Should the US have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan?

Personally, I feel that the dropping of the atomic bomb was unjustified. In fact, I think that the creation of the atomic bomb was a mistake to begin with. To begin, the geneva convention already states that any people not directly taking part in the war, including civilians, are not to be harmed.

Also, it is morally incorrect to claim the lives in a whole city just because the country is at war with your own. When the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they had no intention of sparing any civilians nor providing an easy solution to Japan. It wiped out the two entire cities and its radioactive effects still linger to this day, probably taking thousands of years to dissipate.

During the time of world war 2, despite Japan's military victories, its economy was already collasping. Its precisely because of this that they could not fund their military, thus using Kamikaze as their last resort. Considering this, if the war was to continue for a few more months, Japan would have already had no option but to withdraw, thus they were fighting a losing battle. In such a case, it would be effortless for America to purely sustain a simple war of Attrition, giving no excuses for the dropping of the atomic bomb.

Considering the destructive effects of such a weapon, one must consider if the innocent lives claimed can account for winning the war.

Election 2011 *WARNING! The posts are strongly opposition views-however, this is my decision as i've heard the rallies and felt opp is better=D*

Well, it is time again. The elections are here again! However, this time, 82 out of 87 seats are contested! This is going to be a watershed election. Of which the hottest areas are of course Aljunied, Potong Pasir, Bishan-Toa Payoh, Holland-Bukit Timah and also to an extent, Hougang and Marine Parade. The opposition is rising and the generation Y voters are getting upset over the PAP's desired one party rule. Generation Y voters want change, and some PAP ministers have proven unfit to govern Singapore. Also, for a policy to carry through, it must receive support from two thirds of the parliament. Therefore, whatever policy the PAP initiates will carry through. It is because of this that the citizens of Singapore want opposition voices in parliament.

Firstly, there is the issue of salaries. While everything around us increased in pricing, the one thing that did not rise was wages. Except the government, who were enjoying their 8 months GDP bonus. Our ministers are the highest paid in the world, even higher than that of the US president. To many, these wages are unjustified, especially when given to officials who do not even deserve them. They earn about $10,000 an hour, whereas not many earn the very same amount in a month. Therefore, we question ourselves, is it fair? The opposition has suggested a solution where the highest paid official is paid a maximum of 80 times the lowest wage in Singapore. This would amount to around $64,000 a month which is more than reasonable. If the government wants higher wages, then they should ensure that they take care of the citizens! To be in parliament is supposed to be an act of servant leadership, but how do you serve when you earn more than you can spend? Obviously, the government has a lack of understanding for the working population if such is the case.

Secondly, there is the issue of electoral fairness. The PAP has set up GRCs and redrawn electoral boundaries again and again and again. The GRC system was set up in response to the Anson By-election where the opposition had finally secured a seat. This system would group SMCs together to form GRCs where candidates contested as a team. The system was designed in such a way that each GRC would contain a minister, and playing on the fact that singaporeans would not vote a minister out, the opposition could never win. As expected, the only seats secured in the following elections were the Potong Pasir seat by Mr Chiam See Tong, and the Hougang seat by Mr Low Thia Khiang. Even then they redraw the electoral boundaries over and over. Despite areas like Kaki Bukit remaining loyal to the PAP, they get pushed around over and over so as to provide support to weaker areas. It gets so absurd that Marine Parade could stretch all the way to Hougang, and one could drive down a road and cross into four different constituencies. This is clearly unfair. Now that their GRCs backfire and areas like Bishan-Toa Payoh where Mr Wong Kan Seng is in are having strong opposition breakthroughs, this may be the election where the oppostion strikes back. Perhaps I could say that the "eastern blowing wind is rising" (Battle of red cliff, where the minority beats Cao Cao's army). This, perhaps, is the last chance for the oppostion to rise up.

