Do excuse my tardiness in updating on the fluff of my life as I try to get some semblance of order in my real world. In other words, work work work! Money Money Money! I need to get a 200 page document out by tomorrow. Rather, it should be about 200 pages… I think… damn! That’s what is being expected! :O I’m on page 5! Just 195 pages to go…
“I think I can… I think I can…” Thomas the Tank Engine is my hero now.
So, snack on that Time Out bar above and come back in a couple of days. Life in the pressure cooker should have eased off by then… I hope… I think…
And while you are at it, don’t forget to eat a Bak Chang (meat glutinous rice dumplings) today for today is National Bak Chang day! 
Oh dear oh dear… when the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan trembled at the thought of American troops unleashing their latest secret weapon, I dare bet they were not prepared for :
- gay bombs that will make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. The presumption is that enemy soldiers (presumably men), some of whom are prepared to blow themselves and a busload of other people up at the slightest provocation would forget their duty and instead fall all over the next soldier in throes of passion. They wanted US$7.5m to research it! And we thought our B O C O R Parliament, Courts and various Government buildings requiring investigations of RM22m was ludicrous?
- chemical weapons that would attract rats and wasps. Um… ok. What if there are no wasps in the territory? And in some parts of the world, they might even be happy to see rats. It might be dinner! It might even be a feast!
- chemical weapons that will cause “severe and long lasting halitosis”. How would bad breath allow the Americans to win the war? I wonder if it occured to the researchers who came up with the idea, that not everyone in the world has top quality dental services nor even access to toothpaste. Have they checked the teeth and breath of the hill billies in the Appalachians?
- a bomb that would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks. In the midst of war, with the smell of gunpower, fear and death in the air, what is the smell of fart? Would anyone actually look up from the face of a dead comrade and say “Who farted? Own up!”Â
Gosh, who are the people in the Pentagon who come up with these ideas? And they actually do up papers on them? They get paid for this? I have a great imagination too, and a sense of humour. I could do this job! I got this version of the news off the BBC website.
US military pondered love not war
The unconventional proposals were made by the US Air Force
The US military investigated building a “gay bomb”, which would make enemy soldiers “sexually irresistible” to each other, government papers say.
Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers obvious by their bad breath.
The US defence department considered various non-lethal chemicals meant to disrupt enemy discipline and morale.
The 1994 plans were for a six-year project costing $7.5m, but they were never pursued.
The US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, sought Pentagon funding for research into what it called “harassing, annoying and ‘bad guy’-identifying chemicals”.
The plans were obtained under the US Freedom of Information by the Sunshine Project, a group which monitors research into chemical and biological weapons.
‘Who? Me?’
The plan for a so-called “love bomb” envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a “distasteful but completely non-lethal” blow to morale.
Scientists also reportedly considered a “sting me/attack me” chemical weapon to attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats towards enemy troops.
A substance to make the skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight was also pondered.
Another idea was to develop a chemical causing “severe and lasting halitosis”, so that enemy forces would be obvious even when they tried to blend in with civilians.
In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a “Who? Me?” bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.
Indeed, a “Who? Me?” device had been under consideration since 1945, the government papers say.
However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was fatally flawed because “people in many areas of the world do not find faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis”.
Captain Dan McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the Pentagon said the defence department receives “literally hundreds” of project ideas, but that “none of the systems described in that [1994] proposal have been developed”.
He told the BBC: “It’s important to point out that only those proposals which are deemed appropriate, based on stringent human effects, legal, and international treaty reviews are considered for development or acquisition.”
Oh what a beautiful morning… oh what a beautiful day… I got a beautiful feeling… Um… la la la la my way… hehe… What musical was that from? Was it a song from a musical?
♥♥♥♥♥
Went to a Clarks shoes warehouse/clearance sale yesterday. The way people were buying and grabbing and hoarding their piles of shoes, you’d think they were all centipedes.
♥♥♥♥♥
I am thinking the Clarks warehouse/clearance sale is not that great a deal. I bought a pair at a “hefty” 24% savings. I tried on 2 different sizes. One came in the original dark green stiff sturdy cardboard box with proper labellings. The insole of the shoe was a dark tan. Another size of the same design came in a tiffany blue flimsy cardboard box like one you’d get from say, Vincci. The insole of the shoe was a stark snow white. Same price. I wonder if Clarks was not making these shoes just to be sold to the masses at the “clearance sale” at a princely 24% discount. Bah humbug!
