"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?" - Abraham Lincoln

***

GRANDPA: (to Dwayne) Can I give you some advice?

I'll do it anyway. I don't want you making the same mistakes I did when I was young...

This is the voice of experience talking. Are you listening?

Kid: Fuck a lot of women. Not just one woman. A lot of women. You're young...

Jesus! You're, what? Fifteen? You should be gettin' that young stuff. There's nothing in the world better than the young stuff!...

Look: right now, you're jailbait, they're jailbait. So it's fine. The minute you
turn eighteen — Bam! You're lookin' at three to five...

Fuck you! I lived 80 years! You're like those fuckers at Sunset Village...!

FRANK: What happened at Sunset Village?...

GRANDPA: I'll tell you what happened! I pay my money, they let me in. I should be able to do what the fuck I want!

SHERYL: He started snorting heroin.

FRANK: You started snorting heroin?!

GRANDPA: I'm eighty!

FRANK: You know, that stuff'll kill you.

GRANDPA: What am I, an idiot?

(to Dwayne) And don't you get ideas. When you're young, you're crazy to do that shit.

FRANK: What about you?

GRANDPA: Me?! I'm old! You get to be my age -- you're crazy not to do it...

FRANK: So I take it you didn't like it at Sunset Village?...

GRANDPA: (to Frank) Hey, listen: I know you're a homo, but... You go to one of these places? There's four women for every guy. What does that say to you?

FRANK: You must've been pretty busy.

GRANDPA: Oh, man. They were knockin' on my door day and night! It was almost too much! If I didn't have those little fuckin' blue pills... Forget about it!...

(to Dwayne) Fuck a lot of women, kid. I got no reason to lie to you. Not just one woman. A lot of women.

***

RICHARD: And I can detect that note of sarcasm, Frank...

FRANK: What sarcasm?!

RICHARD: ...But I just want you to know — I feel sorry for you.

FRANK: You do? Good.

RICHARD: Because sarcasm is the refuge of losers.

FRANK: It is?! Really?!

RICHARD: Sarcasm is just the sour grapes of losers trying to pull winners down to their level. That's one of the lessons of Step Four.

FRANK: Wow, Richard! You've really opened my eyes to what a loser I am! Say, how much
do I owe you for those pearls of wisdom?

RICHARD: It's on me, buddy. It's on me.

"There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience." - Anatole Broyard

***

Looks like Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is not the biggest of the lies the SAF purveys.

From Miyagi:

Water displacement formula, 40th attempt

"Every day when we were in camp, we’d be cleaning our weapons. When we were in the field, we’d clean our weapons. Nothing to do? Clean weapons. If there were to be a war, it’d have to have been put on hold because we were cleaning our weapons...

Then one day, a platoon mate came to camp with a can of WD-40. He said it would work wonders with the weapons cleaning. Of course, we tried it. It worked. It cut down cleaning time by about 10 million years. We were free.

Queues at the canteen and payphones became longer. We spent more time and money on snacks, cigarettes and contact with the outside world. It was obvious that the fragile fabric of soldierly cohesion and solidarity was being threatened.

They banned the use of WD-40 in weapons cleaning. They then spread such disinformation as “WD-40 will cause barrel explosions and blow your pretty face off when you fire the weapon. Your buddy standing nearby will get it too”. Of course, that didn’t work, because one or two foolhardy troopers went ahead to try it, risking life, limb and the pretty face of their buddy standing nearby, firing their weapons uninhibitedly, knowing that they’d either die or have a lot of free time on their hands because they never had to spend so much time cleaning any more."


Some Googling reveals that WD-40 is good for cleaning (there're better products but the bother probably isn't worth it) - just don't use it to prevent your gun from rusting.

"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity." - Harlan Ellison

***

Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine - "An actual doomsday device—a real, functioning version of the ultimate weapon, always presumed to exist only as a fantasy of apocalypse-obsessed science fiction writers and paranoid über-hawks. The thing that historian Lewis Mumford called "the central symbol of this scientifically organized nightmare of mass extermination." Turns out Yarynich, a 30-year veteran of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff, helped build one."

As SOEasy crashes and burns, Singapore's Ministry of Education does the Right Thing - "As I read that MOE went with Google, I was listening to a series of horror stories from the poor "rest of Singapore government officers" who are now burdened with the so-called "SOEasy" standard operating environment roll out. All those in IDA who have been "moved" to the "new easier platform" are now thoroughly annoyed. The play on words "SOEasy" (allegedly to mean "so easy"), is a disaster that we have to have stopped. Tax payers monies are being spent on stuff that reduces the efficiencies of the work process and forces clued-in IDA officers (yes there are some) to have to bring in their personal laptops in order to get work done. I am hearing from some government officials that I should not expect any replies from them via email after 5 pm because they refuse to bring their worthless "locked down Windows laptop" home. If I expect a reply, it will only come during office hours and only if they are in the office. So much for improving efficiencies. A few days ago, I was told by yet another government official that the emails that were on their Lotus Notes system does not automatically get forwarded to the new M$ exchange email server and that they have to cut and paste the mails between the systems. I was also told that the budget for the SOEasy project did not include data migration costs from the Lotus Notes database to M$ sharepoint. Imagine that! I am getting really concerned here because, unlike the NCB of old, the IDA of now is a technologically lost. I think we need to reboot IDA. Would you want to help me?"

Molester a top NUS grad - " Two doctors said Chong Weien, 28, suffers from spontaneous ejaculation and is easily aroused even without any physical stimulation. This cut no ice with District Judge Jill Tan, who said in her judgement: 'Even if the accused did suffer from a spontaneous ejaculation on the bus, this did not rule out the possibility that he could have brushed his penis against the victim's thigh as well.'... On the night of Sept 14, 2006, the victim, a Chinese national studying in a different faculty, boarded a NUS shuttle bus to return to her hostel. Chong, who was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and holding a jacket at waist level, pressed his crotch against her in the bus. She felt something wet on her thigh... The woman... cannot be identified as she is a victim in an outrage of modesty case... Judge Tan noted that Chong had outraged a woman's modesty on a bus, which she said was 'an extremely brazen act'."
Beyond reasonable doubt, the judge has never taken an NUS shuttle bus at night. The poor guy should walk around with a penis sheath after his release.

Is Texting Making Us Bad Spellers? - "Critics say SMS leads to sloppiness, masks dyslexia, and essentially signals the death of the English language. But research does not support the critics. A study released yesterday in the journal Reading and Writing found no evidence that texting had any impact on spelling ability... if you’re a good speller of the Queen’s English you’re also a good speller in textese. Conversely, if you’re a poor speller academically you make more errors in chatspeak. And those who used more abbreviations when texting tended to be better spellers of standard English. The researchers suggest that chatspeak is a complex, innovative language. And they added that using and translating any new language requires concentration and creativity—and is a real brain workout."

Church converted into magnificent bookstore

Scientific American: 60-Second Psych - "Tune in every Monday for quick commentary on the latest news in behavior and brain research -- it'll just take a minute."

37signals valuation tops $100 billion after bold VC investment - "37signals is now a $100 billion dollar company, according to a group of investors who have agreed to purchase 0.000000001% of the company in exchange for $1... In order to increase the value of the company, 37signals has decided to stop generating revenues... "we’re switching to a ‘freeconomics’ model. We’ll give away everything for free and let the market speculate about how much money we could make if we wanted to make money. That way, the sky’s the limit!"... In order to determine the valuation of companies, Bhatnagar typically applies the following formula: [(Twitter followers x Facebook fans) + (# of employees x 1000)] x (RSS subscribers + daily page views) + (monthly burn rate x Google’s stock price)2 and then doubles if it they use Ruby on Rails or if the CEO has run a business into the ground before. Bhatnagar admits the math is mostly a guess but points out that “the press eats it up.”"
I love people who're passionate about social media

Terrorist hid explosives in his bottom - "Suicide bomber Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Asiri attempted to kill a Saudi prince by detonating explosives hidden in his bottom."

Tourists Hurt in Bear Attack - "An Asian black bear attacked a group of tourists waiting at this bus station in a mountainous region of central Japan."

Amusing advice on dealing with XMM:

"the emotional/time/money spent on getting laid the hard way is something that is very taxing to say the least.

Dont you all remember the days of coaxing the young (14 - 17) girls with sms them hourly, call daily, and meet weekly? and if u dont call or msg due to work, you is fucked because they will send "You dont luv me animore issit? fine break laH?""

and so on, and so on. When you get to older age, u really dont have time for these."

"What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public." - Vilhjalmur Stefansson

***

This is priceless:


Sisterhood of wives

"KUALA LUMPUR: All Muslim women should open their hearts to polygamous marriages.

