Advice for Andy Ho: Don't write what you don't understand

Advice for Andy Ho of the Straits Times:
Don't write about what you don't understand

"Dr" Andy Ho is a "senior writer" of the Straits Times. He is apparently their science and ethics columnist. He has an MBA from Yale and a PhD from MIT and an undergrad medical degree, I think. Apparently all that education taught him nothing.

In this opinion piece, Ho weighs in on the case of Terry Schiavo. His usual dedication to in-depth research and literature review is displayed to the world once more...

Ho writes:

Let us be clear about Mrs Schiavo's condition.

She is not brain-dead. She is a living, breathing person in what doctors call the permanent vegetative state, a term first invented in 1972.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the assumptions of both the lack of awareness and its permanence are not medical facts but merely, by their very nature, unprovable guesses. That is, there are no scans, blood tests or any other technology that can confirm such a diagnosis.

Strike one: Much of Terri's brain is dead. If Dr Ho had gone one step further to check which portion of her brain is dead, he would've stumbled upon this:


For comparison's sake, this is what a normal brain looks like under a CT scan:



And once again, especially for "Dr" Ho, who thinks there is no scan that can confirm the lack of awareness and its permanence:



The dark blue bits in Mrs Schiavo's CT scan - in the centre and elsewhere - are spinal fluid. That is to say, after her heart attack, much of Terri's brain died and turned into gooey fluid. Repeat (with apologies to Mrs Schiavo): She has NO BRAIN.

For the medically-savvy, Terri has no cerebral cortex. I would appreciate if Dr Ho would occasionally do proper research and refer to his medical texts, which state from the vantage of accepted neuroscience, that the

cerebral cortex is the seat of all our higher brain functions. Without a cerebral cortex, it is impossible for a human being to experience thought, emotions, consciousness, pain, pleasure, or anything at all; nor, barring a miracle, is it possible for a patient lacking a cerebral cortex to recover.

In case we didn't notice, Dr Ho wrote: the assumptions of both the lack of awareness and its permanence are not medical facts but merely, by their very nature, unprovable guesses...

Strike Two

"Dr" Ho did do lots of research! He discloses that he got his information from www.Terrisfight.org. Amazing. There's a 4 minute video that shows how lucid and responsive she is. She laughs and smiles to stimuli. She opens and closes her eyes in response to commands issued by a doctor.

All very well. If only Ho actually did proper online research, instead of visiting a biased pro-lifer site that shrilly announces "Treating convicted murderers better than Terri"? I mean, there are much better medical resources on the internet that may provide the relevant information for his assertion that Terri is fully sensate.

Like the University of Miami website that's tracking all medical, legal, and ethical issues linked to the case.

If Dr Ho had bothered to do his research, he'd find that

1. The 4-minute video of an apparently responsive and sensate Terri was formerly submitted to the Florida court and rejected, because...

2. The video was heavily edited from a 4-hour recording.

3. Mrs Schiavo would respond to commands, only after more than 10 or 20 minutes after they were issued, and other commands had been given in the intervening period - and then she'd respond randomly and sometimes repeatedly. It's very bad science to claim that she's therefore aware of the commands and following them. It's intellectually dishonest to edit out the intervening time period and leave out these facts.

4. It is normal for patients in similar persistive vegetative states to laugh, sigh, moan, articulate vowels randomly.

Advice to "Dr" Andy Ho: you need to do better research before you write on medical issues. Other bloggers have caught your biased and uninformed articles on strokes, homosexuality and AIDS, drug prescriptions, and a whole host of other booboos.

In the beginning was the illusio...

Hi, I'm Aki.

For the good part of the past 3 years, I've been blogging elsewhere, but many readers complained that the blog service was terrible since it forced them to sign up before they could comment on any articles I write.

So here I am.

I'll be posting my articles here and there.

Claims of Singapore's economic woes purely anecdotal

"For more accurate news, read the Straits Times" edition

Today morning, a position for a presenter for a small radio station drew more than 50 hopefuls.

Yours truly didn't get past the voice test.

However, I did talk to the girl beside me. She, an engineering graduate, had been working as a kitchen staff in a restaurant for months before she quit out of disgust for the low pay.

Singapore's students are the world's best in mathematics and science, but that still can't get them jobs.

Meanwhile, I'll say nothing - NOTHING - about the recently complete farce of a debate over the casino in Parliament, since MiniLee said the matter is not open to referendum, voting, or debate.

Facing the incomprehensible: Lessons from Kafka's Trial

Kafka's The Trial is required reading at high school level in most societies, perhaps because Eng. Lit. teachers have found this the perfect text to confound their rebellious and angsty students.

Most readers, however, will go through lengths to insist that the character of Joseph K is so inaccessible they cannot empathise with his predicament. The entire book is incomprehensible, they say.

It's not too difficult to describe what occurs in Kafka's dark novella: a man is caught up in a legal prosecution, in which no one knows the precise charges against him, no one knows how the process should go, and no one knows for certain how it will end (if at all). But Joseph K's life is put on hold forever and he'll never know why, who, how, what, when and how...

The characters populating K's world have no idea either, but they are possessed by their confidence of the System: there's this big bureaucracy whose rules we don't know, but it's a coherent system (never mind we don't know HOW exactly it's coherent) and justice should be done because the system is fair.

Most literary critics adopt a similar view as well. Kafka CANNOT be saying that life is meaningless or absurd. He can't be saying that the state is corrupt, or by extension, "everything is meaningless". Hence the story is really about sin and redemption, nevermind that the judicial system described by Kafka is completely corrupt and obtuse. The Trial is actually a warming parable about God's forgiveness.

Stupid? Blinkered?

But how many people will want to consider that things don't happen for a reason, that there's no sense of morality in the world?

(Incidentally, this is why the problem of evil will be very easily solved by people of faith)

I wrote a post about a very strange interview experience few days ago. It was incomprehensible.

But like readers of Kafka, people will jump to the defense of the system (most notably my dad. Not meant to describe anyone who replied to my previous post). Maybe it was a weird psychological test, a breeching experiment. No, it CAN'T be that the company is run by nutcases or sadists. There HAS to be a good reason and purpose to what they were doing. It's not a bad company. The chairman, no matter that I don't know who he is, is a good man.

People of faith, arise!

I'm willing to play along, of course.

A. This was not a test, they were really being rude.
In which case, it doesn't matter... This is the kind of company that might just abuse you for really low pay if they give you the contract.

B. This was a test.
I'm willing to accept this possibility. But I'm willing to ask more questions into this, such as:

What kind of companies resort to these type of tests during hiring? Not every company deviates from the usual job interview. If some companies 'test' their applicants, it usually isn't to this extent of incivility.

But. Back to this: that a company is willing to resort to such incivility during a job interview, what does it show about the corporate culture?

Presumably, if the applicant overturns and rejects the experiment by refusing to play along (i.e. protests during the interview itself about the bad treatment), the company may just fall back to a "well, this was a test. Of course you understand this is just a test, and it looks like you don't have enough humour/wisdom to tolerate..."

In which case, the company wants to have eat its cake and have it at the same time. It's very convenient to say "you can't take a joke", because it protects them from the accusation that they meant to do it, that part of them relished in behaving badly anyway.

Now, this tells more about the culture within the company more than what I would want to know, so I'm ending this post.

Most surreal interview. Ever

Okay, not the most surreal since the geezer wasn't bonking a camel at the table while interviewing me...

But still, what does it mean when the interview with the chairman of the company is conducted like this?

A HR flunky interviews me, with exactly the same set of questions he asked the first time round, a month ago;

While the Chairman is on the phone and reading his snail mail;

And less than 5 minutes into the interview, we're (the flunky and me) asked to move out into the lounge to continue the interview;

None of the 2 other applicants suffered the same ignominy (but presumably also got the same "reading mail, talking on the phone" treatment, judging from their PO looks).

Lessons from Job

And we're back to God, his problem, and our problem with him...

The sole source of the Bible grappling with the problem of evil is in the Book of Job, which forms part of the Wisdom literature. Job, the most virtuous man of his age, is visited by a series of natural disasters: his children are struck down, his fields go fallow, his cattle die, and Job himself contracts a disfiguring skin disease. All because God allowed these disasters to happen.

Unlike the premoderns, Job refuses to opt for passive acceptance of his hand. He recognises that the disaster is unwarranted, meaningless. In a way, he questions God for allowing this to happen. If God is good and all, why this evil? Especially to a pious man like himself?

Job holds God to account. Actually, Job files a lawsuit against God, making him the first man to hold God accountable for His own action/inaction. Not even the philosophers would court karmic disaster by filing suit against the Almighty outside from their academic musings!

Like our 18th century philosophers, Job presents his case: the evil and suffering existing in this world is unjustified and out of proportion to normal human failing. Disasters happen by chance, striking evil and terror indiscriminately to everyone. By what right does a good God persecute or even allow this?

After Job's impassioned prosecution, God's defense is classic.

