The World since the last TGIF

– that the White House disagreed with Senate Majority lea-duh Harry Reid’s claim that the Iraq war was ‘the worst foreign policy mistake’ in U.S. history. White House press secretary Tony Snow said it was important to remove Saddam Hussein from power and noted that a majority of senators voted in 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq. (It is perhaps the worst military mistake…)

– that Dick-head Cheney warned China Friday its swift military build-up worried the world and said Washington was not blindly trusting North Korea to implement a landmark nuclear deal. (Worried the world with what? An obsolete armed forces that is only recently starting to modernise?)

– that Dick-head also used a speech to a group of prominent U.S. and Australian citizens to assail unnamed critics who he said want the allies to ‘turn our backs’ on places like Afghanistan or Iraq. In some of his most extensive remarks on the North Korean pact, Dick-head praised Beijing’s help but said China’s swift military build-up and recent anti-satellite test clashed with its stated goal of being a peaceful power. (Balik kampung lah, Dick. There is more to worry about from warmongering neo-cons like you.)

– that Barack Obama ridiculed Dick-Head for saying Britain’s decision to pull troops from Iraq is a good sign that fits with the strategy for stabilizing the country. (Well done Obama. After all, if Dick-head feels that Britain’s decision is right, then why is the U.S. sending more troops to Iraq?)

– that a front runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination says ex-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfool will go down as one of the worst in history. Senator John McCain also accused the administration of mismanaging the war. But Mr McCain had been seen as an important backer of Mr Bush’s efforts to drum up political support for his new Iraq policy. (Saving your own skin now isn’t it, McCain? It is of no surprise that Rumsfool is now the latest punching bag.)

– that when Donald Rumsfool resigned as defence secretary last November, John McCain said he deserved respect and gratitude. (For serving as McCain’s future punching bag?)

– that the U.S. rejected an international call to abandon the use of cluster bombs, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “We … take the position that these munitions do have a place and a use in military inventories, given the right technology as well as the proper rules of engagement,” McCormack said. Forty-six countries meeting in Oslo pledged to seek a treaty banning cluster bombs by next year, with major user and stockpiler Britain and manufacturer France signing on, Norway said. (There is nothing we can hope for from the evil Bush Regime.)

– that Poland and the Czech Republic risk being the targets of Russian missiles if they agree to provide sites for a proposed U.S. missile defense system, a Russian general warned. Russia has been increasingly bellicose in its response to the U.S. proposal to build the missile defense system in Eastern Europe. General Nikolai Solovtsov, head of Russia’s missile forces, said the system would upset strategic stability. It would be the first such site in Europe. Vladimir Putin has said he does not trust U.S. claims that the system would be to guard the American East Coast and Europe from missiles launched from ‘rogue nations’ in the Middle East. (America can put them in Israel if that’s really what they wanted.)

– that Russia has also threatened to pull out of a landmark arms control treaty unless the U.S. backs away from plans to install its missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. General Yuri Baluyevsky, head of the Russian general staff, said Russia could unilaterally withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty [INF treaty], Russian news agencies reported. (Putin should just do the thing Warmonger Bush did the ABM – Anti Ballistic Missile – Treaty: Unilaterally withdraw.)

– that an Iranian gover-min-sponsored body set up to probe the veracity of the Holocaust has challenged Europe to hand over documents about the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II. Mohammad Ali Ramin, the head of the ‘World Holocaust Foundation’ created after Iran’s controversial Holocaust conference last year, said Austria, Germany and Poland in particular should supply documents. (Right. Why not you give me evidence that you asshole exist?)

– that Mahmoud Mah-bouk Ahmadinejad vowed Iran would never surrender to Western demands to suspend its nuclear drive and promised announcements on Tehran’s atomic progress in the next two months. (He should do it with a nuclear bang. Preferably in his own house along with all his cronies.)

– that the U.S. flew nearly US$12 billion in shrink-wrapped US$100 bills into Iraq and distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent. Details of the biggest cash transfer in the history of the Federal Reserve have emerged in a memorandum prepared for the meeting of a U.S. congressional committee reviewing the Iraqi reconstruction. (Well, it would be really interesting if they found out that those bills weren’t even actually flown into Iraq.)

