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| Hoink-hoink highways |
| 11.20.04 (7:47 pm) [edit] |
Singapore is magnificently road-ified: they occupy about 13% of our land surface area compared with 12% for public housing in which more than 80% of the people live. Our multi-billion dollar expressways criss-cross our small island state and fresh construction continues to connect the new "townships" sprouting around its periphery.
Despite the extravagant use of scarce land, they are needed to sustain the regional hubbing business that was the reason why Thomas Stamford Raffles, plenipotentiary of the English East India company, now lying in Westminster cathedral among the great and the good of English history, exchanged with their Dutch counterpart this small island for far more extensive land and facilities in Java.
So, the expressways are filled with cars, trucks, vans and buses all through the daylight hours but empty to eerie silence after the evening rush. Should we schedule commercial traffic to the night? Perhaps, but that might make it much more difficult to recruit and keep people.
So, should we keep the traffic flowing flowing as fast as possible. espeicially during the peak morning and evening rush hours? No. That would be encouraging faster driving which is supposed to be more dangerous.
There are few motorbike patrols during heavy traffic. So, while heavily laden trucks keep dutifully to the side, those with slightly faster acceleration drag themselves to the outer lanes, straining to pass. Little old ladies and other uncertain drivers quite naturally stay clear of these dangerous maneuvers by driving in the overtaking lane!
Where are the traffic police whose presence would discourage this daily vehicular line dancing? They must be somewhere for they magically appear when free-flowing conditions enable driving at 110km/h (about 70mph), the designed speed of all expressways but which has been arbitrarily set at 90km/h.
I get it! Revenue is obtained from fines but not from waving road hogs to the slower lanes!
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| Giving up a seat on the train. |
| 11.19.04 (6:01 pm) [edit] |
This is the Singapore MRT (mass rapid transit) experience. Girls stand up for old folks or women with children or parcels. Old folks stand up for older folks. Tourists stand up for locals. Young guys? Errr..rr, no! They have glue on their butts. Espeicially those in military uniforms; it seems that sticky pants are standard military issue.
Did all the sitting servicemen just complete very strenuous exercises? And the smart looking guys in ties, tapping their PDAs? Do they have energy and attention for clients but none for the feeble or burdened?
Singapore has conscription for males and the two-year acive service and thirteen years reserevist training is tough. Does it not seem strange that those willing to give their lives for the nation will not give their seat for an old lady?
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| A cloud over civilisation. |
| 07.24.04 (10:50 pm) [edit] |
Corporate power is the driving force behind US foreign policy - and the slaughter in Iraq.
I was and still am in favour of unseating Saddam Hussein. Only states can give people new identities and let them carry dangerous things into foreign lands without being checked. Only states have secure communications to all the major capitals, ports and financial centres. Non-state groups like Al-Qaeda cannot easily mount a major operation without state help. States may find such groups useful for "wet" work as they increase the anonymity and deniability of these ops.
But, J K Galbraith's analysis of how policy is influenced by corpoarate considerations shook me:
A Cloud Over Civilization= http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,,1261593,00.html
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| Singapore's next PM visits Taiwan, why? |
| 07.18.04 (12:28 am) [edit] |
Friends from the semiconductor industry told me that it's about the next big thing: the 12-inch wafer.
Taiwan has perfected the manufacturing process, apparently with zero defects, and wants to license the technology. A new wafer-fab for this giant wafer will cost a cool 4 billion and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will get 49% of the ownership in return for setting it up and staffing it with engineers.
TSMC won't license it to Japanese or Korean competitors and are forbidden by their government from selling this technology to the Chinese. That leaves only Malaysia and Singapore as possible sites for the technology transfer.
Hence the private visit by Lee Hsien Loong, currently the Deputy Prime Minister and assuming the PM's office on August 12, 2004. Singapore needs to make the 12-inch wafer to be a major player in semiconductors. A little private bootlicking couldn't hurt.
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