Ikhwan Polygamy Club spokesperson Hatijah Aam said this was because a woman had nine nafsu (internal desires) and one intellect whereas men had nine intellect and only one nafsu.

"When women are upset, they make a lot of noise, but men don't. The emotional nature of women makes them broadcast their problems. They rant and rave.

"Because this is their character, God allowed polygamy to challenge women to control their desires," said Hatijah, the second wife of Ashaari Muhammad, the founder of the controversial and now-defunct Al-Arqam movement.

"When the husband hurts them by taking another wife, their nafsu are challenged and curbed, and this makes them better people.

"A woman when left to her desires becomes very dangerous like a tiger. In fact, even fiercer than that. If the world is left to women, we will be open to continuous war."

The Al-Arqam movement was declared illegal by the National Fatwa Council in August 1994 after the group's teachings and beliefs were found to be against Islam. At its height, the movement had 10,000 members.

Polygamy, said Hatijah, would ensure that women were not controlled by their nafsu.

"When I feel sad that my husband is with another wife, he (my husband) will remind me that the pain God bestows upon us is a way to eradicate our sins.

"The husband is the leader who saves women from being consumed by their desires. There is a verse in the Quran which says that if the nafsu are not controlled, then 'nafsu itu akan menjadi Tuhan' (the desires will become God).

"Polygamy is the most practical approach, an effective cure to a woman's desire."

Hatijah said women in monogamous marriages were not challenged and that was dangerous as their nafsu could then control them.

"Why see only the negative in polygamous marriages? We can share a life as sisters. It is the nafsu that do not allow us to share and that is why men are there to suppress it.


"A polygamous marriage is actually beneficial.

"We can help each other with many chores including looking after the husband and children. The other wives come into our life to complement it."

Hatijah said one of the reasons the Ikhwan Polygamy Club was established was because Ashaari wanted to show the world he was living proof that polygamous marriages could be successful.

Ashaari has 38 children, eight of them with Hatijah. Twenty-three of the children are in polygamous marriages.

"Having been in a successful polygamous marriage for 30 years, Abuya (Ashaari) wanted to show that it could be a harmonious way of life.

"We also wanted to shock society. We wanted to show them there is an alternative for those who practise free sex. There are men who need more than one woman."

She said some monogamous marriages were failures as the men cheated on their wives.

"They are leading life as in the Jahiliah era (age of pagan ignorance preceding Islam) when men had many mistresses without any responsibilities."

The idea of the club was mooted in August and was launched in Sungai Petani, Kedah.

Hatijah said the club's activities included counselling, courses and organising weddings for polygamous marriages.

"One of the first activities we will carry out is counselling. We will have one set of lectures explaining practical steps towards a harmonious polygamous marriage.

"We have 40 men and women motivational counsellors to conduct this. We will also organise courses every weekend.

"Training towards a harmonious polygamous marriage is more difficult than training to become a doctor."

When there is a problem in a polygamous marriage, the issue will be taken to the board of advisers which comprise the highest ranking officers in the club.

Five men and five women sit on the board. They include Hatijah and Ashaari.

"Here we will have meetings to decide the outcome of the marriage and whether there should be a divorce or not. Divorce is allowed by God."

About 300 families comprising some 900 individuals are members of the club.

Some of the families are from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Jordan and Syria.

They are all part of the Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd group, a business entity which has over 10,000 members. Businesses under Global Ikhwan include bakeries, sundry shops and restaurants.

Ashaari helms the group which funds the activities of his followers.

Who is the club open to?

"All individuals who practise the Islamic way of life. We have had many enquiries about the club, including from some Datuks in polygamous marriages."

Asked if she had been criticised for starting such a club, Hatijah said: "There has been no backlash at all, just a lot of support.

"I think I receive this support because people see polygamy as a solution and a way out of adultery."

The club has a theme song entitled Keluarga Role Model.

Hatijah said the club would ensure that men who married more than one woman were able to sustain their marriages.

"The men do not choose the wives they marry. Instead, Abuya decides who the men should marry and they rarely refuse.

"Only men who Abuya believes have leadership qualities and who can manage a polygamous lifestyle are chosen."

Asked whether she had ever regretted entering into a polygamous marriage, Hatijah said: "I have been declared founder of this club with my husband.

"There is no way I regret entering this marriage.

"Of course, in the 30 years that I have been married there were times I wished out of this life.

"I asked God for a way out but now after 30 years, I am reaping the benefits and I can say that polygamy is beautiful."

Hatijah said for a man to be just and fair he has to teach his wife that her first love must always be God.

"If you can't teach your wife to love God, marry only one.

"If a man wants to give more to one wife, he will be prevented from doing so because of his love for God. God says that if you love one wife more, you cannot show it."

Asked whether her mother was in a polygamous marriage, Hatijah said: "No, during my mother's time, there was not much emphasis on religion. My mother now accepts my way of life."

As for her controversial move to call on prostitutes to join the club, Hatijah said Ashaari wanted to "save everyone".

"If I was a prostitute, what would my life be like? People can talk, but what is the way out for them?

"Who says polygamy is oppressive? It is the way out. They can become a wife and be protected legally. In fact we are going to start with five women with HIV soon. We will place them in a shelter.

"We will counsel them, treat them medically and teach them the Islamic way of life.

"When they are back on the right path, we will advise them to get married and assist them in every way."

She said wives whose husbands wanted to take another wife should know that their husbands still loved them.

"They should realise how much it hurts their husbands when they (the wives) ask for a divorce. They should realise they are losing a man who loves them.""

"A waist is a terrible thing to mind." - Jane Caminos

***

Crossing the offroad Rubicon

"Borlaug was an agronomist, the man who, with cross-breeding varieties of wheat, created something called semidwarf, high- yield, disease-resistant wheat...

As such, or course, he is much disliked by some environmentalists, who say monocultures are evil. Lefties also don’t like Borlaug very much. They claim the introduction of the technology into south Asia was just an imperialist Cold War plot to stop people from starving and then, as would have happened in an ideal world, embracing the communists. The left can be quite nasty sometimes...

The best bit is that for real environmentalists — that is, people concerned with preserving the environment where possible — the green revolution was green in the modern sense. Borlaug believed fervently that increased crop yields would reduce the need for deforestation .

Scientists reckon India’s use of Borlaug’s high-yield crops saved 100-million acres from being deforested and turned into farmland. Taking this into account, and environmental lobbying from the 1980s to stop Borlaug’s work in Africa because it dared to be inorganic, exposes nasty environmentalism for what it is: deeply misanthropic. Those who criticise Borlaug’s work would rather the hundreds of millions had died. They actively opposed the growing of food for poor people.

He did respond to his environmentalist critics : “They’ve never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they’d be crying out for tractors and fertiliser and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things.”"

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." - Alan Dean Foster

***

The one who sent this to me called it "irony":



"Me: "my friends la all proposing NOW. to not go pass the 8k ceiling"

Me: Question: How many radical feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Answer: That's not funny!

***: THE Proposal, Bali 19-20 Sept 2009
45 new photos"


On a related note: even more so than it is for the initial signalling of interest, why is it always men who do the proposing? How many cases are there were women propose?

Or is it inevitably always the case, as with God, that Man proposes, Woman disposes.

"The trouble with a kitten is
THAT
Eventually it becomes a
CAT."

--- The Kitten / Ogden Nash [The Face is Familiar (1940)]

"Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy." - Spike Milligan

***

Saturday Profile - A Romance Writer Jabs at Singapore’s Patriarchs - "She was reading up on science, she said — “I must be the only woman in Singapore who can discuss quantum physics a little bit convincingly”... Really, Ms. Lim said in the interview, she likes men. But she seems to enjoy them in limited doses, as amusing playthings who must not be allowed to get out of line... I saw a row of four old men sitting in front. “And later one of them came up to me and said, ‘You know, I wasn’t even following your lecture. I was only looking at your cheongsam legs.’” Many Western women might find that offensive, but Ms. Lim just laughed at the memory. “Don’t you think that was cute?” she said. “I thought that was cute.”"

Singapore is better than Chicago - "Just like how Singapore's Changi airport is superior to O'Hare airport, Chicago is a city that is past its prime"

Three friends accused of killing a man after he was 'mistakenly identified as a paedophile' - This is why sex offender registries are bad ideas, and states give boy killers new identities

Earth Science Picture of the Day: Sun Pillar and Sundog - "Could sightings of such sundog pillars possibly be responsible for the "Pillars of Fire" appearing in many historical texts?"

