And here we go again

Just caught a glimpse of the headlines on today's Straits Times. They're going to raise the severity of punishment for desertion. In most places, nobody would even blink. Desertion after all is serious business. You don't join the military and just leave arbitrarily. That would drastically impact the reliability of the military as a defensive force. So desertion has to be dealt with harshly.

But then we actually have a problem in the given context. Singapore has a conscript army. This is not about whether a conscript army can be effective or not. Military insiders have in general nothing but good to speak of the performance of the SAF NSmen. In short, in simulated battles, the conscripts actually do very well. As such, there is a case to be made for a coherent deterrence via military strength.

The issue is not with whether a conscription system is effective or necessary. No nation can survive without a military force and with Singapore's minute population, there are few viable alternatives. And as much as I would like to fantasise about the use of tactical nuclear weapons as a solution, the diplomatic problems with that just aren't worth it.

The issue, however, is with how the government relates to the citizens that they, by legislation, force into military service. I do not dispute the actual necessity of this. Singapore needs an army and this is about the only way to have one. What is rankling though is essentially how badly the government treats the people it so desperately needs for national security.

The state claims what is now 2 years of their lives, placing them in controlled but still risky training situations. In return, it provides some accomodation, no laundry services or means to clean clothing, meals and a paltry allowance. It should be noted the the aforementioned non-pecuniary benefits are also provided to the professional soldiers. The greatest difference, nuances aside, is in the remuneration.

NSF conscripts are severely underpaid. In actual fact, legally speaking, they aren't even paid at all. They are given an allowance that is a fraction of what they would earn if they were professional soldiers. Or if they worked the same hours selling burgers for McDonald's.

On the other hand, aside from the loss of freedoms, they become subject to military law, even after they are no longer serving the military as an occupation. Military law as a rule is harsher than civil law. In a nutshell, when charged under military law, an individual defends himself in a military court where he is prosecuted by the military and judged by the military. Despite safeguards otherwise that exist on paper, the potential for a Stigler-type capture remains a real and present danger. The situation does not improve when the person who charges you is both a superior officer and a professional soldier.

In the corporate world, if your manager pursues a civil suit against you, you can be reassured that the courts will see the both of you as equals in every respect. In a military court, this all becomes rather suspect.

The final nail in the coffin is of course what was published this morning. Desertion from an army you were forced to join is now punihsable by a jail term. And if you serve your military term, you will be paid a paltry allowance for the next 2 years.

Ultimately, there is clearly little balance between the carrots involved in serving the nation, and the stick involved if you decide not to. As a progressive and maturing society, it is time for the state to address this, especially if we are indeed as effective and necessary as they have preached.

P.S. The fact that if you leave after the age of 11 before enlistment, it will cost you 30 000 dollars doesn't really help the case for the status quo either.

week

Time to write another entry. Don't ask me why. I'm not entirely sure. I just feel like you people need to be entertained. Or i need to be entertained by your entertainment. This can go on ad infinitum so i'll cut it off here.

Its been a rather hectic week this side of the Life of Michael. Ok, its a breeze compared to the Life of Jesus, but the world celebrates His birthday. Mine, will get less mention than my obituary, so who's competing right?

Played football twice this week. Woo hoo! I love the beautiful game. Strange they call it that when its the NBA and the NFL that have all the cheerleaders. In soccer, its 22 guys on a pitch, 1 yellow ball, and 1 guy with a whistle. But it is beautiful to watch. More interesting than cheerleaders. Yeah. Then i played badminton on Thursday. talk about de-skilling after a massive period of lull. Can't even slice the shuttle right any more. At least my pool has improved. Darn tootin' sedentary lifestyle....

Friday was a strange day. Base anniversary dinner ie Army Function of the year, for my brigade/formation anyway. Not really sure how these hierarchy things pan out, but who's th professional military guy anyway? Sure as water is wet ain't me!