So, you want to know why? Little man, stand still and ponder:
Where were you when I made the world? Do you know how I made the earth, filled the seas?
Do you know how to call on the rain and the dew?
Can you send lightning? Move the stars?
Do you provide the birds with their food?
So does that answer your question, little man?

Of course, I'm paraphrasing here, but that's essentially what transpired. One might argue, as many atheists have, that this is essentially a cop-out: God refuses to answer Job's question, refuses to account for his actions, and instead makes what is technically an argument to force: "I'm more powerful than you, so I'm not required to defend myself to you."

Or, one might say that God reminds us of the mystical nature of the Divine Will, that the ways of God and even the nature of God is beyond the comprehension of humanity. God may be a personal saviour who intercedes, but do not mistake him for a human being, do not assume that He shares our idea of "good" and "evil".

Unluckily for the philosophers and their "free will" and "greater good" defenses, God doesn't seem to think much about humanity and its sufferings in Job 37-39. Is there a Divine Plan? Yes. Is there justice? Yes. But no, don't think the entire universe revolves around humanity, that divine justice must resemble human concepts. God mentions about the stars, animals, birds, the seasons and their places within his plan, but not a single word about humanity.

How humbling. And Job was so stunned, then humbled that he dropped his lawsuit against God.

And indeed, the only proper response for a person of faith during a time of disaster is not to demand an accounting from God, but to be awed by the extent of the disaster, to be humbled from it. And then, to accept it.

Theodicy II

Theodicy was first coined in the 18th century by the philosopher Liebniz. While the field of philosophy loves to formulate problems as abstractly ahistorical, the problem of evil is a modern problem, and is only problematic for modern society.

Through their investigation of the problem of evil, Liebniz and his contemporaries shed more light on the sensibilities of their milleu. As far as the Divine Will is concerned, the disenchantment of the age and declining importance of religion manifest themselves in the logical formulation of God.

The Divine Will is boiled down into 3 attributes - and stripped of other qualities such as mercy, mystery, and awe. God, in theodicy, becomes the God of the philosophers, not the God of Isaac, Jacob and Abraham. The problem of evil accelerated the decline in the belief of a Divine Will for Liebniz's generation.

How did they deal with it? In the 18th and 19th centuries the solution to the problem resided in the "Clockmaker God" defense - God institutes the laws of nature during the Creation, then steps back and lets the laws of nature operate - which lead to the unfortunate but necessary disasters. As God is omnibenevolent, he cannot break his own laws...

But what about miracles? Protestant theology at that time believed that the age of miracles had ended. For the early moderns, the statement of the problem and its solution indicate the fading of God from the world, the disenchantment and increasing rationality of society.

What about us? Why did the Straitened Times devote at least 3 editorials to the problem of evil and the tsunami?

Singapore, like the US, has experienced a recent trend of religious resurgence - mostly evangelical and fundamentalist. The problem of evil poses a threat to these Christian sects - the God in their weekly sessions is a deeply personal being, a Great Communicator, and the world is literally filled with God...

It's not so much of believing that God speaks to us, as being convinced that a particular phrase in the Bible tells us directly and authoritatively that Harry Potter books are evil... Not so much of believing that God intercedes for us, but being convinced that he is actively working on OUR SIDE when we're trying to fight our way to the train, earning our first million, protesting for a pay rise... That we almost tripped while coming down the staircase but didn't, is a miracle, an intervention from the very Hand of God...

For people like this, a natural disaster wrecks havoc on their concept of God. "What, isn't he supposed to make me rich when I pray for it? How could he send a tsunami instead?" laments a Singaporean follower of the prosperity gospel. (Yes, those very strange people have a strong presence here in Singapore, or used to before 2001's recession)

The maleovence of disasters like this reflect badly on their God. The most popular response from these Christians appear to be the "for the greater good" defense: God must have allowed this to happen because either "free will" should be preserved through his inaction above all else, or "a better good will come out of this suffering".

Of course, the only Christians who believe in that kind of defense are comfortably middle class, bourgeois, and distanced enough from the actual disaster to distance themselves even further from it. No luck if you were personally affected by the tsunami - chances are you won't be spouting this particular defense.

Theodicy: Tsunamis, the problem of evil, the problem for God

There was a tsunami in the region almost two months ago. Yes, it's a little late to start reporting it, but it isn't too late to examine what - if any - lasting impact it has on people here.

The Straitened Times had its Senior Writer Dr Andy Ho, normally a medical doctor, write about the tsunami and the problem of evil in an editorial, which I believe misses the point and relevance of the issue.

What is the problem of evil? We take the tsunami, the lost lives, livelihoods and general devastation in the wake of its trail as an illustration of evil. If there exists a Divine Will (hereafter known as 'God'), and assuming that God is perfectly good, all-knowing and all-powerful, why was such evil permitted to exist?

The real issue isn't about a philosophical solution to the problem of evil and theodicy (the justification for the existence of God). It's about how we as humans adjust to the unexpected, the 'evil', the unjust. And about what historical changes have taken place over the centuries, to change our responses to 'evil'.

To understand all that, we must get to the root of Theodicy. Not the premisses behind the argument of evil (already stated in para. 2), but the operating social assumptions that the problem and the attributes of God both build on.

For a problem of evil and theodicy to exist, there are two corresponding novel social assumptions:
1. God (or his nature) is perfectly understandable to the human mind - hence we can abstract his attributes and intentions.
2. God is fully accountable for his action or inaction. If his mind, intent and nature are known to us, then he is called to account when reality (evil tsunamis) clashes with our conception of Him.

Hub around the world

or, NOT the starhub advertisement you know

EXT. ORCHARD RD – DAY

TWO rowdy young men step out of a mall. They look like they haven’t had enough fun and are off to another ‘happening’ place.

GLENN (mid-laugh)
(points to RON’s shoe)
Brother, you have something stuck on your shoe, man! Whoa, so big somemore!

ROD looks down. CLOSE-UP on the frown that develops. Wipes shoe on sidewalk in attempt to get rid of the WAD.

ROD
Hey brother, not cool to laugh at me, man! I’d like, appreciate some help from someone here...

GLENN
Okay, okay. Brother, you are one of a kind, cannot remove something like this yourself... Hold still.

GLENN proceeds to use his shoe to slide the WAD from ROD’s. He succeeds in removing the WAD without using his fingers, but...

ROD (laughing again)
Brother, now the wad is on the other shoe! (Sees GLENN struggle with it) Ah, so it’s not that easy, right, brother? You’re also another one of a kind! (pause) Hey hey, don’t you get mad at me! Let’s leave it alone for now, until we find someone else.

MONTAGE:

a) STILL PAN of Clarke Quay
b) CLOSE-UP of stiletto shoe trying to remove WAD from GLENN’s shoe. VO: “No, it’s fine, really. I just wanted to help out.”
c) STILL PAN of Chinatown
CLOSE-UP of a granny slipper, with similar dialogue in dialect.
d) STILL PAN of Little India
e) CLOSE-UP of jewelled or fancy sandal
f) STILL PAN of Singapore Skyline
g) CLOSE-UP of executive/working shoe (men’s)
h) CLOSE-UP of a shoe shoe
i) CLOSE-UP of a trendy canvass shoe
etc. with dialogs in various languages and different accents of Singaporean English

END MONTAGE

UNIDENTIFIED LOCAL
You look like you need help there...

TOURIST IN HAWAIIAN/ORCHID CLOTHING
Ah, sure! It’s tough to get this out.

LOCAL
You should try using your fingers. More practical.

LOCAL succeeds in removing WAD. It’s a green promotion stub bearing the logo of a company. However from his bewildered expression, we know the WAD is now stuck to his fingers.

ZOOM OUT to reveal the CHECKPOINT BUILDING at the CAUSEWAY, on the Malaysian side.

FLASH: "TO BE CONTINUED..."

More Notes from a Very Small Island and Its Funny Proxy Technology

Few days ago, I described a workaround to Singnet's fluctuating proxy servers.

But how and why does it work?

Singapore's leaders decided early on that the nation had to be protected from undesirable content on the internets such as pr0n, www.playboy.com, pr0n, politically-sensitive (i.e. critical of Singapore's policies and leaders) writings, pr0n, viagra ads, pr0n, email spams, pr0n, William Safire, pr0n with eggs and ham, pr-n, pr_n and prawn.

The OTHER problem Singapore's leaders tried to solve at that time (and are still trying) is the nation's plummeting birth rates. And I blame Singapore's net nanny for censoring normal pr0n sites and not censoring something as dangerous as www.gay.com or www.sgboy.com. Hello, people!??

There were several censoring/proxy solutions:

1. Vet through every website in existence and create a blacklist. Rejected as the growth of webpages is exponential. What we do now is to create a blacklist of prominent sites.

2. Vet through what every Singaporean surfs online. Rejected. You'd require an ever-expanding bureacracy that would mestasize to include the entire population of Singapore, in order to keep tabs on what Singaporeans read online...

3. Have an intelligent program, in essense a True Proxy, that intercepts every url request your browser sends to the ISP. Your request will be blocked if matched with a site on the blacklist. Rejected as this will greatly slow down traffic on the internets. The degradation in surfing will be a warning sign to investors in the knowledge-based economy.

