– 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.)