Its a sad day on the Internet when the entire blogosphere is abuzz with what Paris Hilton is up to. Seriously... who cares? I cant even begin to understand how boring your life and your interests must be to mission on about everything Hilton is doing.

Paris Hilton is a rich tart. End of story. She does not produce anything long lasting or productive to the world and she certainly is not changing it. We live in a world where political leaders are shafting you left, right and center and all the rabble just keep going on about is, "Paris Hilton". wtf?

I found this clip on YouTube I thought I would share with you:

There are a lot more interesting things to write about than Paris Hilton and a lot more important topics that need to be discussed. Move along now please wont you?

Is the Bible the word of God?

I hear it all the time, "The Bible is the word of God", and "the only way to God is through the Bible", so this got me thinking about Gods word and how fickle it is. To put my thinking into perspective lets got way back in Christianity to the time just after Jesus died. As an early Christian God decided you did not need a Bible. Jesus certainly did not have one, and neither did any of his disciples.

It was a pretty hard following all the Biblical codex`s back in time, but I have tried to be as accurate as possible.

The first Christian "Bible" I could find was a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. It was different to the Hebrew canon in that it contained books called, "anagignoskomena" (that's a mouthful!). It was only a couple of hundred years later that the Old Testament and the New Testament were put into the same book. However it was very different to the Bible we know of today. It included books like the Book of Nehemiah, Esdras and the Book of Esther. This early Bible was called the Codex Vaticanus.

I will quote what Tertullian had to say about the early versions of the the this Bible, "This may be understood to be the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the law and the gospel"

A couple of years later another version of the "Word of God" was written called the Codex Sinaiticus. It too based its Old Testament content on the Greek Orthodox Septuagint. It was to be called the Codex Sinaiticus. Codex Sinaiticus is written in Greek like the Codex Vaticanus and included such books as the Epistle of Barnabas, and The Shepherd of Hermas .

Now things go pretty well for another 200 years and then God decides new revisions to His Word need to be done, so he contacts this bloke called Jerome (who at the time is a womaniser in Pope Damasus's court), and asks Jerome to translate the Bible from Greek into Latin. However God has a change of mind and decides to deviate from tradition and instructs Jerome not to use the Greek Septuagint as his source for the Old Testament but rather to use Hebrew Tanakh. The oldest known copy of the Vulgate Bible is known as the Codex Amiatinus.

Not many changes happened after this as the Church consolidated its power and everyone became religious. We call this time period the Dark Age. A time when human ingenuity was regarded as sacrilege and anyone who defied or questioned "the Word of God" was often tortured to death.

It was not until 1388 when John Wycliffe created the first English version of the Bible (based on Vulgate), that the common English world got to read the Bible, but God was not finished changing His Word yet.

In 1546 God got involved in Catholic / Protestant Church politics and called together the Council of Trent whereby through the "guidance of God", the Catholics came to the conclusion that the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed was still right and that the deuterocanonical books really should be in the Bible. Gods Word got revisions in both 1563 with the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles and the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism.

Even today the Bible is still being revised. A couple of weeks ago they found an ancient papyrus of the book Relevations. It was discovered in that Book of Revelations that the "Mark of the Beast" is not "666" but rather, "616".

If the Bible really is the "Word of God" then God word appears to be as fickle as that of man and man's politics. I also got to asking myself, If the Bible has changed so often in its history, who is to say that it is not going to change in the future? Do Christians assume the Word of God to be static and therefore will not investigate further or do they understand there are more changes to come?

While researching this topic I came to the conclusion that a subject as vast and complex of the origins of Biblical scripts and how they came to be in the Bible could not be covered in a simple blog post. I have done my best to give you quick run down on the basic development of the Bible but in truth there is a lot more information and many more factors that contributed towards its evolution.

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be looking into more specific events on the Biblical Highway. There are some very interesting events in the History of Christianity that I would like to introduce to you as the months go on such as Apocrypha, the Council of Nicea and how the Bishop Irenaeus decided to use only 4 of the 12 Gospels.

