World famous Singaporean products : r/askSingapore - "The conventional ones have been covered so here's a less known one. Lovense is also singaporean!
How Claudia Webbe failed upwards - "Claudia Webbe’s political career has been characterised by breathtaking incompetence and questionable behaviour. Much of the blame for her rise can be laid at the door of Labour’s Corbyn experiment – a disastrous political project mired in racial identity politics and cronyism. Our democracy is all the poorer for it."
Konbini Kinyoubi: The Legend Of Famichiki — As Seen In Japan - "Famichiki, the boneless fried chicken from the front counter at Family Mart, is one fo the most popular and beloved convenience store items in Japan. Some even think it’s the single greatest konbini treat of them all, and although I’m more of a Lawson’s man myself, I’ve had more than my fair share of Famichiki."
Canadian man held captive by three women in fake Thai bar - "A Canadian retiree in Thailand had a warning for others after he was lured to a fake bar by three local women, held captive and assaulted... Douglas, who later discovered around 15,000 baht ($630) was missing from his wallet, reported the incident to police but was told “there was little they could do.” Despite security footage showing Douglas and his alleged captor leaving the bar and cops uncovering CCTV footage of Douglas on a motorbike and the woman who had taken him to the fake bar, the Canadian was accused of lying."
Countries where students recite an equivalent of the pledge of allegience - "If you extend “pledging allegiance” to include singing the national anthem, I found examples of it being done in Canada, the UK, India, Vietnam, Japan (where it’s been the subject of court battles), Australia, China, Thailand, and some other countries. It may not be universal, but it seems common enough."
Ultra processed vegan food can increase your risk of heart death, study finds - "Ultra-processed vegan food can increase the risk of heart death, Lancet research suggests. The study of 118,000 middle-aged and older Britons found that plant-based diets can protect the heart – but only if they are based on whole foods. Researchers found that every 10 per cent increase in plant-based foods was associated with a 20 per cent reduction in deaths from heart disease if the fare was not ultra-processed. However, when the increase came from plant-based UPF foods, it was linked to a 12 per cent increase in such deaths."
Vegan 'butcher' unleashes as business dries up amid surprising new trend: 'We're out of money' - "The owner of a once bustling vegan butcher shop in Sydney fears her business will soon close amid an emerging trend away from meat-free products. The shift has resulted in dozens of vegan restaurants closing, companies that made meat alternatives collapsing and supermarkets shrinking their vegan offerings - though those in the industry have struggled to put a finger on why. Suzy Spoon has run meat-free butcheries that bear her name in the Sydney suburbs of Marrickville and Newtown for more than a decade but business is drying up... A shift away from meat had been happening over the last decade. At its peak, one report found that between 2020 and 2023 there was a 47 per cent increase in plant-based meat sales - but over the last two years it seems the bubble has burst."
Wedding celebrations turned mourning as fight over tandoori roti proved fatal - "A fight over who will get the tandoori roti first at a wedding ceremony escalated so much that those fighting ended up dying. The incident took place in Uttar Pradesh's Amethi on May 3 where two guests, aged 17 and 18, attending a wedding at a village got into an altercation over tandoori roti. Ravi Kumar, aka Kallu, an 18-year-old, and a 17-year-old got into a verbal fight which soon turned physical when they started beating each other using sticks."
Norman Shaw on X - "I dated a Persian for many years. Some a-hole once asked why she insisted on being called 'Persian' and she replied, "Because you morons don't know how to pronounce Iran.""
