Why China fucked itself big time with Google

Google announced recently that it might pull out of China, the world’s biggest Internet market, because it detected that the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists using Google’s Gmail service had been breached and the search giant’s corporate infrastructure had experienced some attacks.
Google’s “ultimatum” may seem like an elephant gun, judging from the amount of support it’s getting from the White House to the Capital Hill, from Lagos to Paris, politicians, business leaders, philosophers et al backed Google’s decision to the hilt – but to me that’s not where the crying game is going to be played.
Fact remains, even if Google decides to pull out from China there are going to be plenty of firms who can pick up the slack – from a commercial standpoint, it’s no big deal, neither will Google’s threat to pull out trigger a precipitous change like the fall of the Berlin wall – cold factual cuts suggest the Great Firewall will be up and standing – so once again, what Google is or is not going to do is like whether we get a rainbow tomorrow or not – it’s pretty irrelevant.
The real crying game and where I think China Inc will suffer the most damage is in it’s reputation – and to understand this, you may need to buy into a new concept. As we are talking about morality and not money – you see its very simple; the world these days has changed irrevocably – some people who still go around the world and give, “I am living legend,” talks may not realize this – but if you look around you the mantra these days isn’t like those helium filled days when you can do anything you want to turn in buck and as long as your shareholders get a good return on their investment – life just goes right on.
These days – with the economic meltdown, even the average Joe in Nebraska is asking himself, why should my tax dollars be used to pay out creamy bonuses for corporate honcho’s that seem to do nothing but fly around in private jets – there’s not only a perceptive shift – but there’s a real demand for moral coherency along with the whole idea of “doing the right thing.”

So far, China’s definition of “doing the right thing” has been a shambolic disaster,:
I am sure Xinhua news will try to sell this as Shao lin Chiropractors doling out free back massages to Tibetans, who are just so relaxed that they can’t even pull up their pants (so now you know lah, if you have back pain, just take a trip to Tibet) – Look, I am not saying people are not interested in money any more; sure they are – but they’re increasing asking themselves ethically loaded questions like they have never bothered to ask before: like why is this guy getting so much money and why is he delivering so little value? Or where is this Persian rug made? Did some child go blind just so that I can warm my feet in winter? And the list goes on and on. To paraphrase, a new calculus has leached into the collective consciousness – its not just about good olde return on investment, but what is the moral cost?
It’s in this land somewhere in my head, yours and perhaps a few billion people in the world where China’s mismanagement of the Google affair will really blow up – as no one likes to deal with a morally bankrupt regime that’s so paranoid, insecure and fearful of that it even has to hire stadium loads of cyber warriors just to keep their decrepit oligarchy intact.
That sort of attitude just breeds suspicion, mistrust and does very little to recruit the hearts and minds of the masses – china will feel the backlash, it will come and hit them like a multi headed hydra in the international world of trade and commerce. The shit storm is just starting to brew – for example Chinese telecom equipment vendor Huawei is increasingly being seen as Trojan horse by most middle class Indians who have always valued the idea of democracy and free speech and this recent spat with Google will only exacerbate and breed bad karma – the same corrosive blend of mistrust scuttled the deal between BHP Billiton and a large Chinese mining conglomerate – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg, ordinary folk who all subscribe to the idea of the level playing are all getting increasingly incensed by China’s belligerence and recalcitrant attitude –result: they all forming groups in facebook and twitter to boycott Chinese made products.
As I said, this is only the rumble before the storm; you’ve seen nothing yet – but this not new, the world has already seen it all before – and the growing mood of discontentment is reminiscent of how South Africa in the 80’s under Apartheid was increasingly perceived as many to be pariah state – and that was way before the advent of the internet – they bowed out then.
This time with the awesome power of the internet to recruit, organize and focus; the successful struggle for freedom and democracy in china will be immeasurably sharpened and heightened – already, even in our fraternity, there is a boycott on all China made bicycle products, components and nick nacks – doesn’t matter how cheap or good it is, if it’s made in China – dowanlah (I don’t want) is the ubiquitous response – money is secondary to morality.
In summary; china may have won the battle; but they have certainly lost the war – as while battles are fought with the power of the Yuan, GDP, GNP and stellar economic track records – wars aren’t that simple to win as they reside somewhere in a soft and cushy country called the hearts and minds – without a moral compasss you’re fucked (there is no way to be polite about it).

Welcome to the crying game.

Darkness 2010
“I see a storm coming; look at the edges. Do you see how the eddies curl and turn white like bones, the sea is trying to tell us something –  I don’t care what the weather report says; besides when have they ever been right….look up there…..for fuck sake, learn something for once… do you see the cumulus driving away the thin threads at the upper reaches, that means she’s gathering speed…soon, she will be spinning like a top…that’s the tell, we are not sailing into a storm, we are right in the eye of one that’s just about to form….don;t tell the lad yet, I don’t want any of them to lose their heads – it may look clear and sunny now, but the crying game will begin soon….change to 130? You don’t understand do you:  we are in it, so there’s no point trying to outrun her – she’s got us by the balls and judging from the way she’s working herself up; that whore is bent on slapping us good and proper, all we can do is curl up and roll with the punches….. and perhaps say to her, me trae al fresco -it’s no mystrey why this ins the only side of the ocean where you find the most wrecks – the Spaniards used to fear it so much, they called it –  la cola del diablo – it took down more ships than ten Bermuda Triangles  put together- she’s bad, tell the rest of the boys to gear up with hoods and I want everything tied down like a magnet; this will be rough! That’s how, the big ones come…you can never see them coming,  not like the small ones, where you can even smell them days ahead!…this is a mother, where two or maybe three fronts close in all in one spot….today is the day, you will see grown men pee….and shout out mama! Today is the day, you will learn to respect the sea….la cola el diablo, the whore that you are…….**** you! and **** your sisters!”

 
Darkness 2004

(Recorded in the Book of Ages / under the Chapter of Expeditions to the unknown / page 2,23o – Brotherhood Press 2004 – Somewhere in the Indian Ocean)

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

Strange things that just go bump in the night – the Curta

What I am going to share with you all today is a story about how adversity is the mother of necessity – it also happens to be one of those stuff that really piques my interest.
There you go.

No it’s not a high tech pepper grinder, believe it or not, it’s a mechanical calculator. But that’s just a foretaste as the weirdest part of this invention is the history that accompanies it.
The Incredible Curta was invented by a certain Mr Herzstark who was a prisoner in Buchenwald (you know the place where they have those showers that spew out gas instead of water) – history doesn’t really record why a prisoner in a death camp was allowed the time, material and even encouragement to work on such a device – had it gone into full scale production during WW 2, this would have been the equivalent of Apple’s latest itablet – you see the Nazi’s weren’t very good at math; they didn’t place a lot of emphasis on adding, subtracting and dividing – wonder no more why most of rockets fell short of London and ended up killing sheep and cows in some obscure countryside in Surrey – but as I said, if a Nazi artillery commander had the Curta, his shells would certainly find the mark; submarine commanders wouldn’t have to wonder whether their torpedoes would find the bulkheads of merchant ships and German pilots wouldn’t have too much trouble figuring out whether they had enough fuel for the return trip. And death camps commandants would probably use it to calculate how many Jews can I fit into the death showers. You get my drift.
But Mr Herzstark wasn’t a dummy; he wasn’t going to let this mechanical brain fall into the grubby hands of the Nazi’s; so that they can win the war and continue doing the evil stuff, they do to people and planet – history records what he once said to a fellow inmate, “I am going to give those bastards a false sense of confidence…then when the least expect it, shut the trap door!” , wonder no more why he used the Curta as a way to squeeze out better terms from the camp commandant – and perhaps saved a couple of hundred other lives by getting extra rations, better living conditions and odd red cross rations etc – he may have even been responsible for helping bring WW II to a quick end – as seven prototypes of the Curta were issued to the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) to compute their sights; true to the spirit of the rebel; Mr Herztstark deliberately sabotaged them by adding a ghost in the machine: result – those submarines all ended up in the bottom of the Atlantic (not a bad innings, if you ask me for a man stuck in some death camp) – meanwhile to wet the beak of his jailers, he gave them the impression, he was working day and night, when he was probably just doodling and pretending to be really busy (sounds abit like me when I work)
In was only in April 1945 when the Americans liberated the camp – that Mr Herzstark proclaimed his invention had been completed, he had the last laugh as it never ever went into full scale mass production – smart guy if you ask me; as I can’t think of a better way to blackmail my captors – string them with a hook, line and sinker – bait them – give them a false sense of confidence – when they bite, just seed out rope and hold on tight and never let go – to me that’s strategy at the highest level – when you play your opponent like a violin and he even pays you for it – history states as far as prison life goes, Mr Herzstark lived like a lord and king, he was even allowed to eat on the same table as his captors.

This story may not be a page turner; but it’s certainly a life changer – as it demonstrates very clearly how when faced with a bigger and stronger foe; and this could be your evil boss at work; that guy that’s eyeing your job, rumor mongerer or just some cheap site that out to do you in with a couple of cyber hired guns (that don’t even know how to clean up after the kill! And leave a blood trail that says, “here I am!”). The moral of the story is keep your cool like our Mr Herzstark and don’t forget to use your brains – pitch it right and you can even get what you want; but always remember that’s only possible if you have something to offer – so work on that part, but remember package it right like a juicy sardine curled along a shank – once they bite, hold on and wear them down – don’t be impulsive, don’t tug, just be cool (I prefer the trickle effect, it’s much more effective than the big bang – as it operates at a very one to one personal level, where you may just be talking to less than 3 or 4 people, remember even trickling water can cut through Tungsten carbide grade granite – don’t believe me – next time you go on a date and you want to make an impression, leave your mobile phone at home – she will notice it,  and when she does, just say something like, “you know what the poets say, you can hold time in a grain of sand – in the same way one evening can be the span of a lifetime – effect: she will never forget you, never! – unless of course she sees your room where all the clothes go to die) do it right and you can even squeeze them to get the best terms when you have a lousy hand of cards – that incidentally happens to be one of the greatest tricks in life – turning tables on your enemies, that is.

