A very defamatory video of Bill Gates:
"Keynote - Bill Gates' Last Day - January 6, 2008"
Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect: He's always been an innovator, always inspiring all of us to think creatively about the future. And we'll be the first to give credit where credit is due.
Craig Mundie, Chief Research & Strategy Officer: Oh, absolutely. Microsoft Bob? His idea, all his.
Luckily he has the pocket-depth to sue anyone who might dare defame him.
"What we call 'Progress' is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance." - Havelock Ellis
***
From: Cyanide and Happiness
Blonde: Mark, dude, you gotta help us!
Blonde: We need to make some money fast.
Blonde: But all we have is some light piano music and this cup.
Brunette: While you guys think of something, I really gotta go take a dump.
Mark: Wait a second!
Mark: I have an idea...
***
From: Cyanide and Happiness
Blonde: Mark, dude, you gotta help us!
Blonde: We need to make some money fast.
Blonde: But all we have is some light piano music and this cup.
Brunette: While you guys think of something, I really gotta go take a dump.
Mark: Wait a second!
Mark: I have an idea...
Thursday, January 10, 2008
"Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting." - John Russell
***
WOO HOO.
I am very happy.
Top Score Music - TMCD1034 Romantic Themes
On this otherwise innocuous page from what seems to be a Dutch company, click on the notes beside the first entry, "Lovers Theme" (03:29). The full description of this piece is as follows:
"Lovers Theme
Duration: 03:29
Style: Romantic
Description: Haunting, light dramatic theme with single note piano lead - excellent orchestral accompaniment with prominent Strings and French horn.
Keywords: airy, calm, caring, dancing, dramatic, dreamy, dynamic, easy, epic, expectant, friendly, good, grand, happy, joyful, light, longing, melodic, mellow, optimistic, ominous, peaceful, pensive, positive, reflective, reverent, romantic, serene, sincere, soarin
Instruments: cymbals, drums, french horn, percussion, piano, strings, orchestra
Tempo: Medium Slow
Composer: Hervé Roy
Release year: 1992
Catalog #: TMCD1034-01"
Album description: "Collection of warm, pleasant and expressive romantic themes featuring piano and acoustic guitar leads."
If you don't recognise it, it is none other than THE THEME SONG OF 2GIRLS1CUP. How did I find this? Very simple. I Winamp Auto-Tag-ged the MP3 (from here), which yielded:
"Track: 1
Title: Lovers_Theme_Herve_Roy_TMCD1034
Artist: Herve Roy
Album: TMCD-1034 Romantic Themes
Album Artist: Tele Music
Year: 1992
Composer: Herve Roy"
I'm surprised I didn't think of this sooner!
Now I can appreciate the full genius of the music, with the enhanced quality (though only encoded at 64kbps, I can hear much that has been lost in the transition to a different medium) - the fidelity is better, the music has more depth and there are subtle chords and drum beats that have been either muffled or totally obscured but are now clear as day; synth audio never sounded so good! Furthermore, we get to hear more variations on this divine melody, with a version that's 3.5 times what we heard in the video.
Time to update my handphone ringtone with this new, improved version!
Update: Another site to download it.
***
WOO HOO.
I am very happy.
Top Score Music - TMCD1034 Romantic Themes
On this otherwise innocuous page from what seems to be a Dutch company, click on the notes beside the first entry, "Lovers Theme" (03:29). The full description of this piece is as follows:
"Lovers Theme
Duration: 03:29
Style: Romantic
Description: Haunting, light dramatic theme with single note piano lead - excellent orchestral accompaniment with prominent Strings and French horn.
Keywords: airy, calm, caring, dancing, dramatic, dreamy, dynamic, easy, epic, expectant, friendly, good, grand, happy, joyful, light, longing, melodic, mellow, optimistic, ominous, peaceful, pensive, positive, reflective, reverent, romantic, serene, sincere, soarin
Instruments: cymbals, drums, french horn, percussion, piano, strings, orchestra
Tempo: Medium Slow
Composer: Hervé Roy
Release year: 1992
Catalog #: TMCD1034-01"
Album description: "Collection of warm, pleasant and expressive romantic themes featuring piano and acoustic guitar leads."
If you don't recognise it, it is none other than THE THEME SONG OF 2GIRLS1CUP. How did I find this? Very simple. I Winamp Auto-Tag-ged the MP3 (from here), which yielded:
"Track: 1
Title: Lovers_Theme_Herve_Roy_TMCD1034
Artist: Herve Roy
Album: TMCD-1034 Romantic Themes
Album Artist: Tele Music
Year: 1992
Composer: Herve Roy"
I'm surprised I didn't think of this sooner!
Now I can appreciate the full genius of the music, with the enhanced quality (though only encoded at 64kbps, I can hear much that has been lost in the transition to a different medium) - the fidelity is better, the music has more depth and there are subtle chords and drum beats that have been either muffled or totally obscured but are now clear as day; synth audio never sounded so good! Furthermore, we get to hear more variations on this divine melody, with a version that's 3.5 times what we heard in the video.
Time to update my handphone ringtone with this new, improved version!
Update: Another site to download it.
More (slightly newer) old pictures, finally clearing the backlog:
"Don't Let Instarred Mole Dictate Your Fate"
NOTHING CAN CHANGE THE NATURE OF A MAN
"Women like their men well hung"
Strange seafood. Don't ask me what it is. You use a stick and pull it out. It's a bit like a snail, but since it's just boiled it tastes very strange. The flesh is not as succulent as snail flesh either.
"Braised Pork Belly with 'Mui Chye' (contains pork)" - WELL DONE
"Ice Glass Jelly. $2.00", at Food Republic Vivocity
More wth at Food Republic: "Chinese Tea - Lao Cong Shui Xian - $55.00. Chinese Tea - Dong Din Wu Long - $60.00. Food Republic Distilled Water - $1.50. Hot Water Service Charge - $3.00."
Furama Palace: "Exclusively @ Furama City Centre Singapore. Evian Limited Edition 2008 by Christian Lacroix @ $20++ per bottle".
$23.40 mineral water?!
VCH staircase; Maria Callas on Music: "When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed its point"
I wonder what she thought of Shostakovich and Messiaen. Appropriately, this was on the day I was at the atrociously bad RJ alumni band concert.
Sexist and racist police warning: "LET YOUR HAIR DOWN. NOT YOUR GUARD. Don't be a victim of crime. Alert Police Immediately."
Obviously a reference to the Bangla spraycan-gropings of some years past.
"Mmm...". I don't know about the movie (Breath), but I'd rate the poster NC16 at least!
Some Power Rangers 15th Anniversary game: "Defeat evil forces with an over-the-top combat system"
Uhh...
Raffles Hotel lift: "In a land where every RACE effortlessly mixes, we've dedicated an entire restaurant to a RIOT of drastically contrasting flavours".
