Secondhand Books for Sale

Collect at IFC Mall, Hong Kong or buyer bears shipping costs.

Military and Leadership

Elite Forces – The world’s most formidable secret armies
Richard M Bennett
HK$110 [SOLD]


The Marine Corps Way – Using Maneuver Warfare to lead a winning organisation
Jason A Santamaria et al
HK$110

Semper Fi – Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way
Dan Carrison and Rod Walsh
HK$80


Be Know Do – Leadership the Army Way
Frances Hesselbein and General Eric K Shinseki (USA Ret.)
HK$110 [SOLD]


Commandos – The Inside Story of Britain’s most elite fighting force
John Parker
HK$60 [SOLD]



Business

Never Wrestle with a Pig
Mark H McCormack
HK$60


Magnetic Service – secrets for creating passionately devoted customers
Chip R Bell and Bilijack R Bell
HK$110


Rain Making – The Professional’s guide to attracting new clients
Ford Harding
HK$80 [SOLD]

How to be a Rainmaker
Jeffrey J Fox
HK$60 [SOLD]


The McKinsey Way
Ethan M. Rasiel
HK$100 [SOLD]


Principle-Centred Leadership
Stephen R Covey
HK$60


What Color is Your Parachute? 2005 Edition
Richard N Bolles
HK$100


iCon – Steve Jobs, the greatest second act in the history of business
Jeffrey S Young and William L Simon
HK$100


Goldman Sachs – The Culture of Success
Lisa Endlich
HK$80 [SOLD]

Financial Accounting, 9th Edition
Needles & Powers (recommended by CFA Institute)
HK$480 (HK$840 new)


Spirituality

The Places that Scare You – A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
Pema Chodron
HK$80


The Miracle of Mindfulness
Thich Nhat Hanh
HK$70


How to Free Your Mind
Thubten Chodron
HK$80


The Art of Happiness
HH Dalai Lama and Howard C Cutler
HK$70 [SOLD]


Advice From a Spiritual Friend
Geshe Rabtem and Geshe Dhargyey
HK$80


Remarkable Healings
Shakuntala Modi M.D.
HK$70


Through Time into Healing
Brian L Weiss M.D.
HK$70


Travel and Sport

Shenzhen – A Travelogue in China
Guy Delisle
HK$100 [SOLD]


Buenos Aires – Lonely Planet
3rd Edition – 2002
HK$60


The Fundamentals of Hogan
David Leadbetter
HK$100


The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel
Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht
HK$70


Pain

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Kahlil Gibran

Dragon-I

After dinner drinks at Dragon-I with lawyers qualified in New York, Shanghai, India, Japan, New York, Indonesia, Singapore, England, Hong Kong and Beijing.

The Power of Myth

We have only to follow the hero’s path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god.

And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves.

Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence.

And where we had thought to be done, we will be with all the world.

Joseph Campbell
The Power of Myth

How to stretch

In the easy stretch spend 10 – 15 seconds holding the stretch. Push the stretch until you feel a mild tension. Remember to relax as you hold each stretch. The feeling of tension should slowly reduce as you hold the stretch position. You should feel the stretch, but without pain. If the tension does not subside, ease off slightly and to an amount of tension that is comfortable for you. The easy stretch reduces muscular tightness and tension and prepares the tissues for the developmental stretch.

The developmental stretch
Now move slowly into the developmental stretch. Do not bounce. Move a little bit further until you again feel a small amount of tension and hold the position for 10 – 15 seconds. Stay in control. The tension should decrease, if it does not, lessen the tension slightly. If the stretch tension increases as you hold the stretch or it is painful, you are stretching too far. The developmental stretch fine tunes the muscles and increases your flexibility.

Breathing
Your breath should be slow, rhythmical, and under control. If you are bending forward during a stretch, exhale as you bend forward and breathe slowly as you hold the stretch. Don’t hold your breath while stretching. If a position changes or prevents a natural breathing pattern, then you are not relaxed. Ease up on the stretch to resume your natural breathing.