Darkness 2010

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

What does Jazz have in common with the Internet

Most people would hardly be convinced about the power of music to change anything my dearest Dotty – that’s because, they know nothing of the preponderance it once played in shaping who we are today and I suspect who we will be tomorrow – I don’t think music can be devalued – for one it has a character that is unique to an age and time, like old seasoned leather, it resonates and has a character of its own.
Neither is music worthless either, hardly the stuff of primroses and parks – anyone who tells you that dedicating oneself to music rather than investing one’s being to acquire a copper gilded degree from an Ivy league college, simply doesn’t know the economics of value – all it takes to rubbish that crumbly notion is to highlight how United Airlines was once prepared to pay $300,000 for the right to use Gershwin’s rhapsody in blue in their advertisements and as back ground music to muffle the drone of jet engines – music has value and even power I suspect
Most people don’t notice how powerful music can be; they remain the stuff of fire hydrants; inconspicuous camera’s and ashtrays – but for some reason, I do, and at times, it’s embarrassing when I hum along even to elevator music – people always give me that, “what’s that’s guy’s problem?”
Like I said, most people don’t take music seriously enough to understand, it just didn’t walk over a knoll – like the internet, that was once conceived as a dooms day postman that suddenly found itself as a global network – the story of Jazz and it eventual passage to respectability bears some similarities; it’s hard to believe these days, that I’ve even widely written on why Jazz was the equivalent of the internet in an age when co-axials wires didn’t exist – that may have been one reason why Rhapsody in Blue will always have a special place somewhere in my brain – as a when it first came out, it was considered by many to be some form reductionism – that in part may have something to do with the formless and breadth of improvisation that the Gershwin deployed – in truth, he stole from Jazz and if you take the trouble to listen carefully note the 3+3+2 blue notes; glissandi, dah-dah-dah modulation and augmented sixth chords that are simply signature marks of Jazz – they are not only conspicuous in Rhapsody in Blue, but you could even say, like the internet these days – it was a poseur that once threatened the establishment very much like how our internet challenges different states of minds and schools of thoughts these days. Truth the spat between Google and the Chinese Govt aren’t so different from the days when Jazz clubs were shut down with trucheons – it embodiment of the conflict between what must be and what will be – in a nutshell, one guy sees it as a perdition; the other as salvation.
That’s one reason why when we talk about Jazz these days; it’s very much like the internet today – it’s a force for change – just as u can’t talk about the internet without mentioning its oppositional bent or its unwillingness to be tacked down on a pelt rack – the same holds true for Jazz, it was born during the period of prohibition – when dancing, drinking and sex was considered the height of moral turpitude – and if that wasn’t enough, it was born just around the time when the red scare and women’s suffrage first showed up in times square en masse.
The link between Jazz and the internet and its tenuous relationship between subversion, intoxication and criminality is startling when one considers how well they both mirror each other – but one thing is clear just as nothing could have killed Jazz; I don’t believe anything can ever kill the internet as what is holds out is not so different to what once guaranteed the survival of Jazz – the right to be whoever you choose to be and the rest can just take a hike – l have the power to say, “I don’t care.”

Darkness 2010

P.S: I want to share something with you Missy Dotty – when we play together – there is only a few things in my mind, well being, sweet repose and happy respites – like I said, my knee is busted up; so what do you say, if we just get together tonite and make some nice music? Cold shouldering is good, but the problem is silence is only of value when some expects you to say something…and I’ve never really been good with words. Enjoy and as I said, never pull, never push and there is no need to press, somethings just needs to allowed to happen. There are no rules and we can make it all up and take it from there – so what do you say, nine sounds nice. Besides, your violin is out of tone; I can tune it for you and even change the strings – I’ve just got new ones in ebay – it set me back a small fortune, but I think, once you hear me play it, even you will agree, all manner of things will simply melt like a sugar cube in a hot cup of tea – that’s the power of music….and the internet of course….it has the power to change…..I hope you will allow me to show you how to play the violin ( I am after all a poseur, I can’t help it).

To Missy Dotty From Darkness

Currencies fluctuate capriciously ; the market whirls up and sown in a frenzy; and most nations seem to be on the escalator of inflation and rising unemployment, with their experts totally confounded by the seemingly insoluble crisis – yet your only concern Missy Dotty is why can’t I seem to reach the higher notes on my violin without so much effort?

Fair enough.  I’ve been meaning to tell this for so long a time; your pose is your undoing – you’re too upright, erect, as if standing ramrod for some sepia print picture to be taken; so only your arms and fingers move, but the rest of your body remains frozen, (you’re moving like the lady up there, but you’re not moving as much as the instrument is forcing you to move – notice how she has to pull and push with so much effort, she’s killing it! Notice how her head is superglued to the chin rest that there is no pitch and yaw – I bet it’s so stable, you can even put a can of tiger beer there as a side table – that’s why there is so little movement between the middle and upper bout: notice she is putting in so much effort – her breathing is also out, that why she’s turning blue and purple, if she keeps it up at this rate, she will die of lack of oxygen – she’s too preoccupied with the fidelity of the score; let me tell you, you can cut out parts of it without affecting the whole in any way to even make it yours, that’s the trick) – as I said, I’ve been meaning to point this out to you; but like little coughs and slight heaves; I felt it would all past, but it seems to be getting from bad to worse.

To reach the upper notes effortlessly; it’s a bit like turning familiar corners; the body moves as a whole, first the hips rouse, followed by the limbs that seem to clutch as it prepares for the subtle shift in gait –as for the arms, they can do what they like – then like the seasons we will never know; it simmers slowly to the rest of the body, till your arms and fingers begin to release their hold like a down pour that quenches the emerald green of the rice fields – the rest then falls nicely in place, your hands and fingers feel like a unfolding flower – there is no strain; you even don’t feel the timber against your cheeks (you shouldn’t even be aware of it) as your whole body seems to arch forward and backwards like dragon scales to the pitch and yaw – you don’t need to pull (who taught you that?); just exhale and allow the weight of your arms and not the muscles to do the job; and you certainly don’t need plough to reach the high either; rather lean into it with your body and you definitely don’t need to grit your teeth and put such a heavy weight on it like a Gethsemane olive press, if you want to underscore a note forcefully, simply twist your whole body like you’re throwing a discus and the instrument should be swung in the opposite direction in the way the boom of a sail boat moves left and right to tack the wind (it’s a bit like drawing out a Samurai sword -when the katana is drawn out the sheath is pulled back simultaneously – those opposite actions produce a centrifugal force that allows you to cut forcefully – in Aido / Kendo, its called Sayabiki ) – so use your hips ; that way you never ever need to use brute force and it comes out clean, clear and sweet – most importantly, you don’t need to keep to the fidelity of the score, you can add new cadenzas (better still mutilate it and la Callifa has plenty of room for improvisation, its closer to Rhapsody in Blue than something really corsetted like Rakhmaninov), or even decide to remove whole parts that seem to be encrusted to each other for no reason other than to make it really hard so score – but one thing is crucial: whatever happens must seem inevitable, or pretty inevitable, at least – my point is you can’t force it Dotty – somethings you make it happen; others you allow it to happen – this is very much the latter – that’s to say, it doesn’t pay to treat a score as if its a holy composition or vesper – there’s a lot of room for improvisation – that’s the only way I know how to devote one’s entire being into music to make it seem effortless, Dotty.

I can teach you to play like a gypsy. If you like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VshLGLVDPq4

It’s a weekend and I have taken a fall on my bicycle recently, my knee is busted – I have time. I can show you; if you like.

Would you like that?

Darkness 2010

Can you afford not to learn how to make $ online?

One of the common misconceptions that has been underscored time and again in Singapore is if you want to get ahead in life – you need to be a scholar – that puts you on the yellow brick road to success – after that it’s the gravy train.
That means from day one, every parent, child and teacher has been psycho to believe the gold standard of organizational and personal success is to get the best possible grades so that you can get into the best schools to get the best job and the best life – that’s BS! What we need here is a paradigm shift.
Well that may be true in the past and for a select  few who can still talk nonsense and fly around the world in a first class cabin on the back of tax payers and give talks about “how I am THE legend!” – alas for the rest of us lesser mortals, we have to settle for the cookie cutter life – my point is against the nadir of this economic mess the world is facing this topic of how to MAKE MONEY ONLINE HAS never been brought into sharper focus – In the midst of a recession (if you really know how to make sense of the figures), it’s not unusual to see a shift in forums these days, there a flurry of exchanges about how freelancing is the answer to short term job loss, supplementing incomes and just a way to make ends meet.

Gone are the days, when you can just happily mine minerals and sell them to fat Americans – these days they don’t have the money to buy (period); while making money online has been around; it has always been two parts mystery and one part black arts – let’s face it, most people don’t see that as a proposition to turn the wheel of life – why should they, when they have real jobs – but what happens when you find yourself in between jobs? Or having to take unpaid leave? Suddenly the idea of making money online takes on a new meaning.
As I said the current economic crisis has rubbished many of our assumptions – while it’s true that most of the onliners who know how to reasonably make a good living from freelancing, one thing has to be stressed, it’s not a piece of cake, especially if you want to sustain a family on it.
First it takes time, commitment, a professional attitude and the ability to effectively market wares – for example – I happen to know a 50 something gentlemen who suddenly got retrenched; as a banker last year, he has no marketable value except driving a taxi, but in better times – he has always been an avid watch collector (we met some years back ago, he’s about 20 years older and he even supp”lied me with some details about clocks for some of my sappy love stories, like this: The Confessions of a Singaporean Gangster in London – Chapters 17 & 18 “An Account of an English Miner’s Wife – so these days what he does is scour the internet for flywheels, cogs, wheels and springs in forums where old watches go and die – he works in his kitchen table top and so far, he has managed to turn in a pretty good profit by selling old watches online.
The same holds true for another chap who happens to be one of my cycling buddies; he likes to tinker with stuff – one day, he came up with an idea of self sealing bearing / it’s great, when you want to ride your mountain bike to places where its muddy and soaking – he fabricates them with a homemade lathe is roughly the size of a Singer sewing machine – it’s not high tech, but it does has a cult appeal in the serious mountain biking fraternity as time went by sheer word of mouth – his invention took off big time, now it’s a full time project and he is even thinking of expanding his living room into a mini cottage industry.
Another guy who I happen to know very who happens to be an investment banker who has an interest in classical guitars (we jam together quite often) – he too has found himself in the wilderness recently; one day – after an argument with a local music accessory supplier – he decided to fabricate his own guitar strings – I’ve got to stress, this is micro marketing here; we aren’t taking about Yamaha and Casio electronic organs as much as nicks & nacks that really fit into the greater scheme of things – in classical guitar strings do make a hell of a difference; they’re the equivalent of tires in F1 racing cars – you can have a hand made Manuel Rodriguez classical guitar, but string wrongly and no amount of skill will bring out the panache and verve; it will just sound like underwater music.
So one day this guy decided to do some research and got himself hooked up with a Brazilian rope maker online that specializes in making gut rope – they’re still used apparently for hand line fishing in Spain and the Caspian sea – a sample was sent to Singapore and we got to work on it; first figuring how to thin it out; but yet retaining the strength required some experimentation (with a pressure cooker), but to cut a long story short, when these animal gut strings were lined up; they sounded full bodied and incredibly rich.