The MC was halfway decent. He had some talent, in that he could imitate a couple of accents. Not bad. But his humour was just crude, the games he had lined up were repetitive and boring, not to mention often rather crude as well. So on a scale of 1 to 10, he was about 5 overall. But its times like these that make me wanna hop on stage in my shirt and jeans, of all things, grab a mike and attempt a freestyle diss. Pity the DJ was his and so wouldn't co-operate. So large portions of the entertainment was painful. I was gulping down red wine to help tide the time over, I swear. Thank God i'm well conditioned and don't get drunk easily.

Worse still, the scheduled entertainment was Abigail!!! It was absolutely horrendous. Seriously. I don't even wanna think about it.

Had a fantastic prayer meeting on Sautrday. Glory of God came like actual weight. Always a good thing, the glory of God. And Sunday service, well, its sunday service. 'nuff said.

So i had a rather fresh week, hope you did too. If you didn't, next week'll be better.

I'll try and write something more poetic next time, we'll see how the rhymes come together this side of me.

Oh yeah, if you wanna say somethin', holla back yo!

Military Musings

"White dove
Fly with the wind
Take our hope under your wings
For the world to know
That hope will not die
Where the children cry"
~White Dove, The Scorpions

Well guess what? I'm in camp when i'm writing this. As to why, its mostly because reading a bible encyclopedia and understanding it kinda drained me for a bit. So this is my way of relieving some of that tension, and if you're reading this, you can be marginally construed as entertainment, in a third-person sorta way.

What i really wanna talk about though is pop music. Disclaimers first. If you like pop music, i'm not trying to offend you. If you write pop music, hey, whatever rocks your boat, or feeds the kids, depending. Lastly, if you own pop music, yes the degeneration is your fault, fat cat.

Ok. Not much of a disclaimer since it only makes those who would sue me wanna sue me more, but hey, where's the fun otherwise right?

Honestly, up until the early 90s, pop music was palatable. I'm still a MLTR fan. Back then, the norm among songs was that they had to mean something. They carried flavour and intensity. Something that went beyond boy meets girl, boy likes girl, breakup, which is now the standard formula for every other song on radio. The younger generation is starting believe thats what mainstream music is like.

For a standard that used to bear the names of Frank Sinatra, Elvis and the illustrious Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to be reduced to Britney Spears and err was it TATU? is simply embarrasing.

But before i rant till Kingdom Come, lets just list the objections i have to today's pop music.

1. no lyrical depth
honestly, i could write those words in my sleep. if people get paid big bucks for producing that quality of work, all the good songwriters must've gone to broadway.

2. where's the music?
if you ask me, its all too electronic these days. don't get me wrong eletronica is actually quite refreshing and original. its not my favourite, but i have no beef with it. problem is when people try to use electronica and pass it off as normal pop music. seriously, if you wanna be a musician, work with real instruments. Either play them or find someone who does.

3. hey that sounds familiar
its been a while since i've heard a new sound. seriously, there was more variation in 1 oldschool rock album than 4 hours of radio.

So yeah, that about sums it up for now.
And freestyle rap battles live forever!

retirement

Felt like i was dealt a blow today. Ok more like hip-hop was dealt a blow. My favourite, i mean all-time favourite freestyle MC just quit. Like that. There wasn't much news, and the terrible bit was I've been waiting for his second album to show up, and it never. And i suddenly found out why. He had enough.

Its like somebody pulled the carpet from under me. Seriously. Its such a shame. The guy could battle. and just like that, no more.

sighz.

At the end of the day, a shout-out to Jin tha MC, cos he was in and out with a blaze of glory. God bless, whatever you decide to do.

cell phones

ok. first up, i know we don't call em that this part of the world. but handphone is just a little crass for my tastes, and calling it a mobile is just too vague. so cell phones they will be. comprendes?

there have been a few complaints about me and snippets of foreign languages. the last post featured latin. this one's already feautred spanish. what's going to happen next?

so on with the story. i left my cell phone in my friend's car on sunday. so i went through a day and a bit without my cell phone. in all honestly, it was really strange. i couldn't check the time as often as i wanted. i couldn't access a calendar or my organiser. and people couldn't get a hold of me. ok so the last part is pretty cool. leads to a quiet quiet day. the worst part of it was oversleeping today cos my 'new' alarm clock failed to work and my usual alarm clock (read cell phone) was not with me. well bummer.

