dimanche, janvier 21, 2007
  of Thailand and Singapore  

Thai Army decides to go back to using walkie-talkies (instead of handphones) for communication because they are afraid the the mobilephone transmissions will be tapped by the phone companies. The telecommunication companies having been taken over by our dear Temasek Holdings in recent years. I wonder since when was Thailand so afraid of the Singapore Corporation.

Do they fear sg's NS military? walkie-talkie, fantastic. seems like Thailand is really out of sorts recently. and also with the furore over Thaksin's visit to Singapore. now they really weren't pleased with that. wonders wonders. perhaps they were worried. perhaps they worry that, that, that Thaksin would gain access to Thai military knowledge through Singapore through Temasek Holdings through the phone network. hmm hmm hmm. what a long chain of events. Doesn't it sound like some Tom Clancy thing, just like the Russian spy radioactive poisoning.

Perhaps. Since the Thai telecommunication companies were controlled by Shin Corp. before Temasek bought them over, the Army chiefs fear that there were wire-tapping mechanisms put in place by Thaksin and family, who owned Shin Corp. I hope I'm getting the names right. Anyway, so perhaps Temasek inherited them, and then Thaksin drops by Singapore, and the coalition govt gets really worried whether all these might be true. Perhaps when they were organising their coup d'état, they used walkie-talkies to communicate and so now they go back to their trusted devices.

but of course all these are just plain speculations from little me based on whatever little info that filters out from the media. don't come and sue/bomb/assassinate me.

given the recent spate of bombings in Bangkok and the Thai govt's anti-Singapore moves, I hope that my friends don't go to Bangkok for shopping in the meantime. It really wouldn't be worth it to get blown up over such a fanciful dispute.

during the past General Elections in Sg, I was wondering whether a 'revolution' in Sg would be worth it. As shown by the polls, the majority of the voting population(*) still prefer to stick with the tried and tested PAP. They trust in the current batch of people to make the right decisions. Despite the dominance of the PAP and their declining legacy, the sufficiently smooth-sailing economy of Sg seems to perpetuate their continued existence. ah well. the Sg atmosphere does not really ring of adventure and revolution. I feel a sudden failure, leading to a loss of confidence in the leading party, would precipitate a revolutionary change in governance. It is more probable than a slow musical chairs erosion of their number of seats.
However, a great change like that would undoubtedly lead to a certain period of instability and certain damage to the economy. Properly done, this would only be a temporary phenomenon and the subsequent rise would negate this. As it is, with the current economic climate, this tradeoff does not yet seem to be sufficiently compelling. As with blackjack, we can make educated guesses, but we never know whether the extra card might improve or destroy the hand. Meanwhile perhaps the banker might kill himself.
(* in a general population demography, the voting population would come from the above 21yo, which would make them 66-75% of an even distribution. Would it be a fallacy to infer that since the population of Singapore is aging, the proportion of the higher aged voters would be even higher. As such, the voting population would more likely appear from the older generation/WWII generation/LKY generation. therefore the voting population would be more in tune with PAP syndrome. just thoughts.)

Which leads me to an astonishing revelation that my bridge games have been rather good recently. I hope the luck carries on to CNY, but then nobody plays bridge during CNY. 1.they are too money-minded, or rather i feel that many young kids are. so silly. it's like such a small and insignificant sum of winnings/losses. 2.they aren't intelligent enough to play decent bridge. i think it's an sufficiently complicated and free-form game. Probably ranks in the harder difficulty of games to pick up, and even harder to properly play it, but only require fine-tuning and a sharp memory to master. Still, the game fails if the players fail.
Rather surprised to win at 4 Clubs yesterday, and thereafter 5 Clubs. the fancy thing was that I was partnered with Sylvia. the unsurprising thing was that I won the bid.
I very much enjoy those games with weizheng where the two of us would just sweep the entire game, in entire control, passing control non-stop between us.
I do wish that the girls would bid more, and better. (and perhaps higher).


Lord of the Rings Online!
Level 47 Elf Hunter Vindyamiriel

song of the moment:
de Jax
孙燕姿 - 雨天
周杰伦 - 珊瑚海


林俊杰&金莎 - 被风吹过的夏天
Kitaro - Symphony of Dreams
James Blunt - You Are Beautiful
Clannad - Seachran Charn Tsiail
Céline Dion - En attendant ses pas
ASIE - Et puis la terre
陈奕迅 - 十年
Yanni - Before I Go
Céline Dion/Garou - Sous le vent Dido - White Flag
梁静茹 - 如果有一天 [歌/词]
Natalie Imbruglia - Torn

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