internet and Internet Ages, much like we currently divide history into BC and AD'; so important is the advent of the Internet, transforming human society, shaping lives and creating communities of the mind. Every morning, when I switch on my pc, I have a delicious sense of anticipation, that the day will bring forth some remarkable poetry from Xenoboy or sharp insights from Yawning Bread. Or that some news article will prove that the PAP is only human and very fallible, ha, ha, despite the unrelentingly one-sided portrayal by its controlled media [I once wrote an article entitled "The (PAP) Cult of Infallibility"]. Rarely do I swtich off disappointed.For me, and for probably a million other Singaporeans, we are building a Singapore Community of the Mind. It is a true community by any definition. We share news, information, views, opinions; and argue, debate and dissect events of the day or issues of tomorrow. In other words, we interact, like any true community, Yet this community is still fragile and threatened by proposed new laws that tighten the already tight noose around online free thought and free speech, proposed by people who cannot understand the value of debate and discussion and who see in every criticism, an attempt to dethrone them.One of the reasons why LKY and his PAP fear blogs is because of their very quality. The best Singaporean bloggers are astute, perceptive and highly intelligent, which is more than you can say for LEE Kuan Yew, LEE Hsien Loong and their PAP Ministers. The best of us can analyse and articulate far better than Them. That is the main reason why They want to shut us down. The best Singaporean bloggers are real Thought Leaders and Political Analysts and incisive Social Commentators. Do you have any Ministers who are as intelligent? Not a single one. George Yeo tries to write a blog but his efforts are pitiful. So are the efforts of the other PAPs.On the Internet, it is not your position or job title that matters, it is what you write, which means what you think or can think. The Internet is a level playing field for all, PAPs and Others alike. If you can write and analyse intelligently, you will have an audience, if you can't, nobody reads you or are convinced or impressed by you. Thus, LEE Kuan Yew and LEE Hsien Loong fear blogs, not because they are rubbish or lies as alleged but because they are brilliantly argued and extremely well thought out. Some bloggers will actually make better Ministers than the present Cabinet. So LEE Kuan Yew and LEE Hsien Loong's fear of blogs is the primary fear of superior minds, a fear that has dogged power holders from ancient history. A fear that they cannot lead Thought as well as the best bloggers can. A fear of better solutions, better thinking and better ideas better expressed. LEE Kuan Yew fears blogs and the Internet, rightly because they allow free Speech and free Thoughts.He also fears blogs because although they are fleeting and ephemeral, often only superficially written and read, often taking off from facts and articles in mainstream media, blogs can also be lasting and permanent, and therefore a record that future historians can mine for valuable clues to a society and state's preoccupations. LEE Kuan Yew would of course, prefer that historians only read his lying memoirs and his equally lying PAP media so blogs present a challenge to his always trying to have the last word in everything. Blogs present an alternative version of reality which challenges the artificial reality of PAP mainstream media. Additionally, if there is such a thing as a National IQ, blogs promise to raise that IQ, so LEE would rather that we remain stupid and therefore docile, fed lies and propaganda and swallowing it all. It is not surprising that, as one PAP MP was shocked to discover, "more than 80% of blogs are against the PAP government". That is nothing strange. It is just a natural reaction from the mainstream media's daily lies and spins and the total disservice they commit upon us. A new generation has discovered the power of the written word, the artful video and the sublime podcast. The National IQ is rising and fast. LEE would rather that we return to the old status quo in which no change is possible or tolerated. He is desperately tryng to drag us all back into the past, to an era where he always had the last word in everything and no dissent or criticism is possible, no alternative views are allowed. He always had a fear of free thinking, preferring that we instead think along lines he sets. Having said that, it is also an exaggerated fear.Do you think this "exaggerated fear" permeates the PAP Government and its policies?LEE Kuan Yew is the master exaggerator. All his life, he has exaggerated his achievements and the difficulties he faced. This exaggerationism is now entrenched into PAP methodology and so every online critic has to be silenced, by hook or by crook. His entire government applies this exaggerationism as its primary philosophy. When you exaggerate, you make yourself more heroic in proportion, the molehills you encounter become mountains, and your adversary or critic far more dangerous to you than they really are or were. You also overkill, which is either trying to be over successful or trying so hard that ultimately, the result may not even be worth the effort or the sacrifice -- or things and people sacrificed -- and much of the peoples' legitimate interests have been sacrificed unnecessarily due to this need to overtry, overkill and overdo.In policying, exaggerationism means that you must always save a huge, vast sum for a rainy day that will never come. It means that you must create a fearful population forever afraid that tomorrow may never arrive and the sun may not rise. It means keeping a huge army for an invasion that will never happen. It means a perpetual prostituting to the Americans because they have the biggest army and economy. It means you must obsessively and relentlessly destroy every political opponent, no matter how insignificant. It means you must destroy this burgeoning online community because a populace is easier to control and manipulate if it is fragmented and divided [Divide and Conquer] and the online community promises to gel too many into a community not led by the PAP.The thinking behind dictators is that communities of any kind are bad for their power and exercise of power. They would prefer their populace to be atomised into lone individuals or families because without a united front, they cannot be dethroned. Thus, all religious groups are closely watched because they are also true communities with leaders and many followers who listen to these leaders, meaning that they may not also listen to the PAP. This is one reason why the Catholic Church in Singapore was targetted in 1987-88 in the infamous so-called "Marxist Conspiracy" in which 22 totally innocent people were arrested and jailed without trial, accused of subversion to bring down the government.Churches are communities and they are often rich, often owning multi-million dollar churches and they are pretty big communities sometimes. This exaggerated fear of groups or communities has led to the deliberate prevention and control of all societies in Singapore. The rules for registering any society of any kind, even a chess club, are strict and allow for the control of that society by the PAP. Thus, nothing is left to chance. LEE Kuan Yew prefers his entire population to be atomised into tiny individuals or