Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Some people are just plain dumb

A strange news report caught my eyes yesterday. The content of the report just went on to show that some people are just plain stupid. Nothing else, just pure lack of brains!

According to the report, a woman in China wanted to teach her pet dog how to drive a car. Can you believe it? Teaching a dog to drive.

And the result? Unsurprisingly the dog on wheels crashed into an oncoming car. Luckily no one was injured and the crash had not caused a massive damage.

What on earth prompted the woman to do this? She said she wanted to let her dog drive as the animal has the habit of “crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive”.

Thus, she thought, this time around she would give the dog a chance.

If it were up to me, I would ban this woman from driving as she obviously can cause danger to other drivers. I would also ban her from having a dog as a pet after considering the safety of the pet.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Arch-foes united in condemning Abdullah

Spare a thought for Malaysia prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He took over the unenviable task of leading the nation from Mahathir Mohamad and now has come under fire from his predecessor over his style of governance. Mahathir has been vocal in saying that Abdullah is inept to lead and that he is susceptible to cronyism and nepotism.

When Abdullah took over, he was labeled as Mr Nice Guy who is sensitive to the needs of the country and will lead it to ultimate modernisation, coupled with an adequate respect for the rules of law and human rights.

He won the 2004 general election with a massive landslide, something which he and his backers claimed was the mark of the overwhelming support given by the people for his style of leadership. The victory was the biggest and the most popular for a leader in Malaysia.

Now, that colossal victory is being put under a microscope after claims that the government was involved in electoral fraud in obtaining that win. Suddenly, it is not just Abdullah’s leadership which is being question, but also the legality of his premiership.

Strangely two foes – Mahathir and Anwar Ibrahim – seem to be the one with the knives to deepen Abdullah’s woes.

Anwar claims that he has evidence of electoral fraud in the 2004 elections and that the election was neither fair nor free. He said dead people and phantom voters were rampantly used. And he added that Abdullah’s government has ordered a media gag on his findings.

Anwar said:

“I will present solid evidence to disclose the manipulation, lies and weaknesses that tarnishes the integrity of Malaysia elections.”

Again, the use of the media is also something which Mahathir was complaining about. He said his comments and criticisms were not accurately reported in the government-controlled media.

Mahathir vows to continue speaking out against Abdullah from within the ruling party Umno, especially during the party’s meeting in November while Anwar says he will expose the government’s excessiveness, corruption and electoral fraud at his party’s (Keadilan) annual meeting in September.

Given that, the next two, three months are going to be a major headache for Abdullah. Can he stay strong or are we in for a leadership change in the country?

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Farewell, Pluto

Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet today when scientists from around the world redefined it as a "dwarf planet", leaving just eight classical planets in the solar system.

The eight are:

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

According to MSNBC, the much-maligned Pluto doesn’t make the grade under the new rules for a planet: “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”

The report adds that:

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s. Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of “dwarf planets”, similar to what long have been termed “minor planets".

Read more here.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Only the first and last letters matter actually

Can you read what’s written below? I am sure you can as researchers have shown that our brain actually only looks for the first and last letters in a word and automatically recognise that word.

Don’t believe me? Go on give it a try and see if you can read, understand and comprehend the gibberish paragraph below:

“i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh?”

Amazing huh, our brain?


p/s:
thanks to the unknown sender who had emailed this jumbled paragraph to me, asking me to forward it. I, in turn, just blogged it!

Turning 60...



“For most of my working life, I was the youngest person doing what I was doing. Then one day I woke up and I was the oldest person in every room.”

— Bill Clinton, who turned 60 last Saturday

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Cartoon: Bombs from a non-existent country

This is an interesting editorial cartoon from Time.com. Click on the cartoon to see a bigger and clearer image.

Nature may provide an escape route for Saddam

Saddam Hussein’s trials against humanity are coming thick and fast. Close on the heels of his first trial over the killing of 148 Shi'ite men from Dujail, he is now facing his second case.

This time around it is for genocide against Kurds in a 1988 military offensive codenamed Anfal - the Spoils of War - after the title of a chapter of the Koran.

A verdict in the Dujail trial is expected in October and the former dictator faces the death penalty in both cases.

However the 69-year-old former leader might not face any punishment - neither the gallows nor the firing squad.

The scheduling of a dozen other trials could delay any execution for years, raising the possibility Saddam may just die in jail.

