"I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true." - Dorothy Parker
***
A good reminder to linguistic purists (i.e. the ignorant):
Merriam-Webster Online: The Word of the Day for March 24, 2009
"negotiate
For the first 250 years of its life, "negotiate" had meanings that hewed pretty close to its Latin root, "negotiari," meaning "to carry on business." Around the middle of the 19th century, though, it developed the meaning "to successfully travel along or over." Although this sense was criticized in the New York Sun in 1906 as a "barbarism creeping into the language," and Fowler's 1926 A Dictionary of Modern English Usage declared that any writer who used it was "literally a barbarian," it has thrived. The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage claimed in both its 1975 and 1985 editions that it is "considered inappropriate in formal speech and writing," but our evidence does not show that there is anything particularly informal about its use."
L'origine de Bert
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
"Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them." - Robertson Davies
***
JB nursing homes - MOH clarifies
(bizarrely, there isn't a permalink to this on the MOH's main page - which means it can't be linked to and it will fall off in a few months)
"Minister Khaw was only sharing an observation about the different cost structures in JB and Singapore, and in fact this option is something that those who want to stretch their budget are already doing... In fact, some readers shared the view that the availability of lower nursing homes in JB gives many Singaporeans more options."
I was pleasantly surprised to read this. It seems that, contrary to official policy, online opinion expressed in fora beyond REACH is being responded to. Simply put, it's part of good Public Relations - there's no point in letting matters blow up if they don't have to (even if the response is slower than it should be, but then a journalist friend shares that PR people are always overworked).
Meanwhile, the content of the release is also interesting.
The uproar about the Powers That Be forcing us to ship our parents to JB always struck me as ridiculous. Offering Singaporeans more affordable retirement options was portrayed by many commentators as heartlessness and endorsing the shipping of our elderly off to foreign gulags.
Presumably the idea was that there was a sort of substitution effect where, instead of maintaining their parents in Singapore, Singaporeans would kick them to JB or Bintan. This effect would become even stronger with government endorsement (actual or perceived).
Yet, just because the elderly are domiciled in Singapore does not mean that they live good lives. They may be holed up in one-room flats and/or have to work to help maintain themselves. A walk around Singapore during lunchtime reveals many suffering what seems to be the fate of many elderly in Singapore - collecting soft drink cans at food centres and picking up corrugated cardboard for sale. Many surely find living in a retirement home in JB or Bintan preferable to that.
Many elderly also finance their own retirement (e.g. those with no surviving children, or those who prefer not to rely on them), and would definitely appreciate more options; the same logic is seen in people who retire to New Zealand, Malaysia or the countryside.
Of course, a better option would be the implementation of some sort of retirement scheme which involves risk-pooling and some measure of cross-subsidisation, but that will happen as soon as the government changes, so we shall limit ourselves to the art of the possible.
Most people do not understand that giving people more options is not the same as "coercing" them or "exploiting" them. Indeed, even if you used a broad definition of exploitation, as Allen Wood points out in his excellent essay on Exploitation (which will be excerpted here some day), "by interfering with exploitative arrangements... [we] risk consigning the vulnerable person to an even worse fate than being exploited".
You see a similar fuss kicked up about the legalisation of paid organ donation. Yet, assuming there is no coercion involved, why people should get so upset is a mystery.
An alternative argument is to conjure up vague notions about the "dignity of life" which, not coincidentally, has also been used in arguments against general stem cell research and in-vitro fertilisation (test tube babies).
In the end, what people who oppose paid organ donation are essentially saying to putative paid organ donors is: "I want to have more say about what you can do with your body than you".
Similarly, what people who oppose there being retirement homes in JB or Bintan are saying is: "I want you to retire in Singapore, whether you like it or not".
***
JB nursing homes - MOH clarifies
(bizarrely, there isn't a permalink to this on the MOH's main page - which means it can't be linked to and it will fall off in a few months)
"Minister Khaw was only sharing an observation about the different cost structures in JB and Singapore, and in fact this option is something that those who want to stretch their budget are already doing... In fact, some readers shared the view that the availability of lower nursing homes in JB gives many Singaporeans more options."
I was pleasantly surprised to read this. It seems that, contrary to official policy, online opinion expressed in fora beyond REACH is being responded to. Simply put, it's part of good Public Relations - there's no point in letting matters blow up if they don't have to (even if the response is slower than it should be, but then a journalist friend shares that PR people are always overworked).
Meanwhile, the content of the release is also interesting.
The uproar about the Powers That Be forcing us to ship our parents to JB always struck me as ridiculous. Offering Singaporeans more affordable retirement options was portrayed by many commentators as heartlessness and endorsing the shipping of our elderly off to foreign gulags.
Presumably the idea was that there was a sort of substitution effect where, instead of maintaining their parents in Singapore, Singaporeans would kick them to JB or Bintan. This effect would become even stronger with government endorsement (actual or perceived).
Yet, just because the elderly are domiciled in Singapore does not mean that they live good lives. They may be holed up in one-room flats and/or have to work to help maintain themselves. A walk around Singapore during lunchtime reveals many suffering what seems to be the fate of many elderly in Singapore - collecting soft drink cans at food centres and picking up corrugated cardboard for sale. Many surely find living in a retirement home in JB or Bintan preferable to that.
Many elderly also finance their own retirement (e.g. those with no surviving children, or those who prefer not to rely on them), and would definitely appreciate more options; the same logic is seen in people who retire to New Zealand, Malaysia or the countryside.
Of course, a better option would be the implementation of some sort of retirement scheme which involves risk-pooling and some measure of cross-subsidisation, but that will happen as soon as the government changes, so we shall limit ourselves to the art of the possible.
Most people do not understand that giving people more options is not the same as "coercing" them or "exploiting" them. Indeed, even if you used a broad definition of exploitation, as Allen Wood points out in his excellent essay on Exploitation (which will be excerpted here some day), "by interfering with exploitative arrangements... [we] risk consigning the vulnerable person to an even worse fate than being exploited".
You see a similar fuss kicked up about the legalisation of paid organ donation. Yet, assuming there is no coercion involved, why people should get so upset is a mystery.
An alternative argument is to conjure up vague notions about the "dignity of life" which, not coincidentally, has also been used in arguments against general stem cell research and in-vitro fertilisation (test tube babies).
In the end, what people who oppose paid organ donation are essentially saying to putative paid organ donors is: "I want to have more say about what you can do with your body than you".
Similarly, what people who oppose there being retirement homes in JB or Bintan are saying is: "I want you to retire in Singapore, whether you like it or not".
Post ID: 7166507740457567253
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Govt announces relaxation to Internet election advertising rules:
"If our democracy is reduced to slick commercials, clever editing, sharp sound bites and political spin, then I think our democracy is being debased. So I would say that when we craft this, we are very much aware that even as we liberalise, that we continue to make sure that the debate is serious, robust and rational." (emphasis mine)
When I read this, I thought: "What, like someone crying on TV?"
On the up-side:
"MPs shared some views expressed by netizens and in other forums.
"If our democracy is reduced to slick commercials, clever editing, sharp sound bites and political spin, then I think our democracy is being debased. So I would say that when we craft this, we are very much aware that even as we liberalise, that we continue to make sure that the debate is serious, robust and rational." (emphasis mine)
When I read this, I thought: "What, like someone crying on TV?"
On the up-side:
"MPs shared some views expressed by netizens and in other forums.
MP for Pasir Ris—Punggol GRC, Penny Low, who also chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for the Information, Communications and the Arts, said: "The Internet is rife with different opinions questioning the intent of the amendment.
"Is this really a step forward towards liberalisation or is this a step backwards to contain certain political parties? Even worse — is this to introduce a catch—all clause to contain even the film producer, the videographer and free speech."
Zaqy Mohamed, MP for Hong Kah GRC, said: "The proliferation of the new media and the ease of means to get films to be produced and distributed outside of Singapore signals that local regulations are becoming less and less effective.""
Post ID: 2453805621249790106
"You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light." - Vicomte de Chateaubriand
***
Locks repaired at Gage County jail - "Gustafson said the inmate threw his meal tray against his cell, causing a large mess on the wall adjacent to the cell doors. Pam Vanlaningham, corrections officer on duty, left the area to find something to clean up the mess, but when she returned, the mess had been cleaned up, and not by herself nor anyone else on duty. The inmates would not reveal how the mess was cleaned up. While trying to figure out how it happened, Jim Franzen, a corrections officer on the Saturday night shift, noticed that if the key hole on the outside of the cell door was turned just enough, the door could be popped open and inmates could leave the cell."
Ryanair toilet charge plan: Spend a pound to spend a penny - "LOW-fare airline Ryanair is considering charging passengers to use the toilets on its planes, it was revealed today."
YouTube - What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks w/sound - "WGN News anchors Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange have been together for many years. This whole thing started out really small and simple. And then along came the internet, and a video camera, and you tube, and here we are with the funniest dance routine since that scene in Big. It's the original, What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks. This one has the nat sound, not cheesy music."
Tourist faux pas - be culturally sensitive while travelling - "I've been told in all seriousness that wearing purple is illegal in Japan - and that women with erect nipples are routinely hauled off by the police in Singapore. Not so. I've been with purple-wearers on Tokyo streets and don't recall locals giving them a second glance. Fashion-conscious Singapore women have told me the worst that would happen to anyone with erect nipples would be to be leered at. Others myths are laws but not enforced - for instance, Singapore's insistence toilets be flushed... Dubai can be particularly misleading because it gives an initial impression of being a liberal anything-goes society."
New anthem strikes a chord in SEAsia - "The European Union has Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and socialists of the world have long risen up to the strains of "The Internationale." Now the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has its own anthem: the not quite so rousing "The ASEAN Way" written by two Thai composers. Given its official premiere at the regional bloc's annual summit in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin at the weekend, the hymn reaches its climax with the lyrics, "We dare to dream, we care to share. Together for ASEAN.""
I know someone who composed a less insipid version, but what do you expect?
Why we do what we do - "There are those who still don't understand the SDP's strategy and approach to politics. Why do Singapore Democrats insist of defying the law and ending up in court instead of doing the ground work necessary to win elections? The answer is simple: Because the PAP has absolutely no intention of allowing the opposition to win power through elections. The ruling party will continue to introduce new laws and amend existing ones to block any meaningful inroads the opposition makes in elections. The introduction of the GRC system, the increase of election deposit, the restriction of the use of the Internet by opposition parties, etc are done to ensure that opposition parties remain crippled."
Day 18: Wantan mee and me - Bohemia Bunny - "The plate of wantan mee I ate for lunch, however, is merely passable. I detected a hint of chilli, whether due to contamination from chilli sauce or because it picked up capsaicin from the green chilli, I’ll never know. But KL wantan mee HAS NO CHILLI, okay. Well maybe the green ones, but definitely not chilli sauce. *fumes*"
Malaysian urban legend debunked!
A U.N. resolution seeks to criminalize opinions that differ with the Islamic faith. - "In the same weeks that this resolution comes up for its annual renewal at the United Nations, its chief sponsor-government (Pakistan) makes an agreement with the local Taliban to close girls' schools in the Swat Valley region (a mere 100 miles or so from the capital in Islamabad) and subject the inhabitants to Sharia law. This capitulation comes in direct response to a campaign of horrific violence and intimidation, including public beheadings. Yet the religion of those who carry out this campaign is not to be mentioned, lest it "associate" the faith with human rights violations or terrorism."
***
Locks repaired at Gage County jail - "Gustafson said the inmate threw his meal tray against his cell, causing a large mess on the wall adjacent to the cell doors. Pam Vanlaningham, corrections officer on duty, left the area to find something to clean up the mess, but when she returned, the mess had been cleaned up, and not by herself nor anyone else on duty. The inmates would not reveal how the mess was cleaned up. While trying to figure out how it happened, Jim Franzen, a corrections officer on the Saturday night shift, noticed that if the key hole on the outside of the cell door was turned just enough, the door could be popped open and inmates could leave the cell."
Ryanair toilet charge plan: Spend a pound to spend a penny - "LOW-fare airline Ryanair is considering charging passengers to use the toilets on its planes, it was revealed today."