so honestly, i can't quite live without that infernal machine anymore. sighz.

and oh yeah. MC Jin in da house ya'll.

haha.

the problem with problems

Well i did some meditation while walking along marina square. Before all you New Age flunkies and Wicca wannabes tell me thats impossible, i wasn't trying to become one with the universe or tap into some mystical cosmic force. Nope. Just chewing on the nature of God, thank you very much. And for the atheists out there, yes there is a God. For the feminists, yes He's male. And oh yeah, for you gay-rights activists, he's not gay. Ok. Can't believe the sheer number of disclaimers you have to put up just by mentioning God.

Well so i was doing some meditation. And economic theory slipped into this. Thats how the logic eventually panned out anyway. So imagine you have a major problem coming up soon, like exams. Ok, i guess you don't have to imagine. The absolute negative value of this problem is fixed. But your present valuation of it is not. Its pretty simple really. When your exams are 6 months away, they are hardly a bother. In other words, in the grand scheme of life's problems, its a minor issue. By the time your exam is tomorrow, its the biggest problem you have. In a nutshell, the size of your problem does become bigger the closer it is to you.

For you math-o-philes,
Present value of problem = Absolute value of problem * e^-rt

I can almost hear my critics now. What's God have to do with all this? Let's get hopping then.

The question becomes slightly more complicated when you try to solve the problem. Ever get the feeling some problems are bigger than you can handle? Or that they suddenly are bigger than you thought before? I'm sure you have, otherwise the nile would be more than a river in Egypt to you.

Essentially, at any fixed point in time, you have a cap to your own ability. Over time, with effort, you can raise this cap. But at any one time, thats all you have. At this same point however, your problem might have already 'grown' bigger ie its looming closer now.
So you begin to feel overwhelmed. Nothing surprising there. In fact, one could almost say you're doomed to failure. In another translation, you need a miracle. It actually never ceases to amaze me as to how few true atheists there actually are. Atheists would simply accept this situation and attempt to do better next time. There are no miracles for them since there is no God. Yet it seems that every time the situation overwhelms people, they start asking for miracles from a God they proclaim they don't believe in. Then when God does not respond to them, they take it as proof that God doesn't exist. Its kinda like you not believing in me, then you ask me for an apple. When i don't give it to you, you take it as proof that i'm a figment of my friend's imagination.

And yes us God-believing folks are truly better off, when we realise it. God being God is a constant. Kinda like the absolute value of the problem. The value of God is also absolute. The variable here is perspective. You don't have to discount the value fo God over time for the simple reason that He's an eternal being. He's always there, all the time.

So now you have a problem bigger than you. Oh no. You're doomed. The problem looks so big, it even looks bigger than God. Hold on a moment, is that actually possible? Well by definition no. But how did that happen? Its all about focus. The nature of focus is that you can only focus on one thing at a time. At best, if you're mentally very well disciplined, you can focus on a few SIMILAR things at a go. Problems and God, however, are diametric opposites, in that God has no problems. So as you choose to focus on your problems, they tend to be closer to you and thus larger. This automatically means you're not focusing on God, so He seems smaller.

So at the end of the day, the simplest way to deal with problems is to focus on God. Realise that regardless of how big the problem is now, God is still bigger. Just because your exams are tomorrow does not make God shrink. There is no correlation. So its the same-sized God whether your exams are 6 months away or tomorrow. Have a piece of peace pie to go with that.

Thats all for now. Ciaoz.

ailment

I'd growl. But it'd take up too much energy. Being sick, can definitely be avoided. For personal benefit. Nasty combination of a long strenuous day, bad weather and bad food put the Iron Mike (copyright Kenny Yeng) out of commission for a little while. Somehow i'm still sipping gin and juice though, so its not all THAT bad.

