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I understand what you mean because I live there. But specifically for drone offenses, the punishments aren't that harsh.

Then there's places like Singapore, where you get lashes for littering. The end result? There is no litter on the roads of Singapore.

Really? Did you just pull that out of your ass, or did you read it on some bullshit blog somewhere?

This article claims that littering and jaywalking are the two most common offenses in Singapore.
Here is an article that talks about how citizen enforcement is being used to help control the litter problem in Singapore.

That happens in Malaysia too. Once one family member becomes the manager of a local government post office, that person brings in the whole family there to work

That only happens because the Malaise are incapable of doing more than one task.

The one who is assigned to lick stamps would keep licking stamps. If the fella is given a new task to lift some bricks, he would lift the bricks and lick them.

Don't laugh. It's an open secret in Malaysia.

The Malaise are simple minded creatures. They would believe anything their leader tells them - including that fairly tale of someone gave the leader $681 Million as Personal Donation

It's actually considered the 8th least corrupt country in the world, between Switzerland and Canada. Source.

Yay! Wer'e number 8, We're number 8!

Smartassness aside, yes, that is pretty good. But it is a country ripe for abuse. It isn't always about the "right now" - it's about what can happen.

It's actually considered the 8th least corrupt country in the world, between Switzerland and Canada. Source.

When was the last time US allowed extradition of a US citizen to a foreign country?

Here is one from a couple weeks ago: US citizen extradited to South Korea over high-profile 1997 murder

You're so full of shit, Kiev is obviously hiding something because the first thing the Kiev military did was confiscate all ATC data, none of you Americans know what happened but you're the loudest in the world to scream "OMG RUSSIA DID IT!!1!1!!1!!", you guys and your comments make Americans look like fucking idiots.

MAS/MH17 never flew to that area, period, and the one day they did that they got shot.

Read the part in bold shill, Vagelis Karmiros compared days of Flightaware data, you fucking shills can't even get your facts straight.

Kiev forced MH17 to fly low

Ukraine authorities instructed MH17 to fly at 33,000 feet

SEPANG: The Ukrainian air traffic control (ATC) did not permit Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 to scale 35,000 feet, MAS director of operations, Captain Izham Ismail said on Saturday.

He said MH17 planned to fly at 35,000 feet but according to the ATC, there was other traffic at that time, and the ATC ordered the doomed plane to fly at the next best altitude at 33,000 feet, which was above the restricted altitude.

Kiev forced MH17 to deviate from its usual safer flight path

Was Flight MH-17 Diverted Over Restricted Airspace?

Flight path image

Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.

If the CNN party line is some kind of 'evidence' that 'shows beyond reasonable doubt' to you then you must be really fucked in the head.

You want to be a judge, at least get Kiev to explain a few simple things first, Malaysia released the ATC record of MH370 shortly after it disappeared, so why is Kiev hiding the ATC record of MH17? What is Kiev hiding?

I am not trying to convince you shills, to you censoring truth is just a job, I am just laughing at your foolishness, this is not the good old year 2001 days where you could bullshit your way through by repeating CNN's narrative, the internet is the cat that got out of the bag and NSA/GCHQ are desperately guarding all social media with shills, thinking it can change people's mind.

Americans are afraid to post what they really think after the Prism leak, they don't want to goto gitmo, but don't be fucking stupid, just because you don't see their comments here doesn't mean you shills have convinced them. Independent media such as Veterans Today and Infowars have waken millions of people up.

The "OMG RUSSIA DID IT!!!1111!1!1!!" CNN party line requires total silence regarding Kiev ATC so I know for a fact you shills won't even dare talking about this:

Kiev forced MH17 to fly low

Ukraine authorities instructed MH17 to fly at 33,000 feet

SEPANG: The Ukrainian air traffic control (ATC) did not permit Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 to scale 35,000 feet, MAS director of operations, Captain Izham Ismail said on Saturday.

He said MH17 planned to fly at 35,000 feet but according to the ATC, there was other traffic at that time, and the ATC ordered the doomed plane to fly at the next best altitude at 33,000 feet, which was above the restricted altitude.

Kiev forced MH17 to deviate from its usual safer flight path

Was Flight MH-17 Diverted Over Restricted Airspace?

Flight path image

Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.