families who do not communicate with one another or form a community. He would rather they simply go to work, come home to a tiny atomised family life and never interact with others. And he has succeeded in this. This is another aspect of his exaggerationism.There is a more familiar word than exaggerationism: kiasuism. I have merely coined a new word so that you see it better when I reveal the local, very familiar, very understandable equivalent. In this, LEE Kuan Yew is once again, uninventive and uncreative as usual. He merely applied kiasuism, of which we Singaporeans are all guilty to differing degrees, to new heights and new lows.So no true understanding of LEE Kuan Yew, his PAP or the government can be achieved without understanding kiasuism. The success and failure of LEE Kuan Yew and his PAP is kiasuism.Kiasuism explains everything. From why the social welfare benefits are so meagre to why the state reserves are so huge to why the need for a huge army and defence spending to why the obsession with destroying even small oppositionists to shutting down Mr Brown to jailing bloggers to forever trying to increase government profits in every way imaginable to cheating in the 1997 Cheng San GRC elections to deny the tiny Workers Party a small electoral success of 5 parliamentary seats. Read my blog, "I came, I saw, I solved it".In 2007, if LEE Kuan Yew is still sentient, this kiasuism will be even more evident as he tries to stamp-mould this kiasuism permanently into the entire Singapore state before he becomes non-sentient. He will lose because he is on the wrong side of technology, history and the progress of the the human race.[End]Robert HO's Almost-Complete Archive of WorksPosted by Martyn See at 12:00 PM 1 comments Sunday, January 07, 2007 RH MicroStories Story 1, titling right to Debbie.Title by Debbie :My former classmate has more letters after his name than anybody I know or heard of. He is a brain surgeon at Singapore General Hospital. We met recently in the KopiTiam foodcourt at SGH. “Good to see you, man,” I cried, “Big Time Brain Surgeon!”We then sat down after the greetings, me to my laksa, and he, to his wonton mee. I watched his hands that hold the power of life and death in surgeries go through the motions of eating wonton mee. They remind me of a concert pianist’s hands. Strong, yet supple. After swallowing the first few very satisfying mouthfuls of my laksa, I popped a question that has sometimes tugged in my mind. “When you were an intern doing night shifts, did you ever see any supernatural things?” I asked. “Like ghosts, you mean?” he smiled. “Yah, after all, lots of people die in hospitals and all that…” “No, I must confess. Never saw any ghosts. But I did come across a fairly recent case that has never faded from my mind. “Her name was Grace. She had a walloping big brain tumour, the biggest I had ever come across in my 20 years as a brain surgeon.” “You operated?” I asked, my attention drawn. “Not at first,” Prof Ben Kwek said, spooning another wonton. “First, I tried shrinking the tumour with Lucran injections. And that was when I discovered how strange the case was.” “What do you mean?” “That tumour in her brain, I am now convinced, was a form of sentient life!”I stared at him, suddenly oblivious to the chatter and hum of a busy foodcourt. “You mean the tumour was a kind of intelligence?” I was incredulous. “Hey, don’t quote me or I will lose my job or be referred to the Institute of Mental Health,” Prof Kwek laughed.Continuing, he said, “But I have thought about it a great deal and that seems the most scientific explanation.”My jaw had dropped with the first bombshell and now remained wide open. My tau pok, poised between my chopsticks, forgotten. “Well, to begin at the beginning, Grace was referred to me by a GP. She had been complaining of headaches and a feeling that there was someone, I repeat, not something but someone, in her brain!”I kept quiet, not knowing what to say. “Well, as I was saying,” Prof Kwek said, looking decidedly sheepish and even apologetic, “she came to me with this headache and I sent her for MRI scans…” “Magnetic Resonance Imaging?” I tried to sound knowledgeable. “Yes, gives an accurate computerised image, even in slices and sections. “So the MRI showed this humongous tumour, occupying a big chunk of her brain, near where the Old Brain stalk is. “Besides the headaches, Grace claimed that sometimes, she could feel the tumour communicating with her.” “Like talking to her?” I asked sheepishly. “Not so much that. Grace said that it only communicated ‘Wants’ and ‘Don’t Wants’. By that, she meant that if she wanted a drink of wine, for example, her tumour would strongly say, “Don’t Want!” “So it was alive?” I said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Maybe. What is life? We are all composed of carbon molecules, with sprinklings of sodium, chlorine, hydrogen and oxygen molecules, etc, but if you take the same amounts of these elements and mix them up, no matter how you mix them up or try to catalyse them, you don’t get a living person.” “So what is life?” I asked.Ignoring the question as though he did not hear it, he thoughtfully continued, with a faraway look in his eyes, “Or, to put it another way, a body can be on life support system and the body is breathing, heart beating, lungs oxygenating, but the brain could be dead and therefore the life, is not there.”I remembered the poised tau pok and now lifted it into my mouth. “Did the Lucran injections work?” I enquired. “That was what convinced me the tumour was a separate living thing. Grace told me her tumour had been trying to prevent her from drinking wine, of which she was fond, and each time she even thought about drinking wine, her tumour protested with powerful thoughts of “No, no, no!” But I didn’t really believe her until I tried to give her her first Lucran injection. “I am now convinced that when the tumour realised that the Lucran injection would shrink it, by narrowing the blood vessels feeding it, it would die and therefore fought against being given the Lucran. “I had had the syringe all ready with the Lucran inside when Grace swung her right hand and knocked it flying out of my hand across the room. She immediately used her left hand to restrain her right hand, as though one hand was controlled by the tumour and the other still by her. “It happened twice more before I could inject her. It was damned strange. “Later, I decided to try a small experiment. I asked her to draw a circle with her left hand while simultaneously drawing a square with her right hand and guess what? “She could draw a perfect circle with one hand while simultaneously drawing a perfect square with the other. Damned strange. I don’t think any ordinary or normal person can do this.” “Did the Lucran injections work?” I asked, not knowing what else to ask. “No, each time the Lucran shrank the blood vessels to the tumour, new ones grew almost immediately. The MRI scans showed that. Damned strange again. This had never happened before to all my other patients on Lucran. “So I operated. I took out the tumour. Sent it for biopsy and the results came back. It was composed of a kind of brain cells I had never seen before and neither had any of the other doctors. I sent samples to research hospitals all over the world and nobody there has a clue what kind of brain cells this tumour was.”I digested this information even as I was digesting my laksa. “Where’s Grace now?” I asked. “Oh, sad case. The