YouTube - What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks w/sound - "WGN News anchors Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange have been together for many years. This whole thing started out really small and simple. And then along came the internet, and a video camera, and you tube, and here we are with the funniest dance routine since that scene in Big. It's the original, What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks. This one has the nat sound, not cheesy music."
Tourist faux pas - be culturally sensitive while travelling - "I've been told in all seriousness that wearing purple is illegal in Japan - and that women with erect nipples are routinely hauled off by the police in Singapore. Not so. I've been with purple-wearers on Tokyo streets and don't recall locals giving them a second glance. Fashion-conscious Singapore women have told me the worst that would happen to anyone with erect nipples would be to be leered at. Others myths are laws but not enforced - for instance, Singapore's insistence toilets be flushed... Dubai can be particularly misleading because it gives an initial impression of being a liberal anything-goes society."
New anthem strikes a chord in SEAsia - "The European Union has Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and socialists of the world have long risen up to the strains of "The Internationale." Now the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has its own anthem: the not quite so rousing "The ASEAN Way" written by two Thai composers. Given its official premiere at the regional bloc's annual summit in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin at the weekend, the hymn reaches its climax with the lyrics, "We dare to dream, we care to share. Together for ASEAN.""
I know someone who composed a less insipid version, but what do you expect?
Why we do what we do - "There are those who still don't understand the SDP's strategy and approach to politics. Why do Singapore Democrats insist of defying the law and ending up in court instead of doing the ground work necessary to win elections? The answer is simple: Because the PAP has absolutely no intention of allowing the opposition to win power through elections. The ruling party will continue to introduce new laws and amend existing ones to block any meaningful inroads the opposition makes in elections. The introduction of the GRC system, the increase of election deposit, the restriction of the use of the Internet by opposition parties, etc are done to ensure that opposition parties remain crippled."
Day 18: Wantan mee and me - Bohemia Bunny - "The plate of wantan mee I ate for lunch, however, is merely passable. I detected a hint of chilli, whether due to contamination from chilli sauce or because it picked up capsaicin from the green chilli, I’ll never know. But KL wantan mee HAS NO CHILLI, okay. Well maybe the green ones, but definitely not chilli sauce. *fumes*"
Malaysian urban legend debunked!
A U.N. resolution seeks to criminalize opinions that differ with the Islamic faith. - "In the same weeks that this resolution comes up for its annual renewal at the United Nations, its chief sponsor-government (Pakistan) makes an agreement with the local Taliban to close girls' schools in the Swat Valley region (a mere 100 miles or so from the capital in Islamabad) and subject the inhabitants to Sharia law. This capitulation comes in direct response to a campaign of horrific violence and intimidation, including public beheadings. Yet the religion of those who carry out this campaign is not to be mentioned, lest it "associate" the faith with human rights violations or terrorism."
Post ID: 511406308635603276
Monday, March 23, 2009
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." - Harry S Truman
[Someone: It's even more amazing what you can accomplish when you do not have to care about who gets the blame.]
***
Someone: One of the reasons why the budget keeps going up - and this is something that applies to the civil service in general (and it's something I'm very sore about, because it's a friggin' waste of taxpayers' money) - is because of this mentality:
1. X Unit in Ministry of Y gets, say, $100 (for ease of explanation) to spend for the financial year.
2. Come Februrary or March, X Unit has only spent $70, and may probably only spend $80 by the end of the financial year.
3. Person in charge of finances balks at realisation, and starts spending money mercilessly, so that X Unit's expenditure becomes $90, $95, $99 - anything, as long as it's very close to $100.
4. The next year, X Unit requests for $110 or is given $110 anyway by their higher-ups, in light of their expenditure for the previous year.
Which is really stupid, because the expenditure has been artificially inflated, so this 'budgeting' shit is a farce. Alternatively,
1. X Unit in Ministry of Y gets, say, $100 (for ease of explanation) to spend for the financial year.
2. Come Februrary or March, X Unit has already spent the $100 because of irreverent and irrelevant spending.
3. X Unit requests for $120 the next year in light of expenditure from previous year.
Supposedly they get audited and stuff. But seriously... you think it works?
It really gets my goat because I have heard so many times the phrase in its various permutations of "Got money, just spend" or "Must spend if not next year they give us less money". W.r.t. to the latter phrase, if you can only spend $70 or $80 a year, then you want so much money for what? I know this is to have some kind of 'buffer' but still... there should be another way around this. Anyway, the burden merely gets transferred to everybody in the long run, because we're paying taxes for this kind of stupidity that has been engendered in the civil service after years and years of 'tradition'.
Me: So what do you expect them to do?
Frankly I can't think of a better solution. Even if you assure departments that they will not have their budgets cut if they don't spend all of it, they will still want larger budgets.
Presumably department spending is audited properly to make sure it is not anyhow spent. Other than that I can't think of anything.
Someone: Roll-over leftover budgets into 'reserves'? I.e. departments with left-over budgets from the previous FY will have the surplus rolled-over to a 'reserve' that department can tap into the next FY? Sort of to allay the fears of departments that there won't be enough money to spend and to prevent overall government expenditure from artificial inflation?
NB: I think this applies to more contexts than the Civil Service; many of the gripes people have about it could be and are voiced about big companies in general.
[Someone: It's even more amazing what you can accomplish when you do not have to care about who gets the blame.]
***
Someone: One of the reasons why the budget keeps going up - and this is something that applies to the civil service in general (and it's something I'm very sore about, because it's a friggin' waste of taxpayers' money) - is because of this mentality:
1. X Unit in Ministry of Y gets, say, $100 (for ease of explanation) to spend for the financial year.
2. Come Februrary or March, X Unit has only spent $70, and may probably only spend $80 by the end of the financial year.
3. Person in charge of finances balks at realisation, and starts spending money mercilessly, so that X Unit's expenditure becomes $90, $95, $99 - anything, as long as it's very close to $100.
4. The next year, X Unit requests for $110 or is given $110 anyway by their higher-ups, in light of their expenditure for the previous year.
Which is really stupid, because the expenditure has been artificially inflated, so this 'budgeting' shit is a farce. Alternatively,
1. X Unit in Ministry of Y gets, say, $100 (for ease of explanation) to spend for the financial year.
2. Come Februrary or March, X Unit has already spent the $100 because of irreverent and irrelevant spending.
3. X Unit requests for $120 the next year in light of expenditure from previous year.
Supposedly they get audited and stuff. But seriously... you think it works?
It really gets my goat because I have heard so many times the phrase in its various permutations of "Got money, just spend" or "Must spend if not next year they give us less money". W.r.t. to the latter phrase, if you can only spend $70 or $80 a year, then you want so much money for what? I know this is to have some kind of 'buffer' but still... there should be another way around this. Anyway, the burden merely gets transferred to everybody in the long run, because we're paying taxes for this kind of stupidity that has been engendered in the civil service after years and years of 'tradition'.
Me: So what do you expect them to do?
Frankly I can't think of a better solution. Even if you assure departments that they will not have their budgets cut if they don't spend all of it, they will still want larger budgets.
Presumably department spending is audited properly to make sure it is not anyhow spent. Other than that I can't think of anything.
Someone: Roll-over leftover budgets into 'reserves'? I.e. departments with left-over budgets from the previous FY will have the surplus rolled-over to a 'reserve' that department can tap into the next FY? Sort of to allay the fears of departments that there won't be enough money to spend and to prevent overall government expenditure from artificial inflation?
NB: I think this applies to more contexts than the Civil Service; many of the gripes people have about it could be and are voiced about big companies in general.
Post ID: 361747305342158589
Sunday, March 22, 2009
"Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic." - Ambrose Bierce
***
And now for something totally different.. - "So I looked at the competition on W4M and thought, "What the hell, let's give 'em something different..."
Me:
Neurotic
Socially inept
No career or career goals to speak of
Slightly below average intelligence
No interest at all in art, sports, or anything that would make me remotely interesting
Absolutely no sense of humour
Great cleavage
Low standards
You:
Emotionally unstable
Problems with commitment
Devious
Extensive record of infidelity
Arrogant
Extremely skilled in emotional manipulation
Morally bankrupt"
HWMNBN: the girl's description actually sounds a lot like you
i hope yo uarne't moon lighting
"An Insult to Every Black Man in America" - "Slave owners beat their slaves, says attorney Randall Vogt. Therefore, it's "justified" for black men to beat their sons. Vogt is defending Isaac Cortez Bynum, who beat his 2-year-old son to death, and says he'll use a "post traumatic slave syndrome" defense "in a general way" in Bynum's Beaverton, Ore., murder trial. "If you are African American and you are living in America, you have been impacted," says Joy DeGruy-Leary, assistant professor at Portland State University's Graduate School of Social Work, who originated the slave syndrome theory. The boy's autopsy showed he had been abused over a lengthy period and had suffered brain injury, a broken neck, broken ribs, and scores of whip marks all over his body. When shown the boy's autopsy photos, DeGruy-Leary said the injury pattern "falls in the rubric" of "normal" for descendants of slaves."
Scots BA pilot sues after colleagues tell him: 'Scotland's a welfare state paid for by the English middle classes' - "A Scottish pilot is suing British Airways over claims he was racially abused by his English middle-class colleagues. Captain Douglas Maughan alleges he was sent offensive letters and called a 'Jock' who should go back to Scotland."
Is Accessibility Killing PC Gaming? - "PC games tend to be more about choice and cluster in a good number of complex mechanics. Console games meanwhile aren’t actually dumber as many PC gamers allege, but they do tend to offer more linear and action-based gameplay... The renewed focus on creating deep but accessible game experiences is to my mind the real reason that games are changing and that PC games are often being said to be getting consolified – but there’s a real difference between a poor console port and a game which has been designed to make the best of both worlds... PC games aren’t dying and I hope they never do, though I did admittedly say the same thing back when the word went around that the adventure game genre was being put in its coffin."
What The Hell Is Wrong With Japanese Games? - "Scanning over the usual top RPGs of the western world indicates to me that developers and audiences favour a game where at least some form of cinematic realism is forever in the foreground. Western audiences can accept magic-wielding Dungeoneers it seems, but lose faith when NPCs carry swords bigger than a schoolbus. That 'I-swear-I'm-not-compensating-for-anything-honest' look may work for Sephiroth, but not for Minsc. The opposite seems to be more or less true with Japanese games, where it's fine to have players fighting epic sword battles while crashing motorbikes into each other – that's far above just cinematic realism and well into pure cinema"
True Barbecue - The Great American Cooking Tradition - "Moving forward to nail down what true barbecue is, it's time to look at the regional variations. In Texas we have beef, particularly brisket. In the Carolinas we find pork, either whole hogs or pork shoulder. As you start moving towards Kansas City you find ribs, generally pork ribs but beef isn't unheard of. Out in western Kentucky you find Mutton. The thing all these traditions have in common is low cooking temperatures over a long time with the introduction of smoke to flavor and tenderize. They all start out with tough and unruly cuts of meat and end up with tender, pull apart delicacies."
Octopus survives 5 days on the run - "Five days later, he was spotted by a staff member making a dash for the door... Another octopus named Harry - after Harry Houdini - escaped from the same tank. He was found halfway up a staircase."
Woman batters man with bagel; Mom turns kid's Xbox off, gets taco thrown in face
Why is throwing food at people a criminal offence?!
***
And now for something totally different.. - "So I looked at the competition on W4M and thought, "What the hell, let's give 'em something different..."
Me:
Neurotic
Socially inept
No career or career goals to speak of
Slightly below average intelligence
No interest at all in art, sports, or anything that would make me remotely interesting
Absolutely no sense of humour
Great cleavage
Low standards
You:
Emotionally unstable
Problems with commitment
Devious
Extensive record of infidelity
Arrogant
Extremely skilled in emotional manipulation
Morally bankrupt"
HWMNBN: the girl's description actually sounds a lot like you
i hope yo uarne't moon lighting
"An Insult to Every Black Man in America" - "Slave owners beat their slaves, says attorney Randall Vogt. Therefore, it's "justified" for black men to beat their sons. Vogt is defending Isaac Cortez Bynum, who beat his 2-year-old son to death, and says he'll use a "post traumatic slave syndrome" defense "in a general way" in Bynum's Beaverton, Ore., murder trial. "If you are African American and you are living in America, you have been impacted," says Joy DeGruy-Leary, assistant professor at Portland State University's Graduate School of Social Work, who originated the slave syndrome theory. The boy's autopsy showed he had been abused over a lengthy period and had suffered brain injury, a broken neck, broken ribs, and scores of whip marks all over his body. When shown the boy's autopsy photos, DeGruy-Leary said the injury pattern "falls in the rubric" of "normal" for descendants of slaves."