– that the U.S. Army is working to fill a shortfall in Iraq of thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits – known as FRAG Kit 5 – designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs – including a rising threat from particularly lethal weapons linked to Iran and known as ‘explosively formed penetrators’ (EFP) – that are now inflicting 70% of the American casualties in the country, according to U.S. military and civilian officials. (They should just send in M113s… with reactive armour. Or they can send Optimus Prime.)

– that an admission of defeat dressed up as a victory was how many sections of the British press summed up Tony B-liar’s decision to pull troops out of Iraq. While many editors expressed relief over B-liar’s announcement that Britain would shortly begin pulling its 7100 troops out of Iraq, many questioned the timing and its implications for Iraqis. (At least B-liar was trying to save something for his successor. Otherwise the Tories would probably clean their clocks in the next election.)

– that the British police protection officer responsible for Prince Harry has flown to Iraq to begin making security arrangements for the royal soldier’s deployment to Iraq amid fears for his safety, according to British press reports. The Daily Mail newspaper claimed the prince is already referred to as a ‘bullet magnet’ by fellow soldiers as his Blues and Royals regiment prepares for an anticipated six-month tour of Iraq. Harry, third in line to the throne behind father Prince Charles and older brother Prince William, graduated from the prestigious Sandhurst military academy last year and is expected to accompany his troops to Iraq in April or May, said an unidentified military source. (Maybe his unit will be in Iraq, but he’ll be in a command post somewhere safe.)

– that close allies Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Iranian Mahmoud Mah-bouk Ahmadinejad pledged they would work together to confront US and Israeli ‘plots’ in the Middle East. (With plots of their own in Iraq?)

– that Mah-bouk Ahmadinejad has said his country wants to avoid conflict and called for the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces from Iraq as the only way to ensure peace there. “We shy away from any kind of conflict, any kind of bloodshed,” Ahmadinejad told ABC television. (You will never hear the kind of shit he’ll say to Iranian television or the Iranian people. For e.g. ‘We will brand the U.S. and the Zionist enemy with a mark of shame if they dare attack us.’)

– that former Shanghai lea-duh Chen Liangyu will go on trial for his alleged role in a multi million-dollar graft scandal, a senior court official said. The deputy chief of Shanghai’s Higher People’s Court, Ms Liu Hua, did not say what charges Chen faced, or if he had indeed been charged yet. But it was the first time that any official had announced publicly that Chen, who was sacked, would go on trial. (Once found guilty, they should hang this lump of shit in public and let the carrion eaters pick his body clean.)

– that a Japanese fisheries official condemned Monday what he called an ‘act of terrorism’ by anti-whaling activists on a Japanese vessel in Antarctic waters. “It is very dangerous action of attack,” said Hideki Moronuki, chief of Japan’s whaling activities. “We would like to appeal to all relevant countries for cooperation to stop such [an] act of terrorism by this group.” He said the activists sandwiched the Kaiko Maru on Monday morning, jammed the ship’s propeller with a rope and rammed the vessel, damaging the ship’s handling rail on its deck while the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said two of its vessels – the Robert Hunter and Farley Mowat – “caught the Japanese whaling vessel Kaiko Maru bearing down on a pod of whales.” (Frankly, if you have got no more whales to hunt off your own waters, take it as a suggestion to stop eating them. To go so far and hunt them in the Antarctic is a simple demonstration of just what moral degenerates you are.)

– that a Japanese publisher said it has decided to scrap a translation of a new English-language book on Japan’s royal family that has sparked protests from Japan’s gover-min. ‘Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne’, penned by Australian journalist Ben Hills, was released by Random House in December and is billed as a biography of the 43-year-old diplomat-turned-princess, who has suffered for years from stress-induced illness. Japan’s Imperial Household Agency and Foreign Ministry had demanded an apology from the author for ‘disrespectful descriptions, distortions of facts and judgmental assertions with audacious conjectures and coarse logic’. The gover-min also protested to Random House in Sydney. (Ben Hills must have hit too close to the mark. Darth Grievous recommends Hills’ book as a must read to see some of the dirty linen of the descendants of the ‘Sun Goddess’.)

– that Japan has expressed its displeasure at a resolution before the U.S. Congress calling on Tokyo to apologise for the country’s use of sex slaves in wartime. Foreign Minister Taro Aso said the resolution was not based on facts. Sponsored by several members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the proposed text urges Tokyo to formally resolve the issue of so-called ‘comfort women’. Japan admits its army forced women to be sex slaves during World War II but has rejected compensation claims. (The Japanese will only comply with the suggestion of the U.S. to resolve the ‘comfort women’ issues when the Americans stop backing them up with weapons.)

– that after 4 years of cajoling and persuasion, North Korea has agreed to take the first steps towards shutting down its key nuclear facilities. It will seal its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon within 60 days and collect its first payoff – worth 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. Once it disables the reactor irreversibly and scraps all its nuclear programmes, the aid would be worth a million tonnes of fuel in all. (The ‘Dear Lea-duh’ of North Korea has usher in a new chapter in diplomacy called ‘Nuclear Blackmail’. Iran is watching.)

– that Roh Moo Hyun, South Korea’s President, said he is worried that North Korea might backtrack on its pledge to dismantle its nuclear capability as the communist regime is ‘unpredictable’. (Despicable would be a better word than unpredictable, when one is talking about North Korea.)

– that Taiwan’s independence-leaning authorities have played down in textbooks Japan’s 1937 massacre in the occupied Chinese city of Nanjing, in a move likely to irk China, it was reported. In one of the textbooks, which are screened by an official committee before release, the publisher omitted the event from an article on China’s eight-year war with Japan. (It might as well have omitted the fact that Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years too. Or that Japan got it through an unequal treaty.)

– that the lea-duh of Taiwan’s main opposition party has stepped down following an indictment on charges of corruption. Ma Ying-jeou resigned from his position as head of the KMT shortly after the charges were announced. However, he immediately vowed to clear his name and said he would run in the 2008 presidential election. (Give Ma Ying-jeou credit for having the moral courage to honour his own words and resign, unlike that coward Chen Shui-bian.)

– that Beijing condemned Chen Shui-bian for dropping ‘China’ from the names of state-run firms and introducing ‘distorted’ history books, saying the moves were aimed at severing links with the mainland. But Chen Shui-bian told reporters that he would push for more name changes, identifying China Air Lines, the island’s flag carrier, and Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest phone service company, as among the next possible candidates. (In the end, it’s Taiwan that will lose out. Not China. And it will be your name that will stink a million generations.)

– that Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont publicly criticised the nation’s junta lea-duh Sonthi Boonyaratglin for failing to do enough to curb violence that has claimed over 1,900 lives. (Sonthi is more busy worry about his phones being tapped and listened to by someone on a console here in Singapore. Kekekeke…)

– that Singapore wants Thailand to clarify remarks made by its junta lea-duh that he plans to take back control of satellites run by a firm sold to the city-state’s Temasek Holdings, the foreign ministry said. “Singapore is surprised at what Council for National Security Chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin was reported to have said about getting back Thai national assets which have been sold to foreigners,” a foreign ministry spokesman said. (Yep. Make an offer. Fair value. U.S. Dollars please. No buts, and definitely not your baht baht baht baht…)

– that Thailand has announced it will poll the nation and allow public opinion to decide whether the gover-min should seek to buy back the nation’s satellite operator now controlled by Temasek. If more than 75% of those surveyed back the idea, Thailand will make an offer to buy Temasek’s shares in Shin Satellite, said the minister for information and communication technology, Sitthichai Pookaiyaudoom. Temasek holds a controlling 41% stake in ShinSat and a buyout of Temasek’s shares would cost the Thai gover-min about 10 billion baht. (Call a referendum lah. To base it on a survey is a blasted joke. And please pay us in U.S. Dollars or Euros.)

– that the Philippine govern-min has set a minimum monthly wage of US$400 for its domestic workers overseas. Agencies said they recognise the good intentions behind the minimum wage set by the Philippines gover-min since it would recognise the hard work put in by their domestic workers overseas. But they feel US$400 is a little unrealistic, considering the stiff competition by domestic workers from other countries, and the lack of jobs for these women back at home. (Did the Pinoys think by doing so there will be more money for their workers to remit back home?)

– that Indonesia’s recent ban on land sand exports was a means by which it could apply pressure on Singapore to sign an extradition treaty, said a top Foreign Ministry official. Primo Alui Joelianto, the ministry’s director-general for Asia, the Pacific and Africa, was reported in the Jakarta Post yesterday as saying that the ban was ‘a key way of placing more pressure on the city-state to move faster towards signing an extradition treaty and resolving the countries’ border spats’. Indonesia, he said, had become ‘very impatient’ with the pace of negotiations on concluding agreements on extradition and defence. (Anyone with a brain could already guess what you snakes were up to without even saying it.)

– that several Indonesian MPs have reportedly called on their gover-min to follow Thailand’s example and try to buy one of the country’s telecommunications giants back from Singapore’s Temasek Holdings. The afternoon daily Sinar Harapan quoted Mr Hajriyanto Thohari, the Golkar member on the parliamentary committee on security and international affairs, as saying the gover-min should not hesitate to take over Indosat, the country’s second-largest telecoms company. (Sure. Fair value. In U.S. Dollars. Even Popiah is more valuable than Rupiah.)

– that Mama-thir Mohamad urged Iraqi insurgents to make the U.S. ‘pay a very high price’ for its occupation of Iraq. In his most provocative public remarks on the Iraq war yet, Mama-thir said he wanted to ‘congratulate the Iraqi resistance’ for successfully turning public opinion against Warmonger Bush and Tony B-liar. “Make sure that the Americans will pay a very high price for their adventure,” Mama-thir said at an international anti-war conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s largest city. (Even when all parts of his body shall perish, his vicious tongue will live forever. It will defy death with all vigor. But here in Singapore, some may perhaps bve thankful he is directing his venom at the West… for now.)

– that Mama-thir was admitted to the National Heart Institute for a medical check-up after being hit by a bout of flu, an official said. Mama-this was taken in for a ‘routine observation and blood tests since this morning’. his aide Sufi Yusoff said in a statement. (No one will miss him when his turn comes to ‘return his IC’.)

– that Johor Menteri Besar Abdul Ghani Othman has urged Singaporeans who say their passports were left unstamped by immigration officials when they entered Johor to come forward and lodge reports. Malay daily Utusan Malaysia reported that Abdul Ghani said Singaporeans facing such problems should raise the issue with him so that the matter could be resolved. “I wish to meet these Singaporeans if indeed such a thing happened. We need to investigate to see whether these were done deliberately or otherwise,'”he told journalists at the Johor Cyberport Multimedia Super Corridor after a joint-venture signing ceremony. He also said he was unaware that Singaporeans were jailed for carrying the unstamped passports. (He has first proven himself an idiot by accusing us of causing floods in Johor with our land reclamation in Pulau Tekong. Now he showed the world one of the reasons why he is such an ignorant fxxkwit: He never read newpapers.)

– that women should wear chastity belts to prevent rape, incest and other sex crimes, a prominent Islamic cleric in northern Malaysia has been quoted as saying. Datuk Abu Hassan Din Al-Hafiz, speaking in the northern state of Terengganu on Thursday, said chastity belts could protect women from a growing number of sex crimes in Malaysia. “The best way to avert sex perpetrators is to wear protection,” Datuk Abu Hassan told a crowd of followers. (And the best way to end the incessant barking of a mindless dog is to muzzle it.)

– that Malaysia has never been envious of progress made by other countries, as they have a right to develop, Najib Razak said. It is more important for Malaysia to focus on its own national development and strive to achieve greater progress, Utusan Malaysia reported him as saying. (A drunken man will seldom admit he’s drunk.)

– that Malay contractors will have to sign pledges not to sell gover-min projects to other races, in a move to curb massive leakages in a system set up to raise Malays’ economic status. Finance Ministry secretary-general Izzudin Dali was quoted in Berita Harian as saying that contractors who violated the declaration would lose their contracts and licences. It was revealed that an astounding 85% of projects secured by Malay contractors ended up in the hands of other communities. This was discovered after a study was carried by the Works Ministry last year. (Can sell to Mat Salleh from England or not ar?)

