My Crappy LJ

My Crappy LJ

gssq

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	[Oct. 2nd, 2015\|01:00 am]
Hello. My main blog Balderdash is at http://gssq.blogspot.com. Most of my content is posted there. From time to time, I may have friends-only entries in this LJ. You know the chant; comment here if you want to be added.
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The Vacuity of 'Hope'	[Jul. 13th, 2008\|07:10 pm]
Given how 'Hope' - specifically, 'Hope We Can Believe In' is a very big part of Barack Obama's campaign... With the aid of some friends, I have compiled a table showing what a politician promised, what was hoped of him, and what the results were. Politician: George W Bush What was promised: 'Compassionate Conservatism', 'A uniter not a divider', 'Strong but humble' foreign policy, 'Restore honor and dignity to the White House' What was hoped: A boring Presidency Results: Iraq War, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay; Valerie Plume scandal, the death of bipartisanism, several new creative entries into the OED [more]
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"Failure to provide toilet tissue is arguably a form of sex discrimination"	[Jul. 9th, 2008\|05:38 pm]
Toilets as a Feminist Issue: A True Story "I wonder how many women see the correlation between the difficulties they face at public toilets and the attempt by men to discourage women from participating fully in activities outside the home... Would it really be unreasonable to require by law that public restrooms be constructed to accommodate the same number of users? Two possible results of such a measure would be shorter lines for women and longer lines for men. Either way produces equality... The men most likely to use public restrooms are either those who are secure enough that they do not care about the size of their genitals or anyone else's, or those men who like to look at men’s genitals."
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Women are annoying (sports)	[Sep. 10th, 2007\|01:18 pm]
I'd rather play with the boys; When it comes to team sports, men are much easier to handle than women The Straits Times September 10, 2007 Sandra Leong, girltalk ( Read more... ) But hell hath no fury like an oversensitive woman. After we dispersed, one of my teammates - who had made some costly errors during the match - assumed I was pinning the blame on her. She burst into tears and had to be comforted by her friends. Later, another teammate rang me and asked that I apologise for what I had said. Convinced that the matter had been blown out of proportion, I refused. For the rest of the games, the tension between Oversensitive Girl and me was so thick I feared one of us would assault the other with a bat. My point is, the group dynamics of women is a complex beast. In fact, if I had to personify this beast, she would probably be a shrieking banshee with claws for fingernails. Now, tell me that doesn't make you tremble. A woman could be perfectly pleasant on her own, but surrounded by other females, hormones take over. Add in the element of sporting contest and a power struggle ensues. ( Read more... )
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SDU and University Orientations	[Sep. 10th, 2007\|01:12 pm]
This one time, at orientation camp... The Straits Times September 3, 2007 Emily Lek JULY is when Cupid is overworked - on university campuses, that is. Orientation camps are proving to be so effective at getting boys and girls into relationships, organisers have scored funding for their work. ( Read more... )
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[Apr. 29th, 2007|12:15 am]

R-A-R

You are an R-A-R: a metaphysical Reductionist, an epistemological Absolutist, and a moral Relativist. What does this all mean? Well, keep reading to find out.

Metaphysics: Reductionism (Monism or Positivism) In metaphysics, my test measures your tendency towards Reductionism or Non-Reductionism. As a Reductionist, you like to cut away the metaphysical fat as opposed to multiplying concepts and entities like so many baby rabbits. The two broad categories of Reductionists that my test recognizes are Monists and Positivists.

1. Monists do not cut away the metaphysical fat so much as they just put the meat into a grinder and synthesize the fat into the meat. They tend to condense particular things and ideas into a Unity or Absolute, in other words. If you believe that reality is ultimately a unity and that mind and matter both exist but are simply two different ways of looking at the same substance, then you are a neutral monist in the sense of Spinoza. If you believe that reality is ultimately an Absolute because a whole is more than just the sum of its parts, proven by the fact that we can never have knowledge of a particular thing unless we also grasp its relations to the ultimate Absolute or whole of reality with which it is bound up, and if you feel that this Absolute is characterized by Spirit or Mind, and not matter, then you share the same views as Hegel and even Plato to a degree. A monist--because he or she believes that reality is a Unity or Absolute--tends to synthesize all particulars into universals, deny the reality of matter (Hegel) or mind (Spinoza, sort of), and so on. These concepts are all cast into the meat grinder and come out as a unified whole. Famous monists include philosophers such as Hegel, Spinoza, and Parmenides.

