Ian On The Red Dot

Interesting story about the history of Islam from the banned chick.com site. Somehow I can access it from my office even though it is blocked by MDA when I try to access it from home.

The conspiracy story about how the Vatican was responsible for the birth of Islam is interesting no so much because I think it is true, even though it sounds rather plausible if you wear a tinfoil hat, but because of a recurring theme I seem to find in the history of Islam.

Western powers seem to use those of the Islam faith for their own political expediency.

Two examples:
1. The war against the Russians with Afghanistan as the proxy battleground.
2. T.E. Lawrence’s role in the campaign of internal insurgency against the Ottoman Empire during World War 1.

The idea in this story about using spies to prep a race of people for a coming messiah which will be used to harness a tough race for military and political might seems eerily similar to the Bene Gesserit’s perpetuation of messianic myths, legends and superstitions which aided Peter’s ascension to power in Frank Herbert’s Dune.

It is almost as if Alberto Rivera read Dune before he spun his convoluted tale of deceit.

It might be worth noting that Frank Herbert’s Dune seems to have some Islamic and Arabic themes:

Those who are familiar with Frank Herbert’s famous novel Dune know that he took his analogy from the oil of the Middle East, and that the novel is symbolic about the dependance of the West on the oil, and the power struggles to control this valuable resource.

Instead, this article is a linguistic and etymological study of the major aspects of Dune as they pertain to Middle East, Arabic, and Islam.

The brilliance of Frank Herbert in creating the world of Dune is explained in the book ‘Frank Herbert’ by Timothy O’Reilly:

Dune is loaded with symbols, puns, and hidden allusions. Though they may not all be consciously grasped by the reader, they lend weight to the story, a sense of unplumbed depths. For instance, as previously noted, one of the things about sand dunes that initially fascinated Herbert was the irresistible way they move. Although the connection is never explicitly stated, the image of the irresistible juggernaut is central to the book’s treatment of the jihad. The dunes brood in the background.

Each name, each foreign term, was also chosen with care, sometimes for the sound, sometimes for an association, sometimes just for Herbert’s own amusement or that of the occasional scholar who will pick them up. Every nuance has purpose. The Fremen language is adapted from colloquial Arabic, often with significant meanings. Paul’s younger sister, for example, bears the name Alia. She was a member of the Prophet Mohammed’s family. The use of colloquial rather than classical Arabic is itself significant, since it is the spoken language that would have survived and evolved over the course of centuries into the Fremen. “Bene Gesserit,” although it sounds as if it could be Arabic, is actually Latin. It means “it will have been well borne,” an apt motto for the scheming Sisterhood. The name Atreides was also consciously chosen. It is the family name of Agamemnon. Says Herbert, “I wanted a sense of monumental aristocracy, but with tragedy hanging over them–and in our culture, Agamemnon personifies that.” Likewise the name of their enemy, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, though in this case the associations are more contemporary. The Russian sound was clearly meant to engage our prejudices–which, it must be remembered, were much stronger when Dune was written in the early sixties than they are now.

Before reading any of the tracts, it helps to learn about Jack T. Chick and his tracts:

You’ve seen them . . . but have you read one? Do so, and you step into the nightmarish world of Jack T. Chick.

In this world, few things are as they appear. It is a world of shadow and intrigue, a world of paranoia and conspiracy theories, a world where demons haunt people sincerely trying to follow God, and the Catholic faith is the devil’s greatest plot against mankind.

Also influential to the content of these tracts is Alberto Rivera, a controversial figure with a dubious history.

I have attached a link to the tract mentioned in this post over at this post. It is password-protected. The password is simple. It is a concatenation of the 3rd, 6th and 10th words of 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NIV) with no spaces or any other delimiters. The reason why it is password-protected is this – although I think it is worth reading to see what sort of nonsense is being produced, the material is most probably going to be offensive. So I’m putting a barrier to the access because I’m giving you the choice whether you want to read it or not. If you are determined, and willing to jump through some hoops to get access to it, then the responsibility and the consequences of the choice to read is yours and yours alone.

Via Rambling Librarian:

The first encounter I had with the potential and power of telling a story backwards (or rather playing around with our understanding of the linear narrative) is Martin Amis’s novel Time’s Arrow.

I recently completed two weeks of reservist. As usual, my stint in camp provided fodder for lots of blog posts. This year, the training schedule was especially good. One of the problems with SAF is that there is a tendency for a lot of “wait to rush, rush to wait”. The Singaporean guys would know what I’m talking about.

Well, this year my training schedule was particularly well planned and implemented. There was little unnecessary rushing or waiting. Training for what we needed to know was well taught and carried out.

Besides me getting horribly sick ( that’s a story for another post ), this year was probably the best reservist I had out of the last five.

I managed to find time in the night to read Ian Stewart’s Math Hysteria. I first stumbled onto such kind of writings when I discovered Martin Gardner late in life, some time during my university days. It was such a waste that I didn’t encounter such mathematics-based literature much earlier. Writers like Ian and Martin impart quite substantial knowledge with amazing witty and funny stories, providing mathematical concepts a context in normal life.

