"We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong." - Bill Vaughan

***

Rose George's The Big Necessity. - "Every day, you handle the deadliest substance on earth. It is a weapon of mass destruction festering beneath your fingernails. In the past 10 years, it has killed more people than all the wars since Adolf Hitler rolled into one; in the next four hours, it will kill the equivalent of two jumbo jets full of kids. It is not anthrax or plutonium or uranium. Its name is shit—and we are in the middle of a shit storm. In the West, our ways of discreetly whisking this weapon away are in danger of breaking down, and one-quarter of humanity hasn't ever used a functioning toilet yet."

Recycle Bins (in NUS) - "Bins in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences have the highest level of segregated wastes. Recycling bins in the Faculty of Engineering have the highest level of contamination. These bins contain wastes that cannot be recycled or recyclable wastes were thrown into the wrong bins. For example, Styrofoam food containers in “Paper” bin, paper cups in “Plastic” bins and “Can” bins."
Hahahahahaha

National Men Make Dinner Day™ - "We assume that you are a man who NEVER cooks. And that you fit the profile of the ‘men’ who have inspired this once-a-year occasion... Officially celebrated on the FIRST THURSDAY OF EVERY NOVEMBER, ‘National Men Make Dinner Day’ is for you!! One guaranteed meal cooked by the man of the house one day of the year!"

How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions by Francis Wheen - "Almost every instance of modern irrationality stems from a depressingly familiar root: the death of reason and rational inquiry... The most innocent examples of charlatanry can have unintended and drastic consequences... the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh -- an act at least partially fueled by the contemporaneous proliferation of irrational conspiracy theories... the traditional liberal enemies of irrational politics have gradually dawdled into irrelevancy. We see Michel Foucault's love affair with Iranian fascism, Chomsky's defense of Pol Pot and Slobodan Milosevic, and the continuing defense of the Soviet Union by American intellectuals through the 1980s as proof of their irrational inability to see beyond a dangerously limiting dualistic worldview."

Model Trains Fetish Japanese DVD - "One among the most interesting DVDs is Crush by Venus produced by Gagon: a DVD series dedicated to model trains crush fetishists. Seems that the "crush fetish" started in USA. Women would crush insects or worms with their feet, or high heeled shoes, but Japanese switched to otaku products like Model Trains or Die Cast cars..."
Damn Japs.

BBC Radio host sacked after call to taxi firm requesting 'non-Asian' driver - "Sam Mason told the operator that 'a guy with a turban would freak her daughter out' insisting they send an English driver instead... She said: 'A guy with a turban is going to freak her out. She's not used to Asians.'"
Too bad she's not Black

Blind Protest Movie "Blindness" as Inaccurate, Deplorable, Harmful and Revolting - "'The film depicts blind people as incapable of doing everything, including basic tasks like bathing, dressing, and traveling. Blindness becomes a metaphor for all that is bad in human thought and action. Blind people in the movie have every negative human trait and few of the positive ones. The only encouraging element in the release of this film is the almost universal reaction of the critics that the film is a failure.'... 'The charge that loss of vision creates a personality alteration to a sordid and criminal character is in itself sordid and defamatory to an entire class of human beings'... Director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) spoke out during Cannes when the film premiered, saying the film is a metaphor for blindness to the human condition -- such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and global crises."
The fight against bigotry continues!

Four in 10 S'poreans marry foreigners - "His agency, set up in 2004, deals specifically with Hainanese brides because they are 'more virtuous and family-oriented' than Singaporean women. "If Singaporean men do not want to date career-minded Singaporean women, I give them an alternative to date virtuous Hainanese women," he said. He has contacts and an office in Hainan which generate a constant pool of Hainanese women looking to pair up with Singaporean men. He added that most of his clients, aged between 28 and 50, had tried dating Singaporean women before turning to him... "Foreign men are different; they know how to take care of their women.""
Hurr hurr!

Why I Recommend Hainan Ladies as Ideal Marriage Partners - "I believe that if you are seeking an attractive and virtuous potential life partner; one who shares your life goals, family values and who values Chinese tradition, home, family, and fidelity, you have an excellent chance to find her in Hainan."
Someone should come up with "Why I Recommend Ang Moh Men as Ideal Marriage Partners"

Ice cream toppings banned amid health and safety fears - "In another example of nanny state rules blighting Britain, world-famous Morellis Gelato claims its popular toppings pose a serious hazard to the public if they fall on the floor... they are given the ice cream with the topping – such as chocolate and strawberry sauce, chopped nuts and pieces of fresh fruit – served in a separate tub."

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory - "Many cultures equate meat-eating with virility, and in some societies women offer men the "best" (i.e., bloodiest) food at the expense of their own nutritional needs. Building upon these observations, feminist activist Adams detects intimate links between the slaughter of animals and violence directed against women. She ties the prevalence of a carnivorous diet to patriarchal attitudes, such as the idea that the end justifies the means, and the objectification of others. In Frankenstein , Mary Shelley made her Creature a vegetarian, a point Adams relates to the Romantics' radical politics and to visionary novels by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dorothy Bryant and others. Adams, who teaches at Perkins School of Theology, Dallas, sketches the alliance of vegetarianism and feminism in antivivisection activism, the suffrage movement and 20th-century pacifism. Her original, provocative book makes a major contribution to the debate on animal rights."
This is not a joke.

Mexican scientists turn tequila into diamonds - ""One day I went to the campus shop and bought a bottle of cheap tequila. I used it under the same experiment conditions as for a test with ethanol and water and obtained positive results," Apatiga said."

Oktoberfest can be expensive... especially if you take a £2,000 cab to get there - "When a man named Dave missed his flight from Portsmouth to Munich -- where he was to celebrate his friend's bachelor party by drinking beer at Oktoberfest -- he decided to forgo the airlines. Instead he hailed a cab."

-Transformer - "She is not my girlfriend, just found her pictures and this Thread at a Chinese website, regarding a very ugly girl who transform herself into a pretty girl, WITHOUT any PLASTIC SURGEORY just by make up!! and i found it SSOOO amazing!... what do this post prove? ALL girls can be pretty if you make effort to be one!"
Someone archived this forum post supposedly on the wonders of makeup, but the way you pose makes a lot of difference. I also suspect the pre-makeup girl is different from the girl going through the process of making up, and there was some Photoshop.

Cosmetic surgery addict injected cooking oil into her own face
Dawn Yang in 20 years?

Military Service Workshop on Mandatory Conscription - "Young people don't want to be in the military. They try to avoid the army by being too fat or too thin, or cutting off a finger... The suicide rate of conscripts in Taiwan is four times higher than people not serving... Conscription can't serve self-defense needs, because in high-tech modern warfare, conscripts aren't well trained enough to increase self-defense capacity... Furthermore, in Korea the conscription system does nothing to enhance people's loyalty. In fact, the feeling of current conscripts is the reverse – the system induces resentment... Alternative service is longer than military service. The term of regular service is 22 months. Alternative service is 28 months. Since conscientious objectors don't have to enter the lottery system, they serve the longest of all, 33 months... A public hearing was held in Taiwan to review the alternative service system. Everybody present celebrated the fact that Taiwan has successfully implemented this policy... "Aren't we all Christians?" the young man asked his uncle. The [Conscientious Objector] countered by asking his nephew to imagine Jesus Christ seated in the cockpit of an F-104 bomber, heading to bomb a city."
This from a country with a real enemy.