Kiev forced MH17 to fly low

Ukraine authorities instructed MH17 to fly at 33,000 feet

SEPANG: The Ukrainian air traffic control (ATC) did not permit Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 to scale 35,000 feet, MAS director of operations, Captain Izham Ismail said on Saturday.

He said MH17 planned to fly at 35,000 feet but according to the ATC, there was other traffic at that time, and the ATC ordered the doomed plane to fly at the next best altitude at 33,000 feet, which was above the restricted altitude.

Kiev forced MH17 to deviate from its usual safer flight path

Was Flight MH-17 Diverted Over Restricted Airspace?

Flight path image

Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.

Wrong, what else could force MH17 to deviate from its usual safe path and fly straight into a known war zone?

Kiev forced MH17 to fly low

Ukraine authorities instructed MH17 to fly at 33,000 feet

SEPANG: The Ukrainian air traffic control (ATC) did not permit Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 to scale 35,000 feet, MAS director of operations, Captain Izham Ismail said on Saturday.

He said MH17 planned to fly at 35,000 feet but according to the ATC, there was other traffic at that time, and the ATC ordered the doomed plane to fly at the next best altitude at 33,000 feet, which was above the restricted altitude.

Kiev forced MH17 to deviate from its usual safer flight path

Was Flight MH-17 Diverted Over Restricted Airspace?

Flight path image

Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.

Poor little Bush can't handle the truth, here is what actually happened outside the American brainwash echo chamber:

Kiev forced MH17 to fly low

Ukraine authorities instructed MH17 to fly at 33,000 feet

SEPANG: The Ukrainian air traffic control (ATC) did not permit Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 to scale 35,000 feet, MAS director of operations, Captain Izham Ismail said on Saturday.

He said MH17 planned to fly at 35,000 feet but according to the ATC, there was other traffic at that time, and the ATC ordered the doomed plane to fly at the next best altitude at 33,000 feet, which was above the restricted altitude.

Kiev forced MH17 to deviate from its usual safer flight path

Was Flight MH-17 Diverted Over Restricted Airspace?

Flight path image

Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.

I know I know, I can't believe this is Slashdot.

After reading 350 comments of Russia bashing I pointed out to some of them that Kiev is hiding all the ATC record and MH17 was forced by Kiev to deviate from its path and altitude, and the fucking idiots panicked and modded me down, one of them asked me for citation before I told him to simply fucking Google "MH17 deviated".

Ukraine authorities instructed MH17 to fly at 33,000 feet
  Was Flight MH-17 Diverted Over Restricted Airspace?

Americans, if you want to bash the Russians, you don't have to suck Kiev's dick to do it, why are you so afraid? Are you afraid that you'll not be known as the "good guys" anymore? Don't worry about that, people outside haven't considered you guys as the "good guys" for years.

After reading the comments here it is obvious the Americans are living in a different reality than the rest of the world.

Half the comments here are shills repeating the CNN narrative that everyone outside the US know is false.

MH17 was forced by Kiev to fly low so it'd get hit easier

Ukraine authorities instructed MH17 to fly at 33,000 feet

SEPANG: The Ukrainian air traffic control (ATC) did not permit Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 to scale 35,000 feet, MAS director of operations, Captain Izham Ismail said on Saturday.

He said MH17 planned to fly at 35,000 feet but according to the ATC, there was other traffic at that time, and the ATC ordered the doomed plane to fly at the next best altitude at 33,000 feet, which was above the restricted altitude.

MH17 was forced to deviated its flight path so it flew straight into the war zone

Was Flight MH-17 Diverted Over Restricted Airspace?
  Flight path image

Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.

For fucks sake stupid Americans, just google 'mh17 deviated'

The ban was from 0-32,000ft, MH17 was flying at 35,000ft just to be safe, but Kiev forced them to fly at 33,000 to make it easier to get hit.

MH17 Forced by Kiev to fly low

Ukraine authorities instructed MH17 to fly at 33,000 feet

SEPANG: The Ukrainian air traffic control (ATC) did not permit Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 to scale 35,000 feet, MAS director of operations, Captain Izham Ismail said on Saturday.

He said MH17 planned to fly at 35,000 feet but according to the ATC, there was other traffic at that time, and the ATC ordered the doomed plane to fly at the next best altitude at 33,000 feet, which was above the restricted altitude.