WARNING. Some spoiler information.

I have just finished watching the latest documentary by Michael Moore titled SicKo and I am sitting here completely stunned. The documentary shows how Nixon was able to take the American health system and turn it into one of the most disgusting capitalistic quagmires I have ever seen.

The documentary shows how people without HMO (American version of our Medical Aid) are treated like scum and sometimes turfed out onto the street without proper care or medication. However, that's not what this documentary is about. The documentary covers how the slime that run the American HMO system have perverted America`s health services so badly that America dropped from being first in health care... to 32nd (Just above Slovenia).

It never ceases to amaze me at the levels of greed and stupidity of some people around the world. Seriously I just sometimes sit back in awe at the stupendous levels of non-thinking it must take for a country's health service to end up like the American health service.

Such a powerful nation, yet it cant even look after the most vulnerable of its citizens correctly.

The bright spark American president who came up with the idea to privatise the American Health Services was a well known conman by the name of Nixon. Yup, your ol "Mr Trustworthy" of Watergate was the "genius" president who started the slide on the American health system, but he is not alone in the blame here. Regan with as much gusto as an actor *cough* president can come up with fully endorsed Nixon`s system which has left America as the only western democracy without free medical services for those who need it.

Luckily it is easy to brainwash the ignorant, especially in America during tough times with the Soviet Union. All you had to do was say the word "socialist", and people jumped into line. Years of propaganda and non-thinking have lead Americans (and some others) to believe that socialism is all out evil. Even though they don't have a clue about what it is really about. As Moore so correctly points out, the American police force, the American firemen and library's are already socialist systems.

The documentary then spends a bit of time with many many Americans who have had their health claims turned down for reasons that would disgust a human with a shred of morality in them. I remember clearly one female having her claim denied because she did not get "pre-approval" to be taken to Hospital. I am sure she will remember next to to schedule her accident to please the HMO thieves.

Michael Moore then goes and visits some 9/11 heroes who had helped rescue survivors from wreckage of the Trade Towers. These heroes were not fireman or police officers, they were normal people who were in the area who put their lives at risk to help complete strangers by joining in the rescue operations with the local emergency services.

Due to the massive amounts of dust and other foreign particles in the air, some of the people involved in the rescue operations developed crippling lung conditions. You would think that they would be looked after right? Wrong. Since they were not official fire fighters they were simply discarded and told they were on their own. Let's stop for a moment. Imagine that... you put your life at risk to save a complete stranger as you know it is the right thing to do, only to learn a little later that your own government is going to shaft you on medical services for ailments you acquired while assisting the government.

They say you can judge a people on how the treat the weak, the old and their animals. By these criteria America has fallen far and fast.

Michael Moore then finds out that the military base in Guantanamo Bay is offering really good (but free) medical services to all its inmates. Moore gets together a group of the Americans heroes from 9/11 and tries to take them to the military base for proper treatment. The one bit that sticks out in my mind here is Michael Moore shouting over a loud speaker system asking the US military to give the same treatment to the 911 heroes as they are giving to Al -Quade suspects. This was obviously not accepted.. there's no profit in it.

But where the American health care system fails, the Cuban health care system shines like a beacon. All the 911 patients where accepted by Cuba and given almost free medical services. I remember one American
woman crying because in America she was barely able to survive on her $1000 payout and her medical inhalers cost her $129 (each) back home.. at the local pharmacy in Cuba the same medication cost her 5c.

Needless to say, the Americans with Michael Moore in Cuba were treated with care that they would not have received in their own country. Medical exams, treatment and medication that the 911 heroes were not able to receive in the USA was gladly given out in a small 3rd world country with an iota of the resources America has.

The last bit just before the Americans left Cuba was one of the most moving points in the documentary. A local fire station close to where the Americans were getting treatment invited them around to visit. When the Americans arrived at the fire station all the Cuban firemen stood to attention and saluted the patients. When asked why they did this, they responded to Michael Moore that they have the utmost respect for the heroes of 911 and wanted to honour their bravery. The Cuban firemen also informed the patients that they were sorry that they were unable to assist America during that dark time.

Michael Moore in the documentary SicKo was able to take me through a kaleidoscope of emotions as he presented his information. There was anger at how Capitalistic greed could be allowed so negatively to effect the precious lives of those around it. There was sadness when learning how some of the people interviewed for this documentary would still be alive today if they had received a half way decent health care. There is hope when you see how a small country like Cuba which has been demonized by the American government... was able to put forward an olive branch and help those who needed help.

Kudos to the Cuban people!

I really hope the Americans can learn a thing or two from countries like France and Cuba and move forward into looking after the most important resource in America. Its people.

As Michael Moore points out. To many people think about "me", and not enough about "we".

This animation of the end of the world is just a space filler. I am currently working on a couple more serious articles that require a lot more research so apologies for the lack of recent content.

In the mean time, I hope you enjoy this animation which has a more humorous look at a end of the world scenario.

I came across this site by Anup Shah that has a detailed look into the causes of poverty. I found some of the statistics he shows to be very embarrassing and a shameful reflection on humanity today.

* Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.

* The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.

* Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

* Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.

* 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

More facts and stats

Anup Shah shows us the institutions, policies and people behind many of today's causes of poverty.

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Poverty.asp

Online Gaming these days has become massive and it is no longer just for the kids. In fact recent statistics show that the average age of a gamer is 31.

I thought I would show you two video's created with graphics created in game. The first one I am going to show you is a song that was created for the online multiplayer game, Battlefield 2.

The APC song

The next one is a video made in World of Warcraft and is called, "The Internet is for porn"

The Internet if for Pr0n

There are a multitude of others out there and some of them are very funny. As I come across them I will post them here for you to enjoy as well. They are not all music based and some of them have even being turned into a type of series for people to download weekly, such as the famous Halo Red Vs Blue series.

If you have come across any really good ones out there please let us know so I can put them up for people to see.

Today I read how some teachers in the United Kingdom are taking their political beliefs of political correctness too far. They have stopped teaching their students about the Holocaust because it might offend the more ignorant Muslim students in their classrooms, who due to indoctrination are in Holocaust Denial.

Firstly to deny the Holocaust you have to be a complete idiot not willing to find the out the real truth, so in that regard I have absolutely no tolerance towards Holocaust Denial. Millions of Jewish people died in the Holocaust and the mountain of evidence (including eyewitness testimony still available today), there is no valid reason to deny the Holocaust.

To deny such a tragic event in our history is laying the road to repeat it again. A wise man once said that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

Those people in the Muslim countries who are being taught that the Holocaust did not happen should be questioning those beliefs. As mentioned the evidence is overwhelming and it is pretty easy to find more truthful information. If you are still in denial after understanding the evidence then you honestly are a waste of humanity. I have not time for you or your religious and politically based lies.

Denying the Holocaust is not limited to some dumb Muslim, I know a fair amount of dumb Christians in the extremist Adventist camp who also deny the holocaust happened. When you discuss theology with these christian extremists you will find the sound of their dogma is very similar to that of the misguided Muslim. Kill the unbeliever and all that toss.

There are certain limits to my tolerance of religious which is actually pretty liberal, but there are certain places I will make a stand. If you tell me God is actually the Flying Spaghetti Monster I would look at you, nod my head and ponder how you came to that conclusion, however if you tell me the holocaust did not happen and I certainly know it did, I am going to tell you, that you are lying and if you do not learn or understand I am going to tell others that you are lying.

When Muslims deny the Holocaust, the first thought that comes through my mind is the word, "liar". Anything you say after that expect me to treat with equal skepticism. I see the Holocaust denialist in the same light I see the African rural man who believes sleeping with a virgin will cure his AIDS.

