I shall let many of the entries in my Sordid Archives of the Search Referrer Logs speak for themselves:
"nanyang girls" world war two
pink ranger rape - Which one, I wonder.
julia roberts hairy armpits
2003 2004 email information of all the churches in Edfu
Vaginal Discharge Panties Pics
scgs thong - I don't think they need it unless they're wearing it tight.
acjc nude
acjc sluts
xray fuck pictures
occult ceremony nude pics
unisex spa in Kuala Lumpur
SAF sispec pride lecture - They have lectures about pride? Bah.
"school uniform" "river valley high"
"looney tunes" "hee hee hee" wav
disturbing pictures of mangled pussy - Disturbing indeed.
arizona police grenade pear
2004 asian gynecologist email guestbook
media analysis 8 mile stereotype representation eminem
use xray make man infertile - Nasty weapon!
alt.sex.passwords kermit - See Kermit shagging Miss Piggy! Bestiality rules.
bomoh nombor - This means "bomoh number" in Malay
teletubby platoon
mom son incest in islam
rgs girls pretty proud - RGS girls are pretty proud or pretty and proud?
Permanent teeth regrown miracles
DISSERATIONS ON BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
Sudol, Jews - Jews pour Sudol on themselves?
sammyboy.com crack - I believe Sexkey is free.
R@ygold Japanese Junior High School Lolita. - From what I know, R@ygold has no Japanese stuff.
rgs cheerleaders singapore 2000
candle insertion vagina safety - I'm not sure if you can do that safely.
beng CDRW problem - Benq must be so disappointed at the association.
I Not Stupid guanyinma
bahrain massage done by girls only
black updos spikes
tanya breasts "red alert" shoot - I doubt you can shoot them.
Phang Liying - Yaoi Girl is popular.
bdsm camp training centre - They actually have camps for this sort of thing?!
NKF Weakness and Threats - I'd like to know.
Unclean mamak stall in Malaysia - Haram of just plain unhygienic?
professional singer, Tuan Anh
acjc 2003 beach party yearbook
murtad mama - What is a murtad and who is his mama?
loolah photo - What is a loolah?
amputee secret garden surgery
rgs "tse yin"
SAF downgrade depression
horseriding topless clip
RGS prom queens
"girls in shirts" - The diabolical cult has made progress.
ns commando songs singapore lyrics bomb - Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Ma-laysia!
tekong bare \bodied
voodoo spells and glucose tolerance
"scrawny twig"
dad rigid cock fuck own daughter tight cunt ooo
story behind r@ygold - Some sick pedo decied to set up shop one day?
novena to pray to make your gallstones pass - Sorry. Wishful thinking.
rectal thermometers in girls butt photo
LAN girls mugging cannot click
"fierce girl" gay
Nude in Raffles Girl School(secondary)
singapore chinese girls GRC schools - Group Representative Constituency?
hentai scrollers
bangala movie - Shokalata!
clitoridectomy photo
religious depilation
bit torrent sun yanzi - She's not that popular.
Blood donation cockups
fuck girl in alexandria egypt
singapore malay clinic for ladies - Where they can take their tudungs off while seeing the doctor.
Why are you interested in getting an OCBC scholarship?
Singapore girls wear powerpuff girls costume for contest
Napoleon Likes Smelly Crotch
psychology tentacle monster
raw material ordering, yakult in malaysia - They don't sell Yakult there.
chij girl pictures sammyboy - Convent girl fetish?
mahathir emotional video 2002
"pulau tekong" haunted
"worst school uniform" - Li Hua, undoubtedly.
sahaja bust cream
nude girl wearing tudung - But then she wouldn't be nude already.
GIRLS SHAVING THEIR HEADS
debauched.popes
east indian women with pubic hair to stay
peloponnesian wars picturs
sms haram
is wearing condoms haram - Everything is haram these days.
jc girls hot singapore
nude army men having cum feist
photos of embarassing moments of skirts blowing up
1) Say you're Mom, and you told your two kids NOT to have any cookies before dinner. While you're gone, deadbeat Dad comes by, raids the cookie jar, looks at the two kids with an innocent grin and say they can have some and leave it out there for them. You come by and catch them in the act. Is it justifiable to send them to their rooms with no dinner for that night and no TV/Computer for a month?
2) Can you think of any crime so horrendous that it would justify eternal, unrelenting torment, with no second chances ever being given, even if the criminal honestly repents and is completely forgiven by his victims?
3) Would our justice system let off a criminal if someone agreed to take his punishment instead?
4) You likely have no desire whatsoever to stab people with a kitchen knife and dine on their entrails, although there's nothing specific preventing you from doing so. Does this, nevertheless, take away your "free will"?
5) There are still a few rare people who, incredibly, believe the earth is flat despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. This is demonstrably false, yet they hold such a belief regardless and can't be convinced otherwise. Would you, regardless, be able to completely give up on these people for their honest, albeit incredibly delusional, mistake, leaving them forever condemned for it?
6) Hypothetically, if a doctor had the power to cure every single child suffering of malaria across the world easily and at no personal expense, but only did so for those who asked him just right, would you consider him a good human being?
7) Are you familiar with confirmation bias (remembering only hits, not misses)?
8) Similarly, are you familiar with selective thinking (applying undue skepticism to arguments and data unfavorable to your position, while having a less stringent standard of evidence for data confirming it)?
9) Will wishful thinking often make an otherwise rational person accept something which is literally 'too good to be true', such as pyramid schemes or spirit mediums that allegedly let them communicate with departed loved ones?
10) Are people suffering from emotional turmoil, a great deal of stress, depression, or those going thru a monumental upheaval in their lives often impaired in utilizing their best judgment and hence vulnerable to cult leaders and other charlatans?
11) Are you aware that very realistic mystical experiences can be produced by a myriad assortment of known causes, from drugs such as LSD, to sensory deprivation, to direct magnetic stimulation of the brain?
12) Do you recognize that the human mind is capable of recognizing patterns where none really exist, such as images in clouds, the Rorschach ink blot test, and numerology, among others, especially when it has already developed a bias to look for specific patterns?
13) Is a sunset beautiful when no one is watching, without first requiring an intelligent observer to assign such profound meaning to it?
14) Continuing, are our lives meaningful because we can now recognize and/or assign such meaning, where little such meaning existed for animals who were not self-aware and intelligent?
These and other thought provoking questions at Questioning Theistic Beliefs
"ANTIBIOTIC EFFECTIVENESS: A CRITICAL REVIEW" by Allan L. Glenn, Ph. D.*
Antibiotics - in Western society, the very mention of the drugs evokes images of caring doctors in white coats curing all manner of devastating illness with cute little tablets.
But below the surface of this modern myth lies a shocking truth. Contrary to popular belief and medical propaganda, antibiotics just don't work.
In the good old days, everyone knew that disease was caused by demon possession and/or sexual immorality, not germs. The populace of the day wasn't as easily duped, and as a result, "Germ theory", not "Germ fact", got its well-deserved name.
Medical journals, textbooks and doctors would have you believe that antibiotics do work, but on closer inspection, they only create that impression by selectively citing favorable data and discarding the rest. Numerous cases exist (conveniently suppressed by the establishment, of course) where antibiotics didn't work as advertised, even going so far as to contradict accepted medical knowledge.
Here's a short list of cases where antibiotics didn't work as expected:
* "... a combination of antibiotics failed and the 79-year-old patient died."
* "She didn't respond to antibiotics and was placed in the hospital. After developing pneumonia and falling into a coma, she was placed in intensive care where she died on December 12, 1968."
