My US Trip (2005) - Part 3 of X

Day 3 - Gettysburg-Lancaster-Ephrata-Alexandria

Previously featured:
Part 1: Flight to Newark, Day 1 - Newark-Princeton
Part 2: Day 2 - Princeton-Philadelphia

The morning opened with a Gettysburg battlefield tour, with the tour guide sitting in the car. They had memorials everywhere (though understandably very few to Confederate soldiers or generals), and even one to General John "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-" Sedgwick.


Monuments


Guide and cannon


Eternal flame peace memorial

Unfortunately, the weather from that morning on - for most of our trip - was bad. It seemed to be drizzling more than half the time, which made the otherwise tolerably cool late spring-early summer weather chilly. Indeed, the weather was unseasonably bad for that time of year - more characteristic of London than of the Northeastern United States.


Cannon


The rare monument to Confederate soldiers


The engineer who saved the day

As usual, my sister was making my brother-in-law and I do everything, refusing to do almost anything herself but sit down and make snide remarks. Oh, and drag us on innumerable shopping trips. At least in the UK she cooked (and there was no shopping), but in the US there was no need for that, food being abundant, good and (relatively) cheap. After relentless chiding on my part she was slightly more helpful, but only just.

The next destination was Lancaster and the Pennsylvania Dutch Country which I suspect most people visit so they can laugh at the Amish. My brother-in-law and I were wondering whether we could take photographs of the Amish. Supposedly you can't do so, yet many photos exist, many in printed materials promulgating understanding of the Amish where the publishers (presumably) respect the sensitivities of their subjects. Perhaps it's a devious scheme by merchants of Amish material and memorabilia to increase sales. Or maybe the photographs are taken of the New Order Amish. In any case, as I told him, we could take photographs from the car and drive off - they wouldn't be able to catch us in their carriages anyway.

However, before that we stopped in a Wal-Mart. The experience of walking in and seeing the sheer variety, quantity and price (some things are cheaper than in Singapore) of productson sale is indescribable. As my brother-in-law commented, 'This is why America rules the world'. In there I got an insulated ice keg from which I am now drinking; it has a cloth sheath so condensation doesn't dirty the place. We used it to store ice for cold drinks (though ice/water kept spilling onto/under my crotch when I was performing my bartending duties).

On the way out of Lancaster to Amish country proper, we passed the Lancaster County Prison, whose front looked like a medieval castle. Wth. A picture of its facade may be found on the official website Other photos are also available.

We stopped for lunch at the "Good 'N Plenty" Restaurant before looking for the Amish, since it was quite late in the day. The food was great (and came in big portions, as did all food outside of New York), especially the chow-chow, coleslaw, fried chicken and buttered noodles. There were 5 desserts to sample: I don't know why they had Jello with applesauce, and I found the flavour of the shoofly pie too intense (I'm not a molasses person and besides, it curiously reminded me of nian gao) but the rice pudding and homemade ice cream was good.


Horse and carriage at shop

We drove around but didn't find many Amish, only the odd horse carriage travelling on the road and the odd house with clothes drying on a clothes line. We did however find a shop with Amish products on sale; although it was powered by electricity (the lights and the fridge), there was an Amish man at the counter (aren't they forbidden to engage in mercantilism as well?) New Order Amish, it must be, though that didn't keep the toilet smelling of horse dung.


Someone doesn't like my brother-in-law


Amish boy


Amish girl

After that we went to the Ephrata Cloister - the first Protestant cloister that I'd heard of. And then we went to look for more Amish. However, they'd disappeared, perhaps hurrying to get indoors before sunset effectively plunged their world into darkness.


Flower at Ephrata


Ephrata


Ephrata view from fence

We got into another jam on the 222, where a long stretch was closed for roadworks. This time, we didn't see *anyone* working on the road at all. But at least the traffic flow was more like shark's fin soup than the resin or glass (being a supercooled liquid) of the previous day near Philadelphia.

From the day's start, my sister had been gushing about her El Dorado - some mythical factory outlet, the name and location of which she had no clue to, but insisted was just outside Philadelphia. She was particularly enthusiastic about this one since there was no sales tax on clothes in Pennsylvania. In the end we didn't go there, but I was stuck in a Tanger factory outlet as my sister went shopping for the 2nd time in 3 days (and 2 full days). At least there was an entertaining sign on a restaurant near the outlet: "Tony Wang's Best Chinese!!! Lancaster's most award winning Chinese restaurant" (it was probably Lancaster's *only* Chinese restaurant)

At a petrol station in Pennsylvania we saw Coke advertised as being "Made with 100% sugar". Yay. There was also Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda (as opposed to normal Diet Coke), but I never got to try that in any of the 12 days, so.

Much of the night was spent driving down to Alexandria, a town near Washington DC, where we stayed at the Red Roof Inn.

Sister's food diary: "Day 3 : breakfast at Budget Host Motel, Gettysburg, chocolate donut. Post-Gettysbury tour - breakfast sandwiches from gas station. Real pork bacon. Lunch at Good and Plenty all-you-can-eat family-style restaurant in Amish country. Starters - chow-chow, coleslaw, fresh bread, cottage cheese, whipped butter, apple butter, applesauce. Mains - fried chicken, pork sausage, roast beef, sweet buttered noodles, mash potatoes with gravy, mixed vegetables, corn. Desserts - applesauce jello, rice pudding, ice cream, shoofly pie, apple crumble."


My sister has a doctrine whereby she will only buy things/gifts that are "practical". The trouble is that she gets ten times the amount needed for practical uses (eg Cat plates, fish plates et al when we already have normal plates), thanks to the female gender defect, so instead of having one unit of impractical stuff, we have five units of practical stuff (where one will suffice), and possibly end up spending more.

Most of the school buses we saw in the Northeastern US were very high-tech - when the bus stopped and the schoolchildren got off, a stop sign would unfold from the side of the bus and start flashing, while a yellow bar would be extended from the front of the bus. A measure to ward of litigation, probably.


Quotes:

[On the Amish] I would actually like to see some more freaky people

"Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines." - David Letterman

***

I keep getting nightmares about my hair being cut, shorn, trimmed or snipped off. ugh.

***

Someone: "Hey, want free salsa lessons? i need ya on my rag team! join me please? ensure the dance is gonna be fun! reply me asap k? tanks!"

Me: "Haha you must be out of your mind :P"

***

The King of Kreme

"In an interview that was part of the flirt-and-flash publicity for her film Eyes Wide Shut, Nicole Kidman confessed that while Tom is wonderful, what really makes her weak in the knees comes from Ivy Avenue: doughnuts.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

The glaze so delicate that it melts under your fingers as you pick up a Krispy Kreme. The doughnuts so airy that lifting one without denting it is impossible. The mood in a Krispy Kreme store so evocative, you can't enter without smiling.

All 150 Krispy Kreme stores make their doughnuts out in the open, where you can watch. An orderly parade of doughnuts floats through the fryer, flipping over automatically halfway through the cooking process. Then a conveyor whisks the doughnuts out of the hot shortening and into a glistening cascade of glaze.

These are not donuts. They're doughnuts."

***

Smart news about pot

"500-plus economists can't wrong. Right? Seems a slew of them have finally decided what most of us have known for a long time: that pot prohibition "has minimal benefits and may itself cause substantial harm."

A report just released by visiting BU economics professor Dr. Jeffrey Miron and endorsed by more than 500 of his peers offers yet another commonsense critique of current marijuana policy. This time, the issue is framed in terms — dollars and cents — that even conservatives can understand. Some of them, including Nobel Prize-winner Dr. Milton Friedman, have seen the light. Will the Bush administration? Don't count on it.

In The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition, Miron finds that by instituting a system of regulation and taxation for pot similar to those in place for alcohol and tobacco, the money that would be saved in expenditures and gained in tax revenue is considerable: between $10 billion and $14 billion annually. That's real money that could be used to address real problems like gaps in homeland security, failing schools, and growing budget deficits. If it might help change GOP minds about our nonsensical drug laws, we suppose it could even fund tax cuts.

... Still, he says, "I think the people running drug policy in the present administration are ideologues who aren't going to be changed by anything. If Jesus came down from heaven and told them to rethink our marijuana laws, they'd say he was bought off by the drug legalizers.""

***

A letter to Breadtalk

"dear breadtalk,

... i also realized that on some of your confectionary, you used pork floss or ham or any other similar product. being a muslim myself, i find that the use of such ingredients prevented me from being able to appreciate such confectionary.

if only one day, breadtalk will have their outlets catering for just about everyone. including people such as myself, who have to abstain from eating pork/ham products due to our religion.

will i get to see that day soon?"

