"The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided." - Casey Stengel

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Simpsons cartoon rip-off is child porn - judge - "A Supreme Court judge in Australia has ruled that an internet cartoon in which look-a-like child characters from The Simpsons engage in sexual acts is child pornography."

Nun Costume and accessories for court appearences. - "Nun costume and accessories to assist in those exorcisms. A nun costume for entering the convent. Nun costume and nun costume accesories to get out of speeding tickets. Nun costume and accessories for disguise and late night parties at the monastery... A nun costume for entering into your local order."
???

Despaña: A Superb Secret Sandwich Spot - "When you walk up a few steps and enter Despaña you leave New York and arrive in Spain, where you will find yourself in a gorgeously minimalist Spanish specialty food store. A leg of Jamon Iberico will be on your right, and past that gorgeous porcine ham you will find other cured meats, followed by a small but well-curated collection of Spanish cheeses. Dishes of samples beckon serious eaters like some Flamenco siren call."

FASS STAFF PROFILE - "Professor Chua Beng Huat is Singaporean. Like most Singapore students during his secondary school days, he studied for BSc in Biology and Chemistry in his undergraduate. After completing his degree, he realized that the isolated life of a lab scientist is not for him and switched to postgraduate study in Sociology... He returned to Singapore in 1984 to take up the Director of Research post at the HDB but was fired from that job for his critical writings on Singapore politics."
Hurr hurr
Someone: "if the antiestablishment signal was before he was a prof (or before he was hired to hdb), then why did they hire/tenure him?"; see, people don't believe me when I say NUS is not a gahmen propaganda tool

The Things He Carried - "Airport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease... A smart terrorist, he says, won’t try to bring a knife aboard a plane, as I had been doing; he’ll make his own, in the airplane bathroom. Schnei­er told me the recipe: "Get some steel epoxy glue at a hardware store"... The TSA budget is almost $7 billion. That money would be better spent on the penetration of al-Qaeda social networks."

Inventor builds his perfect woman - a robot who cleans and won't nag - "Devoted Aiko — “in her 20s” — has a stunning 32-23-33 figure, pretty face and shiny hair. She is always happy to clean the house for “husband” Le, help with his accounts or get him a drink. Computer ace Le, 33, from Ontario, Canada, has spent two years and £14,000 building his dream girl... Le says his relationship with Aiko hasn’t strayed into the bedroom, but a few “tweaks” could turn her into a sexual partner. Le said: “Her software could be redesigned to simulate her having an orgasm.”... “Women usually try to talk to her. But men always want to touch her, and if they do it the wrong way she slaps them.”"
No wonder everyone wants to go to Canada.

Joseph E. Stiglitz on capitalist fools - "Volcker had done what central bankers are supposed to do. On his watch, inflation had been brought down... But Volcker also understood that financial markets need to be regulated. Reagan wanted someone who did not believe any such thing, and he found him in a devotee of the objectivist philosopher and free-market zealot Ayn Rand... To deal with the high-tech bubble, he could have increased margin requirements (the amount of cash people need to put down to buy stock). To deflate the housing bubble, he could have curbed predatory lending to low-income households and prohibited other insidious practices (the no-documentation—or “liar”—loans, the interest-only loans, and so on)... the deregulators... decided to do nothing, worried that any action might interfere with “innovation” in the financial system. But innovation, like “change,” has no inherent value. It can be bad (the “liar” loans are a good example) as well as good... the S.E.C. argued for the virtues of self-regulation: the peculiar notion that banks can effectively police themselves. Self-regulation is preposterous, as even Alan Greenspan now concedes... The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal."

Tim Burton's: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy - "Life isn't easy
for the Pin Cushion Queen.
When she sits alone on her throne
Pins push through her spleen."

Austenbook - "Mr. Bennet wishes that Mr. Bingley had sprained his ankle in the first dance."

Free Sugar Daddy Dating & Sugar Baby Personals - "SeekingArrangement is the premier Sugar Daddy Dating site. We are a matchmaking website for wealthy benefactors, and attractive guys & gals."

eResources Books - National Library Board, Singapore - "Spread the word about our library eResources and eContent at eresources.nlb.gov.sg. You are able to retrieve 800,000 eBooks and 600 eMagazines FREE anywhere and anytime from this website. Besides, you can check out company profiles at OneSource, get the latest articles of Harvard Business Review from the EBSCOHost Business Source Complete, as well as Time and New Scientist from Proquest Central. In addition, you can read full-edition and coloured digital global newspapers from Library Press Display and your favourite fashion, entertainment and sports magazines such as Vogue, Cosmopolitian and Entertainment Weekly from Pop Culture eCollection."
This is impressive for a free service. For example you get access to the Straits Times archives from 2000 onwards. But I wonder how much it's costing the taxpayer...