* "The 63- year-old photo editor for the supermarket tabloid The Sun suffered cardiac arrest and died Friday after he didn’t respond to antibiotics and his kidneys failed."
* "A slow improvement was noted and a different antibiotic was prescribed. Following a telephone call from the patient, Dr Ellison saw the patient again on 12 August 1996. The patient presented with indications of pneumonia. Dr Ellison's advice was the patient should go to hospital... The patient was admitted to hospital on 15 August 1996. Pulmonary embolism was diagnosed. The patient died on 17 August 1996 following a cardiac arrest."
The list could go on and on, as tens of thousands of similar cases are known from the last few decades alone.. But you won't hear about them in the medical journals! The bigoted materialists who want our kids to learn this nonsense in medical school aren't even willing to do the legwork to support their claims.
Those misotheistic doctors, of course, have dozens of unevidenced ad hoc rationalizations for why antibiotics fail so often. One is the case of "antibiotic resistance". But this excuse is, for lack of a better term, pathetic. One alleged resistance system, that of the Vancomycin-immune strain of staphylococcus, involves a complex enzyme pathway with 5 different and interacting parts 5. But as Leigh University biochemist Michael Behe has demonstrated, irreducible complexity can't evolve. Therefore, this bacterium can't be immune. It's as simple as that.
Another is the carefully-crafted excuse of "viral infection". Allegedly, antibiotics don't work on a virus. But this explanation also fails when you consider that viruses have never been proven to exist. The sole purpose of postulating them is to provide another excuse for the failure of antibiotics.
Occasionally, an infection that by the doctors' own admission should be susceptible to antibiotics remains unaffected, often resulting in a patient's death. The medical establishment usually chalks this up to a freak occurence, but this is just more evidence that they have no explanation! Their a-priori commitment to materialistic antibiotics blinds them to the truth and makes inventing wild excuses a necessity.
However, in using those rationalizations to account for the times when antibiotics don't work, yet using the times they allegedly do work as evidence, doctors remove antibiotic effectiveness from the realm of falsifiability and hence make it pseudoscience. With that mindset, any possible observation would be consistent with the effectiveness of antibiotics. Practitioners of ineffective alternative medicine generally use this approach, invoking "you didn't have enough faith", "the spirits aren't generous enough today" or other excuses when explaining the failure of their "treatments", but one is surprised to find this practice alive and well in the trusted mainstream.
In response, Scientists will cite double-blind studies that suggest antibiotics work better than a placebo, but there are a variety of demonologist explanations available for those studies. One is the hypothesis that demons desire to make people believe they're not responsible for disease, and thus let up the possession (resulting in relief from symptoms) whenever scientists are performing a study. This has the desired effect of making the populace believe antibiotics do work, in turn making them scoff at the reality that DEMONS DO EXIST and cause illness, removing the weapons of spiritual warfare and exorcism from their naive arsenal and letting the masterful spirits have free reign.
Another explanation is that God won't make the existence of spiritual forces obvious, as that removes the free will of materialists to believe. Consequently, the Lord will make sure to surreptitiously exorcise demons from a host if he or she is involved in a recorded study. This ensures that antibiotics appear to work on a limited basis, making the existence of demons only obvious to those knowledgeable in scriptural Truth™.
A number of other explanations are possible, thus, the effectiveness of antibiotics rests on the materialist interpretation of double-blind studies and other data, not the facts themselves. Demonologists don't deny facts, we just deny the anti-supernaturalistic interpretation of those facts.
Of course, a naturalist commitment to denying the existence of demons allows them to make unwarranted assumptions like "demons haven't interfered with the results of this study" or "angels didn't accelerate radiometric decay," whereas a demonologist has no such bias.
* Dr. Glenn is Associate Professor of Demonology at IDR. His doctorate thesis at Patriot University studied the negative effects possession has on Catholic scriptural interpretations.
Refuting Unfalsifiable Claims with Superior, Incompatible Explanations
So the next time you get asked for evidence that vampires or ghosts don't exist, you can just say "That's irrelevant when dealing with such intentionally unfalsifiable claims--all things considered, the best explanation is that both were invented by superstitious people when they were working with limited observations and just didn't know any better." Alternatively, say you received divine revelation that they're lying, and ask them to prove you didn't.
2) Can you think of any crime so horrendous that it would justify eternal, unrelenting torment, with no second chances ever being given, even if the criminal honestly repents and is completely forgiven by his victims?
3) Would our justice system let off a criminal if someone agreed to take his punishment instead?
4) You likely have no desire whatsoever to stab people with a kitchen knife and dine on their entrails, although there's nothing specific preventing you from doing so. Does this, nevertheless, take away your "free will"?
5) There are still a few rare people who, incredibly, believe the earth is flat despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. This is demonstrably false, yet they hold such a belief regardless and can't be convinced otherwise. Would you, regardless, be able to completely give up on these people for their honest, albeit incredibly delusional, mistake, leaving them forever condemned for it?
6) Hypothetically, if a doctor had the power to cure every single child suffering of malaria across the world easily and at no personal expense, but only did so for those who asked him just right, would you consider him a good human being?
7) Are you familiar with confirmation bias (remembering only hits, not misses)?
8) Similarly, are you familiar with selective thinking (applying undue skepticism to arguments and data unfavorable to your position, while having a less stringent standard of evidence for data confirming it)?
9) Will wishful thinking often make an otherwise rational person accept something which is literally 'too good to be true', such as pyramid schemes or spirit mediums that allegedly let them communicate with departed loved ones?
10) Are people suffering from emotional turmoil, a great deal of stress, depression, or those going thru a monumental upheaval in their lives often impaired in utilizing their best judgment and hence vulnerable to cult leaders and other charlatans?
11) Are you aware that very realistic mystical experiences can be produced by a myriad assortment of known causes, from drugs such as LSD, to sensory deprivation, to direct magnetic stimulation of the brain?
12) Do you recognize that the human mind is capable of recognizing patterns where none really exist, such as images in clouds, the Rorschach ink blot test, and numerology, among others, especially when it has already developed a bias to look for specific patterns?
13) Is a sunset beautiful when no one is watching, without first requiring an intelligent observer to assign such profound meaning to it?
14) Continuing, are our lives meaningful because we can now recognize and/or assign such meaning, where little such meaning existed for animals who were not self-aware and intelligent?
These and other thought provoking questions at Questioning Theistic Beliefs
"ANTIBIOTIC EFFECTIVENESS: A CRITICAL REVIEW" by Allan L. Glenn, Ph. D.*
Antibiotics - in Western society, the very mention of the drugs evokes images of caring doctors in white coats curing all manner of devastating illness with cute little tablets.
But below the surface of this modern myth lies a shocking truth. Contrary to popular belief and medical propaganda, antibiotics just don't work.
In the good old days, everyone knew that disease was caused by demon possession and/or sexual immorality, not germs. The populace of the day wasn't as easily duped, and as a result, "Germ theory", not "Germ fact", got its well-deserved name.
Medical journals, textbooks and doctors would have you believe that antibiotics do work, but on closer inspection, they only create that impression by selectively citing favorable data and discarding the rest. Numerous cases exist (conveniently suppressed by the establishment, of course) where antibiotics didn't work as advertised, even going so far as to contradict accepted medical knowledge.
Here's a short list of cases where antibiotics didn't work as expected:
* "... a combination of antibiotics failed and the 79-year-old patient died."
* "She didn't respond to antibiotics and was placed in the hospital. After developing pneumonia and falling into a coma, she was placed in intensive care where she died on December 12, 1968."
* "The 63- year-old photo editor for the supermarket tabloid The Sun suffered cardiac arrest and died Friday after he didn’t respond to antibiotics and his kidneys failed."
* "A slow improvement was noted and a different antibiotic was prescribed. Following a telephone call from the patient, Dr Ellison saw the patient again on 12 August 1996. The patient presented with indications of pneumonia. Dr Ellison's advice was the patient should go to hospital... The patient was admitted to hospital on 15 August 1996. Pulmonary embolism was diagnosed. The patient died on 17 August 1996 following a cardiac arrest."
The list could go on and on, as tens of thousands of similar cases are known from the last few decades alone.. But you won't hear about them in the medical journals! The bigoted materialists who want our kids to learn this nonsense in medical school aren't even willing to do the legwork to support their claims.
Those misotheistic doctors, of course, have dozens of unevidenced ad hoc rationalizations for why antibiotics fail so often. One is the case of "antibiotic resistance". But this excuse is, for lack of a better term, pathetic. One alleged resistance system, that of the Vancomycin-immune strain of staphylococcus, involves a complex enzyme pathway with 5 different and interacting parts 5. But as Leigh University biochemist Michael Behe has demonstrated, irreducible complexity can't evolve. Therefore, this bacterium can't be immune. It's as simple as that.
Another is the carefully-crafted excuse of "viral infection". Allegedly, antibiotics don't work on a virus. But this explanation also fails when you consider that viruses have never been proven to exist. The sole purpose of postulating them is to provide another excuse for the failure of antibiotics.
Occasionally, an infection that by the doctors' own admission should be susceptible to antibiotics remains unaffected, often resulting in a patient's death. The medical establishment usually chalks this up to a freak occurence, but this is just more evidence that they have no explanation! Their a-priori commitment to materialistic antibiotics blinds them to the truth and makes inventing wild excuses a necessity.
However, in using those rationalizations to account for the times when antibiotics don't work, yet using the times they allegedly do work as evidence, doctors remove antibiotic effectiveness from the realm of falsifiability and hence make it pseudoscience. With that mindset, any possible observation would be consistent with the effectiveness of antibiotics. Practitioners of ineffective alternative medicine generally use this approach, invoking "you didn't have enough faith", "the spirits aren't generous enough today" or other excuses when explaining the failure of their "treatments", but one is surprised to find this practice alive and well in the trusted mainstream.
In response, Scientists will cite double-blind studies that suggest antibiotics work better than a placebo, but there are a variety of demonologist explanations available for those studies. One is the hypothesis that demons desire to make people believe they're not responsible for disease, and thus let up the possession (resulting in relief from symptoms) whenever scientists are performing a study. This has the desired effect of making the populace believe antibiotics do work, in turn making them scoff at the reality that DEMONS DO EXIST and cause illness, removing the weapons of spiritual warfare and exorcism from their naive arsenal and letting the masterful spirits have free reign.
Another explanation is that God won't make the existence of spiritual forces obvious, as that removes the free will of materialists to believe. Consequently, the Lord will make sure to surreptitiously exorcise demons from a host if he or she is involved in a recorded study. This ensures that antibiotics appear to work on a limited basis, making the existence of demons only obvious to those knowledgeable in scriptural Truth™.
A number of other explanations are possible, thus, the effectiveness of antibiotics rests on the materialist interpretation of double-blind studies and other data, not the facts themselves. Demonologists don't deny facts, we just deny the anti-supernaturalistic interpretation of those facts.
Of course, a naturalist commitment to denying the existence of demons allows them to make unwarranted assumptions like "demons haven't interfered with the results of this study" or "angels didn't accelerate radiometric decay," whereas a demonologist has no such bias.
* Dr. Glenn is Associate Professor of Demonology at IDR. His doctorate thesis at Patriot University studied the negative effects possession has on Catholic scriptural interpretations.
Refuting Unfalsifiable Claims with Superior, Incompatible Explanations
So the next time you get asked for evidence that vampires or ghosts don't exist, you can just say "That's irrelevant when dealing with such intentionally unfalsifiable claims--all things considered, the best explanation is that both were invented by superstitious people when they were working with limited observations and just didn't know any better." Alternatively, say you received divine revelation that they're lying, and ask them to prove you didn't.
Just collected from the Post Office today:
Way of the Tiger 4 - Overlord (Berkley/Pacer uncut)
Way of the Tiger 4 - Warbringer (Berkley/Pacer uncut)
Way of the Tiger 6 - Inferno (Berkley/Pacer uncut)
The Avenger, Assassin and Usurper I have are from Knight Books (the same company as that which published Blood Sword). The UK covers are nicer, and the books include colour maps, but the text is the same, so. Berkely/Pacer is such a cheap company, but at least they didn't cut these books.
Grailquest 1 - The Castle of Darkness (Dell)
Grailquest 2 - The Den of Dragons (Dell)
Grailquest 4 - Voyage of Terror (Dell)
The one I have (#3, The Gateway of Doom) is from Armada books and is slightly bigger than the ones I just got.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Gamebook 10 - Lord of Doom
Feathered Friend
"My grandmother, 78 and widowed, is a kind, generous woman who has seen her share of difficult times. She is a bit offbeat, but extremely conservative and religious... She purchased a lively little parakeet and named him Pretty Baby.
Pretty has provided wonderful companionship and entertainment for my
grandmother, even learning to speak to her.
The problem is the kissing... or what I recently witnessed the kissing
leads to... Pretty Baby proceeded to screech more and more loudly, as he humped my grandmother's finger wildly. She also moved it back and forth for him."
Way of the Tiger 4 - Overlord (Berkley/Pacer uncut)
Way of the Tiger 4 - Warbringer (Berkley/Pacer uncut)
Way of the Tiger 6 - Inferno (Berkley/Pacer uncut)
The Avenger, Assassin and Usurper I have are from Knight Books (the same company as that which published Blood Sword). The UK covers are nicer, and the books include colour maps, but the text is the same, so. Berkely/Pacer is such a cheap company, but at least they didn't cut these books.
Grailquest 1 - The Castle of Darkness (Dell)
Grailquest 2 - The Den of Dragons (Dell)
Grailquest 4 - Voyage of Terror (Dell)
The one I have (#3, The Gateway of Doom) is from Armada books and is slightly bigger than the ones I just got.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Gamebook 10 - Lord of Doom
Feathered Friend
"My grandmother, 78 and widowed, is a kind, generous woman who has seen her share of difficult times. She is a bit offbeat, but extremely conservative and religious... She purchased a lively little parakeet and named him Pretty Baby.
Pretty has provided wonderful companionship and entertainment for my
grandmother, even learning to speak to her.
The problem is the kissing... or what I recently witnessed the kissing
leads to... Pretty Baby proceeded to screech more and more loudly, as he humped my grandmother's finger wildly. She also moved it back and forth for him."
Friday, March 19, 2004
Blog Survey: Summary of Findings
"Findings from an online survey conducted between January 14th and January 21st, 2004... 486 respondents answered questions about their blogging practices and their expectations of privacy and accountability for the entries they publish online:
- 36% of respondents have gotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogs
- 12% of respondents know other bloggers who have gotten in legal or professional problems because of things they wrote on their blogs
- when blogging about people they know personally: 66% of respondents almost never asked permission to do so; whereas, only 9% said they never blogged about people they knew personally.
- several participants explained that, if they have good things to say about their friends and family friends they will, for the most part, reveal their names; if, however, they post negative comments about a person, they will often conceal this person’s name
- the frequency with which a blogger writes highly personal things is positively and significantly correlated to how often they get in trouble because of their postings; (r = 0.3, p < 0.01); generally speaking, people have gotten in trouble both with friends and family as well as employers.