operation was a success but shortly after that, she was found dead with a stab wound in her heart, self-inflicted apparently. Inflicted with her right hand.”3 Mar 06, edited 5 Mar 06, edited 6 Mar 06……………………………………………………….. Story 2, titling right to Yan Ting.Title by Yan Ting : The expansive Singapore Botanical Gardens is greened by lush tropical trees, shrubs and flowers everyday and peopled by joggers and relaxed crowds especially on Sundays, where many maids picnic on their hard-earned day-off. I often wander there with my digital camera, snapping shot after shot of the landscapes mostly. Then, once home, I would upload the images into my computer and file away the good takes while deleting the bad ones.My favourite spot of all is a stretch of beautifully landscaped woods near the Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid garden. [Vanda Miss Joaquim, an orchid, was picked as Singapore’s national flower years back. A joke goes that when the Director of the Singapore Tourism Board wanted to pick a national flower, he went to a flower vendor and chose a beautiful orchid. The vendor wanted $10 for a stalk, which is daylight robbery, if you ask me. The Director refused to pay, telling his aide that, “The Vendor Must Be Joking!” He later found out that that was pretty close to the real name of the orchid and that was how Vanda Miss Joaquim became the National Flower of Singapore].Although this had never happened to me, I have heard a strange story about this corner of the Gardens. Apparently, it first happened to a Chinese-Singaporean man there with his family. He was happily snapping pictures of his two children and then uploading them to his laptop computer when he saw in 4 of his photos, a young Indian woman caught in the photos together with his 2 children.There was nobody else besides his 2 children when he took the photos. Certainly not an Indian woman. It was a ghost.He emailed the 4 photos to the Botanical Gardens, together with a short description that said that he was very sure that there was no Indian woman in his camera frame when he took the shots and that therefore it must be a ghost.The Botanical Gardens emailed back and said that there was no Indian woman in the 4 photos. What Indian woman was he talking about?He then emailed them again and asked them to email back the 4 photos he had sent.They did. He looked at the 4 jpegs and saw that, indeed, only his 2 children were in the photos. No Indian woman.Then he checked his folder for the original 4 photos. The Indian woman was clearly there.Thinking that there was some inexplicable computer glitch, he re-sent the 4 photos with the Indian woman.Again, the Botanical Gardens replied that there was no Indian woman in the new set of 4 photos he sent.Angry by now that he was beginning to seem like a nut case, he brought his entire laptop to the Botanical Gardens staff he had been emailing and proved that indeed, there was an Indian woman in his computer photos.The staff, a youngish man, was a little cynical, probably thinking that this persistent man had been digitally removing and pasting the Indian woman back and forth and so on.But his older colleague had been overhearing the conversation between the man and the staff and, with a strange look on her face, asked to look at the photos of the Indian woman. “There was,” she said, “a robbery-murder some years back in which an Indian woman was killed, right in the area where the photos were taken.” That could have been her ghost captured in the photos.The man was delighted at being proved right and to have caught a ghost on camera and showed it to all his friends.The story did not end there. When the rumours circulated, many superstitious gamblers made their way to that corner of the Gardens to pray to the ‘powerful’ Indian woman ghost to ask for lucky numbers to punt in the lotteries.I don’t know if her ghost was so obliging as to give winning lottery numbers but I myself did try to capture her on my digital camera.Every time I visit the Botanical Gardens, I would make my way to that Vanda Miss Joaquim corner and snap away. Each time, I would immediately review my shot in the tiny LCD display to see if I had captured the ghost. Invariably, I would be disappointed. No Indian woman. The closest I got were some bright blotches in the photos. No Indian woman.I sometimes pray to her and ask for lucky numbers to punt in the next draw. I haven’t won yet.Maybe the next draw.5 Mar 06……………………………………………………….. Story 3, titling right to Kai Seng.Title by Kai Seng :TicktockticktockticktockThere was an old man with no less than 16 clocks in his 4-room flat. I jest not. There are such people who would acquire 16 clocks and keep them all in one flat. And keep adjusting them regularly for accurate time, as clocks are wont to be a little off, either too fast or too slow.Maybe he has a lot of time.Maybe he has hit the big time.And maybe it is time I tell you more about his clocks.There are the big battery-operated analogue clocks hung high in his living room and kitchen.There are the small battery analogue ones he has in every one of his bathrooms.There are digital clocks in his bedrooms and study. These tell world-times, the calendar and even the temperature.He has time on his hand, too, in the form of a digital watch, with even more functions, including stopwatch, countdown timer and data memory for dozens of names and telephone numbers.But there is one clock he never displays, an old mechanical winding clock. This one, he keeps in a locked cupboard drawer. An antique clock he sometimes shows to friends, he having no wife or children.It is rumoured that he winds up the clock unfailingly every day and that if he ever forgets to wind it and it stops, his life would also stop.I know the son of one of his friends. He would sometimes tell me about this old man. One conversation with him I will never forget.We were in camp for reservist training, being national servicemen, and we got to talking. “Did you say that if his antique clock stops, he will die?” I asked. “That’s what people say.” “How old is this clock? If we know, then we will know when he was born or got the clock,” I asked. “He never says.” “But then, did he ever mention any event or people that will give a clue to how old he is?” I persisted. “I don’t know. I remember once that he told my dad he experienced a big volcanic eruption that happened nearby in Indonesia,” my friend replied. “There are so many. Which one?” “My dad says he said the ‘Kaki Tua’ one,” he replied.So I went to my computer and Googled “kaki tua volcanic eruption” obtaining this result :Results 1 - 10 of about 206 for kaki tua volcanic eruption. (0.64 seconds) I looked through the pages of results with some excitement, which faded as none of the results gave any exact indication of a “Kaki Tua volcanic erupton” or when it occurred.Our reservist training over, we both left camp and went our separate ways to separate lives. Back to the workaday life that is the lot of us mortals who have to work to eat.Then one day, I happened to be at the National Library, the old one since torn down, at Stamford Road. I had spent more time there during my schooldays than I spent on schoolwork. I suddenly remembered that once when I was there after school, I had trawled through some old micro-films of the old newspapers in Singapore and came across a report about the violent eruption of a volcano in Indonesia that darkened the skies over Singapore for days.Krakatoa!The