Holocaust denial comes directly from ignorance and racism. When you deny the Holocaust you do to Islam what the Evolutionary denialists do to Christianity, and make faith look foolish.

I do not have a problem with freedom of religion, but just sometimes there should be freedom from religion.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770

*EDIT:I have stated this before but I better do it again. Where I refer to the term African, I use it in the context of "someone from Africa". I am an African. Thanks.

I have been following the Russian story closely for a number of years. One of my best friends at school was a Russian who's father was a professor in Physics. They had defected to Ethiopia in the 80`s when Russia was still the Soviet Union (USSR), and by the 90`s his father ended up as a professor here in South Africa and he attended my school.

I spent many weekends at his house and in the process learnt to read the Russian alphabet and a smattering of the language, but I did spend a lot of time reading up on their history and politics.

I was once told that the Russians were the most over educated under employed people in the world, and in a way I could understand this. Most of the Russians I have met are extremely intelligent people, and their conversation and insights are very informative. However it seems they have a major flaw in their cultural way of thinking. Russians seem to have this S&M fetish for tyranny.

We all hoped that comparing penis *cough* sorry I mean missile size would have ended at the end of the Cold War. I hoped with the fall of the Soviet Union and the introduction of democracy that the Russians as a people would become a great nation again. This time without the need to kill millions of people.

It seems I was wrong. It looks like the Russians are well on their way to repeating the tragedy of their history again. Uncontrolled capitalistic greed and corruption with the fall of communism has lead to a state whereby corporate and criminal cartels were able to take over the country.

Before I continue with the order of events I would quickly like to share some information about one of the main architects and leader of the cartel. President Vladimir Putin. Putin's father was conscripted into the Russian Navy to fight in World War 2 and was a member of the NKVD, and one of Putin's brothers died in the siege of Leningrad. Vladimir Putin's paternal grandfather was also the personal cook to both Stalin and Lenin.

Putin managed to get a qualification called a Candidate of Science (Apparently similar to a Ph.D) from the International Branch of the Law Department of the Leningrad State University with a dissertation (similar to a Ph.D thesis) called "The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations". It was later found out that 16 of the 20 pages that open a key section of Putin's work were copied either word for word or with minute alterations from a management study, Strategic Planning and Policy, written by US professors William King and David Cleland. Deception started early for Putin.

Putin was quickly recruited into the KGB in 1976 where he was able to achieve the rank of Major before the KGB was disbanded in 1991. It was in the KGB where Putin was able to make some very important political contacts and get together with future collaborators such as Sergei Ivanov. Putin resigned from the KGB when it failed to seize control of Russia from Gorbachev in the 1991 Putsch (coup).

Putin had a very interesting political career after that and with about the most noteworthy being his appointment as head of the FSB ( a successor to the KGB) just before he became President of Russia. It was during this time that he alledgidly framed Yury Skuratov who was trying to clamp down on corruption at the time. Putin as we will find out... likes destroying other people's lives to support his own.

I am going to stop writing about Putin now and move onto one of his largest instruments for manipulation. The corporation Gazprom. In 1998 Putin realised what a valuable resource Gazprom was. Suddenly, Russia under Putin's authority started demanding billions of dollars in back taxes from Gazprom, and Putin replaced Chernomyrdin who was head of Gazprom with his own man.

Under Putin's command, tax collectors started seizing Gazprom assets and the company gave into the political pressure and paid Putin. For the first time ever Gazprom started showing a loss. The main reason for this was the unbridled corruption Putin introduced to Gazprom, though the official excuse was "an aging pipeline"

Putin's Gazprom then initiated a series of deals with companies like Purgaz and scandal followed it. Large-scale asset-stripping of Gazprom by its corrupt board members nearly sank the company in the 1990`s.

In 2001 Gazprom took over Russia's only nationwide state-independent television station NTV which meant that Putin now had control of a well oiled tool for future propaganda purposes. I will come back to this because I had something interesting happen while watching Russian television not too long ago.

The main reason the KGB attempted a coup-de-tat in 1991 (as mentioned earlier) was that it did not like the decentralization of power to the republics Gorbachev was trying to achieve with his reforms. I can imagine the failed Putsch upset top level KGB officers... including Putin who did not want to loose their power.

Once Putin had majority control of Gazprom he was able to use it to bully opponents of his whether they be people or countries. In 2006 Putin worried about pro-west sentiment in the Ukraine, used the company to politically manipulate the situation by threatening to stop the flow of gas which is a life blood to the Ukrainian people.

Putin and Gazprom have also used energy blackmail with the countries who have showed pro-west sentiments such as Estonia, Belarus and Georgia. Strangely enough all countries that were part of the previous Soviet Union and all countries that Putin and his KGB cronies did not want to have power. Belarus was at the end was able to strike a deal after threatening to stop the flow of Russian gas in their pipes through the country of Belarus.

I would just like to bring in 3 quick power plays that are also of importance in regards to Putin's Gazprom that may interest you. In July 2006 with the help of Putin, Gazprom was able to become a monopoly by getting Russian Federal Law to grant Gazprom exclusive rights to export natural gas. Also, later that same year Putin was able to fud with an environmental permit to hostilely take control of 50% and one share of Royal Dutch Shell's Sakhalin-II project.

The 3rd and latest power play by Gazprom and Putin seems to allow Gazprom to build up its own private army. In February 2007 a group of State Duma deputies proposed to give the Putin controlled company Gazprom the right to form special armed units. The main task of the new oil military will be to protect production facilities and transport infrastructure. If adopted by the parliament, Gazprom officials will be allowed to use weapons and arms for self-protection and for the execution of “service obligations”. We all know about dodgy Russian “service obligations”.....

Now that I have mostly got Gazprom out of the way I would like to get back to Putin and what he has been up to lately. In October 2006 a journalist and human rights activist by the name of Anna Politkovskaya was investigating the corruption of Putin's government as well as the savagery of Russian troops in Chechnya. She was assassinated in a contract killing. No prizes as to which cowardly Russian president was behind her killing.

Now onto the part of the story I am sure most of you will be familiar with. The assassination of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210 by Putin (yes, I will call a duck a duck). Polonium was discovered in Poland while it was under Russian control. The substance is extremely unstable and dangerous and very hard to manage. 1 gram of polonium is dangerous enough to kill 50 million people. Polonium is also used in nuclear triggers on nuclear weapons. Its not the type of stuff that everyone has access to. In fact, its not the type of stuff most countries have access to. The rarity is compounded by the fact that the planet currently is only able to produce about 100 grams of the stuff a year.

Alexander got on the bad side of Putin when he found out his superiors were planning to kill billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky (who was a vocal critic of the 2nd Chechen War), whom he was charged to protect. When he found out about the plot he went to the media to warn everyone about it and was subsequently arrested. Alexander was later released and fled to Great Britain to claim political asylum.

I do believe what got Alexander into the most trouble was him revealing some of Putin's dirtier but expected tactics. Alexnader informed the world that Putin's FSB was bombing Moscow apartments and blaming it on the Chechen terrorists to legitimise reprisals using military force in Chechnya. Boris, Alexander and Anna were all opposed to a second Chechen war. Alexander and Anna have lost their lives apposing Putin.

Back to control of the media and the little bit of information I wanted to tell you earlier. I had just watched a piece on Sky News regarding the death of Alexander Litvinenko, so I decided to switch over to the Russian channel to see how Putin's propaganda machine was spinning the story. Two things caught my interest. When the announcer on TV started informing the people of Alexander Litvinenko's death she said the following, "Alexander Litvinenko has just been assassi..... has just died". Seems she knew the truth as well.