Bloggers still do not feel like they know their audience. For the most part, they have no control over who reads their postings. The study also shows that bloggers usually have some idea of their “core” audience (readers who post comments on the site) without really knowing who the rest of their readers are – in many cases, this latter group makes up the majority of their readers.
When confronted with questions of defamation and legal liability, respondents in this survey paint a conflicting picture. In general, they believe that they are liable for what they publish online. However, bloggers in this study were not concerned about the persistent nature of what they publish Рwhich tends to be a major aspect of liability Рnor did they believe someone would sue them for things they had written on their blogs... These results reveal a certain naivet̩ in how most bloggers think about persistence and how it operates in networked environments such as the net, where information is constantly cached. As blogs become more pervasive and their audiences grow, the ever-persistent nature of entries and the direct link to defamation and liability are likely to become even more of a burning issue.
Even though blogs have been hailed as the ultimate venue for personal expression; a world that is all about the self, it turns out that blogs are not necessarily that egocentric. In this survey, various respondents expressed the pressure that comes with having an audience. Even in its current elusive form, a blog’s audience can become such a powerful element of the writing action that it can affect what the blogger chooses to write about.
Are you surprised when someone you meet in person says they have read your blog?
1. extremely 20.78%
2. .. 24.49%
3. .. 13.37%
4. .. 7.61%
5. not at all 6.79%
6. it has never happened to me 26.95%"
Respondents from Singapore: 2. I wonder who the other one was.
"Findings from an online survey conducted between January 14th and January 21st, 2004... 486 respondents answered questions about their blogging practices and their expectations of privacy and accountability for the entries they publish online:
- 36% of respondents have gotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogs
- 12% of respondents know other bloggers who have gotten in legal or professional problems because of things they wrote on their blogs
- when blogging about people they know personally: 66% of respondents almost never asked permission to do so; whereas, only 9% said they never blogged about people they knew personally.
- several participants explained that, if they have good things to say about their friends and family friends they will, for the most part, reveal their names; if, however, they post negative comments about a person, they will often conceal this person’s name
- the frequency with which a blogger writes highly personal things is positively and significantly correlated to how often they get in trouble because of their postings; (r = 0.3, p < 0.01); generally speaking, people have gotten in trouble both with friends and family as well as employers.
Bloggers still do not feel like they know their audience. For the most part, they have no control over who reads their postings. The study also shows that bloggers usually have some idea of their “core” audience (readers who post comments on the site) without really knowing who the rest of their readers are – in many cases, this latter group makes up the majority of their readers.
When confronted with questions of defamation and legal liability, respondents in this survey paint a conflicting picture. In general, they believe that they are liable for what they publish online. However, bloggers in this study were not concerned about the persistent nature of what they publish Рwhich tends to be a major aspect of liability Рnor did they believe someone would sue them for things they had written on their blogs... These results reveal a certain naivet̩ in how most bloggers think about persistence and how it operates in networked environments such as the net, where information is constantly cached. As blogs become more pervasive and their audiences grow, the ever-persistent nature of entries and the direct link to defamation and liability are likely to become even more of a burning issue.
Even though blogs have been hailed as the ultimate venue for personal expression; a world that is all about the self, it turns out that blogs are not necessarily that egocentric. In this survey, various respondents expressed the pressure that comes with having an audience. Even in its current elusive form, a blog’s audience can become such a powerful element of the writing action that it can affect what the blogger chooses to write about.
Are you surprised when someone you meet in person says they have read your blog?
1. extremely 20.78%
2. .. 24.49%
3. .. 13.37%
4. .. 7.61%
5. not at all 6.79%
6. it has never happened to me 26.95%"
Respondents from Singapore: 2. I wonder who the other one was.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
The administrative Prime Minister - Review of Goh Chok Tong's years as Prime Minister.
"Paul Krugman's other message was that this Asian values thing, this Asian model of governance (authoritarianism is good for economic growth) was bunkum. The "Asian miracle" was no more than classic economics: you put so much in, you get so much out. Now this message can't be right, we said. Of course, there was something morally superior about Asian values, and of course the discipline from tough unquestioned authority produces stunning economic results, we assured ourselves. And what's this business of efficiency gains? We had all manner of international comparison data to show we were at or near the top of various tables. If, by 'efficiency', Krugman meant that our workers needed to think, then he was being subversive. Our brilliant rulers will do the thinking. The lowly workers need only work hard."
No time to vote – I'm having sex! - " A woman claimed she was having group sex with 30 men in Nimbin, NSW, and could not get to a polling booth in Queensland on time to vote. That is the all-time best excuse, according to electoral commissioner Bob Longland... ""You could have walked across Moreton Bay for all the broken-down fishing boats"
Maybe it was 30 fishermen...
DEFEND YOURSELF WITH THE MOSQUITO REPELLER WATCH - "Scientists discovered that most mosquitoes that feed on human blood are pregnant females. Well if there is one thing a pregnant mosquito doesn't like, it's a male. In fact they dislike males so much that they fly as far away as possible. The Mosquito Repeller Travel Alarm Clock and the Wrist Watch were designed with advanced harmonics circuitry to emulate and emit the ultra sonic high frequency of an approaching male."
This will be great outfield
Riyadh enforcing ban on sale of camera phones - "Newspapers here recently reported that a number of girls have been expelled from schools and universities for using the phones to photograph their colleagues. The pictures are in some cases distributed over the Internet, the reports said."
*Gasp* Indecent! Immoral! They must be killed for the sake of their and their families' honour!
Brawl at Malaysia's National Service camp, 4 trainees hurt - "Four trainees from the National Service Programme camp in Similanjau received outpatient treatment at Bintulu Hospital after they were allegedly beaten up by three medical staff from their camp."
Si Mi Lan Jiau?!
USB Swiss Army Knife
The Museum Of Bad Art
KABOOM! The Suicide Bomber Game
"Paul Krugman's other message was that this Asian values thing, this Asian model of governance (authoritarianism is good for economic growth) was bunkum. The "Asian miracle" was no more than classic economics: you put so much in, you get so much out. Now this message can't be right, we said. Of course, there was something morally superior about Asian values, and of course the discipline from tough unquestioned authority produces stunning economic results, we assured ourselves. And what's this business of efficiency gains? We had all manner of international comparison data to show we were at or near the top of various tables. If, by 'efficiency', Krugman meant that our workers needed to think, then he was being subversive. Our brilliant rulers will do the thinking. The lowly workers need only work hard."
No time to vote – I'm having sex! - " A woman claimed she was having group sex with 30 men in Nimbin, NSW, and could not get to a polling booth in Queensland on time to vote. That is the all-time best excuse, according to electoral commissioner Bob Longland... ""You could have walked across Moreton Bay for all the broken-down fishing boats"
Maybe it was 30 fishermen...
DEFEND YOURSELF WITH THE MOSQUITO REPELLER WATCH - "Scientists discovered that most mosquitoes that feed on human blood are pregnant females. Well if there is one thing a pregnant mosquito doesn't like, it's a male. In fact they dislike males so much that they fly as far away as possible. The Mosquito Repeller Travel Alarm Clock and the Wrist Watch were designed with advanced harmonics circuitry to emulate and emit the ultra sonic high frequency of an approaching male."
This will be great outfield
Riyadh enforcing ban on sale of camera phones - "Newspapers here recently reported that a number of girls have been expelled from schools and universities for using the phones to photograph their colleagues. The pictures are in some cases distributed over the Internet, the reports said."
