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Greetings, eSingapore!

I know that I had promised you an official Presidential Address yesterday. I had one all prepared and ready to go, even going as far as to publish an article. I set it up in the classic ABC way: written, recorded, uploaded, and stream into an article link. Unfortunately, fifteen minutes after posting the article, the site on which the recording was being hosted yelled "FATAL ERROR!" rolled over, and died a quick death.

As ridiculous as it sounds, it is the truth. I have waited 24 hours in the hopes that it would be revived and I could repost the article, but unfortunately, it is still dead. I have tried to find other sites from which I can stream this file, but most of them require you to visit their website first and download from there. I don't like that and don't want to force you to visit a website. So, for this one, I am giving you the option to go there and get the file, or stay here and read the script as written in its original form before recording.

As always, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave them in the comments section. Thank you for your time, and Majulah Singapura!


Click Here to download (mp3, 5.1MB, 7.5 min).

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Greetings, Singapore. I am your current President, American Border Collie. I would like to start out by saying thank you to all those who voted in the election. I have always wanted to try my hand at being a Country President, and will not let you down. Before I continue this address, there is some business to be taken care of. The first thing anyone should do when meeting a goal is to celebrate. So, let's take one minute to do that.

[CUE MUSIC]

(ad lib)

[CUT MUSIC ONE MINUTE]

Okay, Party's over. That should be enough to satisfy the first part of our business. The second thing to do after meeting a goal is to set some new ones.

But, before I get into addressing that concern, I would like to congratulate Woshiempire for having a very successful term as president of eSingapore. Woshie, I applaud you [CLAPPING].

There was very little in the way of campaigning in this election. Erius was kind enough to point this out in the comments to my first article as President. So, I will tell you right now: my plans are to continue the current policies set by Woshiempire. I am very pleased as a Singapore citizen on how things turned out, and I would like to keep that ball rolling. After all, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

As for my cabinet, I am going to be retaining some of Woshie's selections. I have worked with them in the past and feel that they have been doing a superb job at their posts. If you don't know who I am talking about, they are:

Atracurium as Minister of Defense
Mista II as Minister of Immigration
TheDark_Ace as Minister of Foreign Affairs

My Vice President and chief economic adviser will be Woshiempire during this term. I feel that asking him to fill this position will be very beneficial to my goal of keeping the proverbial ball rolling in a positive direction.

After hearing this, most of you are thinking, "But ABC, you aren't doing anything! You're just being lazy by not developing your own unique policy." That is entirely not true. Transitions between different governments and policies create a window of vulnerability for the internal and external influences that we have worked so hard to protect eSingapore from in the past. During this window, it would be relatively easy for a PTOer or troll to slip in amongst the activity and wreak total confusion between the government and its people. By keeping experienced and well-established citizens in these positions, it leaves no vulnerability for any political or military hijacker to exploit.

Speaking of threats, we have many. We still have the PTOers that we routinely fend off every month, both externally through citizenship requests and internally through the creation of new accounts, whether legitimate or multiple, inside our own borders. It is a very challenging mission to weed out those who wish to hijack our country from those who want to sincerely work to improve eSingapore. Mista has done a fantastic job on managing this so far, but I wish to tweak the process a little bit in the near future to encourage participation by those seeking citizenship for the right reasons.

One of the things I would like to add to help deter the PTO threat is the appointment of a Security Manager. His tasks would be to coordinate anti-PTO activities inside the nation, and to work with all government and political organizations to keep PTOers out of our elections. I have an idea of who I would like to appoint, however, I would like to speak with my cabinet and advisers about it first.

Another big threat to eSingapore at the present time is the PACMAN alliance between eMalaysia and the ePhilippines. They have been tirelessly working on bring eSingapore into the alliance. I know that the citizens in eSingapore have many concerns about it and that there is an even split in opinion about it. I can understand both sides, but I feel that we need to talk a little bit more about this before making a full decision about our relationship or involvement with this alliance. Therefore, I would like to open it up for discussion on our National Forum at http://tinyurl.com/eSGforums. I will post a link on the article page for your convenience. In the meantime, I plan to speak to TheDark about our diplomatic options with the PACMAN threat.

In terms of international happenings, I have been reading articles about Eden, Phoenix, and other issues within the New World's balance of power. If Eden and Phoenix were to fall, then other large alliances will form to fill that void. If eSingapore were to be approached to join one of those alliances, I believe that we should decline. I swore to neutrality when I joined this country, and I will continue to live by that promise. In addition, aligning with one of the two sides of the world will only make us a target for the other half. By maintaining neutrality, eSingapore has no reason to be attacked.

Going forward from here, I plan on sitting down and talking to each of the cabinet members to discuss what they have been doing, what they are hoping to accomplish with these actions, and what they are ultimately trying to achieve. In addition, I hope to update you every week on what we have been working on and where we are going. If you have any questions at any time about any thing, feel free to PM me. I will do my best to respond in a timely manner.

So with that, I once again thank you for electing me, and I look forward to working with everyone to maintain a glorious and independent eSingapore. Majulah Singapura!