Do animals masturbate? - "Our fellow apes are among the most ardent and industrious masturbators: Female orangutans have been observed to fashion primitive dildos from sticks or pieces of liana, while males stimulate themselves with pieces of fruit, leaves, or other objects. Although it's sometimes said that only mammals masturbate, we have clear examples of autoeroticism among birds, which rub their cloacae on whatever's handy. Turtles have also been observed in the act."

The pro-life case for masturbation. - "Does God want you to masturbate?... In a paper presented to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, Dr. David Greening, an Australian infertility expert, reports that 81 percent of the men in his study significantly improved their sperm quality, as measured by DNA fragmentation, through a simple one-week program."

The 50 best foods in the world and where to eat them

Mac OS X Has More Problems than Vista - "We now have proof from an independent third party, Google. That's right, if you search the terms "problems with windows" versus "problems with mac os x", Windows wins with only 113 million pages of problems to Mac OS X 126 million. That gives Windows about a 10% advantage over Macs."
Consider than there're 10x as many Windows users than Mac users, and the results are truly enlightening. Consider also that "Windows" can refer to anything from Windows 1.0 onwards

Project ‘Gaydar’: An MIT experiment raises new questions about online privacy - The Boston Globe - "Using data from the social network Facebook, they made a striking discovery: just by looking at a person’s online friends, they could predict whether the person was gay... The researchers found that certain traits, such as knowing what groups people belonged to or their favorite music, were quite predictive of political affiliation. But they also found that they did better than a random guess when only using friendship connections. The best results came from combining the two approaches."

Now, a boob job to zap all the fat - "The breast enlargement operation takes excess fat from the thighs and stomach and moves it to the bust. The pioneering technique has been tested in Britain and the US and is expected to be offered to British women by early next year."

Why modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary, and evil | Psychology Today - "Feminism is the radical notion that women are men... the fact that women make less money than men cannot by itself be evidence that women are worse off than men, any more than the fact that men own fewer pairs of shoes than women cannot be evidence that men are worse off than women... modern feminism is evil because it ultimately makes women (and men) unhappy... Men’s happiness has not declined in the last 35 years, because there has not been masculinism; nobody has insisted on the radical notion that men are women, although, as Christina Hoff Sommers documents, this may be happening in our current war against boys"
Fun blurb from a book cited: "The founder of the Women's Quarterly, which in four years has attracted lots of attention, pro and con, argues that today's young women are unhappy because they have been taught to put independence first and blame men for everything."
This is a bad article, but the feminist response is even worse, as it completely misses the point and goes on the standard feminist rampage.

"It's a lot like nature. You only have as many animals as the ecosystem can support and you only have as many friends as you can tolerate the bitching of." - Randy K. Milholland

***

Last night, my iPod starting rebooting endlessly (accompanied by a strange whirring noise), and crashing iTunes when I connected it to my computer.

Apple help/forums had nothing on this problem (at least as far as preliminary Google searches went) so I had to go to 3rd-party ones.

I managed to get another computer to recognise the iPod as faulty after installing an older version of iTunes (the installer for iTunes 9 took forever to download, so I tried earlier versions first, the setup files for which downloaded much more quickly - despite being hosted on the same server).

However, restoring the iPod didn't work (even after installing iTunes 9 [which had FINALLY downloaded]) thanks to the famous error of yesteryear: Error 1418.

Error 1418 had infuriated so many people that a 1418hell.com site (now down but accessible through the Internet Archive) had been created.

Various fixes like re-registering my DLLs, changing USB ports, rebooting and installing the iPod shuffle Reset Utility (for the different driver) all didn't work.

In the end, I managed to fix my iPod by purposely corrupting it further (an incomplete format through Windows) and then restoring it.

As someone on a forum said, the iPod has more problems than Vista. Grr.

Damn you, Apple.

"New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around whom you shouldn't make a sudden move." - David Letterman

***

An interesting conversational thread totally consisting of "140-character tweets [which] are often decontextualised misleading and irresponsible":

@skinnylatte: RT @danielgoh: Singapore Startups Kick Ass Overseas, Gets Ignored At Home As Usual

Post extract:

"The Singapore press? Nary a whimper. As usual, Singapore startups get no love from the local media...

If things don’t change, our startups will start to wither on the stalk here despite the acclaim they get overseas. And they’ll start leaving by the droves, despite whatever carrots the local government agencies dangle in their faces."

@dsng: The thrill of recognition aside though, how important is it really for a startup to get Sg media coverage?

@gssq: I think the answer is something along encouraging others

@dsng: I suppose but the original post seemed to suggest a deep injustice was done to the startups, which seems quite parochial to me.

@gssq: Singapore is quite parochial :)

@bernise: I dunno about injustice, but I def get a sense of deep annoyance - perhaps of the seemingly narrow view ..

@dsng: I don't agree with the writer's annoyance. Comes across as "it is your duty to write abt this" not "you're missing a great story".

@skinnylatte: encouraging others is one, but lack of interest in local-*whatever* is symptomatic of a wider... culture that needs to change

@gssq: I support whatever is GOOD, not whatever is LOCAL

"Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we would have people standing in the corners of our rooms." - Alan Corenk

***

XMM: ok tell me whats vous tu je

Me: vous - polite/plural you

XMM: How can there be a plural you?

Me: well there is a plural you
in english there is a plural you. it's "you"

XMM: hmm i dont really understnad. got example?

Me: Me to [XMM]: You suck
Me to [XMM] and [Someone else]: You suck

XMM: HAHAHA
hmm i've never thought about it this way before


PPBI: well i did ask you why did you friend [crazy person] in the first place what

Me: I love everyone haha
and [crazy person] wasn't always so crazy

PPBI: you love everyone = sounds like jesus
:P

Me: hahahaha
and like jesus I will be crucified one day

PPBI: :P
poor thing

do you even have 12 disciples
was it 12

Me: hahahahahah
knowing my luck 12 will betray me

oops I meant 11


Someone: i claim to be a feminist too but i dont see
what's so offensive about what you write
or maybe i'm just not hardcore enough


Me: some feminists say that you can't call women cunts
but calling men dicks is alright

wait. men can't call women cunts
women can call women cunts because it is "reclaiming" the word

MFTTW: haha just now *** forgot the term cervical cancer and
said "cunt cancer"

wut
er

Me: ><

MFTTW: i would never call a woman a cunt
but i will call a woman a bitch

i don't think ic all guys dicks either

is me calling woman bitch internalizing dominant paradigm too?

Me: *** attributes most failings of men to "he has a small dick"

MFTTW: oh yes
i think that is true
:D

but having a small dick is not the same as calling someone a dick
actually i say "smal penis"
because i am scientist
and we have to be precise

but you can't say women have "small cunt"
haha

Me: no, I say women are loose

MFTTW: loose women and small penis men
that's a killer combination

Me: hee
but looseness is not as apparent as lack of size
sadly

anyway women are insecure about everything

MFTTW: whereas men are only insecure about the saize of their dick?

Me: more so


PPBI: i met my *** teacher
lol she asked me what job i wanted to do

i told her
then i told her i dun really want to work

she told me to get married


Someone: without qualifiers, people will not assume that you intended to use them

Me: which do you think is better?

"I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

or

"Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."

the latter would face fewer objections. and is probably more precise but it grates

Someone: the latter will give a much better impression and people won't accuse you of being wrong

Me: well I am writing for people beyond the academy. snappiness and polish rather than obscurantism is my aim

there's a reason it's called the ivory tower
most (hah) of them write in a way divorced from social reality

you really think the latter is preferable?
a professorship in the arts and social sciences calls

Someone: ya, the latter is preferable in important contexts

Me: ask obama to speak like that :)

Someone: his bills don't contain that

it's ok for a speech
but not for many other contexts

Me: err. I think
you'll find that bill-writing and academic treatises are a small minority of contexts


Me: a priori rejection of research
because they dont like the conclusion

MFTTW: haha
yes a favorite tactic of feminists and creationists

in science you take everything with a pinch of salt
u can cite lots of works in your paper and then refute them with evidence

the whole point of scientific research is to posit an idea and wait
for people to affirm or refute it
it's evidence-based not emotionally-based

Me: it just makes me want to hang out with conservatives :)
hahahahahah

at least the food is better
(BBQ baby back ribs vs tofu steak)

MFTTW: omg racist!
wth is tofu steak

Me:

MFTTW: ew that's digusting

"Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it." - Mark Twain

***

An East Malaysian complains about how the rest of Bolehland cannot make it:

Your Malaysia Isn’t My Malaysia

"Though I love Yasmin Ahmad as much as the next Malaysian (at least Malaysians who don’t have their heads up their behinds), I could never really connect to her rose-tinted views of Malaysia. Because her Malaysia wasn’t mine. Her Malaysia had only three races and they got along – when in real life, they don’t understand each other at all. But her Malaysia seems to be everyone’s Malaysia on this side of the South China Sea...

