Cute Stuff on the Internet

A Tribute to System Administrators: The System Administrator Song

The Natural Selection Award

– that police national serviceman Arvin Rangoonathan was fascinated with his Taurus service revolver and shot himself in various poses with his camera phone. Two months later, on 02-07-2005 he shot himself in the head after a botched attempt to play Russian roulette with the revolver, and died. (Willingly placing oneself on the receiving end of one’s own firearm isn’t one of the smartest things to do. Thus, nature intervened.)

The World This Week

– that Greenpeace has defended its anti-whaling tactics in the Southern Ocean after several days of close quarters sparring with a Japanese whaling fleet. Greenpeace said it welcomed any scrutiny of tactics, including incidents in which a Greenpeace ship and a whaler were involved in a minor collision. The Japanese whaling industry’s Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) said its crews were documenting the behaviour of Greenpeace ships Esperanza and Arctic Sunrise, claiming serious violations of maritime laws. (I’ll sooner believe Greenpeace than the Japanese.)

– that the war of the whales in the Southern Ocean has descended into verbal jousting, with Japanese whalers branding Greenpeace activists pirates. In response, Greens lea-duh Bob Brown said the whalers were the true pirates, and the Japanese were losing the battle over their so-called scientific research program and were facing a crew rebellion. (Go! Greenpeace! Go!)

– that a Tanzanian national who fell ill aboard an Air Malawi flight and was subsequently pronounced dead upon admission to a clinic in the commercial capital, Blantyre, had swallowed 177 tubes of cocaine, police said. Police spokesman Rhoda Manjolo said that Abdallah Saidi Mohamed’s three traveling companions were also revealed to be couriers for an international narcotics cartel. (Seems like sometimes, God has to do certain things Himself, to cut all the crap about people being barbaric with drug mules.)

– that Colin Powell supported gover-min eavesdropping to prevent terrorism but said a major controversy over presidential powers could have been avoided by obtaining court warrants. Powell said that when he was in the Cabinet, he was not told that Warmonger authorized a warrantless NSA surveillance operation after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. (Let’s all eavesdrop on Powell!)

– that House DemoRats charge that the Homeland Security Department hasn’t kept 33 of its promises to better protect the country. A report released by 13 members of the House Homeland Security Committee says that nearly three years after the cabinet department’s creation, gaps still remain in federal efforts to defend the nation against terrorism – including at ports, borders and chemicals plants. The department also fails to share alerts and other intelligence quickly with state and local officials, according to the DemoRats’ report, which analyzes public statements and congressional testimony that outline Bush regime security goals since 2002. (With Iraq as a lightning rod, perhaps they thought all these wouldn’t be necessary anymore.)

– that Fidel Castro has called her ‘mad’, following American moves to promote democratic change on the island. Condom-leezza Lice said a gover-min commission on Cuba had been reconvened and would report by next May on more measures to promote change. (Other countries should implement measures to promote change in the U.S. too. The U.S. idea that the world should be more like them needs to be changed.)

– that Chile’s top court has ruled that former military ruler Gen Augusto Pinochet is fit to stand trial over the 1975 disappearance of political opponents. The supreme court rejected an appeal that the 90-year-old should not be sent for trial because of poor health. (Go get some pointers from Soeharto.)

– that Russian prosecutors investigating last year’s Beslan school siege say the authorities made no mistakes during the crisis in North Ossetia. Relatives of more than 330 people who died in the siege accuse the security services of incompetence. (No mistakes really. Just incompetent.)

– that cleric Mohammad Omran has blamed the Howard gover-min for radicalising young Muslims, claiming that demonising Islam was driving its followers towards a terrorist mentality. “The Government is pushing the people to believe they can do all these major disaster things,” Sheik Omran told The Australian in his first major interview since 18 men, including a number of his followers, were arrested in Sydney and Melbourne, accused of plotting acts of terrorism. (“It is all your fault that I am smashing your face in.” Sounds familiar?)

– that the man accused of being one of the ringleaders who incited violence on the day of the Sydney riots has fled his home, believing his life is under threat. Glen Steele and his young family are hiding after hearing that a contract has been taken out on his life. Although he has publicly apologised for his remarks and behaviour on December 11, the images of Mr Steele screaming into a megaphone ‘No Lebs in Sutherland Shire’ made him the face of the riots. (It’s time he face the consequences of his own racist actions. Live like a rat for the rest of your life, you racist shithead.)

