The World This Week

– that Warmonger Bush said he would fire anyone in his regime found to have committed a crime in connection to a leak that may have unmasked a covert CIA agent in 2003. Warmonger seemed to be raising the bar for punishing aides involved in leaking that Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA after her husband accused the regime of exaggerating the case for war in Iraq. (Will this promise be like Iraq’s ‘Weapons of Mass Disappearance’?)

– that British soldiers are facing the undignified prospect of being forced to shout ‘bang, bang’ on military training exercises after an admission by the Army that it is running out of blank ammunition. The shortage is also likely to result in a large number of important training exercises being cancelled or severely restricted. (What so undignified? The SAF’s almighty ‘universal round’ has been in use for ages.)

– that Dutch police and park rangers have admitted they are powerless to stop a growing trend of outdoor sex orgies. Police called to the scene admitted they were powerless to act despite numerous complaints from other beach users, and could only give the naked orgy lovers a verbal warning. The head of one of Holland’s biggest national parks says the problem is getting worse and has called for the gover-min to make clear guidelines on outdoor sex orgies to allow police to act. (Somone should record it all down and distribute it on the Internet. That might even bring a recession to Japanese porn industry.)

– that the father of Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers who commandeered the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, praised the recent terror attacks in London and said many more would follow. (Will you be joining you son soon, sir?)

– that China cannot be certain that its military, while steadily strengthening, is capable of conquering Taiwan, thePentagon said in a new report on Chinese military power and strategy. Over the longer term, however, an increasingly modern Chinese military could pose a threat to U.S. and other forces in the Asia-Pacific region, it said. (Doesn’t really matter when the U.S. military poses a threat to everyone in the world.)

– that Hong Kong’s gover-min proposed a raft of measures to overhaul the city’s health-care system, which it said were vital to cope with an ageing population and ballooning public health costs. Under the plan, public hospitals will raise charges in a bid to get citizens who are better off to switch to private doctors, reducing the burden on public resources. Hong Kong’s public hospitals charge relatively low fees and many who can afford private doctors have been using public services instead. By raising fees, the difference will narrow and hopefully this will encourage the more affluent to go private. (And God bless the less affluent who now has to pay more.)

– that Chen Shui-bian said the U.S. defence department’s assessment of China’s military showed Beijing was a threat to world peace. An annual Pentagon report to Congress released said China’s military is developing new capabilities to deter Taiwan from declaring independence and to project its power elsewhere in the region. In his first public comments on the report, Mr Chen described China as a threat with malevolent aspirations beyond Taiwan. (How long more do we need to put up with the antics of this Chen moron?)

– that the decree giving Thaksin Shinawatra absolute powers is a double blow to Thailand, say senators, opposition politicians, academics and the media. It would both aggravate the crisis in the south and erode constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, they said. (Maybe Thaksin can learn a thing or two from Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious.)

– that Malaysia said it would stick with a controversial permit scheme for car imports despite criticism it is unfairly enriching ethnic Malay entrepreneurs and undermining national automaker Proton. Badawi’s office issued a list of recipients of the import permits which were launched in 1970 as a way to help ethnic Malay businessmen who were lagging behind the minority Chinese. (So it becomes unfair when it enriches only certain Bumiputra. How funny.)

– that the Malaysian gover-min sets a limit on APs at 10% of the local car production that year, with an incremental 10% each year to fulfil its requirement to open the market. Rafidah Aziz said only 17,455 permits were issued to import cars of between 1,500cc and 1,800cc last year, the only category of cars in direct competition with Proton. This comprised only 3.2% of the total car production of 530,035 vehicles that year. (Sini kereta Proton banyak lempek lah.)

– that Abdullah Badawi told Malaysia’s majority Malays – pampered by a decades old affirmative action policy – that the gover-min cannot ‘play the role of Santa Claus’ forever, saying they must eventually learn to fend for themselves. But the gover-min has no immediate plans to dismantle the New Economic Policy, which has given privileges to the economically laggard Malays since 1970, he said in a speech to the annual congress of the ruling dUMNO party. (Someone should tell Badawi, there’s really no Santa Claus.)

Singapore This Week

– that ex-Regent Goh said Mrs Gold Peanuts regrets the remarks she made that the $600,000 annual salary of Durai was ‘peanuts’ for an organisation that had millions in its reserves. Lao Goh revealed that when his wife told him at home of what she had said, “I told her immediately: ‘You are in trouble. There will be negative reactions’“. Gold Peanuts explained to him that she was thinking of the organisation and the point she was trying to make was that ‘the right person must be paid the right wage’. (At least have the moral courage to apologise.)