If none of the above sounded like you, then you are most definitely the other type of Reductionist. ( Read more... )

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	[Apr. 7th, 2007\|07:16 pm]
"COBOL programmers understand why women hate periods." This is so sexist!!! It trivialises the pain of periods and by setting up the dialectic of the Self and the Other, implies that women are not good enough to be COBOL programmers. “Programming is like sex, one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life.” — Michael Sinz "People say Microsoft paid 14M$ for using the Rolling Stones song 'Start me up' in their commercials. This is wrong. Microsoft payed 14M$ only for a part of the song. For instance, they didn't use the line 'You'll make a grown man cry'." [more]
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Goodbye, Mr. Keating	[Feb. 18th, 2007\|12:04 pm]
Goodbye, Mr. Keating By Thomas H. Benton ( Read more... ) The problem is you can't get to where I am now without going through a decade or more of immersion in a highly politicized and anti-literary academic culture. You have to spend so many years conforming that, by the time freedom presents itself, you don't know why you became an English major in the first place. You might even have contempt for your seemingly naïve students, who represent the self that you had to repress in order to be a professional. It is not that I want to privilege some form of literary dilettantism as a substitute for professionalism. I simply want to demonstrate that the reasons most people get into English are different from the motives that will make them successful in graduate school and in professional life beyond that. They must, ultimately, purge themselves of the romantic motives that drew them to English in the first place -- or pretend to do so. If you want to be a literary professional, you must say goodbye to Mr. Keating. ( Read more... )
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[Jan. 24th, 2007|12:03 am]

Archived version of: What is wrong with gay sex

What is wrong with gay sex?

Philosophy Gym category:

Warm up

Moderate

More challenging

Mr Jarvis, a Christian, was asleep in bed, dreaming of the Last Judgement. In his dream, Jarvis found himself seated next to God in a great cloud-swept hall. God had just finished handing down judgement on the drunkards, who were slowly shuffling out of the exit to the left. Angels were now ushering a group of nervous-looking men through the entrance to the right. As the men were assembled before Him, God began to speak.

( Read more... )

God: Having said all that, let’s get on with the judging.

God reached forward and pressed a small red button on his armrest. Immediately, the hall was bathed in an eerie red light and the air filled with the deafening "Parp! Parp! Parp!" of a claxon. Jarvis noticed that over on the left of the hall a number of doors had sprung open and little horned creatures with long tails were pouring out. These devil-creatures immediately began to prod the assembled homosexuals back in the direction of the doorways with their spiked forks. Many of these unfortunate men were now holding each other and whimpering.

God: That’s right. You all burn.

Jarvis: In hell?

God: I’m afraid so. They didn’t follow instructions. Couldn’t be clearer. You pointed out one of the relevant passages yourself. Homosexuality is an abomination. I razed Sodom to ground, didn’t I?

Jarvis: But a minute ago you said…

God: I have been testing you. I have pretended to be a bleeding-heart liberal in order to establish your commitment to The Bible. I do tests. Don’t you remember Isaac and Abraham – Genesis 23?

Jarvis: But what about forgiveness? Aren’t you going to allow them into heaven?

God pointed to the men being herded about by the devil-creatures

God: Let them into heaven? How can I?

( Read more... )