Got a headache? Eat curry then

Yea, that’s true. Curry can cure your headache. Apparently having curry is a better cure than swallowing aspirins to get rid of that dreaded pain in the head.

This is according to a study conducted by Rowett Research Institute in Scotland. Their finding is that salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin, occurs naturally in Indian food and that curry could help to treat migraines and prevent colon cancers.

The Times today quoted the study as saying that spices such as cumin, turmeric and paprika, all of which are used in curries, are particularly rich sources of salicylic acid.

And the best bit is that this Indian food has no side-effects associated aspirins.

Researchers say that the hotter the curry is, the greater the possible benefits.

So for all of you migraine sufferers, get ready for a large dosage of hot and spicy curry.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Who is unsettling the Malaysian economy?

Should Dr Mahathir Mohamad be quiet and stop harassing PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as his outbursts are actually endangering our economy?

William Pessek Jr., writing in the International Herald Tribune, surely thinks so.

This is what he says:

“…Mahathir's rebukes of the prime minister are unsettling Malaysia's markets, too… Record oil prices are weighing on Malaysia's $131 billion economy, slamming consumer and business confidence. Add to that a slowing U.S. economy and concern about the nation's ability to compete with Asia's upstarts. Malaysia could be too affluent to outperform China; too underdeveloped to join the ranks of Japan or South Korea. It also has a public relations weakness.

That became clear in interviews with investors in the United States and Europe over the last couple of months. There was, of course, huge interest in China and India. Yet in cities like London, New York and Stockholm, I found great interest in economies such as Thailand and Taiwan. In Chicago, Paris and Lisbon, folks wanted to talk about Korea, Singapore and Vietnam. In Brussels, San Francisco and Washington, it was Indonesia and Japan.

Oddly, Malaysia didn't come up unless I mentioned it first. Given its rich resources, technology industries and unique status as a moderate, predominantly Muslim nation, you'd think Malaysia would be a bigger blip on investors' radar screens. It's not, and politics bear some of the blame.”


Maybe then, for the good of the country, Mahathir should just keep a lid on his criticisms. On the other hand, maybe Abdullah too should be seen doing something actively to spur the growth of Malaysia.

New kind of panties to keep you high

There is a new way to smuggle drugs now – it is so ingenuous that it could have come straight out of a movie script. But then we are not talking about reel live here.

In China, a woman has been caught trying to smuggle heroin soaked in panties and long johns – 15 of them in all.

The woman and her drug-soaked undies are now in police custody.

In her trial, the woman claimed that she had been tricked into carrying the drugs in that manner. She was arrested after a tip-off and now faces the death penalty, if convicted.

She might be an innocent victim here, easily used and manipulated by drug traffickers. She claims that the drugs could have been put into her baggage by two men in Kunming who offered her a job and a plane ticket to Shanghai.

But still, could they have planted 15 underpants in her baggage without her knowledge?

My guess is that she had agreed to carry the extra baggage for her benefactors without knowing what was soaked in them.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

The wait is finally over

Finally after months of waiting, English Premier League is here again. Once again the team to chase will be Chelsea, with all Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal trying their best to derail the mega-rich club to take the ultimate prize.

Liverpool started the new season with a game against new-boys Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. I was at this match – a first for me to watch my team Liverpool play live.

And you know what? It was an unforgettable experience. There I was seeing these Liverpool players, some already legends, playing in flesh! I even saw Robbie Fowler (the God) score.

The only sore point was that Liverpool didn’t win. But then I am not too worried over that. It is a long season and this was after all an away game, where four players made their debut for Liverpool. They will play better in the coming months and surely be in a better position to catch Chelsea.

Chelsea and Manchester have their matches tomorrow but in the remaining matches today, some of the early favourites didn’t do too well as well. Arsenal drew at home while Spurs lost away.

Still, as I mentioned, these are early days still. Teams will pick up the tempo and I am sure the big guns will start firing soon, Liverpool included.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Look who’s blogging

Last week Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the latest alumni of the blogging world. It sure is a world first for a political leader.

And he is definitely making good progress with his postings. Perhaps due to his controversial nature, his blog is fast drawing millions of viewers. A quick check today found that there were plenty of positive feedbacks in his blog – some even asking him to use a bigger font!

Technorati, the San Francisco-based blog search engine, had ranked it as the 3,722nd most-popular blog among the estimated 50 million in cyberspace.

