"Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo." - H. G. Wells

***

The Day the Enlightenment Went Out

Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?... Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.

The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.

Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.

It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one American general put it, in words that the president has not repudiated.

***

A man is walking home one night when he spots a woman in the shadows.

"Quick fun just $20" she whispers seductively as he gets to her. He'd never been with a hooker before, but he decides what the hell? It's been awhile, he's running early, and it's only $20.

So he steps into the bushes with her and very soon, they're going at it. Suddenly a light flashes on them -- it's a cop. "What's going on here?" asks the officer.

"I'm making love to my wife," the man answers indignantly.

"Oh, I'm sorry," says the cop, "I didn't know."

"Well," said the man, "neither did I, until you shined that light in her face."

[JumboJoke]

***

"Most democracies are not majoritarian. If Britain were run on majoritarian lines, for example, then fox hunting would have been banned long ago and capital punishment would never had been abolished. In other words, Britain would be a country which killed more people but fewer animals." (Bad Moves: Fallacies of democracy)

Heh.

***

Mr Tim Tang is getting delusional. Someone posted in a forum (on Xenoy Boy's 'first political blog in Singapore'):

"Hahahha. this is hilarious.. the first political blog? :)
Hey, the writing reminds me of http://stopgays.blogspot.com/ and the loony there."

And he thought that it was I.

***

Someone who used to be from 42SAR's blog where he lambasts many people, including their pictures and even displaying 2 photoshopped pictures of his own.

"Laser Koh
That's the professional dog trainer of Kaffir company. The most sinister person in 42. Funny name to call oneself. haaha... His voice is damn sharp, dunno how many octave above the norm, and deafening that can shatter the glass. Definitely a hypocrite and pretendious. Always trying to be nice to people from other companies. One of his favourite actions is to command his dogs to sit and stand repetitively. But those dogs also didn't gain any sympathy from us. Too bad... cause they ain't any good dogs either.
Oh yah... He is also a damn sore LOSER, always training his dogs to perform the best during battalion games day. Whenever Kaffir didn't get the champion, he will gei gei say it's alright, ha.. fake one lah... he must be very dui cause his dogs won't have much good life back in camp.

keeping fit to stay in good health to train his dogs... the photographer didn't manage to capture all his dogs behind him

Okie... here are his dogs... in order of my hatre."

I am amused.

Lucky he's ORDed already :)

***

Jet-powered wheelchair surprise - "Giuseppe Cannella had a big surprise for his mother-in-law when he put a jet engine on the back of her wheelchair. Mr Cannella says the chair can now do top speeds of more than 60mph and has proved the star of a model plane championship during the Bank Holiday."

Girls, beware, Japan creates world's best chat-up line - "If their calculations are correct, the sentence “rainen no kono hi mo issho ni waratteiyoh” will spark a new era of unbridled romance in Japan: it is, according to hours of meticulous psychological and sociological research, the ultimate chat-up line. Directly translated, the killer phrase is: “This time next year, let’s be laughing together.”"

Man tries to convert lions to Jesus, gets bitten - "A man leaped into a lion’s den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts. “Jesus will save you!” shouted the 46-year-old man at two African lions lounging under a tree a few meters away. “Come bite me!” he said with both hands raised, television footage showed. One of the lions, a large male with a shaggy mane, bit the man in his right leg."
Must be part of the divine plan...

Debate incident leads to injury - "After watching the presidential debate Thursday night, two UNC students ended up slapping each other while fighting over who Jesus would vote for in the election. According to a police report, the concept of "turning the other cheek" came up, and James Robert Austin, 19, of 1305 Granville Towers West in Chapel Hill, slapped Robert Brooks Rollins, 22, of 104 Brewer Lane in Carrboro, on the cheek at Rollins' house. After that, Rollins slapped Austin, and Austin landed on the concrete patio, possibly striking his head, according to the report."

Other Oils and Fats Introduction - Hormel Foods Corporation - Lard has less saturated fat and more monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat than palm oil!!!

Homeland Security Threat Level 0.2 - This Firefox extension "displays the current Homeland Security Threat Level as an icon in the status bar".

F u t u r e M e . o r g - Send an email to your future self.

Does a Cat Always Land on Its Feet? - "Cats have excellent balance, and are remarkably acrobatic. When turned upside down and dropped from a height, a cat generally has the ability to land on its feet. Until now, no one has systematically investigated the limits of this phenomenon. In this study, I dropped a cat upside down from various heights, and observed whether the cat landed on its feet."
He only tried heights from 1 to 6 feet. Should've tried the 10th storey...

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes - "An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct."
Hmm.

Bush Supporters Still Believe Iraq Had WMD or Major Program, Supported al Qaeda - "Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points."
So, when all has been said and done - Bush supporters do tend to be dumber than not.

Singaporean Fairy Tales: THE PAP PIPER - "Mother Cock brings you a fairy tale about a man who wants to make young people dance to his tune."

Darwin's greatest challenge tackled - The mystery of eye evolution

Piracy plagues hotly awaited game sequels - Normal gamers are helping shut down the operations of those who distribute games. Bad news for people like nw.t.

The Warped Economics of Fatwa: Demand Creates Its OWN Supply - " According to the Keynesian interpretation of Say's Law, the demand side was irrelevant where "Supply creates its own demand". However, in Keynesian economics, demand (to be precise, aggregate demand) is central to macroeconomic considerations. It was not quite that "demand creates its own supply"; rather, it was that Classical economics was wrong in ignoring the demand side altogether, and Keynes restored the demand side to its due place in macroeconomics. No one ever said "Demand creates its own supply", except a really small percentage of students in introductory economics classes, who could never get the Say's Law right during the exams. But there might be situations where one could argue and state that "Demand creates its own supply." Let me explain this using the Fatwa issue, while clarifying that economists should probably take this piece with a light heart."

Confessions of a lad-mag photographer - "All these photographs we see on magazine covers have undergone major overhauls, confessed FHM photographer Raymond Toh. 'Their tummies have been shrunk by 20 to 30 per cent and their busts pumped up 50 to 100 per cent. If their bikini tops are too transparent, their nipples would also have to be touched up. Most of the time they would be removed completely,'"
Aww.

The Revelation @ The Forbidden Knowledge . com - Another looney site.

The Principality of Sealand - "Sealand was founded as a sovereign Principality in 1967 in international waters, six miles off the eastern shores of Britain. The island fortress is conveniently situated from 65 to 100 miles from the coasts of France, Belgium, Holland and Germany."

Retro Junk - A possible partial successor to the late Yesterdayland with commercials, movie trailers, cartoon and TV show theme songs and articles about the 80s. I feel old.

Name tag for sales (sic) - Someone is selling a nametag which says "Elaine Kee". I cannot imagine why anyone not named Elaine Kee (ie almost everyone) would want to buy it.

Dick's adventures! - "freeshow, zao geng and raiding stories!"
I'm inclined to think this is another subtle joke, or something. It seems he also writes on "Triumph fan" which is described thus: "Wearing panties and women's g-strings is a very fun thing that most men miss out on. Not me, I love wearing them."

If cats could blog, and if dogs could blog - From Techno Prince (who's finally removed the irritating techno music from his blog. Yay!)

Miss Venus 2004 - This is hilarious. It aims to uncover "Singapore's Most Popular Girl". And for some reason there's a page on "Safety Aspect of Miss Venus 2004". It seems they've mixed voting integrity and safety up. I would've thought safety would include measures like preventing the girls from gouging each other's eyes out but otherwise allowing a Pankrationic venting of emotions.