The dark fandom behind CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione - "Just a few days after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered on a New York City sidewalk, these young men had lined up in Washington Square Park to compete in a lookalike contest for the man wanted for his murder. It was sparsely attended and seen as a joke by those who did turn up, said Talia Jane, a journalist who was there. But it underlined an obsession with a murder suspect that has gripped social media since the killing on 4 December, fuelled by latent anger directed at America's private health insurers... This fetishisation was remarkably widespread, not limited to radical corners of the internet or any political affiliation, troubling many observers. "We do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint," said Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, where Mr Mangione was arrested at a McDonald's. "In a civil society, we are all less safe when ideologues engage in vigilante justice." Almost immediately after Mr Thompson was shot dead, the internet began to lionise his suspected killer. On TikTok, people posted videos of a "CEO assassin" New York City walking tour. On Spotify, playlists dedicated to the suspect started to appear. Once Mr Mangione was arrested, these fans came to his defence... The McDonald's worker alleged to have turned him in has become a target for online hate, while the fast-food franchise itself has been spammed with bad reviews. The police department in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that arrested him even received death threats... The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a non-profit extremism research group based in New Jersey, said that after the shooting the hashtag #EatTheRich went viral... The shooting also seemed to inspire others to take action against healthcare insurers - "wanted" posters of other CEOs appeared around New York City, and a woman in Florida was arrested after telling an insurance agent on the phone "Delay, Deny, Depose. You people are next," alluding to the words inscribed on bullet casings found at the murder scene. Alex Goldenberg, a senior adviser at the NCRI, called the online reaction a "turning point" and "a catalyst for the normalisation of political violence that was once confined to extremists on the fringes"... "The dynamic we are observing is eerily similar to the activity on platforms like 4chan, 8chan, Discord, and in other dark corners of the internet, where mass shootings are often met with glee," he said. Tim Weninger, a computer science professor at Notre Dame and expert in social media and artificial intelligence, said evidence suggests that the groundswell was authentic - not powered by bots or government influence operations... Recent research by Commonwealth Fund, a health policy institute, found 45% of insured working-age adults were charged for something they thought should have been free or covered by insurance, and 17% of respondents said their insurer denied coverage for care that was recommended by their doctor... In his last post on LinkedIn, Mr Thompson talked about efforts to make healthcare more affordable - and was criticised in the comments. CBS News, the BBC's US partner, obtained a message that UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty sent to staff this week, memorialising Mr Thompson and calling his murdered colleague "one of the good guys". "He was certainly one of the smartest guys. I think he was one of the best guys. I'm going to miss him. And I am incredibly proud to call him my friend," he wrote. In the email, the company shared messages from customers, including one who wrote about recovering from cancer, saying their treatment was paid for by the insurance company's benefits. "I'm thankful to UHC and everyone there who works within a broken system to help as many people as they can," they wrote, according to the company. Another message said: "So very sad that this world is so hateful. I have always had great experiences with UHC.""
Meme - "*Luigi* TYPICAL HERO OF DEMOCRATS
~multimillionaire heir
~shoots guy in the back
~runs away like a coward
~shakes like a little girl when questioned
~pisses himself like a baby when caught"
Michigan Man Accused of Stabbing Boss in 'Copycat' CEO Attack - "the incident occurred around 9:20 a.m. Tuesday at Anderson Express Inc., a Muskegon-based manufacturer that works with the automotive and defense industries. The Fruitport Township Police Department said a 32-year-old suspect, identified as Nathan Mahoney, allegedly stabbed company president Erik Denslow during a staff meeting. The man reportedly rushed out of the building shortly after and fled the scene in a vehicle. Mahoney was stopped by police and taken into custody about 15 minutes after the stabbing."
Brazilian researcher murdered in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, the day after posting "Japan is safe" : r/japannews - ""Japan is a very safe country, that's why I want to move here," a Brazilian woman, Amanda Borges da Silva (30), was found dead in her apartment in Narita City, Chiba Prefecture, the day after she posted on social media. Japanese police have arrested an unemployed man from Sri Lanka, Abailija Patawadige Pathum Udayanga (31), on suspicion of arson, and are investigating the possibility of robbery and murder. The fire broke out in the apartment where Amanda lived, and her body was found in the ruins. ... The life of a woman who had come to Japan, believing it to be safe, was suddenly taken in a foreign land. Police are rushing to clarify the full details of the incident, and with the attention of the international community on this case, the way public order is maintained and foreigners are protected is being questioned anew."
If drugs aren't allowed in sports, why is makeup allowed in beauty contests? : r/TooAfraidToAsk
Dead man's 8-year-old water bill comes back to haunt new property owner, with interest - "Robert Haslett is on the hook for another man's water. This March, the city sent him a letter stating that it was transferring $499.79 of charges to his account for a property he owns in Ottawa's Hintonburg neighbourhood. The balance was for four months of water arrears, "plus accrued interest to date." Those arrears date back to 2017, just before he bought the property, and the city didn't get around to telling him until now. "We were never even afforded the opportunity to pay the original bill or to contest it at that time," Haslett said. "It's accrued in secrecy, with no detail, no accountability." Unlike most other utilities, unpaid water charges attach to the property, not the individual. They transfer to the new owner after a sale. But it isn't quite so simple. The city told Haslett that it must take steps to locate and collect from the previous owner before charging the arrears to the new one... Haslett has been trying to pry a key detail out of the city. He's wondering how much of that $499.79 charge is made up of interest and late charges that piled up over those eight years, and how much is for the previous owner's actual water usage. So far, the city won't tell him. Muhuni explained that privacy legislation prevents the city from sharing details about the previous owner's account. The city advised Haslett to file a freedom of information request, a process that costs money and can take months to complete. The closest thing Haslett got to an answer is the city's formula for calculating interest... In a response to CBC, Muhuni said the city is working with Haslett to ensure he receives information about the property, "such as interest and penalties." Haslett said that's news to him. "They declined to provide any sort of information to us," he said. "They declined to provide an invoice or a bill or a summary or any sort of details on the stated amount and simply said that it's their right to do so and if we didn't pay it would go on our property taxes." Rita Asangarani, an Ottawa lawyer who specializes in real estate, wills and estates, said it isn't especially uncommon for new property owners to get hit by outstanding water arrears. But an eight-year delay is unusual... The city did not answer CBC's questions about why it took eight years to inform Haslett of the charge or why it wasn't able to determine that the previous owner was dead. Muhuni told CBC that lawyers typically request water and tax certificates to identify outstanding charges. He advised Haslett to contact his lawyer to deal with the charge through title insurance."
Meme - "I'm trying to fuck a girl that works at a bakery so I told her I liked baking and tried to make my own sourdough and now I have a new hobby and don't really feel like seeing her later today"
The great dollar store backlash - " Even without more dollar stores, attracting businesses has been a challenge for Stonecrest. Calls for a Starbucks have been unsuccessful, as have requests for Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods... Has anyone asked the customers who frequent these stores how they feel about banning them? Yes, it turns out. The first nationwide survey after the pandemic dollar-store boom was conducted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which released the results in October. Respondents — 750 lower-income dollar-store shoppers from across the country — didn’t want to see dollar stores banned. Rather, they relied on the chains for basic necessities... 82% felt dollar stores improved their community"
If people felt the way activists did, they'd vote with their wallets. Given that 90% of nutritional inequality is caused by demand, they're just projecting their desires onto everyone else
Thread by @StephenPunwasi on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "π¨π¦’s wild these days.
- Money laundering capital of the world
- the global fentanyl “command & control center”
- home to transnational organized crime heads
- at least 1 in 7,800 residents are members of organized crimes.
How did this happen so fast?
first of all, most folks in π¨π¦ don’t realize how bad things are yet, they’re just dealing with the consequences. Soaring housing costs. Rising car thefts. Unaffordable housing, Overdoses in your hood. Violence in your streets. All related.
π¨π¦’s home prices soared in the mid-2010s due to laundering. Fentanyl proceeds were washed in casinos, then layered w/housing. It’s now called the Vancouver model. Home prices surged since comps were skewed, & launderers WANT to pay more. Dive into this later. Speaking of casinos & housing—let’s talk about car thefts. In 2017 π¨π¦’s fin crime intel warned the gov that the world’s largest car theft gang set up shop in ON. It was washing cash in *drumroll* casinos & housing. Total mystery how that played out. Fentanyl has been a wild controversy since we’re pretending it isn’t because the πΊπΈ is. Asia’s “El Chapo” was from Toronto’s burbs. π¨π¦’s largest banks have been implicated in operations. The head of the trade is a former Team π¨π¦ snowboarder. Monthly super lab busts. things are so wild in π¨π¦ rn that it had to arrest its top spy for working with a global money launderer. It tired to bury the story. & I don’t thin hens serving time in prison. He’s preparing to appeal since π¨π¦ doesn’t have laws to address its highest spy working against it. speaking of free range criminals, π¨π¦ is the only place where you can see war criminals mingle with mafia dons, dragon heads, & terrorists. Global crime considers it neutral territory, so they meet here. Heck, top global assassins have even arrived on student visas recently. the prevalence of organized crime & apathy around it led to the capture of government. π¨π¦’s intel agency estimates organized crime groups infiltrated government & inflate contracts by 50% on avg. We know QC has a problem because it looked into it. Places like NS never will.
It gets wilder. Organized crime is now so powerful in π¨π¦ that law enforcement & gov are too scared to pursue it. Seriously. It won’t even try to pursue charges for certain crimes in some regions, and provinces like Ontario drop most charges.
all of these problems can be targeted with a single tool—RICO laws. They allow the pursuit of criminal orgs based on a pattern of associates. It makes it easier to prosecute. Even if not used, they become a major deterrent. πΊπΈ’s implementation cleaned up NYC in the 70s.
