Journal of A Filipino Atheist

Parable of the thirsty man

2008-04-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to HellCat:

And so it is that Jesus was preaching in the mount of olives when a man came up to him and asked him a question. "Rabbi", asketh the man, "why is there suffering in this world? And why does God not help those in dire need of his succor?"

And Jesus, saith:

God is like a wealthy salesman travelling in the desert who came uponeth a thirsty man. And the thirsty man pleadeth with him, "Give me water, that I may not die upon this terrible land and give myself home to my wife and children." But God replyth, "Lo, but I have no water with me, but I do have this tie that I can sell thee for the shoes upon thy feet!" And the thirsty man replied, "My lord, I have nothing else to travel with but this shoes. Without these shoes I will not be able to set foot upon the hot sands of this land and verily the vultures shall partake of my flesh before the sun sets! Surely thou asketh for too much!" And the Lord replied, "A pair of these ties for thy pair of shoes then. For these ties are magic and with it thy needs shall be replenished!"

But the thirsty man, because he is dying of thirst, became stubborn in his head. He refuseth to believe the lord and is without faith. He said, "I shall defy thee then, for thy ties are useless and are frivolous in this land. I shall turn my face away from thee for thou giveth nothing but ties while I have need of water to quench my thirst." And the Lord Salesman shooketh his head and weepeth, for the Lord always weepeth when a stubborn man turns away from God.

"My son, I have offered thee these wonderful pair of silk ties that thou mayst survive in thy travels. All I ask for in return is thy faith and yonder pair of old shoes." And the lord then continued in his travel, weeping and heavy in his heart, as he cannot help the dying man for the dying man has become stubborn and evil reigns upon his spirit.

So the thirsty man continued to travel away from the Lord and after a few days, crawling in the desert, with cracked lips and burned skin, spied upon an inn in the distance. With his remaining strength the man reached the door of the inn and, near death, pleadeth with the owner, "Please,... give .... me ... water! ..." But the owner looked upon the dying man and replied, "But sir, thou mayest not be given water, for this inn is exclusive and clients need be wearing ties!"

And the man died because he is without a tie and may not enter the premises of the inn.

And the Lord Jesus then sayeth, "And that is why there is suffering, for God the father has need to test thy faith and besides that, He also loves a good joke."

The land of the rice and sun. Part - I

2008-04-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

In the year 1801, William Herschel, the famed musician, astronomer (he discovered Uranus) and mathematician made a curious discovery. Studying the price of wheat during the previous centuries he discovered a strange correlation between it and the number of sunspots on the face of the sun.

Digging through the records of wheat prices and the number of sunspots visible on the disk of the sun, Herschel discovered that during the years when there are few sunspots on the face of the sun, the price of wheat is high. Conversely, when there were lots of sunspots on the face of the sun, wheat prices are very low!

When we say there is a correlation between A and B, what we mean is that when A increases then B increases and when A decreases B follows and decreases at the same time. Similarly, two quantities, A and B, are anti-correlated if when A increases B decreases and vice-versa. Anti-correlation is often referred to as a negative correlation but the word negative has connotations among the illiterate of zero or no correlation at all. This is incorrect. Negative correlation is also a correlation but graphically the slope of the curve is descending from left to right.

Whenever two quantities are correlated or anti-correlated, there might be a physical connection that exists between them. For example, the average temperature at sea level decreases as one moves up in latitude towards the poles. There is a correlation between latitude on earth and average temperature. There is a physical reason for this: As one moves towards the poles, sunlight has to travel through a thicker layer of atmosphere which reduces its intensity on the ground. The correlation between latitude and temperature is thus a quantitative indication of an underlying physical cause.

While correlation is present among quantities that are physically related, not all correlations indicate the existence of a physical connection. In statistics, they say that correlation is not causation. Correlation is just a mathematical computation and it remains to be seen if one quantity indeed causes the other.

When two quantities are correlated (or anti-correlated) we do know that one of four possibilities must be true:

A causes B,
B causes A,
A and B are both caused by another event C, and
It is all a coincidence.

Going back to the discovery of William Herschel, is there a physical connection between sunspots and wheat prices? For almost two centuries solar physicists have sought to find the physical connection and found nothing. There does not seem to be any real physical connection between sunspots on the sun and the price wheat. How can an event on the surface of the sun affect how much people are paying for their wheat? While sunspots are indeed darker than the rest of the sun, they are only darker relative to the very bright sun. Indeed, the temperature of sunspots is still almost as hot as the rest of sun itself. No correlation has been found between the immediate temperature of the earth and the presence or non-presence of sunspots. Sunspots may be cooler but they apparently do not affect the instantaneous temperature on the earth.

Conversely, how can the price of wheat on earth affect the number of sunspots on the sun? Sunspots seem to follow an 11 year cycle and this 11 year cycle is certainly not caused by wheat prices on earth! Besides, the prices of wheat do not follow an 11 year cycle. Where did Herschel find his strange correlation, then?

He found it during grand minimums in the solar cycle. As I have said before, sunspots follow an 11 year cycle. During the minimum of such a cycle, the number of sunspots on the sun drop to zero or near zero but rise to over 100 during a typical maximum. However, twice during the last 500 years, the maximum sunspot number did not exceed the smoothed sunspot number of 50.

During the Maunder Minimum of the 1500s there were no sunspots on the face of the sun for several decades! It was also during the Maunder Minimum when the Little Ice Age gripped the earth and it was possible to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island because the water was frozen. During the Dalton Minimum of the late 19th century, it was almost the same with bitterly cold winters, mild summers and consequently high prices of agricultural goods.

The above brief about solar grand minimums is now relevant because at this very moment we are in a period of very few sunspots! We might be in a grand minimum again.

Solar cycle 24 is already more than a year late! It should have started to climb March of 2007 but as of today, April 2008, only two sunspots of solar cycle 24 have been spotted.

Some solar physicists are now fearing that the sun may be entering another grand minimum and consequently we should be expecting a return to the colder climate of the late 19th century (the Dalton Minimum) or even worse, a return to the little ice age.

Already, Russian scientists are making the bet that it will be bitterly colder during the next few decades and advice citizens to stock up on fur coats. Obviously, you haven't heard of that prediction which was made last year because the news agencies today are filled with dire predictions of global warming!

According to these Russians, anthropogenic global warming is bunk and the real crisis is the coming global cooling. They are saying that by 2012, there will be no doubt that the climate has shifted again (just as it always had in the past) and it will be colder again.

William Herschel's correlation has struck again and we are now in the regimen of an extended solar minimum (I won't call it grand minimum just yet) of very few sunspots and of a rising cost of agricultural goods.

China just experienced a bitter winter last December and January. I am not following agricultural news but if the rice harvest of Southern China was affected by the unusual cold of last winter then rice will definitely continue to be costlier as China scrambles to fill its deficit.

I had a chat with an officer of the Department of Agriculture office in our place and she told me that harvests this year are as good as last year's but that, surprisingly, some traders are buying rice from farmers at a higher than usual price! Hmmmmmn, I wonder if those buyers speak chinese?

Robert Green Ingersoll

2008-03-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

I realized that I haven't properly introduced my favorite atheist yet. He is Robert Green Ingersoll and his biography can be found here.

There is also a wikipedia entry for this great orator and thinker here. Ingersoll was man with ideas ahead of his time. He was an opponent of religion and superstition, a supporter of human rights, of women's rights and of science back in the days when the world was entirely superstitious and imprisoned by religion. He was not a philosopher in the mold of Ayn Rand nor of Bertrand Russel but his writings carried the force of logic and reason and can be hard hitting and concrete. He is a lawyer, after all.

A collection of his oratories and writings can be found here. If you can read only one of Ingersoll's speeches you can do no better than to read his famous assault against religion: The Gods.

Rice and Reporter Education in the Philippines.

2008-03-28T07:41:00.000-07:00

The news tonight are headlining the rise in price of rice (what a distracting alliteration!) and how it is affecting the majority of the population. According to the reporter, this increase is making life difficult for the country and the government must do something about it or risk an uprising from a hungry population.

I am a real filipino and I am in the majority and I tell you, this is not true. Stupid reporters from Manila are always wrongly assuming that Manila is the entire Philippines! If you know this reporter, please tell her that the majority of filipinos are rice farmers and that an increase in the price of rice benefits them. Please tell her also, that when prices are forced down so as to enable the population of Manila (who cannot feed themselves) to have their cheap rice in Chowking and Jollibee, it is the poor farmers of the provinces who are being immolated.

It really saddens me when I eat at Chowking in Manila and observe diners munch on their chicken legs and then barely touch their cheap rice. This leftover rice is then thrown away by Chowking. How can I explain to these people that for each sack sold, the farmer is getting less than a third of the market price? From that meager share the farmer has to pay for transportation, for drying, for irrigation, for the seeds, for labor, and for the fertilizer. Is it any wonder that the typical filipino rice farmer is poor and heavily in debt?