Singapore since the last TGIF

– that Teo Chee Hean said the GST increase, which will go up from 5% to 7% this year, also has to be viewed as a necessary measure to grow Singapore’s global competitiveness. “We must remember that (raising) the GST is not just a transfer exercise to see who you take money from and who you transfer it to. That’s how you cut up the pie, but more importantly, it’s also about growing the pie,” he told reporters at the sidelines of a community event. (Really ar? But just whose pie has grown?)

– that the impact of the GST hike in July will be cushioned for most households with two working adults. This is because these families will benefit from the 1.5% restoration in the employer’s CPF contribution. This was an observation by Lim Swee Say Shee Shee, in response to concerns raised during a TV forum on the Budget. (Well, just hope you live long and healthy enough to withdraw that money and actually ‘benefit’ from it.)

– that the increase in the employer’s CPF contribution will also go towards defraying expenses, especially for the middle class. (More Tali-PAP million dollar mindfxxk in progress. Just how you are going to get that money out of the CPF to defray your expenses is beyond me.)

– that Singapore’s poorest – the 10% of households that earn the least – finally bucked the trend in 2006, according to the Key Household Income Trends report released. The average Singaporean earned more – and so did the bottom 10%. In 2005, there was a monthly income of $270 for each member of this poorest slab of households. Last year, it was $300. In real terms – taking changing prices into account – this translated into an increase of 6.6%. It’s not as if their wages have gone up, though. It is just that their household size is shrinking and, with the brightening economy, more of them have been able to find jobs. (Household size shrinking? What happened? They starved to death, or they gave up living by means of the MRT track?)

that buyers mysteriously beat the official HDB alert to turn up at Walk-In-Selection [WIS] exercises and queue up to 2 days before it is announced. The HDB added that action will be taken if anyone is found guilty of leaking information about the exercise before hand. (Who is going to be so dumb to admit, “Ya! Ya! I was the one who leak the information!”, and let you catch ar?!)

– that ride on MRT trains could soon feel a whole lot safer, if all goes according to plan for the LTA. It is inviting proposals for a round-the-clock video surveillance system (VSS) for all trains, stations, depots and a control centre. (Cut the crap. What they need is at least a cursory visual inspection of each train when it reach the end of each line. Try and imagine a train which has been running until the puke has dried and solidified on the floor while the cabin stinks to the lowest level of the abyss of hell! That must surely have qualified as a ‘World Class Stink’.)

– that to ensure a smoother ride, the LTA is looking into bus stops without bays. It will use a planned road widening along Jalan Eunos for a trial run in 2009 to test the benefits of such bus stops, which the LTA aid would cut down the amount of time buses take to travel out of bus bays. Together with full-day bus lanes, the agency hopes such bus stops will improve bus speeds by 30% – from 17 to 18kmh now to 23 to 25kmh – during peak hours. (Jalan Eunos is one of the most congested roads for people heading back to the Hougang area from the Katong area. Try and imagine what the jam will be like and prepare for more ERP.)

– that SBS Transit has launched a ‘Move To The Rear’ campaign aimed at encouraging commuters to move to the rear. Three bus services – 15, 27 and 36 – will have speakers playing a public announcement which urges commuters to avoid crowding the front of the bus, hence reducing boarding delays. (What they really need is a conveyor belt. So people will end up at the end whether they like it or not.)

– that the NKF has won the civil suit against its former management. The victory came after the remaining three defendants – former chairman Richard Yong, former board member Matilda Chua and former treasurer Loo Say San – conceded to all claims made against them, with costs. The turning point for the rest to concede came when Yong admitted he had failed in his duties as director when he was cross-examined. (Not a moment too soon! Now we can move on to the criminal trial.)

– that the dates for the criminal trial hearing involving ex-NKF board directors have been set. Durai would be the first to be called up for the hearing set for the end of February 2007. The rest of them – former chairman Richard Yong, former treasurer Loo Say San and former board member Matilda Chua – will have a date with the subordinate courts in March 2007. (Will there then be justice?)