*Gasp* Indecent! Immoral! They must be killed for the sake of their and their families' honour!
Brawl at Malaysia's National Service camp, 4 trainees hurt - "Four trainees from the National Service Programme camp in Similanjau received outpatient treatment at Bintulu Hospital after they were allegedly beaten up by three medical staff from their camp."
Si Mi Lan Jiau?!
USB Swiss Army Knife
The Museum Of Bad Art
KABOOM! The Suicide Bomber Game
Manhunt on for armed robbers on Tekong
(click on thumbnail for a full view)
Mafia 'outsourcing' killers
>From correspondents in Rome
March 9, 2004
AMERICAN Mafia families are recruiting their killers in Sicily because Americans are seen as unreliable and indiscreet, according to authorities in Rome and Washington.
US Mafia bosses, such as the late John Gotti are recruiting new killers in Sicily after a perception American hitmen are 'unreliable'
Mob families in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia needed new blood after being decimated by turncoats and arrests, said Roberto Centaro, the head of the Italian parliament's anti-Mafia commission.
"Soldiers from Sicily are considered less likely to end up collaborating with police."
Dozens of Sicilians aged between 20 and 30 are believed to have been sent from towns in the Palermo area to the US to help shore up the ranks of clans such as the DeCavalcante family in New Jersey and the Bonanno family in New York.
Mr Centaro has just spent a week in New York discussing organised crime with the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the US protection program for Mafia turncoats and the Justice Department.
Investigators in the US told him that using telephone taps they had heard new arrivals discussing attacks on American investigators and judges.
Mafiosi in Sicily and the US are not only linked by blood but also co-operate in drug-trafficking and occasionally supply each other with personnel when an unknown face is needed for a job.
In recent years American crime families have sent "soldiers" to Sicily to learn the Mafia code of honour.
Experts see the decline of the code as one of the main reasons why American police have been able to make inroads into their activities in recent years.
The Red Lobster "Restaurant"
"Scallops = Abomination
Mussels = Abomination
Clams = Abomination
Shrimp = Abomination
Lobster = Abomination
The Red Lobster Seafood company are the ones responsible for this outbreak in ignorance and lies that finless/scaleless water creatures are "okay" to eat. Just look at how these pagans are advertising to our children!! Look how anti-family The Red Lobster is!
LOBSTERS = EVIL"
Heh.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
More bang for the military buck
In the final quarter of last year, savings from suggestions helped to save $62.7 million. This means that for every $1 awarded to servicemen for their suggestions, $144 was saved.
What they don't tell you: Dubious calculations and criteria for cost savings are used, and because servicemen are forced to come up with "cost saving" plans (and have a quota, to boot), ideas of questionable veracity are accepted. Administrative instructions for all activities are supposed to be printed, and for routine activities, each set of admin instructions is 98% identical to that of the previous time's.
Items such as fighter aircraft and missile gunboats are upgraded regularly and replaced only when they are no longer cost-effective to deploy, which means they can have a longer lifespan.
What they don't tell you: We use what is essentially 40 year old technology in many areas. Look how long it took for them to retire the "Super" Skyhawk. And the SM-1 looks positively pathetic alongside a real battle tank.
Outsourcing
Tests to identify those with flying potential are now done in Australia. With a commercial arrangement in place, there is no need to own and maintain a fleet of trainer aircraft for the tests. This saves $7 million a year.
Maintenance of the C-130 aircraft deployed to help in operations in Iraq was farmed out to ST Aerospace.
What they don't tell you: We could probably outsource half of the SAF's combat operations and it'd be cheaper and more effective.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
It's the people who count in national defence
He focused on three areas: improving training safety standards, better compensation for full-time national servicemen and retirement schemes. At the heart of these measures is the belief that the armed forces must take care of its people.
3 words: "Respect. Care. Dignity". Or rather, the absence of them. Nuff said.
In other words, the SAF must do more with the limited manpower it has. The good news is it already has a headstart - with 'well-educated soldiers who can easily master the technologically sophisticated weapons and equipment'. The armed forces must therefore make every soldier count. Ultimately, however, the sum of a nation's defence is not merely the strength of its military. So women, who are not conscripted, should not feel left out.
Riiiight. On the one hand, the SAF has "limited" (ie not enough) manpower and so must "make every soldier count". On the other, we have effective soldiers, and manpower is not everything. How disingeneous. They're trying to have it both ways.
Although Minister of State (Defence) Cedric Foo rejected a call led by several women MPs to also make national service compulsory for women, he was careful not to play down their role. Indeed, women here already contribute to nation-building and total defence through the workforce. As he put it, they are also 'critical pillars in support of civil, psychological and social defence'.
So men do not "contribute to nation-building and total defence through the workforce"? I believe the workforce participation rate for males is higher than females, and since they earn more, they presumably earn more. Thus, they contribute more to nation-building and total defence through the workforce than women. Is he also suggesting that men do not have important contributions in the realms of civil, psychological and social defence, or that women are useless with regards to military defence? What a sexist view (both ways)!
The experience of the British and Americans during World War II illustrates this principle well. While the men were at the front line, the women were in the factories manning machines and churning out ammunition and even aircraft for troops who were somewhere 'over there'. Even though they had different roles to play, women were no less important than men in the war effort.
So men are only good for the front line and women are only good for manning machines and producing goods. How edifying.
When it comes to national defence, including guarding against the terrorist threat, it is not the sophistication of the technology that counts but how everyone chips in.
Unfortunately, females who think they can chip in more effectively through military defence are denied that chance (signing on does not count) and males who feel they are more effective buttressing other pillars of total defence than military and try to act upon that are thrown into DB.
NS for women? Yet another nay
On the point that women could be trained in nursing during NS to cope better in crises, at home or even in hospital, he said that a proper nursing course would take at least three years. This is longer than the two-and-a-half-year NS period.
Odd, the Combat Medic course takes but 3 months and trains potential medics in more than civilian nursing skills.
As for the argument that conscripting women could solve the Singapore Armed Forces' manpower shortage, he said the shortage was a problem that could be managed by making greater use of technology and outsourcing.
Conveniently, technology and outsourcing are sufficient to ensure we don't enslave women as well, but not powerful enough to stop us from enslaving every person born with male genitalia.
On NS enabling greater social cohesion among men and women, he said its primary purpose is the defence of Singapore.
I hope this means they'll use the "social cohesion" argument for slavery less often in the future. At the very least, enslaving women as well would increase the fertility rate.
'We have to examine whether the objectives of social cohesion and nation-building can best be met by means other than compulsory NS for women,' he said, adding that it would remove them from the workforce at significant cost to Singapore and to themselves.
How about, "'We have to examine whether the objective of national defence (and oft-mentioned sub-objectives of social cohesion, nation-building and social engineering) can best be met by means other than compulsory NS for all men without an option for alternative service, especially for conscientious objectors,' he said, adding that it would remove them from the workforce and the real world and cause them misery, at significant cost to Singapore and to themselves."
In the final quarter of last year, savings from suggestions helped to save $62.7 million. This means that for every $1 awarded to servicemen for their suggestions, $144 was saved.
What they don't tell you: Dubious calculations and criteria for cost savings are used, and because servicemen are forced to come up with "cost saving" plans (and have a quota, to boot), ideas of questionable veracity are accepted. Administrative instructions for all activities are supposed to be printed, and for routine activities, each set of admin instructions is 98% identical to that of the previous time's.
Items such as fighter aircraft and missile gunboats are upgraded regularly and replaced only when they are no longer cost-effective to deploy, which means they can have a longer lifespan.