Counting
In the beginning, silently count the seconds as you hold each stretch, this will help you to hold the proper tension for the right amount of time. In a while, you will be able to stretch by how it feels, without having to count the time you hold the stretch.

Warming up
Before you stretch, you should do a few minutes of warming up (ie. walking, swinging arms) to loosen the muscles and related soft tissue. This will get the blood moving. It is important to warm up and stretch properly.

It is possible to injure yourself while stretching when:
• you are in too much of a hurry (not relaxed)
• you push too far, too soon (overstretching a cold muscle)
• you are not paying attention to the feeling of the stretch

If you are running, cycling or doing some other activity: warm up by doing the activity you are about to do, but at a lesser intensity for about 2 – 5 minutes. THEN STRETCH.

Cooling down
You should cool down after exercise by doing a scaled down version of the main workout. Get your heart rate back down towards a resting rate. Then stretch to prevent muscle soreness and stiffness.

Stretching © 2000 by Bob and Jean Anderson. Shelter Publications, Inc.

Lactic Acid

Muscle tension
Muscles, in the course of their work, use oxygen and nutrients and produce carbon dioxide and waste products. The principle waste product of muscle metabolism is called lactic acid. Nutrients and wastes are transported to and from muscles by the blood circulation, and so the efficiency of this transport system is dependent upon good blood flow. Poor or insufficient blood flow causes an accumulation of lactic acid producing tension in muscles.

Muscle pain
There are many types and causes of muscle pain, but all of us are familiar with the stiff achy feeling of a muscle which is reacting to an unusual level of exercise, a chronic strain or build-up of stress-related tension. This achiness is caused by the development of lactic acid residues in the muscles tissue, compounded by the fact that a tight muscle clamps down on its supply blood vessels and impedes drainage of its own tissue.

Massage
Massage acts on the tight achy muscle in several ways. It helps relax tension and spasm and promotes the release of lactic acid from the tissue. This relaxing action automatically enhances the function of the supplying blood vessels. In addition, massage actively increases the rate of blood flow to and from the area.

Epsom salts
Because of the high magnesium content, epsom salts bath can be helpful any time you are suffering from achiness and muscle strain. It is an excellent idea for the evening after you have had a massage because it helps to clear out released lactic acid. Without this, there may be a temporary generalized soreness following the massage treatment of a particularly tight area.

Instructions for taking a bath
Epsom salts are readily available at your local pharmacy. Use 2 to 4 cups in a full bath, the temperature of which is as hot as you can comfortably tolerate. You must soak in the bath for a minimum of 20 minutes, without adding any bathing solutions or oils and without using soap, as these substances will alter the chemistry of the water. After soaking for 20 minutes, you may wash or rinse off as you wish.

To replace the fluid you lose as perspiration, keep a glass of cold water beside you and sip it during the bath. If you like, you may also wring a towel in cold water and wrap it around your neck. As with any hot bath, make sure you get out of the tub slowly and carefully.

Liar's Poker

“I have this theory,” said Andy Stone, seated in his office at Prudential-Bache Securities.

“Wall Street makes its best producers into managers. The reward for being a good producer is to be made a manager. The best producers are cutthroat, competitive, and often neurotic and paranoid. You turn these people into managers, and they go after each other. They no longer have the outlet for their instincts that producing gave them. They usually aren’t well suited to be managers. Half of them get thrown out because they are bad. Another quarter get muscled out because of politics. The guys left behind are just the most ruthless of the bunch. That’s why there are cycles on Wall Street – why Salomon Brothers is getting crunched now – because the ruthless people are bad for the business but can only be washed out by proven failure.”

Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker

Top 50 Superclubs

List of Top 50 superclubs as voted by international DJs:

1 Space (Ibiza)
2 Fabric (London)
3 Pacha (Ibiza)
4 The End (London)
5 Warung (Itajai)
6 Panorama Bar (Berlin)
7 DC10 (Ibiza)
8 Amnesia (Ibiza)
9 Pawn Shop Lounge (Miami)
10 Zouk (Singapore)
11 Stereo (Montreal)
12 The Arches (Glasgow)
13 Turnmills (London)
14 Space (Miami)
15 Digital (Newcastle)
16 Ministry Of Sound (London)
17 Womb (Tokyo)
18 Guvernment (Toronto)
19 Cocoon (Frankfurt)
20 Pacha (New York)
21 D-Edge (Sao Paolo, Brazil)
22 Cavo Paradisco (Mykonos, Greece)
23 Sirena (Maresias, Brazil)
24 Crobar (Chicago)
25 Fuse (Brussels, Belgium)
26 Pacha (Buenos Aires)
27 Basics (Leeds)
28 Club Kristal (Bucharest)
29 Coco Rico (Riccione, Italy)
30 Cielo (New York)
31 Rex Club (Paris)
32 Robert Johnson (Frankfurt)
33 Yellow (Tokyo)
34 Tenax (Florence, Italy)
35 Weekend (Berlin)
36 Privilege (Ibiza)
37 The Cross (London)
38 Sankeys (Manchester)
39 Home (Sydney, Australia)
40 Pacha (Sao Paolo, Brazil)
41 The Key (London)
42 Babyface (Shanghai, China)
43 Honey Club (Brighton)
44 Se One (London)
45 Alter Ego (Verona, Italy)
46 Spundaue (Los Angeles)
47 Trilogy (Dubai)
48 Venue (Athens, Greece)
49 T Bar (London)
50 Ageha (Tokyo)

Nothing Exists

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: “The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is Emptiness. There is no realisation, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received”.

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

“If nothing exists”, inquired Dokuon, “where did this anger come from?”

George Soros

On Terror: “How can we escape from the trap that the terrorists have set us?” he asked. “Only by recognizing that the war on terrorism cannot be won by waging war. We must, of course, protect our security; but we must also correct the grievances on which terrorism feeds…. Crime requires police work, not military action.”

On the Bush Administration: “An open society is a society which allows its members the greatest possible degree of freedom in pursuing their interests compatible with the interests of others,” Soros said. “The Bush administration merely has a narrower definition of self-interest. It does not include the interests of others.”

On the Bush Administration: “The supremacist ideology of the Bush Administration stands in opposition to the principles of an open society, which recognize that people have different views and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. The supremacist ideology postulates that just because we are stronger than others, we know better and have right on our side. The very first sentence of the September 2002 National Security Strategy (the President’s annual laying out to Congress of the country’s security objectives) reads, ‘The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.'”

On Philanthropy: “I’m not doing my philanthropic work, out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I’m doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it.”

On Stock Market Bubbles: “Stock market bubbles don’t grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.”

Looking for a job

—–Original Message—–
From: Alan Lewis
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 11:34 AM
To: Daniel Loeb
Subject: CV

Daniel,

Thanks for calling earlier today. Enclosed is my cv for your review. I look forward to following up with you when you have more time.

Best regards,

Alan

Alan D. Lewis
Managing Director
Sthenos Capital Ltd.

—–Original Message—–
From: Daniel Loeb
Sent: 27 March 2005 23:08
To: Alan Lewis
Subject: RE: CV

what are your 3 best current european ideas?

Daniel Loeb
Managing Member
Third Point LLC

—–Original Message—–
From: Alan Lewis
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 1:03 AM
To: Daniel Loeb
Subject: RE: CV

Daniel,

I am sorry but it does not interest me to move forward in this way. If you wish to have a proper discussion about what you are looking to accomplish in Europe, and see how I might fit in, fine.

Lesson one of dealing in Europe, business is not conducted in the same informal manner as in the U.S.

