Campus Crusade for Christ pamphlet for Dan Brown readers - 2/3

Addendum: Part 1, Part 3. I have also re-uploaded the images to imageshack since the original versions were lost when their server went down years ago

Page 5 

"The Bible was written by more than 40 different authors, and across a period of 1,600 years. Yet amidst the diversity of authorship, there emerged a single unified story - the salvation plan of God for a sinful humanity." 

This is patently false. A small catalogue of Fatal Biblical Flaws will swiftly put paid to the CCC's groundless assertion, and the same author also provides a list of Biblical Inconsistencies. Besides which, most of the Old Testament is irrelevant regarding "the salvation plan of God for a sinful humanity." 

And then near the bottom of the page, we see an example of a circular argument: "Therefore, only because God inspired the OT and NT writers, as 2 Timothy 3:16 proclaims "All Scripture is God-breathed...", the Bible that we have today is not only a historically accurate work, but it is a divinely inspired account" 

Frankly, I was expecting to see this earlier in the pamphlet, and in much greater quantity. Some small modicum of credit can be given to the writers of the pamphlet from not, as they are wont to doing, using the bible to prove the bible all the time. 

There is also a quote from Simon Greenleaf about "the NT documents": "You may choose to say I do not believe it all, but you may not say there is not enough evidence." Not having access to the quote in context I cannot comment about what he was referring to, and if he was justified in his assertion, but one might note that this quote is from the mid-19th century or earlier, and if he studied the documents today he might come to a different conclusion. 

 
Page 6 

No complaints except for: 

"BTS: Was there really a debate over the deity of Christ?
Mr Josh McDowell: ... No one believed or debated if he was merely a man or prophet." 

This part is not quite correct. In reality, some of the earliest followers of Jesus did believe that he was merely a man. For example, the Ebionites and Carpocratians denied his divinity. 

The footnotes on the page describe Josh McDowell as "a former skeptic who believed that Christianity was a hoax and went on a personal search to discredit the church and Christianity. Yet in the process of hundreds of hours of research, his doubts turned to faith in Christ." I have not read an account (preferably by him) of his religiou journey, but I'm willing to bet that it was like that of the other famous so-called skeptic turned believer - Lee Strobel (ie An act of Intellectual Suicide, probably motivated by some other extraneous factor).

Page 7 - This page deals with 2 of the "3 Most-Misguided-Theories" 

 1. Mrs Jesus: "Dan Brown's dubious 'sources': The Nag Hammadi texts (Which contain the Gnostic Gospels) an unreliable source: Written neither by apostles, nor by companions of the apostles, the Gnostic Gospels were written under a pseudonym - that is, the author used the names of the apostles just to gain credibility." 

Odd, considering that this describes at the very very least 3 out of 4 of the canonical gospels as well! Matthew, Mark and Luke are just names traditionally given to those gospels, not an indication of authorship. 

2. The 'Secret Gospels': "Why are Gnostic Gospels not included in today's Bible? Only books and letters that were associated with an apostle or associate were considered acceptable into the New Testament Cannon" 

Besides the point above about authenticity, there is also the question of which apostles or associates were considered reliable, and it basically boils down to Church politics, internecine factional warring and such rather than any objective measure of authenticity or veracity. 

 
Page 8 - This page deals with the last of the "3 Most-Misguided-Theories" and has a sidebar about Leonardo da Vinci, the Knights Templar and the Priory of Sion. I have no comments about this page.

Page 9 - A quiz about if you're a Relativist, Skeptic or Truth-seeker. Given that this is a shameless ripoff of brainless female magazine quizzes that don't tell you anything, I can't say that they could've done much else with this format. 

Page 10 - Setting up the False Trichotomy 

"No man in history has ever claimed to be God, much less a God who died for mankind." 

Only a very specific and strict interpretation of this statement would render it technically correct. The god Osiris came down to earth in Corporeal form and after his death and resurrection, delivered salvation. Dionysius was born of Zeus and a mortal woman, and his cult gave out wine which brought "humans into communion with the divine realm". This is to say nothing of the various gods in mythologies all over the world who came down to earth in corporeal form. POCM lovingly documents various other permutations in other mythologies of divine-mortal blending. 

The false trichotomy will be dealt with when the silly flowchart appears (wait for it!). 

Page 11 - Straw man arguments, which will be addressed later 

-End of Part 2-

I suspect sleeping at odd hours (long afternoon naps, short early morning naps that turn into long ones) give me nightmares, specifically Slavery ones.

At least they didn't cut my hair this time.

Campus Crusade for Christ pamphlet for Dan Brown readers - 1/3

Addendum: Part 2, Part 3. I have also re-uploaded the images to imageshack since the original versions were lost when their server went down years ago

My ever-resourceful and hardworking Little Bird scanned in the contents of a CCC (Campus Crusade for Christ) pamphlet targetted at Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" for me, zipped into an appropriately titled "BibleTrash.zip". 

Now, I am no fan of Dan Brown, since his allegedly well-researched book is full of rubbish. As I often say, there is only one true line in "The Da Vinci Code" ("The Bible did not come by fax from heaven"). Yet, 2 wrongs do not make a right, and this pamphlet is annoying. And so I present what is probably an exclusive feature: not only scans of the pamphlet but a walkthrough the specious arguments contained inside.

 
Cover - "A companion guide to the movie or novel!" 

The cover of the pamphlet looks innocent enough. It is glitzy and official-looking, complete with the barcode at the bottom left hand corner of the magazine. In fact, one would be led to believe that it is an official piece of "Da Vinci Code" merchandise; I believe the customary practise is to say that you are writing a "totally unauthorised guide" - Dan Brown should sue the CCC for copyright infringement. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile hardly prepares one for the horrors inside, yet a hint of it can be found in the promise of an interview with a skeptic-turned-believer (no word about believers-turned-skeptics). 

As is the case with much evangelical-fundamentalist material, the cover of the pamphlet is innocent, only truly revealing its contents when one flips it open - a pamphlet they gave out about the Tsunami was similiarly deceptive, and IIRC contained numerous back-handed insults to the memory of Tsunami victims.

 
Page 1 - Contents 

When one opens the pamphlet, one's baloney detectors start to go off. Looking at the content area on the right, one sees 2 forewords written by Reverends from Christian groups, purporting to present information to help readers realise "the Truth". Now that in itself is not sufficient to disqualify the pamphlet, but it is an important clue - one wouldn't expect a publication of the Flat Earth Society to conclude that the earth is round. Further, since the pamphlet promises not to toss logic out of the window, we can turn on our scrutiny-lamps to full power. 

One also sees that the good ole "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" false trilemma makes an appearance. Really, you'd think that 35 years after CS Lewis's Mere Bullshit Christianity, they'd get their logical fallacies sorted out. 

 
Page 2 - "novel & movie review" 

No comments, other than the very suspicious rating system - giving the movie an eye-boggling 5/5 stars for "Suspense" and "Entertainment", but 1/5 for "Historical Reliability" and "Accuracy of purported facts". Given that the movie is slated for a May 19th release, one wonders what privileges fundamentalist Christians are privy to that ordinary mortals aren't. There is also a curious complexity worthy of a close reading: as the "movie" review itself reads, "Dan Brown makes it clear to all that 'The Da Vinci Code' is "just fiction"." If this is the case, the "purported facts" would not have to be graded - I'm guessing that they mean that Dan Brown admits that his story is made-up, but his so-called facts are false. This smacks of shoddy writing.

Page 3 - Boxing ring 

This page comments that the Da Vinci Code and Bible both "purport to tell the truth about the life of the historical Jesus (we just can't escape his influence, can we?)". The little comment at the end irks me, so I'll just add that we can't escape the influence of Adolf Hitler and the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse either. At least, as a friend points out, we should be grateful that the "h" in "his" is not capitalised. 

This page also makes the point that in Borders, one can find "The Da Vinci Code" in the "Fiction" section. It might interest readers to know that in the Library of Congress Classification System, one can find the Bible in the "BS" section. 

Since bestsellers are going up against each other, they might like to compare the Bible to the next best-selling book of all time - Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (aka The Little Red Book). The 2 have more in common than one might think: 

"If they [the Kuomintang] fight, we will wipe them out completely. This is the way things are: if they attack and we wipe them out, they will have that satisfaction; wipe out some, some satisfaction; wipe out more, more satisfaction; wipe out the whole lot, complete satisfaction." - "On the Chungking Negotiations" (October 17, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 56. 

"And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire." - Numbers 31:7-10

 
Page 4. On this page, it starts to get dirty. 

For one, we are told that "The Bible is written by more than 40 different authors - Moses". Wait a minute. Moses? This is really strange, considering that although in the biblical tradition Moses wrote the first 5 books of the bible (the Pentateuch), he actually writes about events occuring *after* his death. Indeed, the lack of consistency, jumps in tone in 2 sets of narratives for many events have led mainstream biblical scholars to conclude that 5 people, codenamed J, E, D, P and R, were responsible for writing and compiling the Pentateuch. 

The next part of the page ("Fact #1") claims that since so many copies exist of the old and new testaments, they must be reliable. Yet, this is like saying that since the Blaster worm affected 8 million PCs worldwide, it must be a good program. Just because many copies of a document exist does not mean that it is reliable; one can merely compare the copies for copying errors - if the originals from which the copies were made were suspect in the first place, no number of copies would redeem the veracity of the original documents. There is also the question of when the copies date from - if 13,000 copies exist, but 1 dates from 100AD while 12,999 come from the 12th century or later, the numbers don't mean anything. 

"Fact #2" is that a short time elapsed between the publication of the original and the date of the earliest surviving manuscripts. Again, as with "Fact #1" the significance of this would depend on the veracity of the original in the first place. The conclusion is that "Most historians accept the textual accuracy of other ancient works on far less adequate grounds than that of the Bible's". 

Not so fast. First, we must examine the cute table drawn up below:

"Livy - History of Rome"
Historians accept this text as genuine, yet they do not accept its contents at face value, contrary to the approach in some other fields. Corroborating evidence in terms of archaeology and other documentary evidenc is sought, and no one takes his word about "the kindness of the gods". Indeed, in studies of the text, a critical eye is cast upon Livy's bias and point of view as a Roman citizen, and the possibility that he could have romanticised Roman history. 

"Caesar - Gallic Wars"
One must note that coins struck in Caesar's likeness exist. We also can find remnants of his fortifications at Alesia, which correspond to Caesar's descriptions. On the other hand, we have six heads of John the Baptist. 

"Homer - Illiad"
The people who wrote this must be joking. Like some other entries in the table, the Illiad is clearly a work of mythology relating how petty, vengeful, imperfect and very human gods interfere in human affairs; a work traditionally ascribed to an individual and yet was written by multiple authors over a long period of time. 

One might also consider that more than 20 million copies of L Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics" have been sold worldwide, and that the earliest extant copy likely dates from the year it was published. 

It must also be borne in mind that writers of ancient documents frequently invented dialogues for their characters that they'd have no way of being privy to, like Thucydides in "The Peloponnesian War" (despite his otherwise stellar record as a historian). This is curiously reminiscent of someone writing about events occuring after his death. 

-End of Part 1- 

Parts 2 and 3 will be up in due course.

OMG WTH.

My shipping using vPOSTUSA will cost me SGD$50.53. If I'd shipped Internationally from the merchant it'd only have cost me US$7 more. Hell, even at the merchant's old exorbitant rate it'd have been S$18 cheaper.