– that the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is shrinking as Bulgaria and Ukraine complete troop withdrawals and Poland says it will cut troop size and switch to a non-combat role. South Korea, which is the second-largest troop contributor after Britain, is expected to order home about 1,000 of its 3,200 troops in the first half of next year. Italy said that the 2,900 Italian troops in Iraq would probably all come home this year. (It would be too late to jump ship when it starts sinking.)

– that while the two religious sickos, Pat Robertson and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may not agree on much, both suggested on Thursday that the severe illness of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was deserved. (Such ‘well-deserved’ tragedy will probably one they come knocking on your doors, you two sonuvabitches.)

– that a young ‘Palestinian’ was charged in an Israeli court with planning to carry out a suicide attack, with the Dimona nuclear plant in southern Israel as a possible target. The Israeli military captured Ramzi Salah, 22, from the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, trying to sneak into Israel two weeks ago with an explosives belt. He has allegedly confessed to belonging to the radical group, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which had plans to attack the heavily-guarded Dimona plant. (Go ahead! It is not as if they are not going to get anything from the fallout when the thing blows.)

– that Hundreds of angry Palestinians streamed into Egypt after militants with stolen bulldozers broke through a border wall, and two Egyptian troops were killed and 30 were wounded by gunfire in the rampage. About 3,000 Egyptian Interior Ministry troops who initially had no orders to fire swarmed the border but were forced to withdraw about a half-mile, said security forces Lt. Sameh el-Antablyan, who announced the casualties. Gen. Essam el-Sheikh said Egyptian forces later began firing back. (With the ‘Palestinian’ Authority rapidly degenerating into the ‘Palestinian Anarchy’, it is best for Egypt to just annex Gaza. After all, there was never a ‘Palestine’.)

– that a Chinese democraZy activist has reportedly been jailed for 12 years for helping to organise anti-Japanese protests in China earlier this year. The wife of Xu Wanping said he had been found guilty of incitement to subvert state power at a closed hearing. Mr Xu, 44, was among a number of activists known to have been arrested as a result of the protests in April. (Must be like Singapore. Got get an entertainment license. Or at least endorsement from the equivalent of NTUC in China, like the one we had in 1988.)

– that Chinese auditors have uncovered 290 billion yuan in funds illegally spent by government offices in the first 11 months of this year. The improper spending was found during a nationwide annual audit of 22,000 officials by the National Audit Office, Xinhua news agency said. Chinese media has criticized the lack of detail about wrongdoing and about how offenders were punished. (How to punish if so-and-so is related to so-and-so and so-and-so is some big shot muthafucka in the Party?)

– that Major-General Zhu Chenghu has been punished for telling reporters that Beijing might retaliate using nuclear weapons if U.S. forces attack China in a conflict over Taiwan, military sources said. Zhu was given an ‘administrative demerit’ recently by the National Defence University, which bars him from promotion for one year, said the sources, who requested anonymity. “He misspoke. But the punishment could not be too harsh or we would be seen as too weak towards the United States,” said one source. An administrative demerit is the second lightest punishment on a scale of one to five but still potentially damaging to Maj-Gen Zhu’s career. The lightest is an administrative warning, while the heaviest is expulsion. (Yep. Even if it’s the truth, there’s no need to say it out loud.)

– that the people of Japan should strive to properly understand their country’s history when dealing with the rest of the world, Emperor Akihito has said. In a speech to mark his 72nd birthday, he said he hoped ‘knowledge about past facts will continue to be passed down in a proper manner.’ (If this was the Thai King telling the Thai people, one can be assured that it will be done. Coming from the Japanese Emperor… well…)

– that a funeral was held for a Japanese World War II veteran who had admitted to taking part in the 1937 ‘Rape of Nanking’ in China and was among the few who spoke out publicly against the massacre. Mr Shiro Azuma, who died of colon cancer at age 93, had admitted to taking part in the orgy of mass killings and rape in the southern Chinese city, now called Nanjing. (Rest in peace, Azuma-sama. God bless your soul.)

– that Junk-ichiro Konkz-umi defended his visits to the Yasukuni war shrine and appealed to China and South Korea not to use the issue to block ties with Japan. He reiterated that he made the pilgrimages to honour the war dead and pray for peace and said the feud should not drive a diplomatic wedge between Japan and its neighbours. (Hey, Konkz! Say if my friends raped and countless members of your clan, and then I put them in my shrine of the martyrs, and go there to honour them every year, and insist we should be friends, will you buy this shit?)

