Links - 10th April 2010

"The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver." - Jay Leno

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PAP mass-recruiting Taiwanese PMETs by offering higher than market pay to lure them to work in Singapore - "One Taiwanese reader wrote to us expressing his disbelief that upon applying to work in Canada, he was offered a Singapore PR immediately by the migration agency under the Landed PR scheme which gives Singapore PRs to foreigners who have never stepped foot on Singapore... I rather stay put in Taiwan than to relocate to Singapore. At least it is a democracy here and we enjoy basic political freedoms. Who will be so stupid to bring up their children in a one-party dictatorship like Communist China?... Remember: if the PAP can so blatantly hire you to work in Singapore to make life miserable for native Singaporeans, it will be your turn one day too"

Conversation with Jiang Mei, a PRC freelance prostitute given Singapore PR by the PAP - "Jiang Mei: "Standard - 打飞机 ("beat aeroplane") - $50, 吹笛("blow flute") - $70, 全身服务 (whole body service) - $100″
Nick: "Hmmm....a bit ex, let me consider."
Jiang Mei: "Ahh...don't be like this, since you are here already, 来爽一爽, I will make you happy, you are my first customer of the day."
Nick: "Inclusive of massage?"
Jiang Mei: "Massage is $30 goes to the boss, I earn only through the special service. Try my whole body package, everything included, guarantee you will be extremely satisfied!" ... "Then try my blowing skills, 来啦! time is running out, "happy times" are precious, don't waste it, you are not short of money anyway right."
In typical TR fashion this is extremely misleading, because she got PR BEFORE she became a prostitute. The dialogue is hilarious though.

The Last Star Wars - "The Phantom Menace wasn't as bad you think. Buried inside its 133 minutes is a great movie dying to be born... This moment is so nimbly directed that for a moment you might suspect that it's Steven Spielberg behind the camera... Attack of the Clones had no such saving graces. A crude contraption, it reduced Star Wars to an extended action sequence... The biggest payoff comes at the film's end... After the candy-colored futuristic design of the prequels, coming aboard the solid, dark bridge of this star destroyer is comforting, like being wrapped up in a warm, old blanket; the even, menacing respiration of Darth Vader in the background might as well be our favorite childhood lullaby"

Duncan Blasts "Useless" Air Marshal Service - "More air marshals have been arrested than the number of people arrested by air marshals... we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest... 'Al Qaeda's most important accomplishment was not to hijack our planes but to hijack our political system. For a multitude of politicians, interest groups and professional associations, corporations, media organizations, universities, local and State governments and Federal agency officials, the war on terror is now a major profit center, a funding bonanza, and a set of slogans and sound bites to be inserted into budget, grant, and contract proposals'"

Lori Gottlieb: Miss Make-do seeks Mr Good Enough - "Gottlieb recounts dozens of times she dissed a man because he wasn't intellectual enough, or "cool enough", or wore a bow tie, or liked sports ("A turn-off") or had a nerdy name like Sheldon. "People get pickier and pickier about trivial things, and lose sight of the really important things that people who are long married will tell you have kept them together"... a 1986 Newsweek -article, The Marriage Crunch [,] infamously -reported that a 40-year-old single woman was "more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than get married... "younger people tend to be more appealing - they're more optimistic"... Chapter three of her book is titled How Feminism Fucked Up My Love Life... this version of feminism has hurt women by inflating their egos and giving them a false sense of what they deserve. "Part of it comes from the media and the movies. Everything we see is always women telling each other how -fabulous they are and that they deserve the best. It happens in real life, too"

Whodunnit? Twins deny DNA theft link - "Identical twins have hindered police investigations a number of times since the advent of DNA testing. In Malaysia last year, a man suspected of drug-smuggling and sentenced to death was released when the court could not prove whether it was he or his twin brother might have committed the crime"

Ramen Walker - About Ramen and Ramen Places in Singapore

Comparing Obama's address and facts - "President Obama, who once considered government spending freezes a hatchet job, told Americans on Wednesday it's now part of his solution to the exploding deficit. He didn't explain what had changed. His State of the Union speech skipped over a variety of complex realities in laying out a "common sense" call to action""
Change we can believe in.

Prostitutes sign confuses motorists - "A road sign warning of prostitutes is confusing motorists in an Italian town... Motorists and pedestrians have complained that the sign is 'confusing', saying they don't know if it means to watch out for crossing hookers or if it means prostitutes operate in the area"
This is the source of my current blog picture

Fact or Fiction?: A Cockroach Can Live without Its Head - "It is not just the body that can survive decapitation; the lonely head can thrive, too, waving its antennae back and forth for several hours until it runs out of steam, Kunkel says. If given nutrients and refrigerated, a roach head can last even longer"

Toby, Dave & Ian Explain XKCD

Cleverest women are the heaviest drinkers - "Those with degrees are almost twice as likely to drink daily, and they are also more likely to admit to having a drinking problem. A similar link between educational attainment and alcohol consumption is seen among men, but the correlation is less strong."

Societe Generale probing 'anomalies' - "Societe Generale, famed for its former rogue trader Jerome Kerviel who racked up £4.4billion of losses, is investigating 'anomalies' found in a client account in Singapore"
This doesn't seem to have been reported in the Singaporean media

Catching a ruthless mangda — the pimp who promised the world - "Aged only 31, he lures poor Thai women to Singapore with the promise of wealth by selling their bodies. He is the head pimp, or mangda in Thai, of the infamous jungle prostitutes of Woodlands, an outer suburb of the city-state where a large number of imported foreign labourers work mostly in factories. For more than five years, he has "filled a need", as he puts it, by providing poorly paid Indian, Bengali, Thai, Malaysian and Chinese men with sex that they can afford... He never tells them that the price they pay for his services is servicing the first 160 customers for free, before they earn even one Singapore dollar for themselves. And few know they will be servicing multiple customers every night on a filthy mattress in the open air with only a thin blue tarpaulin wrapped around four posts for privacy"