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30 most recent entries
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
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| 12:02 am » |
The Storm Warriors |
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"The fastest way to build up your powers is to use the power of evil."
Now, hands up who didn't see from the start that that is going to be a really bad idea.... -_-
10 years ago, I watched a Chinese movie that set a certain standard for Chinese movies for me for some time. This was of course, the Storm Riders. The CGI was out of this world, the plot was tight and interesting, and the cinematography, well, okay lah. Of course, it also starred Shu Qi and Kristy Yang, so those were 2 more plus points. Even the soundtrack was really good for a Chinese movie! (We actually used some of the tracks for our Eusoff Hall Dance Production in 2002.)
Fast forward 11 years, and I found myself at GV Vivo courtesy of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) angeliatay, waiting to watch how Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng have changed over the past decade. Before we could enter the cinema hall though, they made all of us deposit our handphones, cameras, PDAs, or any other recording devices. I was like... WTF. Surely they could have told us about this earlier? I would have left my phone in my car lor!
( Review – contains spoilers )
(Clockwise from top left) Charlene Choi (yum!), Simon Yam, Tiffany Tang, Nicholas Tse
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| Sunday, November 29th, 2009
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 Following how much I loved Sepet the night before, I decided to come for the screening of Gubra, which I had not intended before watching Sepet, but the latter left me inextricably hooked. Now I want to get the DVDs of the Orked Trilogy, and I was recommended Talentime as well.
Like Sepet did, the moment the film started, it started to tell its message. I'm referring of course to the scene where the caller of the azaan walks to the mosque in the pre-dawn darkness, and along the way, speaks kindly to a stray dog, even patting its head. The message is simple: before you start criticising others or making demands because of your religion, make sure you know your religion well enough first. Remember the hooha a few years back when this Malay woman wrote to the ST Forum to demand that dogs be banned from taxis, and similar letters appeared calling for bans of dogs from places like McDonald's and the like? A lot of Muslims believed wholeheartedly that they were not allowed to touch dogs, whereas the correct teaching is merely that if it so happens that a dog's saliva touches you, you need to wash wherever was touched by it. As the scene was acted out, I noticed very carefully what the muezzin did: he patted the dog on the head, stroked it a bit on the back, but he never touched anywhere near the dog's nose. After the dog moved off, the muezzin continued walking on to the mosque, as though nothing had happened.
Other little semi-hidden references included the scene where Alan and Orked are in the pick-up, and she said one thing she loved about Malaysia was the fact that you could switch on the radio, and have a multitude of languages readily available. Then one of them said something about how they could never imagine living in a place where everybody could only speak the same language. I saw this as a tongue-in-cheek indictment of Singapore, of how Singaporeans seem to be losing their ability to speak any dialect other than Mandarin, and in doing so, lose a lot of their colour, culture and heritage in the process. If you notice, the dominant Chinese dialect used in Sepet and Gubra is Cantonese. Yet when Alan switched on the radio, it played a Mandarin channel.
Unfortunately, the use of mood music in Gubra, although good, was not as breathtaking as the Song To The Moon in Sepet (the music used here being the Adagio un poco mosso from Beethoven's Emperor Concerto).
One scene I particularly liked was when Orked discovered what her husband was really up to, and as she went to confront the other woman, Alan and Arif both looked at her walking off. I really liked the juxtaposition of the current husband who betrayed her and the brother of the former boyfriend, her only link to the man who loved her more than himself, and who broke her heart because he was taken from her even though he promised he would never leave.
A scene which made me, and the whole audience in particular, laugh out loud was when Alan was explaining that he was divorced from his Singaporean wife and musing that she never thought he was good enough for her, ending off with "serves me right for marrying a Singaporean". I don't know what the rest of the crowd were laughing at, but I was laughing not because I felt that it was funny how he felt that, yes, he would never be good enough for a Singaporean girl, but because it's a reflection of how many Singaporean women these days tend to aim so high and think so highly of themselves that most men would never be good enough.
A particularly poignant scene I felt was the ending, which juxtaposed Kiah and Mas at prayers together contrapuntally with scenes of Alan and his daughter at prayers in a church. This helped to hammer home Yasmin's pet message in case you have not been thinking too much during the film: that despite our differences in practices, in faiths, in customs, beneath it all, we are all the same. During that scene, Kiah was seen breaking into tears and being comforted by Mas. Was it because of what happened in her room? Or was it because Temah had died? It was never really explained.
Speaking of unexplained loose ends, Yasmin never really explained why is it that the post-credit scene showed Orked snuggling up to Jason and both were wearing wedding rings; this brought comparisons with the end of Sepet, where Orked is seen finally telling Jason she loved him even though he lay dead on the ground with his phone ringing. I thought quite hard about it and came up with a couple of plausible explanations of what Yasmin was trying to say.
One of the comments I received about this not just open-ended but even wide-open puzzle ending was that Yasmin couldn't make up her mind about what ending she wanted and so she gave this ambiguous ending. But if you think a bit more about the ending moments of the film, you'll notice that Yasmin knew perfectly well what she wanted to say. Take the scene where Kiah surprises Mas at her home, what was that thing that Kiah had to do back home? What was she saving the money for? And later, what happened between Temah's former boyfriend and Kiah behind the closed door? Why did Yasmin time this event to occur at the same time as the morning azaan, which calls out "God is the greatest"?
All these things are not something that Yasmin couldn't make up her mind on what she wanted: she deliberately inserted these couple of minutes into the film and if they had been removed, it would not have affected the flow of the film. In fact, inserting these two scenes created more questions than closure, and that is exactly what Yasmin sought to do: to throw us open questions to which we have to figure out her answers on our own.
Yasmin has always sought to compel her audiences to think for themselves, instead of blindly accepting what has been spoon-fed to them. This is a common trait in her films, so in the same vein, it is only natural that she will make you think for yourself to decode and discern her message. And it is always in the smallest details, or even removed entirely from the process of image and sound. If you don't think about what you didn't see or didn't hear, you will never get it.
A good example of this is the short film that she did for 15Malaysia. It may only be 2 minutes long, but the wealth and intensity of the scene fills much more than that. Nevertheless, comments from some people were that it was "boring" and "no action". They just didn't bother to see beyond the image and listen to that message that the pregnant moment of silence was saying:
If you can see only what light reveals
and hear only what sound announces,
Then in truth you do not see nor do you
hear.
The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you,
but in what he cannot reveal to you.
Therefore, if you would understand him,
listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.
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– Kahlil Gibran –
Sand and Foam
§ Quod vide:
Straits Times review of Gubra, from Yasmin's blog
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§ current mood:  even more impressed
§ current music: Beethoven – Piano Concerto 5 "Emperor": Adagio un poco mosso
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 1 "
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| Saturday, November 28th, 2009
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 It was really through a stroke of pure luck, that as I was about to leave Suntec, I checked my Twitterfeed and saw that auntyadele had tweeted that she was on her way to watch Yasmin Ahmad's Sepet! I did a double-take, because of all my favourite films, this is the only one which I have never watched and have always wanted to. Yes, I know it sounds strange to have a favourite film that I've never seen, but from the trailers, the reviews, and the synopsis of the film—coupled with the fact that it was from Yasmin Ahmad—told me that I would love it.
I have been trying to watch Sepet many times since I first heard about it just after it ended its short run in the mainstream cinemas back in 2004. I have been searching for the DVD, even in the DVD shops along KL's Jalan Alor, I have searched online, but the closest I came to watching it was one late night in my hotel room in KL, when I switched on the TV only to see the ending of a film I quickly recognised as Sepet.
Anyway, I quickly saw the time of the tweet and it was only 8 minutes before I saw it, so after finding out where it was screening, I made my way down asap! I still couldn't believe how fateful it was that I decided to check my Twitterfeed when I did. Just 15 minutes later and I would not have been able to make it down. Maybe it was appropriate that one of the themes of the film was on fate and destiny!
Even though I had high expectations for the film, it didn't disappoint. Right from the start, when the opening credits featured Sam Hui's 梨涡浅笑, which was a lovely and nostalgic Cantonese song, I was watching intently. I loved how Yasmin brilliantly interwove the various languages: English, Cantonese, and Malay. There was even a smattering of Mandarin and Hokkien. I loved the fact that Cantonese featured so prominently in the film; needless to say, I'm pretty sick of the inherent Hokkien bias of local Singaporean cinema.
My favourite scene was quite early in the film: the scene where Orked and Jason first meet, at a quite random, chance moment. One thing I find about Yasmin's films is that if you only see what the eyes see and hear what the ears hear, you're missing a lot. She has this way of infusing so much underlying meaning and undertones in a scene that you have to process and decipher in situ to be able to understand. As it is, I know there is some significance to the father's narrative that starts the film, but I'm still trying to figure it out.
Anyway, back to the meeting scene, I really loved how the couple first look at each other, and then the ambient sound starts to slowly wash away, like how it is when you're in love and you become oblivious to the rest of the world... until someone brings you back with a snap. Yasmin managed to take a clichéd scene, apply a cliché, and yet make you really feel as though it was the only right and natural thing to happen. And yet, at that moment, when a young Chinese boy and young Malay girl meet each other's eyes and fall in love, you start to feel the bittersweetness of the moment, for that would bring them both down a path which would lead to a lot of pain and sadness that you start to wonder if it would have been better for each of them if they had never met at all.
One disappointment I felt in the film was that it seemed all too easy for Jason and Orked to fall in love. Being a Chinese boy and a Malay girl, I was expecting and hoping to see a bit more drama on the social pressures/obstacles standing between them, especially from both their families. But it seemed just so easy that it appeared more like an oddity or novelty rather than a taboo that's frowned upon.
I like how Yasmin fitted in social commentaries in small, innocuous places, like the scene where Jason's family is having dinner, and I noticed that while the Peranakan mother spoke Malay and the father and the brother spoke Cantonese, the sister-in-law spoke Mandarin. Moments later, it was revealed: the sister-in-law was from Singapore. It was a simple, yet effective reflection of the reality that Singaporeans are dialect-impeded due to the Speak Mandarin Campaign.
When Orked and Jason met for their first date, I was quite intrigued to note that she interspersed her speech with Cantonese terms. It is really quite interesting to hear a Malay girl utter familiar Cantonese phrases like 'ho doke' [好毒], and she delivered her lines very well. I felt that Sharifah Amani and Ng Choo Seong really had a lot of chemistry in the film, such that you could really believe that they were blissfully in young, unjaded love.
From the initial warm, fuzzy feeling that the budding romance gave, it started to turn dark at the point where Yasmin used the Song To The Moon from Dvořák's Rusalka as accompanying music, which I felt was chosen very well. If you are familiar with this work, you will know that it is a very lyrical, emotive, and yet hauntingly bittersweet tune. I pay careful attention to mood music, and like what Wong Kar-wai said, during this scene, the music was indeed the front and the image the background. Perhaps it was a silent tribute to wkw's style that Orked first meets Jason when she turns up at his stall looking for VCDs and the VCD that Jason gives to her with his number inside is wkw's Chungking Express.
Sepet really tugged at my heartstrings during the final part of the film, especially that scene in the car when Orked read Jason's letter where he pleaded with her, telling her that he didn't know for sure whether she loved him because he never heard her say it. I was like... "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........!!!!!!!" A film has not made me feel that way in quite some time.
Malaysian cinema, if not the world, has lost a great talent with the passing of Yasmin Ahmad. They are screening Gubra, the sequel, tomorrow, and although I initially wasn't that interested, I think I'll be going down tomorrow too.
( Scenes from Sepet )
If you have never seen or even heard of this film, do check out the trailer:
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§ current music: Dvořák – Rusalka: Song To The Moon
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 3 "
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| Friday, November 27th, 2009
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| 1:33 am » |
The one thing about this country I can never agree with |
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People may say a lot about how chao kuan this country is. While we can all differ about the veracity of that statement, one thing to me is so chao kuan that I can never possibly agree with it.
Amnesty International frequently issues urgent action appeals for condemned prisoners at imminent risk of execution. While these mostly refer to prisoners in countries like the US, China, Japan, or Iran, this time I saw that the country in question was Singapore.Yong Vui Kong was arrested in June 2007, when he was 19, by officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau. He was charged with trafficking 42.27 grams of heroin, and then sentenced to death in January 2009.
He had been working as a messenger for a man in Malaysia who often asked him to collect money from debtors or deliver packages as "gifts" to people in Singapore and Malaysia. At his trial, Yong Vui Kong said he had not known what was in the packages, and when he asked, he had simply been told not to open them. The judge, however, ruled that Yong must have been aware of their contents, saying in his written summation, "I found that the accused had failed to rebut the presumption against him. I am of the view that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt, and I therefore found the accused guilty as charged and sentenced him to suffer death." Did you notice the use of the term 'presumption'? That is because Singapore law states that when it comes to drugs, you are guilty until proven innocent. The burden is on you to prove that you did not know that there were drugs in the package you were carrying or in the vehicle you were driving. All the prosecution needs to do (if anything at all) is to show that you should have known that there were drugs in the sealed package or hidden under your car.
Regardless of whether Yong was indeed trying to traffick drugs or not, even if he really was guilty, what is more serious than the death penalty itself is this presumption. If you remember a couple of years ago, there was a young Nigerian named Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi, who was also hanged because he "should have known"—even though the judge noted that there was no direct evidence that he did know or that he had found out on his own. Indeed, his actions were consistent with someone who didn't know what he was carrying. I have no idea whether anyone at all has ever managed to prove that he did not know and should not have known that there were drugs on him or in his vehicle, but certainly I have never heard of any case where the accused succeeded. Furthermore, there is also another presumption which states that unless you prove otherwise, they can presume that you are carrying it for trafficking, not consumption, which can lead to a mandatory death sentence with no alternative and is almost an absolute certainty.1
Those are two pretty amoral presumptions to make, aren't they?
1 After the single appeal is rejected, the final recourse is to appeal to the President for clemency based on the mitigating circumstances of the case. Since 1965, the President has granted clemency only six times; the last clemency was in May 1998 from President Ong Teng Cheong for an 18-year-old convicted of murder, with the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Between 1994–1999, Singapore had the highest per-capita execution rate in the world, estimated to be 13.57 executions per one million population.
[ X-posted to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) sg_ljers ]
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§ current mood:  distressed
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 12 "
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| Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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| 11:47 pm » |
Our Army: Another Proud Cluster Bomb User |
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http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_455906.html
Nov 18, 2009
SAF tests new artillery
Troops get more reach, firepower; delivery of weapons begin next year
By Jermyn Chow
FORT SILL (OKLAHOMA) - A NEW rocket artillery weapon system acquired by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) to give its ground troops greater reach and firepower went into action on Tuesday.
( Read more... )
Mounted on a truck are six rockets, with each warhead packing 644 armour-piercing bomblets. Firing a salvo of all six rockets would rain about 3,800 bomblets over targets 70km away.
Guided by a Global Positioning System, the rockets are more accurate and powerful than the current big guns in the SAF - the 155mm artillery guns and 120mm mortars. The Army and our mainstream media are trying to hype up this latest 'achievement' of theirs, but when I read this article, I didn't see it the same way. Rather than something to be proud of, I felt this was very disappointing and something to be ashamed of.
In recent times, the campaign against landmines and cluster munitions has garnered the same level of publicity as the campaign against global warming or sharks' fins. I don't think I need to go into the specifics of why, but to date, 101 countries have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions obliging them never to use cluster munitions. Singapore, unsurprisingly, is not a signatory to this convention.
I don't see why we need to procure such a weapon. After all, if as the papers claim its vaunted accuracy of always hitting within 5m of the target, what the hell do we need 644 bomblets for? Or do they mean that with 644 bomblets, at least one of them is guaranteed to hit within 5m of the target?
[ X-posted to sg_ljers ]
§ Quod vide:
Wikipedia: Cluster Bomb
Wikipedia: Convention on Cluster Munitions
§ Technorati tags:
 news bites
§ current mood:  disappointed
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| Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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| 4:04 am » |
Glen Goei's The Blue Mansion |
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 I caught The Blue Mansion earlier this week and I really liked it a lot, though I must say that you really need a lot of patience to watch this film. It builds up rather slowly but when the ending comes, it comes with a punch.
I particularly liked Louisa Chong's portrayal of the elderly matriarch who is left to take over running the household, how she tried to maintain her dignified composure and poise even in the face of family politics and external gossip. I thought the acting by Tan Kheng Hua was particularly good as well, and fwah nobody told me she had such a MILF-like figure (which Glen Goei showed off to good effect, along with, er... Emma Yong's). My favourite scene though was the one with Sebastian Tan, hahaha! I also grew to empathise with Neo Swee Lin's character even though I initially did not like her very much due to her fanatical Christian beliefs. Patrick Teoh acted quite well too, especially in the scenes after Emma Yong appeared [if you watch the film you'll know why].
Being titled The Blue Mansion, I knew it was a reference to the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, part of the Penang UNESCO World Heritage Site, but I also noticed the abundant use of colour, together with contrast and shadow, in the cinematography. Indeed, blue is the predominant colour in the film (and since it's my favourite colour I liked it quite a lot!) Throughout the film, the character Wee Bak Chuan is wearing gold (a reference to his position as the Pineapple King and being reminiscent of the imperial yellow, also a subtle hint at his dictatorial style, perhaps?) In the scene where he speaks to all his children when he was alive, if you notice carefully, they are all wearing blue. Emma Yong's character appears throughout the film dressed in a dazzlingly white wedding gown. I'm not sure but the symbolism I got from that was that it was to emphasise her purity of heart and that what happened to her was a direct result of her marriage, I think.
All in all, it is a very well-shot film, could have been better written, and acting was good although I don't get the highly contrived accents. Why can't they just speak like real people? I think it's ending its run soon so catch it when you still can!
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 6 "
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| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
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| 1:08 am » |
The J-thing's Observation of the Day: Love Is |
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| Sunday, November 8th, 2009
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| 6:00 am » |
Drunk People Say And Do The Darnedest Things |
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So tonight marajaded and I were at Timbré 1 watching The Goodfellas, and somewhere in the middle of their 3rd set, they get this on a request form:Hi guys,
I'm a lawyer and I'm really drunk.
I love your band, I want to come up on stage and sing with you, goddammit.
[OK I don't remember what exactly the second sentence said, but it was along those lines, with the "goddammit" at the end.] Now this is something you don't get every night! So the band actually gets him to come up... and we realise that our drunk lawyer isn't a he but a she. And she's really high. Firstly, she tells everyone her name (I was waiting for the name of her firm but alas she disappointed). Then when The Goodfellas start to choose a song, she tells them that she wants to sing Don't Speak, because it's the only No Doubt song she knows. Bear in mind this is Goodfellas, the band that sings Queen, U2, and Coldplay (they also do Wondergirls and Earth, Wind & Fire, but that is another story....)
Now, if she could actually sing, that wouldn't be so bad. But we all know how predictably drunk people sing. I was quipping to marajaded that if you have real friends, they wouldn't allow you to do that kind of public harm to yourself, but apparently, not only did her 'friends' let her do it, while we were cringing, they apparently tried to disassociate themselves and pretend that they weren't with her.
(You'll get how jialat it is when you see the video but it's quite mean to post it up so unless you guys really want to see it, I won't lah.)
Anyhow, I'm so glad that whoever was at my birthday party were friend enough to not allow/prompt me to do something as horrifyingly embarrassing as that!
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§ current mood: the same feeling you get when you look at a car wreck
§ current music: No Doubt – Don't Speak
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 16 "
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| Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
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| 1:54 am » |
Exam Questions and Common Sense |
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angeliatay posted this brainteaser of a question she encountered among her Pri. 1 son's Maths problems; let's see if you can solve it:84, 64, A, 46, 24.
What is A? Give up? Heh, after trying very hard to determine the pattern between 84 and 64, and 46 and 24, I gave up—until she revealed that it was actually an MCQ question, and the options were:a.2 b.74 c.36 d.51 e.34 Still baffled? Well, I took one look and I immediately declared the answer to be D. The reasoning was simple: it was quite apparent to me that 51 was the only number between 64 and 46!
And after I realised what it was trying to do, I steadfastly approve of this question. It may be a Maths problem, but it really is a common sense answer. Lots of kids grilled by the system in deconstructing questions into logical patterns with mathematical certainty will be probably baffled by this question. At best, they will spend a lot of time trying to work out the logical pattern and then either give up and tikam, or realise the logic behind the flow belatedly, yet will still be too afraid to pick that answer with certainty; at worst, the kids will cry because the paper is so hard that they cannot understand that one question, then the kid's spirit will be broken.
However, even as we search for patterns and flows and logical progressions, we must never lose track or forget about the uncommon 'common sense'. Far too often we see these brilliant government scholars churn out idea after idea, policy after policy, that promises to be ground-breaking, revolutionary, and a watershed—but when the people on the ground see this policy, the first thing we think of is: it simply lacks common sense. I think it is important that from a young age, we allow our kids to realise that above all, whatever you do must first and foremost make sense.
Pri. 1 kids may be too young indeed to be taught the concept of Occam's Razor, but you are never too young to apply it.
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§ current mood:  pensive
§ current music: Linkin Park – Leave Out All The Rest
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 8 "
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| Friday, October 9th, 2009
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| 1:48 am » |
Do people actually realise how dumb they are? |
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I don't look through STOMP unless I am given a link to a specific article, or if something really bizarre is listed on the STOMP panel on the ST website, but whenever I do, I am always engrossed by some of the articles—because they reaffirm my faith in the unlimited horizon of human stupidity.
One example is this article I saw the other day. Let me reproduce it in its full glory here:Posted on 05 Oct 2009
Police car waits at double yellow lines unattended
Are police cars allowed to park or wait on double yellow lines? That is what STOMPer Just wonders after spotting this unattended police car with its hazard lights switched on in an HDB estate.
In an email, STOMPer Just says:
"Does the police have the right to park at double yellow lines? Even if the hazard light is on?
"Who are they picking up or who is alighting? A criminal?
"For your info, this picture was taken in a CAR PARK of an HDB estate.
"I know that the police work in pairs when attending cases. Even if so, there should be at least one person waiting in the car as it should not be left unattended." Stupidity this extreme should really be illegal.
That really made me wonder if these people actually realise how dumb they are, and how they are actually advertising their stupidity to the world. That was when I realised that it's actually very easy to submit something to STOMP, and all this talk about hiding behind a veil of anonymity actually applies more to these morons than established bloggers. Every single post to STOMP is written under the guise of a pseudonym, allowing these so-called STOMPers to say whatever they want.
Many years ago, pseudonyms were allowed for submissions to the ST Forum. Then one day, ST decided that to ensure respectability and accountability, they would require the use of real names and IC numbers when submitting Forum page letters. If ST is really serious about this 'citizen journalism' thing, maybe they should require STOMP submissions to be made with full names and IC numbers. It's no big deal for 'STOMPer Just' to be slammed for his imbecilic post, but I'm sure he would think differently if it was posted by 'STOMPer David Tan Chia Teck'. Otherwise don't call it 'citizen journalism', ST. Just call it what it is: bo liao gossip.
On that note, I wonder if anyone has ever done some social experiment with STOMP. You know, like that guy who made up this quote by Maurice Jarre, put it on Wikipedia as an experiment, and in the end had many respectable newspapers using his fake quote in their articles. I wonder what would happen if someone did the same thing with STOMP: create some fake scenario and submit it, complete with pictures. The STOMP moderators would naturally approve it [if they can approve this, they'll approve anything] and later the originators submit another article to STOMP with the real story behind their first article. I wonder what would happen....
STOMP is really a blot on our nation's collective intelligence, but unfortunately I don't think we will ever be rid of it. And so countless Singaporeans will continue to prove to the rest of the country how stupid they really are. Optima terra, pessima gens.
§ Technorati tags:
 darwin award
§ current mood: "seriously lor...."
§ current music: Blank & Jones – Nothing Can Come Between Us
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 10 "
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| Thursday, October 8th, 2009
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| 3:11 am » |
Why women shouldn't wear the pants |
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Last month, there was some furore in some circles when a woman in The Sudan was arrested, jailed and almost flogged for indecency. Her purported crime? Wearing pants.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/07/sudanese-woman-escapes-lash-trousers
Sudanese woman found guilty of indecency for wearing trousers vows to fight ruling
Former UN worker escapes flogging but says she would rather go to jail than pay fine imposed for breaching decency laws
James Sturcke, Matthew Weaver and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 September 2009 15.15 BST
A Sudanese woman said today that she would continue her campaign of defiance after being convicted by a court of indecency for wearing trousers in public.
Lubna Hussein said she would refuse to pay the 500 Sudanese pound (£127) fine imposed on her by a judge who ruled that she should not face a punishment of 40 lashes.
Hussein was among 13 women arrested in July during a raid at a party by the police in Khartoum. Ten of the women were fined and flogged two days later. But Hussein and two others decided to go to trial.
"I will not pay a penny," said Hussein, who stated last week that she would rather go to jail than pay any fine. "I won't pay, as a matter of principle. I would spend a month in jail. It is a chance to explore the conditions of jail."
Amnesty International has called on the Sudanese government to withdraw the charges against Hussein and repeal the indecency law, which it said justifies "abhorrent" penalties.
Earlier, Hussein's supporters were beaten by riot police armed with batons and shields outside the court. Dozens of people were detained.
Hussein, a former reporter, was working for the UN at the time of her arrest.
The case is being seen as a test of Sudan's Islamic decency regulations, which many female activists claim are too vague and give undue latitude to individual police officers to determine what is acceptable clothing.
"Lubna has given us a chance. She is very brave. Thousands of girls have been beaten since the 1990s, but Lubna is the first one not to keep silent," one protester, Sawsan Hassan el-Showaya, told Reuters.
About 150 protesters – most of them women, including some in trousers – had gathered on a traffic island to wave banners outside the court, hemmed in by security guards and riot police.
The women were later confronted by dozens of men in traditional Islamic dress who shouted religious slogans and denounced Hussein and her supporters, describing them as prostitutes and demanding harsh punishment for Hussein. ( Read more... ) Evidently, even if you cover your legs all the way to the ankles, it is still considered by some conservative Muslims to be indecent so long as you're a woman and you wear pants. Where this rationale came from, I have no idea. But suffice to say, there are some who take it very seriously, and there are some in the Western (and Western-influenced world) who are aghast as this senseless and abhorrent act of discrimination and sexism.
However, while pointing fingers and being aghast at the religious basis of such perceived 'indecency', a lot of people don't actually realise that Christianity and Islam actually have our roots in the same religion, and many of the laws that Muslims take literally actually have some basis in the Bible. Yes, that book which all these Christians quote liberally—but only from certain parts: the parts that they like and are convenient to what they want.
Every Sunday, in Churches all across the country, Bible-spouting, verse-dropping Christians refresh their database of Bible quotes from the sermons of their pastors, absorbing in tandem the various and varied interpretations that have been interpreted for them, like how Deut 22:9-11 is proof that God does not intend for us to have dealings with non-Christians, or that Christians must go out and aggressively convert non-believers, etc.
But why does nobody quote verses like Ezekiel 23:19-21? OK, maybe you may say that's way out of context of anything, but how about this one: since Lev 18:22 and Lev 20:13 are always quoted ad nauseum as proof that God forbids homosexuality, why doesn't anybody mention Num 25:6-11, where God shows His great displeasure at interracial marriage to the point where he lifted a plague simply because a mixed marriage couple was killed? In fact, God specifically calls the murder an honour killing! But why don't we hear law professors arguing equally vehemently and zealously in Parliament against interracial or international marriages?
Maybe it's because of Heb 9:22, where you won't be forgiven until you shed some blood. The problem is that God didn't specify whether it's supposed to be your own blood or someone else's. But I suspect He meant other people's blood, because in Num 31:15-18 God specifically instructs the Israelites to commit genocide, killing every single woman and child of the Midianites—except the virgins, whom God tells the Israelites to "save for yourselves", whatever that means. We don't see Christians quoting this verse on their blogs or their essays, or when chatting over a plate of Char Kway Teow.
Indeed, many of these Christians are strangely silent over all the sexist injustices that would leave you more aghast than being jailed for wearing pants. Take Deut 22:23-29, for one. God says that if a man rapes a virgin, both of them are to be executed. You tell me: got fair meh like that? Throughout the book, it is rather confusing how women are treated as objects to be owned and fought over at best, or sperm receptacles at worst. Take Deut 22:13-21, which gives us instructions on what you can do if you marry a girl only to realise: "Shit, she's like a wet fish in bed...." Just publicly question her virginity, and it's up to her to prove her innocence. If she does, at most you kena fined only what, but if she can't... then we're supposed to stone her to death???
In Lev 27:2-7, God even goes so far as to precisely tell us He values women only half as much as men. And let's not talk about 'value', when a woman gives birth to a girl, she is regarded as doubly unclean as compared to if she had borne a son instead! [Lev 12:1-5]
Many Christians, in an attempt to wriggle out of these inconvenient passages, would endeavour to explain them by saying that all this was in the Old Testament, which JC made obsolete from the Gospels onwards. But if that were so, why do you then persist on quoting, referencing, and enforcing texts that you yourself say are obsolete? And speaking of the New Testament, here you find your fair share of misogynists. At wedding services, everybody loves to quote the clichéd 1 Corinthians 13. But how many would quote 1 Peter 3:7, where we're told to regard our wives as the "weaker partner"?
These verses are all strangely absent when people highlight their Bibles into a mass of colours for easy reference when needing to drop a Bible quote, or when people spout verses in every other sentence at every convenient opportunity. This is why I think that people who keep peppering their speech with Bible quotes are all hypocrites (as JC Himself said). Until you can explain God's endorsement of genocide, don't keep bugging me about Corinthians this or Philippians that.
So what does this have to do with the woman in The Sudan being persecuted by Islamic fundamentalists? Well, that shows you've never read Deut 22:5, which states that women must not wear men's clothing, otherwise God will detest you. Yes, YOU. Love the sinner, hate the sin? Well, it doesn't say God detests this practice; it says, verbatim, "God detests anyone who does this". I bet that's another verse people have conveniently overlooked when searching for verses to drop. So yeah, God just hates it when people are gay, but if you're a girl and you wear pants, God hates you.
§ Technorati tags:
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§ current mood: "well...?"
§ current music: Ezekiel 25:17 – "The path of the righteous man...."
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| Friday, October 2nd, 2009
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| 11:21 pm » |
The J-thing's Observation of the Day |
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| Thursday, September 24th, 2009
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| 12:47 am » |
Do Malaysians really have nothing better to do? |
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Reading the news, I often wonder why is it that Malaysians appear to have nothing better to do. First the whole idiotic 'this food we claim as ours' ruckus, then on the same page, this article caught my eye:http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/SE%2BAsia/Story/STIStory_433281.html
Sep 23, 2009
Terengganu's khalwat troopers
KUALA TERENGGANU - THE Terengganu PAS Youth wants to mobilise its vigilante squad to check on the rising cases of khalwat (close proximity) in the state.
Its chief, Mohd Nor Hamzah, said the squad comprised volunteers from the Youth Welfare Association - Perkerti, a non-governmental organisation under the party's purview.
'The squad can scrutinise areas deemed 'hotspots' where khalwat cases are rampant,' he said here on Tuesday. 'We have details on these areas.'
Mr Mohd Nor said the intention was not to nab the offender or for the squad to act as enforcement officers.
'We would merely advise Muslim couples that it's morally wrong to commit khalwat,' he said. -- THE STAR I really don't understand what is the big problem that you have to organise vigilante squads to go out to patrol to tackle it. Wouldn't it make more sense to organise patrols to prevent robberies or rapes or murders?
Speaking of the food ruckus, I am glad that a few days ago, TNP and ST both did their part to research our side of the story, where TNP interviewed several old hawkers to rebut Malaysia's claims on Hainanese Chicken Rice, Laksa, Bak Kut Teh, Nasi Lemak and Chilli Crab, as well as identifying several more indigenous dishes which Singaporeans can be proud of—without going so far as to claim them as ours. It is true that there are many popular dishes which cannot or can hardly be found outside Singapore, such as Yu-Sheng, Lor Mee, Bak Chor Mee, Satay Beehoon, Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee, Black Pepper Crab, White Pepper Crab, Chwee Kueh, and Curry Fish Head.
In fact, I would nominate Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee as Singapore's national dish because you can only find it here and nowhere else (or so I heard).
You know, looking at who started this food-fight, I think I have a feeling I know what this whole fuss is about: it's about tourism. Ng Yen Yen, the Malaysian Minister for Tourism, is not happy that we are using food to promote Singapore at all the overseas Singapore Days. We did bring Bak Kut Teh, Chicken Rice, Katong Laksa and Chilli Crab to Singapore Day over the past 3 years in NYC, Melbourne and London respectively. While this was ostensibly to connect with the overseas Singaporean community, it is quite likely that many foreigners would have come, and this would have contributed to tourism in some way. You can see now how NYY would get pissed, right?
But what NYY doesn't realise is that by featuring these dishes at Singapore Day, it doesn't mean that we're saying all these are Singaporean in origin—it just means that you can find all these dishes in Singapore as part of the visit Singapore experience. And how is NYY going to refute that?
Anyway, take a look at this open reply to NYY from none less than Makanguru K.F. Seetoh.
§ Technorati tags:
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| Friday, September 18th, 2009
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| 8:55 pm » |
I don't care what Malaysia says... |
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...but if you really want to play until like that, Bak Kut Teh is OURS lor.http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/SE%2BAsia/Story/STIStory_431009.html
Sep 17, 2009
Dishes 'hijacked': M'sia
KUALA LUMPUR – MALAYSIA will lay claim to its signature dishes like laksa and chicken rice which are being 'hijacked' by other countries, the tourism minister said according to a report on Thursday.
Those on the list include the fragrant coconut milk rice 'nasi lemak', spicy soup noodle 'laksa' and pork ribs herbal soup 'bak kut teh', Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen said according to The Star newspaper.
'We cannot continue to let other countries hijack our food. Chili [sic] crab is Malaysian. Hainanese chicken rice is Malaysian. We have to lay claim to our food,' she was quoted as saying.
'In the next three months, we will identify certain key dishes (to declare as Malaysian). We have identified laksa... all types of laksa, nasi lemak and bak kut teh,' she added.
Ms Ng said her ministry will announce a strategy on how to brand the dishes as Malaysian.
'That is Part Two. We cannot reveal it yet, but we will let you know soon,' she reportedly said.
Ms Ng did not name which countries were hijacking the dishes, which are popular around the world and particularly in neighbouring Singapore and Indonesia. ( ... ) Eh, Malaysia, you all never heard of Katong Laksa before is it? What do you mean "ALL types of Laksa"? You want to claim Katong Laksa as Malaysian also ah?
Notwithstanding the general idiocy of trying to claim ownership over food, what these Malaysians don't realise is that most of these dishes originated from Peninsula Malaya before 1957, and therefore were invented during the time of the British Empire when we were all one country. Can Malaysia really say that all these dishes are theirs?
And what do you mean by "lay claim to our food"? Other people cannot sell any more is it? Then we should just lay claim to Black Pepper Crab, White Pepper Crab, Fried Hokkien Mee, and Chwee Kueh. And the US should just lay claim to burgers, and let's see what Malaysia will do without Ramly Burger!
§ Technorati tags:
food;
news bites
§ current mood: "like that also can ah?"
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| Thursday, September 17th, 2009
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| 11:09 pm » |
The Finest Airport In The British Empire |
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 Before Changi was the best airport in the world, even before Paya Lebar, we already had an airport which won that accolade (or rather, 'The Finest Airport in the British Empire', to be more precise). I have passed by this iconic building so many times along Nicoll Highway. I remember how 20 years ago, every Sunday we would head out from my grandfather's house in Katong for lunch at the old Mayflower Restaurant at the DBS Building, and we would certainly pass by the old Kallang Airport terminal building. I remember asking my mum why Old Airport Road was named thus and she told me that long ago there used to be an airport here, and that funny round building used to be the control tower. Considering that Changi T1 was built when I was 3 years old (and that I only have a singular, very vague recollection of Singapore International Airport Paya Lebar), it intrigued me that this small building was actually an airport once, and I remember even thinking that Nicoll Highway used to be the runway.
It was only when I grew older that I realised that Kallang was indeed our international airport right up till 1955, and when it was built in 1937, it was considered 'The Finest Airport in the British Empire'1, with facilities which would have been considered revolutionary at that time and an iconic glass-clad terminal building. I learnt that after the airport moved to Paya Lebar, the People's Association took over the building as its HQ, and occupied it up till April this year. Right now, the compound is left unoccupied, and what struck me as I took a double-decker bus ride past it recently, was how large the compound actually is. All along I had assumed that after the airport had shifted, the runway, taxiways, and hangars had been demolished, leaving only the terminal building. It was amazing that even after 54 years, the original Malayan Airways hangar is still there, and the land area occupied by the airport compound is still substantial.
It was also amazing that of all the airports Singapore has ever had, I have been to each and every one except Kallang Airport. Realising this, I told myself that since I was nearby for lunch on Monday, I should take the opportunity to see if I could check out the place. And this little adventure reminded me again of why I 'miss' working with the Civil Service.
( A Typical Civil Service Story )
Anyhow, what matters is that in the end I finally got to see this building up close, and here are some pictures so that if you too have never been there, you may see it too:
( More pictures )
Kallang Airport in its heyday
Malayan Airways (the forerunner of Singapore Airlines) DC-3 parked in front of the terminal
Crowds assembled at the Kallang Airport Terminal on the Singapore Air Day, c. 1955
For those of you who wonder what the airport looked like before the runway and taxiways were torn up and removed to build the National Stadium, this is a rare aerial photo of Runway 06/24 taken in 1955. The terminal building is at the bottom left, and at the basin end of the runway you can see the slipway (where Oasis now stands) originally built to allow flying boats like the Imperial Airways Short S.23 Empire to be served at the same terminal as land planes.
1 The Finest Airport in the British Empire
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 places
§ current mood:  nostalgic
§ current music: The Goo Goo Dolls – Better Days
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| 2:53 am » |
All Dogs Go To Heaven |
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Main Entry: god·par·ent
Pronunciation: \ˈgäd-ˌper-ənt also ˈgȯd-\
Function: noun
Date: 1865
: (in the Christian religion) a person who, at a baptism ceremony, promises to help a new member of the religion, usually a child, in religious and moral matters In terms of relations, you have the blood kind, and the, er... other kind, which include relations like the in-laws, and godparents. I personally have 2 godfathers. At baptism, my uncle was my godfather, and at my confirmation, I had another godfather (whom I haven't spoken to in a long time, but that's another story). In both cases, they both undertook the sacred responsibility of being responsible for my moral and religious upbringing (fat load of good it did to the latter, but that again is another story).
As far as I know thus far, the connection between a godparent and a godchild revolves around this responsibility for upbringing—hence the 'god' part of the relationship—and any other god-relations revolve around this sacred bond. You can have god-brothers, god-uncles, god-aunties, etc. but they all function as extensions of the central godparent-godchild relationship. Judaism, I heard, has a similar arrangement. Even in this side of the world, if you look at the HK triad films, some of the gangsters have a godfather figure—not the mafia kind, but the senior triad leader who takes unto himself the responsibility of bringing up a protégé in his own image, with his own values, morals and allegiances.
Now that we have established the basis of this god-relationship, I was pretty amused to hear recently that one of my acquaintances has a god-dog. Yep, you read that right. She has adopted one of her friends' dogs as her god-dog. Meaning (I would gather) that she is the godparent of that dog. And hence responsible for the mutt's moral (?) and religious (??) upbringing, to be a good dog with solid moral values that gives glory to God and his church (I would suppose???) OK I know that's not exactly what's going on here, but isn't it just a little bizarre to take a dog as your god-dog? You can be a co-owner, or foster owner, or even a second 'mummy', or I don't know what lah, but seriously... god-dog?
cheshirefeline, I want to adopt Grey as my god-cat, can or not? I promise to do my best with the power vested in me by Almighty God to make him see the error of his random people-scratching ways.
§ Technorati tags:
darwin award;
 observations
§ current mood: "ehhh?"
§ current music: Cloning Einstein – I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
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| Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
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| 7:43 pm » |
Introducing .... |
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OK this Twitter has caused a bit of a slowdown, I'll admit, in the rate of my entries on LJ. After all, instead of spending the time to properly elucidate my thoughts in a blog entry about how it was like dealing with the SLA, I can just twitter it in 140 characters. (Some things, though, deserve a proper blog entry so I will still be writing about them.)
I have also caught on the bandwagon of aggregating your tweets with LoudTwitter. The side-effect of these related trends of the rate of tweets being inversely proportional to the rate of LJ entries is that your LJ tends to look like it's nothing more than a daily collection of quips, each 140 characters long. And somewhere within those tweets, you get a couple of journal entries which could be amusing, heartwarming, insightful or provocative (I claim to be none of these, BTW) but are all lost in the mass of tweets.
Looking back at the LoudTwitter downtime recently, I realised that my LJ had more character when LoudTwitter wasn't working, but yet I feel this strange need to collect my tweets somewhere instead of having them lost to posterity once they disappear beneath the 'Read More' button since they are still my thoughts and could be stuff about which there are stories to be told or things I want to say. That's when I came up with this idea of creating a separate LJ to function solely as a tweet aggregator without clogging up my LJ whenever there weren't things I wanted to write a great deal on.
So it is at this juncture that I would like to introduce... !
All my LoudTwitter posts will now be directed there instead, leaving jemauvais solely for proper journal entries. So for those of you who don't have Twitter (or who prefer to read my tweets on LJ as well as Twitter), please feel free to add to your friends list. All posts there will remain public so I won't be adding anyone back on its friends lists but I do assure you that should I ever decide to lock my LoudTwitter posts in the future, I will add all of you back so you can continue reading.
Heck you might even realise that it may even be a better idea to read instead of jemauvais because you can be assured that with the 140 character limit, there will be no long, rambly, and boring posts there! :P
§ Technorati tags:
 tweets
§ current mood: blah
§ current music: Story Of The Year – Take Me Back
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| Monday, September 14th, 2009
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| 7:22 pm » |
The Queen of Hospipatalipality and Zibra Prince |
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"Eeets a piss of bigini and jus genes and er shrutt down Orchard Road...."
Remember the hapless Ris Low? Well, nobody would have remembered her jaw-droppingly amazing interview, but (unfortunately for her) she actually won the title, so she blipped on the radar of (who else but) mrbrown, and you can count on it that nobody will forget her any time soon.
But, you know, I distinctly heard her said "VOOMPS", not "BOOMZ"... but anyway, hahahahaha!
§ the mrbrown show: so hot (boomz remix)
§ the mrbrown show: so hot (boomz remix) Music Bideo!
Someone please tell me she's taking speech therapy and Basic Conversational Skills 1101 before the Miss World pageant...?
§ Technorati tags:
funnies;
 good english
§ current mood: "something, you know, VOOMPS!"
§ current music: mrbrown – the mrbrown show: so hot (boomz remix)
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 12 "
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| Sunday, September 13th, 2009
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| 12:00 am » |
The J-thing's Twitters for the Day |
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| Saturday, September 12th, 2009
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| 4:40 am » |
What I Learnt Today |
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[This entry is primarily for the benefit of EL, Master Sifu Chew, Bendicoot Tay, and anyone else who cares/needs to know and happens to listening]
- Dangerous Goods Embargo on uplift does not apply to check-in baggage carried by passengers or crew, only to items designated as cargo. [3.1, FSI 08-30]
- Although the FAA has introduced guidelines to permit takeoffs under ice pellets precipitation, takeoff under ice pellet precipitation conditions is still not permitted. [4.2, FSI 08-26]
- If paper and electronic checklists are of different versions, unless otherwise stated, always perform the actions as dictated by the on-board electronic checklist (even if the paper checklist is of a later revision). [1.2, FSI 08-27]
- In the event of GPWS "PULL-UP" warnings during night (regardless of IMC or VMC) or IMC day conditions, crew MUST execute the GPWS manoeuvre immediately and without question. Do not delay the required response in an attempt to analyse the situation. [3.2, FSI 08-12]
- Please be guided accordingly.
§ Technorati tags:
 per ardua ad astra
§ current mood:  geeky
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| 12:04 am » |
The J-thing's Twitters for the Day |
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| Friday, September 11th, 2009
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| 2:01 am » |
Up a paddle without a creek |
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Over the weekend I was at Vivocity before heading to a lunch party at  the silly girl's place. As I was walking through the sprawling complex, I saw this teenage couple walking in the opposite direction. They were both dressed in a singlet, bermudas and track shoes, with the guy carrying a haversack. The funny thing was: the guy was also carrying what appeared to be a dragon boat paddle, and brandishing it as he walked. OK maybe not brandishing it, but he was certainly carrying it as though he was auditioning for Storm Riders II; you know, like
 ...except that instead of a sword, it was a paddle. Over the past few months, I have been noticing all these guys carrying dragon boat paddles in the weirdest of places: in Takashimaya, in Raffles City, even in the Airport. I saw this whole group of guys come into the BK at the basement in Suntec City—each carrying a paddle and plonking it against their seats as they went to order (what, were they trying to paddle in the fountain?)
What I wonder is: since when has a dragon boat paddle become a fashion accessory? The paddle on its own is useless without the dragon boat itself, and you certainly can't carry the dragon boat home, so what use is it carrying the paddle around with you? It's not even like a billiards cue which is also useless at home, but which you can bring to different billiards centres.
TRIVIA: Some people know that there is actually a special term referring to the fear of the number 13: triskaidekaphobia. But did you know that there's also this term 'hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia'? It refers to the fear of the number 666. |
I asked a friend about this and he quipped that it has been something he has noticed it as well; he mused that what the guys are trying to portray is the image associated with dragon boaters. Apparently it is not enough to appear tanned, toned, and have big biceps. You need to carry something, a weapon of war, to indicate your status as a dragon boater. After all water polo players can carry their water polo balls, and ruggers their rugby balls, so the dragon boaters need to carry something too.
Is this why paddles have become a fashion statement? Simply because dragon boaters want to have something to wayang along with the other 'elite sports', and now it's cool to be seen carrying a dragon boat paddle in the middle of town far from the nearest water body? What next? Maybe I should sling a bundle of climbing ropes over my shoulder or carry an ice-axe the next time I walk down Orchard Road. I think I'm going to give Khoo Swee Chiow a call to see if he's going to dispose of any of his old axes any time soon....
§ Technorati tags:
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social commentary;
 trivia
§ current mood: hmmmmph
§ current music: Paramore – Use Somebody (Kings Of Leon cover)
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 16 "
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| 12:03 am » |
The J-thing's Twitters for the Day |
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| Thursday, September 10th, 2009
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| 12:03 am » |
The J-thing's Twitters for the Day |
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| Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
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| 12:08 am » |
The J-thing's Twitters for the Day |
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| Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
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| 12:17 am » |
The Changi Airport Race |
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I'm not sure how many of you have heard about the Changi Airport Race but over the weekend, there was this publicity stunt where a Porsche Carrera GT3 raced against a B747-200F down the runway (actually the Porsche chickened out and used a taxiway, but let's not be pedantic).
From the start I already knew that the car was going to win. Seriously, anyone with an idea of acceleration, breakaway thrust, and inertia would realise that by the time the huge plane actually got moving, the car would be halfway to Mars. It's like that age-old brain teaser: if there was a 10m race between a man, a speedboat, a car and a plane, who's going to win?
Nevertheless, I had actually considered going down, but like I told mappleleaf, initially I thought that the 747 was going to execute an RTO (essentially that's like an e-brake on the runway) and that was what I wanted to see. So when she told me that the plan was for the plane to takeoff and do a circuit to land, there seemed absolutely no point in going down to watch a race where the result was plainly obvious.
I know this thing is sponsored by Changi Airport, but seriously, who was the guy who came up with the lame-ass idea of getting (of all planes) a B747 to race with the Porsche? Even if you had to get an airliner, isn't it better to use a twin-jet with a higher thrust-to-weight ratio, like the A320 at 0.3272, or the B777-300ER at 0.304? Compare this with the B747 at 0.2575. [All figures are from generic configurations] Did the 747 even execute a standing takeoff? Did they even use full takeoff thrust or was it still on derate?
If you really want to pull off one of these car vs jet races, for goodness sake, do it properly like these guys:
Porsche 911 996 Turbo vs Yamaha R1 vs Soko J-22 Orao
(2 × 5000 lbf thrust on full AB, t/w ratio 0.71)
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Bugatti Veyron vs Eurofighter Typhoon
(2 × 20,000 lbf thrust on full AB, t/w ratio 1.16)
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In the Veyron vs Typhoon race, it's not just a simple drag race: the car runs down 1 mile to the other end of the runway, turns around and runs back; the jet takes off, flies 1 mile up into the air, pulls a Reverse Half-Cuban into the clouds and comes back to cross the finish line. I think if it were a drag race, with that kind of performance, it'd really just be too easy for the jet.
§ Technorati tags:
darwin award;
 driving;
flying
§ current mood: "seriously lor"
§ current music: Muse – Stockholm Syndrome
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" Squawk 0912, you are Number 8 "
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| 12:01 am » |
The J-thing's Twitters for the Day |
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| Monday, September 7th, 2009
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The J-thing's Twitters for the Day |
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| Sunday, September 6th, 2009
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| 12:02 am » |
The J-thing's Twitters for the Day |
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pissed off