"Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret." - Laurence J. Peter

***

Meeting Ticker - Count how much money your meeting has wasted since it started

Campaign against bottled water borders on sheer idiocy - "If the campaign is also targetted at bottled water sold to the general public, it is nothing short of sheer idiocy. Bottled water is an extremely hygenic, convenient and healthy means of hydrating the body when one is in public and is in need of a thirst quencher... Without bottled water, if there is no
water cooler nearby, I would have to go to the toilet to drink from the tap. Given the overall unhygienic state of public toilets in Singapore, I find that notion repulsive. Imagine calling ourselves a first world nation and then having to drink from a public toilet!... Access to clean, healthy bottled water is to me a basic right. If Ms Leong Ching and Professor Tommy Koh insist on encroaching on my right
to enjoy this magnificent product, I will oppose them come hell or high water."
One comment: "This is not a zero-sum game. The alternative to bottled water is not soft drinks - it’s bringing your own in a reusable container. This is something I have done for a long time"
Another: "this initiative is a result of
1. pump priming an institute to achieve excellence in Policy analysis
2. the government shutting the door on criticism of their policies
3. students and faculty not having avenues to expend their creative energy."
MFTTW: sigh
this is what passes for opposition political discourse in sg
no wonder PAP is so secure

Come See the Rougher Side of Sears - Weird News Story Archive - "Diana Mey got a phone call from Sears, Roebuck & Co. wanting to know if she wanted to buy siding for her house. She said no. She kept saying no to them over a 16-month period as the retailer called again and again. According to federal law, a telemarketer must stop calling when asked, but she says they would not stop. Mey recorded some of the calls — legal in her home state of West Virginia — as evidence, then filed a $5,000 lawsuit against the company for their continual illegal calls. Rather than apologize or pay, Sears filed a $10,000 countersuit charging wiretapping over the recordings. After Mey got a lawyer involved, Sears dropped the suit and settled for an undisclosed amount."

School bans 'dangerous' swimming goggles - "Teachers and governors at Ysgol Bryn Coch junior school, in Mold, north Wales, said a child could be seriously injured if a pair of goggles was "snapped" onto their face too hard, or if a lens popped out unexpectedly. Parents described the ruling as "bonkers" and one said the decision smacked of "health and safety regulations gone mad"."

Atheists choose 'de-baptism' to renounce childhood faith - "In a type of mock ceremony that's now been performed in at least four states, a robed "priest" used a hairdryer marked "reason" in an apparent bid to blow away the waters of baptism once and for all. Several dozen participants then fed on a "de-sacrament" (crackers with peanut butter) and received certificates assuring they had "freely renounced a previous mistake, and accepted Reason over Superstition."... "While we do not remove a name/person from a Baptism register, we can note alongside your name that 'you have left the Roman Catholic Church,' " the Rev. Richard Mangini replied in an e-mail. "I hope that God surprises you one day and lets you know that He is quite well.""

Eat What You Want And Die Like A Man: The World's Unhealthiest Cookbook - "Why choke down bland, mushy steamed veggies and brown rice when there s so much fat-laden, calorie-rich, heart-bursting cuisine out there to be savored? Because you want to live? So you can spend your golden years wandering aimlessly around a Florida shopping mall and eating dinner at 2 in the afternoon? So your rotten, ungrateful kids can plop you into some hellhole of a nursing home the minute you forget what day it is?... Instead of, steamed tofu, try Lard-Oozing Caja-China-Roasted Hog or Pizzeria-style Baked Ziti with Sausage and Mozzarella!. Follow up with a decadent dessert of Deep-Fried Twinkies or Ice Cream Lasagne. You ll die quicker but with a smile on your face."

Nuance, a so-called memo and threats: Letter from Thio Li-Ann - "Nuance is needed; simplification is sensationalistic. Can a capitalist teach Marxism? Could someone who supports the death penalty (which many at New York University disagree with) teach human rights? There is no settled theory of the source of human rights; many competing interpretations exist. There are core (prohibiting torture) and contested (same-sex marriage, euthanasia) rights... It is disappointing the NYU law dean would label my response "offensive" and "hurtful", while ignoring the offensive, hurtful and even threatening messages directed against me... An American NYU alumnus wrote to the NYU law dean (copied to me), saying he had the impression the dean was "not troubled by the kind of atmosphere" that I was "expected to endure" had I decided to teach at NYU... Why prejudicially assume I would create "an unwelcoming atmosphere" in class, as opposed to politicking students or frosty faculty members? Why assume I would not permit free discussion when it is "political correctness" which chills free debate? An email from a Harvard law graduate noted of this affair: "Things just got a little bit darker down at NYU.""

The Word of Mouth KFC challenge - "I haven't eaten chain fast food for a long time and the combined hit of chicken, fat and flavour was disorientatingly powerful. It's the sort of comprehensive sensory seeing-to that's both best and worst about drink, drugs and sex. So very good and so very bad. No wonder teenagers live on this stuff... A single bite of the homemade KFC is enough. It's like biting into a dew-fresh ripe peach after eating a canned one. It's obviously the same thing but an order of magnitude better. As before, none of the flavours predominated enough to be identifiable but, having made up the mix from scratch, we now know the secret. Herbs and spices be damned, that staggering, mouthfilling, umami facepunch of a flavour is down to the two tablespoonfuls of MSG."

Antarctica base gets 16,500 condoms before darkness - "One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms"

Interest in casual sex: Which nations are uninhibited, and why? - "I found that casual sex was disapproved of in nations where there is a relative scarcity of women. Such societies are very focused on marriage and expect young women to reserve sex until after their nuptials. Conversely, where there are more women than men, women find it difficult to marry and are more likely to be sexually active outside marriage... Wealthy countries are widely assumed to be more sexually liberated but this expectation was confirmed only in relation to women's interest in sex. Men's interest in casual sex actually declines in wealthy nations... One completely unexpected discovery was that the biggest influence on sexual motivation is population density... This could be because crowding is stressful and stress hormones reduce interest in sex. It is also possible that having a lot of people around reduces an individual's sense of privacy."

N Korea 'tests weapons on children' - "If you are born mentally or physically deficient, says Im, the government says your best contribution to society… is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing."