Just a note to any Total-E-Bound customers out there that TEB have revamped their website. Among the many new features is a free reads section. There are two pages of free reads there, which includes a contemporary short story of mine, as well as contributions from Desiree Holt, Sedonia Guillone, Dakota Rebel and others. Please be sure to go have a look. And happy reading.

Yesterday was also my day to write at Samhain’s blog, and I blogged a bit about moving, and changes, and what may have been overlooked in the process.

(*) ‘Cos there wasn’t enough for a grab bag.

Chapter Seven should have hit the pixels the day before yesterday and I’m following it up today with Chapter Eight. TW had a nightmare and I couldn’t get back to sleep, which explains why the chapter posting is extra early this morning!

What happened in Chapter Seven: Koul Grakal-Ski finds leverage against Garza and uses it to his advantage. He has a plan to eliminate Cheloi and gain command of Territory Fifteen, but he needs Garza’s cooperation to do it. Will she agree?

What is in Chapter Eight: While on a rendezvous with one of her more unconventional sector commanders, Cheloi and Garza are captured by rebel forces, and Cheloi gets to meet their notorious leader, Drel, face to face.

Go here to the War Games page, where you can catch up on anything you’ve missed.

Um, just wondering … how is everyone finding the serialisation? With the past couple of weeks to one side, is one chapter a week a good pace? Are you enjoying it? Not? Like to share?

I know, I was supposed to be back online by Wednesday past, but it just didn’t happen. And it’s still not happening. At the moment, I’m on a borrowed machine on a borrowed connection, after J had some interesting conversations with the General Manager of a nationwide telecommunications company. He promises us a solid connection … but only in two weeks’ time. So, if anybody out there has sent me an email, you’re out of luck. Our borrowed wireless internet connection client only works on Windows and, with a few tweaks, on Mac and I am — of course — on Linux. Curses.

Still, I should have Chapter Seven of War Games up on my site by the end of today and Chapter Eight will appear the day after tomorrow, with much apologies and bowing and scraping.

With the exception of dozens of boxes still littering every room of the house, life in Lotus Street is starting to look … well, let’s just say that if you could see to the horizon of a forseeable future, it would look kinda nice. Apologies are also due to JoSelle and Maria for running so late with the June Radio Free Bliss interviews that it won’t be June any more by the time I get to them. So much for having boundless faith in human resources and high technology.

Gotta go but will probably drop by with a quick entry on Wednesday, just to let you know that I’m still alive and that War Games is still serialising.

We’re moving! To another country! I’m already stressing and I’ve done this more times than the average bear. Customs forms, statutory declarations, inventory checklists, insurance brochures. You’d think I’d have everything down pat by now, but every country has its own forms and procedures. Here is one area where the United Nations could really help out (after all, they standardised airline luggage and routing requirements, and the international postal system), but I doubt it’s going to happen in my lifetime. So, in the meantime, I’m buried in that pile of photocopied paper over in the corner there.

With this — and my always doubtful sanity — in mind, Fusion Despatches will be on hiatus for a week and a half. If everything goes to plan (cue maniacal laughter), I should be back on Wednesday, 18 June, in time to post Chapter Seven of War Games. Apologies to regular readers for any inconvenience.

You want to know the really sad bit? I’m already trying to talk J into moving to a different country in a few years’ time. He laughs and walks away, but I think I’m slowly wearing him down.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, I should have died at the age of 8.9. Here’s the proof, in case you were wondering:

This is part of a Greenhouse calculator in the children’s “Planet Slayer” section of the website. Actually, when I first ran the quiz, I found out I was going to live forever. The next time I ran it, I tried to pick a carbon footprint that was a little bigger than the Average Australian (Pig) to see what would happen. And it told me to commit seppuku at 8.9 years of age.

Now, I don’t consider myself a particularly warm and squishy, Care Bear type. But telling CHILDREN that they should die at a particular age because they’re emittingresponsible for too many greenhouse gases is a bit … um … perverted? Also, although the way Planet Slayer is set out is geared towards kids, the questions are obviously aimed at adults. I mean, how many children you know travel by air on business? Or spend x thousand dollars a year? Or divide their annual expenditure according to “ordinary stuff”, “stuff that’s better for the environment” and — get this — “ethical investments”?

