It’s been a long time ago I read an irritating letter that actually provoke a response. Here’s it, regardless if the Stooge Times publish it or not.

And this is a combined reply, from me and a friend who is now languishing under SuxHub’s LagOnline services.

We are subscribers of StarHub’s MaxOnline service (2000 and 6500) and refer to the letter ‘MaxOnline well-suited to online gaming’ by Thomas Ee (ST, April 11).

Mr Ee explained that ‘the end-user’s access experience with one ISP may differ from another as the network of upstream providers for every ISP may be different’. Then, did StarHub as an ISP, feedback to their upstream providers to do something about it when it is clear these providers are the cause of user unhappiness? While we agree that ‘Gaming lag is an issue that all ISPs around the world face, from time to time’, it is mind bogging when a 56K Pacific Internet Dial-up to a MMORPG game server in Taiwan achieved a ping time of 110ms, while the ping time on StarHub MOL 2000 is about double of that.

Above which, if gaming experience is ‘affected by many other reasons, including the condition of the modem connecting to the broadband network, and the final data path taken to/from the hosted site of the game’, how does StarHub explain that the lag on StarHub’s services is affecting not just one MMORPG game, but several different games? In fact, even when we looked at just the dozen of game servers for only one MMORPG – which are in different parts of the world – the ping time is between 200ms to 400ms. Needless to say, the game is now agonising to play no matter which server is chosen. This is made worse with the packet dropping issue. Sadly, we had better ping time in the sub-100ms range for some servers and better network stability until about a year ago. StarHub certainly have seen better days.

As to giving feedback direcly to StarHub, let us share our experiences:

Upon receiving a feedback, StarHub’s requires the user to run some commands to obtain some results and then sent them via email. In one case, a friend helped us pinged one of the servers for the same MMORPG using his SingNet ADSL connection and got a ping time of 60ms and 0% packet loss. We contrasted that with MOL 6500, where there was a 50% packet loss and a ping time of 130ms. We noted the packet loss was caused by a router within Starhub’s network but StarHub’s reply was that nothing was wrong despite the logs we sent. Differences in technology between the ISPs aside, this is clearly not just a given server/site issue!

Are the logs we submitted taken seriously and analysed thoroughly to help StarHub identify the problem? Or are these user feedback written off as isolated cases after a standard reply, because StarHub is utterly convinced in the superiority of its network?

Many users would not pursue the matter further after the standard replies because it is time consuming. However, if these issues persist, the good news is we will soon cease to be StarHub’s problem, once our current liabilities with StarHub have expired.

– that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate, or exterminate another people. – excerpt from ‘Collapse: How Societies choose to fail or succeed’ by Jared Diamond. (Someone ought to tell that to Japanese shiteads who came up with these garbage manga to justify their invasion of Korea and their war against many other Asian people.)

The World This Week

– that fossil animals found in Arctic Canada provide a snapshot of fish evolving into land animals, scientists say. The finds are giving researchers a fascinating insight into this key stage in the evolution of life on Earth. U.S. palaeontologists have published details of the fossil ‘missing links’ in the prestigious journal Nature. The 383 million-year-old specimens are described as crocodile-like animals with fins instead of limbs that probably lived in shallow water. (What about the organs? You have so-called ‘evidence’ that fins became legs. Where’s the evidence of proto-lungs or half-gill, half-lungs?)

– that Professor Jennifer Clack, from the University of Cambridge, said that the find could prove to be as much of an ‘evolutionary icon’ as Archaeopteryx – an animal believed to mark the transition from reptiles to birds. (The main problem was that reptilian predecessors to the Archaeopteryx was found in rocks younger in age than those the Archaeopteryx is found. However, the fossil evidence is then re-arranged by evolution minded ‘scientists’ to continually present this as an icon and nothing half-feather, half-scale has ever been found.)

– that a Department of Homeland Security official was arrested night on charges of using his computer to seduce a child after he allegedly struck up sexually explicit conversations with a detective posing as a 14-year-old girl, authorities said. Brian J. Doyle, 55, is charged with seven counts of use of a computer to seduce a child and 16 counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor, according to the Polk County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office. (This ‘lao ti-ko’ – dirty old fart – sure got a different idea of what ‘security’ means.)

– that a new book reveals how Laura Bush was left dumbfounded by her predecessor’s garish taste in home decor and distinctly unimpressed with her housekeeping skills after taking over the White House in 2000. ‘Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady’ – the first book to be written with her co-operation – reveals that she believes Hillary did not keep good house during her time at the White House. (Don’t be surprised if there are testicles under Hillary’s skirt too. Just look at all those alleged affairs Bill has been having.)

– that Silvio Sicko Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, labelled people who planned to vote for the opposition as ‘testicles’. Mr Berlusconi, 69, made the remark during a business conference just hours after his TV debate with Romano Prodi, the lea-duh of the opposition. (Thaksin is your mirror, Sicko.)

– that three days before Italy’s general election, Sicko Berlusconi went on the warpath accusing the judiciary, the press, big business and banks of plotting his defeat. In a series of fierce outbursts, he presented himself as a martyr for democracy and warned that civil liberties would be trampled on if his rival, Romano Prodi, won the ballot. (Oh really? Will Romano Prodi be calling himself ‘Il Duce’ too? When you made too many enemies, Sicko, don’t accuse them of plotting against you.)

– that John Howard has declared that his stance against same-sex marriage is not driven by an opposition to homosexuals. Howard rejected the charge by ACT chief minister Jon Stanhope that Mr Howard’s opposition to the ACT’s plan to recognise homosexual unions meant there was ‘no place in Howard’s Australia for homosexuals’. “That’s wrong. This is not an anti-homosexual gesture,” Howard said, adding that it was intended to preserve the ‘special and traditional place of marriage as a heterosexual union for life of a man and a woman in Australian society’. Howard said there was scope to remove discrimination against homosexual couples, but not to equate a homosexual union with a traditional marriage. (No one is going to stop them if they want to stay together. A legal document for them which is the equivalent of a marriage certificate is about the same as adding legs to the drawing of a snake. Not to mention it probably comes with the same mess as a traditional divorce when they decided they wanted to separate later. Well, wouldn’t that be interesting when Steve ask Adam for maintenance and Adam’s lawyer tells the judge that Steve can go earn his own money because they both have a dick? Now that surely redefines what the Hokkien meant by ‘lan pa pa lan’. [‘Lan pa pa lan’ simply means wasting time doing things that have no meaningful effect.])

– that Nigerian security forces encouraged Charles Taylor to flee and helped him get to the Cameroon border before the same agents turned around and arrested him in a double-cross, his spiritual adviser said. Meanwhile, Taylor’s family accused an international war tribunal of denying him access to lawyers he requested and trying to foist on him court-appointed defenders. (It’s time you pay for your misdeeds, Taylor.)

– that the arrest of Liberia’s warlord Charles Taylor sends a powerful message to other war crimes indictees that ‘you can run but you can’t hide’ and there will be no impunity, UN and human rights officials say. As Taylor, the single most powerful figure behind a series of civil wars in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone between 1989 and 2003, awaits trial before a UN-backed special court, rights advocates voiced hope that top Balkan war crimes fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic would be next to face justice. (Better make sure that even if they do not get to face justice, there won’t be shrines to turn them into gods after that!)

– that South Africa’s former deputy president Jacob Zuma told his rape trial that he took a shower after sex with his HIV-positive accuser in order to minimise the risk of contracting AIDS. Zuma, who at the time sat on the gover-min’s National AIDS Council tasked with awareness and prevention campaigns, also told the court in Johannesburg that she initiated sex. (Was the AIDS prevention campaign a total failure when this clown was on the council? And if she has initiated sex, he better have a damned good reason why she’s suing him now.)

– that U.S. authorities in Iraq guarded freed hostage Jill Carroll after insurgents released her from nearly three months of captivity and published a video showing her praising them. Video footage posted on the Internet showed Carroll in an interview with her kidnappers before her release in which she praised Iraq’s insurgents and even predicted their victory. (Was that why they released her – by turning her into ‘Baghdad Jill’ – the Iraqi version of ‘Hanoi Jane’?)

– that according to Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the lea-duh of the Islamic Republic, has issued a decree against the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. (Makes no difference even if that had been the dying wish of Ruhollah Khomeini himself.)

– that the ‘Palestinian’ Authority’s coffers are empty and the new gover-min is struggling to find money to pay tens of thousands of its employees. New ‘Palestinian’ Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh revealed the scale of the problem at the first meeting of his Hamas-led Cabinet. (Just do a few more suicide attacks, fire a few more missiles into Israel and the money will be more forthcoming from your Arab brothers.)

– that Condom-leezza Lice said the U.S. would push for a South Asian moratorium on nuclear weapons production to ease tensions between India and Pakistan. “We would like to see, obviously, in the regional sense in the relationship between India and Pakistan and others, a look at regional moratorium on fissile material production,” Lice told a congressional hearing on a landmark US-India civilian nuclear deal. (Whatever makes Lice think that these countries will dance to America’s tune?)

– that China should stop buying US debt and gradually cut its holdings of U.S. gover-min bonds, a senior Chinese parliament official said according to a newspaper report. Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress, also said China should increase purchases of U.S. goods to help reduce the trade imbalance, currently in favour of the mainland, according to the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po daily. Cheng added that these moves should be carried out gradually. (America should just sell China F-22s to ease the trade imbalance. And it won’t take too many F-22s to do that.)

– that China’s gover-min has long said that the most important human rights are the rights to food and shelter. More recently, it has acknowledged abuses by police and other local officials and promised to clean things up. (Some clowns probably think that democracy is a more important pre-requisite than food and shelter. Of course, these clowns need a refreshment course on Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.)