Unfortunately, none of the so-called intelligent reporters in Manila are aware of this. They eat at their high priced restaurants and never stop to ponder that everything they are consuming is produced outside of Manila. They never stop to consider the fact that Manila is not the Philippines. All they care about is that the vegetables in Munoz Market increased and that the government or some trader has to be blamed for this. It never enters their concern that a higher price will benefit the real but invisible majority of the country: the farmers.

Years ago, I read of a journalism student from the University of the Philippines who graduated Magna Cum Laude. This student was featured on the Philippine Daily Inquirer because he happened to be a scholar of the newspaper. In the article, this student bragged about how he was able to graduate from the supposed premier university of the country while having borrowed and read less than twenty books from the university library! The UP library has thousands upon thousands of books. Yet, this person is bragging about not having taken advantage of this vast intellectual resource. Instead, he bragged that he has learned more by joining protests and listening to some random loser vent his frustrations on the streets of Manila.

I was aghast when I read about the limited reading of this graduate of UP Diliman. Even if one only reads the Harvard Classics Library without reading any other required textbooks, one will have already read over 50 books! How can this student graduate magna cum laude while borrowing and presumably reading only 20 books in his entire student career? Has UP become a diploma mill also?

UP is known for its leftist ideology and I am sure that scores of UP professors and UP students will castigate me for my contrarian view of what constitutes a proper education. An education in the streets of Manila is enough for most of these UP intellectuals.

That may be good enough for a liberal arts major but this is a journalism student we are talking about. There is a good probability that this student will become a reporter and may even be a reporter of ABS-CBN, GMA or PDI right now. His reports will be read by thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of readers. He will write as if he understood what he is writing about and readers will believe him. But due to his limited intellectual maturity he will make the same tunnel-vision mistakes that Manila-based reporters are making now.

He will be persuaded that Manila is the entire Philippines. As he swims in the murky concerns of the capital city, he will have the conviction that the concerns of Manila are the concerns of the entire country!
He will listen to only one side of a story and will not entertain the possibility that interviewees can have agendas and can lie.
He will be ignorant of economics and will believe that hoarding is the primary cause of price increases. He will be for keeping the price of commodities so low and he will be oblivious to the plight of the impoverished farmers outside of Manila.
He will be ignorant of history and philosophy and will be prone to influence from the nearest pseudo-intellectual. That pseudo-intellectual is invariably a male dressed in robes, wearing a cross, and spouting nonsense about economics, marriage, human morality, ethics, medicine, biology, the judicial system and other difficult topics for which he only has very limited knowledge.
And most egregious mistake of all, he will believe the premier and most exclusive university in the country is the University of the Philippines. (Can you guess the honest-to-goodness most exclusive school in the country?)

Now that I have written the above rant-list, it suddenly struck me that most of the reporters known nationally are graduates of UP! Maybe that is why there is so much drivel on TV news reports today.

The Atheists Creed

2008-03-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following letter to a girl lamenting the loss of someone very dear to her. She is a borderline agnostic and, being lesbian, was also suffering from the bigotry of society. I wrote this letter to her because, as an atheist, I felt I am receiving identical treatment from the same god-fearing society.

I had a similar problem when I first became an atheist. Previously, everything I did was guided by what I believe God wanted. I have to behave like this because God wants us to behave like this. I did not necessarily agree with many of God's regulations and standards (eg. proscriptions against pre-marital sex, stem-cell research, etc.) but I did make it a point to try and follow them as my soul will pay the price for my perfidy in this world.
Immediately after I became an atheist, it was a very trying period for me. There is no God, therefore there is no soul, and therefore there is no eternal punishment. We are alone in this universe. There is no meaning to life, life just is. What is my purpose in life then?
I pondered long and hard about my previous actions and attitudes. I asked myself questions:

If there is no God, then what is the point of following Church laws?
If there is no life after life, what am I going to do with the life I am living now?
Was I a good neighbor because I feared the wrath of God?
If the entire world is atheist, would it be a pleasant place to live in?

After weeks of thinking and weeks of sleepless nights I arrived at the conclusion that
God does not exist, therefore I shall not follow the laws of God.
But ...

My country exists, therefore I shall follow the laws of my country.
Society exists, therefore I shall be a decent and honest member of society.
My fellowmen exist therefore I shall live my life beside my fellowmen.
My family exists, therefore I shall be loyal to my family.
I exist, therefore I shall be true to myself.

I rose from that paradox that is theophobia "fear of God" and became a changed man. I have unshackled myself from superstition and hatred. Hatred? Yes hatred, because was it not God or His Church that taught that the enemies of God must be hated? Was it not the church that hurls epithets against those who do not believe in God and does not follow his laws?
The irony is, I think I became a much more decent member of society as an atheist than when I was a religious man.
As an atheist,

I give to charity because there is no God who shall take care of my fellowman. Isn't it therefore imperative upon me, a supposedly decent member of society, to provide this succor?
I do not agree with the beliefs of the Mormons but I do admire their sacrifice and their dedication. Who am I to say that one belief is better than another? As a decent member of society, shouldn't I be tolerant of different beliefs for as long as they don't break any laws?

The Roman Catholic Church seeks to impose its will upon civil society conveniently forgetting that there is separation of church and state. Why should a group of contented and wealthy celibates seek to dictate how society should act? Why should we listen to the dictates of a group that is holding up an ancient and barbaric book (the bible) as the standard of decency? Was Solomon, with his wives and concubines, a decent man? When Solomon proposed to cut a baby into two so that two women shall have a piece of the disputed, was he being wise or barbaric?
You are in the same situation. You are confused because your beliefs do not agree with the beliefs of the majority of society. You know you will be judged. I know I will be judged too.
What did I do? I didn't care. I did not shout my atheism from the rooftops because shouting from the rooftops will not do me any good other than making my throat sore. But I no longer cared for what others think. I only asked myself whether I am breaking the laws of the society I lived in. I only asked myself whether what I shall do shall do someone harm. Thankfully, I discovered Robert Green Ingersoll during this time and I said, "Finally, a humanist thinker I can agree with."
We live in a society. Whether we like it or not, it just is. There is nothing that can be done about it. God did not put us here, biology and chance did. Society may be crazy and it may be foolish, but it is a human society and humans were made to be social animals.
No longer care how other people shall judge you because their judgements don't matter. For as long as you strive to be an honest and decent member of society, then the judgement of a few matters not. What only matters is whether, near the end of your life, you can lie down in bed, think about the years of your life and say with satisfaction: I have lived a wonderful life.

How to be an evolutionist without knowing it.

2008-03-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

A reader named Masterpiece of God (MOG) left the following comment in my essay entitled Does Evil Come From God?

Your examples successfully prove that [1] bacteria can develop immunities, and that [2] moths that are adaptable and/or more suitable to certain environments tend to flourish, while those that aren't, tend to diminish in numbers (they might even become extinct eventually). They, however, do not prove the Theory of Evolution.
Ask any sane Christian and he/she will agree that people can develop immunities and that some animals become extinct (and even more will be so, unless global efforts of wildlife preservation is more aggressively pushed). Evolution is just one of a number of theories than seek to explain the origin of man (and, perhaps, of the universe as well). Different people have different people why they believe or disbelieve certain theories. Personally, I do not believe in Evolution, but not because "the professor has no brain." I believe in the Creation theory, and I have my rational, logical reasons for doing so.
Refuting the Christian explanation by dissecting selected and isolated anecdotes is tantamount to no less than a straw man argument.

Obviously, this Masterpiece of God misunderstands the Theory of Evolution. The theory of evolution essentially says that

Living organisms evolve and that
The driver of this evolution is natural selection.

Note that the theory of evolution applies only to living organisms. It does not apply to non-living things. Questions about the origin of the universe is not covered by the theory of evolution but is instead covered by the subject of cosmology and the theory of the Big Bang. (Curiously, fundamentalist christians believe in the theory of the Big Bang --- a theory whose observational support is imperceptible --- while dueling with the much more visible theory of evolution.)

The second point of the theory of evolution says that nature selects for survival the specie which has evolved to adapt to its environment. A brutish term for natural selection is survival of the fittest.

Masterpiece-of-god essentially agrees that bacteria and moths evolve. Evolve and evolution are both derived from the same Latin root evolutio. He also agrees that organisms other than bacteria and moths evolve and that they adapt to their environments. Masterpiece of God therefore agrees with the two salient points of the theory of evolution. He supports the theory of evolution without being aware of it.

He further says that if you ask any sane christian, they will agree with the salient points above. And why should they not? It is very obvious. Assuming that Adam and Eve are the parents of the entire human race one is then faced with the question as to why one person can look like Kobe Bryant while another can look like Britney Spears. Shouldn't all human beings look alike? Like peas in a pod? We are siblings, after all.

It is obvious to even these christians that the Kobe Bryants of the world evolved to adapt to their environment (hot and tropical Africa) while the Britney Spears and the Paris Hiltons of the world evolved to adapt to theirs (cold Northern Europe). There is no other sane explanation.

So why does Masterpiece of God and his christian ilk adamantly refuse to believe in evolution while essentially agreeing to all its tenets? In other words, why are they prime examples of theoidiots?

Well, the reason has to do with the consequences of the theory rather than its principles!

