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Saturday, February 06, 2010

"One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation." - Oscar Wilde

***

A 1998 article from ABC:




Women Aren’t the Only Victims: Beating Up on Battered Men

Once a week the medical world turns to the authoritative Journal of the American Medical Association to find out what’s important in health care research.

This week, the editors have devoted the entire issue to trends in violence of various sorts: mistreatment of the elderly, teen-age murder, battered wives, even violence against public health workers.

But nowhere in the 90 pages is there any mention of domestic abuse in which the victim is male.

Strange as it sounds, some people fear that publishing a study about battered men might shift much-needed attention away from the abuse of women, the scope of which researchers agree is underestimated.

But at least there have been attempts to document the battered woman problem. For instance, a new Johns Hopkins University survey of 3,400 women published in this week’s JAMA finds that nearly four in 10 women surveyed in emergency rooms say they’ve been physically or emotionally abused in their lifetimes.

Numbers like that are rare when it comes to abused men. In fact, many people believe that battered husbands are practically nonexistent. Or they believe that they’re such a minute fraction, compared to the numbers of battered women, that they don’t represent a trend that needs attention.

Attack and Be Attacked

But family violence expert Murray Straus says that abused men do exist, in higher numbers than we care to acknowledge.

“I’ve interviewed guys who have been stabbed by their wives,” says Straus. “One guy had his teeth knocked out when his girlfriend threw a brass crucifix at his face. But when you ask them if they were being beaten, they say no.”

Straus, director of the University of New Hampshire Family Research Laboratory, is one of a smattering of scientists in this country studying domestic violence as a human phenomenon, rather than focusing on the female as victim.

In 1985, Straus and colleagues Richard Gelles and Suzanne Steinmetz reported a groundbreaking study of 6,000 Americans that contradicted conventional wisdom about domestic abuse.

They found that 12 percent of men—and 11.6 percent of women—reported having hit, slapped or kicked their partners. Contrary to the common preconception that women hit back only in self defense, the survey also found that women initiated the violence just as often as men.

Nonetheless, Straus points out, the men’s injuries generally weren’t as severe as the women’s injuries.

“Women are overwhelmingly the ‘victim,’ he says. “They are injured more and are afraid for their lives more often. We don’t need shelters for battered men, but if we ever want to stop this cycle of abuse in families, it requires nonviolence by all parties.”

No Innocent Victims?

Such talk is feverishly contested by women’s advocates, who point to criminal statistics that paint men as the typical perpetrators of domestic abuse.

Jacquelyn Campbell, Johns Hopkins University nursing professor and lead author of the violence against females survey in this week’s JAMA, points out one of these statistics: For every man battered by a female partner, eight women are battered by male partners.

Why such a massive discrepancy in the stats?

Patricia Pearson, author of When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence, explains it this way: “When battered women’s activists talk about abuse, they focus on the most extreme statistics, the 3 to 4 percent of domestic violence in which women are beaten severely.”

Doing that gives us a skewed view of what’s really going on in families, Pearson says. “We need to realize women are capable of physical aggression,” she says. “It’s not just a masculine trait.”

Despite more than 100 epidemiological studies demonstrating the existence of female aggression against men, no major government research arm has ever looked at the pattern.

But as Pearson points out, the fastest growing group of violent criminal offenders today is teen girls. Given that, the time to study “battered men’s syndrome” may have finally arrived.

Friday, February 05, 2010

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." - Voltaire

***

Facebook user made police report
Offended by the racist postings of three youths, he reported the incident

"WHEN full-time national serviceman Prhabagaran joined a Facebook discussion on the things parents do to frighten their children into behaving, he expected to be amused.

Instead, he was offended to find remarks being made about Indians. He felt some of the comments were racist, and made a police report on Jan 31.

On Wednesday, police said three Chinese youths aged between 17 and 18 had been arrested for sedition and were out on bail while investigations continued.

They are believed to have been involved in the postings on theFacebook discussion site, which drew more than 2,000 members in two weeks.

