Straight Dope Staff Report: Does NLP work? Is it the basis of Derren Brown's "mind-reading" act? - "Most NLP advocates (perhaps unsurprisingly) take the view that scientific research is simply irrelevant here. Again, they say only that NLP works, and interested parties are invited to try it themselves and make up their own mind. This stance is not necessarily inappropriate, as it is perfectly possible for something to be practical and useful without any peer-reviewed writing in its support. On the other hand, it is well known that self-assessment and subjective evaluation are often unreliable. In addition, NLP theory undeniably makes some assertions that ought to be empirically verifiable. For example, the NLP concept of "visual accessing cues" is based on the notion, stated as fact, that eye movement is a reliably better-than-chance indicator of whether someone is accessing a memory – i.e., telling the truth – or fabricating a lie. One very well qualified researcher, Mike Heap, was among the first to test this claim, and published a paper showing that it is not supported by the evidence. (Heap has also investigated other NLP claims, with similar results, and his papers make for interesting reading.) Many others have looked into "visual accessing" (see, e.g., here), and to date there is no empirical support for this concept."

The Straight Dope: Will Transcendental Meditation enable you to levitate? - "TMers see levitation not merely as a novel method of transportation but as a mighty blow in the struggle for cosmic consciousness and world peace. According to David Orme-Johnson, a researcher at Maharishi International University, "Thirty-one sociological studies conducted throughout the world document that the quality of life in society significantly improves when as little as the square root of one percent of a population practices TM-Sidhi Yogic Flying together in one place." Orme-Johnson was one of the authors of a recent scientific paper purporting to show levitation and related techniques had reduced the violence in Lebanon. Wait a sec, you say. Reducing the violence in Lebanon?"

Techography - U.S. military places sharks in Iraqi canals to kill kids - "A two-meter shark has been caught in a river in southern Iraq more than 160 miles from the sea... Locals blamed the U.S. military for the shark's presence. Tahseen Ali, a teacher, said there was a "75 percent chance" Americans had put the shark in the water. "This is very frightening for us. Our children always swim in the river and I believe that there are more sharks. I believe that America is behind this matter," said fisherman Hatim Karim."
Racist!!!

Bring A&W back to Singapore Petition - "Should we bring A&W back to Singapore for the many locals who miss it since its closure in 2003?"

Plane takes off on its own - "The pilot, Paul Sirks, got out to hand-crank the propeller, and watched the empty plane fly away. "The plane took off without him in it, and went across the field, over the runway, up over the hangar, and it just took off," said eyewitness Carol Hall. Police officers tracked the plane by helicopter as it rose to over 11,000 ft and flew in lazy circles... About an hour later, fuel exhausted, the aircraft came to earth in a bean field almost 100 miles (160 km) away."

Fantasies in black and white - "If even most African-Americans believe the black poor are primarily responsible for their own plight, does that make it true?"
Reading articles that undermine themselves is amusing. This one misrepresents the NPR article (which is much better, incidentally) as claiming that racism is dead, when it actually says racism is now not the most important factor keeping blacks behind. It cites a study showing that blacks with criminal records are less likely to be hired than ex-con whites, which I skimmed through: it was good, but it doesn't take into account the fact that recidivism rates among blacks are significantly higher than among whites - too bad we can't get a good instrumental variable for race. It sneakily moves from the proposition that race is not dead to the proposition that race is not only a major problem but a growing one (even when it implicitly denies this by admitting no longer have "No coloreds need apply" signs - blacks are no longer totally excluded from segments of the labour market). It also conflates the effects of race and poverty, and ends off spectacularly by contradicting itself by revealing that the lack of intergenerational transfers are what keep blacks down. So, one wonders who is the one truly fantasising.
See also: Lexington | The greasy ladder

Pew poll: Black Americans and beliefs about race - "37 percent of blacks agreed with the statement that blacks today are so diverse they can no longer be considered a single race. Among the youngest respondents, aged 18 to 29, a staggering 44 percent agreed... The real point of the values answer is not that middle-class blacks are turning against "blackness," whatever that is: It's that they are insisting that they have the right to create their own signifiers of blackness. And it's that middle-class blacks -- who suffer from white discrimination that is in part a response to black underclass behavior, and who are far more likely to be the victims of black criminals than whites are -- are no longer willing to simply give every knucklehead in the 'hood a free pass because of "structural racism."... It's also good because anything that short-circuits traditional racial clichés is helpful. Moving beyond the old formal, guilt-innocence standoff will improve relations between middle-class whites and blacks... the way to overcome it is to start talking beyond race and start seeing beyond race. To be your brother's keeper, you must first know that you are his brother. And that connection isn't made through skin color. It's made through a shared humanity."

Greek Masterpieces from the Louvre - "If we’ve seen them at the Louvre, why should we see them here? Due to architectural constraints at the Louvre, the items are displayed according to material – the stone sculptures were shown on the ground floor, while vases, bronzes and terracotta figurines were displayed in the upper galleries because the floorboards can only bear the weight of small objects. In Singapore, the exhibition will be a thematic presentation of ancient Greek life, ‘of how their people lived, the structure of their society, their educational, political and belief system as well as their cultural foundations,’ says Tan."
Yeah, nice try.

Florida Gators team physician invented drink known worldwide - "Developed so that water and sodium could be more readily absorbed in the intestinal tract, the drink also included sugar, a key source of energy, and phosphate to help burn the sugar. The first batch of what would become Gatorade tasted so vile, it made researchers sick. "So I learned the old lesson: If at first you don't succeed . . . ask someone smarter," Cade said in a 1994 speech at an innovation workshop. "So that was my wife," who told him to add lemon juice and artificial sweetener "because that usually covers up any bad taste.""

Singapore What's On: Singapore Forthcoming Events - AngloINFO Singapore - Ongoing and upcoming events list in Singapore. No reason to keep this an expats-only resource, though they definitely are a more receptive market than the local crowd.

Can You Trust Wikipedia? - "Stern, a major German weekly, has reviewed 50 articles from various subject categories in the German Wikipedia and compared them to articles in a well-known traditional German language encyclopedia. Their conclusion, based on expert feedback: Wikipedia is actually significantly more accurate, comprehensive, complete and correct than the 15-volume paper encyclopedia it was compared to."