Balderdash in Chinese! - ROFL

Great Wall myth excised from textbooks - "For decades, the Chinese propagated the myth that their most famous creation was visible from space. Elementary-school textbooks in the world's most populous nation still proclaim that the structure can be seen by the naked eye of an orbiting cosmonaut. But the myth was shattered upon Yang Liwei's return from a 21 1/2-hour space jaunt last year, so schoolbooks will be rewritten"

Poop Scooper Finds Job Fun, Refreshing - "Whatever other people say, Jim Rindhage doesn't think his job stinks. Rindhage is a professional dog poop scooper."

What does your phone number spell? - You still can't beat 1800-IHVSARS for the TTSH Ambulance


The World's Most Corrupt Public Officials

1. Mohamed Suharto, President of Indonesia, 1967-98 -- US$15-35 billion (Free in Indonesia. Son in prison for murder-for-hire of Supreme Court judge. Daughter running for president)

2. Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines, 1972-86 -- US$5-10 billion (Died in exile)

3. Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire, 1965-97 -- US$5 billion (Deposed, dead)

4. Sani Abacha, President of Nigeria, 1993-98 -- US$2-5 billion (Died in office)

5. Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia/Yugoslavia, 1989-2000 -- US$1 billion (On trial for genocide at the Hague)

6. Jean-Claude Duvalier, President of Haiti, 1971-86 -- US$300-800 million (Exiled in France. Following the ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, announced his intention to return to Haiti)

7. Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru, 1990-2000 -- US$600 million (Exiled in Japan)

8. Pavlo Lazarenko, Prime Minister of Ukraine, 1996-97-- US$114-200 million (On trial in the US for money laundering)

9. Arnoldo Alemán, President of Nicaragua, 1997-2002 -- US$100 million (In prison for corruption in Nicaragua)

10. Joseph Estrada, President of the Philippines, 1998-2001 -- US$78-80 million (In prison in the Philippines awaiting trial for corruption. It was recently alleged that he was actually serving his sentence at his private villa)


Extracts from PaRaDoX's Term Paper:

Singaporean apathy is a product of a Machiavellian government with no qualms about the means as long it justifies the end... In a sense the Machiavellian traits of the government rubbed off onto the people, as long as the government is not able to provide raising living standards there is no reason why any Singaporean should feel any affection for Singapore. This is another form of apathy that is enveloping Singaporeans, that Singapore is only equated with economic success and nothing else.

The PAP government, through its bilingual education program and its economic policies, has bought about political integration of a melange of Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese spiced with Indians, Malays and Eurasians... However at the same time, the government... introduced the Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC).

It is surprising that for a country that is so strident about population unity that it only concentrated on only a part of her citizens (albeit a majority). Why is there not a need to introduce a Speak Malay Campaign for the Malays or a Speak Hindi/Tamil Campaign for the Indians? It is not only Chinese that have dialects under the umbrella of Chinese language. This campaign also has its faults. If every racial group decides to only speak their own language, what is there to congeal the different groups as a nation? Singaporeans are to feel that they are united as Singaporeans, but yet still divided as Singaporean Chinese, Singaporean Malay and Singaporean Indian (not including others). If they too congealed, they cannot recognize the differences; and if they recognize too many differences, they cannot congeal to form the nation. This inherent contradiction also makes Singaporeans apathetic, because they do not know what/how to feel. When National Day comes, the nation is to be as one, but when it comes to trading with the "home" nations of the different races the citizens are divided to which nations they should pursue. This discontinuity causes people to be less concerned with events; they will just do what the government wants them to do... the government is sending out so many mixed signals that the population does not know how to react, resulting again in citizen apathy.