What they don't tell you: We use what is essentially 40 year old technology in many areas. Look how long it took for them to retire the "Super" Skyhawk. And the SM-1 looks positively pathetic alongside a real battle tank.
Outsourcing
Tests to identify those with flying potential are now done in Australia. With a commercial arrangement in place, there is no need to own and maintain a fleet of trainer aircraft for the tests. This saves $7 million a year.
Maintenance of the C-130 aircraft deployed to help in operations in Iraq was farmed out to ST Aerospace.
What they don't tell you: We could probably outsource half of the SAF's combat operations and it'd be cheaper and more effective.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
It's the people who count in national defence
He focused on three areas: improving training safety standards, better compensation for full-time national servicemen and retirement schemes. At the heart of these measures is the belief that the armed forces must take care of its people.
3 words: "Respect. Care. Dignity". Or rather, the absence of them. Nuff said.
In other words, the SAF must do more with the limited manpower it has. The good news is it already has a headstart - with 'well-educated soldiers who can easily master the technologically sophisticated weapons and equipment'. The armed forces must therefore make every soldier count. Ultimately, however, the sum of a nation's defence is not merely the strength of its military. So women, who are not conscripted, should not feel left out.
Riiiight. On the one hand, the SAF has "limited" (ie not enough) manpower and so must "make every soldier count". On the other, we have effective soldiers, and manpower is not everything. How disingeneous. They're trying to have it both ways.
Although Minister of State (Defence) Cedric Foo rejected a call led by several women MPs to also make national service compulsory for women, he was careful not to play down their role. Indeed, women here already contribute to nation-building and total defence through the workforce. As he put it, they are also 'critical pillars in support of civil, psychological and social defence'.
So men do not "contribute to nation-building and total defence through the workforce"? I believe the workforce participation rate for males is higher than females, and since they earn more, they presumably earn more. Thus, they contribute more to nation-building and total defence through the workforce than women. Is he also suggesting that men do not have important contributions in the realms of civil, psychological and social defence, or that women are useless with regards to military defence? What a sexist view (both ways)!
The experience of the British and Americans during World War II illustrates this principle well. While the men were at the front line, the women were in the factories manning machines and churning out ammunition and even aircraft for troops who were somewhere 'over there'. Even though they had different roles to play, women were no less important than men in the war effort.
So men are only good for the front line and women are only good for manning machines and producing goods. How edifying.
When it comes to national defence, including guarding against the terrorist threat, it is not the sophistication of the technology that counts but how everyone chips in.
Unfortunately, females who think they can chip in more effectively through military defence are denied that chance (signing on does not count) and males who feel they are more effective buttressing other pillars of total defence than military and try to act upon that are thrown into DB.
NS for women? Yet another nay
On the point that women could be trained in nursing during NS to cope better in crises, at home or even in hospital, he said that a proper nursing course would take at least three years. This is longer than the two-and-a-half-year NS period.
Odd, the Combat Medic course takes but 3 months and trains potential medics in more than civilian nursing skills.
As for the argument that conscripting women could solve the Singapore Armed Forces' manpower shortage, he said the shortage was a problem that could be managed by making greater use of technology and outsourcing.
Conveniently, technology and outsourcing are sufficient to ensure we don't enslave women as well, but not powerful enough to stop us from enslaving every person born with male genitalia.
On NS enabling greater social cohesion among men and women, he said its primary purpose is the defence of Singapore.
I hope this means they'll use the "social cohesion" argument for slavery less often in the future. At the very least, enslaving women as well would increase the fertility rate.
'We have to examine whether the objectives of social cohesion and nation-building can best be met by means other than compulsory NS for women,' he said, adding that it would remove them from the workforce at significant cost to Singapore and to themselves.
How about, "'We have to examine whether the objective of national defence (and oft-mentioned sub-objectives of social cohesion, nation-building and social engineering) can best be met by means other than compulsory NS for all men without an option for alternative service, especially for conscientious objectors,' he said, adding that it would remove them from the workforce and the real world and cause them misery, at significant cost to Singapore and to themselves."
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Phrase of the Day: "Scribo, ergo sum"
All the Singaporean file sharers used to be on Kazaa. Simple searches could bring up mp3s of pieces by Singaporean choirs and bands. And also upskirt shots of RJC girls, maybe some of them taken by one guy whose indiscretions we heard about during assembly one day in J1.
Now I don't know where they've all flocked to.
I don't know whether I am more aghast by the fact that this is on sale or the fact that I somehow found it.
Yahoo Auctions. Where you can sell almost anything to almost anyone.
All the Singaporean file sharers used to be on Kazaa. Simple searches could bring up mp3s of pieces by Singaporean choirs and bands. And also upskirt shots of RJC girls, maybe some of them taken by one guy whose indiscretions we heard about during assembly one day in J1.
Now I don't know where they've all flocked to.
I don't know whether I am more aghast by the fact that this is on sale or the fact that I somehow found it.
Yahoo Auctions. Where you can sell almost anything to almost anyone.
Some people were trying to persuade me to have my lunch at the canteen with them. I explained that high authorities had seen fit to ban me from that sacred paradise, and as a good soldier, it was my duty to follow orders given from on high regardless of provenance, motive or morality. Okay, maybe I didn't *quite* use those words, but that was the gist of it. Anyhow, I then proceeded to explain that I would only desire the services of the canteen on 2 occasions: If the cookhouse food was bad or inedible, or if I was hungry in between meals. On hearing this, the reservist who was walking in front of us turned around and asked if I was "active" (ie a full-time slave who hadn't gotten his parole yet) - maybe I have the look, mannerisms, mien and demeanor or a reservist already. When I replied in the affirmative, he muttered vague words about the food now being good, and my not knowing how bad they had it in the past. To people who say that, as well as those who say that slavery nowadays is not such an onerous and demeaning punishment as in the past, and that hence, we shouldn't complain, I used to give the limb dismemberment analogy: Being a slave last time was like having 2 arms hacked off, and being a slave now is like having 1 arm amputated. Would I rather lose 1 arm than 2? Definitely. But that does not mean I liked being deprived of any appendages, or that I shouldn't complain about it. For variety, I now offer this new analogy:
"I think that prisoners on death row (at least in the USA) don't know how lucky they are. In the past, or in other countries people were, variously, stoned to death - a method of execution both inhumane and painful, put in the electric chair - leaving the body charred, torn to bits by mobs, been torn apart by having each limb tied to a horse and having people ride the horses in different directions, had their heads lobbed off with swords, or placed blindfolded before a firing squad. Some were tried by kangaroo courts, or subjected to vigilante justice. Nowadays, you get a delicious last meal, years of reprieve before the execution, professional lawyers defending you and last rites performed by the prison chaplain. With lethal injection, you die quickly, painlessly, bodily intact and with dignity. You don't know how lucky you are! You have no right at all to complain!"
Some people (eg prison guards and SAF commanders) like to justify their sadism and inflicting of torment on other people by saying that they are doing their job, and the implication is that they don't really want to do what they do. Nazis working in the Concentration Camps tried to use that excuse after the end of the war when they were held to account, but Nuremburg did not buy it, because it was obvious that they weren't just going through the motions.
One of the latest army ads urges people to join the army to "get the respect you deserve". With this ad, the SAF has possibly reached a nadir. As everyone knows, you cannot mandate respect: you must earn it. If you try to mandate it, what you get is a pretence of respect, but it is hollow and meaningless. Those who try to force people to respect them earn nothing except richly deserved contempt. The oft-repeated mantra: "Rank is worn. Respect is earned" acknowledges this, though it leaves unsaid how few people actually earn even half of the respect that their rank supposedly entitles them to, so I do not know what the person who conceptualised this ad was trying to do or say. I forsee that those who are motivated by this ad to sign on will be those with ego problems or with poor self-esteem and they will go on to bully their subordinates in the hope of getting the respect they "deserve", so perpetuating a hallowed SAF tradition and the circle of bullying and contempt. Then again, what's new?