Any Sabahan will tell you that East Malaysia and West Malaysia might as well be two different countries...

It annoyed me that West Malaysians seemed so hung up about what God I worshipped and what race I was...

We are the second richest in natural resources after Sarawak but we are the poorest state in Malaysia...

We call ourselves Malaysian but when we come over to West Malaysia, we might as well be aliens in hostile land.

We don’t understand your hangups about alcohol.

We don’t get why you can’t build religious buildings that aren’t mosques without hassle.

We don’t see why you’re always in a hurry to get everywhere and drive as if you’re the only one who wants to get home. Why you won’t wait for the pedestrian to cross when we do that all the time.

We don’t understand you at all. And that’s a shame."

"In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small things they show themselves as they are." - Nicholas Chamfort

***

Japan's white-collar workers turn to homemade lunches in face of recession - "And in a sign of the shifting power relationships in Japanese households, many of the men now seem happy to wake up early and cross the kitchen threshold to create their own bento ensemble, typically grilled fish, rice, pickles and an omelette, all lovingly arranged in a compartmentalised box. Despite his popular image as a formidable corporate warrior during office hours, the average salaryman is far more docile when it comes to household finances. About 40% of salarymen hand over their monthly pay to their wives, who dish out pocket money for essentials such as lunch, manga comics, canned coffee, cigarettes and after-hours bonding sessions over beer and saké."
What happened to Japanese patriarchy?

YouTube - I Enjoy Being A Girl Flower Drum Song Movie - "When I hear the compliment'ry whistle
That greets my bikini by the sea,
I turn and I glower and I bristle,
But I happy to know the whistle's meant for me!"
Someone: how feminism has changed

Bananas-for-sex cult leader on the run - "Papua New Guinea police are hunting the leader of a sex cult that promised villagers a bumper banana harvest if they engaged in public sex."
Million dollar question: how is the banana harvest?!

The Amateur’s Guide to Chinese Name Translation - "For a quick sample of the glory and folly of Chinese names and their direct translations, I need to look no further than the colleagues at my office. A team of engineers with names like Leftside Mountain, Plumtree Universe Creator, or Frightened-Look Changes to Flying (sorry, that last one came out looking like the English subtitles on Chinese bootleg DVDs)... come up with things like Beautiful Bright Avenger, Translucent Ginger, Permanent City Wall, or Tiger Cub Field (almost like Tiger Woods!). So, you see folks, despite the fact that all my friends back in California think Chinese get names for their kids by dropping a bunch of pots and pans down the stairs and listening to the first acoustic combination, its actually even more fun than that!"

Taming the Digital Distractions That Make Your PC a Time Waster - "I wish I could say that using these digital nannies has revolutionized the way I work. They didn’t, really. Though blocking time-sucking Web sites did keep me from goofing off on my computer, I found that my brain quickly compensated by wasting time in other ways: As I’m writing this paragraph, for example, I’m also eating a peach. But not just eating it without thinking — I’ve been using a paring knife to try to cut perfectly cubical pieces to pop into my mouth. Perhaps this kind of unconscious fidgeting — whether online or off — is inevitable. The mind is a restless place, and creative pursuits like writing seem unsustainable in long bursts; perhaps the mind just needs frequent breaks."

Atheists 'have more success at online dating' - "Self-effacing men are also more likely to get a reply to their approaches, while nothing puts potential dates off more than textspeak like "ur" and "luv". The advice is based on analysis of more than 500,000 "first contacts" sent by users of OkCupid, the leading US dating website... mentioning "god" in a first approach actually discouraged people from replying. The analysis suggests online daters should avoid making personal compliments too early - "sexy" and "beautiful" sent response rates plummeting - and instead express an interest in their target's hobbies. People who used the words "good taste" or "you mention" in their messages pushed their response rates close to 50 per cent."

Obama rejects racism fuelling protests - "Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs moved to calm temperatures after ex-president Jimmy Carter claimed that racism was driving anti-Obama demonstrations and rhetoric on the president's health care reform plans and spending policy. "The president does not believe that the criticism comes based on the colour of his skin," Gibbs said. "We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we've made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by this administration," amid the economic crisis."
He's internalised the dominant paradigm!

Men are producing 'super-sperm' to fast and powerful to impregnate women, as evolution leads to infertility rise - "Evolutionary biologist Oren Hasson believes they race past the defences thrown up by a woman's body so effectively that more than one sperm penetrates the egg. This process, known as polyspermy, ruins the egg - and the chances of fertilisation. In Britain, around one in six couples has trouble conceiving naturally and almost 35,000 women a year resort to IVF."

Vaginal orgasm is associated with less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms - "Vaginal orgasm (triggered solely by penile-vaginal intercourse) was associated with less use of DSQ-40 immature defenses. Vaginal orgasm was associated with less somatization, dissociation, displacement, autistic fantasy, devaluation, and isolation of affect. Orgasm from clitoral stimulation or combined clitoral-intercourse stimulation was not associated with less use of immature defenses, and was associated with more use of some immature defenses. In one regression analysis, more masturbation and less vaginal orgasm consistency made independent contributions to the statistical prediction of immature defenses. In another regression analysis, any use of extrinsic clitoral stimulation for intercourse orgasm, and lack of any vaginal orgasm, made independent contributions to the statistical prediction of immature defenses. Vaginally anorgasmic women had immature defenses scores comparable to those of established (depression, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder) outpatient psychiatric groups. Results were not confounded by social desirability responding or relationship quality"
One line summary: Psycho women are not more fun in bed

A woman's history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk - "Research has demonstrated the association between vaginal orgasm and better mental health. Some theories of psychotherapy assert a link between muscle blocks and disturbances of both character and sexual function... The discerning observer may infer women's experience of vaginal orgasm from a gait that comprises fluidity, energy, sensuality, freedom, and absence of both flaccid and locked muscles"

Church altar smites devout Catholic - "A devout Catholic who popped into church to thank God for a his rescue from a lift was crushed to death by a 860lb stone altar... Gunther Link, 45, was "a very religious man and had been scared when he was trapped in the lift and had prayed for release". He continued: "A short while later he was pulled out of the elevator and he went straight to the church to thank God.""

Kissing quest makes Taiwan woman a web sensation - "A Taiwanese woman's ambition to kiss 100 men in Paris has become an overnight web sensation after she provided details of the quest on her much-visited blog... "Three of my four friends who were aware of the plan warned me that I might wind up getting slapped rather than kissed.""
Everybody loves an Asian Girl. And she'd only get slapped if she were a guy.

Burials in Tibet. NOT FOR SENSITIVE SOULS! (61 photos) (NSFW)

"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." - Robert Frost

***

Strangely, the first Malay spam I've gotten:

Subject: Congratulations - You Have Won (Selamat - You Have Won)

Message: *Boring English version*

Selamat - You Have Won

Yang MICROSOFT PROMO EMAIL MTM adalah senang untuk mengumumkan bahawa setelah berhasil menyelesaikan PROMO menarik diadakan pada 16 September 2009, alamat e-mel, menempel pada menang nombor: (11) (80) (12) (96) (09) (43) menang dalam Kesepuluh lotere kategori.

Oleh kerana itu anda telah diluluskan untuk mendakwa jumlah total £ 150,000,00 Poundsterling tunai dikreditkan ke REF NO: MICRO-L/2009-END10.

Semua peserta diseleksi melalui komputer Microsoft sistem mel suara diambil dari 167.000 Nama, sebagai sebahagian daripada Antarabangsa "E-MAIL" Program Promosi terkemuka kita MS-WORD pengguna di seluruh dunia dan untuk terus digunakan internet. Anda disarankan untuk menghubungi tuntutan prosesor dengan butiran di bawah ini melalui e-mail address:

NAMA: Keith Bryan
EMAIL: mrkeithbryan@yahoo.com.hk
TEL: +44 703 590 2789

NOTA HARAP ANDA UNTUK MENGIRIM MAKLUMAT BERIKUT UNTUK ANDA KLAIM PRIZE: 1.Full Nama: ... 2.Address: ... 3.Phone: ... 4.Country: ... 5.Sex/Gender: ...

Hormat, Larisa Turner.

"Leave it to a girl to take the fun out of sex discrimination." - Bill Watterson

***

No, It’s Not About Race

"They were carrying “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, “End the Fed” placards and signs condemning big government, Barack Obama, socialist health care and various elite institutions.