For mocking and trivialising the tragedy of our time, we should send all the people responsible for this to prison forever.
Reminds me of this stupid postcard from a SDP conference in 2003 ("International Youth Conference For Democracy"):
"FREE & open debate on democracy. Absolutely no SEX discrimination."
I went back to RI for the choir reunion, and was shocked to see:
A very seditious wall painting. The Last Supper - with McDonalds. To think that taxpayer funds are going towards this! Time to cut off public funds and send the entire staff of the school to jail!!!
Also in the Art Gallery:
Vending Machines
And then there was the best exhibit:
I was not alone in thinking that this installation was the most artistic and meaningful of all the works on display.
I saw this overpriced Coke in a vending machine - $1.60 for 500ml. Where could this outrage have taken place? Sentosa? The Zoo?
St Andrew's Cathedral. Time to throw out the moneychangers!
Tissue pouch. I forgot whose. Wth.
Jigsaw: "Hi dear,
Have u managed to piece up my message?
Just wanted to let u know what u pieced up my life, from the day I met u! Thanks!
I ♥ u!"
I wonder why 'dear' was picked in the first place if his/her life needed piecing up in the first place.
Khong Guan biscuit tin: "WARNING: Legal action will be taken against persons using this container other than for Khong Guan products."
Siao.
Kent Vale: "Private Property. Do Not Enter. Enter At Your Own Risk."
Uhh...
"祖传秘方。。。 我的病有救了！"
Sounds like Snake Oil to me...
I think I took this because of the disturbing connection between the baby and fish-flavoured biscuits.
"If lift breaks down you may be trapped. Please use staircase to avoid missing your exam."
"If staircase collapses you may be killed. Please use lift to avoid missing dying."
"Swee's potato chips". These were going at 2 for $1. Basically you get what you pay for - worst chips in my life (declarations of quality notwithstanding). Even Malaysian Pringles are 10x better.
"Eusoff Hall. The Secret Formula for Winners! Horse Power. Ultimate Nutrition. NutritionPark.com. Good Nutrition, Real Results."
Uhh... This product endorsement isn't appropriate at all.
"Babystar Crispy Noodle Snack, Chicken Flavour". It has pork powder in it! It's so hard to find this sort of thing nowadays...
"Eu Yan Seng Herbal Soothies. American Wild Ginseng"
"Ingredients: Sugar, Glucose, Raw Honey"
Great. Sugar, sugar and more sugar are the three main ingredients. They sure need it to neutralise the taste...
I can't read this either, but I remember it was something about it being thirst quenching. Pfft...
"Ni Hao: A Gold Farmer's Story: Racializing Asian Virtual Labor in World of Warcraft
Leisure players from the US and Western Europe engaging in cross-racial role playing for entertainment purposes or "identity tourism" have been joined by users of color from China and Korea who are often subject to oppression as both a racio-linguistic minority, and as undesirable underclassed social bodies in the context of game play and game culture.
These "farmers," as they are dismissively dubbed by other players, produce and sell virtual goods such as weapons, garments, and even their own avatars or virtual bodies to other players for "real world" money. In-game economies, cultures of scarcity, user ideologies, and a cultural context of anti-immigrant late capitalism combine to figure Asian virtual workers as the enemy, and by extension, Asian culture as foreign, at best exotic, at worst threatening to the beauty and desirability of shared virtual space."
They are discriminated against because they are GOLD FARMERS, not because they are Chinese; Racialization does not mean racial discrimination - when I say "fucking idiot" it's not necessarily less insulting than "damn PRC".
Post-Marxists should just roll over and die (metaphorically, of course - just as their Revolution is metaphorical).
Someone who plays such games: gold farmers ARE evil
they are violating the terms of service of the games they operate in
and they ruin the gameplay experience of legitimate players
that's like saying we discriminate against murderers and thieves, though
huh wait
that says that "We discriminate against Asians because we identify most farmers as being Chinese or Korean"
which is absolutely not true, at least not in my experience
We discriminate against farmers because they are farmers
And it so happens that most of them are Asian
"Don't Let Instarred Mole Dictate Your Fate"
NOTHING CAN CHANGE THE NATURE OF A MAN
"Women like their men well hung"
Strange seafood. Don't ask me what it is. You use a stick and pull it out. It's a bit like a snail, but since it's just boiled it tastes very strange. The flesh is not as succulent as snail flesh either.
"Braised Pork Belly with 'Mui Chye' (contains pork)" - WELL DONE
"Ice Glass Jelly. $2.00", at Food Republic Vivocity
More wth at Food Republic: "Chinese Tea - Lao Cong Shui Xian - $55.00. Chinese Tea - Dong Din Wu Long - $60.00. Food Republic Distilled Water - $1.50. Hot Water Service Charge - $3.00."
Furama Palace: "Exclusively @ Furama City Centre Singapore. Evian Limited Edition 2008 by Christian Lacroix @ $20++ per bottle".
$23.40 mineral water?!
VCH staircase; Maria Callas on Music: "When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed its point"
I wonder what she thought of Shostakovich and Messiaen. Appropriately, this was on the day I was at the atrociously bad RJ alumni band concert.
Sexist and racist police warning: "LET YOUR HAIR DOWN. NOT YOUR GUARD. Don't be a victim of crime. Alert Police Immediately."
Obviously a reference to the Bangla spraycan-gropings of some years past.
"Mmm...". I don't know about the movie (Breath), but I'd rate the poster NC16 at least!
Some Power Rangers 15th Anniversary game: "Defeat evil forces with an over-the-top combat system"
Uhh...
Raffles Hotel lift: "In a land where every RACE effortlessly mixes, we've dedicated an entire restaurant to a RIOT of drastically contrasting flavours".
For mocking and trivialising the tragedy of our time, we should send all the people responsible for this to prison forever.
Reminds me of this stupid postcard from a SDP conference in 2003 ("International Youth Conference For Democracy"):
"FREE & open debate on democracy. Absolutely no SEX discrimination."
I went back to RI for the choir reunion, and was shocked to see:
A very seditious wall painting. The Last Supper - with McDonalds. To think that taxpayer funds are going towards this! Time to cut off public funds and send the entire staff of the school to jail!!!
Also in the Art Gallery:
Vending Machines
And then there was the best exhibit:
I was not alone in thinking that this installation was the most artistic and meaningful of all the works on display.
I saw this overpriced Coke in a vending machine - $1.60 for 500ml. Where could this outrage have taken place? Sentosa? The Zoo?
St Andrew's Cathedral. Time to throw out the moneychangers!
Tissue pouch. I forgot whose. Wth.
Jigsaw: "Hi dear,
Have u managed to piece up my message?
Just wanted to let u know what u pieced up my life, from the day I met u! Thanks!
I ♥ u!"
I wonder why 'dear' was picked in the first place if his/her life needed piecing up in the first place.
Khong Guan biscuit tin: "WARNING: Legal action will be taken against persons using this container other than for Khong Guan products."
