Miriam pulls it off! - The Sun decided to test out the curvy model - who beneath the glam exterior is very definitely a MAN - on the streets of Britain. I'm not sure if this is another one of the Sun's joke articles

Animal Talk - "Click on the pictures below to hear a person making animal sounds in different languages. Do you hear the difference?" - This is really dumb.

Rules are turning our kids into wimps - "When nations compete with each other on ideas, obedience is not an asset; it could be Singapore's undoing."

An American Odyssey: Manifest Destiny - As someone better than me in describing it put it, "An exploration of American culture, its perception of the world and its imperial fitness. Profound, a bit disturbing, and brutally honest."
"Yes, we do have an ideology and, like all ideologies, it doesn't believe it is one. It just believes that it is The Truth. Bush believes in it to a degree which is astonishing. So far as he is concerned, America's way is God's way."

Put up another of my rejected forum letters below the letter that prompted it.


Email forward I got:

"Once upon a time,there lived an ant and a grasshopper. The grasshopper does nothing else but jump around and play.

On the other hand, the ant is so hardworking, looking for food all day long and store them in it's nest.

Looking at his hardworking friend working so hard, the grasshopper ask, "Hey, Ant! U dun have to relax ah? Always busy one. Come and play with me lah.

"To which the ant replied, "I can't lah i have to store all these food."

"Haiyah! Relaxlah. Why u bother storing all these food? When u hungry den go find lah." the grasshopper told the ant again.

"Eh,cannot lah. I have to standby for the coming winter season. Then I no need to panick mah. I think u oso must standby u know." the ant telling his friend.

"Where got time...I go play better. U wanna store food u go ahead lah. I continue playing ok.. bye!" And hop goes the grasshopper. The Ant is a hardworking guy... oops i mean insect. Not like the grasshopper who is so lazy.

And so as days, weeks, months go by,the winter still has not come yet but the ant is still seen searching and storing food. The two friends
happen to meet again.

"Hey Ant! U stil haven't finished storing food ah? Last time all the food all go where? So fast finish ah?" asked grasshopper.

"I got keep but all overdue liao. So cannot eat anymore. All because winter not here yet. Now i have to go and look for new food." sighed the ant.

"But ant ah.. U dun mind i ask ah.. Did u ever have a thought that Malaysia where got winter?" ask the grasshopper again.

"AHHHH????!!!!!" the ant was shocked!

THE END.

The moral of the story is whatever u do better think properly 1st. Dun anyhow hantam only... :)

Sometimes we go too busy in life and following our routine too tightly but most importantly, work towards where you wanna go in your life, what is it that you want, what isit that you REALLY want, what's your dream, is what you are doing now moving towards your dream ? If it's not, dun just keep on working hard n keep on hantam only just because someone in your life told you that this is the way and just because everyone is doing it !! Dun keep on working hard with no direction ....... focus in the direction of your life not your work but your life.

Plan your life, Live life cool ~~~~ ^_^"


Why Christians Should Not Vote for George W. Bush - Amazingly, If there was ever any doubt about the liberal sway of George W. Bush before his Presidency, that doubt should be well cleared up by now for all but only the willfully naïve.
It seems that not all right wing fundamentalist conservatives are for Dubya. I shudder for the day if people like this take over the USA. Just goes to show that you can't please idiots.

The accusation that George Bush is a liberal rests on the following points:

Abortion

'On the campaign trail, President Bush professed to be "pro-life," but... he believes abortion to be justified in cases of rape and incest... such pro-life exceptions that allow the innocent to be killed in some circumstances disqualify President Bush from being pro-life at all.'
The writer then goes on to equate abortion ('child-killing') with the murder of innocents and labels people who support abortion as supporting murder. He says that even in rape and incest cases, the baby cannot be aborted, but I think even most fundamentalist Christians would make an exception for these cases.

'Having a rapist for a dad is not a capital crime, and for President Bush to state that innocent children can justly be killed because of the tragic circumstances of their conception reveals that he doesn’t comprehend the basic principle of the inalienable, inviolable, God-given right to life acknowledged in our nation’s founding documents.'
Unfortunately, I am not familiar with American constitutional law, but I have more than a hunch that this is empty rhetoric. And anyway, since the writer loves quoting biblical verses, I can quote verses from his beloved bible that actually state - encourages - that innocent children (children, mind you, not not-yet-alive fetuses) can justly be killed because of the crimes of their parents. I assume - reasonably, of course - that incest and rape are crimes. (Psalm 109:8-12, Exodus 20:5, Numbers 31:17, Hosea 13:16 and many other places). In fact, abortion is even allowed if the alternative is a miserable life (Ecclesiastes 6:3-5, Ecclesiastes 4:1-3), and even if a miscarriage is caused without any mitigating factors, it is not counted as murder (Exodus 21:22-25), where the punishment is but a fine and not "a life for a life".

'If his daughter wanted to kill her grandmother to get the inheritance early, would he counsel her: "Sweetie, if you want to kill my mom, that’s completely up to you!?"'
A false analogy if I ever saw one.

He is also accused of appointing pro-choice judges in Texas, and of releasing funds to groups that promote family planning (which doesn't necessarily involve abortion, mind you) and provide abortions (even if they do try to discourage them with counselling and the screening of abortion videos). So just because some groups give poor, frightened, desperate women a final recourse, they should be banned from receiving money to do greater good. Right. Now I know why the world is so screwed up.

Sodomy

Apparently, his attempts to change the constitution to ban gay marriages isn't enough for the writer.

Then, for some reason other points are included under the Sodomy section: "Similarly, conservatives fear the judicial activism that is forcing a new religion down our throats, namely, atheistic humanism. We have Federal judges like U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruling that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has no right to acknowledge God on the job. Conservatives are in an uproar about the judicial tyranny that would cause a democratically-elected, upright man such as Roy Moore, who was only following his state Constitution's precedent in acknowledging God, to be evicted from the state bench."
The writer hasn't heard about the separation of church and state, apparently. He calls this an attempt to enforce "atheistic humanism" on the people, where it is actually ensuring that the basic principle of freedom of (and from) religion is met. What would the Pilgrims say? On the other hand, lugging a large monument inscribed with one of the three versions of the ten commandments in front of the courthouse is considered "acknowledging" their god. This ignores the fact that this is tantamount to a public endorsement and enshrining of a certain brand of religion - an attempt to mix church and state, plainly contrary to the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

"The position of this administration is that whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they’re allowed to make, so long as it’s embraced by the state or at the state level."
Even an attempt to pander to a principle beloved of conservatives - states' rights and subsidiarity - cannot satisfy this writer!

"President Bush has stated that he has no qualms about hiring homosexuals, and he has proven it. He has appointed open homosexuals to high government positions at a rate that makes Bill Clinton look like a homophobe!"
Seeing how homophobic this writer is, I suspect he might actually be sexist and racist too, seeing as those who fear/hate/discriminate against one group different from them in one way are more inclined to fear/hate/discriminate against others as well.

"homosexual smear machine began to denigrate and verbally assault him for his beliefs"
This is rich, considering that the christian fundamentalist smear machine tries to denigrate and verbally (sometimes worse) assault others not only for what they believe in, but for what they *are*

'President Bush said he reads the Bible daily, but he confessed to the New York Times, "I don’t necessarily believe every single word is literally true." About the evolution-creation debate, he said, "The verdict is still out on how God created the earth. I don’t use the Bible as necessarily a way to predict the findings of science." In other words, Darwinism may be true according to President Bush. When the Bible and a scientific consensus are at odds, whom do you think that George Bush believes?'
What about the parts when the bible says the earth is flat/square, and that this is at odds not only with scientific consensus, but the truth? Note, too, that he uses the phrase "scientific consensus", not "scientific theory", so he may not believe even things that science has proven beyond all doubt. This writer believes in Creation "Science". If a practitioner of family medicine can believe in Creation "Science", I suppose he can believe that the stork brings babies.

Other issues

"There are many other reasons Christians should conscientiously object to voting for George W. Bush. Certainly, many of these acts are not necessarily sinful, but together they provide convincing proof that George W. Bush is not an authentic conservative."
Why do Christians necessarily have to be conservatives? Bah!

"He demoralized Korean and Japanese Christians by bowing down at a pagan Shinto shrine in Japan, His endorsement of Ramadan, a Muslim fast, at a White House celebration."
Respect for another religion is not akin to taking it up. I suppose then that Christians do not have the right to be offended if non-adherents do not even pay lip service to or retain a veneer of respect for their religion.

"His public profession that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, contrary to the plain teaching of Scripture. (I John 2:22-23, John 14:6)"
Actually, those 2 verses just say, respectively, that those who deny the christ are mistaken and cannot get salvation. Which doesn't mean that they don't worship the same god, just that one side is worshipping him wrongly. Frankly, I'm shocked how far he can twist verses for his purposes, trusting that people won't check them.

"His proposal to increase funding of the National Endowment for the Arts by 15 percent, the highest percentage increase in two decades. That's a total of 139 million dollars in 2005 to finance art, much of which is blasphemous. (Recall the taxpayer-financed painting of a crucifix in a jar of urine.)"
Claiming that one blasphemous art piece means that "much" of the rest are similarly sacrilegious is simply a non-sequiter. Going by this logic, if as much as one cent of donations to a church happens to be lost to corruption, we should all immediately stop giving any money to churches.

"His support of Clinton’s 1995 "assault weapons ban" which outlawed a host of semi-automatic guns."
I'm not sure that, even if the constitution allows them to carry guns, Americans equate that with the right to carry semi-automatic Weapons of Not-Inconsiderate Destruction. I'm sure that people using the guns for self defence will want to pump a whole magazine of 30 rounds into the robber who tries using a penknife or box-cutter on them.

"His endorsement and promotion of the globalist, sovereignty-threatening aims of the United Nations. He has continued the Clintonian policy of sending our soldiers to serve under U.N. commanders on U.N. missions."
It seems that, having lost the Jews as convenient boogeymen due to religious reasons, the deluded and paranoid have now latched on to the United Nations as the new Evil Entity which is trying to Take Over The World.

"In spite of the fact that he campaigned on the promise to veto any campaign finance reform legislation that limited Americans’ freedom of speech, he signed into law the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill that effectively eviscerated the first amendment."
How campaign finance and freedom of speech are linked, I really don't know.

Hell, the only things I agree with are the menace of the Patriot Act and the reckless budget deficits.

It's not that I want to be mean, but when I come across something so plainly shrill and deluded, I feel the urge to expose the empty rants for what they are (though in this case they are already quite apparent)