Best regards,

Alan

—–Original Message—–
From: Daniel Loeb
Sent: 28 March 2005 09:50
To: Alan Lewis
Subject: RE: CV

One idea would suffice.

We are an aggressive performance oriented fund looking for blood thirsty competitive individuals who show initiative and drive to make outstanding investments. This is why I have built third point into a $3.0 billion fund with average net returns of 30% net over 10 years.

We find most brits are bit set in their ways and prefer to knock back a pint at the pub and go shooting on weekend rather than work hard. Lifestyle choices and important and knowing one’s limitations with respect to dealing in a competitive environment is too. That is Lesson 1 at my shop.

It is good that we learned about this incompatibility early in the process and I wish you all the best in your career in traditional fund management.

Daniel

—–Original Message—–
From: Alan Lewis
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 4:08 AM
To: Daniel Loeb
Subject: RE: CV

Daniel,

I guess your reputation is proven correct. I have not been in traditional fund management for more than eleven years. I did not achieve the success I have by knocking back a pint, as you say. I am aggressive, and I do love this business. I am Half American and half French, and having spent more than half my life on this side of the pond I think I know a little something about how one conducts business in the UK and Europe.

There are many opportunities in the UK and Europe, shareholder regard is only beginning to be accepted and understood. However, if you come here and handle it in the same brash way you have in the U.S. I guarantee you will fail. Things are done differently here, yes place in
society still matters, where one went to school etc. It will take tact, and patience (traits you obviously do not have) to succeed in this arena.

Good luck!

Alan

—–Original Message—–
From: Daniel Loeb
Sent: 28 March 2005 10:23
To: Alan Lewis
Subject: RE: CV

Well, you will have plenty of time to discuss your “place in society” with the other fellows at the club.

I love the idea of a French/english unemployed guy whose fund just blew up telling me that I am going to fail.

At Third Point, like the financial markets in general,”one’s place in society” does not matter at all. We are a bunch of scrappy guys from diverse backgrounds (Jewish Muslim, Hindu etc) who enjoy outwitting pompous asses like yourself in financial markets globally.

Your “inexplicable insouciance” and disrespect is fascinating; It must be a French/English aristocratic thing. I will be following your “career” with great interest.

I have copied Patrick so that he can introduce you to people who might be a better fit-there must be an insurance company or mutual fund out there for you.

Dan Loeb

————————————————

From: Alan Lewis
To: Daniel Loeb
March 28 2005

Hubris.

————————————————

From: Daniel Loeb
To: Alan Lewis
March 28 2005

Laziness.

—————————–

New Yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/04/18/050418ta_talk_mcgrath

Freedom

When the mind and the heart are stretched together in expanding self awareness, I assure you, there is instantaneous self transcendence and, therefore, limitless freedom.

~Shri Swami Nirmalananda~

Maximising Industry Profit by Collusion

One strategy that firms in an oligopoly might consider is to form a cartel, in which they agree to operate as if they were one firm (a monopoly). In the typical cartel arrangement, all the firms in an industry agree that, as a group, they will produce the same output and charge the same price for the industry’s product as would a monopolist who controlled the industry. This will maximise the industry’s economic profit, which can then be divvied up on some mutualy agreeable basis.

This seems like a perfectly acceptable way for firms in an oligopoly to operate. There are only two problems with it:

1. Collusion to restrain trade and the forming of cartels, typically, is illegal.

2. If firms cheat on the agreement, the strategy will not work.

My Favourites

Favourite LCD TV: Sharp

Favourite LCD Monitor: Eizo

Favourite aquarium: Aqua Design Amano

Favourite briefcase: LV

Favourite pen: Montblanc

Favourite telephone: Bang & Olufsen Beocom 2

Favourite mobile phone: Nokia

Favourite headphones: Sennheiser

Favourite earphones: Shure

Favourite food: Maguro

Favourite vegetable: Wasabi

Favourite yoghurt: Wallaby Organic

Favourite mineral water: Ferrarelle

Favourite dessert: Gula Melaka (from Melaka)

