Does God Exist?

This video which has been circulating at least since 2004 and claims that Albert Einstein humiliated his atheist professor by using the "Evil is the absence of God" argument on him is malicious, because it is untrue.

Arguably well edited, this video was probably created to lobby the re-introduction of prayer into the American public schools.

Although the fact remains that Einstein was born Jewish but stopped believing in God when he was 12, most people would probably have believed that Einstein did have the conversation with the professor because the video is so professionally made.

People should check for the authenticity of all information, no matter how professionally made they look, for substantiation and accuracy.

This video which purports to serve God has actually done Him great dis-service by presenting an untrue incident as truth.

Passion And Patriotism (PAP)

“It is difficult for him not to interfere,” said Mr Goh Chok Tong as he took over from Mr Lee Kuan Yew as the Prime Minister of Singapore in 1990. Whether one likes him or not, no one can deny that this Cambridge-trained barrister who has promised to get up even from his sick bed or while being lowered into his grave, if he feels something is wrong with Singapore, has left an indelible mark in the modern history of Singapore.

A Stroll down Memory Lane

Mr Lee probably was politically awakened while he worked as a clerk and later as a cable editor at a Japanese propaganda agency during World War II. In his late 20s, Mr Lee joined Laycock & Ong and he campaigned for his boss John Laycock, a Singapore Progressive Party leader, in 1951. During this period, he became increasingly involved in a number of left-wing cases.

Whatever his detractors may say, there is no denying that if there is one quality this man had, it is the one called passion – Passion with a capital P.
Mr Lee never charged for the legal services he provided the unions. Former Straits Times news editor Felix Abisheganaden, who was acquainted with Mr Lee in the 1950s and 1960s, noted that he hardly ever charged the unions for his work. “You can never say that he was ever in his life after any kind of financial gain – never, never, never.” His stint in London, his involvement in the Malayan Forum and the influence of the British Labour Party had taught him that he had to be pro-labour and build his network power base through the trade unions. Right from the start, noted former People’s Action Party (PAP) chairman Toh Chin Chye, “It was the unions that provided the mass base. Lee Kuan Yew was the legal advisor, so he had a mass base.”

It was but the passion of Mr Lee and the team he led (with the likes of Mr Toh Chin Chye, Mr S Rajaratnam, Mr Goh Keng Swee and Mr S Devan Nair), which enabled PAP to sweep the 1959 general elections. It was his passion which persuaded the Malayan premier and leader of the Alliance Party, to include Singapore in the merger. It was his passion which caused him to campaign for a ‘Malaysian Malaysia’; and again, it was Mr Lee passion which was the major reason for the separation of Singapore from Malaysia.

“The ousting of Singapore, despite what history books might say, are anything but cordial,” says Mr M.G.G. Pillai in his article “Did Lee Kuan Yew want Singapore ejected from Malaysia?” Mr Pillai writes that Mr Lee then being in his 40s was brash. This prompted Tunku Abdul Rahman to condition that if Singapore were to remain a part of Malaysia, Mr Lee had got to get out of the picture. That was a condition which was too unacceptable to consider, even for an impassioned Mr Lee.

Maybe it was the ouster of Singapore from Malaysia which kindled Mr Lee to prove that Singapore could not only survive without Malaysia, but could also do better than Malaysia. Perhaps Mr Lee envisioned Singapore to be him and him to be Singapore; and driven by Napoleon Complex Mr Lee strived to keep Singapore ‘up there’, whatever the cause was. It’s highly possible that he had something to prove to those who ‘pooh-poohed’ his ideal of a ‘Malaysian Malaysia’.

The Present

Fast forward to the year 2009 and we find a Mr Lee who is still impassioned about Singapore. Recently he found it necessary to “bring the House back to earth” for their highfalutin idea that the Singapore National Pledge was an ideal. It was an aspiration he said – not an ideal. Never mind that the pledge is neither an ideal nor an aspiration, but a promise; “Nobody can speak with the knowledge that I have”, he said.

But what Mr Lee failed to realise was that the Nominated Member of Parliament, who tabled a motion calling for the House to reaffirm its commitment to the principles enshrined in the Singapore National Pledge, was actually echoing the call Mr Lee Kuan Yew made decades ago; only this time for a ‘Singaporean Singapore’. Did the ouster from Malaysia turn this man into a convert of cold-eyed pragmatism, which prescribes that there are no ideals except the ideal of pragmatism?

From his days as a cable editor of the Japanese propaganda machine, through his years as an agitator for independence from Britain, to the merger and (soon after) ouster from Malaysia; from his time spent talking to the Americans during the Vietnam years to his role as a confidant of China’s leadership, Mr Lee has seen it all. And more importantly, he has raised a generation of pragmatists.

But in a rapidly changing world, pragmatism does not fire the imagination of many, especially the young. Singapore craves for a leader with the “bring back to earth” kind of charisma that Mr Lee possesses; but charisma which is tempered with humanity. Pragmatism sadly can never breed such a leader.

Mr Pillai argues in his article that “Singapore will eventually have to merge with Malaysia, but as an adjunct of Johore”, when Johor stops supplying water to Singapore. Perhaps we need problems of such magnitude to throw up true patriots like our founding fathers – patriots like Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

Happy birthday Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

The global loan shark

OVER ninety countries comprising more than half the world’s population have lived directly under International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed conditions. In other words, the IMF has had a tremendous impact on billions of people around the world. But how well has the IMF performed in improving the lives of the people in these countries?

Founded at the end of World War II to promote global economic stability, the IMF keeps watch on the currency, trade and economic policies of its 184-member nations and makes nonbinding recommendations for improvement. The fund also provides low-cost loans to countries in financial need on the condition that borrowers undertake economic policy changes like adjusting their balance of payments or reducing inflation.

