Freshly squeezed daily

Dennis Prager article

2011-10-17T00:40:00.002+11:00

Here's an article I found while browsing around the web, that I think Bill in particular would really enjoy. And it does espouse some of the views that I hold regarding left-wing environmentalism very very well indeed.

Source: http://fallingpanda.blogspot.com/2006/06/dennis-prager-on-how-global-warming.html

June 20, 2006
Why Liberals Fear Global Warming More Than Conservatives Do
By Dennis Prager

Observers of contemporary society will surely have noted that a liberal is far more likely to fear global warming than a conservative. Why is this?

After all, if the science is as conclusive as Al Gore, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times and virtually every other spokesman of the Left says it is, conservatives are just as likely to be scorched and drowned and otherwise done in by global warming as liberals will. So why aren't non-leftists nearly as exercised as leftists are? Do conservatives handle heat better? Are libertarians better swimmers? Do religious people love their children less?

The usual liberal responses -- to label a conservative position racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic or the like -- obviously don't apply here. So, liberals would have to fall back on the one remaining all-purpose liberal explanation: "big business." They might therefore explain the conservative-liberal divide over global warming thus: Conservatives don't care about global warming because they prefer corporate profits to saving the planet.

But such an explanation could not explain the vast majority of conservatives who are not in any way tied into the corporate world (like this writer, who has no stocks and who, moreover, regards big business as amoral as leftists do).

No, the usual liberal dismissals of conservatives and their positions just don't explain this particularly illuminating difference between liberals and conservatives.

Here are six more likely explanations:

-- The Left is prone to hysteria. The belief that global warming will destroy the world is but one of many hysterical notions held on the Left. As noted in a previous column devoted to the Left and hysteria, many on the Left have been hysterical about the dangers of the PATRIOT Act and the NSA surveillance of phone numbers (incipient fascism); secondhand smoke (killing vast numbers of people); drilling in the remotest area of Alaska (major environmental despoliation); and opposition to same-sex marriage (imminent Christian theocracy).

-- The Left believes that if The New York Times and other liberal news sources report something, it is true. If the cover of Time magazine says, "Global Warming: Be Worried, Very Worried," liberals get worried, very worried, about global warming.

It is noteworthy that liberals, one of whose mottos is "question authority," so rarely question the authority of the mainstream media. Now, of course, conservatives, too, often believe mainstream media. But conservatives have other sources of news that enable them to achieve the liberal ideal of questioning authority. Whereas few liberals ever read non-liberal sources of information or listen to conservative talk radio, the great majority of conservatives are regularly exposed to liberal news, liberal editorials and liberal films, and they have also received many years of liberal education.

-- The Left believes in experts. Of course, every rational person, liberal or conservative, trusts the expertise of experts -- such as when experts in biology explain the workings of mitochondria, or when experts in astronomy describe the moons of Jupiter. But for liberals, "expert" has come to mean far more than greater knowledge in a given area. It now means two additional things: One is that non-experts should defer to experts not only on matters of knowledge, but on matters of policy, as well. The second is that experts possess greater wisdom about life, not merely greater knowledge in their area of expertise.

That is why liberals are far more likely to be impressed when a Nobel Prize winner in, let us say, physics signs an ad against war or against capital punishment. The liberal is bowled over by the title "Nobel laureate." The conservative is more likely to wonder why a Nobel laureate in physics has anything more meaningful to say about war than, let us say, a taxi driver.

-- People who don't confront the greatest evils will confront far lesser ones. Most humans know the world is morally disordered -- and socially conscious humans therefore try to fight what they deem to be most responsible for that disorder. The Right tends to fight human evil such as communism and Islamic totalitarianism. The Left avoids confronting such evils and concentrates its attention instead on socioeconomic inequality, environmental problems and capitalism. Global warming meets all three of these criteria of evil. By burning fossil fuels, rich countries pollute more, the environment is being despoiled and big business increases its profits.

-- The Left is far more likely to revere, even worship, nature. A threat to the environment is regarded by many on the Left as a threat to what is most sacred to them, and therefore deemed to be the greatest threat humanity faces. The cover of Vanity Fair's recent "Special Green Issue" declared: "A Graver Threat Than Terrorism: Global Warming." Conservatives, more concerned with human evil, hold the very opposite view: Islamic terror is a far graver threat than global warming.

-- Leftists tend to fear dying more. That is one reason they are more exercised about our waging war against evil than about the evils committed by those we fight. The number of Iraqis and others Saddam Hussein murdered troubles the Left considerably less than even the remote possibility than they may one day die of global warming (or secondhand smoke).

One day, our grandchildren may ask us what we did when Islamic fascism threatened the free world. Some of us will say we were preoccupied with fighting that threat wherever possible; others will be able to say they fought carbon dioxide emissions. One of us will look bad.

Update

2011-09-29T00:28:00.004+10:00

Whew, what a month it has been! First there was Lynn and Tony's 21st, then MCAC Social Night (pics for both will be up soon, I promise! Maybe...) Bill got a blog here, and as befits Bill it's suitably...capitalist. And evil. Though I guess evil capitalism is a bit like saying stupid Americans.

Anyway, the big news for me is that I'm no longer single! On the day that I'm typing this, Lynn and myself will have been Facebook official for one week :) I guess it's a big step for me, but it's also an exciting step! Can't wait to see what the future brings ^^

Well, I know what tomorrow is going to bring, at least. Got a job interview for Coles out in Rowville...kinda nervous, but not really. Probably won't get it, since I'll be heading off to China at the end of the year (2.5 months in total) for a 6 week in-country language study exchange, as well as travelling, and spending Chinese New Year in China for the first time! Really excited, but also sad that I'll miss out on most of the holiday break here in Australia. Christmas, New Years, my birthday...:( Apprehensive, nervous, and excited, all at the same time!