So why is he blogging and who is his targeted audience?

According to Newsweek, Mr President is trying to woo the international audience with the multi-lingual blog – it is published in Farsi and available in Arabic and English, with a French translation on its way.

The magazine clearly feels the blog is a PR exercise by stating that:

“…with the approach of the Aug 31 deadline for the possible imposition of sanctions against Tehran if the mullahs don’t abandon their uranium-enrichment plans, it’s hardly a surprise that Ahmadinejad wants a PR campaign to muster global sympathy.”

Others add that Ahmadinejad is also trying to attract the Iranian youngsters through this cyber media.

So will he be successful on both counts – to garner the international support as well as to endear him to the youths?

Whatever it is, Iranian bloggers are happy with this latest development as it means that the authorities will be less likely to shut down providers’ blog servers and be more open about freedom of expression in the internet.

Friday, August 18, 2006

A chicken-eating vegetarian

Following on a similar vein as in the previous posting, here is one more involving a 'lite-headed' beauty.

This time it involves an Israeli model. Her name is Christine, a contestant on "Israel's Next Top Model" show, and she was being interviewed about her vegetarian preferences.

Watch for yourselves how she defines vegetarianism:

A question of life!

This according to Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest:

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?

Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever."

Thursday, August 17, 2006

50 coolest websites according to Time.com

Here it is, the 50 coolest websites for this year according to international magazine Time. Some of the websites I have heard off and have accessed with much joy, while some others are totally unknown to me.

According to the magazine, this final list of 50 was arrived at after evaluating hundreds of candidates.

The magazine says:

“Many of this year's choices are shining examples of Web 2.0: next-generation sites offering dynamic new ways to inform and entertain, sites with cutting-edge tools to create, consume, share or discuss all manners of media, from blog posts to video clips.”

Think your choice is the same too?

Check out Time.com’s best 50 here.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

People banned from airplanes

This was reported in the Newsweek online version yesterday.

Headlined ‘People Kill People’, writer Andy Borowitz said that the US's Federal Aviation Administration has banned all people from flights as part of its latest airline security restriction.

The first para of the report said:

“In a move aimed at further tightening airport security, the Federal Aviation Administration announced today that it would ban all people from flights leaving or entering the United States, effective immediately.

The FAA, which has in the past banned such objects as toenail clippers and hair gel, took the extraordinary step of banning people after the Department of Homeland Security conducted a thorough investigation of previous terror plots.

"We looked at terror plots of the past, and in each and every case, people were involved," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at a Washington press briefing. "These new rules send the strong message that the FAA has zero tolerance for people."

Chertoff said that while banning liquids from flights was a constructive step, the only true solution was to ban people altogether. "Let's face it, hair gel doesn't kill people," he said. "People kill people."”


Now, now, don’t get riled up over this ridiculous situation. After all it is only a satire by the writer. In fact, his article is clearly stated as a ‘Web-Exclusive Satire - Special to Newsweek’ just as not to confuse anyone.

But then he has a point here. At the rate the US government, and the British authorities, have been creating chaos over security alerts, this satire might just turn out to be true one day.

Read the entire funny article here.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

A picture exclusive which is three years’ old

The Sun tabloid today flashed a front-page royal exclusive – a story about Princes William and Harry having a boozy night out at a trendy nightclub in London.

The main photo showed Harry canoodling with pretty blonde Natalie Pinkham, while, as The Sun puts it, “saucily groping her boob with one hand”. There were also other photos.

The story – headlined ‘Dirty Harry’ - indicated that this royal party was a recent event, implicating that Harry was cheating on his girlfriend Chelsy Davy.

However later in the day the Guardian ran a story that the photographs of Harry groping and kissing Natalie are three years old and were not taken this summer. This was confirmed by Clarence House, which is also bemused as to how the photographs came to be published as Natalie, the owner of the snaps, did not give her permission for them to be printed.

Palace officials also said that the party took place at the Purple nightclub in Sept 2003 and not at Boujis this summer.

This timeline solves one problem – for Harry – as it was before he started dating Chelsy. That removes the innuendo that he was cheating her.

However other questions remain, especially for The Sun – such as their motive in publishing this old news/photos; as to where they got the photos from; and if they had knowingly breached media ethics by running this falsehood.

