Category: ranting

Lonely Planet used one of my photos! Woot! I’ve always loved the photography style in the Lonely Planet books; it’s the type of photos I want to take when I travel.

There is, however, one funny thing about the photo they used. The article is the World’s best festivals in February [lonelyplant.com] is talking about the annual Thaipusam festival at Batu Caves in Malaysia and uses this photo of mine [flickr.com] but that photo was taken in Singapore. Oops.

Singapore is currently “debating” how much to pay its elected leaders. Singapore public servants are well paid by most any standard. According to the papers here the Prime Minister made SG$3,072,200 in 2010 (making him the highest paid politician in the world according to this article [money.ca.msn.com]). Three million dollars. But they are reducing that down to SG$2,200,000 this year. It recently took four pages of the paper to explain how they arrived at these numbers — base salary, annual variable component, 13th month bonus, individual bonus and national bonus… It’s all very complex stuff [salary.sg], just to justify overpaying already rich public servants; you know people who work for the voters, the vast majority of which do not make so much. In fact the average household income for Singaporeans in 2010 was SG$96,000 (according to a Singapore Statistics Department report here [singstat.gov.sg]). Then again, as many Singaporeans know its’ not a country its’ a corporation and the PM is the CEO. CEO’s every where are making astronomical salaries, on the BBC they other day I heard that the average CEO salary was 147 times that of their average employee. By that score Singapore Inc is not too bad at less than 23 times.

Anyway, there is lots of debate and propaganda about Singaporean politicians salary on the web. But the debate gave me an idea. Since politicians are elected and they work for the voters shouldn’t their salary be pegged to the average income of their constituents? I’d like to see politicians paid this way; if they manage to increase the income of their constituents then their salary would go up, if it goes down on their watch then they suffer equally. You want to make astronomical amounts of money so you can swim in it like Uncle Scrooge then work in the private (banking) sector. Politics is supposed to be about improving the public good and service. It should not be a career choice based on salary, I don’t know how to you can take the power trip aspect out of it but I think we should take the greed aspect out. Maybe you’d still have to be rich to run for office but at least it would not be a direct path to getting richer. Besides the perks make up for a low take home salary.

Serious cold calls for serious meds:

Most common side-effects [of Clarithromycin] are gastrointestinal: Diarrhea, nausea, extreme irritability, abdominal pain and vomiting, facial swelling. Less common side-effects include headaches, hallucinations (auditory and visual), dizziness/motion sickness, rashes, alteration in senses of smell and taste, including a metallic taste that lasts the entire time one takes it. Dry mouth, panic and / or anxiety attacks and nightmares have also been reported albeit less frequently. In more serious cases it has been known to cause jaundice, cirrhosis, and kidney problems including renal failure. Uneven heartbeats, chest pain, and shortness of breath have also been reported while taking this drug.

Clarithromycin may cause false positives on urine drug screens for cocaine.

Adverse effects of clarithromycin in the central nervous system include dizziness, ototoxicity and headaches, but delirium and mania are also uncommon side effects.

When taken along with some statins, drugs used to reduce blood serum cholesterol levels, muscle pain may occur.

There is also the risk of oral candidiasis, due to the increased yeast production in the body from the antibiotics.

Wikipedia entry on Clarithromycin [wikipedia.org]

Senator Sanders proposes a new amendment to the constitution [senate.gov]… seems like a good one:

ARTICLE—

SECTION 1. The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons and do not extend to for-profit corporations, limited liability companies, or other private entities established for business purposes or to promote business interests under the laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state.

SECTION 2. Such corporate and other private entities established under law are subject to regulation by the people through the legislative process so long as such regulations are consistent with the powers of Congress and the States and do not limit the freedom of the press.

SECTION 3. Such corporate and other private entities shall be prohibited from making contributions or expenditures in any election of any candidate for public office or the vote upon any ballot measure submitted to the people.

Go fund this project [kickstarter.com] at Kickstarter. They are far from their goal and need some help funding their science. Evil. Mad. Science! Imagine: 10 story tall towers making lightning! “1.21 gigawatts!” style lightning. This project must be funded. For the sake of all evil geniuses out there. I mean, BOOM! Cezaakk! Pow! Lightning:

In fact I think Larry Ellison should just fund this project himself, on the condition that they build a second set, in his office! So he can use them to vaporize people who don’t like him. All evil super villains need two 10 story tall lightning generators.