– that China will begin shipping processed oil along the Mekong River next month as part of an experiment to find alternatives to the congested Strait of Malacca – a vital shipping lane which is also a major source of energy insecurity for Beijing. Citing a new ‘landmark agreement’ between China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, the official Xinhua news agency said China will be allowed to ship a monthly maximum of 1,200 tonnes of oil along the river from May to December. The oil – a drop in the bucket compared to the 127 million tonnes of crude oil China imported last year – will reach ports in the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan before being transported inland. (Far better than allowing the oil to sail up the South China Sea exposed to the predation of Japan and U.S. naval assets.)

– that Hu Jintao made a rare conciliatory gesture to Japan last week by offering to hold a summit with Koizumi if he stops his visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s 2.5 million war dead – including convicted war criminals. However, Taro Aso Arsehole rejected the condition, telling reporters that China’s ‘method is beyond our comprehension’, Kyodo News agency said. “China is saying that they won’t hold a meeting in order to solve the problem. (But) don’t you have to meet someone if you want to resolve a problem?” Aso said, according to Kyodo. (Someone should put a another person on the foreign minister job and fire this bozo.)

– that Arsehole called China a military threat, while a top gover-min spokesman rebuffed conciliatory gestures by Beijing over a controversial war shrine, in comments likely to deepen tensions between the two nations. Speaking on a Fuji TV Network talk show, Arsehole – who has already riled China in recent months with a series of critical comments – rapped what he said was rapid growth and lack of transparency in China’s military spending. (Very funny. Is Arsehole telling the world that Japan every cent spent on its military can see the light of day?)

– that the front-runner to be Japan’s next prime minister has accused China of destabilising Asia with its military spending and not sharing his country’s democratic values. Shinzo Strike Abe, now the top spokesman in Junk-ichiro Konkz-umi’s cabinet, also criticised China in an interview published in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun for cutting off dialogue with the Japanese gover-min. (So visiting a shrine full of soldiers which died invading other countries is an act of stabilising Asia. That’s Japanese logic for you!)

– that a closely watched meeting between Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou, lea-duh of the largest opposition party the Kuomintang, has failed to bring the two sides any closer to agreeing on key issues. (Chen needs political lasik to cure his political myopia, for the greater good of the Taiwanese people.)

– that in the meeting, Chen said: “Communist China has always maintained the ‘One China’ principle but not the ‘different interpretation’ aspect.” He even suggested that Taiwan had not been party to any 1992 consensus, a conclusion he drew after speaking to the late Koo Chen-fu who represented Taipei at the 1993 talks, and verifying the matter with Lee Teng-hui. (Bollocks! The 1992 consensus might not be explicit. But without any implicit consensus there will be no Wang-Koo meeting in 1993.)

– that Joseph Estrada today 545 million pesos in payoffs to protect illegal gambling operators, calling the allegations nothing but lies. Estrada, testifying for the third time in his five-year-old plunder trial, said that as a mayor before he was elected president in 1998, he led a campaign against illegal gambling and ordered police to ‘go all out against all forms’ of it. (Against all forms that didn’t give him a payoff?)

– that a day after claiming victory in a national election, Thaksin Shinawatra has announced he will resign amid mass protests and a political crisis that has thrown the future of the gover-min into question. Thaksin addressed the country on national television after meeting with the Thailand’s King. (The well respected King Bhumibol must have told Thaksin to do what is necessary.)

– that Thaksin bowed to months of demonstrations demanding he step down for abuse of power and said he would give up the premier’s post, even though his ruling party won a majority of the vote in the recent elections. But the billionaire-businessman turned politician also said he would stay on in parliament and remain leader of the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party he founded and ruled during his five years in power. (Now that he finds that it is not so easy to be ‘king’, he wants to be ‘king’-maker, or be the puppeteer who pulls the strings behind the curtains.)

– that the Bangkok Post questioned the political motives of Thaksin, who has defied two months of street protests demanding his ouster over alleged abuse of power and corruption. “Political reform would not materialize as the new prime minister would be Mr Thaksin’s puppet and the new gover-min would still be under the TRT’s thumb,” it said. Thaksin’s ruling Thai Rak Thai is the most powerful and best-financed political party in Thailand, and is likely to remain so as long at the 56-year-old billionaire and former telecoms tycoon remains at the helm. (Will someone give up what he has built so easily?)

– that from next month, anyone driving from Singapore or Thailand into Malaysia will have to buy a vehicle entry permit costing RM20 each. The move is designed to partly fend off public criticism against the gover-min for reducing fuel subsidies, which led to pump prices rising at least 19%. Najib Razak is expected to announce details of the new charge soon. The plan is to impose a RM20 charge per entry, regardless of the number of days the vehicle is in the country. (A wise choice. Or else foreigners will be enjoying subsidies at Malaysia’s expense by entering Malaysia and pumping cheap fuel. Singaporeans who complain that this is unjustified should advise our gover-min to give a progress package to PRs too.)

– that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Malaysia would not use the water it exports to Singapore as a bargaining chip to get the city-state to agree to a contentious bridge linking the two countries. Abdullah said Singapore has ‘always been worried’ about losing its water supply, but Malaysia has no intention of cutting it off. (It would make no sense at all to Singapore to talk about all the issues individually. Singapore would have gotten no benefits at all to do so.)

Singapore This Week

– that Khaw Boon Wan welcomes a debate with the opposition on the country’s largest charity scandal in the next election, saying he has faith in Singaporeans’ ability to judge fairly how the gover-min handled the matter. Picking up the gauntlet thrown by the SDP, he said he regarded the handling of the NKF episode as ‘one of my strong platforms’. This was regardless of where he contests in the election. (Show the SDP charlatans no mercy. Rip them to shreds for wasting everyone’s time.)

– that Lim Boon Heng Bodok adviced the SDP to get the mathematics right before bringing up the issue of high healthcare costs. In 1996, Typo Gangster Chee had made certain allegations about high healthcare costs in Singapore only to be found to have got his numbers wrong during a select committee hearing. (Oh no, not again!)

– that Typo Gangster Chee charged that the gover-min profits from health care. In response, Bodok told reporters, “I wish Dr Chee did his mathematics and did it properly because if he did, then he wouldn’t come to such silly conclusions.” Typo said in a statement that his party would make health-care costs an election issue. (The gover-min maybe finding means to ease its own burden in health care. But to say it is profitting from health care is an absurd proposition.)

– that the Tali-PAP wants voters to look at its candidates critically but asks that they apply the same yardstick to the opposition. Lim Bodok believes the quality of candidates is critical. (Sure. Just let us use our own yardsticks and not the one the Tali-PAP supplies.)

– that Bodok noted that voters could not expect new candidates to come ready with a deft political touch. But their leadership qualities can be seen in how they lead at work and in community work, he added. (Wua Kang Seng said, “Mr Chiam focused on issues pertaining mainly to Potong Pasir matters…” Well, why should we give a damn what that Tali-PAP candidates has done in community work when that of Chiam’s is discreditted as having done little to benefit Singaporeans?)

– that in the sharpest attack yet on the opposition, Tali-PAP first assistant secretary-general Wong Wua Kan Seng said that the three opposition men in Parliament had done nothing important to improve the lives of Singaporeans. It was the PAP MPs and even the Nominated MPs who had performed better in giving concrete suggestions to improve policies, he said. (Actually, their very existence on its own have already benefitted Singaporeans. The legacy of the current group of opposition MPs may simply be keeping the Tali-PAP on its toes and make it more caring to the people.)

– that opposition MPs defended their performance in the face of criticisms from the Tali-PAP. The three men said they had done their fair share in coming up with suggestions to improve policies, some of which they said had been adopted by the Tali-PAP gover-min itself. They disagreed with what Wua Kan Seng had to say about them. (The Tali-PAP should list all the suggestions – which improves the lot of Singaporeans – given by every single one of their MPs who are not cabinet mini$ter$. It would be interesting to just look at the comments and arguments of some Tali-PAP MPs regarding the institution of National Service during the Melvyn Tan debates.)

– that Teo Chee Hean has once again drawn a clear distinction between the work of Tali-PAP MPs in constituencies and the opposition, many of whom tend to show up only at election time. Speaking to reporters at a Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC constituency event, he said the Tali-PAP had always been working on the ground. “I think that marks the difference between ourselves and a good number of the opposition who turn up at the last moment making promises,” said Teo, reiterating a point he had made previously about the opposition. (When was the last time my MP was in my ward?)

– that Steve Stiff Chia fired back at the Tali-PAP for its call to Singaporeans to judge opposition candidates as they do Tali-PAP candidates. Chia added: “Voting for a Tali-PAP candidate based on the Tali-PAP brand name is also foolish.” He also told The Straits Stooge Times the PAP’s new candidates may not necessarily perform well just because the party’s track record is good. “As it is, many PAP MPs are not performing and some do not even bother to attend Parliament sittings.” (Wasn’t there some who were caught dozing off in Parliment on TV too?)

– that three political parties poised to launch their campaigns online are scrapping their plans after rules on Internet electioneering were made clear. But the parties slammed the gover-min’s decision to ban podcasting and videocasting during elections as an attempt to curb alternative voices. (Try and imagine the Stooge Times showing a photo of an opposition rally with pathetically few souls while the opposition party website showed a large crowd using video streaming. That can’t be allowed to happen right?)

– that gamers are complaining that sluggish StarHub broadband speeds are turning fleet-footed virtual commandos into zombie-like cannon fodder. Complaints about Singapore’s largest broadband ISP, which serves 51% of residential broadband subscribers, have surfaced at popular online hangouts like GameAxis and sgForums, and in interviews with gamers. The Straits Stooge Times found significantly fewer complaints about SingNet, and none about Pacific Internet on these sites. At GameAxis, a thread sarcastically titled ‘StarHub is good for your gaming experience’ has ballooned to 20 pages, filled with complaints about ‘LagOnline’ – a play on the name of StarHub’s broadband service, MaxOnline. (StarHub, buck up please. A 200ms ping time to the Ultima OnLine [UO] game server in Taiwan is unacceptable when that’s the same ping time between my company’s Singapore and London offices.)

