"Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves." - Dorothy Parker

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With our claustrophobic little homes it's no wonder people get drunk and stab each other on the streets - "Even little, overcrowded countries such as Belgium and Holland allow people on average about 40 more square metres of living space in new housing than Britain does. It is not surprising that a survey by the housing charity Shelter has found that 86% of families living in cramped conditions report cases of depression or anxiety in their midst. Why do you think we spend so much time in the streets getting drunk and stabbing each other?"

Nice Work If You Can Get It - "There are always opposition parties -- the full title is "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition". As the title implies, their job is to oppose the government in anything they do, and their loyalty to the country is never in question. (I've heard that in some countries, questioning the President or the government can bring your loyalty or patriotism into question! What a quirky notion!)"

Black Like Me - Weird News Story Archive - "The reason President Clinton is continuously in trouble, claims novelist Toni Morrison, is bigotry. That’s because, she says, he’s black, not white. How does she figure? “Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness,” says Morrison, who is black: “Single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.” Washington Post writer Peter Carlson was incredulous over the claim. “What about the black folks who were born middle-class, play the cello and eat salad?” he asked. “Are they white?”"

YouTube - The blue screen of death (banned commercial??) - "some video about a windows nt handbook, a dead scuba diver and the deep blue sea "

Last Suppers - Seditious site cataloguing representations of the Last Supper. Some available ones include: Obama, Lego Mish Mash, Scientology, Anime, Battlestar Galactica and Sesame Street.

Pssst, want Singapore citizenship? Its disposable. - "Isn’t it ironic that this government screams and shouts when Singaporeans break their bonds but remains so blasé when new citizens throw their passports back in its face? We demonise young Singaporeans born and bred who decide not to work in the civil service and yet we grin stupidly when these foreign talents give us the old heave ho! Something is very wrong with our values and priorities. Rejecting the opportunity to work in government is seen to be more offensive than rejecting our nation. How can this be right?"

The Playhouse - "On this day of love, Valentine's Day, February 14th 2009, we will set the wise owls free. Radio Extacy has printed 10,000 owl postcards. Each owl carries the messsage: "stART the pARTy" and a space for your very own message of peace too! The 10,000 owls have been pre-addressed to Angelina Jolie. Imagine Angelina Jolie coming home to find 10,000 owls in her letterbox, from all around the world! With your help this surreal experience will be, oh so real! The hope is that Angelina Jolie will mention "THE OWL" in the media providing Radio Extacy with a very powerful voice."
Uhh.........

Judaism 101: The Role of Women - "Because women are not obligated to perform certain commandments, their observance of those commandments does not "count" for group purposes. Thus, a woman's voluntary attendance at daily worship services does not count toward a minyan (the 10 people necessary to recite certain prayers), a woman's voluntary recitation of certain prayers does not count on behalf of the group (thus women cannot lead services), and a woman's voluntary reading from the Torah does not count towards the community's obligation to read from the Torah. In addition, because women are not obligated to perform as many commandments as men are, women are regarded as less privileged. It is in this light that one must understand the man's prayer thanking G-d for "not making me a woman." The prayer does not indicate that it is bad to be a woman, but only that men are fortunate to be privileged to have more obligations. The corresponding women's prayer, thanking G-d for making me "according to his will," is not a statement of resignation to a lower status (hardly an appropriate sentiment for prayer!) On the contrary, this prayer should be understood as thanking G-d for giving women greater binah, for making women closer to G-d's idea of spiritual perfection, and for all the joys of being a woman generally."
Karen Armstrong would be proud of them.