Favourite fruit: Durian (from Penang)

Favourite sport: Ashtanga Yoga

Favourite car: Ferrari 612 Scaglietti

Favourite motorcycle: Ducati 749 Testastretta

Favourite bicycle: Klein Attitude

Favourite backpack: Arcteryx

Favourite hydration system: Hydrapak

Favourite outdoor clothing: Arcteryx

Favourite climbing equipment: Petzl

Favourite scuba regulator: Scubapro

Favourite wetsuit: Bare

Favourite fin: Mares Plana Avanti Quattro

Favourite dive computer: Suunto Stinger

Favourite camera: Canon

Favourite torchlight: Surefire

Favourite waterbottle: Sigg

Favourite designer: Dries van Noten, Marni, Versace, Paul Smith

Favourite vitamins: Solgar

Favourite drink: Pu-Erh or Dongding Oolong

Favourite pet: Nishikigoi

Favourite DJ: Paul van Dyk

On women:

Favourite jeans: Rock and Republic

Favourite shoes: Manolo Blahnik

Favourite handbag: Chanel

Favourite cosmetics: Lancome

Favourite fragrance: Gucci Summer

Favourite beauty products: Aveda, Jurlique

Battle of Clubs

ST March 11, 2007
Battle of clubs
Party Central is now firmly focused on the trinity of Zouk, Ministry of Sound and St James Power Station, each with its rabid fans

By Sandra Leong

IF YOU haven’t been out on the town for a couple of months, prepare yourself for a shock as you get set to spin around that disco ball.

In that short space of time, Singapore’s nightclub scene has exploded to centralise around three monster clubs, with news emerging yesterday that the dancefloor shake-up has claimed its first victim.

Smaller clubs are taking a thumping – literally. Thumper at Goodwood Park Hotel revealed that it has had to shut down.

The mid-sized nightclub was hit by falling takings as clubbers streamed to what has quickly become Party Central’s unholy trinity: iconic Zouk, massive Ministry of Sound (MoS) and the newcomer that drove the nail into Thumper’s coffin, St James Power Station.

One of Thumper’s owners, Mr David Chin, says the club’s downward spiral started last November when ‘all the big places started opening’, adding: ‘St James and all that… it took a big chunk out of us’.

Continue reading “Battle of Clubs” →

White Dragon King

Magical mystery man
He plays guru to celebrities and showbiz honchos, but who exactly is the Thai master they call White Dragon King?
By Foong Woei Wan
Straits Times, March 11, 2007

WHEN Martin Scorsese scored a Best Director Oscar last month for The Departed, an American remake of Infernal Affairs, he thanked Andrew Lau, the director of the Hong Kong film.

For days, Lau, his team and the Hong Kong movie industry basked in the reflected glory of the win.

Then Lau and his investor, Peter Lam, made their way to Pattaya, Thailand, to give thanks to their guru, a Chinese Thai man whom disciples call the White Dragon King.

The Hong Kong group – including friends like entertainers Richie Jen and Nat Chan – prayed at the self-styled prophet’s temple on March 3.

Like about 700 other devotees who thronged the temple that day, the celebrities wore white, walked around barefooted and waited in line to greet the guru. The next morning, the group and other disciples – by now a crowd of 1,000 – showed up at the temple again for an annual good luck ceremony.

‘I come here every year if I’m free,’ Lau told Apple Daily. ‘I can’t say what the White Dragon King’s instructions to me were, of course.’

The guru is much revered, and not just by Hong Kong celebrities, but much about his life is shrouded in mystery.

The White Dragon King began life as Chau Yun Nam and speaks Thai, Teochew and Mandarin. This much, at least, is known from Hong Kong reports.

But what he did in his early years, how he became a guru and even his age are the stuff of modern myth. Various versions of his story have been printed in Hong Kong and China.

