How to get A+ in SMU:



"Week 2: Keep participating. Doesn't matter if your comments make sense or not. Just As long as you can hog airtime
Week 3: Pay people for past assignment answers. And projects from last semester.
Week 4: Spread nasty rumours. So peer evaluation ↓
Week 6: Suck up to prof
Week 7: Give fake tips
Week 8: Disappear [so others do your part]
Week 10: Sabo other group's presentation
Week 11: Steal notes from the muggers
Week 14: Pretend you're stupid
Week 15: Steal calculators before exams. Then dump them"

"A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece." - Ludwig Erhard

***

An email forward I got:


"July 22nd 2009 another Tsumani...

Prevention is always better than cure ..Please be more cautious as the warnings has been given.
Attached a photo for u.



I just received this message from a colleague. I don’t know the source of the message; I also don’t know the credibility of the content, but just beware.

Below is the content on the message:

“Hello there. I just wanted 2 let you know that please stay away from the beaches all around in the month of July. There is a prediction that there will be another tsunami hitting on July 22nd. It is also when there will be sun eclipse. Predicted that it is going 2 be really bad and countries like Malaysia (Sabah & Sarawak), Singapore, Maldives, Australia, Mauritius, Si Lanka, India, Indonesia, Philippines are going 2 be badly hit. Please try and stay away from the beaches in July. Better 2 be safe than sorry. Please pass the word around. Please also pray for all beings.”"


I Reply All-ed and said if there was really a Tsunami on that day, I would buy all of them lunch (even the people I didn't know).

I was surprised to find out that there really will be a solar eclipse on that day. And not too surprised to discover that the official-looking picture illustrating the email is modified from NASA's eclipse path diagram.

I was just surprised a mystical spin wasn't explicitly put on this (with the path of the eclipse opening the door to the Astral Plane and causing negative energy to radiate forth) but then, even in our gullible age, talking about all the planets being in alignment will lose you credibility among many (while, contrawise, mentioning other superstitions will gain you more).

More digging reveals the source of this misinformation. Ironically, it's a blog post mocking the pseudo-scientific thinking responsible for the above (irony, thou art dead!).

Disappointingly, all 238 of the people who resposted this online (or at least the first 10 who popped up on the first page of Google search results) either credulously believed it, took the "better safe than sorry" approach and urged caution or asked readers to make up their minds themselves. And the Malaysians are even better, holding "a Silent prayer... to calm down the sea's anger".

Now, while it's good for people to make up their own minds, there's no harm in calling out bullshit or nonsense when you see it. Respecting people's rights to hold beliefs is not the same as respecting all beliefs - the latter proposition opens the door to more balderdash than you can shake a finger at.

It's so easy to trick people. No wonder people keep crafting new chain mails to mislead and misinform.

Maybe I should write one about how white rice has been found to be carcinogenic, and in so doing foment the collapse of the Thai economy as naive Southeast Asians stop eating Thai rice.

I can even reuse this picture and claim it's what Thai rice looks like before they polish it:



Then Thaksin can fly back, depose the Prime Minister and install me as the new King of Thailand so I can use lèse majesté laws to screw anyone I don't like.

Meanwhile Vietnam will pay me handsomely for promoting their rice exports.

"Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame." - Laurence J. Peter

***

Someone: about the verrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy doubtful christian who wants to get the hardcore christian girl

feel like slapping him

Me: haha
the only folly of man is woman

Someone: i was once sucked in the same way and two years of life were spent in darkness

a bigger folly of man is a very devout christian woman


Me: someone was saying why travelling with women is bad:

1) indecisive
2) complain a lot
3) cannot take physical exertion

Someone else: 3) bad at directions

yeah

Me: 4) shop a lot (I'll add this myself)
directions are ok if you let someone else navigate

Someone else: btw, i like travelling with guys cos
1) they're not indecisive
2) they dun shop alot
3) they are good at navigating
4) they generally "take care" of me
5) they're less calculative and fussy


Me: why should you marry a smarter woman?

