"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." - Simon Cameron

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Straits Times deleted Ris Low’s photo, but “sg-stupid.jpg” remains - "One cannot help but suspect if the journalists who took the trouble to dig out Miss Low’s past conviction and blowing it up in the media have a personal vendetta against her... This is the kind of gutter journalism we have in Singapore when the media industry is completely dominated by one single player under the control of the ruling party without any other competitors... Singaporeans should lobby for a change in the Newspaper and Printing Preses Law, break up SPH into various companies and liberalize the media industry in the future."
I love Temasek Review logic. ST calls Ris Low photo sg-stupid.jpg, therefore the law should be changed and SPH broken up. This is even better than the Shitty Times!

Cougar Cruise: Older Women Seek Younger Men - ""When people go on a cruise, all of their inhibitions go overboard. If you want to meet somebody of the opposite sex, this is the best way to do it," said Rich Gosse, chairman of the Society of Single Professionals, which came up with the trip idea along with the Singles Travel Co... "These cougar women tend to look younger and feel younger and have higher energy than most women their own age," he added. "They just can't date men their own age. The men can't keep up with them. The men they date that are their own age: all they want to do is sit on a sofa and watch TV."... For the first voyage, there aren't enough cougars and younger men -- called "cubs" -- to fill an entire cruise ship, so the cougar cruisers will set sail with other vacationers on a regular Carnival cruise out of the Los Angeles are on Dec. 4"
Do the cubs get discounted tickets?

It's true: all the taken men are best - "A new study provides evidence for what many have long suspected: that single women are much keener on pursuing a man who's already taken than a singleton... The most striking result was in the responses of single women. Offered a single man, 59 per cent were interested in pursuing a relationship. But when he was attached, 90 per cent said they were up for the chase. Men were keenest on pursuing new mates, but weren't bothered whether their target was already attached or not. Attached women showed least interest and were slightly more drawn to single men... Burkley and Parker speculate that single women may be more drawn to attached men because they've already been "pre-screened" by other women and found to be satisfactory as a mate, whereas single men are more of an unknown quantity"
FuturePundit: "I think there's a potential business here for a specialized escort service where women sell time with them in public places to guys who want to advertise their desirability"

Why women are changing their minds about men - "They found that as a woman's level of "resource control" increases - in other words as they become more financially independent - so does their preference for physical attractiveness in potential partners"
Preferences are context dependent. But dependent on framing, it might very well show that rich women go for even richer men.

YouTube - Moomedia Wedding Narrative - 10years in 6mins - "I like this piece because it is such a sweet story. Though adapted, a lot of elements were taken from their true life account. We had heaps of fun shooting it. This is Moomedia's first official MV shot almost entirely on the 5DmkII."
This is a nice wedding video.

cabel.name: Kashiwa Mystery Cafe - "At this cafe, you get what the person before you ordered. The next person gets what you ordered. Welcome to the Ogori cafe!... The Ogori cafe was an unforgettable travel moment, and an idea that has stuck with me: It was a complete surprise in our day. It encouraged communication between total strangers or, in this case, members of the Kashiwa community and a couple of weird guys from Oregon. It forced one to "let go", just for a brief moment, of the total control we're so used to exerting through commerce. It led you to taste something new, that you might not normally have ordered. It was a delight. Then, according to Noby, as quickly as it appeared, the Ogori cafe was gone."

unattended children will be shot. - "this hamfisted attempt at wit remains the scourge of retail establishments the world over."

YouTube - Chimpanzee doing sit-up
Damn Japs

THE LAST DAYS OF THE POLYMATH - "“Nowadays people that are called polymaths are dabblers—are dabblers in many different areas,” he says. “I aspire to be an intellectual polygamist... in the ideal polygamy I suspect there’s no number one wife and no number six wife. You have a deep connection with each person.”... Over the past 200 years the nature of intellectual endeavour has changed profoundly. The polymaths of old were one-brain universities. These days you count as a polymath if you excel at one thing and go on to write a decent book about another... Back in the early 19th century you could grasp a field with a little reading and a ready wit. But the distinction between the dabbling and doing is more demanding these days, because breaking new ground is so much harder... So many scientists are publishing research in each specialism that merely to keep up with the reading is a full-time job... “Even in relatively soft fields, specialists tend to develop a specialised vocabulary which creates barriers to entry,” Posner says with his economic hat pulled down over his head. “Specialists want to fend off the generalists. They may also want to convince themselves that what they are doing is really very difficult and challenging. One of the ways they do that is to develop what they regard a rigorous methodology—often mathematical... Depth is for monomaths—which is why experts so often seem to miss what really matters"

YouTube - How to welcome your mother in law

Dwarves found 'theme park' commune to escape bullying - "Everyone in the mountain commune in Kunming, southern China, must be under 4ft 3 ins tall and they run their own police force and fire brigade from their 120 residents. Now the group has turned itself into a tourist attraction by building mushroom houses and living and dressing like fairy tale characters"

JK Rowling lost out on Presidential Award because George Bush believed Harry Potter encouraged witchcraft