"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania."

- Dorothy Parker

Random Playlist Song: Trevor Pinnock - The English Concert and Choir: Handel - Messiah - And He Shall Purify (chorus)

And he shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

***

The International Square Earth Society

"It is a well-established Biblical fact that the Earth is flat and immobile. Every good Biblical literalist knows the Scriptural passages which demonstrate that the Earth does not move and that its surface is not curved: Daniel 4:10-11, Matthew 4:8, Joshua 10:12, 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalms 93:1 & 96:10 & 104:5, Isaiah 45:18; the list goes on and on.

But far too many lazy Biblical literalists today ignore the plain fact that the Bible also tells us that the flat Earth does not have curved edges. Even the late, great Charles K. Johnson, the valiant fighter for the Truth who carried the message of the earlier Zetetic Astronomers forward into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by founding the International Flat Earth Society, made the grievous error of assuming that the Earth was shaped like a circular disk. Nothing could be further from the Truth.

"What can I do in my community to make the heathenous Round-Earthers see the light?"

Show them this webpage. Take out your own bible, and show them Revelation 7:1, Isaiah 11:12, and the two Job passages. If that doesn't convince them, you can use your bible to hit them on top of the head and shout, "Earth square!".

Hold Square Dances where you hand out International Square Earth Society literature. March in picket lines in front of globe manufacturers with signs reading "Earth square!", "Satan says the Earth is round," "No round Earths", etc.. Boycott Rand McNally. Buy square Earth maps and place them prominently in classrooms and on bulletin boards. Yell at the school board and demand "equal time" for the "equally valid" scientific theory that the Earth is square, while reminding them that the notion of a round Earth is "just a theory." Hold up signs saying "Rev 7:1" for the cameras at football games. There's so much one person can do to spread the Word that it's impossible to list all the possibilities here."


The Bible And Christianity - The Historical Origins - Perhaps the most complete account I've read of the history of and constant revising the main book of christian mythology, from pre-history to the KJV.

The most interesting (or new, at least) part for me was the account of the six great revisions of Judaism, especially:

1) The Exodus story being a version of the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt
2) The merging of Elohim and Yahweh

Perhaps the most interesting article also on that site is a secular view of the origins of Islam. Similar views on Christianity are a dime a dozen, but one on Islam is rare indeed.


Kathryn Kuhlman, from “Occult ABC” by Kurt Koch, 1978

"One year after meeting with Kathryn, the state of all twenty-eight people said by her to have been healed was as follows: Ten had not been healed, seven had experienced an improvement in their condition, eleven had diseases in which the mind can play an important part. In the whole of this extensive report, there is not one clear case of healing from an organic disease. So for all the trouble taken by Mrs. Johnson, for which I thank her again, nothing has been proved.

Ex 113 Another case, that Dr. Nolen followed up, was that of a woman who was said to have been cured of lung cancer. In his own words, "When I contacted her, Leona told me that she had not had lung cancer at all. 'I have Hodgkin's disease,' she said, land some of the glands in my chest are involved. But since no one else got up when Miss Kuhlman said that someone with lung cancer is being cured, I figured it had to be me. I've been back to my doctor and he says he can't see any change in my x-ray. I think I breathe better, but it's hard to tell, since I never had much trouble breathing anyway.' "

Dr. Nolen also obtained from Kathryn Kuhlman a list of eight people who were alleged to have been cured of cancer. Again the result of his investigations was completely negative. " (All emphases in original)

Methinks similar principles apply elsewhere.


Interview with Azar Majedi: "I would like to make one point clear. Criticising Islam, ridiculing it, no matter how harshly, falls within the concept of freedom of expression and criticism, and is not racist. However, insulting people by reference to their religion or race is racist. We need to make this distinction very clearly because we find tendencies among the left who consider criticism of Islam as racist. Islamophobia is an invented concept by Islamists and their apologists, a concept that condemns any criticism of Islam as a racist act. I believe Islamophobia is as hypocritical as it is reactionary. We should raise the banner of unconditional freedom of expression and criticism."

Interesting point.

***

The Crusade Against Evolution

"In an era when the government is pouring billions into biology, and when stem cells and genetically modified food are front-page news, spending even a small part of the curriculum on bogus criticisms of evolution is arguably more detrimental now than any time in history. Ironically, says Ohio State University biology professor Steve Rissing, the education debate coincides with Ohio's efforts to lure biotech companies. "How can we do that when our high school biology is failing us?" he says. "Our cornfields are gleaming with GMO corn. There's a fundamental disconnect there."

[...]

In a democracy, every idea gets heard. But in science, not all theories are equal. Those that survive decades - centuries - of scientific scrutiny end up in classrooms, and those that don't are discarded. The intelligent design movement is using scientific rhetoric to bypass scientific scrutiny. And when science education is decided by charm and stage presence, the Discovery Institute wins."

Ah well. There are always the textbook disclaimer stickers. My favourite one is: "This book was anonymously donated
to your school library to discreetly promote religious alternatives to the
theory of evolution. When you are finished with it, please refile the book
in the fiction section."

***

Why god, Why- answering what Power Rangers is and why adults watch it

"For some people, PR is their generation of super heroes. For others, including myself, PR's ideas helped boost my creativity in writing and drawing, and has become a stable consistency in my life since it's debut on August 28, 1993. Like in any fandom, the PR fandom has it's share of nervous-wreck members who validate people's opinions that PR fans have serious issues. On the other hand, some of the older fans use PR as either an escape from frustrating times in their lives (like any show, movie or book), or something to fuel current interests like art or writing.

Who are these Ranger fans?

They range from average Joes to anything imaginable. They are out there, and they are abundant. They're people with real emotions and life issues who share a common interest in a television show. They may be ridiculed for whatever ignorant reason, but they'll always have a thriving fandom to back them up.

Hopefully, this Q&A has informed new fans just how big Power Rangers really is today, and has reminded us older fans what continues to make it a great place to be."

***

We are being watched:

Someone: u think ISD & SID so free to monitor all of u all???

Someone else: Duh! Its all automated lah via various engines the looks at forums, email list, emails, etc. Also there are dictionary searches to catch "sensitive" words.

I am not being paranoid, I know it for a fact because I have a friend working on one of their applications, plus I have been actively involved in the gay rights in Singapore and have seen garmen mechanics in action before more than once, plus trading war stories with other ppl like journalists, other ngos, etc, etc....

SPUG is definitely in their monitoring list....

***

Relative thinking

""If you asked me to name the leading relativist in the world, I couldn't," says Robert Eaglestone, a senior lecturer in the department of English at Royal Holloway, "because they just don't exist. Relativism has always been a bogeyman used to scare people. No-one's ever lived up to the straw figure of the full-blown relativist constructed by their opponents. If you read any of the usual suspects - Derrida, Rorty, Lyotard, Kuhn - with care, you'll find that none of them ever suggests that 'anything goes'."

Somehow the 'real' relativists always seem to be somewhere else, somehow their wacky notions always seem to evaporate on closer inspection, to turn into something perfectly sensible. But if these relativists are just a tiny minority in academia, or if they really don't exist at all, then why does everybody believe that the humanities are overrun by shifty foreign nonsense? Why does the 'anything goes' caricature of the modern intellectual stick? Why do we distrust everything that snowy-haired French philosophers say?"

***

Tech-related

Human PacMan hits real city streets - "The classic arcade game PacMan has resurfaced on the streets of Singapore using "augmented reality" technology developed by military-backed scientists at the University of Singapore."

Pirated software used to create help content in Microsoft's Windows XP - "Nine WAV audio files located in the folder " "Help\Tours\WindowsMediaPlayer\Audio\Wav" in the Windows installation directory include a signature of "Deepz0ne", a member of former cracking group "Radium""

The Rule of Threes - Soapbox - "The One-third of a Second Rule: As frustration levels rise, so too do our attempts to get things done quickly. We click here... click there... highlight this file or that... stab at the delete key... click OK... OOPS! Here comes the one-third of a second rule - this is the amount of time that usually elapses between clicking OK and the OOPS."

LART - "Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool. In the collective mythos of scary devil monastery, this is an essential item in the toolkit of every BOFH. The LART classic is a 2x4 or other large billet of wood usable as a club, to be applied upside the head of spammers and other people who cause sysadmins more grief than just naturally goes with the job. Perennial debates rage on alt.sysadmin.recovery over what constitutes the truly effective LART; knobkerries, automatic weapons, flamethrowers, and tactical nukes all have their partisans. Compare clue-by-four."

Spyware Lurks On Growing Number Of Home Computers - The galling part: "Many of the free spyware-removal software are loaded with spyware."

Weird news

Ladies, say goodbye to toilet queues - A week-old New Paper article. I never knew there was a rule for the ratio of cubicles in male and female toilets. The ladies can always learn how to pee standing up.

Judge throws party, hands down life sentence - "A judge threw a party complete with balloons, streamers and a cake to welcome a former fugitive back to her court -- and sentence him to life in prison."

"I express my deep regret at the taxpayer's death" - "A Polish taxpayer died from a heart attack after a demand for immediate payment in full of 80,000 zlotys ($23,560) following a mistake by the tax office."

Youngsters Play Hollywood Spirituals in A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant - "A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant is a self-proclaimed "bizarre new holiday classic — part avant-garde performance art, part children's theater — based on the actual principles of Scientology and the seriously unbelievable life story of founder L. Ron Hubbard.""

Bush Shirt Leads To Poll Strip - "When an election worker told Debbie Dupeire that her Bush-Cheney T-shirt was illegal at the polls, Dupeire didn't get mad. She got undressed. Dupeire ripped off the T-shirt and voted Tuesday in a sports bra, too afraid to lose her place in a long line. Under state law, candidates' names cannot be displayed within 500 feet of a polling place. "

Would you buy a car that looked like this? - "The Society of Motor Manufacturers says that "environmental factors are very low on people's list of priorities when it comes to buying a car". So the New Economics Foundation is looking at the model of tobacco labelling as a way to help people kick the SUV habit. Canadian government research, backed by World Bank findings, shows that there is a direct relationship between the size of warnings and the effect on personal behaviour. "The larger the health warning message," reports Health Canada, "the more effective it is at encouraging smokers to stop smoking.""
They should look at smoking in Singapore before saying anything.

ID card doubts - Blunkett blames dead German philosopher - "Home Secretary David Blunkett said today that the German philosopher Immanuel Kant is to blame for scepticism about the government's plans for a compulsory national identity card."

Singapore

"The Unusual Character & Extra Value of Singapore Journalism" - A list of the 46 (count them) affidavits that journalists in Singapore filed in the first 4 months of 1997 against an opposition politician

Big Brother is watching, make no mistake.... - "I was walking along Boat Quay recently and saw four ladies standing on a bar in a pub, each writhing to music in a sexually-suggestive manner. This is not reform. This is not liberalism. This is sleaze. And sleaze should not be equated with freedom. The most important aspect of freedom, which is aligned to the freedom of the media, is the freedom to be wrong. And it's that freedom that Singapore needs to cultivate."

Misc

Here W comes to save the day!!!

Alice’s Adventures in Charles Dodgson’s Mind - "Dodgson was also quite interested in photography, especially
photographing young girls and women. There is much mystery surrounding the life and behaviors of Dodgson. He was said to be shy, but he had many female friends who he mostly kept contact with through letters. He seemed to lack confidence and devoted much time to pursuing young girls and befriending them... Many researchers believe that Charles Dodgson held an obsession for young girls, and some even believe that he was a pedophile."

flat is beautiful - "This community is for girls who have always been put down for having small breasts. who says having small breasts is a bad thing? flat is beautiful!"

communication skills - zefrank - Passive Aggressive Communications Solutions - Punctuation Substitution. "By associating punctuation with simple phrases, you greatly increase the vocabulary at your disposal."

I Like You.. I really like you... - "Did not get that mortgage you were after? No more cash? Feeling bad? No one likes you? Nothing we can do with your mortgage or cash problems, but we can make you feel better.. We can even like you!.."

Traditional Saami Joik of Norway - "The Saami, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, have a unique unaccompanied vocal style called joik... A joik is a musical description of a subject which has inspired the singer, such as a family member or a friend."

The History Of Banned Rock and Roll - "From Rock and Roll's very begining, there have been those who have tried to control what others should hear."

Economic `Armageddon' predicted - "Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish... His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic ``armageddon.''"

Who Needs Harvard? - "Krueger and Dale studied what happened to students who were accepted at an Ivy or a similar institution, but chose instead to attend a less sexy, "moderately selective" school. It turned out that such students had, on average, the same income twenty years later as graduates of the elite colleges. Krueger and Dale found that for students bright enough to win admission to a top school, later income "varied little, no matter which type of college they attended." In other words, the student, not the school, was responsible for the success."