Loosely Coupled

When I was an undergraduate at Snowy Hill, there was a sizable Singaporean community. I think we didn’t really have to look too far beyond it. I’m still meeting people from that bunch every now and then. I suppose, if you have people in that situation, you become closer. I think that those of you who are foreigners, you will know that you will hook up with ppl from your own country, and that will be the source of a lot of your friends.

I wish that I had hung out more with the natives. But I don’t really regret it that much. That crowd of people was like a family to me. As you ppl know, the most important thing about a family is to have one, and not whether you are very close to each other. I suppose I’m very paradoxical – I’m not the kind of person who gets terribly close to people, but I enjoy being part of a tribe. I suppose – OK, I know this for a fact, people are programmed to want to be part of a tribe. That is the first thing they teach you in social psychology. If you want to know about these things, there are books that you can read (I read “Imagined Communities” by Benedict Anderson and “Us and Them” by David Berreby). It does make a lot of sense, although since I’m more of a loner than average, I don’t feel these things as keenly as many other people might.

I met up with a few old friends in the States. They seemed happy to see me. We talked for a bit. My sister was there too, since she was doing research in the same university as them. And the funny thing is, we had so much to talk about, after lunch was over, we thought about meeting up for dinner. (It was my last day in that town). So we did that too. And after that was over, my sister said, “that was funny. It was just like I had talked to people and I could operate entirely on instinct. I didn’t have to guess what the American way of thinking, and the culture was. I could just operate on auto-pilot.” She didn’t exactly say that she misses that. And she’s also 10 times better than me at dealing with Americans. But there was that great big sense of relief.

I’m back in university, and by coincidence there are 2 people here from the same year in my school, and they’re both PhD holders. (wtf have I been doing with my own life anyway?) One of them I probably won’t get to meet him. I looked up the other one on Friday afternoon. And I had an astonishing conversation with him. Well he did keep on coming up with stuff to talk about. I said, it’s getting late, why dun we grab dinner? And we went, and then we talked until it was almost closing time. We had old friends that we could exchange stories about. I suppose it was a lot about not meeting these people since JC. And there’s a lot that I saw but I didn’t understand when I was a kid, and a lot that your old schoolmates did as well. Then now you revisit these things through the eyes of an adult, and it’s – to say the least, quite interesting. That was the first time I had an 8 hour long conversation in a long long time. No disrespect to people with whom I’ve recently had 4 hour long conversations with. Anyway I think it did go on for too long but I didn’t really want to stop him. I’m just wondering if, I didn't hang out enough with people, I would end up in that condition, where every old Singaporean friend is a sight for sore eyes.

After a while, I thought about it. I think that Singaporeans were brought up to be tightly coupled. I don’t mean that in the sense of having emotionally intimate relationships. But too many of us will live in only one city, ever, because of the strange existential condition of being in a one-city country. And it will be incestuous. We’ll see the same people in elite schools, and then we’ll grow up, having our own secret code, our way of doing things.

And it’s funny – we would probably understand certain things about each other that other people might not get. We don’t really operate on the emotional level. If I were to talk to an American with that kind of emotionless demeanour that I have, they would probably suspect that I wasn’t really human. But that’s not true, of course. We’ll just do it to each other, and in the end, we all understand that that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Anyway the meaning of tightly coupled would be in the software engineering sense in which different parts of the system have dense and rich interactions. It’s not supposed to be a good thing, because when one part of the system changes, it will have nightmarishly disruptive impact on the rest of the system.

Maybe, I thought, we should be more like Americans – loosely coupled. We have a lot of people, and we can potentially interact with a very large group of people from all walks of life. It’s very unlikely that we will have an extremely huge clique, which is something I think that our schooling was about. But the potential for plucking any old guy out from the crowd, and saying whats up dude to him is there.

I’m just thinking I should really learn to be a little more American in this regard. And as for whether or not that makes me less Singaporean – truthfully I don’t see that happening. I’m a pretty constant person, and it’s a little hard for me to change that much anyway.

Big Decision Time

OK, all results are out. I’m not in my 1st choice school, not in my 2nd choice school. I have to think about the University of Mexico. So I’ve got to make a decision soon. So I do what most people do: ask my friends for advice. And this is a controversial issue, very controversial.

Choice A:
I continue what I am doing, which is a part time master’s at a local uni. Academically, it’s almost as good as Mexico. I keep my job, but grow more white hair as a result of a hectic lifestyle. I think about where to go after this degree. Of course I am psychologically reluctant to take this course because of all the work I put into paving the way for choice B.

Choice B:
I go to the University of Mexico, have a nice time in Mexico. I lose a job for 1-2 years. But I get access to a new life, new friends. School fees are not cheap, in US$ terms, same as Snowy Hill 10 years ago. It has increased due to inflation, so even though Mexico is supposed to be cheaper, over the 10 years, the tuition has “caught up” with Snowy Hill’s level of 10 years ago. In S$, of course, there is a big discount due to the exchange rates. This option is also attractive to me because I love giving people surprises.

Anyway it’s very interesting because people always have different kinds of advice for me.

Person A: (knows something about the field of study)
What the hell? Do academics? Why don’t you just go into music instead? (he’s got a good point). But then again, I don't see you working here for very long.

Person B: (Studied in the field of study)
Go, just go! what's a hole in your pocket when you're going to be married to her forever?
can you hold your head up in society with an ugly wife? i say dig deep and pay for the trophy wife!
Going to Mexico can help you get a good job in the US. (Yes but do I want one?)

Person C: (Did a PhD in the field of study)
Both options are shitty deals. Why don’t you go for a PhD which is free? (nb: I need to talk to person C again because 6 months ago he told me to try out a master’s first if I wasn’t sure to go for a PhD.)

Person D: (Studied in the field of study but not involved in it right now. Is loaded.)
Do you want to change your life? Why worry about the money when you can go for a new adventure? Don’t you want to explore what life is like outside of your current circle?

Person E: (Working in that field of study)
Well whether you are going to do a master’s or a PhD, the thing is, you are eventually going to do his shit work unless you have a very good idea what you’re going to do for yourself. You have to know very well what you’re getting yourself into.

Person F: (Is an asst prof in that field of study)
I applied to University of Mexico but eventually I went to University of Cornfield because it looked like a better school. Also I didn’t find what I was looking for in Mexico. Yes, employers in the US and also in Singapore will look more kindly upon a foreign degree than a Singaporean one. (Sad but true). I lecture in a Singaporean University and I’m surprised that they don’t hire people who did their PhDs in Singapore.

Person G: (My sister, and a main reason why my choices are all in a certain region.)
Take a year off and see how it feels. (Well there are 3 semesters a year in the quarter system and I’ll try and figure out if I can cram everything into 5 quarters.) Try to think of what you really want to do next.

Person H: (Doing a postdoc in University of Mexico)
Housing is really expensive here. But Mexico is a good place for grad studies. (In the US, Mexico is usually rated between 10th and 20th for my field).

Person I: (A scientist)
The more you think about it, the more confused you will get. If you want to go just go. But you have to remember, you are not young anymore, and age will count against you in academia.

Well I’m kicking myself now. I didn’t give myself that much of a choice because I restricted my choices to a certain region in the USA. I didn’t apply to anywhere in Europe. If I got the big 2 I would not have hesitated, I would have gone. Mexico – is it really that much better than Singapore that I would drop everything and leave?

Anyway I’m superstitious. When Spain won the world cup, I was glad that there was a first time winner, because means 4 years of luck for me. And if Arsenal wins the league this year, this is a sign that things are going to change for me. Yes, big changes took place in my life, in 1989, 1991, 1998, 2002 and 2004. 2004 not so much but…

Operations research and its discontents 1

There I was, in the interview room, with 3 people looking at me. The leader of the 3, the only guy, was already near the pinnacle of his career. Another one would see hers rocket in the next 10 years (she’ll probably be a cabinet minister one day) and another one would be sideline after 10 years.

He looked at me, and noted that I had displayed a talent for maths, and asked “how would you like to do operations research?” I asked, what is that? He said it’s maths. You could do maths for a living. I thought that that was a great idea.

It’s a funny thing, but the first time I thought that maybe this bond thing wasn’t such a great idea was when I started doing OR at that time. My first exposure to OR was in a class that was taught by a professor whose work on computer algorithms was widely respected. He taught an introductory class. I asked him, after the lesson on branch and bound, “there’s no more elegant way to do this?” And he asked me, “what did you have in mind? Come up with something more interesting, and we’ll see.”

Inelegant maths
Well that somewhat destroyed one of the reasons mathematics was supposed to be so attractive. And looking back, that was probably really the first time I had encountered engineering, real engineering instead of mathematics. At the grand old age of 21, which is really really late. (Not really very very late: there was this guy, Dr Old Fogey, who did nothing but mathematics until he graduated. Then only came towards operations research when he started his PhD. And his PhD was mostly maths anyway. Then he went to teach at a university for some years. I think he was about 40 when he became an operations research practioner, when he finally came face to face with real engineering problems. Needless to say, I consider this an extremely unhealthy path of mental development.)

Granted, branch and bound is still an algorithm, and it’s still closer to maths than engineering. But there was a bit of consternation.

Doing maths until your “A” levels, it still looks quite pretty. Sines, cosines, how you cross them, flip them upside down, cross out both sides. Then there’s solving quadratic equations, like you’re doing algebra. There’s geometry, where you use neat tricks to figure out what angle is equal to what other angle. There’s matrix transformation, where you figure out what a square matrix does, based on what it does to each member of the canonical basis.

The only time you had to do something ugly was the taylor expansion, or Mclaurin’s expansion. Even those were neat because there were patterns. The only really ugly thing was Newton’s method of finding a root. And every time I did that, I felt like I had to wash my hands afterwards.

Maths in university was even more neat. Almost all the major theorems had something profound and beautiful at the same time. The fundamental theorem of algebra. The Jordan curve theorem. Galois theory. Law of large numbers. Law of rare events. Index theory. Stone-Weierstrauss.

Now, there it was, the ugliness of branch and bound, where the only elegance was that you were guaranteed to conduct a brute force search by looking through no more branches of a tree than was absolutely necessary. Quite a paradigm change for me.

I began to suspect that there was something to engineering that I didn’t really understand, but I didn’t fully understand, even then, how far up my ass I had placed my head.

Other than that introductory class to operations research, I hadn’t done much OR during my first year. I didn’t want to do OR. I felt, you didn’t just go to a really good school and go away just knowing 1 subject in-depth. The curriculum I designed for myself was supposed to look like a minimum spanning tree.

Cold and beautiful mathematics
But eventually I did OR. Unfortunately I wasn’t in the right state of mind to do mathematics. There was a time when I started actively hating that subject. It was partially to do with how I had seen more of it than at any other time in my life, even JC. Partially to do with how divorced from reality I realized those equations were. Partially to do with how I was discovering many ideas from many other subjects that were much more exciting than those you found in mathematics. (Ideas from economics, psychology, history). Those were much more lovable and human things to study. Mathematics is hard – not only in the sense that it is mentally challenging, but also hard as in hard and cold.

Sometimes the more beautiful theories are hard and cold beauty, like that of a snowflake, or an elegant skyscraper. I had thought that mathematics was everything. There was a certain arrogance that you had in the university, where physics and maths were departments which had relatively high prestige. (Wouldn’t be the case in Singapore, but it was over there.) That is not to say that the engineering department was shoddy – it was one of the best engineering schools, even though it was not MIT. There was this arrogance that, if you couldn’t say something with equations, you hadn’t really understood anything about it. That engineers were merely engineers because they weren’t good enough in maths.

But even then I was starting to rebel against that attitude. Mathematics started to become unsatisfying because … well beautiful maths is like poetry. It is elegant, it is profoundly meaningful, and there are plenty of coincidences of meaning. But it is not a universal language. You would never write a technical report in poetry. Moreover I’m a prose person, not a poetry person. I’m for analysis, not algebra. I’m for non-fiction, not fiction. The uglier maths was just – well, ugly.

Inadequacy of means
Statistics was even worse. There was this assumption that everything was normally distributed. I could feel it in my bones that a lot of this just wasn’t true. Waiting times in a queue are almost never normally distributed. The wealth of people is not normally distributed. The intensity of natural disasters is not normally distributed. I just didn’t know what the student’s t-distribution was good for. Every time I used it for the wrong reason, I felt like I was shoving a square peg down a round hole.

I suppose it was possible to find better distributions, but then you had to find a different test for a different distribution. Very mathematically intensive.

There were other aspects of operations research that were fairly unsatisfying. One of them was the exponential arrival pattern. I suppose that the memory-less property was fairly wacky. Suppose you were waiting for a bus that came on average every 5 minutes. And suppose you had already been waiting for 5 minutes. Well, you could expect to wait for another 5 minutes.

Actually that was wacky enough. Another wacky inter-arrival distribution are things like earthquakes, where if an earthquake had just happened, it was more likely to happen again in a short period of time. Conversely if it hadn’t happened for a long time, it’s just never going to happen.

What I didn’t like about studying queuing theory was this. Either you did it with mathematics equations, in which case you had to do an absurd amount of mathematics for a relatively simple system. (I suppose this is true of a lot of physical systems: typically your physics questions in “A” levels involve fewer than 5 objects, and you have to write pages and pages of equations. And remember that nobody seriously attempted the 3 body problems until you had computers you could program to simulate what happened.)