π¨π¦ has really wanted to implement RICO laws too, but it couldn’t find the time in the past 50 years. I was surprised to see that @PierrePoilievre suggested RICO-like laws in his platform today. I didn’t even see it in the NDP platform, & that seems right up their alley."
Philip Cross: Gig work worry isn't founded on policy-based evidence - "For years, much labour market research has been based on the assumption that work is becoming increasingly precarious. Growing concern about the emergence of gig work is typical. In fact, most studies find gig work involves only a small share of employment , usually well below 10 per cent, while many gig workers are actually attracted by the flexibility and freedom it offers and, contrary to favoured narratives, aren’t being pushed into it by shrinking opportunities elsewhere in the labour market... For most Canadian workers , the workplace has not become less secure and more hostile in recent years. Average job tenure continues to rise as more people stick with the same employer. Surveys reveal the vast majority of workers — especially the self-employed, which includes most gig workers — enjoy their work and are content with their pay and benefits (at least until inflation squeezed real incomes in 2022). This relatively benign assessment of the workplace is supported by the quit rate, which, at one per cent a year, is lower than before the pandemic. The problem for governments is that regulation to help the minority of vulnerable workers in the gig economy risks unintended consequences for the majority. Gig work has helped many young people enter the labour market and many older workers exit it, as they phase into retirement. Greater regulation of such work very likely would reduce opportunities for youths to earn their first work income and older workers to stay active doing work they enjoy. The disconnect between the widespread assertion by many researchers that gig work has been the dominant labour market trend in recent years and the lack of supporting evidence reflects a fundamental problem in labour economics. Even Eileen Applebaum of the left-wing Centre for Economic and Policy Research and her co-authors in a 2019 report observed that “this narrative has developed in a largely fact-free environment in which a lack of solid data has led to conclusions based on anecdotes.” Jeremy Weber, former chief economist at Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors, evidently agrees. He emphasizes in his 2024 book Statistics for Public Policy that much of the research on gig and precarious work is distorted by a bias toward selecting only data that “confirm what we expected or wanted to be the case” and that “refusing to listen is when you discard the data because of what they say, irrespective of their quality or relevance” What Weber describes is policy-based evidence, the exact opposite of the evidence-based policy that unbiased, honest research should strive for. More broadly, the disproportionate focus on nonstandard and gig work has ignored or trivialized a number of other labour market trends that deserve more attention. These include: older workers staying active in the labour force ; the growing dichotomy between job security , pay and benefits in the public and private sectors; Canada’s stagnating productivity, which undermines wages; the sharp decline in youth employment, which denies teenagers and young adults the experience they need to establish their careers; the increasing difficulty of integrating immigrants into the labour force; and the shrinking premium for education as changes in technology shift labour demand from knowledge-workers to people with actual skills."
I moved to Copenhagen from the UK - it’s not the utopia everyone thinks - "moving from London to Copenhagen six years ago was no fairytale. When I landed my first job at a women’s sneaker company here in 2019, I thought I’d found my dream position. But the currency difference and bureaucratic system I had to navigate in the first four months meant that I was living on 50 per cent of my wages – that’s $800 a month for all of my living expenses. In my first year here, I cried on the phone to my dad just before Christmas because I had 10kr ($1.04) left in my bank account and was having pasta with gravy for dinner. When I asked for a pay rise one and a half years into the job, I was told that $132 extra a month was out of the question... This may sound like an anomaly but in a city where a flat hierarchy (where “people relate to one another as equals regardless of job titles and formal positions” explains the University of Southern Denmark on the country’s working culture) is lauded, my experience and that of my friends is that it’s all too commonplace for companies to underpay, overwork and stifle their employees. In 2020, while working at a large business, I transparently informed management that I was having a miscarriage and was put on probation the week I returned. In a subsequent job, the CEO attempted to dupe me into a zero-hours contract to save money because the business was rapidly going under due to mismanagement at the top. At another company, I was told that the Danish classes I was taking to try and assimilate as the only non-Dane in the office were more of a “hobby” that I needed to partake in on my own time – despite meetings exclusively being held in Danish. Fellow expat friends of mine have expressed a yearning for the meritocracy of their home countries, suggesting that the Danes arguably have a great work-life balance because they simply leave the bulk of their tasks for the foreigners who are accustomed to the rat race style of working. The cultural