Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Albert Einstein is famous for being a physicist but it seems that he has plenty to say outside of physics. He has many interesting thoughts on society and here are some quotes taken from his book, “The World As I See It” (1949), which I think is worth pondering.

Two quotes on political systems:

“My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader.”

An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day.

On the need for a military:

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilisation should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

I have plenty of food for thought for the rest of the week.

No, I am not doing a survey but rather, someone contacted me and requested help in getting survey participants. If you are kind enough to assist, please help her out. The details of the survey are as follows:

A NTU Masters student is conducting an Internet survey on “Internet Users’ Perceptions of Socio-Political Blog Credibility in Singapore”. The survey comprises of 19 questions and will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. This survey will run throughout May 2008 and respondents stand a chance of winning $200 cash.

If interested, please click here.

I just saw a piece of interesting news.

Reuters just carried a story that UBS has reported a first quarter loss of 12 billion Swiss francs and are seeking fresh capital injections through a rights issue.

Almost four months ago, GIC made news for injecting 11 billion Swiss francs into UBS, giving GIC a stake of almost 9 percent in UBS.

Looks like many Singaporeans are not going to be pleased, to say the very least.

I’ve not updated in a while because of the usual end of semester madness. I’m unlikely to do much of an update in the next month and a half. There are a number of things I want to write about but I just have to KIV them for the time being.

I was asked by the Sunday Times to comment on about the Barack Obama fever. The article can be accessed here.

I’m growing more convinced that Obama is a leader unlike no other. Just check out his speech on race (a transcript of his speech is available on the New York Times). That was a moving speech without pretense. He could have played it safe but he took such a touchy issue head on. And, he dealt with the issue with great honesty and sincerity.

He’s clearly more than just another politician. He’s a leader.

The title of this entry literally means “Police drinks coffee” in Malay. For the uninitiated, drinking coffee is a Malaysia-Singapore euphemism for bribery. I am not sure as to the origin of this local saying, but I suppose in the past, one can get off the hook by treating those in power to a nice cuppa.

Anyway, the reason for this entry is because I came across a Youtube video. It shows a policeman hauling someone over for a traffic offence and did not issue the RM300 fine after the driver offered RM50 to him as “coffee money”. I have no idea whether the video is real or staged. It appears quite real to me, though.

Otto Fong, a teacher in RI, has just written an open letter about his sexual orientation. I salute him for having the courage to be open about his sexuality in Singapore where I think there are many groups still intent on witch-hunting homosexuals (and in particular, gays).

I have said before that I’m slightly homophobic (don’t ask me why, but I just don’t like the idea of homosexuality) but I will support the right of a person to choose his/her sexual orientation, man or woman (or both for that matter). As much as the idea of homosexuality might be revolting to some people, that doesn’t translate into having the right to persecute homosexuals. Put it in another way, as much as you have the right to your disgust, homosexuals have equal right to their happiness.

To Otto, Alex Au and other homosexual Singaporeans, take comfort that there are enlightened heterosexual Singaporeans who will support you guys.

**Update: Apparently Otto has taken that entry down. I am not sure why he did that, but I can guess half as much that he was probably under pressure to do so. This is most unfortunate.

This entry was first published on my wedding blog and I’m reproducing it here.

======================================================================

My wife and I were featured on today’s Zaobao Fukan front page along with another 2 couples. It was a feature story on couples who married soon after graduation. There were a couple of mistakes in the article though, the most obvious one being my wife’s stipend being $1,500 to $2,000 weekly instead of monthly. I think it’s probably an honest mistake on the part of the reporter because it probably would have made no sense to anyone if the stipend is given weekly. Anyway, here’s the report:

Click on picture to enlarge

Reading about the other 2 couples, I suppose that young couples really have it tough. Money aside, people often wonder why the choice to get married so early. Some people might even think that it’s a shotgun marriage rather than a planned one. I suppose this are the consequences to face when you do things that are out of the norm.

I think the other two couples made two very good points which myself and Peiying agrees to wholeheartedly as well. The first is that life is unpredictable, and if we wait, we might never get the chance (touch wood but you never know). Secondly, family before career is something that we feel is important because the warmth of a family helps to provide a strong emotional support to ride through the rough waves of establishing a career.

I suppose not everyone agrees with such lines of thought but well, I think marrying early is really important because marrying late means that you will rush to have kids due to the biological clock ticking away. I think it’s better to enjoy a few years as husband and wife, understanding each other before the kids come because kids will definitely place additional stress on the family. It is important to have an emotionally strong bond between husband and wife before the kids come along, and for the strong emotional bond to happen, you need time to nurture it. So, if you are thinking about marriage, don’t wait!

I was requested by the Brotherhood via the contact form on my blog to publish their very last article (from my understanding, they are leaving Singapore, although I am not sure if they are leaving the Singaporean blogosphere). As a matter of adhering to my personal principle of free speech and right of hearing, I’m acceding to their request. However, this is NOT an endorsement of the Brotherhood, and I will not entertain future requests, since this is supposed to their final word. I am locking comments for this entry because this is their final word, and I intend to leave it as that.

======================================================================

This debate was held in the under the special sessions emergency ordinance 9003 In Primus Aldentes Prime to discuss the recent developments concerning the suspension of all brotherhood publication in the Intelligent Singaporean recently earth time: 23-8-07 / The debate conducted in the Socratic fashion was lead by Councilor Vollaraine who addressed the committee on Hansard Vol II – special sessions – the motion is to move for a rebuke on the recent case of the Singapore Angle in removing large sections of the post relating to the Singapore blogosphere review on the first order and the second to find a new site for the brotherhood press.

First speaker: Cerebus for the case of Singapore Angle waives in favor of Vollariane arguing for censure.

