Some view of North Shore Auckland, New Zealand, May 2009

(Please click on the individual picture to get larger view).

Took all these pictures with my mate's Blackberry 8310 PDA. The outcome of the shots were not bad eventhought his 8310 is only 2 Meg Pixel and do not have auto focus compared to Nokia N95 8GB's 5 Meg Pixel! The color of the digital picture is very natural and vivid too. I found that this is the perfect way to take picture for blogging!

Evil or Satan's Face at 9/11 New York, captured during live coverage

Origins: The images above come from, respectively, CNN's television coverage and a photo snapped by freelance photographer Mark D. Phillips (who subsequently sold his picture to Associated Press) as New York's World Trade Center towers burned after the terrorist attack on 11 September 2001. Neither image was manipulated. Finding demonic images in photographs and other visual representations — especially those depicting scenes of death and disaster — is an age-old human behavior employed to ascribe catastrophes to evil forces beyond our control, or (as in the following example) to fix blame on a target of choice (rather than the real perpetrators):

[Collected on the Internet, 2001] Don't these photos of Satan at the world Trade Center catastrophe tell us that the current seat of Satan's power is the World Trade Center? Don't these photos depict Satan being awakend from his hiding place in the World Trade Center? For it is the international bankers who operate from Fed, the CFR and the World Trade Center who create first, second and third world debt. Usury according to the Bible is Satan's method for enslaving the world under his priesthood, the accountants and bankers of the world (IMF, World Bank Group, WTO).

All of this will usher in 666 which is an economic mark of commerce according to the Book of Revelation (Ch 13,17). This mark will also be a religious affiliation of worship which will damn the soul eternally of all who partake we are told.

And then there are those who take the additional step of deliberately creating such images:

Strange News: Man survives 18--inch long drill bit through his head!

A construction worker survived an accident that poked an 18-inch-long drill bit through one eye and out the side of his skull.

Although we dread the gory industrial accidents that leave their victims dead or result in the loss of a limb (or more), other types of on-the-job injuries can strike us as far more horrific. One such accident took place on 15 August 2003, when Ron Hunt, a Truckee, California, construction worker, landed face-first on a large drill bit.

Hunt was working in the Tahoe Donner Subdivision in Truckee, standing atop a six-foot ladder while drilling over his head, when he gave the drill an extra push to bore a hole. As he felt the ladder begin to wobble out from under Although we dread the gory industrial accidents that leave their victims dead or result in the loss of a limb (or more), other types of on-the-job injuries can strike us as far more horrific. One such accident took place on 15 August 2003, when Ron Hunt, a Truckee, California, construction worker, landed face-first on a large drill bit. him, he tried tossing his power drill aside (a standard practice in the construction industry, intended to prevent workers from injuring themselves attempting to regain grips on out-of-control power tools) before falling to the ground. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to throw the drill far enough away, and he landed upon it face-first. The 18-inch-long, 1.5-inch diameter chip auger drill bit pierced Hunt's right eye and exited through the side of his skull. As Hunt described the mishap:

By the time I was falling, and I let the drill go down, I was already on top of it. The drill was facing up but it was off. When the drill hit, it just exploded my eye. It skewered me. I ran my hands up the drill bit, up to my eye, and put my other hand in the back of my head and felt it coming through the back of my head, and that's where pretty much the shock set in. The first thing I thought was 'Am I going to die?' I knew it was serious. I was scared. I didn't know if it was in my brain or not.

The only other worker on the site that morning, Forrest Keating, heard Hunt call for help and rushed to assist him:

The first thing I saw was this drill sticking out about 6 inches from the back of his head and 6 inches out the front. It was a trip, like something out of a horror movie. I was amazed he was still alive.
Keating removed his shirt and attempted to stem the flow of blood gushing from Hunt's eye by wrapping the shirt around the drill. He then ran 300 yards to a nearby house to summon medical help, and when paramedics arrived they released the body of the drill from the bit and loaded Hunt onto a gurney. Hunt (conscious throughout his ordeal) was then flown by helicopter to Washoe Medical Center in Reno, Nevada, where doctors pondered their options for treating the bizarre injury. Miraculously, although the drill bit tunneled between Hunt's scalp and his skull as it came out of the side of his head, it pushed his brain aside rather than pushing into it, sparing him from death, brain damage, or paralysis.

Dr. Paul Ludlow, an ear, nose and throat specialist who was the facial trauma physician on call that morning, initially intended to cut off the drill bit but eventually decided that the best approach was to, in effect, unscrew it from Hunt's head:
We had to either cut down on it, which meant making a rather long incision through a lot of muscle, or just unscrew it - twist it all the way through and out. We would have cut it off, but after a few minutes of drilling, we noticed that it was loose. And so we just put down our blade and twisted the bit.

Hunt had sufficiently recovered from his injuries by early September to appear on national television programs such as CNN News and ABC's "Good Morning America." Although he was truly fortunate not to have suffered more severe injuries (or damage to his motor or speech skills), he came away from the accident far from unscathed: besides suffering a fractured skull (which required a second operation to insert two titanium plates to reinforce the fractured bone), he lost an eye and now faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and rehabilitation costs. According to news accounts, Hunt is not covered by state compensation for on-the-job injuries, and he was a self-employed worker with no medical insurance.