– that a Taiwanese court ruled in favour of two opposition lea-duhs in their defamation lawsuit against Chen Shui-bian, who had accused them of trying to stage a ‘soft coup’ after his re-election victory last year. The court maintained Chen had damaged the ‘reputation and integrity’ of Lien Chan, former chairman of the KMT, and Mr James Soong, his counterpart in People First Party, their lawyer said. (It’s high time some people teach Chen a lesson about that big mouth of his.)

– that Chen Shui-bian will continue taking a tough stance with China for the rest of his term because his repeated peace overtures have been ignored, one of his chief aides said. (Is that what Chen calls his unreasonable demands made to China?)

– that frustrated by Beijing’s refusal to deal with him, Chen Shui-bian will focus on fostering a separate identity for Taiwan, presidential aide James Huang said. (China is even more frustrated with Chen’s endless flip-flopping and backstabbing.)

– that Chen also renewed his pledge to press for a new constitution and continued arms build-up, a move sure to irritate rival China. In his New Year message, Chen said he would work to push through various reforms, primary among them a package of constitutional reforms launched last year. (Another ‘peace overture’ from Chen, eh?)

– that the Taiwanese gave the island’s gover-min a ‘fail’ grade in a year-end report card, according to a poll which showed public dissatisfaction surging to a record high in close to a decade. Disapproval ratings for the various aspects of the gover-min’s performance in the past year surged past the 50% mark, according to the annual survey conducted by the United Daily News. (It’s high time they impeach Chen Shui-bian and fire him from his job.)

– that Indonesia’s leading religious affairs official has been arrested in a drug bust. Police confirmed that Burhanuddin Mamasta, the 53-year-old head of the Religious Affairs Bureau at the State Secretariat, was detained for allegedly possessing crystal methamphetamine outside a Jakarta nightspot. Also arrested were his 26-year-old girlfriend and another man. (Chiong nightspot, plus ti-koh, plus drugs. Win leow.)

– that Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has refused a proposed increase in his salary and perks, his spokesman said. The 2006 state budget had earmarked funds for an average 5% increase in official salaries, but Dr Yudhoyono has declined his own raise, presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said. (If he’s Durai, Indonesia should be concerned.)

Singapore This Week

– that former NKF chairman Richard Yong was condemned by Khaw Boon Wan for the way he used the charity’s former patron, Mrs Goh Chok Tong, to excuse the way Mr T.T. Durai was compensated. Without mincing his words, Mr Khaw described it as ‘despicable’. Yong, in his written reply to auditor KPMG’s report, had maintained that the method used was ‘deemed fair’ and claimed that Mrs Goh had ‘known and endorsed’ Mr Durai’s salary. (Well, does that resolve Yong and his board from their responsibilities of checking Durai?)

– that Gerard Ee and interim CEO Goh Chee Leok of the NKF took pains to point out – through pie charts and slides – that out of the remaining 90 cents, 40 cents went to the reserves and another 13 cents went to health screening and education. About 22 cents, went to fund raising and the rest to general overheads. (So how much of the remaining 15 cents went to Durai and his cronies?)

– that with its hands already full trying to woo back donors, the new NKF now has to deal with another headache – patients who don’t pay for their dialysis. About 17% of the NKF’s more than 1,800 patients – 312 in total – have defaulted on payments. They owe the charity sums ranging from $200 to over $27,000. The total bad debt: $1.3 million. Some of the defaulters are those in genuine financial need, but others are making use of the cloud hanging over the charity to serve their own ends. (I won’t be surprise that some of these losers will be saying, “If the NKF has so much money to pay Durai, they shouldn’t be concerned with the amount owed.”)

– that cobbler Fan Kiet Teng, 64, was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison, after pleading guilty to eight charges of cheating a 21-year-old Vietnamese woman into having sex with him and conning the agency. (They should just castrate the bugger.)

– that disturbed at how easily Fan got away with his bride-for-sex scam, District Judge Jasvender Kaur, urged matchmaking agencies to ‘act responsibly’ and called for guidelines to protect vulnerable foreign women. (Maybe have the agency paid for the Vietnamese woman’s hymen reconstruction operation.)

– that gover-min agencies have started to make officers’ laptops more secure, installing encryption software on selected computers to prevent sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands. Only employees who handle classified information are given this added layer of protection, with others possibly exposed if their laptops fall into the wrong hands. When a laptop’s hard disk is encrypted, a user has to enter a password or slot in a smart card to log in. Without this, he cannot decrypt or read any data. (And the user is still the weakest link.)

