Remembering China Airlines Flight 611

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of the midair break-up of China Airlines Flight 611 that killed 225 people, making it the worst air disaster to occur in Taiwanese territory. The crash happened over a month after South Korea's worst air disaster, where a Boeing 767 belonging to Mainland China's national carrier, Air China, crashed on a hill near Busan, killing 129 people. Keep in mind that China Airlines comes from Taiwan, which is where the original Republic of China was exiled to after losing the battle for the Chinese Mainland during the Chinese Civil War, hence the name China Airlines.

End of the Jumbo Jet Era

Let's face it. Bigger is not always better. Four-engined passenger jets are going out of fashion because efficiency is now the new king of commercial aviation, especially when the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 are almost as prestigious as the Boeing 747-8 and Airbus A380, but with better fuel efficiency than the quad-engined behemoths. And this was already happening even before the current pandemic...

Anger Against Injustice

Let's face it. The real reason major Japanese copyright holders want to issue copyright takedowns is because their country's Anti-Terrorism Bill criminalized copyright infringement and multiple minor offences that have almost nothing to do with organized crime. As a result, Japanese netizens have a good reason to be angry with their government over the criminalization of minor offences that have no relation with organized crime and other issues such as the multiple corruption scandals involved in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. In fact, there are people who were against the Olympics even before the pandemic came along and ignited further anti-Olympics sentiment in Japan, and as the pandemic wreaked havoc, the truth about the corruption involved in the Olympics was made known to the whole world.

Exposing the wrongdoings of Japan's armed forces during World War 2 is strictly prohibited in Japan, and Japanese netizens who call the denial of war crimes an act of suppressing freedom of expression are often shunned by the government just because they speak out the truth. Such people who get shunned for telling the truth about Japan's war crimes are also among the Japanese netizens who are angry with their government as well. And this anger gets even worse when an original work of art from two South Korean sculptors was put on display at an art exhibitionin Aichi Prefecture, only to get a cease and desist from people who do not want war crimes to be made known to the whole world. In other words, we are living in the last days of freedom of expression. Only a few people realize that disturbing truth, and they may have realized it too late...

Iron Sky, Bronze Ground

Leviticus 26:19 is basically Deuteronomy 28:23 but with the sky becoming like iron and the ground like bronze.

According to Leviticus 26:19, one of the consequences of disobeying God was that the sky will become like iron, and the ground like bronze. However, this is not about the sky literally becoming iron and the ground literally becoming bronze. It just symbolizes poor harvest.

Console and Computer Equality

Let's face it. All of these consoles and computers featured in this comic would have moderate success in Singapore if not for the video game prohibition of 1983 that saw arcades banned for several years. Part of the prohibition included Singapore Broadcasting Corporation banning any telecast of video game commercials whatsoever. Even educational games such as Oregon Trail and Basic Math/Fun With Numbers were also affected by the prohibition.

While video game consoles and home computers were not banned by the prohibition, the period of that prohibition greatly affected the Commodore C64 and the Colecovision, and these two gaming machines were more popular than some of these consoles and computers featured in this comic. Sometimes, we just cannot have nice things, all because we had to protect our morals.