♥♥♥♥♥
I need to clean house but I’m so lazy.
♥♥♥♥♥
I’m going to try working from home next week. Its probably the only way I’ll ever get anything done and heaven knows, I NEED to get something done and quickly. I think its going to be quite interesting. For once, I won’t have to spend 20 minutes doing up my face and getting changed to go to the office in the morning.
♥♥♥♥♥
I had Kelloggs Chocolate Frosties this morning. Feel the sugar buzz! Feel the teeth hurt! No excuse not to clean house!
♥♥♥♥♥
Have a good weekend everyone!
As anyone who reads my site will know by now, I’m kind of running my own show at work. With a small office and a small budget, we don’t have the luxury of hiring people to do just one thing. Everyone multi-tasks, including me. And one of the tasks I do is to check on the mailboxes for our mail. We have one of those banks of commercial mailboxes downstairs in the office lobby so whoever goes downstairs usually checks in on the mail on their way up.
Last week, I was with my work partner on our way upstairs when we decided to check on our mail. To my horror, the whole lock fell out just as he opened the box! My first thought was “OMG! We are so going to get charged for destroying our mailbox!†Fortunately for us, the building manager was passing by and just laughed it off. He picked up a clip that had fallen off, and fixed the lock in a jiffy. Whew! You can bet we are more careful now when checking the mail. You never know when the mailboxes are going to fall apart on you!
I’m saddened to read this piece of news from The Star. Here’s the full story for those who don’t want to click the link.
Thursday June 14, 2007
JOHOR BARU: A group of men took a couple on a terror ride before raping the woman, the second such case in as many days here.
A 55-year-old contractor and his 35-year-old female friend had stopped at a petrol station along the Pasir Gudang highway at 10.30pm last week.
As he was filling up, three men armed with parang overpowered him and forced both victims into the car.
The assailants took the victims on a one-hour terror ride before stopping at a secluded area along the highway.
As in the case on Monday, the contractor was slashed in the leg when he tried to escape.
With the injured victim watching helplessly, the men took turns to rape the woman before fleeing in another car driven by an accomplice.
The victims lodged a police report after the incident.
On Monday, a 19-year-old girl was raped by three men as her boyfriend watched helplessly in Taman Tampoi Indah.
Their car was rammed into by another car. Three men in the car then abducted the couple. The boyfriend was also slashed in the leg when he tried to escape.
In another incident, a doctor, in her 50s, fell and injured her head after two thieves on a motorcycle snatched her handbag while she was walking to her car in Taman Melody yesterday.
Passers-by who saw the incident caught one of the suspects. He was handed over to the police.
Have you noticed how Johor Bahru seems to be featuring a lot in the news for these sort of crimes? These 2 gang-rape incidents are not isolated ones. About a month ago, a similar incident happened with a woman being abducted with her child and then gang-raped. In two of these incidents, there is a common factor of the victims having stopped by a petrol station at night. In one of them, the couple were literally forced to stop by the abductors ramming their car. Were they marked?
These spate of abduction and gang-rapes appear to be the latest trend of violence in this southernmost city of Malaysia. The reports don’t mention if the victims were robbed. So, what was the intention of the perpetrators? Did they actively seek out these victims for the sole purpose of rape and slashing? Is anyone doing anything about it?
Why is Johor Bahru turning into a cowboy town? A year ago it was a proliferation of snatch thefts there. A few people died from falling off motorcycles and from being dragged by snatch thieves on motorcycles. This time, its gang rape the most heinous of crimes.
You know what some Singaporeans asked me 2 years ago? “Is Malaysia safe?” Of course I said “Yes it is” but how can you assure them when they read and hear of these crimes occurring in Malaysia, just over the causeway? Imagine what potential tourists must think when they read about such incidences in the newspapers. Give them a choice of visiting Malaysia or Singapore and they’d opt for the latter.
A few months ago, my sis and I thought of taking a drive down to Johor Bahru where we thought to put up for a night before heading on into Singapore. Hotels are cheaper in JB and since its in Ringgit we thought it might be easier on our pocket. Our parents, when hearing of it, immediately put their feet down.
No driving into JB. No going to JB. JB was totally off-bounds. Why? Because it is a dangerous place. They live in Johor and I guess they get more local news and hear more than we do here in KL.And they are Malaysian. Just imagine how a tourist would feel.
Is any one out there doing anything about this? Are you from JB? Do you feel safe?