That's it - I refuse to use them anymore. This is even worse than being fined.

I was wondering whether, on Friday, to go for a concert I was planning to, but someone wisely commented that "your luck sounds in a rut, i suggest skipping the concert. you'll probably get mugged by a skinhead"


"Dear Gabriel,

Please be informed that the shipping charge for item categorised under "Others" is $9.99 + $6.99 per kg for the first 10 kg and $5.99 per kg thereafter based on volumetric weight or actual weight whichever is higher. Volumetric weight is calculated by (Length X Breadth X Height)/366 where the dimensions are in inches; or (Length X Breadth X Height)/6000 where the dimensions are in centimeters.

Although the actual weight for your package is 2.9kg. The size is 68X32X16 cm/6000, which is equivalent to 5.8kg in volumetric weight; hence, the chargeable weight is 5.8kg."

Since I dug up the following for a LJ thread I might as well post it here:

Viva! - Vegetarians International Voice for Animals

"The collapse of an animal after cutting the major blood vessels in the neck is caused by cerebral shock due to the sudden fall in pressure of the cerebro-spinal fluid and is not due to lack of oxygen in the blood flow to the brain. The animal may collapse five to 10 seconds after the throat is cut - so long as the major vessels are severed properly or occlusions do not occur (see below). The animal loses consciousness after it has collapsed. There are varying opinions on when the animal stops being able to feel.

Scientific experiments measure the onset of loss of consciousness through observing physical behaviour, spontaneous electroencephalogram (EEG) and evoked responses in the electrocorticogram (ECoG) (22,23,24,25). Cattle stop trying to right themselves between 21 and 47 seconds after the carotids are cut (22); the EEG indicates that there is sensibility for two to 5.2 minutes after cutting in cattle. (Other scientists argue that the EEG is not an accurate measure of the state of consciousness - but theirs is a theory yet to be proven.) Generally, scientists suggest that cattle can take anything from 25 to 90 seconds to lose consciousness after the neck has been cut.

D.K. Blackmore (22) of the Dept. of Veterinary Pathology and Public Health, Massey University, New Zealand who has published many papers on slaughter states:
"A BASIC requirement for humane slaughter is that an animal should be rendered insensible before exsanguination (bleeding) is initiated and this should last until the animal becomes permanently insensible from cerebral anoxia."

Blackmore studied the behaviour of sheep and cattle after being cut; he found that sheep lose consciousness more quickly than cattle. Lambs collapsed after an average of 2.6 seconds and stopped attempting to stand after 10 seconds (not being able to stand does not mean inability to feel); in contrast calves were standing up to 135 seconds after their throat was cut and were attempting to stand up to 385 seconds after that. Even though the calves had both carotid arteries and jugular veins severed three out of four were breathing up to 11.6 minutes later and so were shot. Lambs were gasping for up to 3.8 minutes after carotid arteries and jugular veins were cut. A bull was killed by the Jewish method and was still gasping sporadically for seven minutes after his carotid arteries, jugular veins, oesophagus and trachea were cut.

A huge problem is that millions of animals bleed slowly. Anil et al (21) say: "It is well recognised that unstunned calves which bleed poorly can take a long time to die." It takes more than five minutes for the animals to stop trying to stand normally.

Animals bleed slowly when (21):

1. There is occlusion [blockage] of the cut artery by surrounding tissues (the artery is elastic and can spring back into its connective tissue sheath on being cut).
2. Blood platelets stick together at the end of the cut artery (this leads to the rapid production of a white clot which can plug the artery).
3. The cut is made and the artery goes into spasm.

All three factors tend to restrict blood flow from the cut and can produce a ballooning effect in the severed vessel. Here, the blood goes into the connective tissue sheaths surrounding the artery. The ends can balloon up within 5 seconds of the cut (21). Several studies have shown that this ballooning effect is common (up to 40%) resulting in delay of brain failure and blood pressure being held for longer. Arterial occlusions occurred in half of the calves killed by Anil et al by Halal methods of cutting the carotid arteries and jugular veins. In some of these animals, vertebral artery blood flow was maintained at about one-third of its normal level for approx. 3 minutes (21). Therefore, animals do not lose consciousness immediately. Occasionally cattle have staggered to their feet after being cut and walked some distance before collapsing.

Scientific papers have commonly reported this phenomenon in their results recently and throughout the last century. Back in 1900 Hoffman describes a 12 year old cow lying on the floor for 20 seconds after Shechita. 70 seconds later she lifted her head for 20 seconds. Also, a three year old bull remained standing after Shechita for two and a half minutes, afterwards he fell to the ground but still looked around, slowly bleeding to death.

Ballooning occurs more commonly when blunt knives are used and so is a greater problem with Muslim slaughter. However, it does occur for other reasons when sharp knives are used (though to a lesser degree) and so happens in Jewish slaughter.

It is also a problem in mainstream slaughter as, for example, calves start to regain consciousness between 21 and 59 seconds after electrical stunning (21).

Slaughter expert HE Bywater who witnessed animal slaughter over several years said: "upholders of the Jewish ritual maintain that unconsciousness follows within a few seconds of the ritual cut due to anaemia of the brain, this is not invariably so as experience in the slaughterhouse has shown."

Bywater's observations lead him to conclude that: "a state of diminished consciousness or semi-consciousness follows soon after the large blood vessels are severed, but that thereafter consciousness can, and does, return in a number of animals - adult cattle, sheep and calves....

"The blood vessels which supply the brain in these animals differ from those which are present in the human and this fact has never been sufficiently appreciated by the eminent medical men who maintain that the Jewish ritual invariably causes immediate loss of sensation in food animals." (4)

Thornton's Textbook of Meat Inspection says: "A factor of considerable importance, and to which not sufficient attention has been paid in considering the problem of Jewish slaughter, is that after the carotid arteries of cattle are severed transversely, they tend, by virtue of their elasticity, to retract rapidly within their own external connective tissue coat, and as a result the sealing of the cut ends of the vessels may occur. As the blood pressure...is then maintained by the heart, the blood pressure in the vertebral arteries may likewise be maintained at a substantial level and unconsciousness therefore delayed".

This explains why "some cattle have regained their feet and walked a considerable distance before they succumbed some minutes later."

The Textbook of Meat Inspection continues: "these occurrences have been attributed to the fact that all the neck vessels may not have been severed completely, but observations lead one to the conclusion that the cut is invariably made dextrously... There is therefore considerable doubt as to whether unconsciousness always follows rapidly in cattle after the severance of the neck vessels, for by the very nature of the neck cut made in Jewish slaughter it is impossible to ensure that self-sealing of the cut ends of the carotid arteries will not occur." (4)

In religious slaughter, the animal's vertebrae, spinal cord and vertebral arteries and veins are not severed. Scientists argue over the significance of this. Some say that one of the reasons some animals take several minutes to lose consciousness is because the vertebral arteries continue to supply blood to the brain after the animal has been cut. Others say that the blood flow from the vertebral arteries is insufficient to maintain the brain's functioning (40). Of course, if occlusions occur, the vertebral arteries can supply enough blood to the brain to keep the animal conscious.

Some scientists argue that measuring evoked responses in the cortex of the brain is the best method to evaluate consciousness. Daly et al (25) showed that evoked responses disappeared instantaneously after the captive bolt pistol was used correctly in cattle. However, after Shechita the cortex was responding to stimuli from 20 seconds to over two minutes."

Last Saturday, I went with ESN to Rotterdam. We were supposed to get a city tour, but there was some miscommunication with the company so we got a reduced tour conducted by the ESN people.


River view
Somewhere along this river is the Pauluskerk, where free hard drugs are given to homeless people.

We were first brought to an art museum - Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. At first I feared it would only contain modern art, but luckily there was a mix of stuff inside.


Paul McCarthy - Santaclaus ("a 25-foot tall bronze sculpture of Santa Claus holding a butt plug")
Not all pieces of modern art are formless trash


Padded car


Pieter Bruegel de Oude - The Tower of Babel
I have the jigsaw at home

There was a room with a display of uncomfortable-looking furniture, presented as art. This brought to mind the PC blurb about Art at the exhibition by the intellectually disabled artists - who decides what is Art? If Steve Jobs takes a dump in an off-white plastic case, adds two grey buttons and a small LCD display, is that Art?


Roland Schimmel - Blind Spot (2006)
This piece is quite interesting as its primary purpose seems to be to screw up the brains of those looking at it, and give them massive headaches. It simulates the effect of multi-chromatic light, and leaves an image of itself in your retina even after you look away.


Koekkook, Winterlandschap


Faux relief
This looks like a relief carved in stone, but it's really a painting. Ingenious. Unfortunately I couldn't find a caption anywhere.


Venus de Milo Aux Tiroirs
Salvador Dali's take on the Venus de Milo - wth?! This pissed me off a lot.

Jeans slung so low you can see the string or the back of the thong, I've seen before. Jeans slung so low you can see more than half of the triangle of the G-string which covers the unmentionables - that's new.


Perspective machine
This interesting machine simulates perspective


Inside, 2 painted panels are placed in a V-shape, tapering to the back. Looking through the hole in the machine's front, you see everything in a sort of proper perspective.


Orpheus, Eurydice and Aristaios. Unfortunately I screwed up the second shot so I can't stitch it properly.


Rembrandt - Portrait of Aletta Adriaensdr


Abraham van Beijeren - Pronkstilleven (Still life)


Rubens - the Death of Hector


Bosch - the Pedlar

For some reason, there're lots of Chinese in Rotterdam. Besides the usual Chinese/Chinese-Indonesian restaurants, there were many shops with Chinese signs (eg a Diamond seller). In Maastricht all the hairdressers I saw (about 3?) were run by Chinese.

I went into one so-called Chinese-Surinamese food outlet, and under the Surinamese part of the menu was something which turned out to be roast pork or, as the man at the counter said, char siew. I asked incredulously how this was Surinamese food, and he said it was originally Chinese, then they went to Surinam and the rest is history.

One girl was enthusing about the Ladies' nights in Singaporean clubs. Supposedly they don't have that elsewhere in the world. Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions about the preferences of Singaporean women (and men).

I saw some very disgusting mannikins - they were hanging in the air suspended by a rod driven through their heads. I wonder who seeing them would buy whatever they were advertising.


Erasmus Bridge


Skyline from Erasmus Bridge



Bridge cables


Ditto

Somehow, I doubt the fur trimming and lining on female footwear/winter clothing helps to keep them warm.


Water view


Waterfront. Apparently the units fronting the water are desirable, but right behind is a bad neighbourhood.


Cube houses designed by Piet Bloom


Pencil building




Attic of a cube house - it's bigger than it looks from outside.


The old harbour






There was something wrong with the light in the Rotterdam subway



At the end of the day, we boarded a pancake boat for a short harbour cruise and an all-you-can-eat pancake buffet. The record was 14. I had 4 but was feeling very full by the time I finished the last one.


Pancake toppings
I realise I forgot to take a photo of the Dutch pancakes themselves. They're much flatter and bigger in diameter than the American ones. The fresh ones were a little crispy. There were 3 types - Natural, Apple (thin apple slices were embedded in the pancake) and Bacon (bacon strips were embedded in the body).

Ham and grated cheese was quite weird, though the white cheese was alright. The sweet toppings were the best though, with a few swirls of syrup (the icing sugar didn't work as well).

A lot of people tried to take pictures from the moving boat at night. With the glass window in front of them. And with the flash too. From what I saw, they didn't turn out very well. I tried going upstairs and took a shot from the open area at the back of the ship but it didn't turn out well.

In the second half of the cruise, the bottom deck - a pit filled with air-filled plastic balls - was opened, and mayhem ensued.





I got to take part in some of it too, thus fulfilling another of my latent fantasies.

On the way to the Rotterdam Central Station I saw a billboard advertising, among other things, boob jobs. It had before/after pictures of uncovered breasts. What a refreshing lack of ado about nothing.

"The woman who flinches from childbirth stands on par with the soldier who drops his rifle and runs in battle." - Theodore Roosevelt, as quoted by Weil (2005, pp. 108)

I doubt the veracity of this quote, given that he was an advocate for women's rights. And not least because nowhere on the Internet is this referenced.

***

"Actually some of you might know that there are in fact 2 kinds of koalas. The first are the nice ones you see in the zoo. The second are the nasty ones who supposedly torment tourists. We call this kind "Drop Bears". Or: "Doroppu Beru". This kind of Koala likes to drop out of trees and maul non-Australians. It's our primary national defence system."

***

Screwed Up Girl: "speaking of croissants, I just realized I haven't seen a single delifrance here, apparently it's not american. are there delifrances in netherlands?"

!@#$

Screwed Up Girl: "was russia ever a christian nation?"

!@#$%^&*()

***

"I mean if people were unhappy with public transport, does that mean they should start operating their own transport company? Or should they start campaigning for the PTC chairman's position?

What if I am unhappy with the army or the police. Does it mean I have no right to question or to criticise them unless I go and sign up with the army or the police? I mean does anyone see how stupid it sounds?

Just to add one more point, I didn't like how the NKF was runned during the Durai years. So maybe Tan Sai Siong can arrange for me to be the next CEO of the NKF. I wouldn't even need 1 full peanut, just half a peanut will do."

Hee hee.

***

For some reason, all women want to go to Paris.


Someone: there's one drawback in the integrated cd-rom design of the imacs.
on the G4 powermacs and the widescreens, the cd rom is a slot on the side of the screen. the CD basically ejects (as in flies out) and drops out on the table.

Me: doubtless the mac whores will say you must be there to catch it

Someone: my boss is a mac whore and he can't even catch it
it's a scam

the funny bit is one of my office colleagues claimed that the mac has more keyboard shortcuts than windows
i'm pretty sure windows has more keyboard shortcuts and better context menus

note that in order to delete a file, you can't highlight it and press the delete key in mac
you have to actually drag it into the trash can *rolls eyes*
or activate the context menu and select delete

i'm sure they're [keyboard shortcuts in Mac] as usable as the 3-button combination in mac to change tabs in mozilla
to switch tabs in mozilla/firefox/camino, you need cmd tab AND left or right
apple alt direction to be more precise
and you can't reconfigure the shortcuts, as far as i know.

Me: ctrl page up? ctrl page down?

Someone: i assume 'page' refers to the apple button
[ctrl page down] does nothing

plus point: wallpapers can be set to rotate every few minutes
minus point: the OS freezes for a few seconds during the wallpaper change

in windows all you need to do to access the menu options in any program is to press alt
and then scroll using the arrow keys or press letters on the keyboard. on mac you MUST click your mouse on the menu (I'm still trying to find out if i missed anything)

Erwtensoep (Dutch pea soup)

"This national Dutch glory--also called snert--is prepared differently in every household--and traditionally it is made a day ahead. Why? To improve the flavor, but also to concentrate it to the preferred thickness; viz., so that a spoon will stand upright in it. This is a time when microwave reheats are ideal--no more burning the bottom of the pan trying to reheat such a thick paste. I like the nutmeg in this recipe--it recalls the time when the Dutch had the Banda Island nutmeg trade sewn up in a monopoly. It's traditional to serve the soup with slabs of bacon on pumpernickel bread."


I got this on reduced from Hema yesterday. At first I thought it was green stamppot. It looks like and has the consistency of green mush with particles occasionally more solid found here and there, with slices of rookwurst here and there.

I can't find it under the ingredients list (I only see "kruiden", a vague term for spices/seasoning), but I vaguely smell and taste the nutmeg which lends it an interesting taste you wouldn't expect from pea soup. I doubt that there's a pig's foot in this version though. And certainly my spoon won't stand up in it (pity), though it seems thick enough to be filling.

If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.

Someone was saying that Dutch girls are okay but the boys are disgusting. Male bashing is a popular sport all throughout the world.

Screwed Up Girl says that she (and all the girls she knows at Oregon) has hair tangling problems too, despite using powerful conditioner. So it must be the dry climate. And sleeping with wet hair.

My laptop is very fond of zapping me. Usually this happens when it touch its left side, but once in a while it happens when I press the ctrl key. I really should ground myself properly before touching it, or hold a fork in my hand so the spark will jump to the fork, not me, and I won't feel it as it travels to the ground. In other news, I got zapped by the sink today, reaching a new nadir of humiliation.


My favourite test tube washer informs me that Nutella is indeed available in America, so they can enjoy it with their Root Beer. She also generously offered to ship me some A&W Root Beer, until she realised it would be too heavy. In reply I suggested that she boil the liquid until it became powder, and ship the result to me, whereupon I would reconstitute it by mixing with soda water. In any case, though I love Root Beer I do not crave or need it, having even survived for almost a year on Swill (Mug Root Beer) before.

Unable to find an authoritative source on how many times I should reuse deep-frying oil (my mother's in Paris), I've decided on the magic number of five (the original number was four, but my favourite test tube washer says 5 is nicer since it's a prime).

I was feeling a bit guilty when I was frying some schnitzel, since even at a reduced price of €1.14 (down from €1.64) for 134g (or 123g, or thereabouts) it was more expensive than the pork which I got from the market at €4/kg (special offer). Then again, I'm not sure if that was the cut of pork you use for schnitzel (the most expensive cut of pork was ~€4.50/500g). In any case, I later realised that it'd take a lot of effort to pound the meat to the proper thinness (having no meat pounder/tenderizer, I used a glass cup with a potato in it for my cordon bleu the other day and it didn't really work), and to bread it so evenly and in any case I deserve to enjoy some convenience.

Someone taught me the proper way of eating tea biscuits - dipping them in tea before eating them. I'm not sure if the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Indeed, it might be less.

While on a foreign trip a government official of country A was visiting the penthouse apartment of his friend B, a bureaucrat of a poor country.

After A admired the fine residence and furnishings he says: "Be honest B, I know that with your official salary you cannot possibly afford this, what gives?" Taking his friend to the window B replies "See that superhighway running through town? 10 percent."

Some time later B had the occasion to visit the even poorer country of his friend A and found himself in an even larger and more luxuriously appointed penthouse apartment. Says B, "I know your official salary must be even lower than mine, yet your house is much nicer, what gives?"

Taking his friend to the window A pointed out and said "See that superhighway running out into the jungle?" After straining his eyes for a minute B replies "But there is no highway out there."

"Exactly," says A with a wink, "100 percent."

"Indonesia in the 1970s and 1980s undertook a particularly broad program, with 40,000 village centers distributing free contraceptives and educational materials. The government promoted birth control relentlessly: The back of the five-rupiah coin displayed a two-child family with the message "Family Planning: The Way to Prosperity," and the national family-planning jingle played whenever a train passed a railway crossing. At five o'clock every afternoon, sirens went off around the country to remind women to take their birth-control pills. The number of couples practicing birth control rose from 400,000in 1972 to 18.6 million in 1989, and over the same period, the TFR* fell from 5.6 to 3.4 per woman." - Weil (2005), pp. 109

* - Total Fertility Rate

"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking." - H. L. Mencken

***

Hilarious:

Dogbert: I invented an external anti-depressant. When I'm in a bad mood I just apply it to other people. *sprays Dilbert* It used to be called pepper spray.

Dilbert: GAAA!


Too bad it's illegal in Singapore!

***

Someone's nickname: "Friends are like bras; close to the heart and there for support."

I was reading some pseudo-slash the other day; it's so annoying when fanfiction descends into pure slash, but the fic I was reading deals with bonds of brotherhood (between blood brothers as well as best friends) without creating romantic entanglements between the male protagonists. On the other hand, it's comparatively easy to make 2 men romance each other (just as it is to claim that hobbits are gay).

It seems the term "agaration" is not quite correct. The right word in Malay for estimation is "agak". "Agakation" doesn't quite have the same ring, though. So Singaporeans are bad not only at English and Chinese, but Malay as well.

***

"I recall being challenged to do something when I wrote about the Straits Times and editorial integrity a while back. It came down to this - you can either choose to acknowledge blogging about these issues as "doing something" or you can choose not to.

As for the specific issue about standing for an election, I call it for what it is - a "straw man" argument. The chances of winning an election -and- effecting real change even if you do are slim to none. I fail to see why an election is the ONLY venue of effecting political change. It's certainly not the case in the US."

Spooky toilet in my Achter de Dom class venue (yes, I know why the light is like that. I'm just surprised it's in a student building)

I went to Rebo (a fast food chain) in Amsterdam and ordered a kipburger (chicken burger). They guy went to a niche and got one out of there for me. Gah.



Almost-Malaysian mannikins in Amsterdam

I haven't seen any Malaysian mannikins yet, but when I see the almost-Malaysian ones, an involuntary shiver runs down my spine. I imagine that at any moment they will suddenly animate, their eyes shining with an unearthly glow, their lips turning blood red, their mouths opening wider than you would think possible (even Ms "I can put my fist in my mouth" would be hard pressed to beat them) and start laughing as their grotesque visages warp the sanity of all who behold them.

[Malaysian friend: yeah they're scary

Me: get me a picture

Malaysian friend: ahha are u mad
yucks disgusting
not all malaysia mannikins lar
only those in CHEAP shops which i don't go
i don't go to those places
those places r dodgy]


Students all over the world round get fleeced with regards to housing. All the people studying in the First World I've asked pay/paid more than me for their dorm housing (Oregon, Chicago, Duke, Nottingham, Toronto, LSE, Durham), and they have/had compulsory meal plans too. And this, considering that prices here are generally higher than in the US. So actually I'm no being scalped that much.



I'm sure I've seen this tactic to get guys to aim before, but I can't remember where.

The bananas I buy here come from Latin America (mainly Columbia), and are not as nice as Del Monte Filipino bananas. They are, though, better than Pisang Melayu. Maybe they need to wrap the fruit in coca leaves.



Aldi has these chocolate cookies marked like so: "The Famous American Chocolate Chip Cookies. 40% chocolade". The packaging also has golden stars on a blue background reminiscent of the American flag and a gold seal saying "The Biscuit Collection". Now, I'm suspicious of generic stuff proclaiming to be great, the best, America's favourite and the like, like the so-called "America's favourite [fried?] chicken" fast food outlet that I saw somewhere in the wilderness of Malaysia, and so thought it was the usual ersatz crap, but bought a packet anyway for fun, because it was cheap and most importantly because I wanted to eat chocolate chip cookies. It turns out, though, that they're excellent. In fact, I would go so far to say that these are the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. They're crisp without being brittle, just slightly moist - neither too dry nor too wet, crumbly without falling apart and messing up the floor after the first bite, and biting into one fills your mouth with an intense chocolate flavour (27% dark chocolate and 13% milk chocolate - so it'll appeal to the Real Chocolate [TM] fans as well with its slight aftertaste). Unfortunately, even on scrutinising the packaging I couldn't find any information on where it was made, or by which company. Maybe I can talk to Aldi about the distribution rights for Singapore.



My wonderful housemate chucked 1kg of minced chicken into the freezer (I went for class after visiting the market and he lugged everything back). Better yet: part of the plastic bag is trapped between the frozen folds of the meat. We coudn't figure out a way to hack the block apart without an ice pick. Of course I know I should defrost it, preferably using water baths, but the problem is that the meat is not supposed to be refrozen after defrosting. It's currently defrosting slowly in the fridge. Oh well. If anyting goes wrong, the hospital is nearby. He also chucked in 2kg of chicken fillet and 1kg of pork cuts into the freezer, but that was still manageable since the plastic wasn't stuck in between the meat.

I keep forgetting to add pepper to my food, and occasionally salt also. Gah.


I wasn't satisfied with this omelette for 3 reasons:
1) I forget to add salt and pepper and only added it after I started eating
2) My cheese was very hard, so I gave up using the cheese slicer and chopped it into tiny slices with a knife and scattered throughout the omelette. As such, the omelette cooked before I could close and seal it
3) My helpful housemate took it off the stove before my cheese melted, so I had hard cheese lumps throughout the omelette
4) One of the slices of bread from the loaf from which I toasted bread to eat it with had fungi growing on it (I threw it away). The slices I ate had no visible infection. Fortunately, I'm still alive and kicking.

I love Aldi:
1 kg of Huzarensalade (potato/vegetable salad with sausage bits) - €1.25
6 packs of instant mashed potato (makes 500g after addition of milk and butter) - €0.99
1 litre of milk - €0.32
10 eggs - €0.99
200ml cream - €0.39
Courgette - €0.39
6 x 500ml bitter lemon - €1.89
6 bratwursts - €1.69
300g tea biscuits - €0.29
Too bad they don't have Coke (6 pack - €2.19 at Nettorama)

"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all." - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

***

Damn. I'm going to be paying more (S$7.70 at least) to ship my stuff from the US with vPOSTUSA than with the default International shipping. Should've checked before using the service...

***

Someone: one thing bugged me though: isn't 'NEGRO spirituals' rather racist?

Me: Political correctness is insane. Negro Spirituals is what they've been called for a long time, and Negro Spirituals is what they're referred to in the literature and by those in the field.

If you'd like, you can go bowdlerize pieces of classic literature and replace the word "Negro" with something else: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/bs.asp?ss=text&s=Negro

Really, it's like claiming that using the terms "pork barrel politics" and "underdogs" to refer to Muslim contexts is insensitive to Islam, that the nursery rhyme "baa baa black sheep" is racist (toddlers in Oxfordshire now sing “Baa baa, rainbow sheep”), how some coffee houses rename "black coffee" "coffee without milk" and that the term "Dutch Courage" unfairly impugns the Holes from Holland. Or how British policemen are not supposed to use the phrase "nitty gritty" because it is racist. If you want to go on a PC witch hunt you can purge all the history, culture and richness from the English language until you're left with Newspeak.

Maybe you confused the term "Negro" with "Nigger". And considering that they call each other "Nigger", it's not clear why they should take offence is non-"Niggers" call them that.

Back to the term "Negro", we have:

- United Negro College Fund
- Negro League Baseball
- National Council of Negro Women
- The Journal of Negro History
- The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs
- National Association of Negro Musicians
- The Official Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League
- Many places around the world which have "Negro" in their names

Perhaps we should get them all to change their names. Instead of seeing daggers where none exist, the Politically Correct inquisition should focus on real issues, like discriminatory hiring practises, helping disadvantaged communities, reaching out to poor kids and the like. Unfortunately, it's always easier to earn political brownie points by waving the banner of "sensitivity" and launching high profile cases, even if it does nought to help substantially and/or materially the people in whose name such action is undertaken.

Really, it just boils down to Occidentalism. As someone observed to me: "If a white man attacks anybody from another race, it is racism. If a non-white attacks a white man, it is not really his fault. We should look at the root causes. Ha!"

Hypersensitivity to racism is in itself a subtle form of racism. To quote an Associate of mine: "I do not exclude my gay friends from the subject of my jokes, because they know I treat people of all sexual orientations equally and dont put any of them on pedestals"

***

Someone: I am a young and I believe that the youngs can change many things. My question to myself is that: What can I do to change this bad things as a young? And what can we do friends?

Me: You can write papers, go to vapid conferences on taxpayers' money, meet young people from all over the world and network for future personal benefit, talk a lot, agree that something must be done, come up with policy proposals that bureaucratic flunkies will either ignore due to their inflated sense of self-importance or dismiss because they're (really) older, smarter and wiser than all you young uns, and ultimately in the end change nothing.


Someone else: verbifying "network" is so singaporean

Me: it's US actually

network, v.
3. intr. orig. U.S. To engage in social or professional ‘networking’ (see NETWORKING n. 4).
1980 M. S. WELCH Networking 3 This book will show you how to network.
1982 Working Woman June 84 (caption) Recreational activities offer time to network with colleagues. 1983 Washington Post 20 Apr. B7/2 If you've networked with people when you were doing a film, you have a natural interest in seeing their reaction to the film.
1984 South China Morning Post (Business News Suppl.) 27 Jan. 8/7 Most female executives need to network with men more than women.
1988 Times 25 Mar. 21/1 She wanted publicity for her charity and seized the opportunity to network.

Someone else: ah
so i will mental rewire :)

Me: yeah
like marketing to mean going to market is not singlish :P

ah, self-orientalism!

Someone else: you wan to buy frower? only dirty-four fiftee

"The worst thing about Europe is that you can't go out in the middle of the night and get a Slurpee." - Tellis Frank

***

Someone: fuckin hate being in lab on sunday

Me: ah well
sing to your cells

Someone: they are already dead

Me: aiyoh
what happened
you're so cruel

a cell is a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy

Someone: fuck peta
i'm going to kill more cell now

***

Stir Fry Technique: Ten Steps to Better Wok Cookery - "The main reason I add cornstarch to the marinade is because it holds the liquid of the marinade onto the meat–it makes it clingy. If you marinate meat with cornstarch in addition to the liquids, when you go to cook the meat, you will note that there is very little liquid left in the bowl after the meat is put into the wok. That is because most of it is clinging to the surface of the meat."

Armour Tuition Centre - "Welcome to the Armour Tuition Centre’s website. At Armour Tuition Centre, we focus on catering to the individual needs of each student. Our main aim is to ensure that students improve progressively in their school tests and examinations."
This is the first time I've seen tuition for the S Paper. Doesn't that defeat the point?!

Posters | Office Supplies : OfficePirates.com - "Print 'em and hang 'em up. But not necessarily in your own office."
Almost as good as the Despair.com ones!

Kim Jong-Il gets jiggy with it - "North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il may launch a sneak attack on the world's pop charts - with the love-song I Am a Front-line Soldier's Wife."

Wymsey Weekend: A Guide to Mobile Cooking - "Many students, and other young people, have little in the way of cooking skills but can usually get their hands on a couple of mobile phones. So, this week, we show you how to use two mobile phones to cook an egg which will make a change from phoning out for a pizza. Please note that this will not work with cordless phones."

Stopping Kaz - "A woman going by the name of "Dr. Kaz deMille-Jacobsen" had been a guest speaker at my mother's church, and the congregation had been very impressed with her "inspiring" life story... She also claimed that... While hospitalized from her 9/11 wounds, she was clinically dead for 28 minutes. While dead, she was taken to heaven, where she met Jesus and God Himself. When she came back to life, she had a rock in her hand, given to her by Jesus Himself. NASA tested the rock, said it was "not of the Earth nor the moon," and refused to give it back... One skeptic can make a difference. With the power that the Internet gives us all, every skeptic can make their voice - their skeptical, critical-thinking voice - heard around the world."

My No 1 fan: xnothing to write abt the anne frank house?
never take pics of the secret annexe?
HELLO, I AM LIVING MY EUROPE DREAM VICARIOUSLY THRU U
CAN U BE MORE THOROUGH

Me: cannot take photos inside lah
so they can sell more postcards!

My No 1 fan: .......didn't u take pics of the postcards? like every singaporean worth his salt would do? ;) hahaha


Unfortunately as mentioned earlier, photography was disallowed. Why 60 year old letters, forms and other documents are so sensitive to light that the possibility of idiots letting their flash loose when many museums contain works ten times that age and yet trust visitors to turn off their flashes was not made clear.

The house was rather spartan. Rather than decorated and furnished as it would've been during the war, the only decoration was some posters that Anne had pinned on the walls, and there were a few display cabinets and shelves around. Otto Frank (the father) supposedly wanted the place laid out that way but I suspect it's more to allow more visitors to fit inside and travel through the place.

There were quotes from Anne (or rather, from her diary) put up all over the place, so the place had the feeling of a shrine. All in all, I think there was too much focus on the diary, and on Anne herself - after all, there *were* 7 other people living in the place, and Otto Frank at least survived so the absence of his voice except in his capacity as the conduit through which the diaries reached the world was questionable.

There weren't many artefacts from the War - for example a tube of the sort of toothpaste that they'd have used. It would've been nice also to have had the timeline of a single day laid out so people could visualise how it would've been like, but then again they probably want to sell more books, so.

***

Me: my stupid friend is having her spring clothes shipped to her in oregon
wth
... women

Someone: all i can say is
RICH

Me: no lah
she says winter clothes are all long sleeved
that kinda shit
you know women lah
bloody hell

Someone: shrug
i wear short sleeves in winter too
^^

Me: me too
my spring collection is winter collection minus a sweater
hurr hurr

Someone: LOL
^^

***

Someone: Did I ever told you that Thio Su Mien saved us from further SARs damage?

World's Largest Prayer Board Annointed.net News - West Coast Clarion Call!!

"Last February, a USSPN Washington Regional Coordinator was present during a report given by an international lawyer from Singapore, Thio Su Mien (Su), who is gifted in prophetic intercession and healing. She shared about some of the things going on in the area of Indonesia before the tsunami.

She explained how the SARS virus hit Singapore a year prior to the earthquake/tsunami. The Lord alerted the intercessors and told them that if they did not get on their faces and repent on behalf of their nation's involvement in abortion as the contraceptive of choice, that the land would suffer from His hand of judgment.

Because they saw how devastating the SARS virus had been, the intercessors immediately took action to seek His mercy and forgiveness. Singapore was not touched by the earthquake disaster. The Malaysian intercessors joined them in diligent prayer and also opened healing rooms in Kuala Lampur. The area on the Northern Coast of Malaysia was hit hard. There are amazing stories of God's grace and mercy in saving souls and lives there.

It was the prayers of the intercessors that had saved the disaster from affecting an even larger area. She emphasized that the intercessors crying out with repentance and asking for mercy, along with declarations of the Word of God over the land (both written and rhema), released the curse upon the land and the people were spared. It was a plea for intercessors to step up to the plate and continue to press into God for mercy from judgment coming."

We also have her to thank for Singapore not suffering from hailstorms, tornadoes and earthquakes.

Meanwhile intercessors in France are to thank for the invention of Sunscreen in 1936, saving many people from skin cancer.