I wouldn’t go as far to say that it suddenly made the difference between a weekend jammer to a Stravinsky, Schoenberg or Bartok – neither did they sound – kitsch. But they certainly did sound different; as animal gut does lend a period theme of originality that one can never get from machine made nylon strings; the pace is arguably looser and when one hears it for the very first time, it even sounds like an accusation of formlessness, but gradually, it grows on you and its very embraceable to the extent that these are the only strings I play with. Gut strings may not be General Motors, but they are stuff that every serious classical guitarist buys, once at least to just hear how it sounds and that guarantees an income for my friend.

So these are just a few chicken soup stories about how ordinary folk are turning to the online world to make something out of nothing – I hope all these stories inspires you.
Despite the cherry mood; there is however a kink here; we the brotherhood along with ALL our channel partners have decided to relocate ALL of  our intellectual assets to Malaysia sometime in March 2010 – due to persistent fake and real DDos attacks, I dont really care (I don’t need proof either), all I know is, if you dont even bother to create a “free” environment, then people have every right to vote with their slippers and move right out and walk right out of the door – dont blame me, that’s basic economics of supply and demand – please understand, it’s nothing personal and strictly business. I have no axe to grind. I am a lover, not a fighter – no one can make anything in an unstable environment riven by shallow minded people who simply don’t even have the slightest clue why the internet may perhaps be the only way for many to gainfully dig their way out of this economic shit hole.

So to all you cybertroopers out there: if you dont understand what our goal is and how we can use the internet to transform lives; that’s fine; but dont be so selfish as to break the rice bowl of others – the internet does not belong to you; it belongs to everyone. You have a right to win votes; but you dont have the right to do it at a terrible cost to people and planet by lying, cheating and posting my IP in your site, just because you can’t seem to string a proper excuse for faking DDos attacks – I want to make one thing patently clear; I will break your rice bowl (this is a truism that I want you to remember everynight before you turn in and every morning before your feet touches the floor);  not only that I will make sure that your career path is as bright as the polar ice caps that is so white that it will even blind you – as one day when it all goes so wrong; someone is going to ask, “why hasn’t Singapore got a vibrant e-economy,” (if you think long and hard about it, that question has to come sometime down the future – when that day comes, I will tell you A, B, C etc where you all fucked up! Mark it somewhere in your calendar, as that day will come – and call it “pay back!” or better still the “crying game”). After that the only net you fuckers will be managing is a fishing net somewhere in the Singapore Artic Expedition – and you know what – you CANNOT stop me; it’s a DONE deal! Allow me to let you into a little secret a bird told me; you know the spat between Google and the Chinese Internet Authorities – it just didn’t happen like one rock giving way and the whole mountain pukes – someone put a bright red traffic cone and said, “hey, your backdoor is wide open!” So as you can see we can hunt you down and even do mucho damage in ways that you never ever considered possible – I’ve got it all lined up like a science; and all the data is stored in at least 30 locations worldwide – so you cannot stop me from singing like a bird one day.

Game over! As for the rest of you out there, hang on and keep the faith.

Darkness 2010

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

The Toyota Lesson – small stuff can kill you!

The nice thing about an apple is it has so many symbolic metaphors. … I am sure, you’ve all heard of the idiom, all it takes is one rotten  apple to spoil it all … Today (maybe I should have put the brakes on the kebab last night?), for some curious reason all my thoughts seem to be revolving about the quagmire that Toyota motors has suddenly found itself embroiled in – over what?

A plastic brake pedal that probably cost under $5, like Goliath that was brought down by a pebble it may seem like a trivial drama, but it illustrates succintly how the small stuff can really put even juggernaut multi-national into a nice citrus smelling pine box. This is Murphy’s law on a microscopic scale.

Sure Toyota will recover, but the cost will be high nonetheless… and its put a  dent to their otherwise stellar success story – imagine, getting done in by a brake pedal that has its own mind? In allegorical terms, that’s like hauling one metric ton of can soup all the up to Everest and forgetting to bring along a can opener – it’s ludicrous but it underscores one reality;  it makes immeasurable sense to learn from the mistakes of others; gathering wisdom from the world of hard knocks to me is just too dumb and expensive. Besides even if you manage to survive it all to gain those precious nuggets of wisdom; you may be so broken that it’s simply not worth all the effort.

My philosophy in life is simple: get it right the first time! Easier said than done, when I consider how indispensable superglue, ductape and rubberbands feature so prominently to prop up so many things in my life.

But you get my drift – getting it right the first time! Is the ONLY way to go. if you dont want to die prematurely of high blood pressure. I even apply this philosophy to women, pets, automobile management and air-con servicing.

For example, I never mix business with pleasure; never fuck around where I work (the fire stairs doesn’t count OK) and I don’t pile one thing that has absolutely nothing to do with another to reach a decision; I keep it all in nice clearly marked boxes – if you break any one of those rules. You’re going to get it wrong everytime! 

It will just come back and bite you; it matters little whether it’s that module that you should have put more time and effort studying- instead of outsourcing it to a friend to write – get it right the first time – hit the books and work at it. It also applies to the really big stuff like how did the management of a really big firm manage to lose billions by failing to see the shit barreling towards the fan? get it right the first time – come clean with the truth, we fucked up! Start afresh and work to regain the trust Could even apply to an aggregator that wants to be a leader in their market segment. Get it right the first time – just aggregate, you are not here to further a secret agenda, dont think people dont know who you are working for. Or a blog that wants to make it really big. Get it right the first time – dont try to boost your readership by faking DDos attacks so that you can funnel readers to a certain political site.

I hope you get my point. Pay attention to the small stuff. Because IF someone catches you out – and they will (because you can certainly fool some, but not everyone and some people are like pitbulls once they get a bite, they hold on tight, they will never let go) – it will all come back and the pay back will simply not be worth it – my point this afternoon is deal with the small stuff before it get bigger; like a small tear, it may just get so big that you may have to throw it all away – its beyond economic repair.

Translate it all into real life, it just means, if you wife is going to divorce you; the chances are its going to be over the small stuff – the toothpaste cap that you should have screwed, using a coffee mug as an asthray, using her bra as a face mask when you are spraying your car to make it look evil or simply allowing your workspace at home to turn into a graveyard where clothes go and die. It’s the same with jobs; the small stuff will always work against you there as well, if you aren’t mindful – so rip off that bumper sticker that says, “no fatties, my tires are brand new!” The same goes with friends; if you really reflect back on your own life 9 out of 10, the break came because of something really small and trivial.

Conversely the small stuff can make you great – I once got a bag of BBQ charcoal from 7/11 and wrapped with discount wrapping paper from cash converter with the words, “potential diamond!” And gave it out to every girl I saw during mothers day – you would be surprised, how far it all went, they’re still talking about it (of course there were minor details like it takes about 500,ooo million years for that lump of black beauty to turn into a priceless Lazarre diamond – but its the thought that counts).

So Keep it tight, stay alert and hang on – and remember the small stuff can either make or break you. Even if things are going well, you need to be mindful. Like this whole fake DDos nonsense, if things seem quiet in the Western front, it just means someone somewhere has all the data hidden in one safe place and they are just waiting for the right time to release it – it doesnt mean you are safe; it just means they want you to feel safe – there is a world of difference: to even have a false sense of security and confidence, like that benign Toyota pedal that doesn’t seem to have a mind of its own and can always be trusted to do precisely what you want – I hope so, only just pray the small stuff doesnt snuff you out.

Take care.

Darkness 2010 – The Brotherhood Press 2010

Com-sat conversation between Darkness 2010 and Singaporedaddy (liaison officer of the brotherhood) – imaged on board the Starcruiser Les Enfants du Paradis / this conversation took place before the Mercantile guild and the Confederation of gamers at 0630 GMT @ 24 November 2009 – comsat: 880292 – doberman

“You may think moir blowing up the fake DDos attack claimed by Wayang Party was stupid…you people say, I am burning bridges….but let me tell you this, its small to you guys bc you dont have the slightest clue how it will all pan out; if we dont come down hard on that sort of “cry wolf,” behavior – dont be surprise one day, when the real wolf shows up and the thing sinister will show up; its all in the game plan. That the site that you have always logged on every morning goes right down the tubes – you would just accept it as a fact of life and that not the worse part – the really bad stuff is yet to come and when that happens and the real big bad wolf shows up – don’t be surprise, when we shout “wolf.” No one comes  – the confederation will do nothing and rightly so as we have spent so much time, effort and resources chasing a ghost, that is simply a figmnet of some idiots design- this will happen, this day will come,  that is what they want to do, to give you, I and everyone the idea, “if it can happen here, it can also very well happen over there.”

Then once you have bought into that small lie, they will hit and they will give it their everything – you put a bookmark on your diary on what I’ve just said; better still laminate it and hang it around your neck – either way that day will come – because unlike you mother******* – I happen to know for a fact no one cries out wolf for nothing… there’s a reason…a plan…method…and someone is behind all this….he thinks, he is king (but one day, I break his rice bowl)…just because, you dont see the small stuff, doesn’t mean, it’s hunky dory  – it just means you dont know how to connect the dots…..you ******* chew on that! So don’t come down here and give me a lecture on why I am so anti-social yada yada yada – you all have no idea how big this all is; let alone have the imagination it takes to understand why the small is so important. No idea whatsoever……**** you all, for letting me fight this all alone! **** you all! As for the Council, ***** them all. They don’t know what’s coming the day after….I do! I do Gentlemen…I do!…..a time will come when all this will come to past and when that day comes, we will all be the hottest place in hell.” 

Darkness 2009 (this conversation has been recorded by the chronicler – under the chapter, “it’s everyman for himself.” The Book of Ages / ref: 880392-AE)

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

Can there ever be a Singapore Google, Air Asia, Pixar

Primus Aldentes Prime - Virtual HQ of the Brotherhood

IMHO the main problem is the current scholar system DISABLES, it does not ENABLE, that is to say it fails to elicit creativity and innovation. As it is like a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks up all the intellectual capital and bags them in fossilized government oligarchies; so the private sector is suffering from a form of intellectual anorexia; that is why providing these conditions persist, there can be no google, Microsoft , Air Asia or even Pixar in Singapore – as intellectual capital and entreprenuerialship are inextricably linked – they feed on each other and they will always play a preponderant role in the competitive advantage equation.

The Interspacing Mercantile Guild is located in the East Wing of the Free Internet Library Board in Liberation Square

Paradoxically, the only people IMHO who can reverse this travesty of human waste happens to be the same people who Philip Yeo once named and shamed with the complicity of our beloved rag and the blessing of some of our ministers (not all, as some did cite him for his stupidity) – ironically, when these “losers” were pushed out their comfort zones; those guys acquired core competencies that our kwai kwai scholars can never acquire even if they had 10 lifetimes – risk evaluation, managing opportunities & threats, opportunity cost, risk mitigation etc and they sharpened their skills against the best in a dog eat dog global budokan – so they are the real vanguards of Singapore IMHO; the kwai kwai variety are just free loaders – if you rely on them, they will take us straight down to hell.

Real World Control Center of the Mercantile Guild of the Brotherhood - location: Kuala Lumpur (recently relocated due to fake DDos attacks in Singapore)

The ronins or what we call the rubberband brigade may be a testy lot, frankly they even test my patience at times, but if you want to get things done; they have always delivered (from our experience with them at least): unfortunately the only one who can handle them in our fraternity is Darkness (and you all have to decide whether he is another psychopath?);as they are all mavericks so they remind a lot of those ace fighter pilots of lore –egoistic, boastful and darn right natural rebels without a cause. Personally, I don’t relish their company.

North View of the Interspacing Mercantile Guild in Liberation Square in Primus

But the beauty is you don’t need many of them to return home; we just need to convince 5 or 6; as they hunt in packs, so when they return, so will their gang (kaki’s) – then and only then can you talk about a Singapore Google. Without these mavericks and the present human material that our scholar system has produced, it’s like commissioning Michelangelo to produce something great when you only have clay, you will just end up with a very nice Ikea flower pot – don’t expect a David, that is only possible if you have the right (human) material, like Palermo marble.

Nostromus Class Mineral Starcruiser - over 2,000 are operated by the IMG transporting 321 various types of virtual minerals

My point is we dont need to wait for another Bill Gates or Steve Jobs to grow up in 20 or 30 years; WE ALREADY HAVE THEM HERE TODAY!

Written by Singaporedaddy  (The Internet Officer of the Brotherhood – sponsored by the Interspacing Mercantile Guild) – you will be able to find excerpts of this entry in the article “don’t just address the symptoms in education” at  http://theonlinecitizen.com/

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

Why the most important decision in your life is who you choose to marry

The most important decision that will have the most profound impact on your life is not who you want to be or what you want to achieve before you hit 50 – those are side dishes.
The most important decision that you will ever make in your life is who will share the journey of life with you.
You see if you pick the wrong person then you’re just buying into a whole barrel of grief. You only have one life, so it has to be the decision of decisions.
Let me put it this way, if you pick some loser like me; then grief will be the color of your days. Some people stay in one place and they turn the wheel of life day in and day out; they may not be exciting, interesting or even that good looking, but they’re always there for you and that’s what really matters in the journey of life.
Others are like wanderers; they may stay of a while and you may even find a sliver of happiness; but a day will come when every wanderer will just stare out of the window and look enviously at those those birds that make a neat line to fly off in the September morn – like salmon struggling against the current to return to that place called home; whales beaching for no apparent reason or the capricious sea giving with one hand and taking with another – these things embody the spirit of the wanderer – you cannot rely on them for the long haul; as they will always do things that even they themselves don’t know why they do them.
If you invest in a wanderer – a day will come when they will just pick up and go; they don’t need any rhyme or reason; just as the sea can never help herself whenever she throws a tantrum from time to time; the moon affects her – so it’s the same with wanderers – they are the capricious type and you will always be at the mercy of their vagaries.
Wanderers are only good for the short haul; they make airports, bus terminals and places where sail boats berth interesting – they’re good for a cup of coffee; they’re even good when you stand beside them and watch the sun rise; but come a time; they will pick up and go.
But the guy who stays in one place and turns the wheel of life day in and day out; he is the one that any sensible woman should choose as a life partner;  for one he doesn’t feel that pull or call of the wild; to him life is just an endless repetition; where everyday unfolds precisely as the last, the only thing that changes is the mundane stuff, like toothpaste thinning out or its time to get a haircut– it’s in the endless litany of repeating where you will always find the stayer to better investment than the wanderer in the long run; as where the former may seem to embody courage, excitement and everything that is worth living for – as he climbs mountains, rides his bike down a cliff  and stares defiantly at the on coming storm in his tiny sail boat– let me tell you a secret; that’s not where real courage is to be found; as those antics (no matter how heart stopping they may all appear to be) all have a cut off point,

They all lack the horror of the litany of repetition – you can’t climb beyond the summit; ride further when the road runs out; that’s because wanderer can never bear out the long haul – that’s why the stayer will always be a better bet; he is a courageous man; who will see you through the long haul ; that’s why if you have to choose between a wanderer and the stayer, it’s a no brainer, go for the stayer; it’s a one second decision – as somewhere in the endless journey of life; filled with the litany of repeating where there is no prospect of even a place where it can all end the way you envision; you can always depend on the stayer to turn off the lights -you can grow old with such a man.

As for the wanderer; he’s just like one of those NTUC plastic bags that the wind catches and twirls as the thermals whips it high up – as it dances, pirrouttes and curls ever so charmingly; for a while, it’s poetry in motion as you stare out tranfixed from your office window – but never ever forget, it’s just garbage.

Darkness 2010

The Look of Love

I saw it in your eyes today. It lasted only briefly, but I saw it. You said non chalantly, “it’s fate.” You said, “I should go ahead and marry that dentist.” Well, I am going to do exactly that Darkness.  But I saw it, that look of regret, it came and went in a blink, that look that said, it all. I saw it all Darkness.

I’ve show you…..unless of course, you stop me.

I’ve learnt alot from you. You see, lawyers are trained to observe things that most people dont pay much attention too. One of them is how to play the game.  I remember, you told me once, never ever show you cards and even if you come up short, just play it as if you have the royal flush.

You see my dear, a c man doesn’t stand over a bridge and cast his eyes aimlessly at the gyre of swirling dark water in the Singapore river for hours at 3.00 am, pulling one cigarette after another over nothing. You’re disturbed aren’t you?

Well that makes both us dear. You see, I know something you don’t. I saw it all, from a distance. You could say, I needed to see it. I needed confirmation. Now that I know, the rest is simple.

Missy Dotty

Why Obama will not be able to change anything for you and me

Almost a year after Obama & Co stepped into the White House under the chorus “time for change”, many of his supporters are beginning to make teeth sucking sounds. Bemusement is a polite way of putting it. In cruder terms, the only thing Obama & Co has changed is by embellishing the dictionary meaning of the word “change” – to mean “nothingness.” In the same way “gay” now refers to ones sexual orientation, instead of a state of happy repose. Yes, that is my frank assessment, Obama has done fuck all!
Let’s review his score card. And let me explain why nothing has changed. Firslty, Obama took on an elephant as soon as he stepped into the white house – healthcare. Sounds like humanity in motion, if only you didn’t know healthcare is the equivalent of raising the Titanic. It cannot be done. That’s the long and short of it. Why do you think no US president in history has ever included healthcare reformation in their manifesto? Wonder no more why Obama’s healthcare bill is with its lofty “you are healed!” is starting to look like a patchy flag of defeatism; fact remains even if those hefty improvement do make it through to the other side, it still won’t provide coverage for all Americans, and may not provide a public alternative to the over-charging insurance companies – that’s a giant IF, as it has to be first approved by the senate. So it fair to say there will be no change there for the next hundred years.
Secondly Obama’s “go green” environmental friendly message is crumbling; even his green dream team is back pedaling so fast from the vital Copenhagen conference; the new tune they are singing now is –never mind, the minor details like the single biggest emitter of warming gases just happens to be the us– will not commit to any legally binding restrictions to reducing ozoneshpere . And with the cash for clunkers deal to save the likes of GM; don’t expect to see any electric barreling down the interstate highway; that will also take a few hundred years to materialize. No change there.
On the economy. Obama has appointed Count Dracula as the CEO of the blood bank – by appointing the likes of Lawrence Summers in charge of the economic recovery – wonder no more why the zombie banks are getting bailed out – Obama has effectively transformed the capitalism into communism. So the long and short of it is simple; don’t expect the share prices in Citibank to pop – by the time, they reach the USD$40 mark, we will all be teleporting instead flying and rubber tires will be obsolete as we will all be driven around by anti gravity levitating machines that run on tap water – another 100 years again – no change lah!
Sure some of you may be saying Darkness; you are not giving him enough time. Hasn’t he mothballed Guantanamo? Water boarding and building human pyramids with naked Iraqi’s have been put to an end along with – the resumption of stem-cell research. His side kick, Hillary Clinton has even reaffirmed the elemental right to free speech by demanding the Chinese to stop harrying Google – so there is change right?
Nope! And let me tell you why there is no change; those issues are like discussing the merits of cup holders when you decide to buy a V8 Jaguar – they aren’t rubber meets the road issues.
What many people don’t realize is the US today is like a defanged lion; take the fiasco with Google – do you think Obama is going to come down hard on China? That’s just Chinese opera on a geo-political chess board – cold cuts will inform you that the Chinese by virtue of the sheer quantity of the American bonds they have in reserve, literally have a proverbial gun on the head of the US economy – one reason why water can still run uphill and defy basic economics to allow the US treasury to print money without the currency free falling is in a large part predicated on China’s continued support of the US economy – so what we have here is a shift in balance of power – don’t believe me, then consider this, why did Nasdaq suffer its biggest fall last Friday? Did it have something to do with meteorite slamming into wall street; nope – all this happened simply because the Chinese raised their interest rates; that’s how little it takes to put a kink on the US economic recovery and if you think that is the only economic weapon they have in their armory; you are dead wrong – this is what I call economic warfare.
The other reason why change is not going to come soon – is there are entrenched vest interest who wield tremendous power to shape that will always shape American politics . At first glance, this all sounds like a bunch of freemasons controlling the world; it’s a preposterous caricature that borders on the conspiracy theories, but the facts are plain. The Jewish lobby is still around; so are the powerfull steel unions; along with juggernaut “too big to fail” institutions that will all color and work against Obama & Co’s vision of saving people and planet– That’s the reality of US politics; the rich and powerful will do what they like irrespective of what Obama wants – that’s one reason why in an age when banks are still bleeding in shark infested waters and all this comes at the back of Joe the Plumber, the tax payer, cigar chomping fat cats are still doling out creamy bonuses and flying around in private jets.
In reality change will not come.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg why I believe the theory and reality of change will always be a forlorn dream in the Obama administration, as what’s at the nucleus of change is in reality governed not by Obama; rather by powerful under currents that has always been at work in the US political landscape; not only at the political front, but also the business sphere; these twin heads will ultimately shape what may or may not “change.”
I am not optimistic about Obama’s prospects for effecting real change – beyond the sobriquet chicken soup assurance that will give most middle class white Americans the belief, “even a African American can aspire to the highest office in the US,” Thus reaffirming their conviction –  this is trully the land of the free, when infact, it has and will always be none other than the land of the fee: the cold cut fact will eat away at Obama soon enough. These are just the facts of life that most people don’t seem to understand how feral American politics can be; there is a world between rhetoric and action – providing the politics (the Republicans) and corporations are in cahoots: The latter will just focus on maximizing profits. While the latter will work furiously and mysteriously to get back into the white house in the next general elections – the cost to you, me and the likes of Joe the Plumber is grist to the mill; and these realities will simply mean the gulf between Obama’s sugary sweet rhetoric and the failure to pass from the realm of theory to get anything done will just be like the pathos of Hemmingway’s story of “the old man and the sea.”

