November 30, 2006
Dennis Prager, radio show host and author, wrote the following rambles in a recent article: Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran. He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization. […] Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison’s favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to...
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November 29, 2006
It is confirmed... It is something one half of the population has long suspected - and the other half always vocally denied. Women really do talk more than men. In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day - 13,000 more than the average man. Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat - and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests. [Source: Daily Mail] So I guess we men shouldn't feel that guilty when women accuse us...
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November 27, 2006
Posted on November 27, 2006 03:47 PM under:
Music
Yesterday, while cruising through the music section at Géant, I came across Yusuf Islam's (Previously known as "Cat Stevens") comeback album "An Other Cup". I've been wanting to buy this album ever since I heard of its existence, and even more so after the reviews I read for it, so naturally I grabbed it right away. Before I get into what I think of this album, I'd like to proudly confess that I am a really big fan of Cat Stevens' music. I remember, as a kid in Zimbabwe, at "Alexandra Park School", we used to sing "Morning Has Broken"...
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November 26, 2006
michaelmoore letter cut run brave us usa iraq liberation war
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November 24, 2006
American philosopher and writer Elbert Hubbard once said: "Be pleasant until ten o’clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself." I personally agree, as the way you start your day, and how well your morning goes truly affect the rest of your day. So here are 11 great ways to start your day well: 1. Wake up at the same time every day 2. Take a shower 3. Put on some music 4. Exercise 5. Stretch 6. Write in a journal 7. Eat a balanced breakfast 8. Drink green tea or some coffee...
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November 22, 2006
"Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future." -- Johann von Goethe...
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November 21, 2006
Posted on November 21, 2006 10:51 AM under:
Cinema
In a letter to TheOneRing.net Peter Jackson, director of the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, officially announced that he would not be directing the movie incarnation of the LOTR prequel "The Hobbit" even though he wishes to. The main reason why he and his company Wingnut Films won't be making this movie is a financial dispute with NewLine over the money made from "The Fellowship of the Ring". Wingnut believe they deserve a bigger cut of the profit and are suing NewLine for it. NewLine offered to tie the settlement of the dispute with the making of "The Hobbit" and...
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November 20, 2006
Ikbis, the new service by the creative guys over at toot has gone live. After a really cool viral marketing campaign featuring "The Largest Yellow Button On The Web" and the humorous animations behind it, the service went online this morning. Ikbis, which means "Press" or "Click" in Arabic, is a cool online video and photo sharing service, sort of an Arabic cousin of YouTube and Flickr. The design is very nice, simplistic and clean; I really like the logo, the colours used and the way it's organized. Then again, I wouldn't expect anything less from the toot designers. The...
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November 19, 2006
McDonald's Australia reaches out to Muslim fast-food lovers... McDonald's Australia has introduced halal products at two Melbourne restaurants, Brunswick East and St Albans, significantly boosting sales. However some non-Muslim customers are furious they were not told their hamburger meat was slaughtered and blessed in accordance with Islamic rules laid down in the Koran. [...] Coburg resident Miriam McLennan was stunned to discover the hamburger she bought from the Brunswick East store was blessed. "Just as a Muslim would not want to eat anything that isn't halal . . . I should have my rights to eat normal, ordinary food that...
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"The trouble with so many of us is that we underestimate the power of simplicity. We have a tendency it seems to over complicate our lives and forget what's important and what's not. We tend to mistake movement for achievement. We tend to focus on activities instead of results. And as the pace of life continues to race along in the outside world, we forget that we have the power to control our lives regardless of what's going on outside." -- Robert Stuberg...
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November 17, 2006
Very funny... [Via: Gaping Void]...
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November 15, 2006
Al Jazeera English, the new 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel from the Qatar-based television network, has begun broadcasting from its main studios in Doha in high-definition format. Al Jazeera English also has broadcast centres Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington. In addition to the four broadcast centres, Al Jazeera English will have 20 supporting bureaux which will gather and produce news. It will share the resources of the Arabic language channel's 42 bureaux and is planning to add further bureaux in the future. The opening broadcast, which was expected to be available in 80 million households around the world,...
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November 13, 2006
Just came across this article titled "7 Pains You Should Never Ignore" and thought I'd share it. Apparently if there are any 7 pains that you should never ignore, it's these. Here's the list of pains and the possible conditions associated to them: 1. Sudden Groin Pain: Testicular torsion 2. Severe Back Pain: Aneurysm 3. Persistent Foot or Shin Pain: Stress fracture 4. Sharp Pain in the Abdomen: Appendicitis, pancreatitis, or an inflamed gallbladder (Cholecystitis) 5. Transient Chest Pain: Indigestion or heart attack 6. Leg Pain with Swelling: Deep-vein thrombosis 7. Painful Urination: Bladder cancer Of course most of the...
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After years of requests and debates, Sun Microsystems is going ahead and releasing Java source code under a GPL license. It plans to put the code for the programming software under the version 2 of the General Public License (GPLv2), which governs Linux and many other open-source products. The Sun-hosted Java.net Web site will provide access to Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) software for mobile phones and Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) software for desktop applications. Sun already has open-sourced its server-side Java Platform Enterprise Edition software in a project called GlassFish. But it is now making that...
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November 10, 2006
Posted on November 10, 2006 04:40 PM under:
Everyday Me
As you should've already noticed, Subzero Blue has undergone some small design changes, the most important of which is the switch to a 1024x768 screen resolution. I've been working on these design changes for a couple of months now, mainly getting used to them myself, trying to work out the best way to use space and organize the different elements of the blog. There's still some work to do here and there, but well I thought I'd just go ahead and put up these changes anyway, and then continue tweaking. Other than the small changes in the design that I...
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November 09, 2006
Michael Howard, senior Security Program Manager at Microsoft, writes a list of habits any developer must have in order to get a final, secure and efficent product. The list goes as follows: Habit #1: Take Responsibility Habit #2: Never Trust Data Habit #3: Model Threats against Your Code Habit #4: Stay One Step Ahead Habit #5: Fuzz! Habit #6: Don't Write Insecure Code Habit #7: Recognize the Strategic Asymmetry Habit #8: Use the Best Tools You Can Details for every habit can be found here: 8 Simple Rules For Developing More Secure Code. I couldn't agree more... [Source: MSDN] [Via:...
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The following are the highlights of the US midterm elections: - Democrats win House of Representatives. - Democrats are more likely to win the Senate too. - Nancy Pelosi is to become the first woman speaker of the house, she'll also be the first Italian-American speaker. - Keith Ellison, first Muslim elected to house of representatives. - For the first time, 16 women are present in the senate. - Majority of US governors are now Democrats. - Deval Patrick, first Black governor, elected in Massachusetts. - Donald Rumsfeld steps down. Personally, I think these are very good results. Results of...
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November 07, 2006
The New7Wonders Foundation, a Swiss-based foundation created in 2001 by Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber, launched a campaign to revise the list of the world's seven wonders. The 21 finalists for the New Seven Wonders of the World, listed alphabetically, are: 1. Acropolis of Athens, Athens, Greece 2. Alhambra, Granada, Spain 3. Angkor Wat, Angkor, Cambodia 4. Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico 5. Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 6. Colosseum, Rome, Italy 7. Easter Island statues, Chile 8. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France 9. Great Wall, China 10. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey 11. Kyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan 12. Kremlin and Red...
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I came across an interesting readibility test on Roba's blog yesterday that helps you determine how readable your content is. So, I checked for my blog and here are the results: Gunning Fog Index: 9.75 Flesch Reading Ease: 64.33 Flesch-Kincaid Grade: 6.79 So my Gunning-Fog Index of 9.75 puts me with the most popular novels when it comes to readability; The Flesch Reading Ease of 64.33 puts me within the recommended fork for writers; And the Flesch-Kincaid Grade of 6.79 means that a person with a minimum 6.79 years of schooling can easily read my blog. So, I guess I...
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November 06, 2006
The following events took place between the hours of 7:00 and 7:05 PM the other day, at a small grocery shop nearby, between me and the guy at the shop: [...] Me: Do you have those cappuccino thingies, you know those small instant cappuccino packs? Guy: Yeah (and he goes to the back of the shop to get some) Guy: How much do you need? Me: Four (he hands me four packs of powdered chocolate) Me: Isn't this chocolate? Guy: No, it's cappuccino Me: Well, no it's chocolate. Guy: No, it's cappuccino Me: Dude, look it says "Chocolate"!! Guy: No,...
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A new study funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of California predicts we have only forty-two more years until the bulk of the world's fish and seafood populations are largely wiped out. That's from here to the year 2048. The researchers, who called their findings uniformly disturbing, based their fish population study on data from nearly 50 marine locations under protection, as well as U.N. data. The cause? Overfishing, for one, as well as climate change. But the study notes that oceans already have lost so many species that it's hard for other species to thrive. Species...
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Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, was pronounced guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging earlier today by the Iraqi High Tribunal. The charges against him were related to the ordering of the killing of 148 Shia civilians in the town of Dujail in 1982. Saddam's sentence will be automatically appealed and reviewed by a panel of nine appeal judges, who will decide whether or not to allow a retrial. If the judgement stands, however, Saddam must be executed within 30 days of the appeals panel delivering its verdict, which has to be ratified by...
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November 04, 2006
Just came across this piece of news that some people are portraying as such a big catastrophe... The spectre of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology. The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa. The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as...
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That's what the results of an ICM poll say... America is now seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbours and allies, according to an international survey of public opinion published today that reveals just how far the country's reputation has fallen among former supporters since the invasion of Iraq. Carried out as US voters prepare to go to the polls next week in an election dominated by the war, the research also shows that British voters see George Bush as a greater danger to world peace than either the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, or the...
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November 03, 2006
Posted on November 3, 2006 08:21 PM under:
Link Dump
How to Choose a DSLR Camera An interesting post on why you should upgrade to a DSLR Camera and how to choose which is best for you. (tags: photography camera Tips dslr digital) The content, not the icons Matt from 37signals weighs in on the social bookmarking icons that are being added at the bottom of blog posts and that so many blogs have now. (tags: blogging social sharing web icons blog) Why Do We Have an Adam's Apple? Adam's apple explained. And it turns out, contrary to popular belief, that both males and females have Adam's apples. (tags:...
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November 02, 2006
Posted on November 2, 2006 12:50 PM under:
Cinema
You know how when you hear about how bad a movie is, and how much it sucks, and it gets you curious to see how bad it could really be? Well that's what happened to me; I was at the DVD rental shop and among the available movies I found "Snakes On A Plane" featuring Samuel L. Jackson, and I simply got curious. To say the truth, I've seen movies that were worse than this one, but still it doesn't really make it any better. It's B-movie, straight to television material at best. It's true there are some ok sequences...
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