Eventually, we have to resort to something that is brutally inelegant: simulations. And the worst part? Simulations give you generally accurate predictions about outcomes, until the complexity of the situation is too much for even computers to handle. (see earth sciences). The most unsavoury aspect is when you assume that the final product is a bell curve. I just thoroughly detest the bell curve: especially when modeling something as normally distributed is wrong, which happens surprisingly often.

What I didn’t like about doing optimisation was this: you assumed that the information was static, and you assumed that it was reliably correct. Both are very bad assumptions to make under operating conditions. It’s like somebody with a 155mm cannon having a fight with somebody with a M16. Under ideal conditions, the 155mm cannon guy will blow the crap out of the M16 guy, who will meet the nastiest death possible for a human being. 9 times out of 10, the M16 guy will win, because he can shoot the 155mm guy in the head before he loads the first shell, and even if he runs out of bullets, he can probably bayonet the gunner anyway.

To be sure, there are textbook examples of how optimisation can perform very well. For example, the allocation of resources. Rostering. Possibly some scheduling, but scheduling is a very iffy thing, because there is so much uncertainty involved. You need more and more sophisticated ways to do optimisation under uncertainty.

Fundamentally, one disappointment about operations research is this. At first, you are persuaded that you have “scientific” tools at your disposal, and that you will bring enlightenment to the poor people who have been doing things as in dark ages. Then you go to a school and they teach you textbook cases, and you’re thinking, “gee, this looks pretty simple and straightforward”. But later on, you start noticing that your models are not only an imperfect representation of reality in the sense that the answer will be an approximation to the best answer. It is often imperfect enough that your computer generated answer runs the risk of looking fairly ridiculous.

This is not computer science, where, once you type the program in the book into the computer, and assuming that your system requirements are satisfied, and assuming you don’t have bugs, it will work perfectly every time.

(to be continued)

Twenty Oh Eight

You know, when I started blogging, I usually could keep track of what I’ve already written, and what I’ve not. But now it doesn’t seem so easy. And if I have written about this before, forgive me.

1973 was supposed to be a big watershed year in America. A lot of shitty things happened that year from the point of view of USA. First, there was a big recession. There was an Arab-Israeli war and I think that, related to that, the OPEC nations got together, and for one of the very few times, issued a joint embargo on exporting oil to the USA. This was one of the first major oil shocks.

This was a few years after 1970, which was the peak oil year for oil in the USA. 1970 was the last time that USA could dig enough oil to feed itself. After 1973, it became apparent that the USA would forever be dependent on the Middle East for oil. This also started a period in which the USA started meddling around in that region because it had important business there.

1973 was also the year of a great constitutional crisis. Reports had begun to emerge that Richard Nixon, the president, was abusing his power. 1 year later, Richard Nixon would resign the presidency, and if he didn’t resign, he would almost certainly would have been impeached and asked to leave.

What followed was half a decade of the most traumatic time in the US since the end of WWII. There was the double whammy of inflation and stagnant growth. A lot of social programs that were signed into law by Lyndon B Johnson were falling apart. In spite of the best intentions, in spite of the triumphant civil rights acts of the 1960s, the divide between the rich and poor, between the white and blacks, was growing. There were several oil crises. There was the Iranian hostage crisis.

I feel that 2008 is a similar year in the USA’s history. I said that I had visited the USA during 2 of the most important historical moments: the end of the cold war and 9/11. And I thought that the nomination of Obama was the big historical moment in the US history. I was wrong. 2008 was a lot like 1973: a year in which the prestige of the US was to take a big blow. It was the year the subprime crisis brought the US economy to its knees. It was the culmination of years of growing its economy by assuming more and more debt. Years of plenty of policies that benefit mainly the wealthy at the expense of everybody else.

In truth, there was the cumulative effect of the middle class being eroded away since the 1990s. Jobs going offshore. Layoffs and job cuts. But the Great Recession of 2008 was when it all came to a head. That was the time when all the sins of the Bush Administration was being laid out, starkly for all to see. Increasing deficit, because you’re giving too many tax breaks to the rich. Hurricane Katrina. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The mismanagement of the economy.

Briefly, Obama galvanized the nation with his message of hope and reconciliation. But I don’t think, even if he was a great person, he would have been able to do that much about USA’s problems. He can improve things in the USA, but there’s a lot that’s rotten about that country. The rich don’t care about the poor. You go to jail if you’re black and poor. People seem to expect the world from the government, even if they’re think if it as the greatest evil. Congress is corrupt and is constantly beholden to special interests. The US is drowning in a sea of debt.

And the saddest part is that it’s more or less a fallen superpower. It’s no longer a superpower, just one of the great powers, amongst other emerging powers like China and the EU.

So my streak of visiting the USA during historically pivotal moments has continued: 2008 is a year that the pendulum has swung decisively against the US.

3 inventions that changed the world

As an aside, you may have known that old story that the white man colonised the world using 3 inventions – the gun, the compass, and paper. All of these were Chinese inventions. I now say that the collapse of the economy in the West was due to three US inventions. The internet (made outsourcing easier), the container box (made it much easier and more economically viable to move manufacturing operations overseas) and laissez-faire capitalism, which basically took a lot of political power away from governments and gave it to big businesses.

All the 6 inventions mentioned here are involved in some way with globalisation. Some people have taken to calling globalisation a hoax, mentioning that the majority of business transactions are still local. That is true. But hasn't it affected the west in so many ways? The ridiculously high jobless rate? The decline of the previously wealthy first world countries?

One step closer

I know what it’s like to feel smart, and I know what it is like to feel stupid. People who know me: if you were to ask them which one I am, half will give you one answer and the other half will give you the other.

After Daniel Goleman introduced the concept of EQ to the world in 1995 (that was the year that book came out) the idea of multiple intelligences has truly caught on. But already in the 1980s Howard Gardner has classified intelligences into roughly 7 segments. We now know that the brain is a Swiss Army jackknife, and all the components have differing capabilities relative to the rest of the population. The nerd has got great analytical skills but poor psychomotor skills. The jock, vice versa.

I suppose when I went in to take a standardised test, there were already some good omens. First, the astrological readings said that I had high energy today. That’s good. The second thing is that I bumped into a friend I hadn’t seen very much since primary school. He later went on to shingot’s JC and probably was top student there or something. Talking to him, I realised why they gave him a prestigious scholarship – he’s a humble guy, feet on the ground. He was going to do his master’s in public admin. I suppose he’ll stay in the civil service for quite a while – he might become somebody famous, or not.

We talked for a bit. I suppose you can always talk to your old friends. But considering that the last time we interacted meaningfully – I had him over for my 12th birthday party. He gave me a birthday present, a pirated copy of Phantasie. I was to play that game a lot in Pri six, and to date it was the only computer based RPG I played a lot of. From Pri 4 to 6, we always played police and thieves during recess. That was the last year of real childhood, just before they start grabbing you by the collar and tell you right in the face that you’re growing up to be a real man and you better start acting like one. (Or if you can’t act like one, at least be as smart as one.

The bad omen, the extremely bad omen is that the scores may not come in time for certain uni applications. But since I know my score, that may not matter very much.

It was weird going to the building. The testing place was opposite the Science Centre, which I also last visited while in primary school. The process was very meticulous. My friend said that the ante room looked like a police station, where you held all the suspects before taking them in for questioning. You had to sign a declaration saying that you were indeed the person who registered for the test.

When they called your name, you found yourself in some kind of a control centre. There were closed circuit cameras on every test taker of a computer monitor. It was like motherfucking 1984. When you left the room, you had to sign out, and they checked your signature against the one in the passport.

They had a locker for you. You were to empty all your pockets. I was shunted around by a grumpy short Malay woman. (Reminds me a bit of the grumpy short woman I know at work). I asked, you want my coins as well? She said, “which part of ‘everything’ do you not understand?” Then she shunted me over to the computer, and asked me to look at this funny webcam. I looked at it as though it were that machine from Men in Black that makes you forget everything.

I went to the terminal, and I was fairly amused that the picture that they took of me froze me in a kind of a “what the fuck” position.

The test itself went well. I had the first indication that things were going OK when they told me that they weren’t repeating either the verbal or the quantitative section. Instead, they asked me to be a guinea pig and help them test a whole new quantitative section.

I had a pretty decent score. I was glad I didn’t have to take the GRE again. The computer based GRE will repeat one of your sections if you did badly, but that didn’t happen to me. Instead, it said, here’s a new section for you. If you're one of the top 100 scores, you stand to win a $100 dollar prize!!! So I did that section too.

I don't know how I did on the writing but since I do so much practice over here for the benefit of you guys I think I should be OK.

I felt a bit like a man again. There was this time when Dr Old Fogey gave a short academic quiz to everybody, I was the only one who got full marks on it. (But then there were only 3 people, including myself and Dr Old Fogey, who had gone through that material in a graduate-level course). That was quite satisfying because I did feel that Dr Old Fogey had been looking down his fucking nose at me the whole time we were in the same department as each other.

Well sometimes in my current job I don't really feel like a man. And this is where I'll tie it in with the stuff I've written earlier. There were some skills the job required and I realised, to no small panic, that I had to develop them from scratch. And when I saw people who were so much better than me, I felt a certain despair that I hadn't really felt before.

I think that people who never had to deal with their own stupidity are lucky in their own way. Probably the way that I was back at school, when I was just good at learning. I took 5 minutes to learn what some others took 1 hour to learn. I was never allowed to think, "well I'm more hardworking, aren't I?" but I can see why people who have more talent just think that way. Other people around them struggle, and they can put in more effort, but because the results don't come, they're lazy and useless. I've had to deal with that relatively late in my life.

Will I learn those skills? To be fair, I hadn't learnt some of those skills because I wasn't really interested in them. And it was hard to pick up those skills because I still aren't really interested in them. Was I going to stay in this state for a long time? I thought, shouldn't I just try to run away to another place where those skills were not as crucial as they are in my current place? I always had an intention to do so, just never got around to doing that.

And now - the future? It's hazy. Very hazy. But at least, I think, it will be somewhat different from marching on the spot forever. Another tentative step towards the door, then...

Rwanda

When I first set up my first blog in 2003 I had intended to talk quite a bit about my uni days, which at that time was just 1 year in the past, rather than many years. But I still remember them, partly because they made me think a lot, and partially because many things have taken place since then that have cast everything in here in a different light.

One of the more memorable courses I had taken in the uni was a philosophy course which grappled with the question, “is it OK to invade another country and save them if a genocide is taking place?” They looked at 2 incidents, the Rwanda genocide of 1994, and the Kosovo war of 1999, which culminated in the bombing of Belgrade.

Rwanda was not a country I had heard about. It is one of the smallest countries in Africa, and the most densely populated country. This is the story that I had read: there were 2 main castes in Rwanda: the Tutsis and the Hutus. In ancient times, the Tutsis were the elites, and they were the aristocracy. The colonial powers (in this case, Belgium) sided first with the Tutsis, and later on the Hutus. There was a lot of potential for friction in this situation, although there were also times when both of these peoples got along fine.

In 1959, there was an extermination of Tutsis by the Hutus, and the Hutus set up the government, and they have ruled Rwanda since. Many of the Tutsis were in exile all over Africa, and also elsewhere in the world. In 1994, there were Hutu extremists in Rwanda who hatched a propaganda plan to kill all the Tutsis. It was a plan that was planned for very carefully, and executed impeccably. However, it was presented in the newspapers as a spontaneous outbreak of tribal violence: this was, I suppose bias on the part of newspaper reporters who don’t think that Africans can ever get their shit together to pull of something as impressive as this.

In April 1994, a plane carrying the Rwanda president was shot down. He died. This was seemingly the trigger for the genocide to take place. Over the next few months, around 1 million Tutsis got slaughtered by Hutus.

A lot of what was said in the course centred around the inaction of the UN peacekeeping force that was stationed in Rwanda at that time. The commander had been told time and time again not to take action against the Hutu government, even when they had knowledge that weapons were being freely circulated around the country for the genocide to take place. Later on, it turned out that France, who has a permanent seat on the UN security council (this is one of the 5 really powerful positions in UN, the other 4 being UK, US, China and Russia) was solidly behind the Hutu government of Rwanda, because they thought that it was important that France should have more influence in Africa.

Looking back at the term paper I wrote at that time, I condemned the rest of the world for leaving them alone. I had absorbed and synthesised the lessons of the course, and I was parroting the conventional wisdom. To me it seemed that the rich, imperialist nations were just plundering the resources of the poor 3rd world countries, and all the financial risk fell entirely upon the poor countries: changes in commodity price could adversely affect their economies and produce reccessions many times worse than what you saw in the richer countries.

I thought they were evil, but later on I took the more nuanced view that the world does not give a shit about you. Being evil and not giving a shit are different things, and the conclusion is of different degrees of culpability. I forgot to blame the Rwandans themselves for not being able to form a strong government.

A lot of the horrors unleashed by the end of the Cold War were motivations for "armed intervention". There definitely was a sense that the US could have "done something".