– that Baby Lee has ordered a revision of the registers of electors to be completed on or before Feb 28, 2006. The revised registers will contain the names of all Singapore citizens who are eligible to vote as of Jan 1, 2006. The revision is generally regarded as an indicator that an election is around the corner. Once updated, the registers will be opened for public inspection, so that voters can confirm where they are supposed to go on Polling Day. Registration will also open for overseas Singaporeans to vote while out of the country. (Erection Election finally coming!! Doesn’t matter I don’t get the chance to vote.)

– that the daughter of the Everitt Road man fined for insulting his neighbours was herself fined $2,000 after a district court found her guilty of behaving in an insulting manner to a neighbour. The 43-year-old teacher was accused of uttering the words ‘masturbation expert’ within earshot of Madam Teo Suan Moy on the night of July 29, 2004 – the day her father was fined $4,000 for insulting Madam Teo and Ms Bency Chua. Chan insisted that she was merely having a private conversation with her father. The words were not intended for her neighbours, who were eavesdropping on her, she claimed. (People eat finish so free eavesdrop on you meh?)

– that it will be of no significance if the Everitt Road teacher found guilty of insulting her neighbour loses her job, said her father. According to MOE, a teacher who has been convicted in court is subject to internal disciplinary action and the ministry is looking into Chan Soo Yin’s case. (It takes two hands to clap. You will get the kind of neighbour by being the kind of people you are. Hear that, Malaysia?)

Trivial, Jokes and Thoughts from Discussions

– that Lazio striker Paolo Di Canio has defended the raised-arm salute that earned him a one-game ban by saying he is ‘a fascist but not a racist’. Di Canio will contest a one-match ban for the salute. (Right. Ever heard of the argument, “I have venereal disease, but I am not promiscuous?” [Translation: 我有性病，但我唔‘咸湿’。]

– that patient-specific stem cells that disgraced South Korean cloning expert Hwang Woo-Suk said he had produced this year do not exist, investigators have concluded, according to a news report. (Maybe it’s time the fraud himself ceased to exist too.)

– that 2 16-year-olds who were expelled from a Lutheran high school because they were suspected of being lesbians have sued the school for invasion of privacy and discrimination. The lawsuit, filed in Riverside County Superior Court in California, seeks the girls’ re-enrollment at the small California Lutheran High School, unspecified damages and an injunction barring the school from excluding gays and lesbians. Kirk D. Hanson, an attorney for the girls, said the expulsion traumatized and humiliated them. (A matter of misconduct and disciplinary action now becomes a civil lawsuit of privacy and discrimination. Only in a world where things are turned on its head is it done.)

– that Winston Churchill was determined to have Adolf Hitler executed if he was captured, according to previously secret gover-min documents released. Other documents released show that Churchill favored letting India’s Mahatma Gandhi die if he went on a hunger strike while interned during World War II, and that British troops were told during the war to show respect for the U.S. Army’s then-racial segregation practices. (Churchill is no saint. Hitler would have been his good friend if he was British. After all, when Churchill was Home Secretarty in 1910, he drafted a proposal to sterilise, or put in labour camps, 100,000 ‘degenerate British citizens’.)

– that the documents also reveal intense debate in 1942 over possible British reprisals for Nazi atrocities in Czechoslovakia. On 15 June, Churchill suggested that British bombers wipe out three German villages for every one Czech settlement destroyed. (That explains Hamburg and Dresden, doesn’t it?)

– that a AMOS WU POM HIN reckon that it may not always be the driver’s fault, in response to a letter about a driver who committed the ‘appalling act of cruelty’ of running over a pigeon. He seems to suggest that other birds like mynahs and crows will fly off and clear the path before my car reaches them, and pigeons to be the dumbest of the lot. (So if Amos Wu didn’t run away in time should he ever get run over by someone, don’t have to feel sorry for him.)

– that Paris Hilton is accused of spewing ‘vicious lies’ about an altercation with a romantic rival at a London nightclub, and harassing a business promoter in two lawsuits set for court this month. The first suit pits the hotel heiress-actress against diamond heiress-actress Zeta Graff, who is seeking at least $10 million in damages for Hilton’s comments in a July New York Post story. (Paris Hilton without money will get just about as much attention as the ladies at the lorongs of Geylang.)