Dodgy Fellow

The Cavs superteam falling apart! Wade, Rose and Thomas traded! Love out with an injury!

So now the talk is what if he goes to Golden State :/

If he can't find another gig that pays as much as boxing, he probably will continue fighting :/

Would be a debacle if the Warriors don't end this season successfully defending their championship.

The ugliest player should be called Sphincterface.

Huh? Internet and TMZ are reporting that CM PUNK has quit World Wrestling Entertainment. WWE has already unfriended his Twitter account.

I don't agree with who they chose to win the Rumble this year. The guy's been away from wrestling the past several years!

If having nuclear weapons is your basis for permanent membership in the UN Security Council, you might as well include North Korea, India, Israel and Pakistan as permanent members of the UN Security Council.

I did say "I stand corrected." If you are not satisfied with that response, then that's something you have to get over with

tell that to the families of those who died. on both sides.

 

meantime...

 

Dear PNoy,

Please think before you speak.

No, that's blaming the wrong party.

The Royal Army whoevers went there looking for trouble. And that's what happened. Mission accomplished.

how would we know anything for sure if it didn't happen. in this case it happened, the administration failed, the criticism followed, the administration back-pedaled.

What's happening isn't over yet. There's nothing that says this mess can no longer be properly taken care of.

he had not exhausted all options when he told Malaysia to go ahead and do what it needed to do. now Malacanang backpedals when the jets came out to play.

 

what can he do? he can hold his tongue and not say you're on your own, condolences.

Maybe. But how would we - or you - know you wouldn't criticize him for holding his tongue, though?

If he's exhausted all options in getting the Pinoy invaders from taking things too far and hasn't been able to convince them...and he clearly hasn't...what can he do?

I stand corrected.

But, those five countries also have nuclear weapons. It's probably not a coincidence.

why am i not surprised that instead of mediating for Filipinos, you tell Malaysia to do whatever it needs to do to Kiram's followers

 

we ask for clemency for Pinoys who are getting the death penalty in other countries. what's the diff?

Well, they did invade another country. If I was Malaysian, I'd consider those folks to be terrorists.

The Philippines cannot afford a war with another country. The resources are not there.

Are you saying that China has a permanent spot in the UN Security Council because it has had nuclear weapons for a long time?

Yes. The UN Security Council is a 15-member group. 10 of those seats rotate among the different UN members.

The other 5 belong to countries which have nukes: the USA, Britain, France, China and Russia.

India and Pakistan have been lobbying to get permanent member status on the Security Council. Nothing happening on that so far, which is stupid, since the current permanent members got their spots because of their nuclear weapons.

So while all this time we've been discussing how China will screw over the Philippines, it's another Pinoy who gets the country in a shooting snafu with another country.

Effing A!

What I miss were the penekula of the era. Or was that part of the '80s?

It's a pity the producers/distributors didn't have the foresight to save copies for later generations

I don't know what the future holds. What may be legitimate reasons for China to hold back and restrain itself today may cease to exist in the next couple of years especially if it feels it can take on the United States militarily. It may even write-off the huge debt that America owes China if the Chinese believe that controlling Asia is worth more than getting re-paid by the US.

 

This build-up and modernizing of China's military is really disturbing. Why is it spending so much on modernizing and strenghtening its military? For defense purposes? Or does it have a more sinister agenda?I suppose people living in the 1930's had the same feeling of uneasiness as they saw Japan slowly modernizing its armed forces. Are we seeing history being repeated? If it's a repeat of the cold war, then it's just a balancing act with the US and China, as the two military superpowers, counterbalancing each other's power. If what we see today is a portent of another Japanese style invasion of Asia, then God help us all.

 

I certainly hope and pray I am wrong.

This is a really scary scenario you're painting. Indeed why is China pouring in huge amounts in modernizing its military? It cannot be merely for self-defense purposes. Is it possible that the issue of the Spratlys is being used to justify the modernizing of its military? I know China badly needs raw materials (just as Japan did in the 1930's) to fuel its ever growing economy. And at this time, it is only too happy to buy these raw materials from countries who can't say no to very high offers. But what if the time comes when countries will stop selling their raw materials to China? What will China do? America has already stated that depriving the US of much needed oil from the Middle East is tantamount to war. Well China can claim the same thing and invade Asia starting with South East Asia. In exchange for non-interference from the US, China may condone the huge debt of the US. Meaning the US may not want to lift a finger to help Asian countries as part of the deal it has with China.

 

Who knows what the future brings? I also hope these things are just figments of our overactive imagination.

Just to add some historical context: China since the 1800s has been invaded by other countries. That's why Hong Kong became a colony of the Brits, Macau became the property of Portugal, etc.

Then the Japs invaded and did some really, really bad things. When the commies took over, they prioritized defense to make sure the KMT didn't try to retake China.