The other angle I missed out upon is the sheer logistics and legality involved in staging an armed intervention. I completely underestimated how difficult it was to commit US troops to a dangerous mission that did not have much to do with US interests (even as it could save many Rwandan lives). I forgot to ask how complicated the political and legal issues are for a Team America to dash in to save the day.

The Iraq War took place after I was out of uni. I saw some of the implications of armed intervention that I didn't forsee. I still think it's a great plus that Saddam Hussein was removed, that Iraq was no longer a pariah state. But I also saw whatever was still functional about Saddam Husseins government fall apart. I saw how the US invasion was partially motivated on good intentions, but I also saw a lot of corrupt intentions.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the Iraq war. For Rwanda, I came across a book which updates the story of Rwanda - and it is one of the most remarkable stories I've heard. Not long after the genocide, a military movement, the Rwandan People's Front, led by a skinny general called Paul Kagame won a series of military victories that enabled it to take provisional control of much of Rwanda. From there, it fought a lot of civil wars on the soil of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and defeated a lot of its militia enemies. In some ways, the RPF adversely contributed to the 2nd Congo War, which was one of the bloodiest wars in history. Inevitably there were some atrocities commited. But they managed to vanquish their enemies and then carry on with their nation building.

So it was quite shocking to know that as of now, Rwanda has a reputation of being one of Africa's best governed states. Paul Kagame has so far been the sort of benevolent dictator in the mould of Lee Kuan Yew and - great as Lee Kuan Yew's achievements have been, he didn't have to fight any major wars. Like Lee Kuan Yew, he's blessed with driven and hardworking people.

What happened with Rwanda challenged a lot of lessons I thought I had learnt in university. Perhaps the US was not that important to Rwanda anymore. Kagame wants nothing to do with the US or the UN. Understandably - because they seriously let down Rwanda in the past, but also for some other reason that I can't recall at this moment. Instead, they are co-operating with many NGOs to build development projects. Because of the international exposure that Rwanda had from the genocide, it attracts a lot of help from corporations who want to improve their image (looking at you, Starbucks). But a lot of the help comes in the form of co-operative projects and transfer of technology, rather than just monetary aid. An important lesson for the rest of Africa.

I suppose a lot of this is not in my area of expertise, even though it was a minor for me in college. I must admit that I will always be a bit of a dilettante when talking about politics. I can understand underlying principles and posit some theories but will never master the massive amounts of information that comes with being a domain expert.

As a sidenote, this has probably come as a surprise to some of you but I have banned myself from going to the library. I think I'll blog about this later.

World Cup

1. Where I have been watching the World Cup:
I will probably catch all the free matches in the comfort of my living room. So semi-finals onwards, no going out.
Robertson Quay
A friend’s place (he installed a pirate receiver)
McDonald’s
TCC Circular Road
There was a place in the newly built OrangeTee building, but I balked at them charging $30 cover pp.
I think 1 or 2 coffeeshops were screening them but I didn’t watch any at a coffee shop this time.
I was watching 1 match (Germany Argentina) at a community centre. There is quite an atmosphere when you’re there, but also a lot of assholes who just come up and block your view, and they wait until you tap them on the shoulder and ask them to move aside. But to be fair, there were hundreds of viewers in that place, and I would say that of all the locations, that was the one with the best atmosphere.

2. This has been a dreadful World Cup.
I did a calculation of the group stage. The goals to game ratio was abject: 2.0. In the first game of all the teams, you could place bets on all the games to finish under 2.5 goals, and you would have won the majority of them. I think there were more goals in the knockout matches.

I heard that the World Cups all the way until 1986 were pretty decent. The one in 1994 was quite OK. The rest of them were total crap. I think in 2006 there was still some pretty decent football. There was the Argentina demolition of Serbia. It was nice to see Zidane rolling back the years. This tournament? I shudder at the thought that they will put together a compilation of "best moments" and we won't see anything worth watching.

Brazil became tactical. Holland became tactical. Argentina didn't deliver. Portugal became ultra-defensive. The Brazil Holland quarter final was exciting but ultimately it was decided by which team made the fewest defensive errors.

3. A lot of journalists have had to eat their words
A lot of predictions did not come true. One of them was the prediction that Ivory Coast was one of the favourites. To be fair, they would probably have progressed to the second round if they weren’t bunched in together with Brazil and Portugal.

Another prediction was the desperate hope that England would have a good World Cup, and they listed other examples of countries that had good tournaments in spite of starting slowly: England in 1990, Italy in 1982. It didn't happen. Yet another prediction was that England's group was EASY - England, Algeria, Slovenia, Yanks. Not for this cohort.

All the South American teams reached the 2nd round. Then there were 4 teams in the quarter-finals. This was hailed as a period of South American dominance. Then after the quarters were over, all the South American sides were massacred, and the only one that got through used desperate measures. I thought that this tournament would have an European winner because the winter conditions favour the Europeans. I had some reason to doubt that in the last few weeks but now it seems like that prediction would come to pass.

After Argentina reached the quarter-finals, there were some people ready to canonise Maradona, attributing the "success" of the team to his crazy man-management skills. There were reports of his team bonding sessions. Of how he often consulted Jose Mourinho. Of how he, like Jose Mourinho, often used his outsized personality to deflect attention away from his players. There was even a report of how he was in a near death state in 2004, and how this amazing turnaround, for him to be - uh - 3 matches away from an amazing World Cup victory and a naked romp through Buenos Aires. Another report that slammed Pele for being a bitter old man for saying that Maradona couldn't coach. (To be fair, that report had some merit: Maradona exceeded some admittedly low expectations in his performance as a coach, while Pele, I think, had proven himself to be a lousy coach.)

Well, Maradona himself did say that South American sides were not at the level of the European sides yet. Maybe somebody should have listened to him. In retrospect, we found that none of their opponents so far - South Korea, Greece, Nigeria or Mexico - were top class opposition. That the qualification campaign was very shaky. That while having talented players relaxed enough to perform was good enough against them, when it came to the Germans, you needed to have the best coaching, the best tactics.

Another prediction that failed to happen was that Brazil would turn out to be world beaters. People forgot that Dunga was a first time coach, and they started to entertain the possibility of him shaping a team in his own image, the tough and committed tackler. They didn't have Elano, Kaka was below his best, and he left out Ronaldinho. That means that Robinho was the only special player. More significantly, the defence didn't do its job: or rather, they made 2 very significant mistakes. In the end, Dunga didn't know how to chase a game.

4. Quality of the coaching left much to be desired.
Many of the coaches, coming into this game, had big reputations. There were the former Real Madrid coaches: Fabio Capello, Vincente Del Bosque, Carlos Quieroz. Sven Goran Eriksson, latterly of England, was managing Ivory Coast. There were former World Cup winners, like Carlos Alberto Perreira and Marcello Lippi.