If bacteria, birds and bees evolve, is it possible that humans evolved also? The theory of evolution, as part of its consequence, says YES! The theory of evolution applies to all living organisms and since man is a living organism it stands to reason that man is ruled by the theory of evolution also.

This is the conclusion that theoidiots are unwilling to accept. They have hidebound biblical reasons for this:

If man is ruled by the same rules that apply to all organism in the planet then there is nothing special about man. This contradicts what the bible says about man being the masterpiece of God and man being special among all living things.
Since God created man in his image, then God must look like an ape because man evolved from ape-like creatures!

No sane christian would agree to a god that looks like a gorilla and so, contradicting what their eyes and minds tell them, they refuse to believe the truth. This is another reason why excessive bible reading is anathema to the proper functioning of reason and logic. Bible reading is the origin of theoidiocy!

Unfortunately for these superstitious christians, the conclusions of science are subjected to much much more stringent ordeals than the conclusions of religion. Having survived this ordeal, the conclusions of science are imbued with more truth than the stories of the bible. (I will have more to say about this (I hope) in a later discussion when I compare religion and science.)

For now it suffices to say that Mister MOG believes in creation theory for the simple reason that he has, he claims, rational, logical reasons for doing so.

Logical? Maybe MOG meant to say emotional or maybe the theoidiotic definition of logical is different from the rest of the thinking world. Far from being rational, religion is ruled by the same touchy-feely tests of truth which leads to conclusions such as god loves the world because he loves to subject it to tests and punishments! All it takes to make a conclusion right by religion is that it feels right and that it touches the soul in the right way. (And like most theoidiotic precepts, don't ask them how they know that the feeling is right and that their soul is touched. Like a dictionary that defines happy to be gay and gay to be happy, the touch-feely definition is an exercise in circular reasoning.)

In science, one does not use the word prove because that word has connotations exclusively reserved for mathematics. When scientists say that one cannot prove anything about the conclusions of science they are using this term in its mathematical sense. Instead, scientists prefer the more modest term support as in The available evidence supports the conclusion that man evolved from lower animals.

Digression: This refusal to use the term prove in science is construed by theoidiots to mean that scientific theories are unprovable unlike the talking donkeys and snakes with legs of the bible. It is unfortunate indeed that scientific modesty is used as an alibi by theoidiots to undermine science.

Paleoanthropologists have found numerous support for the evolution of humans. The lineage of humans has already been traced to as far back as 7 million years ago to an ape called Sahelanthropus tchadensis. This ape is the common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas. Unfortunately for the members of the cult of Yahweh, genetics have also lent support to the common ancestry of apes and humans through genetic analysis. It turns out that humans and chimpanzees share as much as 99% of their genes.

In other words, only a little over 1 percent of our genes distinguish us from the chimpanzee. I find this conclusion awe-inspiring. Far from demeaning humans, it makes us more special by emphasizing just how far our lineage has gone and, since evolution is continuing process, it is exciting to think how much more we can be.

Being reminded of their common ancestry with the apes will be hard to swallow for the religious. As our knowledge of human origins and of science expands, they will have much much more unpalatable truths to swallow. Mr MOG and his ilk have nothing to worry about however, they are used to it. Their kind have been swallowing vasefuls of this kind of truth for than 2000 years.

Dear Friends

2008-03-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

I really do need to update this blog and I will. There have been many questions posed to me and I feel that I must reply. I will do that. The coming Holy Week (so called) will afford me the time to compose my replies. Please wait.

I'm coming back.

Adventurism in the Military

2006-04-24T04:58:00.000-07:00

I have a few minutes and I just want to blog about what I read on the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The article is titled Mutineers mull talk with Reds, eye Honasan for transition and the article can be found here.

If there is anything that summarizes the state of the country and the general immaturity of the Philippine populace, it can be read in the article referenced above. Power hungry sectors of the Philippine Military are are so confident of the alleged support of the population that they would openly talk about creating a Military Junta that will govern the country while they overhaul it to reflect what they believe is the one true way of governing the country.

DISGRUNTLED soldiers are open to negotiations with leftist groups and are eyeing fugitive former senator Gregorio Honasan to be a member of a transition council being prepared to replace President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, an escaped mutineer said.

Disgruntled? That is the worst misspelling of adventurous that I have ever seen. Not only are these people talkative enough to transmit their moves, they are also willing to lie in bed with their traditional enemies so that they can truly serve our country! Since the left and the right express totally opposite views as to how the country must be governed I wonder how the difference will be smoothed out. From the business end of an AK-47 and an M-14 perhaps?

Furthermore,

"In our view, he [Honasan] has the ability to be a member of the transition council that we are establishing," he said. "We believe that he is fighting for genuine reforms."

I wonder what special ability Mr. Honasan has that makes him eligible for this junta .. aherm .. transition council? I wonder what makes anybody even eligible for this transition council! If I could venture a guess it would be

A graduate of the Philippine Military Academy.
Has a gun.
Has control over people with guns.
Can deploy even more guns if needed.
The willingness to use guns to serve the country.

With idealist revolutionaries like these who needs rule of the people by the people for the people? Who needs elections? Who needs parliament or congress? Those things are encumbrances to effective governing of the country!

What frightens me is that they will get the support of a large portion of the country. People like

Corazon Aquino --- whose family owns the feudal estate Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac. The same estate that is the subject of legal proceedings for defaulting on loans. The same estate that will be split by a new highway that will run from Clark to Tarlac City. The same estate where tenant farmers are clamoring for the land reform that has been promised to them by law.
This estate is in so much trouble that Cory Aquino is willing to be intimate with the very people who inflicted seven coup attempts on her administration in order to save it. Cory needs to save Hacienda Luisita and the replacement of Arroyo with a president more willing to listen to the reasonable pleas of the Cojuangco family is the first step.
Loren Legarda. I used to admire Loren for her intelligence and supposed integrity but no more. Loren is the one politician in this country that has absolutely no principles. She was one of the senators that led the impeachment of Estrada. She was one of the senator-prosecutors that drove Mr Estrada away from office. The next day, Ms Loren was offered the Vice Presidential seat under FPJ --- a known ally of Estrada --- and she grabs it!
Where are your principles Loren? You knew why FPJ ran for office. You knew what will become of Estrada once FPJ is in office and yet you still ran under Mr Estrada's political banner. Good thing you lost. I would prefer a presidency by Noli De Castro over a vice presidency by a two-faced unprincipled political genius like you!
Ejercito family. Of course. This family will profit if GMA steps down. Who woulda known?
ABS-CBN. The Lopez family is a family so powerful they think the President of the Republic should apologize to a mere reporter because the president has a private view of what the said reporter did. He bailed him out, okay? Its not illegal but its not ethical either.
The Lopez family is also being investigated for unpaid taxes and over-pricing of electricity. If GMA falls, Meralco will be saved billions. What is political instability compared to an almost 50 Billion peso bill hanging over Meralco's head? If GMA goes, Meralco can breath easily. Who woulda known?
The communists. Nobody wants to say communist anymore because it is supposed to be politically incorrect. What is wrong with the word communism if it is really communism? Stalin, Lenin, Marx and Kruschev didn't have any problems using the word! I call myself atheist despite the ugly connotations that word has on the God-fearing. But here in the Philippines, communism has lost so much credibility that communists prefer to be referred to as The Left. Yeah right! And calling Cuba socialist will have a salutary effect on Cuba that wasn't there when it was communist.
The communists (I mean Left) want to gain power too -- just like the rest of the political spectrum. If GMA goes and the Left had a hand on it, they will be rewarded choice plums. I vote that Satur Ocampo be declared Secretary of Defense! Let's see how Mr. Disgruntled Soldier will handle that! It would be very interesting to see the fireworks fly.

My poor poor country. What will happen to you now?

A Short Rant on Suffering

2006-04-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

I visited a blog by someone who was recently diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia. According to the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association website:

TN (Trigeminal Neuralgia) is a pain that is described as among the most acute known to mankind. TN produces excruciating, lightning strikes of facial pain, typically near the nose, lips, eyes or ears.

It must be a terrible pain to suffer from.

I don't usually make comments on comments made on other people's blogs but the the following comment on the blog activated my theoidiot allergy.

cat, whatever happens, just hold on to the thought that God would never give us anything that we couldn't possibly handle. And with today's medical advancements, even people with deadly diseases like AIDS live a long and normal life (ex. Magic Johnson).

This theoidiot is obviously trying to impart some wisdom here but what it is I cannot comprehend. As someone whose name I forgot once said, Nothing is more excruciating than listening to a bore who has absolutely nothing to say or words to that effect.

It also reminds me of an anecdote about Mother Teresa. Apparently, the so-called sainted Mother Teresa is a religious fanatic. She does not wish to employ pain killers nor the other implements of modern pharmaceutical science in the clinics that her order runs in the poor neighborhoods of Calcutta.

