Only ONE

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-priest1,0,4708989.story?coll=la-tot-topstories

Incredible story around just 1 of the 220 'culprits' and the holey characters surrounding it.

The guy owned up but his 'superiors' (superiority unsubstantiable to me) including none other than the cardinal let him be for years and years, and their god said nothing all the while.

So how many culprits do you think there is?

Nothing happens until some victims started to sue via the God of Wealth (hah, this god is one where Chinamen who 'truly seeked' is ahead of Rome).

Perhaps their deity tried to sort things out via his chief disciplinarian in Rome but they could have crowded their big guy out while they sing their praises?

Luckily, our god of wealth speaks louder than his fellow deity. Ho Seh Ah Chinamen, your god is louder and more effective!

I am singing your praise, of course.

What is too stupid to be spoken is often sung, said Voltaire.

Voltaire was too nice. What is too stupid to be rationalised, is often faithfully respected.

xxx

A Billion S$ to Buy Respect?

Here is the latest revelation from the houses of the gods. You may call it Dirty John XXX.XX (per the movie ratings hor). As you will see below, even Hugh Hefner cannot beat their rating - Mr Hefner is perhaps too ungodly.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-priests15jul15,0,3842358.story?coll=la-tot-topstories&track=ntothtml

Though this is not new it should still bother us enough to ask these questions:

1. 508 cases in one city? How long did each case last before the gods reported them to the communions?

Chay, if the communions are too dumb to see, the gods cannot be the same mah. And if even Chinamen can do god-comm, the gods can surely do reverse god-comm right? Hah, not 2-way one ah? Even Motorola from west and Samsung from east can do that you know

What sort of god are they worshipping?

Since they claim that they are made in the image of their god and their priests are supposedly 'closer' to their god, you figure out what their god is like, can?

Can lah. If cannot, it will prove you are nowhere near godlike and lower class than those fellas in the report you know?

2. The supposedly more holier among humans admitted to the abuses and agreed to pay?

What amount of evidences there must have been. Unlike the popes of earlier times, the less holy ones of our time work base on proofs & evidences, and not proof by surviving fire of the stakes, hor.

I wonder if anyone of the communions back then tried telling the popes of stakes-times to take the same proving procedure on their claim that their book is the word of god, hor? (For the uninformed, they burnt people who contradict them based on the excuse that if they were right they would survive the burning.)

We note that neither history nor the book recorded the existence of a walking Char Siew Pope.

With so many jokers making the claim their god was the 'true god', Char Siew Men should be all over the place, no? No, only char siew pao and char siew mien. (For non-Chinamen, 'char siew' literally means 'burnt on stakes')

[Side Note: In one case, during the siege of Antioch in one of their crusades, a fella claimed he found the 'holy lance'. But others that could not get along with him disputed the claim. So he duly submitted himself to the 'test' and was char-siewed but he did not walk. He died of course - his enemies among the crusaders made sure the fire was big enough]

It had been reported that the present pope issued instructions for all their 'leaders' around the world to keep silent on such cases while he was the 'chief disciplinarian' when the other pope was still alive.

You believe his god had 'communicated' that instruction to him?

The fact that that guy still became a pope indicates that he at least has a special place in the heart of their god (if exist).

Hah, you see, their god works in mysterious ways & keeping silent about it is one of them!

Sometimes their god likes to hide, sometimes not. Sometimes their god likes to watch men having fun with kids at the latter's expense in His house? No? How do you know? Your god works in mysterious ways.

3. Apparently a number of parishes in other parts of US declared bankruptcy when faced with similar charges - their so-called 'sins' can perish just like that meh?

Bankruptcy of the monetary nature is the least of their problems, don't you think?

4. So how many cases did they managed to get away with because the poor kids were either too scared or scarred to talk about the abuses?

And their parents/guardians too stupid or dumb (hey, faith can do alot of such things esp. if you add to it the strange ways the god-like ones work) to be aware of it or too ashamed to face up to it?

Or because the kids are now doing the same to others believing that it's normal and perhaps even divine because they practiced it in holy places?

The parents of such kids are to be blamed. For what sort of parents would leave their children with other men with little supervision and prior advice but ones with misplaced notions.

5. US$660 million from 1 city? Where did all those money come from? That much of others' money to buy back respect for the gods' dirty agents?

They call it 'reconciliation' too - wah so nice people I also want to join if I am a paedophile hor?

You know when this set of godly people discovered the great powers of money?

Well, we know that it dates back at least to the great 'protest' when their 'fathers' used to do what is known as 'selling indulgences' where one can have 'sins' cleared by paying the church some money. Kind of turning sins into $ins.

With 2 billion humans or more living on less than US$1 a day, if they stay 'normal' like us unholy people they could have saved a lot of poor souls with that money. But then, like they say, their god works in strange ways.

Of course, those are not 'their' money but that of people who know no better where to place their generosity despite their supposedly godly blessings. Perhaps, they didn't truly search? God-comm link down? (chay so un-AmOne)

6. It was reported that more than 90% of their so-called 'houses of god' in the US have abuse cases. Can you imagine what this world will be like if 90% of the households in this world are like that?

I am not sure we can even find that sort of ratio in the zoos but then wild animals are not made in the image of their god, remember?

In LA alone, 221 fellas were reported to be involved in committing such 'acts' over 70 years. Only 3 fellas doing it per year if we assume 3 other fellas stop within a year (where got so faithful one).

Otherwise, the correct description of the situation is 'it's an orgy'

And you believe it only happened in the last 70 years? OK, let's have faith?

Are all these history irrelevant? I know of fellas that would think so ('think' may be overly generous given the lack of it but I quibble).

It is sad isn't it? Young children paying the price for the stupidity of the very people they trust with perhaps the purest sort of 'faith' you can find? I mean that of trusting in the judgement of their parents. Who, in this case, in all likelihood drew satisfaction in getting their young to ape after them and their misplaced believe in their 'holy brothers' who don't just love but also seem to love to more than fondle His children (of all children His children? how come boh kia si one hor? Perhaps gay, I mean geh one?)

A friend once told me that he was impressed with how accurate his particular book is, despite its age, in describing human behaviour. I told him then that he obviously read little, despite his age (wanted to add more but kia si and pai seh lah).

But just to see if he is right one more time, can someone tell me where in the book did they tell young children to beware of men fondling (under-statement intentional out of embarrassment) them in the name of god and in the house of god?

No can find? Even Marco Polo recorded in his travelogue, despite its age, about Chinamen openly fondling each other in public. Cheap book that one?

But all is not lost, perhaps. We can all call upon those fellas with god-comm ability to do their calls, telex or SMS: 'May god bless them all!'

And all shall be fine? Or fined, if you believe in the great powers of money and selling indulgences.

I cannot be serious, are you?

But one thing I am damn serious about - the next time a pope, mullah or monk dies, please don't ask me to give a minute silence (or demand any sort of respect from me).

The last time such an event happened I laughed at the joker who did that. We should be cheering - that stupid fella should be happy that his pope was 'going home to be with his lord' as they claim! But he whacked my legs on the football field the week after. I said Chinaman's revenge then. But may be that guy was blessed and god inspired? God's reprimand for me (sure si liao)?

In that case, how come no Chinaman is kicking the arse out of those major league xxxx above? (no term in my vocab for those sick fellas)

Or was that Chinaman kicker just on a cheap thrill worthy of this mail?

xxx

Indonesian Coffee that Beats Starbucks

No Shit, this coffee bean!


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-coffee13jul13,0,3547326.story?coll=la-default-underdog


$600-a-pound coffee
Indonesia's kopi luwak is a rare delicacy of peculiar provenance -- beans plucked from the droppings of wild civets.
By Paul Watson, Times Staff Writer
July 13, 2007

Bandar Lampung, Java Island, Indonesia — TO connoisseurs of fine coffee, only one is good to the last dropping.

Human hands don't harvest the beans that make this rare brew. They're plucked by the sharp claws and fangs of wild civets, catlike beasts with bug eyes and weaselly noses that love their coffee fresh.

They move at night, creeping along the limbs of robusta and hybrid arabusta trees, sniffing out sweet red coffee cherries and selecting only the tastiest. After chewing off the fruity exterior, they swallow the hard innards.

In the animals' stomachs, enzymes in the gastric juices massage the beans, smoothing off the harsh edges that make coffee bitter and produce caffeine jitters. Humans then separate the greenish-brown beans from the rest of the dung, and once a thin outer layer is removed, they are ready for roasting. The result is a delicacy with a markup so steep it would make a drug dealer weep.

It's called kopi luwak, from the Indonesian words for coffee and civet, and by the time it reaches the shelves of swish foreign food emporiums, devotees fork out as much as $600 for a pound — if they can even find that much. The British royal family is said to enjoy sipping it. A single cup can sell for $30 at a five-star hotel in Hong Kong.

To anyone satisfied by a regular cup of joe with the morning newspaper, it might sound like a lot of hokum. Canadian food scientist Massimo Marcone thought kopi luwak was just an urban legend. Then he did some lab work.

He found that a civet's digestive system does indeed remove some of the caffeine, which explains why a cup of kopi luwak doesn't have the kick that other strong coffees do. The civet's enzymes also reduce proteins that make coffee bitter.