Where the man who took on a Marlin for 3 days and nights and finally won might as well have considered himself defeated, the moment he drew in the catch that may have changed his luck – as somewhere out there in the wide open sea far from the smell of the land; like the main protagonist in the story where victory and defeat hangs on one word called “change.” Change plays a preponderant role in both this tale and Obama’s.

It’s all too easy to buy into the idealistic conviction Obama like the the old man has finally caught the fish; the game is won; all that needs doing now is to let the sail bring the bounty back home; but that’s just really the beginning of the story; as they are still a very long way from home; and somewhere deep beneath the cold paraffin blue of the gulf stream, the sharks have caught the faint smell of blood. That is the change that will change Obama’s change.

I am sorry if this dashed all your hopes and aspirations; it’s nothing personal, its strictly business – and believe me when I write this; I do so very much in the spirit of a man who does so by repeating to himself, “aiyoh,” there is no translation in the English language for this expression or even what it may mean, except perhaps the sound a man would make when a nail is driven into the skin, flesh and bone – as I am sure, like the Old man who only knows the sea like the lines on the palm of his hands; Obama will soon learn of the sharks.

Aiyoh.
Darkness 2010 – The Brotherhood Press 2010

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

Las Vegas In Singapore! Perdition or Salvation?

I am probably going to get a few charming death threats about this write up (frankly speaking, I am starting to believe RIP should rightly stand for rise if possible, so thanks for the fish). Let’s dive in as some of you may already know Las Vegas Sands at the Marina Bay is going to open soon – perdition or salvation?
Lets just leave that to one side for the moment; I know that’s like talking about fruit cake recipes without the raisins, but lets just go with the flow for the moment. Firstly, where are we? We are in the shit hole; the economy is spluttering along like one of those soviet built dead traps – we need a radical shift to get shuffling again.
That’s one reason why I am a big fan of LVS. I happen to love casino’s not only because they offer great entertainment; but precisely the sort that really hits all my green buttons. I am not just talking about astonishingly fuckable ladies with liquid brown eyes and legs that run forever, that’s really a side dish – only the whole idea of a casino is really like entering an adult version of Disneyland, its a surreal dreamscape – that’s why in every single one of my love stories (for the benefit of those who regularly buy my sappy toe curling yarns, though I know not why?). I never ever fail to include at least one montage that features the main protagonist in a casino. You want proof, here it is! – Chapter 30 – “La Grande Casino.” Yes. I am a gambler, but I am not your regular punter who simply puts his chips on just any number; to me there is the whole idea of odds, trade off, pay out, calculus, algebra and the art of mentally crunching all these numbers without seeming to do so is what differentiates the gambler and a charitable foundation  (you need to have those baseline skills, because the last thing you want any casino operator to do is red flag you as a card counter) – so the whole idea is not unlike a virtual game; you strut right in with in Zegna tuxedo, hair slicked back, Vacheron Constantin (shades are a must!) and take your chances with the house – but one word of warning: never ever gamble with money that you are not prepared to lose!  And be disciplined (for example, yesterday I bough 50 lots of BEHL, you go check out in the Nasdaq, how it will go up tomorrow – go do it! I am out tonight, just after the bell! That’s what I mean by discipline) And dont ever get distracted, casino’s have honed the art of the hook, line and sinker to a science; once they spot a punter racking in the chips; dancing girls, free flow of drinks and the whole weapon of mass distraction will kick in fast and furious, trust me – you see casino operators aren’t dummies, they know; if they can keep a “winner” on the table long enough; the house will ALWAYS reap it all back and more; understand this! You can never win against the laws of probability in the long run (unless you happen to be the reincarnation of Nostradamus); all you can really do is run up her skirt when she is not looking; do your thing and scramble down the drain pipe  before the husband shows up with a meat cleaver – that’s as good as it gets as far as odds go when it comes to taking your chances with the house (unless of course you happen to be either GIC or Temasek and even when you take the mother of all falls you still come out smelling roses by invoking some mumbo jumbo freaknomics like, “long term investment”, duh! I surrender to you lah! ) – so three elements are vital if you are to win – set a min and max limit; dont ever get distracted, stay focussed – tip: stick to gatorade, never drink and deal!. My rule of thumb is simple; when the sirens show up; and the Presidential Suite is on offer; what I usually do is; slip a chip down the cleavage of one of those silicone tit distractors and whisper to them, “Go and buy a dress! Now! If I like it, I’ve fuck you when all this is finished and triple what they’re paying you. This is not personal, its strictly business” And stay focussed on the numbers, once you have hit the target limit, that’s the cue to cash out – dont look left or right, dont stop for a chat, stay away from that one for the road cocktail – just go to the counter and put everything in a briefcase (can get one in cash converter) and walk right out of the door – if you dont have that discipline or Tao to do that, then my suggestion is stick to monopoly and boardgames, because if you break those golden rules that I have just shared with you; IT WILL BREAK YOU IN HALF! I KID YOU NOT!

Now that after finished with the pitfalls of leading a life of dissipation, lets continue with the story of why I think casino’s are great stuff for us Singaporeans. My point is really simple sometimes to get good results and a decent return on energy; all it takes is a bit of imagination and verve – for example, if the government is really serious about solving our abysmal baby rates; the best thing to do is to incorporate a pole (for pole dancing and perhaps drying the laundry or building up your biceps) in every living room (strobe lights can be optional); that’s what I mean by practical solutions; no need for econometrics and statistical calculations and too much talking, cut it down to the primal and we would be producing like rabbits; all those power point charts can just go right out of the window along with the baby incentives – so with this in get to the point mentality do try to see my point when when I say that the financial crisis coupled with the advent of LVS gives Singapore a once in a lifetime chance to review how we can really organise our economy and society in ways and means never before..providing of course our government manages it properly. That to be is the biggest if.

I know some people are saying this casino thingy is just a great way to launder dodgy money; very believable when one looks at the structure; it reminds me of one of those high tech Scandinavian designer Ironing boards that one finds in high end laundrettes; but I am digressing, my point we are witnessing an epochal event, living through one of those moments on which history may even pivot in ways that we can never ever imagine..One reason for that is because the whole idea of a casino is not just the idea of an ivory ball tickling against a polish ed roulette wheel; its comes with a whole lot of other stuff; some good, others not so good and then there is the stuff that will simply put you in a citrus pine box; but with all these expect societal changes one thing remains patently certain; many of our assumptions and time honor beliefs about what and how socieity should or should not be orientated will be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Sure these verdicts might turn out to be overblown, then again the social cost may well prove me wrong to even regret writing such an article. Some have even counseled the idea legalising gambling on such a large commercial scale will lead society down a tempestuous slippery slope and trigger all sorts of social problems – well I don’t buy that claptrap, not even if it comes from the pulpit. Truth is gambling is already here ( and in earnest, I might add); don’t believe then just check out your local 4D outlet – so the whole idea of gambling is not a novel notion like a time traveling or teleportation.
Neither am that naïve to expect the cost to society to be muted either – like all vices, some will veer to the harder stuff; some will even go right down under – but when I put the pluses on the scales against the minuses; its not going to be anything near what the Christian right claims, where families will be ripped apart to ribbons and the lines of the destitute queueing for a bowl of soup will be the order of the day. In this view, a convulsion even one as radical as an appearance of a casino will not, by itself, be enough to usher in an Apocalypse; neither will we see the four horse men galloping in Orchard; there will certainly be tremors and perhaps even shakes; but all things considered; you will surprise how resilient human beings are; they will adapt, water will find its level and society will go along with it quiet happily; very much in the way the internet porn did not bring about the end of the world – or spawn an indolent society and perpetual masturbation lifestyle – trust me, life will just go right on.

What remains to be seen is whether the government is prepared for these epochal changes – like I said a casino brings with it a whole genre of stuff, some good, others not so good, but if the idea is really going to fly; then a heavenly balance needs to be found somewhere between the spectrum of let-it-rip and the whole idea of managing it in such a way, it does kill the panache, verve and aplomb of what a casino should offer – as the sages say, string it too tight; and it will snap; string it too loose and it will simply not play.

 
Either way one thing remains patently clear to be; the arrival of Sands will be both a blessing and a curse; that to me is the nature of the beast – just like the great cities of this world, like New York, Paris and Tokyo, they may be derided for their lack of moral turpitude, brutishness and filth; but despite the grime and all the good, bad and ugly they are also gold plated lightning rods that will always continue to attract the best in terms of intelligence and entrepreneurial spirit – I can’t wait for Sands to open. Btw, any card counters out there? You are free to contact me. This is a serious business proposition?

Darkness 2010

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

Can real readership survive in the age when blogs play Mr Newspaper?

 Last essay 21st Jan 2010 by the Brotherhood Press 2010Our Infantile Fascination with Celebrities – Tiger woods a la Ris LowThis has to be mini skirt (15 min is all, I have so do correct for me) – so lets dive in. What do you think about the idea of blogs mirroring the role of newspapers? Well if you ask me; that’s a bit like genetically reviving the Dodo bird and hoping that they can save Kenya’s diminishing fauna by making it to the top of the food chain. Its a really dumb idea and sometimes you dont need many bullets to kill an idea; all you need is a one bullet.

Here’s the kicker; newspapers are dying – they’re dying big time, not only here in Singapore, but all over the world – so to cut a really long story short, if you’re a big fan of replicating an online newspaper; you have as much chance of succeeding as making the ticker parade as the Titanic on her maiden voyage.

The idea is tragic. I hope its clear that by tragic. I mean there are some “serious,” people out there who really believe this is the best way to go – my take is simple; the whole idea raises more questions than it answers – for starters, I am repulsed by the very idea as what I suspect is its one crack brained way to revivify a dying newspaper (not mentioning any names here for obvious reasons). Another gripe that I nurse is its a backdoor way to sell us all this is the gold standard of what blogging should and must be – that’s to say, it pays homage to the very idea your goal as a blogger and a regular reader of blogs is to strive for the whole idea of credibility.