Comments:

A: i think that if you don't eat pork, it's a choice that you make due to religious reasons, and one can't expect everyone else around you to accomodate that. i don't eat beef, and neither do a lot of buddhists/hindus. a lot of buddhists/hindus also don't eat meat, period (my husband for example, is a vegetarian). are we then to act sad and persecuted when shops choose to serve meat and beef for those that do? isn't that narrowing the choices for most of the population that would prefer to eat meat? i understand it's annoying, but being a Singaporean, you have to realize that sometimes you have to tolerate those that aren't like you. even those that choose to sell pork products.

B: well, what if i like eating pork, and there are alot of customers like me? the economic benefits of catering to customers like me is greater than catering to the muslim customers. i would be rather unhappy if breadtalk stopped serving something i liked =/

C: if you really want to be anal on exactness, Indonesian and Malaysian (predominantly Muslim countries) muslims do not bother so much about whether the food is certified halal or not, as long as the food is cooked using cleaned crockery (meaning that the pots, etc, have to be washed, and no pork lard/oil, etc is left on it), and there is no pork in the food.

D: "Pork floss buns happen to be (or used to be) one of their hottest items. By eliminating pork floss buns, they lose business (likely) but gains the potential (possibly) of getting more Muslim customers."

The surge in sales in the likelihood that they turn halal will most likely be temporary. For many (like me), boutique bakeries were but a novelty. I haven't patronised any of these minimalist bakeries in a while, and I'm sure there are many others like me. I'm sure it'll be the same for many Muslims in the event Breadtalk turn halal.

You're the first person to identify that Pork Floss Buns are their hottest item. This point is a crucial qualifier. You can't take away the defining trait of a bakery and expect business to self-sustain.

Why would Breadtalk want to destroy a stable base of loyal customers by removing the hottest item from their shelves.

E: Don't get me wrong. I am all for multi-racial co-existence and integration, and understanding. I empathise with not just Muslims, but all peoples whose culture, religion, life choices, or whatever restrict them from eating certain food, but to be honest, I did not choose to be an all-encompassing eater to have my choices artificially restricted by those who aren't. gssg is right: it's not that we are not offering Halal food choices, but this should not be at the expense of the non-Halal eaters as well. Wouldn't that be forcing the all-eaters to be effectively Halal eaters as well?

If the moment an establishment becomes successful it has to go Halal to accommodate Muslim concerns, the Jewish community will start asking for all food to be Kosher, the Vegetarians for non-meat and dairy products, and so on until it becomes economically unviable to sustain so many separate preparation methods, or we all end up eating astronaut food. And then what happens when like in the Sikh vs Halal problem, two dietary demands cannot co-exist? Who should prevail? [Ed: Well, I don't think she was raising the spectre of racial/religious sensitivity, but was just musing that perhaps Breadtalk could cater for her, so.]

To all my cell group members and my dancers having exams this week, don't stress! Looking at yr exam timetable in front of me... am praying for each and every one of you! Do not let yourr hearts be troubled... trust in your Maker and Saviour!

- Andrew gan

My US Trip (2005) - Part 2 of X

Day 2 - Princeton-Philadelphia

Previously featured:
Part 1: Flight to Newark, Day 1 - Newark-Princeton

The McIntosh Inn was one of only 2 motels we stayed in to provide breakfast, and they had huge Sara Lee muffins, which my sister described as more like pound cake.

Me having my usual luck, I discovered that my formerly temperamental Canon Powershot A70, already slightly wonky before getting on the flight, though working acceptably with some patience and jiggling on my part, refused to function properly when I tried using it, being capable only of producing purple-tinged and fuzzy-static bordered shots (and now that I'm back in Singapore, the tinge and most of the static has gone - weird electronics).

At about 8am we drove into Princeton University. It being early on a Sunday morning after term had ended, we didn't see very many people about. The buildings of Princeton were made of (or at least fronted by) stone, and were in a faux Old European architectural style, dubbed by my sister as 'Neo-Oxbridge', that I felt was pretentious, especially since they were unable to pull it off, the buildings looking too new, too clean and all of the same age.


