Links - 29th January 2011

Promiscuity safety certificate (1940's) - "This certifies that I, the undersigned female... am in my right mind and not under the influence of any drug or narcotic, neither does he have to use force"

The Hungry Bunny
I love the extensive disclaimer... on a food blog

The Persuasive Power of Swearing - "Light swearing at the start or end of a persuasive speech can help influence an audience"

Scientists map what factors influence the news agenda - "Outlets from countries that trade a lot with each other and are in the Eurozone are more likely to cover the same stories, as are countries that vote for each other in the Eurovision song contest. Deviation from "normal content" is more pronounced in outlets of countries that do not share the Euro, or have joined the EU later"

Godliness & Greed: How Effective is Christian Ethics in Curtailing Greed? - "Blankfein said of his bank, Goldman Sachs, that it had been doing God’s work... I was researching the history of Christian thought on profit-seeking and wealth. I had found evidence of a gradual shift in the thought between Aquinas and the fifteenth-century Christian Humanists (mainly in what is now Italy). Whereas early Christian thought had tended to stress the negative attitude toward riches—the camel being in extreme pain in getting through the eye of the needle—in the Renaissance Christian theologians tended to argue that being wealth is necessary for a Christian to exercise the godly practical virtues of liberality and magnificance... To expunge the sordid stuff from our banks and corporations, human nature itself would have to be radically changed. Perhaps the question is whether it is possible for religion as a phenomenon to accomplish this task when it cannot but interact with the world"

Porn star dead after breast surgery - "The model/actress previously hit the headlines in 2009 when she was hospitalized after attempting to set a new world record for the number of fellatios performed in 24 hours. She was forced to give up her goal of 200 after giving 75 men oral sex"

Atheists Are Generous-They Just Don't Give to Charity - "35 percent of nonreligious doctors, compared with 28 percent of Catholic and 26 percent of Protestant physicians, choose [to work among the poor instead of private practice]... Demands for charitable donations are a regular feature of church attendance, and it may be that the church environment, rather than any inherent generosity, drives the response to such appeals. Using charitable giving to compare the generosity of the religious and nonreligious is problematic for other reasons. Consider the fact that a large part of religious charity goes, to a large extent, straight into the pockets of co-religionists... Giving money in these cases is less charity and more a kind of social insurance... charity is a means to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor... the least religious countries also have the highest flow of wealth from the rich to the poor and the smallest wealth inequality"

Ex-NUS Graduate: “I’m a failed product of our meritocratic educational system” | Support Site for The Unemployed - "I have been stucked in a prolonged underemployment and unemployment cycle of which I can see no light for the past ten years!... Relentless marketing of so-called foreign talent by the PAP has reinforced the view that foreigners are better even though they may not be and their services are not actually cheap either... Local home-grown HR managers have told me that foreigners were being hired simply because these people were foreigners. Everyone liked the idea of a diverse workplace until they were badly affected by their adverse work ethics and knowledge... From my observation, organizations generally preferred females (including foreign females) for the positions I applied for. These positions include administration, accounting, banking, finance, operations (office-based), human resources, retail services and sales support. Organizations only employed males for engineering, sales and technical positions... more sales positions are now occupied by females leaving me wondering what kind of jobs are available for guys! The only sales area where males still maintain the majority count was those of a self-employed nature."

What more does PAP need to prove?!? - "-> Real purchasing power of Sporeans now below Malaysia, Taiwan, HK, Russia, Australia. -> Highest productivity drop among developed nations. -> Average salary dropped from ~4.1k to 3.8K -> Record Inflation rate -> Record high in Property/living cost, doubled in 4 yrs. -> Record low in birthrate...worlds number 2 or maybe 1 now... -> Record rich-poor income gap...worlds number 2 after HK?!? ... This Govt has no answers. The only answer they have is 'More Foreigners'"

China orders etiquette classes for schoolchildren - "Many of China's down-to-earth citizens are notorious for practices such as queue-jumping, spitting and littering, which are seen as obnoxious in the country itself as well as abroad"
This won't stop some people from claiming that PRCs aren't rude

Atheists, Christians, and Fact Fundamentalism - "[The Enlightenment] gave rise to two main responses by the religious establishment. One is a kind of postmodern religion which emphasizes human spirituality and liberation from religious and political hierarchy. The two most prominent examples today are liberation theology and non-fundamentalist expressions of Pentecostalism in which the spirit truly is privileged over the written word. The other response is fundamentalism... Despite an appearance of intense disagreement with fundamentalists both the new atheists and Christian fundamentalists share a common premise, that the importance of religion is belief in a set of propositional truths. I would like to suggest that religion at its core is not about belief, but is rather about faith"

The Inside Story of How Facebook Responded to Tunisian Hacks - ""There were rumors that Facebook or electricity was going to be shut down," Rim IM'd me from Tunis. "Or both""

Bank manager mistaken for loan shark and beaten up - "Ong, 32, unemployed, also admitted to threatening to break Mr Lee's legs with a metal rod if he attempted to escape. A district court heard that the flat was vandalised at about 3am on March 15, 2009. At 6am, Ong was repainting the affected areas when he spotted Mr Lee walking along the corridor, and demanded to know what he was up to. Mr Lee tried to explain that he was delivering medicine to a friend living on the same floor. Accusing Mr Lee of being a loan shark, Ong brandished a 87cm-long metal rod and demanded his wallet, cellphone and the plastic bag in his hand. Mr Lee refused to do so and Ong started throwing punches while calling out to other family members. His uncle Teo Ho Seng, 47, a delivery man, joined in the assault. Deputy Public Prosecutor Ruth Wong said Mr Lee had pleaded with both men that he was merely running an errand and even specified his friend's address. Ong's mother, Teo Suan Kee, 57, a housewife, also smacked Mr Lee on the head several times. Mr Lee tried to call the police but this only enraged his attackers who took the cellphone away. Out of desperation, he started shouting for help. Ong's mother called the police, telling them that they had detained a loan-shark runner. However, investigations revealed that Mr Lee was visiting a friend and was not involved in illegal activities. It was also discovered that Ong had stood as a guarantor for a friend who borrowed from an unlicensed moneylender. The friend defaulted on the debt and, to 'catch' the loan-shark runners that had come to vandalise the flat, Ong kept two metal rods"
Epic FAIL

YouTube - Breakfast of Booze - Epic Meal Time
18531 calories, 1005of fat

175 Photos of Day Taken at Night

More Hard Truths About Education In Singapore - "We know how "brand-name" schools end up with the graduate parents. 18 year old Wong Zheng Kai explained it clearly and patiently to the slow learner: "Hwa Chong's fees would be too taxing on my parents"... Grossly out of touch, Lee was still thinking meritocracy alone determines placement in secondary schools when he posed his question to her earlier, "What made you choose Dunman High? Which schools did you try to get in but couldn't? Let's not be shy"... teachers here don't cover all the syllabus material in class, and the kids are expected to have tutors to make up the shortfall. Needless to say, the poor can hardly cough up the extortion money charged by tutors these days... Some schools require a PSLE score of at least 265 before doling out the financial assistance. Kids who don't do well academically because their parents can't afford the "books and all the paraphernalia that makes for a learning child" mentioned by Lee, end up spiralling deeper into the poverty trap"