– that StarHub senior vice-president for IP services Thomas Ee dismissed such complaints as ‘few and far between’, adding that ‘speed can be subjective and we do not agree our connection is slower’. (That’s something you tell people who are IT illiterate but it just isn’t good enough to fool someone in the same line! Otherwise just explain why a ping time of 110ms is achieved using a 56K dial-up on Pacific Internet to the same UO game server!)

– that commercial pilot and gamer Kenneth Tan, 34, who also heard this reply when he complained. “How can this be true when SingNet or PacNet users don’t face problems with the game server?” countered the MaxOnline 6500 user, who declined to take up StarHub’s suggested solution to his woes: switching to a more expensive plan. (StarHub, listen carefully. I will not repeat myself. If this situation does not improve, I’ll take up one of SingNet’s offer with faster speed and lower costs. StarHub probably won’t give a fu*k as to what I am going to do, but I am going to tell other people whose contract is up to cancel their StarHub plans until StarHub fix its attitude. Also, I am not going to recommend other people to take up a StarHub ‘LagOnline’ plan either!)

Trivial, Jokes and Thoughts from Discussions

– that a taxi driver mentioned that these days, even kids as young as Primary three or four are given money to take a cab to school. Parent’s are apparently so lax in their concern for the personal safety of their kids to entrust their children to a stranger. (After Huang Na, and the poor Malay girl who was found dead under the Aljunied flyover, it makes me wonder if the high security standards in Singapore have completely neutralised our sense of danger.)

– that Irish rocker and charity champion Bono has written to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Sicko Berlusconi to complain about how his picture was used in a magazine listing the gover-min’s achievements ahead of elections. “Mr Berlusconi, as flattered as I can be of appearing in your brochure, I also feel a bit exploited,” Bono said in the letter, a copy of which was printed on the front page of the Corriere della Sera daily. (Maybe in the future Bono can just appear in photos alone lest others accuse him of media whoring.)

– that Eminem’s dysfunctional relationship with wife Kim has hit another low – he has filed divorce papers [again], less than three months after remarrying her. “There has been a breakdown in the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved,” according to the filing, which was made in Macomb County on Wednesday on behalf of Marshall Bruce Mathers III, Eminem’s real name. (Did these two losers even seriously think about it whenever they decide to get married?)

– that the number of students in England found cheating rose by over a quarter last summer, said the exam watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Candidates caught with mobile phones in exam halls accounted for 25% of the offences. Students can be marked down or failed for having a cellphone with them during exams, whether they use them to cheat or not, reported Reuters. (This is just another place whereby mobile phone signal jammers will come in handy.)

– that almost any PC you can name has Chinese content. Intel, which supplies the brains for most personal computers, has factories in China. Seagate, the largest hard drive supplier, produces in China. Dell, the largest PC hardware OEM, builds in China. Of Hewlett-Packard’s notebooks, 98% are made in China. Of all the world’s notebooks, 80% are actually manufactured in China, whether they’re partially assembled, as in Dell’s case, made by a contract manufacturer like Quanta and sold under a brand like Gateway, or produced in company-owned plants, as in Lenovo’s case. In fact, Chinese manufacturing is so efficient these days that even most Japanese notebook vendors now make their products in China. (Scary!)

– that Apple Computer said that it has released a public beta version of Boot Camp, software that enables Microsoft Windows XP to run natively on Intel-based Macs. The software, which will be included in Mac OS X 10.5, called Leopard, is available for download on Apple’s Web site. Apple will also preview Boot Camp in August at its Worldwide Developers Conference, the company said. “Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple’s superior hardware, now that we use Intel processors,” Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in a statement. “We think Boot Camp makes the Mac even more appealing to Windows users considering making the switch.” (Superior hardware or no, Apple will perhaps be nothing more than another Wintel clone in the near future. Microsoft prevails! HEIL! And what’s the big deal with this ‘Boot Camp’ stuff anyway? LILO has been there on the PC for a damned long time anyway.)

– that “Apple has no desire or plan to sell or support Windows, but many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple’s superior hardware, now that we use Intel processors,” Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in a statement. (Philip Schiller should perhaps remember that over the years the Mac has incorporated some PC technologies – PCI Bus, AGPm SD-RAM, and USB. All of which were done to make the Mac more scalable / upgradable.)

– that in spite of the fact that the Mac incorporated PC technologies like PCI, AGP, SDRAM and USB, Macheads will continually hype about just how much more ‘superior’ the MacOS – and the Mac – is over the other OS and PCs. (Well, so why didn’t Apple to allow the MacOS to be loaded onto other Intel based PCs now if the MacOS is really so superior? Why hasn’t it shone the light upon the blind, downtrodden Wintel masses all along? Perhaps the real reason maybe just that Apple wants to maintain a monopoly and keeps everything tightly controlled. That’s why it only had just about 10% market share in personal computing. A deserving fate for what I would call a selfish, self serving little bastard.)

– that it is a fallacy to believe that Apple is a lea-duh in technology innovation. (Well, in my considered opinion? Apple is actually monopolistic. Just consider the fact that every move Apple makes to ensure its monopoly: from suing e-machines over an iMac look-alike PC clone, implementing bios / program upgrades to their iPods to deny music from other online music stores to be downloaded into the iPod, and suing Real Media, which Harmony program originally allows songs from Real Media’s music store to be downloadable to the iPod. Guess what nice little thing some of Macheads called that? “Protecting Intellectual Property”. Ya, right!)

– that Macheads might also tell you USB didn’t take off until the Mac incorporated it. (Well, the RS-232 serial port, and the centronics aka parallel port, have both about reached the end of their useful life and could no longer keep up with the advances in the PC architecture. They were at least 20 years-old when USB ports started appearing on PCs. Now, considering that Apple has just about 10% of the market share up until even now, Mac users will have to be buying tons of USB stuff before there’s enough sales to call it a ‘take off’. And certainly manufacturers didn’t originally just manufacture USB devices for the Mac only! Also, it is generally agreed upon that the Mac has a more superior technology than USB called ‘Firewire’ – compared to USB1.0/1.1, at least. Did that ‘take off’? Sure. Just like some of those Nazi V-2 rockets that ditched into the English Channel. Bwaghahaha…)

– that Macheads will also tell you Wifi didn’t take off until the Mac incorporated it. (Well, somehow I remembered that quite a number of Wifi stuff was out there way before the first ‘Airport’ was out? And again, Macheads gave themselves and their Mac using friends too much credit pertaining to their influence in the world of personal computing.)

– that the Mac maybe cool. (It’s bigoted, fundamentalistic Macheads that isn’t. They sort of reminds me of the mouth-frothing, idiotic, slogan yelling terrorists who blow themselves up. Guess what? Without these morons I would not even care to bash their their precious little * gasp * ‘religion’!)

– that the Mac maybe superior too. (Well, the German Tiger Tanks were surely superior. But it was the American Shermans and the Soviet T-34s that won World War II.)

– that Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office sucks and they are really a piece of shit. (Obviously. But that probably created jobs for tens or even hundreds of thousands and an entire support industry. Each day more users are churning out useful work on a Windows PC than the Mac. Above which, the strength of Windows – and Microsoft Office by extension – do not lie in themselves. It’s the loads of applications and user written stuff that’s been built upon them over all these years that lend them the strength.)

– that Creative may actually have a more superior portable music player than Apple. (It just couldn’t slap enough ‘coolness’ onto its products like the Zen – and label owning a Creative product as a lifestyle – to appeal to a large crowd out there needing something to deal with their identity crisis. Come on, Creative, geeky looking Sim Wong Hoo can never appeal more to these fu*kwits when compared to the ‘kewl’ Bono of U2! To some, even that ‘Sieg Heil-ing’ short ass with an armband and a square moustache is more appealing.)

– that it is unbelievable why some people just give so much attention to the media whoring of those so called stars and celebrities. For e.g. Bono, Britney Smears, Jay Chou, Eminem etc? (All men needs role models. A lot of them are just following the wrong ones.)

– that some considered it ‘hip and cool’ to be a part of the big group idolising media whores or buying stuff that is considered ‘cool’ – for e.g. a piece of chewed gum from Britney Smears, or maybe even the condom Steve Job uses, if they can actually find one! (Doesn’t matter one can’t simply buy or imitate coolness. Anyway, just don’t expect idolating fu*ckwits who are mentally challenged in the department of uniqueness to realise that! Or else a lot of the media whores and ‘coolness manufacturers’ are going to go MC-Hammer broke. And wouldn’t that be a pretty sight for some of these ‘good-for-nothing non-productives’?)

– that for all the hype surrounding TV and music downloads on cell phones, at the end of the day the mobile market is still about voice communication, according to Jorma Ollila, Nokia’s departing CEO. “Mobile voice is still the killer application,” he said. “Subscriber growth is still fueled by voice, and voice will be the most valuable form of communication for a long time still. There is still much work to do to improve voice connections and handsets.” (Just who the hell needs 3G if their friends don’t have 3G? But again, considering the ‘me-too or else I’m not cool’ fu*kwits these days, maybe Ollila is wrong.)

– that ‘The Da Vinci Code’ author Dan Brown did not breach the copyright of an earlier book, London’s High Court has ruled. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who wrote 1982 book ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’, sued Random House, publisher of both books. ‘The Da Vinci Code’ is still in the UK top 10 book sales chart, while ‘The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’ is back in the top 40 thanks to the controversy. (Maybe that’s the true objective of them suing in the first place. Just like you do not necessary need to win on the battlefield to attain certain political objectives. For e.g. Hannibal slaughtered many Romans during the Battle of Cannae, but the Romans achieved a political objective far greater – their determination in fighting Hannibal restored faith in their allies and put an end to further desertion to the Carthigians.)