It is now actually up to the royal family if they want to take this further. They can of course lodge a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. For starters, they have asked The Sun to correct their story. Let’s see if the tabloid does that.

Lessons from the stock market

I got this forwarded in the email and thought it was really funny and educational. Enjoy it.

Once upon a time, in a village a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys, went out in the forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish and villagers started to stop their effort he announced that now he would buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching moneys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms.

The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became rare so that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50. However, since he had to go to the city on some business his assistant would now buy on behalf of the man.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man comes back, you can sell it to him for $50".

The villager squeezed up with all their saving to buy the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!

Cartoons: Chaos at UK airports

Here in the UK, most of us woke up on Thursday morning with the news that a new terrorist threat has been spoilt by the authorities. This threat was supposed to be bigger than Sept 11.

The plan apparently was to blow up planes to the US from the UK, either while on air or as they reach their destination.

This resulted in the threat level in the UK being upgraded to 'critical' level and all airports in the country being placed on high alert. Authorities banned hand luggages and did extra security checks on all passengers, causing massive chaos in all airports. Only today, some of the restrictions were lifted.

Below are two editorial cartoons to depict the conditions in the UK airports because of this latest terror alert. Click on them for bigger and better images.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Monday, August 14, 2006

Video: Media manipulating the war

I don’t necessarily agree with the message at the end of this video but I do find the evidence of news agencies manipulating war images quite disturbing.

See them for yourselves:


Photo Fraud Changes War Perceptions - video powered by Metacafe

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Footballers and their biographies

Just after England got kicked out of the World Cup, I wrote an analysis in my World Cup blog as to why I think England’s journey ended at the quarter-finals stage.

I also said that we might have to wait for a book from the then England coach Sven Goran Erikkson to discover why he made so many dodgy decisions. Well, we need not wait long. Although Sven has not written anything yet, some of his senior players have been free with their thoughts in off-the-cuff biographies.

First we had Frank Lampard and now Steven Gerrard, and both these players talk about how over-confidence amongst the players, Sven’s training regimes, his squad selections and choice of pre-WC friendlies have all played a factor for England’s embarrassing World Cup.

And this is not the end. With other players – Wayne Rooney and Ashley Cole will be the next – to release their versions soon, we can expect more criticisms hurled at Sven.

And these players could be right but what baffles me is that why do they have to blurt it out in the open now. It’s as though they are looking for an excuse for their failure and Sven seems to be the scapegoat.

Why didn’t these players raise their concerns even then to try to impose some changes? Maybe they did but something inside me tells me that none of these revelations against Sven would have come out if he was still at helm.

And another matter that really disturbs me is the rate at which these players come out with their biographies. You play one season of football and then a book comes out and the same will happen at the beginning of the new season.

Do they really have that much to tell us? Or have they actually had such an exciting life in that short period of time that it warrants a new book every year?

Or is it just that their fans are so gullible to buy whatever that has their hero in the front cover?

Friday, August 11, 2006

Ilunga is solved by taraadin – that’s English actually

I didn’t know this but it seems there are currently 988,974 words in the English language, with thousands more emerging every month.

And according to Paul Payack, who runs the Global Language Monitor, at the going rate, English will adopt its one millionth word in late November. The Times of London says that this figure means for every French word, there are now ten in English.

Not everyone is happy or accepting this burst of the English language. Traditional lexicographers are enraged. They should be as the 20-volume OED has only 301,100 entries.

So how did Mr Payack come up with his ball park figure? Easy, he found the remaining 687,874 words by scouring the internet. Yes, the vast tentacles of the internet are now in the business of churning out new words almost everyday.

The Times added:

“Thanks to the internet, we are witnessing the second great age of the neologism, a fantastic outpouring of words and phrases to describe new ideas or reshape old ideas in novel forms of language. Today, a word does not need the slow spread of verbal usage or literature to gain acceptance. If a word works, the internet can breathe instant life into it.

Last year this newspaper reported the existence, in the Bantu language Tshiluba, of the long-needed word
ilunga, meaning “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time”. Subsequent investigations suggested that the word may not exist in Tshiluba, but it exists now in English, as thousands of entries on the web attest, and the language is better for it.