name exploded into my mind with the impact of a bomb in a church.I literally ran to my computer and, with trembling fingers, typed into Google: “krakatoa” and obtained :Results 1 - 10 of about 959,000 for krakatoa [definition]. (0.25 seconds)KrakatoaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaKrakatoa (Indonesian name: Krakatau) is a volcano near the Indonesian island of Rakata in the Sunda Strait. It has erupted repeatedly, massively and with disastrous consequences throughout recorded history. The best known of these events occurred in late August, 1883.The 1883 eruption ejected more than six cubic miles (25 cubic kilometres) of rock, ash, and pumice [1], and generated the loudest sound ever historically recorded by human beings — the cataclysmic explosion was distinctly heard as far away as Perth in Australia, and the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius. Atmospheric shock waves reverberated around the world. Near Krakatoa, according to official records, 165 villages and towns were destroyed and 132 seriously damaged, 36,419 people died, and many thousands were injured by the eruption, mostly in the tsunami which followed the explosion.Was that the 1883 eruption the old man mentioned?That would make him something like possibly even up to 200 years old!From what my friend told me, the old man could go about his flat, even going out to buy groceries, cook, etc, in other words, seemed no more than about 70 years old!A few years later, again in reservist camp, I met my friend again. I excitedly told him about my discovery. He was nonplussed. He said that the old man had died and that his father was one of those who went to his flat to see off all his belongings and effects, etc. “Did he see the clock?” I asked breathlessly.“Yes, my dad said it was quite an ordinary clock except that it had an hour hand, a minute hand, a second hand and what seemed like an alarm-set hand except that the clock had no alarm! “The clock was still running except for that strange fourth hand, which had stopped. I don’t know to make of it.”I have never since looked at clocks quite the same way after that.5 Mar 06…………………………………………………………. Story 4, titling right to Debbie.Title by Debbie :“BABY FACE”, a synopsis for a possible movie scriptMy friend’s brother was a retired Physics teacher formerly at Anglo-Chinese School [Independent]. He liked to tell the story of his former Physics Lecturer in the National University of Singapore Faculty of Mathematical Sciences.That lecturer, whom his students nicknamed Baby Face, was apparently a most brilliant mind. He had graduated from Beijing University at the age of 15 with a First Class Honours in Mathematics and then went on to write, or rather, re-write some aspects of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, challenging, expanding and even controverting Einstein’s theses on Time. His Papers, Beyond Einstein 1: Continuations to the Continuum;Beyond Einstein 2: A Light Possibility to A New Gravity; andBeyond Einstein 3: Time to Relook Timewere so far ahead of their time when first published, the entire academic world remained silent of comment for a full year before the first tentative accolades began, then swell, as if finding conviction and strength in numbers, until it was generally acknowledged that here, indeed, were true extensions of Einstein’s concepts.Anyway, Einstein told us that time is not absolute, like a river of time flowing at constant speed only one way. He told us that time is relative and depends on the observer, where he is and how fast he is travelling relative to the object he is measuring against and its speed and position. For example, if a space ship can travel close to the speed of light, then its inhabitants will age far slower than people travelling at slow speeds. In other words, Time slows as you travel faster. And the closer you travel to the speed of light, the slower Time is for you and thus, you age far slower. That’s why even Time is relative.But, brilliant as he was, Baby Face was not well liked by his students. He was often abstracted and did not look his students in the face or even at them. He would talk in a monotone, and his English was accented with a strong Northern Chinese accent. Thus, he could not really explain clearly to his students at NUS. He also gave the impression that he was not really interested in his students. Also, he was clearly hopeless in the academic politics that suffuse all universities. Thus, his career there would be short.I once asked my friend about his brother’s lecturer, “If he could not politick, then why didn’t he ask for a post in research? That would be less political. After all, politics is inevitable. Put one man in a room and there is no politics. Put another one and politicking begins. It’s almost second nature.” “He did,” replied my friend, “after he was heavily complained against by his own students, both in feedback forms and privately to Admin.” “So what did he do?” “He was given a project to commission an atomic clock for the varsity.” “Sounds simple enough,” I said, “was he happy there?” “Ah, this is where the plot thickens. Baby Face researched all the caesium clocks available then and concluded that there was an inherent defect in all of them that prevented true or what he called, Absolute Time Fidelity. “I do not understand the math and neither did my Physics brother but apparently, he wrote to all the companies producing caesium clocks and asked them for their underlying concepts and, in an exchange of letters over 6 months, proved that all the concepts they used had an anomaly. Something he termed a One-Off Anomaly that prevented truly accurate timekeeping. In other words, there was a flaw in the mathematics of the caesium atomic behaviour. It was brilliant.” “So we never bought an atomic clock?” I asked. “Ah, this is where it gets interesting. Since nothing was good enough, Baby Face decided to build his own. After much justification and waiting, he got the research grants and spent a year struggling – even he had to struggle sometimes. I say this to avoid any misunderstanding that a genius finds everything easy. Sometimes, even a genius struggle and explore wrong paths before hitting upon the right solutions.”He worked mostly alone. At first, he had several graduate students to help out but they dropped out one by one. He was not easy to work with. He was painfully shy with people and was intimidated in company. He also did not explain enough. Either that, or the things he was doing were so difficult and groundbreaking that his students were left far behind and lost. So, in the end, he worked alone. “The last student to leave him mentioned to others that Baby Face was mad. He said that Baby Face once told him that it was possible to reverse Time, to make Time go backwards. A Field Effect that derived from his Paper Beyond Einstein 3: Time to Relook Time. “Baby Face had said that Einstein had already proved that Time is relative and depends on position and speed. Therefore, if a special condition in the continuum can be created, a Null Point, he called it, within that Null Point, Time could actually go backwards when viewed from all the other points. And that Null Point could exist for a mathematical infinity.” “Hmm,” I could only say, as all this was way beyond me, having only a Certificate In Education, Technical [Woodwork] from the then Teachers Training College. “Did he make his atomic clock finally?” “No,” my friend said, “He worked