Tuesday, 30 November 2010
“religion is a force for good in the world”
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
18 Stinky Foods From Around the World
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Indian MOM
Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between Kumar and his roommate than met the eye.
Reading his mom's thoughts, Kumar volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Sunita and I are just roommates."
About a week later, Sunita came to Kumar saying, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the silver plate. You don'tsuppose she took it, do you?" Kumar said ,"Well, I doubt it, but I'll email her, just to be sure."
So he sat down and wrote :
Dear Mother:
I'm not saying that you 'did' take the silver plate from my house, I'm not saying that you 'did not' take the silver plate.. But the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner.
Love, Kumar
Several days later, Kumar received an email from his Mother which read:
Dear Son:
I'm not saying that you 'do' sleep with Sunita, and I'm not saying that you 'do not' sleep with Sunita. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her OWN bed, she would have found the silver plate by now under the pillow...
Love,
Mom.
Lesson of the day:
Don't Lie to Your Mother...........especially if she is Indian !
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Monday, 18 October 2010
Lessons in life
1。 人生是不公平，但還是好得很。
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
2。 懷疑的時候，為未來踏出一小步。
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
3。 人生太短，短到來不及浪費時間去恨任何一個人。
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
4。 生病的時候，你的工作不會照顧妳。你的朋友和父母會。保持聯絡。
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
5。 每一個月付清你的信用卡。
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
6。 你不需要每一次都吵贏。同意你不同意的。
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
7。 找人一起哭。它比獨自啜泣更加療愈。
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
8。 對上帝生氣沒有關係。祂受得了。
9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.
9。 退休存款從你的第一張薪水條開始。
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
10。講到巧克力，抗拒只是徒勞無功。
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
11。和你的過去和解，所以它不會搞砸你的當下。
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
12。讓你的孩子看到你哭沒有關係。
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
13。別拿自己的人生和他人做比較。你根本不清楚他們的人生是怎麼一回事。
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
14。如果一段親密關係要偷偷摸摸，你根本不應該涉入。
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
15。一眨眼的功夫什麼都會變。但是別擔心：上帝從來不眨眼。
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
16。深吸一口氣。它會安定你的腦。
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
17。沒用，不美，或不喜悅的東西都丟掉。
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
18。沒讓你死的真的會讓你更堅強。
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
19。重拾快樂童年永不嫌晚。但這第二次只能靠你不靠人。
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
20。當關乎追求你生命的所愛，不要把不要當答案。
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
21。點蠟燭，用好的床單，穿上炫麗的內衣。不要特殊場合才用。今天就是特別的一天。
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
22。準備要過於周全，然後隨遇而安。
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
23。現在就離經叛道。不要一把年紀了才開始穿上紫色。
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
24。最重要的性器官是腦袋。
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
25。除了你，沒有人在主宰你的快樂。
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'
26。把所謂的不幸用這一句話把它表框起來 "五年後，這還重要嗎?"
27. Always choose life.
27。永遠選擇生活。
28. Forgive everyone everything.
28。原諒每一個人每一件事。
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
29。別人怎麼看你不干你的事。
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
30。時間會痊癒幾乎每一件事。要給時間，時間。
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
31。無論情況多好或多壞，它都會變的。
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
32。不要那麼認真的看待自己。沒有人會這樣看待你的。
33. Believe in miracles.
33。相信奇蹟。
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
34。上帝愛你是因為祂就是這樣，不是因為你做了什麼或是沒做什麼。
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
35。不要稽查人生。現在就呈現和做最大的發揮。
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
36。變老了打敗另一種選項 - 死得早。
37. Your children get only one childhood.
37。你的孩子只有一個童年。
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
38。最後真正最重要的是你愛過。
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
39。每一天都出門。奇蹟在四處等著。
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
40。如果我們都把我們的問題都丟成一堆，然後看看其他人的，我們會把我們的撿回來。
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
41。忌妒浪費時間。你已經擁有你所需要的了。
42. The best is yet to come.
42。最好的都還沒來。
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
43。不管你感覺如何，起來，穿好和呈現。
44. Yield.
44。讓自己每天快樂。
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."
45。人生不會打上蝴蝶結，但它仍然是一份禮物。
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Friday, 8 October 2010
Friday, 24 September 2010
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Monday, 13 September 2010
Great sites to kill itme
http://www.chilloutpoint.com
http://artsyspot.com/pure-awesomeness.html
http://smilepanic.com/pop/mgid2493.html
http://looksfunny.net/files/mgidpop.html
http://www.chilloutpoint.com/coolest-photo-galleries.html
http://2leep.com/news/60700/89/
Make a police sketch
from http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=13208
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Friday, 27 August 2010
quote from dr. Seuss
Saturday, 21 August 2010
Friday, 20 August 2010
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Parallel Universes
Everything you're about to read here seems impossible and insane, beyond science fiction. Yet it's all true.