Mother Teresa is thoroughly saturated with a primitive fundamentalist religious worldview that sees pain, hardship, and suffering as ennobling experiences and a beautiful expression of affiliation with Jesus Christ and his ordeal on the cross. Hitchens reports that in a filmed interview Mother Teresa herself tells of a patient suffering unbearable pain from terminal cancer: With a smile, Mother Teresa told the camera what she told the patient: 'You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you.' Apparently unaware that the response of the sufferer was a put-down, she freely related it: "Then please tell him to stop kissing me."

The excerpt above was taken from a bookreview here.

If God exists then he is a sadistic being who enjoys torturing people on the pretext that it ennobles them. Pain does not ennoble. Pain does not a saint make. We do not suffer pain gladly and the excruciating and unbearable pain of trigeminal neuralgia is entirely pointless because it confers neither evolutionary nor biological advantages to the sufferer.

Only theoidiots like Mother Teresa and the anonymous poster above would see pain as a gift from God.

Once, when Kriemh was diagnosed with an infection and was in pain, I told her not to trust god but to trust modern medicine instead. Unbeknownst to the commentor, he or she demonstrated essentially the same recommendation: Pain is a gift from God but there is modern medicine that will make the gift palatable. Aww, shucks!

If you are Cat and are reading this blog, please understand that I have nothing against you in posting this article. I once suffered great pain too and the comment simply enraged me for its blatant lie and patronizing tone. I hope you will get well soon, and at the cost of infuriating you admonish you, like Kriemh, to trust modern medicine, not God.

As for the commentor. I sincerely pray that your Lord Jesus Christ imparts the same gift to you. I also hope he kisses you while handing you his great gift.

Theoidiocy

2006-01-29T22:47:00.000-08:00

I visited this neglected blog after having ignored it for a long time and got a minor surprise. I had visitors!

Apparently, my humble but shout-from-the-rooftops blog has attracted at least one more reply. That's an increase of 100% over the last year! My blog readership is improving. Improving more than the national economy even.

Time to post some new articles.

Today I am inventing a new word. I need a new word to indicate the situation where intelligent, clear-thinking adults suddenly become ignorant imbeciles whenever they hear the words Our Lord God.

I therefore introduce the new english word THEOIDIOCY which I hope is properly derived from the greek word theos meaning God and the pre ice-age neanderthal word idiot which means a simple-minded person. There were idiots during the neanderthal age, it is unfortunate that after thousands of years of evolution, we still have idiots being born everyday.

I think it is very revealing of a religion when its adherents have to resort to fiction to justify their beliefs. Nothing wrong about writing fiction, by the way. However, I have discovered that religions are very wont to resort to this strategem whenever they wish to emphasize a teaching or attract an audience. Writing a story to emphasize a lesson is not limited to religion, however. Plenty of other fields often resort to stories in order to enliven a lesson or to emphasize a principle. But religions have made their art of writing fiction into an entirely distinct form of indoctrination. Their style and chutzpah is unique among all the other fields.

Several years ago, I read a story about a gymnast in a book about setting goals. According to that book, there was a girl who at the age of 8 decided that she wants to become a gymnast and that she will win the Gold Medal in the Olympics. Focusing herself to that singular goal, the girl convinced her parents to get her a good coach. Her parents were more than willing to encourage her interest and they hired a coach to mentor her. Money is no object. Everyday, after classes, the little girl would rush to the gym and practice, practice, practice. She would practice till she can no longer stand, she would practice for hours at a stretch.

In her mind, there is nothing more important to her than to win a gold medal at the olympics and for that goal she was willing to expend herself and die if she must in the pursuit of her dream.

Years went by. Slowly, the little girl became better and better at his chosen field and one day, during the olympic games, she stood at attention as the flag of her nation was hoisted above the arena and the national anthem was played by an orchestra. She had won the gymnastic gold medal in the Olympic Games.

As she watched her flag rising, as she heard the cheers and adulation of her countrymates, she wept with happiness at realizing that after years of hard work, she has achieved her goal. She was not yet past her teens, but look at her now! She has not yet finished high school, she is young, but look at her now. She is at the top.

But as the full consequence of the realization of her dream dawned on her, she also realized one thing. What is she going to do now? All her life, this was her dream, to win the gold medal. All her life this was what she wanted. She would wake up every morning knowing that another day, another opportunity has been given her to work towards her dream.

Today her dream is complete. What will she do tomorrow? What reason does she have to wake up in the morning of the next day? What will she do next?

And the girl wept, because having achieved her dream, she realized she no longer has anything to live for.

Its a nice story. And it has a moral lesson too. As goals are achieved, it is important that new goals be built in their place. One should never lose sight of a goal, but it is also important to remember to always have a goal.

I have taken that lesson to heart, and thanks to the story of the gymnast, I have remembered the lesson well. However, is the story true?

Now, perhaps you will protest, "So what if the story didn't turn out to be true at all? So what if there is no such gymnast whose life became a muddle of the day to day efforts of living instead of the bright and vivid vision of what is achievable? It is a good story because it drives home the lesson well and more importantly, it is plausible. It could conceivably happen."

And you will be right. The story is indeed plausible. It could happen. And because of its plausibility, the story does not lose the luster of its teaching.

But what of religion? What of the belief in a God? How can a proselytizer convince an audience of the truth of his or her belief? All these stories in the bible are wonderful, but so are the stories of Hector, of Achilles, of the patient Penelope waiting 20 years for her husband Odysseus to return from Troy; of Odysseus struggling through the travails and tempest of the fickle gods so he can someday return to the arms of his lover Penelope. Who has read the Odysseus and not marvelled at the faith of Penelope and the tenacity of Odysseus?

Even today, the power of the story of Odysseus and Penelope have yet to lose their brilliance to convince of the strength of love, loyalty and fidelity. And yet, no christian will ever swear that Odysseus and Penelope lived and that Apollo the God personally intervened when the Trojans and the Greeks warred. The story of Penelope and Odysseus are wonderful but they are certainly untrue.

And yet, the very same people who would dismiss Penelope and Odysseus as fiction, the same people who would consider The Chronicles of Narnia as mere tales however engrossing the story may be, these very people would swear upon their non-existent souls that Moses did live and freed the hebrews from bondage in Egypt. These people would shut their eyes to Yahweh's rape of the Virgin Mary, wife of Joseph, and rejoice that Mary bore Yahweh's bastard son. These people are ready to die, to murder, to stone and to despise simply on the strength of a 2000 year old story which cannot be confirmed to be true.

Why? Theoidiocy of course! The stories are so implausible, so contrived, so out of the ordinary and natural course of reality that it seems nigh impossible that there are people who would believe the stories contained in a book simply because there is a cross on the cover and a stamp proclaiming it holy.

And yet, millions of christians, muslims, and assorted theists do so everyday. I was one of them even. How is such superstition possible in this modern world? Theoidiocy! You can create any story, implausible it may be, dowse it with a little glibness of the tongue, cook it over the embers of superstition and throw in a teaspoon of God and it will be believed. People would weep at your fiction, raise their hands, and loudly proclaim the glory of whatever God you chose to be the hero of your story.

It is true. And a good example of it was the spam I have received. Let's see why that spam is a very concrete example of theoidiocy.

A girl whose parents were murdered was shown a picture of Jesus and she proclaims that it is the picture of the man who held her in his arms as her parents were butchering themselves.

Put yourself in the place of the teacher who is holding the picture of Jesus. After hearing the girl's excited cries, will you yourself cry Hallelujah? If you are in a seminary, the chances are you will. Seminaries are rather good at washing away reason from the minds of its students. But let's assume that you are delightfully free of the clutches of a seminary and that theodiocy has not yet completely brainwashed you. What will you think? What should you think?

You should think, "Wait a minute, obviously this picture I am holding here could not be the picture of Jesus because nobody knows what he looks like! There is no such thing as a 12 megapixel digital camera two thousand years ago, and as far as we know, Jesus has never ever posed for a portrait. No, this picture is decidely fiction. If you ask me, this picture of Jesus even reminds me of that guy in the movie about vampires and werewolves. You know that movie, that movie with a vampire girl in a sexy black tight leather jumpsuit throwing bladed weapons around killing werewolves?

Anyway, according to this girl, there is a man who looks similar to this picture holding her while her parents were in the throes of a violent suicide. Do the police know about this? According to their report (which I have read of course) this girl hid in the closet during her father's murderous rampage but this could change the story. Perhaps there is indeed someone else in the house during that time. Perhaps there is a witness or even a murderer still alive and likely to get away with his crime. Perhaps I should inform the police about this new development. At the very least I should call a psychiatrist to attend to this poor girl."

And that is what you as a responsible, civic minded, alert and properly functioning human being should think about.

But if, instead of calling the police, you went directly to your computer and composed a chain letter about Jesus holding a girl to keep her safe while atheists are doing their ungodly business, I hope someone breaks a bottle of San Miguel Beer over your head and screams THEOIDIOT!! at you.

HellCat receives spam.

2005-06-18T22:40:00.000-07:00

Another christian friend of mine sent me the following email. She doesn't know I am an atheist but, again, the mail is interesting and I want to make a comment about it.
I'll post the complete email here and then I shall comment on the letter in my next post.