Logical Fallacy

DPM Wong Kan Seng believes that the residents in the Bishan-Toa Payoh area will still support PAP. He believes since the residents do not comment on his shortcomings, like the case of Mas Selamat, and also the incident where a father got past ICA with his son's passport to be stopped only in America where they rejected the passport(when he was Home Affairs Minister). The most major case was the Mas Selamat case, where he even managed to get pass the causeway and escape to Malaysia, this showed a major flaw in his governing of home affairs and security. This is a major logical fallacy, DPM Wong has commited the flaw of "Burden Of Proof" He states that since nobody raises the incident, it must be ok. To a greater extent, he even said that Mr Chiam See Tong only asked one question about the Mas Selamat incident. Mr Chiam replied: "The one question I asked, which is whether heads will roll over the issues with Mas Selamat, still has not been answered. Personally, I feel that the only head rolling will be that of the escaped terrorist: Mas Selamat.

Can students be given the autonomy to develop their own curriculum?

My answer is no. There are several reasons as to why I disagree with this, primarily because of the limitation of resources and also due to a lack of dicipline.

Firstly, there will be a severe lack of teaching staff and resources. If students were given the freedom of choice, then lessons become a popularity contest. While the easier or more favored subjects may be overwhelmed with students, the harder or unpopular subjects may be left without participants, leading to teachers having to wait for students to join their classes. Also, the students will then be able to practise favouritism towards teachers. Thus, such a system would cause needless wasting of resources and teaching staff. This, coupled with a lack of dicipline will lower the standards of the school.

Secondly, the lack of dicipline such a system would cause may eventually lead to students lacking basic skills simply because the classes that teach these skills are too hard, leading to students not choosing these subjects, thus making this system detrimental to the students well being.

Therefore, I believe that the students would not benifit from autonomy and thus do not support it

Arguementative essay

Why care about other countries far away from us?

An earthquake occurs in Japan. This leads to a nuclear incident that may leak radioactive waste, polluting food and water sources, affecting our world's food and water.

The sheer magnitude of events in other countries is undeniable. From economic recessions to air pollution, time and time again the world proves the flaw in globalisation: No country can stand alone. It is precisely because of this that it is of utmost importance that we care about foreign countries.

Some may argue against being concern about foreign situations; there are three main reasons for this:

• Their economy is strong, surviving economic recessions is not a problem.
• They are in a large country, the sheer land mass and people will survive even if isolated from the world.
• Incidents like nuclear accidents will not affect them significantly.

In actual fact, these views are very much nieve, and survivability of countries depend on the rest of the world. A good example would be the 2008 sub-prime crisis, countless established banks all over the world closed down. This is because the U.S. is a large country and its actions affect the rest of the world. Its a known fact that economic situations affect other countries. For example, the E.U. was badly affected because of Greece's sudden economic collapse. Currency value is basically your money versus the money of other countries. With bonds of companies being sold all over the world, we will all go down together. The effects of globalisation has made the boundaries between sucess and disaster spread well beyond the borders of one's country.

Regardless of how large your country is, or how rich it is, survivability is very much dependent on other countries. In the modern world like ours, to isolate oneself in hopes of preventing the problems caused by globalisation will only lead to a backward civilisation that heavilly lacks in resourcesother that its own. In our globalised world new technology is constantly being shared around the world and, what is produced in one country is needed in the other; That is how countries like Singapore make profit. Thus, it is impossible to be on par with the rest of the world when it comes to isolation.

Finally, nuclear incidents and pollution cases do affect the rest of the world. Looking at the Chernobyl incident, we can see how a nuclear power point can cause the nuclear remnants to pollute the world. Even nuclear detectors in America also detected the radioactive presence. Using a more local example, when Indonesia burns their trees, Malaysia and Singapore get the haze. This shows how the world is affected by foreign disasters, which brings me to the point that in disasters such as Japan's current quake/tsunami/nuclear crisis, all the countries stand by, ready to help.

Even so, there is only this much we can do to care about the welfare of other countries. Whether our effort is of use or wasted, ultimately still depends on the country itself. The Myanmar cyclone, for example, shows how the government is reluctant to accept foreign help, thus wasting our care and concern for the victims.