That's it for me for now, hope you're all enjoying your midsemester breaks :) Exams are comingggggg! D:

Intelligent Design

2011-09-01T23:25:00.002+10:00

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe#Dover_testimony

Background: Professor Michael J. Behe is a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University. He is a proponent of the intelligent design hypothesis, which essentially stipulates that an unknown 'intelligent designer' designed all living organisms. His proof for this is the apparent irreducible complexity of particular biochemical structures, which he states can only have arisen from intelligent design, not evolution.

Now, there are people in the US whgo weren't happy that intelligent design was being taught in schools. So they went to the Federal Court to try and change this, stating that intelligent design is not a legitimate science. The defense brought along Professor Behe and some others to act as expert witnesses. The judge, John E. Jones III, would later comment on Professor Behe's testimony:

"Consider, to illustrate, that Professor Behe remarkably and unmistakably claims that the plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God."

"As no evidence in the record indicates that any other scientific proposition's validity rests on belief in God, nor is the Court aware of any such scientific propositions, Professor Behe's assertion constitutes substantial evidence that in his view, as is commensurate with other prominent ID leaders, ID is a religious and not a scientific proposition."

"First, defense expert Professor Fuller agreed that ID aspires to 'change the ground rules' of science and lead defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also embrace astrology. Moreover, defense expert Professor Minnich acknowledged that for ID to be considered science, the ground rules of science have to be broadened to allow consideration of supernatural forces."

"What is more, defense experts concede that ID is not a theory as that term is defined by the NAS and admit that ID is at best 'fringe science' which has achieved no acceptance in the scientific community."

"ID proponents primarily argue for design through negative arguments against evolution, as illustrated by Professor Behe’s argument that 'irreducibly complex' systems cannot be produced through Darwinian, or any natural, mechanisms. However, … arguments against evolution are not arguments for design. Expert testimony revealed that just because scientists cannot explain today how biological systems evolved does not mean that they cannot, and will not, be able to explain them tomorrow. As Dr. Padian aptly noted, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.'… Irreducible complexity is a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design, a point conceded by defense expert Professor Minnich."

"In fact, on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fiftyeight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not "good enough."

"With ID, proponents assert that they refuse to propose hypotheses on the designer’s identity, do not propose a mechanism, and the designer, he/she/it/they, has never been seen. ... In addition, Professor Behe agreed that for the design of human artifacts, we know the designer and its attributes and we have a baseline for human design that does not exist for design of biological systems. Professor Behe’s only response to these seemingly insurmountable points of disanalogy was that the inference still works in science fiction movies."

Shut. Down.

Science/religion quotes

2011-09-01T23:13:00.002+10:00

Source: http://lifebeforedeath.blogsome.com/quotes/

"Evolution is to the social sciences as statues are to birds: a convenient platform upon which to deposit badly digested ideas." - Steve Jones

"The word 'mundane' has come to mean 'boring' and 'dull', and it really shouldn't - it should mean the opposite. Because it comes from the latin mundus, meaning 'the world'. And the world is anything but dull: The world is wonderful. There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality." - Richard Dawkins.

"Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to the question of the origin of the immune system. It's the immune system. It's our defense against debilitating and fatal diseases. The scientists who wrote those books and articles toil in obscurity, without book royalties or speaking engagements. Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions. By contrast, Professor Behe and the entire intelligent design movement are doing nothing to advance scientific or medical knowledge and are telling future generations of scientists, don't bother." - From closing argument of attorney Eric Rothschild in the Dover ID trial (check out the link, it's the Wikipedia article for Professor Behe, pretty interesting)

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." - Theodosius Dobzhansky

"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered." - Stephen Jay Gould

"The universal opinion over thousands of years that the Earth was flat never flattened its spherical shape by one inch." - Isaac Asimov.

"From the definition [of God] it follows that nothing is better than God. Also, God must be better than me. Therefore, nothing is better than me. So, I must be God. Now, I certainly exist. So, God must too. Spotting the flaw is left as an excercise to the reader." - Daniel Harbour

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - S. H. Roberts

"Arguing with a creationist is like playing chess with a pigeon. It'll knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and fly back to it's flock to claim victory." - Anonymous

"It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?" - Richard Dawkins.

"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people - otherwise there would be no religious people!" - Dr House

"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. ... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein

"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." - Albert Einstein.

"The universe doesn't care what you believe. The wonderful thing about science is that it doesn't ask for your faith, it just asks for your eyes." - XKCD

On this day...

2011-08-30T22:30:00.002+10:00

(Shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia)
1835 – European settlers landing on the north banks of the Yar in Southeastern Australia founded the city of Melbourne.
1862 – American Civil War: James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson led their Confederate troops to a decisive victory against John Pope's Union Army at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Prince William County, Virginia.
1918 – Fanny Kaplan shot and wounded Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, helping to spark the Red Terror in the future Soviet Union, a repression against Socialist-Revolutionary Party members and other political opponents.
1992 – German race car driver Michael Schumacher won his first Formula One race at the Belgian Grand Prix.
1995 – Bosnian War: NATO began its bombing campaign against the Army of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

All moments of profound historical importance. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if even one of those events had not happened? How would the world be different today? Just a single moment in history that could change the entire course of the Earth. Makes you wonder...

Smiggle

2011-08-28T17:39:00.004+10:00

So a few weeks back I obtained a free blue Smiggle pencilcase from Reorientation Day at Monash, and it prompted the following conversation today:

Rachel (my sister): Haha, you have a Smiggle pencilcase. That's soooo manly *eyeroll*
Me: Hey, I got it for free, okay. That makes me Asian, not gay.
Rachel: Could be both.