Deviated flight path

Was Flight MH-17 Diverted Over Restricted Airspace?
  Flight path image

Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today's tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.

Creating draconian laws to supress the right to peaceful assemble and protest is an increasing (and worrying) trend.

It happens all across the globe and it is mostly as a reactive mechanism from the governments against the number of massive popular protests facilitated (but not created or organized) by the social media.

Some examples of these protests (there are others, these are from the top of my head):

February 15, 2003 anti-war protest: The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world in which people in more than 600 cities expressing opposition to the imminent Iraq War. (...) According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million.

The 2011 Egyptian protests (better known by the "Tahrir Square" protests): In February 1st alone "[t]he BBC reported the number of protesters in Tahrir Square ranged from "more than 100,000 to some 250,000-the square's maximum capacity." Egyptian security forces stated that 500,000 people participated in the protests in Cairo alone."

2011-12 Spanish protests (The "indignados"): According to statistics published by RTVE, the Spanish public broadcasting company, between 6.5 and 8 million Spaniards have participated in these protests:

2013 protests in Brazil: In June 20 alone "Protests in over 100 cities around the country rallied over 2 million people."

2013 protests in Turkey: 3.5 million of Turkey's 80 million people are estimated to have taken part in almost 5000 demonstrations across Turkey connected with the original Gezi Park protest.

Some governments like the Syrian, the Bahraini and the new (same as old) Egyptian did not tolerate and supressed with enormous amount of brutality in the very beggining their (then) peaceful protests that were organized in a similar fashion than the ones mentioned above.

The rest of the world governments watched and understood that they cannot afford the risk to let some small local matter (like increasing the bus fare in some cities in Brasil, or cutting down some trees in Turkey) to become the catalyst to mass protests.

Measures like these in Ukraine will happen more and more and won't be limited to countries with nascent democracies (like Ukraine) or repressive dictactorships (like Syria). In Spain proposals were already made to criminalize and regulate forms of protest. Thailand invoked "security laws" to curb theirs.

And without a doubt most other countries, eastern and western alike, will change their legislations, enact new laws and enforce old ones to ensure one thing: that the massive indignation and lack of confidence in the democratic process won't become a full blown revolution.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/health/south-africa-winning/842652.html

Yes, Singapore has caning and death penalties for numerous crimes including murder, drug trafficking and the use of firearms. On the other hand, ladies can expect to walk home alone relatively safely even at 3-5am in the morning, and the use of firearms in crimes is somewhat rare. Is it worth trading some personal liberties for safety and security? I honestly don't know, but it seems with the growth of the TSA that even the US is leaning in favour of security.

As an aside, there is nothing as invasive as the TSA in SIngapore, which i am profoundly grateful for.

There is a growth of CCTVs installed privately by angry individuals who accuse their neighbours of littering the common areas/outside their homes etc. but that seems more an exercise of individual freedom (albeit misguided) than anything sinister.

For CCTV, I was thinking more of http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1222962/1/.html

As for the TSA and their equivalents, I agree Changi is quite a nice airport to go through, but the U.S. is by no means unique. Heathrow (T5) at the moment is a nightmare. Moscow force you through a MMW scanner with no opt out available, half of europe has such scanning. Manchester, UK, are the rudest security guys I've ever met.

I'm not aware of many first-world cities where "ladies can't expect to walk home alone relatively safely even at 3-5am in the morning,", is the U.S. that bad? It's 05.36 here on the east coast and I'm about to walk 100 yards back to my hotel. Should I book a cab?

What I want to know is why sites like this keep trying to locate in unfriendly countries. Why not put them in someplace safe, like Russia?

You are utterly insane. You can take out a competitor by paying $60k to the police. The victim then spends 15 years in prison. And you want to go to that country and piss off rich people around the world?

Not. A. Good. Idea.

I can not find the BBC link I was thinking of but this one should be sufficient to illustrate: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/1193249/1/.html

The new level is 20 millisieverts per year. That's 2 rem per year using the older dosing method. Playgrounds are new permitted up to 3.6 microsieverts per hour. The IAEA gives this guidance:

The dose limits for practices are intended to ensure that no individual is committed to unacceptable risk due to radiation exposure. For the public the limit is 1 mSv in a year, or in special circumstances up to 5 mSv in a single year provided that the average does over five consecutive years does not exceed 1 mSv per year.

