Pope, Pop-Up, Nades & Pop-Eye?

The Pope & Ah Peh

About a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the
Chinese had to leave Italy. Naturally there was a big uproar from the
Chinese community. So the Pope made a deal. He would have a
religious debate with a member of the Chinese community. If the Chinese
win, they could stay. If the Pope wins, the Chinese would leave.
The Chinese realized that they had no other choice. So they picked a
middle-aged man named Ah Peh to represent them. Ah Peh asked for one
condition to be added to the debate. "To make it more interesting", he
said, "neither side would be allowed to talk". The Pope agreed.

The day of the great debate came. Ah Peh and the Pope sat opposite each
other for a full minute. Then,

The Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers.
Ah Peh looked back at him and raised one finger.

The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head.
Ah Peh pointed to the ground at where he sat.

The Pope pulled out a loaf and a glass of wine.
Ah Peh pulled out an apple.

The Pope stood up and said: "I give up.
This man is too good.

The Chinese can stay."

An hour later, the cardinals were all around The Pope
asking him what had happened? The Pope said, "First I held up three
fingers to represent the holy trinity. He responded by holding up one
finger
to remind me that there was still one God common to both our
religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was
all
around
us. He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was
also
right here with us. I pulled out the wine and loaf to show that God
absolves all sin. He showed me an apple to remind us of the original
sin.
He had an answer for everything. What could I do?"


Meanwhile, the Chinese community had crowded around Ah Peh.
"What happened?" they asked.
"Well," said Ah Peh, "First he indicated to me that all Chinese had 3
days to get out of here. I replied to him not one of us was leaving.
Then he pointed that this whole city would be cleared of Chinese.
I showed him that we are staying right here."
"Yes, and then???" asked the crowd.

"I don't know", said Ah Peh, "He took out his lunch,
and I took out mine!"


DESIDERATA need to light up Malaysians' generally sombre daily (for for some dark&dreary) wakeups with the above nugget jest so that Wednesdays are not always fool of woe. Hence reprising the above received via one of those Mass-Emails which can bring along some flu or bug. Just bloody make sure you are not irritated by POP-UPs!

I already had symptoms pointing to a migraine this morning and so was not in too good a mood. Logging on to the PC, a Pop-Up of Online Betting-Casino ad keeps hogging the screen, even ass I kept on "closing" the page. A "smaller" image with either "Block" OR "Move" function hogged the bottom Right-hand Corner. Despite pressing on "Block" or "Move" umpteen times, the B...., F.... thingy remained, causing me to lose precious minutes of my valuable life on planet Earth. Hey, can someONE physically "remove" that Irritant and send him unto Hades, or isit Hell? This reminds me of some unwelcome guest to the house who refused to get the hint he's overtayed his/her welcome. But I was patient enough to control myself from giving the Righthand Bottom Corner of the PC a right hook ala Ali. If you don't know who Ali is, please don't bother to ask, Desi's patience is right, royal, limited. Like some political parties, …& Sons Sdn Bhd! (For this, please ask y&A johnleemk!)


Reading theSun (not a feebie as the neasrets 7ELEVEN is 10minutes walk away, and I don't have that time to spareat BF table -- precious, remember? ), as usual my early reference is to the Column by fellow scribe Nadeswaran, whose take from which I would extract some nuggets.
The OPINION on page 9 ttitled "Don't expect anything to change", ,
he echoes almost 100% what I summed up yesterday, ending with "QUO VADIS?"

Nades led off with the quote by Court of Appeal judge, Datuk Gopal Sri Ram-
"Is everyone taking out their blanket and pillow to sleep because of the cosy atmosphere in the air conditioned office? Nobody knows what is happening. The public should know that this department is badly managed and chaotic."

"PROPHETIC words indeed," Nades wrote,"but this is not the first time such damning has come from the Bench. Civil servants, polic officers and even counsel have incurred the wrath of judges warranting harsh words.
"For the next few days,there will be meetings at the Insolvency Department, with the top brass setting up a task force to 'sreamline operations' and after the Chinese New Year break, everyone would have forgotten about it.
.
.
.
"Sri Ram's remarks will be the talk of the town for the next few days, and after that, another issue will be raised, in or outside the hallowed chambers of our courthouses, and there'll be a new subject to chew on.
The whole cycle will continue and despite the findings of the justice system, the entrenched philosophy of 'let them say anything' will prevail.
The civil servixce, despite the admonishment, will continue to be what is. There seems to be no will and determination, political or otherwise, to change the mindset of civil servants who will contuinue to be saya yang menurut perintah, without asking himself of herself, if what he or she is doing is right or wrong."

So mGf Y&A Sabrina Tan is right all along -- it's a hopeless sitruation. Things won't change, and she has the confirmation from a veteran journalist that is Citizen Nades.
Desi will continue to Be Positive though, though Not Optimistic.


Finally, an item to be noted by the Blogging community. We Internet publishers -- esp BLOGGERS - have better see some warning lights in the following development so that we are prepared for the potholes along the joyurney:



From The Star, January 18, 2006, page 29:

Ruling to bar website upheld

PUTRAJAYA: A disgruntled engineer who had put up a website containing several defamatory allegations against Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua) after purchasing a Kelisa with defects failed to overturn an interim injunction order barring the site.
Court of Appeal Justices Gopal Sri Ram, Azmel Ma'amor and Mohd Noor Abdullah dismissed Richard Fong Khee Choong's appeal and said they were satisfied that the defamatory passages in the website were open to interpretation.
“The High Court judge had applied the correct test when he granted the interim injunction,” Justice Sri Ram said, adding that since this was the first case of its kind a written decision would be delivered later.
Justice Sri Ram said that if the article, written by Fong, was a personal grievance and contained true facts, he could consider it fair comment.
“But he went further and attacked the reputation and integrity of that company,” he said.
Fong, 49, was appealing against the Kuala Lumpur High Court's decision on Sept 17, 2003, which granted Perodua, Perodua Manufacturing Sdn Bhd and Perodua Sales Sdn Bhd the injunction to bar his website pending the trial.
Fong's counsel Gobind Singh Deo said the trial judge had misdirected himself in law when he failed to recognise that Perodua cannot apply for an injunction on matters that were pleaded outside of their statement of claim.
“If a judge considers matters outside of the statement of claim, he would certainly prejudice my client,” he said.
Perodua's counsel Liew Teck Huat said the appeal should be dismissed as the entire website constituted one article and related to the subject of Fong's complaint about the defective car.
He also said Fong had failed to adduce any evidence in affidavits to show that such serious allegations made by him were true.
“There was clear evidence of the threat to continue publication. The learned trial judge was clearly justified in holding that the purported defence has no probability of success,” he told the three-men bench.
On Nov 27, Perodua and its subsidiaries sued Fong for defamation through his website www.geocities.com/ mykelisa2002 which alleged the company had practised corruption in procuring the ISO 9000 certification by bribing the UK Vehicle Certification Agency.
The company claimed that Fong's allegations in the website gave the implication that Perodua practiced deception and fraud for its own interest instead of the customer's needs.
It further claimed that Fong's allegations meant that the second national car producer was betraying the public's trust and was involved in a conspiracy to cheat the people.

DESIDERATA: If Desi can have one wish granted this morning, I would like to have some spinach and gain the strength of Pop-eye and then I'll swing all those Nincompoops sitting on their ars-k, -e, -es to ...ne'er mind, it's just Desi having one of his D-Dreams...