Marcone is one of the world's leading experts on foods that make most people go yuck! He recently wrote a book on the subject. One thing that really gets his glands salivating is casu frazigu cheese, which is packed with so many live maggots that it's not only disgusting, the Italian government outlawed it.

"The rotten cheese has millions of live maggots in it, and it's very highly prized all through Italy," Marcone said. "It sells under the counter for about $100 a pound. As you're carrying your bag with the cheese in it, you can actually hear the maggots hitting the side of the bag.

"People eat the cheese and maggots altogether. There's nothing in there that can cause harm.

"Days before the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami struck, Marcone was in Indonesia's Sumatran rain forest, where he collected about 10 pounds of civet droppings laced with coffee beans. He now uses it as "the gold standard" to rate other kopi luwaks in his lab at the University of Guelph in Ontario.

Like a forensic scientist reading a bullet's markings, Marcone stares at kopi luwak under an electron microscope, searching for striations that tell him that a civet excreted it. His studies found that kopi luwak drinkers need to be careful to avoid being duped.

"About 42% of all the kopi luwaks that are presently on sale are either adulterated or complete fakes, unfortunately," he said.

Real kopi luwak has a top note of rich, dark chocolate, with secondary notes that are musty and earthy, the scientist said. An Indonesian coffee lover described the scent as the smell of moist earth after a rainfall, with hints of vanilla, that teases the palate for hours after the cup is empty.

Other coffees, such as Jamaican Blue Mountain, may score better on official cupping tests that judge qualities such as aroma, taste and fragrance, Marcone said. But they don't come with quite the exotic cachet of civet brew.

"From the farm gate to the plate, the story is missing for most of our foods," he said. "Part of eating is not only the nutrition one gets, but also the communing with others at the table. Kopi luwak has the advantage of its story.

"And as ice breakers go, coffee from civets is certainly special.

Local lore says villagers discovered civet droppings made for a smooth cup of coffee centuries ago, when they were forced to work on Dutch plantations and hand over everything they picked to their colonial masters. Civets provided the only coffee the workers could scrounge for themselves.

Today, the world's only source for genuine, uncut kopi luwak is Southeast Asian civets, and most still comes from the ones foraging in Indonesia's coffee plantations. That limits production to a craving for coffee cherries, and the digestive abilities, of a shrinking civet population.

A pound of their droppings yields less than 5 ounces of beans. Roasting reduces the quantity by an additional 20%. With just 500 to 1,000 pounds of the real thing coming on the global market each year, demand quickly drives up the price.

Genuine kopi luwak has been difficult to find in the U.S. for years, said California coffee importer Tom Kilty, who traveled to Indonesia in 1989 to find a reliable source. A decade later, Kilty said, coffee coming from a European supplier didn't look the same, so the company he was working for stopped selling it, even though it was going for $120 a pound.

"I am still on the lookout," Kilty said from Redwood City.

THE astronomical value of their droppings should be a boon to civets, whose reputation took a beating in 2003 when civet cats sold in China's markets were suspected of causing the lethal SARS epidemic. The animals are a delicacy in southern China.

In Indonesia, civets are struggling along with much of the country's wildlife to hold on to their habitat as a growing human population encroaches.

To farmers scratching out a living harvesting pepper, cacao, coffee and rubber on an Indonesian mountainside, fresh civet scat lying in the dirt and dead leaves is hardly worth the bother. The animals also have a taste for cacao, bananas, papaya and other fruits, which once digested, are no delicacy.

It's often hard to know what is in the scat. Sometimes even old hands are fooled by squirrel or bat droppings thrown in for weight.

Even if a farmer does know the animal has chewed at his coffee cherries, it's just as likely to deposit the valuable droppings on a neighbor's land.

More aggressive civets also raid families' chickens, and when the animals grow to more than 100 pounds, baring those claws and fangs, they scare a lot of people, too. And because civet meat makes good eating, the way most folks here see it, the only good civet is a dead civet.

"They're a farmer's enemy," said Ponirin Suparlan, 45, a barefoot farmer who earns $600 a year from rubber and coffee trees, and any civet droppings he finds. He would rather eat a civet than let it dine on his crops. "If I find one, I will surely kill it.

"Villagers aren't sure how many wild civets are left in the area, but the population is obviously shrinking because the dung is getting harder to find each year.

Still, small-time collectors such as Suparlan earn about $3 a kilo, roughly twice as much as they get for regular coffee. It's peanuts compared with what foreign buyers earn, often after cutting it with regular coffee to boost their profits in places such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Dealing in such an expensive delicacy is a cutthroat business. People who know where to find the dung protect their stakes with the paranoia of Gold Rush prospectors.

Susanto, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, moonlights producing kopi luwak when he's off duty from a government shrimp hatchery. But he says he has lost almost $15,000 of his savings trying to make a go of his business.

He and his relatives have processed more than 440 pounds of civet dung into kopi luwak in three years, enough to be rich by now. They've done it the old-fashioned way, roasting the beans over wood fires in clay pans as big as woks. With a log-sized pestle in a stone mortar, they pounded the beans into dark coffee with the texture of cocoa.

But Susanto says he lost a lot of money handing out the world's most expensive coffee as free samples to potential buyers from Seattle to Russia and Australia, only to wait for contracts that never came through.

He has held out against big-name Indonesian buyers who tried to chisel his price down to a fraction of what they would make selling it abroad, hoping for an export deal of his own.

But he has been cheated by so many foreign and Indonesian dealers that he's on the verge of giving up unless his latest idea starts paying off.

He agreed to let a reporter see his operation, a nearly two-hour drive outside the southern Sumatran city of Bandar Lampung, only on the condition that he keep the location secret.

Susanto thinks the best way to guarantee pure kopi luwak is to farm it. So he captured 17 civets, locked them up in wire and bamboo cages, and gave them names such as Claudia, Helga and Romeo.

They are hand-fed ripe coffee cherries along with grapes and other fruits, and fresh milk. Despite the pampering, a few died in captivity, and others chewed their way through the wire and escaped back into the coffee plantations, where they are free to follow their instincts to the best berries. Only nine remain with Susanto.

He dreams of raising $60,000 to build a kind of nature preserve for civets, where they could eat coffee cherries to their hearts' content, depositing choice, certified kopi luwak in exchange for a nice, safe place to live.

Where the Earth is ....

Hi,

Thanks for the nice pictures. Hopefully, people get a small picture of where we stand in the context that the gods deal with.

Note that the comparison herein is just one between a few stars & planets, a comparison of entities in the sub-virus dimension to the gods' realm. Probably meant to aid the less imaginative super-submini-viruses who cannot 'see' despite their claimed 'great searches'.

And note that those are 'balls' we are dealing with hor, not flat discs unlike what some supposedly god inspired fellas no less than the Pontiffs (and their predecessors the Pontifex Maximus and likes) insisted for a few thousand years till Copernicus, Galileo and the likes (commonly known as the 'heretics' then) enlightened them otherwise. And only after a few of the latter's predecessors were burnt off by the former for 'lack of respect'.

There are many ways to show how these fellas lack depth - this flat out missing out of 1 entire godly dimension is just one of the more obvious ones.

Only after that, of course, did Columbus and the likes dared to sail beyond the horizon and started the phenomenon known as colonialism with people like Chinamen, Indians, Africans and more starring as sub-humans to be enlightened, in more ways than one (is that why we are doing this?).

That's also why you don't find Chinamen 'finding' the god of Rome until the last couple of centuries (the converse is also true, but we have a smaller bubble there to burst).

Useless Chinamen hor? So many centuries cannot find the 'true god', must wait for Columbus, Jesuits & likes.

Or if you choose to protest, you of course have to thank the presumptious Germans who ended up getting whacked in the World Wars and that English king who wanted to dump the Spanish King's relative to have another woman - all of which was against the Pope's inspired choice (political and not divine hor).

So inspiring, such histories...

Aiyah, these are all history of course and boh pakai claimed some Chinamen who at the same time draw inpsiration from some low-end fiction from further back in history.

In the order of the universe of the gods, the biggest star you see here would be no where near a pixel. So it takes a lot of bull & balls for some people to claim they are special to the gods, doesn't it?

If it is this super-submicro-virus, I'd stay real low. But I think the others get away with it because the gods really don't give such trivialities a damn - regardless of whether the claimed sub-virus-to-god communications are done weekly or 5 times a day, at-meal or off-meal.

Thanks to science, their huge egoistical bubbles are now big flat discs unlike what their predecessors held so dear- what with all the hot air taken out.

Hey, certain books say that life came into being when the gods gave some clay mixture some of their 'breathe'. Hot air, in earthly speak. Indeed ...

Rgds
CCK


Forwarded Message

From: "Tham, Louis Tuck Peng" Louis.Tham@sg.standardchartered.com
To: Chee Khiaw Cheng cheekhiaw@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2007 8:58:53
Subject: FW: Where the Earth is ....

something that you are already aware of.. and has been discussing....

now the visual representation. i think the last pic explain the physical significance of earth where the sun is represented only by a pixel...

Now, THIS is really fascinating - I've never really given this any thought whatsoever, but it's rather dazzling to see it is presented this way.

I certainly thought this was enlightening. Didn't even realize we knew much beyond our sun .... It's a big universe.
































































Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is more than 1000 light years away.

So... See how insignificant we really are, in this heavenly arrangement of the Almighty but still we have a place, space & very well known existence.

So Friends....make your stay on this planet, a really worth while.

癌症細胞 - 值得一看再看!

Attachment in Chinese. Don't bother opening if you can't read Chinese or does not think it necessary (like some Chinamen I know claim).

In esssence, the question is whether you wish to be to Earth as a cancer cell is to the human body. Cancer cells are wayward cells that consume the body's resources voraciously till the latter is exhausted. The other cells lose out and the body dies over time.

If you are an American, you consume more than 5 times your fair share of many of the world's resources. If you are from 'less developed' countries, you consume correspondingly lesser. So you do your own maths. They call that development.

Now you know why some people treat the'green cards' handed out by the Americans and the likes as winning lotteries? Why do you think lazy Australians still get generous 'state benefits'? They live in a large island of natural resources that is better left to them few, after robbing it from others.

And why so many so-called first world countries like Australia & UK joined in attacking Iraq. It's to join in a feast on the 3rd largest known oil reserve.

Feast all you may, you cancer cells but unlike the Chinaman doctor in this story there are people that will fight you (whatever little way they can) all the way. That may not be first-world like but it is a good fight nevertheless...

Rgds
CCK



Below received via e-mail


癌症細胞 -----《李家同》(music)
值得一看再看!

我決定要跟老張一樣,不當癌症細胞
但是我不會騎腳踏車, 這兒交通超不便地, 讓我騎摩托車好啦....
萬一有那麼一天....跟老張一樣
我的選擇也會跟他一樣
人難免一死
不用多為我浪費醫療資源了


人生簡單就是美............ .
值得一看再看!（有音樂）
相信你對這篇文章，可能有似曾相識的感覺．
透過不一樣的方式，可以再瞭解一次．
整理的不錯!　發人深省！
癌症細胞 ------《李家同》

http://www.kitty.%20tw/index01.%20htm

肯定自己的優點是自信，瞭解自己的缺點是成長，善解他人的立場是尊重。

Oceanic Disasters

Hi all,

Pls refer to articles in link below.

They are long and you need to register (free). If you think good things are never free and only money buy you value I suggest you read the articles to see if you get value from them - science is free, it had been since the Popes gave up on burning the fellas that started it off - the Popes did not do that for free though.

It is about the great changes in the oceans around us. Like some of the scientists quoted in here, I also used to think that the great oceans that cover 70% of the earth's surface and holding more than 95% of all the water on earth would be the last place to suffer from our actions. I was not wrong. It was the last to suffer, just that it is much sooner than I thought.

Like a researcher was quoted, the next generation parents will be asking their children to eat their jellyfish, and not their fish. And chinamen that are now having jellyfish as appetisers and fish as main course will find their children having them the other way round - that is if they survive long enough.

The worst culprits are those living in the so-called developed countries, for obvious reasons. Moi in Singapore is one of them.

We have no hope if you still can't get this after reading the articles in the link. I personally have little for I know how many simpletons there are living in these places hitch-hiking on science and abusing the use of its 'products' under the guise of 'first world ingenuity' while conveniently thinking it is their god-given right or blessings, as some of them call it.

Hah, talking about blessings. I once a while get notes from such people telling the gods to bless me and everything else - huh, what god-instructors these presumptuous simpletons are. They think that what we get, do or consume (what we destroy not counted of course) are blessings from the gods!

That is convenient because they could not figure out why their lives are so good (never mind if they had used their fathers' money to buy those 'passports', that's just god's blessings). They probably also think that their god-instructing exhortations or incantations would save the world from their stupid actions too!

With them around, we have little hope....



Below link contains a very good 5-part report titled Altered Oceans on reports of significant changes happening in our oceans (esp. around the US) in the last few decades suspected to be caused by environmental contamination caused by actions of man:


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans-series,0,7842752.special

xxx

A Reflection of the Present

Some one once said that I am an atheist because I laughed at his religion and the likes (god knows what logic that was - dont like his religion therefore atheist).

And we should not refer to history for past religious stupidities to justify more such laughters. Don't know why history 'no pakai' - the moment one looks at oneself in the mirror it is history one is looking at (whether one laughs at it or not is another matter) but that seems too trivial to ponder (compared to those other things he deals with).

Heck, even the book these fellas read with wonder are tales from time be-yonder used to impress simpler minds of the past!

'Such comments no respect', say others.

So what next? So I try to look at the future lor.

Like when teachers of the future start teaching the kids of these fellas about the stars, galaxies and the universe, and share with them the size of these things so insignificant (or unknown?) to such present day faithfools. If you don't know about such things, it's because you are living in the past - way past the present - but your kids of the future may just reflect like I do below.

The average size of a galaxy is 100,000 to 120,000 light years across - ours the Milky Way is less than that, only 90,000.

The next level astronomical entity is the galaxy group or cluster which average at about 6 million light years across.

And god knows (do your deity knows?) how many galaxy groups there are in the universe.

If all this is not in your book, too bad. Who ask you to read low end fictions?

In this order of things, a man to god is much lesser than a virus is to a man, may be barely a supersub-microvirus.

So those who believe that they are made in the image of god must be full of themselves to dare imagine that anything lesser than a virus could be anywhere close to man-like (analogically speaking), and a man would bother to squeeze his only son into a supersub-microvirus to save all such sub-virus-likes.

And such an important man as god running an empire the size of the universe would bother to find time to talk to these sub-viruses every day as some sub-viruses claim they could do?

Or would let those sub-viruses come to his 'home to be with him' when the sub-virus die? Swipe those brain-dead pests with alchohol is what that poor man would say, I'd say. What say you other sub-virus?

So now, shall we talk aboout your religion with respect to the past, present or future?

Before that, which of these are you at in the first place?

Another Chinaman I know of was so impressed with his newfound idol (they all are those new broomy sub-viruses) that he claimed that the reason why I am not like him was because I did not really 'searched'. He said 'search for him and you shall find that he is the true god. Look at my wife, she did not really search until she knew me and now she is a faithful'.

I told him this:

"I don't really know you and if I do I could perhaps give some more earthly reasons as to why you claimed what you did, there are not many possibilities, but it would not be very nice. However, may be we can do a bit of mental exercise and go back a few hundred years in time (history again?).

With 4,000 years of recorded history (if you don't know this go read history), do you know if any chinamen then or before had recorded anywhere about finding this supposedly great idol of yours? No? Then it couldn't be that none of the billions of chinamen of the past had not really searched."

In my mind this was what I was also thinking:

"Your forefathers and parents not as good as you hah? Those useless fellas sure make you feel good hor? And only present day chinamen like you and your wife are so 'special' as to be able to really search and smart enough to find him? And only super-you could 'bring light' to your wife?

No wonder you don't believe in evolution and associated concepts like gene inheritance (sure, your cheap book never mentioned these). If not, it would be too easy to explain how such useless forefathers could have produced someone like you hor?"

I could see the blank stunned look on the wife's face (that proved that women are better at reading between the lines?).

But this fella persisted and said that nothing he could do will convince me. At least he got this one right, I have my strong convictions which I hold to faithfully too. And he proceeded to give the history of his 'defining moment' and volunteered the kind of answer I mentioned in my opening statement to him.

Apparently, he was asked to stand in for his boss in the last minute for a SWIFT application upgrade 20 plus years ago, days when they used 8 inch diskettes and Wang machines which were much slower than present day PCs. And despite following the installation instructions, the system would not come up. In desperation, he went on his knees to ask for 'his' help and miraculously it worked after that. This apparently convinced our fella that his faith was not misplaced.

This is a true story.

Of course, I was too nice not to tell him then what we systems fellas know - that if the thing worked it was most proabablybecause the programmer that did the installation programs was smart enough to do auto restart and that bloody Wang machine was very slow. So by the time his frenzied prayer was up, so was the system!

You see, those are the kinds of supposedly faithful people I come across. Full of misplaced convictions and more than a bit full of themselves (making a fool of themselves is the other thing).

I am sure there are many more out there like that - some just a bit too ashamed to talk about it or more likely couldn't even convince themselves.

So they leave history and respect for ancestors to less divine people like me lor....

In celebration of Ching Ming this week from a chinaman that occasionally likes to remind other chinamen what they truly are no matter what color they fancy - just another sub-virus full of their er ...

Aiyah which way to look, history or future?

xxx

What Smart Chinese Feed their Children

One day I shared with a colleague what I thought were a couple of important things in our diet: lots of water and regular consumption of eggs (my view was fears about high cholesterol in eggs is a hype).

That colleague agreed and told me that a relative of his living in the US follow this breakfast regime for their children:
- they drink lots of water
- the water are served from magnetised steel containers
- they have half-boiled eggs

He said the children of that family all ended up with PhDs...


CCK Note:
The reason why I thought eggs are special is this. The egg is the ONLY naturally occuring thing that can produce a complete and healthy life form without any external help except for some warmth. Even fruits, nuts and seeds of plants (which are also special) need to draw on water and nutrients from the surrounding earth. But eggs do not even need water which is amply supplied within it. To be able to do that, the egg must be truly special and must contain all the important ingredients of life!

I later read that eggs contain many good protein and chemicals including Choline which help development of brain cells.

Comparative Value of a Dinosaur Brain

The term ‘dinosaur’ was coined by a biologist named Richard Owen sometime in the mid 19th century and it apparently means ‘terrible lizard’ in some language I am not familiar with. Richard Owen was apparently ‘an extraordinarily clever scientist’ and was ‘the leading comparative anatomist of his day’.

According to historians, people in the ‘west’ did not come up with the idea nor accept the existence of dinosaurs till then because the concept of an animal going extinct was not in line with their ‘great book’ which claims among others that this world was created for man and had been unchanging since the ‘great creation’. The ‘great creation’ according to that little book could be dated to be anything from 6,000 years ago to many many more years than that (these fellas with their ‘words of god’ at their finger tips could not finger when such an important event in the scheme of things actually took place!)

[Side Note:
For some background on the 6,000 year old ‘theory’, read my article on ‘Brief History of Dating’ to be out soon]

On the other hand, the Chinese is known to have records of dinosaur fossils for a few thousand years and grind them up for use as medicine. That may also be the origin of their concept of the ‘dragon’ – hey, China men like the others mentioned here do have a great sense of imagination.

We shall however stay with the history of the west for it is a lot more enlightening and funnier because of their ‘dedication’ to that particular little book for a good 2 millenia. Like some Asiatic simpletons I know today, people in that part of the world could not, up to that time, get themselves to accept anything not in line with concepts contained in that book.

[Side note:
For the same reason, they insisted (among many equally stupid concepts obvious to almost all China men today, simpletons included) that the sun and all the other celestial bodies went round the earth – whatever for, it was at least an ego boosting concept for these fellas. To be fair, according to modern science they were not 100% wrong. You see, according to the Big Bang theory every thing is moving away from the earth (the closest to the ‘earth-centric’ claim science can attest for these supposedly god enlightened simpletons). Since everything is moving away from earth, perhaps we can arguably say that earth is at the ‘center’ and therefore ‘special’? But then, Big Bang also says that everything is moving away from everything else. So, if we apply the same simplistic logic, the other celestial bodies should also be ‘special’. Wah, everything also special? In that case, could that include China men like me who claim no special links to Rome or other less earthly entities created by some people’s ego-boosting imaginations? Lucky me, no need for the other Chinamen to ‘bless me’ through Rome]

Things apparently started in the 18th century thanks to (who other than) the Americans. It started when some Americans found a large bone more than a meter in length in the land named after a Spanish fella called Amerigo Vespucci who had claimed the land for his Spanish King and his 'Lord' to no avail for the British had other ideas and were guided by a different divine force that proved to be more superior.

[Side note:
The ‘Americans’ above were not really Americans but British who by then had whacked the real British who in turn had earlier whacked and chased the Spanish down south. The Spanish had earlier whacked the real Americans including the Incans, Aztecs and Mexicans. If you think this is a case of what goes around comes around, you are wrong. The real Americans the Spanish whacked were not the same as the Americans of this story. According to some, the former were ‘red Indians’ who were not the same as the ‘non-red Indians’ in Asia which almost confuses the hell out of me. Conspiracy theory at work?]

When the first dinosaur bone was found, the Americans involved decided to send it to some supposed experts in Europe for study - apparently, at that time America was considered third world compared to its ‘big brothers’ in Europe. Of course, there were no dinosaur experts then. But there were well respected doctors of ‘anatomy’ of other kinds. And as it went, the experts to whom the bone was dispatched summarily declared it as nothing but just the leg bone of some over sized elephant. To them, the possibility of the bone belonging to a large specie entirely new to them and that had gone extinct did not cross their minds because their ‘great book’, if we had not forgotten, did not allow for it.

However, it did help the cause of ‘dinosaurship’ that at about the same time there happened to be some sort of a spat between the Americans and some ‘arrogant’ French fellas who claimed that all things American were inferior to ‘great’ Europe.

[Side note:
The British of which the Americans were part of had been vying with the French to be the ‘boss’ of Europe for hundreds of years which also explains why they like me also, foolishly some China men may say, don’t believe in the divinity of the pope and Rome. And today, if you believe George Bush, it is the reverse – the French is now part of the ‘Old World’, the reason being their unwillingness to whack the Afghans and Iraqis with Bush (and not because they follow the pope). But what about the pope, is he new or old world? Cheap thrill?

One America-is-inferior example given by the French then was the ‘natives’ in America had smaller male genitalia, and less body hair – if this sounded like China men too you are not far off, the ‘west’ then also considered Africans and Asians uncivilized and sub-humans to be ‘saved’ through Christianisation. In fact, in exhorting the Bush-type Americans to ‘take up the responsibility’ and ‘annex’ the Philippines after they (the Americans and not British) have whacked the Spaniards in the late 19th century, the English poet Rudyard Kipling (that some China men of ‘literature’ may be familiar with) famously called these other people ‘the White man’s burden’ - which explains why some China men are so proud they have some claim to the big ‘C’ or whatever little minor role in it. Lesser beings should always try to be a lesser burden to anyone, not just the white man.]

Apparently the French claim pissed off a certain Thomas Jefferson (who by then had considered himself ‘American’) enough for him to dispatch an expedition into the American hinterland to search for proof that things American are indeed ‘bigger’ and therefore greater than ‘old Europe’.

[Side Note:
Jefferson felt insulted because like his ‘puritan’ forefathers he believed that they were creating ‘a shining city upon the hill’ (copied from a certain Sermon of the Mount in their little book) that will be a shining example to the ‘Old World’ (you are right, idiot Bush could not have come up with this term himself) and guide the ‘decadent’ Europeans to ultimate ‘redemption’.

On the other hand, the Holy Alliance (which meant almost the whole of continental Europe listening to the various popey ones based in Rome and other places like Moscow) who saw this as part of these fellas on-going 'protests' then wanted to whack the audacious Americans for their claim to greater divinity. In any case, the Holy Alliance ‘lost’ in this case thanks to the greater powers of the British Protestant guns compared to those allied to the popes. You see, arguments of divinity are always won by the power of the sword or gun – that’s how respect is gained by such people. Those who wish protest about this little observation better get some firepower behind them, divinity has no use without such powers.

In this context, some Australians as example are quite smart – they live in Anglo-Saxon run Australia but also submit to Rome. A classic case of ‘if you are not sure hedge your bets’. But surprisingly, they don’t believe in Krishna, Kuan Yin and Mohammad lah. Ha, a ‘partial hedge’ only, what silly fellas…]

Thomas Jefferson was of course expecting the expedition to find live samples of super-large elephants. To his dismay, the expedition did not return with over-sized live elephants. But they did bring back loads more of those big bones. This time, the bones included that from the other parts of the dinosaur’s anatomy.

[Side Note:
As Steve Irwin enthusiasts would know, there is no elephants in America. The gods work in strange ways, to quote certain people. Asia and Africa have elephants and sub-humans but Rome and the west have the ‘great book’ and popey ones, and forever the twines shall never meet – according to the same Kipling fella. For the same reason, that perhaps explains why there was no China man pope.]

So, as it went, as they collected more and more of those ‘big bones’ and slowly pieced them together, the entire ‘west’ slowly began to realize that those bones were not from any animal living then. Among them was a 'notable expert’ by the name of Dr Gideon Mantell - the term ‘paleonthologist’ was not coined yet (the gods would not divulge such things ahead of their time?).

By the mid 19th century our Richard Owen had ‘hijacked’ the works of people like Mantell, and came up with the term ‘dinosaur’ (history is full of hijacking stories – see Virgin Fathers for some examples http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/virgin-fathers.html).

How not to? Put those bones together and instead of long thick nose trunks, these things had long thick tails unknown to all them ‘enlightened’ fellas – even their greatest boatman that saved the entire earth in one super-boat never mentioned these different-tail things in that great flood tale! (read the Story of Nolah)

And that was how we got animals like Tyranosaurus and a whole lot of other sauruses that I cannot remember – ha, may be that is also why their great boat-man Nolah missed these animals out of his great flood tale (such undivine characteristics like mine, not impressive at all hor?).

But one particular Stegosaurus I do remember for its comparative value. Apparently, the Stegosaurus grew to a height of 10m but had a brain the size of a walnut (if you don’t believe this you go dig for the bones in America lor – we know for sure you cannot get such ‘details’ from one particular ‘great book’).

Some say that would make the Stegosaurus a really big and stupid animal. When I read that, I wondered how on earth those people figured that out. Then Richard Owen’s ‘leading comparative anatomist’ idea came to my mind.

Perhaps, these people thought that since humans are so god-like (and therefore should be ‘most smart’), anything with brain size smaller than the human’s would therefore be more stupid than human. What more if, as we can also prove from the various histories of such god-like animals, there are indeed very stupid humans with brain sizes much bigger than a walnut.

Oh gods, what size are yours that they so proudly compare their little ones to?

Perhaps I should write about the size of your Universe another day just to have some fun together…not with you the gods who surely don’t need my little fun stories, but with all those who wish to understand the limited powers of the little human brain.

[Side Note:
Richard Owen had originally enjoyed a working relationship with the younger Charles Darwin, but having been a devout Christian from the beginning, Owen saw creation as a series of experiments by a Creator, and he was outraged by Darwin's masterwork On the Origin of Species.

Mr Owen probably thought that dinosaurs were just one big godly experiment went wrong and terminated by the gods. What made Mr Owen so cock-sure he was the right experimental result of god-play, only the gods know. That is also why present day Asiatic co-believers of Mr Owen, who would otherwise not be able to tell a stegosaurus brain’s size from that of a tyrannosaurus but is as cock-sure as Mr Owen of their god-like features nevertheless, is the perennial feature in my own little ‘crusade’ to prove that their brains although bigger than a walnut is nowhere near god-like.

It is proving to be a piece of cake, which also happens to be bigger than the size of the human’s brain. ]

Where Got No Nice Con?

5 Nov 2006

My first experience with a con man took place when I was a young kid growing up in a kampong house in KL – my memories of the area and the character involved in this story are still vivid. In those days, traveling vendors – mobile shops - were common and they came by at regular times and days selling things like pork, fish, veggies, pots, rojak etc. A daily regular then was the ‘roti’ man who was typically an Indian.

The particular roti man involved in this story came by in the early evenings. As part of his ‘service’ he would chat with his customers – a kind of customer relationship building – and I would hear from him ‘news’ from other neighborhoods (he was also a kind of modile CNN for people like me who did not yet know of the existence of newspapers and libraries). Over time, I got to know him as a ‘regular’, and to me he was a ‘nice man’.

One day, a couple of years later when I was about 7 years old, this roti man asked if I could lend him some money as he needed it for some purpose that I cannot now remember. He promised to pay a good 20% interest a month later. Immediately appreciating the ‘good ROR’, I lent him $5 after consulting my mother who did not object nor warn me about the ‘risks’ involved. The money was promptly returned one month later with the promised interest – not bad return and ‘what a nice man’ was what I remembered telling myself then.

My ‘nice’ roti man did that a second time and again kept his promise. On the third occasion, I was hooked and lent him my entire savings which was $20 plus (a lot of money for me then). That was the last time I saw this nice roti man of mine.

At that young age I was not fully aware of the implications of the practice of ‘fan tong san’ (literally meaning returning to the Chinese homeland but generically applied sometimes to mean returning to homeland) common to both Indian and Chinese immigrants alike. What the roti man did was before his departure home to India he had built up sufficient trust in him for gullible customers (fools) like me to part with their money as loans which he finally ran away with.

Although I lost my entire savings, I learnt some important life lessons early in life. I learnt to understand the need to understand, spot and manage risks, and to not just be skeptical of ‘nice people’ but also to spot a ‘con’. For example, I learnt to spot potential pick pockets at crowded bus stops and bus stations (a major problem in KL back when buses were so packed people had fight to get on and had to cling onto them from the sides) by the time I was a teenager. That was the reason I had never lost a wallet this way in my whole life.

I also learnt that that awareness of mine would make a difference to what happened around me. For example, at bus stops I would scan the crowd around me to pick out such people - they would also be doing their own ‘scans’ to pick out potential victims. Once I picked them out I would intentionally look at them long enough to make them realize that they were on my ‘radar’. I would do that more obviously when I knew they were joining in to ‘rush’ for the same bus I was about to take. Often times I learnt that if I gave them a sharp stare they would ‘skip’ the bus and pull out of the rush. That was how I knew that my ability to spot such people actually worked – the logic was simple, grown men choosing to miss out on their buses at a time when the frequency and level of services were terrible, and everyone else had to ‘fight’ to get on? Not so many gentlemen in KL. Not with the ‘let’s see which one to pick’ behaviors spotted earlier. In a way, I was learning from ‘history’.

The reason I am sharing this personal story is to share my views on some common comments I come across many times in various forms or contexts.

For example, I often hear comments like ‘I did not expect such and such a person to do that as he or she was so nice’, or ‘I got burnt but everything made sense to me’. My comments are always ‘how do you know the other person is nice? all con men or women are always nice to the ones conned, that is how the cons managed to work!’, and ‘every con comes with a nice/great idea and has to make some sense for it to work, and would always make most sense to those that it suckered’.

The reaction I often get after that is a ‘how do you know that you….’ look on the faces. I would then volunteer the explanation: I had experienced it before myself but mostly I learnt from others the best source of which is history. History is full of all kinds of ‘great cons & suckers that come with nice/great ideas’ which I learn from without having to directly pay for. But what amazes me is the number of suckers that continue do so despite the historical ‘evidences’ available. What I do learn is that such people are inevitably historically ignorant and cannot see from the thousands of years of recorded history that the basic characteristics of humans have not changed one bit (this is not a new idea that needs divine inspiration) – which explains why thousand year old cons still work.

Below is just one of the many divine examples I had been trying to share with people I know – these 'first world' fools always inspire me. I am sure many 3rd world fools of such 2nd hand divinity out there would be asking similar questions like above when they come across reports like this. My learning question is always the same – let me see what kind of a sucker who bought this con?

Perhaps, you too can learn from them - this short report is full of 'aha I know why they are suckers' revelations - only if you can spot them.... first hand.



Evangelical leader agrees to resign from church
By Associated Press
3:48 PM PST, November 4, 2006

The Rev. Ted Haggard was forced out today as leader of the megachurch he founded after a board determined the influential evangelist had committed "sexually immoral conduct," the church said Saturday.

Haggard had resigned two days earlier as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, where he held sway in Washington and condemned homosexuality, after a Denver man named Mike Jones claimed to have had drug-fueled trysts with him.

"Our investigation and Pastor Haggard's public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct," the New Life Church's Overseer Board said in a statement.

Haggard on Friday acknowledged paying Jones for a massage and for methamphetamine, but said he did not have sex with him and did not take the drug.

The church's statement said the investigation would continue, to determine how extensive Haggard's misconduct was.

The Rev. Ross Parsley will lead the church until a permanent replacement for Haggard is chosen by the end of the year, the statement said. A letter explaining Haggard's removal and an apology from him will be read at Sunday services.

"The language of our church bylaws state that as Overseers we must decide in cases where the Senior Pastor has 'demonstrated immoral conduct' whether we must 'remove the pastor from his position or discipline him in anyway they deem necessary,"' the statement said.James Groesbeck, a church elder, said he was glad the investigative board acted quickly.

"I'm saddened by what came out, but I think they've done their job," Groesbeck said by telephone. Church members are drawing strength from one another and are caught up in the activity, but that likely will change, he said.

"I think it's going to be really difficult in a week or two," Groesbeck said.

Jones, who said he is gay, said he was upset when he discovered who Haggard was and found out that the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage -- a key issue in Colorado, with a pair of issues on Tuesday's ballot.

"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," Jones said.

Jones also said Haggard snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.

Haggard told reporters he bought meth but never used it; he said he received a massage from Jones after being referred to him by a Denver hotel. Jones said that no hotel referred Haggard and that he advertises only in gay publications.

In a TV interview this week, Haggard said: "Never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I'm steady with my wife, I'm faithful to my wife.

"Matt O'Connor, 21, a member of New Life Church for 12 years, said Saturday that he knew weathering the fallout was going to be bad, but that "we're still a church, and we are not going to fall apart."

A Happy Deepavali!

20 Oct 2006

Hi all,

A happy Deevali/Deepavali to you.

In line with the spirit of Deevali, here’s to share some more light on Susmit’s note below:

Deevali is probably more alike the Chinese festival of Dong Jie (Winter festival) celebrated around Dec 20. Reason is they are related to the winter solstice where the northern hemisphere experiences its longest night of the year (thus need to set more lights on in case of Deevali or Deepavali).

All agrarian cultures in regions that go through the 4 seasons, winter/summer solstices can be quite easily determined by tracking where in the horizon the sun rises/sets and is already well noted for thousands of years.

In the northern hemisphere, winter solstice is significant as after this day the sun ‘begin to return’ to the northern hemisphere and brings along with it ‘life’ – plants/crops/flowers will start to grow and animals/birds will ‘return’ soon after that day (as mother earth in northern hemisphere warms up). This day is thus well known and celebrated in all great cultures from the Romans, Persians, Egyptians, Indians to Chinese for a long long time.

Over time either because societies grew ‘less’ agrarian or due to ‘calendar drifts’ as some cultures follow a non-fully solar calendar (like the Indian calendar), some cultures lost track of the ‘origins’ of such festivals and/or the day of celebration gets ‘misaligned’ with the astronomical event.

The Romans used to celebrate this event for 1 week (starting from the solstice which falls around Dec 20/21). The Christians that ‘inherited’ things from the Romans hijacked the last day of this festival for another purpose which most people today ‘ignorantly’ celebrate as X’mas.

Quiz:
If the pre-christianity Romans began their 1 week celebration on Dec 20/21, how come the ‘last day’ per the hijack above fell on Dec 25 instead of Dec 27/28? (clue: another piece of dust from history)

Indira Gandhi once told LKY “we are all covered by the dust of history….”

I say “we all need to see through the thick layer of dust covering us and discover how humans behave – how mother Nature and its greatness/beauty can be mis-interpreted/mis-represented or even manipulated by some human minds often to the long term detriment of not just ourselves but Earth itself”.

Man-made festivals aside, we should all celebrate all of Nature and all that it gives… everyday. It is that beautiful.

Rgds
CCK



From: Susmit GUPTA
Subject: Happy Deepavali!

Hi All,

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a Very Happy Deepavali!

A little background for those who are ignorant as to why Deepavali is celebrated. Alike the Chinese New Year, the Hindus in India also follow a Hindu Calendar. Deepavali marks the beginning of a New Year according to the Hindu Calendar.

In India, Deepavali is also known as the festival of lights because the families decorate their houses with lots of candles and every possible light in the house is switched on. The new year is welcomed by bursting fire crackers is almost all the houses and is the highlight for most of the youngsters of the family. We also pray to the Hindu deities for fortune and good health. For almost a week after Deepavali friends and families visit each other to celebrate and eat lavish meals. The younger family members will always be given some money by the elders of the family (Another highlight of the occasion).

There is a lot more history behind the day (I will not get into it) and is referenced in the Hindu mythological book The Ramayana! For those interested can read the English translation available at the National Library. :)

I would like to wish all of you good health and a prosperous year ahead!

Best Regards,
Susmit Gupta

Virgin Fathers

Elton John used to make great music with famous songs like Your Song, I’m Still Standing and Candle in the Wind.

Recently he made one other big news with his gay marriage. As you can see from the news report attached, the religious fellas went nuts over such a despicable act and many of them must have asked ‘what had happened to the world?’ http://archive.gulfnews.com/world/United_Kingdom/10006639.html

Undivine and sinful he may be with his latest act but no one would accuse Elton John of plagiarism in his song-writings. For that he would likely be recorded in history as a great maker of original music, and, who knows, may be more…

Those with knowledge of some history of and open to the world of ‘great possibilities’ cannot be faulted for looking ahead and wondering what the future may bring if we are to mix with some conjectural liberty the histories of the likes of Elton John and the other bunch noted above.

If we can remember, history (if we are to believe it the way the other bunch do) had numerous cases of what they call ‘virgin birth’. Such great phenomena were usually associated with the birth of divine fellas - at a dime a dozen who cares how the rest of us come about?

According to history, the last great ‘virgin birth’ about 2,000 years ago as told by a particular bunch was likely a copy of similar acts from the likes of the Egyptians, Babylonians and Indians before them i.e. it was plagiarism of some old tales.

If we do some small exercise on mental extrapolation, we would also note that their particular storybook have other tales of special births.

In one case, they had a man created from clay and a woman created from a particular calcium-laden sub-part of that mudman (is that why there are so many mud heads among his descendents today?).

If they had known of the existence of Barbie dolls then, they would have the first woman made of plastics! That is not altogether more ridiculous considering that there is more carbon than calcium on Earth.

But to those old story tellers, there were no such things as carbon and calcium then. These things are recent inventions by later day story tellers of a different kind.

To be fair, old Babylonian tales also had similar stories of making first men out of clay – another plagiaristic act?

Considering that the acts (not the plagiaristic but creative ones) were supposed to be done by none other than the greatest entity in Nature, some of us may find them lacking in style – where got intelligent design? Even a mesopotamic potter could have spun that story - which was what probably happened.

Imagine this, no need for eggs, sperms and genes. Just pluck some clay from the ground and, voila, a man. Pluck a bone from that clay man and, voila, a woman. Much more divine than genetic theories?

Modern day scientists would be more impressed if these fellas can explain among many others how they converted silica into calcium i.e. make bones out of clay.

But these fellas have a ‘no questions asked’ policy since time immemorial – otherwise get burnt on stakes and nothing to do with the issue of not turning certain caps on. Because of that, man-kind missed the ‘scientific boat’ for more than 2,000 years (see below for reason why 2,000 years).

Oh, by the way, you know why the popes burn their enemies on stakes instead of nailing them to crosses? Unlike the relatively nicer Romans who allowed their enemies the dignity of retrieving their bodies for proper burial and the occasional lucky break of surviving the ordeal (in one case, some fools called it resurrection), the popes were less amenable to such niceties. They were more interested in making sure that whatever happens there is no chance of survival for their nemeses - unlike the lucky break the Roman's method gave to the popes' idol. They figured with brutal accuracy that surely nothing can turn ash back into man.

Of course, such creation stories applied only to humans who according to them were created in the image of the creators. (The other life-forms simply appeared very quickly over 1 or 2 days. No need for Darwinian-pace evolution. That's also the reason why they don't believe in isotope-dating, a technology too imprecise to tell differences in the order of days.)

Luckily, this finally included those in the Arctic, Africa, Americas and Asia (the A-Team?) who were only recently (in historical terms) declassified as sub-humans by their lead story tellers in Rome. That made some people so happy and explains why certain new brooms in Asia sweep so clean.

Since men are so much like the gods, we can also arguably conclude that man’s creators could also have been created likewise by their creators, and so on up the chain of divine command. There you have it, god creation made easy.

Surprisingly, after that early act the creators left the act of man and woman creation to some sinful act that even the popes were at times not suppose to emulate (at least officially if you believe them).

Which may also explain why their priests are so fond of boys which, of course, is very different from Elton John who is fond of men - the difference is Elton John has the guts to publicly declare his taste.

And the former do what they do surreptitiously perhaps because they were hoping to emulate the gods and re-discover the first act of woman creation before running out to the streets shouting 'eureka' like Archimedes? (for nothing else would make them look more god-like?)

More incredible still, for almost 2,000 years after their last great virgin birth other than knowing that ‘one man one woman a baby they make’ these fellas knew nuts about how babies came about – their divine capabilities not withstanding – until the likes of Schwann, Darwin, Mendel and Crick came up with ideas around cells, evolution, heredity, and DNA.

These latter day story tellers we call scientists really blew the bubble on the other bubble blowers who thought their 'man creation via pottery and virgins' model was so smart and neat.

In retaliation, the other bunch recently came up with the 'intelligent design' theory.

The Chinese term for such story telling is 'cui niu' or literally 'blowing the bull' in English (perhaps not so much coincidentally but prophetically, papal pronouncements used to be known as 'bulls'.)

But how they could not come up with such intelligent theories earlier especially when their son of god was sitting next to them no one knows – so easy, only need to ask the big boss 'pal'-ing next to them but don’t know what those apostles were mucking around with. But then, they were probably busy playing with clay dolls like those present day priests mentioned earlier.

But hah, there you have it. Elton John can arguably claim that he is not doing anything ungodly. For all you know, people like him may in the future re-discover the lost skill of man creation from his partner’s bones. The only thing is he will have to get a lot of help from science to replace the bones he takes out (with perhaps plastic ones) if he desires a large brood of girls. Or he can adopt the Way of another bunch and get four hus-wives.

Who are we to tell the gods what they want to do with this world? If they can change the rules of man and woman making a few times before, surely they can change it again. Remember, it went from man-making with clay and bones to don't know what, then to virgin birth and then don't know what.

Then Elton John may become famous for more than just his songs. Not for originality unless he stop insisting going via the backdoor, and borrows from Frank Sinatra and does it His Way.

We are of course not supposed to spread such stories out of respect for certain sensitive people that believe in those supposedly divine acts. Plagiarism included.

I, of course, would like to stake some claim for coming up with the idea of virgin fathers.

Don't laugh at me okay. It may get into some future story book and some fools may just believe it....

Intelligent Designs

TOP OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES for Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Judge Says 'Intelligent Design' Is Not Science
A federal judge, saying "intelligent design" is "an interesting theological argument, but not science," ruled that a school board violated the Constitution by compelling biology teachers to present the concept as an alternative to evolution. By Henry Weinstein.

http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ewSh0INxDP0G2B0G85Z0ED


The judge claimed that 'intelligent design' is not science because it cannot be tested. That is clearly hogwash.

We all know that there are certain people who have special access to the gods. Some can even talk to them!

Er, may be more. If not how do we explain examples like
- people asking or instructing the gods to bless so and so,
- people talking to the 'great designers' at their dinner tables or altars
- people quoting little ditties or reading little booklets with certainty that they were 'words of god'.

With such super-human abilities, 'intelligent design' can surely be easily tested i.e. the scientific method would be 'chicken feed' so to speak. The judge could have asked these fellas to call upon their special comms links to the 'great designers' and ask the gods to reveal their great 'intelligent designs' (via these fellas of course).

In fact, throughout history there were so many cases of certain such less bestowed people claiming to have done exactly that that we would be laughing our hearts out if not for the killings they made in the name of god(heard of those burnt for heresies?) and the 'respect'we have to accord them.

Examples are their cock-sure claims that the Earth is flat, all celestial bodies go round the Earth cos it is a 'special place', the end of the world was coming (since thousands of years ago and still coming), gods wiping out entire creations but need an old fella and a wooden boat to save one pair of animal (only animals hah?) each, women are made from a particular bone of a man (if so simple the likes of Elton John would be making babies with their 'male wives' and the Church should be proud of their virgin fathers!), etc. etc.

What they don't realise is that the only people uncovering and marvelling at the 'great designs' of Nature are the scientists.

All while the other bunch hitch-hike along (want to know why the Jesuits and the British army looked so impressive to old days Chinamen?), and use smart alec comments like 'so what if such & such a scientific discovery or achievement is made? what's next?'

What's next is the potential uncovering of yet another part of the 'great design'. Another peep into the workings of great Nature. Another link revealed among the rules of 'intelligent design'.

All while the other bunch repeat generations after generations some of the aping acts listed above. So what's to ape next?

Where is the intelligence? Got the design?

Imagine the Galileo-likes looking into their telescopes saying 'Hey you guys gotta see this. The only way it could be the way it is is if things are organised in such and such a way'. And the pope-likes saying 'you bunch of idiots are spreading heresies and shall be burnt!'

The ungodly explanation for that is quite simple. The notion that everything goes round the Earth was an idea from the likes of Aristotle whom the Romans admired. So when the popes hijacked Rome, they merely aped after the admired Romans and their admired thinker but claimed that it was 'God's idea' as weight just to win the argument that Earth is special.

And when the Galileo-likes claimed they can prove Aristarchus' idea that the Earth actually goes round the sun, the popes flipped and wanted respect so they burnt some of those fellas off to get it. Aristarchus lived about the same time as Aristotle.

Actually, if the popes then had talked to present day scientists (we don't need these fellas?) they would have gotten tonnes of reasons why Earth is special without having to have the Sun and everything go round it but they didn't or couldn't.

If the gods designed intelligence, they didn't give it to certain people. That may be part of the design.

Want another test?

Amazing Humans

Private Security Guards in Iraq Operate With Little Supervision
BAGHDAD - Private security contractors have been involved in scores of shootings in Iraq, but none have been prosecuted despite findings in at least one fatal case that the men had not followed proper procedures, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Times.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-guards4dec04,0,6399889.story?track=tottext

For those who know about the conquistadors, people from the various 'East India' companies and those in stories like above, it is quite 'amazing' how people don't change after 500 years. Much longer if you know about Shih Huang Di, Alexander, Genghiz and the likes.

A friend once told me that it is 'impressive' how accurate a certain holy book is about human behaviors. I told him that if he bothered to read other 'old' literatures he would be equally 'impressed'. In fact, if humans were around far back enough to document behaviors of sharks since 100 million years ago we would be 'more impressed' by how accurate the document would be (about shark behaviors).

By the way, we are talking about human's ability to observe and document - not some other divine act hor.

Amazing isn't it?!

I mean the 'refusal' of sharks to change, and how impressive a 100 million year old book on sharks would have been...

Of course, this is pure imagination as some may like to imagine that there can only be one 'impressive' book.

How I wish that such books had told us about the genesis of sharks instead of just some sharing of a fish in a meal but what do one expect from novelists living in a semi-desert?

Too much to write? Surely, they could have gotten divine help along with likes of CD-ROMs if pen and paper were too unwieldy... even today also they cannot write and must rely on naturalists & biologists meh?

What about films? Those old style novelist fellas would be more impressed if they see our TVs - heck, they'd even think that Morse is divine (imagine this, a few clicks and clucks and this Morse fella knew what was happening half way round the world almost instantaneously)!!

With these things who need the Jesuits (a couple of Billy Grahams would do) and certain divine revelations wouldn't take that long to reach Chinamen in the 'far east'... (whether wise men from the east went looking or not notwitstanding)

Eruptions of Shocking Disbelieve

I refer to your report below where Israeli PM Sharon was said to be a "legendary hawk" transformed to a "born-again dove". Anyone with some knowledge of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian problem and the old saying "old dogs cannot learn new tricks" would find it hard to believe that this man is making any step"towards lasting peace" in the land he played a large part in producing exactly the opposite - his being "indirectly responsible" for the massacres in Palestinian camps in Lebanon in the 80s, events considered crimes against humanity by some analysts, is just one of his real lasting acts. In all likelihood, this man had merely changed from that of a dangerous warrior to a scheming international politician.

Crediting Sharon with pulling down Israeli settlements, first the Sinai settlement of Yamit in1981 and then this summer in Gaza, your report had either conveniently or ignorantly not mentioned that the former was part of a peace deal with Egypt, and other Israeli settlements created elsewhere in occupied territories since 1981.

By quoting certain unnamed analysts your report created an unreal impression that Sharon had taken bold and significant steps toward lasting peace. Your readers may perhaps like to read what observers like Edward Said had to say about the negotiating positions successive Israeli governments take in finding peace (Edward Said was a Palestinian Christian intellectual who lived in exile in the US).

For example, the Olso negotiations in the 90s (and it gives us all a sense of Israeli behavior) had among others the following Israeli offers:

- Palestinian self-rule for only 50% of land occupied by Israel since 1967 (and they are not even talking about lands occupied before that), that consisted of many small land-locked slices without the ability to make independent contact within and with the outside world (see attached map http://www.mideastweb.org/palestineisraeloslo.htm). Lasting insult and subservience intended perhaps?,

- as reward for Palestinian leaders if they agreed, a share of certain monopolies whose profits must be deposited and managed by Israeli banks (this is reminiscent of similar though less insulting offers that were made to Singaporean leaders by Malaysia during its formative years that a former leader of Singapore wrote disparagingly about in his auto-biography).

Occupying lands beyond its internationally recognized borders, Israel is one country that analysts noted has no self-announced borders. That is an ominous indication of long-term Israeli intent.

Another indication of this intent is an analogy given decades ago by a Palestinian Christian writer: "I gave him a ride out of the desert. When he hopped on he said 'what a nice camel you have'. A few miles on he said 'what a nice camel we have'. Before the journey's end he would say 'what a nice camel I have'".

In 2004 the US under President Bush 'allowed' Israel under the same Sharon to keep forever certain territories occupied in 1967. Besides associating the Palestinians (and only them) with terror, Bush also said that Palestinian refugees should not be allowed to return to land lost to Israel in 1948.

This "negating the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel" was a "historic first" according to a senior Israeli official. From this you can see how accurate the camel analogy above proved to be.

More than a mere issue of the US & Israel taking liberty at Palestinian expense, arrogant disregard of international laws (many analysts have noted that under international laws lands occupied after 1947 and beyond the borders defined in UN Resolution 141 with the help of the British are considered as such, and the Palestinians are entitled under the same laws to resist such occupations with all means available to them), and an indication of possible concerted mal-intent by more than one party, it foretells why any present offer by Sharon under the auspices of the same US government will not produce a lasting peace.

Since the UN and other international agreements are there for good reasons and not to be taken lightly, we had better take Sharon's "shocking" change of heart in perspective.



Sharon's political volcano
Israeli PM's shock move seen as step towards lasting peace
Clement Mesenas, Foreign editor clement@newstoday.com.sg

With an extraordinary agility reminiscent of his swashbuckling paratrooper days, former General Ariel Sharon departed the rightist Likud Party he helped found to swing to the centre ground of Israeli politics, where he hopes to regain the nation's top post come general elections in March.

To all intents and purposes, Mr Sharon wants to leave behind a legacy of lasting peace and security for Israel, say analysts. And the Likud had become an obstacle to his plans, as he said on Monday when he made the explosive move to became the first-ever Prime Minister of Israel to quit his party while in office and in the process, decimate the power of the right.

"Remaining in the Likud means a waste of time in political fighting," he said. Hardliners in his party had not taken kindly to his peace overtures.

Analysts say Mr Sharon - transformed from legendary "hawk" to born-again "dove"-- personifies the fundamental change in the structure of Israeli politics, a move toward pragmatism and away from ideology.

This middle majority is willing to trade the dream of reclaiming all of biblical Israel to make way for a Palestinian state, if it means Israel can once and for all rest behind hard borders with a solid Jewish majority.

Mr Sharon didn't spell out his grand plan in so many words when announcing the launch of a new party, National Responsibility. But not for a second did Israelis miss the message.

"What is clear is Sharon has much further disengagements in mind. He may even deny it for electoral purposes, but everyone knows this is about a dream to finish what he started in the pullout from Gaza," said Mr Gerald Steinberg, senior research fellow at Israel's Besa Centre for Strategic Studies.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat acknowledged the significance of the developments, calling it the"eruption of a political volcano in Israel".

"I believe it is a restructuring of politics in Israel... It is happening because of us, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," he said. "I have not seen anything more significant in Israel since 1967 (the Six-Day War which led to the Israeli occupationof the West Bank and Gaza).".

Can Mr Sharon pull it off?. Early Israeli reaction suggests he can, according to initial reactions published in Haaretz on Monday. Opinion polls by the Israeli daily indicated 37 percent of respondents prefer Mr Sharon as prime minister, compared with 22 per cent for upstart Labour party leader Amir Peretz. The Haaretz survey showed a collapse in Likud support to just 15 per cent, while 26 per cent remainundecided.

Though the right-wing Likud will wait until December to select a new leader from a slate of at least seven candidates, including former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it now appears to be a spoiled prize.

No Israeli analyst appears able to envision a scenario where the right will share in power after theelection. Hebrew University political scientist Yaron Ezrahisaid the muted reaction of most Israelis to last summer's historic Gaza withdrawal proves there is a new Israeli consensus that is pragmatically resigned to further withdrawals from the West Bank, and the inevitable creation of a Palestinian state.

Analysts say that if Mr Sharon wins in March, the march toward peace will happen his way, unencumbered by the need for a partner. Or, if a partner there must be, most likely that partner will be Washington.

Just as Mr Sharon brokered the withdrawal from Gaza in the corridors of the White House, without consulting Palestinians, it is likely he ultimately will seek a similar arrangement before initiating further moves in the West Bank, say the analysts.

Although a legendary military leader, Mr Sharon's political career has soared and dived with dizzy regularity. As Defence Minister in 1982, Mr Sharon plotted the invasion of neighbouring Lebanon and the expulsion of Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organisation fighters. The operation led to the massacre of Palestinian refugees. An inquiry found Mr Sharon "indirectly responsible"and he was forced to resign and consigned to a back seat in politics for much of the next two decades.

When he did resurface, it was again in controversial circumstances. His visit to Jerusalem's Dome of theRock, Islam's third-holiest site, in 2000 triggered the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) and the deaths of thousands of Arabs and Jews.

It was Mr Sharon who was entrusted with building Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and GazaStrip. But it was also Mr Sharon who pulled them down, first the Sinai settlement of Yamit in 1981 and then this summer in Gaza.

Now it looks as if Mr Sharon, 77, has one last chance to bring peace to the region before he retires to his beloved ranch in southern Israel.."Like every spectacular Israeli general, he understood profoundly the limits of using military power against a civilian Palestinian population without becoming a pariah state," said Hebrew University's Ezrahi.

Analysts say the results of Palestinian legislative elections slated for January - a likely show down between the moderate Fatah party and radical Islamist movement Hamas - will influence the later election inIsrael. A Fatah win will strengthen the peace camp in Israel, while a Hamas victory could draw together the different right-wing extremist groups in Israel.

Then what of Mr Sharon? He will continue in office, Prof Gerald Steinberg, professor of political scienceat Bar-Ilan University, told AFP. "There is no single Israeli figure who can compete with him in terms of experience or stature.

Non-Trivia for the Respectful Faith-Fools

For the fools who think that only they or certain people of their type have special claim to the gods. Faith is indeed useful for the animals (referred to in these reports) who prey on poor children of such fools....

Also refer to "Pope Trivia" and "Date to Respect" entries in my blogosphere below for some 'historical perspectives'
http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_cckplanetblog_archive.html



Los Angeles Archdiocese Says It Didn't Shield Kids From Priests
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles allowed at least eight priests to remain in contact with children even after receiving complaints that the clerics had a sexual interest in minors, according to church documents produced in the lawsuits by hundreds of alleged sexual-abuse victims.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/etuo0INxDP0G2B0Gxrk0ED

Study Reveals Vast Scope of Priest Abuse
The clergy sexual abuse scandal reached far more broadly across the Los Angeles Archdiocese - and put far more children at risk - than has previously been known, according to a Times study that examined the records of hundreds of accused priests.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ety50INxDP0G2B0Gx120EH

Another Hour of the Idiots

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1562518,00.html

This Bush fella had the 'greatest military' in the world backed by the world's 'greatest system of government' and 'biggest economy' supported by the 'wonders of the free market', and he could not even keep his own 'most free' people happy with the way the entire system he brags about responds to a natural disaster at home!?

As to claims that the slow response was due to the fact that the majority of affected people are blacks, I wonder what else these blacks need to do to be treated as 'equal' beings. Except for their skin, they had already changed everything they could to follow the 'white man' including name change and religion.

One earlier report had '30 airplanes working round the clock to ferry affected Americans to safety'. Compare that to the hundreds our fella deployed to bomb the hell out of Iraq, that must be instructive in giving a sense of what is 'more important' to this fella.

Of course, all such reports of anger at the way my favorite 21st Century Idiot had responded to this problem in his own backyard could well be a tonne of hogwash by a bunch of unreasonable fellow Americans.

If these views are not entirely false, it makes us wonder how on earth some fools could have believed that Bush was really out to save the Iraqis (people Bush would have called 'coloreds' if they are Americans) and do the whole world some good.

Just another hour of the idiots....

A Check on Reality Needed

{Comments on letter attached below sent to Today newspaper}


I refer to letter titled 'A Distortion of Reality' published in your paper on Aug 25.

The writer was 'surpised' to read what was reported in your paper the day before and went on to challenge your reporter to 'find one starving Palestinian or even one close to starving' and claimed that the article was a distortion of actual events.

He proceeded to paint a wholely positive picture of the Israelis and did the opposite with the Palestinians whom he claimed have a 'traditional habit of blaming Israel for all difficulties', and challenged them to 'take fate in their own hands'.

What a neat ‘good guy versus terrible guy’ picture of reality indeed, political or historical context notwithstanding.

As we cannot resolve which of these are distortions of reality without the benefit of history, I can only suggest that your readers do their own check of reality starting with the history of the making of Israel from around the time of the Balfour Declaration, and see how 'fate was taken into the hands' of certain people (some may claim perhaps 'under-handedly').

100 years of history may not be ideal but I personally found it quite sufficient to understand this particular 'reality'.



A Distortion of Reality
Stop blaming Israel for all Palestinian problems, says ambassador-designate

Letter from ilan ben-dovAmbassador-designate
Embassy of Israel, Singapore

I was surprised to read the report in your newspaper, "Palestinians starve as Israelis get cash" (Aug 24).

To begin with, I would like to suggest that if the writer, Mr Sanjay Suri, is to find one "starving Palestinian" or even a person who is close to starving, I would be very much interested to know about him.

The presentation of the Jewish settlers as ones who get "comfortable compensations" is also a misrepresentation of reality.

Nothing is comfortable for people who are being forced to leave their homes after 30 years. And this, without respect to the political context.

The whole attempt in this article to describe reality as if Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip creates a problem for the Palestinians is again a distortion of the actual events.

I would like, with your permission, to mention the following:

The disengagement plan is an initiative of the Israeli government whose aim is to stop the political stalemate in the region and to reduce violence and friction between the Israelis and Palestinians.

But beyond this, Israel has initiated the disengagement plan because it does not wish to rule over the Palestinians.

Until the end of this year, there will be no Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip.

It is now time for the Palestinians to take their own fate in their hands and to assume responsibility for the future of their children.

The traditional habit of blaming Israel for all difficulties, as was done by Mr Suri, instead of challenging them, will lead us nowhere.

Therefore, to describe current reality with words like those in your headline, "Palestinians starve as Israelis get cash", is, unfortunately, far away from describing current events in the region.

A Comparison of Madness

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4164534.stm

This is just one of the various reports of killings of Palestinians arising from the Isreali pullout from the Gaza strip. In one of the incidents reported here, the Jewish man that killed 2 Palestinians who used to 'share food together' with him was described as a mad man. It is interesting to put this in context.

- The Jews arrogantly claimed for centuries that they are 'special children of god'. Assuming that that is true, one can make only a few conclusions:

1. for those that don't believe that the gods are mad enough to play games, the Jews' belief must then be crap. Which gods would make their 'special children' mad?

2. for those that do believe in gods playing games, then the Jews' belief could well be a big lie by the gods.

Either way, those Jews are just a bunch of millenia-old idiots (any one of you have the same belief as them?)

- if removing these people from others' land that they had occupied for the last half century can make them mad enough to shoot people they used to associate with for years, imagine what madness will come of people who had their land forcibly taken from them (based on some crap notions like above), and who had to withstand daily humiliations for almost an entire century.

For histo-ignoramuses, the closest analogy I can give is ask them to imagine a kid growing up in the scenario below.

In his early days when he was barely aware of what's happening around him, a kid saw his family being evicted by a bully from his home at gun point and banished to a backyard shack. After that, he realized that his family could not do anything without the prior permission of the bully. In fact, they could not even see each other nor could he go to school without going through the insulting checkpoints setup by the bully inside the shack. On top of that, his parents were not allowed to work outside or do business with any of their neighbours, and had to rely on the bully’s generosity for odd-jobs around the backyard. The income was barely enough for the family to survive. The net result of all this is the kid was growing up uneducated and with little hope for a decent future. It was a life not much worse than the other animals in the backyard.

While all that was happening, the bully with his backer was telling their neighbours that they had the right to stay in the kid's granddad's house because the bully's great-great-great granddad left him a book that said that the house was theirs. The neighbours were either stupid enough to believe that story or were too weak to do anything about the bully and his backer who is actually the neighbourhood sheriff.

The kid's family of course had a different book and that book says that the book that the bully and sheriff shares is crap. So how can the family accept the bully's claim that their house was actually his?

But the only thing his family could do was to stage protests and to plead for help from the other neighbours. But that was to no avail – the neighbours were either too weak or were idiots that believed in the bully's story. So the kid saw that once a while his brother would throw stones at the bully. But when that happened, the bully would come over and give his brother a few tight slaps. As good measure, the bully would wreck a few furniture and give his dad and grandpa a few slaps too as some sort of a 'lesson'. In one of these incidents, the bully simply put a bullet into the kid’s brother and claimed that he had to do that because it was ‘war’.

As the above went on for years and years, the shack that the kid lives in began to deteriorate due to lack of maintenance, and his family's standard of living went from bad to worse. Yet, the kid was expected to accept what he and his family has got and just keep quiet - because the bully and sheriff were holding the guns and were still slapping his dad and grandpa whenever they liked.

For those of us that believe not in blind faith but in causes and effects, it will not be difficult to see why the kid would not grow up with the pent-up desire to blow the brains out of the bully if he gets the chance. Which was what the kid did one day.

After that, we still see some idiots living in their comfortable house next door calling the kid a terrorist and preaching to the kid's family about the virtues of not taking the lives of others.

That could well be the story of the live of many a Palestinian child - written by a Chinaman thousands of miles away just trying to understand why the kid in this story did what he did.

A Palestinian child is after all one of gods' creation. Perhaps, the gods are really mad. Or it is just some among us but which one?