– that while the New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation – he walked on a floating piece of ice. Professor Doron Moron Nof also theorized in the early 1990s that Moses’s parting of the Red Sea had solid science behind it. (Believing that Moses’ parted the Red Sea and Jesus walked on water are simply articles of faith that needs no scientific explanation.)

– that Judas Iscariot, vilified as Christ’s betrayer, acted at Jesus’ request in turning him over to the authorities who crucified him, according to a 1,700-year-old copy of the ‘Gospel of Judas’. In an alternative view to traditional Christian teaching, the Judas gospel shows the reviled disciple as the only one in Jesus’ inner circle who understood his desire to shed his earthly body. (Wow. An act of betrayal became an act of obediance. No wonder the early church considered it heresy in 180AD.)

– that the Gnostics’ beliefs were often viewed by bishops and early church lea-duhs as unorthodox, and they were frequently denounced as heretics. The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus. As the findings have trickled down to churches and universities, they have produced a new generation of Christians who now regard the Bible not as the literal word of God, but as a product of historical and political forces that determined which texts should be included in the canon, and which edited out. (Well, take the book of Romans for example. Romans 13:1 – 5 demands the obedience of all Christians to authorities. The fact that it is called the ‘Book of Romans’ would go a long way to confirm the belief of those that the Bible today is not the literal word of God.)

The Bad Service Award

– that MS MINDY CHEN SHUQING wrote about the bad service she experienced at the famous infamous Holland Village XO Fish Head Bee Hoon stall at Holland Drive. She and her 10 friends were shouted at because only 7 of them ordered from the stall. In fact those who did not order from them were denied a seat. (The bad attitude of this store has gone on for too long. The consumers – in other words, the market – must react. It’s high time to stop patronising them so as to drive these frigging shitheads to bankruptcy to teach them a lesson or two about good service and humility. 今时今日的新加坡，这样的服务态度是应该被制裁的。)

The World This Week

– that the UN Security Council has too often failed to act swiftly and effectively to contain international crises and needs reforming, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said. “Too often, the Security Council’s engagement is inadequate, selective or after the fact,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner. (Ever since Iraq, the UN Security Council has been a joke. And after Darfur, it’s high time that the UN be disbanded.)

– that Donald Rumsfool said after visiting the Pennsylvania site where a hijacked airliner crashed on September 11, 2001 that the U.S. deserves poor marks in how it has waged a ‘battle of ideas’ with groups like al Qaeda. (Rumsfool and his neo-cons must realize that their ‘idea’ of an Americans only utopia isn’t selling.)

– that in 1975, Rumsfool was President Gerald Ford’s secretary of defense when the U.S.S. Mayaguez was seized off Cambodia by the newly empowered Khmer Rouge. The American crew of 38 was captured. Rumsfool shaped the response – which was to ignore diplomacy, begin bombing a Cambodian port city and dispatch a large force of marines to rescue the crew. Bad moves based on bad intelligence. Untold numbers of Cambodian civilians were bombed and 40 American rescuers were killed in an attack on an island where the crew was thought to be held. In fact, the American sailors had already been released unharmed and set adrift on a Thai fishing vessel. The Mayaguez affair was a dress rehearsal for Rumsfool’s war in Iraq. (If experience comes with age, it is definitely not applicable to Rumsfool.)

– that Condom-leezza Lice said the U.S. had probably made thousands of errors in Iraq but defended the overall strategy of removing Saddam Hussein. (They actually have a strategy to start with?)

– that Condom-leezza Lice braved anti-war protestors and hecklers during a friendly visit to the heart of Britain, Washington’s staunch ally. Some 200 opponents of the US-led war in Iraq protested her visit Friday to Blackburn in northwest England, after two dozen anti-war protestors greeted her upon arrival in nearby Liverpool from Paris. (The Brits are such nice people. They should have pelted her with rotten eggs.)

– that during a recent news conference, Warmonger Bush let it be known that the decision to end the U.S. military presence in Iraq will not be his. Instead, according to Bush, it will be for ‘future presidents’ to decide. Barely reliable sources note a possible post-conference follow-up in which Bush plans to leave a number of other decisions to future presidents, preferably Democrats. “As far as the increasing national debt,” said Bush, “future presidents will have to tackle that problem.” (Certainly no one expected Warmonger to be responsible enough to clear his own shit.)

– that although the 14-mile stretch of state-of-the-art fencing separating San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico is seen as a success in cutting illegal immigration, the plan for the bigger barrier is struggling to win further support in Congress. Critics compare it to the Berlin Wall and say it goes against the American spirit of openness, sending the wrong message to the rest of the world about the U.S. (Stop whining before they dust off the old plans for the McNamara Line and put it into effect on the U.S. – Mexico border.)

– that Pope John Paul II died worrying that the world seemed dominated by the powers of evil, according to a sermon he had prepared for the day after his death, his successor Pope Benedict said. (Odd. What is there to worry when God has already said the world is evil and it is inevitable the forces of evil will be ascendant prior to His Second Coming?)

– that Silvio Sicko Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, claimed that communists in China boiled babies. “Read the black book on communism and you’ll find that under Mao’s China they didn’t eat babies, but they boiled them to fertilise the fields,” he said. (Oh right. Was that Shang China this clown’s talking about? Oh yes, they cook the heads of their adversaries and eat in respect of their prowess too. Wanna be the head, Sicko?)

– that whaling has no scientific justification, according to Australia’s environment minister, who cited a new study. Ian Campbell said he would take the results of a ten-year research project in the oceans around Australia’s Antarctic Territory to the next International Whaling Commission meeting in June. “It demonstrates once and for all, if it needed to be demonstrated, that the so-called scientific programmes of the countries like Japan, Norway and Iceland, are a sham,” Mr Campbell said. (It’s high time something is done about the whaling masquerading as some ridiculous ‘scientific’ programmes! Japan, Norway and Island should be made to produce scientific reports of the ‘research’ they have been doing.)

– that Russia’s ambassador in Baghdad gave intelligence on U.S. military movements to Iraq’s gover-min in the opening days of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, a Pentagon report stated, quoting from captured Iraqi documents. (Was someone expecting the Russians to just sit back and do nothing?)

– that Iran announced its second major new missile test within days, saying it has successfully fired a high-speed underwater missile capable of destroying huge warships and submarines. The Iranian-made underwater missile has a speed of 223mph, said Gen. Ali Fadavi, deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Navy. That would make it about three or four times faster than a torpedo and as fast as the world’s fastest known underwater missile, the Russian-made VA-111 Shkval, developed in 1995. It was not immediately known if the Iranian missile, which has not yet been named, was based on the Shkval. (Just one more thing to make me lose sleep over.)

– that Hamas lea-duh-in-exile Khaled Meshaal said the ‘Palestinian’ terrorist group was intentionally being excluded from an Arab summit in Sudan and urged Arab lea-duhs to work with the new gover-min Hamas forms. “Basically Hamas is being excluded. There is interest that the new Hamas gover-min not attend the Arab summit despite our keen desire to attend the meeting,” he told a news conference at Kuwait airport before departing the Gulf Arab state. (No one really wants to be associated with terrorists, even when behind the scenes they are giving them money. It’s just like how rich families do not want to be associated with pariahs in the family but would dispatch a servant to give the pariahs money so they would go away.)

– that Arab foreign ministers dismissed Western explanations for cutting aid to the ‘Palestinian’ Authority but offered no extra money to compensate for a budget shortfall when Hamas terrorists take office. The ministers, meeting in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to prepare for an Arab summit, renewed an old pledge to give the ‘Palestinians’ some $50 million a month and left open the possibility of giving more later if the ‘Palestinians’ need it. (As I said earlier…)

– that Sri Lanka’s Marxists and the main party of Buddhist monks, who both oppose Norwegian-backed peace moves, were routed as the president’s party headed for a landslide victory in local council elections. Official results showed that President Mahinda Rajapakse’s People’s Alliance had won 205 out of the 247 councils declared so far after local gover-min election for 266 councils. (Religious people should stay away from politics and Marxism is dead.)

– that China may fine-tune its anti-secession law to make it criminal for any Taiwanese to advocate independence for the island, Taiwan’s Liberty Times reported. The paper cited Mr Chiu Yi-ren, Taiwan’s security head, as saying that the process was under way in Beijing. Under the revised rules, active and retired Taiwanese soldiers as well as Taiwanese engaged in pro-democracy activities could be arrested upon stepping on Chinese soil, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council suggested. (How they start to lump pro-democracy with pro-independence says a lot about the real intention of this report.)

– that more than 400 fugitive Chinese officials have been arrested in a crackdown on corruption, state media said. More than 4,000 officials accused of graft are believed to be on the run, with about 500 living abroad, the official Xinhua news agency reported. China’s gover-min has punished thousands of officials in its anti-graft efforts. (Corrupted officials have betrayed the people’s trust and should be dealt with mercilessly.)

-that China’s Health Ministry has explicitly banned the sale of human organs in an apparent attempt to clean up the country’s lucrative but laxly regulated transplant business. Mr Mao Qunan, the ministry’s spokesman, said that the new regulations forbid the buying and selling of organs and reiterate the requirement that donors give written permission. (Is anyone selling his penis?)

– that Japanese Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki urged China to introduce more flexibility in its currency regime, arguing that it was in China’s interest to do so. “I welcomed last year’s reforms and told (Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqin) that reform for further flexibility in its currency regime would be in China’s interest,” Tanigaki was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying. (Whatever gave this Jap the idea that he knows better than the Chinese what’s in China’s interest?)