This is what Singapore now does: every ISP here has a program that checks if your browser is configured to have a proxy. It doesn't actually check which proxy you use: you can surf the internets as long as you have one configured. For them to do any more layers of censorship would severely degrade surfing.

If your IE/netscape has no proxy set, the new transparent proxy system (phased in about 4-5 years ago. Before that, you really had to configure your proxy settings) assigns the ISP's proxy server to you.

Hassle-free surfing: the people don't know their internet is being censored.

Now, what happens when you follow my guide and configure a foreign proxy server (such as the ones in Malaysia)? Singnet, Pacnet and Starhub's sniffing programs don't care. And you can now surf the entire internet, censorship-free.

The implications? Tremendous.

Websites that track your IP can only detect the proxy server you're using. That means I appear to be a Malaysian whenever I log into the Straitened Times Online. I can finally register, provide all the fake information, and search their articles without worrying about my privacy. Of course, the ST's search engine is still as craptastic as ever - searching for articles more than 3 days old does not work. With the free subscription-only searching, this means even google can't find the articles on ST that I know exist, and want to retrieve.

Google, the search engine that uses IP tracking to find out what country you're from (Gee, thanks!), frightens the hell out of my privacy-concerned friends. Let me just say that since I changed my proxy server, google now thinks I'm from Malaysia. Whoopie, privacy-enhanced surfing once again.

I'll let you know what more practical goodies can come out of this proxy substition in the future.

More specialist blogs

Recently I've landed a freelance writing stint for a scientific trade magazine. After a few hiccups, I'm proud to report it's not too difficult to write.

Although, being sent to a conference where everyone was drawing presentations full of organic compounds brought back too many memories of JC chemistry. I feel like I just took an S paper for chemistry yesterday, in fact.

The neat thing about this job though, is the research is making me smarter! While most jobs in the Singaporean economy make people less smart or more lazy - all thanks to working for incompetent and uninspiring bosses, according to that separate studies by too many survey organisations like Watson Wyatt and Gallup...

So as part of my patriotic duty to fellow Singaporeans, I've decided to recommend a science blog, written by the most intelligent science writers and journalists. Please take some time to visit Corante.

Singnet Service Outtage

or, More Funny Proxy Technology from Disneyland with the Speakers Corner

In plain English, Singapore Singnet's proxy servers to all foreign content went down around 5pm in the afternoon. BBC was inaccessible; so was wired.com, cnn.com, GOOGLE, all of blogspot (I pity Singaporean blogspot users, they get it every time our proxies go down!). Webmail is down, antivirus updates are down. HOWEVER, irc is up, Winmx is up, bittorrent has no problems connecting to US IP addresses.

In Singnet's English, "Please be informed there is a congestion in the Internet service to United States. We are currently investigating this and apologise for the inconvenience caused." (RIGHT. The BBC is located in the US, which is why it's also unavailable?)

Note to all: Singnet's communicade obfuscates.

"There is a congestion" suggests that it's NOT the fault of Singnet. It has nothing to do with Singnet's creaking, rusty, falling-apart proxy technology.

The typical English-hobbled Singaporean reader reads "to the United States" to suggest that the congestion is due to a failure in the United States. Not Singnet fault okay!

Well. I now come with great tidings for Singnet's users. The problem is with Singnet's proxy technology: it is their proxy servers that screwed up.

Ailing Singnet users, try this for size on your Mozilla/Firefox, IE or Opera. Under Internet proxy settings, change to one of the following:

202.157.192.130:3128
219.93.175.67:3128
219.93.181.3:3128
219.93.175.66:3128
219.93.174.195:3128 (fastest)

Tada. Internet surfing is now back to normal, thanks to free, alternate, proxy servers located in... Malaysia.

This is a list of fast, free, non-censoring, proxy servers available on the internet for Singaporean users wishing to cut their dependence on our silly ISPs' funny proxy technology.

ICQ will even work even with the new proxy settings. You just need to change the proxy stuff in ICQ manually...

We feel so safe now

This is a lyrical adaptation of a previous blog entry.




Caption: A grim-faced semi-automatic machine-gunned policeman

Walking

Barely a month had passed
since squadrons of grim-faced semi-automatic machine-gunned policemen
descended on our streets.

I decide to walk down Orchard, not to shop -
but merely to warm my blue fingers
while trekking under the megawatt lights.

I could out-walk any bus here in Orchard
nearer to Christmas:
Perhaps the frowning commuters on their buses
think this while they stare out of the windows -
but they do not get off, do not start walking.

It confuses me this time, to see the
costumed carnivallers, stiltwalkers, jugglers, acrobats even,
and the dolled-up women or men scattered throughout.
Perhaps the tourism board wanted to celebrate
both Mardi Gras and Christmas.

A crowd stared, immobile, at an empty taped-off space
as if something would magically appear at the right time.
Across the street, another crowd looking on,
perhaps waiting for the moment
they'd know what this crowd was looking at.

Shrugging, I move on into the swarm
and realise I haven't seen any grim-faced squad carrying machine guns
and feel, for a moment, secure. Perhaps.

On Blogging (rework of old post)

Perhaps you are eager to start a blog. But perhaps, like most people, you are uncomfortable with writing a diary that can be read by anyone online: Where is the privacy? Aren't journals meant to be sacred communications with oneself? I'm not really a natural exhibitionist, you think. And yet finally, with mind steeled and fingers poised on the keyboard, you are at a loss on what to write.

Long before Samuel Pepys begins his candid – but still private – diary in 1660, long before the modern phenomenon of online blogging, Asian writers had already mastered the public diary.

Murasaki Shikibu is better known as the author of the Genji Monogatari. Murasaki began writing what is now regarded as the world's first 'true novel' around 1007 on the escapades of the eponymous character, covering (and anticipating the Modern) themes of ennui, sense of self, fashion and fashionability, love and commitment, romance and satire.

More importantly, Murasaki Shikibu wrote a diary of her service in the Japanese court as a lady-in-waiting to the Empress from 1008-10. Diaries written by noblewomen in the Heian period were simply not meant to be private writings: they were shown to fellow writers, friends and colleagues; copies were made and distributed, due to the ready availability of paper.

Murasaki's diary is predominantly interested in high culture, fashion and art. She also pokes gentle fun of her patron, the Empress, and her immediate circle of ladies-in-waiting, as well as court bureaucracy in general – and was loved all the more for it, as readers waited for each new installment of the diary. Picture, if you will, a medieval Dilbert!

Her detail and sharpness of observation, of penetrating human nature, is surprising. This caustic yet mature view of the world continues to inspire bloggers and diarists even today. Murasaki even ponders on the subject of self-improvement: “What is good character for a lady-in-waiting?”, “What talents would be good to have?”, and muses on the gap between public persona and private self – questions that still plague modern-day writers and thinkers.

Or you could consider Sei Shonagon, writing her Pillow Book a few years before her rival's masterpieces. Shonagon's entries are witty, even gossipy conversations that run from a plethora of lists of items (“Nice things that inspire on a spring day”, “Things I hate in people”); entries describing daily life; musings on the beauty of nature, the meaning of life, the pettiness of rivals in the workplace...

The intensely personal or narcissistic “me-blog”, on the trials and tribulations of the author, may chronicle a fight against cancer, an epic search for the ideal job, the journey towards that academic degree. Yet all this pales in comparison to the Gossamer Diary by a lady known only as “Mitchitsuna's Mother”, detailing the breakdown of her marriage over the years. We do not know what her husband, the regent Fujiwara Kaneie, thought of the disclosure of his philandering ways, although the public (and popular) diary might have bolstered his reputation as a ladies' man. It is not unlikely that he even appreciated his wife's efforts.

You could even invent an entertaining or controversial persona your blog. In Ki no Tsurayuki's Tosa Diary of 935, the court poet and governor of Tosa province in Kyoto writes as a fictitious lady in his entourage, describing the voyage back to the capitol from Shikoku island. Singlehandedly, Tsurayuki invented the genre of public diary writing for Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shonagon, Mitchitsuna's mother, and many others, centuries later.

And the modern blogger? Blogging is in our blood. You could even say it's part of the Asian heritage.

It had to happen sooner or later!

filed under: Department of the Exasperated

Finally, our MPs proclaim in Parliament that the tsunami disaster bonded Singaporeans together.

It does seem that any trivial incident (young child wanders from home for less than 2 days), huge disaster, major triumph (Sunday's football victory), or withering defeat (table tennis and badminton imports fail to win medals) - in short, just about ANYTHING - will inevitably lead to one or more of our enlightened leaders proclaiming increased social cohesion among Singaporeans.

Is that what we're paying our taxes for? Insincere pithy plaitudes that seem to be crafted from a template?

Hemlock

9 reasons why Singapore is a pathetic place.

On Twiddledee and Twiddledum

First, I shall attempt a summary of the previous post.

"While the official line was that MediaworksTV was a commercially unviable venture, the forced merger came about due to deliberate choices made by both parties to make each other's operations commercially unviable."