Archway


Ivy


Facade

Perhaps the time of day and year contributed to sample bias, but between a third and a half of the students we saw wandering around wore clothes with their University's name emblazoned proudly across them. Hell, even their garbage trucks have: "Princeton University. Princeton, NJ" marked out on their doors. University pride - something that the Premier Institution of Social Engineering has failed to arouse in its students.


Dei Sub Numine Viget


Lanterns


Statue


Stained glass

After we spent some time wandering the empty grounds, my sister decided that she wanted to attend a service in the chapel, so we had to kill time before the service. So after walking up a mall of shops, we applied the popularity rule of thumb, which has failed me but once - when I tried the worst bak chor mee in the world at Hong Lim complex, beside the crayfish hor fun, and checked out PJ's Pancake House, outside of which there was a long queue. We probably disgraced ourselves in the eyes of the owners, since although everyone was ordering a large plate of food, the three of us just had a two-fer breakfast.


Two-fer at PJ's Pancake House

The Princeton shop sells cosmetics. Decadent Americans...

Sunday afternoon saw us stuck in a horrible traffic jam for two and a half hours on the I-76 from Philadelphia west to Harrisburg. The cause of the jam turned out to be roadworks carried out over a long stretch of road. The strange thing was that we saw almost no one working on this long stretch of road, raising the question of why they'd closed off such a long stretch if they didn't have the manpower to work it. Probably there were restrictive union rules on Sunday work, restricting the length of time worked as well as mandating high overtime pay. In which case they should've imported 200 Banglas, who would have finished the job in double-quick time, and at less than half the cost. Oops, that's the wrong part of the world. In the States they'd hire Mexicans. But then there're those damn union rules...

We'd originally intended to visit Hershey to look at the chocolate factory, but with the jam derailing our plans, we pulled into the King of Prussia mall and dined. And shopped, for the first time in 2 days (and 1 full day). There was a teddy bear shop ('Build-a-bear workshop') where you could stuff your own bear, and buy teddy bear clothes and accessories. I asked my brother-in-law to bring Brown Bear down so his vagina could be sewed up, but he refused.

At night for some reason the other two tuned to the televangelism channel. Supposedly they find it funny. I suppose it's fascinating in the same way that a car crash is, watching all the mindless sheep watching and listening to the televangelist rapturously.

Sister's food diary: "Day 2: breakfast at hotel (480 calories a pop muffins, cranberry juice, piss-weak American coffee). Second breakfast at famous pancake house, Princeton (two-fer breakfast plate, pancakes). Massive traffic jam outside Philadelphia = arrive late afternoon at King of Prussia mall. Philly cheesesteaks (original and chicken), buffalo wings."


Parking was expensive in the big cities, and I'd been to most of them before, so we generally avoided them.

Knowing the obsession of the anti-high fructose corn syrup people, Coke sneakily lists their flagship product's second ingredient as "High fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose". It tastes the same to me, though, so I suspect it's mostly psychological.


Seen in a bookstore in King of Prussia: 'How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls'.

Blurb:

"The teen years can be tricky -- especially if you are a girl. Let's face it, teen girls deal with pressures and dilemmas that teen boys couldn't even dream of, let alone handle! In How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls, Donna Dale Carnegie, daughter of the late motivational author and teacher Dale Carnegie, brings her father's time-tested, invaluable lessons to the newest generation of young women on their way to becoming savvy, self-assured friends and leaders.

How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls offers concrete advice on teen topics such as peer pressure, gossip, and popularity. Teen girls will learn the most powerful ways to influence others, defuse arguments, admit mistakes, and make self-defining choices. The Carnegie techniques promote clear and constructive communication, praise rather than criticism, emotional sensitivity, tolerance, and a positive attitude -- important skills for every girl to develop at an early age. Of course, no book for teen girls would be complete without taking a look at how to maintain friendships with boys and deal with commitment issues and break-ups with boyfriends. Carnegie also provides solid advice for older teens beginning to explore their influence in the adult world, such as driving and handling college interviews.

Full of fun quizzes, "reality check" sections, and true-life examples, How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls offers every teenage girl candid, insightful, and timely advice on how to influence friends in a positive manner."

They sure start them young. Now we know why they're screwed up from a young age.


