Links - 30th June 2010

"The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best." - Will Rogers

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Rome to let tourists see Colosseum underground
Time to visit the Eternal City once more - but not in Summer

Paper Rater: Free Online Grammar Checker, Proofreader, and More - "Grammar Checking, Plagiarism Detection, Writing Suggestions"

Woman in sumo wrestler suit assaulted her ex-girlfriend in gay pub - "The row developed as the victim tried to wave at a man dressed as a Snickers bar... Ms Martin told Dublin District Court how she was left with a large lump on her temple and still suffered from panic attacks because of the incident... During the evening Talbot, who was wearing an inflatable sumo suit, bumped into her. When she turned around, the accused said to her: "Keep smiling, c**t"... The accused was escorted out and had to be asked to partially deflate her costume so she could get out the door"

“Chinese Women, Please Don’t Sleep With Foreigners” – chinaSMACK - "Chinese men’s biggest problem isn’t physiology at all. Then what is it? Lack of sexual skill. The reason that those eight western men are great in bed, is that they don’t just marry someone from the same village. They have sexual counseling and STD clinics, and they are very open when it comes to sex. If there’s a problem they seek professional help. To give an inappropriate example, the cooking skills of an old lady who has cooked all her life is inferior to a young cook, so we can see how important professional training is... If you’re in the sports industry, stop helping Real Madrid earn money from Chinese, or at least stop inviting bastards like Mike Tyson to come here... If you’re a movie director, don’t spend money on frivolous things. Make a movie where the Chinese girl rejects the foreign man, or where the Chinese guy conquers a foreign girl"
HAHAHAHAHAHA

Barbara Kay: First, kill the husband. Second, claim sympathy as a widow - "After being released from prison in 2004, the would-be murderer is awarded half the couple’s property, $70,000, just as though they were any other divorcing couple with, say, “irreconcilable differences.” I guess you don’t get more “irreconcilable” that when one partner tries to whack the other and fails... Most people are unaware of the fact that although women rarely kill their intimate partners directly, that doesn’t mean they don’t harbour intentions that are equally murderous. Women are far more likely to use surrogates to kill their boyfriends or husbands than men... But here’s the rub: When these murders succeed, the homicide is not classified under the heading of Domestic Violence, but as a general homicide. As a result, the stats on spousal homicides don’t reflect a true picture"

Thomas the Tank Engine attacked for 'conservative political ideology' - "The show's right-wing politics shows the colourful steam engines punished if they show initiative or oppose change, the researcher found. She also highlighted the class divide which sees the downtrodden workers in the form of Thomas and his friends at the bottom of the social ladder and the wealthy Fat Controller, Sir Topham Hatt, at the top... She was critical of the fact the show only has eight female characters out of the 49 who feature... Her study shows programmes for children are not as harmless as many parents think if they look more closely, she concluded, and she called for tighter controls of what is broadcast to them"

Bangkok Post : A dubious distinction - "Media watchers FACT Thailand said that the number of blocked and blacklisted websites had passed 100,000, making Thailand the first country in the world to hit that goal; since April alone, said a FACT study, the Ministry of Internet Censorship of Thailand (MICT) and the emergency authorities have blocked 65,000 websites, bringing the total of blacklisted sites to 113,000 by June 15, with sites being added every day; the Orwellian Bureau of Prevention and Eradication of Computer Crime has added another layer of Net censoring, supposedly in the name of protecting the monarchy; one new tactic is to censor any site that mentions actual names such as former PM's office minister Jak***ob Pe***ir or the Marxist professor G***s Ung***orn - two of 200 such blacklisted names that are to be wiped from Thai memory like a Russian encyclopaedia on Josef Stalin."

Remembering The Day Team Rocket Won - "One man last year created art by destroying dreams. It seems only fair to recognize his evil genius. A 2009 Pokemon Platinum event in NY was merely a sandbox for him to wreak havoc in."

Apple Design vs Apple Engineering - "Steve [Jobs] started critiquing the layout on a purely esthetic basis. "That part's really pretty", he proclaimed. "But look at the memory chips. That's ugly. The lines are too close together". George Crow, our recently hired analog engineer, interrupted Steve. "Who cares what the PC board looks like? The only thing that's important is how well that it works. Nobody is going to see the PC board"... So we invested another $5,000 or so to make a few boards with a new layout that routed the memory bus in a Steve-approved fashion. But sure enough, the new boards didn't work properly, as Burrell had predicted, so we switched back to the old design for the next run of prototypes."

The Amazing Stories of 6 Sudden Savants - "Most savants are born with their unique abilities, but a small number are what Treffert calls “acquired savants,” people who had their talents unlocked after an illness or injury affected the brain. These cases have led Treffert and other researches to theorize that we might all have these capabilities lying dormant in our minds"

Iran slams Canada human rights abuse - "Iran has strongly condemned the Canadian police for arresting hundreds of protesters during the recent G20 summit in Toronto, describing the move as an inhuman act."
SPOING!

Unraveling Singapore: Farewell Singapore! - "Singapore... has to be one of the most racist places on Earth. The level of racism disgusts me. People from 3rd world countries are treated like crap, thought of as crap, and are exploited more often than not. The most glaring example of this poor treatment is with the domestic helpers that are brought into the country... You’ll see it in job advertisements on online job portals, using thinly veiled phrases like “female working environment”. Sometimes it just blatantly says “female only”. I have a feeling it’s set up that way because the employer only wants attractive women in the office to make the company look good... What I miss are the services, but not the country itself...so much emphasis is placed on appearances rather than actual value or quality. That concept of appearance before quality permeates the whole island, including workplace practices. I find it disturbing. A large segment of Singapore’s population seems to be fixated with shopping and brand-whoring... everything there seems overpriced, with the exception of electronics. It’s way too expensive to live there. I remember looking at a pair of running shoes once, checking the retail price in USD online with my phone and realizing that the Singapore merchant had added over 100 USD to the price of the shoes. You can’t tell me all of that is shipping"