Friday, February 27, 2015

Double Standards: Some Races/Religions are More Equal than Others

From time to time, one comes across cases of individuals in Singapore investigated, charged and/or convicted for upsetting racial-religious harmony.

Usually, we hear of such cases when a "minority" is insulted.

Yet, let us not pretend that "minorities" are saints.


Let us take a case of a certain Muhammad Hechter, who was quick to anger due to a comment on SMRT Ltd (Feedback)'s page:



Muhammad Hechter: For FengquaN Koh to mentioned "It's so painful to see so many idiots believing what the Islam said in a book?!" is very uncalled for n dat is deemed as causing religious and racist unrest. N dat warrant a police report to be made against him!!! I have screenshot his comments and will make a police report soon...Dude just standby ok...n for ur fren by d name of Dzulhisham Along, pls open ur eyes and ur mind. How can u actually b his fren wen he condemned ur religion n mine by calling us Muslims idiots for believing in d Quran!!!

FengquaN Koh: Come i clap for you! What an idiot, you can't even understand what i wrote. You can even tell the term, "idiot" is referring to a individual or religion.

Let me give you a like.

Muhammad Hechter: I fully understood wat u typed nt wrote. The word "idiot" refers to n individual who believes in Islam. Its as simple as dat. I m nt as stupid as u r dude...so by putting dat word down means ur calling us Muslims "idiots" bcos our faith n belief is in Islam. Hence u r causing racial n religious unrest. Lu standby suah dok...

COME LET ME DBL CLAP FOR U N GIVE U A LIKE ALSO.


Looking at what FengquaN Koh had posted, we see that it is quite innocuous:



"It's so painful to see so many idiots believing what the islam said in a book?!

There is something called "google". These days pigs are raise with proper nutritional ingredients.

Seriously, do yourselves a favor by doing a bit of research before commenting like an ignorant fool."


This post was in response to the usual tiresome claims about pork being bad for you because of parasites/tapeworms:



Keith Tan: "Hokkien say smart enuff dun act smart. So now is drink enuff dun eat pork. Anyway, smart ppl dun eat pork, u shld read how it affects ur health. If torah, bible n quran say so, dun eat it if u can. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysticercosis"

In other words, A claims that you shouldn't eat pork because the Quran (among other religious texts) says so.

B responds that you shouldn't blindly believe what religious texts and that you should educate yourself, and that if you don't (and blindly believe what religious texts say), you're an idiot.

In light of this, FengquaN Koh's response would seem reasonable - if someone insisted that the Moon emitted light because of what was written in a religious text, one would be justified in chiding him for being an idiot (since it is demonstrably false that the moon emits light).


Now, what is especially interesting here is to contrast this (Hechter's police report) to his response to me:



Me: Technically if you're from the Hanafi school of Islam you can drink

Muhammad Hechter: N technically u r stupid n ignorant cos ur Chinese???!!!???

Me: Don't hate me if you're ignorant of some of the subtleties of your religion

Early hanafi scholars said non grape or date alcohol was ok

Alcohol: Its kinds, usage and Rulings | General Fiqh | Fiqh

Also I'm sure your Chinese Muslim brothers would not appreciate your racist remark

Muhammad Hechter: Hahaha hahaha too much swine in u aldy dats y...can't blame u for d lack of respect...well again dats Chinese...


So, this chap twice insulted me for being Chinese (besides not just being ignorant but reveling in his ignorance, and being irrational to boot [I'm still not sure what the link between eating pork and lacking respect is]).

At the same time he made a police report about someone for telling him to look at scientific evidence.

This is rich indeed.

One wonders why one never hears of Malays and/or Muslims insulting other races and/or religions.

I am tempted to see what happens if I, in turn, make a police report about this chap insulting my racial feelings, but I'm not sure if it's worth wasting taxpayers' money just to test the system for institutional racism/religious bias.



Addendum:

Hit Tip to PPBI for additional examples of minority racism:

I'm A Brown Person And I Live In A Racist Country - xoJane ("I walked into an elevator just last week and had two guys talking about me in Malay")

GPGT * Racist Saga month January 2015 - www.hardwarezone.com.sg

GPGT - Waliew. This guy racist comment is too much la - www.hardwarezone.com.sg

Muslim seeks refund for shoes lined with pig skin - Page 4 - www.hardwarezone.com.sg

Muslim seeks refund for shoes lined with pig skin - Page 5 - www.hardwarezone.com.sg

[SERIOUS] Malay hawkers are the biggest racists. - www.hardwarezone.com.sg

Malay musician sow discord to disaffect Malay/Muslims

Malay said that Chinese funeral is 'fucking noisy'. Acceptable?

Malay man did a Amy Chong racist comments


Keywords:

Malays, Racist

Thursday, February 26, 2015

IT specialist got 15-year-old to have sex with 18-year-old in hotel room

What the...

IT specialist got 15-year-old to have sex with 18-year-old in hotel room

In the first case of its kind, a former IT specialist has been taken to court for causing a minor to have sex with another person while he took photographs of them.

In the dock on Thursday was the 41-year-old Singapore permanent resident, who pleaded guilty to doing so at Conrad Centennial Hotel sometime in late October or early November 2012. Two other charges will be taken into consideration when he is sentenced.

There is a gag order on the accused, the victim and the witness.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Kavita Uthrapathy told the court that the accused, a photography enthusiast, had done nude and erotic photography using models he obtained from a website.

Sometime in late October 2012, the minor, a Chinese national then in Secondary 4, came to know the accused, who advertised on the Craiglist classifieds, stating: "Hoping to fulfill my girlfriend's fantasies; seeking an extra man".

Curious, the youth responded, claiming he was 18. The man, who did not verify his age, arranged for the minor as well as the part-time model to meet him at the hotel in Temasek Boulevard.

While they were in the room, the part-time model told the minor she was a second-year polytechnic student, but had just dropped out of school. The minor claimed he was a first-year polytechnic student.

After talking for a while, the man, who had told the youth he was a businessman, set up his camera equipment and told the teen to pose with the model as he snapped photographs.

He then asked the model to undress the youth, who felt uncomfortable and awkward. The accused had reassured him that the photographs were meant only for his personal use.

The man then told the 18-year-old to take off her clothes. He got the duo to perform various sexual acts while he photographed them. He also joined them on the bed at one stage.

About 20 to 30 minutes later, he handed a condom packet to the minor and asked him to have sex with the model. The youth did so as she was engaged in a sexual activity with the man.

Before they left, he paid the model $250.

The offence came to light on Jan 8 last year, when someone saw the photographs online.

The maximum punishment for the offence is 10 years' jail and a fine.


Update:

Ex-IT specialist in threesome jailed 6 months for causing minor to have sex

"A former information technology specialist who caused a minor to have sex with an 18-year-old part-time model in the first case of its kind was sentenced to six months' jail on Wednesday...

At some point, the accused put the camera on "auto'' mode, took off his clothes and joined the minor and the model on the bed and engaged in sexual activity with her.

The accused, a Singapore permanent resident, is from India and has been working for an IT company for 13 years before he quit.

Two other charges including procuring the minor to perform an obscene act on the model were taken into consideration during his sentencing.

The minor came to know the accused, a photography enthusiast, in late October 2012 when the latter advertised online for an "extra man'' to "fulfil my girlfriend's fantasies''. Curious, the minor wanted to find out more and clicked a link confirming he was 18 years or older...

Deputy Public Prosecutor Kavita Uthrapathy said the accused neither ascertained nor verified the minor's age. It was him who recruited and led the minor into sexual activity at a tender age, directed and told him what to do, making him perform all sorts of lewd acts, culminating in a sexual threesome.

She argued that there was a strong element of moral corruption of the sexually inexperienced minor by the accused.

The offences came to light early last year when the minor's guardian's son saw the photographs of the minor involved in the threesome on the Internet. The minor lodged a report the next day, on Jan 9...

Judge Yeo also said he was particularly perturbed by the fact that there was a strong element of moral corruption on the minor, who was a virgin at the time.

It is understood that the model will not be charged."


So apparently sex corrupts you morally.

Also as I predicted the girl wasn't charged.

Links - 26th February 2015

Man with Emirates Tattoo Enjoys $25,000 of Free Upgrades - "Glaswegian-born McGinlay is an English teacher in Thailand, but is treated like a celebrity when he boards an Emirates plane. The frequent flyer is regularly upgraded too the more luxury business and first class, and when crew find out about his tattoo, they often ask to pose for photos with McGinlay. Staff have also told him that his photo sits proudly on the wall of famous celebrities – alongside the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Michael Jackson – in the company’s Dubai headquarters... McGinlay said that his friends back in the UK are less than impressed with his luxury antics, admitting that on a photo posted on social media of his first-class boarding pass and a glass of Moet, a friend commented: “I hope you choke.”"

Built on Sand: Singapore and the New State of Risk

Canada Lets Makayla Sault Die of Leukemia Over Religious Sensitivity - "On Monday, Makayla Sault, an 11-year-old from Ontario and member of the Mississauga tribe of the New Credit First Nation, died from acute lymphoblastic leukemia after suffering a stroke the previous day. This would normally not be big news in Canada or the U.S.—except for the fact that Makayla's death was probably preventable and thus unnecessary. Makayla died not only from leukemia, but from faith—the faith of her parents, who are pastors. They not only inculcated her with Christianity, but, on religious grounds, removed her from chemotherapy to put her in a dubious institute of “alternative medicine” in Florida... Her doctors say that if she had stayed on chemotherapy and standard treatment, she would have had a 75 percent chance of survival.Makayla went off chemotherapy because the Canadian government and its child protective services refused to override the parents’ and child’s wishes to discontinue treatment; after supposedly having a vision of Jesus while in the hospital, Makayla had become convinced that chemotherapy was killing her. "
Is this so different from euthanising children?

Why Night Owls Are More Intelligent Than Morning Larks

The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss - "heterosexual wives are more likely than husbands to initiate divorce. Social scientists have struggled to explain the discrepancy, variously attributing it to the sexual revolution; to women’s financial independence; to men’s failure to keep modern wives happy. Intriguingly, in Norway and Sweden, where registered partnerships for same-sex couples have been in place for about two decades (full-fledged marriage was introduced several years ago), research has found that lesbians are twice as likely as gay men to split up. If women become dissatisfied even when married to other women, maybe the problem with marriage isn’t men. Maybe women are too particular. Maybe even women don’t know what women want. These are the kinds of things that we will be able to tease out... gay and lesbian couples were fairer in their dealings with one another than straight couples, both in intent and in practice. The lesbians in the study were almost painfully egalitarian—in some cases putting money in jars and splitting everything down to the penny... lesbian couples seemed to take the practice to extremes: “It was almost like ‘my kitty, your litter'”... in all couples, the person with the higher income had more authority and decision-making power. This was least true for lesbians; truer for heterosexuals; and most true for gay men. Somehow, putting two men together seemed to intensify the sense that “money talks”... Even as they are more egalitarian in their parenting styles, same-sex parents resemble their heterosexual counterparts in one somewhat old-fashioned way: a surprising number establish a division of labor whereby one spouse becomes the primary earner and the other stays home... for married heterosexual parents, happiness tends to be U-shaped: high at the beginning of marriage, then dipping to a low, then high again. What happens in that low middle is child-rearing... women may have a “stronger general sensitivity to the quality of relationships.” Meaning maybe women are just picky, and when you have two women, you have double the pickiness. So perhaps the real threat to marriage is: women... in the decade since same-sex partnerships became legal, heterosexual marriage rates had increased 10.7 percent in Denmark, 12.7 percent in Norway, and 28.8 percent in Sweden. Divorce rates had dropped in all three countries... When, in the 1970s and early 1980s, Pepper Schwartz asked couples about their sex lives, she arrived at perhaps her most explosive finding: non-monogamy was rampant among gay men, a whopping 82 percent of whom reported having had sex outside their relationship. Slightly more than one-third of gay-male couples felt that monogamy was important; the other two-thirds said that monogamy was unimportant or that they were neutral on the topic. In a funny way, Schwartz says, her findings suggested that same-sex unions (like straight ones) aren’t necessarily about sex. Some gay men made a point of telling her they loved their partners but weren’t physically attracted to them. Others said they wanted to be monogamous but were unsupported in that wish, by their partner, gay culture, or both."

vivre l'écureuil - "1. What does “trigender” mean?
Trigender is a non-binary gender choice that liberates me from having to decide one just one gender. It means that I am simultaneously male, female, and neither.
4. Why squirrelkin?
I’ve already answered this one so I’m just going to copy and paste it from the other post.
- I’m a squirrelkin because I believe I was intended to be a squirrel, but for some reason, there was a mishap and I ended up assuming the form of a human.
- How do I know I was intended to be a squirrel? There are lots of reasons. One, I only like eating nuts. I eat nuts throughout the day and I also plant them sometimes. When I laugh, people tell me that it sounds like a squirrel. I often find myself resisting the urge to scale trees whenever I go to the park because I know the general population doesn’t understand otherkin. But I love climbing trees. I’m also a very fast runner.
- Astrally, every time I astral project, I take the form of a squirrel. This was the tipping point for me. That’s when I knew I was truly meant to be a squirrel.
5. What are headmates?
Headmates are separate individuals that inhabit the same body as I do.
7. Is this a satire account?
No. I might be a little sarcastic sometimes but I assure you, I’m as real as they come.
8. What caused you to have PTSD?
When I was younger, I went on a field trip to a farm. There was a chicken coop and at my young age, I was very fascinated by chickens. If I weren’t a squirrelkin, I’d probably be a chickenkin. Just to put into perspective how much I love chickens. So anyway, we were at the farm, and this guy just came up and picked up the chicken. He seemed to touch the chicken in inappropriate ways. And an egg fell out. And then the chicken died a little while later. As I mentioned before, this may have been a dream, but it was still very real for me. And now I cry when people are cruel to animals and it really puts me on edge too."

Healthy eating can turn into an obsession - "every time she received compliments for her discipline to eat healthily, her heart sank. “There were so many things I restricted myself from to adhere to my ritual. I ate only plain food — no sauce, oil or salt. I looked healthy but I was really miserable,” she recalled. For the last two years, Ms Lim, now 20, struggled with what doctors and registered dietitians here describe as an unhealthy desire to eat only pure or “clean” food, which may lead to poor physical, social and emotional health. Some experts refer to the condition as orthorexia nervosa, a little-researched disorder... She has seen a handful of cases where her patients are obsessed with healthy eating, such as taking only organic juices or raw vegetables... For Ms Lim, “healthy eating” at one point meant restricting herself to 30 grams of carbohydrates — just slightly more than one slice of bread — each day, and scrutinising online menus to ensure restaurants serve “healthy” dishes worth her calories before agreeing to attend social outings... “Planning my daily meals and workouts began to take over my mind in a way that made me very miserable. I refused dinner gatherings that would disrupt my regime,” Ms Lim said... While acknowledging that the screening criteria for orthorexia is ambiguous, health experts raised some red flags: Cutting out major food sources such as red meat, gluten, dairy and sugar; spending excessive amounts of time, say three or more hours a day, preparing specific types of food; scrutinising food labels and menus; and being fixated with calorie-counting, such as feeling guilty when they consume five to 10 calories more than their daily quota. SGH’s Dr Lee said: “People with orthorexia are often resistant to advice because they believe they know what a healthy diet is, and that their diet is healthy.” Dr Wang said it is important for those with eating disorders to be around a “healthy community”. “By that, I mean family and friends who take a balanced and holistic approach towards food and life.”"
More simply, you might describe people who cut out entire food sources as cranks