Rather than fight the word loans and word borrowings, the strange hybrids and new coinages, we should welcome them. New words expand our world. They can even change it. If
ilunga is the thrice-repeated offence that cannot be forgiven, then its opposite is an Arabic word, taraadin, meaning “I win, you win”, the face-saving way to end an argument. As bombs fall on southern Lebanon and missiles on northern Israel, the world could profit from learning a new language, in which ilunga is solved by taraadin.”


Read the full article here.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

What do you know? KL is the cheapest city

Yes, that’s right. According to a report by Swiss bank UBS, our very own Kuala Lumpur is the cheapest place to live in the world. This out of 71 cities surveyed by the bank.

Following KL is Mumbai, Buenos Aires and Delhi. The world’s most expensive cities are Oslo and London, followed by Copenhagen, Zurich and Tokyo, while apparently Zurich and Geneva residents have the highest buying power.

The survey is based on the cost of a basket of 122 goods and services.

Well I am surprised that KL has come out as the cheapest of the lot. After all it is a very modern city with a buzzing lifestyle. Would the locals agree that their city is the cheapest, especially when prices of fuel and other essential goods have been increasing quite dramatically in the recent past? I don’t know.

Click here to have a closer look at the survey.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Long wait for the lady justice in India

This is an interesting article from the International Herald Tribune on the inordinate delays in the Indian courts in hearing cases. The article starts by stating that:

“The investigation into India's deadliest terrorist attack, in 1993, has dragged on so long that 12 of the accused have died, mostly in gang wars. Among the remaining 123 still alive, a handful have been imprisoned so long - longer than their probable sentence - that a guilty verdict could set them free.

On Thursday, a judge is to begin ruling in the case, which spawned one of the world's longest trials and has come
to symbolize India's crawlingly slow justice.

It was 13 years ago that 13 bombs exploded in this coastal megalopolis, mangling buses and buildings and killing 257 people. Within months, people had been jailed by the dozen. The police quickly detailed a plot implicating homegrown Islamic radicals, Pakistani intelligence operatives, a Dubai-based mafia don and a suave Bollywood hero.”

The article sums up the present judiciary situation as following:

  • Security experts say India's courts are easy for terrorists to manipulate.
  • The defenders of India's courts say they are slow because they were built on the Anglo-Saxon principle of innocent until proven guilty.
  • Human rights groups say that for those at the bottom of the Indian social ladder, delay gives the accused too little freedom, resulting in the poor being be jailed on a flicker of suspicion and made to wait years for their day in court.

Read the article titles Justice isn't just slow in India, it crawls here.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

You are never too clever…

A short story which befits that political happenings in the world today:

Once upon a time the Devil came to a man called Nat and offered him all earthly powers in return for his soul when he died.

“All powers natural and unnatural?” said Nat.

“Of course,” said the Devil.

“My soul to be delivered to you on my death, no matter how long or short the intervening period?”

“Yes,” said the Devil.

“Done,” said Nat. “First of all, I would like to claim eternal youth and immortality.”

“Can’t do that,” said the Devil. “Then I would never get your soul.”

“You promised me all powers,” said Nat. “You can’t back out now.”

“Yes, but…” said the Devil. “What line of business are you on anyway?”

“The insurance business,” said Nat. “There is nothing you can teach me about small print.”

“I would like to rethink the deal,” said the Devil.

“Too late for that,” said Nat. “You have made the offer verbally. That makes it legally binding.”


MORAL: Being all-powerful doesn’t necessarily make you clever.


(p/s: from the independent on Aug 7, 2006, page 31)

Monday, August 07, 2006

Pak Lah doesn't want quarrel with Dr M

Merely 48 hours has passed since Khairy Jamaluddin openly defended himself against criticisms by former premier Tun Mahathir Mohamad.

Today, following closely, Prime Minister and Khairy's father-in-law Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said his piece about the allegations of nepotism which is said to have financially benefited both Khairy and Abdullah's son Kamaluddin.

These are some excerpts of Abdullah's defence of his Mr Clean reputation:


On Mahathir:

"I don't want to quarrel with Tun Mahathir... My style is different from Tun Mahathir... But I've never deviated from my long-term goal. I know where I am going."


On Khairy:

"He bought shares to become a partner in ECM Libra...I knew he took a loan for that purpose. There is no proof that he seized government projects."


On Kamaluddin:

"Kamal' has never abused his ties with me. Eighty percent of his business is from overseas. He is not involved with other local firms or government concessions. He has never asked help from the government or anything that required a bail-out for him."