Scots BA pilot sues after colleagues tell him: 'Scotland's a welfare state paid for by the English middle classes' - "A Scottish pilot is suing British Airways over claims he was racially abused by his English middle-class colleagues. Captain Douglas Maughan alleges he was sent offensive letters and called a 'Jock' who should go back to Scotland."
Is Accessibility Killing PC Gaming? - "PC games tend to be more about choice and cluster in a good number of complex mechanics. Console games meanwhile aren’t actually dumber as many PC gamers allege, but they do tend to offer more linear and action-based gameplay... The renewed focus on creating deep but accessible game experiences is to my mind the real reason that games are changing and that PC games are often being said to be getting consolified – but there’s a real difference between a poor console port and a game which has been designed to make the best of both worlds... PC games aren’t dying and I hope they never do, though I did admittedly say the same thing back when the word went around that the adventure game genre was being put in its coffin."
What The Hell Is Wrong With Japanese Games? - "Scanning over the usual top RPGs of the western world indicates to me that developers and audiences favour a game where at least some form of cinematic realism is forever in the foreground. Western audiences can accept magic-wielding Dungeoneers it seems, but lose faith when NPCs carry swords bigger than a schoolbus. That 'I-swear-I'm-not-compensating-for-anything-honest' look may work for Sephiroth, but not for Minsc. The opposite seems to be more or less true with Japanese games, where it's fine to have players fighting epic sword battles while crashing motorbikes into each other – that's far above just cinematic realism and well into pure cinema"
True Barbecue - The Great American Cooking Tradition - "Moving forward to nail down what true barbecue is, it's time to look at the regional variations. In Texas we have beef, particularly brisket. In the Carolinas we find pork, either whole hogs or pork shoulder. As you start moving towards Kansas City you find ribs, generally pork ribs but beef isn't unheard of. Out in western Kentucky you find Mutton. The thing all these traditions have in common is low cooking temperatures over a long time with the introduction of smoke to flavor and tenderize. They all start out with tough and unruly cuts of meat and end up with tender, pull apart delicacies."
Octopus survives 5 days on the run - "Five days later, he was spotted by a staff member making a dash for the door... Another octopus named Harry - after Harry Houdini - escaped from the same tank. He was found halfway up a staircase."
Woman batters man with bagel; Mom turns kid's Xbox off, gets taco thrown in face
Why is throwing food at people a criminal offence?!
Post ID: 9210436707688205604
"Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life." - Robert Byrne
***
HWMNBN: As I have often said, libertarians expect too much of humans, communism expects too little.
Someone: *** was sharing with me how he cut his cock during his army days to get 2 weeks of mc
Me: OMG
I'm not the only one with that idea
I didn't know anyone would do that
Someone else: 2 days ago i mislabeled my folder as 2008 instead of 2009 and had a major freak out after i could not find it
and only realized 1 hr later it was 2008
i wrote 03-10-08 instead of 03-10-09
Me: do it 2009-03-10 lah
easier to find some more
tsk
Someone else: then i'll have like 20 folders starting with 2009
Me: then your eye will move on to the next bit
and see the month
Someone else: heh heh
hiyah my life is not THAT complicated lah
i may date a girl
but she doesn't train me up for such things
Me: if complication in your life is measured by file structure, you have it good
Someone else: bwahahhaha
but i'm a grad student. our lives are dictated by file structures.
your self-worth is only as much as the number of data backups you have
UD #6 on my moobs: -_-
okayyy
hahahas, but man
it looks huge
do you drink soya?
Me: hee hee
I've heard various theories about getting big boobs
bigger than yours isit
the theories range from milk to chicken breast (when young)
[Ed: Later I added that it cannot be Soya, since in Japan they consume soya products everyday]
Someone on sexual harassment: hahaha not that i think that SH is not a problem, but seriously, i think some girls are just too oversensitive
rubbing against you or exposing yourself or making lewd jokes openly is wrong, yes
but checking a girl out, especially if she's wearing a tight t-shirt with sexual innuendo isn't
i was gonna comment something about how some girls like to wear t-shirts with interesting slogans
then when all you're trying to do is read what the slogan is, they think you're staring at their breasts
and is that sexual harassment?
plus i think they're not being all that sincere when they say they are not trying to instigate a crackdown
i think what they want is to drum up publicity so they can have a witchhunt
plus all these girls think they have been harassed before, so that will inadvertently colour their perception of men on public transport from then on
that liane girl herself said it "we really have personal stakes in the issue"
Someone else: The army experience has left such a bitter taste in my mouth that I find the idea of staying in the land of my birth unappealing
Now this may not be the humble thing to say
But by most any objective measure I think you and I are highly educated people who should be welcome in any country
And the fact that there the army turns us against the land of our birth should say something about the tremendous cost to it
It's not as though we're an isolated case either
Me: I think the sad thing is that most people aren't rational
so they go "I've already served my 2 years. I might as well stay here"
that's like a rape victim going: "I've already lost my virtue. I might as well marry my rapist"
***
HWMNBN: As I have often said, libertarians expect too much of humans, communism expects too little.
Someone: *** was sharing with me how he cut his cock during his army days to get 2 weeks of mc
Me: OMG
I'm not the only one with that idea
I didn't know anyone would do that
Someone else: 2 days ago i mislabeled my folder as 2008 instead of 2009 and had a major freak out after i could not find it
and only realized 1 hr later it was 2008
i wrote 03-10-08 instead of 03-10-09
Me: do it 2009-03-10 lah
easier to find some more
tsk
Someone else: then i'll have like 20 folders starting with 2009
Me: then your eye will move on to the next bit
and see the month
Someone else: heh heh
hiyah my life is not THAT complicated lah
i may date a girl
but she doesn't train me up for such things
Me: if complication in your life is measured by file structure, you have it good
Someone else: bwahahhaha
but i'm a grad student. our lives are dictated by file structures.
your self-worth is only as much as the number of data backups you have
UD #6 on my moobs: -_-
okayyy
hahahas, but man
it looks huge
do you drink soya?
Me: hee hee
I've heard various theories about getting big boobs
bigger than yours isit
the theories range from milk to chicken breast (when young)
[Ed: Later I added that it cannot be Soya, since in Japan they consume soya products everyday]
Someone on sexual harassment: hahaha not that i think that SH is not a problem, but seriously, i think some girls are just too oversensitive
rubbing against you or exposing yourself or making lewd jokes openly is wrong, yes
but checking a girl out, especially if she's wearing a tight t-shirt with sexual innuendo isn't
i was gonna comment something about how some girls like to wear t-shirts with interesting slogans
then when all you're trying to do is read what the slogan is, they think you're staring at their breasts
and is that sexual harassment?
plus i think they're not being all that sincere when they say they are not trying to instigate a crackdown
i think what they want is to drum up publicity so they can have a witchhunt
plus all these girls think they have been harassed before, so that will inadvertently colour their perception of men on public transport from then on
that liane girl herself said it "we really have personal stakes in the issue"
Someone else: The army experience has left such a bitter taste in my mouth that I find the idea of staying in the land of my birth unappealing
Now this may not be the humble thing to say
But by most any objective measure I think you and I are highly educated people who should be welcome in any country
And the fact that there the army turns us against the land of our birth should say something about the tremendous cost to it
It's not as though we're an isolated case either
Me: I think the sad thing is that most people aren't rational
so they go "I've already served my 2 years. I might as well stay here"
that's like a rape victim going: "I've already lost my virtue. I might as well marry my rapist"
Post ID: 5287396109726225383
Saturday, March 21, 2009
"A motion to adjourn is always in order." - Robert Heinlein
***
A strange link I got in my [junk] mail:
Reuters-Singapore: Terror attack in Singapore:
"Powerful explosion burst in Singapore this morning.
At least 12 people have been killed and more than 40 wounded in a bomb blast near market in Singapore. Authorities suggested that explosion was caused by "dirty" bomb. Police said the bomb was detonated from close by using electric cables. "It was awful" said the eyewitness about blast that he heard from his shop. "It made the floor shake. So many people were running"
Until now there has been no claim of responsibility."
Given I hadn't heard about this through CNA's Twitter feed, I was very puzzled.
A cursory glance revealed that the "embedded video" was a link to a suspiciously-titled "save.exe" (doubtless, a malicious program of some sort), but I didn't want to bother installing a virtual OS to investigate.
The methods used to spread malign payloads are getting stranger and stranger.
***
A strange link I got in my [junk] mail:
Reuters-Singapore: Terror attack in Singapore:
"Powerful explosion burst in Singapore this morning.
At least 12 people have been killed and more than 40 wounded in a bomb blast near market in Singapore. Authorities suggested that explosion was caused by "dirty" bomb. Police said the bomb was detonated from close by using electric cables. "It was awful" said the eyewitness about blast that he heard from his shop. "It made the floor shake. So many people were running"
Until now there has been no claim of responsibility."
Given I hadn't heard about this through CNA's Twitter feed, I was very puzzled.
A cursory glance revealed that the "embedded video" was a link to a suspiciously-titled "save.exe" (doubtless, a malicious program of some sort), but I didn't want to bother installing a virtual OS to investigate.
The methods used to spread malign payloads are getting stranger and stranger.
Post ID: 8650843913500452672
"A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know." - H. L. Mencken
***
www.badpaintingsofbarackobama.com
Arts and Letters: Freeing the Elephants - "By now, of course, a controversial literature is possible about anything, and yet to discover that there is a controversial literature about Babar is a little shocking—faut-il brûler Babar? (“Must we burn Babar?”), as one inquisitor puts it, in a famous French locution... Yet those who would burn “Babar” miss the true subject of the books. The de Brunhoffs’ saga is not an unconscious expression of the French colonial imagination; it is a self-conscious comedy about the French colonial imagination and its close relation to the French domestic imagination... One can forget, reading the critics, that the books are, first and last, meant to be funny, and that Babar is an elephant who talks and walks: the story is happening to creatures that children know do not ride elevators, wear suits, or build buildings. Part of the joke is in the way the obvious animalness of the protagonist makes evident the absurdity of the human behavior depicted... the rhinos and the elephants have been at war, but the point isn’t that the rhinos are evil. It is that war between nations is as absurd in reality as war between animals looks on the page. Becoming French, the elephants reveal the absurd and contrived elements of the French national character."
I like what Laurent De Brunhoff says about the "white men are evil" crowd: "se moque de ces détracteurs politiquement corrects qui semblent confondre l’art et la réalité... Les universitaires qui se torturent les méninges à propos des significations de Babar feraient bien de ne pas oublier une chose. quoiqu’ils disent et quoiqu’ils écrivent, les livres de Jean et Laurent De Brunhoff continueront de procurer du plaisir à des millions de gens"
Oils 'make male breasts develop' - "Using lavender and tea tree oil products can cause young boys to develop breast tissue, a study finds."
Cunning Linguist - "In a country that laments the dearth of people willing to speak up, surely the defensive stance is a sign of insecurity? Does the logic for every public policy need to be rammed down people’s throat at every opportunity? What happened to the university as a space for open questioning?... The truth is, the PAP government has never seen universities as sites of enquiry for enquiry’s sake or knowledge for knowledge’s sake... the government sees universities as a place to produce people with the right skills for the market. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. Problem is people designed for the market will always be owned by the market. Meanwhile the spirit of enquiry at local universities is as flaccid as an 80 year old man on a Viagra cold turkey. Again, absolutely nothing wrong. Except that we’re always being scolded by the government for not being creative or innovative. Problem is the minute we say something contrary to PAP mantra, we’re called ‘stupid’. Like I said, we’re destined to be a very mediocre people."
African immigrants pose nude for calendar in Spain - "Lopez said he tried to take elegant pictures to reflect the dignity of migrants. “Without clothes, we are all equal,” said 32-year Mady Fofana from Mali, one of the models."
Steroid doping tests ignore vital ethnic differences in hormone activity - "Current steroid (testosterone) doping tests should be scrapped for international sport, because they ignore vital ethnic differences in hormone activity, suggests research published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine."