An avid Facebook user, Mr Prhabagaran told The Straits Times that he found a Jan 29 post by someone calling himself Desmond Tan especially offensive for the things said about Indians. Mr Prhabagaran, who uses the moniker 'Prab Nathan' online, said: 'It started to hit me that what could have started as a joke had become mindless, point-blank racism.'

He and other members - including those with Chinese names - ticked off 'Desmond Tan' and others who had put up offensive posts, but to no avail.

The comments were removed from the group's homepage only after the three youths were arrested.

Explaining why he went to the police, Mr Prhabagaran said: 'At first, I thought I was the only one who found these comments distasteful and disrespectful, but I soon found that many of my friends, Indians and others alike, agreed with me.

'I even received e-mail messages from Singaporeans living overseas condemning the group.'

Mr Prhabagaran felt the police action was right.

'Such remarks threaten our racial and religious harmony.'

In a statement on Wednesday, Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Teo Chun Ching said that the authorities took a stern view of 'acts that could threaten the social harmony in Singapore'.

'The Internet may be a convenient medium to express one's views but members of the public should bear in mind that they are no less accountable for their actions online,' he said.

Under the Sedition Act, those convicted of promoting feelings of ill will and hostility between different races or classes face fines of up to $5,000 and three years' jail.

Nanyang Technological University assistant professor Norman Vasu, who specialises in ethnic and religious relations, believes the episode was an anomaly.

'The majority of Singaporeans have no truck with such views. Based on data we have, race relations in Singapore are very good,' he said.

Mr Tan Tarn How, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, felt that 'not enough effort is spent on educating people and in nurturing values such as sensitivity to the other and in arriving at a wide and public articulate consensus about how to behave with sensitivity'.

He added that in certain cases, 'legal actions are sometimes necessary'."


It is forbidden to be racist in Singapore; therefore racism is punished unless it comes with a press secretary.


PPBI: [the moral of the story is that] you shouldn't offend MINORITY races
i bet the indians and malays are probably equally racist

Me: of course they are

PPBI: how does racist jokes threaten racial and religious harmony

Me: because people get upset
because they are told racist jokes threaten racial and religious harmony

PPBI: so the solution is to not get upset

if you see people telling racist chinese jokes pls also report to police

hey, i've not heard racist eurasian jokes...
"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music." - Marcus Brigstocke

***

Angustam amice pauperiem pati
robustus acri militia puer
condiscat et Parthos ferocis
uexet eques metuendus hasta

uitamque sub diuo et trepidis agat
in rebus. Illum ex moenibus hosticis
matrona bellantis tyranni
prospiciens et adulta uirgo

suspiret, eheu, ne rudis agminum
sponsus lacessat regius asperum
tactu leonem, quem cruenta
per medias rapit ira caedes.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:
mors et fugacem persequitur uirum
nec parcit inbellis iuuentae
poplitibus timidoue tergo.

Virtus, repulsae nescia sordidae,
intaminatis fulget honoribus
nec sumit aut ponit securis
arbitrio popularis aurae.

Virtus, recludens inmeritis mori
caelum, negata temptat iter uia
coetusque uolgaris et udam
spernit humum fugiente pinna.

Est et fideli tuta silentio
merces: uetabo, qui Cereris sacrum
uolgarit arcanae, sub isdem
sit trabibus fragilemque mecum

soluat phaselon; saepe Diespiter
neglectus incesto addidit integrum,
raro antecedentem scelestum
deseruit pede Poena claudo.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Someone: i'll have u know i always told [my husband] if he tried to take me out for dinner on valentines day, i wd leave him


Someone else: in singapore what scary things can we do?
watch scary movie counted not

Me: reverse bungee
take part in demonstration
go jb

Someone else: HAHA go JB?!
wtf..


Someone: back to ur quote:
what women say they want vs what they actually want

western women are very advanced in the feminism and anti-feminism communities
hence asian women are more desirable to white men

i've done an extensive survey on why white men dig asian gals
and one of the reasons is that white women have become too "manly"

so from ur perspective
if u're cool enough being with an assertive, opiniated woman
can try white :P

...

asian girls are suitably SET
sweet exotic and tight

u gotta contra that to the white woman
who is none of ANY of those things

anyway i guess men like to feel like their egos havent been deflated
and white women dig power, the HARD kind

so comparatively
the asian woman is like...

*enter SIA stewardess

Me: so are you SET? :)


PPBI: better not marry so u can keep blogging interesting links
:D


Someone: it's kinda sad when even manila makes me happier than sg

people SMILE all the fucking time in a third world country
it's infectious, reall.
(but NOTHING leaves on time.)

Me: people smile: not in China

Someone: china diff lah

it does seem that brown people seem to be happier somehow
WAHAHHAA

Me: haha chinese too busy making money

Someone: lol
yup

but i just wished they'd stop saying "SIR"
"MA'aaaaaa"

this is not the fucking 19th C
urgh

Me: chinese got the money mah
they want higher tip


Someone else: whahaha
i found my fave jap restaurant and chill out place

Me: ?

Someone else: oh well...promise my frds we shall keep all our
fave chill out + restaurant a secret!
haha

but i so happy i got fave chill out place so yah
lolz

Me: GAH
... WOMEN


Someone: how fitting that you are listening to cosi fan tutte

"women are trouble"
so very you


Me: 'Nous sommes tous idiots. It doesn't exist in the feminine form'

@sprilite: I was once told all the good things (in French) are feminine.

Me: Death, treason, disease, poverty, madness, famine, apocalypse

[Ed: la mort, la trahison, la maladie, la pauvreté, la folie, la famine, l'apocalypse]

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

"The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection." - Henry Ward Beecher

***

Quotes:

[Student on his weekend: I downloaded music] Ah, tu as... l'activité illégale. Tu as le pirate.

[On going to the Singapore Expo] 'Je suis allée le palais des expositions' [Student: Cos it's so huge] [Student 2: So grand] As you know we use very nice words in French. (au)

Combien de paires de chaussures tu as? [Female student: I cannot count...] La société décadente [Male student: Cinq. Je suis garçon]

Combien de sac est-ce que tu as? [Female student: Dix plus...] [Male student: Une]

[On her weekend] C'est tout? [Student: Non.] Ah. Qu'est-ce que tu as fait? [Student: That's all]

You did lesson 29? [Me: Oui] You finished lesson 29? [Me: Oui] Any questions about lesson 29? [Student: Say yes]

You forgot about it for now. [Student: So it won't be tested...] But a few weeks ago I told you that tests are like women - unpredictable... Take out a piece of paper. For the test.

If you have more than 2 mistakes, je confisque la salade. [Student: *starts eating it*]

I don't care if the guy was bisexual... The guy was cloned.

[On a test submission] 'I like very much the French lady because they are so easy'... What kind of? Are you criticising my country?

[On a test submission] Spanish. 'Interesante!'

[Teacher: Voiture.] I used to be able to pronounce this correctly.

[On 'Mes dernières vacances'] I thought you hated Malaysia. [Me: Precisely. This is why] [Student 2: I wrote the same thing.]

[In French] A. Double P. R. E. N. D. R. E... [In English] Apprendre. [Student: See, isn't that easier?] Are you criticising the teacher, ***? Remember there is a test in a few weeks.

You're early today... [Female Student: Just for you... Like the French... I'm regularly irregular] That's an excellent definition of women. I've never heard a better definition in my life. I will pay you to repeat that.

[Student: Il est sept heures] Deuxième possibilité? [Me: Il est dix-neuf heures] Autres possibilités? [Student: Trick question...] [Female student: Men, always trying to trick] Discrimination.

[Teacher: Il sont assis où?] C'est quelque chose

[Me on 'les seins': I don't know why it's masculin] Because it belongs to men.

[Female student] The French. Very tricky. [Me: And you married one.] I got tricked into marrying one. By the time I found out it was too late.

[On a 10 digit phone number to be transcribed] I only have 0.