Then there was Raymond Domenech. More about him later.

The coaching has left much to be desired. Fabio Capello was already reported to be in a bad temper just before the World Cup, justifiably concerned at the poor form of the English. Morale was not good. In many ways he was the opposite of Eriksson, who usually pandered to the whims of his players. He was an alpha male who did not bow to player power, especially when he stripped John Terry of his captaincy. But some players did not like his decisions, and John Terry mouthed off to the pressed about some player dissent. That could not have been good for morale in the camp.

Eriksson looked lost as Ivory Coast was run over by Brazil, a result which cost them qualification to the second round. Carlos Alberto Perreira could not take advantage of the fading French to qualify for the second round either. In truth their campaign was lost when they drew the opening round to Mexico instead of winning. As we now know, Uruguay are quite good.

Carlos Quieroz's credentials have often been questioned. Just like Steve McLaren, he was Alex Ferguson's number 2, and a very good one at that. But on his own? His time in charge of Real Madrid was the start of 3 or 4 barren years without a trophy, in spite of having a galaxy of stars. His Portugal had a bad start to the qualifying campaign. To be fair to him, managing Real Madrid is very difficult because the boss always questions your decisions. And the Portugal is not the same one that reached 1 major tournament final and 2 semi-finals in the last decade. But it still had Cristiano Ronaldo, and hopes were briefly raised when they trashed N Korea 7-0. In the end, though, against Spain, they didn't have a clue about what to do once they got behind. There was no plan B. Portugal was set up to defend, not attack. After they were 1-0 behind Spain, they just kept on defending.

Cristiano Ronaldo was unhappy with his tactics, and his remark, when somebody asked him why Portugal lost, was "go ask Quieroz".

"There was no plan B" was also the problem with Brazil vs Holland. Brazil had never been behind before in the World Cup. When Holland equalised, they started panicking and looking lost. I think that Brazil play the tough-defence and counter attack with flair players. So without 1 of their flair players, and when their defence started looking shaky, that was the beginning of the end.

Argentina didn't have a clue against Germany. The Germans were always closing down on space, but Argentina didn't know how to do that. Considering their quality of players, Argentina deserved to make the semi-finals, and with a tournament where France and Italy went out, who knows? In the end, this was a missed opportunity, especially when you have somebody like Messi in your side.

Marcello Lippi won a lot of praise for winning the World Cup in 2006, but essentially his tactics were very defensive. I wonder what his place in history is, given that his side flopped so badly. Same for Roger Lemerre, who won the 2000 Euros with the best French side in a long time, and then royally screwed up 2002.

Otto Rehhagel was lionised for winning Euro 2004, and while it is one of the greatest managerial achievements of all time, his record after that was mixed, going out in first rounds in 2008 and 2010, and not even qualifying for 2006. Perhaps it was the right time for him to go.

Vincente Del Bosque must have felt some satisfaction at having knocked Quieroz's Portugal out of the World Cup. He was fired from Real Madrid after having won both the Champion's League and La Liga, because the president wanted a more media friendly coach - Quieroz. Del Bosque inherited a very talented squad from Aragones, who was the hero who won Euro 2008. But the loss of a very significant member of that squad - Marcos Senna - unbalanced the team, and as a result, they are slightly weaker than the one which mopped the floor with everybody else in 2008. They came in as favourites to win the World Cup but after shaky performances against Switzerland, Paraguay and Honduras, many are doubtful they can get past the seemingly imperious Germany.

5. Precedents were meant to be overturned
No host nation has ever failed to get past the first round. The US could have been one, but they were a little lucky in getting past Columbia (that was the match that doomed Andres Escobar to get murdered).

Until 2002, no defending champion has ever been kicked out of the first round. But France did it, in one of the most abject defences ever. And then Italy got kicked out of the 2010 tournament. Suddenly it’s looking commonplace.

Spain lost their opening match. Commentators said that no team has ever lost an opening match and yet still gone on to win the finals. But Italy (1994) and Argentina (1990) came close, going on to the finals. And there were a few incidents of countries being beaten once in a group stage, and yet winning the World Cup.

6. Some of the minnows were impressive
Since 2002, there has been a levelling of the playing field. The Asian sides were no longer minnows, there to make up the numbers. The European sides were no longer as powerful as yesteryear, when all the dark horses were European. Remember Belgium (1986)? Denmark (1986)? Croatia (1998)? Romania (1994)? Bulgaria (1994)? Even Sweden (1994)?

Now the dark horses were Senegal (2002), Turkey (2002), South Korea (2002), USA (2002), Ghana (2010), Uruguay(2010).

There are countries like Portugal, England and Holland who are on the periphery of great soccer powers, but are not dark horses either. In part the decline of the Europeans can also be attributed to some countries splintering into smaller ones (USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia). Those 3 countries would have been minor soccer powers, but now they're just minnows.

In this world cup, there were quite a few surprises from the minnows.

- Slovakia emerged top of a group that included the Czechs (The Czechs' golden generation which included Nedved, Koller, Baros and Cech had recently retired). They surprised many by beating Italy.

- Slovenia surprised many by qualifying ahead of euro 08 semifinalists Russia, and later on they made the US crap their pants.

- Algeria drew with England and cost me $10. In fact, many people thought that Egypt should have qualified in their place.

- Greece finally won some points, and beat Nigeria.

- New Zealand was a surprise qualifier (although the team they did beat in the playoff, Bahrain, would also have been a surprise qualifier). They did not make the final round, but they never lost any of their 3 matches either.

- The Swiss didn't qualify, but they gave the Spaniards something to think about. And judging from the imperious form of the Germans so far, who would have thought that a little-fancied side like the Serbians failed to beat them?

- Honduras qualified.

- Chile had a better than expected qualifying campaign and got into the second round.

- USA, Japan and South Korea got into the second round.

That said, minnows don't usually make for exciting football. You couldn't look at the minnows and say that some incredible football talent has been unearthed at the tournament. Nowadays scouting networks are so good that it's very rare for a major talent to exist, but the world doesn't know about it.

7. The quarter finals were dramatic
To be sure, they weren't exciting in the football sense. Everybody expected Brazil to brush off Holland like it was swatting a fly. It was a game that had relatively little flair, considering the pedigree of the 2 sides involved in that match. But as I watched this on the 2nd level of a shophouse with 50 other people, it was exciting to see the Oranje defy expectations, and equally so to see Brazil implode so spectacularly, like they did 4 years ago.