Then, as I got to where the Smithsonian museums start, I came across another rally, the Black Family Reunion Celebration. Several thousand people had gathered to celebrate African-American culture. I noticed that the mostly white tea party protesters were mingling in with the mostly black family reunion celebrants...

These two groups were from opposite ends of the political and cultural spectrum. They’d both been energized by eloquent speakers. Yet I couldn’t discern any tension between them. It was just different groups of people milling about like at any park or sports arena.

And yet we live in a nation in which some people see every conflict through the prism of race. So over the past few days, many people, from Jimmy Carter on down, have argued that the hostility to President Obama is driven by racism. Some have argued that tea party slogans like “I Want My Country Back” are code words for white supremacy. Others say incivility on Capitol Hill is magnified by Obama’s dark skin...

My impression is that race is largely beside the point. There are other, equally important strains in American history that are far more germane to the current conflicts.

For example, for generations schoolchildren studied the long debate between Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians. Hamiltonians stood for urbanism, industrialism and federal power. Jeffersonians were suspicious of urban elites and financial concentration and believed in small-town virtues and limited government...

What we’re seeing is the latest iteration of that populist tendency and the militant progressive reaction to it. We now have a populist news media that exaggerates the importance of the Van Jones and Acorn stories to prove the elites are decadent and un-American, and we have a progressive news media that exaggerates stories like the Joe Wilson shout and the opposition to the Obama schools speech to show that small-town folks are dumb wackos.

“One could argue that this country is on the verge of a crisis of legitimacy,” the economic blogger Arnold Kling writes. “The progressive elite is starting to dismiss rural white America as illegitimate, and vice versa.”

It’s not race. It’s another type of conflict, equally deep and old."

"I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect." - George Carlin

***

The house that Twitters - "Now the house tells its owner when his dinner is ready, if someone is at the door or when a mouse has been caught in a trap. Dr Andy Stanford-Clark has fitted the grade 1 listed cottage with hundreds of sensors, allowing everything from energy usage to the burglar alarm to be relayed by the blogging website."

Veterinarian’s service that really sucks - "The veterinarian had asked the 27-year old woman to place the squirrel inside her blouse to keep it warm given its “erratic body temperature”... the veterinarian then began to demonstrate to her how to massage her breasts. “He then took advantage by groping and sucking the victim’s breasts"... The squirrel died shortly after returning home"

Why are we suddenly so fascinated by our history? - "A people that is no longer making history looks to the past for reasons to feel proud... no health warning is so preposterous that it will not be prominently reported in the British press, which knows how to turn even the tiniest possibility of risk into a major scare... The success of the Daily Mail would seem to be at least partly based on its propensity to spread unease and insecurity among its readers... it is hard to imagine what kind of appearance would satisfy the Mail. If you look wrinkled or podgy, it mocks you; but if you attempt to roll back the years by artificial means, such as plastic surgery, it mocks you even more"

O Muse! You Do Make Things Difficult! - "Dame Edith Sitwell used to lie in an open coffin for a while before she began her day's writing. When I mentioned this macabre bit of gossip to a poet friend, he said acidly, ''If only someone had thought to shut it.''... the poet Schiller used to keep rotten apples under the lid of his desk and inhale their pungent bouquet when he needed to find the right word. Then he would close the drawer, but the fragrance remained in his head... Balzac drank more than 50 cups of coffee a day, and actually died from caffeine poisoning... D. H. Lawrence once even confessed that he liked to climb naked up mulberry trees, a fetish of long limbs and rough bark that stimulated his thoughts... Alfred de Musset, George Sand's lover, confided that it piqued him when she went directly from lovemaking to her writing desk, as she often did. But surely that was not so direct as Voltaire's actually using his lover's naked back as a writing desk"

YouTube - Chinese Guy LOVES BOOBIES! - "There is three thing you need to do to please your man: Number 1, make a sandwich. Number 2, suck his dick on command. And number 3, don't talk so much"

China schoolgirl aspires to be 'corrupt official':state media - "The young student stated her aspirations in a televised interview that was posted on a southern China website, leading bloggers to describe her comments as "a reflection of social reality"... "A corrupt official because corrupt officials have a lot of things," she replied."

Executive bonus schemes do not work - "It's a wonderful thing, the global economy: it requires us to push up our top salaries in an attempt to match world levels, but at the same time requires wages for ordinary employees to be driven down to the benchmarks set by the lowest-wage economies... bonus schemes often distort performance, diverting attention from the issues that should really be addressed in favour of those which happen to be relevant to the bonus. Because many of the factors that determine a company's performance are beyond the capacity of an individual executive to influence – macro-economic conditions are the most obvious example – they either have to be discounted, or applied even though it is clearly irrational to do so... There is a much better practice, to be found in better-run economies than our own, which we should emulate. Top executives should be paid a proper rate for the job (and I have no objection to high salaries per se) on the assumption that, having been appointed, they will deliver a satisfactory performance. A less than satisfactory performance should be dealt with as a performance issue. An exceptional performance – above and beyond the call of duty – should be rewarded with a genuine, but one-off, bonus."

IN a school photograph taken shortly before her 15th birthday, Semenya stands awkwardly under the blinding African sun. A full head and shoulders above her classmates, she is dressed in men’s pleated trousers and an unflattering shirt. Her friends wear knee socks and skirts. According to Eric Modiba, headmaster at the Nthema secondary school where Semenya was a star pupil, she was “unique” from the start... “I was caught out, too. Caster was always rough and played with the boys. She liked soccer and she wore trousers to school. She never wore a dress. It was only in grade II that I realised she was a girl myself. “The way she looked, so masculine, did cause her some problems but few were brave enough to bully her.”... Unusually for a young woman perhaps, Semenya’s main interest has been WWF wrestling, a sport notable for competitors with extraordinary physiques.

Sexual selection in humans: Mr Muscle | The Economist - "There is another cost to being muscly: men’s immune systems are less effective than those of women (which was known before), and become worse the more muscular the men are (which was not)... The more muscular a man, the more sexual partners he reported, both in the past year and over his lifetime, and the earlier his first sexual experience was likely to have been"

Women, testosterone and finance: Risky business | The Economist - "Besides being a sex hormone, testosterone also governs appetite for risk. Control for an individual’s testosterone levels and, at least in America, the perceived sexism vanishes... The researchers then followed the subjects’ progress after they graduated, to see what sort of careers they entered. As expected, men were more likely than women to choose a risky job in finance. Again, though, the difference was accounted for entirely by their levels of salivary testosterone"
Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque revenit

Bermuda Triangle plane mystery 'solved' - "A new examination for a BBC series provides plausible explanations for the disappearance of two British commercial planes in the area, with the loss of 51 passengers and crew."

Maid cafes show no signs of losing popularity - "Pomeranian is “The Chubby Maid Cafe,” where guests can expect their friendly companions to be portly. No one is quite sure how it all came to this. Maid cafes first appeared in 1998 at sales events for the dating simulation game Welcome to Pia Carrot... It turns out the appeal isn’t gender-specific, either—in 2007, some 35% of customers were women, or “mistresses.”... There is still no shortage of good maids, however. About 300 hopefuls apply for every open position that comes open in Akihabara, even though the wage is only about 850 yen an hour. Most do it because they enjoy it, but a lucky few can become cosplay idols. In response to this, a group called Maid Cooperative has fashioned a standardized test to qualify maids. Today, “maids” in the loosest sense of the word cut hair, massage, sing, dance, gamble, cross-dress and so on. Some of the more bizarre offers worth checking out include Nagomi “Little Sister” cafe, Mother cafe in Osaka, St Grace’s Court (a sister nun cafe), B:Lily Rose (“danso,” or females dressing as “beautiful boys”) and Hibari-tei (“joso,” or males dressing as maids)."

A more sophisticated version of an old cheap trick (think of a number. Multiply it by X, divide is by Y and add Z. You will get the same number again):

"Think of any quadratic formula in the form kx^2 + nx + c. Tell me the value of that formula applied on x-values of 0, 1 and 2, and I'll tell you the quadratic formula you thought of :P"

A great phrase from Frigid Girl:

"un petit mont feutré de mousse delicate, tracé sur le milieu d'un fillet escarlatte"


"Je te salue ô vermeillette fante,
Qui vivement entre ces flancs reluis:
Je te salue ô bienheuré pertuis,
Qui rens ma vie heureusement contante

C'est toi qui fais que plus ne me tourmante
L'archer volant qui causoit mes ennuis;
T'aiant tenu quatre nuis,
Je sen sa force en moi desja plus lente.