Someone: less conflict there
if you're the giving-way type

Me: gah
like that might as well marry a dumber women

less conflict also :P

Someone: i rather have a woman who's smarter rather than dumber honestly
more intellectually stimulating

no point having a dumb woman around
might as well get a blow up doll

Me: then look at it from the female POV
why have a dumb guy

Someone: a warm penis is better than a cold plastic one

Me: ........................

logic that privileges women never gets turned around


Someone else: tt dae *** was just toking to mi how some pple are turned on by shit n all
n she thinks tt maeb cos those are abjects

urine and faeces are the abject
neither object nor subject
because its what once used to be me, but its sth i expel to define myself
inner/outer dichotomy breaks down

i think sicko americans luv such sicko stuffs
like hafing sex w horses n rats etc

Me: haha
why you think it's an american thing

rats?!
can fit ah

Someone else: i think last time got some wat.. hamster or sth
died

duno urban legend or sth

i think it's an.. american thing!

Me: oh! the gerbils!

Someone else: cos in aisan culture.. duno abt japan la.. usu we haf suppressed women.. n if need sex men can just luk for women can settle alr..

but i think those places.. where women got more sae.. maeb.. harder to find victims.. so. uhh. turn to animals

Me: the japanese can be quite sick also lor


Someone: Like God, dogs only see the good in humankind.

Me: eh
shouldn't that be the reverse
see only the bad

that's why you have eternal damnation for sin

Someone: Mmmm?

God doesn't see the bad, if you accept his amnesty deal.

He still loves you whether you accept the deal or not, but a crime still must be punished, otherwise that's not justice.

anyway i came up with this because i was thinking of abused animals
especially dogs

why do they stick with their masters
even though sometimes these masters mistreat them
abuse them
starve them and force them to do horrible things.

Me: it's not justice if you write the draconian ['code']

err
there're mad dogs also

Someone: It is justice, we are born sinful.

Me: so you're being punished for something that isn't your fault

Someone: Of course there are mad dogs, how the heck do you tell if they're mad :)

Are you human?

Me: how do you tell if gods are mad?

Someone: You have to be a God yourself to know if they are.

However, if He was mad, we shouldn't even be able to scratch out a marginal existence in this world

Me: you can apply the same logic to the Fuhrer
(though at least you know the Fuhrer is real)

then again Big Brother wasn't
and Big Brother was omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient

Someone: we would be clad in nothing but our skin and be sucking each other's dicks while attempting to crawl away with vestigal limbs from predators that like to torture their prey and devour it alive.

Me: that sounds like the human condition

Someone: Now that, would be a world of madness.
Sounds like , but isn't.

If you look at it less cynically, have you suffered a stroke yet?

Me: *** has

Someone: have you?

Me: no

Someone: mmmm
then i guess that's something to be thankful for

friend of mine had a pretty serious one :(
hospital ridden now

Me: in that case the abused dog which is tied up and left in the sun should be thankful that its master did not also amputate its limbs, cut out its tongue and put out its eyes

Someone: Ah yes, but if you are referring to the human condition in the metaphor, the dog's abuse is self-afllicted, and it is not tied up, but refuses to accept its master's food and shelter.

and most importantly love.

Me: well
the best description I've seen is:

"It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority punishment or reward.
In a nutshell, God had to kill Himself to appease Himself so that He would not have to roast us, His beloved creations, in HELL forever.
He loves us more than we can ever comprehend, but if we don't return His affections, He will make us regret it for eternity.
Now that is AMAZING GRACE!"

Someone: The description left out the part where the primordial representatives of the human race openly defied God and spat in His face literally by disobeying Him and choosing some fucking fruit over the Garden of Eden and unhindered....ability to talk to Him, everyday....anytime.

That's like describing the justice system without admitting to the crime.

Me: that's like describing justice in Ancient China
condemning all the relatives for one person's fault
and exterminating the whole clan

Someone: That makes sense, doesn't it?
A thief, will always breed thieves.

Me: luckily our modern conceptions of justice have evolved beyond that

Someone: Genetic predisposition does seem to be the reason the ancient chinese based their justice on.
Luckily, or unfortunately.

Me: err

Someone: Should a rapist or pedophile's children be allowed to live, because they are gentically predisposed to rape and or molest little children?

Me: that's
1) if you assume they are genetically predisposed to rape or molest little children
2) if you take the view of genetic determinism

however, even if we cloned Hitler (i.e. 100% DNA the same), there's no guarantee the clone would do the same things

modern justice systems allow for the possibility of parole (most of the time) - even for a criminal who has committed crimes
to say nothing of those predisposed to commit crimes

Someone: -sigh- the american justice system is fucked up
how many more victims occur
[because] they parole these evil people =(

Me: hello
even singapore has parole
even china has parole

Someone: oh dear.

Me: since you're of the "once a criminal, always a criminal" school you might wish to advocate the death penalty for all crimes
since criminals cannot be reformed

Someone: not all.

certain crimes.
drug related people, murderers, pedophiles, rapists.

zulzul:

"I love Singapore. Harmless streakers fined. Minister who let MAS SELAMAT escaped still in office. Was he ever reprimanded ?"

Not to mention the other harmless streakers case.

HWMNBN on why we use "Basis points" rather than "percentage points":


Two main reasons

a) To avoid relative vs absolute confusion.

Let's say a given interest rate is 20%. If we say it's increased by 2%, you can interpret it as: either 20% -> 22% (absolute), or 20% -> 20.4% (relative)

Saying 200bps makes it very clear it's an absolute increase in the rate from 20% -> 22%

b) Granularity.

Most times interest rates increase by tiny increments. eg 4.5% -> 4.52%, etc. However these granular increases can have large effects on exposure (because we're usually

talking about million or billion dollar impacts here). It's mentally easier to visualise 10-15bps as having a large effect vs 0.1%

Same reason why we have cents, rather than denominating everything in dollars (eg 0.5 dollars, 0.65 dollars) - it's just more convenient

"Anything too stupid to be said is sung." - Voltaire

***

Random posts from gamebooks mailing lists:


"i just bought a book in Ebay, thinking it was an unknow "branching-plot-novel ", here what it say in the back cover :

"lost at the train station station ? to buy a ticket, turn to page 40. To find a hotel, go to 55. hot day, blue sky ? to hit the beach, turn to page 141. To meet the local, open page 93. Take this phrasebook and choose your own adventure ! "

well, so nothing to do with a choose your own adventure, it is a phrasebook, to help you translate croatian in english...

the book name are "craotian" phrasebooks, lonely planet editor, written by Gordana & Ivan Ivetac .

just wanted to warn you, to avoid the same mistake i've done ^^"


"Regarding genres, it must be noticed that fantasy doesn't necessarily need elves and trolls to be fantasy. Modern fantasy is deeply rooted in medieval Europe, a complex setting that did exist in the real world and whose appeal on today's Western people is obvious - after all, it's our past. And it is a past that not only offers many elements of wonder and much food for thought, but can also be represented fairly easily by just anyone who has studied it in his or her schoolyears. On the other hand, the future depicted in sci-fi is only too often a lazy speculation that inexorably tends to project current social problems in a stainless-steel, uber-technological world that is way too square and clean to be fascinating and too advanced to possibly pose all the problems we see depicted in sci-fi books and movies. Combat in a futuristic setting is also incredibly boring - you hit the target and zap!, battle's over. It's not physical nor spectacular, and it's no wonder that lightsaber duels are among the most exciting sequences in Star Wars. What made the original Star Wars great is exactly its fantasy elements: decadent towns and civilizations, space rogues, an evil empire, supernatural powers and myths, weapons that are more advanced than anything we have today but still are considered ancient at the time of the story. These elements are all mutuated from the classic medieval background of fantasy, and they're interesting because they existed in the past in some other form, and also because they can pose problems and help people solve those problems. Let's face it, a future where all disease is curable, where people needn't walk, cook nor work, where everything is clean and pure and everyone speak the same language just isn't interesting. And most sci-fi gamebooks fail to be interesting because they offer the usual generic "save the world" mission in a setting that features futuristic looks, but it's just our good ol' everyday Earth deep inside."

"The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him." - Henry Stimson

***

4Chan: The Rude, Raunchy Underbelly of the Internet - "The most powerful people on the Internet don't work for Microsoft, Google or the government. Rather, they're a bunch of antisocial, foul-mouthed, clever nerds who congregate at a largely unknown Web site called 4chan.org."

The pleasures and sorrows of work | The Economist - "Even the most soulless of offices has its vital part to play. The “start of work means an end to freedom, but also to doubt, intensity and wayward desires... How satisfying it is to be held in check by the assumptions of colleagues, instead of being forced to contemplate, in the loneliness of the early hours, all that one might have been, and now never will be.” This last observation seems so heartfelt, so poignantly rendered, that one can only advise Mr de Botton himself to cease his solitary endeavours and take the plunge into the pleasures of office life."

Human psychology and the economy | An economic bestiary | The Economist - "Messrs Akerlof and Shiller list eight questions which, they say, cannot be well explained without an appeal to animal spirits—but can be tackled with them. These range from why markets for housing and shares swing wildly (a combination of confidence, stories and bad faith) to why, contrary to standard theory, there appears to be a long-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment (mainly, a mix of money illusion and fairness)... How much do animal spirits help? Most of the time, the unrealistic assumption of rationality serves economists fairly well. They should, however, be more prepared to depart from it, especially in times like these—even if that makes behaviour more difficult to describe in elegant equations."

The ballot and the bottom billion | Democracy in difficult places | The Economist - "He shows unambiguously what observers of elections in poor countries have long suspected: that on their own, unless they are held in the context of a functioning democracy, elections can retard rather than advance a country’s progress. “If democracy means little more than elections, it is damaging to the reform process,” he writes... elections begin to pay dividends to society only when they occur in a system of checks and balances, with a functioning rule of law"

Will’s Maid Café Visit - "After a bit of a wait we had another maid (I think she was different) bring us our order. She didn’t just give it to us though, no way. First she knelt down on her knees and held up to us a container for us to pick our favourite colour straw out of. If choose pink as I am the epitome of masculinity while Shigeki opted for green. She then stirred my ice coffee (on her knees in front of me) and put the straw in our drinks. I thought we would get our items now, but no, there is more. She placed the tray in front of her and said “もえ、もえ、胸、きゅう！” (moe, moe, mune kyuu!) in a cute little voice accompanied by some hand actions. And we had to do the same thing if we were to receive our order. My dignity was annulled, but it was fun."

Chimpanzees exchange meat for sex - "Male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts. This is a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are."
What will the feminists say?!

The world according to Kishore Mahbubani - "Ostensibly a book about the rise of Asia – there is quite a bit favourable to India – it is a long litany of complaints against America and a eulogy to China. While America is criticized on various issues from the Iraq war to the torture of prisoners, there is just one reference to Taiwan and none to Tibet; I checked the index... when he talks about the domination of the Western media, he should have asked himself who made it so. The fact is Asians read Western publications such as Time, Newsweek and the Economist and Asian newspapers use Western news agencies like Reuters and Bloomberg because Asian media coverage is either inadequate or not sufficiently informative... Mahbubani sees what he calls “the irresistible shift of global power to the East” as a reversion to the old order of things. Asia was far richer than the West until the early 19th century... But what did Asia do with those riches? Where were the Asian Gutenbergs, Leonardo da Vincis, Shakespeares, Galileos? Why did democracy develop in the West while despotism seemed to be the rule in the East? Maybe those questions are for others to answer. Mahbubani's focus is on power and prosperity."

Corri Fetman Files Sexual Harassment Lawsuit - "Corri Fetman, the Chicago divorce attorney who worked on the principle that it is better to divorce now so you can marry your trophy husband/wife, and who appeared in a nude Playboy spread, has alleged that she was sexually harassed by a former executive at the magazine. She said that Thomas Hagopian of the digital branch of Playboy Enterprises sent her sexually explicit emails and phone calls, touched her and then revoked her column when she refused to play into his advances... Fetman filed her lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court and sought more than $4.5 million in damages for a number of charges, including, “gender violence” and emotional stress"
The fact that she's abusing the term "gender violence" (legally, the term is actually defined much more loosely than how Progressives use it) is telling.