so hard and with such intensity that he fell ill often during the project. He often worked weeks in a row without sleep, catching only the odd nap in his armchair. He became increasingly oblivious to his appearance, didn’t even bother to comb his hair, shave, change his clothes or, I believe, even bathe daily. He often ate Burger King burgers every day for months, the exact same takeaway orders brought back by his personal assistant. He was weird. “Then, one day, he vomited over his assembly of wires, circuits and gas chamber. His Director had to order him to see a doctor and take a week off and to get some sleep.” “Was he all right after that?” “No, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, terminal stage, and the prognosis was he had only 6 months to live. Such are the vicissitudes of genius. Even nature, let alone Man, conspire to stifle it. Ah, jealous Man and even jealous Nature, that would not allow genius alone. “But he outlived his prognosis by a long time, actually. From what I heard. “For example, my brother bumped into him, literally, in a KTV lounge a year or so after he was diagnosed with the cancer and he was singing away lustily an Andy Lau song, “Defiant Laughter At The Sea” I think it was. No sign of throat cancer.” “What was he doing in a KTV lounge?” I asked, “That doesn’t sound like Baby Face at all. After all, KTV is for the younger set.” “Right. NUS had released him on full pay on compassionate grounds basically for him to live out his last months. But my brother did bump into him at that KTV lounge more than a year after that. He seemed well. No sign of throat cancer at all. Even singing “Defiant Laughter!” “Where is he now?” “Don’t know. The last time my brother saw him was years later, this time in Beijing. That would be well over 6 years since he left NUS and his atomic clock project. I believe the meeting was not accidental. That Baby Face deliberately chose to meet my brother. Anyway, my brother was part of a Physics Teachers Group Tour of Beijing University and when the Group came to the Physics Lab, he came face to face with Baby Face. My brother was struck by how well Baby Face looked. He looked younger and full of health. In fact, my brother said he looked 10 years younger.”Then, my friend paused, as if struck by a thought. He was silent for a moment and then shook his head ever so slightly, as though dismissing the thought.I did not see my friend again for some years. When we met again, as is inevitable in such a tiny city as Singapore, it was in Ngee Ann Shopping Centre in Orchard Road.After the exchange of pleasantries, he suddenly remembered something and drew me aside and spoke excitedly, “You remember we talked about my brother and his former lecturer, Baby Face?” “Yes,” I replied. How could one forget a story of a true life genius? “My brother saw a picture of him on the Internet a few months ago. He looked about 10 years younger than when they met at Beijing University! Almost a teenager, in fact. My brother swore he could see acne on his face!I almost recoiled physically from this revelation. Suddenly, everything my friend had told me about Baby Face sprang into my mind and I could almost remember word for word everything he had told me.Continuing, my friend said, “You remember that Baby Face had told his last student once that Time could go backwards? What if he found a way to do it? During his experiments into his atomic clock. Maybe he diverted some of his project into creating his Field Effect, or whatever he called it? Maybe he succeeded and created his Null Point and with it, grew younger and younger every day? So, instead of dying from his throat cancer, he will now be about the age of a teenager, but with the mind of a 40 year old!”Now, that is a lot of maybes for a former Woodwork teacher. I kept silent. Finally, I brought myself to say, “If that is so, wouldn’t he become a baby one day? Wouldn’t that be horrible?” “I thought so, too. But my brother said maybe not. Baby Face is so brilliant that he may well have solved that problem, too! For example, he could have engineered Time so that he could live in a loop, so to speak, so that once he reached his boyhood again, he could jump back into his 20s and again begin living backwards!”I must confess all this was getting a bit heady and I was feeling that I had had a glass too many of potent maotai. I kept silent. “See,” he persisted excitedly, “it makes sense. All of us would live only once, forwards but Baby Face, with his genius, would live backwards but not only that, every time he reaches back to boyhood, he would, before he gets too young, get to his Null Point or whatever, and jump back into the future, as a young man – before he had throat cancer! See? It makes sense!”I wasn’t so sure about what sense is any more. After that meeting, I lay on my bed thinking. That would indeed, as my friend said, make sense. Some sense. For example, it would explain why Baby Face is so brilliant – it’s because he is living and reliving all over again and like everything in life, you get better with practice. It’s what makes tennis champions like Sharapova. It would explain why he can graduate from Beijing University with a First Class Honours in Mathematics at 15. It would even explain why he has a youthful baby face. It would also explain why he had to keep near an advanced Physics lab so that he can do his Time jumps. Those were my last thoughts as sleep claimed me. When I woke the next day, I went about my mundane life as ever, living forwards as we mere mortals must do.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Author : Robert HOAddress: 28 Bukit Batok Street 52 #20-03 Guilin View Singapore 659248 REPUBLIC OF SINGAPOREEmail : robert.ic019@gmail.comTelephone : (65) 68989553Handphone: (65) 90127417This Draft completed 5 March 2006If you like this story, or want to see others like it, please drop me an email. Please also forward this to Mr Steven Spielberg for his consideration. Thanks. Story 5, titling right to Yan Ting.Title by Yan Ting :The Nobel Awards Committee had never seen such heated exchanges. Usually, it is a staid gathering of distinguished old men going through the mundane task of sieving through nominee papers and finally selecting the final ones for the awards. Not unlike a Human Resource Department of a large corporation choosing between job applicants.Today was unusual.At issue was the question whether a non-human entity can be bestowed a Nobel Prize. “We cannot do things the usual old way any more,” said Olaf. “Ever since IBM’s computer, Deep Blue, beat Kasparov in chess, the human race had had to face the fact that a computer can be better at thinking, even if only a limited form of chess thinking. “And today’s computers are thousands of times more powerful than Deep Blue. With the development of neuro-coding, computer programs can practically think like Man. Except better! There is no reason why we cannot give the Nobel Prize to Darwin 21.”Darwin 21 is the latest computer program running on the new Hypercomputer Series, the successor to the 20th Century’s supercomputers. The 21 in “Darwin 21” refers to the 21st Century. Darwin 21 employs a new kind of computer program, termed “neuro-coding”. Neuro-coding was developed, paradoxically, not from computer science advances but from the field of biology.Advances in biology had been rapid in the early years of the 21st Century, again paradoxically, in turn, thanks to computer science. The more complete