Photographs: I'm having trouble finding non-sucky image hosts/galleries with abundant webspace and adequate bandwith. Hotlinking is a bonus, since I'd only post a select few images here anyway.

I'd intended to go for Imagestation, but it seems they no longer offer free, unlimited image storage; they have some words about premium members having "Unlimited access to full-size original images", ie Free members get reduced resolution images. Which sounds like how Yahoo Photos cripples their images.

Imageshack is promising but has a 1024kb file size limit (though that isn't really a problem). The main thing is that it's hell uploading hundreds of images through their free system.

Blogger has free, unlimited photo hosting, but you can't put the photos into galleries.

Dear me.

Entries for the photo caption/identity contest, closed with the publication of Part 1 (Flight to Newark, Day 1 - Newark-Princeton) of my travelogue, in which participants were asked to caption the following photograph:




1) Anonymous (via the feedback form):

"Ahem. Maybe it's a picture in a breast implant clinic, where the patients have to feel to see if they like the feeling =P
"Don't touch my moobie!""


2) zhi yang:

some science convention? ha. people must be staring when you were taking the photo.


3) gh:

Museum of Sex in NY? Part of a life size love doll?


4) cH:

Caption: Itchy Agagooga groping a wax, no, sponge model of a woman's torso.

Taken at: Some museum in West Point, New York (is there such a place? Shall I research that? ;)).


5) En Ming:

Given the caption, I would have liked to think that the exhibit was found at the WEST POINT MILITARY ACADEMY, but I know better...


6) melvin:

caption 1: Hah! Mine's bigger.

caption 2: (Right hand missing in photo) Fap Fap Fap...


7) Sanz:

The Museum of Sex in NY.

Caption: Agagooga's Daily Teachings: How to examine the difference between the fake boobs and the real boobs.


8) jan:

Place - Stress Balls Factory (design department).

Caption - The (awful) truth behind the invention of stress balls.

( ihaveafeelingiwillwin! (: )


9) plagiarist:

caption: gssq feeling stressed

location: NY


10) Swee Shoon:

The photo clearly gives it away...

West Point, NY

How about one of those instant gratification machines the US Army's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has ingeniously developed, to cater to the necessities of war. And of course, to lower incidences of Rape in the occupied territories.

"Squeeze gently for assistance"

*squeeze manequin

"(In a deep voice)You are suffering from sexual deprivation. Welcome to the US Army."


11) hertz vector:

Caption: Ooooohh, aaaaahhhh...


12) solsetur:

caption: Greedy Gabriel Gets Glued to Grecian Goddess

guess: the Met huh.


13) Wowbagger:

MoMA.


14) ted:

Caption:

mmmmmm...feels...nice...


15) Unoewho:

Caption 1: Bust

Caption 2: Aga's Masturpiece

Caption 3: MET's timeless sculpture of the female body in all its glory turned into interactive porn for cheap tourist


A great batch of entries, that. It was tough trying to find a winner (really!) Some respondents sneakily tried to identify the photo by looking at the file name. Hah! Just because the photo was in a folder called "Westpoint, NY 1" and I forgot to rename it and didn't feel like uploading it again on a 4kb/s dialup connection doesn't mean that it was taken in Westpoint. Nice try, buds.

The picture was, of course, taken in the Museum of Sex in New York and is of the torso, residing in their permanent collection, of a RealDoll made by Abyss Creations LLC. This is the very same museum that earlier this year was host to the exhibition "SEX AMONG THE LOTUS - 2500 Years of Chinese Erotic Obsession". As such, gh was absolutely correct in his (or more probably, her - for reasons that will be made clear when I recount my visit to the Museum) visit there.

However, the winning entry was submitted by Ms "ihaveafeelingiwillwin! (:" jan:

"Place - Stress Balls Factory (design department).

Caption - The (awful) truth behind the invention of stress balls."

For the record, I have seen before, in a Melbourne shop called "Urban Attitude" (IIRC), a stress-relief aid in the shape of a breast. Unfortunately, it was much harder than the model pictured above, and certainly firmer than the real thing. Perhaps that is a design decision undertaken to aid in stress relief.

Unfortunately, due to my brother-in-law's losing of something I'd gotten for someone, the item which I'd allocated for this competition will have to be substituted instead (sorry). Hopefully something will turn up (one way or the other).