Chau, 66 or 69, was most likely an electrical appliances or bicyle repairman, though some say he was a salesman.

More than 20 years ago, he either communicated with a white dragon deity or somehow began to believe that he was its reincarnation. In any case, he gave up his job and became a spiritual guide.

According to Hong Kong’s Next Magazine tabloid, he once turned away a group of tattooed men and tawdrily dressed women. Thereafter, to avoid offending him, his disciples decided to be decked in pristine white clothes whenever they called on him.

For about 18 years, the guru has played career consultant to Hong Kong celebrities. The region’s biggest names – Jackie Chan, Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu Wai – have gone on pilgrimages to meet the King. Others like Eric Tsang, Alan Tam, Rosamund Kwan, Shu Qi, Stephen Fung and Daniel Chan are known to throng the temple, too.

Tourists have followed in their footsteps, including some from Singapore.

All this has helped make the White Dragon King’s spacious temple an attraction like Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine, which houses the famous four-faced statue of Hindu deity Brahma.

LifeStyle zooms in on advice the guru has given and predictions he has made:

Before Leung became the toast of Chinese cinema, Chau reportedly foretold that he would be named Best Actor for the 1994 romance Chungking Express.

Leung won the Golden Horse and Hong Kong Film awards for the film in 1994 and 1995 respectively and has been a devout believer in Chau since, said the Sudden Weekly tabloid.

However, Leung has been visiting Chau without his girlfriend, actress Carina Lau. The guru has declined to meet her in recent years, saying they are not destined to know each other.

Media Asia chairman Lam, a long-time devotee of Chau, invited the guru to Hong Kong in 2002 to preside over a prayer ceremony for the filming of Infernal Affairs.

It was Chau’s first such visit to Hong Kong, and he caused a stir at the ceremony when he handed out fruits and hongbao of HK$100 each to the cast as well as reporters.

On Chau’s advice, Lam changed the crime drama’s four-word Chinese title, Wu Jian Xing Zhe (Continuous Traveller), to three characters: Wu Jian Dao (Continuous Hell).

The film made a killing at the box office, with HK$60 million in Hong Kong and S$1.2 million in Singapore.

So for the movie’s two sequels in 2003, Lam flew Chau to Hong Kong for the prayer ceremonies and premieres, too. For the record, both films were hits.

Hong Kongers had a scare when Chau reportedly predicted that ‘something bad’ would happen in the territory on the night of Feb 8, 2005.

He later told journalists that his advice was intended for only one of his Hong Kong believers, not everyone.

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=1761716

Opening to Love

Every lesson that comes into your life

asks you to open your heart and mind in a new way.

Old defense mechanisms that are no longer needed for your survival

must be surrendered.

Inch by inch, the territory claimed by fear

must open to love’s embrace.

Paul Ferrini

Kindness


Photo: auws

Before you know what kindness really is
You must lose things,
Feel the future dissolve in a moment
Like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
What you counted and carefully saved,

All this must go so you know
How desolate the landscapes can be
Between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
Thinking the bus will stop,
The passengers eating maize and chicken
Will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
You must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
Lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
How he too was someone
Who journeyed through the night with plans
And the simple breath that kept him alive

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak it till your voice
Catches the thread of all sorrows
And you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
Only kindness that ties your shoes
And sends you into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
Only kindness that raises its head
From the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
And then goes with you everywhere
Like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Ten Laws of the Modern World

1. Newton’s First Law of Motion
Bodies at rest, stay at rest. Bodies at motion, stay at motion.
(Substance of advice) x (velocity at which it is given) = impact of advice
What is the direction of your advice? Are you an Accelerator or Impactor?

2. Moore’s Law
The number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months.

3. Metcalfe’s Law
The value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system.

4. Gilder’s Law
The best business models waste the era’s cheapest resources in order to conserve the era’s most expensive resources.

