Colonialism Nots Dead, It's On A Golf Course

Some of you may have heard that the LTTE now officially have an airforce, consisting of two home made planes it must surely be the world's smallest airforce. Considering they are up against Kfir Jets and the likes, the rebels surely must be hoping for an upset on the scale of Ireland beating Pakistan or Bangladesh beating India in the World Cup Cricket. Many of you may know that I am a big cricket fan. Some of you may not realise that for the past three odd weeks and for the next four weeks I will be living in a state of perpetual lethargy. The games are on at a good time here in Sri Lanka - they start around 7pm, just after work and The Simpsons, and finish around 3-4am. So obviously, the only thing that is suffering from all of this is my work... meanwhile, the streets of Sri Lanka (and Bangladesh) are buzzing with an amazing vibe. According to the BBC, the only sort of street rallies currently allowed in Bangladesh considering all the political strife is that relating to the ellations of the Bangladesh Tigers. And the only reason for that is the police are joining in the same street celebrations. Sri Lanka is not quite at the same level, but if you don't know how many runs Sangakara made or if you don't know who's wicket Murali took - you ain't worth your salt!

On the weekend past, a dozen of us travelled up to Kandy to play some cricket, many of us blury eyed from watching Sri Lanka beat India the night before (and what a game that was!). One of the good things about Sri Lanka, is that people work in all different sort of positions.. and Richard a.k.a. The Jelf works for a tourist company, and he definately came through with the goods this weekend when he organised the golfing trip away! So off we went, in convey with a jeep and a mini bus...

Lara, Andy, Martine and Katrina.. all wondering "When the F*%^ are we going to get there!?". A three hour drive turned quickly into five.... but it was worth it. The gold course is set on a huge piece of land next to Lake Victoria (a large hydro dam actually):


First stop on arrival? Check out our challete's on the golf course and tuck into a quick beer before we hit the practice fairwair.


The practice fairway.. not a bad view. Below (out of sight) there were buffalo we were aiming for.. completely unsuccesfully I must add. But in the picture, if you squint and tilt your head, you can see my ball flying into the mountains....


Sam (left) teaching Andy (right) how to hit a ball. They're both about to leave Sri Lanka in the next few weeks, so best they get an ass whipping sooner rather than later.


After we hit our 150 balls, two guys ran around picking up the balls.. in the meanwhile, we decided to play frisbee with the bucket lids. Martine takes safety very seriously!


That night some of stayed up until 3:30am to watch Australia beat South Africa. But that was not going to get in the way of the big day. At 10am, we were ready and raring to go. Sam, me and Andy and our three caddies.. and out of sight were our two ball finders who spent much of their time digging around in the bushes and rough looking for Andy's ball. :-)


The Glory Shot. A 100 yard, par 3, 4th hole. In the background you can see the tee off area, and this was the outcome with my 8 iron. Like a Tiger!


Poor Andy, on the same hole he had a bit more to go on his second shot.. say about 100 yards more.


Thankfully, my caddie had a handicap of 5 so he could give me some tips on the green.


Meanwhile, some of the girls decided to sit by the pool and lap it all up.. Ali who is currently staying with me while she is doing some research, welp she is from England and got fried as one would expect of the English when they see something resembling a big yellow ball in the sky. Her knees are still in pain...


Some of the others played tennis under the floodlights.. me? Nah. I will stick to badmitton.


Overall, it was an awesome weekend. I shot 100. Sam beat me on 99, taking the honours on the last hole. The bugger. Andy, well even with his caddie throwing the ball for him, he still got 135. The other group had about the same amount of luck as Andy. Fantastic weekend though. I felt like a real colonialist with my caddie and ball finders.. now I know what it's like to be a Tiger!

I haven't written in a while, so I thought I might just put up some random photos from previous weekends down south.. this is when I did some big game fishing. Unfortunately, the largest fish we caught was Nemo. The beach was quite nice though.. Unawatuna.








Peace, Love, and ex-Colonies

B.

ECO2027: Tuk Tuk Environmental Economics

Ahh, the ol' trusty stead: the Tuk-Tuk, the Auto-Rickshaw, the Three-Wheeler, or whatever you may call it. They're always there (except when you need one), waiting to depart you from your hard earned money. They cry poor, and live rich. The tuk-tuk drivers themselves claim they know EXACTLY where you want to go, and then take you to several altenrative destinations first: No, not Borella, I said ROSMEAD PLACE! NO! NOT Galle Face Hotel, I said CRICKET CLUB ON QUEENS ROAD!

"Bagatalle road"
"Kandy?"
"BagaTALLE road"
"Ipswitch?"
"BAGAtalle road"
"Washington DC?"
"Baga-fucking-talle road!"
"Oh, BaGATAlle road".
"...ass muncher...."

Welp, for all their good and all their bad, they are the mode of transport in Colombo. Some of you may feel a bit of de ja vous, and think I have been here before. Well that was ECO1011: Introduction to Tuk Tuk Economics, and since then, We've Graduated!

Living in a developing country, with minimal enforcement of any laws (unless of course they expect you to pay an "on the spot fine"), and with insufficient capital to invest in maintaining eqiupment and infrastructure, you can imagine that - well there's lots of pollution on the roads and lots of shit-box tuk tuks hanging about. And so, unsurprisingly, the President who doesn't like traffic because it slows down his convoy from his home to the nearest airfield, decided to improve the situation he would unilaterally impose a new law:

All Tuk Tuks Must Run On Compressed Natural Gas

I thought, "This is great!" when I first read about it. There's an environmental problem, solve it by just demanding new technologies be used, right? I mean, in Enviro Eco 101 you learn this is one of the most inefficient methods because you aint using the "invisible hand" as Adam Smith put it (i.e. the market). But that's cool, nothings going to change without some form of drastic decisions. It turns out there are a lot of Adam Smiths in this world, here's a few of them:

This one may have just been released from Jail...