Siao.
Kent Vale: "Private Property. Do Not Enter. Enter At Your Own Risk."
Uhh...
"祖传秘方。。。 我的病有救了！"
Sounds like Snake Oil to me...
I think I took this because of the disturbing connection between the baby and fish-flavoured biscuits.
"If lift breaks down you may be trapped. Please use staircase to avoid missing your exam."
"If staircase collapses you may be killed. Please use lift to avoid missing dying."
"Swee's potato chips". These were going at 2 for $1. Basically you get what you pay for - worst chips in my life (declarations of quality notwithstanding). Even Malaysian Pringles are 10x better.
"Eusoff Hall. The Secret Formula for Winners! Horse Power. Ultimate Nutrition. NutritionPark.com. Good Nutrition, Real Results."
Uhh... This product endorsement isn't appropriate at all.
"Babystar Crispy Noodle Snack, Chicken Flavour". It has pork powder in it! It's so hard to find this sort of thing nowadays...
"Eu Yan Seng Herbal Soothies. American Wild Ginseng"
"Ingredients: Sugar, Glucose, Raw Honey"
Great. Sugar, sugar and more sugar are the three main ingredients. They sure need it to neutralise the taste...
I can't read this either, but I remember it was something about it being thirst quenching. Pfft...
"Ni Hao: A Gold Farmer's Story: Racializing Asian Virtual Labor in World of Warcraft
Leisure players from the US and Western Europe engaging in cross-racial role playing for entertainment purposes or "identity tourism" have been joined by users of color from China and Korea who are often subject to oppression as both a racio-linguistic minority, and as undesirable underclassed social bodies in the context of game play and game culture.
These "farmers," as they are dismissively dubbed by other players, produce and sell virtual goods such as weapons, garments, and even their own avatars or virtual bodies to other players for "real world" money. In-game economies, cultures of scarcity, user ideologies, and a cultural context of anti-immigrant late capitalism combine to figure Asian virtual workers as the enemy, and by extension, Asian culture as foreign, at best exotic, at worst threatening to the beauty and desirability of shared virtual space."
They are discriminated against because they are GOLD FARMERS, not because they are Chinese; Racialization does not mean racial discrimination - when I say "fucking idiot" it's not necessarily less insulting than "damn PRC".
Post-Marxists should just roll over and die (metaphorically, of course - just as their Revolution is metaphorical).
Someone who plays such games: gold farmers ARE evil
they are violating the terms of service of the games they operate in
and they ruin the gameplay experience of legitimate players
that's like saying we discriminate against murderers and thieves, though
huh wait
that says that "We discriminate against Asians because we identify most farmers as being Chinese or Korean"
which is absolutely not true, at least not in my experience
We discriminate against farmers because they are farmers
And it so happens that most of them are Asian
"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs." - Christopher Hampton
***
A while back, I had what were, hands down, the WORST mussels I'd ever had at The Mussel Guys Seafood and Steak Restaurant at Vivocity.
(Photos suck, but they are posted here so I can't be sued for defamation)
I and SUG each had 18 mussels (500g), in Cream sauce ($19.90) and Belgian style (with wine IIRC, $23.90).
Perhaps the mussels were leftovers from the market, for they were small, not fresh and hard to open.
Notice how pathetic the foot is, and its lack of smoothness and regularity
Witness the small size and thinness of the foot
They outdo themselves with one specimen with an even tinier foot
After some wrestling with the fork (notice the puncture marks in the flesh), it still won't come out of the shell. I was also witness to a hitherto unprecedented event - notice the mussel shell to the top left of the punctured one and you will notice that it is chipped; yes, the shell broke when I was wrestling it open.
Eviscerated foot - and it STILL won't come off!
Most of the mussels we got were almost closed, like this one, and had to be pried apart with great difficulty.
The foot sticks to the top of the shell!
The sauces didn't taste very nice either.
In conclusion: Worst. Moules. Ever. (the Frites were alright though) If you want mussels, go to Oosters (at Church Street, around China Square). You pay LESS for BETTER moules, and you get free frites too.
What enraged me even more was that they tried to smoke us, claiming that their mussels were like this because they were live, and as such they held their shells tightly shut (Quoth I: Determining if mussels are fresh - "James Peterson, author of Fish & Shellfish, says the surest way to determine if a mussel is still among the living is to firmly push the shells sideways in opposing directions with your thumb and forefinger (not your pliers). If the mussel is dead, the shells will fall apart in your hand" - so maybe they gave us LIVING mussels). Perhaps they assumed that we had never had live (or even fresh) mussels, which on reflection was a good assumption - no one who has even eaten mussels would even go to The Mussel Guys.
Since then, multiple people have also informed me that their experiences there sucked (and I got complaints about the service too; one said the Dory was quite good though), so it's not just me. Doing a cursory search also reveals mostly bad reviews. That the place still survives after more than a year is testament to Singaporeans' tolerance for bad food.
Cunning Linguist: THEY ARE FUCKING BAD
their service sucks
and their mussels sucks
it was a bad experience la basically
dunno why they're sitll alive
i'm never going back there
i went there twice
and 2nd time there i scolded ***
i was like
DIDNT i SAY WE ARE NEVER COMING HERE AGAIN THE LAST TIME WE WERE HERE?b
***
A while back, I had what were, hands down, the WORST mussels I'd ever had at The Mussel Guys Seafood and Steak Restaurant at Vivocity.
(Photos suck, but they are posted here so I can't be sued for defamation)
I and SUG each had 18 mussels (500g), in Cream sauce ($19.90) and Belgian style (with wine IIRC, $23.90).
Perhaps the mussels were leftovers from the market, for they were small, not fresh and hard to open.
Notice how pathetic the foot is, and its lack of smoothness and regularity
Witness the small size and thinness of the foot
They outdo themselves with one specimen with an even tinier foot
After some wrestling with the fork (notice the puncture marks in the flesh), it still won't come out of the shell. I was also witness to a hitherto unprecedented event - notice the mussel shell to the top left of the punctured one and you will notice that it is chipped; yes, the shell broke when I was wrestling it open.
Eviscerated foot - and it STILL won't come off!
Most of the mussels we got were almost closed, like this one, and had to be pried apart with great difficulty.
The foot sticks to the top of the shell!
The sauces didn't taste very nice either.
In conclusion: Worst. Moules. Ever. (the Frites were alright though) If you want mussels, go to Oosters (at Church Street, around China Square). You pay LESS for BETTER moules, and you get free frites too.
What enraged me even more was that they tried to smoke us, claiming that their mussels were like this because they were live, and as such they held their shells tightly shut (Quoth I: Determining if mussels are fresh - "James Peterson, author of Fish & Shellfish, says the surest way to determine if a mussel is still among the living is to firmly push the shells sideways in opposing directions with your thumb and forefinger (not your pliers). If the mussel is dead, the shells will fall apart in your hand" - so maybe they gave us LIVING mussels). Perhaps they assumed that we had never had live (or even fresh) mussels, which on reflection was a good assumption - no one who has even eaten mussels would even go to The Mussel Guys.