That’s fine if a newspaper happens to be the WSJ or the Herald Tribune, but where the role model happens to be our beloved rag that churns out nothing but perfidious faced happy stories when everyone is munching on their mud cakes and exclaiming yummy, more pleeeeeeze. Then I think the whole idea of modeling your blog as a newspaper is really bad idea – as even if you manage to build something with all the whistles and bells along with garnering 99.9% of the readership share market – what you have really created is nothing more than an apparatus of assimilation; where life is increasing seen in binary terms; you are a success – a failure; you’re on – or off; you’re with us – or against us!

My point is simple blogging is blogging; its a take on the world; a way of winnowing the world as you and I see it; not some assembly line producing stuff like vibrating toys to give pleasure to lonely spinsters; neither is it a means to perpetuate what I term the necessary lie that every “successful” regime has to seed if it to keep the status quo ante firmly in place. Or some homily sugarly means to mythologize the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat; where the narrative has to be written in such a way where its drummed into your head, the regime has made the world a better place! And if there are going to be improvements; it has to come at an exorbitant cost; that nothing ever last forever and you cant get anything for free but rather a fee – so pay for it!

I suspect that is one reason why there is a certain blog out there is (once again, I cant mention any name, I am getting used to this actually) that trying so hard to tell you and me; they are the one’s; we should all be reading and hopefully modeling our blogs on; that’s OK, if what they serve up isn’t what I call state inspired material laced with saccharine, “I hate you Mr Gahmen.” That to me is the most dangerous type of propaganda as what it actually presents is a heady blend of fact, brutishness and contrived opposition that just slowly bends your mind and at the end of the day raises more questions than it answers.

Whatever the outcome; come what may – only understand this: the internet is still in a state of flux; and what we are witnessing right now is nothing more than the artifact of their infancy in its various guises – sooner of latter; a process of winnowing the truth will occur; no amount of wordsmithing plastic surgery is going to be able to stop the tide from turning the other way; very much in the way some people these days are insisting on slow food instead of fast food; real faith, instead of take my money and build another shopping mall; retiring at 40 and enjoying life instead of leading the glorious life of the battery chicken and work till the day you die – at some point, what newspaper self styled blogging is going to do is turn on itself and commit online hara-kiri and provoke the same cosy insiderism whenever we talk about the tobacco industry in those days with the prefix, “they didnt know better then in those days….”

History testifies to the belief; real readership will eventually find a niche and a place called home; it may take sometime; but as the age of electronic apotheosis threatens to turn us all into some great faceless mass; where the mantra is “you jump and I will follow!” They’re bound to be a few of us out there who will one day aspire to real readership very much in the way coffee cognoscentis will always aspire towards gourmet Arabica instead of freezed dried 3 in one Nescafe – truth of the matter is; reading has always been self selecting and with the advent of fake oppositional blogs that attempt to blur the line between reality and fiction; the end may very well lead to the perverse effect of heightening the demand for real and authentic reading material; in the way black truffles and beluga caviar will always be highly sought after items – so if you’re a blogger that writes from your heart; you’re on solid ground – as even in the harshest environment when one day the Mr Newspaper blog claims he has 99.9% of the market share; that just another way of saying real reading has reached a terminal end and it’s morphed into something generic instead of individualistic – rest assured, you are on good ground; it bears repeating only because history is firmly on your side; you’re good to go!

The irongrid world of Samizdat that once germinated like buck wheat beneath the pineapple eye of the Stalinist state, the flowering of readership in the age of the Spanish inquisition that once tried and failed to preserve their perfidious face idea of what is good for me is good for you so dont rock the boat; the pelt racks that once tried to preserve the power of the clergy against Martin Luther; all those attempts were eclipse when the truth just came right out and one or two people simply came together and found each other and said, “Oh my God, there are actually people who think like me.”

When that day come, may I be the first to say to you: Welcome to our community, we have been waiting for you.

Meanwhile, I remain yours very trully.

Darkness 2010 – The Brotherhood Press 2010

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

Our Infantile Fascination with Celebrities – Tiger woods a la Ris Low

Have you read the 21st Jan 2010 Essay by the BP: Can real readership survive in the age when blogs play Mr Newspaper?

What do Ris Low, Tiger Woods, Obama and ten “celebrities,” I rather forget all have in common? For starters, they’re all great cliché of our age; its the pathos of our times that I can only politely term the worship of worthlessness.  Tip: So if you’re sporting a Tag Heuer that may be just be wrong hardware to bring along when you formally propose to your wifey’s to be side.

Truth is we are obsessed about celebrities; we jabber on about their antics. The new headline recently released Ris Low is now the ambassador of the safe sex, expresses the depths of our lobotomized state when it comes to the mindless of worshiping nothingness: sometimes when I walk around, its hard not to imagine we has been drugged by the allure of nothingness.
But is it true? Well when you consider, a two-hour plus film these days cant even wing it without the help of CGI (computer generated graphics) unbeknown to us, we may have already conditioned to want things, events and sometimes people who are simply not real anymore, there’s no mystery to reality, its lost its mojo – otherwise how can you explain the haughty polemic rise and fall of Mr Huang a la American idol.

Perhaps I am overtly sensitive; for one I don’t watch TV – so I guess when I catch celebrity gossip leaching into serious news broadcasts, it disturbs me and I may even go so far as to say that I consider it an invasion of my privacy. Despite my prejudices, dismissing the cult of celebrity culture as simply infantile sand box infatuation is to elide the realities of history – The first is that the cult of revering celebrities a hardly a new phenomenon and another the internet has definitely not intensified our binge on celebrity juicy bits. Dont believe then; go and feast your eyes on the pyramids in luxor; or the wonder why the favorite montage of Rennaisance artist was Lady Godiva – my point its celebrity culture has been around for yonks – What I will concede however is the internet age may have blurred the line between reality and fiction – with its power of unify audio, visual and now smell seamlessly (since my computer battery is starting to suspiciously like the stuff of instantenous combustion), we have all unbeknown to us fallen under a form of electronic spell. We are glued to Youtube while half our brains are constantly trying to winnow reality from fiction; we are see, but yet we are blind; its something real, but then again it could be photo-shopped or worse still Maya.

I guess at the nucleus of this celebrity cult is the idea very old idea that its a form of voyeurism; and affirmation that life can actually mirror art; that’s one reason why so many put their hard earned money into buying random numbers in your local TOTO outlet – the whole idea that somewhere, somehow the lines of serendipity and fate will intercept and those numbers will just line up magically – I am reminded its a powerful astringent.
Cut to the chase, whenever we snigger at the fallen; it’s not so different from the crowds that once cheers gladiators, when they got killed, it merely affirmed they belief there aren’t so different from us after all -in those days the games were the equivalent of Sex in the City albeit minus CGI and silicone augmented tits – apart from that they were as vapid and devoid of reality as today’s daily servings of lets “tear them down,” galore with loads of gossips infidelities and tangled sheets thrown in; everything from Tiger Woods to the grand con of the century a la Madoff fall from grace is good to go.

But don’t get me wrong; our innate celebrity-instinct isn’t a bad thing per se – it really depends on how and who we direct it too; when I ride my bike for example; I visualize myself as a Lance Armstrong peddling furiously away; never mind the odd Bangla with the made in China, a la black bicycle passing me with hardly a sweat off his brow or that the only thing I have in common with Mr Armstrong is we both happen to be members of the human species – in University, I was hot on Feynman; I just found him really centered and that was how I wanted others to see me. You watch, you decide whether, I was right or wrong?

And when I started in business Warren Buffet was the equivalent of my Beyonce – again, I just fell in love with his worldview and the way he defined personal and public success –  you get my general drift, it pays dividends if you have the right role models and who is to say that isn’t really another form of celebrity worshipping?

Where the the whole idea of celebrity worship goes wanky is when it becomes so encrusted with cultism and the whole idea of pesona that even perfectly sensible and level headed folk are prepared to give up 10 percent of their earnings to build shopping malls in the name of Jesus. Or worse still they take celebretism and everything that goes with it and channels it towards cruelty, and all their backwardnessand begin worshiping some super duper loser like Osama Bin Laden – the worst variety that goes without saying is, you begin to believe in your own myth and begin constructing castles in the air that you’re somehow superhuman because of the pedigree of your education or you simply special . Compared these 7 habits of highly ineffective people; folk like Ris Low or Tiger Woods– and what they hold out – seems positively benign.
My point this afternoon is, you can cut the whole idea of celebritism any way, but if you want to get it right the first time and get the best: sit down and think it through quietly that way you’re able to put the whole idea of whats worthwhile buying into and junking and find the right scale and perspective; once you have done this with a person, blog, certificate, TV personality, politician or even the boy next door; the whole idea just goes into a square slot and its a snug fit – it can nourish, excite and even take you and others who are really fortunate to know you to another level. My point is the whole idea of cultural consciousness is a double edged sword – celebritism is like saccharin: great to keep the waist line lithe, deadly if it’s all you consume. Its really a matter of balance; take it too far; and a kind of intellectual anorexia sets in and all you have is a vapid nothingness where you end up wasting time, energy as life fritters away like a sugar cube in hot tea.

Calibrate celeberitism properly and put it in its rightful place and what you get instead is something that is fun, exciting and just a good laugh to lighten the load of the day; that’s one reason why I think the whole idea of leveraging of celebrities to win votes or to sell anything is just plain madness. I am sorry, but I dont see how someone like Bono who only knows how to strum a bass guitar can possibly make it as an icon end poverty campaign; or how appointing George Clooney as some UN ambassador of good faith is going to save people and planet – I am sorry those are serious problems and celebrities have no place there.  It’s like trying to build the next generation space shuttle with an Orang Utan – sure, they were the first species to conquer space; but do you see NASA hiring monkeys to design rockets ships for their next trip to Mars? Get my point; they are just there for the ride.

But lets face up to cold facts; equality as an idea remains only an idea (mother nature I am afraid, didnt read the script) and the only real equality is to be found in bad teeth, hair turning white and ever expanding waistlines; thats fulfills the demand, there will always be a need for celebrities along with the swan dive story of Icarus along with all the juicy tit bits – as long as the human condition exist – we humans will always need them to either edify or simply tear them down to make us all feel much better and two inches taller.
Darkness 2010 – The brotherhood Press 2010 (Sorry, abt the spelling mistakes wrote this fast)

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

The Mumbo Jumbo of Teaching Comparative Political Systems?