Roseville couple, state settle suit over marriage license wording - "Attorney Steven Wood on Wednesday called it a clear victory for the Coddings and common sense... "The state's previous rejection of the marriage license caused the Coddings considerable anguish, as well as financial harm," said Wood. "That has now been remedied."... The couple claimed the state of California did not have the right to replace the terms "bride" and "groom" with "Party A" and "Party B" on state marriage documents."
Anguish and financial harm?! Then again some people might call the terms "Bride" and "Groom" homophobic."The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him." - Henry Stimson

"Corinth. Cogito ergo sum"

Wth.

Random tidbit:

"Auspicium melioris aevi" does NOT translate as "Hope for a better age" but "Omen of a better age"

"I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing." - Johnny Carson

***

Aiding is Abetting

"Dambisa Moyo's prescription for economic sustainability in Africa—which includes cutting off all aid within five years—might seem insane if the statistics weren't so grim: despite one trillion dollars in western aid over the past sixty years, the economic lot of the average African has only gotten worse...

Systematic western aid, Moyo argues in Dead Aid, has essentially turned Africa into one giant welfare state. The unending stream of money has created a situation where governments aren't accountable to their citizens: since they don't depend on tax revenue, leaders don't think they owe their people anything—and the people don't expect anything from their leaders...

Furthermore, aid stamps out entrepreneurship... We have centuries of evidence that [capitalism] generates wealth and delivers jobs, and yet here we are after one bad year and we're ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater...

I think the whole aid model is couched in pity [rather than] logic and evidence... [the] whole rationale for giving more aid to Africa is not couched in logic or evidence; it's based largely on emotion and pity...

In Madagascar, some aid money had been cut and the government was not investing in the domestic citizenry or even paying the army. So the army staged a coup...

A friend of mine had a great quote: "Africa is to the development industry what Mars is to NASA."... The Chinese have created jobs; they've built roads. The West has failed to do that in sixty years in Africa...

Aside from the corrupt leaders, aid supports over five hundred thousand people (mainly in the West) working in the aid industry and virtually none of it reaches the people for whom it was intended."


This is another tragic tale of what happens when you think with your heart instead of your head.


Comment elsewhere:

"[No Western politicians or Economists] draw an outright battle line between logic and pity. Oh, there are plenty of demagogues who claim the evidence is on their side, but they won't be so outright condemning  of emotion... Moyo says she's gotten a better reception in Africa than in the West.  Maybe you need to see your whole continent wrecked by emotion and pity before "logic and evidence" start to sound appealing."

"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels." - Bob Thaves

***

Kyoto protest beaten back by inflamed petrol traders - "Greenpeace had hoped to paralyse oil trading at the exchange in the City near Tower Bridge on the day that the Kyoto Protocol came into force... Protesters conceded that mounting the operation after lunch may not have been the best plan. “The violence was instant,” Jon Beresford, 39, an electrical engineer from Nottingham, said. “They grabbed us and started kicking and punching. Then when we were on the floor they tried to push huge filing cabinets on top of us to crush us.”... “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”"

AXED GALS TAKE POLE POSITIONS - "The economy's gone bust, and so have they. Scores of professional New York women stripped of their six-figure jobs are now working as "gentlemen's club entertainers" at upscale Manhattan jiggle joints. Former Wall Streeters, fashion executives and real-estate agents are pole dancing and stripping for as much as $1,500 a night -- but also because they like the flexible hours... "These places give men hope," Langdan said. "Even in the worst of times, for us it's the breast of times.""

Chinese Word List - CantoDict - "CantoDict v1.3.16 is a collaborative Chinese Dictionary project started in November 2003. Entries are added and mistakes corrected by a team of kind volunteers from around the world."

Bouncers face charges in beating of patron at Muskego bar - "The bouncers held his arms, kicked Hummer in the side and struck him in the face. The bouncers then picked up Hummer, already bloody and bruised, pushed him toward the door and then outside and to the ground. As he fell, Hummer's head struck a jagged stone pillar... The bartender told police he asked the bouncers to remove the men from the bar because Hummer refused to put a coaster under his beer, the report says."