Please. 'Qu'est-ce que tu a faire'. No, because... [it] means you are dead. (?)

I'm ***... Not 'girl' [Me: You are the youngest one here] Then call you what, uncle? [Me: How about *** {who is 20 years older than me}?]

[Me: C'est tout?...] You're becoming addicted to my tests.

Madame? [Student: Qui?... It's like calling me 'Auntie'] Auntie, can we start?

[Student on the test: We have to translate?] What do you think you have to do? You give up [on] the test and I do [it] for you?

You are going to be good in bed tomorrow? That's the weather forecast?

[On a wrong expression] You don't know it in French. So you do it in Italian.

[On gender] Africa is a mess. Most likely you don't need to know. You [can] just remember 2 or 3 countries.

[On gender] Mongolia is big. It's one of the biggest countries in Asia. [Student: It's part of China] You say that to the people there. They will come after you.

[On England being feminine but the UK masculine {Great Britain is feminine}] They're not European, and we don't want them to be European. They are American. So you see, it makes sense.

This TV is not working. [Students: Yay.] [Me: On va sortir] [Student: Bonne soirée]

[On a muted video and, perhaps, my ideas] No, she is not a lesbian.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock." - Will Rogers

***

An English rule I'd only followed unconsciously:

Less and fewer are easy to mix up. They mean the same thing—the opposite of more—but you use them in different circumstances (1). The basic rule is that you use less with mass nouns and fewer with count nouns.


And one I perhaps never knew:

Normally, we pronounce "the" with a short sound (like "thuh"). But when "the" comes before a vowel sound, we pronounce it as a long "thee".

Monday, February 01, 2010

"I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." - J. D. Salinger

***

Why the fashion industry can't seem to design for women with breasts - "Is fashion a cruel anti-female industry whose sole goal is to make women feel bad about themselves and force them to wear crippling, uncomfortable apparel? Or is it empowering, ­allowing women to wear clothes that appeal primarily to themselves as ­opposed to men?... Fashion haters will say that designers' disinterest-verging-on-­distaste for breasts proves that they are misogynistic pigs, interested only in designing for anorexic 19-year-olds. But there is another possible interpretation... One of the truly commendable things about fashion is how little interest it has in appealing to straight men, or making women look attractive to them.... [fashion] is basically a private-members' club that excludes men. "Fashion's just about appealing to gay men""

Sexual harrassment okay as it ensures humans breed, Russian judge rules - "According to a recent survey, 100 per cent of female professionals said they had been subjected to sexual harassment by their bosses, 32 per cent said they had had intercourse with them at least once and another seven per cent claimed to have been raped."
No wonder they're looking for foreign husbands.

Using religious language to fight global warming - "The green movement's appropriation of religious language and imagery has backfired. "Environmentalists have stolen fear, guilt and sin from religion, but they have left behind celebration, hope and redemption," he says. "They read science in the way that fundamentalists read religious texts: they cherry-pick the bits that support their argument and use them to scare people," he adds. "Then they offer no solutions other than letting greens take over the running of the world""

YouTube - Charlie Brooker - How To Report The News - "Next a walkey-talkey preamble from the author, pacing steadily towards the lens, punctuating every other sentence with a hand gesture and ignoring all the pricks milling around him like he's gliding through the fucking Matrix before coming to a halt and posing a question: 'What comes next?'"

Apartments in China for foreigners only - "A PROPERTY developer in China is inviting only 'Western-looking' foreigners to live in a new development, sparking comparisons with the controversial concession areas in the 1800s... The ban on Chinese tenants was necessary to maintain the 'purity' of the international community"

The Ten Best Ways for a Woman to Impress a Man
When you compare this with The Ten Best Ways for a Man to Impress a Woman, the misandry is obvious.

Quick! Figure Out How This Target Billboard "Objectifies" Women! - "The feminists are up in arms about a Times Square Target billboard... 'their ad had a woman's crotch centered on a bullseye'. She's making a snow angel, retards. For people who are supposedly about seeing women "as people first," these feminists sure are all about pussy!"