Race is a social construct.
SMU students walk barefoot to highlight plight of third world country children - "Students had the chance to experience the lives of children from third world countries, who are often exposed to broken glass and infected syringes."
Do these journalists even read what they write?!
Singapore Ousts Editor of Asia Sentinel Again - "If you think the place is loosening up, think again... On the same day [I was deported], the Burmese Gen. Thein Sein also arrived and was greeted warmly and got an orchid named for him. Perhaps there was a mix-up... [The PAP government has] lost just one case — in 1984, when Senior District Judge Michael Khoo made the mistake of ruling that Lee Kuan Yew’s mortal enemy, the late opposition politician Joshua B. Jeyaretnam, was innocent of making a false declaration about the accounts of his Worker’s Party. Judge Khoo was promptly transferred out of his position as a senior judge and transferred to the attorney general’s chambers. No judge in the intervening 24 years has ever made the mistake of ruling against the Lee family, especially in cases involving the press. The government or members of the Lee family have filed defamation or contempt charges against virtually every major publication in Asia... The attorney general filed suit against Melanie Kirkpatrick, a senior editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal itself, 15,339 kilometers away, in kind of the legal equivalent of Kim Jong Il deciding to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile because the powers that be weren’t paying enough attention to him. In a way, it’s reassuring that the government could reach across 21 years to pick my name out of the mists of history. It probably means they are vigilant enough to continue to pursue Mas Selamat Kastari... He won’t get away, if the police force can take the time away from pursuing the press and the opposition to look him up."
Time for another lawsuit
Lesbian attacks wife with sperm - " According to a number of website reports on Wednesday, Stephanie Lighten, 26, allegedly threw her wife Jennifer Lighten, 33, on a couch in the couple's home. She then threatened to impregnate her with "a turkey baster" filled with semen from Stephanie's brother kept in a sealed container, reported letzgetreal.com."
***
www.badpaintingsofbarackobama.com
Arts and Letters: Freeing the Elephants - "By now, of course, a controversial literature is possible about anything, and yet to discover that there is a controversial literature about Babar is a little shocking—faut-il brûler Babar? (“Must we burn Babar?”), as one inquisitor puts it, in a famous French locution... Yet those who would burn “Babar” miss the true subject of the books. The de Brunhoffs’ saga is not an unconscious expression of the French colonial imagination; it is a self-conscious comedy about the French colonial imagination and its close relation to the French domestic imagination... One can forget, reading the critics, that the books are, first and last, meant to be funny, and that Babar is an elephant who talks and walks: the story is happening to creatures that children know do not ride elevators, wear suits, or build buildings. Part of the joke is in the way the obvious animalness of the protagonist makes evident the absurdity of the human behavior depicted... the rhinos and the elephants have been at war, but the point isn’t that the rhinos are evil. It is that war between nations is as absurd in reality as war between animals looks on the page. Becoming French, the elephants reveal the absurd and contrived elements of the French national character."
I like what Laurent De Brunhoff says about the "white men are evil" crowd: "se moque de ces détracteurs politiquement corrects qui semblent confondre l’art et la réalité... Les universitaires qui se torturent les méninges à propos des significations de Babar feraient bien de ne pas oublier une chose. quoiqu’ils disent et quoiqu’ils écrivent, les livres de Jean et Laurent De Brunhoff continueront de procurer du plaisir à des millions de gens"
Oils 'make male breasts develop' - "Using lavender and tea tree oil products can cause young boys to develop breast tissue, a study finds."
Cunning Linguist - "In a country that laments the dearth of people willing to speak up, surely the defensive stance is a sign of insecurity? Does the logic for every public policy need to be rammed down people’s throat at every opportunity? What happened to the university as a space for open questioning?... The truth is, the PAP government has never seen universities as sites of enquiry for enquiry’s sake or knowledge for knowledge’s sake... the government sees universities as a place to produce people with the right skills for the market. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. Problem is people designed for the market will always be owned by the market. Meanwhile the spirit of enquiry at local universities is as flaccid as an 80 year old man on a Viagra cold turkey. Again, absolutely nothing wrong. Except that we’re always being scolded by the government for not being creative or innovative. Problem is the minute we say something contrary to PAP mantra, we’re called ‘stupid’. Like I said, we’re destined to be a very mediocre people."
African immigrants pose nude for calendar in Spain - "Lopez said he tried to take elegant pictures to reflect the dignity of migrants. “Without clothes, we are all equal,” said 32-year Mady Fofana from Mali, one of the models."
Steroid doping tests ignore vital ethnic differences in hormone activity - "Current steroid (testosterone) doping tests should be scrapped for international sport, because they ignore vital ethnic differences in hormone activity, suggests research published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine."
Race is a social construct.
SMU students walk barefoot to highlight plight of third world country children - "Students had the chance to experience the lives of children from third world countries, who are often exposed to broken glass and infected syringes."
Do these journalists even read what they write?!
Singapore Ousts Editor of Asia Sentinel Again - "If you think the place is loosening up, think again... On the same day [I was deported], the Burmese Gen. Thein Sein also arrived and was greeted warmly and got an orchid named for him. Perhaps there was a mix-up... [The PAP government has] lost just one case — in 1984, when Senior District Judge Michael Khoo made the mistake of ruling that Lee Kuan Yew’s mortal enemy, the late opposition politician Joshua B. Jeyaretnam, was innocent of making a false declaration about the accounts of his Worker’s Party. Judge Khoo was promptly transferred out of his position as a senior judge and transferred to the attorney general’s chambers. No judge in the intervening 24 years has ever made the mistake of ruling against the Lee family, especially in cases involving the press. The government or members of the Lee family have filed defamation or contempt charges against virtually every major publication in Asia... The attorney general filed suit against Melanie Kirkpatrick, a senior editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal itself, 15,339 kilometers away, in kind of the legal equivalent of Kim Jong Il deciding to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile because the powers that be weren’t paying enough attention to him. In a way, it’s reassuring that the government could reach across 21 years to pick my name out of the mists of history. It probably means they are vigilant enough to continue to pursue Mas Selamat Kastari... He won’t get away, if the police force can take the time away from pursuing the press and the opposition to look him up."
Time for another lawsuit
Lesbian attacks wife with sperm - " According to a number of website reports on Wednesday, Stephanie Lighten, 26, allegedly threw her wife Jennifer Lighten, 33, on a couch in the couple's home. She then threatened to impregnate her with "a turkey baster" filled with semen from Stephanie's brother kept in a sealed container, reported letzgetreal.com."
Post ID: 2344014397311347722
Monday, March 16, 2009
"The Ranger Prototype Series Covert Infantry Biosuits"
"Right. Because nothing says covert like bright red, yellow and blue spandex"
"That is NOT SPANDEX!"
"Doc K can get a little defensive about his work"
"The material is a self-assembling nanofiber formed with an intercellular sheet memory alloy
OH: "Wow. We're *not* in Angel Grove anymore"
Post ID: 4884081373927681068
Sunday, March 15, 2009
(This post is here because Twitter limits me to 140 characters)
On Audrey Hepburn's singing of Moon River:
How is her singing lacking? Let me count the ways.
Her voice is breathy, and there is a lack of breath control
She cannot sustain notes and her vibrations are off
Her singing veers into speaking
And this was before the Rex Harrison days
Sometimes she even loses control of her pitch
Of course, this comes across as sexy to some, but even there it's not quite right, since breathy sexiness doesn't quite square with her petite frame and cutesy demeanor
On Audrey Hepburn's singing of Moon River:
How is her singing lacking? Let me count the ways.
Her voice is breathy, and there is a lack of breath control
She cannot sustain notes and her vibrations are off
Her singing veers into speaking
And this was before the Rex Harrison days
Sometimes she even loses control of her pitch
Of course, this comes across as sexy to some, but even there it's not quite right, since breathy sexiness doesn't quite square with her petite frame and cutesy demeanor
Post ID: 3781270273630905576
"The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting." - Henry James
***
This is worrying if true (i.e. if this is not another Robert Ho conspiracy theory):
[OFFICIAL]PoThePanda Statement On CID/ISD Lim Kopi Session 02/03/09 | PoThePanda's Xanga Site - Weblog
"On the 02/03/2009,I was picked up from my house at about 11am by 4 persons who identified themselves as CID.They claimed they were investigating a post on Molotov Cocktails that I had posted on the forum Stomp.With regards to this particular allegation,I wish to state that I had posted an article on Molotov Cocktails on Stomp sometime late last year.The article was copied and pasted from Wikipedia,and was posted up for information value due to its appearance in the popular game Left 4 Dead.2-3 weeks AFTER I posted the article,the MP Seng Han Thong got burnt.Apparently,someone made a police report that I had instigated the old man to burn the MP,via posting that article...
The next method they used was pure aggression,subjecting me to a barrage of personal insults / defamatory statements in an attempt to wear me down mentally.And then they would suddenly make an incriminating statement,trying to catch me off-guard so I would inadvertently “confess” to having “conspired against the state of Singapore” and / or “participated in terrorism activities.”
In what I feel was an attempt to wear me down mentally,they made a host of personal,defamatory attacks to me.Barbed comments like “You stay in a 3 room flat?It’s like a pig’s sty.” “You remind me of a donkey,of a mule.You are just an animal that needs to be shown who its master is.” “Some people say you can lead a donkey to water,but you can’t make it drink.Today I am here to force you to drink.” “You write rubbish,everything you say online is rubbish.”...
”Mr Tan,if you walk out of here tomorrow,you might get killed.You might meet with a mysterious accident,you might disappear and nobody will know what happened to you!”"
Even if the account of what happened during the interrogation is exaggerated, it still boggles the mind that not only could posting an article on Molotov Cocktails be taken as instigating someone to burn an MP (and move someone to make a police report), but that the police would take it seriously and interrogate the person.
In tandem with some other incidents I know of, it leads me to suspect that the justice system is being abused by people in order to settle personal scores.
Even if this guy only gets a "stern warning" in the end, or even if charges are not pressed, not only is a private citizen being unnecessarily inconvenienced, it's an immense waste of the police's time and other resources. Consider that 60% of police calls are nuisance calls and you get some idea of the scale of the problem.
While on some level it is good that the police respond to complaints from the public, given that Second Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam has urged the public not to treat the Police as "as a free resource which can deal with any complaint just because it is convenient to call them at any time round the clock" and noted that there is a shortage of police staff, it is amazing that random internet postings about Molotov Cocktails and an NMP conducting surveys in public warrant attention from them.
[Addendum: Or, indeed, naked people walking around in Holland Village.]
After all, if I called the police and complained that 5 children were making noise in the playground (both disturbing the peace and transgressing illegal assembly laws), they would (quite rightly) tell me to go and die.
Meanwhile, we hear of cases where the police do nothing when there're fights outside clubs and people get their noses broken. Misaligned priorities, anyone?
More evidence that our police should exercise more discretion before investigating ordinary citizens:
Someone: something funny happened to me
my friend and i were at the petrol kiosk, waiting for the car cleaning
so we were just standing around
the petrol kiosk also had a workshop
and at a corner of the workshop, i saw a sign that said "emergency eye wash"
but the emergency eye wash was blocked by a lot of tires
stacked up
so i took ap ic of it with my handphone
then... the workshop boss or something came up to me and asked what i was doing, and where i was from (it was pretty clear that he was worried i would report him. i think he thought i was from the safety regulartory body)
he said "why you take photo?"
so i said "Why cannot take photo?"
then he said, "you anyhow take photo at my place, i call police then you know"
so i said "call la. i call for you, want?"
i hate idiots who think they can scare ppl by invoking the law or the police when they have absolutely no grounds
he was like "you come my place take photo still still so yaya, i go your house take photo you like?"