The Straight Dope: Can playing the bongos make you piss blood? - "Music is a brutal business, James: String and keyboard players can suffer from focal dystonia. Saxophone and clarinet players develop disorders of the temporomandibular joint. At least one guitarist, Terry Balsamo of the metal act Evanescence, apparently gave himself a stroke by head-banging onstage. And hand drummers risk rhabdomyolysis, the disorder you refer to. Typically it's not blood they're seeing in their urine, though — it's muscle."

Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink - "• Newspaper to be available only on messaging service
• Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters
Currently, 17.8% of all Twitter traffic in the United Kingdom consists of status updates from Stephen Fry, whose reliably jolly tone, whether trapped in a lift or eating a scrumptious tart, has won him thousands of fans. A further 11% is made up of his 363,000 followers replying "@stephenfry LOL!", "@stephenfry EXACTLY the same thing happened to me", and "@stephenfry Meanwhile, I am making myself an omelette! Delicious!""

Paid to do it, but fails to make his friend’s wife pregnant after 72 Attempts - "When Traute failed to get pregnant after six months, however, Soupolos was not understanding and insisted that Maus have a medical examination, which he did. The doctor’s announcement that Maus was also sterile shocked everyone except his wife, who was forced to confess that Maus was not the real father of their two children."

Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center - "Languages are categorized from I (easiest) to IV (hardest), based on the difficulty native speakers of American English may have in learning a foreign language... Category I: English, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), and Spanish
Category II: German, Romanian (DLPT III)
Category III: Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Persian-Farsi, Polish, Russian, Serbian/Croatian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese
Category IV: Arabic, Chinese Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean"

"This is a joke, isn't it?" My Ex-Nazi Father's Reaction to Fox News - ""You mean this is an actual news show? Not satire?" My father obviously thought I was pulling his leg.
"No, it's not satire. Why are you asking?" I said.
"Because all you have to do is change a few adjectives, and it's Nazi talk.""

Akihabara Cafe: Miko-san Cafe - "In Akihabara, the Miko-san also have a new duty. To perform popular JPop songs, while serving you fruit juice and rice balls. The Miko-san Cafe has opened on Chuo Street, near Dragon Ice Cream for those of you actually in Japan. Their traditional Shrine attire has received a makeover… well really it was just raised like 2 feet turning it into almost a mini-skirt."
Damn Japs.

Five hurt as mop-wielding woman runs amok - "One report claimed she was laughing uncontrollably as she struck an elderly woman several times during her 30-minute spree."
This was posted on April Fool's but it seems genuine enough.

The Women's Movement - "Cooking a meal could only be "dogwork," and to claim any pleasure from it was evidence of craven acquiescence in one's own forced labor. Small children could only be odious mechanisms for the spilling and digesting of food, for robbing women of their "freedom." It was a long way from Simone de Beauvoir's grave and awesome recognition of woman's role as "the Other" to the notion that the first step in changing that role was Alix Kates Shulman's marriage contract ("wife strips beds, husband remakes them") reproduced in Ms; but it was toward just such trivialization that the women's movement seemed to be heading... This ubiquitous construct was everyone's victim but her own. She was persecuted even by her gynecologist, who made her beg in vain for contraceptives. She particularly needed contraceptives because she was raped on every date, raped by her husband, and raped finally on the abortionist's table... Increasingly it seemed that the aversion was to adult sexual life itself: how much cleaner to stay forever children... I suspect, that the women's movement is no longer a cause but a symptom."

Virgin Atlantic cabin crew ad 'is sexist and offensive to women', claim viewers - "Today the advertising watchdog dismissed complaints that the TV ad is sexist and offensive to women. The ASA has decided that there were no grounds for a formal investigation and said that it 'considered that the ad was unlikely to be seen as sexist or derogatory towards women or to cause serious or widespread offence.' The advert plays upon stereo types of advertising in the 1980s when Virgin Atlantic was first launched."

"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Anonymous

***

A case not so different from what you find in some religious texts (as the people quoted here agree):

Death Opens Doors on Group

"Answering to a leader called Queen Antoinette, they denied a 16-month-old boy food and water because he did not say "Amen" at mealtimes. After he died, they prayed over his body for days, expecting a resurrection, then packed it into a suitcase with mothballs. They left it in a shed in Philadelphia, where it remained for a year before detectives found it last spring...