And oh yes, if you didn't get the memo, Satan aka the Devil aka Lucifer aka Beelzebub officially doesn't like me. So if you support his kingdom/rulership/government/side, please feel free to 1. send me hate mail 2. curse at me 3. otherwise inconvenience me 4. pick a fight. It might just earn you a field promotion. If you oppose the Bad Guy, then please play nice. Thank you.

Now on with the show. I actually have no idea what to say today, only that i should say something. So bear with me while i distill the actuall message from the vibrant miasma of my thought-life.

.....

if you've caught me on MSN recently, you might have realised i caught latin fever. If you think this is about brass instruments and exotic dances, good guess but you're still wrong. I'm referring to the language. As to why, well its kinda fun. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur after all. ahh yes. www.google.com for all you people who need to figure out what that means.

another craze i'm working on right now is the sphere of qian bian wen da ti. these only seem to work in chinese, and i am NOT blogging in chinese, lest my mother discovers this place and begins to correct my chinese vocabulary. I'm slightly crazy, not stupid.

so i guess thats it from me for now. hope you were entertained. if you weren't, well, thanks for wasting your time here anyway.

till next time, hopefully soon, so please remind me....

returns

(<$BlogItemCommentCount$>) comments



so i had a friend who asked me about my poetry. and i remembered this little hole in cyberspace. went through some trouble to reset my password and everything but now i'm back. once more to terrorise the inane, the mindless and the plan stupid, because its what i do.

we'll probably be seeing more lyrics and poetry up here from now on. maybe a few vicious attacks on policy and stuff. gotta keep with the image you know =p.

so Gerrie, this particular post is dedicated to you, and the page is eternally grateful to you for resurrecting it.

love, peace, joy, and faith.
time and tide wait for no man, unless you're me and can command it.

mike out.

sanctuary

'Holy Ghost, breathe upon me. Into my soul. Fill me with glory. All my life, i want to sing. Praises to You. Here in Your sanctuary, here in Your sanctuary.'

Its the chorus of a worship song. Its not a psalm, but there's still so much to learn from it.

Starting from a touch from God into our deepest parts that completes us, leading us into songs of joy. But what i want to focus on today is the last line of the song.

'Here in your sanctuary'. So all these great things happen in His sanctuary. It all starts with being in the sanctuary. Wonderful. But what is sanctuary? In a post-modernist world where we are encouraged to see everything as relative, sanctuary seems suprisingly constant. In the 'Age of Chivalry', sanctuary was a place where a person could hide from anything, including the law. It was a place of asylum, where peace was respected and upheld. Weapons were to be left outside the door, or entry was refused. Anyone within was safe. It was a concept beyond the law, something that people honoured without any written backing. If you are not familiar with the medieval concept, AD&D(advanced dungeons and dragons), a pen-and-paper RPG offers the same idea. In the game, sanctuary is a spell, a holy spell that can be cast by priests. It offers protection to the recipient. In some circles, it halves all damage dealt to target. For players, that usually translates to life and death. Its a virtual life-saver.

So how do you find sanctuary? In medieval times, you ran into a church, onto holy ground. In the game, you find a priest, or a holy guy(or gal). In either case, the concept is to approach a symbol representing God. Yet that is an incomplete model.

The truth is God wishes and desires, even yearns, for people to seek Him directly. Think of it as the divine version of 'Come on in. Have a glass of lemonade and tell me about your day'. It's God guarantee that you can come in and relax. Let go of your worries. The bills, the workload, the children, the parents, leave it all behind and be refreshed just by spending time with Him and trusting Him to take care of you and yours.

Reflections

Its been another 3 months. I thought i would comment on local news. But the follow through on that idea is remarkably non-existent. My chief clerk wont let me read the paper during office hours. Sure cramps up my opportunities to spot fallacies.