5. Ogilvy’s Law
If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

6. Laffer Curve
Cut taxes at the margin, on income and capital, and you’ll get more tax revenue, not less.

7. Murphy’s Law
Things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance.

8. Wriston’s Law
Capital (meaning both money and ideas), when freed to travel at the speed of light, will go where it is wanted and stay where it is well-treated.

9. Ockham’s Razor
All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem).

10. Ricardo’s Law
The natural price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the laborers to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.

See also: http://www.forbes.com/columnists/columnists/2005/04/19/cz_rk_0419karlgaard.html

Tantra

You say yes. You say yes to everything. You need not fight, you need not even swim – you simply float with the current. The river is going by itself, on its own accord, everything reaches to the ultimate ocean. You simply don’t create any disturbance, you don’t push the river, you simply go with it.

That going with it, floating with it, relaxing with it, is tantra.

Singapore Girl

ST, 11 Feb
Original Singapore Girl defends the kebaya
SIA girls are globally recognised, says ex-stewardess who was model for uniform

By Nur Dianah Suhaimi

WHEN former Singapore Airlines stewardess See Biew Wah was sent to Paris in 1972, she had no idea that she would be shaping history.

Tasked to be the model for a new cabin crew uniform, Madam See became the mannequin on which French haute couturer Pierre Balmain perfected the cut and look of SIA’s famous sarong kebaya.

Now, 62 years old and a housewife, Madam See has joined the chorus of voices defending the SIA girl. She wrote in to The Sunday Times to say that the iconic uniform has always been the source of her strength and pride.

She was responding to last week’s column, Of Singapore Girls And White Men, which, among other things, made the point that the Singapore Girl deserves to be heard.

Since the national carrier announced last month that it would tender out its advertising account for the first time in 35 years, there has been public debate on whether the Singapore Girl should stay or go.

‘As one of the original Singapore Girls, I feel I have earned the right to speak up on behalf of her,’ said Madam See.

Twenty other readers wrote in sharing the same view.

Said Madam See: ‘The first time we wore the kebaya in Europe, several pedestrians walked into lamp posts because they were so engrossed. It’s a beautiful uniform which brings instant recognition.’

Because Europeans tend to be bigger than their Asian counterparts, SIA was asked to send a stewardess to Paris to model for Balmain. So for a week, Madam See posed for him.

Said Madam See: ‘He was extremely particular. If he didn’t like something, he’d just rip it off.’

Madam See has long given up her kebaya when she left SIA in 1980. But she claims she now has an ‘invisible uniform’ which has kept her strong and confident. ‘Once a Singapore Girl, always a Singapore Girl,’ she said.

Supernature

Straits Times. 11 Feb
By Nur Dianah Suhaimi

WHEN Ms C.F. Chen set up her organic food shop Supernature in a quiet corner of Wheelock Place 10 years ago, she had only five items sitting on the shelves and even fewer customers coming through the door.

When they did, they cringed at the prices and complained about holes in the apples and less-than-pristine vegetables.

Her friends thought she was crazy to have given up her $2,500-a-month job at the now defunct Telecommunication Authority of Singapore to sell ‘rabbit food’.

Today, the 37-year-old is having the last laugh.

Her two Orchard Boulevard shops are among more than 40 organic stores, cafes and warehouses in Singapore, all part of an industry estimated to be worth between $6 million and $10 million a year.

Organic food is produced without artificial pesticides or fertilisers. It is also free of additives and, in the case of organic meat, growth hormones.

Last week, Club 21 founder Christina Ong’s COMO Group bought over the two shops for an undisclosed sum, leaving Ms Chen in charge of the day-to-day operations.

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Speculation

There are many ways in which speculation may be unintelligent. Of these the foremost are:

(1) speculating when you think you are investing;

(2) speculating seriously instead of as a pastime, when you lack proper knowledge and skill for it; and

(3) risking more money in speculation than you can afford to lose.

Benjamin Graham