Ramkissoon, 22, has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge on one condition: The charges against her must be dropped if her son, Javon Thompson, is resurrected.

Psychiatrists who evaluated Ramkissoon at the request of a judge concluded that she was not criminally insane. Her attorney, Steven Silverman, said the doctors found that her beliefs were indistinguishable from religious beliefs, in part because they were shared by those around her.

"She wasn't delusional, because she was following a religion," Silverman said, describing the findings of the doctors' psychiatric evaluation...

Although an inability to think critically can be a sign of brainwashing, experts said, the line between that and some religious beliefs can be difficult to discern.

"At times there can be an overlap between extreme religious conviction and delusion," said Robert Jay Lifton, a cult expert and psychiatrist who lectures at Harvard Medical School. "It's a difficult area for psychiatry and the legal system."...

According to charging documents, in December 2006, Javon stopped saying "Amen" at mealtimes. Queen Antoinette told members the boy had developed a demonic spirit and needed to be cleansed through fasting and by being denied water, law enforcement officials said...

The group came to believe there had been no resurrection because someone among them was not a true believer, according to an attorney for one of the other defendants, Marcus Cobbs. With that person no longer part of the group, they headed north out of Baltimore with the suitcase, believing Javon could be raised at a future date, according to Cobbs's attorney, Maureen Rowland."


If you talk to God, you're religious.
If God talks to you, you're psychotic

"Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are." - Henry Fielding

***

From the hilarious (for so many reasons, but now-deleted) CNA forum thread: GOVT SHOULD BAN "THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST"


Huatuatua: I have never started a thread here, but I feel anger and compelled to write about this. Let me explain.

My daughter and her Junior College schoolmates (male and females) attended the play "The importance of being earnest" by Glenn Goei and Ivan Heng (the two well known effeminate threatre actors.) At first I was uncertain to let her go, but since she and her schoolmates wanted to get some ideas for her drama plays, I decided to let her, especially after I saw it featured on Prime Time Morning Show on Channel News Asia.
What she told me after the play shocked me.

The play has male actors playing the roles of females but dressing in Men's suits. There were enough compromising scenes among the male actors to suggest that this is a play meant for the gays! But this is not more disgusting part.

What she saw, was youngsters, males youngsters, dressing up effeminately, and in droves, attending the shows. They were holding hands (yes males holding hands) openly and even embacing each in whatever spots. Her male schoolmates even saw some kissing scenes in the male toilets!!

This is rtaher disgusting. I felt that this is a play that is solely targeted for gay gathering and should not be allowed for public viewing. It should be a close door event, with school children banned from the show..

Since our dear PM has endorsed the gay movement in singapore, these people are getting bolder and bolder. Please be careful with your children attending such shows!!

Alot of parents really don't know what their children are doing outside in the public!! You got to stop your children from being gay as early as possible. Not all children are born gay, many are influenced by their gay peers. Many are influenced by what they saw outside. If they think that males holding hands with males, or males embacing males are okay, they will think it is a okay trend and do likewise. Evenutally they will become gay.

No wonder 35 percent of the males do not want to get married!!!

desert moon: Morals are sure degrading fast in Singapore, thats for sure. Even the PM was dragged down.

samseng: Screw all the chow ah Kuas. If brave, show your face, name, ic, address publicly, Why must always hide behind closed doors?

Joshing: Don't need to hide. I hope you will have a lesbian daughter or a gay son. You can screw them yourself at home and hide behind the closed doors.

schroeder: There were no “compromising scenes” – in fact, there was nothing more “compromising” than a peck on the cheek!

As for the event being “disgusting”, I don’t recall observing any young couples in the audience being publicly affectionate. I also used the male toilet during the intermission and after the play, and I’m sure I didn’t see any kissing there.

Mei Mui Bee: Huatuatua made ths post only to annoy people.
Thats why you can find it 11 times here:

What she saw, was youngsters, males youngsters, dressing up effeminately, and in droves, attending the shows.
Guess you have never watched the Rocky Horror Picture show.