Vollariane:

Senators

This is indeed a regrettable development. (1) Firstly the suspension of the brotherhood press in the IS followed by the Singapore Angle removing – (2) gutting out whole chunks of a thread which accounted for much of the dispute raised by senator darkness of the FC boys / the question that the council of wise has to decide upon is whether the act of committed by the Singapore Angle constitutes an action that warrants a terse and sharp response.

Senators, I urge for calm. I am sure the site master of the Singapore Angle would say that as administrators they have a responsibility to ensure that material posted (which was subsequently deleted) was properly classified, but this isn’t so much a question of right as it presents the question: does a site master have a right to free rein to the extent of distorting by deleting vital discourse material which would have given a contextual accuracy to the whole debate which justified the claim of senator darkness vis-à-vis: why wasn’t the brotherhood press mentioned in the Singapore blogosphere review.

As it stands today darkness doesnt even have a case because much of what he mentioned was posted in his the thread in the Singapore Angle.

Councilor Cerebus has argued the case, it remains the right of every site administrator to conduct the cost and benefits of having to content which post that not only imputes bad faith on the part of the site administrator. His contention remains, the site administrators of Singapore Angle has every right to edit postings which may be deemed prejudicial to the their interest.

Senators while I agree with this contention Councilor Cerebus offers no proposal for how they might actually perform that contextual, intra-executive task, which in all fairness even the best site administrators have historically deemed beyond their expertise!

Neither does Councilor Cerebus contention propose a definition of what is deemed desirable censorship to accomplish his cost and benefit calculation in favor of the site master - what if it comes at the cost of the truth? – that contention only remains true if we believe one’s right is not reducible to one’s policy preferences – (Time extended by speaker of the house in favor of vollairane to continue).

Senators councilor accuses me, in effect of subscribing to a linking of constitutionalism to the whole idea that a site master does not necessarily have the right to edit his post– while I agree if the nature of the post is slanderous, malicious and defamatory, the site master has every right to act, in this particular instance, I see none of these in the post that has been deleted by the site master of Singapore Angle and therefore I will have to ask what Councilor Cerebus means when he terms cost and benefit calculations that favors the interest of the site master.

Gentlemen, I contend otherwise as the cost and benefit justification that allows a site master to edit post dismisses – text, precedent, tradition and even reason (uproar in the great hall!) – cannot be based on simply a cost and benefit calculation to either preserve their world view or lend currency to their position taken. This sets a dangerous precedent – as it attempts to reduce everything to the convenience of the site master at the expense of the truth. Whether we like it or not the net has a constitution one that is not so different as the constraints which features as constraints, guidelines and yardsticks to the decision making process, but it cannot be self serving to the site master as he is merely the custodian of the truth. These are deemed fundamental principles and therefore they may even aspire to the status of constitutional values – over our collective history, there may be differences over the interpretation of the truth, but no one party, not even the site master has a right to exclude the full text so that others may be choose to read and decide for themselves – this is why Cerebus is wrong and his support of the Singapore Angle’s right to edit their post is premised of a weaker ground.

My friends, I have tried to reason to reason with darkness, but let us not forget, he sees the world differently from us all, but despite our differences, I have to agree he has a cogent case when he states the recent act of the Singapore Angle to scrub out much of the discourse is an act that further erases our history – the reason is simple, any constitution even one that applies to something as primordial as the net cannot be premised on the belief the site master can engage on any practice whose benefits outweigh it’s cost – we have seen the terrible results of this in the past where volumes of our history has been erased, as Cerebus would have it, but instead there must be a collective will even by netizens to insist that site masters do not engage in this activity only because while democracy may be an antidote to tyranny and oppression – even the framers of any constitution would have realized it’s latent danger, that it facilitates another form of tyranny - the tyranny of the majority against the minority – for years the brotherhood has fought against extraordinary odds to survive, in Pillium, we fought against an army 300 times our size and won and in the Ascension wars the figure was twice this – my brothers, for this reason alone site masters cannot be allow to edit, censor or even chuck out whole chunks of discourse on the grounds of cost and benefit calculations. As I mentioned earlier they have a duty to uphold the unwritten constitution in the internet where they serve as custodians of the truth even if it means contending with the inconvenience of being seen in a bad light – this constitution is not about efficiency, and is nothing short of a commitment to the truth. To call that mere rhetoric is to miss the very point of what it means to solicit real democratic change in the net.

Under ordinance 173 – I propose the brotherhood lodges the strongest protest against the actions taken by the site masters of Singapore Angle and strongly recommend that they reinstate the original post – under charter 15 – I hereby move the motion that the brotherhood searches for a new site to call home.

Councilor Vollariane / Motion passed 0027 Primus time.

We will survive, thrive and long live the brotherhood!

After waiting for almost a year (in agony), the new Arts Canteen in NUS is finally open!

I was one of the first customers today, and I’m glad that the most important thing (at least for me) about the arts canteen has been preserved. Many batches of students will remember fondly that the old canteen had 3 levels which were called heaven, earth and hell. So it’s not uncommon to hear students say to each other, “See you in hell” (although for outsiders, they might be completely baffled).

The new “heaven” is now located above the rest of the stalls, and it’s air-conditioned! Olio Dome, Lek Thai and Burger can be found there. The “earth” level has 5 stalls, including the famous laksa yong tau hu stall. I’m so going to eat that this week. I’ve been badly deprived of it. All the other stalls are located in “hell”, including the drinks and fruits stall.

The canteen looks new, clean, bright, spacious and is well ventilated but I somehow miss the old one. It was dark and cramped compared to the new one, but there’s a certain charm to it. A pity that canteen only exist in memory now.

Anyway, I apologise for the lack of pictures because my phone’s camera isn’t working. Hopefully I can get some pictures in real soon.