I just knew this was coming. The next move from Abdullah's camp is perhaps a media spin and a charming campaign. Is he sure he does not want to quarrel with Dr M? For me it looks as though the gloves are off.

Reuters admits photo manipulation

On Sunday, Reuters withdrew an image of smoke rising from burning buildings after an Israeli air strike on the suburbs of Beirut on August 5, 2006. This is because evidence has emerged that the photograph had been manipulated to show more smoke.

The manipulated image is shown on the left. The unaltered image, shown on the right, has since run.

Freelance photographer Adnan Hajj has been told that his work will not be used by Reuters in the future.

Reuters said that it had received email complaints from more than 2,000 readers. It added that it issued a kill on the photo in question, and sent out an unaltered version as soon as possible, as well as running a story about the incident.

This is what Reuters said the photographer said:

Reuters has discussed the incident with the photographer, who has been a non-staff stringer. He has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under. This represents a serious breach of Reuters standards and we will not be accepting or using pictures taken by him.”

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Time to now get the other cheaters in cycling

So finally a cheat is stripped of his medal at the Tour de France. Despite his protests and claims of innocence, this year’s winner Floyd Landis is punished after testing positive for tested positive for the hormone testosterone.

He becomes the first winner of this prestigious race to be stripped of his title. This action by the organizers finally shows some resolve in their part to rid the drugs problems from cycling.

Before the race this year, Jan Ullrich of Germany and Italian Ivan Basso and several riders were forced to pull out because of links to a Spanish doping investigation.

Previous seven-time winner Lance Armstrong remains untouched despite strong links with drugs. French media had shown proof that he had failed a drugs test or two. But still the man remains a cycling legend although his reputation is deeply soiled.

Other racers too have been long suspected of taking drugs to enhance their performance and despite the odd positive results here and there, the cycling governing body has been unable to totally clean the sports from drugs.

Just last week the World Anti-Doping Agency leader Dick Pound criticized the cycling body saying that there were defects in the way the body did its tests.

He added:

"The first thing is for them to acknowledge that there is a problem that they have not be able to control. There is no sport that is immune but cycling certainly has a high proportion of doping."

Now that Landis, a champion at that, has been punished and stripped of his title, lets hope the cycling body will be courageous to continue the good work by unmasking more culprits, even if they are legends.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Khairy asks about Mahathir’s nepotism

Finally the gloves are off. It has been one-way traffic all this while. All the personal attacks from former PM Dr Mahathir found no response from either the present leader Abdullah Ahmad Badawi or his family.

Abdullah has been very calm about the whole issue, saying that it was within Dr Mahathir’s rights to speak out. And the old man spoke out, he did. He questioned the power and influence of Abdullah’s son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin in formulating government policies.

He spoke at length about how Khairy has amassed vast amount of wealth in a short period. And more damagingly he alluded that Abdullah had had a hand in helping his son and son-in-law in becoming rich.

At one point, the sharpest attack was when Mahathir pondered out loudly if Abdullah was the prime minister of the country or his family, seemingly over the various government projects granted to the family members.

The only noise of discomfort came from the cabinet ministers, but their comments and admonition of Mahathir were confined to criticism on the government policies.

So after enduring weeks of public haranguing, finally the Abdullah camp has decided to stand up and defend their corner.

The first punch came from Khairy himself. Although he did not name Mahathir in his speech to party members, he nevertheless asked all “party members” to check their facts first before leveling accusations against him.

He said the attacks against him were baseless and mere lies and that he was a sitting duck to those who want to actually attack Abdullah. He said:

“Those who cannot attack Pak Lah (Prime Minister Abdullah) attack him through me, as his son-in-law.”

And he did not stop there. Again without mentioning Mahathir in his speech, Khairy asked as to who actually owned Alliance Bank and Pantai Holdings Bhd before they were both sold to Singaporean interests.

For those in the dark, the answer is Mahathir’s sons, who were also involved in various business ventures and at times needed to be bailed out using government funds.

Good point I think. I now wait for Dr M’s response to this. More interestingly I await Abdullah’s comments on Khairy’s remarks. Will he has something or would he just allow his son-in-law to do all the attacks?

However there is something which I don’t agree with Khairy. In his speech, he also defended the government’s (actually his father-in-law’s) decisions to scrap the causeway bridge project and the sale of MV Augusta by Proton Holdings for a nominal amount.