Typically permissible levels are lower for children because they have more time to develop cancer. In theory children exposed at the 20 mSv per annum level can be expected to increase their rates of cancer from one in 500 to one in 200. In practice the children aren't going to be exposed to environmental radioactivity at the maximum level for the whole time. Regardless, many millions of children are going to be exposed to higher levels of environmental radiation because of this. Zero is the optimum healthful level of radiation and there is no healthful effect from any increase. More of them are going to get cancer. Some 30 years hence, some few hundred of them will have died who would not yet have if this had not happened. Japan's explanation for why they raised the limit is sanguine: effectively, "because we must. The radiation is in the schools. We cannot evacuate the entire region." Japan is an island. It's not like they have an Alaska to evacuate people to. Besides, it's not like the schools and playgrounds have any more radiation than the homes at this point.

Now please do go on about how this is all ok, nothing important has happened, how nuclear power is the cure for all the world's ills - too cheap to meter. Tell me how you get more radiation from your Brita. Please continue to ignore that Japan has the choice of geothermal which is cheaper renewable baseload power that doesn't have these risks at all. I want to see you try to justify this.

But before you start... the worst may not yet be over. Criticality is probably still occurring in at least one of these reactors or they wouldn't be injecting them with Boron. The US is probably watching this go on because we have satellites particularly sensitive to "neutron beams" but we're too polite to point it out. It's too late to inject these reactors with Boron because the water, and hence the Boric acid, can't reach the heart of the corium piles on the floor of the primary containment. It all boils off before it gets even close to the physical place where it can damp the ongoing reaction. Eventually one or more of these corium lava piles may melt into the flooded basement, come into contact with the highly radioactive pools of water, and explode in a giant flash of radioactive steam. If that happens the cloud will be visible for many miles. There's no hiding it. If the wind is blowing inland that day it will deposit most of its nuclear enhanced goodness on the bulk of the island, including Tokyo, before moving on to contaminate China and Korea. Japan's neighbors will not be amused. And they won't be pouring any new water in for a few weeks anyway, because they have no place to store the radioactive runoff afterward.

At the time Japan chose the nuclear path it was a brilliant stroke with some risks. They took the risks and benefited from that choice for 30 years. With abundant cheap electricity they became an economic engine for the rest of the world to envy. I can't be critical of the choice they took at that time: the cost of not doing it was far higher. But then is not now. Science has progressed to the point where Japan no longer needs nuclear power. As they recover from this disaster I expect they will turn away from it. Others may need nuclear now, but not Japan.

Incidentally, Singapore is considering a single set top box (between multiple vendors). This could be a similar situation.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1019917/1/.html

So, that was your order?

And this one goes on to mention that Microsoft will now proceed to sue Alcatel-Lucent over nine patents.

That's going to hurt. Patent lawsuits are not a good game to get into if you actually produce something.

there is no way for anyone to figure out who voted how

the post above is not a troll.. this is really old! i've even read it on my local dailies, and my local food sciences body has just reassured everyone that GSK's ribena drink *is* indeed rich in vitamin C (at least in Singapore, because we get stuff made in either Malaysia or the Philipines)..

In fact, I would argue that there is quite a bit of logic and science behind the conservative environmental position. It is a fact that humans do not do well outside of a fairly limited range of temperature, light, radiation, and availability of water, oxygen, and food. Many scientists see measurable trends occuring that point towards a shift in these variables.

While it is naive to think that we can avoid change, to dive recklessly and wontonly into the future without regard for the damage we are causing is even more naive - and far more damaging. It is not as if history is not filled with examples of famine, drought, toxic poisoning, and many other ills to teach us the lesson to not shit inside the house.

As for Benford's plan - this has already been shown to be unrealistic to sustain. For every ton of iron used to seed a plankton bloom, it would require 5,000 tons of silicate to maintain the bloom.

If you or Michael Crichton want to debate with me, fine. There is plenty of environmental data to debate, and I am by no means an expert. But don't dismiss a conservative reaction to environmental change as being based on some vague sense that change is "wrong" because it is unfamiliar. Personally, I know what a 120 degree desert feels like, and I don't want to try and live in one.