Me: hahahahaha
singaporeans are like that
this guy took pics at shen xiong
health and safety violations
then the staff intimidated him and forced him to delete
Someone: i will refuse [if people try to get me to delete photos]
fuck them
really how to force
call
come i call for you
and they can't stop him from leaving either
singapore has no privacy laws
yes, it may be rude to take photos
but it's not illegal
Me: anyway not worth getting beaten up
Someone: actually it may be worth getting beaten up
the compensation
:P
anyway..
no this is the best part
so he was like "which one is your car?"
then he paused and went "nvm, later you leave i can see"
so my friend said
"no no nede to see. i tell you which one is my car. the blue one over there. number plate blah blah"
we were in a rush
or else we'd have waited there for the police with him
that idiot has aboslutely no case
anyway
so we went off
and guess what
at 11pm
they went to ***'s house
(Cos it's his car we were using)
the CID
went to his house
and they went
"i know you were at the petrol kiosk this afternoon at 1pm. were you there to top up petrol or were you there for some other purpose"
this is just damn dunny
"it's a natinoal security issue because we were taking photos of a petrol kiosk"
we may be planning to bomb it
***
This is worrying if true (i.e. if this is not another Robert Ho conspiracy theory):
[OFFICIAL]PoThePanda Statement On CID/ISD Lim Kopi Session 02/03/09 | PoThePanda's Xanga Site - Weblog
"On the 02/03/2009,I was picked up from my house at about 11am by 4 persons who identified themselves as CID.They claimed they were investigating a post on Molotov Cocktails that I had posted on the forum Stomp.With regards to this particular allegation,I wish to state that I had posted an article on Molotov Cocktails on Stomp sometime late last year.The article was copied and pasted from Wikipedia,and was posted up for information value due to its appearance in the popular game Left 4 Dead.2-3 weeks AFTER I posted the article,the MP Seng Han Thong got burnt.Apparently,someone made a police report that I had instigated the old man to burn the MP,via posting that article...
The next method they used was pure aggression,subjecting me to a barrage of personal insults / defamatory statements in an attempt to wear me down mentally.And then they would suddenly make an incriminating statement,trying to catch me off-guard so I would inadvertently “confess” to having “conspired against the state of Singapore” and / or “participated in terrorism activities.”
In what I feel was an attempt to wear me down mentally,they made a host of personal,defamatory attacks to me.Barbed comments like “You stay in a 3 room flat?It’s like a pig’s sty.” “You remind me of a donkey,of a mule.You are just an animal that needs to be shown who its master is.” “Some people say you can lead a donkey to water,but you can’t make it drink.Today I am here to force you to drink.” “You write rubbish,everything you say online is rubbish.”...
”Mr Tan,if you walk out of here tomorrow,you might get killed.You might meet with a mysterious accident,you might disappear and nobody will know what happened to you!”"
Even if the account of what happened during the interrogation is exaggerated, it still boggles the mind that not only could posting an article on Molotov Cocktails be taken as instigating someone to burn an MP (and move someone to make a police report), but that the police would take it seriously and interrogate the person.
In tandem with some other incidents I know of, it leads me to suspect that the justice system is being abused by people in order to settle personal scores.
Even if this guy only gets a "stern warning" in the end, or even if charges are not pressed, not only is a private citizen being unnecessarily inconvenienced, it's an immense waste of the police's time and other resources. Consider that 60% of police calls are nuisance calls and you get some idea of the scale of the problem.
While on some level it is good that the police respond to complaints from the public, given that Second Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam has urged the public not to treat the Police as "as a free resource which can deal with any complaint just because it is convenient to call them at any time round the clock" and noted that there is a shortage of police staff, it is amazing that random internet postings about Molotov Cocktails and an NMP conducting surveys in public warrant attention from them.
[Addendum: Or, indeed, naked people walking around in Holland Village.]
After all, if I called the police and complained that 5 children were making noise in the playground (both disturbing the peace and transgressing illegal assembly laws), they would (quite rightly) tell me to go and die.
Meanwhile, we hear of cases where the police do nothing when there're fights outside clubs and people get their noses broken. Misaligned priorities, anyone?
More evidence that our police should exercise more discretion before investigating ordinary citizens:
Someone: something funny happened to me
my friend and i were at the petrol kiosk, waiting for the car cleaning
so we were just standing around
the petrol kiosk also had a workshop
and at a corner of the workshop, i saw a sign that said "emergency eye wash"
but the emergency eye wash was blocked by a lot of tires
stacked up
so i took ap ic of it with my handphone
then... the workshop boss or something came up to me and asked what i was doing, and where i was from (it was pretty clear that he was worried i would report him. i think he thought i was from the safety regulartory body)
he said "why you take photo?"
so i said "Why cannot take photo?"
then he said, "you anyhow take photo at my place, i call police then you know"
so i said "call la. i call for you, want?"
i hate idiots who think they can scare ppl by invoking the law or the police when they have absolutely no grounds
he was like "you come my place take photo still still so yaya, i go your house take photo you like?"
Me: hahahahaha
singaporeans are like that
this guy took pics at shen xiong
health and safety violations
then the staff intimidated him and forced him to delete
Someone: i will refuse [if people try to get me to delete photos]
fuck them
really how to force
call
come i call for you
and they can't stop him from leaving either
singapore has no privacy laws
yes, it may be rude to take photos
but it's not illegal
Me: anyway not worth getting beaten up
Someone: actually it may be worth getting beaten up
the compensation
:P
anyway..
no this is the best part
so he was like "which one is your car?"
then he paused and went "nvm, later you leave i can see"
so my friend said
"no no nede to see. i tell you which one is my car. the blue one over there. number plate blah blah"
we were in a rush
or else we'd have waited there for the police with him
that idiot has aboslutely no case
anyway
so we went off
and guess what
at 11pm
they went to ***'s house
(Cos it's his car we were using)
the CID
went to his house
and they went
"i know you were at the petrol kiosk this afternoon at 1pm. were you there to top up petrol or were you there for some other purpose"
this is just damn dunny
"it's a natinoal security issue because we were taking photos of a petrol kiosk"
we may be planning to bomb it
Post ID: 5403560259541942778
"Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule." - Stephen King
***
Someone asked me what I thought of the auction of the Chinese fountainheads.
In short, I think the furore is ridiculous.
Historical and cultural properties do not belong to any one country, but broadly to humanity in general.
On a micro scale we should respect the property rights of the parties currently possessing the items (even if we are against looting today, though I think freshly dug-up items don't necessarily belong to the country on whose soil they were found - more below), but more broadly governments have no right to lay claim to artefacts.
So China claims that the fountain heads were stolen from China and should be returned, but this is very problematic.
They were stolen from a Qing Chinese palace, but their designer was actually an Italian Jesuit (Giuseppe Castiglione, aka Lang Shining). Here is a picture of the fountain in Yuanmingyuan the sculptures came from:
It would surely be a stretch to claim this is a fountain of Chinese design (in more than one sense of the word).
Is it a Chinese fountain? An Italian fountain? A Chinese-Italian fountain?
If a cure for AIDS was discovered by a PRC scientist working in a lab in a top American University working with other PRC scientists and under a PRC boss, is it an American discovery - or a Chinese discovery?
There are no easy answers here.
On another level the fountain heads were the property of a Manchurian dynasty which did not see itself as properly-Chinese (remember that Queues were imposed - on pain of decapitation - on the Han Chinese, and they were happilly lopped off in 1911). If the fountain heads dated from the early Qing period this is even more so (the Summer Palace was started in 1749, during the reign of Qianlong, and Castiglione died in 1766, so indeed it is).
Then, most Chinese people at the time hated the Manchurians and rejected them as not Chinese (see lopping off of queues; this likely exists to a lesser degree, Communist rhetoric about minorities aside), so the Chinese people of the period itself would not have accepted the fountain heads as belonging to "them" per se (though they might have viewed them as fine works of Chinese artisanry - illegitimately possessed by the scheming Manchus).
So what we have now is a retrospective grab of universal heritage.
In fact, it is more convincing to argue that the Chinese government has no right to "Chinese" heritage because it has shown itself to be manifestly unworthy guardians of it.
The Cultural Revolution, a prime candidate for the greatest orgy of cultural destruction the world has ever seen, was promulgated by the very same Chinese Communist Party that still rules China.
They thus have no right to grandstand about the looting of cultural heritage.
If you loot cultural heritage, at least you preserve it (compare the caryatid in the British Museum with her sisters in Athens - the extensive damage to the latter is both shocking and sad), whereas if you destroy it, it is gone forever.
As an analogue, the Taliban might've blown up the Bamiyan Buddhas, but the current Afghan government is different so their trotting out of the cultural sovereignty argument would have somewhat more respectability.
This is putting aside the fact that this same Communist government is still destroying its country's heritage. How many real hutongs are left? They're also trying to drown out Tibetan culture by shipping in Han migrants.
As an (admittedly imperfect) analogy, it is like trying to murder your infant child, having it taken away by a child protection agency, and then 10 years later demanding that your child be returned to you, claiming that it was illegally kidnapped (while still abusing your kids - even if you don't try to murder them anymore)
While the claim is that heritage is being reclaimed on behalf of the Chinese people, in reality it's a political ploy by a government to lay claim to artefacts, which will be put under its administration for its own benefit.
Those who are so-inclined are free to locate how many Tibetan artefacts are in Chinese museums located outside Tibet (and to look at historical maps of Chinese territory to forestall the inevitable rejoinder justifying modern Chinese imperialism).
Generalising, things become even more problematic when it comes to older cultural heritage: artefacts belonging to past peoples who, though they occupied the same geographical space, share little else in common, be it identity, language, race, religion or more.
Heritage belongs to everybody - and nobody.
***
Someone asked me what I thought of the auction of the Chinese fountainheads.
In short, I think the furore is ridiculous.
Historical and cultural properties do not belong to any one country, but broadly to humanity in general.
On a micro scale we should respect the property rights of the parties currently possessing the items (even if we are against looting today, though I think freshly dug-up items don't necessarily belong to the country on whose soil they were found - more below), but more broadly governments have no right to lay claim to artefacts.
So China claims that the fountain heads were stolen from China and should be returned, but this is very problematic.
They were stolen from a Qing Chinese palace, but their designer was actually an Italian Jesuit (Giuseppe Castiglione, aka Lang Shining). Here is a picture of the fountain in Yuanmingyuan the sculptures came from:
It would surely be a stretch to claim this is a fountain of Chinese design (in more than one sense of the word).
Is it a Chinese fountain? An Italian fountain? A Chinese-Italian fountain?
If a cure for AIDS was discovered by a PRC scientist working in a lab in a top American University working with other PRC scientists and under a PRC boss, is it an American discovery - or a Chinese discovery?
There are no easy answers here.
On another level the fountain heads were the property of a Manchurian dynasty which did not see itself as properly-Chinese (remember that Queues were imposed - on pain of decapitation - on the Han Chinese, and they were happilly lopped off in 1911). If the fountain heads dated from the early Qing period this is even more so (the Summer Palace was started in 1749, during the reign of Qianlong, and Castiglione died in 1766, so indeed it is).
Then, most Chinese people at the time hated the Manchurians and rejected them as not Chinese (see lopping off of queues; this likely exists to a lesser degree, Communist rhetoric about minorities aside), so the Chinese people of the period itself would not have accepted the fountain heads as belonging to "them" per se (though they might have viewed them as fine works of Chinese artisanry - illegitimately possessed by the scheming Manchus).
So what we have now is a retrospective grab of universal heritage.
In fact, it is more convincing to argue that the Chinese government has no right to "Chinese" heritage because it has shown itself to be manifestly unworthy guardians of it.
The Cultural Revolution, a prime candidate for the greatest orgy of cultural destruction the world has ever seen, was promulgated by the very same Chinese Communist Party that still rules China.
They thus have no right to grandstand about the looting of cultural heritage.
If you loot cultural heritage, at least you preserve it (compare the caryatid in the British Museum with her sisters in Athens - the extensive damage to the latter is both shocking and sad), whereas if you destroy it, it is gone forever.
As an analogue, the Taliban might've blown up the Bamiyan Buddhas, but the current Afghan government is different so their trotting out of the cultural sovereignty argument would have somewhat more respectability.
This is putting aside the fact that this same Communist government is still destroying its country's heritage. How many real hutongs are left? They're also trying to drown out Tibetan culture by shipping in Han migrants.
As an (admittedly imperfect) analogy, it is like trying to murder your infant child, having it taken away by a child protection agency, and then 10 years later demanding that your child be returned to you, claiming that it was illegally kidnapped (while still abusing your kids - even if you don't try to murder them anymore)
While the claim is that heritage is being reclaimed on behalf of the Chinese people, in reality it's a political ploy by a government to lay claim to artefacts, which will be put under its administration for its own benefit.