One might think that after the IMF is done with these countries, they would be less in debt than before the IMF got to them in the first place. It is disconcerting to learn, that in the seven years after the IMF sanctioned ‘stabilisation’ programme, Sudan’s debt increased from 2 billion US dollars to 13 billion US dollars. (See: The New Scientist: Third World Debt)

In other words Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) countries like Sudan, after cutting all of their basic programs, were more in debt than when the IMF got to them in the first place. Does that sound like a successful loan program? It certainly does sounds like a successful loan-sharking program. (See: IMF and World Bank: Global Loan Sharks and the Media)

In 2008 the IMF was suddenly called back into action after years of declining relevance when financial crises began to swamp struggling countries. The fund brokered rescue packages for Pakistan, Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine; moves that thrust it into the thick of a global crisis after a frustrating period in which it was a bystander.

However, in keeping with its tradition, IMF continues to make crisis loans with heavy conditionality that may adversely affect HIPC. For example, its loan to Pakistan came with a condition to raise interest rates and electricity tariffs before the end of 2008. These conditions will have enormous financial and social consequences for the poor in Pakistan, and frighteningly exacerbate income disparity.

Of course the new IMF loan agreements have clauses about strengthening social safety nets and maintaining or increasing spending on social protection, which is an improvement from the way the IMF, approached social protection in the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. But as recessions in the borrowing countries deepen, meeting strict spending limits in IMF programmes may be difficult without cuts to public services and social protection.

Another controversy IMF courts are with its loans to Sri Lanka. IMF officials justify the loans by saying that Sri Lanka is facing a financial collapse because its reserves are totally drying up. That $3.5b which it had in reserves has depleted to nearly $1b; enough to cover a dangerously low 4-week period. But Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch, in urging Britain and the United States of America not to approve the loan says, “Sri Lanka is in a fiscal mess in good part because it massively overspent on this war”.

Despite opposition from several countries, including the United States of America, Britain, Germany, France and Argentina, IMF approved a massive US$2.6 billion loan to Sri Lanka in July 2009, saying that it has noted the human rights violations and to impose conditions on the improvement of human rights to the loan, is but a concern of the western nations.

In fact, IMF vehemently states that human rights advocates “should not expect the IMF to impose human rights conditions on its assistance to member countries”. What IMF has failed to realise is that human rights is not a just a concern of western nations, it a fundamental human norm, which cannot and should not be ignored by international financial institutions such as the IMF.

Singapore which has been a contributor to IMF’s loan programmes since 1998, quadrupling its lending to IMF recently to US$1.5. This credit by Singapore to IMF will go into a New Arrangement to Borrow Scheme (NAB) which deals with “situations that may threaten the stability of the global financial system”.

Hopefully countries like Pakistan will not become more indebted in a decade by participating in such programmes of IMF. Hopefully Singapore has not unwittingly become a ‘syndicate’ of global loan sharks like the IMF.

'Adversaries' are patriots as well

The article “Media must stay balanced”, by Clarissa Oon has a tagline, “This can help in battling the influence of online media that are biased, says minister”. The minister, RADM (NS) Lui Tuck Yew despite being relieved from the Armed Forces, does not seem to have relieved himself from it, for he still continues to speak about ‘battle’ and ‘adversarial’. Fang Shihan rightly says in The Online Citizen, “As the former Chief of the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), Minister Lui displays the temperament of one who only knows of control and battle, not cooperation”. And is there such a thing as ‘objective’, ‘unbiased’ news reporting? Even the main stream media is guilty of being biased - biased towards the establishment.

The minister then went on to cite a recent video of an elderly Singaporean woman who makes a living by collecting and selling scrap cardboard, saying that the clip was flagged by bloggers as evidence that Singapore did not take sufficient care of its poor and elderly; but these commentators 'did not mention she had a three-room flat that was fully paid for, and that she has five children but did not want to rely on them to support her'. What Mr. Lui fails to realise is that in a country like Singapore, where so much of distrust is perpetrated by the government (even by the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts) against the new media, it is next to impossible for the bloggers to get information like that. It is not that the bloggers ‘did not mention’, the bloggers did not know. So, how did the government and the main stream media react when the blogosphere was spreading such ‘misinformation’? Keep quiet and pretend that you never heard or saw anything, only to talk about it at a dialogue session meant to praise the ‘credibility’ of the main stream media?

The Acting Minister also went on to say that the main stream media should not become “adversarial or one-sided like some socio-political blogs”. I mean, what’s wrong in being adversarial? It is important first to understand the ‘adversarial’ role bloggers play. Are these adversaries the adversaries of the nation? Or are these ‘adversaries’ so very crucial to the state for they identify the vulnerabilities which lie within, which may be exploited by the true enemies of the nation.

That all bloggers are adversaries is but a myth.‘Adversaries’ are patriots as well! The Acting Minister of Information, Communication and the Arts, should not have drawn the battle-lines for the main stream media to alienate people who are on the same side – the people from the blogosphere.

Laughing all the way to the bank

National Development Minister when asked about the rising HDB prices, says, "Flat prices would probably go up, they will go up by 1 per cent, 2 per cent, or whatever. They will just keep on going up if the economy recovers as people expect, and if confidence returns, but affordability will always be there."

With the Singapore economy still expected to shrink by 3.6 per cent and expectations of downside risks from labour market globally, should not have the National Development Minister brought those that are driving the HDB prices pinnacle high "back to earth"? Is the supposed profit margin of 143 per cent too high a price to have spoken the truth?