understanding, access and manipulations of human genetic code, for example, owed a great deal to computers.When the great supercomputers of the older era, the final years of the 20th Century, were used to understand, manipulate and study complex biological processes and human DNA, the science of biology, especially neuro-biology, made giant strides. This understanding, in turn, allowed great progress to be made in computer science. Thus, computer science advanced neuro-biology and neuro-biology advanced computer science, leading to a virtuous cycle that reinforced each other’s advances extremely rapidly until, in the early years of the 21st Century, the first hypercomputers were developed and the parallel advances in computer programming allowed for the development of neuro-coding.Neuro-coding was a new computer programming language that mimicked the way the human brain works. Unlike the previous computer era of the 20th Century, neuro-coding used intuition, much like human intuition.Where the old era’s computers and computer programmes were essentially stupid, having to be programmed in such a way that human programmers had to anticipate every step and process, failing which the computer would glitch or hang, or worse, produce totally incomprehensible rubbish, neuro-coding running on the new hypercomputers, mimicked the human brain in intuitively seeking out the desired results and then calculating the answers.This is close to how our brains work. Our brains do not calculate every possibility because then, it would be overwhelmed with possibilities, and if every possibility is equally likely or desired, then there would be simply too many possibilities to calculate that we would not be able to complete even the simplest task, even a task as simple as pouring a cup of Newater.Thus, the human brain intuitively rejects the thousands of possibilities and focuses only on the few that we would really want. It is essentially this ability to focus and concentrate on the most desired outcomes that makes our very lives possible. In short, it is what makes us human.Neuro-coding works the same way. Unlike the old era’s programs, it does not have to have every possibility anticipated by the programmer and told which to choose under which set of conditions. Like the brain, neuro-coding eliminates the less desired actions and possibilities and only focuses on the most desired outcomes. Thus, this makes the computer thousands of times more powerful because much of the useless or not so useful processing time and operations are eliminated. Hence the term, “hypercompters” – because they are so much more powerful than the supercomputers of old. Not because of hardware but because of the new neuro-coding software.Neuro-coding cannot create human intuition, which is still the best. But it gets pretty close by a process termed “intelligent prioritising”. Google in the 20th Century had already done the basic work in the field of prioritising such that Google search engines usually produce search results uncannily like what a human mind would. Thus, neuro-coding can be said to be an extreme version of the science of prioritising.Olaf leaned backwards as his chief antagonist spoke to counter him. “We just cannot give a Nobel Prize to a computer,” he wheezed asthmatically, his 83 years of age showing in his halting speech. “We have always used the Nobel Prize to honour men and women who have advanced our knowledge and understanding of the world, or who have achieved great feats of the human mind, or sometimes, when we want to make a political point or stand, we give the Peace Prize. But we cannot give a Nobel Prize to a computer!”Olaf smiled. His opponent was a very powerful and influential man and he had to be careful. “OK, but can we give a Nobel Prize for Biology to this nominee, then?” He pushed a document to his adversary who took it, put on his reading glasses, and pored over it. [The document follows].BEYOND DARWIN, OUTLINE FOR A STATISTICAL PROOF OF A NEW DARWINISM:1. Darwin's Theory of Evolution is one of the biggest ideas in thehistory of mankind. It explains, in one elegant [the best ideas arealways elegant] stroke, how the world came to be and how we came tobe.2. Today, I would like to append a small idea to his big idea.3. I read decades ago, that the bat's sonar navigation is so advanced that when scientists strung a wire across the path of flying bats, not a single bat flew into that thin wire, proving that their sonar could indeed detect even the thin wire.4. The big question is, how did the bat develop such an amazingfaculty?5. Think about it. For this advanced bat sonar navigation to be soperfect, several things had to happen simultaneously, the absence ofeven one of which would prevent this marvellous faculty from beingdeveloped.6. For example, bats do have eyes, but probably very inferior ones,so the first requirement for a bat to develop sonar is to have areduced use for 'normal' eyes. This is quite plausible by assumingthat sometime back, bats started living in dark caves where there islittle light to see by with normal eyes, and so, bats needed todevelop an alternative 'sight'. However, the question remains, whycouldn't the bat develop better eyes that can see in the dark, even in dark caves? We know that many animals can see in the almost dark, such as hunter animals like the big cat predators, that have highly developed night vision. So, why did the bat develop sonar instead of night vision eyes like some of the big cats? Thus, Mr Darwin fails here. [It is possible that sonar is better than eyes for catching flying insects in the almost dark].7. For the second requirement, the bat has to develop an ultrasonicsqueak that could effectively 'bounce' back from objects [like thethin wire], the echoes being then received by the bat's highlysensitive ears, which must be responsive to the sound frequencies ofthe bat's squeak -- these ears being the third requirement. Meaningthat the bat's ears had to develop or evolve in tandem to its sonarsqueaks, so both together function like a radar or sonar locationfinder.8. The fourth requirement is for the bat to develop a brain functionthat could process the echoed squeaks and create a picture of theterrain highlighting the obstacles [like the wire] to avoid andprobably even prey flying insects to catch for food.9. Here comes the punchline : all 4 faculties must bedeveloped/evolved SIMULTANEOUSLY for the sonar navigation to work.Even if 1 of the requirements is missing or developed/evolved later,the bat's sonar navigation will not work.10. Now, that seems almost impossible if you assume that naturalselection is a hit or miss affair, that is, there are many geneticchanges in every creature and that some of these genetic changes thenprove to be useful for survival and so are preserved by the creaturepassing onto to offspring, thus keeping the favourable genes in thegene pool while unfavourable genetic changes doom the creature thathas it thus leading to an early death or inability to mate and pass on this gene or set of genes.11. If I remember my Darwin correctly, it does seem that Darwinpostulates that evolution is a hit or miss affair, with favourablegenes being passed on and unfavourable genes dying out, bothnaturally, that is, by hit or miss.12. Could mere chance result in the bat's sonar navigation? Rememberthat for the bat to evolve this faculty, at least 4 requirements haveto be developed SIMULTANEOUSLY. Even if 1 of the 4 evolve later thanthe