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A visit to Cash Harvest Cult	[Jan. 21st, 2007\|09:30 am]
Conveniently, just after this secondhand testimony of prosperity, the person at the mic asked for money. "Give it all for him this morning... If you're writing a cheque make it payable to 'City Harvest Church'... You can pay by Mastercard... For those of you on the Internet you can click and follow the instructions". Meanwhile, the words "prosper", "prosperous" and "God loves a cheerful giver" were repeated liberally. "Give to God" is really short for "Give to us"; if I were still a sheep, I'd find donating to the poor a much better way of 'giving to god' than dumping money in one of those red buckets to pay for plasma screens, video recording and renting an Expo hall. Adding to the cash harvest, the guest band's CDs were also promoted, at a ridiculously cheap price of $22 (Usual Price $23.60). Given that the cost price of making a DVD and a CD is maybe a tenth of that, you can imagine where the revenue goes. This was even worse than the moneychangers in the temple (John 2:13-16) - at least they didn't claim transacting with them was akin to giving to their god. [more]
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	[Jan. 6th, 2007\|07:14 pm]
"Orthodox medicine has not found an answer to your complaint. However, luckily for you, I happen to be a quack." - Richter cartoon caption *** There's a saying that people deserve the governments they get. Maybe women deserve the men that they get. It doesn't apply the other way around, since when men get their hearts broken no one cares about them. [more]
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	[Nov. 18th, 2006\|09:02 pm]
The rich are the most productive members of society, and the poor are the least. Taxing productive people at the same rate as unproductive people not only distorts the incentives to work (and creates deadweight losses in the market) but is grossly immoral. [more]
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	[Nov. 17th, 2006\|10:50 am]
"Bush is a War Criminal" at NUS [more]
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	[Nov. 12th, 2006\|10:06 am]
Latest "u r wt u wr" sightings: - A green top reading "Mature audiences only" - White top: "I need your oralpinion". Last word in brown, first 3 words in blue. - "I'm not drunk enough to date you" - "Remember this shirt. 'cause you're gonna take it off later" - "Tis the season to be naughty" - "Turn me on. FCUK FM" - "Naughty girl in nice wrapping" - Something in French which had the word "celibate" (in French) - Contribution: "tell your boyfriend i said 'thanks'" (I think this falls more under the 'bitchy to other girls' category than the 'sexually suggestive to guys' category though, but it still could incite sexually suggestive remarks on the part of males so it counts) - "I slept in your boyfriend's T-shirt last night" - Someone: "my friend said that one time this lady was wearing a teeshirt that says 'touch me' all over her chest. and my friend's senior went up to her and went like 'may i?". and she gave this damn blur look" [more]
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	[Nov. 11th, 2006\|01:53 pm]
Quotes: There're too many black people there. [Student 2: Racist!] I'm not racist... There's nothing wrong with blacks. But all they do is lie on the streets and rot and harass asian girls. [Me: All these poets are gay lah] Yah, because how can a straight guy be so brilliant?! I like bras. I like to see bra straps. [Me: Is there a punchline?] There's no punchline. it's just something nice to see. [On someone having a heart-shaped pattern made of white stones sewn over her butt] USP girls are very perverted... USP guys are even more perverted, but USP girls are more perverted than normal girls. [On ethical dilemmas] "There's nothing wrong with calling a woman engineer 'sweetie'." 2 of them [girls] said that. You can call them sweetie. [Female student: But there's nothing wrong] [Male student: Hi sweetie] [Female student: Hi] [On Mac users naming their laptops] What's wrong with Mac laptops? Why do they name them? [Me: It's not what's wrong with Mac laptops. It's what's wrong with Mac users.] [Me on the worst cheese fries in the world - some fries were undercooked, the rest were not crispy and the sauce was thin and flavourless: Once again, the Gross Gecko disappoints me.] That's why it's grinning. They just cheated your money. [Me: What was your Vital Statistic?] 3.6 in Sem 1, 4.2 in Sem 2... [Me: Why?] Because in the first sem I had no idea what I was doing and in the second sem I had no idea what I was doing but I knew how to do it. [more]
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	[Oct. 17th, 2006\|10:50 am]
Speech By DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng During The DAP Economic Forum "NEP vs VISION 2020: WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE?" In The Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall On 26.9.2006 Let me first address the question that perhaps persuaded some of you to come here tonight, 'WHERE HAS ALL OUR MONEY GONE?" Remember the phrase, "gaya mesti ada, mati tidak apa" ( Read more... )
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	[Oct. 15th, 2006\|08:52 am]
I was asked to upload to YouTube these videos shot on October 24th, 2005. They're entitled "Fun with Kotex" (Original post, with more information and video transcript, including many screenshots).
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	[Oct. 14th, 2006\|04:45 pm]
"Rock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire--not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored. Young people know that rock music has the beat of sexual intercourse. That is why Ravel's Bolero is the one piece of classical music that is commonly known and liked by them." [more]
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	[Sep. 23rd, 2006\|06:49 pm]
[more]
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	[Sep. 23rd, 2006\|01:11 pm]
金玉其外未必美迷路之客未必罔树老亦壮不枯萎深根入土免寒霜死灰复燃明火亮黑影之中再显光残剑断刃露锋芒无冠之主再称王 [more]
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