Natural Harvest - A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes by Fotie Photenhauer - "Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants"
..................

5,000 friends on Facebook? Scientists prove 150 is the most we can cope with - "He compared the online 'traffic' of people with thousands and friends to those with hundreds. His findings show that there is no discernible difference between the two... Dunbar defined 'maintained' friends as those you care about and contact at least once a year. He has also found that women are better at maintaining friendships on Facebook. 'There is a big sex difference though ... girls are much better at maintaining relationships just by talking to each other. Boys need to do physical stuff together'"

Young Blood Reverses Signs of Aging in Old Mice
Bring on the vampires!

The Director of Downfall Speaks Out on All Those Angry YouTube Hitlers - "As for the idea of such a serious scene being used for laughs, Hirschbiegel thinks it actually fits with the theme of the movie. "The point of the film was to kick these terrible people off the throne that made them demons, making them real and their actions into reality""

Man took photos to win foreskin argument, court told - "AN international pilot tried to settle a debate with his wife about circumcision by taking photos of naked boys at a popular Brisbane park on Australia Day"

Save the Guinea Worm Foundation: defending the world's most endangered species. - "The rare Guinea Worm faces extinction. Yet despite growing public support for environmentalism and preservation of endangered species, few people will speak out on the Guinea Worm's behalf. In fact, the United Nations and several prominent U.S. agencies are leading a quiet campaign to eradicate this dwindling species forever from the planet. Is the Guinea Worm the world's most endangered species?"

France makes incest a crime - "France finally made incest a crime in its own right yesterday – reinstating it into the country's penal code more than 200 years after French revolutionaries threw it out as a "religious taboo""

No Sex Please! We're Just Kids! - "Perhaps it's not that surprising that a mother in Menifee, California, asked the Menifee Union School District to ban all copies of the 10th edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary after her child stumbled across the term "oral sex." What is surprising, indeed horrifying, is that district officials immediately complied with her request, and pulled all dictionaries off classroom shelves throughout the Southern California school district, which serves 9,000 kids, kindergarten through eighth grade. District officials said on Friday that they are forming a committee to consider a permanent classroom ban of the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary"

Men, Women, and Their Differing Sleep Needs - "67 percent of women experience frequent sleep problems, though three-quarters of all sleep research has focused on men... women’s sleep troubles begin once they hit puberty... women are most likely to be woken up by sleeping babies and dripping taps, whereas car alarms and howling winds are what rouse men most readily... it’s interesting that these results seem to correspond to traditional gender roles... Our social conditioning—or biological predisposition, depending on whom you ask—follows us to bed"

The Sleep Diaries: Do Men and Women Dream Differently? - "A 1994 study by pioneering psychologist Robert Van de Castle found that dreams may be sex-differentiated in children as young as age three. Children appear to dream about aggression with equal frequency until age twelve, but then, as kids start to mature sexually, girls’ dreams begin to involve less aggression and focus increasingly on emotions, talking, and physical appearance... 1) women have nightmares more often than men do, and 2) men dream about sex more often and more intensely than women do... Women’s bad dreams... involved more misfortune, negative self-perceptions, and failures than men’s unpleasant dreams... while men’s dreams are more aggression-driven than women’s, the object of aggression in both sexes’ dreams is typically male"

Facebook Friends Checker for Greasemonkey - "Regularly checks your Facebook friends to check whether anyone has removed you from their friends"

The purpose of physics graduate classes - "In a humanities class, it’s standard to expect students to do the assigned reading. The class then proceeds with the assumption that students have done the reading. The instructor does not hold your hand and lead you through every line of the reading. It is also understood that if you don’t do the readings, it pointless to go to class because the class is going to assume you’ve at least grappled with them, and start off on that higher level. The opposite happens in science classes... The learning style encouraged by such teaching seems to be passive rather than active, compared to humanities classes... why is this still going on in graduate classes?... The objective of science education as I see it is not to tell people the right answers. The objective is understanding"