others, the faculty would not work and thus, according to Darwin,the bat/s possessing this would die out and not produce progeny thatwould further pass on or refine such a faculty.13. I now come to my little idea. Which is that evolution is not ahit or miss affair or due to blind chance but guided by an activeimpulse. What I am postulating is that, evolution is not just mereaccidental genetic changes that result in survival advantages to thebearer and are thus passed on, into the gene pool, but that every time a creature develops a set of skills good for survival, this set of skills or abilities get passed on, even if in a general way.14. To give an example, perhaps a poor one, what I am saying is that, if David Beckham develops a fine set of footballing skills, and this happens to be good for his survival, these footballing skills get passed onto his progeny. It does not mean that his children will be talented footballers like him, but will possess better than ordinary physical attributes such as hand-eye coordination, physical reaction times, balance, excellent leg skills, etc.15. I would go further than just physical skills like learned andmastered football skills. I would even postulate that even culturalskills such as singing or dancing or PhD research skills also resultin changes to the set of characteristics in the bearer of such skills, and thus get passed on to progeny.16. There is one simple way to test this hypothesis. If a simplesurvey is done, and I am right, it would show that a man who fatheredchildren when young [meaning that he has not mastered any importantskills important for survival] would have pretty ordinary childrencompared to say, a PhD scholar who had children long after he hadlearned and mastered his faculty/faculties. To use Beckham again, ifBeckham had fathered children when in his teens, say, and againfathered children after he became a top footballer, then his childrenfrom AFTER his mastery of footballing would be better physicalspecimens than his children fathered when Beckham was young and hadnot achieved his peak, all other things being equal.17. A quick survey comparing the children of old fathers to thechildren of young fathers would show, if I am right, that old fathers, who would have had more time to master a physical or intellectual or even a cultural skill like music, etc, produce children more gifted in the same general area than young dads.18. Note that I use the example of fathers. Not mothers. There is areason. A woman, even from the day of birth, already has all the eggsthat she would ever produce. This means that her egg-carried genes are fixed already from the time of her birth and therefore cannot carry 'learned' skills like footballing [in Beckham's case], even if the woman egg-carrier were to learn to kick footballs as well as Beckham.19. On the other hand, males keep producing and expending millions of sperm all the time. This means that, according to my hypothesis, males are responsible for the rapid evolution of the human race, and not females. When a male masters a skill or learns to use his brain in a new way, his sperm changes to carry that new skill or brain achievement. Perhaps not by way of genetic changes in the sperm but in some as yet undiscovered X-Factor, maybe even in the proteins that seem to hold much of a person's character and even physical development. If I am right, males hold the key to evolution and not females.20. From Cave Man to Modern Man is just about 10,000 years, or about200 generations, if we take a generation to be 50 years. 200 generations is very, very short to develop from Cave Man to Modern Man. Yet it has been done. Could hit or miss blind chance evolution depending on accidental changes to genes accomplish this feat? I don't think so. If I am right, each time a Cave Man learns something new, like, initially, a better way to hunt animals, or later, a better way of using his brain, etc, this even cultural skill gets passed on to his progeny to become part of the gene pool.21. If I am right, there is not only hope for mankind but also somesuggestions of some important policies for governments. For example,if learned attributes like say, a talent for music composition, ormathematical skills, etc, can all be passed on to future generationsin a general way, it does seem good to encourage all individuals toexcel in some areas, whatever it may be.22. Incidentally, my theory does explain why many skills are seen inthe children of exceptional parents, usually the fathers. Again,another simple survey could help prove my point, which is that manycultural skills tend to be passed on from fathers, not mothers. Asurvey could show whether children of gifted fathers tend to be moregifted than children from gifted mothers.23. One aspect of Darwin's theory is that of survival of the species, not just the individual. We have come very far in just 200 generations. Imagine where we would be in another 200 generations. My theory suggests that such active impulse in improving the species is what brought us here so fast. My theory is different from Darwin's in that Darwin suggests blind chance as the key to our development while I suggest that an individual's active impulse is the key to the individual's as well as his species' survival and triumphant development. Ultimately, my theory is a theory of hope. It says that the fate of mankind is in our hands, not blind chance, not hit ormiss. And if you think about it, isn't this the most important development in our species' survival and triumph, that this 'active impulse' is exactly what the human race has developed as the ultimate survival mechanism? And what brought us here so far so fast?Watson Crick27 Sep 04 1320Olaf’s adversary read and re-read it very, very slowly while the distinguished gathering waited patiently for him to finish, which he did after an inordinate interval. Few would dare to hurry, let alone contradict this Old Man.Finally, he raised his head from the document and said thoughtfully, “I have read it 3 times and I think that certainly, this Watson Crick, if he is proved correct by the surveys he outlines, could certainly be worthy of a Nobel Prize.Olaf then distributed copies of the document to all the gentlemen at the table and they all read it. “Do you all agree?” he asked.There were murmurs of agreement all round. Few would dare to contradict the Old Man. “Well, then,” smiled Olaf, “Darwin 21 gets the Nobel Prize, then!”There were gasps of astonishment, first, then followed by murmurs of understanding as the truth sank in, then some titters of laughter as the assembly realized that the Old Man had been outwitted.Watson Crick was a pseudonym. The document said to be written by him was actually written or rather, generated, by the computer program named Darwin 21, running on a hypercomputer. The Old Man couldn’t even tell apart a document written by a human and one generated by a computer program.It was a testament to how far computers had advanced.7 Mar 06…………………………………………….. Story 6, titling right to Kai Seng.Title by Kai Seng :Chimp's communicationThe lights went out and the projector sprang into life, displaying a projection video of what looked like a typical scene from the monkey enclosure of a zoo. “As you can see,” said Debbie Lam, “this is the chimpanzee enclosure in the Singapore Zoo. And these are the 24-hour video cameras that capture every move and sound within this chimpanzee enclosure. Every chimp there is coded with a name and