THE NUMBER THREE KENT HOVEN SITE ON THE WEB!

I want to extend a warm welcome to all of the people who come here to learn about creation science. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to offer. A while back I used the name "Kent Hoven" in a post. Little did I know that I misspelled the name of the great creation scientist, Kent Hovind. However, many people who research creation science also don't know how spell. Consequently, I have received many hits from Google for people searching for information on Kent Hovind and creation science.

I want to send a special apology to Kent for misspelling his name!
To return the favor I will include a link to your site.
Creation Science Evangelism
Caution- This website is not safe for work or school! The U.S. federal court system has ruled that the content of this site is not science in forty-nine out of fifty states.

Hacking Google China

I found this on Digg.

Chinese web users can see full, uncensored results for their Google search by replacing "&meta=" with "&meta=cr%3DcountryBR" in the URL. Once the string is replaced, the censorship will not affect the results.

read more | digg story

NO RESPECT

Singapore has a reputation for being squeaky clean, and it is a clean city compared to other Asian nations. Unfortunately, it seems that there are some things that pass through the watchful eyes of the paternal government and its massive undercover plain clothes police force.

One particular crime that needs to be dealt with in a harsh manner is the daily defacing of the Ronald McDonald statue found by the Paradiz Center on Selegie Road. Every day bitter kids, who probably just threw all of their money away on a Big Mac and a gamer of snooker, come out and release their angst and litter on this smiling happy icon of international cuisine.

Shame on you Singapore! Shame on you!You have caused so much distress upon this immobile children's role model that he has resorted to chain smoking!

Right Wing for Sale

This is a pretty interesting post about how the Conservative Christians can be hijacked by politicians and used for sleazy purposes.

Midwest Mindset: Jack and James went up the Hill

THE WHOLE WORLD IS BLOGGING ABOUT IT

I hadn't updated in a while. I thought that I would go ahead and post a link to this since everyone is blogging about it.

THE WORLD'S FUNNIEST BLONDE JOKE

I'm not a big fan of blonde jokes (my sister is a blonde) but this has got to be the funniest blonde joke that I have ever seen!

They Do Exist

The other day I met a man who said he was a private investigator. I won't reveal too much of his identity or even where I met him, but he was a surprisingly helpful and talkative fellow. He said his workdays were often spent doing paper work, but other times he was out in the field. He described hunting down illegal Chinese nationals, soliciting massages and tape recording conversations in brothels, and going to bars to catch waitresses skimming off the top. When I inquired, he told me that he knew of people who were going to Malaysia to film people buying bootlegs in the backrooms of the shopping malls.

The man said that he spoke 8 languages and I believe it. He spoke in Chinese and English to me and he had recently traveled to another multilingual Asian country. While I was talking to him someone called him on the phone and in an instant he switched from proper British English to rough Singlish. He threatened to "bash a guys teeth in" for a few hundred bucks... lah.

Interestingly enough, the PI was a temperate fellow. He was middle aged and seemed to be tired of the activities that he engaged in simply because they were a part of his job. He said that he hated drinking and cigarette smoke. He was glad he didn't have to spend all of his employed hours behind a desk, but he was also growing tired of his lifestyle. He said that he had received money to do investigations in England, Russia, Malaysia, and a large number of other southeast Asian countries.

He ended our conversation by telling me where he likes to eat in Singapore (a typical Singaporean) and then giving me a bunch of bizarre warnings. He cautioned me against airport security guards that attempt to extract bribes. He told me not to accept large sums of cash (over 20,000 USD) and agree to take them to foreign countries. Unfortunately, he also told me not to help pregnant women with their luggage in airports, something I have never done but probably would do if asked. He said there were drug dealers and other criminals in third world countries that liked to take advantage expectant mothers and use them for evil purposes. I guess he would know. It sounds like he has seen it all.

