Everyone is a leader? There is a dearth of good leadership? How about good help, is that still so hard to find? Lead from the front. Lead by example. Lead from the rear. Lead by consensus. Lead by influence. Most leadership “gurus” don’t really develop and nurture and select good leaders. Far from it. What […]
Someone who hails from somewhere north of the Mediterranean happened to be in Singapore on an internship as part of his “Gap Year”. We had a short and perhaps somewhat desultory conversation on how his work was going to mitigate the effects of climate change and so forth. You know what comes next. I asked […]
I don’t like eavesdropping. There is nothing people talk about that I want to eavesdrop on. If eavesdropping were ever necessary, then what the eavesdropper was straining to hear was definitely not worth hearing. I say the same goes for “state secrets” and whatever Heads of Nations or Heads of Governments say in “secret” meetings. […]
I casually asked a young man what he was studying in the university, and he replied “Info Systems”. “Dashboards? UX?” I prompted. “Something like that” came the reply, as though trying to answer a six-year-old and having that six-year-old stop asking. It brought two things to my mind. The first was a remark made by […]
Someone sent me a short article and asked me whether population decline in Korea and Japan were due to declining masculinity. I didn’t ask him to define what “masculinity” meant. It doen’t mean having the ability to attract many women to want to mate with you anytime or anyhow you feel like it. It does […]
I had an interesting conversation with someone from Nigeria this morning. He deals in producing clothes which help people with “multiple identities” define themselves. So here he is on a Southeast Asian tour getting the feel of the various cultures in this little corner of the world. That feel, combined with the different feels he […]
This post is meant for Christians and those who think they are. If you are neither, you are also welcome to read. If you are Singaporean, you are welcome to read also. In Matthew Chapter 13 verses 24 to 30, the parable of the wheat and tares was given in order to illustrate what the […]
The book of 2 Peter Chapter 1 verses 5 to 7 is often taught as there being a “ladder” of “attainment”, perhaps similar to the “Five Levels of Leadership” taught by John Maxwell. The verses are here: 2 Pe 1:5-7 5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue […]
One of the lines from the song “Delta Dawn” went like this: “Then a man of low degree stood by her side And he promised her he’d take her for his bride” This song came into my head again, and it made me think about minimum wages, which rob the unskilled and the young, trying […]
Over the mid-April 2023 weekend, I was privileged to have been involved supporting a few talks on Creation at a few churches. In the weeks leading up to these few talks, I had also been involved in the planning and coordination for the talks. One of the things which I kept hearing was that “speaking […]
In 2 Samuel Chapter 11, we read the whole sorry episode concerning King David’s adultery and the murder of Uriah the Hittite. Most people seem to be very focused on the adultery and murder and almost nothing else. We seem to take this whole episode as telling us that, had we been in King David’s […]
There has been so much talk about military preparedness recently. No wonder, with what’s been going on. So much discussion and vituperation over which strategy to choose, ad nauseum. There’s really no point discussing who is more prepared than the other. Instead, we should be talking about maids. Domestic help. My countrymen live in a […]
This post is really an ad. Ok, now that you’re totally put off, let me announce the availability of someone who needs you. Someone who is SAD, which means Severe Attentiveness Deficit. Ok, it can also be Severe Appreciation Deficit or any number of other things you might like to conjure up. This Someone, or […]
I’ve never studied Economics, and some topics bore me to tears because they are just talking about how to keep consuming more and more while producing less and less. Watch this first, then read the two articles: Central Banks, Gold, and the Decline of the dollar. China as a lender of last resort. Come back […]
Over recent years, I have been puzzled by what many economists assert as truth – that productivity in large urban areas, where multitudes flock to live and work, is actually 30% to 40% more than elsewhere. I suppose this is derived from the notion that there is wisdom in crowds, and is probably why I […]
In II Samuel Chapter 11, we read the whole grim episode of how King David committed both adultery and murder. Most people I know seem to think those were grievous sins, but in King David’s case, was pardonable because King David had lived a life with a perfect heart towards the Lord God. Well, those […]
The Bereans were a group of early Christians from Berea who had a reputation for checking the Scriptures daily to see if any particular preacher, even such a one as the Apostle Paul, was actually speaking truth or confusion as measured against the Word of God. That seems to be a rare enough quality, not […]
One of the common leadership cop-outs is the propensity for us leaders, at any level, to blame our own lack of effective leadership on “The will of the people…” In the Bible, we are given the example of King Saul, who disobeyed the instructions that God gave him through Samuel the prophet. Instead of owning […]