They were holding hands (yes males holding hands) openly and even embacing each in whatever spots.
Go to little India and you can see that every Saturday and Sunday. No they are no gays, they are Banglas doing that.
Besides girls also ofetn hold hands or hug....girls can and guys can not?

dressing up effeminately, and in droves, attending the shows.
It cant be that so many are suddenly gay. That would defy any statistics.

Huatuatua: I annoy people? Only the gays will think that way!!! If you are so confident about your views, why asked the Admin to remove the remarks and comments made by non-gays??!!

I got the right to inform normal parents, what is happening in such plays! That they should be careful that their normal children would not be recruited into this "special community". I got the same right as you gay people. Period.

Mei Mui Bee: Well, if you dont call it annoying to make 11 times the same post.
Thats reckless...

You can start worrying about gay or not when your kids are mid 20ies and then they still display strange behaviour.
Some theatre piece make no one gay.

little_gecko: Btw, watching a gay play does not make one gay. If that is possible, gays can watch a normal play and become normal people too, rite? Kaoz, that's not how things work...

I did not feel uncomfortable, It is my daughter and her schoolmates who felt uncomfortable. The play would have been good if they get the females to play as females. What is so difficult?

Even back in the olden days, whether the Japanese Kabuki or Shakespearean plays, no females were allowed and males played the roles of females. So what good old fashion values are you promoting?? Shocked

This is my favourite comment:
trucky: 1) Unlike you've suggested, The Importance of Being Earnest is NOT a 'gay' play. In fact it is an approved 'O' level literature text that has been studied by millions of people over the years. And for this production, the actors are NOT playing female roles. The roles have been MODIFIED for an all-male cast. Therefore there are references to homosexuality but the play does not promote homosexuality. (Fallacy of division: Part of it containing 'gay' content does not make the whole of it a 'gay' play)

2) I went to watch Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (a Wild Rice musical) last December. They stage annual musicals targeted for children and the family (hence fairy tales as storylines). The musical contains ZERO content suggesting homosexuality. But among audiences I saw grown men wearing pink shirts, holding hands and acting effeminately. Does this mean we have to ban children from watching theatre with such audiences? Or do we have to ban supposed-gays from enjoying theatre so that our 'normal' children can enjoy plays? Or even better, ban men from wearing pink and force every male in our society to be burly and muscular to suggest they are 'normal' men?

...

4) Clearly you are against the play simply because you fear that the younger generation (whose sexual identities are supposedly not fully-formed) will be influenced by its 'gay' agenda(s). However I'm quite sure that no 'normal' student will turn 'gay' because of a play. Students are more easily influenced by real people (ie. friends and family) than fictional characters. I watched tons of children's TV shows growing up. But I do not have pink slime for lunch just because the Teletubbies do. Neither do I talk to goldfish or dye my hair red because Elmo has such characteristics.
[Ed: Emphasis mine. This can also be used to counter feminist (or other Progressive) nonsense. See also Bratz Dolls May Give Young Girls Unrealistic Expectations Of Head Size]

... We won't be influenced or compelled to become a homosexual because of a play. If students were really that easily influenced, there would be no teen-smokers nor teen pregnancies!

(For the record, I am a girl, and I am straight. So no 'gay' accusations!)

samseng: joshing chow ah kua, you are losing the plot already. All the ah Kuas are the same. Lose only, use threats, curse people. You see that in Bangkok, you heard that in Orchard Tower. Why don't you do like one of those Shakespearean heros, go take a knife and plunge it into your heart? That would be very stylo.

Joshing: Losing? You mean there's a prize for winning?

If you win, do you get $10million SGD from me or the ah kua association?

rainbow 999: Too many beliefs is not the point
Just like COE, ERP, Road tax, Fuel tax, Insurance
Just fancy names which serve only One purpose
We are being imposed by some exceptional indivualds

No need to understand why or know why
Sun always up from the east
Just need to know these are exceptional perverts
which are the toxic asset of economic growth

i passed my PSLE english: Please stop discussing this type of sensitive topic here, we're a multi-racial and multi-religious society here. There're people of all faiths here including Muslims. Homosexuals is disallowed in Islam.

STOP talking nonsense in this forum regarding Ah Quas. Period.


MFTTW on the above: WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

you should start a new tag for your blogposts
"Singaporeans are full of shit"