A letter to a survivor

Dear Nick Jones,

It must be scary to experience a diasaster first hand, espescially with foreign nations speaking of the potential nuclear crisis that may unfold. Words cannot describe the fear that the survivors faced when up against the three-fold crisis at hand. However, I must commend on how the nation has calmly and effectively handled the situation. The stricken victims just got over it. Despite the tears and the grief, there was no panic, much less stealing nor havoc. The japanese have really showed their stoic nature this time. I personally hope the crisis will be over and`you can return to Tokyo.

Yours sincerely,

Yu Hann

Nuclear Meltdown

The situation in Japan has escalated as the nuclear meltdown situation worsened as the second reactor overheated. This left the Japanese government with no choice but to pump saltwater into the plant, thus putting it out of commission.

Personally, I believe that this was a critical error in japan's decision making, if I were them, I would not want to take the risk of a nuclear meltdown; especially after what happened when the atomic bomb struck Japan many years ago. However, to be fair, the termination of the plant would mean a power cut, loss of investment and not to mention a halt of production. This may have been why the government tried to sustain the nuclear plants for a longer time.

My second point is that nuclear energy, despite being clean and efficient, will eventually lead to the downfall of man. Just think, if a war was to occur, the first projectiles to be launched would not be the nuclear missiles, but would instead be ordinary missiles targeted at nuclear powerplants. Ironically, the countries at war are leaving ticking timebombs of massive destruction in their own countries! I feel that these nuclear plants should not be constructed in the first place to prevent unnecessary loss of human life. To me, the stakes are just too high.

Japan M8.9 Earthquake

At 2:46pm on March 11th, An earthquake occured off the coast of Japan. This led to a tsunami that happened which is a double whammy to Japan, striking Sendai and sending waves ripplling across the southen pacific, hitting Hawaii and eventually, 21 hours later, hitting the United States. The earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan then caused a nuclear meltdown which will have a long term effect on the citizens. This also caused an estimated death toll of 10000. I am surprised and shocked at this as despite Japan being in a frequent earthquake zone, they were unprepared for this. Being a buddhist I kind of wonder if so much bad karma can collect in an area for this to happen in the first place. Anyway, my point of view is that if the situation is so bad as it is now, it cannot possibly get any worse, therefore, it will definitely get better. Hope of recovery for Japan! ;D

Libya

Apparantly, Libya's government is not popular with the world's. Most of the western world have requested that libyan government step down, and both sides have stepped up security. While more cities are being freed, the libyan government also recruits men to help terrorise the cities. The recruiting point is that any man that finds friends to support the current government will get a car and money. They then ride with guns in the cars to terrorise the streets. However, this is an impossible fight as it is a war of attrition. As long as trade ceases between Libya and the world, Libya will eventually give in.

Singularity

It has become imminent that machines are in man's life, be it simple pulleys or complex computers. Personally, I feel that the probability of the Singularity happening is rather high. Machines aid us in developing new machines that are better than the previous. Eventually, they will outsmart us and situations like that of terminator will happen. In all, I feel the need to make machines less intelligent for our own sake.

Man vs. Machine

This post is regarding the article on Monday about the machine replacing the human teacher in marking compositions.

Personally, I disagree with the view that machines can overtake teachers because they lack an artistic view. They are very practical and accurate, but do not have an artistic approach to their marking. They can grade grammar and vocabulary, but can never match up to how a human critiques a piece of work. Machines will never replace humans as teachers.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PDrWs7LKn0zWd5_FI6F7GARbwAvAoIgo3Uf8nKcf0KU/edit?hl=en#

Caregivers

This is rather tragic. The burden of taking care of a handicapped person is rather great, sometimes too great. When people cannot sustain the pressure, then they will try to find easy alternatives out of the problem, like suicide. The fact that civilization is advancing at such a fast pace also means that handicapped people will often be left out, regardless of what event it is. Therefore, to many, they are seen as a burden, but family ties are important, that's why family members are willing to take care of the handicapped patient.

Writing

There it was, glistening in all its wonder, I had finally found El Dorado! The fountains flowed with precious golden liquid, and it was so bright I could barely see in front of me. The architecture was amazing. A shining city hidden, here, within the forest. Cryptic glyphs inscribed on the bright yellow walls, as mysterious as the mythic city itself. It would take years to decipher it all! So many explorers had tried and failed before me, to the point that it has been deemed impossible. Now, however, I have finally discovered its location. The months deciphering the clues were all worth it. With all this, I could be rich! I located the legendary city of gold!

Singaporean Young People

I think that I have the same views as the typical Singaporean. With exception to desiring earning lots of money. I feel that is is important to have friends of other races, because it is important to have a wide social circle and network. Friends are really useful as they will be there when you need help. If you add their social network to yours, you will have many associates, that their skills may aid you.

Besides, the survey is not exactly reliable, and many political events are going to happen this year or the next. This could suggest using this as effective propaganda for the ruling party or People's Action Party(PAP). As history as shown, no ruling government has been in power for a consecutive 60 years, and PAP is already 50. This could prove to be important propaganda as every vote counts.

Comic

Battle hymn of the tiger mother

I believe that this is an extremist method of training their children. As she quoted in her book, she rejected hand-made birthday cards from her daughters because they were not elaborate, and threatened to burn her children's stuff toys because they hadn't perfected their piano pieces. Relative to typical Chinese mothers, I believe that this is taking it a little too far. One shouldn't neglect their child for the sake of achievements. As mentioned in her book. She even rejected her late mother-in-law's plea to spend a day with her grandchildren. This is cruelty to both her mother-in-law and her kids.

The Straits Times also had an article titled:We're not all tiger moms(January 23, 2011 Sunday), thus showing more proof that this is not the only, nor most effective method of raising children. This is not just a strict parenting style, this is an overly strict and ineffective parenting style. As the child is raised this way they will grow to resent their moms and also repeat their strategies. Lives are meant to be lived, not to be forced. Ultimately, one has to consider, are your children's grades and achievements more important than their happiness.

LA lesson 21/1/11

This is a rather interesting article, but true. For example, until I was in primary 3-4, I was rather alone and bullied but when I met my friends (P3-4,) the friendship was enjoyable. I'm still in touch with them now.

The fact that the boy was autistic makes his experience different from mine. Thus this is very heartening to hear and shows that friendship is still strong amidst the competitive society we live in today.

LA lesson 19/1/11

No. With knowledge of it, one will desire it and thus ultimately have hope. In the context of the story, The children (except margot) never knew sunshine and thus lost hope, and became cold and heartless, while although Margot never stopped hoping and in the end, she would return to earth in a year.

However, there is also a question of sanity. For example, Margot had a nervous breakdown. Ultimately, it is a test of how long can you keep hoping when the odds are against you.

As the phrase goes, Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all(love referring to loving something you know). Thus I votein favor of Knowing. Ignorance is never bliss...

How long can you hold out when everyone has lost hope?

RE:LA lesson 18/01/11

Prompt 1: Yes, in my primary school, a rather interesting incident happened:

There was this group of friends which always used the parade square to play catching or hide&seek. When I was Primary 3, the "leader" of this group, Tiag Yi, was kicked out by Zhong Ying(a member) who wanted control over the group, it was then, that I joined them, after gaining Zhong Ying's approval.

However, in primary 4, Tiag Yi, who had been casted out somehow took control again by convincing the members to rejoin him. The problem was, although I was still part of the group, I had not gained his approval and trust. Half afraid that I may be allied with Zhong Ying and half afraid that I may, like Zhong Ying, "overthrow" him, he rarely allowed me to participate.

Finally, after months of gaining his trust, we finally became friends and all of us have been in touch ever since.

Personal Target

1. What went well for LA last year?

Our lessons went rather smoothly and thus, We were able to thoroughly cover more topics.

2. What went wrong?

The revision was not sufficient, and my writing and comprehension grades were unsatisfactory.

3. What is my LA target this year?

An A2 grade during EOY.

4. How am I going to achieve this target?

By reading widely, I can improve my comprehension skills while also expanding my vocabulary, thus improving my writing skills as well.