While the last post attacked the official explanation on the "rational" portion of its "rational economics" spiel, this post will attack the "economics" portion.

The interesting question raised from the 2x2 matrix of the Dee/Dum game is: if the lose-lose outcome is *the* Nash Equilibrium, why aren't every company in the global media market rushing to bankrupt themselves and their competitors?

Perhaps a way to solve the conundrum is to ask: what were the circumstances that actually allowed Mediaworks and Mediacorp to adopt the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy as a legitimate and legal strategy in the Singapore media market?

Let's put ourselves in their shoes.

"Now here's a great plan: we cut off our own flesh and force them to do the same. Whoever blinks first, loses. Of course, revenue will hurt in the meantime and we'll have negative profits. Who's game for this brilliant idea?"

Indeed, who would say no?

The shareholders, perhaps? But Mediacorp is completely owned by the government, it's not even a listed company. No protests by angry shareholders at the Annual General Meeting for them. And Mediaworks? The govnerment has substantial shares there, through its parent SPH. For there to be zero protests, for the plan to go through, suggests the shareholders and the owners of Twiddledum and Twiddledee, knew about it and approved it...

Senior management, perhaps? But... we all know all the senior positions are in effect government appointments, in which case management = shareholders. In existing cases in the US where management of certain companies defraud their shareholders (Enron et. al.), it was only because management had inside information not privvy to shareholders, and exercised power over the monopoly of information.

Regulatory framework, perhaps? Ah, but from 2000 to early 2004, there was "no legal controlling authority", no antitrust or anti-competition law!

And most importantly, both companies were able to play the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy because they were betting that the government would intervene in the worst case scenario. Because the government still owns both companies (in one way or another).

I will leave it to you, to decide how much of a theatrical production, a charade, an act, this short-lived "media competition" was.

Twiddledum and Twiddledee are now one!

As 2004 ends, the Singapore media market enters into a phase of rationalisation.

The orthodox line, as proclaimed by the authorities and the media players, is that there is too little space in this tiny city of 4 million for even 2 media/news networks. The decision to remerge Twiddledum and Twiddledee is a rational, economically-justified one. In other words, it's yet another one of Singapore's "done deals" that the authorities hope the populace won't analyse too deeply and start picking on the flaws.

Instead of asking whether the merger was inevitable, we should be questioning: under what circumstances and actions would this outcome be considered inevitable?

I will forgo the details of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and instead treat the Twiddledum and Twiddledee situation as a similar game.

Picture, if you will, the situation in June 2000. Dum and Dee, the state-owned monopolists of the print and tv media, have been granted licenses to operate in each other's domains. There are two strategies open to both players, namely, S1: Beggar thy neighbour by lowering advertising prices in your papers, magazines and broadcasts below fair prices, in order to bankrupt the competitor out of the market; and S2: Grow the pie by innovating and introducing new, different programmes and formats.

Here's the table of outcomes:

	Dee (S1)	Dee (S2)
Dum (S1)	-50, -50	100, -50
Dum (S2)	-50, 100	50, 50

Evidently, if one player adopts the nice-guy strategy, he'll be competed out of the market (and possibly his previous dominant position) if the competitor plays the beggar thy neighbour cards. The "win-win" outcome is achieved if both players in the media market had adopted S2. Both would have some gains, as advertisers would buy airtime in two tv networks with very different programming.

And if both players adopt S1? Both of them might go bust. There would be a mediated outcome, courtesy of the government, to return both players to their previous monopoly decisions, rescind the market liberalisation, and declare the experiment a failure.. And it's not the most optimum outcome, given the wastage of resources from both sides when they employ the beggar-thy-neighbour strategy.

However, this is the most likely outcome. The Nash Equilibrium. Both players, not knowing the strategy of the other, will rationally pick the strategy that pays off the most for itself (S1). Nash Equilibrium refers to the strategies where "no
player can benefit any more by changing her strategy while the other players keep their strategies unchanged", and the corresponding outcomes or payoffs. And here, the Nash Equilibrium is the lose-lose outcome, as with the Prisoner's Dilemma, where both players get heavy jail sentences because they both choose to confess.

We should note that mutual cooperation (S2, S2) is not an equilibrium point: a player can obtain better results for himself by playing mean while the other still cooperates...

Sometimes rational decisions aren't sensible.

Notes: it is a fact that is acknowledged, but rarely discussed - Twiddledum and Twiddledee had record year-on-year increases in advertising volume in the period June 2000 - present, yet their advertising revenue had plumetted completely in the same period. Beggar thy neighbour indeed.

If they had been less rational, both media players could've walked away with spanking profits, just that they wouldn't be the sole players on the hill.

华人华语?

A national survey in China reveals that barely half of the population can communicate in Mandarin Chinese.

So much for Singapore's Speak Mandarin Campaign slogan, "Chinese language for Chinese people"?

The China Daily even says:

"A standard, commonly used spoken language is also in the interests of the country as it helps promote national identity and cohesion..."

"Promotion of putonghua should not necessarily mean stifling other spoken languages. We must respect dialects. This is the unswerving policy of the country. Dialects carry culture."

And so much for Singapore's "Chinese language carry Chinese Culture" or even its "More Chinese, less dialects" slogans as well.

In fact, Singaporean businessmen will find that dialects and local knowledge would go a longer way to seal a deal than speaking Mandarin and having an understanding of elite Chinese customs.

Where oh where is the honest debate?

The final post

Singapore inches inexorably towards the casino. Don't let the 'thorough deliberation' in Parliament fool you.

Let those who have eyes, see. Let those who have ears, hear. And those who have patience, read.

The casino debate is anything but honest. We have mentioned that the only 2 sides, the only 2 mentionable positions sanctioned for public consumption, are the economic pro-casino and the moral anti-casino views. There is no reconciliation between the two (and would be very dangerous if a researcher manages to reconcile both considerations logically, like the NTU economic professors), and that just suits the theatricity of the debate fine.

What happens when you have two irreconcilable sides to a dilemma? You argue the hell out of each other, drive everyone to sleep while repeating the same points and making no concessions or improvements to the debate. Then everyone who the casino affects will lose attention and stop thinking about it. And that just serves the theatricity of the debate fine.

The decision's been made anyway

It's plain for people to see. Which side has to make a case for its views? Which side has to defend its assertions?

I don't see the economic pro-casino side having to give actual figures to justify the "positive economic returns" of the casino. They've been given a free pass. It's the anti-casino side that has to prove its case that the outcome is negative on the balance, that the social costs outweigh the social benefits. And of course, commentors in the press and media are muzzled from pointing out that it's possible to object to the casino on econometric calculations instead of pure morality.

Which side is so guaranteed of victory that it's making (lame) promises and concessions (that won't be upheld) as part of the normal debate, instead of arguing on the merits of the casino?

Let's look at the promises and concessions and laugh at them

1. "We'll just let the top 10% of Singaporeans enter the casino. It'll be for the rich and the foreigners."

The recognition here is that almost all casinos are bad for the lower classes; they are a tax on the poor. It is the poor and the middle classes that are more easily hooked and lose more (as a proportion of their earnings) at the gambling table.

Hence the concession: make the casino ultra-exclusive.

We predict the concession will be dropped the moment the casino is approved. It's a no-brainer that the majority of casino revenues come from the everyday low/middle classes who have the compulsion to spend 3 nights of every week just gambling.

Take away the bottom 90% earners. You have a nearly empty casino, devoid of the hustle and bustle. And who would go there?

2. "We'll run a referendum on the issue"

We predict they never will. A very slim majority of the Singaporean public is against the casino, and the only way to push it through is in Parliament.

But it creates a believable illusion of choice, doesn't it? A freedom to choose for the casino (of course, not against it, preferably).

It's as palpable as the lifting of the party whip so the 97% PAP-dominated Parliament is free to vote their conscience instead of pushing it through using sheer numbers.

Behind all this freedom is this implication: the casino deal can be forced down the throats, against the will of Singaporeans. However it will be so unpopular that it may jeapordise the ruling party.

Hence the need to let this be a 'free debate'. What we should look out for is whether the pro-economic side will take the hardline stand that this casino concerns the economic survival of Singapore, therefore making the vote subject to the party whip. While the cabinet realises the self-defeating essence of this strategy, it is nonetheless inching towards it, with its refusal to justify the economic returns and insistence to just say the casino is economically necessary.

All bets are off if there is a referendum at all. The last time we had one, the issue was a union with Malaysia, and the wise pro-merger leaders decided to count all blank and spoilt votes as Yes votes.

3. "We'll make the casino as inconspicuous as possible."

No kidding. In his National Day Rally speech, MiniLee said it would be possible to develop Sentosa as a family-focused destination with all kinds of educational, leisure and entertainment activities and installations... just that in the middle of it will be, well, you know... that inconspicuous thing that really, is just a small, tiny part of the overall family-oriented Sentosa.

Right.

An inconspicuous casino! Trust Singapore's leaders to seriously consider that, and trust Singaporeans not to snigger or call him out on that one. It's a no-brainer, but the free pass the media and the public gave MiniLee on that lamest excuse is worse than a no-brainer.