Injuries of this type always call to mind the case of Phineas Gage, who in 1848 survived an accident which blew a 3-foot, 7-inch tamping iron under a cheek bone and completely out through the top of his head. Although Gage lived on for almost another dozen years, he suffered dramatic changes in personality and was subject to epileptic seizures in his final months.

Comments from teachers on students' performance, wicked! David Lim, Auckland

Comments allegedly made on under-performing students' report cards by teachers in New York City.

* Since my last report, your child has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.

* I would not allow this student to breed.

* Your child has delusions of adequacy.

* Your son is depriving some village of an idiot.

* Your son sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.

* The student has a 'full six pack' but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together.

* This child has been working with glue too much.

* When your daughter's IQ hits 50, she should sell.

* The gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming.

* If this student were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.

* It's impossible to believe the sperm that created this child beat out 1,000,000 others.

* The wheel is turning but the hamster is definitely dead.

(Source: Ebaum's World)

We order Subway online for lunch, Auckland, New Zealand, David Lim

Subject: We order Subway online for lunch
From: davidlim@clear.net.nz
Date: 17/04/2009 5:42 pm

Posted via Nokia E71 by David Lim, Auckland, New Zealand.

The Force is strong for Jedi police! UK, England

Eight police officers serving with Scotland's largest force listed their official religion as Jedi in voluntary diversity forms, it has emerged.

Strathclyde Police said the officers and two of its civilian staff claimed to follow the faith, which features in the Star Wars movies.

The details were obtained in a Freedom of Information request by Jane's Police Review.
Strathclyde was the only force in the UK to admit it had Jedi officers.

In the Star Wars films, Jedi Knights such as Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda use the Force to battle the evil Darth Vader, who has strayed to the dark side.

Jane's Police Review editor Chris Herbert, who requested the information, said: "The Force appears to be strong in Strathclyde Police with their Jedi police officers and staff.

"Far from living a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, some members of the noble Jedi order have now chosen Glasgow and its surrounding streets as their home."

Provided voluntarily

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police confirmed: "At the time of the request, 10 (eight police officers and two police staff) had recorded their religion as Jedi."
She added that the force monitored "six strands of diversity" - age, disability, gender, race religion and belief, and sexual orientation.

The force said the information was provided voluntarily and securely stored.
About 390,000 people listed their religion as Jedi in the 2001 Census for England and Wales. In Scotland the figure was a reported 14,000.

The Office for National Statistics did not recognise it as a separate category, and incorporated followers of Jedi with the atheists.

Last year, brothers Barney and Daniel Jones founded the UK Church of the Jedi - which offered sermons on the Force, light sabre training, and meditation techniques.
Strathclyde Police employs 8,200 police officers and 2,800 civilian staff.

Pygmy Rattlesnake Bites Man At Wal-Mart , Pembroke Pines, Florida, USA

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. -- A man is recovering after he was bitten by a snake inside a garden center at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

"An individual was at one of the local garden centers and was buying plants and in doing so, picked up a plant and got bitten by this pygmy rattlesnake," paramedic Capt. Ernie Jillson said.

The 42-year-old man was taken to the hospital on Sunday for treatment, where he r More..eceived antivenin for the pygmy rattler bite, according to authorities. His name has not been released.

Jillson said the snake bit the man on the right hand. He said the team was contacted about the bite and responded.

Pygmy rattlers are one of six venomous snakes in Florida.

Officials said bites from pygmy rattlers are painful but rarely fatal.

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Health Science News: em cell study gives hope for delaying menopause

4:00AM Tuesday Apr 14, 2009

Women may one day be able to delay the menopause, after a study showing that it is possible to prolong the working life of ovaries by transplanting female stem cells that develop into mature eggs.

The findings also raise the prospect of treating some female infertility where the ovaries do not produce eggs. The hope is that one day stem cell transplants could replenish the fresh eggs in infertile women.

The accepted dogma in reproductive biology was that female mammals are born with a finite lifetime store of about two million egg-producing follicles. In humans, this number has fallen to about 400,000 by puberty, and at menopause too few eggs remain to permit fertility.

Four years ago United States scientists showed it was possible to obtain stem cells from the ovaries of adult women and grow them into mature egg cells.

Now scientists in China have shown that it is possible to isolate stem cells from immature and mature ovaries of mice, store the cells in the laboratory, and transplant them into sterile females to enable them to give birth to healthy offspring.

Research by Professor Ji Wu and colleagues at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, published in the journal Nature Cell Biology, showed that it is possible to separate special cells in mice ovaries that seem to function as stem cells for the female germ-line cells in the eggs. These cells have the potential to divide indefinitely and can be stored for years.

The scientists isolated female germ-line stem cells of newborn mice and adult females. They cultured them for up to 15 months and six months respectively before transplanting into sterile mice, which gave birth to healthy offspring.

Professor Azim Surani, of the Gurdon Institute at Cambridge University, said the results have important implications for women who do not produce mature eggs. It might be possible, he said, to isolate these stem cells from a woman earlier in life so that she could have children later.

Coming soon to New Zealand...

Latest Eyewear Technology: Pierced Eyeglasses

February 2006--James Sooy has developed a new pair of eyeglasses that mounts into the bridge of your nose, via piercing. Dubbed, "Pierced Glasses", they offer people who are already cool about body piercings with a practical use for their love of body art. He's working on bringing it to the consumer market. Read an interview with Sooy. You think pierced glasses are are too extreme? James perhaps summed it best...