Bits and Pieces

This is the first post for hopefully what will be a frequent enough stream of posts highlighting the funny side of events in the world as covered by the media.


~ From an article published in The Wall Street Journal on The Lapindo Brantas disaster in Indonesia

Thirteen people are believed to have died when a collapsed mud dike caused Pertamina's East Java gas trunk line to rupture and explode November 22. A four-lane highway has been washed away and a rail line buried. Local shamans have reportedly been sacrificing goats and chickens in the near-boiling mud to appease the gods, to no avail.

Hot, fetid mud is flowing into the sea and has swamped fishing villages. But [Aburizal] Bakrie says this is not causing the death of sea life. "There is nothing (in the mud) that can cause the shrimps to die," he said.


~ Yosef Ardi, a well-known newspaper editor in Indonesia, on Indonesian businessman, Sukanto Tanoto’s donation to journalism school at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore

“Quite strange, learning journalism in a country without press freedom? Why not in Indonesia?”


~ Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, on his relations with his lesbian daughter

“My adopted daughter now has a wife. I’m quite disappointed.”


~ From an Australian Publication, The Age –

Merrill Lynch found recently that 33 per cent of Singapore’s 55,000 millionaires were Indonesians controlling $US87 billion in assets on the island, fuelling a colossal property boom.

Editor's Note: 55,000 millionaires?!?!?! Why am I not one of them?!?!


~ Richard Armitage, ex-Deputy Secretary of State, on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq –

“I think your suggestion is, Can we do two things at once? Well, we’re of the view that we can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Editor's Note: Armitage announced his resignation on November 16 2004


~ Keith Johnsgard, a professor emeritus of psychology at San Jose University, commenting on the motivations of race-car drivers and other risk-takers, the same kind that he believes drives Eliot Spitzer, the democrat NY governor who was identified as a client of a prostitution ring –

“These folks aren’t pathological. They’re really bright and probably less neurotic than most people. They’re not crazy, they’re not stupid, you just don’t want to be married to one.”


~ Marvin Zuckerman, another professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Delaware –

“The happiest marriages tend to be between people with great tolerances for boredom because these people aren’t looking for new partners.”