IF SOMEONE HAD A GUN HELD IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE AND ASKED YOU IF YOU BELIEVED IN GOD, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
SAY NO AND FEEL ASHAMED THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? OR SAY YES, I DO, AND DIE STANDING UP FOR GOD?
If you would say no, DELETE THIS E-MAIL , NOW. IF YOU WOULD SAY YES, AND STAND UP FOR JESUS CHRIST, PLEASE READ THIS AND PASS ON.
Note: This is a true article that was printed in a southern newspaper less then a year ago
TAKE A DEEP BREATH BEFORE READING THIS
There was an atheist couple who had a child. The couple never told their daughter anything about the Lord. One night when the little girl was 5 years old, the parents fought with each other and the dad shot the Mom, right in front of the child. Then, the dad shot himself. The little girl watched it all. She then was sent to a foster home. The foster mother was a Christian and took the child to church. On the first day of Sunday School, the foster mother told the teacher that the girl had never heard of Jesus, and to have patience with her. The teacher held up a picture of Jesus and said, "Does anyone know who this is?" The little girl said, "I do, that's the man who was holding me the night my parents died."
If you believe this little girl is telling the truth that even though she had never heard of Jesus, he still held her the night her parents died, then you will forward this to as many people as you can. Or you can delete it as if it never touched your heart. Funny, isn't it?
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how everyone wants to go to heaven provided they do not have to believe, think, say, or do anything the Bible says. (Or is it scary?) Funny how someone can say "I believe in God" but still follow Satan (who, by the way, also "believes" in God).
Funny how you can send a thousand 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how the lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but the public discussion of Jesus is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Funny how when you go to forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them. Funny how we can go to church for Christ on Sunday, but be an invisible Christian the rest of the week. (Are you laughing?)
Funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me. (Are you thinking?)
Pass this on only if you mean it. Yes, I do Love God!

I am Kriemh.

2005-05-24T03:47:00.000-07:00

Hi! I am Kriemhild, wife to Siegfried.

Oops.

You might be surprised for I am not HellCat- the Filipino Atheist. I am Kriemh, of course, a pseudonym. I love HellCat for I am HellCat's bestest best friend but I am not an atheist. I don't oppose his ideas nor does he intend to influence me (or is it so HellCat?) We were supposed to have a joint blog before to discuss our ideas but it didn't come into form for HellCat and I were too busy to attend to this kind of stuff. (Haven't you notice the dates of previous posts? Obvious, isn't it?) Most often, we are more on discussing and not opposing each other's ideas (again, this is my pov.)

And before I fail to include, I am not a technical person (very much unlike him though), I am an amateur in techie stuff (e.g. HTML).

Oh, btw, this is my first post.

A One Million Peso Audio System

2005-04-18T05:02:00.000-07:00

There is a saying that a million peso stereo system is bound to sound terrific primarily because you have already spent a lot of money on it. I laughed when I first heard this somewhere. It makes a lot of sense. Perception has a lot to do with satisfaction with a thing and perception is nudged in the direction of satisfaction if it happens to be expensive.

For example, I know someone who really loves Chuck Taylor shoes. She has, I think, more than 30 pairs of those pricey pumps and from the way she gushes at it in her blog, she sounds really satisfied with them. Now, I wonder how much she would gush at those very same Chuck Taylor shoes if they happen to be sold at P150 a pair? If those Chucks cost P150 per pair, she can buy more of them. Will she?

I can speak from experience, mind you. I jog regularly so I need running shoes. I can go to the nearest Mall and buy myself a pair of P10,000 Nikes but since I'm stingy (blame that on my Ilocana Mom) I just can't allow myself to buy a glorified sneaker. Instead, I went to the nearest warehouse sale and bought a pair of chinese-made athletic shoes for P180.00.

Am I satisfied with the purchase? Well, let's see. I jog about 6 to 8 km every other day and I reckon those chinese-made sneakers have already logged more than 500 km since I bought them. They are still intact though the faux leather has already cracked in some places. Despite those cosmetic aberrations, the shoes are still perfectly comfortable and useable. They also pass the kid-test. Kids who see me wearing them think they are cool. And who better to judge sneaker coolness than young kids?

Judging by the objectives I had in mind when I bought the thing I would categorically say that YES I am satisfied with the purchase. If you object and remind me of the cracks in the rubber, I can retort that all I need to do is spend another P180.00 and I shall have a perfectly new one. So yes, I am satisfied with the shoes and my satisfaction has nothing to do with the price, mainly because I have decided that price has nothing to do with whether I should be satisfied with a purchase or not.

Not everyone's like me, however.

Last week, my brother came home from the US lugging a 1 million peso Blaupunkt stereo system for some other brother's FX van. Ok, it's not really a 1 million peso audio and video system but it could well be. Me and my brothers call it the one-million-peso audio system because it's a complete home theater system packed into a family-sized van. Its got a DVD player, an FM tuner, two large amplifiers pumping 100 watts in each of four channels (that's a total of eight channels pumping 800 watts into an enclosure that is only slightly larger than a comfort room), a CD player with cd changer, a 15in foldable LCD monitor, a graphic and space equalizer, several sets of speakers and a subwoofer as big as a large ice-chest. There are also extras like infrared headphones so you can watch a movie on the LCD monitor without distracting the driver.

I am not a stereophile but even I was impressed. Also, it was the first time I have seen a 1 farad capacitor. A 1-farad capacitor is probably not new to the audiophiles out there reading this blog but the capacitors I usally deal with have capacitances in the micro and milli farad ranges so the 1-farad capacitor was exceptional to me.

My two brothers spent three days tearing through the van. They removed the panels, snaked wires all over the body and pasted large areas of the van with a special tar-based dampener. The amplifiers, equalizers and other gadgets were meticulously placed under the seats so that no one peering through the windows would realize this FX hides a one-million-peso(tm) stereo system. My brother joked that he thought a Pajero was to be the recipient of the system so he spent a lot of money on it. I wonder what he would have bought if he thought it was a Hummer?

When the surgery on the van was over my brothers eegerly flipped the on-switch. 15 volts of electricity surged through the wires and 800 watts poured out of the speakers. It was loud, you can feel the subwoofer jumping on your chest. It sounds great too though the audio engineer ear in me heard a few frequencies that should be boosted and some other frequencies that need to be attenuated. A little fiddling with the equalizers should solve that problem.

Obviously, it could not compare with the surround sound of our home theater system nor could it hold a candle to the large bass and sparkling trebles of a good PA system. (A good PA system has amplifiers tuned to the frequency response of the speakers. The best speakers are the powered types where each speaker enclosure carries its own amplifier and cross-overs.) The confined space of a van affects the frequency response of the speakers. The LCD monitor is too small for my taste and watching widescreen DVD movies make it look smaller still. Still, compared to most in-car audio and video systems, it is definitely at the top of its class. I believe my brother intends to put the van in exhibition at the next carshow. I hope it wins.

But to tell the truth, I could never quite get the idea behind this thing. I work with audio systems as part of my job so I know what a good speaker system sounds like but I can never quite grasp why someone would like an 800 watt audio system inside a van. When I am inside my father's Honda, I can actually feel the air pressure build up and push against my eardrums whenever the door is closed! My brother's million-peso(tm) system is so loud that the windows flex and appear as if they are about to explode. With the special dampeners installed nothing rattles inside the van but I can just imagine the punishment someone's eardrum will endure inside whenever the volume is set high enough. Surely you can't listen to it at high volume while driving at the same time!

My two brothers were smiling and grinning. They were satisfied. They asked me what I thought of it and I said it sounds perfect. I never did continue with of course it has to sound perfect, you just spent a million pesos and three days on it.

Farewell Pope John Paul II

2005-04-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

The Florida Today newspaper reports the Rev. Eamon Tobin of Ascension Catholic Church in Melbourne as describing the late Pope John Paul II as a modern day St. Paul.

I think not.

Whatever Pope John Paul II's faults are as a human, however untruthful is the doctrine that there exists a god who cares for us all, John Paul II was most unlike the lying Saul of Tarsus --- founder of the catholic church.

John Paul II sincerely believed in what he was preaching and in what he was doing. Saul of Tarsus, being the inventor of what later became christianity, knew that everything he was preaching was a lie. He invented meeting the dead Yeshua ben Yosef (Jesus son of Joseph) and he later invented the teachings that he falsely attributed to the dead Yeshua. Isn't it strange that a complete outsider had more to say about the teachings of the purported messiah than the disciples themselves? Saul of Tarsus was a charlatan and a crook, through and through.

I do not believe in God. I am an atheist. But I sincerely believe that John Paul II was an honest man and one of the greatest popes ever. He could have done more to lift the world away from superstition and to transform the church from a medieval anachronism to a modern day beacon of wisdom, of tolerance and of compassion. Perhaps the time is not yet ripe for that. He shall be sorely missed. Farewell Pope John Paul II. Requiescat In Pace.

The religion of the cat species

2005-04-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

I saw something several nights ago that reminded me of the cruelty of life.

A stray cat ventured inside our house. It was intent on feasting on the leftovers left on the dinner table when it was discovered and scared away. A shoo sent the white stray scampering for the open door where it plunged right into the maw of our three mongrel but big dogs.