So another idea in the bin. No worries. Have a dozen more lining up for their shot at fame.

till next time,
el mike magnifico

The return of, well not the King, but someone fairly important anyway

Its been a really long while since my last post. Damn it, i almost forgot this place existed. Ahh well, i've had a lot on my plate as of late. Actually, i think i shattered a few pieces of china along the way. And that pewter tray as well. Focused anger is powerful stuff. Focused faith is even scarier. Well kinda anyway. Its a nice kinda scary. Trust me on this one. At least when you're on the light side of the fence. We're talking about 'Hey Jesus, would you like us to call down fire from heaven and burn that sodding village that turned you away into a pile of ashes?' level faith too. Its pretty cool, when you're on the right side after all.

But honestly, thats not really the point. I've decided not to rant about national service anymore. Its actually done me a world of good, if you discount what it actually tries to teach and focus on using the environment it provides like a weight. Great endurance and strength training. You can attempt really cool things like 'how not to swear when everyone else can't stop cursing' and 'how not to get angry with infantile behaviour' or 'how not to let intellectual snobbery cloud your judgement'. Those are really cool experiences that are pretty hard to find.

Honestly though, this blog is about to evolve. Times are changing already. Here on out, this is mostly going to be my own commentary column on local and world events, government policy and so on. Yes, you'll still get the occasional dose of mikeyhood around here, the occasional bit of poetry, and maybe some other random nonsense.

But the vast majority of the stuff will be serious discourse on serious issues with the corresponding serious language. So there are going to be language barriers to surpass if you want to read this blog. Its my self-defense mechanism against lousy comments that generally revolve round 4-letter insults and crybaby antics. Its not foolproof, but then, who said panaceas existed?

So get ready for a wave of grey matter, swim or drown people. oh yeah, read some Piers Anthony and Terry Pratchett so you don't die because of the humour involved. My wit is largely influenced by those 2 monstrosities. Evil geniuses. Mad linguists. Whatever.

">
(<$BlogItemCommentCount$>) comments

Silent as Death himself 

things like this are addictive. just felt like posting something else. but i still dunno what. most of the stuff is like, involves other people, so i cant just post em. oh well.
haven't really written something in a while, but i cant seem to think straight here. darned camp. darned darned camp. d'arvit. (that one's for ya little sis)
i still dont know what i'm trying to say. my english teacher lied to me. you don't get inspiration as you go along. you just start spewing more nonsense.

anyhows, lets talk about freedom today. government should only interfere with a man's freedom to act if his actions infringe upon the freedom of another man. for example, the goverment has a right to stop you from killing me because your freedom to act infringes on my freedom to live(or not die). thats an obvious case. but does the government have the right to make me do things like joining the army? for like 2.5 years? personally, if they want me in, they ought to work through the market and offer a large enough incentive to make it worthwhile. but no, they legislate it, thereby limiting the value of my contribution to society as well as my utility in consuming this time that i have. not a very economically efficient model i'm sure.

ok someone's been reading Captialism and Freedom by Milton Friedman. you should too. i was gonna rant about unfair trade next, but you can read it yourself in Globalisation and its Discontents. so i wont go there.

been trying to teach myself the guitar. thing is i dunno where to start. send suggestions!

i think i've expended my quota on philosophical discussion today. spoke at length with a new friend in camp. it was great. hah.

well, mike has run outta words. ciaoz.

Well. this is odd. blogging in camp. yeah its almost been a year since i last updated. truth be told, i forgot my username. pc died. took a break. bam. outta sight. outta mind. well now i'm back. deal with it
*****

restarted at the behest of a lady friend named elaine, if anyone is interested. oh yeah, elaine, if you're reading this nonsense, wassup! anyhows back to business.

its sunday and i'm stuck in camp cos of some obscure entity known as guard duty which has infested the consciousness of army commanders. it compels them to make ordinary men stay back on the weekend to patrol stockpiles of expired ammunition. in german, the comment would be wunderbar. in english, we say wonderful. though the brits prefer wizard. bleh.

all in all, its been pretty enjoyable here. chatting and just generally passing time. still gotta plan a belated mother's day suprise. i'm tellin' ya. its so difficult. how many different types of flowers are there again? bleh.

oh yeah. the place is infested with bugs. i hate bugs. they drive me crazy. pity i dont have a roll of paper with me now. oh well....