Those who are so-inclined are free to locate how many Tibetan artefacts are in Chinese museums located outside Tibet (and to look at historical maps of Chinese territory to forestall the inevitable rejoinder justifying modern Chinese imperialism).
Generalising, things become even more problematic when it comes to older cultural heritage: artefacts belonging to past peoples who, though they occupied the same geographical space, share little else in common, be it identity, language, race, religion or more.
Heritage belongs to everybody - and nobody.
Post ID: 972856217028044819
"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm." - Vince Lombardi
***
A friend's bad experience:
Stay away from BNP.
I would have let it go if I’ve stopped receiving ridiculously unreasonable letters from this money-sucking, cunning, repulsive, abhorring deception master of a financial institution. Is this really how they earn their keep, stuffing their faces with foie gras and escargots? (I honestly hope they die from cholesterol and every other health disease possible would plague them.)
So this is my story and I really do hope at the end of the day, you stay away from BNP Paribas in every sense of the word and I hope this financial institution crumble and rot in their paperwork of lies.
I was an exchange student at Sciences Po Paris and I needed a bank account set up. As a student of the school, setting up the account gives me 80 euros in my account. I had my rendez-vous, prepared all my paperwork, and had to wait for the letter for the confirmation of my residence. However, I had some problems with the hostel, which refused to acknowledge me as the legal tenant (in a friend’s name) in spite of the both of us going down so many times with more administrative papers but it never got changed so I never got my letter, I never got my bank card, I never used the account.
In the next month, when I finally got an apartment of my own, I went down to the bank to request that they send me the letter again so that I can finally activate my bank account. Incidentally, since it is under the French law that one has to get an insurance for the apartment, the lady at the bank, Clemence, who has been handling my account all these while, told me that SINCE there was 80 Euros existing in my account, and the housing insurance under BNP is 76, I just had to sign the papers and I would get my insurance. And she told me that I would just have to wait for the letters to be reposted which meant the post had to recall my previously sent letter.
After waiting for well, a month and a half with all the frustration (I was already borrowing money from my friends to pay my landlord. I desperately needed a bank account set-up for my family to transfer money over) I decided to set up with Société Générale instead which was done within 2 weeks.
Being an exchange student, sure I took every chance I had to travel. And imagine my shock when I came back from my winter holidays when I got home with letters from BNP claiming that I owed them 139 Euros and threatening judiciary case if I do not contact my agent soon. Of course I panicked. Being in Europe itself is already expensive enough. I cannot possibly go around paying 139 Euros for a service I didn’t even use.
To cut the story short (I really hate to recount. Makes my blood boil.) So yes, I went down to the agency, got into a huge argument about how is it that they could possibly say there was 80 euros when there weren’t. I couldn’t understand why Clemence had to deceive me. I couldn’t understand why was it that it took them forever to even attempt trying to set my account up (when I was desperate for money and they were completely indifferent to finding another way to set up my account). I couldn’t understand why they could send so many letters about my debt but none for my bank card. I couldn’t understand why they made me sign so many papers regarding services that I never asked for and didn’t know about. I could have paid upfront for my insurance there and then. I still cannot comprehend how 139 could possibly make a difference in their financial roll.
One of the lady was sympathetic to my plight and acknowledged the fault of the bank. She promised me that it would be cleared, which it wasn’t when I returned in about a week’s time. In fact, when I returned the following week, I was forced to pay up in order to close my account. The whole thing wasn’t pleasant at all in the sense that the service lady who ignored us (I was there with my French friend, L.) when I have already made an appointment. Her attitude was quite appalling. We then walked in on our own where the lady with whom I had an appointment with went into a sudden shouting match with L for no rhyme or reason. It was all very bewildering and frustrating. It really felt like there was no one who understood what exactly my plight was. I’m not trying to be narcissistic here but i’m only a student with no income and 139 euros (conversion rates do not stand in my favour) means a lot to me even if it’s the typical lunch tab for a banker. So she was unreasonable too and we decided to walk into the office of the director who well, simply told me to pay up too.
So I paid, told the lady EXPLICITLY in English (since my poor grasp of the French language got me into this mess in the first place) that I want to close my account COMPLETELY and have nothing more to do with the bank. She gave me a stack of papers to sign, as always with any French institution and system, which I did.
So I thought it was over.
But no, after coming back home, I’m still receiving letters about being in DEBIT!??!?!
(It stands currently at - 25 euros.)
AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHY!?!
AND IT JUST KEEPS ACCUMMULATING. WHAT IS WRONG WITH BNP!?!!?
WHY DO THEY KEEP CHARGING ME FOR SOMETHING I’M NOT EVEN USING?
Stay far far away from BNP.
Close all your BNP accounts and never ever ever have anything to do with them. Even if I’m saying this out of spite and dripping with detestation, there are better, more honest banks and financial institutions out there. And BNP is not one of them. I hope they die in this recession.
p.s: please spread the word! i think it's important that people stopped getting cheated by institutions like that.
***
A friend's bad experience:
Stay away from BNP.
I would have let it go if I’ve stopped receiving ridiculously unreasonable letters from this money-sucking, cunning, repulsive, abhorring deception master of a financial institution. Is this really how they earn their keep, stuffing their faces with foie gras and escargots? (I honestly hope they die from cholesterol and every other health disease possible would plague them.)
So this is my story and I really do hope at the end of the day, you stay away from BNP Paribas in every sense of the word and I hope this financial institution crumble and rot in their paperwork of lies.
I was an exchange student at Sciences Po Paris and I needed a bank account set up. As a student of the school, setting up the account gives me 80 euros in my account. I had my rendez-vous, prepared all my paperwork, and had to wait for the letter for the confirmation of my residence. However, I had some problems with the hostel, which refused to acknowledge me as the legal tenant (in a friend’s name) in spite of the both of us going down so many times with more administrative papers but it never got changed so I never got my letter, I never got my bank card, I never used the account.
In the next month, when I finally got an apartment of my own, I went down to the bank to request that they send me the letter again so that I can finally activate my bank account. Incidentally, since it is under the French law that one has to get an insurance for the apartment, the lady at the bank, Clemence, who has been handling my account all these while, told me that SINCE there was 80 Euros existing in my account, and the housing insurance under BNP is 76, I just had to sign the papers and I would get my insurance. And she told me that I would just have to wait for the letters to be reposted which meant the post had to recall my previously sent letter.
After waiting for well, a month and a half with all the frustration (I was already borrowing money from my friends to pay my landlord. I desperately needed a bank account set-up for my family to transfer money over) I decided to set up with Société Générale instead which was done within 2 weeks.
Being an exchange student, sure I took every chance I had to travel. And imagine my shock when I came back from my winter holidays when I got home with letters from BNP claiming that I owed them 139 Euros and threatening judiciary case if I do not contact my agent soon. Of course I panicked. Being in Europe itself is already expensive enough. I cannot possibly go around paying 139 Euros for a service I didn’t even use.
To cut the story short (I really hate to recount. Makes my blood boil.) So yes, I went down to the agency, got into a huge argument about how is it that they could possibly say there was 80 euros when there weren’t. I couldn’t understand why Clemence had to deceive me. I couldn’t understand why was it that it took them forever to even attempt trying to set my account up (when I was desperate for money and they were completely indifferent to finding another way to set up my account). I couldn’t understand why they could send so many letters about my debt but none for my bank card. I couldn’t understand why they made me sign so many papers regarding services that I never asked for and didn’t know about. I could have paid upfront for my insurance there and then. I still cannot comprehend how 139 could possibly make a difference in their financial roll.
One of the lady was sympathetic to my plight and acknowledged the fault of the bank. She promised me that it would be cleared, which it wasn’t when I returned in about a week’s time. In fact, when I returned the following week, I was forced to pay up in order to close my account. The whole thing wasn’t pleasant at all in the sense that the service lady who ignored us (I was there with my French friend, L.) when I have already made an appointment. Her attitude was quite appalling. We then walked in on our own where the lady with whom I had an appointment with went into a sudden shouting match with L for no rhyme or reason. It was all very bewildering and frustrating. It really felt like there was no one who understood what exactly my plight was. I’m not trying to be narcissistic here but i’m only a student with no income and 139 euros (conversion rates do not stand in my favour) means a lot to me even if it’s the typical lunch tab for a banker. So she was unreasonable too and we decided to walk into the office of the director who well, simply told me to pay up too.
So I paid, told the lady EXPLICITLY in English (since my poor grasp of the French language got me into this mess in the first place) that I want to close my account COMPLETELY and have nothing more to do with the bank. She gave me a stack of papers to sign, as always with any French institution and system, which I did.
So I thought it was over.
But no, after coming back home, I’m still receiving letters about being in DEBIT!??!?!
(It stands currently at - 25 euros.)
AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHY!?!
AND IT JUST KEEPS ACCUMMULATING. WHAT IS WRONG WITH BNP!?!!?
WHY DO THEY KEEP CHARGING ME FOR SOMETHING I’M NOT EVEN USING?
Stay far far away from BNP.
Close all your BNP accounts and never ever ever have anything to do with them. Even if I’m saying this out of spite and dripping with detestation, there are better, more honest banks and financial institutions out there. And BNP is not one of them. I hope they die in this recession.
p.s: please spread the word! i think it's important that people stopped getting cheated by institutions like that.
Post ID: 1357548844384821047
Saturday, March 14, 2009
"Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power." - Eric Hoffer
***
Apple Doesn't Deliver Everything Promised for iTunes 8.1 - PC World - The corresponding headline on Macworld: Apple releases iTunes 8.1 update. Hurr hurr.
"Nation of cowards" on race, Holder says - "Eric Holder, the nation's first black attorney general, said Wednesday that the United States was "a nation of cowards" on matters of race, with most Americans avoiding candid discussions of racial issues... "It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified."... "Imagine, if you will, situations where people, regardless of their skin color, could confront racial issues freely and without fear. The potential of this country, that is becoming increasingly more diverse, would be greatly enhanced. My fear, however, that we are taking steps that, rather than advancing us as a nation, are actually dividing us even further.""
Sounds like Singapore
Pitts: Yes, we must still talk about race - "So we talk about race, but we don't. More often, we yell about race. Or talk around race. Or deliver self-righteous monologues on race. All of it tainted by a gaping ignorance... We play games instead. Many African Americans lie in wait to cry "Gotcha!" when some hapless white person inadvertently says some questionable thing, as though innocent ignorance were indistinguishable from actual malice. As when a white analyst on TV's Golf Channel said something dumb about Tiger Woods and the Rev. Al Sharpton demanded her head, telling a reporter, "What she said is racist. Whether she's a racist ... is immaterial."... if you are black, you stop trying to have substantive discussions about race with white people: They refuse to listen. Small wonder, if you are white, you stop speaking freely about race with black people: Every little thing is racism with them. And small wonder, in recent years, the discussion on race has come to be dominated by loud, intolerant voices"
Take That! - Weird News Story Archive - "Britain considered taking drastic action against the Soviet Union in retribution for its sending tanks into Czechoslovakia in 1968: it nearly didn’t send Leonid Brezhnev a Christmas card. Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart wanted to scratch “the Russians and their fellow sinners” from the greetings list, but Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s cooler head prevailed. “It seems petty to change the practice,” he wrote to Stewart. “It creates the maximum annoyance with no gain whatsoever.”"
The Straight Dope: Who was the first person to be hit by a car? Why was it decided that cars ought to be registered? - "Of course, horse-drawn vehicles had been no less dangerous. In Traffic, his recent book on the psychology of driving, Tom Vanderbilt writes that "[i]n 1720, traffic fatalities from 'furiously driven' carts and coaches were named the leading cause of death in London. . . . [I]n the New York of 1867, horses were killing an average of four pedestrians a week." And Maxwell Lay, in his Ways of the World, notes that cars are safer than horses were on an accidents-per-distance-traveled basis."
Foreign Languages and Trade: What are you sinking about? - "Cultural factors and especially common languages are well-known determinants of trade. By contrast, the knowledge of foreign languages was not explored in the literature so far. We combine traditional gravity models with data on fluency in the main languages used in Europe. We show that widespread knowledge of languages is an important determinant for foreign trade, with English playing an especially important role. Furthermore, we document non-linear effects of foreign languages on trade."