It never had a chance. It tried to run away but was cornered and the three dogs pounced upon it like it was a rabbit. I heard the commotion outside and looked. A dog had its canines buried on the neck of the cat while the other dog had bitten it on its rear thighs. The dogs were pulling on the ends they have managed to clamp their jaws. They were trying to tear it apart. Sometimes, when one dog's hold slips, the other dog would thrash the graceful feline torso side to side, up and down. The cat was flung like a rag doll.

I watched fascinated as the dogs mauled the struggling and fighting cat until it lay limp, still and dead. I could have stopped it. But why should I? It was our dogs doing their job isn't it? The cat was nothing more than a stray. This is probably the same cat that forages for food in the kitchen, upsetting and breaking the plates and glasses on the kitchen table.

When the cat stopped struggling, the dogs lost interest too. They stared at the dead cat with curious eyes but when it showed no movement the dogs left the scene of death one by one. They were panting very hard. The smell of blood and flesh seems to have excited them very much.

Dogs were bred from wolves by generations of humans. They are a product of genetic manipulation that have spanned thousands of years. I know this. Still, the atavistic behavior that recalled their wolf pack days disturbed me somewhat. These are the same dogs that would whimper and bark outside my door whenever they want to be petted. These are the same dogs that would wag their tails and stare with excited eyes whenever I arrive home from work. It was jolting to realize that these same dogs can be just as cruel as they are loyal and sweet.

As I gathered the remains of the cat and prepared to dispose of it, I kept thinking of what cats may have been talking about if they can communicate with each other. What would their attitude be towards dogs? Would they consider dogs and the humans who love them a natural part of this world? Or would they look upon dogs as evil hounds and their masters as evil Gods?

Would the cats have a religion where dogs are the devil? I wonder what part humans would play in this cat religion?

Did the disciples believe in a physical resurrection?

2005-03-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

With so many church sermons and printed articles this week (and the past) concerning the resurrection, I thought I might point some open-minded people who happen to stumble upon this blog to a contrary but very clear-headed review of the resurrection. Did the resurrection really happen? That is the topic of the following lecture by the historian Richard Carrier.

Click here for the lecture. It's good reading.

Cheers!

Why Did God Kill 250,000 persons? The Top Ten Answers.

2005-03-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

By now, preachers of religion are probably inundated by a tsunami of questions very difficult to answer. How can God allow such a tragedy as the tsunami disaster to happen? More than 250,000 persons were killed in a few hours. Why did God allow this?

Since the mental faculty to answer such an inquisition has been dulled by decades of bible-study, I am sure that more than a few christian preachers now showered by such questions are unable to answer. Unfortunately for these preachers, the collection of ancient hebrew superstitions and legends called the bible does not provide any help in this matter. (How a book as ancient, as barbaric and as primitive as the bible is considered to be moral and spiritual guide for modern times is beyond me.)

But fear not, where the bible is silent, HellCat offers assistance. In the interest of reconciliation I hereby present my help. Herewith are the top ten answers to the question of

Why Did God Kill 250,000 people during christmas 2004?

Why do you ask stupid questions like that? Don't you know that God has died for our sins? Now go to the corner and pray the Hail Mary and the Our Father 280,000 times!
For God so loved the world that he decided to send 280,000 souls to heaven at once! Don't you wish you were one of the saved? The hour of the rapture be upon us.
Why do you focus on the 280,000 dead? Do you know that there are at least a dozen cases where people have been saved from the disaster by their abiding faith in God? Why focus on the disaster when there are authenticated stories of savings by angels, strength due to faith and the healing power of prayer? You are so negative! Faith saves!
Children, remember that Jesus our Lord was born only a few hours before so of course as a baby He can't possible do anything! Can you help your parents when you were but a baby? Of course not, so why do we expect the gentle baby Jesus to know what to do?
My child, are you aware that the majority of South Asians are not christians? God has simply shown them the error of their ways!
God has warned the world of its sins! God is merciful and just, but because of the sins of the United States where pornography, Godlessness, sin, sex, contraceptives and rock N roll are common, God has no choice but to kill thousands upon thousands of innocent South Asians to serve as warning! The hour of repentance is at hand! Repent! Repent! Repent! Or the merciful God shall unleash another disaster upon us. Can you imagine how much it pains our Saviour to kill so many of us?
Children, do you remember when I told you that to maintain our spirituality we must go to Church regularly? A few sinners went to the beach instead of the church and look what happened! So, always go to church regularly or the devil will tempt you to sin!
The tsunami never happened! It is but a figment of the evil imagination of atheist journalists, infidel tourists and by a secular and ungodly media like CNN!
The disaster was caused by the stupidity of human beings. If only Adam and Eve did not sin and pass on their ungodliness to us, this tsunami wouldn't have happened. Only God has perfect knowledge. The stupidity of man is the reason hundreds of thousands were killed by the tsunami.
The tsunami is a terrorist attack on the germans, swiss and other european christian nations by a handful of ungodly infidels intent on leading the world astray from the path of Jesus our Lord! How dare they besmirch the blood of martyrs on the day of our Lord's birth! President Bush should should immediately attack Iran.

How to clean your Nokia cellphone.

2005-03-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

I am no longer having problems with my Nokia phone ever since I decided to do something about it. No, I did not throw my phone out the window.

What I did was buy a set of screwdrivers for my phone. I can build my own computer, I built our office's network from scratch, why can't I do something about this phone? So, that's what I did. For those of you with Nokia 6610 cellphones I am going to tell you how to disassemble and clean your phone.

Disclaimer: The following worked for me. I do not guarantee you will not break or damage your phone. If you break your phone, you get to keep the two pieces. Also note that opening your phone may void the warranties on that phone.

Still here?

You will need the following:
- A set of star screwdrivers for cellphones. The points of these screwdrivers are shaped like stars that's why I call them star screwdrivers. I bought mine from ACE Hardware. Just ask the
  friendly attendant to point you to the correct set of screwdrivers.
- A one-inch wide paint brush, the kind used to paint walls. I bought mine from the local hardware.
- Also, see if you can get an ear syringe from a drugstore. The drugstores near our place don't carry them but ear syringes are balloon-like contraptions that can be used to blow dust away. You must blow dust away from electronics using blowers. Do not use your breath to do the job.
- Plenty of cotton buds.
- A jar of the cleaning fluid carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), (you can get these from drugstores or specialty shops). If you don't have CCl4, rubbing alcohol will do. Select the brand that has a plenty of real alcohol instead of water.
- Brimfulls of belief that cleaning your cellphone is not something that you need to pay P500 for. You can do it yourself and save that money for your next load.
Let's
begin. First turn off your cellphone and remove the case and the key pad. This is quite easy to do. You don't have to remove the battery. Just make sure that your fingers are not damp that they can potentially short some very sensitive components.
When cleaning your phone, make sure that the battery does not fall off. It's not catastrophic if that happens but you will then need to reset the phone's setup again after cleaning it. That's a lot of work to do for the sake of cleaning so just support the battery with one of your fingers whenever you turn the phone over.
Turn the face of the phone towards you and you will see the LCD display on the top half of the phone and the keyswitches at the bottom half. The LCD screen is sensitive so be careful that you don't damage it.
Notice that the keyswitches are very very thin! Despite that,
they are very reliable and hardly need replacement. When the 6610 is having keypress problems, the switches are not the culprit. The problem lies elsewhere.
Get the paint brush and gently brush away the dust that has accumulated along the edges of the phone and the keypad. Brush the case clean too while you're at it.
The LCD panel is sensitive but you need to brush the dust away from that too. Be careful that you don't touch the screen and accidentally leave your fingerprint there. There is a rubber gasket that surrounds the LCD panel and if you are not careful during brushing, the dust could accumulate under the edges. If you got an ear syringe or blower, use those. I prefer to use the brush, however.
If your 6610 is not having any keypress problems then you are finished. Replace the keypad and the case and turn your phone on again! Smell the pine scented aroma of a newly cleaned cellphone!

If your cellphone is having keypress problems then you need to continue with the next set of instructions.