dont even know what i'm writing really. kinda like mindless ramblings. hah.

mike out.

wow its been 2 months since i last visited this place. amazing. purely amazing. well i had a pack of studying to get done, so excuse me. nonetheless, the worst is over now. so i'm back. incidentally, i wrote a rather scathing piece about the singapore education system while biding my time in an exam. i mihgt decide to post ti here someday, but till then, patience be a virtue for ya.

well its been a few days and i'm back to add more nonsense to the rgular flow of whimsical stuff.
had to do this comprehension for my teacher. its an assignment. and as of today, its officially late.
ahh well. it actually rather disgusts me when i get compre passages that masquerade as intellectual work, but without the solid logic behind it.
at least, it used to. these days, i rather appreciate the sophistication of language if nothing else. this most recent compre {temasek jc1 2002 common test 1}
gives 2 passages that are simply awful. not very intellectual. in fact, downright pathetic as far as logic goes. and the way they pretend to be sophisticated, think a bunch of hillbillies dressing up for the queen's jubilee ball. its not ostentatious, its not fmalboyant, its just dowright stupid. the underlying assumption seems to be that if you write in as convoluted a manner as possible, you will bluff your reader into thinking your arguments are sound. come on guys, debate 101 tells you otherwise.

in other news, i'm fubarred. tomorrow is technically NAPFA day. last chance. and i'm too ill to do it. gone case. bye bye. wave.
[note : fubarred = past tense of furbar ~ f***ed up beyond all recognition]

econs quiz finals on saturday. report at 1030 for soundcheck attire check and general shenanigans of doing nothing. we start the competition at 1300. ends at 1600. wow, waste of time eh? btw, debate finals at 1500 at civil service college. now thats just stretching me like elastic. eh?

prelims coming up. feeling confident. just preparing for it is a real drag. don't ask me why i feel confident. i'll quote the bible. seriously.

i was gonna write something more personal on this. so i could sort myself out. but just in case certain persons stumble upon this place, i decided it wouln't be safe. ahh well..

i think i need to write an addendum about adopting older sisters.

1. make sure you adopt a younger brother as well. its called double trouble.
2. its no fun if you have a natural one.
3. adopt more than one so that neitehr will become exhausted. younger brothers are necessarily exhausting.
4. do not force an older sister into this.
5. if you need further advice on how to cause mischief and otherwsie general mayhem, say something in this post's comments.

wow, i havent updated this in a bit.
i thought i published something recently, or did i.....

bro. patrick has gone berserk with delegating responsibility. wearing a mantle is great. glory of God upon your life, anointing and more blessing.
here's the problem though, mantle's aren't exactly light. ever seen the one in kenshin? the one thats passed from one master of the hitenmitsurugi ryu to the next? they can get really heavy. lifting your burdens up to the Lord, now there's something important to learn.

prelims are round the corner now. counting i think its 7 weeks. started studying, but the thing with exams is, they're always nipping at your heels. well, if i get this one right, it'll be my last exam. period. full stop. the final exam. sounds liekt he final solution....

in any case, i'm still on a high, relative to life before. yeah i'm alive. damn it.

intriguingly, my life's taken another twist recently, more factors being added into my matrix of life. somehow i have not escaped my FM heritage from HC. these math jokes are still part and parcel of life. reminiscing ~ fibonacci, can count money.... anyway.... yeah some new unknown factor has slipped into my life. its foreign like anything and i don't udnerstand it. at one point, i thought i fell in love again. now i'm not so sure. i have this pathetic track record for things of this sort. the first time, i told myself i coulnt afford the time of day and froze my heart cold. the second time i got rejected. and i don't actually believe in third time lucky. and hey, this time, i'm not even sure what it is. i wish i could go back to the carefree days when all i had to think of was the clan, my brothers, and which game we were gonna play next. and how to win the next fight.

well i'm thankful for those times. build a lotta tenacity and even patience when you play wargames 24/7 365. but ya know, when i became a man, i put away childish things. not sure those things are childish, but i really cant afford the indulgence anymore....sigh.....now, why wouldn;t my parents get me a nice katana for my birthday...