Mahathir had raised issues on both these matters but I don’t think it is wise for Khairy to defend the government on these. After all he has no government post and the more he defends the government position, the more likely it looks that he did have some influence in these matters. What you think?

Friday, August 04, 2006

Blogging into trouble with governments

By right in America all journalists are protected by the First Amendment where these hacks are afforded the right of free speech and newsgathering. They can expect a free flow of information without government intrusion.

Now we have a test case before the courts there to see if this same right can be extended to citizen journalists – and so far the initial battle seems to be going against this group.

Blogger Josh Wolf is well known for his videoblog where he allows people to feature their work on his site. Time magazine calls him one of internet’s earliest videobloggers and that he has “fast won notoriety for his attempts to democratize the media”.

Then on Tuesday, his attempts of such democratization came to a sudden halt. Wolf was found guilty of contempt of court and jailed until at least next July. His offence is his failure to disclose some unpublished video footage from his blog which showed clashes between San Francisco police officers and anti-G8 protesters last year.

Time magazine said:

“…(T)he feds are demanding to see everything that wasn't made public. They allege that the unused portion of Wolf's video may show the patrol car being set afire — part of a federal crime, the government asserts. Wolf denies there is an attempted arson on his videotape.”

Wolf claims that as an independent journalist, he is protected under the state's law, which protects journalists' confidential, unpublished material obtained while reporting.

Wolf’s case has been identified as a landmark case as he is the first blogger to be targeted by federal authorities for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury.

The US government is sending a chilling message to citizen journalists - that despite their attempts to be part of a growing global media culture, they may not be deemed as journalists from the big corporations.

The little people who spread citizen journalism, as far as the US government is concerned, look set to be denied the same legal protections that conventional journalists have.

Is this yet another way for governments around the world to stop the free flow of potentially embarrassing information through blogs and websites?

It is not just the Third World despots who try to put a lid on citizen journalism. Just as I read about this US attempt, I was also alarmed by the decision of the Malaysian government to warn bloggers to be careful with their contents despite earlier promises not to censor cyberspace. Pretty soon, I am sure every government will have an effective control over online media too.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Video: Watch out for that truck

Don't drink and drive. You will just end up dead. This is a good public service advertisement. Click the play button once, or twice, to play the video.



(Thanks to www.killsometime.com)

Carmakers at ad war (3)

For the past two days I have been blogging about how BMW and Audi have been teasing each other with advertisements bragging about their achievements.

First we had BMW congratulating Audi for winning the South African car of the year award while it prominently proclaimed its own success at being the world car of the year.

Then Audi responded with its advertisement of congratulating BMW for winning the world award but it didn’t miss to mention that it was also the reigning champion of the Le Mans 24 hours race and that it had won it consecutively since 2000.

Today we see the entry of a new player into this advertisement war. Subaru claims that while Audi and BMW may have won the beauty contest, it nevertheless won in what matters most – engine of the year!


Hopefully this brings an end to the war of cheeky advertisements.

Click here to see the full advertisements again.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Carmakers at ad war (2)

Yesterday I blogged about how BMW put aside its competitive nature in congratulating Audi for winning a ‘lesser’ award.

Today, as promised, is the cheeky response from Audi.


Watch out for the third installment in this advertisement war tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Carmakers at ad war (1)

This is an advertisement by BMW, wishing a 'magnanimous' congratulation to Audi for winning the South African car of the year award. Prominently displayed in the ad is the fact that BMW is the current winner of the World car of the year award.


Tomorrow, I shall publish Audi’s equally mischievous response.

Can the US afford to stay in Iraq?

This is an interesting article from MSNBC.com.

Political commentator Michael Hirsh tells that the US military invincibility is in danger of being exposed as a myth unless more money is put into the army.

His article, titled End of Days, starts with this paragraph:

"Perhaps the most truthful moment about Iraq came recently when a US official said nothing at all. This occurred when Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker was asked at a Capitol Hill luncheon in mid-July whether the United States was “winning” in Iraq. Several agonizing seconds passed before a grimacing Schoomaker finally replied: “I don’t think we’re losing.” One of the most eloquent pauses in recent memory, it gave voice to the US military's most deep-seated fears not only about Iraq, but about America’s entire strategic position in the Mideast."

Read the full article here:
Can the US Afford to Stay in Iraq?