"Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic." - Dan Rather

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'Allah meat' astounds Nigerians - "Diners have been flocking to a restaurant in northern Nigeria to see pieces of meat which the owner says are inscribed with the name of Allah... "When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind""
And of course this is a sign of Satan

Gerobatrachus Hottoni - The Missing Link Between Salamander And Frog - "The description of an ancient amphibian that millions of years ago swam in quiet pools and caught mayflies on the surrounding land in Texas has set to rest one of the greatest current controversies in vertebrate evolution."
Now there're TWO missing links!

Saudi religious police ban pet cats and dogs - "Saudi Arabia's religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday."

Passenger beheaded on Canada bus - "A man on a Greyhound bus travelling across the Canadian Prairies has killed and decapitated a fellow passenger. An eyewitness said the victim was stabbed 50 or 60 times by the man sitting next to him, who then severed his head with a large knife."
Comment seen around: "I’ve also seen a wave of indignant URQs arguing that this is an excellent argument for us all to carry concealed handguns. What an excellent idea. Armed amateurs in a darkened bus at night firing in a panic at someone doing something. That makes sense."

Anigao Girls - "Theres a new type of business aimed at Otaku who love 2D girls but cant stand the face of real girls - satsueikai (photo session) of hybrid models called "Anigao" meaning "anime face"."
Damn Japs.

The Press Association: Call for organ trafficking ban - "Published in the latest issue of The Lancet medical journal, the Istanbul Declaration says: "Organ trafficking and transplant tourism violate the principles of equity, justice and respect for human dignity and should be prohibited."
To advance "dignity" we should ban stem cell research, test tube babies, sperm banks and cloning as well. For equity and justice we should nationalise healthcare systems, abolish the need for payments and ban health tourism.

YouTube - Devendra Banhart - Carmensita - "The Princess reincarnated into an octopus. The King entangled himself in the embrace of her tentacles and they remained eternally intertwined"
???. Another site: "After starring in the video for his song "Carmensita", Natalie Portman began dating Venezuelan folk singer Devendra Banhart. Devendra Banhart (b. May 30, 1981, in Houston, Texas) is a Venezuelan-American folk rock singer-songwriter and musician. Banhart's music has been classified as indie folk, psych folk, Naturalismo, and New Weird America; his lyrics are often surreal and naturalistic."

The Cost of Being PC - "The most PC: Psychology, Sociology, English, History, Elementary education
The least PC: Criminal justice, Economics, Marketing, Accounting, Computer science, Biology, Finance, Management information, Mechanical engineering, Electrical engineering... The non-PC disciplines appear to correlate with the most lucrative college majors"
Original report linked below.

Defining Political Correctness and Its Non-Impact :: Inside Higher Ed - "A major new study of the political correctness of faculty members may challenge assumptions all around. For those who deny that there is an identifiable group of PC professors, the study says that there is in fact a group with consistently common perspectives, largely based on their views of discrimination (that it exists and matters)... Humanities and social science fields tend to have higher politically correct rankings, while professional and science disciplines do not... Politically correct professors are more likely than others to be guided by their beliefs in selecting research topics, and says this explains why — he believes — sociologists have ignored certain successes in crime prevention and education professors have not studied certain kinds of school reforms. “The real impacts of the PC university are on knowledge generation,” he writes."

Life And How To Survive It (Adrian Tan's NTU Mass Comms Commencement speech) - "One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong."
This is a very good Commencement-type speech. I'm very impressed that it was delivered in Singapore.

Leviti-Bus Fails To Catch On - "A month-long project to raise funds for an atheist advert to go on the side of a London bus has been derailed: not by an act of God but through a lack of pledges... Blogger Jon Worth set up a pledge, aiming to get 4,678 right-thinking folk to each donate a fiver and hence fund the surprisingly expensive £23,400 bill to run an advert promoting atheism on the side of a bendy for a fortnight. The ad's mild-mannered message? "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life."... Barely 877 people signed up"

Dozens blinded in India looking for Virgin Mary - "At least 50 people have lost their sight after staring at the sun hoping to see an image of the Virgin Mary, according to reports... Even churches in the area have disowned the miracle after health officers and doctors approached the clergy. The house where the miracle is said to have occurred has apparently been the subject of rumours for months. The hotelier, who has since moved, had claimed that statues of the Virgin Mary in his house have been crying honey and bleeding oils and perfumes."
It must be a sign! And no, this is not from The Onion.

Bandwidth hogs may force ISPs to adopt volume-based charges - "THEY are called bandwidth hogs and they have had pretty much a free ride here when it comes to using the Internet for anything from downloading films to running home security systems. Their monthly fees are no different from many average users who use the same connection to check their e-mail and surf the Web."
What the article deliberately glosses over is that overseas ISPs "have either announced or rolled out volume-based plans", NOT cancelled unlimited plans.
Someone in comments: "why didn't chua hian hou point out that NTT's "volume based plan" entails a 30GB limit.. daily? tis far too easy to quote 1/2 truths and pass it off as facts, sir."

Does Television Cause Autism? - "Our precipitation tests indicate that just under forty percent of autism diagnoses in the three states studied is the result of television watching due to precipitation, while our cable tests indicate that approximately seventeen percent of the growth in autism in California and Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s is due to the growth of cable television"

Opening Address by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the 41st ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Singapore, 21 July 2008 - "By the tally of our own officials, only about 30 per cent of ASEAN's agreements and commitments have been honoured and implemented. Hence, it was not surprising that ASEAN did not respond effectively during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis."
Hurr hurr.