Ship Your Enemies Glitter revenge website sells at auction only days after launch - "Mathew Carpenter auctioned off Ship Your Enemies Glitter for a tidy sum of $85,000 this week after launching the site last week and becoming swamped with orders... Bidding hit $70,000 within hours of the site, which referred to glitter as "the herpes of the craft world," being put up for sale, according to the Guardian. It stalled and then shot up another $15,000 to the final asking price. Carpenter claims he earned $20,000 in the short time his site was accepting orders, according to the auction listing. More than 2.5 million people visited the website in its first four days."

Butts Versus Boobs: Which Do Guys Really Prefer? - "Pornhub Insights (behind one of the web’s most highly trafficked porn site’s YouPorn) calculated data on this point based on searches of butts and breasts in countries around the world, and ultimately concluded it has to do with how close to the equator someone lives. Butts came out the winner in places like South America, Latin America, and Africa. The one exception to this is Canada—our neighbors to the North apparently really appreciate a shapely butt. In the European Union, however, it was breasts that came out on top in countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. What’s the verdict in America? While it varies by state, butts came out the winner overall. No real surprise there, considering our recent obsession with all things booty. Researches at the University of Buenos Aires in 2013 asked heterosexual men the same question—breasts versus butts—in a study and found that 59 percent of men preferred butts, while 38.5 percent preferred breasts. What is particularly interesting about their findings is that rarely did men attest that both traits equally contributed to a woman’s attractiveness, with only 2 percent responding that that was true for them. So it seems men really do fall into one of these buckets after all. But what does it actually mean to be a butt guy or a boob guy? A 1968 U.S. study (yeah, we’re going way back) asked 95 male college students which silhouette of a woman they found to be the most attractive. Men who preferred “large” breasts were found to have “a tendency to date frequently, to have masculine interests, and to read sports magazines…large-breast preference was related to a need for heterosexual contact and for exhibitionism (saying witty things and being the center of attention).” On the other side of the spectrum, men who preferred large butts were “characterized by a need for order (neatness, organization, orderliness)…Those who preferred the largest buttocks figure tend to be business majors…and tend not to be psychologically minded. In social situations, they are dependent and given to self-abasement (guilty, self-blaming). Their value orientation tends not to be stoic in nature.”"

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Power/Rangers

POWER/RANGERS from Joseph Kahn on Vimeo.

Deboot of the Power Rangers. My take on the FAN FILM. Not a pilot, not a series, not for profit, strictly for exhibition. This is a bootleg experiment not affiliated or endorsed by Saban Entertainment or Lionsgate nor is it selling any product. I claim no rights to any of the characters (don't send me any money, not kickstarted, this film is free). This is the NSFW version. An alternate safe version is on youtube.

Interview by Drew McWeeny at Hitfix: http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/world-exclusive-what-are-katee-sackhoff-and-james-van-der-beek-doing-in-joseph-kahns-powerrangers

Making Of: (to be posted soon)

CAST:

Katee Sackhoff - Kimberly/Pink
James Van Der Beek - Rocky
Russ Bain - Tommy/Green
Will Yun Lee - General Klank
Gichi Gamba - Zack/Black

CREW

Director: Joseph Kahn
Writers: Joseph Kahn, James Van Der Beek, Dutch Southern
Producers: Adi Shankar, Jil Hardin
Executive Producers: Justin Smith, David Kang, Raymond Watt, Michael S. Kim
Co-producers: Renn Brown, Kathy Palmer
Cinematographer: Christopher Probst
Production Designer: Brett Hess
Costume Designer: Edda Gudmunsdottir
Stunt/Fight Coordinator: Don Theerathada/87 Eleven
Sound Designer: Fletcher Alliston
Music by: Brain and Melissa
Visual Effects: Ingenuity Engine
Visual Effects Supervisors: David Lebensfeld, Grant Miller, Chris Watts


Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PowerRangersBootleg