Religion Quiz

January 30, 2011 at 2:45 pm · Filed under Just Stuff, Politics

I read a funny story in the Vancouver Sun about some results on a quiz on religion in the USA. I attempted the quiz myself and didn’t do that good on it, although I was in the 80th percentile compared to the USA population that had taken the quiz. I pretty much had to guess on a couple of questions about the Sabbath and about US Supreme Court rulings on religion in USA schools. The rest was pretty easy.

The funny part about this quiz is it reveals that US atheists and agnostics, as well as Jews and Mormons, know more about religion than do most of the strong majority of Americans who are Protestants and Catholics. Apparently one-third of Americans falsely believe that evangelist Billy Graham delivered the Sermon on the Mount! An earlier poll showed that 1 in 10 Americans believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, and another 1 in 5 believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple.

I sort of suspect that similar results would be found in Canada, minus the Billy Graham bit. The part that I find the funniest is that Mormons do better on the quiz than Protestants and Catholics. Mormons, you may recall, are the ones that think some dude living in New York state during the 1820′s was given a bunch of gold plates scribed with sacred text from God. (these are the same plates which said the men should have multiple wives, ie Bountiful BC).

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Music, Again

January 15, 2011 at 11:18 pm · Filed under Just Stuff, Technology

A couple of weeks ago I bought a Patriot Box Office media player. It was a pretty sweet deal too, only costing $60 after a mail-in rebate. Since getting it the amount of music that I’ve listened to has, like, quaddriggled. For those of you that don’t know what a quaddriggle is, let me tell you something: it’s a lot. I have the PBO hooked up to my Bryston in the living room, and I’m mostly streaming flac files from my NAS. Flac is lossless, so theoretically it is the same as CD quality. While I can’t say that the delivery method is perfect in terms of sound quality, the two most important parts are the amp and speakers, and I’m doing pretty good in that regard. The nice thing is that I can now quickly flip through my music collection and pull up anything within seconds. That is entirely different from the old setup where I had to pull out a CD, put it in the CD player and press play. That whole rigamaroll took, uhh… seconds. But more of ‘em. Yeah, more.

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Biking on the 24th

December 24, 2010 at 2:12 pm · Filed under Just Stuff

I did my last few chores before Christmas this morning, including getting food for our xmas eve dinner. I had to go to Kits and I decided that not only did I not want to deal with traffic and parking on a busy, rainy day, I also could use a bit of exercise. So I decided to put on the ol’ rain gear and ride my bike. It was great to get some (moderately) fresh air and I was glad to avoid the traffic. A lot of cars were honking at each other although I couldn’t see what the hell they were honking about. I suspect they were mostly cases of typical last-minute shoppers not dealing well with stress. Anyways, I had a good ride, I stayed dry and made it home sans stress. Niiiiiice.

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Some Delicious Dishes

December 15, 2010 at 12:20 am · Filed under Just Stuff

This week has been a culinary treat so far. On Sunday night I had my first Dosa. I bought them from Noor-Mahal on Fraser Street: one lamb curry and one veg masala. They were tasty and filling. I see that the restaurant gets good reviews, which doesn’t surprise me. We were actually next door at Fraser Aquarium, buying a Pleconomus (algae eater), and they recommended the Noor.

Tonight was a double wammy with Mercy making some fine lasagna followed by me making my first ever ackee and salt fish, a Jamaican dish. I had to make it tonight because I had been soaking some salt cod for a couple of days and I thought I should cook it. The dish is super easy to make although it’s not cheap. The salt cod was something like $12 for 400g (albeit this is dehydrated and I only used about 200g for the dish)) and a can of ackee is $9! Oh well, as they say in Jamaica, …. Uhm. What the hell do I know, I’ve never been there.

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Hand, Meet Forhead

November 3, 2010 at 7:01 am · Filed under Just Stuff

Some people…
The Daily Show

I don’t know if this is a sad statement about me or a sad statement about the US Media, but I find that I turn to the The Daily Show for my news from the US.

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The Big Event

October 26, 2010 at 1:15 pm · Filed under Just Stuff

If you were asked what the most significant Global event of the last 10 to 11 years was, what would you say? Probably a lot of people would say the financial sub-prime crisis – the fallout from that event is far from over. Another common answer could be 9/11. It’s pretty hard to argue against that one, as it set the foundations of global foreign policies, collaboration and communication (or lack thereof) since the attack.

I think another valid answer, and one that most people won’t think of, is when Al Gore had the Presidency stolen from him from in Florida. Even if Gore was President, 911 would probably still have happened. As well, the US probably would have still invaded Afghanistan. However, the war in Iraq and its isolationist effects would never have occurred. The political fallout from Iraq has been huge, causing some severe clashes in government policies and the breaking of international treaties. Perhaps even more important, if Gore was in office, the international action on climate change issues would have been drastically different. These are all massive effects caused by the injustice of corrupt voting in Florida. Florida 2000: the lost opportunity…

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