"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." - Lily Tomlin

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S'pore needs to build up long-term care sector - "Singaporeans often come across the three Ms in healthcare - Medisave, Medishield and Medifund. But Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said now it is time to focus on the three Es - Eldersave, Elderfund and Eldershield - so that Singaporeans can finance their long-term healthcare expenses as the population ages."
Maybe people can look at the Fourth E - Emigration.

Wiccan Accidentally Stabs Herself in Foot With Sword During Good Luck Ritual - "Gunther said she was performing the ceremony to give thanks for a recent run of good luck. The ceremony involves the use of candles, incense and driving swords into the ground during the full moon. Gunther said was aiming to put the sword in the ground, but hit her foot instead. "It wasn't the first time I performed the ritual, but it was the first time I put a sword through my foot," she said."

Sara Ziff talks to Louise France about the world of teen modelling - "The famous photographer demands to be touched sexually. "Sena - can you grab his cock and twist it real hard," his assistant tells her. "He likes it when you squeeze it real hard and twist it."... This is the ugly, sleazy side of the modelling industry, the side few insiders like to talk about. It's one of the most secretive businesses in the world, which is ironic when you consider that it is also one of the most pervasive... they end up with one of the best films about the world of modelling and an honest portrayal of an industry built on artifice... an industry where women, she believes, are betrayed all the time"... It's an industry that is as much about undressing as dressing up, as much about what's underneath as what's on top. The model's job is to look into the camera lens and make a woolly, oversize cardigan look sexy. It was ever thus... There's a suggestion that some models lose weight because it's the only aspect of their lives that they have any control over."

To thine own self be untrue: Self-awareness in authoritarians - "Described authoritarians, defined as those who score relatively highly on the Right Wing Authoritarianism scale, and presented data in support of the argument that authoritarians are less likely than most people to exhibit self-awareness. Possible explanations for the phenomenon are noted, with discussion focusing on fear as an underlying cause."

Unusual Canned Foods From Around The World (45 Pics) - I like the Reindeer Pate: "Arctic delicacy. Farm raised relative of Rudolph. An
indulgent Christmas treat!" Also nice, Pork Brains in Milk Gravy (156g gives you 1170% of your Cholesterol needs). And the canned cheeseburger (which seems to include the bun).

Male brain vs. female brain II: What is an “extreme male brain”? What is an “extreme female brain”? - "Even after Baron-Cohen figured out the essence of autism as an extreme male brain, the nature of the other extreme, an extreme female brain, remained a puzzle... The female brain tends toward empathizing and mentalizing thinking, treating machines and objects as if they were other people. They attribute minds, thoughts, and feelings to inanimate objects. That, according to Crespi and Badcock, is the essence of paranoid schizophrenia. Paranoid schizophrenics hear voices where there are no people, and they attribute minds and thinking where none exist, such as when they believe other people are talking about or conspiring against them when they aren’t. Paranoid schizophrenics are hypermentalistic, and overinfer minds and emotions in other people, just as autistics are hypomentalistic, and underinfer minds and emotions in other people."
It all makes sense now. And explains why girls (and gay guys) are into literature.

Typhoons trigger slow earthquakes - "This gentle release causes an earthquake that dissipates its energy over several hours rather than few potentially devastating seconds."
In a few years they'll discover that the answer I gave in Geography class about detonating bombs to prevent earthquakes is actually right.

Dog Playing Fetch in Germany Delivers Live Grenade to Owner

Fla. fisherman hooks test missile in Gulf waters - "Fisherman Rodney Salomon hooked the missile about 50 miles off the Panhandle town of Panama City and then kept it on his boat, the Broad Venture, for ten days. Salomon hoped to keep it as a souvenir, but took precautions because he didn't know if it was live."
It'd have been funnier if his name had been "Rodney Salmon"

David Carradine, Bruce Lee 'killed by assassins' - " KUNG-FU cult hero David Carradine may have been killed by a secret society of martial arts assassins, his family's lawyer claims. The New York Post reports Mark Geragos suggested Carradine may have been attempting to uncover groups working in the martial-arts underworld at the time of his death... The conspiracy theories surrounding Carradine’s death echo those around the death of Bruce Lee, who died in 1973 of brain swelling linked to medication, reportedly an aspirin. Lee’s death is often linked by conspiracy theorists to the Triads, a Chinese secret society."

Leading historians on whether fascism is on the march again - "We should be wary about the rise of the far right but not panicky... I don't like all these stupid historical analogies - this is not a re-run of the 1930s. In some ways, history can box you in and limit your options. We live in a very different world, and these parties organise themselves in a very different way. Hitler didn't Twitter. Conditions in Europe are very different now from those that prevailed in the 1930s. We haven't had a catastrophic European war, with resentments about how that ended. We should also be cautious about saying that an economic recession inevitably leads to the rise of the far right. The fascists came to power in Italy long before the Depression. There is no automatic link. In Germany, most of the unemployed voted for the communists... You just have to look at the BNP to see how it is trying to adapt its approach to changed circumstances, ramping up its hostility to the EU while playing down other aspects of its policy. The left has a vested interest in playing up the threat of fascism. It uses it to reoxygenate itself... In Italy, the fascists, faced by an oppressive state, were seen as martyrs, and that won them popular support... Don't censor or oppress the BNP. Marginalise and ridicule them. Ridicule is an underestimated weapon."

Pregnant man Ruben Noe Coronado miscarries twins - "But 25-year-old Ruben Noe Coronado, who was born a woman named Estefania and still has female sex organs, said he plans to try again"
Makes you wonder why he wants a sex change. Maybe I should try to get pregnant also.