Since then, multiple people have also informed me that their experiences there sucked (and I got complaints about the service too; one said the Dory was quite good though), so it's not just me. Doing a cursory search also reveals mostly bad reviews. That the place still survives after more than a year is testament to Singaporeans' tolerance for bad food.
Cunning Linguist: THEY ARE FUCKING BAD
their service sucks
and their mussels sucks
it was a bad experience la basically
dunno why they're sitll alive
i'm never going back there
i went there twice
and 2nd time there i scolded ***
i was like
DIDNT i SAY WE ARE NEVER COMING HERE AGAIN THE LAST TIME WE WERE HERE?b
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
"I no longer prepare food or drink with more than one ingredient." - Cyra McFadden
***
And Adam Knew Eve: A Dictionary of Sex in the Bible - "And Adam Knew Eve gathers from the books of the Bible all sexually related stories, concepts, and laws, and presents them, concisely but with attention to context, in A-Z format (from "Aaron and the Golden Calf" to "Zipporah and Moses"). Sexually related material comprises overall such a significant portion of scripture that some knowledge of it is essential both in appreciating the Bible as a whole and in understanding the difference in attitude toward sex to be found between the Old and New Testaments. And Adam Knew Eve also deals with the issue of women's second-class status under the patriarchal system of the biblical world... And Adam Knew Eve is recommended by websites of Columbia University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rutgers University, University of Toronto, Association of College and Research Libraries, University of London, and many others."
Boy, 11, Uses Toy Lightsaber to Defend Mom From Attacker
Africans in America/Part 4/Frederick Douglass speech - "I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light?"
He's lucky he didn't get lynched for offending slave-owners.
Buddhist monks rapping Sutra to attract followers - "Buddhist monks are donning gold outfits and rapping their way into the minds of young potential Buddhist’s and Buddhist recruits. Titled the “Tokyo Bouz Collection,” the event featured 40 monks and nuns from eight major Buddhist sects blinged out in gold embroidered robes performing a rap version of a Buddhist sutra. They strutted the runway while chanting prayers and throwing confetti that looked like lotus petals."
I didn't see the video so I don't know if it's worse than the MDA one.
Money-shot fever; The current displays of jism only prove how passé men have become - "It's not just a taboo of good taste that Monica's dress and these very different movies smash. They signify our anxiety about the end of male importance in reproduction... What's depressing about this plethora of white goo on screen -- the comedy "American Pie," due this summer, continues the genre -- is the desperate need to insist on its importance. As semen becomes less and less essential to reproduction, we brandish it even more defiantly."
Crazymisandrists feminists. Apparently Ann Marlowe isn't writing for Salon anymore: she can always join some of the crazies at Feministing
In Response to M.T.A.’s ‘Say Something’ Ads, a Glimpse of Modern Fears - "After 9/11, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority coined the slogan, “If you see something, say something,” and put it on posters encouraging subway and bus riders to call a police counterterrorism hot line if they encountered anything suspicious... Mr. Browne said several callers reported seeing men clicking hand-held counting devices while riding on subway trains or waiting on platforms. The callers said that the men appeared to be Muslims and that they seemed to be counting the number of people boarding subway trains or the number of trains passing through a station. They feared the men might be collecting data to maximize the casualties in a terror attack. But when the police looked into the claims, they determined that the men were counting prayers with the devices, essentially a modern version of rosary beads. The counters are a common item in the Islamic shops on Atlantic Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, where they sell for $5 to $8. Ali Mohammed, 44, a Brooklyn grocery owner who was shopping on Atlantic Avenue recently, said many Muslims use a tally counter as they repeat the many names of God."
Pope calls for continuous prayer to rid priesthood of paedophilia - "Pope Benedict XVI has instructed Roman Catholics to pray “in perpetuity” to cleanse the Church of paedophile clergy. All dioceses, parishes, monasteries, convents and seminaries will be expected to organise continuous daily prayers to express penitence and to purify the clergy."
Why didn't they try that for World Peace? It can't be falsified anyway.
Mexico boy tries to stick at home - "A Mexican boy glued his hand to his bed because he did not want to go back to school after the Christmas break."
Apple's new machines are "fastest ever," obviously - "Can we just say how sneakily brilliant this copy is? Apple's putting out standard processor upgrades, the same upgrades that the rest of the PC industry is releasing, and only because Intel, everyone's chip supplier, is making faster chips (because that's what chip makers do). So of course your new Macs are faster than your old Macs -- all new computers are faster than the ones that came before, because that's how the business works. Put out a new Mac that's as slow as an abacus, that would be a story. Apple is like the car dealer who throws in a spare tire with the purchase of your new car. But hey, you know what? Those dealers clean up. And why not? They're giving you a spare tire, for free!"
Think censor: Apple's lawyers shut down rumor site - "Apple wins everything here, closing down a journalist who did exactly what reporters are supposed to do -- establishing contacts with insiders to shed light on a secret much in public demand. Imagine if Dick Cheney were able to do the same thing to the New York Times, to shut down the paper for reporting on the "trade secret" of NSA surveillance, say?... Am I mistaken, or was Apple the firm that once plumbed George Orwell for a famous TV ad? Probably I'm mistaken."
Think Different. Don't buy an iPod.
Goodbye to All That
"This struggle to embrace modernity without abandoning faith falls on one of the fault lines in the modern world. It is arguably the critical fault line, the tectonic rift that is advancing the bloody borders of Islam and the increasingly sectarian boundaries of American politics. As humankind abandons the secular totalitarianisms of the last century and grapples with breakneck technological and scientific discoveries, the appeal of absolutist faith is powerful in both developing and developed countries. It is the latest in a long line of rebukes to liberal modernity—but this rebuke has the deepest roots, the widest appeal, and the attraction that all total solutions to the human predicament proffer. From the doctrinal absolutism of Pope Benedict’s Vatican to the revival of fundamentalist Protestantism in the U.S. and Asia to the attraction for many Muslims of the most extreme and antimodern forms of Islam, the same phenomenon has spread to every culture and place. You cannot confront the complex challenges of domestic or foreign policy today unless you understand this gulf and its seriousness."
Good bit in an otherwise blah article about Obama, who is after all just all-rhetoric.
***
And Adam Knew Eve: A Dictionary of Sex in the Bible - "And Adam Knew Eve gathers from the books of the Bible all sexually related stories, concepts, and laws, and presents them, concisely but with attention to context, in A-Z format (from "Aaron and the Golden Calf" to "Zipporah and Moses"). Sexually related material comprises overall such a significant portion of scripture that some knowledge of it is essential both in appreciating the Bible as a whole and in understanding the difference in attitude toward sex to be found between the Old and New Testaments. And Adam Knew Eve also deals with the issue of women's second-class status under the patriarchal system of the biblical world... And Adam Knew Eve is recommended by websites of Columbia University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rutgers University, University of Toronto, Association of College and Research Libraries, University of London, and many others."