Book review: What The Bible Really Teaches: A Challenge to Fundamentalists by Keith Ward - "Fundamentalism often accuses non-fundamentalist Christianity (not only those evil liberals) of being selective with the Bible and picking and choosing the bits of scripture from which they develop their doctrine, and ‘watering down’ the Gospel in so doing. Ward points out at great length throughout the rest of the book that this ‘picking and choosing’ is precisely what the fundamentalists themselves are guilty of with regards to scripture. The fundamentalist reading of scripture not only contradicts the Bible in many places, but it is very new on the scene in the history of the church and often pays no attention to more ancient and more widely-held Christian interpretations of the Bible. In short, Ward argues, fundamentalism has just the Bible plain wrong... How many fundamentalists really believe that when Jesus said ‘I am the door’, that he meant he was a large plank of wood with hinges for example? Or that when the Psalms speak of God hiding the Psalmist in the ‘feathers of his wings’ we are suppose to believe that God is literally some kind of giant bird?"

Who says men need to get married to be happy? - "“Stay single and see her at the weekends. Man is not meant to be caged,” wrote Lucas from London. “It’s a great lifestyle choice,” wrote Rob D, also from London. “As for married men living longer, well, the indoor cat lives longer too. But it’s a fur ball with a broken spirit looking out on a world that it will never enjoy.”... I’ve been in a couple of long-termers and I’ve seen what marriage can do to my friends... For a start, bachelors are different now. Traditionally they can be one of two things: a toxic bachelor who spends his evenings with a bucket of KFC and a can of lager, or a career bachelor who is too busy to socialise because he is working until 3am. Over the past five years, however, a third type... In short, they lead interesting and fulfilling lives... “I genuinely pity most of my married friends, who feel trapped, bored and frustrated,” wrote Mike from Hong Kong. “The only men I know who are happily married are the laid-back guys who need a woman for direction. Marriage is not a smart idea for the alpha male.”... Incidentally, dating younger girls draws a curiously bitter response from single women my own age. I remind them that there is nice symmetry in this: every schoolboy remembers the moment at 15 when all the best-looking girls in his year decided they didn’t fancy their spotty-faced contemporaries and began dating the sixth-former with a Vauxhall Astra. It’s not revenge, exactly, but they started it... It’s true: bachelors die younger than their married counterparts. When I dug deeper, though, I discovered this has a lot to do with smoking, drinking and diet. And if you can keep these things under control, you can hang out in Guyland, well, indefinitely."

Singapore Biennale sees display of maggot sculptures at City Hall - "These maggots are part of a sculptural installation by Vietnamese artist Pham Ngoc Duong and were first shown in Hanoi in 2004. Since maggots signal rot and decay, the work is a metaphorical reference for corruption"
HURR HURR SO SEDITIOUS. And how come he wasn't sent to a re-education camp?!

S'pore lauded as slum-free city - "Singapore is the only city in the world without slums, a new report by the United Nations Habitat has found... These were defined as areas where there was overcrowding, a lack of safe drinking water, sanitation, durable housing materials and rights over tenure."

Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does - "Saying that correcting misinformation does little more than reinforce a false belief is a pretty controversial proposal, but the claim is based on a number of studies that examine the effect of political or ideological bias on fact correction. In the studies, volunteers were shown news items or political adverts that contained misinformation, followed by a correction. For example, a study by John Bullock of Yale showed volunteers a political ad created by NARAL that linked Justice John Roberts to a violent anti-abortion group, followed by news that the ad had been withdrawn. Interestingly, Democratic participants had a worse opinion of Roberts after being shown the ad, even after they were told it was false."

Takumi Tokyo - "Dining at Takumi Tokyo in Keppel Marina is the next best thing to flying to Japan to eat the real thing"
This place gets the Ultra-Bagus.

Suillus grevillei - "They are one of the most popular mushrooms in Japan, especially in Nagano Prefecture where people call them "Rikobou"... In my hometown, however, people do not know them and disregard them. You see, Japan is very much mountainous and isolated each other like Caucasus mountain area. People's taste toward mushroom changes quite differently once you go over one mountain. I do not exaggerate things at all."

Gundam Condom... - "We've seen a ton of Gundam related goodies including razors and lighters but I wonder how many of us have seen these Gundam condoms?"

YouTube - funny japanese commercial - This reminds me of Raffles Guys school.