Aha! Thank you, I asked that question earlier (where is google.cn located) and got no response.

I may have spoken too soon. According to this it's currently in California, although according to this the censorship deal was struck with the goal of getting a presence on the mainland in mind.

This is really beginning to sound like the people who got all gaga about Microsoft releasing limited parts of their source code under NDA and went off wibbling about "open source Windows".

Actually I think I've come up with a reasonable sounding explanation for the different viewpoints. People are condemning Google's slide towards the evil of censorship and praising Microsoft's reduction in the evil of censorship. But that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft's evilness on this issue is bigger than Google's. So Google.Evil++ is bad while Microsoft.Evil-- is good, but Microsoft.Evil > Google.Evil all the same.

A cynical person might think that Microsoft's press release is intentionally playing down the latter fact and playing up the former.

I think this is cool, but the more exciting thing that Japanese geologists are doing is planning to drill into the earth's core. link

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapac ific/view/186885/1/.html

While reading the article, I wondered whether ms actually "deleted" the blog, or just crippled outside access attempts. I am sure that there are archives, and if so, they would be useful for both the courts and Zhao Jing.

It would be mind-boggling that ms China or ms *pickyourplace* would just "delete" the files.

If the files are not truly deleted, and if Zhao Jing offers say, US$300 for their assistance (and to make up for his not keeping backups... even text archives would have been smart to have-- they needn't be actual page archives, unless there was a forensic reason to have them...), then microsoft should use one of their "technology innovations" (if they really have any, and I suspect that for internal reasons they DO have this capability) scripts to scrounge up Zhao Jing's files and deliver him a .tar or .zip file of them.

Having him removed from the web might be gratifying for Beijing, but if he hasn't been raided and arrested or censured in other ways, and considering that others surely have copies of his works, then denying him his own copies is just an exercise in punishment. But, then, I suppose that is an internal matter.

But this is an exercise in showing us that we need to keep backups, regardless of the material, unless your material is a jailable offence (ce vs se intentional), in which case one probably would **NOT** want to back it up. OTOH, publicly claiming to not have copies could be an attempt to dissuade heavy-handed searches. But, even here in the USA, I could claim "I have no backups" or "I never made any and therefore could not have secreted them away somewhere", but the US would have its own reasons to do a domestic "rendition" toward "finding out what it wants to find out...".

Reminds me of the Air Force officer in the old Trek episode when Kirk was trying to find the film reels from Captain Christopher's interceptor: "We are not DUMMIES, Mister. We have ways of finding out what we want to know!"...(Of course, the funny part was to follow: "What is that? A uniform of some kind?" "What, this? Just something I slipped on/into (this morning)?", which led to "charge you with espionage, sabotage..." "Did I sabotage something"..

And, it thickens with: "No, but what WOULD you have done had we not interrupted you?")

And that, my fellow slashers is what ANY government would boil it's explanations down to, Chinese, Japanese, UK, anywhere, EVEN the "good 'ole USofA"... And, in the true spirit of capitalism, a goodly number of high tech firms RIGHT here in silicon valley tailor their hardware and software "offerings" (in the name of making a buck) to enable governments of whatever nation to intercept, disrupt, interrupt, off-line-scan, archive, and many other ways manipulate data traffic in to and out of their respective borders. It's NOT just mshaft, it's your video companies, voice and IP companies, routers, switching and others. Even SOFTWARE office suite companies have been found to have embedded "language assistance" "backdoor" tools in "foreign" editions of their suites, all at the benefit of US government security services. Given time, all (or almost all) companies of any country will be compelled to not only escrow over the encryption keys, but facilitate in other ways the breaking and reading and almost-traceless manipulation of files for evidence purposes.

WHEW, I need to put a cold towel on my forehead...

Word Image: "encircle"

Incorrect. Japan has never had the level of opposition to troop deployment that most European countries had. Interestingly enough, it largely depends on the wording of the poll - most Japanese disapproved of the war, but supported sending the SDF for humanitarian reasons.