This one looks almost as lucky as me on Friday night when I was da man on the roulette table in the "foreigners only" casino!!

I just liked this one's name....

But there's a problem in all of these over simplistic calculations (and thus the second year level subject!). In fact, it can actually be very difficult to reconcile these problems. Firstly, there are 300,000 tuk tuk drivers in Sri Lanka. Let's take a conservative estimate, and say that each of the breadwinner is from a household of 5. That's 1.5 million people who depend on tuk tuks for at least some, if not the majority, of their household income. Put it another way: 7.5% of Sri Lankans rely on Tuk-Tuks for their income! If the average tuk-tuk driver say takes 10 passengers a day (even on a bad day he will do better than that!), that's 15% of Sri Lankans rely on Tuk-Tuks for their daily transport!


Let's move on from the socio-economic perspective, and look at the politics. There are 300,000 tuk-tuk drivers. I will assume that all are of voting age, which is probably quite close to being true. Each one has a spouse, who relies on this income. 600,000 votes. They probably support another two members of their household of voting age that will also vote with their hip pocket. 1,200,000 votes. Please, feel free to stop me if you think my calculations are wrong. Nothing? Ok, I'll continue. Many of the people who use tuk tuks hate the fact that petrol prices are going up and making tuk tuks more expensive, if the policy makes prices of tuk tuks go up let's say 20% of them will also change their vote. 1,800,000 votes. Now, we need to subtract the three people who vote based on environmental issues, that The President will gain. 1,799,997 votes of a total 13,320,000 voters. That is, 13.5% of voters will vote based on the price of tuk-tuks in Sri Lanka. A swing of 27% as most vote for the incumbent.


So, unsurprisingly, The President has decided not to pursue the agenda. Now I could go on a rant why democracy sucks, and explain the benefits of having me as be ultimate dictator, but I am not sure if this blog is the right forum for that: I think I need to be on Dave Letterman instead.


So what do you do? Do you kow tow to the social and economic pressures that tuk-tuk drivers would face and allow them to continue using gas-guzzling tuk-tuks? Or do you try to reign in the air pollution problems (that create health costs, reduce people's happiness, and other externalitities) and then get unelected as a result?

It's a difficult question, but how about if I put this to you: In Bangladesh, a country much much poorer than Sri Lanka, since 1982 they have started using CNGs (compressed natural gas tuk-tuks) and almost all are now convereted.

Peace, Love, and Tree Gugging Pinky Socialist Left Pinky Punks,

B.

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

You know, watching Michael Crawford in this british sitcom I used to think that this over the top comedy was exactly that; too over the top to ever verge on reality. Well, last night at a BBQ at an unnamed persons place in an unknown area on the edge of Colombo a not to be named person proved that Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em (1). My golly golly gosh, at first I was so sure she was joking - it wasn't until the questions kept coming over and over again with this blank look that I realised this girl is serious.

I know I can get in a lot of trouble by saying things like this, something about it not being PC or blah blah blah. So I feel I ought to justify myself. Sitting around, drinking some beers, and talking about green energy (one does tend to get surrounded by tree hugging pinky socialist hippies in this gig), she asked what a wind mill was, "Oh yeah, we got heaps of them back home in Oreogon". Explained a lot of things, but not enough? "Why can't we catch waves and, like, never run out of wave energy?" or even better "When I'm in a boat we make waves, can't we just drive boats passed them?".

This is why I liked Jacqui, because she took no prisoners when it came to people like this. She probably would just start groaning in front of them from the weight of stupidity. I must say however, I am a huge fan of Plato for this precise reason. He did believe that at certain levels of stupidity, it ought to be a crime and more importantly you should not have the right to vote.

The most scandalizing aspect of Plato's political philosophy today is his argument against democracy. Scholars like to think of Plato as one of the greatest minds of Western civilization, but few contemporary thinkers feel comfortable with the philosopher's dismissal of the idea of popular self-government. His apparent contempt for ordinary folks is an embarrassment, and his deliberations on that topic seem hopelessly out-dated or even in bad taste. Yet, a closer look at Plato’s reasoning quickly reveals that his remarks are by no means irrelevant for an analysis of contemporary politics and society.

It's sort of like the Darwin Award's, though instead of being something as minor as propegating the species, this is about electing governments. But essentially, it's all about survival of the fittest and natural selection. As a species, if we continue to allow people that think China is "some sort of dishware" to vote, we will die out. We will end up killing ourselves from global warming whilst relying on a cup full of water to create enough ever-lasting wave energy to electrify the world. Stupid people shouldn't vote (2). Stupid people shouldn't breed. And less they drink, stupid people should not drive.


Peace, Love, and Plato Is Not A Planet Or A Dog,

B.

(1) I emplore anyone at that party to name and shame this person. Lack of intelligence may not be a crime, but goddamit it ought to be at such low levels. It's like radiation. A little bit of stupidity is okay, but in high doses it's dangerous to all those around.

(2) Is it not hilarious that if you google 'stupid people not shouldn't vote' you get Google Scholar with a list of published articles. If only the stupid people knew, their would be riots outside of WalMart the world over