– and Lao Goh said, “And, of course, to educate her, I showed her the letters and e-mails. And she now understands better that what she said was not quite in order.” (A-P-O-L-O-G-I-S-E.)

– that one wonders why the overall average subsidy level is only 23% when the NKF has managed to raise large amounts of funds and amass huge reserves of $262 million. Also NKF patients had to pay an average of $16,138 a year for treatment while those with KDF paid only $9,195. (And now all the skeletons dance out of the closet.)

– that student volunteers raising funds for voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) have been facing a backlash of the NKF saga. One was even shoved in the face by a member of the public, while others had their honesty questioned. (Please learn to bark at the right tree. But is there any tree left to bark at?)

– that the cap of 80% for bank financing has been raised to 90%. The HDB, too, is raising its loan limits along similar lines. Mabok Tongue said the remaining 10% to be paid by the borrower would limit over-borrowing and act as a safeguard against potential losses by banks from loan defaults. (Whatever makes Mabok thinks people can’t already be over-borrowing with a 80% cap?)

– that the number of youths turning to crime has almost doubled from 2001. According to statistics released by the police, some 2,428 youths — between the ages of seven and 19 — were arrested between January and June this year. This is the highest number since 2001, when 1,224 youths were nabbed in the same time. (A particular 1WO in one of the SAF’s Fitness Conditioning Centre is dead right when he said, “Youths these days are very unbecoming.”)

– that the flexible approach to learning Chinese which Nan Hua Secondary School offers its students shows that the standard of the language has not diminished among the young here, Baby Lee said. (As if Nan Hua Secondary School is representative of all young Chinese. Get out of your ivory tower, dude.)

– that a road divider installed recently at the junction of Cecil Street, Robinson Road, D’Almeida Street, Finlayson Green and Collyer Quay has provoked an outpour of complaints to the LTA on the papers with some insisting that the road dividers are creating more problems instead of improving traffic along that area. (The problem is not with the divider. It is with Singaporean drivers who never uses their brains.)

Trivial, Jokes and Thought from Discussions

– that high earners of both genders boast an increased libido but only the wealthy men end up having more sex, the largest survey of its kind has indicated. As their incomes rise, both men and women are more likely to have a higher sex drive, according to a study of almost 30,000 people from 170 countries. Only among men, however, does this translate into more frequent sex: male high earners have sex significantly more often than those on lower salaries, but income makes little or no difference for women. The findings, from an online survey conducted by the BBC, offer fresh evidence for the theory that women tend to be more attracted to men with money and resources, but that a woman’s wealth does not much affect her sex appeal to men. “Men accumulate resources, which they use to attract women,” John Manning, Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire, who analysed the results, said. (Bullshit lah. Confucius said 饱食思淫欲。 It literally means when you are well fed you think about sex. And that was 2500 over years ago.)

– that Eminem feels burned out by his success and will probably make his final concert appearance in Ireland on September 17, associates told a U.S. newspaper. (Good riddance to bad rubbish.)

– that the IOC session here earlier this month put Singapore on the world sporting map, declared Dr Mohd Maliki Osman in Parliament. It registered the fact that the country can be a ‘compelling hub’ for international sports federations and sporting companies, said the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Community Development, Youth and Sports. (Yep, we should set up a Singapore Athlete and Sportsman Exchange – SASE – to trade and speculate in them. Imagine the day that you can buy and sell David Beckham and make a neat profit.)

– that the blogs belonging to popular local blogger Wendy Cheng, who writes under the pseudonym Xiaxue, have been hijacked. Their contents have been deleted and a rude message has been left in their place. (I am no fan of xiaxue. But as a fellow blogger I have this to say to whoever did this: Associating your mother with the canine species would be a grave insult to man’s best friend. And while Tuna and a Singh in themselves are good, I can’t say the same for combination of both, which happens the best greeting for you at this moment, you lily-livered, chicken-hearted, dork! How would it feel if I lock you out of your own house after I empty out everything in it?)

The Stupid Singaporean Award

– that someone mentioned in a casual conversation that some lady of height 1.6m, weighing 45kg signed up for slimming sessions. Meantime, desperate mothers are feeding their children grass and leaves in a bid to keep them alive. One of the world’s poorest countries, landlocked Niger has been hit by recurring drought. Failed rains and locust invasions last year left 3.6 million people – a third of the country’s population – facing severe food shortages. (There’s aesthetic needs but some people are really overdoing it. Just imagine what this poor kid would pay to be 1.6m and 45kg heavy. Some people should really ‘wake up their ideas’ lah!!)