Our prediction

The casino idea will just - and only just pass with a tiny majority, with a 'strong' dissenting vote from PAP's backbenchers.

Taking the dissenters into consideration, Parliament approves the plan, but authorises Temasek to take a substantial or even controlling stake in the casino (which of course will be a monopoly. You think they'd want 2 or more casinos?).

MiniLee will swear it's all so Temasek can exercise social control and oversight to rein in possible excesses of the casino. It's not in it for the money, really.

Right.

After one too many walks down Orchard Rd

've been to Orchard Rd five times this month already. And that means walking down the entire stretch, from Plaza Singapura to Borders or Tanglin Mall.

I see lots of traffic jams on the road, and wonder why the passengers won't get off their buses and walk - they look pissed enough staring out of their windows, to think "I can walk faster than this bus goes!"

I also see the very weird street performers our wise, arts-supporting civil servants have approved this year to grace our streets. Lots of stiltwalkers, carnivallers, heavily-made-up women (or men - it's hard to tell), acrobats... It just looks like our Very Wise Civil Servants were thinking more of "Mardi Gras" than "Christmas" when they selected all these people? I don't see any Santas around, surprisingly.

I see lots of human jams on the walkways of Orchard Rd, and wonder why some crowds gather at certain spots and just stand there, staring at spaces that are cordoned off by tape... in the totally opposite direction from the performer/street person walking past them. Pathetic.

Directly across the road, some crowds gather and stare at the people here who are staring at nothing, thinking if they stayed long enough, they'd find out what the other people were staring at. Even more pathetic.

It must be my rotten luck: I don't see any squads of grim-faced, semiautomatic machinegun-wielding policemen ("elite squads") marching down Orchard Rd at all. I'd feel much safer in the crowds if they're here...

Question: aside from that very famous photograph in the newspapers and the news on TV, has ANYONE seen these squads of grim-faced, heavily-armed policemen anywhere on Orchard Rd this month?

A different type of test

Yes, the gweilos always complain that we Asians - Chinese, Japanese, Korean - all look the same.

Sometimes that comes across as racism, arrogance, or pure indifference. However, I urge all of you to take this test to find out if it's true.

Can Asians tell the difference between themselves?

We interrupt this series on God with a breaking announcement

From the Associated Press:
Secret Iraqi Prisoner Died of Torture

SAN DIEGO - An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA (news - web sites) interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture — suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press

The death of the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, became known last year when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke. The U.S. military said back then that the death had been ruled a homicide. But the exact circumstances under which the man died were not disclosed at the time.

The prisoner died in a position known as "Palestinian hanging," the documents reviewed by The AP show. It is unclear whether that position was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations.

The spy agency, which faces congressional scrutiny over its detention and interrogation of terror suspects at the Baghdad prison and elsewhere, declined to comment for this story, as did the Justice Department (news - web sites).

Al-Jamadi was one of the CIA's "ghost" detainees at Abu Ghraib — prisoners being held secretly by the agency.

His death in November 2003 became public with the release of photos of Abu Ghraib guards giving a thumbs-up over his bruised and puffy-faced corpse, which had been packed in ice. One of those guards was Pvt. Charles Graner, who last month received 10 years in a military prison for abusing detainees.

Al-Jamadi died in a prison shower room during about a half-hour of questioning, before interrogators could extract any information, according to the documents, which consist of statements from Army prison guards to investigators with the military and the CIA's Inspector General's office.

One Army guard, Sgt. Jeffery Frost, said the prisoner's arms were stretched behind him in a way he had never before seen. Frost told investigators he was surprised al-Jamadi's arms "didn't pop out of their sockets," according to a summary of his interview.

Frost and other guards had been summoned to reposition al-Jamadi, who an interrogator said was not cooperating. As the guards released the shackles and lowered al-Jamadi, blood gushed from his mouth "as if a faucet had been turned on," according to the interview summary.

The military pathologist who ruled the case a homicide found several broken ribs and concluded al-Jamadi died from pressure to the chest and difficulty breathing.

Dr. Michael Baden, a distinguished civilian pathologist who reviewed the autopsy for a defense attorney in the case, agreed in an interview that the position in which al-Jamadi was suspended could have contributed to his death.

Dr. Vincent Iacopino, director of research for Physicians for Human Rights, called the hyper-extension of the arms behind the back "clear and simple torture." The European Court of Human Rights found Turkey guilty of torture in 1996 in a case of Palestinian hanging — a technique Iacopino said is used worldwide but named for its alleged use by Israel in the Palestinian territories.

The Washington Post reported last year that after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the CIA suspended the use of its "enhanced interrogation techniques," including stress positions, because of fears that the agency could be accused of unsanctioned and illegal activity. The newspaper said the White House had approved the tactics.

Navy SEALs apprehended al-Jamadi as a suspect in the Oct. 27, 2003, bombing of Red Cross offices in Baghdad that killed 12 people. His alleged role in the bombing is unclear. According to court documents and testimony, the SEALs punched, kicked and struck al-Jamadi with their rifles before handing him over to the CIA early on Nov. 4. By 7 a.m., al-Jamadi was dead.

Navy prosecutors in San Diego have charged nine SEALs and one sailor with abusing al-Jamadi and others. All but two lieutenants have received nonjudicial punishment; one lieutenant is scheduled for court-martial in March, the other is awaiting a hearing before the Navy's top SEAL.

The statements from five of Abu Ghraib's Army guards were shown to The AP by an attorney for one of the SEALs, who said they offered a more balanced picture of what happened. The lawyer asked not to be identified, saying he feared repercussions for his client.

According to the statements:

Al-Jamadi was brought naked below the waist to the prison with a CIA interrogator and translator. A green plastic bag covered his head, and plastic cuffs tightly bound his wrists. Guards dressed al-Jamadi in an orange jumpsuit, slapped on metal handcuffs and escorted him to the shower room, a common CIA interrogation spot.

There, the interrogator instructed guards to attach shackles from the prisoner's handcuffs to a barred window. That would let al-Jamadi stand without pain, but if he tried to lower himself, his arms would be stretched above and behind him.

The documents do not make clear what happened after guards left. After about a half-hour, the interrogator called for the guards to reposition the prisoner, who was slouching with his arms stretched behind him.

The interrogator told guards that al-Jamadi was "playing possum" — faking it — and then watched as guards struggled to get him on his feet. But the guards realized it was useless.

"After we found out he was dead, they were nervous," Spc. Dennis E. Stevanus said of the CIA interrogator and translator. "They didn't know what the hell to do."

Casino Royale

It's hard work compiling logs of icq conversations between Alvarny and myself. And very tiring to read the pseudo-debate rage in the Singaporean press and so-called media, where they skip around the issue.

Part III, where we bitch about the absence of actual analysis in the debate

A public violation of an unstated rule goes a long way in establishing or reiterating to spectators the existence of the rule and the deviant status of the act and the person performing the act. In short, this is what happens when someone speaks out of his place.

Exhibit A: NTU adjunct economics professor, as reported in the Today newspaper and the Business Times on 2 December.

2 NTU professors release an abstract or a literature review saying US studies that show casinos will bring more costs than benefits. And quantified it in concrete terms as well: for every dollar of tax revenue gained from the casino, 3 dollars of state or community programmes were required to address the negative social problems from the casino.

There's something about NTU economics professors. They don't play by the rules of responsible academia as typified by NUS dons: never present evidence that contradicts policy directions of the government.

But the statement from the NTU professors really show what's missing from the entire pseudo-debate on the casinos. If there are economic benefits and social costs that cannot be separated at all from a casino, then where are the studies showing that there is a positive balance? And better yet, showing that in monetary terms?

Now in order to present a figure that will close the casino debate, you have to calculate the estimated economic benefit from the casino. Somehow, the MiniLee cabinet has neglected to provide the figures, or even commission unbiased studies to produce the figures. Yet we read in the papers about the gaggle of casino operators preparing papers or presenting preliminary plans to the Government...

Exhibit B: The fait accompli

In any pseudo-debate, there are facts that must be taken for granted as a matter of faith. There are questions that should be left alone, issues that a responsible critic should pass over.

In this case, the fait accompli is the economic success of setting up the casino in Singapore. No voice in the debate has asked for proof, because its success is a foregone conclusion.

Yet responsible economists in the US and UK show that several things have to be considered.

Does the casino draw its main customers from the locality or from abroad?
Does it divert revenue from competing overseas casinos or does it divert from domestic spending?
Does it make the economy grow, or will people just end up substituting normal economic consumption with gambling?

It is not a foregone conclusion, and we are very much in peril for thinking it so.

And of course, it does bring home the question: Where are the grown-up researchers? Where is the responsible debate?

Co-blogging

This time round, I'll be trying something different. The following entry is co-written with Alvarny in a series of discussions over the week.

Casino Royale

Part the First, where I bitch about the responsibilities of intellectuals; or
Where are the grown-up philosophers?