I was especially pleased because I'm superstitious: if the World Cup winning team has won it for the nth time, if n is low, I have a good 4 years. If n is high, I have a lousy 4 years. I had a good 4 years after France won it for the first time, or Argentina won it for the 2nd time. It was not so good for me after Germany won it for the 3rd time. Pretty lousy for me after Italy won it for the 4th time, or after Brazil won it for the 4th and 5th times. So I felt very happy that Brazil would not win it for the 6th time.

I decamped to a McD's and watched the Uruguay Ghana match up until the Sulley Muntari 30 metre special. (I've seen him do that for Portsmouth before) Then I got sleepy and drove home, not expecting the spectacular drama that was to take place in the last moments of extra time.

We know about it because it's been written about so extensively: Ghana shoots, a goalkeeper punches. Ghana shoots again, a defender clears it off the line. Ghana shoots for the third time, and Suarez clears it off the line with his hand. The resulting penalty is missed. Then Ghana loses to Uruguay on penalties.

People can argue about whether this is cheating or not. There are people who say that he was a hero for sacrificing himself to get Uruguay into the semis, something they had not managed since Switzerland 1954. There are those who considered it cheating, since it's no big deal to be playing with 10 men for the last 1 or 2 minutes. The benefit from the handball was not obvious: when Suarez walked off the pitch, he was crying, because the penalty would have put Ghana through anyway. Except that the penalty was missed.

Some people said that it was not cheating, because he did the crime, and he did the time. Some people thought that it went against the spirit of the game, which is to get a fair result. It would have been a goal if he hadn't handled, that's the one thing everybody agrees.

There was a time when I was in a Maths quiz. I was in sec 2, up against the sec 1s. At the last question, we were 2 points up. It was a snatch question, worth 2 points. I remember thinking about whether I wanted to snatch that question first, since if the first team failed to answer and the other team answered it, the other team would only get 1 point instead of 2. In the end, I didn't, and it got into a draw. Then I lost the tie-breaking question. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

In other words, I think I should have done what Suarez did.

The Argentina Germany match was a spectacular one. Maradona faced Germany twice in 2 world cup finals, in 1986 and 1990. He won one and lost the other. The Germans were the nemesis for Argentina, as much as they were for the English. In the end, the scoreline was sensational. It wasn't a trashing, because those who saw the match (in the cc hall, most of the Singaporeans were rooting for Argentina) would know that Argentina pegged Germany back for long periods in the match. Player for player, Argentina were probably better, but Germany knew how to defend and Argentina didn't.

The last quarterfinal would have been comparably unexciting, except for the 2 missed penalties, and a disputed call that disallowed a Paraguay goal.

Well if this is when the tournament finally comes to life, it's a little too late for that.

8. Jabulani and Vuvuzela
These are the twin villians of the current World Cup. The Jabulani ball received numerous complaints. To be sure, every time the match ball is changed, there are complaints, but none so many as this. There are people who believe that the Jabulani has contributed to the lower quality of play in the matches.

Some have already commented on the vuvuzela before the World Cup began. It's quite irritating, although I can imagine that someday somebody will record My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" with a Vuvuzela orchestra.

9. Handballs
The "Hand of God" in 1986 was a spectacular piece of cheating, because it was the most blatant incident up till then. To be sure, the Argentines had already been infamous for playing rough, as were the Uruguayans. But that was an incident that involved the best player in the world at that time, against a country that had just won the Falklands war against them. Maradona would later cheat again, by taking drugs in 1994 to enhance his physical capabilities.

This campaign has seen 3 instances of handballs change the course of crucial games. First was the infamous Henry handball against Ireland, which was the most controversial incident, because it involved the deception of a referee. Henry was basically in no man's land immediately afterwards. If he had admitted it to a referee, he would have been praised by everybody outside of France, but he could have cost them a place in the World Cup, and he could have been lynched by his own teammates. As it turned out, he kept quiet and now everybody thinks of him as an asshole, even his fellow Frenchmen.

Second was how Luis Fabiano handled the ball in the buildup to a goal against the Ivory Coast. OK, it wasn't the hand, it was the arm. But it was equally serious. And the referee afterwards seemed to say to him, "it was alright, no handball". Stupid referee. Since Brazil beat the Ivory Coast by more than 1 goal, it didn't change the result.

The last incident was Luis Suarez, which I discussed earlier.

10. France and Italy
Even by the very low expectations of France, they did badly. We knew that Domenech was a dickhead as a manager, but surprisingly his players turned out to be even greater dickheads.

Patrice Evra went on strike. He led a few players to strike against what they felt to be unjust treatment of Anelka. They imploded. After a creditable draw with Uruguay, they lost to Mexico and South Africa. Evra said, right after the loss to South Africa, that soon the truth will be known, as though he were in the right. But I don't know whether that's the case. Alex Ferguson is reportedly very angry with him. Lilian Thuram, Evra's predecessor as France's left back said that Evra should never play for France again.

Some people also think that Anelka should not play for France again.

Another rumour exists that, if proven true, should be a source of everlasting discredit to the French team. Apparently everybody hates Yoann Gourcuff, a player who's style of playing is similar to Zidane, and an apparent heir to his position as France's playmaker. The 1998 and 2000 teams had a backbone of children of immigrants. For people who want to criticise Singapore's team for having foreign imports, look at that team. They had parents from Senegal (Vieira), Algeria (Zidane), the Congo (Makalele), and the Guadelope (Henry and Thuram). There was also Bixente Lizarazu, who's Basque. Of course these places are more closely associated with France than Nigeria, Bosnia or Brazil are associated with Singapore. But still...

Well apparently Gourcuff's problem is that he's too French. He's from a privileged background, talks like somebody from the upper class, and is too scholarly and nerdy. Reminds you of Zidane, to be sure, but at least Zidane had street credibility: he was somebody who grew up in a tough slum. I think the players were instructed to put him in the middle of the plays. Well the other players hated him and refused to pass the ball to him.

I think this is reflective of French society as a whole. The French were the inventors of the slogan "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", and to their credit, they embraced the immigrants who won the 1998 World Cup for them. But they're not good at integrating the immigrants into their society. The typical Frenchman will champion values like human rights, democracy and equality in the abstract, but they will stay far away from the immigrants. The society is very divided.

The immigrants, on the other hand, have failed to reach out to the French. A lot of them are Muslims, who came from countries where the government has very little legitimacy because they are dictatorial, or are laughingly ineffective. They are glad to receive government handouts, but many don't want to find jobs or become more French, because they're too happy with their underdog, "wretched of the earth" status.

A case in point: Patrice Evra. I don't know if he is one of those who feels that he is one of the beleaguered underclass, but I once saw an article about him where he was praising one of his "minders" at Man United. The "minder" was somebody who helps foreign players in the EPL get things done in their daily lives: essentially some kind of butler who finds housing for you, fixes things for you, and organises parties for you. In inadvertently he was advertising the fact that he was a spoilt brat. How does he square this the supposed indignation at being a member of the oppressed minority?