Boy, 11, Uses Toy Lightsaber to Defend Mom From Attacker
Africans in America/Part 4/Frederick Douglass speech - "I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light?"
He's lucky he didn't get lynched for offending slave-owners.
Buddhist monks rapping Sutra to attract followers - "Buddhist monks are donning gold outfits and rapping their way into the minds of young potential Buddhist’s and Buddhist recruits. Titled the “Tokyo Bouz Collection,” the event featured 40 monks and nuns from eight major Buddhist sects blinged out in gold embroidered robes performing a rap version of a Buddhist sutra. They strutted the runway while chanting prayers and throwing confetti that looked like lotus petals."
I didn't see the video so I don't know if it's worse than the MDA one.
Money-shot fever; The current displays of jism only prove how passé men have become - "It's not just a taboo of good taste that Monica's dress and these very different movies smash. They signify our anxiety about the end of male importance in reproduction... What's depressing about this plethora of white goo on screen -- the comedy "American Pie," due this summer, continues the genre -- is the desperate need to insist on its importance. As semen becomes less and less essential to reproduction, we brandish it even more defiantly."
Crazy
In Response to M.T.A.’s ‘Say Something’ Ads, a Glimpse of Modern Fears - "After 9/11, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority coined the slogan, “If you see something, say something,” and put it on posters encouraging subway and bus riders to call a police counterterrorism hot line if they encountered anything suspicious... Mr. Browne said several callers reported seeing men clicking hand-held counting devices while riding on subway trains or waiting on platforms. The callers said that the men appeared to be Muslims and that they seemed to be counting the number of people boarding subway trains or the number of trains passing through a station. They feared the men might be collecting data to maximize the casualties in a terror attack. But when the police looked into the claims, they determined that the men were counting prayers with the devices, essentially a modern version of rosary beads. The counters are a common item in the Islamic shops on Atlantic Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, where they sell for $5 to $8. Ali Mohammed, 44, a Brooklyn grocery owner who was shopping on Atlantic Avenue recently, said many Muslims use a tally counter as they repeat the many names of God."
Pope calls for continuous prayer to rid priesthood of paedophilia - "Pope Benedict XVI has instructed Roman Catholics to pray “in perpetuity” to cleanse the Church of paedophile clergy. All dioceses, parishes, monasteries, convents and seminaries will be expected to organise continuous daily prayers to express penitence and to purify the clergy."
Why didn't they try that for World Peace? It can't be falsified anyway.
Mexico boy tries to stick at home - "A Mexican boy glued his hand to his bed because he did not want to go back to school after the Christmas break."
Apple's new machines are "fastest ever," obviously - "Can we just say how sneakily brilliant this copy is? Apple's putting out standard processor upgrades, the same upgrades that the rest of the PC industry is releasing, and only because Intel, everyone's chip supplier, is making faster chips (because that's what chip makers do). So of course your new Macs are faster than your old Macs -- all new computers are faster than the ones that came before, because that's how the business works. Put out a new Mac that's as slow as an abacus, that would be a story. Apple is like the car dealer who throws in a spare tire with the purchase of your new car. But hey, you know what? Those dealers clean up. And why not? They're giving you a spare tire, for free!"
Think censor: Apple's lawyers shut down rumor site - "Apple wins everything here, closing down a journalist who did exactly what reporters are supposed to do -- establishing contacts with insiders to shed light on a secret much in public demand. Imagine if Dick Cheney were able to do the same thing to the New York Times, to shut down the paper for reporting on the "trade secret" of NSA surveillance, say?... Am I mistaken, or was Apple the firm that once plumbed George Orwell for a famous TV ad? Probably I'm mistaken."
Think Different. Don't buy an iPod.
Goodbye to All That
"This struggle to embrace modernity without abandoning faith falls on one of the fault lines in the modern world. It is arguably the critical fault line, the tectonic rift that is advancing the bloody borders of Islam and the increasingly sectarian boundaries of American politics. As humankind abandons the secular totalitarianisms of the last century and grapples with breakneck technological and scientific discoveries, the appeal of absolutist faith is powerful in both developing and developed countries. It is the latest in a long line of rebukes to liberal modernity—but this rebuke has the deepest roots, the widest appeal, and the attraction that all total solutions to the human predicament proffer. From the doctrinal absolutism of Pope Benedict’s Vatican to the revival of fundamentalist Protestantism in the U.S. and Asia to the attraction for many Muslims of the most extreme and antimodern forms of Islam, the same phenomenon has spread to every culture and place. You cannot confront the complex challenges of domestic or foreign policy today unless you understand this gulf and its seriousness."
Good bit in an otherwise blah article about Obama, who is after all just all-rhetoric.
"Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself." - A. H. Weiler
***
More religious hatred from a known terrorist:
Science, Islam, and Christianity
Robert Spencer
"The idea that Islam extols science while Christianity is hostile to it is historically and conceptually false...
In Islam, Allah's "will is not bound up with any of our categories" and quoting Ibn Hazm saying "Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry," the Pope was not so much saying that in the Islamic view Allah would command his people to do evil, but that he might change the content of the concepts of good and evil. In other words, Allah would always enjoin "justice and kindness," but what constitutes "justice and kindness," just as what constitutes "innocent blood," might change. [Ed: Err. Not like they don't have this in Christianity, especially according to many modern Christians.]
This idea has extraordinarily important implications for the development of science. There is an odd passage in the Qur'an that sums up this perspective, and how it differs from the Judeo-Christian view of God: "The Jews say: Allah's hand is fettered. Their hands are fettered and they are accursed for saying so." (5:64).
The Jews, in their wickedness, claimed that "Allah's hand is fettered," but in fact Allah's hand is not fettered. It is unclear what Jewish concept the Qur'an is referring to in this case, but the indignant response to it is clear: Allah's hand being unfettered is a vivid image of divine freedom. Such a God can be bound by no laws. Muslim theologians argued during the long controversy with the Mu'tazilite sect, which exalted human reason beyond the point that the eventual victors were willing to tolerate, that Allah was free to act as he pleased. He was thus not bound to govern the universe according to consistent and observable laws. "He cannot be questioned concerning what He does" (Qur'an 21:23).
Accordingly, there was no point to observing the workings of the physical world; there was no reason to expect that any pattern to its workings would be consistent, or even discernable. If Allah could not be counted on to be consistent, why waste time observing the order of things? It could change tomorrow...
It is logically not impossible that a deviation from this habit should occur, namely, that fire should cause cold, move downward, and still be fire; that the water should cause heat, move upward, and still be water. On this foundation their whole fabric is constructed.