For instance, while there's exactly one local, highly censored, government-oriented, 'mainstream' newspaper published here, you can, as a matter of fact, get most international newspapers if you search hard enough. One rather unfortunate irony being that all local magazines are of the fluffy kind (Maxim Singapore, FHM Singapore etc); you'd actually have to buy international news-magazines for current news and analysis. In essence, you can get international news even outside the Internet.

Problems come when you start discussing Singaporean affairs. Open criticism of the government is governed by the so-called OB (Out of Bound) Markers; as long as your discussion falls within these, government-defined, but wholly vague, boundaries, the government doesn't mind with what you say. The moment you step out of this comfort zone (a local analyst compared it to being inside an air-conditioned room), and say, analyse Singapore's exact GDP growth figures last quarter, the government cracks down upon you hard. The trick, apparently, is to mouth your concerns in semi-legitimate, but wholly vague, sentences, and to be sure, the local newspaper is full of such columns and letters lately. Which is why I've come to believe that the Singaporean attitude towards censorship is more or less governed by taste now; as long as you limit yourself by not directly pointing fingers (or economic figures, apparently, those are official secrets), and do it in a polite, non-sarcastic, academically detached sort of a way, you're cool.

As for Singapore being uncorrupt, well, I suppose it's just me being cynical, but trust me, there's no place in the world where things can't be twisted for a price. Just that, you'd probably have to tap in real high; unlike most other countries in the region, you don't really have to go out of your way to get "normal" things done. But if you are, say, an international bank, and have found a certain white-collar crime committed in your name, the government can work out an exit plan for you, to the point that it can find scapegoats and stuff to keep you and your money in the economy, as long as you promise to approach it before the international media finds out about it.

Just to end this rant by stroking bi-partisan flames, ;-), was rather interesting to hear Singapore's first PM, Lee Kuan Yew, praise George W Bush as an example of effective leader. Just to tell you where gov.sg falls in an American ideological spectrum, although I should menion that the ruling party, the PAP has been famously non-ideological for most of its history; for instance, we've got a world-class public healthcare system, but it is not entirely subsidised.

(Singapore resident for five years now)

Here, here and here.

Possibly. But, that's the problem: they weren't able to identify the vector.

I saw in another article that she hadn't started Tamiflu until after she was already ill, when it's not expected to work as well.

The original article that I quoted wasn't clear about it, but this one is:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=adU.gGtVZZ2g

A sample from the patient was resistant to Tamiflu in a laboratory test. However, it wasn't resistant to Relenza:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapac ific/view/173522/1/.html

I'm not sure she was ever treated with either drug. Fortunately, the resistant strain of the virus apparently doesn't reproduce well. An article in Nature is supposed to be published next week. Hopefully, there will be more detail.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapac ific/view/119428/1/.html

I used it in a paper I wrote last year.

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 09 June 2005 1531 hrs

Microsoft to grant pirate software amnesty to Indonesia

JAKARTA : Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, is to grant Indonesia an amnesty on pirated versions of its Windows programme used on government computers in exchange for a token payment.

Under the deal, up to 50,000 computers running illegal software would be legalised at a dollar each, Information Minister Sofyan Djalil said, according to the Jakarta Post daily.

In exchange, Indonesia would promise to purchase authorised Microsoft merchandise in the future and launch a major crackdown on a pirated software racket that is believed to be one of the world's worst.

Djalil said the amnesty proposal emerged from a meeting between Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Microsoft founder Bill Gates at the company's headquarters in Seattle last month.

"Microsoft is being realistic. They can't force developing countries like us to solely use legal software since we can't afford it. They want us to gradually reduce our use of it," Djalil said.

A study by the Business Software Alliance, an organisation of representing leading manufacturers including Microsoft, showed that 87 percent of the software on the market in Indonesia was pirated in 2004.

Counterfeiting in Indonesia cost the industry millions of dollars, the study said.

- AFP /ct

In an article about this Singapore sedition story, they report "Lawyers warn that anybody who forwards seditious remarks to others via email can also be charged with abetment". Maybe that's why the submitter didn't include a link to such an article (probably not). Maybe that's why the CNA article doesn't link to, or quote, the allegedly seditious/racist published remarks.

