Woes of being in a nanny state

After a few weeks of hot air and bsing, it turns out that the so called presidential elections will be another walkover! This 'election' thingy is really is joke, why does there need to be such extensive screening and having rules such as being the CEO of a company of company worth 100mil before you are deemed capable of running for presidency. I wonder how many of our dear politicians fits the bill themselves. The whole idea of an election is to let the people choose and not take them for idiots and tell them who can be chosen and who's not eligible. Such is the state of political affairs here. I think we're better off just going back to the old system of the cabinet choosing the president, this election thing is trying to make fools of us all. BTW, ever since I've come of legal age to vote, I haven't had a single chance to vote due to the walkovers we have in cheng san grc for the last few GE's. I'm only waiting to see when hougang avenue 8 becomes demarcated as part of marine parade, after all serangoon north (about 1 street away) is already part of marine parade grc. *infinite eye rolls*

A step forward or 3 steps back?

At 8:15am on 6th August 1945, 140,000 died in an inferno which we now know as the aftermath of the 'bomb'. I'm not terribly fond of the Japanese for what they have done to China and largely to the whole of Asia during the second world war but I can't help but feel sorry for those who perished in wake of the atomic bomb. Not to mention the many others who have succumbed to the many side effects of the radiation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities with civilians and not military targets, the use of a weapon with such massive destrutvie powers is questionable. It is estimated that about 100,000 Allied soldiers will die if the invaded the Japanese mainland and I guess one of their justification was to prevent further losses. But is the life of an American soldier worth more than a Japanese cilivilian or soldier? I know that there's no simple solution to such questions that's why there should never be wars in the first place. People who know me well know that I'm an avid student of WWII but having been widely read doesn't make me a war monger. In fact I have read so much about the horrors of war and as such know what a terrible thing war can be.

A couple of months back, I saw a little video made by troops of the 101st airborne serving in Iraq. There was this scene whereby the graves were marked by rifles with their barrels stuck in the ground and a helmet on top of the overturned rifle. When a soldier dies, we know that someone has lost a son or a husband or a poor kid his father. As soldiers, we take orders and execute them, that's the way the army goes. If someone has to take the blame for the loss of lives in war, more often than not there's some madman at the top of the helm that initated the carnage. Hirohito, Hitler, Saddam, Bush are some names that comes to mind when we think of the wars that have been fought in the current and last century. It is said that technology advances the most due to wars, in wars intensive research goes into making more extravagant weapons and more efficient ways of killing maximum number enemies with minimum effort. Sometimes after a war, some of these technology spills over to the civilian sector. Perhaps every step we move forward in technology means 3 steps back for humanity? Sometimes I guess we should all just chill and listen to John Lennon's 'Imagine'...

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.