This odd theory was derived entirely from the Islamic conviction of the absolute sovereignty of Allah. Relatively early in its history, therefore, science was deprived in the Islamic world of the philosophical foundation it needed in order to flourish. Consequently, Jaki observes, "the improvements brought by Muslim scientists to the Greek scientific corpus were never substantial." The consequences of this have been far-reaching. Jaki details some of them...
"Islam," notes Stark, "did not fully embrace the notion that the universe ran along on fundamental principles laid down by God at the creation but assumed that the world was sustained by his will on a continuing basis."...
Maimonides' depiction of Muslim philosophers envisioning elephants becoming snakes and fire turning cool. And to be sure, to a pious Muslim of Aquinas's day the idea that God could not do anything would have appeared as the highest form of blasphemy. It would have been equivalent to saying that "Allah's hand is fettered." But Christians did not consider it blasphemous in the least. "The rise of science," Stark explains, "was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Because God is perfect, that handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover those principles."
The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. Stark concludes: "These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else."... Much of [the idea that Science originated in Islam] has been exaggerated in regard to both Islam and Europe, often for quite transparent apologetic motives. The astrolabe was developed, if not perfected, long before Muhammad was born. The zero, which is often attributed to Muslims, and what we know today as "Arabic numerals" did not originate in Arabia, but in pre-Islamic India. Aristotle's work was preserved in Arabic not initially by Muslims at all, but by Christians such as the fifth century priest Probus of Antioch, who introduced Aristotle to the Arabic-speaking world. Another Christian, Huneyn ibn-Ishaq (809-873), translated many works by Aristotle, Galen, Plato and Hippocrates into Syriac. His son then translated them into Arabic. The Syrian Christian Yahya ibn 'Adi (893-974) also translated works of philosophy into Arabic, and wrote one of his own, The Reformation of Morals. His student, another Christian named Abu 'Ali 'Isa ibn Zur'a (943-1008), also translated Aristotle and others from Syriac into Arabic. The first Arabic-language medical treatise was written by a Christian priest and translated into Arabic by a Jewish doctor in 683. The first hospital was founded in Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate -- not by a Muslim, but a Nestorian Christian. A pioneering medical school was founded at Gundeshapur in Persia - by Assyrian Christians.
In sum, there was a time when it was indeed true that Islamic culture was more advanced than that of Europeans, but that superiority corresponds exactly to the period when Muslims were able to draw on and advance the achievements of Byzantine and other civilizations. But when the Muslim overlords had taken what they could from their subject peoples, and the Jewish and Christian communities had been stripped of their material and intellectual wealth and thoroughly subdued, Islam went into a period of intellectual decline from which it has not yet recovered...
Stark points out that "Islamic scholars achieved significant progress only in terms of specific knowledge, such as certain aspects of astronomy and medicine, which did not require any general theoretical basis. And as time passed, even this sort of progress ceased."...
Indeed, clocks originated in medieval Catholic Europe, while in 1560, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, the Austrian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, wrote that his hosts had "never been able to bring themselves to print books and set up public clocks. They hold that their scriptures, that is, their sacred books, would no longer be scriptures if they were printed; and if they established public clocks, they think that the authority of their muezzins and their ancient rites would suffer diminution." It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, time in which Islamic norms were on the defensive and in retreat, that the first public clock was installed in Constantinople; this may have been the first public clock erected in any Islamic country.
The effects of the Christian openness to innovation and the Islamic resistance to it reverberate in many fields. Even in medicine, while the Islamic world points proudly to many early physicians and medical theorists, it was not a Muslim, but the Belgian physician and researcher Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), who paved the way for modern medical advances when he published the first accurate description of human internal organs, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) in 1543. Why was a Muslim not able to do this? Because Vesalius was able to dissect human bodies, while that practice was forbidden in Islam. What's more, Vesalius' book is filled with detailed anatomical drawings - but also forbidden in Islam are artistic representations of the human body."
***
More religious hatred from a known terrorist:
Science, Islam, and Christianity
Robert Spencer
"The idea that Islam extols science while Christianity is hostile to it is historically and conceptually false...
In Islam, Allah's "will is not bound up with any of our categories" and quoting Ibn Hazm saying "Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry," the Pope was not so much saying that in the Islamic view Allah would command his people to do evil, but that he might change the content of the concepts of good and evil. In other words, Allah would always enjoin "justice and kindness," but what constitutes "justice and kindness," just as what constitutes "innocent blood," might change. [Ed: Err. Not like they don't have this in Christianity, especially according to many modern Christians.]
This idea has extraordinarily important implications for the development of science. There is an odd passage in the Qur'an that sums up this perspective, and how it differs from the Judeo-Christian view of God: "The Jews say: Allah's hand is fettered. Their hands are fettered and they are accursed for saying so." (5:64).
The Jews, in their wickedness, claimed that "Allah's hand is fettered," but in fact Allah's hand is not fettered. It is unclear what Jewish concept the Qur'an is referring to in this case, but the indignant response to it is clear: Allah's hand being unfettered is a vivid image of divine freedom. Such a God can be bound by no laws. Muslim theologians argued during the long controversy with the Mu'tazilite sect, which exalted human reason beyond the point that the eventual victors were willing to tolerate, that Allah was free to act as he pleased. He was thus not bound to govern the universe according to consistent and observable laws. "He cannot be questioned concerning what He does" (Qur'an 21:23).
Accordingly, there was no point to observing the workings of the physical world; there was no reason to expect that any pattern to its workings would be consistent, or even discernable. If Allah could not be counted on to be consistent, why waste time observing the order of things? It could change tomorrow...
It is logically not impossible that a deviation from this habit should occur, namely, that fire should cause cold, move downward, and still be fire; that the water should cause heat, move upward, and still be water. On this foundation their whole fabric is constructed.
This odd theory was derived entirely from the Islamic conviction of the absolute sovereignty of Allah. Relatively early in its history, therefore, science was deprived in the Islamic world of the philosophical foundation it needed in order to flourish. Consequently, Jaki observes, "the improvements brought by Muslim scientists to the Greek scientific corpus were never substantial." The consequences of this have been far-reaching. Jaki details some of them...
"Islam," notes Stark, "did not fully embrace the notion that the universe ran along on fundamental principles laid down by God at the creation but assumed that the world was sustained by his will on a continuing basis."...
Maimonides' depiction of Muslim philosophers envisioning elephants becoming snakes and fire turning cool. And to be sure, to a pious Muslim of Aquinas's day the idea that God could not do anything would have appeared as the highest form of blasphemy. It would have been equivalent to saying that "Allah's hand is fettered." But Christians did not consider it blasphemous in the least. "The rise of science," Stark explains, "was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Because God is perfect, that handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover those principles."