And if you thought the coach was stupid, and the players stupider, you should see what the parliament did. They're calling an inquest into the French Football team. FIFA always denounces it when the government interferes with football. There were a few incidents where the Sports Ministers made statements about the national team, which were not welcome. Like how the Togo government told the national team to return home from Angola. Sepp Blatter is reportedly not impressed with the French.

But in a way, this will be interesting, and it will reveal a lot of what French society is really about. I don't know if Sarkozy ran the inquiry in order to boost his flagging popularity with his people. We don't like it when Mah Bow Tan talks about Goal 2010 because it's such a naked way of scoring points. We don't like it when they mix sports with politics because it's always distasteful. But hidden in here are some issues that finally need to be addressed.

What happened to Italy? I don't know. They won the 2006 world cup by being extremely stingy with the defence, and goading Zidane into making that headbutt. Now they don't have younger stars to take over the great generation, and the older ones like Cannavaro - I think he went downhill after that tournament. They'll be missed as badly as Greece 2004 - which is not at all.

11. Nudity
There were a few declarations from people who promised to strip nude and run around if their country won the World Cup. First Maradona promised to run naked through Buenos Aires if Argentina won. Possibly that was a vote of confidence against himself, ie he was sure he wouldn't win.

Then there was Larissa Riquelme, who was amply endowed, complete with a blackberry stuffed down her generous bodice, who said that she would run around naked if Paraguay won. It must have convinced a few to go against Spain in the quarters.

Last but not least, there was Enrique Iglesias who promised to water ski naked of Spain won. There is a significant possibility of this happening.

I listed these possibilities on an internet forum, and got a reply from a female that it couldn't have been hard to choose between the Paraguayan model and Maradona. Here is my reply:

"Actually it was hard for me to choose. Paraguayan model - just another naked model on an internet that has too much porn on it anyway. Diego Maradona - how many times does the greatest athlete / elder statesman of a sport - any sport - run around naked? I mean, when not on a CK ad or a sports illustrated shoot? How often in this day and age do people run around naked without the intention of making you part with your money?

In the end I chose the Paraguay chick so that people wouldn't give me funny looks."

Well 11 points for now for 11 ppl on the pitch. I'm sure there will be a few more talking points in the last 3 matches.

Orchard Road Deluge

Somebody told me a funny story. Back in 1984, EW Barker was the minister for National Development. (Actually he was not, I checked and he held that portfolio at some other time, but not 1984. So you have to treat this story as apocryphal). He told the guy in charge of PUB, you know, our reservoirs have a lot of water, so you should buy less water from the Sultan of Johor this year. But the PUB guy was thinking, “what if it doesn’t rain as much this year? What if the water in my reservoirs go all the way down? I’d better be safe than sorry.”

As it turned out, it was the wrong decision, there were a lot of floods that year because there was too much water, and the drainage system couldn’t handle all that. EW Barker got very angry and said, “This !@#$ is better off looking after monkeys since he seems to be one himself”. And so that PUB guy suddenly found himself in charge of the Singapore Zoological Gardens.

Anyway, back to the main story. Floods have been occurring for a few years, not just this year. The monsoon at the end of 2006 had a very heavy rainfall, and the same mistake was made: there was too much water at McRitchie, and when the rain came, there was not enough time to drain it all away. As a result, some places at Thompson Road got flooded. I knew a florist who worked in one of the nurseries near McRitchie (you know that stretch) and she said, “well the PUB has also granted us some of this land, so if you kick up too big a fuss over it, I might not even have it back.”

Last year, there were great floods in Bukit Timah. It was categorised as a “once in 50 years event”. I thought that was particularly stupid. This means that, with the flood at Orchard Road, this is the second consecutive year in which a “once in a 50 year event” has taken place.

Let’s take apart this once in 50 year event bullshit. For the climate that we had for many years up till the 80s, to say that we would have a crazy flood once every 50 years would be plausible. But unless PUB has been living in a hole, they would have heard of climate change. We all know that the weather’s getting shittier all the time. We know that estimates have to change.

Knowing what I do about how things in Singapore work, there was probably at least 1 smart upstart who started challenging the way that you calculated how large you needed the drains to be, and he probably got shouted down by his boss to shut the fuck up and sit down.

OK, so maybe Singapore had a plan to build a great drainage system, and it was meant to last a long time. Maybe 50 years? What happens when things change? What happens when the drain that you thought was big enough suddenly isn’t? Are you going to say, “we spent money on this, we’re not touching it again”?

There are a few things. As expected, we found that debris was lying in the drains and choking up the drainage. Was it because of a lot of civil construction going on? That was what I thought at first. I thought that after they constructed Orchard Central and Somerset 313 they covered up the drain.

But now that I think a little harder, I think it has to do with the Marina Barrage. Because of the Marina Barrage, most of the basin of the Singapore River has been turned into a big reservoir, a big catchment area. And all the water that flows into the barrage has to be filtered. And I think that is where all the debris come from.

So what I think has changed is that all the drainage suddenly has to be filtered. That’s where all the debris comes from. That’s why the drains suddenly stopped working. Well, you know, the PUB has got to get its shit together and do what it’s supposed to do now.

Military Spending

I came across an article about military spending in nations across the world. Singapore is in the top 10 when it comes to military spending. Here are the top 10:

1. Myanmar (a military dictatorship, plus there are always minority insurgents to deal with)
2. Jordan (they're Israel's neighbour, and there's always trouble in the Middle East)
3. Georgia (they're fighting a war with Russia)
4. Saudi Arabia (they're in the Middle East and they have to deal with Iraq and Al Qaeda)
5. Kyrzystan (They're one of the smallest countries in Central Asia)
6. Burundi (They're neighbours with Rwanda and DRC, there's still plenty of fighting in DRC)
7. Oman (Militant Islam in Oman, Somali pirates)
8. USA (being a world empire is very expensive)
9. Singapore
10. Sri Lanka (Civil War)

As you can see, I've tried to come up with excuses for the top 10. If you have been following what's been going on in Kyrzystan, you might understand: a weak government has to defend itself. Plus they are surrounded by Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan so they have reason to be nervous. I cannot for the life of me think of excuses for Singapore. If you look at the spreadsheet, Singapore has an absolutely larger defence budget than Israel. WTF? Is it that everybody in Israel is on national service? Is it that Uncle Sam is paying for everything? Taiwan's military spending to GDP ratio is smaller than Singapore, even though they have to contend with China. Ditto South Korea, who has to deal with North Korea.

What the hell is going on?