Along the sides of the face of the phone you will see six star screws. Count them. Those screws hold the keyswitches and the LCD panel faceboard to the backplane of the cell phone.
Select the correct size screwdriver and loosen the six screws slightly. One-half turn will do. That is how you remove or put screws. Do not remove screws one at a time. Instead, you strive to remove the screws at the same time so that the pressure the faceboard exerts on the backplane is even.
After you have turned the screws one-half turn, loosen the screws again, one-half turn at a time, going from one screw to another until all the screws can be removed. Put the screws someplace safe where you can't accidentally sweep them away with your elbows or arms or shirts. I always put
mine in a small jar.
The faceboard should now separate from the backplane very easily. Be careful with the faceboard as it is very fragile. You crack it, your phone's gone.
Surprised by what you see? There's almost nothing there isn't it? That's right, there is nothing that is even remotely repairable in a cellphone like the 6610. If a component is broken it is replaced, not repaired. Many cellphone repair shops are fraudshops preying on the gullible. Aren't you glad you are cleaning your phone on your own?
Peer under the faceboard somewhere below the back of the LCD and you will see very short, hair thin, gold-plated contact wires sticking out like the myriad feet of a millipede. The achilles heel of the Nokia 6610 is right there.
If you follow the place on the blackplane where the little wires go, you will see small goldplated pads where the wires are supposed to make contact with. The contact
points are so small that a little tarnish or oxidation is enough to break the contact between the faceboard and the backplane, hence, leading to keypress problems.
Moisten a cotton bud in CCl4 or alcohol and gently clean the wires and the contact pads. Do this gently and carefully. Make sure that you don't leave cotton fibers or waterstains on the pads and the wires. Clean the wires with an upward sweeping motion rather than a brush your teeth like motion. Remember that it is the ends of the wires that need to be cleaned as that is the contact point with the pads.
After you are satisfied that you have cleaned the wires and the pads, replace the faceboard on the backplane. There is a small recess at the top of the backplane where contact points from the LCD screen are supposed to go. Make sure that they are properly fitted.
Put the screws in one at a time and turn them slightly so they will hold. Do
not tighten any screw until all the screws are in place. Remember to tighten the screws at the same time.
Do not over tighten the screws as this will damage their threads. Tighten them just enough so that the wire and the contact pads are really in contact and that the screws don't fall out while the entire phone is jiggling in your pocket.
Replace the keypad and the case, turn on your phone and enjoy the P500 you just saved cleaning your phone.

I am a workaholic.

2005-03-08T05:59:00.000-08:00

I look around other people's blogs and somehow I feel a tinge of envy. Their blogs are well maintained and articles are posted at a regular rate. How come I can't do the same? What am I doing here anyway?

I guess I am very unlike those other blog-blokes whose blogs rank near the top of their priorities. I am under no such compulsion. At this moment, maintaining this blog is not one of my most important tasks that need to be accomplished. At this point, posting articles in this blog is at the bottom of my priorities.

Whether I like it or not, people depend on me. In my work, I don't consider myself indispensable but I get the feeling others don't feel the same way. Ever heard of the saying that no good deed goes unpunished? Sometimes I feel that is exactly what is happening to me.

If I finish something well ahead of the deadline, instead of coasting lazily till the end of the month, I find that my workload miraculously regenerates itself to fill up the time I have left available. They
pile up new jobs for me to do. I can't relax. I haven't had a vacation in years. How many times have I told myself that "I am going to Thailand or Singapore this year" and then when vacation comes I change my mind and work instead.

I am addicted to work! I am a workaholic! There, I said it! My work mates have been telling that to me for years but I refuse to acknowledge it.

Ooops! My alarm just sounded. Time for me to start working on that new version of our accounting system!

HellCat will presently answer your questions.

2005-03-04T03:03:00.000-08:00

I have been asked a few questions by a few people and I am sorry that I wasn't able to answer any of them (yet) because of time constraints. I'm too busy with my other life that I can't even sit still for a few moments and compose a coherent reply.

I am posting this short entry just to inform those people that I am going to answer their questions. A little dose of patience may be required, though.

--oo00oo--

As for my problems with blogspot, I have remedied the problem somewhat. Blogspot does understand HTML posts as is evident in the testpost below. However, the blogspot parser mangles my input lines, adding breaks where there shouldn't be and generally reformatting the entry before pasting them inside the page.

I have found a workaround to this. Hopefully, I will be able to use the workaround with my next entries.

Zen Moments

2004-12-17T02:43:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to the song, "Who Wants To Live Forever" by Queen right this very moment. It was the theme song of the original Highlander movie (alas, the only good Highlander movie, the sequels are all crap.)

It's a very touching song because it was the theme when Duncan MacLeod was burying his dead and decrepit wife while he himself has
remained young, ageless and immortal. The lyrics go

"Who wants to live forever?
Who dares to live forever?
When love must die?"

It's a very sad song but I like it. Perhaps because I know that none of us shall live forever.

Does Evil Come From God?

2004-11-06T04:50:00.000-08:00

Why is it that everytime an atheist is set up to be pummelled philosophically, he is always a professor? And why is it that in all these contrived situations, a humble and God-fearing christian student manages to deliver the coup de grace to the delight and amusement of the class? There has got to be a moral lesson in there somewhere.

The letter I received and posted in a previous entry is interesting because it also affords us the chance to observe how the writer of the anecdote attempts to resolve a very difficult philosophical question concerning the Christian God.

IF GOD IS SO GOOD AND SO POWERFUL, WHY DID HE CREATE THE DEVIL?

Now that is a conundrum ain't it? According to one account, the devil was formerly the angel Lucifer who was one of God's favorites. However, Lucifer became ambitious and rebelled against God. Lucifer almost succeeded in his rebellion, able to fully attract a third of God's angels to his cause. Alas, Lucifer was defeated by the remaining loyal angels led by Mikayel (Michael to you) and if we take the cover of Ginebra San Miguel as a guide, we can see that Mikayel himself defeated Lucifer in a manly, errr angelic battle of swords.

Lucifer and his minions were banished to hell but we may presume that a few of his loyalists remained outside of hell because it is still suspected that
devils are the chief reason you and I commit sins. ("No Ma'm, I didn't think of Paris Hilton intentionally during swimming class, the devil made me do it!")

So, ignoring in the meantime the many questions we have about Mikayel and Lucifer, the relevant question is, did God know when He created Lucifer that Lucifer will rebel against Him? If God knew that, why did He create Lucifer? If He didn't know, then God isn't perfect because He wasn't able to foretell the rebellion.

Both answers are equally difficult to explain and faced with enigmatic questions like the above, the Roman Catholic Church always recourses to the formulaic "God Works In Mysterious Ways" thus effectively banishing all logical debate and rescuing the church from answering very difficult questions.

Obviously, the writer of the anecdote is also seeking to answer that puzzle. However, he chose a very different answer and therefore a very different philosopical path. Instead of confronting the problem of a malevolent being created by a benevolent God, the writer chose the alternative of THE DEVIL DOES NOT EXIST.

In this view, there is no such thing as the devil. Evil is simply the absence of good and when there is no good, then what we have is evil. In this view, Satan is but the metaphor for evil but Satan himself does not exist. God exists, but His evil counterpart does not exist. Instead, Satan embodies that state where there is no God.

This contention neatly sidesteps all the problems inherent in the existence of Satan. Because Satan does not exist in this alternative universe, then God is not forced to answer awkward questions about His omnipotence and about His ill-will towards humans. Questions like: "If He loved His flock like a true shepherd, then why did He invent the wolf and the lion?"

However, the bible itself presents plenty of opportunities to prove that the devil coexists with God and that Satan is not a metaphor. In Genesis 3:1-5, a serpent tempts Eve with the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Are we now to say that it is a metaphor tempting Eve? Is a metaphor capable of speaking and tempting? The serpent is certainly not a metaphor for evil because God Himself punished the serpent for tempting Eve. Therefore, whoever the serpent represents in Genesis is not an embodiment of a thing but the thing itself.

Is a metaphor also capable of lifting Jesus to the highest parapet, the highest mountain and tempt Jesus (the son of God) with all the kingdoms of the world and to turn stone into bread?

Satan in Job 1:6 obliges God to test the loyalty of Job. Is this Satan a metaphor that engaged in an idle bet with God? Is God capable of being tempted to play with the life of His servant Job by a mere metaphor? If Satan is the absence of God, how then can Satan exist in the same room as God?

Certainly metaphors are incapable of the actions ascribed to them in scripture. The bible itself has plenty of passages to prove that Satan exists and he is not a metaphor. If you accept that there is a good God from the testimony of the bible then you must also accept that there is an evil God from the same testimony. Bible christians cannot escape from the difficulties presented by their infallible bible by trying to explain it away as a metaphor.

The analogy presented in the anecdote is therefore false and misleading. It attempts to prove a point by comparing it with something we understand and then saying that since the analogue is this then the thing must be this also.

While proof by analogy is a valid proof, it is also a tenuous proof because we still have to prove that the analogy is correct. While we can certainly associate God with light and the devil with darkness, we cannot therefore say that the Devil is simply the situation without God just as dark is the situation without light. The mythological Christian God has properties that are similar to light and the mythological Christian Devil has properties that are similar to darkness but beyond that there is nothing else. It works poetically but not logically and philosophically.

Now let's turn our attention to the next part of the anecdote. Here we see the writer attempting to prove that there is no such thing as evolution. In attempting to disprove evolution, the writer decides to use what he believes is a scientific proof. He must be feeling very smug about himself by now. He must be saying to himself, "Imagine, disproving the scientific theory of evolution by using the scientific method itself! God fearing creatures are really smart!"

Well, sorry to knock you off your parapet but that is exactly what the scientific method is used for. The scientific method is used to disprove invalid hypothesis by discovering the consequences of that hypothesis. I will have more to say about the scientific method in this blog but right now
let us turn our attention to the anecdote and evaluate how the writer has ostensibly employed the scientific method to show that the theory of evolution is incorrect.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present exhibit A:

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?

(The class breaks out into laughter.)

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it?.....No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your
lectures, sir?