What Men Think Of One-Night Stands - "The one-night stand is a great American tradition in which two people have awkward sex that both will regret immediately. Most people have had one or two one-night stands, and they’re certainly a unique experience—almost a rite of passage. Like all rites of passages, one-night stands are shameful, awkward, and huge causes for celebration... I once had a friend claim that he gave a woman an orgasm so powerful that the hotel room TV turned on"

Better pay, higher productivity - "Like SM Goh, I was also amazed at the many roles a waiter may perform in many developed countries. In Australia, where I live, a waiter takes orders, makes drinks, handles the cash register and cleans up after a restaurant has closed for the evening... waiters are sufficiently compensated for the various roles that they perform. In Australia, for example, a waiter working part-time in a restaurant can be paid between $15 and $20 an hour. Though workers have to fulfil many roles, they raise their productivity when they are adequately compensated"

The Taxidermied Mouse USB Stick Needs No Explaining (Only Binning) - "Its poor little punched-out eyes blink red with the horror of having LEDs shoved in them, every time it makes a data transfer"

Leaf-like sea slug feeds on light - "the sea slug Elysia chlorotica can photosynthesize, using energy from light to convert carbon dioxide into sugars... They acquire the ability to photosynthesize by eating algae and incorporating the plants' tiny chlorophyll-containing structures, called chloroplasts, into their own cells"

Millions Of Extra Sites To Be Censorsed As Australian Gov. Bans Small Breasts, Female Ejaculation - "Any pretense from the Australian Government that its proposed internet filter will not extend to millions of sites has died... The ban (RC) on small breasted women in adult publications has been made by the Australian Classification Board allegedly on the grounds that such images could be construed as child pornography, even where those publications comply with American law and keep certification that performers are over 18. Female ejaculation has been banned on the incredible grounds that 'the depictions are a form of urination'... Under Australian law, any site linking to a site that has been refused classification is also refused classification... that takes us to tens of millions of adult sites."

Sunday, January 31, 2010

"Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find." - Peter Ustinov

***

On voit ici que de jeunes enfants,
Surtout de jeunes filles
Belles, bien faites, et gentilles,
Font très mal d’écouter toute sorte de gens,
Et que ce n’est pas chose étrange,
S’il en est tant que le Loup mange.
Je dis le Loup, car tous les Loups
Ne sont pas de la même sorte ;
Il en est d’une humeur accorte,
Sans bruit, sans fiel et sans courroux,
Qui privés, complaisants et doux,
Suivent les jeunes Demoiselles
Jusque dans les maisons, jusque dans les ruelles ;
Mais hélas ! qui ne sait que ces Loups doucereux,
De tous les Loups sont les plus dangereux.


And a (somewhat) more modern reimagining of Perrault:

From this short story easy we discern
What conduct all young people ought to learn.
But above all, young, growing misses fair,
Whose orient rosy blooms begin t'appear:
Who, beauties in the fragrant spring of age,
With pretty airs young hearts are apt t'engage.
Ill do they listen to all sorts of tongues,
Since some inchant and lure like Syrens' songs.
No wonder therefore 'tis, if over-power'd,
So many of them has the Wolf devour'd.
The Wolf, I say, for Wolves too sure there are
Of every sort, and every character.
Some of them mild and gentle-humour'd be,
Of noise and gall, and rancour wholly free;
Who tame, familiar, full of complaisance
Ogle and leer, languish, cajole and glance;
With luring tongues, and language wond'rous sweet,
Follow young ladies as they walk the street,
Ev'n to their very houses, nay, bedside,
And, artful, tho' their true designs they hide;
Yet ah! these simpering Wolves! Who does not see
Most dangerous of Wolves indeed they be?
"Partying is such sweet sorrow." - Robert Byrne

***

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*** If you made this password change, please disregard this notification. However, if you did NOT make changes to your password
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I'm surprised this is the first time I've seen (or noticed, at least) this trick; the link leads to "http://www.wor1dofwnrcrzft.com/"
New blog picture:

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