The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. Stark concludes: "These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else."... Much of [the idea that Science originated in Islam] has been exaggerated in regard to both Islam and Europe, often for quite transparent apologetic motives. The astrolabe was developed, if not perfected, long before Muhammad was born. The zero, which is often attributed to Muslims, and what we know today as "Arabic numerals" did not originate in Arabia, but in pre-Islamic India. Aristotle's work was preserved in Arabic not initially by Muslims at all, but by Christians such as the fifth century priest Probus of Antioch, who introduced Aristotle to the Arabic-speaking world. Another Christian, Huneyn ibn-Ishaq (809-873), translated many works by Aristotle, Galen, Plato and Hippocrates into Syriac. His son then translated them into Arabic. The Syrian Christian Yahya ibn 'Adi (893-974) also translated works of philosophy into Arabic, and wrote one of his own, The Reformation of Morals. His student, another Christian named Abu 'Ali 'Isa ibn Zur'a (943-1008), also translated Aristotle and others from Syriac into Arabic. The first Arabic-language medical treatise was written by a Christian priest and translated into Arabic by a Jewish doctor in 683. The first hospital was founded in Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate -- not by a Muslim, but a Nestorian Christian. A pioneering medical school was founded at Gundeshapur in Persia - by Assyrian Christians.
In sum, there was a time when it was indeed true that Islamic culture was more advanced than that of Europeans, but that superiority corresponds exactly to the period when Muslims were able to draw on and advance the achievements of Byzantine and other civilizations. But when the Muslim overlords had taken what they could from their subject peoples, and the Jewish and Christian communities had been stripped of their material and intellectual wealth and thoroughly subdued, Islam went into a period of intellectual decline from which it has not yet recovered...
Stark points out that "Islamic scholars achieved significant progress only in terms of specific knowledge, such as certain aspects of astronomy and medicine, which did not require any general theoretical basis. And as time passed, even this sort of progress ceased."...
Indeed, clocks originated in medieval Catholic Europe, while in 1560, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, the Austrian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, wrote that his hosts had "never been able to bring themselves to print books and set up public clocks. They hold that their scriptures, that is, their sacred books, would no longer be scriptures if they were printed; and if they established public clocks, they think that the authority of their muezzins and their ancient rites would suffer diminution." It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, time in which Islamic norms were on the defensive and in retreat, that the first public clock was installed in Constantinople; this may have been the first public clock erected in any Islamic country.
The effects of the Christian openness to innovation and the Islamic resistance to it reverberate in many fields. Even in medicine, while the Islamic world points proudly to many early physicians and medical theorists, it was not a Muslim, but the Belgian physician and researcher Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), who paved the way for modern medical advances when he published the first accurate description of human internal organs, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) in 1543. Why was a Muslim not able to do this? Because Vesalius was able to dissect human bodies, while that practice was forbidden in Islam. What's more, Vesalius' book is filled with detailed anatomical drawings - but also forbidden in Islam are artistic representations of the human body."
"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish." - Aeschylus
***
Random pictures and videos (some months old - you know what they say: better late than never):
Shamima's Trick. Everyone needs a good party trick
Meowing pussy in rescue op
"Covert Acquisition. Private investigation & security services
Our Coat of Arms
As the unicorns of hope hold up the shield
on life's rocky paths,
the guiding star shines brightly
over life's stormy waters."
Uhh...
Ikea ad: "Our girls[']... rooms have become castles that reflect their personalities... we're just happy to recaptured (sic) the living room, now that they spend more time in their rooms"
Funny, my mother complains I spend too much time in my room. I also love the Occidentalism of this ad, since they didn't waste money redoing it with Asian models to reflect our 'Asianness'.
"U-TURN HIM ON. Strip your entire body for baby smooth skin. No man can resist ...it's not all about the hood! Ministry of Waxing"
This is a damn silly ad. Hood?!
"Free sex. 999"
A brilliant transgressive act which subverts the dominant paradigm!
"Tatara.com.sg. Dream it. Own it. Singapore's FIRST Premium Lowest Uniq"
Using a woman in a swimsuit to promote an auction site?! I'm with the feminists on this.
Marine Parade renovation display: "Toilet for display only. Strictly no [usage]"
Uhh...
Christie's disgusting toe-socks with sandals
NUS AIDS poster: "He looks yummy... She tastes yummy... Taking risks? For our loved ones? To have Safe Sex? Or simply Abstinence? We have choices."
"Sextreme. Feel Good, Play Safe."
"Ahhhhhh.... yes! yessss!!... 'Slip it' condom demo"
"FACT: There is no cure for HIV/AIDS. Once tested HIV-positive, you will be burdened for life. Be wise, don't let HIV/AIDS take over your world."
Brilliant. So what will people do? They won't get tested.
"Ready For a BIG Night Out? Cash. Cellphone. Condom."
They're encouraging moral hazard. How immoral!
Presentation on Boat Quay: "WHERE ARE THE LOCALS??"
"Bagus!" cup, with the Malaysian Thumbs Up sign
Munchie Monkey's smoothies: "A tasty treat for those in heat"
I need a phone camera that can focus.
"One step closer to the Nobel prize. Get to know how at Sweden day... Taste exotic food such as Meat balls"
Exotic food? They need to get out more.
NUSSU is very smart, placing the power sockets in the lounge far away from where people sit, and having pool tables in between (hopefully they've changed the layout after 2.5 months)
"Fish & Chips with Rice"
Where're the chips?! Truly Pseudo-Western (BTC).
"Depending on God: The worth of Prayer"
Someone should regress life outcomes on praying.
"Temporary road closure. Event: PAP Awards & Convention 2007"
This otherwise unassuming poster is here because we weren't told what event it was. SBS sees it fit for the public to know, but apparently the administration doesn't think students should know what's happening in their own school.
"LAJ2201. Please do NOT tell your classmate what you were asked about in the interview. If you do so, other students will get benefit from you so that your grade will drop after all. Please do not forget taking your homework back.
Yay, Engrish!
NUS's very own Holocaust memorial at PGP! In comparison, pictures of the main installation in Berlin:
From an exhibit on vegetarianism (some Save The Earth bazaar):
"PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE EXHIBITS. This area is PROTECTED by SURVEILLANCE CAMERA."
They must have been afraid of irate visitors, riled by FUD [Ed: Fear, Uncertainty and Disinformation] such as:
"IMAGINE AN ALIEN SPECIES
whose abilities and technology
are far superior to humans'. We are no match for them.
They take over the Earth, mass breed humans by the millions,
they imprison, kill, cook and eat humans.
They also manipulate humans' bodies for cosmetics, clothes and anything else they need,
with no respect at all for human lives.
Imagine you are one of the victims and
have no one to turn to for help, no chance of escape...
the police, army and any other form of protection have become non-existent.
You scream and cry for your life but NOBODY CARES...
and the aliens invent machines to deal with the gore and blood.
They love your meat; it tastes so good.
This treatment is exactly what humans do to farm animals.
For you, this is just imagination.
For farm animals, this is REALITY.
BE KIND. Do not create a demand for meat.