There's this debate going on for several weeks now in Singapore's policymaking circles about the wisdom of granting a casino license. The positions are getting entrenched between the Economic pro-casino legislators apparently headed by the Prime Minister and his cabinet, and the Moralistic anti-gambling coalition of some backbenchers and the general public.

On 18 November, just months after Mini-Lee tried to float the casino idea in his National Day address and subsequent flogging (or yes-manning) of the issue on the pro-side by the Straits Times and then debates in parliament, finally an academic spoke out on the issue. And it was the head of the Philosophy department in NUS too.

At the Institute of Policy Studies forum, Prof. Ten Chin Liew said:

"Individuals freely choose to gamble, it is no business of others to interfere with how they spend their legitimately acquired money."

"Freedom to gamble can thus be seen like freedom to engage in religious practices - as in a tolerant society, a majority does not impose its practices on a minority."

"Otherwise, many public projects of great value, such as expressways, would have been condemned right from the start because they affect some people adversely."

That's the head of philosophy from Singapore's national university for you, channelling the ghost of John Stuart Mill.

And e-props to all of you who went "WTF" reading the don's third paragraph.

Yes, someone along the line, the professor switches from an argument on absolute freedom to... public projects??? We are unable to discern the logic here, since the defense of public projects (for the greater good, but will inconvenience some people) is clearly a utilitarian argument.

It's an inept, toss everything into the salad bowl and mix and hope no-one notices the ingredients don't go together argument. From the head of the Philosophy department, nonetheless. And since the don hasn't bothered to write to the press demanding corrections, it's not a case of a paper hastily truncating a reasonable argument into something very incoherent (which it does occasionally).

Part the Second, where we bitch about the usefulness of intellectuals

What is galls us so is the complete irrelevance of this don and his argument. For starters, the issue is not about gambling. Gambling is already a legal activity via Singapore Pools, the Stock Exchange, and the donate to a TV charity show and stand to win prizes scheme).

No, the issue is about whether there should be a casino. And Prof Ten's "freedom to gamble" argument doesn't even address it. Although he does serve the function of a state-sponsored intellectual doing the noble service of public miseducation (or disinformation) for his masters.

The real issue is whether having a casino would generate greater negative externalities than Singapore Pools.

The concept of externalities is simple enough: any activity generates externalities. A conversation with my friend over the cellphone drives other passengers in the same train compartment nuts even though the social transaction is solely between my friend and me. Laying cables to expand the national cable TV grid generates externalities by depriving drivers of an optimal road, for instance.

In a casino where individuals 'freely choose to gamble', their actions have knock-on effects on their family budgets should they lose more than what they can really afford. That's just one of the tamer negative externalities for you.

Again: the real issue is whether having a casino would generate greater negative externalities than Singapore Pools. Where are the grown-up intellectuals who will actually discuss it?

Department of Shrill

Impeach them! Impeach them now!!!

Not Quite the Reading from Psalms

My undeclared 2-week vacation has come to an end (I don't know if the readers would actually want to hear about my private life) and before regular programming resumes, here's your moment of Zen, via some evil creative posters at DFA. Language purists, don't flog me or them on the mangling of Middle English.

The 23rd Sigh

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war,
I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

As it was in 1967...

Chomsky denounces Washington policy consultants in think tanks as abrogating the responsibility of intellectuals.

It's nicely written, combining the best of Pol. Sci. and historical analysis.

Scary how the lies, justifications and modus operandi of 1967 New Frontiersmen and the 2001 Neoconservatives are so identical.

What I Want to Know

Is how it's possible that the major newspaper in Singapore, the Straits Times, can jovially report that the unemployment rate in Singapore has fallen to from 4.5% to 3.4%, yet hide the fact that there is a rising trend of graduates below age 30 remaining unemployed?

In fact, the only mention of it is in an obscure website here.

And how is it possible that no media outlet here dares to report the numbers of young graduates who are now underemployed?

What is our Labour Minister going to do about this unemployment problem?

Our War in Iraq is Going Well

Yes, the Republicans have won the election. President Bush was legitimately elected this time by a huge turnout of gay-bashers, bible-thumpers, and people who apparently believe that the war in Iraq is going well.

Here are more signs to strengthen their belief:

1. Human Rights Watch has just released a report pointing out that crucial evidence for the trial of Saddam has been either lost or seriously tainted.

Evidence that could easily be used to convict Saddam Hussein of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity have been LOST, no thanks to clueless American troops who failed to secure not just Iraqi museums, research facilities, weapons depots, and also... mass graves.

Seriously, people! Saddam butchered so many people and left mass graves all over the country. There are as many mass graves as oil wells in Iraq and you tell me that the mass graves were not secured? The troops actually lost evidence that was scattered all over Iraq?

Wonderful. Of course if Saddam is convicted in the end, it'll be because the court's decision (whether run by the US or its Iraqi puppets) is faith-based rather than evidence-based. Nice precedent for conducting trials in the post 9/11 era, eh?

2. An elementary school in New Jersey was bombed with 25 rounds of ammunition yesterday by a National Guard fighter.

Colin Powell claims that irrefutable evidence has been found that the traitorous state of New Jersey is either developing WMD, harboring Zarqawi, or voted for the terrorist John Kerry.

The General said in his speech to the UN Security Council that the elementary school wasn't really an elementary school, but either a terrorist training camp or a bomb factory.

Powell also denied reports that the fighter plane bombed the school when a wedding was under way.

Not at the top of the world

or, we love polls that show Singapore is number one!

The 3rd annual worldwide press freedom index from Reporters Without Borders ranks Singapore at 147 out of a total of 167 countries.

Small consolation: Iraq comes in at 148th place.
Sore points (for some readers): Malaysia has a freer press at 122 and Indonesia at 117. The hell, even RUSSIA (140) has a freer press than Singapore...

That should be some food for thought or cannon fodder for students taking their GP exams soon. I don't even think our national newspapers will dare report this finding...

Like any other responsible study or poll (and you'd be surprised there are MANY irresponsible studies - mostly the ones that put Singapore as no 1 in something or another), Reporters Without Borders releases an explanation of how the data was compiled.

Note the final clarification on that page: "The index should in no way be taken as an indication of the quality of the press in the countries concerned." That means you still can have a press that reports what is (mostly) factually true, but is still unfree.

Poetry as Criticism of Life

Istana Park

so much depends
upon

how fast you walk
along

this short green carpet
within

a little red
dot.



Observations

If you live in Singapore long enough,
you start noticing strange details.
Like the trees.
You can't escape
the trees in the Garden City.

Looking at them
you start to wonder how people here think.

Notice the less shade a tree gives
the higher its status and prestige.
Palm trees, coconut trees, shrubs -
Our architects fall over themselves to plant them outside the holy sites:
embassies, state buildings, malls and condos.

Trees serve a decorative function.
For shade, please use a sheltered walkway
or an underground tunnel.



Green Plan

Docile, domesticated
garden is nature denatured
colonised for human living.

Come, let us draw lines
to fence in nature.
Let us tear up the forests
pave the ground with concrete
then plant midget shrubs between the cracks!

For this is our green plan:
"We will keep nature as long as possible,
even as we cater to a growing population."*


* quote from Ms Juliet Hang, Asst Dir Public Affairs for Ministry of National Development and Ms Angeline Yap, Asst Dir Corporate Communications for Ministry of the Environment, in a letter to the Straits Times forum page on 10 May 2003.

Republicans for Stem-cell Research

or, Boycott the Salvation Army Now!

The Salvation Army will NOT be getting any donations from me this year, next year, or any year. It is not a Christian organisation when it refuses to support life-saving scientific research, when it shuns people who have good reason to speak for life-saving research, when it deceives the public about its true stand on stem-cell research, and when it cancels contracts without due recompense.

From the New York Times:

Patti Davis, an author and the daughter of President Ronald Reagan, has filed a lawsuit against the Salvation Army accusing it of backing out of a speaking agreement because it objects to her support for embryonic stem cell research.

Like her mother, Nancy Reagan, Ms. Davis supports research on stem cells taken from human embryos because it may lead to a cure for neurological diseases like Alzheimer's, which afflicted Mr. Reagan. Antiabortion groups oppose such research because the cells are harvested from fetuses.

But the lawyer for the Santa Rosa, Calif., chapter of the Salvation Army, which initially expressed interest in hiring Ms. Davis to speak at a dinner next month, said its change of heart was not related to such research.

The lawyer, Michael G. Watters, said, "There was not a binding agreement, and it just didn't work out for a variety of reasons." The Santa Rosa chapter, Mr. Watters said, "categorically denies that the fact that this thing didn't work out had anything to do with stem cell research or her position on stem cell research."

The Salvation Army's position on the therapeutic use of embryonic stem cells is unclear. A spokesman, Maj. George Hood, at the national headquarters of the organization, in Alexandria, Va., did not return calls seeking comment yesterday. A search of news articles failed to reveal a public position by the organization, an international Christian charity based in London.

In the suit, filed Oct. 4 in State Supreme Court in Manhattan and made public yesterday, Ms. Davis asserts that the Salvation Army "breached" an agreement for her to speak in Santa Rosa on Nov. 19 at the Annual Dream Big Dinner for the Kids.