Kids. They sure grow up quick, huh? xD

Also, credit to Michelle Phan for including the following song in her latest vid. Love it!

(For all you kids who read this as a Facebook note, and not on my blog www.dailyglassofoj.blogspot.com, get on it!)

Same-sex marriage

2011-08-18T15:57:00.004+10:00

Gay rights activists constantly batter their religious opposition for what they percieve to be religious folk as "forcing" their views onto the LGBT community.

And yet these same people then turn around and proclaim that they must be allowed to have the same rights in marriage as non-same sex couples.

Marriage itself is an inherently religious ceremony. What those gay rights activists are doing is essentially trying to force the non-gay community to accept their beliefs, changing their practices merely to accomodate others.

Anyone else see a double standard here? Anyone else see just a tint of hypocrisy?

Gay rights activists want everyone else to change, just to accomodate them. And they seem constitutionally incapable of comporomise, but then berate everyone else for not doing what they percieve as "compromise", but is actually forcing other people to bend to their wishes.

I think the ideal middle ground would be the legalisation of civil unions between one person and another, regardless of whether it is between a male and a female, or a male and a male, or a female and a female. In that way, the idea of 'marriage' is not altered, while people who are homosexual can still become life partners. And that, after all, is what marriage is really about. Not about dressing up and standing a church, but rather the commitment to a lifetime with the person that you love. If you can get that, does it matter about the venue, or if it's a priest that blesses the holy matrimony? These things are all irrelevant.

65th anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima

2011-08-07T16:25:00.002+10:00

Here at dailyglassofoj, we often take the mickey out of various things. But there are some things that even we must be serious about. Yesterday, the 6th of August, was the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, back in 1945. While that act remains controversial even today, it is indisputable that many tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people continue to live with the consequences.

I was reading the paper, and chanced upon a mention of Sadako Sasaki, the famous leukemia victim who died in 1955, after attempting to fold a thousand paper cranes in the hope of being granted a wish. There is a human cost to all war, a cost that echoes through the eons.

I close with the inscription below Sadako's statue at the Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima:

"This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace on Earth."

It's common knowledge...

2011-08-04T20:35:00.001+10:00

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Study_observes_masturbation_and_other_sexual_trends_among_US_teens

"A recently published nationwide survey of US teenagers indicates boys tend to masturbate more — and start younger — than girls."

"Nearly three-fourths of boys reported having masturbated, compared to only less than half of girls. About half of boys reported masturbating twice or more per week, also higher than the 23 percent of girls."

Multikill!

2011-08-03T21:45:00.003+10:00

Alright so I was reading Wiki news (the Current events page on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events), and I came across this article: http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7710EN20110802

Was so confused. Four dead and seven wounded from a single landmine? What were they doing, standing on top of one another and jumping through the minefield?!

Yeah.

Losing shit

2011-07-30T00:28:00.003+10:00

Okay so here's a list of shit I've lost since the start of the year (that I didn't want to lose):
- Two USB flash drives
- One working laptop
- Short spans of memory due to alcohol
- Large spans of time due to gaming
- Money, due to various shit that didn't actually result in any real benefit to me.
- Safety glasses, one pair
- Cold sore cream, one tube
- Sunglasses, one pair
- Eyesight in left eye, temporary
- Motivation to complete tertiary studies, repeatedly
- Free time, all of it, due to motherfucking everything

And here's the list of shit I wanted to lose but haven't actually lost yet:
- Virginity

Fuckin' A.

China!

2011-07-21T14:46:00.008+10:00

So as you may or may not have known, I was recently back in the Motherland for two weeks :D And it was pretty fucking awesome! I think, compared to when I went back last year, the changes in the country are far more noticeable. Or maybe I've been paying more attention, but it's breathtaking the scale of China's economic and social development. It just so happened that the week before we arrived it was the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and the very mentality that Chinese Communism has always had is changing in a very grassroots manner. Ordinary people can openly state that Mao made a mistake in initiating the Cultural Revolution, and that without the actions of moderate progressives such as Deng Xiaoping, the country would not be in its current state of ascendance. It's interesting to note how much importance is placed on economic wellbeing, both at a personal/family and at a country level. While these are often linked, especially for the increasingly large and young middle-class, there are still clear instances where the joys of market capitalism have not permeated through all layers of society.

I'll just bash through a quick day-by-day summary of events. Pictures will be up on Facebook! Just a quick note, the first six days were in Jiangnan (江南) tour group was 25 people, and the other seven days were in Yunnan (云南) tour group was 5 people. Rough guide to exchange rate, 1AUD:6.65RMB

Day One (09/07/2011) - Shanghai
Flew from Tullamarine International Airport at 10am or something, arrived in China at 6pm local (two hour time difference, ten hour flight). We flew China Eastern (东方航班), fucking NEVER fly China Eastern. Especially international. They have no entertainment system except for some flipdown screens from the ceiling that don't play movies half the time, and when they do the sound doesn't work, and sometimes the movies will cut off halfway for no apparent reason. Food was alright, staff are good. Ten hours of just sitting there is pretty shit though.
Got to Shanghai, picked up by the tour guide, went to hotel. Hotel Dijon in Shanghai, located basically in the Korean part of town. I didn't even know Shanghai had a Korean area. It's a couple of streets, with a mass of Korean restaurants and other stuff. Nothing was open by the time we got there, though, so we had dinner at some dingy alley place. I swear to God, as we were leaving this giant cockroach crawled out from under the fridge. *shudder*. Best thing was when we went into a supermarket, and they had fucking 5kg bags of kimchi. Laughed so hard.
And yeah, that was Day One. Fuckers still charged us a full day's worth of 小费 for it though.