an identity. Indeed, we have gone further and are able to distinguish each chimp’s voice from all the others. Each is uniquely identified so that when one speaks, our computers are able to identify the voice and link it to the chimp speaking. Thus, all the chimp conversations are recorded, tracked and traced to the individual chimp, and we can then analyse what each chimp is saying or said.”Debbie is a philologist. Years ago, she embarked on the unusual path of analysing language and linguistics through primate speech. She studied many primates but eventually, for a concomitance of reasons, settled on the chimps in the Singapore Zoo. “You used the words ‘conversations’ and ‘speak’ when talking about the chimps,” said one member of her audience, “Do chimps really talk, like us, I mean?”Debbie smiled. It was a common question and one she had answered many times. “Let me ask my colleague, Kai Seng, to answer you.”Kou Kai Seng stood up. “First, let me say that I am not a philologist like Debbie here. I worked in machine speech translation for many years and I have only joined the research here in the last 5 years. Previously, I worked in the popular machine translations in Babel Fish and WorldLingo companies. “Let me give a bit of background. In Babel Fish and WorldLingo, we do not programme computer translations between pairs of languages, like say, English and Chinese. Or French and Spanish. Or Korean and German, for instance. Actually, that was what we did when we started. We would pair all the words in English with all their equivalents in Chinese and then code in all the rules for translating from one to the other and back, such as the rules for each language’s grammar and syntax, etc. But that was far too much work and inflexible. Because then, we had to code the computers individually to translate from each pair of language and back and then repeat all that over again for a new language. For example, in the old days, we would code for say, French to English and when we wanted a new language such as French to Korean, we would have to code all over again. We used to do that, at first, coding translations for each new language into each new language pair. “Then we discovered that all languages had an inner core that was very much the same in all languages. For example, the English sentence, “I love you” has exactly the same format in Chinese – “Wo ai ni” and “Saya cinta awak”in Malay. That is, noun, verb, noun. So we began to translate all languages into this core language, from which we could then draw forth any new language we want. Thus, we would, say, translate English into this core, and when we want a translation of that language segment from English to French, we simply use that core to derive the French translation. Or Italian translation. Or Japanese translation. This discovery made our translations so much easier. Today, our Babel Fish or WorldLingo websites can translate over a dozen languages, from any one into any of the others. All through first translating any chunk of one language into this core language.Debbie broke in, “And because Babel Fish and WorldLingo discovered that all languages have this similar core, our study of the origin of language and speech made great strides. For example, one Paper by my colleague, Yan Ting, pointed out that languages are very easy to invent and practically every group of humans in history had its own language, even if geographically only a short distance away from other tribes. For example, in the sub-continent of India alone, there are well over 100 different languages. Similarly, in the longest continuous civilization of China, there are many dozens of dialects even though Emperors of old had tried to standardise the language. “Then where do the chimps come in,” asked another of the audience. “Ah,” smiled Debbie. “We figured that if all languages were based on a core structure, this reflected not so much on the individual tribe speaking that language, it reflected more on something more basic. Such as our very humanity. Languages must be something very basic and common to all Mankind. It must be the very way our brains are wired, that we all invent the same approach to language, the core language, although in different sounds and slightly different rules. If there are aliens from another civilization in space, they may well and probably have, a totally different approach resulting in grammar and syntax totally different from our. Basically, since we cannot recreate this invention of language in a laboratory, we thought we could study how primates speak and from there, glean insights into human language inventions.”Kai Seng then added, “We thought of videoing the chimps and trying to ascertain how they communicated. At first, it was too much work to track each chimp ‘speaker’ and then trying to decipher what it said by the context of its behaviour and situation. Then, we had a former NSA programmer who had experience with the Echelon program. The Echelon program, as we all know, is a stupendous program that captures almost every single electronic communication in the whole world, from telephone conversations to email to faxes, etc, in every language in the world, and analyses these for specific leads, such as terrorists planning an attack. “Thus, Echelon would filter every communication captured, through key words, which were then narrowed down for human analysts to read and turn into actionable information. For example, Echelon did not prevent the 9/11 airplane attacks on the World Trade Centers but after a few of the conspirators were captured, Echelon very quickly traced all the others who had communicated with these capturees and tracked them down as well. “Thus, using the principles of Echelon, we can now pinpoint each chimp, identify it and record its speech. Then, we can analyse its speech for the core language that we have spoken about earlier.”A member of the audience spoke up, “So, do chimps also use a core language like humans?”Debbie went to her laptop computer and fiddled with the buttons for a minute and the projector began to play a loop of a close up of a chimp shrieking to another, “eeee yorrrrr goooocheee norrrr, eeee wupp, wupp, heeee, norrr!” “What does that mean?” asked an audience.Solemnly, Debbie translated, “When is that idiot zookeeper coming with my lunch?”At that, the audience broke up in laughter. Then, the chimp in the video could be seen holding up its middle finger to the camera. It was the crowning moment of over a decade of research.12 Mar 06………………………………………….. Story 7, titling right to Debbie.Title by Debbie :No-belFor a moment that could transform the world, the lab experiment setup was exceedingly simple : just a soundbox producing sounds of variable frequencies, a tube of water or, in this case, acetone, a light detection box and a few other very simple detectors. Indeed, this experimental setup for sonoluminescence had changed only a little from the time it was first discovered at the University of Cologne in 1934. Indeed, even the tiny Pistol Shrimp, or Snapping Shrimp can produce sonoluminescence simply by snapping its pincer sharply in water.Dr Ramanujuan and his graduate student assistant, Morris, were the only 2 in the lab when it happened. They had done this experiment so many times over the last 3 years, with differing results and success rates that today’s readings were just another set of numbers.Only, this time, the numbers were unusual.Dr Ramanujuan looked at the readouts and ent