Whatever the reason, the thousands of people across the Web hearing about this story are doubtless feeling "disconnection anxiety" without a link to the disputed original content. We've already passed the point of no return for global communictions, where the only remedy for adverse public expressions is more, opposing or mitigating, public expressions. The cat's out of the bag, not only on this story, but on the global public's expectations of information. Even if those Singaporeans are racists, or seditionists, people need to know what they said in order to judge them for ourselves. Impeding that info gives the public two counts on which to judge the Singaporean government.

Perhaps the original author was afraid that the Slashdot effect would put a chink in the armor of the hosting company's intrusion detection system, and was just trying to help keep the log files spic and span of extraneous hits. In any case, thanks for not being niggardly with the links.

/gets dragged away screaming

Is this the link?

--
Superb hosting 4800MB Storage, 120GB bandwidth, $7,95.
Kunowalls!!! Random sexy wallpapers (NSFW!).

The first foreign response to actually arrive in Louisiana was a contingent of three Singaporean CH-47 Chinook helicopters and 38 personnel from a training detachment based in Grand Prairie, Texas. They arrived in Fort Polk on Tuesday, 1 Sep 05 and are assisting the Texas Army National Guard with airlift and resupply missions. This help was requested and accepted by FEMA, probably due to its quick availability.

Sources:
http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/news_and_events/n r/2005/sep/02sep05_nr.html http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelo calnews/view/166195/1/.html http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_ page/0,5744,16477524%255E1702,00.html

SINGAPORE : SingTel has confirmed Pakistan's Internet and cellphone links to the rest of the world have been cut off by a fault in a key submarine cable.

But it has played down reports that millions of people have been affected by the breakdown.

Apple works hard to provide a quality user experience.

Somebody begs to differ here.

And no, it's not (just) me.

The other person's name is Wozniak:

Wozniak: Apple, Microsoft "Don't Really Care About Quality"
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2005/06/16.6.sh tml

Apple co-founder says innovation is no longer the driving force for PC firms
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporebu sinessnews/view/153069/1/.html

W.

Second, I doubt that SCO's outcome will adversely any non-manager employee.

Once you've "in," nothing matters anymore. In extreme cases you might get fired and be forced to retire in luxury.

here's an even better Bill Gates interview. We could rephrase it thusly:

Bill Gates: "I love the smart communist government because they work people like slaves for little money or benefits; that would make me *really* rich. Let's do like they do"

As far as I know, Warren Buffett is still the world's second richest man. His wealth does not fluctuate as much as several of the other contenders, so it is possible that the rankings change temporarily.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/corporatene ws/view/127025/1/.html

"Actually, to me it's a big let-down: we're expecting a good fight but they're coming out with something that's five generations older," Wong Hoo said. "It's our first generation MuVo One product feature, without display, just have a (shuffle feature). We had that--that's a four-year-old product."

"So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people--it's worse than the cheapest Chinese player," he added. "Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. They don't have this kind of thing, and they expect to come out with a fight; I think it's a non-starter to begin with."

Said Mr Sim, "Actually, to me it's a big let-down: we're expecting a good fight but they're coming out with something that's five generations older... So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, -- it's worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. I think it's a non-starter to begin with."

I am not here to discuss your comment about the Chinese, nor am I here to bash you personally or your company. I am not even here to talk technical specs, because frankly the lack of a male USB port on your Micro Slim is currently the least of your worries right now.

You are undoubtedly a smart guy, being where you are now. You have sold over 2 million MP3 players last Christmas season, no mean feat at all (vs 4M iPod). There is no doubt that your company Creative is a successful one.

But let me ask you this: You have declared War, but Do you want to WIN this war? Absolutely demolish all that is iPod and steal all the glory? Well then read on because as it stands, this is a War you will live or die for. If you want to live, please consider my Two Cents:

1) Tip #1: Think like the underdog. If you want to be a market maker, you need to grow up and act like one. We all learned about "Perfect Competition" in school, how it meant that there was no excess profit and that the only way to get out of that bind was to differentiate yourself. Right now, iPod is winning because it is differentiable from you (brand name, iTunes integration). How are you winning? What is your battle cry?

For the last two years, Creative has acted just like the "Chinese" me-toos (as you so put down in your latest comment) while Apple has been the market maker through and through. Here are some examples:

When the first generation Apple iPod was released, you still were selling the MP3 jukebox ($480) that could not fast-forward or rewind (true), that looked like a spaceship (definitely), and still took 20 seconds to transfer a song (USB1.0). Quickly, your team raced to build a better looking version, after the success of the big iPod.