Day Two (10/07/2011) - Shanghai->Wuxi
6:30am wakeup, 7am breakfast, 7:30am depart. Same schedule for every day in Jiangnan, for that matter. Anyway, went to the Shanghai Museum, they had some nice exhibits, especially the pottery and money ones. Otherwise, it was pretty dry stuff.
After that, went to this Chinese medicine place. As far as I could make out, we're all fucked, everything that's wrong with us is because of our kidneys, something something we need to buy medicine now now now. I don't think anyone that actually bought stuff there spent under 10,000 RMB (approx 1,500 AUD). Minimum. There was this old Hong Kong guy with us, he spent 20,000 RMB there. Those 'doctors' were really pushy, kept trying to make you buy their stuff, it was kinda...obscene, compared with how doctors are here in Australia. Didn't much care for it.
Lunch, then a three hour bus ride to Wuxi. First place we went to in Wuxi was this giant Buddha statue park thing. It was pretty massive, you could see it from kilometres away. And they had all these other things to go with it, like this revolving Buddha water show statue thing that was apparently covered in real gold dust and had to be recoated every couple of months.
Dinner was pretty mundane. We were seated with the old Hong Kong guy and his wife, and this pair of Buddhist sisters, one of whom was in the full kit (shaved head and monk robes and all), plus our family of three. So our table was kinda underfilled, and the two Buddhists meant always lots of meat left over.
Plus, at this point, didn't really know anyone else on the tour yet. Except that they were all from Sydney...seriously. All from Sydney. You'd think that with the thousands upon thousands of Asians in Melbourne, surely we couldn't be the only ones there. Well, apart from the Hong Kong guy, he lives in Melbourne too. But 5 out of 25? Let down....

Day Three (11/07/2011) - Wuxi->Nanjing
Same early wakeup and all that, first stop is at Taihu, which is this really famous lake. Walked around took some photos, then went to a place where they sell pearls. Was there for like hours. Hours. I think this is where the tour group started sorting out who was seriously looking to buy shit, and who was only passingly interested. Two that stood out was the old Hong Kong guy, and this short Vietnamese lady with her son, Ivan. Don't think anyone bought any pearls though, so then we went to this teapot museum/selling place. Almost as bad as the pearl place, except there was actually places to sit and tables and stuff. That's when this kid, Chris, who's like 14 or something, he pulls out a pack of cards and a Big 2 game starts. Fucking trust, man xD Typical Asians. That kid was a hell of a shuffler/dealer, though. I think somewhere along the tour the idea was suggested that he go work part time as a casino dealer when he gets a bit older...kid has talent. But yeah, I think that moment was a bit of a turning point, for me at least. From that moment on, whenever we got to a place to buy shit, us younger ones would find a corner and start a card game. At that teapot place, ended up with people who worked there coming to watch us play, trying to figure out the rules and how it was different to how they play (we go clockwise, they go counter-clockwise, shit like that).

Reckon here's a good place to list out the other similar-age people, to save the space later on:
Jason and Vanessa, siblings, latter in high school, former in university doing food science.
Queenie and Chris, siblings, latter in high school, former taking a gap year before uni
Ivan, law/eng at Macquarie
Cathy, vet science

The teapots were actually pretty cool, they float in water, they're watertight, they can withstand up to 200kg weight, you can leave tea to infuse in them for a week, stuff like that. Their recommendation was that you use one type of tealeaves with a particular teapot for a lifetime, so that there'd come a point where you could simply pour in hot water and the teapot would be able to produce tea without tealeaves.
Two hour trip to Nanjing or some other godforsaken amount, went to the tomb of Dr Sun Yat Sen. Weather was shit and the upper areas (where the tomb actually is) were closed off for renovations. That night, went to Fu Ze Miao or something in Nanjing, its like a tourist shopping area and stuff, and there's canals you can take boatrides on. Bought a couple of shirts...that was about it.
That night, bunch of us decided to meet up and go play cards at the hotel, since they had a dedicated chess and cards room or something. The place was really nicely decked out, mahjong table that flipped over to make a Chinese chess table, with cards and chips in lockers. We played for about half an hour, then one of the hotel attendants walked in and notified us that we'd have to pay for the room. Guy was pretty nice, offered to let us start counting the time from when he walked in, plus gave us a discount on the tea, so it came out to 50RMB for the room (for an hour), plus 50RMB for tea. Best 100RMB I've ever spent for cards, considering what happens later.
So eventually the six of us (Cathy didn't come, my sister didn't come) get bored of Big 2 and move on to something else. That something else being a variant of Baccarat that Ivan teaches to us, which basically involves swapping cards with other players to make the best possible hand of three cards. Punishments were given for lowest hand value, or for having a specific hand arrangement (three face cards meant everyone else got punished, once ace meant you got punished, two aces meant you get punished twice, three aces means everyone else gets punished twice). Punishment? Being forced to eat a juhua (菊花) flower. Fucking bitter shit. Enough of that stuff, and you want to throw up...and I kept getting two aces, trying to bet on the chance that there'd be three. Not that there ever was. Ever. Fucking. Ever.
An hour goes by, our time is up, so we shifty like half a packet of the juhua flowers and all go to Queenie/Chris's room, since they're the only one without parents in the same room. More Baccarat (no fucking clue what to call it), maybe use (read: eat) half the remaining flowers, then we start playing Spoons, or a variant where instead of grabbing an object from the middle, you touch your nose. Vanessa got caned in this...I think she lost four times in a row? She was so oblivious to everyone else xD
When we finished up, went back to my room at like 1am...and knocked for about two minutes, trying to wake up mum/sis so I could get in. Fucking taking the room key next time.

Day Four (12/07/2011) - Nanjing->Suzhou
Morning we went to the Lingering Gardens...yeah maybe cause I've been there like two times already and it never changes, but it was pretty boring. Then went to the bridge over the 长江, which is this pretty impressive feat of Chinese engineering. They initially did it to ease rail traffic over the river, which before then had involved loading the trains onto barges for a two-hour trip across, which reduced to 30-something seconds once the bridge was built.
In typical Chinese spirit, inside the place where the bridge was commemorated, there was also a guy who painted the inside of crystal balls. Not in some pansy method, he drilled a small hole into the centre of a hollow crystal ball, then used a hooked paintbrush to reversepaint pictures and words. Motherfucker had skill. Expensive as all fuck, though. 600RMB for a medium sized ball? And the guy was like, mildly autistic or something...really wasn't good at socialising with people, the people who worked there had to whisper into his ear and shit, and the guy never talked. Genius at work...
After we get back to hotel, Jason, Ivan and myself went out, with the intention of finding alcohol. Sure, a bar is nice, but alcohol. So we end up at a KTV place, considering as how it was the first place with definite alcohol that we saw. Kinda pricey, 680RMB for the room (no time limit, comes with 680RMB of alcohol), plus 200RMB for waitress/DJ and 100RMB for bellboy, so that's like nearly 1,000RMB (150 AUD). We got a bottle of Absolut Vodka, plus Sprite to mix it. Started talking about random shit...don't remember much else. Singing. Jason telling me to slow down. Not really singing but kind of singing. Eating cherry tomatoes. Something else. Being offered girls for 300RMB each. Threw up...and missed the bin. Bailed after that, walked back to hotel. Pissed against a tree. Sat around in lobby talking. Bribed a waiter 100RMB to give us tea at like 1am. Went back to room at 2am, drunksleep.

Day Five (13/07/2011) - Suzhou->Hangzhou
First place we went to was a silk factory/warehouse/outlet in Suzhou, they sold like blankets and pillows and clothes and all that nifty stuff. Produced their own silk, too, which was amazing to watch. Their machines look antiquated, but they do the job. I swear to God we spent three fucking hours at that place, though. Played cards for a really long while, while we waited. At one point, Queenie or someone is making motions for me to look to my right, and there's just this random Asian dude standing there watching my hand. Fucking random. Kinda cool how Chinese people are all so interested in how other people play cards, though. Walked around for a bit, looked at clothes. I think Ivan got drawn into the lingerie section. They had a fashion runway thing, which we watched twice. Second time a bunch of Frenchies were there, I think they enjoyed it. We happened to bump into another Aussie tour group there, though, who'd started up in Beijing and worked their way down south over the course of three weeks. Chatted for a bit, stood there feeling awkward, went and did something. Probably the most fucking boring shopping place, seriously, three hours and they were still arguing over blankets and stuff. And I didn't find out till later, but my mum bought two silkworm droppings (faeces/defecations/shit) pillows. I kid you not, fucking silkworm droppings. They'll pop up again later.
After we FINALLY bailed from there, went to lunch at this place where they also sold like paintings woven out of silk, which looked good from afar but shit up close. Anyway we played more cards there. C'mon, when you offer free chairs and tables for people to use, they're going to play cards.
Went to Hangzhou after that, don't remember anything happening that afternoon so it must not have been very good. Night was pretty ceebs too, but the hotel did have a computer in each room with free internet, so got in touch with the outside world for the first time in a while. 600 something junk emails, of which 500 or so were from Facebook. Nice. I don't think I've yet found what all those notifications were for, since Facebook deletes the goddamn things after a week.

Day Six (14/07/2011) - Hangzhou->Shanghai
In the morning we went on this boat ride of Xihu (West Lake) in Hangzhou, apparently its famous but it looked like a fucking lake to me. Something about murky water just isn't that appealing.
Left that, went to the tea area. That was awesome. Just tiers upon tiers of tea plants up entire mountainsides. What they sold there was Longjing tea, which is really well-known and therefore expensive. Coincidentally, they also sold juhua flowers, which in your mind by now no doubt have more uses than just tea. The thing with Longjing tea is that you also eat the leaves after you drink it...which is odd in Chinese tea, which often involves second and even third infusions of the tea leaves in order to get the full taste.
Fucking 5 hour trip back to Shanghai, and a boatride along the Huangpu river. Didn't really pay attention, sat on the first deck and played cards. Man, we sure did that shit a lot.

That night, 6 of us went karaoke (neither Chris nor my sister came)...and what happens in Shanghai stays in Shanghai. I will say that Vanessa, when she's drunk, is fucking hilarious. Also, karaoke in Shanghai is amazingly cheap, around 120RMB per hour for a large VIP room, and alcohol is about comparable, or even a bit cheaper, than from a bottleshop in Melbourne.

Anyway I can't be fucked writing more about Yunnan now, but the scenery there was amazing.

Yeah.

Uni starts soon. Hope you're all ready. Fucking, I'm sure not.

Quotes!

2011-06-26T18:16:00.002+10:00

So it turns out my sister has this quote book! Here's a few good ones :)

"Realise that you cannot help a soul unless that soul really wants help and is ready to be helped. I tell you to send that oul nothing but love and more love. Be still and wait, but be there when that soul turns for help."
- Eileen Caddy

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well."
- Martin Luther King

"True friends want nothing from you except the joy of your presence. No matter what you do, they will always be your friend."
- Paramahansa Yogananda

"If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all the generations of your ancestors. All o them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of all these people."
- Thich Nhat Hahn

"Desperation can be an inspiration"
- James Rohn

"Fortune lost, nothing lost;
courage lost, much lost;
honour lost, most lost;
soul lost, all lost."
- Anonymous

"It's important that people know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for."
- Mary Waldrop

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."
- Socrates

"Don't forget untl too late that the business of life is not business, but living."
- B. C. Forbes

"In the end, everyone is our teacher, on one level or another. The child is our teacher, our friends, our family, the sranger on the street. Every experience is a challenge; a teaching is always hidden in it. Every thought that bubbles up in our minds can teach us things about ourselves, if we are able to listen."
- David A. Cooper

"Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies in us while we are still alive."
- Norman Cousins

"When you were born you cried and the world rejoiced...live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice."
- Cherokee proverb

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
- Lao Tzu

"If love by timid it is not true."
- Spanish proverb

"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."
- Samuel Johnson

"Lack of money is the root of all evil."
- George Bernard Shaw

"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is an invisible labor."
- Victor Hugo

"Don't wish for a better wind -
wind blows on us all -
learn to set a better sail."
- Jim Rohn

"A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will."
- Spanish proverb

"Speaking without thinking is like shooting without taking aim."
- English proverb

"A wise man hears one word and understands two."
- Yiddish proverb

"To question a wise man is the beginning of wisdom."
- German proverb

"The worst things:
To be in bed and sleep not.
To want for one who comes not.
To try and please and please not."
- Egyptian proverb

"The doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect ca only advise his client to plant vines."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

~~~

In other news, Sam's birthday/going away drinks last night at the Lion Hotel in Melbourne Central. Pretty fucking epic. Pics up on Facebook, shoutout to Sam, Hungy, Francis, Clare, Alex, Annie, Brendan, ET, Steve. Great to see everyone again, too bad Kevin couldn't make it :(

Chinese limericks

2011-06-19T13:23:00.003+10:00

从前有个女孩儿叫Linh,
想保护她自己的心,
她表现又好,
朋友不少,
可男孩儿们追她费劲.

从前有个男孩儿叫Jonhsan,
朋友们都问他怎么办,
他最爱戳人,
想游到日本,
哪像个男子汉?

Can't think of any other decent ones, and I'm not sure about the grammar/correctness of the two I just wrote...but hmm. Multilingual rhyming and poetry...now there's an idea.

鸟在海上钓鱼,
When suddenly out of the blue,
海突然了变绿,
What was there growing,
才能有原因,
For this whole blue sea to be changing?

Whoooooooo~

My left eye

2011-06-13T17:27:00.003+10:00

Alright, so as some of you might know, my left eye is pretty fucked up.

"How fucked up?", you ask?

Well today I went to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital over on Victoria Street. After about an hours worth of having lights shone in my eye, UV lights shone in my eye, dye put into my eye, anaesthetic eye drops, more lights, it turns out I have a 2-3mm scratch on my left eyeball, with an unknown infection growing underneath.

Fuck.

So they decided to take samples of hte infection to see what it is, and hopefully get rid of it.

That involved scraping along my eye with a tiny thin needle. Do you realise how fucking hard it is not to blink when there's this glass thing touching your eyeball that, if one millimetre too far, could puncture it? Fucking. Nervous. Shit.

Anyway so they plated that onto blood agar, nutrient agar, I think a motility test plus a bunch of other shit. Hopefully get results soon.

Along with that, I have these ofloxacin antibiotic eye drops, just to start fucking up that infection. Problem is, I have to put them in every hour. Every fucking hour, day or night. For the next two days. Goodbye normal sleep patterns. They also cause blurriness, so I won't be able to read for shit.

Exam on Thursday. Applying for special consideration. Hope to fuck I get it, or I am so boned for this subject. Ironic thing is, the exam is Molecular Biology. In which we actually did a prac on bacteria, plating it and stuff. Oh karma, thou art a heartless bitch.

~~~

Quote of the week:

[11/06/2011 11:47:13 PM] Hungy: but need someone to express interest in my naked body first

Context is up to your imagination.

Quote of the day:

[7:58:22 PM] J.Z.: I ...... yes.
[7:58:52 PM] J.Z.: like when i'm lost in life
[7:59:28 PM] J.Z.: i look at pretty girls' partially naked bodies

penisanalise

2011-06-13T00:07:00.000+10:00

[12:00:48 AM] Oliver Jiang: Is this a takehome exam?
[12:00:53 AM] Oliver Jiang: Or just a randomcrap essay you need to do
[12:01:56 AM] Victor Liaw: yeah its a take home
[12:02:03 AM] Oliver Jiang: Yeah then...it's an exam
[12:02:12 AM] Oliver Jiang: Don't you get penisanalised if you hand it in late
[12:02:55 AM] Victor Liaw: tahts a good question
[12:02:57 AM] Victor Liaw: with the law one
[12:03:00 AM] Victor Liaw: you fail
[12:03:02 AM] Victor Liaw: because its an exam
[12:03:14 AM] Victor Liaw: and they equate it to being absent from the exam room
[12:03:21 AM] Victor Liaw: this is a bullshit wanky subjecet hough
[12:03:26 AM] Oliver Jiang: I like it because if you take out "isan" it becomes "penalised"
[12:03:51 AM] Oliver Jiang: Ohh, yeah, makes sense
[12:03:52 AM] Oliver Jiang: (y)
[12:03:57 AM] Oliver Jiang: So how come
[12:03:59 AM] Oliver Jiang: You're replying to me
[12:04:00 AM] Victor Liaw: OH MY GOD
[12:04:01 AM] Oliver Jiang: and not writing
[12:04:06 AM] Victor Liaw: I JUST READ WHAT OU WROTE
[12:04:07 AM] Victor Liaw: BAD CHILD.
[12:04:22 AM] Oliver Jiang: ...oh fuck me you're going to fail everything.

~~~

[12:06:53 AM] Victor Liaw: you do remember that I have a habit of releasing anger through violence at inanimate objects
[12:07:08 AM] Oliver Jiang: I thought that was how you 'repair' shit
[12:07:26 AM] Victor Liaw: it repairs me
[12:07:26 AM] Victor Liaw: :)
[12:07:41 AM] Oliver Jiang: So...you're shit.

Comrade Hungy in the RSA

2011-04-28T17:10:00.004+10:00

Hungy-Թ says (5:07 PM):
*speed heaps
*it was good
*wait
*whats the past tense of speed
*spead?
*speeded?

As you can tell, Hungy has gone to a foreign place where English is not the primary language, thus resulting in a degradation of his own English skills.

I hear he's having a lot of fun over there, you can check it out at http://fibercakes.blogspot.com/

~~~

In other news, I threw up due to alcohol for the first time yesterday. Not pleasant. The journey sure was fun, though! Tuan's birthday, then Vietnamese Students' Association trivia night, and then Kym's place! Gotta love holidays :D

My laptop continues to suck ass.

Things you learn!

2011-04-25T21:13:00.006+10:00

Apparently, this is what a 2 litre bottle looks like before they inflate it for use! Compare to the hand for size!

Props to Cindy for the link ^^

Easter

2011-04-24T01:32:00.002+10:00

"Greatest man in history, named Jesus, had no servants, yet they called him Master. Had no degree, yet they called him Teacher. Had no medicines, yet they called him Healer. Had no army, yet kings feared Him. He won no military battles, yet he conquered the world. He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him. He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today. Re-post if you truly believe"

"Greatest man in history" is a pretty big claim for a guy who walked around one tiny region of the world doing stuff. And considering he's "The Son of God", who many interpret to be God Himself in human form, you can hardly consider Jesus a man.

"I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."
No man is the master of me, but myself.

Confucius said, “When three men walk together, there is always something I can learn.”, firmly establishing the idea of learning from all sources regardless of 'degrees', a full 500 years before the birth of Christ. Also, did they even have degrees back then?

A healer of hearts and minds need not have medicines. Look at psychotherapists. Dentists too do not use medicine. Nor do surgeons. Or any number of the medical professions.

Kings fear a lot of things. They fear other kings. They fear their subjects. They fear their nobles. They fear their own children.

Conquered the world? Really? Sure, one dude walking around the Middle East obviously conquered the ENTIRE world.

Crime is a subjective notion. To the people that crucified Jesus, He had sinned by claiming to be the Son of God.

He was buried in a tomb, respawned three days later, then randomly ascended to Heaven for...no apparent reason. Actually, nobody really even takes notice of when Jesus ascended to Heaven. It's completely glossed over. This is despite the overwhelming notice paid to His surviving being crucified. Makes no sense.

Anyway, if Easter is about when Jesus was resurrected, why does the date change every year? Why doesn't it stay fixed like Christmas?

Why trees are like nuclear power plants

2011-04-05T10:08:00.003+10:00

Now, at first glance, most of you would instantly conclude that trees are nothing like nuclear power plants at all. And, at least physically, I suppose that's true. I mean, this:

Looks nothing like this:

But let us look deeper than the mere surface of the issue, as opposed to that organisation known as Greenpeace.

What do trees do? They undergo photosynthesis, which involves taking up carbon dioxide and water, and producing glucose and oxygen as a byproduct.
Similarily, nuclear power plants utilise a chain reaction of nuclear fission to produce electricity, with water vapour and small amounts of radioactive waste as a byproduct.

Nuclear power plants sometimes undergo potentially catastrophic events, such as the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, or the recent events in Fukushima. Sometimes, people die just from the construction of a nuclear power plant, in industrial accients or the like.
Similarily, trees are also a catalyst for disaster. All major bushfires involve trees as the primary fuel source, a fuel source that leads to the destruction of countless homes and properties, and the deaths of animals and people. Think of all the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere during such an event. And sometimes, a tree will drop a branch onto a car or a person for apparently no reason at all.

There are those that would claim that because nuclear power plants are man-made, and trees are natural, then that makes trees different.
Oh, I'm sorry. I was not aware that we, as human beings, are not natural. We are animals just as any other species on this planet today. We are part of the natural world. And hence, what we do is also natural. If a vulture uses a rock to break open an ostrich egg, does that make the vulture and the rock unnatural? If a monkey uses a stick to catch ants to eat, does that make the monkey and the stick unnatural? No. So then why are humans and human tools labelled as "not natural" simply because we made them? Is this not bias? Is this not speciesism?

Nuclear power plants are like trees. Trees are like nuclear power plants.

Armless piano player

2011-04-03T19:56:00.003+10:00

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MJ-NeXRcEk&feature=related

This is true inspiration.

The best quote from Liu Wei, the guy who's playing the piano, I think, is when he says:
"人生中只有两条路，要么赶紧死了要么精彩得活着。没有人规定钢琴是要用手弹得。"
Translation: In life, people have two routes. They can either die sooner, or live wonderfully. Nobody decreed that the piano must be played with your hands.

Pure inspiration.

Thanks to Xin for the link to the link.

和

2011-04-03T11:53:00.002+10:00

What is the meaning of the character '和' in Mandarin?

A translation into English indicates that the meaning is: "peace, harmony, union"
How, then, does the character itself espouse this? After all, many Chinese characters have a pictographic link with their meaning.

Let us split the character into its two component parts.
On the left-side, there is the character "禾", which means "cereal, grain".
On the right-side, there is the character "口", which means "mouth".

The question then arises, what does eating cereal have to do with peace?

In Ancient China, whenever rival states went to war, they would mobilise the populace, forge arms, and collect food for the army. Of these, only the collection of food was out of control of mortal rulers, since food production is usually at the whim of the seasons and the weather. For this reason, whenever they invaded a place, armies would first strip the local crops of food before relying on their own resources from home, not only shortening their own supply routes, but denying the enemy a valuable resource.

Therefore, in times of war, the ordinary peasants would lose their crops, either to their rulers confiscating it for the army, or to any invading armies. Conversely, in times of peace, there would be plenty of food for all to eat.

I made up everything in this post. It makes sense though, doesn't it?

Stop dicking around

2011-04-01T17:54:00.002+11:00

Okay, as some people are aware, I am currently undergoing something of a crisis of friendship with someone.

To those people that are caught in the middle, though, please kindly stop fucking around.

You don't actually need to hide the fact that you're going to go hang out with that someone, as if I'm going to take it that you're picking sides or something.

I mean, unless you are actually picking sides, and you're trying to hide it.

I've been in your position before myself. You don't want to displease anyone.

But seriously, I'm going to be a lot more pissed off finding out that you hid it from me, than if you just out and out told me.

That is, of course, unless you don't want to tell me.

Then maybe you are picking sides.

Azalea?

2011-03-28T21:28:00.001+11:00

OJ says (9:26 PM):
*=/
*fucking
*what's chinese for "azalea"
*no fuck that
*what the fuck is an azalea

Hungy-Թ-fail says (9:27 PM):
*its the town with that bug gymleader in gold/silver

Nuclear debate

2011-03-27T13:17:00.005+11:00

With the recent events in Fukushima, Japan, the nuclear energy debate has been fervently reignited.

Here's just a selection of online articles from my browsing, each one of which I support completely.

'Climate may demand some nuclear power' - Tim Soutphommasane
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/climate-may-demand-some-nuclear-power/story-e6frg6zo-1226027949878

"I am inclined to believe nuclear power should be part of the global energy mix. Of Fukushima, let's not forget it took a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a 14m tsunami to trigger this crisis."

"If we are to repudiate nuclear power, it's not enough just to point to dangers. It must be shown that its costs clearly outweigh its benefits.

There's one obvious benefit that opponents of nuclear typically downplay; namely, nuclear power plants are carbon-free (in their generation of electricity). If we are interested in mitigating global warming, this should carry some moral weight."

'Japan crisis 'teaches Aussies value of nuclear energy'' - Ziggy Switkowski
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/japan-crisis-teaches-much-about-value-of-nuclear/story-fn7kiea5-1226027840519

"The plants were designed for a magnitude 8 earthquake but were staggered by an earthquake 10 times stronger, with its epicentre just offshore and with 40,000 times the energy of the atomic bomb which devastated Hiroshima, according to a Cosmos Online editorial.

That the plant remains largely intact is extraordinary given most structures in that area are severely damaged.

The earthquake and tsunami cracked dams, exploded oil storages, ignited coal and gas-fired power stations and killed many people.

But at this point, there is no report of a nuclear-related fatality nor any case of radiation sickness from exposure to elevated radioactivity."

'How nuclear passed its toughest test' - Miranda Devine
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/how-nuclear-passed-its-toughest-test/story-e6frezz0-1226026963030

"The Japanese nuclear power complex is like a Tonka Truck. It's so tough that you can put it through a magnitude 9 earthquake and a 14m tsunami and it's still standing, with no armageddon in sight."

"But when you think about it, Fukushima shows how resilient even a 40-year-old, inadequately maintained nuclear plant can be.

And, in the scheme of things, with more than 20,000 people dead in the rest of Japan and a massive rebuilding operation still to come, what are a few millisieverts of radiation between friends?"

"As the only form of baseload energy with virtually zero carbon emissions, nuclear is the only solution for those, like the Prime Minister, who claim a "low-carbon" world is necessary to prevent climate catastrophe. (Well, there is one other solution, which BlueScope Steel chairman Graham Kraehe suggested sarcastically this week while criticising Gillard's carbon tax at the National Press Club. We could stop exporting coal and wreck our economy.)

The truth is, greens who oppose nuclear energy don't really care about carbon dioxide emissions or global warming. They know the hype is just a means to an end.

They want us to reduce our consumption of power and change our way of life. They want to stall progress, and have everyone live like Wombles."

And best of all...
'Propaganda has no place in crisis' - Geoffrey Barker and Paul Dibb
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/propaganda-has-no-place-in-crisis/story-e6frgd0x-1226026345696

"As Japanese authorities struggle to contain potentially grave radiation leakages from the damaged Fukushima reactors, conservation and green ideologues have rushed to claim the catastrophe shows there is no future for nuclear power.

Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman David Noonan says nuclear power has no place in a sustainable energy future; Greens leader Bob Brown says the Japanese crisis is a reminder that nuclear energy is outside the limits of human safeguards. These sorts of statements, echoed by activists globally, are at once false and heartless."

"But generalised arguments against nuclear power are separate, irrelevant and inappropriate issues at this time of appalling devastation and human suffering wrought by the earthquake and tsunami. With a probable death toll of many tens of thousands, and widespread destruction of homes and economic infrastructure on the north coast, Japan is facing challenges quite reasonably claimed by Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan as the country's greatest challenge since the end of World War II."

"Sterile ideological arguments over the future of nuclear power should be for another day. It verges on the indecent for anti-nuclear activists to propagandise when perhaps millions of Japanese are traumatised by bereavement, hunger, homelessness, joblessness, fear and cold."

"So let us not be distracted by Green obsessions about nuclear power. Japan's long-term welfare and recovery is too important to be held hostage to such comparatively irrelevant side issues."