Japanese Government to Keep ‘Hooligans’ Away from Summit

Japanese Government to Keep ‘Hooligans’ Away from Summit

TOKYO - The Justice Ministry has begun preparations to put into force a hooligan provision of the immigration law to prevent anti-globalization activists from entering the country to protest the Group of Eight summit meeting to be held in Hokkaido in July.

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Whatever happened to mandarin?

Language in Singapore is something that's fascinated me. Not the language itself (as can be proven by my hard-earned Cs in second language), but how it's treated. There are four official languages in Singapore - Malay, English, Mandarin, Tamil. Once upon a time, it seemed like everything was translated into all four languages - signages, official documents, brochures, etc.etc. It started to change - nowadays, it's actually quite fun to spot when and where and what language is used. Usually you'll find that it's English + Another. The Another can be Japanese (usually tourist areas), Bengali (ReallY! More on that another time), Mandarin, Malay.

It's worth a thesis in its own right. In the meantime, I'm wondering why "What's Up Doc", a newsletter for patients published by the National Healthcare group of Polyclinics, only has English, Tamil, and Malay. No Mandarin. It's quite unusual.

Does this mean that all Chinese can speak English, and they're worried about the Malay and Indians?

On further examination, I realised that the articles were about healthy eating during Hari Raya Puasa and Deepavali, which sort of explains everything, really. Still, I can't help being a little tickled by it all.

In the meantime, I'm tempted to try the recipe for Nasi Tomato yang Menyihatkan (Healthy Tomato rice).

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Santerias against global warming

Lately, religious leaders of all faiths from all over the world have been pointing out to their congregation that global warming, is, well, global, and it behooves all good Muslims/Christians/Buddhists to take care of the earth.

Apparently that includes Santeria priests.

HAVANA - Priests offering New Year's prophecies from Cuba's Afro-Cuban religion on Wednesday gave few hints on the future of convalescing leader Fidel Castro and instead warned about dangerous climate change and epidemics.

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(Yes, they do the animal sacrifice thing. Humanely. They consider themselves sorta Catholic.)

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How to do what you love

Rather interesting post
here.

Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like.

That's what leads people to try to write novels, for example. They like reading novels. They notice that people who write them win Nobel prizes. What could be more wonderful, they think, than to be a novelist? But liking the idea of being a novelist is not enough; you have to like the actual work of novel-writing if you're going to be good at it; you have to like making up elaborate lies.

True dat. I often think it'll be fun to be a world-class fencer, but the idea of practicing squats ... not so much.

The test of whether people love what they do is whether they'd do it even if they weren't paid for it—even if they had to work at another job to make a living. How many corporate lawyers would do their current work if they had to do it for free, in their spare time, and take day jobs as waiters to support themselves?

Actually, I find the idea that some corporate lawyers would do their current work for free because they like it.. faintly disturbing. I have respect for lawyers, as with any other profession, but for some reason i find myself adding, "Yeah, I bet mass murderers would be happy to do it for free too."

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