Comics this week

Green Lantern #61- When they first came out, most people didn’t think much of the Red Lanterns. Beings of rage who did nothing grunt and destroy, they just didn’t cut it beside the Green Lanterns, Star Sapphires and the Sinestro Corps. So this issue came as a pleasant surprise as the Red Lanterns and their leader, Atrocitus, were given their time in the sun. Explaining the rage that burns in their heart, the guest-starring Specter was totally overshadowed as for the first time Atrocitus’ rage was shown. Another great issue in a series that’s quickly becoming DC’s best.

S.H.I.E.L.D #5- After alternating between confusion and revelation, I guess it’s no surprise that #5 made me go, “WTF?” again. Outside the power struggle of Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci, the rest of the issue made no sense. The time traveling of the 2 S.H.I.E.L.D agents didn’t help matters at all. Frankly I rather writer Jonathan Hickman just focus strictly on the struggle between Newton and Da Vinci. If he did that, this would have been a great series.

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time #7- Now this is more like it. In this Wheel of Time series, most characters have stayed true to their characters in the book. The one exception has been Moiraine. In the books, she was a woman who would turn and twist her words into anything to get her way. She’s on a quest to save the world and although her vows prevent her from outright lying, she didn’t let that stop her from getting things done. Finally we see something of that personality instead of the mother-hen act we’ve seen so far. Another solid outing in the series.

Paranoid

News of Facebook and internet users getting into a bit of bother with authorities is nothing new. Usually this is due to the users posting something critical of the government or authorities in their country. However Egypt has made the news for being maybe the first country in the world to jail someone for promoting the country!

An Internet user in Egypt, Ahmed Hassan Bassyouni, was sentenced to jail for starting a Facebook group for army recruits. The kicker however is that according to Reporters Without Border, the Facebook group Bassyouni set-up was to encourage his fellow Egyptian Internet users to enlist in the Egyptian armed forces! He was promoting the Egyptian Armed Forces to his fellow Egyptians and for that reason, he was sentenced to six months in prison by a military court.

Wow! Now since I’m not in Facebook, I can’t check to see if the Facebook group really is promoting the Egyptian armed forces but if it is…how do you spell paranoid is Arabic?

What Morals? We Are In A Capitalist World!

2 nights ago, I was watching ChannelNewsAsia and there is this program about compensated dating. Basically young girls willing go on dates with strange men in return for lavish gifts and money.

The program showed 2 cases in Hong Kong and the dangers behind compensated dating. In one case, the girl got sexual transmitted diseases while in the other, the girl was killed by her…date. The program is supposed to be a warning for young girls not to get their greed and curiosity lure them down this road. To educate girls not to trade their dignity and morals for money.

Good luck! I say that because I fully expect the program (as good and as well-meaning as it is) to be ignored. Money makes the world go round and frankly in this world dignity and morals isn’t worth a lot. Think I’m wrong?

Then how do explain the fact that this is happening throughout the world. The practice of compensated dating is thought to have originated in Japan but compensated dating is almost innocent compare to China’s biggest dating website, Jiayuan, where men and women openly advertised their willingness to marry for money. In some cases, even their willingness to be mistresses and boy-toys of rich men and women! Before anyone has any idea, this is hardly an Asian problem. Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, is at 84 marrying one of his girlfriends who is 60 years younger than him.

I feel there is no way to stop things like compensated dating. In the capitalist world we are living in, we have better luck stopping a tsunami. And like a tsunami, the best anyone can do is to pick up the pieces.

Global Warming & Weird Weather

I’m sure by now everyone has heard of the travel chaos that has engulfed Europe and America. Airports throughout Europe and America had been forced to shut down as snow has made air travel impossible.

Global warming has caused the weather to go out of whack throughout the world but to fully see the effects of global warming, don’t look at Europe or America. As bad as it is there, snow is expected. This is winter after all in Europe and America, so snow (even heavy snow) is a given this time of the year. It’s not weird. Weird weather is what is happening in Australia right now.

It is suppose to be the height of summer now Down Under but you wouldn’t know it in parts of Australia. The state of Tasmania has been hit by snow. Yes, snow in summer! And if not snow, then it is torrential rain. Rain in eastern Australia have left has flooded roads and even whole towns. All in the season of summer!

Snow and torrential rain at the height of summer! Now that’s the full effect of global warming. If this continue, I wonder when will Singapore see its first snowfall?

Comics this week

Green Lantern #60- The last few issues of Green Lantern has been leading to this. The big revelation of just who was capturing the entities was good. A little surprising but it made sense and both of that is always good. However even the good reveal will be overshadowed by the battle between Hal Jordan and a Parallax-possessed Barry Allen. Senseless banter notwithstanding, the action was good and the art from Doug Mahnke was excellent. Good issue all around.

Brightest Day #16- Firestorm and the new Aqualad, Jackson Hyde, take center-stage this issue. The Firestorm story has been by far the weakest of the lot and this issue didn’t do anything to change it. Luckily the majority of the issue is on Aqualad. Unluckily for us, the story of Aqualad this issue didn’t make much sense. The message from the chest didn’t make much sense because 1) Mera is still alive so why can’t Aquaman just bring her to see the new Aqualad and 2) how did those weapons just happen to be in the chest? The leap of logic needed for the story to work is a step down for me.

Hurricane Smith

WikiLeaks has released some pretty funny cables so far, but this one has to be the one to beat. A recently released Wikileaks cable reveals that American celebrity Anna Nicole Smith was indirectly the reason for the collapse of the government in the Bahamas.

According to the cable, Anna Nicole Smith was a hurricane that changed the face of Bahamian politics. The Anna Nicole Smith scandal was due to an alleged $10,000 bribe she paid to Minister of Immigration Shane Gibson to speed up the process of getting residency in the Bahamas. The resulting scandal toppled a string of officials and the government 2 months after Anna Nicole Smith left the country.

Here I was thinking she was nothing more than B-list celebrity who was famous for being famous and nothing else. Show how much I know!

Singapore is NOT a country!

How do you know that the PAP (People’s Action Party) is facing a tough fight in the next general election? When government ministers suddenly decided that Singapore is NOT a country but a city!

I read this article on Yahoo Singapore (dilemma-over-singapores-national-identity/), and while it’s amazing that our own ministers are saying that they are ministers of a non-country, let’s be honest on why they said such things. Foreigners!

With foreign workers and PRs flooding the country, foreign immigration is one of the most contentious issues in Singapore today. The Singapore government allows a lot of foreigners into the country…city…country…city…whatever, to bring down the cost for companies. Companies employed foreign workers instead of Singaporeans because they are cheaper and a majority of Singaporeans also believe that the influx of permanent residents buying property in Singapore is pricing citizens out of the market.

And if there are 2 things Singaporeans care about more than anything, it is jobs and housing. There is anger on these issues and, looking on the bright side, it seems the PAP know it. That's why our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is talking about “The Singapore Spirit”, why our Law (and Home Affairs) Minister K. Shanmugam say Singapore is not a country, and why our Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew (the man behind Singaproe) said that Singapore was not a nation.

Seeing that this is Singapore and the PAP is always right in the country...uh city, this means Singapore is a city and is NOT a country! Now if only I can get my 2 years of National Service back...