Not only, in my opinion, is this questionnaire in utter bad taste but it also commits a bigger crime of tarring all leftist types with the broad brush of lunacy. Even across the equatorial line, I can almost hear conservatives in Australia decrying the project using the usual tired lament: “Look at what these PC socialists are doing with public money! How irresponsible! They want our children to kill themselves, the immoral, godless, tree-hugging do-gooders!”. And, once more, people like me are lumped in with emotionally immature types that think A Message gives them permission to trample all over other people’s sensitivities.

“But I think that Greenhouse Calculator is entirely the wrong way to approach the subject,” I decry.
“But you think we should all be more sustainable, don’t you?” Conservative Superior snarls.
“Well, yes,” I splutter, “but not, not like thi–”
“You bloody greenie, bleeding hearts are all the same, using taxpayer’s money to come up with that drivel. You lot should be jailed.”

How can a sane socialist win? Here’s the article in the New York Post if you’re interested. The Creative Director, Bernie Hobbs, says: “We wanted to put the important things in perspective, and have a laugh along the way.” You chuckling yet?

For my slice of Internet bandwidth, I think The Three Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree handles another controversial subject in a much better manner that is more entertaining and educational than an exploding pig.

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And, as a footnote, Chapter Six of War Games is up.THE STORY SO FAR: Cheloi can’t fight the attraction she feels for her driver, but her lust is tempered by the knowledge that her entire mission could unravel if she is discovered. After four nights of stolen passion, she knows that — for her own and Garza’s sakes — she has to end the affair.

The world news is all about rising food and oil prices around the globe at the moment. Different countries have tackled this problem in different ways. In Indonesia, for example, the price of petrol is rising by 30% but the government will be handing cash to low-income families to temporarily offset the increase. Malaysia already has subsidies for staple goods (there is export control on Singaporeans swarming into Malaysia to buy up cooking oil, flour and sugar cheap before heading back across the Causeway), and is looking at measures to lift petrol subsidies for foreign-registered (i.e. mostly Singaporean, nyuk nyuk) cars.

Well, of course, Singapore wasn’t about to take this lying down. So, on 27 May, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew made a speech about how subsidies (”like welfare systems in Europe”; notice there’s not even a sly allusion to Malaysia) have lowered incentives for their citizens to strive and excel. In other words, where there’s government intervention to help the average citizen, the average citizen becomes lazy and stupid, thus leading to the downfall of Western civilisation.

Answering the complaints of Singaporeans that food and transport costs in the island state should be subsidised, LKY’s counter is that Singapore must instead produce positive economic growth year after year. If you’re wondering how one answers the other, LKY explains that if Singapore produces positive economic growth each year, then Singaporeans will have more incentive to work hard (not like those lazy MalaysiansEuropeans), and will thus earn enough money to pay market prices for food! It’s a wonder the man’s genius isn’t appreciated outside Singapore, he has such a complete grip on global socioeconomics.

A direct quote from LKY: “When everybody knows the cost of what he consumes or uses, he will spend his money more to his benefit.” Isn’t it lovely? I want that one on a t-shirt as well.

Now, here’s the thing. The Singapore government believes that it can guarantee economic growth through population influx. Thus, it is thinking of increasing the population of Singapore by approximately 2 million people over the next decade. All this will do, however, will be to increase the domestic economic figure, or GDP. It will do exactly squat to affect the international economic figures, which is what is driving such things as the cost of groceries and oil.

The Singaporean government, while aware that it has no natural resources or solid manufacturing base to speak of, refuses to concede that this puts it in a vulnerable economic situation, hence the obsession to bring in more and more workers in an effort to spin greater economic prosperity. The fact that it hasn’t helped so far with sharply rising grocery and oil prices is only emphasised by one of Mr Wang’s posts, where he mentions that, for the year 2007, Singapore’s budget had a surplus of $6.45 billion.

So, according to the Singapore government, if you have an annual surplus in excess of $6 billion, no subsidies, and rising basic costs, then the solution is to bring in more people! Elementary, my dear Lee, elementary.