Drug warriors against the war - "Last week saw the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. In Washington, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) - a group of former cops and drug-war veterans who have soured on America's war on drugs - gathered to celebrate the anniversary, and to argue for an end to America's current prohibition on marijuana and more serious drugs... World Health Organization researchers found that 42.4 percent of Americans had tried marijuana - the highest ratio of any of 17 countries surveyed. New Zealand, which has tough drug policies, scored a close second place at 41.9 percent. Dutch residents can buy cannabis at coffee shops, yet less than 20 percent of Dutch respondents said they had tried cannabis. Researchers concluded, "Drug use does not appear to be related to drug policy, as countries with more stringent policies (e.g., the United States) did not have lower levels of illegal drug use than countries with more liberal policies (e.g. the Netherlands)." Meanwhile, drug prohibition does work, Van Wickler added, as "a wonderful opportunity for organized crime."
CRCC: Center For Muslim-Jewish Engagement: Resources: Religious Texts - "Anas said, "Some people of 'Ukl or 'Uraina tribe came to Medina and its climate did not suit them. So the Prophet ordered them to go to the herd of (Milch) camels and to drink their milk and urine (as a medicine). So they went as directed and after they became healthy, they killed the shepherd of the Prophet and drove away all the camels. The news reached the Prophet early in the morning and he sent (men) in their pursuit and they were captured and brought at noon. He then ordered to cut their hands and feet (and it was done), and their eyes were branded with heated pieces of iron, They were put in 'Al-Harra' and when they asked for water, no water was given to them." Abu Qilaba said, "Those people committed theft and murder, became infidels after embracing Islam and fought against Allah and His Apostle.""
This is hosted by USC and comes from Sahih al-Bukhari, the most important Sunni Hadith, so I assume it's kosher.
Sex in the Syllabus - "With classwork like this, who needs to play? Undergraduates taking Cyberporn and Society at the State University of New York at Buffalo survey Internet porn sites. At New York University, assignments for Anthropology of the Unconscious include discussing X-rated Japanese comic books. And in Cinema and the Sex Act at the University of California, Berkeley, undergrads are required to view clips from Hollywood NC-17 releases like Showgirls and underground stag reels... in her graduate-level class on obscenity, media-studies professor Laura Kipnis of Northwestern University examines how publications like Hustler can define class stratification in the U.S.--by discussing the work of the 16th century satirist François Rabelais as well as skin magazines... Kipnis screens Saló or 120 Days of Sodom, by the Italian avant-garde filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini... She says students who had previously espoused staunchly liberal views about freedom of expression often find themselves disgusted and horrified by what they see. "University students are often too cool, too hip to understand why other people get perturbed"... At the University of California at Santa Barbara, Constance Penley, a film professor and porn-studies pioneer, says she tells her students that "I don't want to squelch their financial possibilities or creativity, but as a favor to me, could they not make a porn film until after they graduate?""
The 15 Strangest College Courses In America - "10. Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles. While I’m sure most guys would rather gouge out their own eyes than take a course on soap operas, this is probably right up many young women’s alley. This is part of UW’s Women’s Studies program, which I think is kind of unfortunate given the view some people have of that major already. Talk about giving them more ammunition."
I wasn't surprised that the first got first.
God Hates Figs (with biblical references!) - "Jesus rebuked the fig as an evil abomination... Jesus commanded us not to eat of the cursed fig... God promises terrible vengeance upon any fig-loving nation... FIGS DOOM NATIONS"
***
Apple Doesn't Deliver Everything Promised for iTunes 8.1 - PC World - The corresponding headline on Macworld: Apple releases iTunes 8.1 update. Hurr hurr.
"Nation of cowards" on race, Holder says - "Eric Holder, the nation's first black attorney general, said Wednesday that the United States was "a nation of cowards" on matters of race, with most Americans avoiding candid discussions of racial issues... "It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified."... "Imagine, if you will, situations where people, regardless of their skin color, could confront racial issues freely and without fear. The potential of this country, that is becoming increasingly more diverse, would be greatly enhanced. My fear, however, that we are taking steps that, rather than advancing us as a nation, are actually dividing us even further.""
Sounds like Singapore
Pitts: Yes, we must still talk about race - "So we talk about race, but we don't. More often, we yell about race. Or talk around race. Or deliver self-righteous monologues on race. All of it tainted by a gaping ignorance... We play games instead. Many African Americans lie in wait to cry "Gotcha!" when some hapless white person inadvertently says some questionable thing, as though innocent ignorance were indistinguishable from actual malice. As when a white analyst on TV's Golf Channel said something dumb about Tiger Woods and the Rev. Al Sharpton demanded her head, telling a reporter, "What she said is racist. Whether she's a racist ... is immaterial."... if you are black, you stop trying to have substantive discussions about race with white people: They refuse to listen. Small wonder, if you are white, you stop speaking freely about race with black people: Every little thing is racism with them. And small wonder, in recent years, the discussion on race has come to be dominated by loud, intolerant voices"
Take That! - Weird News Story Archive - "Britain considered taking drastic action against the Soviet Union in retribution for its sending tanks into Czechoslovakia in 1968: it nearly didn’t send Leonid Brezhnev a Christmas card. Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart wanted to scratch “the Russians and their fellow sinners” from the greetings list, but Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s cooler head prevailed. “It seems petty to change the practice,” he wrote to Stewart. “It creates the maximum annoyance with no gain whatsoever.”"
The Straight Dope: Who was the first person to be hit by a car? Why was it decided that cars ought to be registered? - "Of course, horse-drawn vehicles had been no less dangerous. In Traffic, his recent book on the psychology of driving, Tom Vanderbilt writes that "[i]n 1720, traffic fatalities from 'furiously driven' carts and coaches were named the leading cause of death in London. . . . [I]n the New York of 1867, horses were killing an average of four pedestrians a week." And Maxwell Lay, in his Ways of the World, notes that cars are safer than horses were on an accidents-per-distance-traveled basis."
Foreign Languages and Trade: What are you sinking about? - "Cultural factors and especially common languages are well-known determinants of trade. By contrast, the knowledge of foreign languages was not explored in the literature so far. We combine traditional gravity models with data on fluency in the main languages used in Europe. We show that widespread knowledge of languages is an important determinant for foreign trade, with English playing an especially important role. Furthermore, we document non-linear effects of foreign languages on trade."
Drug warriors against the war - "Last week saw the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. In Washington, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) - a group of former cops and drug-war veterans who have soured on America's war on drugs - gathered to celebrate the anniversary, and to argue for an end to America's current prohibition on marijuana and more serious drugs... World Health Organization researchers found that 42.4 percent of Americans had tried marijuana - the highest ratio of any of 17 countries surveyed. New Zealand, which has tough drug policies, scored a close second place at 41.9 percent. Dutch residents can buy cannabis at coffee shops, yet less than 20 percent of Dutch respondents said they had tried cannabis. Researchers concluded, "Drug use does not appear to be related to drug policy, as countries with more stringent policies (e.g., the United States) did not have lower levels of illegal drug use than countries with more liberal policies (e.g. the Netherlands)." Meanwhile, drug prohibition does work, Van Wickler added, as "a wonderful opportunity for organized crime."
CRCC: Center For Muslim-Jewish Engagement: Resources: Religious Texts - "Anas said, "Some people of 'Ukl or 'Uraina tribe came to Medina and its climate did not suit them. So the Prophet ordered them to go to the herd of (Milch) camels and to drink their milk and urine (as a medicine). So they went as directed and after they became healthy, they killed the shepherd of the Prophet and drove away all the camels. The news reached the Prophet early in the morning and he sent (men) in their pursuit and they were captured and brought at noon. He then ordered to cut their hands and feet (and it was done), and their eyes were branded with heated pieces of iron, They were put in 'Al-Harra' and when they asked for water, no water was given to them." Abu Qilaba said, "Those people committed theft and murder, became infidels after embracing Islam and fought against Allah and His Apostle.""
This is hosted by USC and comes from Sahih al-Bukhari, the most important Sunni Hadith, so I assume it's kosher.
Sex in the Syllabus - "With classwork like this, who needs to play? Undergraduates taking Cyberporn and Society at the State University of New York at Buffalo survey Internet porn sites. At New York University, assignments for Anthropology of the Unconscious include discussing X-rated Japanese comic books. And in Cinema and the Sex Act at the University of California, Berkeley, undergrads are required to view clips from Hollywood NC-17 releases like Showgirls and underground stag reels... in her graduate-level class on obscenity, media-studies professor Laura Kipnis of Northwestern University examines how publications like Hustler can define class stratification in the U.S.--by discussing the work of the 16th century satirist François Rabelais as well as skin magazines... Kipnis screens Saló or 120 Days of Sodom, by the Italian avant-garde filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini... She says students who had previously espoused staunchly liberal views about freedom of expression often find themselves disgusted and horrified by what they see. "University students are often too cool, too hip to understand why other people get perturbed"... At the University of California at Santa Barbara, Constance Penley, a film professor and porn-studies pioneer, says she tells her students that "I don't want to squelch their financial possibilities or creativity, but as a favor to me, could they not make a porn film until after they graduate?""
The 15 Strangest College Courses In America - "10. Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles. While I’m sure most guys would rather gouge out their own eyes than take a course on soap operas, this is probably right up many young women’s alley. This is part of UW’s Women’s Studies program, which I think is kind of unfortunate given the view some people have of that major already. Talk about giving them more ammunition."
I wasn't surprised that the first got first.
God Hates Figs (with biblical references!) - "Jesus rebuked the fig as an evil abomination... Jesus commanded us not to eat of the cursed fig... God promises terrible vengeance upon any fig-loving nation... FIGS DOOM NATIONS"
Post ID: 8369254671668412961
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." - Edgar Wilson Nye, quoted in Mark Twain's Autobiography
***
I finally got a Bacon Explosion rolled out (among other things), with the enthusiastic help of the Ass Man:
I couldn't find raw Italian Sausage at the supermarket, so I settled for using minced meat (and spicing it myself: fennel powder, pepper, paprika and some of Disgusting Chris's spice mixes). It was rather dry due to the lack of fat, but oh well.
Do note that this Bacon Explosion was scaled down by half, since we only had 7 people (3 of them girls).
Cornstarch as a binding agent
Forming the lattice (this wasn't scaled down - maybe American bacon is longer?!)
Bacon Lattice
Frying bacon for the stuffing of the Bacon Explosion
Lattice with BBQ Rub
Spiced lattice and the minced meat 'sausage'
Girls slacking (what most of them were doing most of the time, anyway)
Piling on the 'sausage' meat
Lattice with 'sausage' meat
Seasoning and condiment: Cajun seasoning and BBQ sauce
'Sausage' meat with Cajun seasoning
Adding crumbled crispy bacon
And saucing it
Rolling up 'sausage' meat
Rolled-up 'sausage' meat
Completing the bacon lattice (even if in a structurally unsound way)
Everyone wants to picture the Bacon Explosion
Sealing the bacon explosion
Almost ready to chuck in the oven...
... after another sprinkling of BBQ rub...
...and some basting
Ready to bake
Would YOU use such a large knife to peel apples?!
Half-done
Fully done
Bacon Explosion
Slicing it up
Innards
Verdict: Bagus!
Though using real sausage meat, more bacon inside, rolling it properly and adding more BBQ rub/sauce would've helped.
Perhaps next time.
***
I finally got a Bacon Explosion rolled out (among other things), with the enthusiastic help of the Ass Man:
I couldn't find raw Italian Sausage at the supermarket, so I settled for using minced meat (and spicing it myself: fennel powder, pepper, paprika and some of Disgusting Chris's spice mixes). It was rather dry due to the lack of fat, but oh well.
Do note that this Bacon Explosion was scaled down by half, since we only had 7 people (3 of them girls).
Cornstarch as a binding agent
Forming the lattice (this wasn't scaled down - maybe American bacon is longer?!)