– that China’s increasing military strength and the possibility of it using force to quash independence movements in Taiwan form a major destabilising factor in East Asia, a think-tank affiliated with Japan’s Defence Agency said. In its closely watched East Asian Strategic Review 2006, the National Institute for Defence Studies said that although China has pursued a policy of ‘neighbouring diplomacy’ in an effort to bolster its regional ties, it has also significantly boosted its military capabilities, in particular its ability to use its military power to control Taiwan. (As if American and Japanese implicit hints at military intervention and support of Taiwan is helping to facilitate a conclusion of the Chinese Civil War and providing a major stabilising factor in East Asia.)

– that Junk-ichiro Junichiro Konkz-umi said that his visits to the Yasukuni shrine – which honours convicted war criminals along with the country’s war dead – should not stand in the way of summit meetings between Tokyo and Beijing. “I visit the shrine out of deep condolences for the war dead and out of a feeling that we must never start a war again. So why do I get criticised by a foreign nation as being a militarist or admiring war?” Mr Koizumi said in parliament. (Simple. Because your war dead mostly died for Duty, Honour, Country: Their duty, the Emperor’s honour, and invading OTHER PEOPLE’S country. Geddit, Konkz?)

– that Japan has protested that China has been ‘ruthless’ after the suicide note of one of its diplomats said he had been blackmailed by Beijing agents to divulge secret codes. Japanese allegations that China had been involved in the death of the Shanghai-based diplomat, who was allegedly wooed by a bar hostess, have aggravated already strained ties between the neighbors. (A deserving fate for another ‘hum sup’ – sex maniac – Japanese.)

– that Japan’s Education Un-Educated Ministry has ordered revisions to school textbooks to reflect the gover-min’s view on disputed territories and wartime history, a report said. The ministry, during its annual textbook screening, called for revisions to most references in senior high school textbooks to two sets of islands disputed with South Korea and China. It said they should be clearly referred to as Japanese territory, Kyodo news agency reported, citing ministry officials. The ministry also requested modifications to passages about World War II sex slaves and the number of victims in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre by Japanese troops in China, the agency said. (So much for ‘deep condolences for the war dead and out of a feeling that we must never start a war again’!)

– that North Korean lea-duh Kim Jong Il visited army units nearly every day last week to instil a ‘burning hatred’ of the US, the North’s official news agency said, in the light of joint military exercises by rival South Korea and the U.S. “Our army and people are turning out as one in the sacred anti-U.S. struggle with burning hatred for the U.S. imperialist aggressors and the unshakable resolution to take revenge upon them,’ Mr Kim was quoted as saying during a visit to KPA Unit 3406. “No force on earth can match the single-mindedly united forces in (North Korea), which no weapon can ever frighten or destroy,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Mr Kim as saying. (As it is common with all dictators, they believed in a heavenly mandate to rule and the invincibility of their forces. Single-mindedness and prep talk is no use against U.S. cruise missiles and smart bombs from stealth aircraft.)

– that Tuan Tuan the panda won’t be following in the footsteps of his mother and grandparents as a goodwill ambassador for China. Taiwan rejected China’s offer of the panda and a female mate, Yuan Yuan, in the latest sign of a hardening attitude toward its communist neighbor. (Blasted politics. It’s high time the Taiwanese do something about that idiots of the Democratic Progressive Regressive Party)

– that the reason given for the rejection by Lee Tao-shen, vice director of the Forestry Bureau – which was in charge of evaluating the panda offer – was “At the current stage we cannot issue an import permit for the two pandas offered by China.” The official said the decision had been made in accordance with ‘wild animal conservation laws’. (Aren’t Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan born in captivity? So much about them being ‘wild animals’.)

– that Myanmar’s military gover-min considers opposition lea-duh Aung San Suu Kyi and her party irrelevant to the democratic process, Malaysia’s Foreign Minister said after a brief visit to that country. Syed Hamid Albar told reporters his visit last week did not convince him that Myanmar is making sufficient progress towards democracy, as claimed by its military rulers. (Megawati and Arroyo would be such fine examples to convince the junta that Suu Kyi is best kept irrelevant. And maybe that’s a good idea too?)

– that the reasons for Myanmar moving the capital are unclear. Some analysts point to a paranoia among senior military figures that they might come under attack, potentially from the U.S., and that a location further from the coast is strategically safer. (Maybe one of the junta’s generals got scared after watching ‘Stealth’.)

– that Mama-thir said that being friendly towards Singapore had failed to build relations and resolve bilateral spats. He admitted that he had been unable to resolve a variety of disputes with Singapore during his 22-year tenure, but blamed the country for making demands that Malaysia would not accede to. (Like what?)

– that negotiations are under way between the two countries over replacing the Causeway linking the two sides with a new bridge, an issue dating back to Mama-thir’s regime. He said Singapore was asking for concessions for agreement to build a new bridge but offered nothing in return. “Now they want sand and permission to use our airspace for their military aircraft to agree to the construction of a bridge to replace the Causeway. But what do they give us in return…nothing…zero,” he said. (Nothing? By agreeing to the bridge, there will be an impact on Singapore’s port and livelihood. It makes life easy for ships to sail between PTP and Pasir Gudang and bypass us! That’s nothing to you, Mama? It’s Malaysia that’s offering us NOTHING because soon, even your water we do not need. Getting to use your airspace is but a small consolation to the longer term economic damage that is done to us! So now, please, f*ck off and die.)

– that police are putting more officers on the street and stepping up patrols, to make Singaporean visitors safer from robberies and car thefts. The New Straits Times quoted state police chief Mohd Amir Sulaiman as saying another 100 men and 45 patrol cars were being rolled out in a move to calm fears of a rise in crime, after concerns were voiced in Singapore. Datuk Amir said police did not distinguish between foreigners and locals when investigating crime reports. (Really? Or is it putting officers on the street to ‘take care’ of Singaporeans along the same line of Darth Vader ‘taking care’ of the Separatists on Mustafar?)

Singapore This Week

– that Lao Goh attempt to lend a lot of weight to the Tali-PAP candidates in the campaign to persuade the people to vote for them. He said he would get the party whip lifted to allow the two Tali-PAP candidates for Hougang and Potong Pasir to perform as ‘opposition MPs’ in Parliament. Lao Goh said, “If you vote for Eric Low, I can tell the Prime Minister to let him be the ‘Opposition’ in the Parliament. We can lift the Whip so that he can speak his mind. Then you can have the best of both worlds,” Mr Goh told an audience of about 500 at the Hougang Community Club. (Why go for the fake thing when you can have the real one?)

– that a day after offering to lift the party whip for the Tali-PAP men in opposition wards, Lao Goh has downplayed the suggestion. Instead, he has another suggestion: for him to be a special ‘resource person’ in Cabinet for Potong Pasir voters. (I have a even better suggestion. Go to Potong Pasir and run yourself. And get perhaps Mabok Tongue or Lim Gay Khiang to run in Hougang.)

– that Goh appeared to back off on this suggestion when speaking to reporters during a visit to Potong Pasir, his first since being charged with the responsibility of winning back the constituency, along with Hougang. “Actually, I was trying to find a way out from a question where somebody said that there are people who want opposition and they also want upgrading,” he said after being briefed by Mr Sitoh on his battle plan. “Let’s be clear. They are Tali-PAP MPs, they are not quite the same as opposition MPs. But what I hope Eric Low and Sitoh Yih Pin will do, regardless of whether the whip is lifted or not, is to speak their minds frankly. Whatever the views they have, even if they disagree with the gover-min and the party, they must voice them in Parliament. That’s important.” (What’s the difference when they voice all sorts of shits to make debate interesting and then yet still vote against what they voiced out?)

– that Yeo Cheow Tong Lam Cheow Kong, Transport Minister says he will step down if asked by Baby Lee. He said: “I have been in politics for 22 years – I have been in Cabinet for 21 years. That is a long time – so sooner or later I must step down to make way for the younger ministers who are coming up. I am very happy to do that at any time.” (Just say you wanna go and be done with.)

– that Baby Lee wants the Tali-PAP to press on with lea-duhship renewal and work hard to have potential successors in place well ahead of time. “When in doubt, we should err on the side of faster, rather than slower, self-renewal,” he said in his first comments since the Tali-PAP began introducing its slate of new faces. (Sounds like there are going to more schemes for the Men-In-White to earn their millions even faster so they can retire earlier. Oh yes. Ministerial pay adjustments are definitely coming. After the elections.)

– that the Tali-PAP wants a strong mandate for a new team led by Baby Lee that will take Singapore into the future, said Wong Wua Kan Seng. “We are not asking Singaporeans to vote for the Tali-PAP at the next general election because of our track record,” Wua said at a media conference to introduce the second batch of Tali-PAP candidates. Rather, the party is asking voters for their support of the third generation of lea-duhs under Baby Lee so that they, together with all Singaporeans, can steer Singapore well through the difficult challenges ahead over the next decade. And so that we can take full advantage of the tremendous great growth opportunities available to us in an Asia with two rising giants, China and India,” Wua said. (As if they never had a strong mandate like that. Please lah, Singapore, 52% is 1% too many leow.)

– that where estate upgrading is concerned, Hougang MP Low Thia Khiang believes he could do ‘as good a job’ as any Tali-PAP MP, if he had the same amount of resources. Speaking to reporters after his Meet-the-People session, Low said pushing for upgrading was an important responsibility of any Singapore MP. But opposition MPs, he added, lacked the same resources as Tali-PAP MPs to maintain and improve the facilities of their constituencies. (Unfortunately that might not be very evident to some of the morons out there.)

– that barely a month after saying it did not have enough candidates to contest even one five-member GRC, the NSP is now singing a different tune. The turnaround in its fortunes is because of defections from the SDP and an influx of candidates from other arms of the four-party SDA, which also includes the PKMS, the SPP and the Singapore Justice Party. (Defections from SDP? Let’s hope it’s none of the charlatans that has turned that party into a pariah.)