Better still, help speak for a better world through the Vegetarian Society (Singapore)"
Carrot Juice Is Murder. And apparently they don't know that eating meat kills fewer animals than eating cereals.
"Are we consuming meat... or, is meat consuming us?
1. Meat is contributing to major health problems (like cancer, hear diseases, stroke) in affluent countries, while it worsens the hunger problems in developing countries.
2. Much of the Planet's topsoil is used to grow huge amounts of crops to feed animals for humans to eat. We are depleting that biological capital [fertile soil] at an alarming rate.
We are depleting the Planet’s resources [Ed: Capital P? They think what - Gaia Theory ah?!]
3. By destroying forests to grow crops for livestock, we destroy the green lungs of the Earth. This contributes to global warming. [Ed: By eating Organic food, we are not maximising the productive capacity of land and have to destroy more forests to grow crops. This contributes to global warming.]
4. The billions of animals bred in farms by humans, produce methane gas, which is a greenhouse gas 23 times stronger than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas which is 296 times stronger
The meat industry generates more greenhouse gases and thus contributes more to GLOBAL WARMING than all the vehicles on the Planet
5. As long as we have animal farms, we have to live with one great potential source of a pandemic, which threatens to kill humans by the millions.
SAVE THE PLANET. Eat less or no meat.
Better still, help speak for a better world through the Vegetarian Society (Singapore)"
Obviously they are economically, scientifically and historically illiterate.
***
Random pictures and videos (some months old - you know what they say: better late than never):
Shamima's Trick. Everyone needs a good party trick
Meowing pussy in rescue op
"Covert Acquisition. Private investigation & security services
Our Coat of Arms
As the unicorns of hope hold up the shield
on life's rocky paths,
the guiding star shines brightly
over life's stormy waters."
Uhh...
Ikea ad: "Our girls[']... rooms have become castles that reflect their personalities... we're just happy to recaptured (sic) the living room, now that they spend more time in their rooms"
Funny, my mother complains I spend too much time in my room. I also love the Occidentalism of this ad, since they didn't waste money redoing it with Asian models to reflect our 'Asianness'.
"U-TURN HIM ON. Strip your entire body for baby smooth skin. No man can resist ...it's not all about the hood! Ministry of Waxing"
This is a damn silly ad. Hood?!
"Free sex. 999"
A brilliant transgressive act which subverts the dominant paradigm!
"Tatara.com.sg. Dream it. Own it. Singapore's FIRST Premium Lowest Uniq"
Using a woman in a swimsuit to promote an auction site?! I'm with the feminists on this.
Marine Parade renovation display: "Toilet for display only. Strictly no [usage]"
Uhh...
Christie's disgusting toe-socks with sandals
NUS AIDS poster: "He looks yummy... She tastes yummy... Taking risks? For our loved ones? To have Safe Sex? Or simply Abstinence? We have choices."
"Sextreme. Feel Good, Play Safe."
"Ahhhhhh.... yes! yessss!!... 'Slip it' condom demo"
"FACT: There is no cure for HIV/AIDS. Once tested HIV-positive, you will be burdened for life. Be wise, don't let HIV/AIDS take over your world."
Brilliant. So what will people do? They won't get tested.
"Ready For a BIG Night Out? Cash. Cellphone. Condom."
They're encouraging moral hazard. How immoral!
Presentation on Boat Quay: "WHERE ARE THE LOCALS??"
"Bagus!" cup, with the Malaysian Thumbs Up sign
Munchie Monkey's smoothies: "A tasty treat for those in heat"
I need a phone camera that can focus.
"One step closer to the Nobel prize. Get to know how at Sweden day... Taste exotic food such as Meat balls"
Exotic food? They need to get out more.
NUSSU is very smart, placing the power sockets in the lounge far away from where people sit, and having pool tables in between (hopefully they've changed the layout after 2.5 months)
"Fish & Chips with Rice"
Where're the chips?! Truly Pseudo-Western (BTC).
"Depending on God: The worth of Prayer"
Someone should regress life outcomes on praying.
"Temporary road closure. Event: PAP Awards & Convention 2007"
This otherwise unassuming poster is here because we weren't told what event it was. SBS sees it fit for the public to know, but apparently the administration doesn't think students should know what's happening in their own school.
"LAJ2201. Please do NOT tell your classmate what you were asked about in the interview. If you do so, other students will get benefit from you so that your grade will drop after all. Please do not forget taking your homework back.
Yay, Engrish!
NUS's very own Holocaust memorial at PGP! In comparison, pictures of the main installation in Berlin:
From an exhibit on vegetarianism (some Save The Earth bazaar):
"PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE EXHIBITS. This area is PROTECTED by SURVEILLANCE CAMERA."
They must have been afraid of irate visitors, riled by FUD [Ed: Fear, Uncertainty and Disinformation] such as:
"IMAGINE AN ALIEN SPECIES
whose abilities and technology
are far superior to humans'. We are no match for them.
They take over the Earth, mass breed humans by the millions,
they imprison, kill, cook and eat humans.
They also manipulate humans' bodies for cosmetics, clothes and anything else they need,
with no respect at all for human lives.
Imagine you are one of the victims and
have no one to turn to for help, no chance of escape...
the police, army and any other form of protection have become non-existent.
You scream and cry for your life but NOBODY CARES...
and the aliens invent machines to deal with the gore and blood.
They love your meat; it tastes so good.
This treatment is exactly what humans do to farm animals.
For you, this is just imagination.
For farm animals, this is REALITY.
BE KIND. Do not create a demand for meat.
Better still, help speak for a better world through the Vegetarian Society (Singapore)"
Carrot Juice Is Murder. And apparently they don't know that eating meat kills fewer animals than eating cereals.
"Are we consuming meat... or, is meat consuming us?
1. Meat is contributing to major health problems (like cancer, hear diseases, stroke) in affluent countries, while it worsens the hunger problems in developing countries.
2. Much of the Planet's topsoil is used to grow huge amounts of crops to feed animals for humans to eat. We are depleting that biological capital [fertile soil] at an alarming rate.
We are depleting the Planet’s resources [Ed: Capital P? They think what - Gaia Theory ah?!]
3. By destroying forests to grow crops for livestock, we destroy the green lungs of the Earth. This contributes to global warming. [Ed: By eating Organic food, we are not maximising the productive capacity of land and have to destroy more forests to grow crops. This contributes to global warming.]
4. The billions of animals bred in farms by humans, produce methane gas, which is a greenhouse gas 23 times stronger than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas which is 296 times stronger
The meat industry generates more greenhouse gases and thus contributes more to GLOBAL WARMING than all the vehicles on the Planet
5. As long as we have animal farms, we have to live with one great potential source of a pandemic, which threatens to kill humans by the millions.
SAVE THE PLANET. Eat less or no meat.
Better still, help speak for a better world through the Vegetarian Society (Singapore)"
Obviously they are economically, scientifically and historically illiterate.