Bacon Lattice
Frying bacon for the stuffing of the Bacon Explosion
Lattice with BBQ Rub
Spiced lattice and the minced meat 'sausage'
Girls slacking (what most of them were doing most of the time, anyway)
Piling on the 'sausage' meat
Lattice with 'sausage' meat
Seasoning and condiment: Cajun seasoning and BBQ sauce
'Sausage' meat with Cajun seasoning
Adding crumbled crispy bacon
And saucing it
Rolling up 'sausage' meat
Rolled-up 'sausage' meat
Completing the bacon lattice (even if in a structurally unsound way)
Everyone wants to picture the Bacon Explosion
Sealing the bacon explosion
Almost ready to chuck in the oven...
... after another sprinkling of BBQ rub...
...and some basting
Ready to bake
Would YOU use such a large knife to peel apples?!
Half-done
Fully done
Bacon Explosion
Slicing it up
Innards
Verdict: Bagus!
Though using real sausage meat, more bacon inside, rolling it properly and adding more BBQ rub/sauce would've helped.
Perhaps next time.
Post ID: 942946593757602519
Friday, March 13, 2009
"All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors." - Unknown
***
u r wt u wr:
- 'One boyfriend is not enough' (Contributed)
- 'Shiver my timbers' (Contributed)
- 'I wanna be girls @ you point and say that's her'
- 'Sunkist. Good vibrations'
- '*Picture of snoopy* Hug me'
- 'Explain to me again why I need a boyfriend'
- 'Explain to me again why I need a man'
- 'Please be considerate. Don't lOOk here' (The 'OO' were 2 big orbs, but because she was well-endowed it was obvious they were over her stomach due to bad T-shirt design)
- 'My body is a wonderland'
- 'Listen up boys. I've got something *something*' (She noticed me staring)
- 'They say that money talks, but mine just waves goodbye'
- 'Single' (her boyfriend was cradling her head)
- 'Don't ask me I was hired for my looks'
- 'Want to smurf around? *picture of Smurfette kissing another Smurf*'
- 'Gone waxin'
- 'Showtime beauties *picture of bare midriff*'
- 'I'm really know how to make you happy'
- 'he that dwelleth in the secret place of the past *3.5 more lines* I have a secret admirer'
- 'My name is Barbie' (she was certainly as busty as her)
- 'Men *something* laxatives *something*'
- 'An awkward morning beats a boring night'
- 'I'm a Princess' (she was beside a guy with 'I'm a Prince')
- 'Almost single'
- 'Kiss me once again'
- 'Smile saucily'
- 'No *picture of camera* please'
- 'Trust me, I'm a doctor' (Contributed; "but she is going to be one so i think that is ok")
I notice as a form of officewear (for girls, of course), walking shorts (made of office-pants material which end just below the knee). Another example of the flexibility granted them.
***
u r wt u wr:
- 'One boyfriend is not enough' (Contributed)
- 'Shiver my timbers' (Contributed)
- 'I wanna be girls @ you point and say that's her'
- 'Sunkist. Good vibrations'
- '*Picture of snoopy* Hug me'
- 'Explain to me again why I need a boyfriend'
- 'Explain to me again why I need a man'
- 'Please be considerate. Don't lOOk here' (The 'OO' were 2 big orbs, but because she was well-endowed it was obvious they were over her stomach due to bad T-shirt design)
- 'My body is a wonderland'
- 'Listen up boys. I've got something *something*' (She noticed me staring)
- 'They say that money talks, but mine just waves goodbye'
- 'Single' (her boyfriend was cradling her head)
- 'Don't ask me I was hired for my looks'
- 'Want to smurf around? *picture of Smurfette kissing another Smurf*'
- 'Gone waxin'
- 'Showtime beauties *picture of bare midriff*'
- 'I'm really know how to make you happy'
- 'he that dwelleth in the secret place of the past *3.5 more lines* I have a secret admirer'
- 'My name is Barbie' (she was certainly as busty as her)
- 'Men *something* laxatives *something*'
- 'An awkward morning beats a boring night'
- 'I'm a Princess' (she was beside a guy with 'I'm a Prince')
- 'Almost single'
- 'Kiss me once again'
- 'Smile saucily'
- 'No *picture of camera* please'
- 'Trust me, I'm a doctor' (Contributed; "but she is going to be one so i think that is ok")
I notice as a form of officewear (for girls, of course), walking shorts (made of office-pants material which end just below the knee). Another example of the flexibility granted them.
Post ID: 8547944423482698244
"The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past." - Robertson Davies
***
Someone on the Christmas Cake Theory and girls: value drops to zero after 25
Someone else:
there are so many negative things associated with being a woman...
whether you do possess those traits or not
people tend to assume you do if you're female
I think this is why women try to pass off as 'one of the guys'
you know, the whole shebang, I'm rather unhappy to say it was begun with pride and prejudice I think
elizabeth bennet
the ideal girl is not really 'girly' and 'ideal' -- kinda cute, quirky and 'original'
and once you market yourself as 'male' it's just fitting *that* stereotype
bridget jones in the millenium!
but that's probably analytical bullshit
and I don't think many girls are *conscious* of it anyway
they probably full-heartedly believe in their uniqueness
which is good! necessary!
...
there seems to be some sort of assumption that being macho means being illiterate
I've come across variants of it
either these uber-annoying 'macho' guys who *perform* illiteracy
or ok but fucked up literate guys who perform masculinity
or are insecure about their 'masculinity' because they're educated
but guy marketing I have to say seems a lot simpler
it's just, I'm confident and successful
and clever (even if they *aren't*)
whereas girls seem to try this whole 'I'm feminine but not quite female and tough but kinda vulnerable...'
Xephyris: digging out CDs to re-rip so i can get rid of my mpc collection
ah the rashness of my youth
Me: you converting to what
Xephyris: to mp3
Me: HAHA
your 1337-ness has decreased
Xephyris: lame at v2 now very transparent also for my music
so ok lah
Me: maybe now your ears less sensitive haha
Someone: u know
i am nursing a pet theory
the only people who care abt this shit are Govt and bloggers themselves
who work each other into a frenzy
noone else really cares abt political blogging. ;)
and the ahem "revolution"
bloggers carry with them this sense of inflated self-importance
Gahmen read the same few blogs and gets scared shitless
and promptly do a lui tuck yew
Me: what revolution
fiddlesticks
only political bloggers are dumb enough to believe there will be a revoluion
Someone: PRECISELY
and only civil servants are dumb enough to read the same few
and then compile to scare their bosses
Someone else: replying "maybe" to an facebook event invitation is the polite way of saying "no"
Me: If a woman says 'maybe' she means yes. If a diplomat says 'maybe' he means no.
Someone: what about a female diplomat?
Me: That's why there're no female diplomats ^^;;
UD #4: ooh the one u had lunch with
is it ur pet?
the one u took pic with in sushi tei?
Me: MY TOY
Someone: it's ok
like you said 十年报臭十年不晚
oops
报仇
Me: ...
Someone on paramedics: i think the scariest thing they see
is ppl giving birth in ambulances
Me: why scary
scary is the head fly off
Someone: gross
eh it's damn fucking gross can
dunno how they can all fantasise abt cheebye after that
Me: that's why a lot of medics are girls?
or maybe they're gay
Someone else: (though the main thing I rmeember about othello is 'monumental alabaster')
ha ha ha
it's a nice phrase
Me on Nietzsche: "To beginners, they will seem to be written by a man who was, in equal parts, severely emotionally scarred and an absolute genius. To a veteran reader they will still seem this way"
Someone: i tried reading a distilled version but got frustrated with his frustration
Someone else on the Hello Kitty "vibrating shoulder massager": i was thinking it'd look cute in my rm
Me: ................
are you sure that's what you'll use it for? :P
Someone else: oh i won't use it la
just put there
as a decoration
cute with my pc
since my theme is pink and white
HAvE to go sex shop then can buy ah
not like taka kinda thing
Someone on peeing on the streets: other gers think im mad..
haaha
but i think.. mark TERRITORIE!
ahahhahahh
got pple cover can alr
actuali i think it's quite.. liberating to b able to pee in the public
i mean..
men can wad..
so gers oso shuld b ok wad..
Someone on FHM: maybe u should buy ur first (?) copy
you know, start being a "real man" :P
Me: hurr hurr
are you a real woman?
Someone: yeah, i buy all sorts of bimbotic magazines that make me
even more insecure about myself
so yeah
Me: hahahahha. so what will men's magazines do? make me more horny?
Someone: haha
amongst others i hear
***
Someone on the Christmas Cake Theory and girls: value drops to zero after 25
Someone else:
there are so many negative things associated with being a woman...
whether you do possess those traits or not
people tend to assume you do if you're female
I think this is why women try to pass off as 'one of the guys'
you know, the whole shebang, I'm rather unhappy to say it was begun with pride and prejudice I think
elizabeth bennet
the ideal girl is not really 'girly' and 'ideal' -- kinda cute, quirky and 'original'
and once you market yourself as 'male' it's just fitting *that* stereotype
bridget jones in the millenium!
but that's probably analytical bullshit
and I don't think many girls are *conscious* of it anyway
they probably full-heartedly believe in their uniqueness
which is good! necessary!
...
there seems to be some sort of assumption that being macho means being illiterate
I've come across variants of it
either these uber-annoying 'macho' guys who *perform* illiteracy
or ok but fucked up literate guys who perform masculinity
or are insecure about their 'masculinity' because they're educated
but guy marketing I have to say seems a lot simpler
it's just, I'm confident and successful
and clever (even if they *aren't*)
whereas girls seem to try this whole 'I'm feminine but not quite female and tough but kinda vulnerable...'
Xephyris: digging out CDs to re-rip so i can get rid of my mpc collection
ah the rashness of my youth
Me: you converting to what
Xephyris: to mp3
Me: HAHA
your 1337-ness has decreased
Xephyris: lame at v2 now very transparent also for my music
so ok lah
Me: maybe now your ears less sensitive haha
Someone: u know
i am nursing a pet theory
the only people who care abt this shit are Govt and bloggers themselves
who work each other into a frenzy
noone else really cares abt political blogging. ;)
and the ahem "revolution"
bloggers carry with them this sense of inflated self-importance
Gahmen read the same few blogs and gets scared shitless
and promptly do a lui tuck yew
Me: what revolution
fiddlesticks
only political bloggers are dumb enough to believe there will be a revoluion
Someone: PRECISELY
and only civil servants are dumb enough to read the same few
and then compile to scare their bosses
Someone else: replying "maybe" to an facebook event invitation is the polite way of saying "no"
Me: If a woman says 'maybe' she means yes. If a diplomat says 'maybe' he means no.
Someone: what about a female diplomat?
Me: That's why there're no female diplomats ^^;;
UD #4: ooh the one u had lunch with
is it ur pet?
the one u took pic with in sushi tei?
Me: MY TOY
Someone: it's ok
like you said 十年报臭十年不晚
oops
报仇
Me: ...
Someone on paramedics: i think the scariest thing they see
is ppl giving birth in ambulances
Me: why scary
scary is the head fly off
Someone: gross
eh it's damn fucking gross can
dunno how they can all fantasise abt cheebye after that
Me: that's why a lot of medics are girls?
or maybe they're gay
Someone else: (though the main thing I rmeember about othello is 'monumental alabaster')
ha ha ha
it's a nice phrase
Me on Nietzsche: "To beginners, they will seem to be written by a man who was, in equal parts, severely emotionally scarred and an absolute genius. To a veteran reader they will still seem this way"
Someone: i tried reading a distilled version but got frustrated with his frustration
Someone else on the Hello Kitty "vibrating shoulder massager": i was thinking it'd look cute in my rm
Me: ................
are you sure that's what you'll use it for? :P
Someone else: oh i won't use it la
just put there
as a decoration
cute with my pc
since my theme is pink and white
HAvE to go sex shop then can buy ah
not like taka kinda thing
Someone on peeing on the streets: other gers think im mad..
haaha
but i think.. mark TERRITORIE!
ahahhahahh
got pple cover can alr
actuali i think it's quite.. liberating to b able to pee in the public
i mean..
men can wad..
so gers oso shuld b ok wad..
Someone on FHM: maybe u should buy ur first (?) copy
you know, start being a "real man" :P
Me: hurr hurr
are you a real woman?
Someone: yeah, i buy all sorts of bimbotic magazines that make me
even more insecure about myself
so yeah
Me: hahahahha. so what will men's magazines do? make me more horny?
Someone: haha
amongst others i hear
Post ID: 6380534518183589233
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