Ms. Davis seeks a $7,500 cancellation fee and punitive damages of $22,500 to be paid to the Greater Talent Network, her booking agent.

Mr. Watters implied that the deal killer was Ms. Davis's abilities as a speaker. The Greater Talent Network, Mr. Watters said, "sent out a demo tape or a copy of one of her TV shows or something, and people here said that we're not sure she's for us."

Lawrence Fabian, the lawyer for Ms. Davis and her booking agent, said Salvation Army officials in Santa Rosa "saw some television program - whether it was 'Primetime' or 'Dateline' I just don't remember - back in August, and Patti Davis talked about stem cell research."

Officials then told the Greater Talent Network that such a position was "not acceptable to them and that they would have to cancel the contract," Mr. Fabian said.

The booking agent is "not naming names at this time but they know the names, obviously," Mr. Fabian said.

Mr. Fabian emphasized that Ms. Davis's planned speech was about "The Long Goodbye," her book on her father's struggle with Alzheimer's disease, set to be released next month.

"We've tried to make this a very simple matter that they breached the agreement with her and that this is the cause of it," Mr. Fabian said. Ms. Davis is "not trying to make a cause célèbre of this particular lawsuit."

In August, Ms. Davis appeared on ABC's "Primetime Live." She said: "My family watched as Alzheimer's conquered my father. Thousands of families deal with Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries and diabetes. Stem cell treatment could be the miracle we've been waiting for."

Global Limits

Oil production is nearly at its peak. Yet that shouldn't worry most readers today: the more pressing problem is the US military, which has clearly peaked and reached its limit.

Item 1: US military persuades UK troops in the south of Iraq to move up to the north, where most of the action is. Parliament will debate on this issue during the week (and I'll be updating on it).

Item 2: The elite force of the US army has just been despatched to Iraq. It's a little like sending your Top Henchman into battle after all your goons are slaughtered by some gung-ho fighter. Or sending Captain Freedom to finish off Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Running Man, because the entire cast of heroes have been killed...

As the Los Angeles Times puts it,

For years, The Box has been a stage for the Army's elite "opposition force" — soldiers expert at assuming the roles of enemy fighters, be they the Taliban or Iraqi insurgents. Their mission is to toughen new soldiers with elaborate simulations — staging sniper fire, riots, suicide car bombings and potentially dangerous culture clashes.

Staging such scenes has long been the work of the fabled 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, or Black Horse Regiment. But starting next month, the 3,500-member unit will begin shipping out to Iraq from the Ft. Irwin National Training Center, near Barstow. Deployments are nothing new in the Army, of course, but there is a special sense of urgency about dispatching the Black Horse to tackle situations that it has trained roughly 500,000 soldiers to handle since 1994. Now the bombs and bullets they encounter will be all too real.

"No one ever thought the Black Horse would be taken out of the National Training Center; they are just too valuable here," said Maj. John Clearwater. "But the Army is stretched too thin, and Iraq is a big mission."

The bottomline: a draft is imminent in America. It will happen regardless of who wins on 2 Nov. But maybe Kerry would have the decency to beg the United Nations and the Arab League to send in their soldiers.

The Job of the Year 2004

or, Why oh why do we have such liars serving as government economists?

In 2002, at the height of Singapore's grand "transition into a mature economy" (where do the mandarins in our civil service come up with crap like that?), and when our then-PM Goh lauded graduates frying chestnuts and selling porridge at hawker centres as entrepeneurs (and how did this piece of crap manage to float to the top of the civil service?), the Job of the Year was: Insurance Agent.

In 2003, when our government economists proclaimed that Singapore had grown marvellously despite the SARS outbreak (presumably, one has to admire their talent for looking for silver linings in very dark clouds, and ignoring the countless people who lost their jobs), the Job of the Year was: Multilevel Marketer.

For 2004, let's give a loud cheer for the 9% growth rate (projected)! It is a growth rate that shouldn't slide below 8% despite the dramatic slowdown in the last quarter! Indeed, as our government economists put it, even if the economy does come to a complete halt, we'll still have at least 8% growth, huzzah! Ah, the wonders of starting from a very low base: any improvement becomes spectacular. And the Job of the Year is: Telemarketer (aka Direct Marketer).

Do you hate it when telemarketers call?
(Link courtesy of Edward)

The Direct Marketing sector regards the telephone as one of its most successful tools. Consumers experience telemarketing from a completely different point of view: more than 92% perceive commercial telephone calls as a violation of privacy.

Telemarketers make use of a telescript - a guideline for a telephone conversation. This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance.

Why make life difficult for telemarketers?

Well, because they do make life difficult for us. Like making us ponder the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything:

1. Where did you get my contact from?
2. When on earth did I ever give my contact to your company? (especially if I haven't even heard of your company in my life)
3. Which company did you buy my contact from?
4. What makes you think you're not annoying me by calling at x pm?
5. What makes you think I'll give you my email address at the end of your unsolicited sales attempt?

But mainly because telemarketers are just one step above email spammers.

Rejoice, for I have returned to the Internets!

The philosopher and deconstructionist Jacques Derrida is dead; he shall live on forever.

The Fafblog has a very appropriate entry celebrating Derrida and his philosophy.

Black Humour

A Uniquely Singaporean Edition


Singapore's National Anthem is Majullah Singapura (Forward, Singapore!).
It is ruled by a conservative party whose slogan is Incremental Change.

Hall of Shame and Notoriety

Flip Flopper Number 1



Via DFA 2.0, which identifies the most outrageous flip-flopper in American politics.

It was Dick Cheney, but not as you know him. Thirteen years ago, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney gave the keynote address at the Washington Insitute's Soref Symposium. The speech was titled "The Gulf War: A First Assessment" and you're not going to believe some of what he said.

"Should we have gone in to Baghdad? Did we leave the job in some respects unfinished? I think the answer is a resounding "no."

"I think the proposition of going to Baghdad is fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, and once we'd done that we'd have to put another government in its place."

"It is vitally important for a President to know when not to commit U.S. military force. How many casualties should the United States accept in (the) effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?"

"It's my view that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."

This is the man who makes hopes to win an election by portraying Senator Kerry as a "flip-flopper." Read the entire transcript from the Washington Institute.

Flip Flopper Number 2



During the Legislative Assembly Debate on 15 September 1955 the Great Leader, then an ordinary assemblyman, said:

"If it is not totalitarian to arrest a man and detain him, when you cannot charge him with any offence against any written law - if that is not what we always cried out against in Fascist states - then what is it?"

The same Great Leader, upon assumption of power in 1959, went on shortly to jail without trial, launch defamation suits, and bankrupt all his political opponents for almost 50 years.

More on flats and singles

I had the feeling, two posts ago, that MiniLee had promised more than what he could give in his National Rally speech. Under the laudable initiative of liberalising Singapore, the new leader made several sweeping pronouncements which, in the course of just a fortnight, were "clarified" and nullified by himself, his ministers, and even the Police Entertainment Licensing Unit (an Orwellian name, if there ever was one).

On further consideration, I realise that the "clarification" by Mah Bow Wow on flats and singles issue was not even coherent. Let's take a look at it again, this time, in depth.

Rally Speech: "We originally allowed singles to buy flats if two of them paired up and were aged above 35 years... this year we have gone further and said you can buy 4-room, 5-room or bigger flats anywhere on the resale market."

Mah Bow Wow's clarification: Singles can grants (i.e. subsidies) to buy any public housing as long as they don't earn more than $3000 a month. The old limit was $8000 a month.

A detailed explanation of my original point: It doesn't take much for middle-class singles over 35 to earn more than $3000 a month. If we take 2004 as the benchmark, the average middle-class single over 35 would've spent an average of 15 years in the labour market. If you're middle-class, PBEM, and white-collar, it's very likely that you'd hit over $3,000 a month? The amount of subsidies left behind is substantial, and does affect the capacity to afford your new home.

And singles of this profile have been the usual buyers of public housing under the old scheme! Of course with the old limit of $8,000 only the ridiculously well-off singles (who should be bonking with each other and passing their filthy rich 'sucessful genes' to produce new generations of Singaporeans!) were excluded from buying public housing.

The government can and will quibble over just how many singles have been left behind with the new limits. In fact, it will quibble over the numbers (if challenged publicly by critics like myself) without feeling the need to produce hard numbers of its own. So the point is moot until we or some economist critic can construct the figures.

But we've missed something big that the government won't have a defense to.

Old scheme: Singles are free to be filthy rich, it doesn't matter what they earn, but they can only buy a small 3-room flat.
New scheme: Singles are free to buy any flat what they want, but they won't receive any subsidies or waivers if they earn more than $3K.

Well, just tell me what flat you can really afford if you earn less than $3,000 a month. And tell me how you can afford a flat if you earn more, but are now ineligible for the subsidies?