O petit trou, trou mignard, trou velu
D'un poil folet mollement crespelu,
Qui à ton gré domtes les plus rebelles;

Tous vers galants devoient, pour t'honorer,
A beaux genoux te venir adorer,
Tenans au poin leurs flambantes chandelles."

Four Worms & A Lesson

A minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon.

Four worms were placed into four separate jars. The first worm was put into a container of alcohol. The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke. The third worm was put into a container of chocolate syrup. The fourth worm was put into a container of good clean soil.

At the conclusion of the sermon, the Minister reported the following results:

The first worm in alcohol - Dead.

The second worm in cigarette smoke - Dead.

Third worm in chocolate syrup - Dead.

Fourth worm in good clean soil - Alive.

So the Minister asked the congregation "What did you learn from this demonstration?"

Maxine was sitting in the back, quickly raised her hand and said, "As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won't have worms!"

That pretty much ended the service.

"A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool." - Joseph Roux

***

Secret of Semenya's sex stripped bare

"THE world champion 800m runner Caster Semenya has been revealed to have male and female sexual organs, posing an ethical and political quandary for the sport's ruling body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, and her home nation, South Africa."


I'm sure this won't stop the accusations of racism, sexism and jealousy.

The key problem here, of course, is that sports events are divided into two gender categories - male and female - in order to prevent the former having an "unfair" advantage over the latter.

Of course, this is "unfair" for eunuchs, transsexuals, hermaphrodites and other people with assorted intersex and endrocrinological conditions (generously estimated at 1% of the population), but the alternative is to be "unfair" to everyone else (or at least the women, at least 45% of the population).

Just alleging that sexism and racism are why people are kicking up such a fuss is quite beyond the point - especially since the very same people doing so would likely condemn collapsing the gender categories and having men and women compete on equal terms. And probably also cry foul if male-to-female transsexuals competed as women.


Another interesting article:

Caster Semenya: Boy, can she run

"IN a school photograph taken shortly before her 15th birthday, Semenya stands awkwardly under the blinding African sun. A full head and shoulders above her classmates, she is dressed in men’s pleated trousers and an unflattering shirt. Her friends wear knee socks and skirts...

“I was caught out, too. Caster was always rough and played with the boys. She liked soccer and she wore trousers to school. She never wore a dress. It was only in grade II that I realised she was a girl myself.

The way she looked, so masculine, did cause her some problems but few were brave enough to bully her.”...

Dorcus admits her daughter’s progress is far from ordinary. Unusually for a young woman perhaps, Semenya’s main interest has been WWF wrestling, a sport notable for competitors with extraordinary physiques...

The problem for athletics is that it has never quite worked out what to do about competitors who blur the line between the traditional image of men and women...

After the advent of the [gender] tests, a suspicious number of international women athletes suddenly retired."

Steven Pinker: "It is said that there is a technical term for people who believe that little boys and little girls are born indistinguishable and are molded into their natures by parental socialization. The term is "childless.""

"If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it." - Pierre Beaumarchais

***

Vouchers for top NSmen

"FAMILIES of National Servicemen who do well during their in-camp training will get to share the reward under a slew of measures to recognise their contributions to total defence.

To recognise the importance of family support in ensuring that the NSmen remain committed to defence and NS training, these NSmen will be awarded with $100 worth of vouchers.

NSmen can spend these vouchers with their families at defence and national education related attractions, such as the Singapore Discovery Centre and Singapore Armed Forces and HomeTeamNS chalets.

'Through these attractions, the families can also understand and appreciate more about Total Defence and National Service,' said Mindef.

To be eligible for the vouchers, NSmen must be within the top 10 per cent of their ICT or courses, or be recipients of Awards and Letters of Commendation. All eligible NSmen can only receive the vouchers once within the same work year. These vouchers are valid for one year from the date of issue.

Mindef and the Home Team will release the list of participating attractions in March next year. This initiative will be launched next April."


I'm not sure what's more insulting: top performing slaves (NSmen) getting $100 of vouchers, or these vouchers being valid only for SAF-related merchants.

The voucher scheme is like raping a girl and then throwing her vouchers for your STD clinic.

The Harm of Reparative Therapy / Reasons to think Social Discrimination is not important in Homosexuals' Health Problems

"We're actors - we're the opposite of people." - Tom Stoppard

***

A: I'm interested in finding out whether there's any evidence for (or against) reparative therapy aimed at changing an individual's sexual orientation (besides studies from NARTH).

According to the APA (American Psychiatric Association): "the potential risks of reparative therapy are great (including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior) since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient". Unfortunately I haven't been able to find convincing evidence against reparative therapy (e.g.: studies published in peer-reviewed journals).


B: *list of articles*


A: I actually did a PsychInfo search and read some of the articles. I'm a little surprised (and disappointed) at the dearth of evidence either way. The study by Spitzer (2003) has serious methodological flaws. Yet, most of the papers I found were commentaries/ editorial articles and not empirical studies. I wanted to find some evidence showing that reparative therapy is actually harmful and has negative consequences. Will continue looking.

I just attended a training session by a very well respected clinical psychologist (with a phd) who believes in reparative therapy (Ignorant? Maybe. Primitive? I don't really think so). I actually wanted to find evidence to challenge his beliefs, but sadly couldn't find anything really convincing. Ah well.


In the wake of that thread, here're some bits I dug up:

Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings From the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS)

"It has been suggested that homosexuality is associated with psychiatric morbidity. This study examined differences between heterosexually and homosexually active subjects in 12-month and lifetime prevalence of DSM-III-R mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders in a representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 7076; aged 18-64 years)... Psychiatric disorders were more prevalent among homosexually active people compared with heterosexually active people... The findings support the assumption that people with same-sex sexual behavior are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders"

[Addendum: Bear in mind that the Netherlands is possibly the most gay-friendly place in the world and yet even there homosexuals have more mental health problems.

Another extract from the paper: "Biological and genetic factors in the causes and development of homosexuality might also predispose homosexual people to developing psychiatric disorders. This is in line with the higher prevalence of bipolar disorder we found in homosexual men compared with heterosexual men, which is generally considered to be largely congenital... The fact that homosexual men showed higher prevalence rates of disorders that are characteristic for women in general, whereas homosexual women showed higher prevalence rates of disorders that are characteristic for men in general, is in line with the theory that sex-atypical levels of prenatal androgens play a major role in the causes and development of homosexuality"

In other words homosexuality could make one susceptible to mental disorders through biological and developmental channels, rather than purely through discrimination.

See also: On Bullying and Discrimination of Gay Kids and Gay Suicide / The Oppression Olympics]

More interesting, though, is this extract from "Homosexuality and family relations" (Frederick W. Bozett, Marvin B. Sussman / 1990):

"Weinberg and Williams (1974) found that, in general, their data were not as expected in terms of the societal reaction so much as to how the individual reacts to that societal reaction: in other words, the individual holds the clues to the situation.

Societal reaction theory holds that homosexuals in more anti-homosexual societies will have worse psychological adjustment, in particular be less self-accepting, have less self-esteem, and feel more badly about homosexuality, than those in more accepting societies. However, Weinberg and Williams (1974) found this was not the case in the three societies they looked at (the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands). Following this, Ross (1978) suggested that the critical variable was not the actual societal reaction, but the way the homosexuals perceived it. It subsequently turned out that perceived societal reaction did predict a significantly lowered state of psychological well-being, although actual societal reaction did not."

[Addendum: By analogy: if I postulate that cigarette smoking is bad for me, then I should see differences in my health if I smoke 1 cigarette a day versus 1 pack a week versus 1 pack a day versus 2 packs a day. If smoking more cigarettes does not worsen my health, then I would be very skeptical about the claim that cigarettes affect my health.

Also see Dutch study on younger and older homosexuals being at equal risk of suicide and perceived discrimination being the determining criterion]

In other words, what matters is not whether you are being discriminated against, but rather whether you *think* you are discriminated against.

There is an interesting parallel with self-fulfilling prophecies here.


Keywords: amsterdam, gays, discrimination

"I have such poor vision I can date anybody." - Garry Shandling

***

China boycotts Deaflympics - "The Chinese team did not show up for the spectacular on Saturday night opening of the games, the first to be staged in Asia since 1924."
Eisen: "Last year tell everyone not to politicise the Olympic Games, this year boycott the Deaflympics? Beijing can go eat shit"

Mourners pack stadium in India - "The Times of India reported that the shock of his death had been too much for some, saying 10 people had died of cardiac arrest on hearing of his accident while another four had committed suicide."