– that the SDP wants to contest in Sembawang GRC and plans to raise the NKF issue as part of its strategy to win votes. (Stop wasting everybody’s time. The NKF issue is deader than the Dodo birds.)

– that political debate on the Internet could fuel ‘dangerous discourse’ in Singapore, the gover-min, warning that Singaporeans who post political commentary on Web sites could face prosecution. Speaking in parliament, Balaji Bakaji Sadasivan said anyone using the Internet to ‘persistently propagate, promote or circulate political issues’ about Singapore during election periods was breaking the law. (So if someone can prove he’s been ‘persistently propagate, promote or circulate political issues’ before the election periods is not breaking the law?)

Trivial, Jokes and Thoughts from Discussions

– that in an interview with Fortune, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated that not only does he not own an iPod–he’s forbidden the popular music gadget for his family as well. “My children–in many dimensions they’re as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I’ve got my kids brainwashed: You don’t use Google, and you don’t use an iPod,” Ballmer told the magazine. Google is out of favor in the Gates household, too. (There are many other portable music players out there anyway. And someone need to do something about the insane share prices of Google, which probably is at that level because some shithead talked it to that level.)

– that the latest patch to the popular online game ‘World of Warcraft’ has led to the game’s servers being down for hours longer than expected. According to Gil Shif, public relations manager for ‘World of Warcraft’ publisher Blizzard Entertainment, the latest major patch to the game – version 1.10, which is designed to adjust the talents of priests – caused some ‘snags’ that have affected the servers going back online as planned. (Maybe it was more than just a software patch they were putting up.)

– that last fall, a group of World of Warcraft players in China committed mass suicide. They wanted to draw attention to the latest restriction on their liberty: The same gover-min agency that censors newspapers and bans books had just mandated a system of disincentives to limit the number of hours per day they spent playing online games. Hardcore Warcrafters decided they would rather pull the plug than, er, pull the plug. In January, in the aftermath of the public outcry (and virtual die-ins), the Chinese gover-min announced that adults could play MMORPGs for as long as they like. (The gover-min should do nothing to curb the irresponsible behaviour of certain people and just let them die by way of natural selection.)

– that when a New Jersey teenager decided to create a fictional story about being hired by one of the Internet’s largest companies, he knew just where to spread the news – with the unwitting help of the company itself. Earlier this month, Thomas Vendetta submitted his fake press release about being hired by Google to Google News, a popular site that automatically trolls 4,500 sources for their latest posts. Sure enough, the release appeared on the world’s most popular website for news. (Well done, Google. Now maybe I can submit a piece of news about the birth of the Sith Empire on Earth, with Darth Grievous as its first Emperor. Address me as the ‘Celestial Wisdom’, you mortals!!)

– that news of Microsoft’s demise is usually exaggerated. (Well, for starters, even if you are a geek who can load up Linux with Open Office using the hair of your ars*hole, and sell it really cheap to your clients, it isn’t going to affect that fact that a big part of the world out there have so much developed stuff riding on Microsoft that’s it not worth the money and effort to re-develop or convert them for use on the new platform. That’s not even talking about the troubleshooting time that comes with it after conversion. Above which, lots of financial products runs on Windows – EBS, Reuters, Bloomberg, PFS etc. Try and guess if these providers will develop one more version, or will they just ask you to use Windows? And by the way, if you need to play World of Warcraft or some other MMORPG and there isn’t a Linux version, what the fiaks are you going to do? Dual boot to Windows so you can play? And then think about the amount of jobs that is there because Windows sucks! Get the point now?)

– that ‘genius’ KOH CHOON LIN went to the HDB website to find out about the new window legislation, and can’t see a video on the website pertaining to the legislation that requires Microsoft Windows Media Player to play. He was running his Linux PC, so he could not play the video. Being curious, he checked out the file formats on all the Singapore gover-min websites and it turned out that the file formats hosted on them are all stored in Microsoft’s formats. Thus, he said that he could not use the gover-min services without first buying a Microsoft product. (So what’s the issue here? Find a Windows computer. They are everywhere. And Windows Media Player comes free with every copy of Windows. Need I say more why Linux never really picked up in spite of the fact that Microsoft sucks?)

– thus, the ‘genius’ urged the Singapore gover-min to consider migrating the state’s documents to the OpenDocument Format, which is the only standard for editable office documents that has been vetted by an independent, recognised standards body, has been implemented by multiple vendors, and can be implemented by anyone without restriction. This format was publicly developed by a variety of organisations and is publicly accessible. The OpenDocument Format is intended to provide an open alternative to proprietary document formats, including the popular but undocumented DOC, XLS and PPT formats used by Microsoft Office. (Word, Excel and PowerPoint reader is also available free from Microsoft, for any Windows PC. And by the way, what has Windows Media Player format got anything to do with the OpenDocument Format?)

– that the ‘genius’ went on to suggest organisations and individuals should store their data in an open format such as OpenDocument avoid being locked in to a single software vendor, leaving them free to switch software if their current vendor goes out of business, raises its prices, changes its software, or changes its licensing terms to something less favourable. (Sure. Use plain text. Or post script.)

– that ‘genius’ SEAH LEONG KHAI complained that interest rates have risen in the past year because almost daily he read about high interest rates offered by commercial banks. Seah said these banks typically offer more than 3% per annum on fixed deposit, much higher than the 2.5% given by the CPF Board. He also mentioned that before 2000, the board paid 4.4% per annum and thus it must try harder to enhance our CPF assets for our retirement needs. (And so CPF housing loan will be 4.5% and I end up paying more out of my CPF leaving me a smaller sum to earn the ‘higher’ interest. Imagine this, if I pay out $600 instead of $400 due to the higher interest, I will have $200 less to earn the 4.4%. Seah’s idea of asset enhancement must have come from an economic school that defies common sense!!)

– that Google is adding graphical advertisements to maps on its local search site, foreshadowing the use of its pop-up balloons for various types of information and activities, an analyst said. Greg Sterling, managing editor at The Kelsey Group, said Google representatives told him several weeks ago that the company plans to let businesses add advertisements and logos to the mapping balloons that appear on Google Local. (Google is nothing but an advertising company masquerading as an IT company. While it is using novel means to push ads to the Internet community, it makes one wonders just what sustain that kind of share prices.)

– that a wave of religious books is coming to bookstores to cash in on ‘The Da Vinci Code’ movie in May, including a book saying Jesus survived crucifixion and an Evangelical novel with a modern-day Mary Magdalene heroine. Americans are finally able to buy Dan Brown’s best seller in paperback three years after it was first published, and with ‘Da Vinci Code’ fever as strong as ever, it’s never been so profitable to write about Christianity. (Don’t people ever get bored reading about the non-existent ‘Holy Grail’? How about writing about the ‘Spear of Destiny’ for a change?)

– that George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon will star in ‘Ocean’s 13’, the third flick in their franchise about a gang of lovable crooks, distributor Warner Bros. announced. (And everyone thought ‘Ocean’s 12’ was bad enough with Julia Roberts impersonating herself in that one.)

– that Britney Smears’ ex-sweetie reportedly does not approve of her hubby. In fact, Justin Timberlake believes that Kevin Federline is ‘gross’, according to Star magazine. “He thinks Kevin is gross, and there’s not much that would change his mind about that,” a source told the tab. “He says that they [Spears and Timberlake] had a lot of great years together, and he’s pretty sad at how things turned out for her.” (Stick with your Cameron Diaz and just shut the fu*k up, can you? Or do another ‘NippleGate’ – With Diaz this time – if you so crave for attention, you prick.)

– that faded pop superstar Michael Jackson was crowned as America’s most foolish person in 2006, narrowly beating out Dick-head Cheney for the title. The 47-year-old, who is living in exile in Bahrain following his acquittal last June on child sex charges, snatched the dishonour for the fourth year running, according to a survey by a U.S. public relations consultant. (Someone actually beat Warmonger to that?!)

– that Dick-head Cheney tied with Paris Hilton for second place in this seventh annual April Fool’s poll, with 59% of Americans saying that they had done ‘something foolish’ in the past year, down from a high of 64% in last year’s survey. (And Warmonger isn’t even second?)

– that lest some fuggers think I do not love Singapore because of my usual diatribes against the Tali-PAP gover-min and my fellow Singaporeans, wake up now! (Singapore’s all I have got. Like it or not, it’s still HOME to me.)

The Stupid Shitty-Porean Award

– that a female flying lemur and its baby were shot down by slingshot-wielding miscreants in the MacRitchie Nature Reserve, in an incident that has shocked nature lovers. While the baby was found unharmed by park rangers, the mother was seriously injured and had to be put to sleep later, a spokesman for the National Parks Board (NParks) said. (Whoever did this should pick on someone his own size. Why not try the same thing with an Gorilla in Africa, wimp? Picking on innocents which can’t fight back has a dirty name to it – TERRORISM.)

The World This Week

– that U.S. and Canadian authorities said on Wednesday they had cracked an international child pornography network that in some cases transmitted molestations live over the Internet. “These are the worst imaginable forms of child pornography,” said U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, adding that one case involved the abuse of a toddler less than 18 month old. Twenty-seven people from nine U.S. states and Canada, Australia and Britain, are charged with possession, receipt, distribution and manufacture of child pornography in connection with the case, authorities said. (They should have these criminals’ faces posted all over the Internet and mass media.)

– that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will name countries with dismal air safety records by posting their failures online, the UN agency’s head, Dr Assad Kotaite said. But several countries in South America and Africa oppose the plans. They fear the information may be ‘manipulated with evil intentions’ by foreign airline competitors or ‘misinterpreted’ by the public as it is too technical. (Well, then buck up and fix it instead of just plain fearing!!)

– that three years after invading Iraq, Warmonger Bush said he had a strategy for ‘victory in Iraq’ while officials denied that the country had sunk into civil war. (Well, getting Iraq into civil war is a ‘victory’ strategy when the Iraqis are fighting themselves, not the Americans.)