Having a lot of material to cover, I shall dismiss with the preliminaries and just launch into the usual semi-connected list of observations and ramblings.

My US Trip (2005) - Part 1 of X

Flight to Newark, Day 1 - Newark-Princeton

My - you guessed it, Ma-laysian Airlines - flight to KLIA, from which I would take another to Newark via Stockholm, was at 6:15. So the night before saw me putting into action Part 1 of my Jetlag Avoidance Strategy, namely to not sleep, since Eastern Standard Time (EST) is 12 hours behind Singapore at this time of year.

Wandering the relatively empty halls of the Changi Airport Terminal Two, I found that its smoking area was located in the Sunflower Garden; I was surprised that the Sunflowers hadn't all died yet. And there was a yellow box outside of which the smokers couldn't smoke, though this box was huge (unlike the other Singaporean institution where they have yellow boxes for smokers). They also had a lot more internet terminals than this time last year (as did KLIA, since they are impelled to keep up with the Joneses).

Boarding the flight, I noticed that there was no Row 13. I thought it was UnIslamic to take heed of UnIslamic superstitions. Hmm. But then they serve alcoholic drinks on MAS flights, so maybe they don't care.

After reaching KLIA, it was about 8 plus, so I put into action Part 2 of my Jetlag Avoidance Strategy - to sleep. Ideally I wouldn't have dosed until I got onto the flight to Newark, but my stamina was running low after 21 hours without sleep.

MAS still doesn't have the decency to provide moist toweletes with their meals. There was Pepsi Max on the flight to Newark - I wonder where they found it; it seems to have disappeared from Singapore. And the entertainment controller on my seat had had its wire severed, so I had to entertain myself by sleeping, reading and making snide remarks about MAS.

I don't understand why some people are so hung up about leg room. Even after I stuffed my bag under the seat in front of me, there was plenty of space to stretch my legs. It was the horizontal cramping that was bothersome.

Before our arrival in the US, they showed us a video which had the cheek to claim that their taking of our left and right index fingerprints and our mugshots was to "protect your privacy". Protect our security perhaps, but protect our privacy? Bollocks. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

There was a small framed picture of Dubya greeting us as we exited immigration, but none of his wife. And to its right there was a humongous picture of the customer service representative. Oh well, I suppose this is called devolution of power and subsidiarity.

When we collected our luggage at Newark, we found that our luggage strap had disappeared - apparently some hardup luggage handler had taken the strap. Wth?!

After collecting our luggage, we got the rental car and drove down to the McIntosh Inn motel near Princeton, stopping by a rest area on the way (Mmm, real bacon in a Burger King sandwich...) There were humongous cups (more like kegs) of drink available from Burger King, and we contemplated getting one to store ice and/or cold drinks.

My sister kept a food diary so I shall paste its daily contents here: "Day 1 : arrive Newark, very late dinner at Burger King off highway. Chicken burger, Angus beef burger. Contemplate ice keg."


Quotes:

Your luggage is stewed / stoo'ed (stowed)

Your laugh jacket (life)

A sleeping bag has been left at the waiting lorh'nge. Can the honour please collect it from the cabin crew? (lounge, owner)


NB: Photographs will be posted with the travelogue entry for the day during which they were taken

"I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty." - George Burns

***

I feel as if I am lacking in erudition.

***

A reader writes:

"I read "Why I Dislike Modern Music" and i just thought it was funny how you said you would some day bankroll, as you put it, a band named H.I.M or H.E.R . Where as there actually is a Finnish rock band named H.I.M that was/is (im not exactly sure i dont personally listen to them) going to change their name to H.E.R apon comming to the United States to release their music. Just thought it was funny how you picked those to examples.

Here's the website just to check it out:
http://www.heartagram.com/"

***

The Right's Wrong Books

"Human Events is a conservative weekly that Ronald Reagan was known to favor, and which the Wall Street Journal called a "bible of the right." It compiled its list by polling a panel of conservative academics (such as Robert George of Princeton University) and Washington think-tank types (such as Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute). As such, it offers a fair window into the dementia of contemporary conservative thinking.

One amusing thing about the list is its seeming inability to distinguish between seminal works of social science and totalitarian manifestos. Marx, Hitler and Chairman Mao sit alongside pragmatist philosopher John Dewey and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey. You'll be comforted to know that Mao, with 38 points and a No. 3 ranking, edged out Kinsey, with 37 points. "The Feminine Mystique," meanwhile, checks in at No. 7, with 30 points, just behind "Das Kapital," which totaled 31 points.

