"Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary." - Evan Esar

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Outrage as French judge annuls Muslim marriage over bride's virginity lie - "The annulment of a young Muslim couple’s marriage because the bride was not a virgin has caused anger in France, prompting President Sarkozy’s party to call for a change in the law... Mr X went to court the following morning and was granted a annulment on the grounds that his bride had deceived him on “one of the essential elements” of the marriage. In disgrace with both families, she acknowledged that she had led her groom to believe that she was a virgin when she had already had sexual intercourse. She did not oppose the annulment."
Naturally, if a guy lied about his job before marriage, not allowing the wife to annul the marriage would be sexism and yet another ugly manifestation of patriarchy. However, I am informed that in the sexist and patriarchal society that is Singapore, lying about your job is not grounds for annulling a marriage.
Someone: people can get divorced because one of the spouses plays their music too loudly
why not because one of them lied about being a virgin

Why China Loves to Hate Japan - "After Japanese invaders shoot Little Zhang's grandmother in the back, the boy seeks revenge by joining an underground Red Army detachment. He moves among heroic Chinese patriots, sniveling collaborators and sadistic Japanese. The finale comes with Little Zhang helping blow up a trainload of Japanese soldiers and receiving a cherished reward: a pistol with which to kill more Japanese. "I thought about including one sympathetic Japanese character, but this is an anti-Japan war movie and I don't want to confuse anyone," says Sun, who will premier his film on International Children's Day... The problem is that just as Japanese soldiers once dehumanized Chinese, Beijing's propaganda often paints Japanese as pure monsters. Grade school textbooks recount the callous brutality of Japanese soldiers in graphic detail, and credit the Communist Party with defeating Japan. (Another reason for Japan's surrender, it says, was the atomic bombs dropped by the U.S.) More moderate voices are silenced. A 2000 film by one of China's leading directors, Jiang Wen, remains banned because it depicted friendliness between a captured Japanese soldier and Chinese villagers. Although the film showed plenty of brutality, censors ruled that "Devils at the Doorstep" gave viewers "the impression that Chinese civilians neither hated nor resisted Japanese invaders.""
It's no wonder "young people are more anti-Japanese than their elders who actually experienced the Japanese occupation"
Addendum: With all this venom it's no wonder the Chinese grow up brainwashed and blinded by hate.

LiveLeak.com - Evolution of mobile phones 1985-Today (Video) - "Sharp J-SH04 (2001) The first popular cellphone to feature an internal camera, released in Japan in 2001. These days you'd be lucky to find a phone without one"
Maybe on a SAF contract. Oh, maybe it's a conspiracy to increase sales of basic handsets.

Amsterdam delicacy: Herring - "Stamppot is a reflection of traditional Dutch values: soberness, hard labor, and moderation — values rooted in Calvanism, and still very much in evidence outside Holland’s big cities... Traditionally, the fish (minus its head) is eaten by grabbing it by the tail, throwing one’s head back, and — while gently lowering the fish — biting off tasty morsels... Suffice it to say that for most people herring is love at first bite."
Hahahaha

UCPD Crime Alerts & Advisories — 2008 - "Annoying/Molesting a Child" is a crime in Berkeley. Truly, it is a Liberal campus.

Japanorama's Subliminal Kana Screen Savers - "Subliminal Japanese Screen Savers allow anyone of any age to learn to read Japanese. With these colorful screen savers slowly cycling on your Windows PC, you can passively absorb characters at your own pace, while protecting your computer's screen!"

Mobile phones expose human habits - "The results showed that most people's movements follow a precise mathematical relationship - known as a power law. "That was the first surprise," he told BBC News. The second surprise, he said, was that the patterns of people's movements, over short and long distances, were very similar: people tend to return to the same few places over and over again. "Why is this good news?" he asked. "If I were to build a model of how everyone moves in society and they were not similar then it would require six billion different models - each person would require a different description." "

Bond breakers - "A couple of months ago, I was asked by a professor J in the office building to review the credentials of a graduate school applicant X from my alma mater, the National University of Singapore... Then, I noticed that X was from the PRC. More specifically, X is an MOE scholarship holder (as stated in his resume), the kind that is obliged to serve out his/her bond in Singapore for 6 years after graduation in exchange for a tax-money sponsored university education in Singapore. What on earth was he doing, applying to go to graduate school in the US immediately after graduation when he has signed a 6-year contract with the MOE?... The irony is, for people like X who will probably 'break' his bond and mind you, not fulfill the terms of his contract, i.e. not pay the financial penalty of not serving out his bond, the Singapore government will stay silent, very very silent. By letting someone like X go, at least 100 to 150 thousand dollars of Singaporeans' tax money spent subsidizing his eduction has gone down the drain. Where is the accountability so often trumpeted by our civil service? On the other hand, in contrast, when one of our PSC/EDB scholars does not serve out his/her bond but pays back the money to the government, plus a little bit more, the national broadsheets scream bloody murder"
takchek: Now you know why there is so much ill-will and resentment by the Singaporean students towards foreign undergrads in NUS/NTU/SMU when it comes to this topic of foreign MOE scholars (leeching off the goodwill and generosity of the Singaporean tax-paying public).