I wrote about this earlier, but I had it rotting in my out tray, so here is goes. In PETIR editorial, The law minister suggested introducing “comparative political system in the classroom.” I am not going to mince my words here: to paraphrase, that’s just another way of saying, hey, we are losing ground here; market share is frittering away and a time will come will the edifice will simply come crashing down – so let’s just get them young when they’re still green shoots.

This latest mumbo jumbo by the law minister merely confirms my belief that ALL politicians are a homogenous class of bent snake oil artist whose only interest is to secure their interest at every cost and opportunity –just so we are all on the same page. I have nothing against “comparative political system” education per se – in fact, I happen to believe, its good stuff for students to know the difference between capitalism and communism along with why the shining path and Hezbollah seem to do nothing except lob rockets over the West bank in Israel . And if you read my recent essay here, I dont even believe Capitalism is Capitalism anymore! Here it is! 

How long can Singapore remain a welfare free state?

Coming back to the whole idea of Comparative political education. You know what? I really believe Political awareness is a good thing; if done properly, its as good as soul food, it can nourish understanding and that way if someone on TV tells you do give 10% of your earnings to build a shopping mall in the name of Jesus, armed with the right political thoughtware; you can just as well rightly, tell that con man to fuck himself! So lets be clear; I am all for political education and the whole process of understanding of the larger and broader world. I even believe it will help many to connect the dots to make sense of this messy world.

But where I disagree with the law minister is this sort of syllabus should NEVER be feature in the classrooms where the general audience happen to be kids – for one we all know their thumb drives stand at zero; for another they don’t even have squat in terms of life experience to compare and contrast what’s churned out, let alone begin to question the merits and pitfalls of a system (good or bad) – if the whole idea of the law minister is directed to the tertiary level where the subject matter at hand is directed to students who are studying economics, political science or pursuing a Phd in origami; then I say go for it, let it rip! But I draw the line on kiddies gaps only because however and whatever the form and shape of this so called comparative mumbo jumbo at the end of the day; it will ultimately end up like some fatuous blur, that will confuse rather than enlighten – raise more questions than answers. That’s one reason why I am against the whole idea state inspired education when its political in nature. It’s the same reason why we don’t allow tobacco firms to sell their cancer causing products without a stern warning from the surgeon general coupled with gruesome pictures of what can go wrong if you keep on puffing –

In truth the gaps are way too narrow already, clustering politics or for that matter products and services with kids can only lead to the fine line where one day we wouldn’t even be able to distinguish indoctrination with reality; its bad enough that the marketing manifesto is already pursuing this ideal in earnest – don’t believe; go to your local golden arches and what do you see; play pens; fridge magnet trinkets – this is what happens when the line between products and reality is blurred its disturbing because what it does is lull us all into the false belief; this is a great family locale; somewhere to dump the kiddies so that I can go off for a spot of shopping and still feel completely safe that all is well. Never mind that your kids are munching on artery clogging beef patties that I wouldn’t even consider feeding to my dogs; never mind that super sizing is just another gimmick to promote an obesity inducing food – I am sure all these facts can be leeched out with rounded corners and pastel colors just to give one that balmy feeling, “we are safe!” Truth remains just like political education to kiddies and junk food– most of the bad stuff have been virtually unreported.

The media doesn’t expose the scam – why because these guys are one of their biggest advertisers. So in the final analysis; it all boils down to you; the parent, to winnow the good from the bad and there’s no better way to start exposing the facts corrosive political education in whatever guise it may be couched in by just working through the why’s, how along with what may be the pitfalls. This is serious stuff – although I suspect hardly anyone knows it just yet. To most people, this whole idea of political comparative education sounds benign enough. There’s just one problem. It’s a fantasy. And a dangerous one at that – But none of this is explained to parents. Instead, the media colludes in the slick presentation of the law minister as if he is offering a prescriptive cure for our times and its all done in the name of preserving the collective good. Call it what you want, minor tinkering; but my take is if it goes wrong even with the best intentions; the consequential effects will be long term. These days if you think things are tough, that’s like bitching about having to queue up from time to time at the ATM for the world’s most confused auntie who has forgotten her key in numbers – in the future; things are going to be maybe 10 or 20 times tougher for them; they need to compete against the world; they need to be able to see the big-picture if they stand any chance of crafting a solution and to do all these things – it’s not enough for them to just think critically; they need to think laterally as well just to get in the bread queue – so all this tinkering with kiddies should just stop; if a political wants to perpetuate their class politics do it outside the classroom; if they can’t seem to find the imagination to prosper online to win the hearts and minds game do it outside the classroom; if they want to cling on to power at every cost and everything; go ahead and do it; but leave outside the classroom. In short education and politics is like poison; they should be kept separate always – the pay out’s just dont square off with the exhorbitant cost if we get it wrong.

Kids should be left alone.

 Darkness 2010

(Due to the prohibition on Darkness and his renegade crew – the Council of the Wise has issued an all points bulletins to bar this essay from The Strangelands / you can still read the same essay in Ekunaba, Phi Beta Kappa and please circulate it through the love story division of the Brotherhood Press currently administered by Aurora; she will help you to find these reads – we will get our message through – as the brotherhood says: we go where no minds dares to go! – this message has been issued by the ICG Interplanetary Communication Guild – we have received information even the Confederation has issued out a all points bar on Darkness & Company; he is officially a criminal – this is a public service announcement by the ICG / Pls note: the ICG flies the Free French Flag; we have been assured protection by the Francois and his team -so any attack on the ICG will be in direct contravention of the Free Interspacing Communication Sheild Pact 78303)

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things– without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

Read the latest BP Essay published on the 14th January 2010

Has Google Suddenly Discovered its Moral Compass?

Has Google Suddenly Discovered its Moral Compass?

As Some of you may already know that I’ve never been a great fan of Google (that’s why I never ever buy their stocks!). My parting of the waves with Google is shared by many; not too long ago when Google started projecting into China; it’s corporate motto, “don’t do evil,” sounded like a something that came out from Darth Vader – the mission statement and what it was prepared to do to fulfill its business agenda in China just didn’t gel (not unless you happen to be reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, Stalin and Attila the Hun).

The reasons for the gripes are simple; Google just made too many compromises; that’s fine, if you’re running a burger joint and you refuse to use ice berg lettuce instead of a la off the shelves; but for a while Google seemed to be even compromising on elemental rights such as free speech by endorsing wholesale state inspired censorship and the reasons they gave for it were just plain incredulously stupid – insulting my intelligence here is definitely an understatement when one reads any of Googles public relations explanations.

The general sentiment amongst the general public and those who are really passionate about internet freedom was Google a classic case of corporate sell out.” Google move ‘black day’ for China

Lets cut to the chase; Google has made a pact with the devil, thats the executive summary– it was prepared to do anything and everything just for the sake of carving up market segment in the lucrative China market and it didn’t give two hoots to the It whole idea of ethics and morality – in short Google was seen very much as the quintessential good boy who had simply lost its moral compass and now it was hell bent on just one purpose – making money!

Today if the news is to be believed! Things have taken a sudden reversal; see this Google In China LIVE BLOG: Latest Updates On China’s Threat To Leave

No Hallejuhah here! Not even when Google is starting to sound like Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Obama all rolled up into one  morally cute teddy bear that says “I want to take you home and just love you to bits,” company – but you know what?

I am not biting – in other words, I don’t believe Google is even remotely serious about leaving China for good – my reasons are really simple; if you really want to leave; then the last thing based on my experienced with women is you never ever start issuing out threats to leave – you just put everything in a suitcase; sit down and write what’s in your heart and take off. That’s what I did with some of my toxic relationships; a clean cut and I never ever look back! Never!

Besides the China market is a goldmine and if you think for one moment Google is just going to pack up like a travelling circus because they woke up one fine day and discovered their moral compass underneath their bed – you definitely have to be an idiot.

They’re just negotiating with the Chinese; in a nub Google just want better terms and conditions; in short Google isn’t the only player in the lucrative Chinese market; there’s Baidu of course that everyone seems to only know along with a whole lot of  other respectable players thats sharing the great Chinese internet pie; and one reason why Google is threatening to leave is they’re just not getting the choicest cuts from the Chinese Internet authorities; the other local firms from what I see are creaming off the best and leaving Google with the scrapes – so this latest tantrum by Google is really like a petulant kid that wants to two scoops instead of one helping of his favourite Baskin Robbins.

That’s my honest assessment; Google will not pull out (correction, it will never pull out of China, never! I bet you everything I have including my limited edition racing bicycle against your pokemon collection of cards. You win, you take, its a 1 to 3,000 odds); as for this whole homily sugarly idea that Google somehow discovered the Deepak Choprak’s moral compass of making people and planet a better place  and it has suddenly woken up from some evil spell– I don’t buy that claptrap for one minute.

You see; I happen to know a lot about Faustian pacts and the one thing that makes them irresistible is at the end of the day; you will always stay till the curtain call even if the price means the cost of selling off your precious soul because the  delivery of the promise comes fast and furious and when the takings are that good, who even has time to consider something as distant and abstract as a soul?

No one has the sagacity and even iron willed to say no to that deal, that’s just human nature – we are all hardwired to be selfish; that if you didn’t know that incidentally happens to also be the basis of economics – people will always maximize their return on investments;  they will always try to get the best deal; even if it means a fall lies somewhere ahead – how the hell do you think, Wall Street got into the quicksand of subprime mortgages? Avarice! Nope, that’s just a symptom; the real cause was no one bothered to stop and ask. “hey what do we have here? Could it be a bubble?” Or even “when is it going to burst?”

If only they pressed the pause button and asked themselves those fundamental questions; we wouldn’t all be in this shit hole – GIC and Temasek would be smiling from ear to ear and their accounts will just smell like roses; but you know what; no one bothered with the pause button – that in a nutshell is the allure of the Faustian pact.

Besides Google has already made so many compromises; it has as much moral credibility as one of those German construction firms that used to build death camps and when you turn on the showers poison gas spews out (incidentally, that could be the same contractor that just renovated my shower!) whilst selling the idea its supporting the local economy by providing jobs; so don’t come down here and try to con me that somewhere at the nucleus of the decision making process morality or even ethics features  for one moment– it doesn’t,  ( I happen to know a whole lot about senior management decision making) Google just wants a better deal from the Chinese authorities and they’re just saber rattling to tell those guys, “hey, if we dont get the best cuts; we are going to go elsewhere?” What we have here is good olde fashion gun boat diplomacy! Plain and simple.

And if you dont believe me; consider this; where are they going to pull out too? Aha! Voila! Bingo! See where it all ends up – unless you can convince me; they’re going to create some sovereign state with the same GDP and GNP as China called Absurdistan somewhere on the surface of the moon.