For heliborne training, we had to endure 2 almost-identical lectures and waste time rehearsing with a rundown mock-up of a helicopter. There was also rehearsing with chairs on the parade square (practically identical to rehearsing with the mock-up) but luckily we missed that. I wonder if those who make us do these repetitive, pointless activities realise that we have more important things to do.
It is disheartening that enlistees get shouted at, and even get punished, for mistakes that commanders, especially senior commanders are permitted to make, and of a greater magnitude even. So much for bearing responsibility commensurate to your rank.
My unit vision says that "Every individual matters". I always thought that this was rubbish, but have since realised that it is in fact true - every individual matters of the Best Unit Competition (BUC) for ever failure can pull the unit down drastically.
My unit's latest Routine Orders say that "Servicemen who are caught with contraband items will be summary trailed". I wonder how they can spare the manpower to follow offenders around to make sure that they don't breach security with their contraband. Anything is possible in the name of security, I guess.
The SAF Counselling Centre's motto is "Respect. Care. Dignity." The implication is that elsewhere in the SAF, people don't get either. How true :)
The SAR21 is heavier than the M16, and slightly heavier to use, but for all its faults, it has fewer holes and crevices where dirt can be found during pedantic inspections. It also comes with a handy multi-purpose tool to clean what odd and hard-to-clean locations remain.
The people in Pussy company love to take pictures of them when they're training - maybe they'll burn a commemorative CD for the trainees for a POP souvenir. I notice, however, that they never take pictures of them when they're being punished or being screwed. Bah.
After hearing tales of how numerous people were chased or barked at by the stray dogs in camp, I decided to talk to my CSM about them. It emerged that there actually are dog catchers that we can call down, and that he used to call them down before his overseas posting. Perhaps that is why the number of dogs had increased so much in the last half a year or so - he hadn't been around to call the dog catchers. So now we just have to wait and hopefully our dog troubles will be over soon.
I was at a vending machine and most of the drinks were sold out. One of the few remaining available drinks was "Fanta Grape". My curiosity was piqued, for I've never seen Fanta Grape being sold in Singapore, so against my better judgment I bought 2 cans of the "Fanta Grape", one for me and one for a driver. Sure enough, it wasn't Fanta but "Cheers", a Malaysian drinks brand with a proven record of making horrible tasting and vile drinks. Having spent 80 cents, we resigned ourselves to our fate and drank. After all, the can said "New - improved!", so hopefully it wouldn't taste as bad as the previous time. Unfortunately, we found that it wasn't much better. One person said it was too sweet, and another said the smell reminded him of chewing gum. I suppose that the moral of the story is: Malaysians can't make good canned drinks, since all the drinks whose recipes come from Malaysia taste lousy.
I am saddened. After more than 2 years, I have been struck with footrot, albeit a minor case of it. I think it's because of the day I walked home in the rain, for 2 days later the spots showed up. Or maybe I didn't dry my boots properly and powder after the River Crossing day.
Vincent was asking me if I knew of a blog competition. I said I knew of one, and when he said a friend of his was taking part in it, I said that he'd surely lose. He said that it was a she and that she'd win, and when I remembered that he was from Li Hua Secondary School, I corrected myself and agreed that she would win.
Comment from someone: "I can't believe those guys are still trying to make u keep fit by banning u from the canteen.. they never learn do they. I mean, the end result is all the same, so there's not really much point in trying." Oh well. That's the SAF for you.
Quotes:
[On IQA requirements] 'Once Obese Always Obese'. What a stupid concept.
[Patient in sickbay] Hello, medic. [Me: Yes?] Mei3 ci4 wo3 kan4 dao4 ni3, wo3 jiu4 hen3 kai1 xin1 [Translation: Everytime I see you, I feel happy]
tomorrow preparing for lord march (preparing for a route march the next day)
they want to do some reveration works (renovation)
leave it day first (there)
Those people going Bernai trip (to Brunei)
My policy on area cleaning: the area cleaning can never do finish one lah, trust me (be finished)
[On singing silly army songs] Dang1 bing1 shi4 bao3 hu4 guo2 jia1, bu4 shi4 chang4 ge1 de4 [Translation: Being a soldier is not about singing songs, but about protecting the country]
Servicemen who are caught with contraband items will be summary trailed (summarily trialed)
You should add some sex to your blog because it's too full of shit.
Wah, nice sunglass. SOC pass or fail? [Someone: Fail] Failthen take off sunglass! (sunglasses)
[Ed: He Who Must Not Be Named suggests 100 Plus "as a beverage of reasonable drinkability", though it doesn't "taste of anything really". I didn't know it was a Malaysian recipe, but I don't like it anyway. I must agree, though, that Kickapoo is goot.
Many Singaporean drinks suck, but we have Yeo's and Marigold, so.
He also says that "fanta grape is still available in singapore. i've recently seen it sold at Mos Burgers, and the SJI canteen stocked it 2 years ago (no idea
about now)". Hmm. - 18th March]
"I think that prisoners on death row (at least in the USA) don't know how lucky they are. In the past, or in other countries people were, variously, stoned to death - a method of execution both inhumane and painful, put in the electric chair - leaving the body charred, torn to bits by mobs, been torn apart by having each limb tied to a horse and having people ride the horses in different directions, had their heads lobbed off with swords, or placed blindfolded before a firing squad. Some were tried by kangaroo courts, or subjected to vigilante justice. Nowadays, you get a delicious last meal, years of reprieve before the execution, professional lawyers defending you and last rites performed by the prison chaplain. With lethal injection, you die quickly, painlessly, bodily intact and with dignity. You don't know how lucky you are! You have no right at all to complain!"
Some people (eg prison guards and SAF commanders) like to justify their sadism and inflicting of torment on other people by saying that they are doing their job, and the implication is that they don't really want to do what they do. Nazis working in the Concentration Camps tried to use that excuse after the end of the war when they were held to account, but Nuremburg did not buy it, because it was obvious that they weren't just going through the motions.
One of the latest army ads urges people to join the army to "get the respect you deserve". With this ad, the SAF has possibly reached a nadir. As everyone knows, you cannot mandate respect: you must earn it. If you try to mandate it, what you get is a pretence of respect, but it is hollow and meaningless. Those who try to force people to respect them earn nothing except richly deserved contempt. The oft-repeated mantra: "Rank is worn. Respect is earned" acknowledges this, though it leaves unsaid how few people actually earn even half of the respect that their rank supposedly entitles them to, so I do not know what the person who conceptualised this ad was trying to do or say. I forsee that those who are motivated by this ad to sign on will be those with ego problems or with poor self-esteem and they will go on to bully their subordinates in the hope of getting the respect they "deserve", so perpetuating a hallowed SAF tradition and the circle of bullying and contempt. Then again, what's new?
For heliborne training, we had to endure 2 almost-identical lectures and waste time rehearsing with a rundown mock-up of a helicopter. There was also rehearsing with chairs on the parade square (practically identical to rehearsing with the mock-up) but luckily we missed that. I wonder if those who make us do these repetitive, pointless activities realise that we have more important things to do.
It is disheartening that enlistees get shouted at, and even get punished, for mistakes that commanders, especially senior commanders are permitted to make, and of a greater magnitude even. So much for bearing responsibility commensurate to your rank.