I also remember about how in the next 20 minutes of the show the Russian presenter kept going on about, "how free Russian media is", and that they, "have no one here in the studio with a gun telling us what to say". Very strange things to say do you not think so?

Putin it seems is almost uncontrollable. What surprises me about all of this is the Russian people are allowing this rubbish to happen all over again. Surely the Russians are tired of presidents with small manhood issues? Surely they are bright enough to shake the yoke of this tyranny?

Things are not getting better. Putin is comparing penis size with the USA and Europe again and is trying to use every dirty tactic it can to control the current world political situation. Poland (rightfully so) wishes to protect itself from Iranian and Russian attacks so they have managed to score a Missile Shield from the states. Putin's response borders on the melodramatic and he really should get an Oscar for his performance. Putin has managed to turn the situation around to make a defensive weapons system appear to be an offensive (which I am sure it could be with a little imagination) attack on Russian statehood or something like that. Again I am sure it has something to do with manhood size.

Putin is also in Iran supplying that wheel-tapper of an Iranian president with nuclear capability as well as offering all the militant locals in the area access to weapons with nicely reduced price tags. It seems Putin wants the Middle East area as unstable as possible.

Just in case you missed the hypocrisy of Putin in the above two paragraphs... in Putin's mind, its is okay to supply Iran with nuclear technology which in turn can be used to create offensive nuclear weapons... but its NOT okay in Putin's eyes for countries around Iran to want to setup a missile defence system? Thats not counting the millions of AK-47 rifles the world has had to suffer from. Please Putin... that's pathetic. Really it is. I am sure your new buddy Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe could come up with a smarter story than you.

They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps and the friends that Putin seems to be getting into bed with all appear to be dictators of dodgy 3rd world countries where human rights are abused the most and freedoms are at a minimal. Zimbabwe, Venezuela, China and Iran... all countries suffering under terrible dictators seem to be the in thing for Putin.

The latest bit of news I have heard (other than Putin's over reaction to the missile shield), is that Estonia has accused Russia of launching large scale cyber attacks against it, Russia of course has denied this. I honestly completely believe Estonia on this one. Nothing in the last couple of years has given me a single reason to trust Putin or the current Russian government. Putin is a man completely without honour or scruples so I am more likely to trust what comes out of the silly Iranian presidents mouth than I am out of Putin's.

As I mentioned earlier on, the Russians I know are rather smart, so I have to ask any Russian readers out there... why are you allowing a tyrannical leader into power again? Do Russians get a kick out of pain and suffering? Do Russians like being exploited? I am trying to reconcile in my mind how such a smart people can make such an obviously repeating stupid mistake.

Well the good thing about having Putin in control of Russia is it is allowing Africa to catch up economically and surpass Russia socially while Putin keeps draining the country dry of everything it has.

Come on Russians. You have a wonderful country, stunning woman and from what I can see.. smart people. You can do so much better if you wanted to.

I came across this youtube clip today of a meeting between two of the Big Five and a very old friend in the Kruger National Park. If you thought that the picture of snake and alligator was strange, wait till you see this video clip as some of the titans of the Bushveld take each other on.

Please note, this clip is 8 minutes long, but well worth the wait.

I love the tag cloud widget Amatomu offers to bloggers. It almost looks like the blogosphere is trying to talk to you and sometimes you can make out the strangest sentances. Is the tag cloud sentinent?

Most probley not, but before I call down the wrath of an army of otter's in the slight chance I am wrong, I have decided to document the occasional tag cloud in an attempt to find out if it is simply random code or Internet oracle trying to communicate with us.

So I took a quick screenshot to see if Amatomu tag cloud was trying to tell us something. Using secret Tibetan cryptogramical algorithms and the color red I will now reveal what the blogosphere is trying to tell us.

Sentient or random? Only time will tell... but are you really willing to risk the wrath of an army of otter's on the off chance that you are wrong?

*Please note the above post is Friday fun and should not be taken seriously.