Yay blocks are coming soon and im still drowning in organic solvents, trying to differentiate between my deflation in knowledge and inflation in stacks of notes, the sum of this catalysed by the fact that i have training has led me to believe that Im a potential failure. GP tomorrow.

I think i just became anti palin (thank god she's not VP). How can we trust a leader so controlled by selfish (not selfless) desires that are influenced by misguided beliefs in religion? Im not being anti religion here but what in the world makes her think that the war on Iraq was a task from god? If she were to dream that god told her to go launch a missle on Russia, i bet she'd sure as hell do it.

Sept. 8, 2008 |

Wildlife activists thought they had seen the worst in 2003 when Frank Murkowski, then the Republican governor of Alaska, signed a bill ramping up state programs to gun down wild wolves from airplanes, inviting average citizens to participate. Wolves, Murkowski believed, were clearly better than humans at killing elk and moose, and humans needed to even the playing field.

But that was before Sarah Palin took Murkowski's job at the end of 2006. She went one step, or paw, further. Palin didn't think Alaskans should be allowed to chase wolves from aircraft and shoot them -- they should be encouraged to do so. Palin's administration put a bounty on wolves' heads, or to be more precise, on their mitts.

In early 2007, Palin's administration approved an initiative to pay a $150 bounty to hunters who killed a wolf from an airplane in certain areas, hacked off the left foreleg, and brought in the appendage. Ruling that the Palin administration didn't have the authority to offer payments, a state judge quickly put a halt to them but not to the shooting of wolves from aircraft.

Detractors consider the airborne shootings a savage business, conducted under the euphemism "predator control." The airplanes appear in the winter, so the wolves show up like targets in a video game, sprinting across the white canvas below. Critics believe the practice violates the ethics of hunting, while supporters say the process is not hunting at all, but a deliberate cull.

Palin has argued that she is worried about Alaska's hunters, locked in perennial competition with the canine carnivores for the state's prodigious ungulate population. A hunter herself, Palin has battled critics of aerial wolf hunting with the support of the Alaska Outdoor Council, a powerhouse advocacy and lobbying organization for hunting, fishing and recreation groups. In addition to so-called urban hunters, who shoot moose mostly for fun, Alaska is home to a significant number of subsistence hunters, including some of the Native population. Subsistence hunters rely on an occasional moose to make ends meet. The wolves, Palin has said, are stealing food from their tables.

"Palin acts like she has never met an animal she didn't want shot," says Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, based in Connecticut.

The controversy over Palin's promotion of predator control goes beyond animal rights activists recoiling at the thought of picking off wolves from airplanes. A raft of scientists has argued that Palin has provided little evidence that the current program of systematically killing wolves, estimated at a population of 7,000 to 11,000, will result in more moose for hunters. State estimates of moose populations have come under scrutiny. Some wildlife biologists say predator control advocates don't even understand what wolves eat.

State officials stand by their scientific findings on predator control. "Several times over the past several years, our science has been challenged in court," says Bruce Bartley, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. "In every instance it has prevailed."

Yet it is not hard to find Alaskans who say Palin's enthusiasm for predator control fits a broader narrative of how she edits science to suit her personal views. She endorses the teaching of creationism in public schools and has questioned whether humans are responsible for global warming.

In 2007, she approved $400,000 to educate the public about the ecological success of shooting wolves and bears from the air. Some of the money went to create a pamphlet distributed in local newspapers, three weeks before the public was to vote on an initiative that would have curtailed aerial killing of wolves by private citizens. "The timing of the state's propaganda on wolf control was terrible," wrote the Anchorage Daily News on its editorial page.

"Across the board, Sarah Palin puts on a masquerade, claiming she is using sound management and science," says Nick Jans, an Alaskan writer who co-sponsored the initiative. "In reality she uses ideology and ignores science when it is in her way." The initiative was defeated last month.

Gordon Haber is a wildlife scientist who has studied wolves in Alaska for 43 years. "On wildlife-related issues, whether it is polar bears or predator controls, she has shown no inclination to be objective," he says of Palin. "I cannot find credible scientific data to support their arguments," he adds about the state's rationale for gunning down wolves. "In most cases, there is evidence to the contrary."

Last year, 172 scientists signed a letter to Palin, expressing concern about the lack of science behind the state's wolf-killing operation. According to the scientists, state officials set population objectives for moose and caribou based on "unattainable, unsustainable historically high populations." As a result, the "inadequately designed predator control programs" threatened the long-term health of both the ungulate and wolf populations. The scientists concluded with a plea to Palin to consider the conservation of wolves and bears "on an equal basis with the goal of producing more ungulates for hunters."

Apparently Palin wasn't fazed. Earlier this year she introduced state legislation that would further divorce the predator-control program from science. The legislation would transfer authority over the program from the state Department of Fish and Game to Alaska's Board of Game, whose members are appointed by, well, Palin. Even some hunters were astounded by her power play.

The legislation would give Palin's board "more leeway without any scientific input to do whatever the hell they basically wanted," Mark Richards, co-chair of Alaska Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, wrote in an e-mail. The legislation is currently stalled in the Alaska state Senate.

Predator control in Alaska dates back to the 1920s and 1930s. Even then, wildlife biologists insisted that wolves were important to the area's natural ecology and not responsible for inordinate deaths of sheep, caribou or moose. Yet the scientists fought a losing battle against ranchers, hunters and government officials, who backed the extermination of tens of thousands of wolves. Aerial hunting began in earnest in the 1940s and continued through the 1960s after Alaska had earned statehood.

But starting in 2003, Murkowski opened the airborne shooting to citizens with special permits and expanded predator-control programs to cover 60,000 square miles of state and federal land, the largest wolf-killing operation since Alaska became a state. The stated goal is to reduce wolf populations in some areas by 60 to 80 percent. Teams of pilots and gunners have killed at least 795 wolves since 2003. Conservationists counter that the total number of wolves trapped, shot from airplanes, chased down by snow machines, and killed legally and illegally in Alaska every year is more along the lines of 2,000.

Scientists insist that the Palin administration is systematically killing wolves with an inadequate understanding of the relationship between the carnivore and hoofed animals. The state responds that predators kill over 80 percent of the moose and caribou that die each year, while hunters and trappers kill less than 10 percent.

Haber says the state's numbers are wildly inflated. His decades of wolf research have shown that wolves are, in fact, mostly scavengers. "Sixty to 70 percent of the moose they eat are scavenged, not killed," he says. He adds that the state's wolf population estimates, based on secondhand observations and extrapolations, are also high.

Palin offered the $150 bounty for wolf paws in 2007 after efforts to kill wolves from airplanes that season were, in her view, coming up short. State officials had hoped that 382 to 664 wolves would be killed during that predator-control season. State officials were disappointed when only 115 wolves were killed from the air.

Palin thought the $150 cash bounties would do the trick. Haber has another explanation for the dry spell. "I can tell you from my own research that the reason they didn't get many wolves in certain years, particularly last winter, is because they have scraped those areas clean," he says.

Last year, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., introduced legislation designed to curtail predator-control programs, except as a last resort. "It's time to ground Alaska's illegal and inhumane air assault on wolves," Miller said. Palin quickly fired off a curt letter in response, applauding the state's programs as "widely recognized for their excellence and effectiveness." She pointed out that her state has "managed its wildlife so that we still maintain abundant populations of all of our indigenous predators almost fifty years after statehood."

Says Jans, co-sponsor of the losing initiative to outlaw aerial wolf hunting: "This is a reflection of a somebody who doesn't have any use for science."

This just makes me really sad. How can anyone with absolutely no common sense, never attended a internationally recognized law school, no understanding of science and worst of all no regard for wildlife become a state governer? Someone please shoot her, she deserves to go to hell.

I feel gg-ed.

Econs never practice anything

Bio still left: DNA, mitosis, meiosis, organization of eukaryote, control of eukaryote, viruses, cell membrane, translation, transcription.
Also never practice

Math? only done partial fraction, differentiation, poisson, graphing.

Chem only read through once, and i swear i dont remember anything.

Fucking hell im screwed

Despair around me
Despair within me
Despair be with me

Helplessness has never been so ingrained in me before. Its one of those omfgwtfbbqimgonnafail again moments. Sians, can i just give up studying =/

YAY NETTEYAP I FINALLY GOT ROUND TO UPLOADING YOUR PHOTOS!!!!

Yay another championship title!! INTER-CON CHAMPIONS!!!!! $300!!!! Hahaha, feeling richer woots!! But sadly i didnt do much of the work, mostly was my brother spiking and blocking, haish. But nevermind, i will become better than him! RAWR.

On a sadder note, my laptop charger broke down again. So no laptop for me. Haish maybe its a good thing. Can isolate myself from the world and start mugging i suppose =/ but quite sian. Well wasted the whole of today doing nothing, so i guess i should go start mugging now.

Yay after a very very very very very long time, an update!!! Alot of things happen in the last 3 weeks.

First off, Ex-Captain Samuel's B'day on the 27th of may!!! I ordered the helium tank online and went down to parkway to collect. Super heavy, and i looked damn retarded on the bus but nevermind. For a good cause right? Planned this out with the HCVB guys, 19 people and 19 balloons for samuel!
This is teh kewl shitz haaha. Erm okay yea. Me and Sam had some nice long chats with the VP too, waste of my time IMO.

Okay after that was the godly tiring VELOCITY 100KM BIKE HIKE!!!!!! Super screwed. A map of the estimated route we took in yellow.Started of at East Coast, then we had bike problems like 200 m from the starting point. Lucky Melvin and I managed to fix it. Continued on across nicoll highway, another bike problem lol. Went past esplanade, saw the SG flyer, went pass National Stadium. Went through Lau pau Sat and den we went down to vivo city. Too bad we couldnt go in and shop haha. Lame. Anyway, we continued on to queensway mac for a break, den cycled to Clementi, someone had a major cramp there. So we waited for around 1 hr for the safety truck to come, but fortunetly we were entertained by Chen Xing's antics about some girl. Damn funny, den we also had some talk about some gay guys in highsch. Okay continued on to pasir panjang, west coast, jurong east, bukit gombak. The prata shop there is pretty good, but maybe because after cycling for 6 hrs probably anything will taste good. There was one route along pasir panjang my mum told me was called the "88 route" because of all the hair pin curves. Best part is that its all down hill, so laxing. Den suddenly, some Initial D wannabe zoomed past us at like 70+kmph, trying to kill us siah. So after our prata stop, samuel had a cramp along bukit timah nature reserve, so spent another 20 mins massaging his limbs, den we cycled along bukit timah road until SCGS, turned into town. Past Far East Plaza, Takashimaya, Cineleisure, Plaza Sing, den turned left at Cineplex to go into Little India. Cycled along the MRT route from Little India to Kovan(!! damn far) where samuel had another cramp attack. So at Kovan took another Mac break and cycled through some buildings to go to one of the industrial area, where samuel had yet another cramp lol. Then cycled past Eunos MRT then finally reached parkway parade. Super long ride. Took around 10+hrs to complete. After that was too shagged to do much, so had breakfast with the VB gals at KFC and cabbed home with cass and melissa. I slept like a pig until night lol.



The weekend after that I went for the World vision 30 hr famine camp. Nothing much to say there but just starve/fast for 30 hrs. There was this young boy from Thailand(or Cambodia?), he was very small size, like maybe 8 or 9 yrs old. But in actual fact he is 13!!! We werent allowed to take pictures due to some child protectionism, so =((. His younger brother is totally adorable too! Yea so it was done to raise awareness for people infected with AIDS/HIV. Hmm cant really reflect much so it's just another chapter of my life i suppose. They did give us alot of H20 And other sweet stuff to drink though.

I'll probably upload the photos next time. But for now the MUGOLIDAYS are here to haunt me(and everyone else) again. Kinda sucks having to study every day. Anyway im going to get into the habit of running 3km everyday!!!! Like some fitness buff lol. But still i cant believe i ran something like 7km on monday. Maybe it was because of the yuki yaki buffet that made me feel guilty =/. Had lots of fun with cass,huipei, tak and yujie who tagged along inpromptu-ishly. Tried making chicken omelette but failed horribly =( guess im not meant to cook, but the ice cream making session was just heaven. We made vomit, shit and a egg face. EPIC WINS!!!!!!

SORRY NETTEYAP FOR NOT UPLOADING PHOTOS, BUT IM JUST KEEP FORGETTING AND WHEN I REMEMBER IM JUST TOO LAZY TO FIND THE CABLE!! HAHA.