Archive for August, 2007

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Mother Teresa’s Agony


2007
08.31

After Stephen sent me the link about the kung-fu stuff, I found a much more serious posting that intrigued me on his Faithmaps site… check it out for more details here.

For those who are terrified to click the link, here’s an excerpt:

Mother Teresa’s Agony


Mother Teresa

“Together they suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction – that one of the great human icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera, was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape from which the deity had disappeared.

And in fact, that appears to be the case. A new, innocuously titled book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever – or, as the book’s compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, “neither in her heart or in the eucharist””.

- a fascinating article on Mother Teresa

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The Shaw Brothers present…


2007
08.31

this article from Yahoo!.

(thanks to Stephen Shields for pointing this one out to me… and if you want to know what the title of this entry refers to, click here…)

China kung fu monks seek apology for ninja affront

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Chinese kung fu, is demanding an apology from an Internet user who said its monks had once been beaten in unarmed combat by a Japanese ninja, Chinese media reported on Friday.

Shaolin Temple, in the northern province of Henan, became famous in the West as the training ground for Kwai Chang “Grasshopper” Caine in the 1970s “Kung Fu” TV series.

Ninjas — professional assassins trained in martial arts — date back to mediaeval Japan.

“The so-called defeat is purely fabricated, and we demand the Internet user to apologise to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did,” the Beijing News said, citing a notice announced by a lawyer for the Shaolin monks.

Relations between Chinese and Japanese are sensitive at the best of times, with emotions still running high over Japan’s invasion and occupation of parts of China in the first half of the 20th Century.

The Internet user, calling themselves “Five Minutes Every Day”, said on an online forum last week that a Japanese ninja came to Shaolin, asked for a fight and many monks failed to beat him, the newspaper said.


Shaolin Monk Demonstration

“The facts that the monks could not defeat a Japanese ninja showed that they were named as kung fu masters in vain,” the Internet user was quoted as saying in the post.

The Shaolin temple “strongly condemned the horrible deeds” of the user, the newspaper said.

“It is not only extremely irresponsible behaviour with respect to the Shaolin temple and its monks, but also to the whole martial art and Chinese nation,” it quoted the monks as saying.

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Dream Car


2007
08.31

I read an article on Slashdot that pointed me to this article on BBC, which led to me to this website… *swoons*



My dream car:  A Moller flying car

Of course, this guy may be a complete, total fraud. Countless folks have weighed in with the opinion that Moller may be a charlatan, but a few have pointed me towards the Terrafugia



The Terrafugia Flying Car

I’m happy with my car. But it can’t (literally) fly:-)

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WWW


2007
08.30

From that fountain of scientific inquiry, CNN.com, comes a story of arachnid teamwork:

Monster spider web spun in Texas

WILLS POINT, Texas (AP) — Entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of a sprawling spider web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch of trail in a North Texas park.


Monster Web

Lake Tawokoni State Park rangers Mike McCord, left, and Freddie Gowin check out a giant spider web at the park.

Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the massive mosquito trap is a big attraction for some visitors, while others won’t go anywhere near it.

“At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland,” said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles east of Dallas. “Now it’s filled with so many mosquitoes that it’s turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs.”

Spider experts say the web may have been constructed by social cobweb spiders, which work together, or could be the result of a mass dispersal in which the arachnids spin webs to spread out from one another.

“I’ve been hearing from entomologists from Ohio, Kansas, British Columbia — all over the place,” said Mike Quinn, an invertebrate biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department who first posted photos online.

Herbert A. “Joe” Pase, a Texas Forest Service entomologist, said the massive web is very unusual.

“From what I’m hearing it could be a once-in-a-lifetime event,” he said.

But John Jackman, a professor and extension entomologist for Texas A&M University, said he hears reports of similar webs every couple of years.

“There are a lot of folks that don’t realize spiders do that,” said Jackman, author of “A Field Guide to the Spiders and Scorpions of Texas.”

“Until we get some samples sent to us, we really won’t know what species of spider we’re talking about,” Jackman said.

Garde invited the entomologists out to the park to get a firsthand look at the giant web.

“Somebody needs to come out that’s an expert. I would love to see some entomology intern come out and study this,” she said.

Park rangers said they expect the web to last until fall, when the spiders will start dying off.

Going Down…


2007
08.29

All of these photos were taken over the past two weeks…


214.3

213.7

212.4

210.0

The big news is not just that I’m dropping weight — I was hovering around 212 before I hurt my ankle (tendinitis from overuse on the ellipticals) and ballooned up to just over 220 last fall — but that I’m adding muscle.

I’m currently working out at a level akin to where I was in college (!), when I was at my absolute strongest physically. Even better, my legs are in much better shape because I’m much more focused on cardio than I was half-a-lifetime ago, so I am (arguably) in better shape now than I was then.

The only bad thing is, in my opinion, I’m carrying a bit too much weight for my frame… I feel like I should be able to drop another 15-20 lbs. and I’d be in perfect condition.

Now… a few friends were talking about doing a triathlon… Hmmm…. :-)