INDIA PICTURES

Back from India

I had quite a journey, but I am back from India safely. I want to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

As I review my blog writing over the past month, I see that the busy Singapore life has kind of dragged down my hobby. I no longer have the leisure of lonely evenings writing amateur movie reviews in the living room of my small town house. I have been too busy working and traveling to haggle with the unreliable blogger interface to get any quality posts up.

I have returned safely from India and I have many stories to tell. I know it is a cliche, but I have to say it-- India is a nation of extremes. You will see the most incredible architecture on the planet and then turn around a see people living in squalor and filth. It fits every preconceived notion that a person might have about a third world country.

I remember the first time that I ever visited a third world nation, Honduras in the spring of 2000. I was on a mission trip and had many naive expectations about the third world. A number of times I had to stick my foot in my mouth. In the preparation stages I would think and suggest things that were completely inappropriate for Honduras: I remember sayings, "Let's not take many clothes and just buy clothes similar to theirs when we get there"; I presumed we would be sleeping in bags under mosquito nets; I was very concerned about adapting to peculiar customs; I was afraid of bandits and marauders; I thought that pharmacists could not be trusted and would mete out inappropriate dosages.

When I arrived in Honduras, I was completely amazed and my friend W. had to shut me up a few times. We stayed with a dentist who lived in accommodations nicer than my own in America. Except for the backyard chicken that the good doctor once received as payment, there was not much difference in his lifestyle than that of your average American. I didn't really have to worry about peculiar customs. The food was a little different, but they had the same table manners that Western folks had. They watched the same TV programs- his kids were into Pokemon and I saw him up late at night watching an episode of USA's Silk Stalkings (think Walker, Texas Ranger meets Baywatch meets Murder, She Wrote-- yeah, it was a pretty crappy show.) And when I got sick in Honduras I was well taken care of using western style medicines.

Don't misunderstand me, there's terrible poverty and a unique culture in Honduras and I'm sure that my church mission group just stumbled on a pocket of wealth. We did spend a few days doing a service project, making a church parking lot in a small village called Chinda, a place where people lived in one and two room cinder block houses. We did some more productive things. My college group also spent a little bit of time working on those cinder block houses. My heart melted at some orphanages that we visited and tried to bless, we did some evangelism at a university campus, and some of the seniors did go up into the mountains to deliver some sanitation supplies to a group of indigenous people. Yet, all in all, the Honduran poverty that I personally witnessed might be comparable to the most destitute of American Indian tribal reservations. There was almost no education for the poor, no health care for the poor, and I suspect a substantial degree of malnourishment. Still, nobody that I saw was starving to death and except for in the most extreme weather, most had adequate clothes and a dry place to sleep.

In India, the poorest of the poor don't even seem to have it that well. Everywhere I would go, even the small towns along the railroad, were littered with horribly disfigured beggars. Slums were in open view. If a roof fell in, it was not uncommon to see that it was patched with a used piece of plywood weighted down by a mosquito infested old tire. There was no semblance of sanitation anywhere. Littering and dumping is common and accepted. Urinating on the street was such a typical practice that open air urinals had been built in the middle of sidewalks. And even though I stayed with a middle class family, it was still necessary to sleep with a mosquito net draped over my bed.

There was also an endless amount of peculiar customs for me to observe and attempt to respect. In southern India people eat with their right hand and wipe their bums with their left. (I still carried around some tissue.) You need to be extremely careful about where you put your feet. When I went to the pharmacy they sold me cough cyrup with codine. India is an already conservative society and its Christians are even more conservative. Buying clothes similar to the locals is a respectful practice. The idea of wearing shorts was considered odd by most and immodest by some. While I was there I went to see a Bollywood movie, and I received more than one raised eyebrow when I told some Christians there. King James Onlyism seems to be a popular doctrine with many Indian Christian groups.

These are just some initial observations and recollections. I will get some pictures up soon. Again, this is another post that I just haven't spent any time editing. The blogger web interface crashed on me yet again (I think it is unreliable in Singapore) and I had to switch to w.bloggar.

Good night!