Have you watched the movie titled Lord of War starred by Nicholas Cage? It’s about a weapon dealer(Nicholas Cage) selling arms illegally to the warring parties in Africa. The movie chronicles his journey which started by selling guns and pistols to street-gang members, and growing to the point of purchasing machine guns, tanks, and even jet-fighters from East European countries and selling them to African Warlords.

imdb.com
Trailer

Apparently the true story-inspired movie is not far from reality, a Singaporean man pleads guilty for supplying illegal arms to Tamil Tigers. He was conspiring with two Indonesians to provide arms and ammunitions to Tamil Tigers, which is listed as a terrorist organization by US.

Since the criminal offence was committed in US soil, they are bound to the US law. The three of them are currently under US Federal Government Custody in Maryland. They are facing maximum 15 years and USD$500,000 fine sentence.

I’m not a war/suicide bombers/terrorist person. I love peace :-). I believe that resolving differences using physical/weaponry power will degenerate us back to the jungle, where the mighty rules and the weak suffers. So I hope all the guilty parties in this case will receive the punishment that they deserved. For the rest of us, let’s start small by trying to resolve any of our differences using dialogues, not fists.

From Singapore with love!

Sources

Yahoo News

News Archive @ ETAN

One thing that I like about living in Singapore is the vast availability of computer hardware. Many Singaporeans are having tendency to become first adopter. That is way, most of the time you can find not-so-new computer hardware with less than half of the market price. Especially after any Computer Exhibitions (IT Show, PC Show, SITEX, COMEX) held here. It’s almost become a routine that after shop-craze at the exhibition, people will start selling away their old hardware.

(c) stasarama

Hardwarezone is my only destination when I’m looking for computer hardware and sometimes software. Usually first I will look for the price of new items in Sim Lim Square stores, then I head to the Hardwarezone’s Marketplace Forum. At this forum, you can find many things for sale/auction, not only limited to computer hardware. Items ranging from Condom to Samurai sword are for sale/auction here :-). Sometimes a mass-order for certain item also started by a user who has contact with the overseas-distributor. Participating in mass-order could get you a lot less price than buying that particular item in the brick-and-mortar shop.

Addiction to Hardwarezone’s Marketplace Forum is almost the similar to addiction of blogging or digging. You could spend hours and hours lurking in the forum, looking what people are selling/auctioning. When a certain item catches your attention, you will start wondering whether you *actually* need that item, since the price is so cheap compared to the price in the shop. So yes, it’s quite dangerous place especially for impulsive buyers and people with shopping disorder 🙂 (and yes, i’m warning myself :-P)

(c) fotognome

One note though, although most users in the Forum are honest, there are people that will intentionally scam you out. So be careful when when posting bids/orders. Make sure you’ve read through the item description. Because when you withdraw your bid out of good will, especially after asking the seller to meet up, it’s you that become the scammer (bad buyer, to be exact). And the Forum users are not really fond with scammer/bad buyer.

Unfortunately, sellers in the Forum are quite reluctant to deal with overseas buyers. They prefer to deal locally, usually because both party could meet up to finalize the deal. So it’s quite difficult for overseas buyer to order/place bids. Unless of course, you stated that you will send/transfer the money before the seller sending you the item. Again, please make sure the seller has a good reputation. You can check for their reputation by looking at their posts/comments in Forum’s threads. The best would be when you have friends in Singapore and asked them to bid the item for you.

Hopefully this posting will help you in one way or another. Feel free to drop comments if you have question.

It’s good to know that the British sailors are released by Iran. Although it’s difficult if not impossible, I hope peace will be restored in Middle East. Everyone will live happily, no more suicide bombers, no more roadside bombs, no more car bombs, no more bombs in the market. Christians, Jews, and Muslims are live side by side without trying to kill each other. Everyone knows that death is as certain as tax, why should we make it sooner?

A train accident happened in Paris. Thanks God no one killed, although 50 people are injured. The train belongs to the state-owned rail company (SNCF) hit the buffers at the train station in Paris. It’s a bit tragic considering a few days back another French’s railway company, TGV was hailed and showered with compliments for breaking speed record.

Grieve news for male-adulterer, a silly law is going to be amended. Apparently in Uganda if you are married and then you cheated, you MIGHT offended the law. Yes .. might, if you are male. But if you are female and do the same thing, you ARE offending the law. Yeah right …

And news from Indonesia, Indonesian Playboy Editor is cleared from the criminal charges. I am not sure whether I should happy or not. I have a friend working there, but I also have many friends who opposed Indonesian Playboy’s existence. Personally I believe book like ‘Jakarta Undercover” is more morally destructive compared to Playboy. And this opinion based only from the excerpt of that book.

And finally, my dear club Manchester United lost to AS. Roma. In the first leg of quarter-final match, Roma beaten Manchester United 2-1. Paul Scholes was sent off on the 33rd minute. Fortunately, Wayne Rooney scored to give us the precious away goal. Hopefully we can do better at Old Trafford.