My advice to Google is just take a note from that other fortune 500 firm Nike, “Just do it!” Only then will I and many who may be watching all these have a change of heart; as it is, it’s just one big negotiating ploy to get something more out from a bad deal – in other Google, you’re still a sell out in my book.

In my opinion Google; you’re still a sell out and I am still not going to buy any of your stocks; it’s nothing personal; I know business is business; but we no longer live in a world where most sensible and educated people are prepared to do anything and everything just to turn a profit; we may still step on ants and spray roaches; but with the coming and passing of the recent economic crisis – the vast majority of people are demanding moral coherency; they’re not going to just sit down while fat cats in Wall Street cream off fat bonuses on the backs of tax payers, not when they were the ones that got us all into this mess. Neither are people so morally ambivalent and indifferent; that they would blindly invest in Tobacco firms and defense industries that produce cluster bombs to maim kiddies somewhere in Lebanon – or for that matter buy Persian rugs produced in sweat shops somewhere in Absurdistan, where kids are chained like monkeys just to loom carpets.

So fuck you Google; I am not buying into your song and dance, not like the rest of the idiots out there who are probably heaping praises on your so called “moral” stance; as I said, there is tank full of gas in the bike; the road runs straight as an arrow, get on it and when you’re somewhere down the middle; then we will believe you; as it is this is just another cheap PR ruse that doesn’t even deserve one molecule of my time.

Darkness 2010

(Due to the prohibition on Darkness and his renegade crew – the Council of the Wise has issued an all points bulletins to bar this essay from The Strangelands / you can still read the same essay in Ekunaba, Phi Beta Kappa and please circulate it through the love story division of the Brotherhood Press currently administered by Aurora; she will help you to find these reads – we will get our message through – as the brotherhood says: we go where no minds dares to go! – this message has been issued by the ICG Interplanetary Communication Guild – we have received information even the Confederation has issued out a all points bar on Darkness & Company; he is officially a criminal – this is a public service announcement by the ICG / Pls note: the ICG flies the Free French Flag; we have been assured protection by the Francois and his team -so any attack on the ICG will be in direct contravention of the Free Interspacing Communication Sheild Pact 78303)

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, 

” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things- without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty

How long can Singapore remain a welfare free state?

Have you read the latest Essay by the Brotherhood Press 14th Jan 2010 – 

Has Google Suddenly Discovered its Moral Compass?

 

As some of you probably know I have been dabbling with this Temasek Review fake DOSS attack – well it’s time to change tack; so I’ve decided to put all this nonsense into a shoebox and slip it under my bed. Besides its beginning to sound like a broken record and I have far more interesting stuff to write about.

So let’s dive right in – how long can Singapore remain a welfare free state?

Well on the surface, it seems this is a cut and dried matter; we have been told time and again, welfare is a solvent; first it hollows our precious Asian work ethic; secondly, it fosters the crutch mentality and yada yada yada yada – it’s a litany that generally sounds like, “don’t go down that road, it will turn your backbone into jelly.”

Sure those arguments do make sense on the surface; but if you really take the time and trouble to look deeper at the innards of the whole idea of welfare against what’s happening in the world economically then what becomes immediately apparent is; Singapore may not be able to remain welfare a free state, not for long at least.

To cut a long story short – capitalism is unravelling like the oninon story; the more you peel, the more you cry, only to end up with nothing.

Sounds like a quirky idea; but let just spend some time to understand what is really happening in the global economy and how this all relates to the idea of why I believe at some point in time Singapore will ultimately have to buy into the idea of building a welfare state proper.

Lets begin with the global trends? – first, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer – income gaps are widening to historical levels and that simply means the tea auntie and those who may not have the right papers will just see themselves getting poorer and poorer as time goes by. There are many reasons accounting for this, but to simplify the case; it all boils down to the whole idea of globalization. You see globalization means exactly what it means; we all have to compete globally; that means a factory in Boon Lay has to compete with a sweat shop somewhere in Shenzhen and whoever produces the cheapest products wins the contract.

Sure we call this “free trade” – “level playing” – “healthy competition.” And all this comes under one word – capitalism. But you know what? These days with the disparity in wealth distribution where the poor are getting squeezed and the rich are getting fatter – capitalism doesn’t work anymore; in short, it no longer delivers the goods – don’t believe me, then consider why are the Communist in China promoting capitalism could it’s even way better than Marxist Leninism to keep the masses in line? Is it even possible capitalism is a far more effective way to squeeze much more out of the ordinary man in the street – the another thing about Capitalism, like all great Hollywood movies with great endings; it even comes complete with the promise of redemption – that’s to say, capitalism as an idea can even relieve the rich and of the burden of guilt by perpetuating the myth; “hey, if you are down at the bottom of the ladder, it’s all your fault; you just didn’t study hard enough in school and now it’s all coming back full circle….that’s your lot, suck it in!” Thus allowing them to grind the ordinary Joe right down to pulp! It even allows the rich and privileged to envisions the idea that the world is fair, “if you produce a great mouse trap, someone will always beat a path to your shed!” You see one of the things that I find almost impossible to square off when I try my best to square income divide and the whole idea of capitalism is simply this; not only does it provide a multitude of reasons for the rich and privileged to continue squeezing more out from the ordinary Joe; but it even cap able to engendering the false belief amongst the rich, that their hands like their conscience is clean and when you translate all these into nuts and bolts it’s a far more expedient way than communism to devise a system to grind the poor legitimately with a set of justifications that’s darn hard to push to one side.

You see one reason why the capitalist system works so well as compared to the moribund communist system is unlike the latter; it even comes complete with the “rags to riches” fairytale; the whole idea that anyone can just go out there and carve up a good and decent life; if he works diligently, hard and intelligently – the myth is perpetuates its one that engenders everyone within the capitalist machinery; they too can one day aspire to be the modern day Hectors and Achilles of lore; they too can be the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah and Olivia Lum of this world, if only they put their shoulders to the wheel of life and push it really hard!

But as I said, let’s not kid ourselves, capitalism is no longer capitalism; you dont have to be a double first political scientiest to figure out with the recent economic meltdown, the stripe of capitalism that the Obama administration is  closer to communism than the idea of free trade – otherwise how can you square off the economics with the ideological reversal of the century of bailing out zombie banks with trillions of tax payers money?  “Too big to fail!” Hey Obama! I got news for you, that was exactly what Stalin used to say, when he poured millions into inefficient factories producing stuff that no one in their right frame of mind would buy only, he glossed it over as, “Too important to fail!”

So lets get it straight once and for all – these days when we talk about capitalism, its as elastic as silly putty; it doesnt have the same conceptual coherency that it once had. Juxtapose all this against the current economic landscape and what do we have?

 Capitalism as a idea doesnt work anymore! And the case is strongest when one compares the economic realities against the myth of what capitalism as an idea claims to hold out: “this is the best way!” – Bullshit!  Facts don’t lie, for example: if you really want a snap shot of wealth inequality, consider this: the top 1% owns 60% of all the bonds, stocks and business assets; while the bottom 50% owns a paltry 2.5% of the net worth of a nation like the US – I mean mirror these realities with Singapore or even Timbuktu and you would roughly be right even if you were off a few percentile points. So in a nut shell, we have already successfully re-created a slave driven economy that so well packaged; it even comes wrapped up with a dream and the hope that one day when those magic TOTO number line up; you’ve made it to the top of the hill.

Nope the facts; don’t gel and I am not even going to touch on complicated subjects on how the poor will be continually shelled by diminishing disposable income as the price of commodities e.g oil and basic necessities go up; or even how the fall of the US$ will continue to take a larger slice of salaries from food, healthcare etc; because our SGD is pegged to the USD. Neither am I going to talk about cost of capital or  the possibility of hyperinflation or for that matter at least 30 things other that is simply going to exacerbate the divide between the have’s and have’s not in the forseeable future.

In a nutshell – the gulf is going to widen; the disparities will sharpen and the sense of estrangement between those at the top of the social pyramid and those at the base will simply be more pronounced. This cant go on forever, if it did then we might as well all throw away our history books and consider the French Revolution; winter uprising and ten or so revolutionary tsunami’s that has hit the world as a dream or try to rear gooses that churn out golden nuggets.

Seems to me a day of reckoning will have to come;  its only a matter of time; the bough will break; I could be wrong (coming to think of it, I am always wrong, that is why I always end up with a two metric ton blind date), my point is jugular; I really can’t see with the figures facing me  how we are going to reconcile the growing divide, discontent and disparities against the hubris of the have’s and have’s not: when you really get down and dirty and begin looking closely at the excel spread sheet figures ; what becomes apparent is capitalism doesnt offer salvation as perdition; neither do I see us reconciling the widening wage divide or how is it possible for us to keep living on this harshly divided world while squeezing productivity gains out of the masses as we continue to hold wages down to levels in an economy when basic commodities are going to go up and up – so far the response from the government is just happy families rhetoric, but as I said, you cant run from the economic and social realities anymore than you can step out from your own skin.

What we have here in short  is the gun powder, ball and flint that just waiting for the bang!

It just doesn’t square off with to me, not even a bit; as even in the days of slavery; masters had to provide food, shelter and warmth; if they really wanted to get the best deal out of their lot.

The year 2010 will certainly be an interesting year – but let’s start by buying into one reality just so we dont live in so la la dream world; this is not the land of the free as it remains very much the land of the fee. Get with it, that’s as good as it ever gets.

The machine that was supposed to change the world has broken down for good! No amount of kicking, ranting or hammering it will ever get it spluttering again and even if you managed to get it to cough up; dont be surprised is communism holds up a better future.

We have finally come full circle.

Darkness 2010

P.S: You know what? I am sick and tired of the watching the poor get poorer and the rich get fatter; its even happening in the virtual gaming world – one thing great about the gaming world is I regularly use it to test out some of my cracked brained monetary policies; I have a few ideas how to balance the accounts and square off the records – I am working on it and I’ve probably run it through the whole network – if it doesnt work, then I say, things are already so bad that it would not make a molecule of difference either way; but if it works, we may just be able to climb out from this mother of shit pots and fix the machine that was supposed to change the world – thats the beauty about the gaming world, its like a $30 million simulator where you can fly and even crash and burn only to play it all again. Now you must all excuse me; I am finalizing the last details of this plan; I have work to do! Just one message; to the Joe out there who is struggling, just hang in there; we will come through; we always do!

(The Brotherhood Press 2010 – This essay has been published in Just Stuff / Ekunaba/ The Strangelands / PBK – codex 992373400383 Doberman)

N.B DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF – Missy Dotty

 BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, 

” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things- without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did – a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf – dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty