From Australia's Herald Sun: Singapore to register gum owners
By Gillian Wong in Singapore
26may04

ULTRA-tidy Singapore is lifting its famous ban on chewing gum after 12 years - but only for registered users.

Gum dealers face jail if they break the rules.
Before Singaporeans think about unwrapping a pack of the Wrigley's Orbit gum that's just started selling in Singapore - and only in pharmacies - they have to submit their names and ID card numbers.

If they don't, pharmacists who sell them gum could be jailed up to two years and fined S$5,000 ($A4,222).

The South-East Asian city state, known for its immaculate streets and tight social controls, outlawed the manufacture, import and sale of chewing gum in 1992 after the country's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, complained it was fouling streets, buildings, buses and subway trains.

See, what I figure is, if people will do anything on television just for money, and if there's basic entertainment value in watching them scramble for it, the one variable that matters is where and how you drop the money. So fuck it... drop the money in a dung heap. Or a medical waste dump. Or on a twelve-lane freeway at rush hour. Or give it to a bunch of horny strip club patrons and let them dance for it, a dollar at a time.

Dropping a bunch of money for some shameless assholes to grab for is fine, but you may as well see how far these pukes are willing to go. So drop it somewhere disgusting or dangerous. Now that would be a fucking teevee show.

Think of it: sixteen lucky contestants are chosen from an available pool of applicants who sent in tapes, selected chiefly for their insistent claims that they'll do anything for money. We meet them, one at a time, in short video segments from their own self-made tapes. Then, they're brought to the studio to meet each other and learn the rules. They are assured over and over that yes, one million dollars will be in play, and yes, they can grab and keep as much as they are able. However, we remind them, they did say they'd do anything for money. That's still true, right? It is? Then game on, kids.

Next, they're blindfolded and escorted to that week's playing field, a location which they know nothing about. Our cheerful little money grubbers are then arranged around the perimeter of the drop zone and unmasked, just as the first quarter million bucks is dropped onto... oh, I don't know... the rejects pile at a meat packing plant. [read more...]

Spc. Sabrina Harman, also of the 372nd Military Police Company, gives a thumbs-up sign by the body of Iraqi detainee Manadel al-Jamadi. [Reuters/ABCNEWS]

According to testimony from Spc. Jason Kenner, obtained by ABCNEWS, the man was brought to the prison by U.S. Navy Seals in good health. Kenner said he saw extensive bruising on the detainee's body when he was brought out of the showers, dead. Kenner says the body was packed in ice during a "battle" between CIA and military interrogators over who should dispose of the body. The Justice Department opened an investigation into this death and four others today following a referral from the CIA. The photos were taken by Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick , who in e-mails to his family has asked why the people responsible for the prisoner's death were not being prosecuted in the same manner that he is.

the War Office intelligence section, MI14, warned: "Pigeon research will not stand still; if we do not experiment, other powers will." [now there's a catchy slogan - Ed.] Among MI14's proposals was the training of pigeons carrying explosives to fly into enemy searchlights.

Meanwhile, pigeon enthusiast Wing Commander WDL Rayner suggested a "bacteriological warfare agent" could be combined with the explosive. "A thousand pigeons each with a two ounce explosive capsule, landed at intervals on a specific target, might be a seriously inconvenient surprise..."

Several parents walked out of a holiday program by the Glassport (Pa.) Assembly of God when the actors on stage began whipping the Easter bunny and breaking its eggs, which church officials said was an attempt to move past the benign symbols of the holiday and focus on the suffering of Christ. As children in the audience cried at the beatings, actors chanted, "There is no Easter bunny." [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-AP, 4-7-04]

ODESSA, Texas (AP) -- A student who drank a chemical from his high school lab on a dare was recovering in a hospital, but not before a scare. The student drank the unidentified chemical on a bet at the school, said Nancy Smith, a UMC supervisor.

"We need to find out what it was from the toxicologist," Assistant Principal Ray Lascano said. "All of those materials belonged to one of the chemistry labs." The student was found last Wednesday in a school hallway, bleeding from the nose and mouth.

"Violence is fun, man. I would have no problem with the most violent, bloody movie, if that day ever came. There's still time.

"I've always wanted to do it," Tarantino reportedly said. "I bumped into Pierce Brosnan, and we talked about it. He liked the idea." Tarantino is a lifelong fan of the British spy saga, now starring the Irish actor Brosnan. "I would like to do the original book Casino Royale and do it more or less the way the Ian Fleming book is," Tarantino told Reuters in an interview in Cannes, where he is president of this year's film festival jury. Casino Royale was made in 1967 as an ill-fated spoof starring David Niven as an aging 007. "I don't know if they're going to go for it or not, but I'm letting them know I'm interested,"

Should religious leaders be able to order you to vote for a particular presidential candidate? Should they be able to deny communion to any parishioners who defy their decree??

These are not hypothetical questions, this very thing is happening right here, in the good 'ole U-S of A! You can read about it - right here.

In a  pastoral letter issued by a Roman Catholic bishop in Colorado state, one Bishop Michael Sheridan, in Colorado Springs, orders that parishioners voting for officials supporting abortion rights be denied communion. The bishop also would deny communion for supporters of stem-cell research, gay marriage or euthanasia.

So, according to Bishop Sheridan - you can't vote for any presidential contender who happens to feel that a woman should be able to make up their own mind with regard to abortion... or who won't force-apart a couple who love differently from "the norm"... or for someone who refuses individuals the choice to say "Enough pain" when science can keep a body alive longer then perhaps it should be, or allow science the ability to perhaps help cure that person in that terrible, hopeless pain. 

It seems that the good Bishop would rather have us vote for someone who has extirpated an entire country, in a war that's been waged under dubious pretense, against world opinion, and has killed over 10,000 civilian souls, and hundreds of our own.

I agree with what the Bishop has to say in his letter, with regard to voting - we need to become informed about the issues, and we need to go to the poll, and vote for, who who we believe in our hearts will lead our country in the direction we'd like to see the country go in... But the Bishop is making the very same mistakes he warns his flock of... he's making his judgements on just a few of the issues that he feels are absolute paramount, and is, in effect saying - "think like I think - or you won't be a full member of my church, and you'll probably go to hell".

Am I missing the point here - is the Bishop partaking in a bit of spiritual coercion?

Personally - I'm a real fan of the seperation of Church and State... how about you?

The decision to watch, or not to watch reminded me of Morpheus' proffering of the "blue pill" and the "red pill" to Neo in The Matrix - you make a choice, and your awareness of reality will change from that point onward. "What will it be? Blue? Or Red?" An awareness one gains with time is that sights can not be un-seen, sounds never un-heard; the luxury of casual forgetfulness doesn't apply when seeing the world's first globally-distributed snuff film. Clicking the link would be a pill I couldn't un-swallow.

I wouldn't call myself a sicko, and probably neither would most people seeking to watch the video. Although this is the worst kind of 'must-see TV,' human nature and curiosity compels us to watch it. Biblical scripture says doubting Thomas had to touch Christ's bleeding side to see if the spear wound was real. In the end, I decided to click.

Last Sunday, an awed crowd of students and cameramen from NBC5 [NOTE: Not Plattsburgh, NY's NBC5. Chicago's NBC5.] in Ida Noyes watched in anticipation as Phil Caruso, a first-year in the College and Rickert House resident, completed item #8 on the Scav Hunt list for the Max Palevsky team.

Caruso took out from a package his umbilical cord, which his mother had sent to him, stuffed it into a Twinkie, and without hesitation ate it.

"Nobody ever had to persuade him; it was all volunteer," said Alan Mardingly, a second-year in the College and Co-Captain of the Max Palevsky team (Phoenix, Bitch). "My hat is off to him." [Scav Hunt team] Phoenix, Bitch gained 96 points with Caruso's stunt.

Caruso: "Hi, mom. Remember that umbilical cord of mine you were saving?"
Mama Caruso (misty-eyed from recollection): "Of course, honey...I was in labor for 2 whole days with you, and I wanted to remember that moment for all eternity. It's even got that cute little clamp still on it."
Caruso: "Would you mind sending me the cord here at college?"
Mama Caruso: "Well...okay, honey. But why?"
Caruso: "I need to eat it for the annual Scavenger Hunt."
Mama Caruso: "Oh, all right...but it may be a little stale after these past 18 years. Might need some seasoning."

One of the women, 21-year-old "Maura Murray, had been a nursing student at the University of Massachusetts two months ago when she left campus and ran her car off the road near Woodsville. When a passerby went to call for help, she disappeared.

17-year-old [Brianna] Maitland...disappeared three weeks ago after leaving work at a Montgomery restaurant. The next morning police found her car backed into an abandoned building a mile away."