Scientists now believe there may really be a parallel universe - in fact, there may be an infinite number of parallel universes, and we just happen to live in one of them. These other universes contain space, time and strange forms of exotic matter. Some of them may even contain you, in a slightly different form. Astonishingly, scientists believe that these parallel universes exist less than one millimetre away from us. In fact, our gravity is just a weak signal leaking out of another universe into ours.
In another universe, the British could win the American Civil War
The same but different
For years parallel universes were a staple of the Twilight Zone. Science fiction writers loved to speculate on the possible other universes which might exist. In one, they said, Elvis Presley might still be alive or in another the British Empire might still be going strong. Serious scientists dismissed all this speculation as absurd. But now it seems the speculation wasn't absurd enough. Parallel universes really do exist and they are much stranger than even the science fiction writers dared to imagine.
Greater dimensions
It all started when superstring theory, hyperspace and dark matter made physicists realise that the three dimensions we thought described the Universe weren't enough. There are actually 11 dimensions. By the time they had finished they'd come to the conclusion that our Universe is just one bubble among an infinite number of membranous bubbles which ripple as they wobble through the eleventh dimension.
Each universe may exist as a bubble with its own laws of physics
A creative touch
Now imagine what might happen if two such bubble universes touched. Neil Turok from Cambridge, Burt Ovrut from the University of Pennsylvania and Paul Steinhardt from Princeton believe that has happened. The result? A very big bang indeed and a new universe was born - our Universe. The idea has shocked the scientific community; it turns the conventional Big Bang theory on its head. It may well be that the Big Bang wasn't really the beginning of everything after all. Time and space all existed before it. In fact Big Bangs may happen all the time.
Of course this extraordinary story about the origin of our Universe has one alarming implication. If a collision started our Universe, could it happen again? Anything is possible in this extra-dimensional cosmos. Perhaps out there in space there is another universe heading directly towards us - it may only be a matter of time before we collide.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Buddhism and war
Non-violence is at the heart of Buddhist thinking and behaviour. The first of the five precepts that all Buddhists should follow is "Avoid killing, or harming any living thing."
Buddhism is essentially a peaceful tradition. Nothing in Buddhist scripture gives any support to the use of violence as a way to resolve conflict.
In times of war
Give rise in yourself to the mind of compassion,
Helping living beings
Abandon the will to fight.
One of Buddha's sermons puts this very clearly with a powerful example that stresses the need to love your enemy no matter how cruelly he treats you:
Even if thieves carve you limb from limb with a double-handed saw, if you make your mind hostile you are not following my teaching.
Kamcupamasutta, Majjhima-Nikkaya I ~ 28-29
Figures like the Dalai Lama (who won the Nobel Peace Prize) demonstrate in word and deed Buddhism's commitment to peace.
"Hatred will not cease by hatred, but by love alone.
This is the ancient law."
Many Buddhists have refused to take up arms under any circumstances, even knowing that they would be killed as a result. The Buddhist code that governs the life of monks permits them to defend themselves, but it forbids them to kill, even in self-defence.
For Buddhist countries this poses the difficult dilemma of how to protect the rights and lives of their citizens without breaking the principle of nonviolence.
The pure Buddhist attitude is shown in this story:
A Vietnam veteran was overheard rebuking the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, about his unswerving dedication to non-violence.
"You're a fool," said the veteran - "what if someone had wiped out all the Buddhists in the world and you were the last one left. Would you not try to kill the person who was trying to kill you, and in doing so save Buddhism?!"
Thich Nhat Hanh answered patiently "It would be better to let him kill me. If there is any truth to Buddhism and the Dharma it will not disappear from the face of the earth, but will reappear when seekers of truth are ready to rediscover it.
"In killing I would be betraying and abandoning the very teachings I would be seeking to preserve. So it would be better to let him kill me and remain true to the spirit of the Dharma."
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Buddhism and martial arts
Buddhist monks have been leaders in developing various forms of martial arts. The Shaolin Order is perhaps the best known of these, famed for their fighting prowess.
Martial arts would seem to be about as far from non-violence as you can get, but Buddhist forms of martial arts have very strict rules about how violence can be used.
The Shaolin teaching forbids the monk from ever being the aggressor, and instructs him to use only the minimum necessary defensive force. By becoming skilled in physical conflict the monk has a better understanding of violence and is able to use sophisticated techniques to avoid harm, ranging from simple parrying of clumsy blows to paralysing grips and knockout blows in the face of extreme violence - but always using only the amount of force needed to refuse the violence that is being offered to them.
Most martial arts traditions have strong spiritual and philosophical elements, and insist on a responsible and minimalist attitude to violence.
Buddhism and violence
But Buddhism, like the other great faiths, has not always lived up to its principles - there are numerous examples of Buddhists engaging in violence and even war.
- in the 14th century Buddhist fighters led the uprising that evicted the Mongols from China
- in Japan, Buddhist monks trained Samurai warriors in meditation that made them better fighters
In the twentieth century Japanese Zen masters wrote in support of Japan's wars of aggression. For example, Sawaki Kodo (1880–1965) wrote this in 1942:
It is just to punish those who disturb the public order. Whether one kills or does not kill, the precept forbidding killing [is preserved]. It is the precept forbidding killing that wields the sword. It is the precept that throws the bomb.