ahh well, popping in after settling mathematical induction to write a post sure feels strange. ahh well.... why are my hc fm notes so much more comprehensive than my rj math notes, which are next to bloody useless? which is basically bloody useless anyway....

i believe i once referred to this spot of cyberspace as my personal bitch-space. not prizes for guessing why. incidentally, i just told my GP tutor she was collateral damage in my battel against the education system in singapore. i'm trying to beat the system. so far, i seem to be winning. my last slipshodly written essasy got me a nice little 34/50. not spectacular. not even inspiring. but as it goes, passable. 2 and a half pages of drivel did that. hey, thats achievement with a capital T. but she says she has to mark this bad stuff and its affecting her. she's taking it personally. then again, no matter how old they are, girls will always be just that, girls. seriously. they are just so sensitive. and you can love em and hate em for it all in the same shot. i swear it, God made women just so He could laugh at all the guys trying to figure out what was happening. bah. so she's hurt that i consider her collateral damage. well, at least i was honest right? bah, i'll just write an exceptionally nice essay next time round that she can brag about in the staff room. maybe it'll cheer her up. incidentally, my IPW survey got flaming rejected. suprise suprise. what should i write about then? stuff nobody is even marginally interested in? small wonder the school paper won't kick off.

ahh well.....life is like that. always these circumstances you can't change save the hand of God. but i have no power over that. so i'll just look at it differently. the school is just worried about being smakced around by the MOE. ahh well.... this just brings me in to my little rant on government intervention. the one where one, because of admin not being very efficient, they tend to prescribe the wrong policies in the first place, and even if they got it right, the effects usually come too late and lo and behold, they actually make the situation worse.

meanwhile, lemme state my case against national service.
1. you're going to fight a war(presumably) with a bunch of guys who have traine dfor 2.5 years in the army, and then return for their normal lives and come back to re-train once a year for 14 days.
2. this means that the vast majority of your army has a. no combat experience and b. no constant training and simulation either.
3. the natural conclusion: you have a civillian fighting force to defend a country.
4. now, there are 2 recent examples of such a policy. one was the US Draft in the Vietnam War.
5. nice to note that the very well equipped US troops got their asses handed to them by guerillas in loincloths with knives/spears.
6. the other example is Israel. Arguably, its been victorious so far.
7. But there are a couple of factors. during the pre-independence period of Israel, they were already engaging in military activity against the British Empire.
8. Oh yeah, and their 'national servicemen' actually experience regular combat in skirmishes with the Iraqis, Iranis, Palestinians, the Syrians.....
9. Only thing are 'troops' fight are computer images. and thats only for 14 days out of 365.
10. and so, do we actually ahve a credible fighting force? no.
12. today the moron they sent for the NE talk added some more bull. so do you feel safe being defended by the SAF?
13. well the fact is, if you do, you've been deceived. it doesn't really matter how you feel about it, because the truth is we are not.
14. oh yeah. so what else can we do? get some nice stealth bombers. hang on. now get a couple of tactical nuclear bombs. keep the fighters as a nice escort. here's the good part, the next time malaysia or indonesia or somebody desides to flex military muscle on us, arm the first nuke.
15. if they think this is a joke, we'll launch the first nuke. just to prove we're serious. now, the negotiating table?

special thanks to shengwu for inspiring me to some of this and concurring with some other stuff. and btw, NE talks generally stink because the guy reads form a script and can't answer questions. therefore, we should do something more productive with our time.

revival is a curious thing. the will of God? definitely. Done by God? Definitely not.
Got my first friend saved yesterday. Something special. Something unforgettable.
Another 3, maybe 4 coming this Sunday. Things are picking up. Just heard a message that went:
Don't wait for the miracle, be the miracle. Lotsa oomph in there. Lotsa me.

One thing's for sure though, when the fire of God burns, it BURNS. it simply cannot be stopped.
Its like tonic....its incredible...

freestyle is strange isn't it