– that a U.S. State Department purchase of more than 15,000 computers built by the LeyLoMoh Lenovo Group, a company controlled by the Chinese gover-min, is starting to draw criticism in the latest sign of American unease about the role of foreign companies in the U.S. economy. The critics warn that the deal could help China spy on U.S. embassies and U.S. intelligence-gathering activities, using hardware and software planted in the computers. (First Dubai because it was Arab. Now Lenovo because it is Chinese. When America sees enemies everywhere instead of friends, it is high time it re-evaluate its foreign policies.)

– that Tony B-liar has sought to dispel views that he is an unquestioning ally of the U.S. and condemned growing anti-Americanism as a hindrance to closer global ties. B-liar, who has faced domestic criticism for his support for the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, told a rare joint sitting of the Australian parliament in Canberra that isolating the U.S. on the world stage was ‘madness’. (Odd. England should demand payment for some tea some rebels calling itself the United States dumped in the Boston Harbor some 230 years ago and not be a U.S. apologist. England prevails! ;))

– that a proposed French law that would force Apple Computer to make the songs it sells through its iTunes music store playable on devices that compete with its own iPod amounts to ‘state-sponsored piracy’, Apple said. France’s lower house of parliament passed a law that would require digital content providers to share details of their rights management technologies with rivals. iTunes songs are protected by Apple’s FairPlay technology and are incompatible with most non-iPod players. The bill, designed to prevent any single music-playing technology–and hence, any one media seller or device maker–from dominating the online market, now moves to France’s senate. (The attempts of Apple at online music monopoly is despicable even though the Frogs are evil.)

– that one third of French people say they are at least somewhat racist, an opinion poll suggests. The figure shows an eight percentage point rise in those who said they were racist in a similar poll last year. (Not unexpected of the evil frogs who still thinks lingua franca refers to the French language and the world revolves around France.)

– that the death of Slobodan Milosevic in his prison cell makes it less likely that Ratko Mladic will soon be handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, Europe’s top security agency said in a report. The EU has said that if Mladic was not handed over to the tribunal by March 31, the EU would suspend its negotiations with Serbia on eventually joining the bloc. The next round of the negotiations was set for April 5. (Not likely Serbia will hand him over and face a popular revolt.)

– that East Africa’s long-running drought has devastated livestock and wildlife in Kenya, but now a spurt of rains is killing animals too. Wardens at the Hell’s Gate National Park, in Kenya’s Rift Valley, say hungry animals ate too much when rains finally fell on parched lands in recent days. “Once the grass sprouted, the animals fed excessively and many died owing to bloat,” Charles Muthui, senior warden at the park about an hour north of Nairobi said. (生死有命，富贵在天。Can eat how much, live how long, is all fated.)

– that Mahmoud Abbas has condemned Israel’s raid on a West Bank prison and seizure of Ahmed Saadat – a terrorist lea-duh – and four of his alleged accomplices as an unforgivable crime aimed at humiliating his people. The raid has undercut the authority of Mr Abbas, boosted the electoral prospects of acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and sent a strong warning to Hamas about failing to honour past accords. Saadat is wanted for the 2001 murder of an Israeli Cabinet minister. (Abbas has a problem with a murderer facing justice?)

– that senior Muslim clerics are demanding that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the gover-min caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to ‘pull him into pieces’. (These murderers have the cheek to call themselves religious men! They can’t have his soul and so they destroy his body.)

– that this trial has fired passions in this conservative Muslim nation and highlighted a conflict of values between Afghanistan and its Western backers. “Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001. (God can’t be humiliated and is strong enough to stand up for Himself. Only murderers like you are a humiliation to the Almighty.)

– that Afghan court has dropped its case against a Christian who faces execution for converting from Islam, referring the matter to Kabul’s top prosecutor for a final decision. The Supreme Court had decided not to pursue its case against Abdul Rahman after hearing testimony that he was mentally disturbed, court spokesman Wakil Omari said. The attorney general’s office in the capital would now decide if the case against Rahman, 41, should be pursued or dropped. Its investigation was likely to include medical tests, Omari said. (Taichi #101: Better some other people let this guy go and get the wrath of the fanatics.)

– that Pakistan has successfully test fired a nuclear-capable cruise missile for the second time, the military said. The terrain-hugging Hatf VII Babur missile has a range of 500 kilometres and can carry all kinds of warheads, a senior military official said. (As if an Islamic bomb isn’t bad enough, the bomb has now gained wings! It’s enough to make me lose sleep.)

– that Pervez Musharraf – under pressure to do more to prevent foreign extremists from using Pakistan as a safe haven – ordered all foreign militants to leave Pakistan or be killed. “All foreign militants should leave Pakistan, otherwise they would be crushed,” Musharraf told a rally of some 80,000 people in the eastern city of Lahore. Musharraf’s comments come amid increased tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan over allegations Islamabad is not doing enough to prevent Taliban and al-Qaida forces from launching cross-border attacks from within Pakistan. (It remains to be seen who might end up getting killed.)

– that Tokyo education officials have ordered school principals to make students stand for the Rising Sun flag and sing the Japanese national anthem at ceremonies, cracking down on dissenters who say the symbols are tainted by militarism. The move followed a certain graduation ceremony at which students refused to stand, he said. (There’s a reason why the Germans banned the Nazi Swastika. The Japanese will do well by learning why.)

– that Japan has frozen aid loans to China amid worsening tensions between Tokyo and a neighbour that has emerged as one of the country’s biggest economic rivals. The move comes amid criticism in Japan that, with a booming economy, China no longer needs the handouts. It will, however, raise the ire of Beijing at a time when the countries are squabbling over natural resources and the legacy of WWII. The loans date back to 1979 after Japan and China established diplomatic relations, but the yearly amount has been dwindling since 2000 as Japan battled to revive its own economy. China, by contrast, has seen stellar economic growth. (Despicable Japan finally realise that it can’t BUY forgiveness. And while this might delay the inevitable of Japan becoming the armpit of Asia that it was in the past, it will not avoid it.)

– that an off-duty Hong Kong policeman who was believed to have started a street gunbattle that left two officers dead was involved in two previous murders, the police chief said. Officer Tsui Po Ko was almost certainly involved in the killings of a policeman in 2001 and of a bank security guard nine months later, Commissioner Dick Lee said. (Wow. Real life ‘Infernal Affairs’ 无间道。)

– that Taiwan is considering sending troops back to the disputed Spratlys archipelago – the oil-rich region over which several Asian countries, including China, claim sovereignty – the Defence Ministry said. Taiwan withdrew troops from Taiping, one of the biggest islets in the Spratlys, in 1999 due to what it called logistical difficulties, leaving the coast guard to patrol the island chain in the South China Sea. (Funny. If Taiwan isn’t part of China then by what authority does it claim sovereignty of the Spratlys?)

– that Chen Shui-bian assured the U.S. he would not push for independence during the rest of his term, after his decision to scrap a unification council touched nerves in Washington and Beijing. “I would like to say again that my previous pledge to the U.S. gover-min and President Bush (not to push for independence) has not changed,” he told the new de facto U.S. embassador Stephen M. Young. “The Taiwan gover-min, its people and myself will continue to serve as a responsible contributor to the maintaining of peace in the Taiwan Strait,” Chen said. Chen said he believed the relationship between Taiwan and the U.S. would become closer and promised that ‘there will not be any so-called surprise’ before he retires in 2008. (Chen’s promises are worth donuts.)

– that if the stars are anything to go by, things are going to get tougher for Thaksin Shinawatra. “Saturn is stuck in Cancer which is not so good for him,” fortune-teller Soothee Sathirabutra proclaimed after tracing Mr Thaksin’s July 26, 1949, birthday through a series of astrological tomes, charts and tables. “He also has a problem with the number four, which means information, speech or anything else that comes out of his mouth,” the bespectacled sage said from behind his leather-top desk in a swish Bangkok shopping mall. “I think they will have to cancel the election and the King and his advisers should appoint a successor.” (So do you know when is the next time you will be sick, ‘Sage’? Or the exact hour you will ‘lao sai’?)

– that worshippers at the Erawan Shrine beat a 27-year-old man to death in downtown Bangkok after he destroyed a famous statue of a Hindu deity with a hammer, police said. Thanakorn Pakeepol, who police said had a history of mental disorder, was killed by worshippers after he broke into the Erawan Shrine and used a hammer to shatter a four-headed statue of Brahma. It was originally built in 1956 to ward off bad luck during the construction of an earlier hotel, which was later torn down. (And the ‘Sage’ will probably have much to say when ‘bad luck’ befalls Thailand.)

– that Thailand’s king has met his top advisers to discuss the growing calls to appoint a new prime minister and end the country’s political stand-off, sources close to the meeting have said. King Bhumibol Adulyadej held a rare meeting with the Privy Council, which presented him with appeals to replace embattled Thaksin Shinawatra, they said. (Is the King preparing for the inevitable?)

– that Singaporean investors, urged by Indonesia to set up businesses that create jobs instead of just buying stakes in existing companies, are exploring several such options. (Amazing! The ‘mighty’ green Indonesia has need for the ‘little red dot’? And yes, we are far more magnanimous than the small minded people like Habibie Half-Babie and Gus Goon Dur can imagine.)

– that Syed Hamid said that three options were on the table for the replacement bridge – a full, straight bridge; a full ‘scenic’ bridge; and a ‘scenic’ bridge, the last option being a bridge that Malaysia would construct without Singapore’s cooperation. (Just call it the ‘scythe’ bridge, alright? And if Malaysia wants water to flow freely by building a bridge, how about one that’s just 5 meters above sea level?)