Listening to a video conversation this morning, I heard that the proposal to lower the voting age from 20 to 18 in Taiwan didn’t get through. That didn’t get my attention as much as the expressed disappointment of the person presenting that fact. I am not surprised at his expression of disappointment, I am just […]
It was great watching this conversation on GoodFellows and I took away two main things from it. The first was how a solid work ethic of diligence and loyalty to the company and co-workers would triumph over any changes or deterioration in work environments and the second was that AI-generated content was actually similar to […]
As time goes on, we will acquire more and more data, information and hopefully, increased understanding of “How Things Work”. The CNA article on empowering Singapore’s Police to collect DNA samples in more situations is part of that growing body of information, knowledge, etc. This is natural, and we can expect more to come. Understanding […]
That might sound like a strange title for a post, but as I see more and more people talking about things like having your house full of books, which is supposed to ensure literacy for your children, having personal coaches, mentors, and so on, and of course, whether you are “fans” of sports teams, stars […]
The title might remind you of a catchphrase some time ago, advertizing for the “Life!” section of The Straits Times. It sort of summarizes what was going through my mind as I read the article from Geopolitical Futures again. The article link is below. 1991: False Dawn History repeats itself. History rhymes. What these people […]
I read with sadness this morning that Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 Sep 2022 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. She had been Queen for 70 years and will be missed by many. The only question on my mind was “Did she truly know the Lord Jesus Christ”? That, after all, is all that really […]
I haven’t finished watching the latest “Battlegrounds” conversation helmed by Lieutenant-General H.R. McMaster, but I see the trajectory going according to what I’m used to, and it’s a good trajectory. So I’ll finish the video at leisure afterwards and pen a short note right now. I’m finishing my lunch at one of the eateries at […]
There might not be many people who would publicly proclaim that a woman’s place is in the home, man’s place is at the workplace or whatever place brings in the income for the family. That is because of a limited view, a limited concept, of what constitutes home and what constitutes workplace. “Home” is not […]
A post by Geopolitical Futures’ Dr George Friedman on the state of universities nudged me to share this. The link to his article is attached. So are links to videos of separate conversations between the Honourable John Anderson and Professors James Tooley and Salvatore Babones. Do take the time to read and watch. I assure […]
This might be an unusual title for a quick post, but it’s based on something I said. Something I said that I wish I hadn’t. Something I need to remind myself never to say again. Someone had called for a ride for three of her workers and I had been assigned the job of picking […]
When I was younger, I was all for the idea of only using organic fertilizers, meaning animal manure, fish waste, encouraging helpful nematode proliferation (meaning earthworms, but not too much) and rotating land under cultivation to let portions lie fallow every seventh year. Recently, after hearing so much talk about how food production has actually […]
Why do legislatures make official overseas visits? Simple. To get more money by establishing relationships and thus increase the flow of trade, which is good for everybody. I also said before that “Navies are for networking”, with tongue in cheek, of course, but they are, if you think about it. Are you “concerned” over such […]
The author of this piece, Ted Gover, PhD, Associate Clinical Professor at Claremont Graduate University, seems to know what Xi Jinping’s intentions are vis-a-vis third term prospects and armed conflict over Taiwan. I would tread carefully, since it is manifestly difficult to know what any world leader is thinking at any particular time. It might […]
I call this “Reminders for Journalists” because nothing I will write here is anything new, either for them or for the reading public, which includes me. Straits Times’ Opinion Editor Grace Ho writes about the often ad hominem attacks journalists, especially female journalists, face when engaging with audiences online via email and social media. Many […]
A Straits Times article with this theme caught my eye just now. As always, I ask whose responsibility it should be. My answer is of course each and every employee’s responsibility! Why are we asking employers to be responsible? The employer’s responsibility is to ensure that the company continues to thrive and be of increasing […]
This was what caught my eye this morning. Another yawn-inducing piece. Except that the Fed isn’t responsible for inflation. People who have bought into the lie that printing more money stimulates economic growth are. Well, you can’t stimulate something that’s not there. The only way to get wealthy is to be diligent in producing goods […]
It seems that too much of what we have built, or allowed to be installed, has a very short MTBF, or “Mean Time Between Failures”, going anecdotally by what I experience on an almost daily basis. You want data? Help me, I don’t have time for these kinds of things. You suss out the data […]
It wasn’t possible to have this video on the site itself, so I’m embedding it from YouTube.