Harmful books that got honorable mentions but couldn't crack the top 10 include John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty," Sigmund Freud's "Introduction to Psychoanalysis" and Charles Darwin's "The Descent of Man." Oh yes, and Lenin's "What Is to Be Done." (If you don't see the link between arguing for individual rights, exploring scientific mysteries and constructing a brutally repressive Bolshevik terror state, then clearly you're not thinking like a conservative.) "

The full list is accessible here: HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

***

Farrell on 'Why men earn more'

"For example, because men commute 36 percent more than females, they end up earning $1,500 more per year. In another example, the average man works an additional year and half longer in his current occupation, and works between five and nine years overall. According to Farrell, for each additional year a man works he ends up earning 3 to 4 percent annual pay increase.

Until now, the root of the wage gap debate has been based on the presumption that women are discriminated against in the workplace, thus women ending up with lower salaries. But according to Farrell that has not been the case.

"Every time I read a statistic that says males doctors earn more than female doctors, the more I looked into those statistics," said Farrell.

What he found was that male doctors were more likely to work for private companies and work longer hours. Cardiac surgeons were more likely to be male, while female doctors were usually psychiatrists or pediatricians. Female doctors ended up having more control over the hours worked, while male doctors were more likely to work night shifts. Adding up all the different variables explained why men were earning higher salaries over women, not discrimination.

But the great news for women, according to Farrell, is that "when women do those things they actually earn more than men.""

***

Japan and China United in Pedophilia: the unlikely diplomacy of Saaya Irie

"The wave of anti-Japanese sentiment in China continues, more than a month since the first round of demonstrations against the Japanese government’s approval of a controversial school textbook flared throughout the country... At this point, it might seem that a miracle is required to put bilateral relations fully back on track.

Saaya Irie, an 11-year-old Japanese girl, may not be that miracle, but she has clearly played a part in pacifying a certain segment of China’s population, according to Shukan Bunshun.

If anything about Saaya is miraculous, it’s her body—she wears an F-cup bra, though she has yet to reach her teens. So when a photo of her in a bikini was posted on a Chinese Internet forum called “100,” she immediately caused a sensation."

***

Lindsay Lohan's Breasts: An Expert Weighs In - "The Truth in Cosmetic Surgery Blog, run by a Real Plastic Surgeon, may help put an end to one of the internet’s favorite party games: speculating about the vacillations in Lindsay Lohan’s bra size... 'I tend to agree with the suggestion that breast implants have very likely been removed.'"

Bizarre Sex Habits of The Extreme Right-Wing - "Last night, anti-abortion extremist Neal Horsley was a guest on The Alan Colmes Show, a FOX News radio program... In the course of the interview, however, Colmes asked Horsley about his background, including a statement that he had admitted to engaging in homosexual and bestiality sex... Come to think of it, Ann Coulter is reputed to have an unusually, er, wide-ranging sex life, too, though as far as I know it's just confined to men. Still, it doesn't exactly match the profile of an ultra-conservative."

I have returned.

Entries to the "identify/caption this photo contest" (see two posts below) will cease to be accepted... whenever (when I start publishing my travelogue, probably some time on Sunday).

Send in your entry before it's too late!

YAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!! Agagooga's coming back todayyyyy!!!!!

1) i'm back in singapore!

2) i don't have a mobile phone... left my panasonic hp charger in melbourne... anyone got a spare handset i can borrow? (note: if i haven't contacted u yet, this is the reason. call me at home or drop an email! esp if you've changed yr contact number within the last year)

3) singaporeans have a strange obsession with Utt. I saw him on some channel 5 drama last night.

4) Nigella Lawson's "Forever Summer" isn't as great as I'd expected.

5) Went shoe shopping (= and got runners!

6) Speaking of which, a comment in the newspaper said that singaporean guys are boring slaves to fashion trends. Opinions anyone?

7) My cousins are coming down from KL this saturday!!!

jan thank you for yr msg! digging up yr phone no. now... got it somewhere.... see u soon!

Identify (tell me where this was taken and what this is) and/or caption this photo. The best entry receives a prize (if feasible).