The success of the iPod touch interface was also "borrowed" on your Zen-Touch line. And finally, after the Apple iPod Mini was announced, you surprisingly announced the new line of Zen Micro's in 10 colors.

See, I like supporting the "underdog." I like supporting the brightest and most inventive minds. I support Tivoli Audio, Sirius satellite radio, I support many of OS X's small developers' applications, I support the Treo 600, Brian Transeau's music and a million gazillion other small companies out there with insanely great ideas. These are premium but differentiable products that people are willing to spend extra money on.

Make something special, Be somebody special. We want that for your kids right? So incorporate that into your technological children, the Muvo's and the Zen's. Because Nobody honestly lusts to buy a me-too product.

2) Tip #2: Make us shit in o

If you like Legos, this would be a good year to include Lego on your shoppng list. Sales for Lego have fallen over 25% in the last two years and the company is looking at a record setting loss for this year.

Hmm. Yahoo! seems to have deleted the article. A copy remains here

Ah, just thought you were challenging the credibility of the source. On that note, about 5 minutes after posting this, I read another story that seems to downplay the whole thing. Looks interesting, but unlikely to be a nuke. None of the typical preparation appears to have been done for a nuke test, and it did happen Thursday. If it were a nuke test, I think N. Korea would have done a little bragging by now. N. Korea appears to have a lot of problems right now, not nukes.

From here

SEOUL : A huge explosion rocked North Korea's northern inland province of Ryanggang last week, triggering a mushroom cloud at least two miles in radius, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.

The explosion appeared to be stronger than an April 22 blast that killed more than 150 people and wounded some 1,300 others in Ryongchon near the western tip of North Korea's border with China, it said Sunday.

The latest blast took place in Kimhyungjik county near the Chinese border on September 9, when North Korea marked the 56th anniversary of its founding, Yonhap said, citing unnamed sources in Beijing.

"The United States was known to have shown its keen interest in the explosion after spotting its traces by satellite," the source was quoted as saying.

South Korea's unification minister Chung Dong-Young said Seoul had received an unsubstantiated report on the explosion in North Korea.

"We have received an unsubstantiated report on traces of an explosion in North Korea," he told reporters after a meeting of security-related officials. The unnamed source in Beijing said the blast had prompted speculation in Washington that the explosion was possibly related to a nuclear experiment, it said.

Chung, however, played down the possibility of a North Korea's nuclear weapons test.

He said the South Korean government was not aware of the scale of the blast but Yonhap quoted a diplomatic source in Seoul as saying the blast triggered a mushroom cloud with a radius of 3.5 to four kilometers (2.4 miles).

"The explosion occurred at around 11 am. But it is not clear yet whether the explosion is related to an intentional nuclear experiment or a simple accident," he was quoted as saying.

He noted the site of the explosion was not far from the North's missile base, according to Yonhap.

The New York Times reported on its Web site Saturday that US President George W. Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first nuclear weapons test.

Citing unnamed senior officials with access to intelligence, the newspaper said US intelligence agencies appeared divided over the significance of the new North Korean actions.

The suspicious activities included the movement of materials around several suspected test sites, including one near a location where intelligence agencies reported last year that conventional explosives were being tested that could compress a plutonium core and set off a nuclear explosion, The Times said.

But officials have not seen the classic indicators of preparations at a test site, in which cables are laid to measure an explosion in a deep test pit, according to the report.

US officials said if North Korea proceeded with a test, it would probably be with a plutonium bomb, perhaps one fabricated from the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that the North has boasted in the past few months have been reprocessed into bomb fuel, the report pointed out.

However, some analysts in agencies that were the most cautious about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction have cautioned that they do not believe the activity detected in North Korea in the past three weeks is necessarily the harbinger of a test, The Times reported.

Some analysts fear that a successful nuclear weapon test by North Korea could change the balance of power in Asia, perhaps leading to a new nuclear arms race there, the paper said.

- AFP

You did hear that Ostriches now have a variant of the bird flu? Thank God they can't fly!

Firewall be pretty handy if/when pigeons come down with something like that.