This passage is so funny not because the student is correct but because the professor was not able to answer it adequately. Atheist professors must really be moronic judging from this made-up dialogue. If atheist professors are this stupid, then surely no one in his right mind would be an atheist.

How should the professor have answered? Like this:

No one has seen my brain but doctors, medical students and mass murderers have seen that humans have brains. Since I am a human then I also have a brain. Until you show me an example of a human that does not have a brain, I will continue to hold to that Socratic proof: Humans have brains. The professor is a human. Therefore the professor has a brain. Do you have a comparable proof for the existence of God?

The student seeks to disprove the theory of evolution by implying that the professor has no brain. The professor has no brain, therefore the theory
of evolution is false. What kind of reasoning is that? So if the professor has a brain then the theory of evolution is also correct? That manner of proof probably works inside a revival meeting but it cannot work among an intelligent, thinking audience. If fatuous proofs like that are allowed then
perhaps I should also be allowed to prove that:

(a) My cellphone is not a Motorola, therefore God does not exist.
(b) It did not rain today, therefore God is playing billiards.

The manner of the writing already marks the author as a member of a fundamentalist or evangelical church. Fundamentalists are called that because they believe in a literal interpretation of the bible. In their view, if the bible says that woman came out from the sides of man then that is taken as the literal and actual truth. There is no part of the bible that is a metaphor, everything is exactly as written there. The universe was created in seven days and God is so stupid that he put the serpent right near the tree so that he can tempt Eve.

The theory of evolution is therefore a galling theory because one of its consequences is that humans may have evolved from something very primitive. Think homo erectus, or australophithecus instead of monkeys. The bible says that God created man in His image so this theory of evolution is an ungodly and false theory. God is not primitive therefore man did not evolve from a primitive animal.

Unfortunately for the fundamentalists, plenty of observations have confirmed that the theory of evolution works. Let me cite just two examples:

(a) Put a culture of bacteria in a vial and add dosage of antibiotic plenty enough to kill most but not all bacteria. Let bacteria recover from massacre. Repeat procedure. At the end of several iterations, bacteria miraculously become immune to the antibiotic. According to the legend of Noah's Ark, how can this observation be explained?

(b) Before the industrial revolution, London moths are of two varieties, mottled white and dark brown. During the middle of the industrial revolution, the mottled white variety became rare while the dark brown variety increased in number. Using the ten commandments, explain why this is so.

Plenty of people have observed the process of evolution. The theory is valid. Please don't scream on your way down.

A Legionnaire of God sends HellCat Spam

2004-10-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

I recently received this email from a friend who has absolutely no idea that she is sending it to an atheist. Usually, I delete emails like this as soon as I realize what they are but this post is interesting so instead of deleting it, I shall make a comment about it. I will post the email here and then I shall comment on the email in my next post.

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty. He asks one of his new Christian students to stand and.....

Professor: You are a Christian, aren't you, son?
Student : Yes, sir.
Prof: So you believe in God?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Prof: Is God good?
Student : Sure.
Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student : Yes.
Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then? Hmm?
(Student is silent.)
Prof: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student :Yes.
Prof: Is Satan good?
Student : No.
Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student : From... God...
Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student : Yes.
Prof: So who created evil?
(Student does not answer.)
Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness?
All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student :Yes, sir.
Prof: So, who created them?
(Student has no answer.)
Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son...Have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.
Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student : No , sir.
Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.
Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.
Student : No sir. There isn't.
(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?
Student : You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? In reality, darkness isn't. If it were you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavour, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class is in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?
(The class breaks out into laughter.)
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir.. The link between man & god is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive.

Puzzle For the Bored.

2004-10-04T02:39:00.000-07:00

I created this puzzle so you won't be finding answers to this puzzle on the internet. This one you gotta do by yourself.

definition: Cambripair - a pair of english words that use the same set of letters and furthermore, have the same first and last letters.

Examples of cambripairs are:

CLOUD - COULD
BREAD - BEARD
EARS - ERAS

Find the cambripairs given the following descriptions.

(1) explosive devices
portuguese noblemen

(2) strongest wind velocity
strongest in heart

(3) a rupturing
a violation

(4) deserving of recognition
like a bishop's hat

(5) recorded
gelled

(6) leaf removers
reductions

(7) purifying process
playing with process

(8) what the college of agriculture teaches
what the college of fine arts teaches

(9) salvagers
comrades

(10) planting of trees
encouraging

(11) without pretensions
with rainbow colors

(12) paler in color
taking more time

(13) world travelers
condensates

(14) faster in gunfighting
away from the center

(15) part of scientific method
other side of a part

(16) concerning the father
concerning the unborn

(17) new converts
new fabrics

(18) prevent spoilage
opposite of right

(19) repeatings
breathings

(20) property of seawater
property of kitchen knives

Answers in a week!

Why My Next Phone Won't Be A Nokia.

2004-09-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

I am going to take this opportunity to rail against Nokia and its shoddy engineering. I have a 6610 and I far as I know, it is a lemon. The keys will stop working for no apparent reason. I have sent this phone back to the shop where I bought it. The techs there opened up the innards, cleaned up everything, did a bit of soldering (I think; I was too far away from the technician to get a clear view of what he was doing.) and managed to make it working. For 10 minutes, that is. I had to return to the shop pronto within minutes of receiving it because the
keys started acting up again! Finally, the patient technician managed to make all the keys working like magic and I went home feeling satisfied. For a while.

I am not the only one having trouble with the Nokia 6610. Many of my friends have the same problem with their Nokia 6610 and 6600's too. One hapless owner of a Nokia 6600 had to send her phone back to the shop within a month of buying it.
Whenever anyone asks me, I tell them to stay away from Nokia phones.

When the symptoms first appeared within two months of buying the 6610, I thought the problems have something to do with the fact I crammed my gallery with so many pictures that the firmware didn't have enough memory to work with and crashed everytime it could. I got that warning from the saleslady at the shop were I bought the overpriced phone.

So, I deleted everything I could delete from the dang thing. WAP settings, browser settings, gallery pictures, blah, blah, blah. Can you imagine that? Nokia can't even produce software good enough to deal reasonably with limited memory.

I thought I have finally licked the problem because the phone worked after I deleted most of contents of my folders. Alas, it didn't last long. The phone worked for a awhile and then started refusing to accept key presses again. I then tried various magic rituals and incantations upon it. I had the key pad and cases
replaced several times. I even went so far as to bang the phone on the side of
anything hard everytime it refuses to work. Strangely, banging does work sometimes, everytime I bang the cursed Nokia, the keys will work. (That is the one thing this Nokia is good at. It can take a fall. I dropped it on the floor several times already and the worst thing that happened to it was the case falling apart.)

Finally, at the end of my ropes, I decided to send it back to the shop so they can work their brand of magic on it. If you are asking why I postponed sending the phone to the repair man its because I am the man who takes pride in trying to
solve a problem myself (even if said solution involves a fragile cellphone hitting a solid object) before giving up. Hell!, I know how to repair a computer's hardware and am very handy with a soldering gun myself.

So, last Sunday, I had my cellphone repaired. Today, the keys ain't working again! I am pissed. I am angry that Nokia would take so much of my money and give
me a trashy cellphone without any redeeming value whatsoever. I have old AT keyboards from ten years ago. Those keyboards have been used, abused, dropped and punched so many times, the keys have become stained and discolored, and the keyboard casings have developed cracks. Yet, the keyboards still work. I retired the
last of our AT keyboards last June because the hard drive finally died on the last of our AT machines. Were it not for that hard drive. The computer and its keyboard would still work perfectly. I find it hard to believe that the same company that produced the venerable and solidly engineered 3315 is the same company that gave us the 6610 and the 6600.

Nokia has forgotten why it became a bestselling company. It became a bestselling company because it sold good solid phones at an affordable price. Nokia has forgotten that. Next time I am going to buy a cell phone it won't be a Nokia. Maybe my next phone will be a Samsung, or a Sony Ericsson or even a Motorola. It certainly won't be a Nokia.

I have heard lately that Nokia is losing some market share to Samsung. Its not a lot but its worrying for Nokia. I am glad. I will be glad when that Finnish company loses so much market share it is forced to sell ice cream. That will be such sweet revenge.

First Post!

2004-08-31T03:16:00.000-07:00

I have resisted maintaining a blog because I
felt then, as I do now, that blogs are bound to
take too much of my time. However, I do like writing
and even without intending to, I already have
written a lot of articles in various websites
all over the internet that I decided, "Hey! Why not
go all the way and create a blog so all my writings
are in one place?"

It sounded like a good idea so here I am, toiling
away at my keyboard thinking of something clever to
write as my first post and I have none. Nada. Nil.
Nothing. I have no words I can post. No grand ideas I can
mangle and distort to fit my peculiar viewpoint and
no facts I can fake, tweak and selectively cite to
support my beliefs.

Funny, sometimes all it takes it a single innocuous sentence,
maybe a question from a friend, perhaps a challenge
from someone and I can write furiously for
hours. But this time I have nothing
to write about. Inspiration, where art thou?

I'll just have to wait for the muses
to knock at my door.