The commies helped save North Korea from the Americans by sending millions of troops as reinforcements, but all that pride in helping a fellow socialist country got flushed down the toilet when China warred against Vietnam, and lost.

The government over there doesn't want China to look like a loser in a fight again, especially after more than a century of losing. Thus, they're spending their money on the military. And honestly, what country would not do that if they can? They are the world's largest country, with the world's largest population, and a civilization that can be counted back to how many thousand years BC.

If they do go to war, I doubt the Philippines would be first. Other than the Spratlys and those HK tourists getting shot dead at Luneta, what grievances does Beijing have with the Filipinos?

I've always maintained that a capitalist China is more dangerous than a communist one. Capitalism brought great prosperity to China. China is now using the great wealth it has amassed to develop a modern military. Air force, navy, and army are all being upgraded with modern equipmement, training and military strategy. A US military analyst I heard on television said that as of today, the US can still decimate China's armed forces. He noted, howerver, that this scenario may be totally different 10 years from now. Meaning, US military spending will have to be accelerated to keep ahead of the Chinese.

I disagree. China under the communism practiced by Mao was a disaster. Millions died from starvation because Mao did not know how to manage the economy. It was turning into a bigger version of North Korea.

It didn't turn out that way, because Mao upset enough people in the Communist Party (see: Cultural Revolution), that they decided to no longer let one man hold so much power. Yes, it's still a one-party government, but they actually have term limits for all officials. This month their next President officially starts his job.

It also helped that the West and China were serious in improving their relations during the Cold War. True, China and the USSR were allies, but they had their own problems with each other. The US trying to build a relationship with China was to try and trip up the Chinese-Soviet partnership.

So far, nobody has even talked about nuclear capability. If north Korea already has nuclear capability (it recently conducted nuclear tests) but lacks the appropriate delivery system, what more China, given its advanced technological capabilities and its economic might?

China has had nuclear weapons for a long time. That's why they have a permanent spot in the UN Security Council, just like the US, Britain, France and Russia.

Things were "better" in the past, but much of the time that's just the nostalgia talking.

Man U vs Real Madrid for the second leg of their Champions League matchup, this week!

The money they made from foreign trade had to go somewhere. Building those new planes and ships means jobs created.

And they're not upgrading their military just because of the Americans. Russia is next door.

Communism happens due to extreme poverty, deprivation and want. Had society been more human, I do not feel there will be a need for communism at all. Putting down people into the level of animals is exactly what communism has become.

 

Moreover, China got a cultural revolution which they tout as Re-Education. Thus, education is not the issue here but knowledge of the truth. A person living in FREEDOM understands he got the right to refuse poor information. In the meantime, oppressive societies normally impose ideas and punish those who refuse to chew and swallow false ideas. China was never successful with propaganda and Cultural Revolution. The prosperity and the technology it today claims to have cannot be possible without the ton of foreign investments lured by penny cheap wages that undermine, if not undercut the world-wide labor union movement. Once China turns against the collective foreign investment that feeds its economic success, it would only be a matter of time before we see destruction and weakness of its frail and very limited capability.

It would be more likely that foreign companies are ordered by their governments not to do business with red China - and even then, how many countries can afford to damage business with Beijing, when it can mean many of their own people lose their jobs?

Beijing is not going to turn away foreign investment, largely for the same economic reasons. The US bombed their embassy in Yugoslavia when that country was in the fires of civil war, "mistaking it for a Yugoslav military facility". China didn't throw American companies out of the country for that.

Another hitch to other countries cutting ties with China is that, well, they may also owe Beijing money, if red China has invested their T-bills and related government bonds.

Basically, governments sell their debt through T-bills. You buy the T-bills, you give the government your money, so they can pay their debts. You hold onto them for X years. Once the T-bills mature, you get your money back from the government, plus interest.

China holds over USD 1 trillion worth of US government debt. This arrangement helps keep China's currency lower than the USD, but at the same time, the money they lend the US allows the US to pay its bills, and import more stuff from China.

Either side breaks this arrangement, and hilarity ensues.

That restaurant banning Pinoys, Japs and Viets is just another example of Chinese being proud of how far their country has progressed in such a short time. The Spratlys is one issue, but the s@%t that went down with those Hongkie tourists at Quirino Grandstand is another item that the Chinese still remember.

If it's any consolation, they're angry at the Egyptians now too, after what happened with that balloon crash.

HK is the closest place to mainland China where those Falun Gong people can safely protest without risking their lives. You can see them near the Star Ferry, Tsimshatsui.

Politically, the Chinese government wants to stay in charge. Why should they give up control when they've benefited so much from it?

But, they need to make some improvements, so the citizens' complaints don't turn into a rebellion.

The kind of government they want to run would be similar to what Singapore has: one party to rule them all, but with some more civil liberties than what the Chinese have now. No opposition party, though.