Perhaps the only way to mock this incoherent scheme is to take it very literally, very seriously and ask:
"What if I get a raise 2 years after I buy the flat? Will the government kick me out of my flat and make me pay back the 'subsidies'?"
"I plan to get my flat under the singles-over-35 scheme, then marry someone 2 years later. Will I get to keep my singles flat subsidy? Will we be able to apply for a new flat under the married couples subsidy?"
"What if I get myself temporarily underpaid. Will I qualify for the scheme then?"
"I'm the CEO of my company. If I pay myself $5,000 in terms of company shares and only receive a cash salary of $2,500 will I still qualify?" etc.

(It's a parody of the Encyclopedist who, under religious censorship, managed to poke fun at the concept of the location of hell by taking it far too literally and seriously)

Living in a Police State

Via Keywords: When the RNC crashed into New York City, they turned it into a Police state with arbitrary arrests, police brutality, spying on citizens, and a refusal to set protestors free after the maximum 3-day holding period.

Kerim's article:
Indiscriminate Arrests

That's the number of people they are saying were arrested in New York during the Republican convention. A judge ordered that 500 of them be released immediately:

A judge ordered the immediate release of nearly 500 protesters Thursday - just hours before President Bush's speech at the Republican National Convention - and then fined the city for refusing to comply with his order.

The NY branch of the ACLU has set up a special web site for reporting on police misconduct during the RNC. In their latest report they raise concerns about the following violations:

* Pre-emptive arrests: On a couple of occasions, massive arrests followed right on the heels of a negotiated agreement on the terms for a lawful march

* Indiscriminate arrests: The NYCLU has received reports from members of the press, legal observers, medics and even passersby who found themselves caught in the Spiderman-type orange mesh netting the police used to make arrests.

* Dangerous tactics: At one demonstration, the police suddenly charged into the crowd with metal barricades and a squad of plain clothes officers later drove their scooters into the crowd. Some arrestees and bystanders reported being kicked, punched or hit with batons by police. Some reported the incidents to local precincts and had their bruises photographed by police officials.

* Dangerous conditions at the Pier 57 detention facility: Having announced for months that it was prepared to handle over 1000 arrests a day during the RNC, the City chose to detain arrestees in this dank, filthy bus depot where people had to sit or lie on the floor covered with soot and quite possibly toxic automotive fluids. The conditions left many with rashes and respiratory problems during their detention stay and after they were released. The NYCLU is in the process of testing a sample gathered by a medic who was part of a sweeping arrest, although he was doing nothing more than monitoring a protest event.

* Excessive delays in processing arrestees: The criminal justice system ground practically to a halt as people – including hundreds whose arrests the police know were unlawful – were routinely held for 36 hours or more on minor offenses before receiving desk appearance tickets or being brought before a judge.

* Pervasive police surveillance: The pervasive videotaping and use of surveillance cameras to record lawful protest activity raises the specter of a return to the bad old days of the “Red Squad” and the keeping of political dossiers on critics of our government. A number of activists with a history of lawful protest activity also report being followed by individuals who appeared to be government agents. These practices appear to be designed – and certainly have the effect—of intimidating people from exercising their right to dissent.

Perhaps most troubling is the increased use of the term "preemptive" to legitimate arrests, wars, and other acts of state violence. Its like watching a bad science fiction movie, except its real.

UPDATE: The story in the Village Voice.

Time for some Clarifications

A Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them Edition

How are all of us doing, 2 weeks into MiniLee's dynamic reign of Singapore? Despite the lack of details in his speech, some critics gave the new emperor the benefit of the doubt, and some were even overwhelmed by his apparent reformist bent and wrote tearful letters to the Straits Times forum page...

Yet 2 weeks is all it takes for every major point in MiniLee's National Day Rally to be "clarified" by all the King's men and horses.

In no particular order (since every major 'promise' laid out in MiniLee's speech has been clarified), let's look at the lying lies and the liar who told them.

1. Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom!

Rally speech: MiniLee promises that there will be no need to apply for licenses to speak or even hold an exhibition at the Speakers Corner in Honglim Park.

"One: for indoor talks — we are going to do away with licensing."

Clarification: The Police Entertainment Licensing Unit (PELU) declares a few days later that talks that have foreign speakers or are held by organisations affiliated to foreign NGOs still have to apply for a permit to hold a talk.

2. Let a Hundred flowers bloom! pt 2

Rally Speech: "The second thing we are going to do is to open up the Speakers' Corner where you can go and make any speech you like and we are going to say, 'Well, if you want to go there and have an exhibition, go ahead.'"

Clarification: PELU declares on the same day that although you don't have to go to the police station to apply for a permit to hold a speech or an exhibition at the Corner, you still need to go to the police station to register. And you can only have the speech/exhibition between 7am and 7pm, where everyone else is still at work. And you still can't use any megaphone or microphone.

3. Let the Singles go!

Rally speech: "We originally allowed singles to buy flats if two of them paired up and were aged above 35 years... this year we have gone further and said you can buy 4-room, 5-room or bigger flats anywhere on the resale market."

Clarification: Singles can buy any public housing as long as they don't earn more than $3000 a month. The old limit was $8000 a month.

My beef: Do the math. The ceiling has been lowered by more than 50%. IF our omniscient MiniLee and Mah Bow Wow are confident that "not many singles will be affected", they should release full figures to show just how many singles are left behind. As a former sociology student dealing with actual figures in my university, I can assure you at least 25% of singles eligible (under the old "pre-liberalisation" scheme) have now lost their right to buy a home.

4. Making Babies

Rally speech: The government has a solution for everything! The new 5-day workweek will solve our underpopulation problem!

Clarification: New scheme unveiled just yesterday aims to solve Singapore's population problem by making it EVEN EASIER for any foreigner to get Singapore PRship and citizenship and jobs.

5. We welcome all post-1965 Singaporeans to join the political process!

Rally speech: "We want you to be part of our team. We don't mind if you have different views but you must have some views."

Clarification 1: Goh Chok Tong sternly states that MiniLee "will not change just to please the Western-influenced liberals who desire to apply their concept of democracy, pluralistic politics and freedom of the press unthinkingly to Singapore. He will take a practical approach of what works for Singapore."

Wonderful. Presumably they will listen to you as long as you apply MiniLee's concept of democracy...

Clarification 2: Opposition MPs were not invited to the rally speech. That's akin to opposition MPs getting shut out during the SOU address. Presumably, "Opposition MPs have never been invited to the National Day Rally as they cannot be expected to help the Government rally the ground to support its policies". At least MiniLee's saying this himself, and not through a proxy like Mah Bow Wow, Goh Chok Tong, Wong Can't Sing, or PELU.

What do we make out of this?

The summary of MiniLee's leadership so far:

1. Make a big speech that promises the sky and claim to be an inclusivist leader.

2. Get your cabinet ministers to explain the very fine print in the weeks to come.

Doesn't this remarkable leadership style remind us of some other great leader in the world right now?

Another Link Day

(and no, I'm still not talking about that hot elf)

Liberals have had a bad name in the mainstream press. To call someone a "liberal" is akin to uttering either a curse or a vulgar phrase. Yet most of the world as we know it depends on battles that liberals fought hard for, and won.

Sometimes rowdy, unmanaged forums throw up the best writing. In the spirit of Ralph Linton's essay "The 100% American", the original poster at DFA 2.0 has written this marvellous defence of liberals, which I title...

The Average Conservative

Joe gets up at 6:00 AM to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot with good, clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan. Because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast -- bacon and eggs this day. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower, reaching for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labelled with every ingredient and the amount that it contains because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and the breakdown of its contents. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree-hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer meets these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he'll get worker's compensation or an unemployment check because some liberal didn't think he should loose his home to temporary misfortune.

It's noon time. Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dad's; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification (those rural Republicans would still be sitting in the dark).

Joe is happy to see his dad, who is now retired. Joe's dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. After his visit with dad, Joe gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show. The host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees, "We don't need those big government liberals ruining our lives. After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

In the years to come, Joe's life will change dramatically. The U.S. dollar will be devalued as a result of our huge deficit, our living standards demolished, our standing with the world diminished and our social security gone...all because some conservative republican made sure he could take care of himself and his buddies.

Sustainable Development

And now, we're out of water as well.

I told you so here. Not only is the world running out of oil, it's running out of water.

Before you say I must be more nuts than the cranks who rave about Peak Oil...

Well. This isn't so funny now, is it?

The End of Teflon Blair?

An Impeach them, impeach them NOW! Edition

Tony Blair has survived 2 official inquiries, 1 vote of no-confidence, and a Labour Party conference. For that, he deserves to inherit the Teflon Leader crown from Clinton.

But wait... what's this about Blair being impeached?

Proceedings have begun to begin formal impeachment process against Blair shortly. Just like Clinton's impeachment, Tony Blair is expected to survive easily. However the impeachment process will surely force the PM to submit to yet another debate and even further scrutiny from his critics within and without the party.

But is he really that unassailable? Some people, while not baying for his blood, are clearly sharpening their knives.

Bush's "coalition of the willing" dwindles by the day. Spain and the Philippines have withdrawn, Japan is hesitating to send more troops, while his most ardent cronies in the UK and Australia face serious political challenges in the coming months.