YouTube - Shine for Singapore Song 晴空万里 Singapore National Day Parade (NDP) 2008 Songs are... - "...no match for this most patriotic, most nationalistic, most propagandistic National Day Parade Singapore song, ever!... All in all, a most touching piece of music, 离乡路, composed and sung by renowned Taiwanese composer and singer Jeremy Chang Hung Liang 张洪量... If none of the annual propaganda, year after year, for the past 20 years has ever managed to stir any feelings in you for Singapore, fret not, this one will!"

LiveLeak.com - Oompa Loompa Army - "War? What war? Naw man, Broadway musical we said."
This is why security is very important.

Twenty years on: internalising the fatwa - "Today, all it takes for a publisher to run for cover is a letter from an outraged academic. In the 20 years between the publication of The Satanic Verses and the withdrawal of The Jewel of Medina, the fatwa has in effect become internalised... The first myth is that the controversy over Rushdie’s novel was driven by religion. It wasn’t. It was a political conflict. The Satanic Verses first became an issue in India because an election was due in November 1988, two months after the novel was published. Hardline Islamist groups used Rushdie’s book to try to win political concessions... The fatwa was an attempt by Iran to wrestle the initiative back from the Saudis... The second myth is that all Muslims were offended by The Satanic Verses. In fact most Muslims were little concerned about it... Even in Iran the book was openly available and was reviewed in many newspapers... The lesson of the Rushdie Affair that has never been learnt is that liberals have made their own monsters. It is the liberal fear of giving offence that has helped create a culture in which people take offence so easily... liberals have helped create a culture of grievance in which being offended has become a badge of identity"

Teacher who told pupils 'Santa doesn't exist' is axed - "Amanda Robertson, a parent of one pupil, said that her daughter had been very upset. “The whole family were outraged that a teacher took it upon herself to say this,” she wrote on an internet forum. But she added: “One of the permanent teachers did a very good job of telling the children that this was a mistake and ‘of course’ Santa is real.”... Mrs Roberston wrote that what the teacher had done “would be like telling someone religious that God doesn’t exist”."

The Battleship Final Fantasy - "Final Fantasy XIII will be the largest, the most complex, the most powerful Final Fantasy of all time. It will also be obsolete. Final Fantasy XIII will be the Battleship Final Fantasy... Final Fantasy has never produced a good or even coherent plot, a compelling character, a line of believable dialogue or a scene worthy of anything but a Saturday morning cartoon... The action of Final Fantasy XII is huge, elaborate and entirely without purpose - a battleship if I ever saw one... the sidequests of Final Fantasy have become ends in themselves, separated from any notion of the fun they were supposed to provide. Final Fantasy has the most compelling profile of any videogame. It bristles with guns - but what can actually be done with all of that firepower?... Ultimately, the troubles of Final Fantasy lie with its charm. From the first game to FFXII, the series has maintained a consistent tone in its plot, dialogue and gameplay. Final Fantasy has the feel of third-rate fantasy literature - imitative dreck suitable for children, but not without a certain charm."

UK caused cholera, says Zimbabwe - "Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu described the outbreak as a "genocidal onslaught on the people of Zimbabwe by the British"... He described it as "a calculated, racist, terrorist attack on Zimbabwe". Mr Mugabe has already accused Western powers of plotting to use cholera as an excuse to invade and overthrow him."
This is just the latest iniquitous ploy of the White Man. Never forget the genocide of Christopher Columbus!!!

Fuck! - "Could the men living in China get any more retarded? Here are the horror stories from the front lines... Wow, nothing's sexier than entitled, racist expat men."
My comment: "I hope it is not without a tinge of irony that a blog bashing men living in China labels someone as racist." I'm quite sure the response will be something along the lines of 'men are evil'
[Addendum: "Agagooga, you're an idiot for labeling an entire nation "rude" because of some isolated incidents you had in the city, you pretentious ignorant fuck." - I don't know what planet this guy is from, since even the Chinese state recognises that its citizens are rude.]