Primary school teacher who told children: ‘Santa does not exist’ is fired

A primary school teacher who left a class of 25 pupils in tears after she told told them Santa Claus did not exist has been fired…

When excited youngsters became rowdy as they talked about Santa, the supply teacher blurted out: ‘It’s your parents who leave out presents on Christmas Day.’

The class of seven-year-olds at Blackshaw Lane Primary School, Royton, near Oldham, Greater Manchester burst into tears and told their parents when they arrived home.

One father said: ‘My son came home and said that his substitute teacher had told the class that Santa doesn’t exist and it’s your mum and dad that put out presents for them.

‘My lad was in tears and so was everyone else in the class – especially as it was so close to Christmas.

‘I thought it was wrong. He was distraught about it. He’s only seven-years-old and it’s part of the magic of Christmas to him.

‘We told him that she did not believe in Father Christmas because of her religion and he’s fine now.’

The father described the incident as ’shocking’ and believed it was done with malicious intent.

‘A lot of parents were disgusted and complained to the school.’

The school has now said it will not hire her again. (Source: Dailymail)

Did you know Coca Cola is responsible for the fat Santa image?

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Jeff Dunham Achmed’s “Jingle Bombs”

Made me laugh but I’m sure there’ll just be some people who will get offended.

Jeff Dunham Achmed’s “Jingle Bombs” lyrics

Dashing through the sand
with a bomb strapped to my back.
I have a nasty plan
for Christmas in Iraq.
I got through checkpoint A,
but not through checkpoint B.
That’s when I got shot in the ass
by the US Military…

[it's not funny!]

Oooh, jingle bombs, jingle bombs
Mine blew up you see.
Where are all the virgins
that Bin Laden promised me?
Oooh, jingle bombs, jingle bombs
U.S. soldiers shot me dead.
The only thing that I have left
is this towel up on my head.

I used to be a man,
but every time I cough,
thanks to Uncle Sam,
my nuts keep falling off.
My bombing days are done.
I need to find some work.
Perhaps it would be much safer
as a convenient store night clerk.

Oooh, jingle bombs, jingle bombs
I think I got screwed.
Don’t laugh at me because I’m dead
or I’ll kill you…

I KILL YOUOUOU!

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This season the christmas trees look prettier, a couple of more unique ones, including this:

(Christmas tree in pink at The Cathay, Singapore.)

And lots of salvation army bell sounds which annoyed me more than anything. I know it’s for a great cause but I don’t like bells. I don’t like bells.

(Happy boxing day guys!)

Singapore is one of the commonwealth countries not celebrating Boxing Day. (Image source of boxing match is Wikipedia, Ricardo Dominguez (left) rallied late to win a decision over Oregon’s Rafael Ortiz in the night’s toughest fight.)

Tomorrow’s 27 December already, a lot of things to do already. I kinda spend too much time going out this season. It’s terrible, my work, both Widgeo.us and school are piling up. I don’t like bells.

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I don’t know if it’s just me, the music seemed louder too. When is Christmas going to end? To me, Christmas seemed more like the time to earn quick bucks, just tons of marketing and discounts all around.

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*Boobs in a box*

Not as good as Justin’s definately.

[via BoingBoing]

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And a happy new year of course!

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*Something special for your girlfriend this Christmas (Uncensored Version)*

Er, refrain from such attempts.

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_(Artist impression of snowman – by Mr. Dew.)_

//beconfused may be doing a WordPress software upgrade on Boxing Day and they’ll probably be slight disruptions in page delivery. It wouldn’t take long though.

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During Christmas, I gotten a present from my mother. She gave me a cup with a cow picture then she tells me how ugly it is and so on. I just thought that wasn’t exactly the best way to make someone excited about opening the Christmas present. [On a side note, the cow looks kinda cute and is quite nice still.]

Also, I’ve gotten another present which is this little thing that you can attach to your cell phone. It writes the word ‘DEW’ because my name is simply too long. And there is a metal heart shape piece at the bottom with blue sequin decorations on the left side. I’ll take a picture of it soon and show it.

Today, back at my desk. I tell myself not to slack. I realized that I am lousy at researching things. I just read and read and felt that I am getting stuck at the very same point after an hour. And today, lazy Shawn has decided it’s rest day for him. He stayed home having the notion that there is a holiday on Monday too. I assume that notion is a delibrate one.

I did my morning regulars and that would be to surf the internet in the first hour and begin work. One and a half hours is gone. I guessed I took extra. Time for work! Again..

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I wish everyone a blessed Christmas – especially to my friends (fellow bloggers inclusive) and family members. The year is ending too. 2005 is coming.

2004 has been a busy year. Lots of works, lots of projects and lots of fun.

In this 12 months,
I celebrate my brother’s birthday on June 11,
Counted my fingers, found that there’s 10,
Have been happy to know school starts at 9,
Working at Bioinformatics from 8 thirty to evening,
Bought a camera at 7 hundred,
Sad to say, I knock off from work at 6,
Paid 5 U.S. dollars per month for web hosting,
People whom I send Christmas cards to – 4,
3 is the number of people who messaged on Christmas’ eve,
Number of distinctions (for grade ‘D’ too) – I’ve got 2,
And, of course, got myself a girlfriend.

Well, that concludes. Have a happy Christmas. May 2005 be a better year for all.

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Question: Does Santa Exist?

No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has seen.

There are two billion children in the world. But since Santa doesn’t appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total – 138 million or so. At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes.

One presumes there is at least one good child in each. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west. This works out to 822.6 visits per second.

This is to say that for each household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining gifts under the tree, eat snacks, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh, and move to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 91.8 million houses are distributed evenly (which we know to be false but for the sake of these calculations we will accept) we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops. This means that Santa’s sleigh is traveling at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound.

For comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe moves at a poky 27.4 mps. The average reindeer runs at 15 mph.

The sleigh’s payload adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds.

Even granting that “flying reindeer” (see first paragraph) could pull 10 times the usual amount, we cannot do the job with 8 or even 9. We need 214,000 reindeers.

This increases the weight, not even counting the sleigh, to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison this is 4 times the weight of the British liner Queen Elizabeth 2. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates an enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer in the same manner as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each!

In short, they will burst in flame almost instantaneously, exposing the next pair of reindeer, and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousands of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times the force of gravity. A 300 pound Santa would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,325,015 pounds of force.

Conclusion: There was a Santa, but he’s dead now.

According to her email, NASA replied this. I am quite skeptical that NASA will reply this way, lol.

[Note: I have edited the email slightly. I don't like uppercases and the email's text has some verbs that are not agreeing with it's subject.]

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All that’s in my mind right now is “trrrrr”. [Sounds of drilling bits drilling and drilling.] That is the bad thing about living in an HDB flat. HDB stands forHousing Development Board. That’s for Singapore obviously.

I am proud of my flat, it stood tall, 25 floors, who can ask for more. Nicely painted, lifts being reconstruct for the benefit of all. A beautiful park beside my flat. A balcony in almost every house.

Okay, so what if it has 25 floors? I stayed on the 3rd floor! So what if it’s nicely painted? it’s blocked by other buildings! So what if lifts are being constructed? I stay on the 3rd floor, you think I need a lift!? So what if there’s a beautiful park? It’s always flooded after rain and construction is going on on the running path! So what if I have a balcony? My father uses it to dry clothes!!

So basically, there’s nothing good staying in my apartment. Now that damned neighbor from above is entertaining me with drill bits. My damned neighbor from above spoiled the inter-connecting pipes that carry water. No wonder neighbors quarrel.

But I am a damned neighbor too. We simply damn each other. The air conditioner in my room causes them a lot of trouble. It’s so cold that their room has water caused by condensation. So they complained to the authorities, we complain about the spoilt pipes. The represent got down and talk things out. He started speaking of good neighbor etiquettes.

You know what? The neighbors must have gotten angry that I am typing this because the drill bits just got a lot louder.

So today is Christmas Eve. I want to hear “Jingle Bells”, not drill bits. I want to have a “Silent Night” too. But those people “Up on the Housetop” are not giving me a chance. If this continues, “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” will not be giving them Christmas presents. They’ll be saying “I’m Getting Nothing for Christmas”.

I can’t stand it anymore. I can never sing “I’ll be Home for Christmas”, because I am not, I’ll be atSentosa. I hope by the time I’m back, they’ll complete Project “Deck the Halls”.

I guess I’ll just have to go there to “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas”, maybe I can see “Chestnut Roasting on an Open Fire” there too.

Anyway, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. Enjoy your holidays. I won’t be blogging on December 25 as I am in Sentosa. I’ll be back on Boxing Day.

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These disputes worsen when some old man dances like nobody’s business in front of his neighbor’s house as a form of insult. How do I know? Oh, the local media filmed and broadcasted it. And man, it looks really hilarious.

It simply shows how ugly Singaporeans can get. Who is to blame for this? Should we simply blame it on the citizen’s small-mindedness?

I say no, our very Singapore Government is doing the same. If you stay close to Singapore, you have probably heard that Singapore and Malaysia apparently are bad neighbors. Both of them publicly taunt and test each other’s patience. Both of them send each other into the international courtrooms.

There is the water issue, about Malaysia selling too-cheap water to Singapore basically. Malaysia wants to increase the price but there’s some 1960s agreement to sell at that particularly low price. Negotiations failed time after time. The Malaysian Government accuses Singapore of manipulating situations or something like that.

Matter got worse when Malaysia publishes an advertisement on Asian Wall Street Journal stating the facts over fiction for the water issue. Singapore retaliated by publishing a similar I heard.

Somehow, the government’s behavior is clearly reflected onto their very citizens. But let’s not drag all Singaporeans down though. It seems that those who quarrel with their neighbors are, well.. Chinese. That’s my race. I never seen Malay neighbors quarrel around me. On the other hand, I keep hearing about Chinese quarreling. It’s a disgrace, I tell you.

Sorry, this posting is written a month ago I think, I just found it so I post it, lol.

My neighbors came to my house moments ago and wished my family a merry Christmas. Gifts are exchanged. Minutes before, I opened it. I was given a huge Winnie the Pooh Bear towel. Er.. Okay, what makes them think I like Pooh bear. You know what I was thinking when I open the present? It’s really strange, but I was hoping to eat sashimi. Apparently that didn’t come true..

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So here I am, trying to think of something to blog about. As for what am I doing for the past 48 hours, I am at my cousin’s place, staying overnight.

I hardly had the chance of using the Internet in his house. His mom is rather strict and locks the computer in the room. Even if the computer room is unlocked, my cousin would be playing online games.

I looked at him play. I am fascinated with the language used in online gaming. The online world is strangely universal. A guy can be yelling “siao” (crazy in Chinese Hokkien Dialect) then the other party yells in some strange languages. None obeys online etiquette, everybody’s just fuk up. ["fuk up" is a term meaning.. well, it's better not to know.]

Then there was Frosty the snowman. A toy my cousin’s aunt got for him. It’s rather strange to get a 15-year-old boy a snowman soft toy. There’s this button there, you can press it and dear Frosty will start singing his theme song. What better a theme than a badly recorded version of Frosty the Snowman.

Nothing’s more satisfying than solving a math problem for my cousin. I think I have returned all my math knowledge to my teacher. My cousin’s parents are those really competitive sort. They have high expectations for my cousin, hoped for me to enter a good junior college, never consider a polytechnic. [I am from a polytechnic, what's so bad about it?]

Every time when I am not with my cousin, I am reading a Tokyo travel guide. I don’t have intention to go there, I am just reading for the sake of knowing more about the city. But I am kinda more attraction to the color pictures. I can finally answer Shawn’s question on whether Edo is the old name for Tokyo or Kyoto. [Answer is Tokyo.]

The day passes quite fast, it’s nearing the end. My cousin’s watching Me, Myself and Irene on television while I am well.. typing, quite obviously. [Yawn.]

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