Singapore This Week

– that while making a defence of his statements about the judiciary, Typo Gangster Chee said at one point he did not want to go to prison. Then his voice began to crack as he spoke of the prospect of leaving his ‘wonderful wife and three beautiful children’. He could barely finish his sentence before tears flowed. He asked the court to give him a moment, fished for a handkerchief in his pocket then sat down on his chair. (… I usually have nothing good to say about Chee. This time round, I really do feel a little sorry for him.)

– that Steve Stiff Chia will consider bowing out of politics altogether if he loses in Chua Chu Kang. He will also not accept the position of a NCMP if he is offered it again as the top opposition loser in the coming election. Raising the stakes for himself in this election, the secretary-general of the NSP said at a walkabout in Chua Chu Kang: “If I don’t win, I must recognise that voters, for all their talk, do not want opposition in Parliament. Or that I am not credible enough for them. So the next better player should take over.” (Now that’s something Typo Gangster Chee should learn.)

– that the SDP remains united even though its secretary-general Chee Soon Juan has been jailed and fined for contempt of court, party lea-duhs said. Typo Gangster’s sister, Chee Siok Chin, said it remains ‘unaffected’ as its affairs will continue to be managed by the central executive committee. “The SDP will not come apart. All of us are in this together,” she said after Typo Gangster was sentenced. (You can’t tell apart a motley band’s unity from its disunity.)

– that SDP chairman Ling How Doong Ding Dong said that Typo Gangster’s absence will not hurt the SDP ahead of the upcoming election. He also joked that the party might even be run better. (He might think this comment portrays that the other party members are equally or even more capable. But in reality, considering the SDP’s standing among the people, it simply means it makes no difference who runs the show and that it might be better for Typo Gangster to be gone is really food for thought for the Electorate! Thanks for the own goal, Ding Dong!)

– that WP secretary-general Low Thia Khiang says he will not be distracted by Lao Goh entering the fray to help the Tali-PAP win back opposition-held Hougang. Speaking to reporters after his weekly Meet-the-People session last night, Mr Low said he welcomed Lao Goh’s presence there but added that his constituency and party election plans would ‘remain on course’ and he would not be intimidated. (The Tali-PAP obviously have no confidence in their candidates winning on their own in opposition-held SMCs.)

– that Britain is now the biggest investor in Singapore, to the tune of S$45.7 billion from 2,000 companies at the end of 2004. The latest figures available show that investment that year rose almost 16% from the S$39.5 billion put in by British companies the previous year, when the country overtook the U.S. to become Singapore’s top investor. (The Empire Strikes Back.)

– that butter-filled buns capped with caramelised coffee cream are not selling like hot cakes any more. Worst hit are Rotiboy Bakeshoppe, PappaRoti and Roti Mum – stores that sell only buns and nothing else. Business has been so bad, say industry sources, that Rotiboy, the first provider of the bun, is calling it quits. (My dear friend Gary’s been saying for at least half a year that Rotiboy is finished. Maybe I’ll ask him what’s the First Prize number half year from now.)

– that a NTU undergraduate is causing a stir on campus with a mass e-mail message calling on students to get together to address the problem of foreign lecturers who speak broken or heavily accented English. Second-year mechanical engineering student Gary Goh, a 22 year-old Malaysian from Penang, who sent out an e-mail message to 8,000 students, complained about having to decode the speech of some lecturers and laboratory instructors from China and India. (SEDITION!! SEDITION!!)

– that Gary Goh, who is here on an Asean scholarship: ‘I am not saying all foreign lecturers and tutors are bad, or that they have to speak perfect English. I admit, my English isn’t that good. But they should speak good enough English or modify their accents so that we can understand them.” (Maybe he needs to improve his own English skills before whining about it.)

– that he said the issue had been raised before by students on the forum board set up by the students’ union and once in the student newspaper, the Nanyang Chronicle. “But no one has looked into it. And these students are paying fees. I am lucky. As a scholarship holder, my tuition fees are covered,” he said. (Well, perhaps the others have learnt to live with it? Or found a way around it?)

– that checks with 23 NTU students showed that the language problem appears confined to the engineering faculty. Third-year electrical engineering student Raimond Liang, 24, who is signing up for the committee, said he has been skipping three professors’ lectures since his first year because he could not get past their accents. He said: “I find it more efficient to do my own research on the subject in the library.” (Funny. If he has found a way around it why still join the whiner who doesn’t use his brains to do the same? Have we lost our ability to find a way out of our own difficulties and adapt to circumstances, but instead expect everyone to change to suit us? God bless Singapore and I hope Lao Lee is good to his promise to rise from the grave to save us when we needed him!)

– that Loy Pei Phoong, 25, a fourth-year civil and environmental engineering student, said: “As long as lecturers have knowledge, you can easily find a way around their accent, by reading your notes or asking them questions.” Second-year materials engineering student Lau Ming Yang, 23, said that it usually takes just two to three lectures for him to get the hang of a foreign accent. Samuel Tan, 22, thinks Mr Goh’s move was an ‘overreaction’. He said: “Just because lecturers speak with accents does not mean that their English standards are low. If NTU wants to be a global hub, it has to learn to accept foreign accents.” (It would be fun to see Gary Goh squirm in an MNC with people coming from all over the world speaking all forms of accented English.)

– that the former head of China Aviation Oil has been sentenced to four years and three months in jail for his role in the firm’s near-collapse in 2004. Chen Jiulin, who had earlier pleaded guilty to six charges including insider trading, was also fined SGD 350,000. (4 years and $350,000 for causing many to lose their life savings and thousands stuck in a dead share is too kind to this assh*le. They should have at least fined him 2 peanuts -of the Durai kind – and lock him away for 10 years.)

Trivial, Jokes and Thoughts from Discussions

– that Microsoft said it plans to delay the consumer launch of its much-anticipated Windows Vista operating system to January 2007 from its earlier target of the second half of 2006. (So my PC will last one more year before I need to upgrade. YAAAAY!!!)

– that Google Inc. is devoting a section of its Web site to information about the stock market and corporate America, filling a gaping product hole as it continues to battle for Internet traffic with rivals Yahoo Inc., MSN and America Online. (Unless it’s going to offer real time rates for free, what difference does it make compare to the other services?)

– that DDOS – Distribute Denial of Service -attacks were once the tool of bored teenagers who got a kick out of seeing Web sites crumble. But these days, DDOS attacks are sometimes used by criminals looking to extort money from online businesses–especially those on the margins, such as gambling sites and the adult-entertainment industry. (Set up your own pR0n and gambling sites for the quick and easy money, you losers.)

– that a study on the accuracy of the free online resource Wikipedia by the prestigious journal Nature has been described as ‘fatally flawed’. The report compared the accuracy of online offerings from Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia. Nature found that both were about as accurate as each other on science. Encyclopaedia Britannica has hit back at the findings, calling for the paper to be retracted. (Doesn’t matter that beyond the matters of science, such as current affairs, Wikipedia can be tainted by the liberal agenda.)

– that the man in charge of Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Day parade has fueled a controversy by saying allowing a gay group to join Friday’s march would be like permitting neo-Nazis to participate in an Israeli parade. (What an analogy!)

– the scientists think they have found the reason why bird flu does not as yet spread easily among people. The H5N1 virus prefers to infect cells in the lung instead of areas like the nose and windpipe, so it is not easily coughed or sneezed out into the air, new research says. (Let’s hope God keeps it that way so the pandemic can be averted.)

– that the first human to orbit Earth, Yuri Gagarin, said he didn’t find God in outer space. “I looked and looked but I didn’t see God,” he is reputed to have uttered in 1961, after orbiting Earth for 108 minutes in the Vostok 1 spacecraft. He did not get a second chance. Shortly afterwards, he was killed in a plane crash. (Was the last thing Gagarin heard, the herald angel announcing, “The LORD will see you now.”?)

– that action star Jet Li has been sued for his film about late Chinese gongfu master Huo Yuanjia, whose life it misrepresents, say his relatives. The Xinhua news agency has reported that Li’s name has been added to a March 7 lawsuit against the producers and distributors of the movie ‘Fearless’. The suit was filed by Huo’s grandson Shoujin, who does not want the movie to be released worldwide. He also wants the film to be pulled from theatres in Asia. Li’s name was added because he ‘not only played the lead role but took part in the making and production of the movie’, Xinhua said, citing family lawyer Yang Zhonghai. ‘Fearless’ traces Huo’s path from a fighter keen on domination to one who uses martial arts for self-betterment. (There are just too many movies out there that’s full of misrepresentations. ‘Pearl Harbour’ and ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, for example.)

– that a SEE LAY KENG (MDM) complained that many sports competitions are held at 2pm, the hottest time of the day, under the merciless scorching sun. She went on talking about her son’s primary school’s basketball team which training used to start at 3.30pm. As the competitions start at either 2pm or 3pm, the school decided to change the training time to 1.30pm so that the pupils would get used to the burning heat. She asked if something be done to let our young enjoy sports and yet spare them from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the scorching sun. (Just have your child play sports on a computer. How about Championship Manager? I shudder to think of the consequences when the son gets to the army.)

– the in an online letter to the Stooge Times Forum, ‘genius’ ANDREW SEOW CHWEE GUAN wrote that ‘ SBS Transit should paint a white line with directional arrows so that commuters can keep to the left and crowd movement would be more orderly’ because ‘during the morning and evening peaks, many commuters would bump into one another as there is no demarcation line and everyone is in a hurry’. (SillyPoreans have all got no common sense to keep to the left side of a congested passage way and not walk in a line abreast when among friends, or walk all over when alone. No line is really needed. Just walk into the bastards who are on the wrong side of the passageway.)

– that a LIN QIAN WEN wrote that cabbies won’t pick up passengers waiting in queue at Marina Square but waited for booking calls instead. (This has been an ongoing malpractice for a long time. What needs to be done is if a cab has been unhired for more than 10 minutes in the CBD area, the satellite booking system on the cab should be disabled for 1 hour to punish him for his pickiness.)