Sawaki Kodo
In Sri Lanka the 20th century civil war between the mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the Hindu Tamil minority has cost 50,000 lives.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Humans are supposedly herbivores?
Facial Muscles
Carnivore Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
Omnivore Reduced
Herbivore Well developed
Human Well developed
Jaw Motion
Carnivore Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
Omnivore Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
Herbivore No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
Human No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
Teeth (Incisors)
Carnivore Short and pointed
Omnivore Short and pointed
Herbivore Broad, flattened, and spade-shaped
Human Broad, flattened, and spade-shaped
Teeth (Canines)
Carnivore Long, sharp, and curved
Omnivore Long, sharp, and curved
Herbivore Dull and short or long (for defense) or none
Human Short and blunted
Teeth (Molars)
Carnivore Sharp, jagged, and blade-shaped
Omnivore Sharp blades and/or flattened
Herbivore Flattened with cusps vs. complex surface
Human Flattened with nodular cusps
Chewing
Carnivore None; swallows food whole
Omnivore Swallows food whole and/or simple crushing
Herbivore Extensive chewing necessary
Human Extensive chewing necessary
Saliva
Carnivore No digestive enzymes
Omnivore No digestive enzymes
Herbivore Carbohydrate-digesting enzymes
Human Carbohydrate-digesting enzymes
Stomach Acidity
Carnivore Less than or equal to pH of 1 with food in stomach
Omnivore Less than or equal to pH of 1 with food in stomach
Herbivore pH of 4 to 5 with food in stomach
Human pH of 4 to 5 with food in stomach
Length of Small Intestine
Carnivore 3 to 6 times body length
Omnivore 4 to 6 times body length
Herbivore 10 to more than 12 times body length
Human 10 to 11 times body length
Nails
Carnivore Sharp claws
Omnivore Sharp claws
Herbivore Flattened nails or blunt hooves
Human Flattened nails
In addition to being anatomically ill equipped to digest meat in the short-term, the long-term damage that a meat-based diet wreaks on the human body confirms that we were not meant to eat flesh. Natural carnivores never suffer from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, strokes, or obesity, ailments that are caused in humans by the consumption of the saturated fat and cholesterol in meat.
Dr. William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of the authoritative American Journal of Cardiology, sums it up this way: "[A]lthough we think we are one and we act as if we are one, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores."
Studies have shown that even when fed 200 times the amount of animal fat and cholesterol that the average human consumes each day, carnivores do not develop the hardening of the arteries that leads to heart disease and strokes in humans.4 Indeed, researchers have found that it is impossible for carnivores to develop hardening of the arteries, no matter how much animal fat they consume.5
Carnivores are capable of metabolizing all the fat and cholesterol in meat, but humans are a different story: Our bodies were not designed to process animal flesh, so all the excess fat and cholesterol from a meat-based diet makes us sick. Heart disease, for example, is the number one cause of death in America according to the American Heart Association, and medical experts agree that this ailment is the result of the consumption of animal products.6 In fact, meat-eaters have a 50 percent higher risk of developing heart disease than vegetarians, and a low-fat, completely vegetarian diet has been repeatedly used to unclog the arteries of heart disease patients—it not only prevents but also treats the disease!7 Learn more about animal products and heart disease.
In addition to pointing out the damage done by saturated fat and cholesterol, scientists have also shown that eating animal protein can be harmful to human health. We consume twice as much protein as we need when we eat a meat-based diet, and this leads to osteoporosis and kidney stones.8 Animal protein raises the acid level in human blood, causing calcium to be excreted from the bones to restore the blood's natural pH balance. This calcium depletion leads to osteoporosis, and the excreted calcium ends up in the kidneys, where it can form kidney stones. The strain of processing all the excess animal protein from meat can also trigger kidney disease in meat-eaters.
The consumption of animal protein has also been linked to cancer of the colon, breast, prostate, and pancreas. In fact, according to Dr. T. Colin Campbell, the director of the Cornell-China-Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health, and the Environment, "In the next ten years, one of the things you're bound to hear is that animal protein … is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can be considered."
Eating meat can also have negative consequences for stamina and sexual potency. One Danish study indicated that "Men peddling on a stationary bicycle until muscle failure lasted an average of 114 minutes on a mixed meat and vegetable diet, 57 minutes on a high-meat diet, and a whopping 167 minutes on a strict vegetarian diet."9 Besides having increased physical endurance, vegans are also less likely to suffer from impotence.
Since we don't have strong stomach acids like carnivores to kill all the bacteria in meat, dining on animal flesh can also give us food poisoning. In fact, according to the USDA, meat is the cause of 70 percent of foodborne illnesses in the United States because it's often contaminated with dangerous bacteria like E. coli, listeria, and campylobacter.10 Every year in the United States alone, food poisoning sickens over 75 million people and kills more than 5,000.11 While carnivores can process all the saturated fat, protein, and bacteria in animal flesh, a meat-based diet can send humans to an early grave. Clearly, people were not intended to eat meat.