– that any land acquired by the gover-min for the purpose of infrastructure development – such as MRT lines – will now be bought over at the prevailing market rate. Previously, compensation by the gover-min was based on the market value of the acquired property as of Jan 1, 1995, or the day it was gazetted for acquisition, whichever was lower. The amendment, tabled by the Ministry of Law, will remove this benchmark. This is the most fundamental change to the Land Acquisition Act since it was enacted in 1966. (And they will only pay the owners 10 years later?)

– that foreign workers here will soon be able to shop for groceries, get a haircut, even remit money home – all without leaving their dormitories. As the construction industry booms, attention is turning towards ensuring more attractive living quarters for the legions of foreign workers here. (What’s next? Do they need to book-out and book-in too?)

– that senders of junk email and SMS messages could end up paying up to a $1 million or more in damages if found guilty under a proposed law. With cyber security being a major concern, the gover-min is moving to control the sending of unsolicited electronic bulk mail, for so long the bane of Singapore’s mobile phone owners and Internet subscribers. (What can they do about someone who does it overseas? Say this asswipe on this IP: 85.255.118.170 who calls himself ‘greenwoodz’ who has been spamming comment sections of those blogs without spam filters with his endless adverts?)

– that a motorist got back at two of SBS Transit’s traffic inspectors who photographed his car parked in a bus lane. Shortly after they took the photo, he spotted the two inspectors having breakfast, with their motorcycles parked illegally along double yellow lines. Whipping out his camera-phone, he filmed the motorcycles, confronted the two men and then put up the sequence on popular video-sharing website YouTube. Now the clip is making its rounds on the Internet via blogs here, and the two men are in trouble with their employer. (These two should know better. You can’t enforce the law while being violators yourself. But much can be said about the sore loser who took the video anyway. Got money to buy car no money to park? Hello?)

– that there are going to be some changes to traffic flow along Orchard Road. The existing two-way Oldham Lane – between The Atrium and MacDonald House – will be converted to a one-way road from 6 March. The one-way will be from Handy Road to Orchard Road, which means motorists can only use Oldham Lane to get onto Orchard Road. (Finally someone in LTA has gotten to think at least with his arse to come out with a simple solution to the Oldham Lane ‘problem’. A problem which is caused by them – by introducing full day bus lanes – in the first place.)

Trivial, Jokes and Thoughts from Discussions

– that an expat told me, Singapore Airlines may perhaps be the best when in the air, but once you get down to the ground it sucks big time – for e.g. the hassle of purchasing tickets. The best part is this, you can reserve a seat online, but you can’t use the vouchers. And if you want to use the vouchers, you need to call too book them, and you are charged $25 for that. The best part of it all is that you can’t reserve a seat when you call them. (Whichever company designed this system really have shit for brains. Go take a look at the Amazon.com site for some inspiration, losers!)

– that growing demand for clean fuels distilled from plants will revolutionise agriculture in both rich and poor countries, a senior American agriculture official has said. Michael Yost, the head of the U.S. foreign agriculture service, said African and American farmers both stood to profit from the growing demand for grains that can be converted to ethanol or biodiesel, two clean-burning substitutes for gasoline and normal diesel fuel. Farmers who produce grains, sugar and plant oils all stand to benefit from the growing demand for biofuels and the higher prices that will surely follow, said Mr Yost. (It also means that the existing food shortages isn’t going to go away because food is now planted not for eating!)

– that women who eat seafood while pregnant may be boosting their children’s IQ in the process, according to new research published in The Lancet. The study results were surprising, say the authors, and contradicted American and British recommendations that pregnant women should limit their seafood and fish consumption to avoid potentially high levels of mercury. Mercury is found in small concentrations in fish and seafood, but can accumulate in the body. High amounts can damage the human nervous system. But researchers say seafood is also a major source of Omega-3 fatty acids, vital to brain development. (As if the strain on the Earth’s marine resources isn’t bad enough. Such research are a waste of time that doesn’t go very much into improving the lot of human beings on this planet.)

– that the largest new study of its kind on siestas has found that people who take a short afternoon nap regularly are significantly less likely to die from heart disease. The study of more than 23,000 Greek adults – the biggest and best investigation of the subject to date – found that those who regularly took a midday siesta were more than 30% less likely to die from heart disease. (They should allow us to all sleep up to 30mins daily after lunch.)