My unit vision says that "Every individual matters". I always thought that this was rubbish, but have since realised that it is in fact true - every individual matters of the Best Unit Competition (BUC) for ever failure can pull the unit down drastically.
My unit's latest Routine Orders say that "Servicemen who are caught with contraband items will be summary trailed". I wonder how they can spare the manpower to follow offenders around to make sure that they don't breach security with their contraband. Anything is possible in the name of security, I guess.
The SAF Counselling Centre's motto is "Respect. Care. Dignity." The implication is that elsewhere in the SAF, people don't get either. How true :)
The SAR21 is heavier than the M16, and slightly heavier to use, but for all its faults, it has fewer holes and crevices where dirt can be found during pedantic inspections. It also comes with a handy multi-purpose tool to clean what odd and hard-to-clean locations remain.
The people in Pussy company love to take pictures of them when they're training - maybe they'll burn a commemorative CD for the trainees for a POP souvenir. I notice, however, that they never take pictures of them when they're being punished or being screwed. Bah.
After hearing tales of how numerous people were chased or barked at by the stray dogs in camp, I decided to talk to my CSM about them. It emerged that there actually are dog catchers that we can call down, and that he used to call them down before his overseas posting. Perhaps that is why the number of dogs had increased so much in the last half a year or so - he hadn't been around to call the dog catchers. So now we just have to wait and hopefully our dog troubles will be over soon.
I was at a vending machine and most of the drinks were sold out. One of the few remaining available drinks was "Fanta Grape". My curiosity was piqued, for I've never seen Fanta Grape being sold in Singapore, so against my better judgment I bought 2 cans of the "Fanta Grape", one for me and one for a driver. Sure enough, it wasn't Fanta but "Cheers", a Malaysian drinks brand with a proven record of making horrible tasting and vile drinks. Having spent 80 cents, we resigned ourselves to our fate and drank. After all, the can said "New - improved!", so hopefully it wouldn't taste as bad as the previous time. Unfortunately, we found that it wasn't much better. One person said it was too sweet, and another said the smell reminded him of chewing gum. I suppose that the moral of the story is: Malaysians can't make good canned drinks, since all the drinks whose recipes come from Malaysia taste lousy.
I am saddened. After more than 2 years, I have been struck with footrot, albeit a minor case of it. I think it's because of the day I walked home in the rain, for 2 days later the spots showed up. Or maybe I didn't dry my boots properly and powder after the River Crossing day.
Vincent was asking me if I knew of a blog competition. I said I knew of one, and when he said a friend of his was taking part in it, I said that he'd surely lose. He said that it was a she and that she'd win, and when I remembered that he was from Li Hua Secondary School, I corrected myself and agreed that she would win.
Comment from someone: "I can't believe those guys are still trying to make u keep fit by banning u from the canteen.. they never learn do they. I mean, the end result is all the same, so there's not really much point in trying." Oh well. That's the SAF for you.
Quotes:
[On IQA requirements] 'Once Obese Always Obese'. What a stupid concept.
[Patient in sickbay] Hello, medic. [Me: Yes?] Mei3 ci4 wo3 kan4 dao4 ni3, wo3 jiu4 hen3 kai1 xin1 [Translation: Everytime I see you, I feel happy]
tomorrow preparing for lord march (preparing for a route march the next day)
they want to do some reveration works (renovation)
leave it day first (there)
Those people going Bernai trip (to Brunei)
My policy on area cleaning: the area cleaning can never do finish one lah, trust me (be finished)
[On singing silly army songs] Dang1 bing1 shi4 bao3 hu4 guo2 jia1, bu4 shi4 chang4 ge1 de4 [Translation: Being a soldier is not about singing songs, but about protecting the country]
Servicemen who are caught with contraband items will be summary trailed (summarily trialed)
You should add some sex to your blog because it's too full of shit.
Wah, nice sunglass. SOC pass or fail? [Someone: Fail] Failthen take off sunglass! (sunglasses)
[Ed: He Who Must Not Be Named suggests 100 Plus "as a beverage of reasonable drinkability", though it doesn't "taste of anything really". I didn't know it was a Malaysian recipe, but I don't like it anyway. I must agree, though, that Kickapoo is goot.
Many Singaporean drinks suck, but we have Yeo's and Marigold, so.
He also says that "fanta grape is still available in singapore. i've recently seen it sold at Mos Burgers, and the SJI canteen stocked it 2 years ago (no idea
about now)". Hmm. - 18th March]
The "Hainanese" Pork Chop I had for dinner was laced with enough star anise to fell an elephant. I don't think it's even -supposed- to have any star anise. Ugh, I feel sick now.
"The Freaky Brothers" - Courtesy of BitchBert
McDonald's salad fattier than burgers
Funny Pics for Online Use
"How many times have you been brought to the point of cringing when someone on your favorite, normally sane forum posts mindless drivel like "I believe in aliens because people say they were abducted", "the moon landing was faked" or similar? Well, you don't have to take it lying down!
Even though any semblance of actual dialogue is pretty much useless in such cases, where one side has erected a 50 foot wall of concrete around their heads, making fun of the intellectually disabled can still be entertaining. The only important thing to remember is not to overdo it and cease immediately, in the name of fairness, if they somehow begin thinking."
ACJC Counterstrike Map:
"Q: In the preview releases, you modeled two ACJC girls. Tell us more.
AY: The models were more of a technical challenge. I wanted to try my hands at human figure modeling. The biggest problem with doing the model is the skirt. Basically when she walks, you have a skirt and you need to animate the limbs. In other models, the skirt would be attached to the legs. In this case, the skirt had to move independently from the legs. Doing that was challenging. Also, and we had to cover the underneath of the models. (laughs)
Q: Why model a girl rather than a guy, and why do they look like girls straight out from some Japanese anime?
AY: If we wanted a guy, we could easily use the skin of the standard Half-Life model and just modify it. I based it on two existing models that I downloaded, one for the figure and another for the texture. Since they had significantly different structures, I compared the two and slowly modeled them until I had something unique. Since the face of the anime model looked better, I just mapped it on."
Bah.
"The Freaky Brothers" - Courtesy of BitchBert
McDonald's salad fattier than burgers
Funny Pics for Online Use
"How many times have you been brought to the point of cringing when someone on your favorite, normally sane forum posts mindless drivel like "I believe in aliens because people say they were abducted", "the moon landing was faked" or similar? Well, you don't have to take it lying down!
Even though any semblance of actual dialogue is pretty much useless in such cases, where one side has erected a 50 foot wall of concrete around their heads, making fun of the intellectually disabled can still be entertaining. The only important thing to remember is not to overdo it and cease immediately, in the name of fairness, if they somehow begin thinking."
ACJC Counterstrike Map:
"Q: In the preview releases, you modeled two ACJC girls. Tell us more.
AY: The models were more of a technical challenge. I wanted to try my hands at human figure modeling. The biggest problem with doing the model is the skirt. Basically when she walks, you have a skirt and you need to animate the limbs. In other models, the skirt would be attached to the legs. In this case, the skirt had to move independently from the legs. Doing that was challenging. Also, and we had to cover the underneath of the models. (laughs)
Q: Why model a girl rather than a guy, and why do they look like girls straight out from some Japanese anime?
AY: If we wanted a guy, we could easily use the skin of the standard Half-Life model and just modify it. I based it on two existing models that I downloaded, one for the figure and another for the texture. Since they had significantly different structures, I compared the two and slowly modeled them until I had something unique. Since the face of the anime model looked better, I just mapped it on."
Bah.