Take chapter 12 “Dividing the Spoils”. It totally had relevance to my reservist. Let me explain.

One of the great pains of reservist is the whole bunch of signatures we need to get before we can out process ( i.e. be cleared to finally leave camp ). One of the things that need to be done is area cleaning. The platoons from the various companies would be allocated areas to clean based on the discretion of individual Company Sergeant Majors ( i.e CSMs ).

The thing is this. Everyone is always disgruntled about the area they have to clean. Everyone tends to think some other platoon is getting a better deal by having to clean an easier place. Cleaning the toilets is easier than cleaning the vehicle sheds. Cleaning the vehicle sheds is easier than cleaning the washing bay.

You get the drift.

Now, back to chapter 12. In this chapter, I learned about a class of algorithms called envy free protocols which deal with the concept of fair division.

Two siblings dividing the last piece of cake using divide and choose is a simple and practical example. The first sibling divides the cake into two pieces, and the second sibling chooses which piece to take. Since both siblings wish to maximize their share of the cake, the first sibling will divide the cake evenly in his estimation and the second sibling will take the one perceived as more desirable. Even if there is icing unevenly on the cake that the siblings want, the first sibling can divide the cake to compensate for the perceived benefit of the icing in his view making them even, and then the second sibling chooses the piece he prefers.

No one likes to be a patsy.

Such algorithms help us avoid that.

Was reading this list detailing what makes the perfect boyfriend. I was trying to check off the points that I thought I passed. I did terrible. Anyway, I remembered this exchange in the play ‘A Woman Of No Importance‘ by Oscar Wilde concerning the ideal man.

Mrs Allonby: The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says.

Lady Hunstanton: But how could he do both, dear?

Mrs Allonby: He should never run down other pretty women. That would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow they don’t attract him.

Lady Stutfield: Yes, that is always very, very pleasant to hear about other women.

Mrs Allonby: If we ask him a question about anything, he should give us an answer all about ourselves. He should invariably praise us for whatever qualities he knows we haven’t got. But he should be pitiless, quite pitiless, in reproaching us for the virtues that we have never dreamed of possessing. He should never believe that we know the use of useful things. That would be unforgiveable. But he should shower on us everything we don’t want.

Lady Caroline: As far as I can see, he is to do nothing but pay bills and compliments.

Mrs Allonby: He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat us with absolute respect when we are alone. And yet he should be always ready to have a perfectly terrible scene, whenever we want one, and to become miserable, absolutely miserable, at a moment’s notice, and to overwhelm us with just reproaches in less than twenty minutes, and to be positively violent at the end of half an hour, and to leave us for ever at a quarter to eight, when we have to go and dress for dinner. And when, after that, one has seen him for really the last time, and he has refused to take back the little things he has given one, and promised never to communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he should be perfectly broken-hearted, and telegraph to one all day long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that every one should know how unhappy he was. And after a whole dreadful week, during which one has gone about everywhere with one’s husband, just to show how absolutely lonely one was, he may be given a third last parting, in the evening, and then, if his conduct has been quite irreproachable, and one has behaved really badly to him, he should be allowed to admit that he has been entirely in the wrong, and when he has admitted that, it becomes a woman’s duty to forgive, and one can do it all over again from the beginning, with variations.

Lady Hunstanton: How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.

Lady Stutfield: Thank you, thank you. It has been quite, quite entrancing. I must try and remember it all. There are such a number of details that are so very, very important.

Lady Caroline: But you have not told us yet what the reward of the Ideal Man is to be.

Mrs Allonby: His reward? Oh, infinite expectation. That is quite enough for him.

I have been subscribing to the theory that you shouldn’t set the standards too high when dating. Be consistently average. Show all your powers when you get married. If however you show all your powers now, when you get married, she will confirm find you underwhelming.

I finally got down to doing something I should have done for sometime – I opened another bank account to save a portion of my salary each month. Each month, once I get my pay, a chunk of it is going straight to this new account. I have been living on a combined savings and spending account for too long. In fact, usually only one thing is happening – spending. While I have managed to save, the amount each month fluctuates with an inverse relation to the amount of beer I drink. The new account forces me to save a fixed amount each month, and no longer do I need to try to save more the next month to offset this month’s spending.

The impetus for this action was the first personal finance book I have ever read finished – The Barefoot Investor.

Just finished reading the book “Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets“. It is a great read and I’ll definitely have to read it again not just because there is so much material to digest but because the writing is deliciously beautiful and brimming with wit.

The book sheds light on the shenanigans that are currently happening in the world as well as some from the past. The one thing I learned from the book is to think for one’s self. Yet, the book cautions against logical thinking because there is a tendency for us to do it wrongly. We use our thinking to help validate what we want – our brain is the slave to our emotions and desires. Also, there is the danger of thinking we know a lot about a subject matter, if not everything which can lead to disaster.

A healthy dose of skepticism and humility is needed when the gears in our brain start turning.