A game of "dirty cowboy" turns deadly - "Deborah Yvette Parker, 38, told police her gun accidently discharged while her and her longtime companion, 58-year-old, Broderick Crachian, were playing a game of “dirty Cowboy.”... Prosecutor Marcy McCorvey said, Parker admitted to accidentally shooting Crachian during their sexual foreplay game, Parker also confessed to being in possession of the handgun and using it as a toy during their sexual tryst with the full consent and knowledge of the victim. Both McCorvey and Newman declined to give details on the type of foreplay the couple was engaged in, nor would they define the term “dirty cowboy.”"

Firefighters defeat fire with remote control - "The TV was tuned into a German station that in the early morning hours aired the constant image of a fireplace"

The Earth Angel - "Introducing "THE EARTH ANGEL" the worlds first ever green technology sex toy. The technology which was developed and designed in Ireland is unique in that it never requires replacement batteries and houses its own patented power core... We want to show the world that we can all make little changes in our everyday habits that will have a positive effect on the problem of climate change and that there is always a green alternative to any product. We at Caden Enterprises have designed and developed "THE EARTH ANGEL" to be just that...........an angel to the earth... Turn this handle to power up THE EARTH ANGEL and toy is good to go giving instant, intense vibrations."

City digitally adds black guy to Fun Guide cover to make it more ‘inclusive’ - "The smiling, ethnically diverse family featured on the cover of Toronto's latest edition of its summer Fun Guide was digitally altered to make the photo more "inclusive," which city officials say is in keeping with a policy to reflect diversity... "You won't find a more inclusive organization than us," said Kevin Sack, Toronto's director of strategic communications"

COPS ARREST TWO MEN DRESSED AS BATMAN AND SUPERMAN IN TIMES SQUARE - " Stunned Times Square tourists and office workers watched agog as cops struggled to subdue Clark Kent's alter ego without kryptonite. "The Man of Steel didn't go down with just two officers, it took seven officers!" witness Ryan McCormick said. "He was putting up a good fight. Little kids were like, 'Mommy, it's Superman!'... Superman took off, screaming, "I'm not getting arrested." But a crowd of police took him down and brought him to a special Fortress of Solitude -- the Midtown South station house. Meanwhile, Batman left with another costumed character, said Melba Williams, a tourist from Tennessee. "He walked off with the Statue of Liberty.""

Honesty test 'should be reviewed' - "Just 47% thought that it was wrong for a carer to persuade a patient to change their will in their favour. The current test - the Ghosh test - assumes a universal view of honesty. The Brunel University study also found that women were more likely to find activities such as taking stationery home from work dishonest, but less willing to convict the wrongdoer than men... The researchers say the results raise serious questions about people's concepts of honesty and the reliability of the jury system... A higher proportion of women, 82.2%, thought it was dishonest to lie about age on an internet dating site than believed it was wrong to benefit from the will alteration. In a league table of dishonest acts, conning the elderly care home patient came 13th out of 16 - just one place above snapping off broccoli stalks in a supermarket and weighing the heads... "It seems to be based on whether or not the person speaking is likeable. When we like people or feel sorry for them, we are far less likely to condemn what they have done so this has a major effect on whether or not their conduct is rated as honest or dishonest.""

YouTube - Italian Clock

YouTube - ULTIMATE Lego Rubberband Gun - "Lego Chaingun - 11 rounds per second."

YouTube - Sexual Harassment - "'Word around the office is you've got a fat cock' 'Yes, I do' 'I've got a fat cock too. Maybe we should rub our fat cocks together sometime. Maybe a little oil. Two fat cocks. Together. Oil.'... 'Smells like vagina in here!' 'Excuse me?' 'Smells like fresh vagina in here!' 'Are you talking about - my vagina?' 'Maybe'"
The lines are so cheesy they're good. I love the lesbian harassment - so inclusive! Too bad there's no female-on-male harassment.

Gartner Says Organizations Should Leverage Social Sciences to Place Next-Generation Technology Jobs - “Many of the needed technical capabilities originate in the social sciences and are aimed at usability and adoption of technology-related business services”
Can study arts in uni liao

"Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends." - Woody Allen

***

A letter Paul wrote to complain about the "The Dead Sea Scrolls" exhibition at the Arts House:


To Ms. Amira Osman (Marketing and Communications Manager),

cc.
Colin Goh, General Manager,
Florence Lee, Depury General Manager


Dear Ms. Osman,

I visited the Dead Sea Scrolls “exhibition” today with my wife. Thinking that it was from a legitimate scholarly institute or (how naïve of me!) the Israel Antiquities Authority, I was looking forward to a day of education and entertainment.

Yet when I got it, much of the exhibition (and booklets) merely espouses an evangelical (fundamentalist) view of the Bible – there are booklets on the inerrancy of the Bible, on how archaeology has proven the Bible to be true etc.

Apart from these there are many blatant misrepresentations of the state of archaeology and mainstream biblical scholarship:

a) There was initial screening upon entry of a 5-10 minute pseudo-documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls. A presenter (can’t remember the name) was described as a “biblical archaeologist” – a term that no serious archaeologist working in the Levant would apply to him or herself. (Some prefer the term “Syro-Palestinian archaeologist” but almost all reject the term “biblical archaeologist”). See the book by Thomas W. Davis, “Shifting Sands: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeology”, Oxford, New York 2004. Davis is an actual archaeologist working in the field and the book tells why the term “Biblical archaeologist” is not considered a legitimate term by serious archaeologist.

b) In the same presentation, the presenter made the erroneous statement that the entire old testament was translated into Greek in the third century BCE. This is a mistake – only the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) was translated during that time. Note that this ‘error’ is not inadvertent but is a familiar claim by evangelical apologists who try to argue for an early date of all the books of the Old testament - if all the books have been translated by the third century BCE obviously these books must all have been written before then! This flies against modern scholarship which show that some books in the Old Testament such as the Book of Daniel was written only in the second century BCE]The actual state of scholarship on the Septuagint [The Greek translation of the Bible] is accurately given in the book by Ernst Würthwein, “The Text of the Old Testament” – Eerdmans 1988 pp.52-54

c) Perhaps the most blatant error was one which claimed that the “Magdalene fragments” – which contains the 26th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is dated to 50 AD!!! Scholars are unanimous in dating these fragments to 200 AD. The only ‘scholar’ cited that dated these fragments to 50 AD was the German papyrologist Carsten Thiede – a well know fundamentalist. This is what Burton Mack (a critical – legitimate – NT scholar) has to say about Thiede’s eccentric dating “From a critical scholar's point of view, Thiede's proposal is an example of just how desperate the Christian imagination can become in the quest to argue for the literal facticity of the Christian gospels” [Mack, Burton L., “Who Wrote the New Testament?:The Making of the Christian Myth” HarperCollins, San Francisco 1995] Yet the dating of 50 AD is presented as though it is a scholarly consensus position!

In fact the last point was so blatant that I confronted the exhibitors. (Tak Boleh Tahan!!) One American exhibitor told me that “Yes, it could have been worded differently, but then we would have to change the whole display” (!!). When I told him that this was not a typo but a blatant attempt to deceive, he mentioned that Theide’s views are supported by “The Dallas Theological Seminary” – another well know evangelical institute!

I have no issue with the religious strengthening their faith by having their own internal exhibitions on historical artifacts etc. But when it is presented to the public as a scholarly exhibition – this is quite close to being dishonest.

I felt cheated of the $36 dollars I paid for the tickets and of the hour that I spent there before realizing what type of exhibition it was.

I am disappointed with The Art House for show casing this without warning potential visitors of its clear religious bias.

Yours sincerely,
Paul Tobin


To their credit, the Arts House speedily replied.

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." - Thomas Jefferson (attr)

***

Someone: he said in KL nobodydoes theatre full tiem

Me: maybe KL no. cos malaysians are even less civilised than singaporeans =D


Someone else: this spec kinda turns me on a bit

Amazon.com: ASUS G51Vx-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop: Computer & Accessories

("* Intel Quad Core Q9000 Processor 2.0GHz; 4GB of DDR2 800 RAM, 2 Slots, 4GB Max
* NVidia GTX 260M Dedicated Graphics with 1GB DDR3 VRAM; Gaming Backpack and Gaming Mouse Included
* 640GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM); DVD SuperMulti Drive
* Windows Vista Home Premium (64 Bit) Operating System
* 15.6-inch Full HD 1920 x 1080 LCD Display; Free Eee Stick and 9 Games Included")

Me: more than your wife?