divide between the Danes and the non-Danes is also felt acutely when it comes to making friends. Luckily for me, I have a lot of wonderful Danish friends who have welcomed me into their inner circles. However, many people find they’re a difficult bunch to build intimacy with. “I’ve been here for four years and I don’t have a single Danish friend,” said one of my mates, who even has a parent that hails from another Scandinavian country. It’s endearing that most Danes develop friendships in gymnasium (secondary school) that continue into adulthood but there’s a tangible reluctance to expand an invitation to any newcomers. This could partially be due to language difference. I’ve been the sheepish English speaker countless times, where a kind Dane has taken pity on me and reminded the rest of the group to switch to English. Comfortingly, most younger Danes in Copenhagen speak the language at near-native level. Although I’m persistent in trying to learn Danish, it’s a hard language that looks wildly different from how it sounds. Therefore, “rΓΈd grΓΈd med flΓΈd” (a tongue-twister meaning “red pudding with cream”) is still a huge mouthful. Unsurprisingly, if friendships can prove hard to form, so can romantic relationships. I’m part of a Facebook group called ‘Expats in Copenhagen‘ that often sees people post asking for advice on salary expectations, housing opportunities and unfamiliar Danish customs. At one point, however, it became an Agony Aunt column with women posting about their bizarre experiences with non-committal Danish men. I will say, if you’re looking looking for a blonde, blue-eyed, 6’5” guy in finance, hang around Copenhagen Business School for long enough and I’m sure you’ll find one. I have had my fair share of tall, handsome men who have been fantastic lovers, but I have also endured blindsiding heartbreak on more occasions than I’d care to count. As a Black woman, dating unfortunately always comes with an extra set of hurdles. Although I still faced ignorant remarks when I lived in multicultural London, while predominantly dating white men in Denmark, I’ve heard memorable gems such as: “Would you say you date more Black guys or white guys?”, “Did he have an African dong?” and “What was the name of your slave owner? Just kidding!”... Like anywhere in the world, Copenhagen has its setbacks. Danish people are markedly homogenous: usually of the same racial background and wealth. In that sense, it’s easy to build a utopia when there’s little to challenge the status quo. My friend Emma humorously refers to them as “non-playable characters” because the Danes can oftentimes come across like a glass of tepid water – inoffensive but not wholly palatable."
Chris Selley: A perfectly typical tunnel is just too much for Toronto's puny imagination - "Progress has erupted in Toronto. At the request of city council, municipal staff this week delivered a 27-page report titled “Improved Active Transportation and Water Access to Toronto Island Park,” in which they contemplated heresy: A permanent link between the 240-hectare isle and the city’s mainland, which would involve constructing a bridge or tunnel across roughly 250 metres of water. For the record, the Channel Tunnel between England and France is more than 50,000 metres long. A “fixed link,” as we call the idea here in Toronto for some reason, would have many benefits. No more interminable queues at the ferry terminal on beautiful summer days. No more having to pay $28 for a family of four to visit the city’s greatest park — arguably the city’s greatest thing — while still having to subsidize the ferry operations. (In 2019, the ferry service’s operating expenses exceeded its operating revenues by $1.3 million.) If this bridge-or-tunnel endeavour were taken to its natural logical conclusion, the city could get out of the ferry business altogether. (There are already many private water taxis.) Privatization would liberate the ferry service from city council’s insane decision-making. Because the city’s current ferry fleet is ancient and decrepit, in 2020 council approved the purchase of two new ferries from a Romanian shipyard. Naturally they had to be electric ferries. Also, the ferries would have to be cosmetically similar to the current old-timey ferries. “For the love of God,” you might ask, “why”? Well, see, most Toronto city councillors, having ample backyards of their own, if not cottages as well, view the Toronto Islands less as an important civic amenity for parks-starved downtown residents than as a sort of twice-a-summer nostalgia trip — like a day out on a steam train that comes with a souvenir conductor’s cap. They like that it’s inaccessible. In any event, it recently emerged that plans for the new electric ferries , which are already (you’ll never believe it) nearly three times over budget — $92 million for two stupid boats — had not hitherto included any provision for charging the ferries. D’oh! Another $50 million down the drain for that, subject to cost escalations... It reeks of quintessentially Torontonian conservatism: any change is probably bad... a tunnel obviously makes much more practical sense — especially if it costs roughly the same as a bridge, which staff shruggingly suggest it probably would … while admitting they have no real expertise in the matter, and no way to judge. They suggested around $100 million, give or take … which, interestingly enough, is less than Toronto is paying for its antique electric ferries. Perhaps there’s a lesson in there somewhere. Staff recommend further study, and quite rightly. But in Toronto, so often, the future never comes. The future means change, and we can’t have that."