Investing tips from the book:

1. Don’t Go Looking For Trouble.

You don’t always need to be either a seller or a buyer. Sometimes doing nothing can be good. Although holding cash is actually doing something.

2. Don’t Expect The Market To Give A Sucker An Even Break.

The little guys lose consistently. They pay too much to the financial industry in fees, commissions, and spreads. The market isn’t a level playing field.

3. Don’t Be A Patsy (i.e. a person who is gullible and easy to take advantage of).

Don’t try to figure out what the market is doing by deferring to experts. Always remember that you are guessing and because you are guessing, make sure the odds are in your favor. Don’t buy high expecting to sell it when it gets higher because the market has been going up. Remember to buy low.

4. Never Get Too Far From The Facts.

5. Never Buy Tuna Unless It’s On Sale.

6. Never Buy What Someone Else Really Wants To Sell.

7. Never Buy What Everyone Else Is Rushing To Buy.

8. Gold.

I’m not doing justice by just listing the points above but this is more for my own notes than anything else. I borrowed the book from Tampines Library so the book is in the system. Try to borrow it if you get the chance. I’m definitely going to buy this book to add to my collection once Borders has a discount.

The one fault I have against this book is that it has introduced the phrase ‘public spectacle’ into my vocabulary. I find myself using it quite often now in my conversations with people.

Public Spectacle = Lies -> Farce -> Disaster.

Some associated links:

This is the blog that is associated with the book – Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets. It hasn’t been updated since October 2007 so to read more from the authors, going to their blogs might be another recourse.

I managed to find the blog for only one of the authors Lila Rajiva – The Mind-Body Politic.

Couldn’t find the blog for Bill Bonner so I’m just going to link to the site for his daily newsletter – The Daily Reckoning.

In an earlier post, I blogged about why arguments with members of the opposite sex tend to last so long. From the same book, I learned from an interview with Victor Johnston how to tell if a girl will choose you as a mate just by looking at her fingers.

So, how to tell if a lady will mate with you? Simple – look at her ‘digit ratio’. The ‘digit ratio’ in women is one or greater than one. When it is one, the length of the index and ring fingers is equal. When it is greater than one, the index finger is longer.

Women change their preferences just prior to ovulation. In what direction does the change happens depends on the amount of testosterone present in the uterus when the girl was a fetus. The greater amount of testosterone present in the uterus will affect how ‘masculine’ a girl is. The more ‘masculine’ she is, the longer the ring finger. The girl with a lower digit ratio tends to be more masculine and will prefer men with prominent, square jaws because that is an indicator of masculinity in men. Such women will want such masculine men for both sporadic and longer-lasting encounters.

If the girl has a shorter ring finger (i.e. higher digit ratio), she will prefer friendlier, gentle men, more commonly known as the nice guys, when she is ovulating. Note, this only happens when she is ovulating or seeking a longer-lasting relationship – the key thing to note is when the chance of being impregnated by a man is high (like in a marriage), such women with higher digit ratio will choose the friendlier, gentle man – the normal guys get their chance. But if such a girl wants a fling, the macho man still gets first rights.

So, normal guys…either way, your girlfriend/wife is going to have sex or already had sex with that guy with the Superman jawline. But hey, you get to play husband as well as the father of her children. Of course, if she times it wrong or the body sends the wrong hormonal signals, they just might not be yours.

I’ve been reading this book titled ‘Mind, Life, and Universe – conversations with great scientist of our time‘. It contains interviews with a bunch of really smart people. The great thing about this book is that it makes science relevant to our lives and not exile it to some esoteric corner of our society. It is a great book and one that I highly recommend everyone to read if they have the time. Actually, you got to make the time to read it.

I found one particular interview with Robert Sapolsky highly interesting because it helped explain why arguments with members of the opposite sex can drag on for so long.

Our limbic system, which is responsible for our emotion and feelings, seems to work faster than the autonomic nervous system. When my girlfriend is angry with me, what happens is that within the limbic system, the part of the brain which deals with emotions decides for her that she is upset. It then tells the rest of the body she is upset – the autonomic nervous system is activated and her heart beats faster, she sweats more.

Now, here is where what William James discovered comes in. He suggests that the brain also takes its cue from the body when deciding what emotions to feel. The brain checks with the body and finds out the heart is racing – the brain infers that the individual is feeling a strong emotion.

So, this is how the loop happens. You make your girlfriend angry. Her brain tells her body to react to the anger. After you apologize, and she accepts it, her brain tells her she is no longer angry, but her body is still in the angry state. You leave the room to go take a piss. During this time, because the autonomic nervous system resets itself to normal state slower than the brain, the rest of the body as opposed to the brain is still angry. The brain checks with the body what is going on and finds out the body is still in angry state, so the brain thinks it must still be angry over something for the body to be angry and so the limbic system kicks in again and now she feels angry all over again.

Here is the thing. On average, the autonomic nervous system for women resets itself slower than that for men.

So now, the argument is finally settled. We know whose fault it is – women’s.