Someone else: ....
dun be an ass

Me: =D


Someone on heat and sexual response: try in a sauna
hahahha

Me: hurr hrr

Someone: too bad got no on to try with

Me: aww
jump your crush lor

Someone: I know you said many times liao

Me on relationship advice: it's like aids prevention - you can never tell people enough times (and people will always not listen)

Someone: ahahaha compare seduction with aids prevention!
wahahahaha
gosh

Me: and if you don't follow the advice, you can seriously screw yourself up


TMM: my senior said I was seriously like you
and its becoming even clearer
I was like... ok

Me: is that good or bad
and for me or you
HAHA

TMM: I hope its good
since you're like the most brilliant person I know in Singapore

today at the pageant I was in
they asked what was the most beautiful place in Singapore

I said Changi Airport

Me: I was about to say that

TMM: because that's where you fly out
and leave this god forsaken piece of shit

Me: what was the response

TMM: some people booed

OSU [Ed: Overseas Singaporeans Unit] would be proud

OH YAH
OSU said its purpose was to reach out to the Singaporean dispora

doesn't diaspora have connotations of people being driven out
by circumstances
or by dislike of the place

LOL
lol!
lol

TMM: so technically
Gopalan Nair is a member of the Singaporean diaspora
HAHAHA

and OSU should try to reach out to him
:)


TMM: when applying for Exit permit
they ask why you want to go overseas and study

I want to tell them to fuck off and die

Me: "so I'll be free from you"

TMM: heh
here's to my REAL red passport in 5 years




Someone on striving for organisational improvement: why argue

i realise i lost all ability to comment on anything now

all i want is..."what the bosses want"
so i can quickly get my stuff approve

Me: this is why big companies are not as dynamic

moral of the story: it's best to coast along in mediocrity

Someone: yah..just like i always wonder...maybe being naive and simple is always more fun than being complex

ok..maybe not fun
but as in life is better and easier..than someone who is complex

Me: "safer"

This guy had better get hazard pay:



Then again, the PLA has so many applicants they need to turn some away anyway.

We need to import some of these patriots!

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives." - Abba Eban

***

A Story of the Image - "The Plantin – Moretus House - Workshops Museum Complex... [is] so highly significant that it is now one of the very few sites in Western Europe to have qualified for inclusion of the World Heritage List."
Copywriter FAIL

Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island - "In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite... the lizards developed cecal valves—muscles between the large and small intestine—that slowed down food digestion in fermenting chambers, which allowed their bodies to process the vegetation's cellulose into volatile fatty acids... Such physical transformation in just 30 lizard generations takes evolution to a whole new level, Irschick said. It would be akin to humans evolving and growing a new appendix in several hundred years, he said. "That's unparalleled. What's most important is how fast this is," he said."

Cashiers Allegedly Forced to Wear Diapers - "Supermarket cashiers in Argentina are being forced to wear diapers to keep them from taking toilet breaks at work, a union says... "The truth is, it's difficult to imagine a line of 20 adult cashiers wearing diapers for eight hours," said Varela, who is investigating the matter. "In 17 years as a labor lawyer, I've never heard anything like this before," she added."

Emails aid sub-prime detective - "At the credit-rating agencies that did so much to prop up the sub-prime industry, someone seemed to have a clear sense of what was coming. 'Let’s hope we’re all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters,' an analyst wrote in a candid e-mail to a colleague."

Unusual new enclosure revealed at Bristol Zoo - "Zoo visitors and staff have been surprised by the addition of a new and unexpected enclosure at Bristol Zoo Gardens. A mysterious sign has appeared on the side of the Zoo’s popular Coral Café, designating the area as a place to spot one of the world’s most widespread species - Homo sapiens. The notice, which appeared without warning this week, shows humans ‘on display’ inside the café and includes tongue-in-cheek description of the species and its characteristics... Dr Jo Gipps, Director of Bristol Zoo Gardens, said: “This is definitely not one of the Zoo’s own signs, it is clearly a prank and a very good one too. It looks completely genuine. We think it’s great sign and we have absolutely no intention of removing it, however I think one of them is probably enough""
Of course, it would be removed in less civilised countries.

YouTube - "Does God exist?" -- Social campaign on education (TV commerc - "New Moment New Ideas Company TV commercial for the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, Ministry of Education and Science... Headline of commercial: Religion is knowledge, too. Bringing religion back to school. Headline of campaign: Knowledge is power."
This is the latest incarnation of some old Christian nonsense. The multiple philosophical problems are one thing, but the thing that really pisses me off is that they are painting Einstein as a defender of religion by putting words into his mouth.

Schoolgirl 'wanted to lose virginity before Large Hadron Collider caused end of world'

Biliteracy in Singapore: A Survey of the Written Proficiency in English and Chinese of Secondary School Pupils - "The aim of this study is to explore the extent to which the SAP school pupils learning two first languages are symmetrically bilingual in writing... Chinese played an important role in daily communication. Those who conversed in Chinese with their friends comprised 72.9%, and those who used English constituted a smaller number (25.4%)... the majority (47.5%) of the pupils preferred to watch television in Chinese... While 69.2% of the pupils read in English, only 6.7% read in Chinese... the subjects had displayed significantly higher written proficiency in English than in Chinese... As expected, our subjects had great difficulty in writing the Chinese script... A main feature of the writing system in Chinese is that it is a script which, unlike an alphabet, does not register sounds but in one way or another indicates some elements of meanings... With such a characteristic of the writing system, it is only natural that when a character is lost in memory, another one which represents the same syllable (and usually the same tone) will be substituted by the language learner. Moreover, he/she is inevitably prone to make mistakes when a syllable associates with two or more characters which share the same tone and at the same time resemble each other in script"

The war on drugs is immoral idiocy. We need the courage of Argentina - "Last week the Argentine supreme court declared in a landmark ruling that it was "unconstitutional" to prosecute citizens for having drugs for their personal use. It asserted in ringing terms that "adults should be free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state"... The doctrine is adumbrated by a regime only 25 years from dictatorship... Three years ago, Mexico concluded that prison for drug possession merely criminalised a large slice of its population. Drug users should be regarded as "patients, not criminals"... America spends a reported $70bn a year on suppressing drug imports, and untold billions on prosecuting its own citizens for drugs offences... this week's "good news" [was] that the 2009 Afghan poppy harvest had fallen back to its 2005 level... depriving Afghan peasants of their most lucrative cash crop somehow wins their hearts and minds and impoverishes the Taliban. The Afghan poppy crop is largely a function of the price of poppies compared with that of wheat... the war on drugs can be seen only as a total failure, a vast self-imposed cost on western society. It is the greatest sweeping-under-the-carpet of our age"
Surprisingly, a watered-down version of this was in Today

Time to silence phones, game consoles and headsets on trains - "The bigger audio headsets often give off loud noises and these should be banned... This problem is getting worse because the culprits have been getting away with it. It is time the SMRT takes strong action to stop this nuisance. The culprits should be fined because, as in case of eating and drinking, warning them is not good enough."
Doesn't this belong in the Straits Times Forum?

Confucians say, women now welcome - "For the first time in more than 2,500 years the family tree of the ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius, is to include women descendants."

"Truth is more of a stranger than fiction." - Mark Twain

***

Quangos ban traditional phrases like 'whiter than white' and 'gentlemen's agreement'

"Documents released under freedom of information rules show that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission advised staff to replace the phrase “black day” with “miserable day”.

Its explanation was that the term carries a “hierarchical valuation of skin colour”.

The commission also urges employees to be careful of the term “ethnic minority” because it can imply “something smaller and less important”.

The National Gallery is concerned some terms its staff use could discriminate against women.

It suggests they should replace the term "gentlemen's agreement" with "unwritten agreement" or "agreement based on trust" while "right-hand man" should become "second in command".

The Learning Skills Council is also mindful of "gender bias" in some language used by its workers and has asked them to "perfect" their brief, rather than "master" it.

Advice issued by the South West Regional Development Agency states: “Terms such as ‘black sheep of the family’, ‘black looks’ and ‘black mark’ have no direct link to skin colour but potentially serve to reinforce a negative view of all things black. Equally, certain terms imply a negative image of ‘black’ by reinforcing the positive aspects of white.

“For example, in the context of being above suspicion, the phrase ‘whiter than white’ is often used. Purer than pure or cleaner than clean are alternatives which do not infer that anything other than white should be regarded with suspicion.”

Marie Clair, spokeswoman for the Plain English Campaign, believes the quangos should take a more "common sense" approach rather than issuing a blanket ban on traditional phrases.

“Political correctness has good intentions but things can be taken to an extreme," she told the Sunday Times."

The Girl Paradox (from GraphJam):



"Hot Girl
Smart Girl
Nice Girl"


Eric's answer to it:



"Smart
Rich
Funny"