Jason L Riley has written “Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell”. I have not read the book yet but have heard Jason Riley talking about it on a couple of interviews. Having heard those, I have no hesitation recommending the book itself to you if you can afford to get it and are so inclined, […]
I’ve been hearing historian Dr Niall Ferguson, who is the Millbank Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, amongst many other titles, use the term “counterfactual” more than a few times now, and always wondered what on earth he meant by it. That was answered for me when I listened to this podcast, and I do […]
I attach the video link and also embed the video in this short post. It is a discussion between three eminent historians of today about the “Big Three” of the Second World War, namely Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin and how they fared vis-a-vis their national strategic goals as they went about defeating Hitler. This is […]
Surveys, polls and the like are nice, quick and easy tools to use, especially when they can be crafted to elicit responses one is looking for. Companies, governments, research folk and the like, seem to love using surveys, polls, modelling and so forth because they can be made to produce faster results, “conclusions” and they […]
War games, business simulations, fantasy feeder games and the like are all models. Models are fantasies we create about people and places as we’d like them to be. Advertisements are models. Marketing is one big model. Political hackphrases are models. They primarily attempt to put flesh on the dry bones of the greatness we aspire […]
I have just watched George Friedman on Mauldin Economics discussing, of course, the situation in Ukraine, what it means for the rest of the world, etc. The video can be found below, and I would encourage you to watch it in its entirety, and maybe yet again if you need to in future. One of […]
At a talk some years ago, I heard the speaker, someone who moved in diplomatic circles, say that the three leading causes of death in the world were: Actions by a foreign government. Actions by your own government. Actions by your own family. Not ever having been an academic, I didn’t know what numbers he […]
“Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence”, or so we have been told. Just because the water seems fresh and clear doesn’t mean the liver flukes aren’t there. We shouldn’t get paranoid over that, but we ought to still boil the water before drinking or make sure the water gets filtered or otherwise […]
Once again, I see arguments over more tax, how to tax, whom to tax, ad nauseum. By the way, it’s “whom” to tax, not which corporations to tax. You can’t tax companies, you can only tax people. Once again, when will we take to heart that raising tax rates lowers tax revenues, and vice versa? […]
I discovered that there was such a thing as “human resources”, especially a scourge called the “Human Resource Department” several years ago and came to loathe the phrase. Not long after that, I discovered the term “Human Capital” used by economists and that sat a lot better with me. Humans have a tendency to squander […]
Over the last few days, I have seen at least two persons, one Matt Taibbi writing on Substack, and the other George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures, apologizing for being wrong about the assumption that Russia would NOT invade Ukraine based on analyses of the situation. Why? Overall assessments were essentially there in the ballpark. Russia […]
The word “lebensraum” meaning “living space” has been on my mind again recently. That’s because we humans never seem to be satisfied no matter how much we have. Maybe that’s because we think “contentment” means “complacency” and they are not the same thing at all! How can we get ourselves to be content with what […]
Channel News Asia (CNA) sent an email titled “Making sense in a world of flux”. The phrase “redistribution of wealth” caught my eye. I followed the link to this article titled “Greater social spending and redistribution rest on economic growth and government prudence”. Reading the article, this paragraph caught my eye: I wonder what “A […]
I’ve done four episodes of “Literature” with my friend Benjamin Thomas on YouTube, and I was introduced to the idea of poetry as “bending the rules of grammar to add layers of meaning”. Well, today I was musing (well, brooding, actually) on what our Presence promotes, whether it is in-person or otherwise. So I indulged […]
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