– that Steve Jobs made the case for abolishing the protections known as ‘Digital Rights Management’ [DRM], in an open letter on the company’s Web site. The essay, dubbed ‘Thoughts on Music’, cited the anti-piracy technology as the main reason music sold through iTunes can’t be transferred to other portable players besides the iPod. (Right. Blame someone else for Apple’s very own monopolistic and anti-competition practices! The question is, it might be logical to make it difficult for duplication. But to make it difficult to be played on someone else’s player?)

– that Jobs suggested that consumers unhappy with the status quo should urge the world’s four largest labels – Universal Music Group, EMI, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group – to sell their online catalogs without the DRM restrictions. Those four labels distribute more than 70% of the world’s music. “Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace,” Jobs wrote. “Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.” (Balls. Fix Apple’s own piece of shit DRM. Why stop people from buying from Real’s Rhapsody, for example? The truth: The largest source of proprietary DRM software is Apple, which prevents songs purchased from iTunes to be played on any competing player – and prevents the iPod from playing songs purchased from competing online music stores.)

– that Jobs said Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI required Apple to protect their content from being illegally copied. The solution arrived at was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes Store in special and secret software, so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices. (Well, so does that stop the same song from being passed from another user with an iPod? Not everyone is an idiot like your Mac-Freaks, Jobs.)

– that a man who was fired by IBM for visiting an adult chat room at work is suing the company for $5 million, claiming he is an Internet addict who deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal. James Pacenza, 58, of Montgomery, says he visits chat rooms to treat traumatic stress incurred in 1969 when he saw his best friend killed during an Army patrol in Vietnam. In papers filed in federal court in White Plains, Pacenza said the stress caused him to become ‘a sex addict, and with the development of the Internet, an Internet addict’. He claimed protection under the American with Disabilities Act. (Why didn’t he also sodomise a goat to prove his point – about his addiction to sex?)

– that the heartwarming commercial featuring actor Richard Gere buying scores of birds for a little girl whose brother is going away has been voted the best commercial last year. The popular commercial, which has Gere paying by his Visa card, came in tops at the MediaCorp TV Viewers’ Choice awards ceremony last night, beating out 19 other finalists. (Curse you Richard Gere. Curse your gray hair. Curse you dunno how to count American Actor. You don’t know how to buy 4 more birds but has to release them all?)

– that the now deceased former Playboy model, Anna Nicole Smith, underfed her five-month-old daughter Dannielynn in order to keep the little girl ‘sexy’. The claims were made in an affidavit made by Smith’s former nanny Quethlie Alexis in the Bahamas. “Ms Marshall (Smith’s real name) was obsessed with making sure that her baby was ‘sexy’,” the document reads. “Ms Marshall knew that the correct amount of baby food was three ounces every three hours… Ms Marshall insisted that the maximum I was to give was 2.5 ounces.” (God bless Dannielynn!)

– that ‘Lost’ crashed in the ratings, hitting an all-time low for a new episode. ABC’s drama about plane crash survivors stranded on a mysterious island drew an estimated 12.8 million viewers Wednesday, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research. That’s well off the peak of more than 20 million for the drama that became an instant sensation when it debuted in September 2004. (High time it goes the way of ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’. A day long awaited ever since half a dozen of contacts turns up [as] ‘Lost’ on the MSN Messenger list)

– that Ruud van Nistelrooy has hit out at Alex Ferguson, claiming he ‘kicked his soul’ during their major rift which saw him leave Manchester ManUre United last summer to join Spanish giants Real Madrid. The 30-year-old Dutch international striker joined Madrid for €14.8 million and van Nistelrooy talked down the Red Devils, claiming Real Madrid were a bigger club. (It probably is. In fact, the other leagues may well be better than EPL, if not for the fact that EPL has commentaries in English, and has greater exposure.)

– that French Soccer Club Lille was angered by Giggs’ goal, scored from a quickly-taken free kick while goalkeeper Tony Sylva was still arranging his wall in a Champions League match. The goal allowed ManUre United to win the match. (In this Youtube video, Tony Sylva didn’t seem to be ‘arranging his wall’. More like a stupid mistake that any footballer worth his salt would have taken advantage of.)